The Aunts’ House

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘Yes, shells are a bit hard on the old back but it’s a wonderful view. This place will be worth a fortune one day.’

  ‘You sound like Jessie. That’s what she would say.’

  ‘Sorry about that, but it’s true. And it’s a sorry thing to say, but part of the estate would be yours if the others died but that’s the way things are. Shame Jessie’s put a spanner in the works. But I’d like to see your boarding house and the gully, Angel. I’m catching the Thursday train back to Melbourne. Plenty of time. What do you think?’

  ‘That’d be terrific. I’d love it. You make people laugh and you’ll think they’re all weird in the boarding house – they’re all a bit off their heads but there’s always a room kept for a casual if you wanted to stay the night.’

  ‘That’ll do. I’ll go back there with you and Miss Varnham and Barnaby, stay the night and then, maybe tomorrow or Tuesday I could come back here and do a bit of fishing. I’d like to catch one for Elsa.’

  ‘I don’t like fish, Uncle George. I just don’t like the taste. Did your wife like fish?’

  ‘Yes, loved it.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘Alma. But she’s dead, Angel. I did say. She had cancer.’

  Aunty Alma. That would have been another aunt. ‘I’m sorry she’s dead.’ Angel wondered if she might have been more like Elsa or Clara, but that didn’t matter; the fact was, she seemed to be collecting aunts and uncles from all over the place. She practically now had a whole family of her own and it was an unusual feeling. Angel felt warmth just thinking about it. Somehow she would get a photograph of them all and add it to the collection behind the cupboard door – with Angel Martin of course. There was an Angel somewhere in the pictures but she had to sketch them herself.

  ‘Do you have a photo of Aunty Alma and everyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must miss her a lot.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did Aunty Alma like music?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I thought Jews liked music all the time.’

  ‘That is a strange thing to say.’

  ‘What was her favourite colour?’

  ‘Yellow, I think. Yes, it was yellow.’

  ‘I love yellow, too. What did she do?’

  ‘She worked part-time in a primary school.’

  ‘And where was the cancer that killed her – was it inside her?’

  ‘O, for God’s sake, Angel, must we talk about that now?’

  The tide had changed its mind and splashed over the rock for the fun of it, wetting the bottom of Uncle George’s trousers. Uncle George said he was uncomfortable. He’d taken off his shoes and socks on the way down to the rocks – neat, shiny shoes and silky socks tucked into them – and held them out of harm’s way. Neat feet for his age with long toes that looked as though they’d never done a day’s work in their lives and, for a reason she could not have possibly explained, Angel was irritated. Click. Like the tidal waves, Angel’s mood changed in a split second. She looked closely at Uncle George. She’d been trying to think who he reminded her of and she suddenly remembered a ballroom dancing teacher in one of her family photo collections behind the cupboard door in her room in the boarding house.

  ‘I just need to know where the cancer was, that’s all!’

  ‘It was in her brain, Angel. It’s painful for me to remember these things.’

  ‘Did she look pretty when she died?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘My mother looked pretty as though there was nothing wrong with her. You should have been there to see her instead of Missus Potts!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Angel. I’m so sorry about it all. We’d better get back to the house. My trousers are wet.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The kitchen was all songs and suds. Elsa and Winifred Varnham sang old songs while they washed and wiped. Barnaby Grange was on safari in the long grass at the harbourfront, counting the number of blades in the tufts. Clara had put herself away upstairs nice and tidy like an end-of-day toy and played something miserable on a cracked record. Angel had never seen Elsa so happy.

  ‘Jessie’s gone,’ she said with a smile spread all over her like a blush. ‘Jessie’s gone and Winifred and I are having the most fun. Did you enjoy the rocks, Uncle George?’

  ‘He’s coming up to the boarding house with us and staying the night,’ Angel said in a gush, ‘and I’ll show him the gully in the morning. Isn’t that something!’

  ‘Goodness, Angel. A treasure to show the boarding house. A trophy at the altar of stains. You’d better warn him.’ Winifred laughed, as did Uncle George.

