The Aunts’ House

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘I was only thinking of B and K. They met on a tram and carved a heart with their initials into the seat next to me and I’m trying to make up a life for them but I don’t think I’ll give them yours.’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You’re being a pest, Angel. All this trouble I’m going to to get you out of that boarding house. You should be with your aunts – I just think family should be together.’

  ‘You must feel really guilty about my mother.’

  ‘That’s enough! It’s enough!’

  When the tram had stopped precisely six inches away from the cross-beamed terminus, the driver sat perfectly still and did not look at Mariana on his right or the Bay on the left. His cap stayed straight up and down as though it had been glued on. He did not relax for a moment, not like the Sunday drivers, and Angel thought he looked like a doll. She wanted to see if his eyes were made of glass. She went to the driver’s cabin and tapped him gently on the shoulder.

  ‘Are you getting off or going back to the city?’ asked the driver doll without turning his head and Angel asked him, ‘Are you real?’

  ‘I hope so, Miss, or you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Angel! For God’s sake.’ And Uncle George and Angel were the last to step down from the running board.

  Angel smiled up to her uncle in her certain way. He tried to take her hand but she pulled away.

  ‘I had to come with you today.’

  ‘What for? I didn’t want you to come. What for?’

  ‘You’ll see. There are things I want to show you.’

  ‘There won’t be time.’

  ‘It’s early. There’ll be time.’

  George Wolf was not to know that the tram terminus was seventeen sandstone steps above her old home, Bon Ami.

  ‘I want you to see this first, Uncle George.’ And once on the footpath she nudged him along with her fisted hand in his back. ‘It will only take a minute.’

  ‘Don’t push me like that, Angel. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘See that shop, there? The hat shop?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘That was our home. It was an empty shop then and we pasted Bon Ami all over the window so no one could see in. The grandfather put us there because he was angry. We were there for a long time. We slept on the floor. A shopfront, Uncle George! That’s where your sister lived with me and no one else to love.’

  ‘Angel … I don’t know what to—’

  ‘And see that shop over the road that sells baby clothes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My mother used to knit for them. She was very brave …’

  ‘O, God, Angel.’

  ‘And the lady who owns that shop felt sorry for me and bought me my sandals and a dress and I never did pay her back.’

  ‘I’ll pay her – of course, is that what you want? I’ll pay her.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If you like – now.’

  The baby shop lady was arranging a shelf full of toys. When she turned she beamed a very special smile.

  ‘Angel! What a wonderful surprise. But it’s not Sunday. Is this visit something special? Your aunts are well, I hope. How do you do?’ she said to Uncle George Wolf. He nodded and smiled.

  ‘This is my Uncle George. George Wolf. He is my mother’s brother and he’s from Melbourne but he’s going to do some fishing before he goes home and he wants to pay you for all the nice things you bought me.’

  ‘O, Angel – no! My goodness – I couldn’t. After all this time …’

  ‘It would be my great pleasure,’ said Uncle George Wolf. ‘I’m told you were very kind to my sister and Angel.’

  ‘I notice a slight limp, Mister Wolf. Would you like a chair?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I really can’t take anything for the few small things I bought. It gave me pleasure to help. Your sister was a wonderful knitter, Mister Wolf, but you would have known that. And even when she was so unwell she still supplied the shop with beautiful jackets. I’m sorry I missed you, Mister Wolf, while Missus Martin was here. I don’t remember her mentioning you.’

  Angel slid one of her special glances to her uncle and her uncle looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  ‘Angel has told me a lot about you and it would give me great pleasure to reimburse you if you would allow it.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said the baby shop lady. ‘I keep a collection box of donations for very sick babies. A little contribution would be most gratefully accepted, Mister Wolf.’

  And Uncle George Wolf took his wallet and unfolded enough notes for a dozen pairs of sandals five and five-and-a-half, and a rack of dresses and pushed them into the box and not another word was said. It was enough. And Angel had the feeling that the baby shop lady somehow knew all was not well.

  They walked across the park towards the pub where Uncle George said he intended to change his clothes.

