The Fringe Dwellers

by Nene Gare

  The chattering of the group had died away. Four people, an older man and a woman, and two girls, sat in watchful silence waiting the approach of the Comeaways. The older man and woman relaxed first. They grinned a welcome.

  Noonah saw a fat baby kicking and gurgling in the middle of the sagging bed. With an exclamation of pleasure, she went to it, but Trilby remained, shy and strange, a little behind her parents.

  ‘This is them,’ Mr Comeaway beamed. ‘Come last night. What ya think of em, eh? You, Noonah over there, an Trilby! This your Auntie Hannie an Uncle Charlie; an these over here is Blanchie an Audrena. You say hello now and make good friends. That’s Blanchie’s baby, Noonah. Good big one, eh? How old now, Blanchie?’

  Blanchie rose, grinning with embarrassment. She sidled closer to Noonah. Blanchie’s hair hung lankly to her shoulders. The dress she wore was old and shapeless, hanging almost to her ankles. She and her cousin showed square white teeth in shy smiles.

  Uncle Charlie’s gaze flicked back and forth between his own girls and his brother’s children. ‘They smart all right,’ he admired.

  Mrs Comeaway turned her prideful look on Auntie Hannie. ‘Noonah’s gunna be a nurse down that hospital, if ya don’t mind. Nurse young Tommy next time e goes in, eh?’

  ‘Thought you was goin down the wharf this mornin,’ Uncle Charlie addressed Mr Comeaway. ‘I was goin down too. Didn’t turn out that way but. Got a bit tired last night when all them peoples was here.’

  ‘Feller needs a holiday,’ Mr Comeaway allowed. ‘Sides, we gotta show the girls round a bit today.’

  ‘Take my tip an don’t go fa that road work,’ Uncle Charlie said seriously. ‘Did that a coupla days last week. Gettin a bit old fa that stuff. Better on the wharf. Easier on ya back.’

  ‘Gotta work hard sometimes,’ Mr Comeaway said judicially. ‘Keep ya wits about ya too. Knew a bloke got loaded inta one a them ship’s holds right along with the wheat one time. That manganese ain’t a picnic either.’

  Trilby and Audrena took each other’s measure. Unsmilingly.

  ‘You live here too?’ Trilby asked curiously, turning to look at the shoddy camp.

  ‘We got a mattress under that ole blanket,’ Audrena said. ‘Young Tommy sleeps in with Mum an Dad if it’s cold. This is only tempry but. Dad’s savin up the deposit fa one a them houses down the Wild-Oat Patch. Then me an Blanchie’s gunna have new beds. No use wastin good stuff in this dump. Might get wet.’

  Trilby was impressed. ‘You mean you’re going to have a new house?’

  ‘Course it takes a while ta save up that deposit,’ Audrena said wisely. She grinned. ‘Specially when the old man gets on the plonk an keeps rattin what we got. Make ya laugh. It’s im wants the house. Mummy don’t care all that much.’

  ‘Don’t you want it yourself?’ Trilby kept her eyes politely away from the present dwelling.

  ‘Be beaut!’ Audrena said simply. ‘Sometimes the rain gets on Blanchie an me.’ She gloomed at the thin-legged bed. ‘Four’s really too many fa one bed. All legs, it seems like.’

  Trilby turned over the remark wonderingly. Her thoughts returned more gratefully to the two new beds that had been bought for her and Noonah.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ she said, collapsing on some grass. ‘And you tell me what it’s like in this town. Do you do any work?’

  ‘Used to,’ Audrena said laconically. ‘Had a job once up at a station, lookin after a coupla kids. It was beaut ta start off with. Had a room to meself and everything. Got sick of it but. Nothing ta do at night. I wasn’t supposed to have nothin ta do with the station mob, y’see. The missus said they wasn’t good company for me. So I used ta sneak out down the camp when she thought I was asleep. Then one night I get caught an that was the end a that. I spose she thought I was gunna stay up there fa the rest a me life never havin any fun.’ She sat in silence for a while, brooding. Then her face brightened. ‘Gee, there was a beaut chap up there. I had fun with him all right.’ She giggled and looked away from Trilby’s candidly curious grey eyes.

  ‘Don’t you have fun down here?’

  ‘Not if the ole man can help it.’

  ‘No one’s going to start ordering me about,’ Trilby stated definitely. ‘Come on, Audrena. Tell me some of the things you do.’

  Audrena was flattered. The girls’ heads moved closer.

