The Old Balmain House

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 15 - 1900-1901 - Plague and Celebrations

  As Maria and Jimmy settled into their married life in Smith St there was much ado in Sydney. It was like two cities, those who lived in the big houses and those who lived in squats, often ten to a little house, and then some, like themselves, in the middle. Down around the White Bay docks where the poor people lived the stench was awful. Often these streets were soiled with excrement. Sometimes beggars from there would walk along their street, seeking little things, though mostly the police kept them to their part.

  But all mixed at the football games at Birchgrove Oval, where all shouted together for the team with the orange and black stripes. Maria and Jimmy would go to all the games. Sometimes they would go and stand with the nobs, where Mike and Rosie stood, and at times Charles and Alison came there too. But best Jimmy liked to go with his friends from the docks. Maria loved the wild rough way they all cheered and heckled

  “Doon you know how to catch the ball you yoosless Mick. Give it to that Kiwi winger there, at least he can run straight, Hit him hard man, knock him flat, clobber him, doon let that big Pom run over you.”

  Many had met Maria working at the Exchange. They knew better than to cross her and that she did not give a toss about their cussing and swearing.

  The plague was now sweeping Millers Point but had not yet been seen in Balmain. They said it was the rats that spread it, and these were plentiful at the bottom of the hill where most workers lived. Balmain lived in fear that it would come to them soon. Jimmy was scrupulous in trying to keep rats away from their house. He set traps, he had a big tabby cat he fed out the back, and he always made sure there were no scraps lying around. But before long there was a case and then there was another, and soon new rows of graves stood in Leichardt cemetery.

  For Jimmy and Maria neither this, nor the hard life of their friends nor anything else could spoil their happiness. Each Sunday they went to church and gave their alms. Whenever they saw poor people in the street they tried to help them, even if their stink was terrible. They knew that they both could have been there too. They listened, with gratitude filling their hearts, as the priest exhorted that charity begins at home.

  Maria’s belly, which at first had hardly shown, was now there for all to see. The bigger it grew the prouder Jimmy was. She could have sworn he most liked her to wear dresses which showed it when they went out walking.

  Sophie came early, just 6 months after they were married. She was small, but perfectly formed; dark hair like her grandmother, Rosie, but her eyes came from Maria. Even though not big she was full of fight and sucked her mother’s breast strongly.

  Maria marvelled at how perfect she was, and the wonder of her birth after what had been done to her insides. But since she met Jimmy she had never doubted it would be thus, that each could repair the other’s broken body and make it whole again.

  Sometimes she wondered at her lust for him. After all those brutal men she never thought she would find such pleasure in a man again. But he had only to look at her, like he did on that first afternoon in the house, and she was overwhelmed by her desire for him. Even after he lay back, spent, she wanted him to do it all again, to again feel his body move in her and quench her need. And he was just the same. Whenever he looked at her and she looked back at him it was like a fire was lit in his body, so powerful was his desire for her, in the boat, on the beach, walking in the forest. They laughed together at how quickly the passion could come on and at all the places and times in which it was enjoyed. Even big with Sophie it was the same, an ache, desire, then fire, ecstasy and the release.

  Now there was much work to be done. They repainted the house in the lemon yellow of the frangipani centres, they replanted the garden, they built a cot for Sophie. Alison’s business was booming with work for both of them. Jimmy spent many hours there; serving customers, collecting orders. Now and then there were the special days when they both went off to Sydney town, to search the boats, stalls and shops for new special gift items.

  As 1900 drew to a close they celebrated their second Christmas together, and their first with baby Sophie. After church at St Augustine’s they walked to East Balmain where they ate a roast turkey dinner with Alison and Charles and all their other children and grandchildren.

  With their baby being the newest and smallest they were treated as most important guests, with special gifts for Sophie; a music box from her grandmother to soothe her to sleep, a boat on a string to hang over her cot from her grandfather, a set of beautiful hand sewn clothes from her aunt, a cup and plate engraved with her name from her uncle, and little toys from all her cousins. Maria saw, with startling clarity, that this was what was best in life, this simple pleasure of being part of a family growing and sharing life and love together.

