The Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst was not a safe place in the 1980s. There was this jittery vibe when the next heroin batch was coming in and people were overdosing like mad. But the area was also home to a scene of people who were into making little films or art and just going to the clubs in great clothes and dancing our butts off. I was one of them – 23, quite pretty and a hip underground darling.
One night I was walking home from Oxford Street after clubbing. I was always wary of my surroundings, because you grew up very quickly living in that area. But it was a nice night for a walk so I went for it. I remember how dark it was; a slender moon offering little in the way of light.
Not long after I set off I got the feeling someone was following me. I stopped, turned around but couldn’t see anyone. I continued walking, heard footsteps behind me and turned again. “Is anyone there?” I yelled out. No answer. Just in case, I got my keys out and stuck them between my fingers, ready to use as a weapon. I walked faster, sure that someone was lurking somewhere.
Then a taxi pulled up next to me, with an older businessman in the back seat. The driver told me to get in the cab. I’d dealt with plenty of entitled men who thought a single young woman was fair game, and I certainly wasn’t about to get into a car with two guys I didn’t know. Leave me alone!
Stubbornly, I replied that I had no money, lived just around the corner and would walk. The driver again insisted I get in the cab.
“There’s somebody following you,” he said. He told me they had been watching him, and when I stopped, he would run off. “He has no good intentions. You need to get in this cab and we’re going to take you home, and don’t want to hear any more about it.”
A little stunned, I got in the cab. They dropped me home and didn’t pull away until I was safely indoors with my housemates.
If those two guardian angels hadn’t intervened, something terrible could have happened. After that, I never walked home alone in the dark again. And I never forgot those strangers, whose names I never learned but who I believe saved my life.
What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
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