  ‘Angel wants to show me her green place and I’m looking forward to it but I’ll be back. The train’s on Thursday. I want to catch a nice fish for you, Elsa. Where do you think I could catch a nice fish?’

  ‘Isn’t that too good of you, Mister Wolf. Isn’t that good of him?’ To anyone interested and she sang, ‘There’s a little fishy on a little dishy when the boats come in’. Angel thought how good it was to see the servant laughing, singing and happier than the mistress – she wished Jessie hadn’t gone. ‘Well, there’s nothing much to catch from our rocks, not for someone who knows about fishing but there is some place the locals go to …’

  ‘We could sail a boat out to Mariana,’ said Angel.

  ‘You know we’re not allowed to do that while the war’s on, Angel, but it would have been nice. We could all have gone – such fun. I have only sailed in my dreams.’ Winifred Varnham laid a sopping wet tea towel over the top of the oven.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of a party, Winifred.’ Uncle George laughed and said, ‘Another time perhaps. This time I just want to catch a fish for Elsa and I like to fish alone.’

  ‘And what are you going to use for tackle, Mister Fisherman?’

  ‘I’ll hire it.’

  ‘Clara has all her father’s tackle in a chest upstairs. She just might let you look through it. She once used the chest for dance clothes, but now it’s full of lines and hooks. I’ll ask her. And this place the locals use – and let me tell you they don’t like outsiders to know – is a point near the ocean end of the Bay, near the heads. You have to climb on rocks to get to it, there’s no path. You start from the small park with the big fig trees. There’s an old barge tied up and they fish off the barge. That’s where your grandfather caught his fish, Angel.’

  ‘And that’s where the old man down the road catches his octopus, I bet. I can show you where to go, Uncle George. I’ve been there but nobody saw me.’

  ‘Not this time, Angel. I’ll find it – and I like to fish alone and in silence. Sorry.’ Uncle George smiled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Next time, Angel. Next time. I’ll just nip upstairs and see what Clara has and if she’ll allow me to use it.’

  ‘O, my goodness, don’t—’ But Uncle George had ‘nipped’ before Elsa could say another word to him. ‘O, my goodness, Angel, there hasn’t been a man up there since, well, since a very long time.’

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s nice.’

  ‘I just hope he doesn’t take too long. It’s almost time to leave,’ said Winifred and she stood at the bottom of the stairs and called to Uncle George, ‘don’t be long.’

  ‘Coming – coming,’ called Uncle George. ‘And it’s all arranged – everything’s arranged.’ And he ‘nipped’ back again after spending more time with Clara than was thought necessary, smiling and slightly breathless. ‘Clara said I can choose my weapons when I come back from the gully and the Deep North. Good woman, that.’

  ‘O, yes. Clara’s lovely when she wants to be.’ Elsa was still smiling in the unfamiliar territory of joy the day had given to her.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you …’ was all she could say for she was emotional and well knew that tears of joy and sadness were closely bonded. Winifred hugged the little wom
an and kissed her cheek and was about to display her own party manners when Barnaby Grange stood at the kitchen door, sun-burned, bitten and covered in dust and grass seeds.

  ‘Three hundred and nine million, by three parts.’

  ‘Thank you, Barnaby,’ Winifred said to be polite. ‘We were wondering.’ But the fact was that Barnaby had almost been absent-mindedly left behind like a bag on a train.

  The northern casual

  ‘This is my Uncle George,’ Angel Martin will say to the tram driver if he happens to be one of her friends. She might hold Uncle George’s hand to make it convincing and say, ‘I want you to meet my Uncle George.’ Angel had rehearsed introductions in the privacy of her mind all the way from Brooklyn Street to the tram stop – ‘This is my Uncle George and he’s going to stay the night and then he’s coming back to do some fishing’ – all the way across the park and over the road and up the steps to the high cliffs and the crossed ant-eaten wooden sleepers that marked the end of the tram line. ‘Meet Uncle George who came all the way from Melbourne to see me.’ And then Angel realised that the introductory dress rehearsals would have to be repeated on opening night at the boarding house.

