The ferries flock into Circular Quay each morning at eight and nine o’clock. The people burst out of the turnstiles in streams which go twisting uptown through the narrow streets. Some walk in the cool and some choose the sun. The office-boys in worn school jackets, the clerks in unpressed slop suits, the girls in light blouses and thin floating dresses, are already sweating and flushing with the heat. Near the quays is Lachlan Place where there is a small triangular park, generally filled with sunlight, where all day starlings and occasional flocks of mountain magpies chatter in the trees. The place is cool and old, surrounded with old bonds, warehouses and shipping offices, in part let out for shops, and bounded on one side by a large sombre Government building.
Joseph came up the place this spring morning taking short steps and putting his feet down flat to hide the holes in his soles, with legs slightly apart so that the trousers-cuffs should not be further rubbed, but doing this as a matter of habit and all the time glancing up at the blue sky over the new bank buildings. Several times he bumped into people.
“Sorry,” said he, and “Sorry,” said they.
The air was still and warm. The red flannel which his mother still made him wear was too hot, and prickled. Already office boys loitered in the park, and the tobacconist stood at the door of his shop fixing the awning and whistling, “Funiculi, funicula.”The hyacinths, roses and sweet-peas in the florist’s window reminded him of his mother’s garden. The boxed luncheons, with sandwiches, a cheese tart and a piece of fruit, priced one shilling, seemed expensive delicacies to him who had, as usual, his hunks of bread and meat-paste wrapped in newspaper in his pockets.
A wide old doorway opened beside the tobacconist’s shop, and over it was a name, white on blue, “Tank Steam Press, Ground Floor.” The tobacconist owned the old single-storey building and rented out to several establishments the mouldy apartments of the ground and first floor. In the attic was the man who did heliogravure. The building had once been a private house. Its court was now a cart-dock and opened into the other street. Its first-floor bathroom at the head of the stairs contained the old water-closet, used by all the workers in the house, a gas-ring to make tea, and the usual broken chairs and out of-date telephone directories. The distinctive smell of the building came from this closet and from the printing-ink.
Joseph asked the tobacconist for the key, and when he was told, “Old Williams has it,” he bought a packet of used razorblades for two pence. The tobacconist, who was also a barber, looked at his bristly chin and said:
“Shaving soap?”
“No thanks; I have some.”
Joseph walked through the old doorway, went by a staircase and entered the large airy double room occupied by the Press. He opened the glass back-door and moved about among the presses, curiously inspecting the jobs in their various stages, picking up a paper, looking through the bills on a bill-hook, putting his finger in the dust in the little glassed-in office of Chamberlain, the owner, and shutting off the stove, lighted by the cleaner, because the day was warm enough.
He hardly allowed himself a minute’s glance into the sunlit place, yellow through the dark passage and door, blue through the high windows in front. He went about the room with the unhurried motions of one who has worked for a long time without pleasure at the same task in the same place. He carefully hung up his coat, grown yellowish, a schoolboy’s Norfolk jacket with short sleeves, and wiped the band of his hat. The warm air drifted in through the street-door bearing odours from the park and the Botanic Gardens. His mother’s garden and the yellow pumpkin flowers in the grass, thick with bees, swam back into his half-adjusted mind: there was a tall paling fence beside which he lay all Saturday afternoon.
“God, I wish I had a holiday: you can’t go on for ever!” He heard old Williams sluicing down the yard. He stood looking at a German printer’s catalogue of papers and inks brought in since yesterday, no doubt by Mendelssohn, one of the printers. There was a great A in red, shovelling coal into a furnace-mouth made of a black M, and G in glue was marching off the page: “Wo gehst du, G?” He was going to get Müller A. G. coal, although it didn’t say so. It was a beautiful job done on an offset press on thick paper. If you had travelled like Mendelssohn, even as a tramp, even with I.W.W.s, even riding the sleepers, you could find amusement in any hole and corner. You had to be a flathead like him to stay in one hole for seven years; and that without even a holiday. A mug.
