The Fringe Dwellers

by Nene Gare

  ‘Gutsache, that’s what,’ Mr Comeaway grinned before Noonah could speak.

  ‘They do say you have to have protein as well,’ she got in when the two had stopped laughing. ‘And vitamins, too.’

  ‘Yes, ya ole fool,’ Mr Comeaway teased his wife.

  ‘I like ta know who you callin ole fool,’ Mrs Comeaway said, half rising from her chair. ‘An if ya think I’m gunna start feedin ya all them things Noonah says, ya make a big mistake.’

  ‘But…,’ Noonah said, laughing.

  Mr Comeaway held up one hand. ‘Let er go,’ he said peaceably. ‘I managed this long on the stuff she slaps together. I dessay I can go it a bit longer.’

  ‘Ere’s ole Skippy,’ Mrs Comeaway said, looking over their heads. ‘Just look at im, will ya?’

  ‘Think it was a walkin heap a clothes,’ Mr Comeaway guffawed, ‘if ya didn’t know ole Skippy was inside of em.’ He got up and walked to the doorway. ‘Someone tole me e was in hospital one time an they discharged im as being a uncurable. Been uncurable ever since an likely ta see the lot of us out, ask me.’

  Noonah joined her father, watching the old man affectionately. All his clothes looked too big for him. His boots clopped loosely on the pavement, his trouser legs, even though folded over and over at the bottoms, still concertinaed round his boots, and the sleeves of his coat obscured his hands. Like the rest of his clothes, his hat, a wide-brimmed felt, was too big for his shrunken head, and at this moment it sat sideways on. Every now and then Skippy gave it an impatient jab and it did a little jig on his head before sliding down again over his forehead.

  He stopped inside the gate and looked towards the veranda. His dim old eyes peered anxiously from beneath the brim of his hat and his black cavity of a mouth hung open. He looked like an old prehistoric bird. His face brightened when he saw Noonah standing with her father. Noonah was kind to him, and gentle. He liked her.

  ‘You’ve come down at last,’ Noonah said, as she helped him up the steps.

  ‘Gettin a house meself soon,’ Skippy cackled. ‘I come down ta see what this one like.’ He fixed her with a stern eye. ‘Ya got ya water on yet?’

  ‘Water?’ Noonah said, puzzled.

  Mrs Comeaway laughed. ‘I know what e means,’ she told Noonah. ‘Now fa Gawd’s sake get im inside an let im sit down. Poor old bugger must be wore out traipsin down here.’

  ‘Like a mug?’ Mr Comeaway said loudly, waving a cup in front of the old man’s face.

  Skippy refused to be seated. Instead he rolled across to the sink. ‘Let im go,’ he commanded, looking at the tap.

  Mrs Comeaway smiled into Noonah’s mystified face. She gave the tap a twist and let the water stream down into the sink. ‘Hunhh!’ Skippy grunted, and rolled back to his chair. For a while he just sat, recovering the breath he had lost in his climb up the steps.

  ‘What’s that about the water, Mummy?’ Noonah whispered.

  ‘Some of is pals, up the road a bit. They get theirselves a house, an because they was in such a hurry ta move in the water didn’t get put on till a while after. Skippy was stayin with em, see? An nobody couldn’t make im understand that that water was comin just as soon as the waterworks people got around to it. You know what I tell ya bout him thinkin the pleece do everything. So what he does, he takes his pension book up ta the station an throws it down on the counter an roars that the pleece can keep their damn pension if they ain’t gunna put water on his lations’ house. Went ta town on em, e did, an the pleece no more able ta make im understand they got nothin ta do with it than the Mungos ad been.’

  Noonah laughed and sent a compassionate look at Skippy. ‘So what happened then?’

  Mrs Comeaway’s bulk was shaking. ‘The water gets put on the very next day. Don’t ask me if the pleece done something bout it because I dunno. An don’t try ta tell ole Skippy they didn’t, either. E thinks that water got put on because he ticked off them pleecemen.’

  ‘And what about his pension book?’

  ‘Ah, they made im take it back. Gawd, that little ole bastard.’ Mrs Comeaway looked admiringly at Skippy. ‘Makin everyone crawl to im. Dried up little runt like im.’

  ‘Ya hear?’ Skippy asked Mr Comeaway. ‘I tell ya I gunna get me place. I been arstin fa this ouse long time now. Long time. Now I get im.’

  ‘Where’s e gunna be built?’ Mr Comeaway roared.

  ‘I gotta place,’ the old man tittered. ‘Gettin old now. Time I go back, eh? I borned up there, ya know that? Now I go back. An my friend e build me ouse.’