  Noonah sat with the baby on her lap. He was rounded, cuddlesome, good-tempered—the sort of baby to draw your heart out of your body with love for him. His skin was cocoa-coloured, satin-soft. Noonah felt her hands too large and clumsy to handle him but, quite obviously, he liked to be cuddled. She gathered him up and pressed her cheek into the silk of his black curls.

  ‘You really gunna work at that nursing?’ Blanchie asked. ‘That’s pretty hard work I know, because I done it. Not proper nursing like. In the hospital but. An I hadda wear a cap. The things they make ya do.’ She shuddered. ‘Real dirty stuff like emptyin pots and helpin ta wash people. Wait till ya strike them old men up there. Little bottles, they got. An some a the nurses is that crabby. I left after a while. Didn’t like it.’

  ‘I won’t mind,’ Noonah said with all the assurance of no experience.

  ‘An it gets on ya pip, all this washin and boilin things. Ya gotta be that damn particular. Every day—stuff that useta look all right ta me—all gotta be cleaned up again. An floors polished that nobody’s hardly stepped on.’

  ‘That’s because of germs,’ Noonah said earnestly. ‘Mrs Gordon up at the mission, she got me some little books, and it’s all in them, the things I have to learn.’

  ‘Ya gotta have ya Junior. Ya know that?’

  ‘I’ve got that,’ Noonah told her cousin.

  ‘I went ta the High School down here meself,’ Blanchie offered. ‘Got sick of it though. Couldn’t be bothered goin on years more.’

  Noonah opened her mouth and firmly shut it again. And anyhow, what did education matter to someone who was married already?

  ‘Aren’t you afraid Tommy will roll off the bed,’ she questioned.

  ‘Did a coupla times,’ Blanchie said. ‘Course, it’s soft ground here. Doesn’t hurt im—just gives im a fright like.’

  The older women got up and went over to the line of clothes. Mrs Comeaway straightened a dress that was hanging by one barb. ‘Ya wanta take care a that dress,’ she told her sister-in-law. ‘I coulda got ten bob fa that if I hadn’t just thought a you.’

  They came over to where Noonah nursed the baby. ‘Ya like kids, Noonah, eh?’

  Noonah nodded. Auntie Hannie’s face mooned round and fat from her stringy dark hair. There were many gaps where there should have been teeth in her nervously smiling mouth, but her dark eyes were shy as well as kindly. Noonah smiled reassuringly up at her.

  ‘I’m used to kids. I helped round the nursery up at the mission.’

  ‘That mission—a good place?’

  ‘Yes, not bad.’

  ‘You look all right. Smarter than Blanchie an Audrena.’ There was no envy in her voice.

  ‘Can’t we go down town now?’ Trilby asked plaintively, behind her mother, and Mrs Comeaway turned to chuckle. ‘Okay, we better get goin,’ she told her assembled relations. ‘Less she goes an leaves us behind.’

  ‘I just can’t wait to see everything.’ Trilby begged forgiveness.

  ‘We don’t get no peace till this girl’s been down the town, I can see that,’ Mr Comeaway said.

  There was a chorus of good-byes as the Comeaways made their way back down the path. ‘Don’t forget about the beach,’ Audrena screeched. ‘Might see ya down the wharf tomorrow,’ Uncle Charlie called after his brother.

  ‘Monday fa sure,’ Mr Comeaway called back.

  ‘I see now you might make a real good nurse,’ Mrs Comeaway said approvingly to Noonah. ‘Had that baby eatin outa ya hand in no time. Just the same, ya better get a bit a fun in as well. That Blanchie, she thinkin a gettin married soon. Gunna get married in a church. Maybe we have some sorta party after.�
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  ‘Blanchie is the one with the baby?’ Noonah asked.

  ‘She didn’t count on havin im,’ Mrs Comeaway commented philosophically, ‘but she’s got im just the same.’

  ‘What a fool she must be,’ Trilby said.

  ‘She ain’t a fool,’ Mrs Comeaway said with mild surprise. ‘She’s a real nice girl, that. Bit slow, but nice. Her an that young feller that comes down, you know the one, Tim. Hannie tells me they thinkin a gettin married.’

  ‘Is it his baby?’ Noonah pursued. She was trying to set these facts inside the framework of the mission-teaching.

