As the rest of the world went into lockdown a couple of weeks ago, I found myself, on a Saturday night, having a drink with my good mate Jonny at a bar on Carlisle Street, in Balaclava, a trendy, somewhat grungy inner southern suburb of Melbourne.

Half-jokingly, I’d set the wheels of the catch-up in motion, by suggesting we get together for a beer and a burger because it might be the last time we could do it “before the world ended”. It was also Jonny’s birthday later in the week.

At the time, New York and other major cities were already shutting down. Restaurants and bars were about to close in Manhattan and Italy was already a nation quarantined. But in Australia there were no real restrictions on daily life, except for a growing shortage of toilet paper, hand sanitizer and pasta.

‘Social distancing’ however was swiftly becoming a buzzword, but not on the rooftop terrace at The Local Taphouse on Carlisle Street at 8.30pm on Saturday, March 14.

The scene was busy, loud and convivial. People sat shoulder to shoulder at tables or stood in small, huddled groups near the bar, drinks in hand, conversing about their lives, telling stories, laughing and smiling.

Jonny and I ordered two large ciders (a craft cider, particularly tasty) and found some seats at an unoccupied table, where we sipped our delicious drinks and held our own conversation talking about our lives: our families, our jobs, gripes, the latest shows we’d watched, books read, podcasts listened to. 

Both of us, now past the mid-forties mark, reminisced about the old days back in South Africa as we always tend to do on these catch-ups and wondered, as we always do, where all the time had gone.

Around us the bar was still noisy and buzzing. We enjoyed a second round of drinks and continued our conversation.

Though I was immersed in the scene, part of its social fabric (part of the problem I guess), I couldn’t shake the feeling that this supposed normality was both strange and fleeting. It was as if the terrace of happy people existed on a different planet from the rest of society who were at home, worrying about a disaster about to unfold.

A couple of hours passed and then it was time for us to depart and return to our separate worlds of parental responsibilities.

I headed to the bathroom on the way out, where a bloke standing next to me at the urinal exchanged some sort of half-drunk pleasantry. Then, as I attempted to wash and dry my hands at the basin, I nearly collided  with two men who emerged simultaneously from the toilet cubicle looking rather sheepish after a spot of, I imagined, illicit drug-taking.

A minute later, Jonny and I emerged back on Carlisle Street and into the fresh night air. Drunken chatter wafted across the road from another pub a few shops down. Cars whizzed past and a couple waited, in intimate embrace, for the traffic lights to change.

We walked past a half-lit dessert cafe with a display window full of eclairs, pastries and cream-filled cakes.  Driving back along Carlisle Street to drop Jonny off first in a nearby Melbourne suburb we passed another busy bar full of banter, booze and music.

It was only on the long drive home along the Calder Freeway under the endless expanse of stars and black night sky, that it dawned on me that perhaps I should not have been so cavalier as all those social beings on the rooftop of The Local Taphouse, sipping their drinks, grinning, laughing and carefree. Then again, the party was only hours from ending. For everyone. The music was about to stop.

The next day, Sunday March 15, brought with it the first of the restrictions: all overseas arrivals must self-isolate for 14 days, all cruise ships banned from Australia, gatherings of over 500 people no longer allowed.

A week later all pubs, clubs, gyms, cinemas, casinos, restaurants and cafes (save for takeaway orders) were ordered to close their doors and indoor gatherings were reduced to 100 people (now cut to two people). A 1.5 m social distance from others should be maintained and all non-essential travel should stop, we were told.

And so the world as I knew it ended for us in Australia as it had already for many others in New York, Rome, Los Angeles and London –  and almost certain to never to return in the form it once was.

The Local Taphouse on Carlisle Street is now shuttered. The cider and beer taps are turned off, chairs are stacked on tables, the roof terrace empty and deathly quiet.

Just the ghosts of good times past remain as I try to conjure back the taste of that fruity cider.