STRANGE FRUIT

Pete Lalor on a loved local character, and the shock of their loss.

It’s been a rotten morning in the neighbourhood. I’ve left the local greengrocer with tears in my eyes. Sad and a little diminished, no one to share my sadness with.

There was a suggestion something was wrong when I’d stopped in on Saturday after getting back from the States, but today it was clear there’d been a tragedy.

Again people were talking quietly, eyes downcast, sentences separated by long silences. Dampened tones. Those ones where even the most loquacious know that words aren’t appropriate or adequate. The one other customer was in obvious distress. No, he hadn’t known. Yes, he’d be ok to get home, but right now he clearly wasn’t.

I was praying it wasn’t my man. Wondering how you ask? Was it my place to make an inquiry? Dare I intrude?

I couldn’t give make the words. Grief is a virus. I put the potatoes and snow peas on the counter and gestured toward the stranger holding the fort: that is where my man usually stood, but you are not my man. I’d only put out an inquiring palm. He knew what I was asking.

He nodded slowly and said “Eddie … he passed”.

The other customer. A big man, past middle age, wearing a face mask and a hat, had broken down by the counter. Sobbing quietly, muttering with resignation. Something had been torn from him. Part of his life gone.

I cursed quietly and left. My eyes down too.

Someone else from the family business was standing by the door as I made it onto the street, his eyes fixed to the floor.

I knew from the overheard sound bites that the man crying in the shop cherished his visits to the greengrocer because of Eddie. Like me. Although he clearly knew him better. I felt his sadness.

When you have a bit more time on your hands, as I do these days, you appreciate the casual relationships with hospitality and retail staff, and you nurture them. Otherwise life turns in on itself.

Eddie was my fruit and veg guy. I’d been coming to him and the butcher next door for a few years. Appreciated the friendly recognition and the conversation. Eddie loved a chat and I began to look forward to engaging with him. He was an old school grocer, working behind the counter of his father’s store. Late 40s. Classic migrant child in a classic migrant business, albeit the sort of business that is on the endangered list. He was intense, caring, funny and you could just tell he was a solid bloke. A man with a passion for life and people. You just knew he came from one of those extended families, multi generational, attentive to the rituals of their culture. Migrants do family way better.

Eddie did life better. It was simple and sorted. He was relaxed and happy among his produce. His two worlds were his family and his customers.

You assemble the nest of your life from the thing twigs of familiarity with people like Eddie. They’re your community. They’re why I try to avoid the big supermarket at the end of my street and seek out the small traders. Self service check outs never cheered anyone up. Never made anyone feel less lonely. The old school shop owners are someone to talk to in passing. Someone who greets you with a smile and is never short of stories to tell. Someone who makes you feel like you belong in a small way. Someone to fill you in on the local comings and goings, someone to make you feel part of it.

All his product was “bewdiful”, but he was always keen to direct you to the better apple, the better mandarin. What was in or out of season. And he’d sometimes slip in an item as a gift. A small, but touching, gesture. It’d been a big, bold beefsteak tomato the last time.

It was a beauty too.

He was keen for cash as greengrocers like Eddie often are. And he’d trained me up because I’d slipped deep into the digital econonmy. Actually, on the Saturday I’d gone down with a pocket full of notes after being away for a month, keen to see him and also keen to introduce him to Sue, my wife, who was with me that day. I wanted to extend the relationship and was disappointed he wasn’t there.

As I said, there’d been a heavy air in the shop on the weekend. People were coming in and going out the back. Something was wrong. An Asian woman had come and asked something about a father and been sent to the rear with her kids in tow. Eddie had died of a heart attack and people were coming to the shop to mourn. I know that now and I think I sensed it then but didn’t dare to ask.

I overheard this morning there was a story in a paper. The other customer had sobbed as he read it.

Eddie Alameddine, it told me, was “a much loved community greengrocer” whose “sudden passing” sparked an “outpouring of grief from his community”.

It’d been announced on the village facebook page.

The “sweetest, kindest, funniest, most generous man ever” one person wrote. “Always brightened my day”.

“He brought a shiny presence to our Dully (Dulwich Hill) family,” another offered.

He was only 46. I’d overheard his daughter is heavily pregnant and was so upset she’d had to seek medial assistance. The poor girl. If customers could be so upset about it you can only imagine the impact on his family.

One facebook person wrote of how he’d send people home with their chosen produce even if they’d forgotten their wallets. Even if they were a new customer.

“Take the food, I hope you come back when you have the money,” one had heard him say. “It is not important if you don’t come back, yet I hope you do.”

Another wrote of how Eddie had been the sounding board through a relationship breakdown.

Others of how he would give their children a banana every time they visited.

Go well Eddie, you made a difference mate. I’m one of many who hardly knew you but will miss you.