  ‘Who’s his friend?’ Noonah asked in an undertone.

  ‘That’s the partment man,’ Mrs Comeaway said. ‘No wonder e’s buildin im a house. Glad to get rid a the ole bastard I s’pose.’

  ‘Im friend,’ Skippy said indignantly. ‘My friend.’

  ‘There y’are,’ Mrs Comeaway said, amused. ‘One minute deaf as a post. Next minute bitin ya head off cause ya said somethin e don’t oughta heard.’

  ‘Give im a cuppa tea,’ Mr Comeaway said. ‘Settle im down.’

  ‘Hope e’s got it right,’ Mrs Comeaway said dubiously. ‘Don’t e come from up the Kimberleys? Seems funny ta me, sendin someone up all that way ta build im a house.’

  Skippy mumbled happily over his tea. ‘Git pretty colour on my floor now.’

  Mr Comeaway grinned. ‘You get new wife now you got new house?’

  Skippy nodded amiably. ‘For work. For cook,’ he squeaked. ‘Git plenty kangaroo tail now awright.’

  ‘Puttin ideas in is ead,’ Mrs Comeaway said disgustedly. ‘Gawd elp im if one a them young ones gets old of his pension book.’

  Mr Comeaway rose and stretched himself. ‘Gunna take a little walk. See what’s doin.’

  ‘Ya gunna take im with ya?’ Mrs Comeaway nodded at the drowsy old man.

  ‘He’s nearly asleep, poor old thing,’ Noonah said sympathetically. ‘Let him stay for a while.’

  Mr Comeaway looked at his wife. ‘What about a couple, eh?’ He moved nearer the shelf on which Mrs Comeaway had placed the tobacco-tin.

  Mrs Comeaway hesitated. ‘Ah, go on then,’ she said weakly. ‘Be careful but. No gettin us in trouble.’

  ‘Doesn’t Dad still work on the wharf?’ Noonah asked her mother when Mr Comeaway had gone and Skippy’s old head was resting on his arms.

  Mrs Comeaway shrugged. ‘E goes down sometimes. I dunno! P’raps there ain’t been so much loadin lately.’

  ‘How do you manage well?’ There was a little frown on Noonah’s forehead.

  ‘I get me little bit a dowment comin in now—fa young Bartie an Stella. All helps. You bring a bit home. Get a bit at cards. Tick up a bit down the corner shop.’

  ‘What about rent?’

  ‘Now don’t you go worryin ya head bout us,’ Mrs Comeaway soothed.

  Noonah ran a hand over the knicked table-top, feeling its grooves and bumps. ‘Audrena came up to see me this week. Auntie Hannie and Blanchie came up a couple of days after.’

  ‘Money?’ Mrs Comeaway enquired swiftly.

  Noonah nodded. ‘I don’t mind, Mummy. But I get in trouble if I have too many visitors when I’m on duty. We’re not supposed to.’

  Mrs Comeaway sat stiff and angry. ‘Ya don’t have ta tell me. They on to ya now. They know they can go up an bite ya fa a bit every now and then, the cows. I like ta knock their blocks off, comin round gettin you in trouble. I’m gunna tell em ta keep away fum you.’

  ‘Gee, Mummy, I don’t suppose it matters as much as all that.’ Noonah was a bit perturbed. ‘It’s just that I’m not supposed to leave the ward when I’m on duty, and I have to, to get my money.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be the only one,’ Mrs Comeaway said, still grim. ‘Anyone knows ya got a bit, they on ta ya like a lotta seagulls. Even me an my bit a dowment.’ She rested firmly fleshed arms on the table. An indrawn breath flared her nostrils, and curved her mouth into a line of irony. ‘Not that ya can blame the poor bastards, I s’pose.’

  ‘An awful l
ot don’t work, and they don’t seem to want to,’ Noonah said diffidently. ‘Why, Mummy?’

  ‘Don’t you go measurin us up against white folk, Noonah,’ Mrs Comeaway warned. ‘The men works, they get the rough stuff to do. They get tired a that. Many a time I helped Joe do the burnin off on properties round about ere. An that’s a picnic longside a some other jobs e’s had.’

  Swift sympathy softened Noonah’s face.

  Mrs Comeaway was encouraged to continue. ‘Can’t really blame em, wantin ta take a bit of a holiday like, every now an then. Would meself, I hadda do half what the men do. Sides,’ she chuckled suddenly. ‘It’s all in. Ya bite someone one day, ya gotta expect ta be bit back when it’s your turn. Ain’t that right?’

