by Joy Dettman
‘Make this one into their kitchen,’ he said.
‘They lose a bedroom.’
‘Turn the bathroom into a bedroom and build them a new bathroom, where the bit we knocked down was.’
‘They’d be walking through their bathroom to get to the kitchen.’
‘Toss up a wall.’
That was the plan they went with, more or less.
The stumping of the new rooms was well underway when Freddy Bowen drove in with a keg of beer and a box of sandwiches supplied by the ladies of the building committee.
Many hands make light work and too many cooks spoil the broth. Gertrude’s little stove, carried out into the light of day, now stood beside Norman’s wireless. Harry connected up the battery. Lenny connected the aerial to the chicken-wire fence, and they tuned in as the Magpies and the Demons lined up for war.
And the bloody delivery truck from Willama chose to turn up. Bernie was the deputy treasurer. He held the purse strings. He missed the first kick.
At half-time, Freddy Bowen came down to collect his empty barrel and drop one off which was full, plus another pile of sandwiches and cake. Cake suggested tea to some. Elsie and Josie supplied the tea, and hung around a while to watch from a distance. Margot watched from a safer distance, watched Teddy, who watched her watch him.
The Albanian, occupied in building a fancy fireplace and chimney, approached the group. He used a combination of tongues, picked up in concentration camps, refugee camps, timber camps. Christ only knew how Lena understood him.
‘Piss off and build your chimney,’ Bernie said. ‘Lay bricks.’
‘No much de bleeka,’ the Albanian said.
The footy had started again.
‘Piss off, and get yourself a beer, you jabbering bastard of a man.’
‘Da booza uberflieben. No much de bleeka. Is vay Ozdralia, ya?’
‘You’re in bloody Australia. Talk bloody Australian, or don’t talk.’
‘Upya vit morser, kinda poovta,’ Jorge said, and he raised his hat and went home.
Poovta didn’t require a lot of translation. Jorge’s departure broke up the barracking group. Shaky returned to the job of wedding Gertrude’s original roof — a skillion and near flat — to Bryant’s tall gable, taller now, they’d stumped it high, and to the newer rooms, a lower gable.
He ripped out Gertrude’s ceiling to see what was beneath it. It took five minutes for the dust cloud to settle.
‘Rip the iron off her,’ he instructed. ‘And someone cut that bloody rose bush back.’
No one knew what he was doing, but he kept on doing it. Once they’d found a wall beneath that climbing rose, someone cut a hole in it, about level with Gertrude’s existing window hatch, which they’d ripped off to let in a bit of light. A couple of Bryant’s old windows should fit those gaps.
Collingwood was ahead when some bugger knocked the aerial down with a sheet of asbestos. Lenny found it, connected it, and the game continued.
The bathroom was taking shape. The bathtub, cement troughs, water pipes once worshipped by Jenny were out in the yard. They’d knocked a hole through the south side of Ray’s bedroom, big enough to fit the old iron chimney Harry had hoped to get rid of. Someone should have been watching the Albanian. He’d created a fireplace fit for a tsar, and ran out of bricks before the sitting-room chimney was four foot high.
Gertrude’s kitchen was no more. It had no roof. They’d ripped up its floorboards. Found two shells beneath it.
‘What the bloody hell are sea shells doing there?’
‘Washed in from the ocean in the bloody floods.’
Collingwood won.
Macka would have been at that game. He’d be celebrating tonight. Should consider himself lucky he wasn’t at the building site. Bernie may have knocked the rest of his teeth out. He turned the wireless off, unable to take more punishment.
The hammering, the sawing, masonite falling, men’s cursing, continued until mosquitoes started biting and the sun sank down behind the walnut tree.
The new kitchen’s new window gaps looked directly into the setting sun. Plenty of light in that room. No windows in any of those gaps yet. That was for tomorrow. Still a lot to do tomorrow. The electrician was coming at eight.
‘Can you take your boys out to Bryant’s old place in the morning, Harry, knock their old chimney down?’ Bernie said. ‘We need a ton more bricks. The Albanian lives near you, Joss. Kidnap him if you have to.’
