by Nene Gare
‘Better not,’ Mrs Comeaway said quickly, out of her depth again. ‘Besides,’ she remembered gratefully, ‘we ain’t seen the ole man yet, ta get some money off a him.’
‘It’ll be all right,’ Noonah said, as dazzled as Trilby. ‘I’ve got some money left.’
Mrs Comeaway stood her ground. ‘Not fa me,’ she declared firmly.
Trilby’s eyes flared again, a danger signal Mrs Comeaway was beginning to know. Shoulders back, chin high, the girl marched into the shop. Noonah looked doubtfully at her mother, then followed. They waited behind a group of people who stood at the inside counter. Gradually, the group melted away until only the two girls were left waiting. The attendant looked them over, coolly, casually. ‘Shop at the top of the street serves you people,’ he said. ‘Go on! Beat it!’ Whilst he spoke his eyes kept darting to his customers.
‘Come on,’ Noonah whispered, her face hot.
With the handle of a silver teaspoon the attendant began a quick tattooing on the marble-topped counter.
‘Two vanillas, please,’ Trilby ordered in a high clear voice. She kept her blazing eyes full on the man’s watchful face.
Several customers looked over curiously.
‘Look…I…all right!’ the boy capitulated suddenly. He began spooning ingredients into two silver containers. ‘Just drink em at the counter, will ya?’ He shoved the tall containers beneath two electric mixers, watching the rest of the shop from a mirror that backed a display of chocolates.
Noonah placed a two-shilling piece on the counter as he slid the foaming malted milks over to them.
‘You’ll get the brush-off in here,’ he warned them in a low voice, ‘and don’t say I didn’t tell ya.’
Trilby’s face was grey. Deliberately, she lifted her container from the counter and walked to a table. Helplessly, Noonah followed and heard an anguished ‘Gawd!’ behind her.
The table Trilby chose already had one occupant—a middle-aged man drinking a cup of coffee. He looked up when the girls sat down and for a moment his face retained its pleasant good humoured expression. Then his features froze. He shot a look full of irritation at the boy behind the counter. When he lifted his coffee cup again, it was to drain the contents at a gulp preparatory to leaving.
Just as he was about to rise, however, a voice came from the next table. ‘It’s to be hoped they use some sort of disinfectant on these glasses.’
The man resumed his seat. He looked again at the lowered heads of his table companions, as if he wanted them to look up at him. Then he turned and addressed the young girl who had spoken. ‘That was a damned rude remark,’ he said roughly. ‘If you were my daughter, I’d take you over my knee.’
Grey eyes and brown looked up at him. Shy and startled. It was Trilby who caught his attention. He smiled uncertainly at her as he rose again. And Trilby smiled back at him, the brilliant dazzling smile whose effect Noonah knew well.
The girl at the next table had her back to them again, stiff, straight and offended. ‘Trilby, do you feel all right?’ Noonah whispered. ‘Your hands are shaking.’
‘I don’t want this drink,’ Trilby said distastefully.
‘Leave it,’ Noonah begged, ‘and we’ll just walk out.’
Trilby flung a quick look at the occupants of the milk bar. Nearly all of them were watching openly. Only the offended girl kept her back to them.
‘Wonder if Mum’s still out there,’ Noonah said.
‘I can see her,’ Trilby said through stiff lips. ‘She looks scared stiff.’
Noonah thrust back her chair. Trilby was forced to follow suit. They walked slowly and with dignity out of the shop. The attendant whistled softly as they passed. He was smiling, but they would not meet his glance.
Mrs Comeaway bustled over to them. ‘Wonder they even served ya in there,’ she scolded. ‘I keep telling ya. Little places like that, ya gotta be careful. Them people got their places. We got ours.’ She marched grimly along the street. ‘An I tell ya something else. We like it that way, see?’
Their shopping was done. The presents had been posted to the mission, and a string-bag filled with groceries and meat dangled heavily between Trilby and Noonah.
Somewhere or other, Mr Comeaway had come across some money, and held carefully under Trilby’s arm was a parcel containing two pairs of bathers, for herself and Noonah.
