by Stephen Orr
I just couldn’t do it. I’d sink into the sand. I’d fall over. It just wasn’t what I did. Sporty stuff. Dad understood this, I think. He picked up a small glob of jelly and called me over.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Buggered if I know.’
And then – regardless of the fact that Dad looked hot, like he just wanted to peel off his shirt and shorts and get in the water – we collected shells. Small shells, big shells, shells with holes, shells like the petrol station sign, shells like people wore around their neck, like kids left on the railway tracks, jumping with joy when they were crushed by the city express. Dad put them all in his pocket for me. I’d hand him a shell and he’d look at me and God knows what he was thinking.
As the screams of pleasure continued, Bill came out of the water and ran up the beach to us. ‘Coming in?’ he asked.
Water trailed down Bill’s pot belly. I could have taken a pointed shell and popped his guts. His nipples were pink, sticking out like engines on the wing of a Heinkel.
Dad took my T-shirt and started to lift it. ‘Come on, Henry.’
I pushed him away and pretended to look for shells. Bill was looking at me. At my foot. Quasimodo. He ran back into the water, hollering.
And as I felt my feet sinking into the sand I thought, never again.
The next morning I was woken by prayer. It was the usual gibberish, in Wog, coming from the Pedavolis’ front yard. I kicked off the sheets and crawled towards the open window at the end of my bed. I opened the venetian blind and light streamed in. Through the roses I could see the faithful gathered across the road at number twelve, about a dozen of them; the Pedavolis would open their outdoor church for a single man or a whole suburb.
The worshippers sat in two rows of chairs gathered in a semi-circle around the healing tree, a monstrous old ash that bathed the street and several front yards in summer shade. In front of the worshippers, at the base of the tree, a few candles burnt on an altar about three feet high. On top of the altar was a picture of Alex Pedavoli, encased in a weatherproof frame made from glass and metal. Behind this was a large silver cross. Con’s altar was made from leftover house bricks, rendered and encrusted in shells – Semaphore shells I’d given him after my beach visits. Over the years wax from thousands of candles had melted over and down the side of the altar. It gave it an aged, miracle-at-Lourdes look. Con had paved around his altar and left a raised step just in front for the faithful to kneel on.
It had started off as an occasional thing. Rosa once told me that it all dated back to their first Croydon summer. It was March 1948. They’d only been in their new home a month. Con was out watering the front garden when he noticed the buds on the ash tree. Every day he watched them, slowly getting bigger and bigger, until 28 March, six years to the day since their son had died. Con got out of bed, hobbled to the window and looked out. ‘Come, look at this,’ he called to Rosa.
She came to the window, took a deep breath and dropped to her knees. Then she started muttering something about Mary, Mother of Jesus, and a front yard miracle. Con and Rosa went outside, still in their pyjamas, and knelt at the base of the tree, mumbling messages to God, the Virgin Mary and Alex Pedavoli.
The ash stayed in flower for another two months, until the chill of an Adelaide winter made even God’s work impossible. Then came March 1949, buds splitting out of their skin and miraculously, on the 28th, bright, creamy petals that perfumed the late summer air.
Days later Con was out with a borrowed spade and concrete mixer, pouring a foundation and hammering in string lines. Dad and Bill and Mr Hessian from number fourteen stood out front and asked what he was doing.
‘A memorial,’ he explained. ‘For Alex.’
‘In your front yard?’ Bill asked.
But for once Con was silent, choosing not to explain the inexplicable.
On this particular morning I watched from my front window as Con took out his accordion and strapped it on. Then he began slowly, quietly, as the twelve joined in with ‘Ave Maria’.
I looked at my watch. It wasn’t even nine. It wouldn’t be long until Mr Hessian came out.
It started off with Con and Rosa. By the time I was born, Dad explained, there were always a few neighbours out with them. Sometimes it was morning, sometimes evening, depending on Con’s shifts. The evening vigils could last until well after midnight.
