Читать книгу Divided Houses - Janice Paull - Страница 8

Vivien waited for the first customers of the day; the shop bell clanged and in they came.

‘That’ll be one and sixpence please, Mrs Pearson.’ ‘Threepence change for you, Mrs Burns.’ ‘A shilling, Mrs Flood.’

The women scurried out, their shopping clutched to their flattened breasts. They were always together, bought the same loaves and milk. You’d think for once they’d try something different before all the life was sucked out of them.

Vivien couldn’t remember where she’d put her wedding ring. Her fingers had been swollen for weeks, the skin ready to burst. Eight months and two weeks pregnant, her ankles swollen and her back aching, she waited for the next regulars.

The bell again. Mrs Peters this time with her two brats. Boys and their horseplay, pushing, shoving, elbowing. Her baby might turn into one of those. She’d still be expected to love it. Vivien shook a box of broken biscuits at the hooligans while she served their mother. ‘Two loaves today? No, Mrs Peters, I don’t mind if it’s a boy or girl.’

If Vivien had known when she left Sydney she’d end up married to Eddie, working in and living behind a mixed business in a city of grey streets and grey people, she’d never have left. Even now, she had a sense it had all happened to someone else and one day she’d wake up in her own bed in Sydney, hear her father sweeping and her mother complaining. But she couldn’t ignore the pain in her back or the need to pee again or answer customers’ questions: ‘Yes, Mrs Baker, Eddie is a hard worker; I’m not homesick, Miss Anderson; Yes, I come from Sydney; I miss my family; Windsor is a lovely suburb; my mother is not coming down for the birth.’

Vivien knew she had many reasons to be thankful to Gran, not only because she’d persuaded Eddie to buy everything a baby could need, inspected the shop and dwelling and made practical suggestions, but had cared for Vivien as if she were a truly loved daughter. They shopped for furniture together; Gran encouraged Vivien to make her own choices and arranged delivery to the shop before she was to return there to take up her married life. Between Gran and Helen, the baby would have more clothing, nappies and equipment any baby could possibly need, and she wore the maternity clothes Helen had designed and made for her.

There’d be a lull for a while. She perched on the edge of a stool, pushed her belly forward and rubbed her back. If Doug could see her now. The biscuit tins, bottles of sauce, jars of pickles, tins of fruit and jam, sacks of sugar and flour all faded when she thought about him, the colour of the Sydney sky, its hilly streets, the ocean and its green depths, luscious rampant gardens and brilliantly flowering trees, the heavy perfume of frangipani-lined streets.

With her belly straining against her green poplin smock, Vivien began to make sandwiches for the lunchtime trade when Eddie would take over until closing time. When the lunch rush started, she heard him clumping down the stairs. Somewhere between spreading pickles on ham and slicing tomatoes, the first labour pain gripped. She dropped the knife, knocked over the pickle jar and gripped the counter. Eddie helped her upstairs and settled her on the sofa before clearing the shop of hungry customers. The pains weren’t bad at first, but soon she was sure she was tearing in two. Her water broke. She babbled, ‘Hail Mary Mother of God Hail Mary Mother of God Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Maaary, Jesus, Oh Jesus. Eddiiee.’ The pain took hold. ‘AAAGH.’‘Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women.’

‘Eddi e e e, help me.’

‘What’ll I do, Darl? Tell me what to do.’

‘Ring the hospital.’

‘What’ll I say?’

‘God, Jesus. It hurts. Move Eddie. Get my case. Get me there. NOW!’

Eddie tapped on the glass of the nursery window, held up a piece of paper saying BABY BERTOLI and looked at his bawling son. Jesus, it was ugly. Bald, wrinkled, red faced. No chin. Poor little bugger. A man’ll have to work bloody hard to make that up to him.

Vivien was happier than he’d ever seen her. She was over it in no time flat, although she’d yelled loud enough while the kid was on the way. A few hours later she was sitting up in bed staring at it and crowing. ‘He’s beautiful.’

