With the younger generation craving American food, the Greek cafés were a Trojan horse for the Americanisation of Australia. Con dished up hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, spiders, malts, sundaes, banana splits, and cordials. The older generation, on the other hand, was still comforted by Mother England and wanted traditional British fare: steak and eggs, chops and eggs, fish and chips, meat pies, and boiled sweets. Con cooked it all, which he called ‘food for white Australia’. He even had a jukebox in the furthest corner from the door. The milk bar was where most people first heard rock’n’roll, well before it was on the radio. Closing his eyes, Manolis pictured a room full of people, all eating his father’s cooking, a few dancing the twist, while his mother collected notes and coins, and he collected plates and glasses. Manolis remembered so much, but for the life of him couldn’t remember what the café had been called. He reminded himself to ask Rex when he next saw him.

The other memory that Manolis struggled to recall was the day his family had left town. He remembered being in his room one evening, lying on his bed, hearing his father return home, slamming the back door. His mother was soon arguing with him, yelling, frantic. Their suitcases were packed in haste, their departure under cover of darkness and at high speed. They just locked up the café and left, only stopping once on the southern outskirts of town for his father to have a toilet break in the scrub by the roadside. Too tired to keep his eyelids open, the young Georgios Manolis fell asleep in the back of the station wagon, listening to his parents quarrel. When he woke the next morning, he was surrounded by pillars of concrete and glass.

The whole episode had left him bewildered. He’d never told anyone about how he came to move to the city, and never found out why his parents left country Australia. His father’s only explanation, over many years, was: ‘Life is better in the city.’

Ever since that day, Manolis had never quite felt as stable again. The earth always seemed to be shifting beneath his feet, his connections with the world fleeting, his trust wafer-thin. Or was that just the reality of being an adult? Nothing was secure, friendships and relationships only ever superficial, and no one could be counted on. Geography had nothing to do with it. Returning to Cobb, seeing how things had worked out for Molly and for the town in general, the grown-up Manolis was now torn. He quietly wondered whether he should’ve been grateful that his parents left when they did.