By Vela Noble
I live close by to the Brighton Jetty. Going for a walk there gives me my daily dose of sunshine and smiling faces, soothing me when I feel lonely. Sometimes, I’ve gone and bought a lemon sorbet or sausage roll, eating it whilst seated on a bench overlooking the jetty. On summery days, families play in the shade under the jetty, making memories that will last a lifetime. At sunset, you can see couples strolling hand-in-hand, stopping only to snap selfies against an impossibly photogenic crimson sky. From dawn till dusk however, when you walk upon the jetty, you’ll see fishermen, and the occasional fisherwoman. They have set up camp with foldable chairs and boxes of fishing gear. They sit slumped with their nose in their phones, waiting hours for a bite. Dismembered crab claws and fish guts add to the stained cement, making for a grotesque and pungent scene of nautical carnage.
Many years ago, if you walked out to the end of the jetty on any given day, you may have seen an unusual sight, a trolley with two blanket-covered chihuahuas snuggled in it. They belonged to an old man who sat and fished nearly every day. The tiny dogs were swathed in raggedy blankets and nestled within a trolley. One had a stained camo baseball cap on while the other had a beanie. They were equipped with tiny life vests, perhaps on the off chance that they decided to stumble into the sea. Instead, they sat shivering in the ocean breeze, staring with bleary eyes far out across the sea. Their wise pink eyes must have seen far beyond space-time.
I had been a teenage artist with my heart set on an art school in California at the time. I plopped down in my baggy jeans on the fish-stained concrete and sketched the dogs with a pen. My agenda had been that acceptance into the school required a portfolio of artworks all drawn from life. Noticing my gaze, the old man hobbled proudly over to me and showed me an oily newspaper clipping in his wallet.
‘Look, my dogs ended up in the newspaper!”
Other Adelaidians had obviously also thought this scene was charming and worthy of being remembered. For simply sitting there in the salty air, the two dogs and their bristly bearded owner seemed to have become as much a part of the jetty itself as its barnacled steel beams. I visited the old man and his dogs a few afternoons while I was preparing a portfolio for art school, and then I was gone. Overseas to Los Angeles and other big cities and, for the longest time, I put my memories of little old Adelaide behind me.
This all happened a long time ago, around a decade to be precise. Fate had pulled me back to my hometown and back to my childhood home. Sometimes, when I stroll in the sunshine down to the jetty and sit there slurping my lemon sorbet, I almost expect to see that elderly owner with his two chihuahuas, perched in their rightful spot at the shaded end of the jetty. Instead, the newer generations of fishermen have taken over, more concerned with TikTok reels than fishing ones. I would love to know what happened to that old man and his two chihuahuas.
Vela Noble is a student at Adelaide University currently finishing her BA degree majoring in Creative Writing and Japanese Studies.
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