Eddie couldn’t see it but said what she wanted. ‘He’s bonzer, all right.’

Vivien smiled at him, a real smile; not one she flashed when he knew she wasn’t listening or even seeing him. ‘He looks like you.’

‘You reckon? Gawd!’

‘What about names? I still like “Anthony”.’

‘You can’t do that to him. They’ll call him a bloody dago.’

‘They’ll call him that anyway. He might be dark.’

‘What about “John” then?’

‘John Anthony.’ Vivien beamed at him.

‘I give in.’

‘And I want him baptised Catholic.’

‘But you’ve finished with all that rubbish.’

‘I … have, but just in case. You don’t believe in anything, so it can’t matter to you.’

Eddie tried to keep his voice down, but growled. ‘It’s the thin edge. The next thing the bloody priest’s knocking on the door.’ The look she gave him would sour her milk. ‘We’ll talk about it when you get home. I’ve got to get back to the shop.’

Why did she have to spring this baptism stuff on him? Gran was going on about it as well. Methodist, she reckoned. Bloody women, they don’t know what they want. Trouble was he’d end up giving in, just to keep the peace. He couldn’t please them both.

As he was leaving, Chris walked in with a big bunch of roses. ‘Congratulations on your son, Edward.’

‘Thanks.’ Stuck up tart. Vivien wouldn’t have time to gas bag with her on the phone half the night anymore. Gran was right; Viv wouldn’t be able to look after a new baby and be at the beck and call of the shop all day. He’d have to give up the milk round. The business was good enough to keep them, but he wanted to make more money. He had a bit left over from what he’d stashed away from the sale of the gold nugget, but fitting up the place plus the baby stuff Gran convinced him to buy had put a decent sized dent in that.

Vivien hardly spoke to him on the way home, just cradled John and gazed at him, happier than he’d ever seen her. So that was mother love. When they walked through the shop, the customers looked at the small dark bundle, started cooing and clucking. Eddie called to her as she started to walk upstairs. ‘Down here, Viv.’

Eddie had moved the bassinette into the downstairs room at the back and stuffed it with baby clothes, layettes, nappies and soft toys.

Vivien yelled, ‘What have you done? John will sleep in our room.’

‘He’ll bawl during the night. A man’s got to get his sleep.’

‘You know damn well babies need to be fed at least every four hours. That’s why we arranged all his things upstairs.’

‘He’s not bloody sleeping in our room and that’s final.’

‘You’ll live by yourself then. I’ll take John and stay with Gran.’

Eddie looked at Vivien. She was riled up, all right. ‘He has to learn he can’t be picked up every time he blubs.’

Through clenched teeth, she hissed, ‘He’s not even two weeks old. I’m sure Gran won’t hold her tongue when she hears what you’ve done.’

‘All right, all right. You can sleep with the kid. I’ll doss down in the back. There’s a stretcher somewhere. But just until he bloody well sleeps through the night.’

‘I am not ever going to leave a baby alone down here. Get that into your head, once and for all.’

Eddie’s temper flared. ‘And you get this into your head, I won’t be told what to do by you or anybody else.’

Dotty, who was looking after the shop, opened the adjoining door and poked her head around it. “Shush. The customers can hear you two shouting.’

Eddie glared at Vivien. ‘I’ll bloody well move everything back upstairs.’

By the time John was six weeks old and smiling at him, Eddie began to feel like a father, not just a bloke who was handy to have around, but the head of a family. Although he liked watching Vivien feed John, the dreamy look on her face, her laugh when John, full as a goog fell off her nipple, milk dribbling from his gummy mouth, he wished she’d put him on the bottle. She always stank of sour milk and baby vomit.

Eddie had listened to Gran and the doctor and knew Viv had to heal for six weeks before he could touch her again, but it was worth the wait. She wasn’t what you’d call keen, but holding her close was enough. He’d gone with a few tarts up the bush who had more moves than a Swiss watch, yelled and squealed and that, but all the time he knew it was just an act to get a bit more money. Afterwards, he couldn’t get away quick enough, felt dirty as if he’d been rolling in pig shit. He’d remembered he’d been disgusted when one of the other school kids told him what men and women did to each other in bed. He’d been fool enough to say, “The Salvation Army people wouldn’t do that,” and copped a right chiaking for days. Viv didn’t moan and thrash about, but there was nothing grubby about it.

