The Fringe Dwellers

by Nene Gare

  These slips between cup and lip constituted the only infelicity in Horace’s otherwise happy adjustment to life, and nobody who ever followed his sage counsel to stay citizenship-less ever suspected that the grapes were sour.

  He now wagged a stern finger under Mr Comeaway’s nose. ‘Get that house if ya like, but leave them damn rights alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  A tear or two ran down Horace’s left cheek. ‘Because,’ he said heavily, ‘I’ll tell ya for why. Me boy,’ another long pause whilst Horace searched the street for advancing friends and inspiration, ‘ya don’t know what ya might be running yaself into.’

  Horace was genuinely at a loss how to proceed from here. Only a week or so back he could have used his most potent argument—no more hand-outs from the department—but some busybody had changed all that now, and a man only needed a teaspoonful of blackfeller blood in his veins to be eligible for departmental aid.

  ‘Ya know all them questions ya gotta answer?’ Horace asked gravely, seeing his tack at last.

  ‘What about them then?’

  ‘Peerin and pokin round ya private life?’

  Mr Comeaway’s face took on a wary look.

  ‘Ain’t even sure they might want ya to confess.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Things ya done,’ Horace said airily. ‘Any little thing ya mighta done. Robbin a bank, things like that.’

  Mr Comeaway was definitely uneasy now.

  ‘An I tell ya something else. Everyone say you good man, Joe boy. So why would ya go an think ya was better than other peoples, you tell me that?’ Horace was convincing himself as well now. His heart overflowed with compassion for his friend. If he had been deemed unable to manage citizenship rights, how much less able was Joe Comeaway? Clearly, he must save his friend from all that worry and responsibility.

  ‘Ever see the Maybes?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Not too often.’

  Horace nodded, his expression stern. ‘That ole man wouldn’t give ya one drop a conto, not if ya lay dyin. One time I arst im. Too good now. Think us fellers unrespectable, think trouble might come spose they look at a feller. An that ole woman a his, marchin round with er string-bag an that black hat on er head, telling the childrens ta come on an stop talkin when I know them kids since they was born. Lations a mine even. Arrk!’ Horace spat disgustedly.

  ‘It was them girls,’ Mr Comeaway said humbly. ‘They said about it.’

  ‘I’m tellin ya well,’ Horace said sternly. ‘You leave them rights fa the foolish ones. Nother thing, I can get ya a bottle a conto when ya want it—cheap,’ he weighed Mr Comeaway’s possibilities, ‘seven bob? Eight bob? Real good stuff fa nine or ten bob. An that’s without you landin yaself in no trouble.’

  ‘Them Maybes,’ Mr Comeaway allowed, ‘act sometimes like they wouldn’t spit on ya.’

  Horace’s nostrils flared. ‘An nor us on them,’ he declared vehemently. ‘Don’t you be forgettin that.’ He snorted. ‘Im with is wouldn’t wanta get in no trouble. For a bit of a drink for a bloke that’s been a friend to im and er.’ His brown eyes twinkled. ‘And her,’ he repeated.

  Mr Comeaway’s mind had wandered. ‘By gee, I could do with a drink. Two or three.’ He took out his tobacco tin again and carefully extracted two pound notes.

  They melted beneath Horace’s big dark hand. Horace smiled sweetly. ‘That feller that gets me the stuff, lets me have it fa ten bob now. Cause e knows I don’t tell where I get it spose I get picked up. Get yaself a name like I got boy an ya right.’

  ‘An fa Gawd’s sake don’t drop the bag comin up the hill,’ Mr Comeaway begged.

  ‘I ad a haccident,’ Horace said primly, ‘that time.’

  Mr Comeaway looked as if he might be about to comment, but he changed his mind. If Horace knew he had had a look about, just a squint, round the place where Horace had said he had had his accident, because he thought maybe the sugar-bag might have cushioned just one bottle’s fall, and that he had found nothing at all at the said site, not even a bit of broken glass or a sugar-bag… Mr Comeaway’s instinct and his long undisturbed friendship with Horace sealed his lips. He nodded understandingly.

  ‘Bloody rock on the road,’ Horace said, and again Mr Comeaway nodded.

  ‘Jus fa Christ’s sake be bloody careful,’ he begged. ‘I’m puttin me neck out just givin ya the money, ya wanta know. All the whole lot of em’s talkin bout nothing but this damn house.’