‘I been thinkin,’ Mrs Comeaway said. ‘Spose we walk down an take a little look at them houses in the Wild-Oat Patch. You know, Joe. The ones like the Maybes live in. The ones Charlie keeps yappin about.’
Despite their load, the girls agreed happily. Mrs Comeaway considered her swollen feet and decided they might hold out if she walked real slow.
‘Them houses are goin up special fa coloured folk,’ she told the sisters. ‘All scattered about, too, not in a heap like we was rubbish. That’s what they call discrimination.’
Mr Comeaway laughed. ‘Ya got that arse about,’ he told his wife. ‘Ass-imulation, that’s what you mean. An I ain’t never heard what the nobs think of it. You seen the Maybes lately, Molly? How they getting along with them neighbours a theirs?’
‘All right!’ Mrs Comeaway said drily. ‘They don’t come out an beat em off with sticks. The trouble, I think, is with them Maybes. Stuck-up lot, them an their kids.’
‘One wrong thing that partment did,’ Mr Comeaway said pensively, ‘they made our places different from those others. Seems ta me they shoulda all been the same.’
‘Ours looks bigger,’ Mrs Comeaway defended.
‘Thinkin a the kids we gotta bed down,’ Mr Comeaway commented. ‘Beats me bout these white folks. Never seem ta have many kids. I reckon they got the money and we got the kids, eh?’ He chuckled.
They had reached a part of the town where the streets were narrow and crooked, where mean little houses peered distrustfully through dusty windows, their untidy side-yards overgrown with weeds, only an occasional glory of sunflowers lighting their drabness.
Towards the centre of the town the level of the houses rose. They were bigger here and set well back from the road, freshly painted, steeply roofed, their cold polished eyes glaring arrogantly or hidden deep in the dimness of cool verandas. They had smooth green lawns and gardens where frangipane, flame trees and apple-blossom hibiscus took the place of the vulgar sunflowers. Along the next street, huge well-proportioned Moreton Bay fig trees threw thick shade on a dusty footpath, and when these had been passed the town gave up the struggle and allowed its streets to meet and mingle where they would.
Another steep rise led them to a second attempt at planning. Here, the streets stretched tidily away at right angles to each other, each lined with houses so neat they might have been coloured drawings or children’s models. Most of them were built of asbestos. Some were of timber, freshly painted in bright glowing colours, each just a little different from its neighbour. The whole area seemed treeless. The little tiled roofs could be seen stretching away and away into the distance, geometrically planned, efficiently finished. This was the Wild-Oat Patch which the town council had bulldozed out from undulating sandhills and sown quickly with the seed of the wild oat for protection from the wild southerly winds which swept in off the sea.
Along the outskirts of the area, several houses were in the process of being built. ‘We been here seven years,’ Mrs Comeaway marvelled, ‘an all that time they been buildin these houses. Gawd knows where the peoples come from ta fill em up. Praps them emigrants come up ere. Ever hear em jabberin away, Joe? Wonder ta me they understand what they talkin about.’
‘Everyone’s got their own language,’ Mr Comeaway said patiently. ‘Same as us.’
‘Sounds funny just the same,’ Mrs Comeaway was obdurate. ‘What’s more they teach it ta their kids stead of learnin em ta speak proper. Little bits a kids talkin a lot a damn nonsense nobody can’t understand.’
‘Cept their mothers an fathers,’ Mr Comeaway grinned. He turned to Trilby and Noonah. ‘Look there! That looks like one a ours
. Nice big place, ain’t it?’
‘Daddy! Mummy!’ Noonah’s voice had a breathless note. Her eyes were luminous and pleading. ‘Why can’t we have a house down here?’
The four stopped in their tracks and looked at each other in silence.
Trilby smiled her dazzling smile. ‘Gee!’ she said. ‘Gee! could we?’
Mr Comeaway looked at his wife. ‘I suppose we could,’ he said wonderingly. ‘I suppose we damn well could. If we wanted to.’
‘And get Bartie and Stella down?’ Noonah breathed joyously. ‘Could we?’
Mrs Comeaway kept looking from the half-built house to her husband and back again, as if she needed to see material symbols before she could begin to grasp the potential.