Chamberlain drew up outside in his Bentley with a frightful whine of brakes. He ran into the office lugging a suit-case which split open in the doorway. Jo helped him put back his ties, underpants and so forth, all crushed in anyhow, and nothing freshly laundered. Chamberlain plumped the bag in his office, while Effie, his daughter, a childish coquette of seventeen, took off her fur coat and put a bunch of violets in a glass. Chamberlain hung up his hat beside Joseph’s, damped his hair which always fell into his eye, and which he viewed now with love in a blighted jag of glass; he rolled his sleeves over his round hairless white arms, adjusted his eyeshade and called irritably:
“Williams, give my desk a wipe, can’t you? Morning, Baguenault. Oh, morning, Mendelssohn. What have we ahead of us this morning?”
The girls were arriving and hanging up their hats.
“Finish printing and bind Jones’s catalogue: cover in colours of the wire-netting magazine.”
“Are the pages done?”
“No, we’re waiting on the blocks that were sent back; we ought to change blockmakers, I’ve never got blocks on time,” said Joseph.
“Ring them up: I’ll ring myself. That’s sabotage: I know that little red-faced Benson, the foreman, takes a pleasure in disobliging me, because I’m not a mason. I told him, I’ll take my business away, last time. I’ll break the contract: there’s sufficient cause. Where’s the telephone? I’ll ring him up, I’ll tell him . . .”
“If you want another lawsuit, but you’re the lawsuit king,” said Effie.
“They’re coming right away,” cried Danny, the boy of fourteen, who came in at this moment. “I remembered to call in on my way here.” He had called in at the blockmakers as an excuse for being late.
“Good, good, that’s the ticket; now, boys, whistle and ride. You ought to be through by about eleven, eh, Jo? You don’t need me, do you?”
“I need help,” said Joseph tartly; “Mr Withers is out all day. There was no one here yesterday afternoon but Danny and Mendelssohn.”
“I was damned busy yesterday afternoon. Clients, clients, complaints, complaints, all day. I often wish they’d be here one morning to see how the demon gets into the works; everything tuned to concert pitch and nothing working. Then, after they give an order or two, the very office-girls become experts in printing: should I change the paper, don’t the blocks cost too much? I got orders too: I may get the business from a new publishing firm that Montagu knows. Little books of poetry, belles-lettres. The money’s safe, because the authors pay for their own printing costs. Well, no cheques at any rate in this morning’s mail, Effie? That’s our style, isn’t it? You’ve known me for seven years, Jo; you’ve seen me in my ups and downs. Money only flows to mercenary types, and I’m not that. There’s more of the workman, artisan, artist, faber, in me. Well, we’ll see each other through. And now, what are you waiting for? I don’t know what those travellers do. Oh no, they don’t need to produce any references, they’re so smart, a week’s trial will convince—only they need an advance on the first week’s commissions. They must see I’m a soft-hearted duffer. Then, good-bye, it don’t suit. If I only could spend all my time drumming up business, it would be different. There’s something in me gives people confidence: it’s that very lack of avarice I mentioned. I’ve never had a business relation for a long time where my partner didn’t actually love me; they realise I’d do anything for them. But you can’t be the whole works, ‘The bosun, the cap’n, the midshipmite and the crew of the captain’s gig’—you know the old song.”
“Give it a breeze,” said E
ffie.
“Put your lipstick away and do some typing.”
Joseph’s face had a stone-deaf expression.
“Let’s see: what have you got there? The wire-netting magazine?”
The presses worked with a low grunting and soft click-click.
“No, we’re waiting on the blocks.”
“Of course, of course.” Chamberlain came and stood by Joseph.
“Yes, of course. How is that new ink? Reminds me, Withers—Withers is still out, of course—given him an inch and he takes an ell. He is an expert on prints, of course, and he detected two yesterday that Montagu himself didn’t recognise as reprints, had the plate-mark, ageing, everything. He said (I saw him last night on business, Montagu) he said, there are more original etchings in Australia than in the rest of the world put together: ha, ha! His collection . . .” Chamberlain wafted a kiss into the air, “. . . a peach. I’ll get him to show you one time, if you’re interested. I have an instinct for it myself, and in these things it’s very often the instinct that counts. These forgers have the experts in mind when they forge, but the instinct for artistic value is what you can’t so easily fool. And then, yesterday . . . Mendelssohn, stop that press a moment, there’s no hurry: I want your advice; these things are in your line. I’ve picked up a fine Persian rug. I waited more than two hours in the auction rooms, because Montagu tipped me off. It was patched, of course, but the real thing, knotting, design, seal, you could use the back—superb. If Effie thinks of settling down, eh, it’ll do for the kid’s house. Montagu persuaded the valuer it was false, so got it auctioned as imitation and I got it for nothing practically. Montagu gave his own note. I owe him, of course. It’s a good job he feels bounden to me, he’s got a whale of a lot of I.O.U.’s of mine by now. But a friend is a friend, friendship dissolves hard cash, and sometimes washes out even I.O.U.’s: it’s a powerful solvent. Eh, Jo? Eh? Ha, ha!”