  ‘I don’t want Elsa or Clara to see you, Angel. There’s a lot to talk about. You do understand, don’t you?’

  ‘What about Jessie? Will she be there?’

  ‘No, I’ll talk to her later. Don’t you worry about Jessie. I’ll sort things out.’

  ‘And then you’ll go fishing?’

  ‘Then I’ll climb around the point to the barge and fish.’

  ‘You’ll never find the way.’

  ‘Angel!’

  ‘I won’t go near the aunts’ house. I’ll just wait ’til you come out and take you ’round the point then I’ll go to the park or the beach.’

  ‘And how do you think you’re going to know when I leave your aunts’ house?’

  ‘I’ll hide in Brooklyn Street and watch. No one will see me.’

  ‘Angel! You’re beginning to make me angry. I think people might be right when they say you’re not right in the head!’ George Wolf immediately regretted what he said, but it was too late to apologise.

  Click.

  Uncle George had changed into an old shirt and a pair of shorts that only just covered his knobby knees. He was very skinny. He was very ugly. The bandage around his leg was dirty. Everything about George Wolf wanted to make her vomit. Her skin still crawled. Angel remembered her duchess saying she loved women more than men and wondered if the same thing had happened to her.

  ‘You know that secret we had last night? Well, I didn’t like it – not one bit. It was worse than old Canning and Mister Daisyfield. I didn’t like them but you are my mother’s brother and I thought you’d be nice. My mother would have hated you for it. What you did made me sick.’

  ‘O, my God, Angel. I feel very bad about it, now. It just all happened – I can’t tell you why. I’m sorry. It will never happen again.’ And he put his hand into one of his cornucopia pockets. ‘Here – go and buy lunch.’

  ‘I haven’t told anyone about our secret yet, not Miss Varnham or Barnaby or my aunts, but if I did I think they’d kill you.’ She grinned in her special way.

  Uncle George gave her more money.

  ‘Here – go off and buy things. I’ve had enough. Girls like to shop, don’t they?’

  ‘I’ve got my own money, Uncle George. I’ll buy fish and chips and see you later.’

  ‘Angel, I don’t know what to say to you but I’ll tell you one thing – I couldn’t live anymore with my guilt for your mother and wanted only something better for you to somehow make up for it, but Angel Martin, the way you behave sometimes makes my feeling for you wear very, very thin. Very thin indeed.’ And he limped off along the beach walk and towards the aunts’ house.

  ‘I bet you’re guilty about your wife, too,’ she called after him and by the sudden change in the movement of his body she knew that spines had ears.

  Angel waited. She knew the Bay so well she could count the steps from where they stood to the aunts
’ house in Brooklyn Street. When she had counted for long enough, taking into account Uncle George’s leg, she went to the fisherman’s house with the green gate in Brooklyn Street and knocked on his door. She wasn’t sure if the old man and his hips would be able to answer. But he did.

  ‘O, it’s you, girlie – look at you growing up by the minute. Something you want? You down to see your aunts? It’s usually Sunday you come.’

  ‘I just felt like it and I thought I’d say hello.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Look, there is something. I was on my way to the aunts’ house and I thought I saw a strange man going in the aunts’ gate. Do you mind if I watch and see if he comes out?’

  ‘Why don’t you go up there and find out for yourself?’

  ‘It might be a private visit and it’s not Sunday. I don’t want to give them a fright. I saw him outside the pub and I heard him tell someone that he was going to do some fishing off the barge on the point.’

  ‘That’s my barge! Who the hell is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Do you mind if I watch for him behind your nets on the gate? I don’t want him to see me.’

  ‘You go ahead, girlie. How’s he going to get ’round the point? How’d he know about it? Strangers go to hell ’round there but there’s one thing for sure – he won’t catch an occo. Haven’t caught one for a week or two.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Want a cuppa while you’re watching?’

  ‘O, yes please.’

  And there Angel waited, behind the fishing nets draped over the green gate and drinking a mug of tea that tasted like fish. She waited there for a long time.