  ‘Gawd no, that’s not is,’ Mrs Comeaway replied. ‘That baby’s a quadroon. Didn’t you see the colour of it? Father’s a white man. Blanche hadda go down ta the partment bout that baby. Fix up about is maintenance. They made er sign papers an Gawd knows what all. After a while, they find out she’s said the wrong name. Course it wasn’t er fault. All she knows is the man’s name is Popping an it happens there’s two Poppings up in this place. They arst er which one, Neil or Billy, an she says what with them up in the office there starin at er she got real nervous an said Neil thout thinkin it might be the wrong one. An then this Neil sends a picture down the partment ta prove it ain’t im an Blanchie looks at it an she’s never seen im before in er life. She thinks now it musta been Billy, so she tells em that an everything’s held up while they get on ta the bloke that really done it. She was lookin forward ta that money too, poor kid.’

  The girls exchanged a quick look which was the undoing of both.

  ‘I said something funny?’ queried their mother, quite startled. Then she began to laugh herself. ‘Eh, Joe!’ she called. ‘You ever think a that bloke’s face up there when the pleece got on to im bout Blanchie’s baby?’ She slapped her chest and her laughter ended in a fit of coughing.

  After a while they went on again, the four of them welded together by amusement, anticipation and newly-found affection for each other.

  ‘What if it isn’t the other one either?’ Trilby giggled.

  ‘Gawd, don’t say that,’ her mother said, sobered. ‘If it ain’t one it’s gotta be the other, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can’t think how that lot get emselves in so many damn mix-ups,’ Mr Comeaway mused. ‘Take Charlie now. Just thumbin imself a ride landed Charlie in jail a while back.’

  ‘Tell us, Dad,’ Trilby begged, still alight with laughter.

  ‘E’s comin back ta town see?’ Mrs Comeaway took over after a pause. ‘An e’s tired, so e waits on the side a the road for a car ta come along. When one does e yells out for a lift. So the ute stops an ole Charlie climbs in the back an, believe it or not, a pleeceman gets outa the drivin seat an walks round to where Charlie’s makin imself comfortable an the first thing e wants ta know is what’s in the bag. An ya know what’s in that bag?’

  The girls waited, deliciously apprehensive.

  ‘Three chooks, that’s what e’s got.’

  ‘And where did he get them from?’

  ‘Pinched em, a course,’ Mrs Comeaway said promptly. ‘I don’t mean e went in someone’s place. E told us after, they was jus walkin down the road, these chooks, so e wrung their necks for em, looked round fa something ta put em in, an was gunna bring em home to me an Hannie.’

  ‘Only Charlie,’ Mr Comeaway shook his head, ‘would pick out a pleece ute. Got a gift fa doin the wrong thing, ole Charlie.’

  ‘An I was gunna get one,’ Mrs Comeaway said regretfully. ‘The ole fool.’

  FIVE

  From the house, the greater part of the township had been hidden behind circling hills. Now, at the top of a steep rise, the girls saw it spread out beneath them, and stopped short in surprise and pleasure. The houses, and the streets that bisected them, the tallness of pointed pines, the grand columns of a rose-coloured building standing proud on a rise, the cathedral, golden in sunlight, a red and white striped lighthouse guarding the distance, every detail stood out delicate and pure in the crystal-clear air. Away on the outskirts, white combers broke on a curving coastline. Two ships, like visiting majesty, rode at anchor inside a piled-stone breakwater. To the two girls, used to one wide main street and a scatter of grimy houses, the town looked breathtakingly big.

  ‘Well, there she is,’ Mr Comeaway said modestly, vastly pleased at their reaction.

  ‘Bit bigger’n what you been used to,’ Mrs Comeaway commented, coming to a panting standstill behind them. ‘So’s this hill we gotta climb down. Look at it, will ya? Should cut the top off it before they started buildin all over it. All right fa them that’s got cars an them that takes taxis. Gawd, I’m beginnin ta wish I hadn’t wore these shoes.’

  The two elder Comeaways went cautiously on down the hill that curved into the township, leaving their daughters still ecstatic at the top.

  ‘Wonder if there’s pictures,’ Trilby breathed.

  ‘Which way did we come last night?’ Noonah wondered. ‘Where’s the hospital from here?’

  ‘You and your old hospital,’ Trilby laughed, skipping off down the hill like a young foal.

  They reached the main street through another road that meandered past shops and business premises and shabby little old-fashioned houses built close to the footpath. Now that they were in the centre of the town, the girls edged closer to their mother. Mr Comeaway had sloughed himself at the very first corner, claiming important private business. Mrs Comeaway, now that the hill had been safely negotiated, was smugly conscious of her good blue silk frock and her two fresh pretty daughters. The slowness of her pace was calculated to allow everyone a good long look at them. In return, her friends and acquaintances received gracious nods, bestowed with the dignity of a queen.