  Now her hurt was past she felt as if everything was a special gift from God and wondered with amazement at how she had reached this place. She knew that without the pain that she would never have met Jimmy, and that he and her had something better together than her sister and brother, even though they seemed happy too. The closest to match it was her Mum and Dad, but by coming past the pain and mending each other, it made it even better for her and Jimmy

  That night they walked back to the big house in Montague Street, to be with Rosie and Michael. It was again a special family occasion. But here were many other guests and all were agog with the news of the Federation, the start of Australia as its own country, not a group of colonies.

  It was just a week until the big parade where it became official in Hyde Park. Up to now this had largely passed Maria and Jimmy by. Now, suddenly, they felt this excitement catch them too. After they came home together, late into the night, and tucked little Sophie into her cot, they sat on the front verandah, in the night stillness, inhaling the fragrance of the frangipani.

  Jimmy turned to her and said. “You know I used to think Federation stuff was all a load or rubbish and had naught to do with me. I reckoned my Mum and Dad banging on about it all was just cobblers.

  “But that was before I grew up and took on responsibility. Now I feel I understand why our country needs to grow up too and leave old mother England behind. It’s just the same as how we can’t live with your Mum and Dad, even though they have plenty of room and would love to invite us, and I think they are the best people in the world. But this is our life and we have to live it for ourselves.”

  For Maria these words made so much sense, it was almost exactly the same ideas she had, first starting with the lunch and then becoming clear in her mind with the dinner. This was their time now and their country’s too.

  Jimmy went on, almost as if apologetic for saying so much. “I’ve been thinking. You know how I mostly hate marches and such. But I really think we should go anyway, it like us and the country saying the same thing together.”

  So they went, holding up Sophie to let her see as they stood along Park Street, watching as the grand parade passed them by. They felt so proud seeing their country grown up alongside them. When the parade was over they gave Sophie to Maria’s parents, who had stood alongside them.

  Then, holding hands and laughing with the fun of it all, they walked around the city, part of a vast throng of happy people, differences forgotten and joined for one special day. As the night came they found themselves swept along with the crowd, moving down George St to Circular Quay where the whole town was a party. So they joined the others; cheering and dancing, till the night was past and the new day had come.

  As the weeks passed it seemed that something was changed forever for both them and their new country. They really were Mr and Mrs Williams, the family, and their country had its own new name that everyone was using, more and more, Australia, and they who belonged to it, Australians.

  1901 rolled along, and now they were busy again with their lives. Jimmy seemed to have a flair to match her Mum at spotting beautiful things, and Maria realised she had this talent from her Mum as well, that instinctive knowledge of beauty and t
hat ability to see it, as through other eyes. She could look at a person and know, almost before asking, what they needed, what would suit them and what they most desired. She had often thought her Mum a bit fey, a mind reader or mystic. Now she could feel these same skills growing in herself; a thread running between her and her mother.

  Still Jimmy felt he needed to do more; it was as if she had unlocked all his restless energy and given it focus. When he could find time he worked with his father and Jim in the building firm, which again prospered, and he took great delight at the texture and form of things his hands made.

  One day he showed her a ceiling he had made, fashioned from a mould in the workshop, now suspended in a grand house. It was made with pressed metal, and worked into exquisite shapes, flowers, leaves and little wave like patterns flowing across the plaster.

  “Did you fashion all that yourself” she said. “It’s a work of art in plaster”.

  He nodded shyly.

  “Could you make us a ceiling like that, to go into our sitting room. When I look at what is there now, after seeing this, it seems rather plain.”

  Two weeks later it was in place.

  Now, on hot afternoons, as Maria felt drowsy and her belly swelled again with a second child, she lay back and stared in delight at his truly wonderful workmanship, her mind transported into the picture he had made for her.