  Clara and Elsa had chosen one of Jessie’s university days to discuss Angel’s future without interference from Jessie, but Elsa was nervous and said, ‘You just never know when she’s going to pop up – like a Jack in the Box.’ Clara simply wanted to get on with it and tapped her shoe to the rhythm of silent music, somewhere in the ether. George Wolf sat nervously with the aunts in Elsa’s sitting room and was mysteriously silent for a while.

  Angel’s uncle had planned to tell the aunts how important it would be for a very nice and very bright developing child to be with her family and away from the bad influences of the boarding house. He’d planned to reassure the aunts about Jessie’s reaction and he’d planned to measure the grandfather’s room that used to be an office in order to furnish it with the necessary bed, wardrobe and anything else that was required. He’d planned to use the time to discuss the allowance needed for her keep and had hoped everything would be satisfactory to all involved. That is what he’d planned for his beautiful niece. He’d planned nothing but an expression of love for his niece. But the best-laid plans—

  ‘She’s an absolute brat, you know! And she’s a liar,’ was what he said.

  ‘Mister Wolf!’ Elsa was horrified. ‘We love Angel.’

  ‘You might, Elsa, but if she’s a child who can’t be trusted – well, you must know how I feel.’

  ‘Clara! Stop it. What has Angel done to upset you like this?’

  ‘Sorry, Elsa, maybe I was a bit harsh, but I’ve found Angel hard to manage. Over the last two days uncontrollable at times. She hardly ever goes to school, not even today.’

  ‘You should have seen her when she was eight, Mister Wolf. Like firecrackers going off when we wouldn’t let her in! Eight years old and angry that we didn’t look after her murderous mother,’ said Clara.

  ‘O, Clara. After all this time – and to say such a thing to Mister Wolf.’

  George Wolf moved the bones of his bottom uneasily in the chair.

  ‘What do you mean – you wouldn’t let her in?’

  ‘Dad was alive and angry, then,’ said Clara. ‘We were all angry and grieving, Mister Wolf. Angel and her mother came to the Bay but we were too angry. Angel, even then, eight years old and she’d scream outside the gate with her hands in fists and … well, it was a terrible time when I think of it.’

  ‘A child? Eight-year-old child? Indeed terrible, Clara. Terrible.’ George Wolf’s guilt and memories caused him to wipe something from the corners of his eye with a handkerchief.

  Clara asked, or rather ordered, Elsa to make tea.

  ‘No, I will not,’ said Elsa for the first time since her graduation with honours from the domestic college. ‘I will not! I love Angel and she’s going to be a great comfort to me – and you love her too, Clara and don’t pretend anything else. It took a while for you to love her but love her you do!’

  ‘Now, then, there’s the problem of Jessie. What are we going to tell Jessie?’ asked Clara.

  ‘Just tell Jessie that her lover’s – I presume they were not legally married? – Just tell her that her lover’s granddaughter is moving into the back room that used to be an office, all expenses paid, to help care for her aunts. That should shut her up.’

  ‘That will be my great pleasure,’ said Clara.

  ‘Well, then, if the financial arrangements are satisfactory? Are they? Yes? I will happily pay for any extras. A dentist for one. She refuses to go to a dentist.’

  ‘How would you know she needs a dentist, Mister Wolf?’ Clara had a curl of a frown between her brows. ‘She’s never complained of toothache here.’

  ‘Smell!’ George Wolf said in a slit of a voice.

  ‘O?’ said Clara while the beginning of a thought uncurled and became an exclamation mark. ‘Smell? You must have been very close to her. Well, maybe she is better out of that boarding house, and we couldn’t say no to a bit of help.’

  ‘I’m excited. She’ll need a bed and bedding of course and a wardrobe and perhaps a chest of drawers. Things can be moved around. It’s a big room, a bit crowded, but a lot of stuff can go.’ Elsa said she’d make the tea, anyway.

  ‘You’d better get on with that fishing, it’s getting late. Go up and get what you want out of the box. I’ll stay here. It’s been a long time since that tackle has been used, my father’s tackle – I don’t really want to see it.’