Twelve months later, with John toddling around upstairs and another baby on the way, Viv was busy and seemed contented enough, although he could see it was getting even harder for her to manage the laundry downstairs, the housework upstairs and help him in the shop.

One day he heard her cry out, put his head around the door and when he saw her with a full washing basket in her arms, teetering on the stairs, lunged and broke her fall but not the washing basket’s. She was shaken and blubbered a bit, then the shop bell clanged, and he left her there picking up the sheets and towels. He heard her slam the back door on her way to the laundry. Made him think, it did.

Even though life was better, he had to admit he’d rented the wrong shop. Should’ve gone for the newer, single level one further out in the suburbs, but he thought he’d save money on the older one; he was tired of the daily routine, the same customers, their gossip.

He missed the milk round, watching dawn break, yakking with the blokes at the dairy.

They didn’t open the shop on Sunday. Mostly they visited Gran and his old man. Struth—women and babies, clucking and fussing. Gran had gone along with the christening nonsense, turned up at the Catholic Church in her best bib and tucker and beamed through the whole stupid thing.

Sometimes they walked along the Yarra Bank to hear the soap box brigade. Eddie liked to listen to the men who were mad enough, brave enough or who cared enough about something to stand on a box and talk until either the crowd broke up or a smart aleck heckler got the better.

He had a sneaking admiration for the anarchists. One of them, Chummy Flemming, was there every Sunday. He’d ring his old cow-bell and drape his favourite tree with his two red flags worked in white with the word Anarchy on one and Freedom on the other. He was a little bloke who wore his trousers rolled and preached to his listeners, new and old, about the evils of government and religion. ‘Solidarity, brothers, solidarity! ....Cling to your principles…We are fighting for freedom… Why should you falter?’

Flemming pitched his message to working blokes like him, but Eddie had survived the depression by keeping an eye out for himself and taking a chance when one came his way. He’d seen what happened to some—decent blokes, family men, standing in queues waiting for a handout. Those black coats were a dead give-away if you ended up on susso. Bloody government. Some drongo’s bright idea to dye army surplus overcoats and ‘give them to the needy’. Shame a bloke for life that would. Solidarity didn’t help them. Whenever he’d seen a bloke wearing one and standing in one of them blasted queues, he swore he’d never let it happen to him.

Most of the talk these days was about the Fascists, and the tip was Mussolini would join Hitler pretty soon. You wouldn’t want a dago name if that happened, even though he was third generation and his grandfather had married an Aussie. Eddie remembered the German baker who’d been interned during the first bloody war; a pale, stooped, shuffling figure who mumbled to himself. Gran reckoned he’d been a ‘fine, handsome fellow’ before the war. He took John from Vivien and tousled his hair. ‘I reckon we might change our name to Bell soon.’

‘Why Bell?’

‘That was my fighting name. Baby Face Bell, they called me.’

Vivien laughed. ‘Baby Face? I thought you were the “Killer Kid”.’

‘That was in the bush.’

‘Bell’s got a nice ring to it. You’re sure there’ll be a war?’

‘It’s coming, Darl.’

‘Wouldn’t it be England’s war?’

‘Maybe. But the bloody poms’ll want diggers for cannon fodder. Just like Gallipoli.’

‘Mum hates the English almost as much as Presbyterians. She told us her father used to say “if there’s a government, I’m agin it.”’

Eddie laughed. ‘Fiery is she, your mum? The Fascists are bad buggers. Someone should stop them. When I read about Germany celebrating ten years of Nazi rule in ’33, I got the willies so bad some of it stuck in me mind. “…democratic institutions abolished…unbridled tyranny.” Don’t need much of a brain to get what they’re on about. They’re gobbling up Europe. Government by force, I reckon.’

