During one of those visits, I took myself on a private tour of the city’s sights, not the Rocks and Hyde Park Barracks but in pursuit of my own history, and so I know that the old pub Dad and I stayed in is still serving beer to retired wharfies in singlets and tattered shorts. Maybe they’re waiting for Godot with the same mixture of hope and impotence that Dad must have felt as he waited for Susan just one floor above their heads. When I asked, however, the girl behind the bar seemed surprised that the rooms upstairs had ever been available to the public. I also stood outside the address where the marriage of Michael and Susan Riley finally collapsed into its hollowed-out centre, but instead of a dilapidated share house for students, a six-pack of apartments stared back at me, ugly in pale 1970s brick. What was I looking for on my pilgrimage, anyway? A glimpse of Susan hurrying from the house so I could know whether her eyes were wet or dry?