‘Nothin ta stop us,’ Mr Comeaway said recklessly.
‘The money,’ Mrs Comeaway said in a rush. ‘We got no money.’
‘Forty pound,’ Mr Comeaway said grandly. ‘Charlie told me.’
‘We could save it up,’ Trilby planned.
Mr Comeaway looked thoughtful. ‘Now that forty pounds is the deposit, an ya gotta pay that much before they let ya in the place. An Charlie says after that ya got forty year ta pay the rest. That’s a good long time, ain’t it?’
Mrs Comeaway beamed. She saw herself opening her front door and inviting her friends in. Plenty of room for everyone in a place that size. Bartie and baby Stella. They could all come—she could have friends staying with her as often as she liked and no crowding either.
Mr Comeaway’s thought ran parallel with his wife’s. He saw himself leaning on his own front gate, smoking, talking to his neighbours. He saw himself host to his friends. He was conscious of mild surprise that he had not thought of something like this before. Still, he’d thought of it now and he’d see that department man first chance he got and arrange everything properly. Tomorrow, maybe. Some time this week, for certain.
Trilby was off and away, climbing all over the half-built house, counting up rooms, comparing them for size, deciding which one should be her own, determining to have it to herself, planning the furnishing right down to the colour of the frilly net curtains she had seen in magazines.
Noonah’s eyes were on her parents, loving them, thanking them. She saw herself meeting Stella and Bartie at the station, the way she and Trilby had been met. Already, in her mind, she was wording the letter they would write to the superintendent of the mission, telling him that Bartie and Stella could come home. Home!
‘Ain’t nothin’ ta cry bout, that I can see,’ Mr Comeaway rallied her, but Noonah’s mother said nothing, only moving closer to the girl’s side to pat her shoulder and to smile at her.
SIX
On the corner of the main street stood an hotel and at the back of the hotel was a square yard marked off from the lane behind it by an old stone wall. In summer, the wind blasted in straight off the ocean, carrying clouds of sand from the beach that backed the shops. In the winter, the wind was less boisterous but it was keen and cold, cutting through clothing and chilling the spines of those who loitered.
Winter and summer, there was always a little group who sheltered in the lane at the back of the hotel, in the lee of the good solid stone wall. For it was here that Horace held court. Here that he untangled quarrels and deliberated and passed judgement and, incidentally, kept himself informed. Horace’s position was not unique. For every group there is one who leads. Horace was the leader of the coloured community and the only time he absented himself from his duties was when he was locked up in the town jail. And no one of his friends felt less than uneasy until he was back at the helm again.
On his way up to his present eminence, Horace’s nose had been knocked sideways, his ears had been as badly treated as a tom-cat’s, he had lost three or four of his splendid white teeth, and the tear duct of one eye had been damaged. There had been talk of an operation to repair this last bit of damage, but as a certain party said, ‘It’s like this. The operation is going to be very expensive. And it’s not as though Horace has ever been what you might call a “handsome” man.’ The operation had been deferred, a most happy decision, for Horace’s tears only added to his sympathetic and benign expression.
Mr Comeaway was one of Horace’s friends and admirers. He admired Horace’s strength especially. Many a time he had watched Horace being bundled down the street shouting and swearing, his foot slipping slyly out to trip an adversary, his iron fists flailing and, with all the commotion, looking as if he were having the time of his life. One bottle of port royal did a lot for Horace. Three gave him the strength of a giant.
When all was over, and Horace had had a good rest on his jail cot, he was a different man entirely, gentle and well-behaved, shocked and unbelieving of his doings of the night before, changing to remorseful amusement as his memory was refreshed by the monarch. In fact, such was the undivided attention Horace bestowed on those who refreshed his memory, so many were the grave shakings of his battle-scarred head, the officers of the police force quite often grew confused; feeling that they placed a case before a kindly but impartial judge.
True to the promise he had made his family, Mr Comeaway was on his way down to see the department man. But first he wished to have a word about the matter with Horace. It was not that his mind was not firmly made up. Perhaps it was an urge to astonish his old friend and, at the same time, to receive what undoubtedly would be Horace’s stamp of approval on the venture.