  ‘My bathers, Mum,’ Trilby whispered. ‘Can I have some to go swimming with Audrena?’

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ Mrs Comeaway’s promenade stopped short. ‘If I didn’t clean forget about money.’ Her face cleared suddenly. ‘That’s where e went. Ta get some. You’ll have ya bathers,’ she promised her daughter. ‘We’ll pick up with ya dad again and get some money for em before e spends it all.’

  ‘Where’s he getting it from?’ Noonah asked.

  ‘Round about,’ Mrs Comeaway said largely. ‘Someone’ll be owin im some. Or e’ll borrow some. E knows I gotta pick up some tucker, anyhow. Can’t do that thout money.’

  ‘Can we go inside one of these shops and have a look round?’ Trilby begged.

  ‘I dunno!’ Mrs Comeaway was uneasy.

  ‘We can look, can’t we?’

  Trilby moved determinedly off through the doorway of a dress shop. Noonah and Mrs Comeaway followed.

  ‘Can’t move a step in these places,’ Mrs Comeaway whispered stealthily, ‘thout one a them tarts comin up. Give anyone the willies.’

  Delightedly, the girls whirled through the dresses on a circular steel display stand. Mrs Comeaway, her back to her charges, a worried frown on her face, stood guard. But at the approach of a slim smiling salesgirl, her courage evaporated. ‘Come on,’ she ordered, ‘we gettin outa here.’

  Trilby’s face was discontented. ‘We’ll go inta Coles,’ Mrs Comeaway placated her. ‘That’s a real nice shop an nobody don’t bother ya.’

  ‘I don’t see why…,’ Trilby began rebelliously, but Noonah intervened. ‘Come on, Trilby, we can go back to that other place tomorrow.’

  At the entrance to the chain store a toddler, escaped from his pushchair, stumbled across their path. Instantly, Noonah had him on the crook of her arm. She was about to return him to his small jail when he was snatched from her arms. ‘That’s my baby,’ a young woman said frowningly. ‘I’ll take care of him, thanks.’

  The smile faded from Noonah’s face. More than her arms felt empty.

  ‘What did she think…?’ she began helplessly, but Trilby cut her short. ‘You’re a nigger. Remember?’ For the space of a second, the sisters’ eyes met. Noonah forgot her own hurt in a flooding of sympathy for Trilby, who in some way had suffered a deeper wound. But she co
ntrolled a desire to express her sympathy. Trilby did not care for stuff like that.

  Mrs Comeaway’s expression spoke volumes but she too kept her mouth closed.

  The chain store was fascinating. The glittering jewellery counter held both girls in thrall. Even the bored-looking girl behind the counter was moved by Trilby’s unashamed wonder.

  ‘I’m going to have lots of these,’ Trilby said excitedly. ‘Look, Mummy, ear-rings and necklaces to match.’

  ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ Mrs Comeaway exchanged a shy smile with the counter girl. ‘She’s not used ta stuff like this.’

  ‘Well,’ the girl was moved to be gracious. ‘I wear it myself sometimes.’

  ‘Do you have paints? And little sleeping dolls?’ Noonah inquired.

  ‘Two counters up,’ the girl replied, and the Comeaway party moved reluctantly away from the bright display.

  ‘That should keep em happy a while,’ Mrs Comeaway said comfortably when Noonah had completed her purchases. ‘That was a real good idea, Noonah. An lucky ya had some money ta pay for em.’

  ‘Mrs Gordon gave me a pound for helping her,’ Noonah said. Most of the pound had vanished. Mrs Comeaway, and Trilby too, had chosen gifts to add to Noonah’s original selection. The whole transaction had been completely satisfying to them all.

  ‘I could stay here all day long,’ Trilby sighed, when they at last made their way out. ‘Those bathers with the red spots, Mummy. Are you sure Dad will let me have them?’

  ‘Course e will,’ Mrs Comeaway reassured her. ‘E’s going ta work tomorrow. An this time I’ll make sure e goes.’

  Trilby’s brow was unclouded again, her grey eyes shining with happiness. She stopped before a milk-bar, resplendently pink and white, a counter replacing the usual glass front. ‘Oh, a milk-bar. Mummy, can we…?’