Maisie Hollander finished Round 14 on Friday afternoon at 2:12 — two hours and twelve minutes from the Docklands Post Office to the last letterbox on Lower Harbourfront Parade and back. It is her fastest time yet, twelve minutes quicker than Monday’s inaugural solo round, and approximately thirty-three minutes faster than Albie Finch ever managed in thirty-three years.

This is not, Hollander insists, a competitive observation.

“Mr Finch was not slow,” she said, leaning against the post office wall with her empty satchel. “Mr Finch talked to people. He knew everyone’s name, everyone’s dog, everyone’s bad hip. I’m still learning the names. The speed will come down when I stop being the new person and start being the postwoman.”

The Notebook

Finch’s blue notebook — a water-stained Docklands street directory from 1987, annotated over three decades with a personal cartography of the round — has been Hollander’s companion all week. She consults it less frequently now than she did on Monday, when she opened it approximately forty times. On Friday, she checked it seven times.

But she has begun adding to it.

The annotations are in pencil — a deliberate choice. “His notes are in ink,” Hollander explained. “He wrote them over thirty-three years. I’ve been here five days. Pencil felt right. If I’m still here in a year, I’ll switch to ink.”

Her additions, so far, are practical. A note beside Mrs Hadley’s entry at 6A Pilot’s Alley: “Doorbell works now — ring once, wait.” Finch’s note, written in blue ink, reads: “Ring twice, wait. Bell unreliable since 2019.” Someone, apparently, fixed the bell.

A new entry for Mr Pettigrew’s address on Chandler’s Row: “Nephew David collects. Bring to ground floor if no answer upstairs.” Finch’s note reads simply: “Pettigrew — wave up. He watches from window.” Mr Pettigrew, who has not been downstairs since November, now has a nephew who comes by on Tuesdays and Fridays.

And a small drawing — Hollander has a neat hand — of a tabby cat beside the entry for 16 Chandler’s Row, with the notation: “Sits on post pile. Move gently. Answers to nothing.”

The Week

Five days of solo delivery across the nineteen streets of Round 14 — Chandler’s Row, Pilot’s Alley, Lower Harbourfront Parade, and the connecting lanes and courts that thread through the oldest part of the Docklands. Hollander has now delivered to every address on the round at least twice. She has memorised the houses where packages must go to the rear door, the buildings where the mail slots are painted shut and the post must be handed through the window, and the corner at Harbourfront Parade where the seagulls know what a satchel is.

“The gulls are the worst part,” she said. “Mr Finch mentioned them in the notebook: ‘Harbour Parade corner — quicken pace.’ He wasn’t exaggerating.”

Mrs Carmody of 11 Chandler’s Row — who gave Finch shortbread on his last round — gave Hollander a slice of seed cake on Wednesday. “Not as good as the shortbread, she told me,” Hollander said. “I thought it was excellent.”

Arthur Gullick, the Docklands postmaster, said Hollander had “settled in remarkably well.”

“She’s quick, she’s reliable, and she’s learning the people,” Gullick said. “That last part takes time. Finch had thirty-three years. She’s had five days. But the fact that she’s writing in the notebook — that tells me she understands what the notebook is. It’s not a street guide. It’s a relationship with a neighbourhood.”

Hollander will deliver her first Saturday round tomorrow. The notebook, annotated with a week’s worth of pencil notes, will be in her satchel. Finch’s ink and Hollander’s graphite, mapping the same nineteen streets.