  It was Horace’s turn to nod understandingly, but his eyes were on his next lot of visitors. He welcomed them with a smile. Careless but proprietorial, he moved a step away from the wall.

  Mr Comeaway went on his way meditating, concluding with some relief that no matter what, it was a good thing for a man to have a friend who would take up his troubles, sort them through and return them to him all straightened out.

  ‘Where’s the girls?’ Mr Comeaway asked later that afternoon, dumping a parcel of meat on the table.

  ‘The skies’ll fall,’ Mrs Comeaway said, eyeing the blood-soaked package. ‘What’s come over you, bringin meat home thout even askin?’

  ‘Ya need it don’t ya?’ There was an irascible note in his voice. Bad enough lugging the stuff home without being eased out of the rôle of benefactor.

  ‘Course I do,’ Mrs Comeaway admitted. ‘Didn’t need enough ta feed a flock a elephants but. Have ta give some ta Mrs Green I spose. Save it goin bad.’ She sat down on one of the beds, leaving the meat where it lay on the table.

  ‘Naggin womans,’ Mr Comeaway confided to the ceiling, having lowered his weary body on to Noonah’s bed. ‘Where’s the girls, I arst?’

  ‘Trilby’s around somewhere. Noonah’s gone down to see that hospital woman,’ Mrs Comeaway answered. ‘Ain’t she been talking bout it for a fortnight?’

  ‘Yeah! That’s right! Wonder if she’ll be all right.’

  ‘Course she will. Somethin wrong if she don’t.’

  ‘Where ya think I been?’

  ‘Standin outside the pub talking ta ole Horace,’ Mrs Comeaway said promptly.

  ‘Well I ain’t,’ her spouse said, shooting out his bottom lip at this second piece of obtuseness. ‘I been down to the partment an seen that man. Told you I was going this week,’ he added, glumly reproachful now that he had Mrs Comeaway’s full attention.

  ‘Bout the house?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Mr Comeaway said triumphantly.

  Trilby skipped through the swinging door of the humpy.

  ‘Guess where ya father’s been,’ Mrs Comeaway said instantly, swinging round to face her.

  Trilby’s eyes went to her father. ‘Where?’

  ‘Been down ta see bout the house, that’s what,’ Mrs Comeaway said, simmering excitement in her voice. She turned back to her husband. ‘Now! What happened? We get one?’

  ‘Well,’ Mr Comeaway said portentously, removing some obstructions at the foot of Noonah’s bed simply by kicking them off, ‘I’ll just tell ya.’

  ‘Did you ask if we could have one with red paint and little steps and a veranda on the side?’ Trilby asked eagerly.

  Mr Comeaway puffed out his cheeks. ‘First,’ he announced, ‘we gotta save up another eighteen pound. That’s the first thing we gotta do. Twenty-six pound the deposit is.’

  ‘Wait,’ Mrs Comeaway said, doing a little figuring in her head, ‘we already got ten, ain’t we?’

  ‘Eight,’ Mr Comeaway said smoothly. ‘Horace is gunna bring a few bottles up tonight ta celebrate.’ He kept a stern eye on his wife until he saw that she accepted this fact.

  ‘Then, when we got this eighteen pound, we shift down there.’

  Trilby hugged herself and hopped about on one foot. Mrs Comeaway beamed.

  ‘Then when we get into the house,’ Mr Comeaway continued, ‘we gotta pay rent an we don’t have ta get behind with it. That gotta be paid every week regular like a clock. I told im then bout me workin down that wharf an that rent business don’t worry us. Told im few other things, too
. Like how we keep the place clean an got Noonah goin ta be a nurse an all that. So he knows we’s a good family an got nice childrens.’

  ‘And what about the colour?’ Trilby demanded. ‘Can we have a painted house?’

  Mr Comeaway shook his head. ‘We gotta do all that.’

  ‘I think they’re just being mean,’ Trilby said furiously. ‘I wanted a painted house. Now everyone’ll know it’s just a nigger’s place.’

  Mr and Mrs Comeaway gazed at their daughter in frowning bafflement.

  ‘Why, you just a young hussy, sayin things like that bout ya own people,’ Mrs Comeaway said, raising to stand threateningly over her daughter. ‘What you say a thing like that for eh?’

  ‘It’s not me—it’s them,’ Trilby said, angry tears choking her voice. ‘They spoil everything for us. They try every way they can to make us feel mean and little. Even down at the post office they try. We’ve got a name, haven’t we? So why do they have to lump us all under “Natives”. What’s so different about us? They’re beasts. I hate the lot of them.’