  ‘You’re awfully quiet,’ said Winifred Varnham in her robe of power red that had done its job and that she longed to change. ‘Why are you so quiet, Angel?’

  ‘I’m not quiet – there’s a lot of noise in my head. It’s so loud it’s a wonder you can’t hear it.’

  ‘The view from the top, O my,’ said Uncle George, and Angel was sure she saw his eyes change their colour to the colour of Mariana. ‘You can see to the end of the Pacific from here. Is that the way you see it?’

  ‘Do you see the different colours of the water, Uncle George? The colours of deeps and shallows and reefs? And do you see how white the horses are down on the rocks?’

  ‘What a mind full of pictures you have, Angel – you should have a camera. I’ll have to get you a camera.’

  ‘I don’t want a camera – I don’t need one.’

  ‘Barnaby has sketched endless calculations of the ocean’s width and length and depth, as well as the islands,’ said Winifred. ‘Wasn’t it clever of your niece to think of it as another nation and call it Mariana?’

  ‘I have to say, Madam, that such inventiveness and curiosity at her age is astonishing.’

  ‘She’s self-taught, you know – hardly ever goes to school.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if that’s a good thing, Angel. Schooling is an education of facts – sadly not as picturesque as you see the world, but important.’

  ‘What’s the good of learning about the Kings of England or the sort of dog Hitler has, or the bloke who went over some alps with elephants, or the Crusade – that’s one of Mister Daisyfield’s favourites. What’s that got to do with anything? I learn more in the gully and the Bay and the libraries and galleries.’

  ‘Angel, truancy is illegal. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll put my age up and get a job and buy books and maybe a painting. I’ll learn things Mister Daisyfield’s never heard of in a million years.’

  ‘You’re a rebel, Angel Martin.’ But Uncle George Wolf couldn’t stop smiling.

  ‘I don’t care about that either.’

  ‘Well, there we have it. I think we should get a seat in the tram before it leaves us behind,’ said Winifred. ‘Come along, Barnaby, we must be off to the Great North.’

  And in the midst of an after-picnic crowd burping their beer and cheese and mustard pickles, and soggy bottomed babies howling and grandmothers nodding off like rag dolls and boys picking their noses and a small girl clutching herself while her mother shouted, ‘You should have gone before we left!’ the four exotics managed to seat themselves close to each other.

  Angel had never seen the tram driver before and thought he looked too young and a bit silly in his cap and that his uniform was too big and she was not able to use any of the introductions she’d rehearsed. She was irritated by this. Different. Click. Everything was different. Everything was changing too much and too quickly and for a moment she longed for the peace of the art gallery where the beauty of the past never changed its colours and where the works of masters brushed the shades of her body as a favour. Angel was transported for that moment and briefly her mood was broken and she blew a kiss to Mariana.

  ‘Bugger the war!’

  ‘Angel! Be careful what you say, darling. You must remember to take thoughtful aim before you fire your words.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Varnham.’

  ‘Come on, now, don’t be sad to be leaving the Bay. I have a whole new planet to explore.’ And Uncle George laughed and his Adam’s apple stuck out above his collar like something stuck. ‘How say you, Mister Grange?’

  ‘Six.’ In a word that meant nothing at all.

  ‘And I agree!’ said Uncle George, who’d cheered everyone up.

  Winifred Varnham had tried to call Missus Potts with the news of an uncle and the need for a room, but Missus Potts’s heavily guarded black Bakelite telephone, locked in a tiny broom cupboard of its own, rang itself breathless before it could be answered and Winifred Varnham warned the others about taking a chance. When they were off the train and at the shopping strip before the slide down Duffy Street, Winifred said she would buy some food ‘just in case’. Uncle George, of course, insisted on paying for everything.

  On a corner as one turned right from the train station was a very small store that was open on Sundays. It was Maeve Rich’s store but the local wags had called it Maeve’s Convenience for a very long time.

  ‘Do you like rice, Mister Wolf?’