  ‘Gawd, Noonah,’ she said a moment later. ‘I ever tell ya bout that time ole Bung Arrer’s pension come through?’ She settled back in her chair and swished her pink tongue round her smiling lips. ‘It’s like this, see? The ole bloke’s been bummin round on folk long as I been here. And then someone sees bout a pension for im. E goes round tellin everyone e’s gunna get this big lotta money that’s been buildin up since e’s reached the age where they give out pensions, see? And the day e gets it, there they are, all of em. Seventeen! For a bit a fun I counted eads. All waitin outside the post office fa ole Bung Arrer.’ She put her head back and held on to the rippling folds of her stomach until her laughter had spent itself. Noonah laughed too, but there was compassion in her laughter.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Mrs Comeaway gasped. ‘Some a them seen the funny side an they left im a bit ta get on with.’

  ‘And what were you doing there?’ Noonah teased, relieved at this not too unhappy ending.

  Her mother was unabashed. ‘Waitin ta bite im, a course.’

  ‘You’re awful,’ Noonah giggled, but there was affection in the look she gave her mother. Despite their undercurrent of tragedy, these were the tales she loved to hear when she came home. These were her people. She would not have had them much different.

  Skippy woke with a start. He pulled his lax old limbs and his bird-like head in, towards his skinny body, as though he must concentrate his strength.

  ‘Come down ere fa a good cuppa tea,’ he announced, an evil twinkle in his hooded eyes.

  ‘Ya just had a cuppa tea,’ Mrs Comeaway roared indignantly.

  The twinkle vanished. ‘Nice thing, ole man can’t git a cuppa tea when e needs it. Nice thing that is.’

  ‘All right!’ Mrs Comeaway moaned. ‘All right! Put the kettle on, Noonah.’

  FOURTEEN

  One of the things Mr Comeaway liked to do on these hot nights was to sit on the top step of the front veranda and from there to survey his new kingdom—neat, small gardens stretching away to right and left—neat, small houses behind them—little white picket fences marking off each quarter-acre block, and now that dusk was falling, the sweet and heady scent of Mrs Henwood’s stocks to delight his nostrils.

  ‘Them plants her-next-door put in, they growin?’ he enquired of his wife, who was seated in a cane chair just behind him.

  ‘Dunno!’ Mrs Comeaway said. ‘Ain’t seen er for a week or more.’

  ‘Thought ya said she was gunna come over an see to em.’

  ‘She ain’t and I ain’t,’ Mrs Comeaway said, kismet fashion. ‘Tell ya the truth, I clean forgot about em.’ She leaned forward to peer over the veranda. ‘Don’t see em now, do you?’

  Mr Comeaway heaved himself up and clumped down the steps to investigate. ‘Nup! Nothin there.’ He straightened and sighed. ‘Woulda been nice, avin a few flowers.’

  Mrs Comeaway shook her head in commiseration. ‘Musta been somethin wrong with that pot-plant she gave me, too. Went brown an all the leaves come off.’

  ‘Don’t matter,’ Mr Comeaway said nobly, climbing the steps again. After a while he said thoughtfully: ‘Praps if you was to tell er them plants she put in went an died, praps she might put in some more.’

  ‘An take better care next time,’ Mrs Comeaway disapproved. ‘After all, it ain’t me that’s the gardner. She was the one seemed set on a garden.’

  Trilby listened without interest, leaning her head languidly against the wall of the sleepout. Bartie and Stella whispered and giggled together and dragged themselves round the veranda on their stomachs.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind a few peoples round tonight,’ Mr Comeaway offered.

  ‘An it looks as if ya gunna have em,’ Mrs Comeaway told him. ‘Here’s a taxi comin now.’

  The Comeaways peered hopefully through the dusk. Few of their friends owned cars. Most of them were forced to use taxis, unless, of course, they preferred to walk, and few of the Comeaways’ friends preferred to walk.

  The taxi stopped before the Comeaway house, and everyone on the veranda waited expectantly. Dark figures detached themselves from the cab and on the still air there sounded the sharp clink of bottle against bottle.

  Mr Comeaway smiled gently, and contentment flooded his soul.

  ‘Couldn’t let ole Nipper go back thout comin down ta see yous an ya new house,’ Charlie said jovially. ‘Gee, we ad some times since e’s been down. Goin back tomorrow.’

  ‘Ole Nipper, eh?’ Mr Comeaway’s voice was full of welcome. ‘Whadda ya know? An young Stoney Broke an Phyllix, ain’t it?’

  ‘An Hannie,’ Mrs Comeaway said of the sad silhouette that followed the men. ‘Come in then.’

  Behind her mother, Trilby stood stiffly against the wall, her body pin-pointing with shock.

