A Prayer for Blue Delaney

by Kirsty Murray

Colm knelt beside her and she spread a leather-bound scrapbook out in front of him. It was full of clippings, pictures and theatre programs. Every page was crammed with words and images. Some of the items had little notes written underneath them in elegant handwriting. Colm turned the pages of the scrapbook with curiosity. On one page was a flyer advertising a performance. The star of the show had a strangely familiar face but Colm couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘That’s not Grandad, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure is. He was a big star before the Depression.’ She turned the page and there was another picture of a dashing young man. ‘See, here he is on the cover of Theatre Magazine. That was just after he’d starred in Star of the North. I was tiny but I still remember how exciting it was. Me and Clancy and Mum, we always had the box near the stage. Dad was the hero, of course. He never played second fiddle to anyone. I think that made it even harder for him when Mum became so famous. They both needed to be centre stage. They were such a pair of show-offs.’

  On the next page was a glamorous, dark-haired woman with piercing eyes. ‘That’s Mum. She was a Tivoli girl to start. That’s how she met Dad, though they’d known each other when they were kids and then lost touch. They met up again after the first war, got hitched, had me and Clance. But they could never agree on anything. Not even what their last name should be. Dad wanted Mum and us to be Dares but Mum insisted we were all called Delaney because when she first met Dad his name was Patrick Delaney. They were such a fiery twosome.’

  ‘Did they get a divorce?’ asked Colm.

  ‘God, no. They were crazy about each other, even if it was hard for them to live together all the time. Anyway, neither of them believed in divorce.’

  ‘I heard Grandad tell Mrs Mahoney that Violet was the only girl for him.’

  Blue smiled. ‘Good on him. That would have stuck in Annie’s craw. She was always jealous of Mum. Dad might have been king of melodrama but Mum wound up being the big star in vaudeville. That’s when Dad dragged Clancy off with him on the road. And I got stuck tagging around after Mum.’

  Colm turned over the pages of the scrapbook. There were pictures of Violet everywhere - Violet in Britain, Violet taking America by storm, Violet as Australia’s sweetheart. And then one small newspaper clipping of Violet and a small girl standing shyly beside her, clutching the hem of her gown.

  ‘Why didn’t you become a singer like your mum?’ asked Colm. ‘You have the best voice.’

  Blue laughed. ‘I loved the theatre world, but it wasn’t my world. If I’d gone into it, I’d always be in Mum’s shadow. The New Theatre, that’s my sort of place. I like ideas, Colm. Ideas about how people should live in the world, ideas about what’s important and how we can live in peace. The razzle-dazzle, it’s fine for some, but it’s not me.’

  Blue shut the big scrapbook and Colm helped her pack away all the paraphernalia of her parents’ lives.

  ‘Guess I ought to add this to the scrapbook,’ said Blue, taking a silver-and-blue envelope off the kitchen table and bringing it into the untidy sitting room.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s two invites to The Olympic Follies. That big production at the Tivoli.’

  ’The Olympic Follies? Keith saw that and thought it was beaut,’ said Colm.

  ‘They were hoping Dad would be around for it when they sent it.’

  ‘You should go!’ said Colm. ‘Brother Jack reckons we should all be more like Olympic athletes and have team spirit. You know, friendly and supporting each other’s events. That’s what he reckoned it meant when all the teams walked in together for the closing ceremony. He said we have to put aside our differences.’

  Blue rolled her eyes. ‘Like those Hungarian and Russian water polo players did when they beat each other senseless in the pool? Hmmm? And Brother Jack is a fine one to talk. Look what the bloody Catholics have done to the Labor Party, splitting it right down the middle.’

  ‘Joe says . . .’ began Colm.

  ‘Oh you and Joe with all your philosophising. What do either of you know about politics? The pair of you drive me crazy.’

  But then she tweaked Colm’s cheek and he knew she wasn’t really cross with him.

  Maybe they were on the same side after all.

  35

  Night of stars

  On the evening of the show, Colm met Blue at a tearoom near the Tivoli and they shared a plate of sandwiches. Well-dressed people were crowding into the theatre foyer. Blue elbowed her way through the crowd to where an old woman stood at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Hello Auntie Kate,’ said Blue. ‘Colm, this is Mrs Kate Whiteley. A very old friend of your Grandad’s. Auntie Kate, this is my nephew, Colm.’

  ‘I never knew Clancy had a son!’ Mrs Whiteley held out her gloved hand for Colm to take and he glanced across at Blue, wondering what she was thinking.

  ‘In the early days, I watched your gran dance at the Tivoli,’ said Mrs Whiteley. ‘She used to hoof the boards with my Vera. Who would have thought I’d outlive them both?’

  Blue tried to steer the conversation onto more cheerful subjects.

  ‘Mrs Whiteley’s son, Harry, he’s organised for the show to be televised tonight.’

  ‘You mean we’re going to be on television!’ said Colm.