  ‘I understand, Clara. It’s kind of you to lend it to me.’ And up the stairs went George Wolf, as fast as his limp would take him.

  Among the tangle of lines, hooks, sinkers and netting, all of it smelling of decomposed sea creatures, bait and stagnant water, he rummaged until he found three long shank hooks, a net, a knife and, in his estimation, a fifteen-pound line, for Mister George Wolf wanted to catch a fish of a decent size. Inside the gate of the aunts’ house was a bucket of mixed bait in water fresh as daisies. Elsa had given him directions.

  ‘But don’t tell a soul it was me,’ she said. ‘From here keep right and walk along the beach ’til you come to the little park with the fig trees. When you get to the water’s edge turn right again. There’ll be a few rocks to scramble over so I hope you can manage with your leg. Then keep going along the rocks until you come to the point and an old fishing barge tied up to a rock. That’s the secret place, Mister Wolf, but if anyone sees you please don’t say it was me who told you.’

  ‘Do you have a bag or a sack? Bit of a giveaway seeing me carrying lines and nets and pockets of hooks.’

  ‘There’s an old sack in the laundry. There won’t be many on the sand being Tuesday but of course you’re right. Just keep us out of it.’

  ‘Of course I will, Elsa. Do you like leatherjacket?’

  ‘Love it – we both do, don’t we, Clara? Delicious fish.’

  ‘Do you like trevally?’

  ‘We love it. We’d love anything you caught, Mister Wolf.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can come up with, then,’ and George Wolf was off, limping to the beach with his bucket, a sack full of secrets, and a smile wide as the Bay sun.

  The cottage door opened a crack and the old man and his hips asked, ‘Seen the bugger come out yet?’

  ‘No – wait a minute, yes, he’s out of the house and on
his way to the point.’

  ‘How would he know about the point? It’s a secret, that barge.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she lied. ‘Someone must have told him. He’s from Melbourne and he likes to fish.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Outside the pub – I heard him telling someone outside the pub.’ Quick as a flash. Lies. Angel couldn’t believe how easy they were.

  ‘And that someone told him about my barge? We’ll see about that!’

  ‘I think I’ll follow him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He might be my aunts’ friend and he might get hurt.’

  Angel left the old man with his hips muttering unkind words as he picked up an empty bucket near the gate.

  Through the trees dancing

  There were other ways to the fishing point. Three, in fact. Almost everyone in the Bay knew. The point, with its old barge and platform, was not really a secret. The old fishermen liked to think it was, but most people knew, especially after schoolboys with their lines and worms sneaked around, not telling their mothers because of the danger.

  The common way to the fishing point was a scramble over rocks from the ocean end of the beach, but it could also be accessed by going through the little park with the figs and then climbing through steep bush towards the water where there was a jut of rock pointing like the bow of a ship. The height of the rock made it possible to look down onto the barge without being seen. Years before, schoolies had discovered it when it was rumoured that two ladies sun-baked on the platform with no clothes on. That path to the end of the Bay and the beginning of Mariana was even more of a secret than a fisherman’s direct route. It was an isolated hiding place, a place for lovers like B and K, a place for crooks’ meetings, drinking on the sly, crying, and for rough, dirty boys too poor to be anywhere else. It was the way Angel chose. She would be able to watch Uncle George. She tried to plan a surprise for him.

  At that time, Angel was entirely alone. Above and around her was a gentle light shining through leaves that gave the tough scrub the fragility of lace. It was a place she’d only explored twice, but she’d climbed through it easily on her strong, bare feet and with the help of low-hanging branches, not caring at all about the dirt on her clothing. She climbed and watched the sky through a lacework of leaves and she hardly breathed. She was in a place somewhere between the green gully in the north and sea scrub burnt by the sun and she felt perfectly at one with the earth. This place was for lovers, she thought. B and K would have come to this place, for sure, and climbed to the top. They might have kissed in this place and held hands. Gentle. Truthful love.