Bernie was the last to leave. He lit a smoke and walked the walk. Never before had so much muddling activity by so many achieved so little in such a big way. It wasn’t quite what he’d visualised when he’d driven down this morning, or what Arthur had visualised. Not a lot turns out the way you think it will.
‘Bloody Collingwood.’
RAILWAY STATIONS
Nothing ever turned out the way Jenny expected it to. She’d expected to be home before six, but the way the tram was moving, she’d be lucky to catch the six-ten train, and it would be packed solid.
Finding her way out to Box Hill south on public transport had taken hours. Shouldn’t have called in to visit Donny. He didn’t know her. He didn’t miss her. Should have asked someone at the home to call her a taxi. Hadn’t. She’d thought she could do it on trams, but the tram hadn’t gone far enough, and waiting out in the sticks for a bus was like waiting for grass to grow — in a drought. Raelene was almost asleep on her feet.
Florence Keating hadn’t been what Jenny was expecting. She was so normal, pleasant; more nervous than Jenny, and the living, breathing image of Raelene.
And what the hell was she supposed to do now? Tell Raelene she wasn’t her mother? How was she supposed to go about that? She was the only mother that little girl had ever known.
Wished someone had told her sooner that Amber wasn’t her own mother. Not knowing who she was had messed up her life.
Give me a child to the age of seven and I will show you the man — someone once said. Raelene was seven. She’d had her Daddy Ray for seven years. He’d made her what she was. Demanding at times, but a perfect kid when she had no competition.
She’d been the centre of attention at Florence’s house.
Florence and Clarrie Keating. He was a nice bloke. They were a nice couple. Jenny had gone out there today not wanting to like them. On the train into town, she’d planned to tell them that she’d fight them for Raelene — as she should have fought for Jimmy. On the way home, she was arguing both sides. And getting nowhere.
She hadn’t known Ray had taken those kids. Maybe he hadn’t, but Florence seemed honest, and, knowing Ray, he probably had.
The guilt she felt about leaving Donny at the home had dissipated over afternoon tea. If Florence wanted Raelene, then Donny too became her responsibility. She’d never felt like his mother, had never wanted to be his mother. Pitied him — as she’d pitied his father.
The Keatings owned a beautiful little house, brand new, or they’d own it in some future year. Clarrie was an ex-serviceman. He’d got a loan to build it. They’d started a garden, had a big backyard, a big black dog with a laughing face. Jenny, who’d never had much to do with dogs, even liked their dog, a gentle lolloping Labrador.
She looked at her watch. They’d be at the station in perfect time to strike the football crowd. She’d chosen the wrong day for her afternoon tea party. It would have been all right if they hadn’t spent half an hour waiting for a bus to take them to the tram, then another twenty minutes waiting for the tram.
Raelene, chin down, was almost asleep, the doll she’d held onto for three hours sliding. Jenny caught it, removed it gently from Raelene’s grasp, then drew that curly head against her. Finding a comfortable pillow, Raelene’s eyes closed, and, carefully, Jenny placed the doll into her bag.
The Keatings had bought her that doll — not a big doll, but it wouldn’t have been cheap.
Vern had bought Jimmy with a tip truck . . .
Shook her head, shook Jimmy away, and turned
her mind back to Florence.
Florence had written twice; the solicitor had written a more threatening letter before Jenny made that first phone call, from the health farm, advised to make it by Veronica.
‘You can’t ignore solicitor’s letters. Keep it out of the courts if you can, kiddo,’ she’d said. ‘Agree to meet with the Keatings, let Raelene meet them, and see where it goes from there.’
Should have met them at the solicitor’s office while Raelene was at school. It might have been different to meeting them in their own home, meeting their dog.
It wouldn’t have been. What you saw was what you got with Florence. She was so open — as Jenny had never been — except to Georgie and Veronica.
‘I was a fool of a girl,’ Florence had said. ‘I got pregnant with Donald at seventeen. I thought I was in love with Ray at the time. He didn’t tell me he was already married, or not until I told him he’d have to marry me.’