By the mid 1950s the Pedavolis were becoming famous. Local newspapers carried their story and they were interviewed on 5KA. Con got dressed up in a suit and Rosa in a new frock. They waited at their front gate for the taxi the station had sent. Everyone listened. I can’t remember it. Apparently they were a bit hard to understand. The first and last Croydon wogs to hit the airwaves.
In 1956 and ’57 it all got a bit out of control. Cars would be parked bumper to bumper the length of Thomas Street. The Pedavolis’ front yard would be full, overflowing onto the footpath. Mr Hessian would complain to Con and there’d be an argument and he’d go home and ring the police. The police would arrive and give Con a hurry-up. Sometimes we’d go over and get a seat in the front row. This must have pissed Mr Hessian off – Bob Page, a detective, didn’t he know the law he was sworn to uphold?
Mr Hessian, who owned the shoe shop on Elizabeth Street, always said we shouldn’t have let the reffos in. Before them, we all got along, he’d say. We all knew each other’s ways and respected them. But those people don’t respect our ways. They just want to do their own thing
You’d often be walking down Elizabeth Street and hear a few of the Greeks, Italians or Balts speaking in their mother tongue. Next thing, Eric would come out of his shop. ‘Excuse me, do you mind? This is Australia.’ And God help anyone who muttered in wog in his shop.
Talking about Mr Hessian, just about then he came out. I opened my blind all the way to get a better look. Eric stood out front and called to Con. Con casually walked over and Eric started throwing his hands about. Con didn’t stop playing his accordion. Eventually Eric gave up and went back inside. Con wandered back to the healing tree and continued singing.
Mum came in to my room and sat beside me at the window. ‘What you doin’ today?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘He got called in. Got a friend you want to invite over?’
I lowered my head. ‘Nah . . . I’ll see what Janice is doing.’
‘They’ve gone to Victor.’
And what she wanted to say, You can’t rely on them forever. Bill’s moved before and he might have to move again. What would you do without the Rileys, Henry?
‘Anyone from your class?’
‘I’ll just help Con.’
She shook her head. ‘Bloody hell, Henry.’ Thinking, Why don’t you do things like other boys, normal boys? ‘Your father’s tried . . . I’ve tried.’ She sighed, turned, and walked out of the room, picking up some dirty clothes as she went.
My mother was a Russian doll, one inside the other, each almost identical except for one slight difference: an expression, a word, a gesture, or something not said. Each locked away, appearing at the strangest moments. Changing from one mum to another. Happily baking biscuits one minute and then dissecting your weaknesses the next.
So it was just me and Mum, again. I skipped breakfast, stuffed a few books and an insect jar into my satchel, and walked to the playground. I collected a grasshopper and a skink from the leaf-litter under the eucalypts. I watched them moving, looking for a way out. Then I added a few twigs and leaves but they weren’t any happier. So I let them go. No thank you, nothing.
For the next hour I walked around Croydon. No destination, no purpose. Just a club-footed nine-year-old in baggy shorts and a policeman’s shirt, carrying his school satchel over his shoulder – a satchel full of crumbling chalk (to draw around bodies), soft biscuits, pens, pencils, a notebook, toy binoculars, a broken watch and marbles. I headed along Day Terrace, crossing the tracks onto Euston Terrace, passing a couple of ladies with
baskets full of cuttings from other people’s gardens: carnations, chryssies and geraniums, even a few irises they’d pulled from someone’s nature strip. I said hello to them and they asked how Mum was.
I had no idea who they were.
‘Good,’ I replied, wanting to tell the truth, about how she had the shits because Dad was away all day, it was going to hit a hundred and she was left with a house full of work (that her hopeless son couldn’t or wouldn’t help with).
A bit further on I saw a rat with its two back legs broken. Run over by a car, I supposed. It was trying to cross the road, dragging itself by its front legs towards someone’s old shed on the other side. If it could get there it might be alright. There was a yard full of window and door frames and salvaged timber, car tyres, axles, kitchen sinks, baths, cupboards, heaters and wardrobes. And somewhere among all that, probably, a nest of baby rats, waiting for a feed.