  ‘I oughta give ya a good clip over the ear,’ her mother said, still frowning. But there was more worry than anger in her face now. She flung a look of appeal at her husband.

  ‘Let er alone,’ Mr Comeaway said, himself perturbed at the outburst. ‘She’s jumpin out of er skin with excitement. Ain’t that the trouble, Trilby?’

  Trilby forced herself to be calm, despising herself for her weakness. It didn’t pay to lose your temper. It never had in the past. It never would. Her mother cuffed her gently on the side of the head. ‘All right! You remember what I said, though, an don’t go calling us peoples niggers.’

  ‘Ya know what?’ Mr Comeaway ruminated. ‘We sposed ta keep this house only to ourselves. No lations, no peoples comin down for a holiday like. E says tell em we don’t have no beds for em.’

  ‘They ain’t partickler bout beds,’ Mrs Comeaway said dubiously.

  Neither saw much sense in the advice. A good roof meant shelter, and the number of those who sheltered could only be limited by the size of the roof. To the Comeaways, twenty-six sounded a likelier figure than six.

  ‘E showed me a thing e called a blue-print,’ Mr Comeaway said at last, dismissing the matter. ‘So I could see everything. Got little rooms an one big room fa livin in, got a stove an a sink fa washing up cups, an all the clothes get washed inside this house, an there’s troughs to wash em in.’

  ‘I seen them sinks,’ Mrs Comeaway nodded. ‘Stainless steel. That’s gunna be a jump up, eh Trilby?’

  ‘Are we allowed to paint it any colour we like?’ Trilby asked.

  ‘It’s our house, ain’t it?’ grinned Mr Comeaway.

  ‘Not yet it ain’t,’ Mrs Comeaway was more practical. ‘We gotta save up more money yet.’

  ‘The partment man’s gunna do that,’ her husband said comfortably. ‘All we gotta do, we take im our spare money, and e puts it away somewhere and lets us know when we got enough.’

  ‘Sounds safer than that ole tobacco tin,’ Mrs Comeaway chuckled. ‘Remember that time we was gunna save up and go an see the kids up the mission.’

  ‘Always rememberin some damn thing happened years ago,’ Mr Comeaway said irritably.

  Mrs Comeaway chuckled again. ‘An I got plenty a things ta pick from.’ Seeing a storm gathering in her husband’s eyes she relented. ‘Good things, too. Spose I remember back far enough.’

  Trilby giggled. Then she bent a persuasive look on her mother.

  ‘Can I have a room all to myself where I can put things and not have people touching them? Can I please, Mummy?’ Her grey eyes were limpid pools and did not disclose that on this point she had already made up her mind. The front room of the humpy had become, with the addition of the two beds, a comfortable sitting-room. Often, the girls had to wait wearily for visitors to depart before they could claim their beds. Oftener still, being healthy young animals whose activities took place during the hours of daylight, they tired of waiting and curled themselves up on the big bed in the back room. Sometimes the visitors would still be there when they woke next morning, and they would find their mother stretched out alongside them and their father sleeping on a pile of old clothes on the floor.

  Trilby hated this disorderliness and tried to alter it, but she might just as well have saved her energy.

  ‘They living way over in the bush,’ Mrs Comeaway would say vaguely. ‘Mighta missed their way in all that dark.’

  ‘They should have left when it was light enough to see well,’ Trilby would snap.

  ‘Yeah! That’s right,’ Mrs Comeaway would agree cheerfully. ‘An they meant to. They was going ta do that! It was just we got talkin an then someone wanted a game an there ya are.’ An expressive shrug of the shoulders disclaimed responsibility.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to sleep in my bed but me,’ Trilby pursued.

  Her father chuckled. ‘I would say the same.’

  ‘Well!’ Mrs Comeaway soothed. ‘I should think ya can have a room to yaself. You an Noonah.’

  Trilby considered. ‘And nobody else, not even if they’re cousins.’

  Mrs Comeaway looked over at her husband. ‘You sure that man meant real lations like Hannie an Charlie an them girls?’

  ‘I hope he did,’ Trilby said spitefully.

  Noonah came through the door and stood there, hot, perspiring and happy. ‘It’s all right! I can be a nurse.’

  ‘And we’re getting the house,’ Trilby said triumphantly.