She’d said it in front of Clarrie. And he hadn’t risen up from the couch, walked out. He’d taken her hand. He loved her. She loved him. It was written all over both of them. Lucky Florence.
If things had been different . . . If I’d married Jim in Sydney . . . If . . .
Florence had spoken about Flora and Geoff Parker too, how Flora had been so helpful with Donald. ‘We keep in touch,’ she’d said.
‘We don’t want a court case,’ Clarrie had admitted. ‘I don’t make that sort of money.’
Jenny had Vern’s two thousand pounds. She hadn’t touched it, would never touch it. She’d touched the interest on it. Maybe that’s what she should do. Take Raelene home and make the Keatings’ solicitor take her to court.
She hadn’t intended to stay in Melbourne, not until the day she’d caught a tram out to Armadale and knocked on Wilma Fogarty’s door — and was greeted like returning royalty, and offered a bed. Wilma had Veronica’s phone number. One thing led to another.
Weird how life turns in circles, how people you leave behind keep coming back into your life, as if no move you ever make can cut the thread of who you are. Like Lila turning up in Woody Creek and knowing Jenny had been six months pregnant when she’d left the Sydney factory. Had to lie to her. Told her she’d found a nursing sister who had got rid of it. To some people, you have to lie. Now Florence, turning up out of Ray’s past.
And Veronica. The day she’d gone out to Frankston, Veronica had picked her and Raelene up at the station and driven them to the same guesthouse Jenny had stayed at with Laurie. Not a lot had changed there. The dining room was the same, the reception. New desk, new phones, new paint and wallpaper; same trees, just older. It had been like coming the full circle of her life — with the same old red case in hand.
Maybe that’s what you have to do: return to the start, knowing where the pitfalls are, and dodge them the second time around. Maybe she was supposed to start out fresh, and this time get it right.
Or break out of the cycle.
So break it. Go home and fight them for Raelene.
She’s Ray’s. I was his wife. I’ve raised her.
She’s Florence’s too. They’ve got the same hair, the same eyes.
Question: Do I love her enough to fight for her?
Question: Can I love her more than her own blood mother could?
Juliana would have loved me like I loved Jimmy.
Loved him the first time she’d held him, and he’d been the ugliest, most misshapen little bloke ever made. Hadn’t seen his misshapen head, his scratches, just felt the love rising in her, overwhelming her.
Never, never, never would she come to terms with losing him. Never. She could tell herself a thousand times that he was with Jim, that he was attending the best school, that he’d end up with Vern’s fortune. It didn’t help. Nothing helped and never would. She’d wanted to watch him grow into an incredible man and to know that a part of her would continue on in him.
And she had to stop thinking about him.
Glanced out the window. Not far from Spring Street now. She recognised the park. Raelene sound asleep against her. Give her a few minutes more.
No part of herself would continue on in Raelene. A part of Florence and Ray would.
Football revellers everywhere, groups of them walking to the tram, the train.
She always looked for the tallest amongst the groups of boys, though Jimmy would be a young man now, seventeen in December. One day she’d see him, and she’d know him too. He’d have his father’s hair, his father’s hands.
Good hands for a football player. Did he play? Did he follow one of the Melbourne teams? Was he at the match today? Who would he barrack for?
The Magpies. He’d liked the warbling magpies.
The tram turned into Flinders Street. She woke Raelene when it crossed over Exhibition. ‘We’re nearly there, love.’
‘Where’s my dolly?’
‘Safe in my bag.’
‘I want to hold her.’
‘When we get on the train you can hold her.’
They left the tram at Swanston Street and crossed the road to the station. People everywhere, swarms of them at the station, short men and tall, old men and young, groups of raucous boys, a few girls and women. The train would be packed to the rafters.
They were fighting their way through to their platform when Jenny saw a head above the crowd. Her legs wanted to follow. Not tonight. She’d followed too many tall boys, tall men. Always disappointed. And Raelene was attempting to get the doll. She always woke snitchy.