If I were nice I’d get a big rock and hit it over the head.
It struggled and then stopped to get its breath. If it didn’t hurry there’d be another car along. Maybe if it got back to its rat house, there’d be other rats to help it.
I made my way to the Croydon cold stores. These were a series of refrigerated rooms connected by a central hallway. One room was filled with meat, another with perishables like butter and cream, others with fruit and vegetables, and the biggest of all, a keg store for local hotels. Men in trucks, or in horse and cart, would stop to deliver or pick up. The cold stores were a depot. They were an intermediary between supplier and corner shop.
And they were cold.
Seats had been left in the central hallway for men to take a rest and cool down. Cold air would flow out from behind the clear plastic curtains covering the doorways to the cold rooms. If you moved your chair to the right position you could have an almost constant flow of cold air. No one seemed to mind if there were a few stray kids around, as long as they kept out of the way. People would also come in to catch their breath on their way home from the supermarket on Port Road.
I sat down beside a man in a singlet drinking water from an old jam jar. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Henry.’
‘I’m Jack. You eat yer carrots?’
I turned up my nose. ‘I have to.’
‘What you gonna do when you grow up?’
I shrugged. ‘Policeman.’
‘Ah.’ He drank and water ran down his chin and chest. ‘Bugger that. You look like a smart kid. Do your sums, read your books and study law. They’re the only bastards makin’ money. And Don fuckin’ Bradman. Sittin’ on his arse sellin’ shares.’ And with that he stood up, lifted a box of carrots and continued on his way.
I took a book out of my bag. It was the Child’s Manual of Devotion, given to me by Grandma Page for my birthday. It had a big picture of Jesus on the front, his heart glowing gold. It wasn’t much of a story, just more religious claptrap as Dad called it. Even I could do better, I thought.
Dear God, bless the rat. Give him strength to make it home. Lay your hands on his legs and fix them. If he does happen to die, help out his family. Bless the skink. Let him find flies. Bless Dad, and help him find out who the mystery man is (you must know). Bless Mum, help her with the washing. Bless the Rileys. Keep them safe as they climb the rocks on Granite Island.
Jack walked past with another box of carrots. ‘What you reading, Henry?’
I showed him.
‘Christ,’ he replied, ‘that isn’t going to help you.’
And God, make Jack’s carrots as light as rose petals . . .
‘You need yer times tables,’ he continued. ‘What are seven eights?’
‘Fifty-six.’
‘Forget Jesus, leave that for the feeble-minded.’
Jack may have had more to do with my spiritual development than he knows. I was already thinking along these lines. I’d picked up clues from Dad. Once, when Mum insisted I go to Sunday school at the Croydon Baptist, Dad replied, ‘Well, you can take him.’
‘You should be supporting me.’
‘Ha.’
There was a single visit, attempts to draw Jesus in crayon on butcher’s paper, a sing-along, endless prayers, and an invitation to borrow a book from their library. Library, ha! A thousand books about Jesus. Libraries were meant to expand the mind, not shrink it. Still, I borrowed a book on the crucifixion of Christ. I only looked at the pictures: crappy illustrations for a crappy story. So what if he was crucified? Everyone’s got to die.
When I got home Dad asked, smirking, ‘How was it?’
‘At least I try,’ Mum replied, throwing the book at him. He moved and it fell to the ground and the spine cracked. Mum tried to fix it but couldn’t. She left it on the front step of the church with a note: H. Page no longer able to attend S. school. Unforeseen circumstances. God bless you anyway. Ellen Page.
But Mum mustn’t have been too concerned. If it was something she really cared about she would have fought tooth and nail. She would have turned into a doll with red eyes and fangs and had it out with my father. And if she didn’t get her way she would’ve flown down the hall, slammed the back door and locked herself in the woodshed. And then it would be up to Dad to make peace. ‘Ellen, come on, the Rileys can see.’
Talking of Mum, she’d be out any time now looking for me, wandering into the cold store in her slippers and apron, hair in rollers and her arms folded. ‘Henry, what are you doing here?’