  ‘An be gee, we gotta remember the time that train goes tomorrow,’ Nipper grinned in warning. ‘They short anded. Boss only let me come down ta get me back fixed. Thinkin a takin young Phyllix back ta help out, seein is own team’s finishing up.’

  ‘What’s a coupla days between friends,’ Mr Comeaway said hospitably. ‘Should park yaselves down ere with us a while. Got plenty a room.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Stoney remarked, looking round admiringly. ‘Trouble is, it wasn’t zactly like the boy ere says it was. Boss didn’t let us come. We just tole im we was comin. Cause a Nipper’s back.’

  ‘An bicrikey, was e mad!’ Nipper chuckled. ‘Thing was, we was just startin a shed, an me ole pal Stoney wasn’t gunna let a bloke come down by hisself.’ He winked. ‘Not havin this bad back like.’

  ‘E stacked on a turn,’ Stoney grinned. ‘Said if we went we didn’t need ta come back because e’d get someone else in ta do the job.’

  ‘So ya see ow it is, boy,’ Nipper finished. ‘We miss that damn train tomorrow, e just might git someone else ta do the job. An Mirrabilli’s all right. Not real bad. What you think, Stoney?’ He raised an eyebrow at his pal.

  ‘Ah, e’s not a bad ole bugger,’ Stoney agreed tolerantly. ‘Now—what about a drop a grog.’ He reached into the sack and withdrew a bottle of wine.

  ‘Don’t think the young bloke’s taken to me,’ Hannie mourned, taking Stella up on her lap. ‘Makes off soon as e sees me comin.’

  Mrs Comeaway gave a great laugh. ‘I know where that one’ll be. Run off to is bed. Always does, minute anyone comes. We hadda put Maudie Mungo in is bed one night, couldn’t very well let er lay out on the veranda fa the neighbours ta see in the morning. E didn’t like it but. Said she kep im awake snorin. An took up all the bed. Course e’s a bit shy, ya know. Give im time ta get used to ya, Hannie. Ya takes some gettin used to, you ave ta admit that. Eh, Charlie?’ And her great laugh roared out again.

  ‘I was just thinkin,’ Mr Comeaway said, watching Stoney pour the conto into some cups, ‘didn’t I say to ya, Mollie, I could do with a bit a company aroun?’

  Nobody noticed that neither Phyllix nor Trilby had followed them into the living-room. The two stood together on the veranda, Trilby striving for calmness.

  Phyllix took her hand and pulled her gently away from the oblong of light. ‘I been lookin for you since I came back.’

  Trilby flashed him a sideways look.

  ‘Didn’t see ya on the beach or nowhere.’

&nbs
p; ‘I wasn’t there, I suppose.’

  ‘Why?’

  Trilby tried to achieve crispness. ‘I have to study. I’m takin my Junior the end of this year.’

  ‘You got ya back up still,’ Phyllix accused. ‘Bout that night on the beach.’ His tone gentled. ‘You didn’t have to, Trilby. I wouldn’t of made ya.’

  Trilby’s chin went up as her temper sparked. ‘You didn’t make me. Nobody makes me do things.’

  ‘We could get married, the two of us,’ Phyllix’s eyes held hers steadily. ‘If you wanted it.’

  Trilby’s grey eyes widened, then she jerked herself away from him. ‘What makes you think I’d marry you? I would be a fool.’ There was resentfulness as well as bitterness in her voice.

  Phyllix’s heavy brows met over his nose. ‘What’s wrong with me? You think you’re too good?’

  Trilby’s self-assurance grew. She liked the feeling of having hurt him. She wanted to hurt him yet more. ‘Marry you and live in a camp like the others up there on the hill? You must fancy yourself if you think I’d go back to that just because you asked me to.’

  ‘I haven’t asked you ta do that, Trilby.’

  Trilby would not soften to the pleading in his voice. She would have liked to fight him physically, as well as with words. There would be satisfaction in tearing at his face with her finger-nails. For weeks the thought of him had disturbed her. Why must he come back just when she had succeeded in putting him out of her mind?

  Dismayingly, she felt her thoughts falter, her body lose some of its tautness, as Phyllix moved closer to her. He slipped an arm about her waist and pulled her towards him so that once again she felt his hard maleness. Her defiance crumbled. She felt the warm wetness of tears in her eyes before her head drooped to rest on his shoulder.

  ‘Where can we go?’ Phyllix muttered, and his warm breath was on her neck.

  ‘No!’ Trilby’s voice was hardly audible.

  ‘Come on,’ Phyllix said urgently. And there was sweetness as well as shame at following him.