Horace nodded affably. Mr Comeaway rolled two cigarettes and courteously left his friend’s unlicked. Then he selected a good place to lean. They smoked a while in companionable and comfortable silence.
‘Calling in by the partment chap today,’ Mr Comeaway said at last, very casually.
Nothing about Horace betrayed that his attention had been instantly engaged. Being a semi-official employee of the department, he frequently called there himself. There was his weekly ration to pick up; there was his pound note to collect once a month; his buckets and brooms and mops wore out and had to be replaced, and when he was quite certain that evil-doers were well off and away, he reported breakages of equipment on the government reserve which was his sacred charge.
Moreover, being such a regular visitor, he was in a position to advise would-be visitors of their correct behaviour, particularly if such advice might be needed to smooth out mistakes and misunderstandings.
‘Bout one a them houses down the Wild-Oat Patch,’ Mr Comeaway said, eyeing the shaggy end of his cigarette.
Horace remained silent a while, after which he cleared his throat and spat.
Mr Comeaway waited. And then he became impatient. ‘What ya think a the idea?’
Horace took out his own tobacco and cigarette papers and rolled another cigarette. When it was lit he fixed his back against the wall and squinted through smoke at a group of men emerging from a doorway on the other side of the street.
‘Well!’ Mr Comeaway said. His bottom lip jutted a trifle. ‘Ya think something’s wrong bout getting a house?’
Horace turned right round. ‘Ya gunna regret it, boy. I think ya gunna regret it.’
Aggrieved and disappointed, Mr Comeaway threw his new cigarette down and ground it out half-smoked as it was. Regret it?
‘You all right where ya are, ain’t ya? Nice little place up on the hill? Mrs Green—an there’s a nice ole lady—livin right near an handy so ya ole woman don’t get running round fa someone ta talk to? And ya wanta shift out there? An pay rent an stuff?’
A sweet wash of relief cooled Mr Comeaway’s injured feelings. If that was all!
‘We got that worked out,’ he said simply. ‘I just keep goin down that wharf every day not missin out. We can pay that rent all right.’
The glint in Horace’s eye could easily have been warm interest, and only Horace knew for sure that it came from a lack of illusions. Horace forgave because he understood. Now he settled himself into another more comfortable position and examined the sky.
‘Rent days has a habit of comin up prett
y regular,’ he gave of his wisdom. ‘Can upset a man’s whole day, sposin e’s been working out some different sort a plan fa spending is money.’
Mr Comeaway grappled with this in silence for a while, deciding finally on another tack. ‘This ain’t no new thing,’ he said earnestly. ‘Mus be two weeks now we went down an had a look at them houses. Showin the kids the town like. An we had a look at one just goin up, an Noonah—that’s the one’s gunna be a nurse—she said why didn’t we just get one a them houses an live down there. So that’s how we done it but we saved a bit a money first—that’s for the deposit—to show im we was good peoples to let get a house.’ He dragged a tobacco-tin out of his pocket and fiddled with the tight-fitting lid. ‘That’s what I got here. An that ain’t all,’ he continued, a little uncertain now. ‘After we been there a while I been thinkin we might get our rights.’
Horace showed his shock. A look almost of unfriendliness passed over his face, though this was the only sign he gave that his friend had stubbed, with his big clumsy tongue, right at Horace’s single sensitive spot. Citizenship had been in Horace’s mind for many a long day, but so far it had remained out of reach, advancing and retreating in line with his periods of freedom and his periods of confinement to a jail cell. He had tried often to bring it within grasping distance, but when the time was ripe, which is to say, when his unbending determination was beginning to melt into a mere resolve to keep out of trouble if he could and when this first coincided with one of his many friends arriving at the camp with a big shearing cheque, then, as surely as a punch in the nose brings close arrest, Horace got himself picked up.
It was the strength in him that did it. All that strength that a few bottles of conto lent him. A man couldn’t use it all up in talk and it had to be got rid of somehow. Horace could never fathom his reason for seeking out uniforms but it always happened that way and he had never yet met the monarch who was as forgiving as a friend might have been.