‘What about the League of Nations?’

‘Let’s hope they come up with something.’ He looked down at Viv’s worried face and winked. ‘It’s about time we got out of the business.’

‘How would we live?’

‘The bloke who delivers the soft drink would be willing to swap his semi for it. He reckons if I took on some country runs, I’d be making a packet, especially if I picked up some back loads.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’d take boxes of soft drink up bush, drop them off then pick up a back load to sell down here. Timber from the mills is the best lurk; paper factories pay a bundle.’

‘Is that what he does?’

‘He used to, but reckons he’s too old now. I’d be away a bit, but I could make some real money.’

Eddie’s daughter was born a few weeks after he settled his family into a double-fronted semi-detached villa in Prahran in a street too narrow for the semi-trailer. He parked it at the soft drink factory and kept his Austin 7 at home.

When Eddie first saw his daughter being bathed, he expected to see a bald head, red cheeks and no chin. She wasn’t red and her chin seemed normal, but she had fine black hair growing low on her forehead and down the length of her backbone. ‘This one looks like a bloody monkey.’

Vivien was disgusted. ‘It’ll fall out,’ she snapped.

Eddie shrugged. ‘What are we calling her?’

‘I like Miriam.’

‘Bloody hell. First a damn dago, and now a blasted Jew.’

‘For goodness sake! You choose.’

‘We’ll name her after Gran. Catherine. Cathy for short.’

When Eddie took John to see his mother and sister, he took one look at the dark-haired bundle nestled in Vivien’s arms, threw himself to the floor then kicked and screamed until Eddie hauled him away bellowing. ‘Stop your flamin’ nonsense.’

A few weeks later, in the quiet of the early afternoon, both children were asleep when Vivien answered a knock on the door, sighing as she opened it to see a gaunt, aging man, carrying a small black case. He swept off his hat, made a mock bow and smiled. His teeth were long and nicotine-yellow.

‘Smiley’s the name from Better Brushes for Busy Bees,’ he crowed. ‘But to a beautiful girl like you, I’m Harold, ready, willing and very able.’ He leered and winked. Vivien’s skin prickled. She shrank back shaking her head, ‘Nothing today, thank you.’ She tried to close the door, but he’d planted his foot inside.

‘Don’t be like that, little lady. I’m just trying to earn me daily bread,’ he wheedled.

Her thoughts galloping, Vivien imagined him forcing his way in and what he might do. Her heart thumping, she kept her voice cool and distant.

‘When you’ve removed your foot, Mr Smiley, you may show me a catalogue—here on the porch,’ she snapped.

He nodded, opened his case and began his spiel. ‘Brooms, mops, brushes, scrubbing brushes, top quality last a lifetime…’

She held up her hand. ‘That’s enough. I’ll have a mop.’

‘In me van. Back before you know it.’ Like a giant cockroach, he scuttled off. Vivien grabbed a shilling out of the housekeeping jar, exchanged it for the mop and breathed normally when the van turned the corner.

Two nights later when he came back from a long trip, Eddie counted what was left of the housekeeping money. ‘You’re a bob short,’ he snarled.

‘I bought a mop,’

‘Where from?’

‘A door-to-door salesman,’ she said. ‘Are you going to make a scene about a mop?’

‘Show it to me,’ Eddie snapped.

Vivien sighed, fetched the mop, still in its wrapping. Eddie read the cardboard label. ‘You paid a bob for this rubbish?’

‘He made me … nervous.’

He sneered. ‘Is that all he did?’

‘What the hell are you implying? I told you I was nervous.’

Eddie made himself breathe. Counted to ten under his breath. ‘Did you think he might hurt you or somethin’?’

‘Yes. He stopped me closing the door, until I agreed ...’

Eddie’s temper flared. ‘What did you agree to?’

‘Buying something, of course,’ she snapped right back at him.

Satisfied she was telling it like it was, he answered, ‘I’ll put a lock and chain on the door. Don’t open it unless you know who’s there. Got that?’