  SEVEN

  Mr and Mrs Comeaway and Trilby sat listening to all that Noonah had to tell them. Mrs Comeaway’s face showed surprised respect at the long medical terms which tripped so easily off her daughter’s tongue. Mr Comeaway blanketed equal respect under a lavish display of casualness. Fortunately, he could leave all questioning to his wife, because Mrs Comeaway was willing to admit to any shameful degree of ignorance in order to find out what she wanted to know.

  ‘An what would that thing be, that thing you said?’

  ‘Vocational Guidance Test? That’s to show if I’m going to be all right at nursing.’

  ‘You wanta be one don’t ya?’ Mrs Comeaway said with simple faith. ‘An what comes after that?’

  ‘I have to go away for ten weeks to a training school in Perth. If I pass my examination when that’s over I can start training at the hospital here.’

  ‘Perth, eh?’ Mr Comeaway said. ‘My daughter,’ he would say later, to selected friends, ‘has to go to Perth. The government wants her to go to Perth for a while.’

  ‘I get about six pound a week to start off with.’

  His eyes widened. He had never looked on his children as potential money makers but the thought was not unpleasant.

  ‘Two pound fifteen is taken out every week for board and stuff,’ Noonah said.

  Mr Comeaway did some mental arithmetic. Even after two pound fifteen had been taken out there was still a wad of money left over.

  ‘Of course I’ll have to buy a lot of text-books to start off with,’ Noonah went on, ‘and there’s deductions for uniforms and insurance…’

  Mr Comeaway gave up his mental arithmetic and philosophically went back to just listening.

  ‘Now tell us about nursing,’ Mrs Comeaway begged, settling herself more comfortably. ‘What sorta jobs ya have ta do. I was in a hospital once. Fa bein ill, I mean. Always wakin ya up ta wash ya an if they not doing that they dosin ya up with medicine. Wake ya up when it’s still dark just ta wash ya. I tole em not ta bother bout me, seein they had so much else ta see to. Didn’t do no good. I hadda be washed just the same.’

  ‘Me too, that time I broke my arm,’ Mr Comeaway said feelingly. ‘Made me feel real shamed, the things they done ta me. Didn’t like ta say nothing, but by crikey, I dunno. Don’t seem ta act like ordinary womans, them nurses. And will I forget the day I come in. Damn near took the skin offa me, they did. “Fair go,” I told em, “a man’s gotta have some sort a cover fa the meat on is bones.”’
r />   Noonah giggled. Trilby, who had been listening in scornful silence, joined in. Obligingly, their parents followed suit.

  Recovering, Noonah said, ‘The scrubbing is to get all the germs off you, so they won’t infect you with something.’

  ‘Thought germs was little things you could hardly see,’ Mr Comeaway said whimsically. ‘Not stuff ya have ta take a great mop to.’

  ‘That’s one of the subjects I have to take in Perth,’ Noonah said, her eyes alight. ‘Hygiene, asepsis.’

  ‘Come again!’

  ‘I think we’ll be taken to see the sewerage places and the water department and things like that.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mrs Comeaway, who could see no connection.

  ‘Listen to these,’ Noonah said, reading from a prospectus. ‘Anatomy, Physiology, Theory and Practice of Nursing, Personal and Communal Health, and First Aid.’

  ‘I know what that First Aid is,’ Mr Comeaway said quickly, grateful in his knowledge. ‘People faintin and all like that.’

  ‘I haven’t learned much about it yet,’ Noonah said tactfully.

  ‘So you’ll be goin off ta Perth just when I’m gettin used ta having ya round,’ Mrs Comeaway said, but without reproach.

  ‘And when I come back I have to live at the hospital,’ Noonah said anxiously. ‘You knew that, didn’t you? I’m allowed home praps three nights in two weeks. I’m not sure. Anyhow, I get some time off and I’ll come straight home.’

  ‘Oh well,’ Mr Comeaway said, ‘love ya an leave ya.’

  ‘Mummy, you can have all the money that’s left over,’ Noonah said earnestly. ‘And that’ll help you when the kids get back.’

  ‘I spose we better start thinkin bout beds fa everyone,’ Mrs Comeaway said.

  ‘Gee, I nearly forgot,’ Mr Comeaway took her up. ‘We can get beds all right. Might be a bit left over fa some other doodahs too. That partment man says we get forty quid ta spend on furniture, soon as we move inta that house. An that’s fa nothin.’

  Mrs Comeaway looked as if the entrance to her mind was getting choked up again. ‘Beds!’ she murmured. ‘Fa six of us. An we got three already.’ She gazed intently at the two new beds.