The empty streets of my town in summer give way to a wild reckoning in February | Robert Forster
This is what it was like driving in Brisbane in the late 70s.
I say this to my wife every January. The roads are relatively free of traffic and there are parking spaces directly outside shops. With many of the city’s residents having escaped south to the Gold Coast or north to the Sunshine Coast for a few weeks’ holiday, Brisbane shrinks to a size I recognise from my teenage years. The days when if you wanted air conditioning in your car you wound down a window. If you wanted more air conditioning, you leant across the front seat as you were driving and wound down the other window. They were simple times.
The empty streets are a consolation for those of us who have remained in the hot summer city; we may not have surf and swims and life-restoring sea breezes, but we do have the town to ourselves and, gee, it’s easy to get around. In a way what we are enjoying is a holiday in reverse: one that doesn’t involve packing and driving out of town.
To my despair, I’d notice the approaching clouds, dark hands about to pull down the sky and my cricket career
The shape of summer has remained roughly the same – the steady build-up of heat and humidity at the end of the year, the early December chatter over how hot Christmas Day is going to be, someone said we’re going to get rain. Not that it mattered back in the 70s; the midday cooking of the roast chicken and lamb and four veg and steamed fruit pudding with warm custard, turning the kitchen, and by extension the house, into a furnace. After that people were ready for the beach.
What’s changed is the earlier arrival of the heat and humidity, lengthening the summers and in the process shortening and warming the winters – the best time of year to visit Brisbane. From mid-May to early September the city’s a dream.
The reckoning and the wild ride begins in early February. Everyone’s back in town and everyone knows there’s going to be little letup until Easter. It’s a price we pay for easy living in the green western suburbs and a reason some pack a coat and relocate to cooler southern cities. With kids back in school and a new year ahead, the daytime skies take on a fresh lustre – an intense dark blue, almost luminous, that can hold through the day and keep fans and air conditioning humming after the sun has gone down. A more ominous sign is the mid or late afternoon arrival of clouds. The town’s collective eye keeps a watch on the horizon. The leaves in the trees stir. Birds squawk. People bring in loose furniture from the veranda. A storm is on!
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When I was in primary school through the 60s, they would arrive every Friday to break up the inter-school cricket games – the highlight of my week. I’d be batting and, to my despair, I’d notice the approaching clouds, dark hands about to pull down the sky and my cricket career, crack thunder and dump torrents of tropical rain on the oval. Depending on the strength of the storm, the game would be washed out, or 15 minutes later we’d be back at play – a fine mist rising from the still-sizzling concrete pitch.
With the rain comes relief. People open front and back doors to watch it fall and run off roofs and down gutters, while luxuriating in the sudden 10C temperature drop. Some walk out on to their lawns, palms up, to feel the healing drops. There will be work to do after the downpour but that will be for tomorrow or the days ahead. You see, the gardens are about to explode. The dawn and dusk chorus of whipper snippers and lawn mowers, the sound of summer with Jim Maxwell on ABC cricket, is about to wind up and be let loose. It’s a fearful yet necessary sound. Without it, our lawns and greenery would go unchecked and overwhelm our houses.
With windows open and fans and air conditioning switched off, we are getting that most precious thing of a Brisbane summer – a cool night. It’s a sweet reprieve and not too uncommon. Like all things, particularly when linked to the weather, summer wanes and waxes. Any day 30C or under will be welcome, any day over will be borne. That’s the rule until Easter, when, even if hot days pop up, you know the long glide of milder days has begun.
Robert Forster is a singer-songwriter, music critic and founding member of the Go-Betweens