Joseph said nothing. Chamberlain looked at him on top of the ladder loosening a screw in the paper-feeding rollers. It was the new press imported from England at a cost of about £4,500, and only allowed through the Customs because Chamberlain had agreed to give the pattern to a local engineer. It was cemented in the floor and stood in an oil-bath: it could turn out forty thousand impressions the hour at top speed. It was Chamberlain’s pride and he had already based two overdrafts on it. Chamberlain watched Jo’s expression, and anxiously repeated, “Eh?” Jo remained silent. Chamberlain frowned. Joseph climbed down the ladder, released a lever, and the bed of the press began to move indolently back and forth. Danny, the devil, seated in front of the machine, took a sheet or two as it settled in place, and then pulled the string which stopped the press.
“What is it?” asked Joseph calmly.
“Over-inked on the top right-hand block.”
They went on for over an hour on the large press, making proofs and frittering away time, before it ran smoothly. Towards eleven, when Effie was making tea in the lavatory upstairs, Chamberlain, who had been trying to go through his accounts, came and stood beside Joseph and said, quite low:
“I must tell you, personally, that things are bad with us. I like to confide in my workmen; and then it concerns you. I’m trying to find a buyer; someone to run things and take the financial worry off my shoulders, to keep me as manager. In that event we might find we had no need of Withers. He’s always with Montagu, anyway, and he’s beginning to get my goat. And he is too irritable, it upsets me. Then, all this financial business, overdrafts and inventories, is too much for me. I’m the practical workman, nothing mechanical beats me, there’s nothing in printing I don’t know, but I’m beat by the banks, the mortgages, the interest: money should be free. Now, if anyone comes and asks about our financial situation, don’t say anything about the overdraft, and tell ’em business is booming, because they always poke around amongst the workmen—see? But, of course, if another chief wanted to change round the staff I’d have nothing to do with it; there’d be no telling. But you live at home, Jo, don’t you? So you’re all right. And take my tip, a little change does no one any harm; it’s no tragedy. You ought to get all the experience you can when you’re young. If I were your age, well, never mind. But perhaps you’re counting on buying me out, eh, Jo? You’re a quiet one, you’re a canny one?” He chuckled at the dig. Joseph got very pale.
“I have no money, and although I live with my people, I need a steady job like the others. We are poor; I need my money terribly bad, sir, joking apart.” He blushed; his legs trembled so that he could hardly stand. If it came to giving them the sack now, with their pay two months in arrears, and so many out of work, he would not know what to do. In an instant of terror, he reviewed all his relatives and friends, all his possessions: he could not raise any money at all. He could not face the prospect of tramping the city, as he was, dressed like a tramp, and personally, far from engaging.
Chamberlain looked at him demurely.
“We’re all poor, old boy; but I’ll see what I can do this week. It’s a bargain: any money that comes in we split pro rata.”
Someone who had been standing by the door for a moment, ran up to the store on the first floor, sneezing. The person rummaged about overhead and ran down again. Chamberlain called:
“Withers? Come in, we’re all at sixes and sevens. What in hell are you doing? You think you can come in any time of day?”
“Where’s the motor-oil?” asked Withers. “Oh, who put it with the ink? Silly trick.”
“I suppose Montagu’s outside,” continued Chamberlain. “Well, I’m paying you; I’ll take the motor-oil out myself. That son of a gun can’t take my men like this for his chauffeurs, private secretaries, jackals and other servants he needs to get along in the world. Now get on the job, Tom. Look at those girls sitting with their hands hanging; now then, buckle down, girls: lots to do.”
When he returned, he smiled ingratiatingly at Withers, seeing him tapping at a form with contained rage. After a brief silence, he inquired:
“Everything all right?”