‘Leave it, love. You’ll spill everything,’ Jenny warned, and turned with a segment of the crowd towards her platform.
A tired child is a determined child. Raelene pulled back. ‘I want to carry my dolly now.’
‘Hold my hand or I’ll lose you.’
‘No.’
Georgie is mine, Jenny thought. Jimmy was, and ever will be mine. Chips of her heart had broken off and made their way into those kids. Hold my hand, she’d say to either of them and they’d hold her hand, even seek that hand to hold. Walk, she’d say, and they’d walk for miles.
Ray was dead, and Raelene was Florence’s daughter, and in the crush of a football crowd at Flinders Street station, Jenny knew what she had to do. She’d meet the Keatings again, but in the city next time, or they could drive down to Frankston. They had a car. She’d do it slow, let Raelene get to know them and they to know her.
‘I want to carry my dolly, I said.’
‘And I said, when we’re sitting down on the train.’
And she saw him, standing on the opposite platform.
Pushed between the crowd blocking her view. And of course it wasn’t him.
But it was, and the shorter, thick-set bloke he was standing with looked like . . . it was Nobby. Nobby and Rosemary from the week in Sydney.
Jim.
Call out to him. Jump down and run across the lines.
‘Six ten to Frankston, arriving platform . . .’
To hell with the six ten to Frankston. She took Raelene’s wrist and started back the way they’d come.
‘Why are we going backwards?’
‘Be a good girl and run for me, Raelie.’
‘Why are we going backwards, I said?’
She’d seen too much of Margot, spent too much time arguing with her.
‘I have to see someone.’
‘That Florence again?’
‘Someone I know.’
Or had known once upon a time; someone she’d kissed goodbye on another crowded station.
It was all circles, circles within circles within circles. And people stopping her from getting back to the beginning. Too many going her way, going the other way, and no one going fast enough. And Raelene dragging on her arm, not going anywhere.
Jenny lifted her and pushed her way between massed humanity, found a clear space on the platform and ran.
Couldn’t see him when she got there. No train could have come in and gone out, not so fast. He could have been seeing Nobby off.
She searched the crowd for his head, wasn’t tall enough to see over those hemming her in. She’d never been tall enough without her high heels.
Frankston train on time, pulling in opposite. Always another train to catch. Raelene struggling to get down. Jenny freed her, and Raelene sat down.
Try picking up a bawling, kicking seven year old. Determined seven year olds stay down. Raelene’s bellow dispersed the crowd. And Jenny glimpsed the back of his head. She’d know those ears anywhere.
‘Jim!’
A few turned to the name. A few turned to stare at an out-ofcontrol brat, to tut-tut at the mother. Florence Keating was her mother.
‘Jim!’ she called again. This time he turned to his name, and he saw her. Raelene left to kick and bawl her disapproval, Jenny ran.
*
Raelene thought about getting lost. She had one day in Myer’s, when Jenny wouldn’t buy white sandals at the sale; she’d got really lost and got scared. She scrambled to her feet and ran bawling after Jenny. Saw her grab hold of the tall man’s hand.
Grown-ups didn’t howl unless their grannies died. Jenny was howling, and talking, and the earrings that had pearls locked inside them like pirate’s treasure were bobbing around her face.
Raelene pulled at her arm. ‘Mummy, we’re missing our train now.’
Jenny didn’t care about trains. She had hold of both of the man’s hands now, or he had hold of hers, as if they were both trying to stop the other one from getting away.
Trains made sparks at night, like trams did. They were electric, Jenny said. Raelene liked watching those sparks. The train came in, almost went past before it stopped, then everyone was pushing to be first in, and a heap of people came running down the platform.
‘Mummy. You’re being stupid.’
She was too. She was bawling against the man’s coat now, right in close to him, and his big hands were sort of holding her there. One was on her back, holding her close to him, and the other one was holding her head, and his hand was so huge he could hold nearly all of her head in it.
They looked like love actors in a picture show. Everyone was staring at them. Even the people walking away looked back over their shoulders to stare, probably to see if the picture ended up with kissing stuff, like heaps of them did.