So I headed home across the tracks, dropping my new shells off at the gatehouse. ‘Do you want them, Con?’
‘There’s never too many shells on the altar.’
As ‘Scotland the Brave’ played in the distance I crossed the road and Doctor Gunn came out of his shop. ‘What you up to, Henry?’
‘Nothin’. Saw a rat with its legs broken.’
‘What’d you do?’
‘Smashed in its head. Kindest thing I reckon.’
Although he knew I hadn’t.
‘Got a minute?’ he asked.
‘I gotta get home.’
‘Won’t take long.’
Doctor Gunn led me into his waiting room. This is where I’d sit, most Thursdays after school, behind a big oak desk. As Doctor Gunn worked on someone’s back I’d select a book from a pile he’d left on the floor, I’d sharpen a pencil, find a metal ruler and rule three faint lines inside the front cover. Then, in my best cursive, I’d write: Property of Doctor George Gunn, Croydon. I’d blow on the ink, erase the pencil lines and put the book in the bookcase for Doctor Gunn’s patients to browse as they waited for their bones to be cracked.
Then I’d return to the desk and do it all again. I’d do this until the books ran out, or until five, whichever came first, until Doctor Gunn emerged with his last patient, shut the door behind them and put up the closed sign. At which point he’d take two shillings from his change-pocket, put them in my hand and close my fingers around them.
On this particular day I was going to find out how much Doctor Gunn really loved his books. He took a key out of his pocket and opened a door that led into a disused shop adjoining his surgery. I followed him into a dark, damp-smelling room with its front windows boarded up. He switched on a light and all I could see were piles and piles of books. Against the two side walls someone had put up shelves that still smelled of paint.
‘You got some free time these holidays?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ I replied.
‘I want to expand my library, so people can come in and browse as they wait. Maybe turn it into a bookshop one day, or an exchange.’
I picked up a few books from one of the piles: algebra and the flora of New Zealand, novels with titles like Affairs of the Heart, and cookbooks, the Australian outback and Irish castles, fishing, physiology and you guessed it, more God books.
‘Where did you get them?’ I asked.
‘Usual place,’ he replied, picking up an encyclopaedia and blowing off the dust. ‘Library disposals. Book sales.’
&nb
sp; I shrugged. ‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’
And that’s how I found a career in books. I started straight away, allocating two shelves to each letter of the alphabet. I sorted by title in fiction (north wall) and non-fiction (south wall). There was no point sorting by authors no one had heard of. Soon it became apparent that each letter would need three or maybe four shelves. I picked up the volumes, dusted them off and put them in the correct spot. Doctor Gunn sat on a chair in the corner, silently watching me, gazing, putting his hands in his pockets and occasionally almost drifting off to sleep. At one point the bell rang on the door next door and a customer entered.
‘Hold on,’ Doctor Gunn called, without rising.
I looked at him. ‘I’m alright, I know what I’m doing.’ But he didn’t reply. He just sat there, and I continued sorting. ‘Hold on,’ he called again, eventually standing up and going next door.
Half an hour later, after seeing his customer off, he came back in, picked up a book and sat in his chair.
‘I’ve already done a pile,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he replied, flicking through a book of photos of the Queen Mary. ‘They used to use boys,’ he said, holding up a picture of a riveter at work on the hull. ‘The inside cavities were too small for a man so boys like you had to crawl inside and hold the plate for them to rivet into.’
‘How did they see?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ he replied. ‘They left a hole for them to get in and out, but do you know what happened, Henry?’
‘What?’
‘Sometimes the boys would crawl into the cavity and go up . . . up. And they’d never find their way out. Ship breakers have found skeletons.’
I stopped sorting, shocked. ‘Why didn’t they cut it open?’
‘They were big ships, Henry. Big ships and little boys. Life was cheap, especially when you were poor.’
Bless the riveters. God, tell me it didn’t last for too many days, or weeks . . .
Doctor Gunn fell silent, looking at his book, looking at me.