“Quite all right.”
The blocks had at last come in. They tacked them on to the perforated steel backing.
Chamberlain came near and looked at Withers closely.
“You should fix yourself up a bit better before you come to work, you’re foreman, and I’m expecting someone. I want the works to give a good account of itself. Understand? Especially with the hour you roll in. You look as if you’d been sleeping in the Domain all night. You’re a sight and you’re half-soused at this time of day. You spoil the look of the place.”
“Ya? Well, I’ve got other rats than that to bite me! You’d like me to come in a morning-coat, perhaps. Let me tell you this is all I’ve got; when I put my overalls on it’ll be decent enough. We’re working-men, aren’t we, not lounge lizards. Who is it coming? Somebody of Montagu’s, I bet; yes, he said something about it. If you don’t want to lose your pants and your underwear, keep out of any deals with Montagu’s friends. You shouldn’t need me to warn you.”
“You’re a friend of his yourself!”
“You bet! For the same reason the others are: I get a commish. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t know where my next counter-lunch was coming from—in this joint.”
“Don’t harp on that: you do better than the others. I’m doing my best; you get money when I don’t, and Effie and her mother have to eat tinned salmon for Saturday night tea. I should expect some co-operation from my workmen; I treat you right.”
“Listen,” shouted Withers in his hysterical voice, through the plunging of the big machine which was now working at top speed. “You got to fork out this week. My landlady wants the rent, and although she’s a bitch, I don’t blame the old girl, and I’m tired of dodging her. I did sleep in the park last night, if you want to know, with a lot of other deadbeats: only they’re smarter than I am; they don’t sweat their guts out for a chap who buys his daughter a fur coat and himself a new car when he’s up King Street. You ought to damn well consul
t us before you let yourself in for expenses like that: we’re your creditors. You think I didn’t nearly stay with the Domain dossers? I blew in all my cash, by the way, on them,” continued Withers calming down. “God, I had a glorious night, all the same. The tales they told me, enough to make a monkey bite its mother. They’re a lot of philosophers and remittance-men, sons of belted earls and what not. Fun, what? I’m sick of Montagu and you and the whole caboosh. And you, you poor dope, sweating and groaning and letting Montagu fleece you gently, without even a tarpot. And you still think he’s a great man. He says so himself, of course, but he’s got other names for you: sucker, for instance, that boob Chamberlain. And for himself too, if it comes to that. He’s the sort with three passports, Canadian, English and American; and if the truth were known he’s officially domiciled in Luxemburg. I know the twinkle of that Napoleonic eye; I can see behind it a police dossier as long as your arm in several European countries: no one but you would trust him farther than your nose. When I look at you it makes me sick to see what a muttonhead you are, Greg. Does he want a little cash to entertain his flossies in a cabinet particulier? Call on Bobs. Here’s a little Persian mat, here’s a Japan-lacquer cat, here’s a sticky-stucco vawse and a little yaller god with a little emerald eye, palm them off on old pal Greg, fork out Greg, dear old Greg, instinct Greg, aesthete Greg: and you allus does the needful, don’t you, Bobs?”
“If you think he robs me, you should tell me,” said Chamberlain, wretchedly. “You’re an amateur, you know the stuff: why do you let me be taken in, then?”
Withers laughed under his breath wickedly, bitterly, through his soft, dark, drooping, dirty moustache; his dark eyes shone under lowered lids. Solaced for a moment, he crossed the floor indolently, impudently tore some papers from a girl examining a returned proof, and took them to the window in front, sucking his lower lip so that his decayed teeth, blackrooted in his gums, showed beneath his moustache. His shoulders were bowed and he stooped, but still looked his six feet. His face was long and grandly ovoid, his high forehead ran into his thinning dark hair. His blue cotton shirt, torn on both sides of the collar, was marked with sweat-stains, and his greasy grey waistcoat, which he wore for decency, even in this heat, to cover the dirty shirt, was wrinkled like a pig’s skin. When he had a new suit only, he straightened up and kept himself clean for a few weeks. The boys called him the “younger son” or “the diseased lord”, for he had then an air of debilitated cunning, of acquaintance with usurers and of ingrown baseless vanity.
Seven Poor Men of Sydney Page 10