  ‘I do, indeed.’

  ‘Could you make a curry, Miss Varnham? Please! Please!’

  ‘We’ll see what’s available, Angel. Do you like curry, Mister Wolf?’

  ‘My mouth waters just thinking about it, Miss Varnham.’

  ‘Then we shall forage.’

  And after Winifred Varnham had picked and sniffed and chosen all over the store, the three travellers carried parcels of pumpkin, onions, raisins, apples, two cans of Spam, rice and a tin of curry powder.

  ‘A lot there for the four of us,’ remarked Uncle George.

  ‘I thought I might give the inmates a treat. I’ll need the use of the stove but it would be rude to dine separately, don’t you think, Mister Wolf?’

  ‘But you don’t know how many there will be, Miss Varnham.’

  ‘My dear Angel, I will teach you about rice – rice and potatoes. There will be potatoes in the kitchen I imagine. There are always potatoes. Rice and potatoes added to a curry can, unlike a famous fish, feed a multitude. And I mean no disrespect to those of Godly beliefs, Mister Wolf.’

  It was late afternoon, cool and fresh and crisp as a salad. Uncle George took deep breaths of the clean air with every step as though he was smoking a cigarette.

  ‘It’s another planet here. Only an hour away from the sea and we could be floating in space.’

  ‘Wait ’til you see the gully. There’s a creek with water you can see through right to the bottom and there are tadpoles and yabbies and tiny green frogs.’ Angel was happy for the moment. ‘But you’ve got to see it early in the morning.’

  ‘Why are you limping, Angel?’ Winifred paused for a moment.

  ‘My sandal strap broke.’

  Uncle George took Angel’s parcel and danced a little skip at the top of Duffy Street. ‘I’ll buy new sandals, Angel, and anything else you’d like – in fact we’ll go shopping. I’d like that. Would you like to go shopping, Angel?’

  ‘Yes. Okay. But I don’t want fancy stuff. The bootmaker can mend the strap – or maybe even you can.’

  ‘They look pretty worn out, Angel, but I’ll give it a try.’

  Angel limped in silence for a moment. She felt her mood changing ever so slightly.

 
‘Most people are scared of Duffy Street, Uncle George. They’re scared of slipping going down and then having to walk up again. The milkman’s horse won’t go down at all.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, but I can see the trees at the bottom from here. Is that the gully?’

  ‘That’s only a little bit of it. I’ll show you properly tomorrow before you go.’

  ‘I really look forward to it, Angel. The gully must be full of beautiful timber.’

  ‘You mean trees.’

  ‘Of course. Sorry. Will you walk with us tomorrow, Miss Varnham?’

  ‘Winifred. Please call me Winifred. I must visit my sister tomorrow. Heather is in the sanitarium not far from here.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Nothing serious, I hope.’

  ‘She thinks she can’t walk but she can,’ said Angel. ‘She sees things in her mind that aren’t real. That happens to me sometimes – like dreams.’

  ‘Poor Heather – poor you!’

  The door to Missus Potts’s boarding house was opened without a sound – Angel knew Mister Potts had oiled the hinges on Thursday. Still, a voice immediately shouted, ‘You’re late, girl – there’s things to do!’ as though the hinges had learned to talk.

  Angel remembered escaping to the pictures on a no-school day and she’d watched a Walt Disney film where everything on the screen talked – birds, animals, cups, teapots, even a tree, and everything had something human about it – handles, trunks, spouts, bird chirps and baby deers – everything. She inspected Missus Potts’s door in case she’d missed some image in an apron, frowning and pointing to her.

  ‘That was Missus Potts. Won’t she get a surprise when she sees you, Uncle George.’

  And she did.

  ‘There you are!’ And then in a different voice altogether, ‘And who is this?’

  ‘This gentleman, Missus Potts, is Angel’s uncle,’ said Winifred Varnham from a height. ‘He is from Melbourne and would like to stay the night. I did try to telephone you but there was no answer. Is there a room available?’ Knowing full well there was always a vacant broom cupboard somewhere in the warren.