  ‘I think it’s the show they’re interested in, not us,’ said Blue.

  ‘Why I remember we were amazed when we heard Josie Melville singing on the radio,’ said Mrs Whiteley. She looked at Colm and saw he didn’t understand why that was so important. ‘That was like tonight - a first! They broadcast her live from the Princess Theatre. And now, here we are going to see a Tivoli show projected into those little square boxes. What will they think of next!’ She shook her head and laughed.

  Mrs Whiteley put a hand on both Blue and Colm’s arms and they helped her up the steps of the Tivoli. The outside of the theatre had been done up to celebrate the Olympics with the figure of a torch-bearing Olympian set before a backdrop of the Greek Parthenon. White-and-blue posters advertising The Olympic Follies lined the foyer.

  Colm hadn’t been inside any of the big Melbourne theatres before. There was so much to look at. Blue kept tugging at the back of his jacket, trying to make him stay in his seat, but it was hard not to want to lean over the balcony and stare down at the sea of heads beneath them. When the orchestra struck up the overture, Colm leant so far forward that Blue had to grab him by the back of his shirt.

  Singers, dancers and actors paraded across the stage in one act after another. A funny-looking woman in a squashy hat told jokes about Moonee Ponds. It wasn’t until she was about to leave the stage that Colm realised ’she’ was a man. And then a flock of dancers in tiny blue outfits covered in tinsel and stars swarmed onto the stage and high-kicked through another number. Colm couldn’t help but wonder about all the years that Bill had spent in the theatre. He tried to imagine Bill on stage surrounded by the scantily clad dancers and, suddenly, he laughed.

  ‘Did I miss a joke?’ whispered Blue.

  ‘No,’ said Colm. ‘Life is just so big and long and amazing!’

  ‘You are the craziest kid,’ said Blue, laughing, as she tousled his hair.

  After they had seen Mrs Whiteley into a taxi, Blue and Colm walked in silence down Swanston Street. The streets were empty except for outside the window of an electrical goods shop where a small crowd had gathered. There was a display of televisions in the window and everyone was intrigued by the images on the screen that flickered across the screen like silvery-grey ghosts. A stern-looking man was reading the late news. It seemed incredible that a whole cinema could work inside a wooden box. Colm and Blue stood in the crowd for a moment in front of the plate-glass window and looked at the grey images flickering on the screens on the other side.

  ‘Do you think the cameras showed us sitting in the audience? Do you think we were on television when they telecast it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Blue. She stood staring at the screen, even though i
t had switched to a test pattern and there was nothing much to look at. ‘I wish Dad and Mum could have been there tonight. You don’t realise until someone’s gone, all the things you would have liked to have shared with them.’

  ‘Maybe they were there. Maybe they’re watching us just like we’re watching that television,’ said Colm.

  Blue tousled his hair. ‘Well, maybe,’ she said. ‘But if Dad is watching us, then I reckon he’d be saying it’s about time we had a serious discussion about the future.’

  ‘Can’t we talk about this when we get back to your place?’ said Colm, not looking her in the eye.

  ‘Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Blue.

  Colm felt his heart grow heavy. She was putting him in a boarding school or sending him to a children’s home.

  ‘We can’t go on staying in Williamstown,’ said Blue.

  ‘I know,’ said Colm.

  They were climbing the steps of Flinders Street Station when Blue put her hand out and forced Colm to stop under the clocks and to turn back and look at her. Behind Blue, above the intersection, was a web of wires making up the emblem of the Olympics, a giant Olympic flame. Colm tried to keep his focus on the flame. He didn’t want to hear what Blue was going to say next.

  ‘I got a letter from Mrs Mahoney.’

  Colm flinched and drew a deep breath, waiting for the blow to fall.

  ‘She’s sending Rusty down to Melbourne on the train from Alice Springs.’

  ‘What?’ Colm turned away from the Olympic flame to focus on Blue’s face.

  ‘She’s sending Rusty and all Dad’s possessions, including that wreck of a car, down to Melbourne. She thought I should have the old bomb and you should be taking care of Rusty. He’s too old to be a working dog and she said she was tired of wasting good meat on him. So that means we can’t stay in Williamstown. I can’t have pets in the flat. And you can’t go on sleeping on the couch for ever either. So I’ve found us a house.’

  ‘What?’ repeated Colm. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Would you stop saying “What?”. It’s rude. Say "pardon".’

  ‘Pardon!’ said Colm. He was looking at her hard now.

  ‘I’ve found a house. Mum left me a little bit of money and it turns out Dad had a few hundred pounds tucked away too. So I’m going to buy this place. In Newport, just up from the Strand.’

  ‘You want me to stay with you?’

  Blue looked at him nervously. ‘I don’t want you to go thinking I can be like your mum. But, if you can put up with me, I’d like it if . . . if we could work things out.’

  Colm pinched himself hard on the arm, hard enough to leave a small bruise.

  ‘What are you doing?’ exclaimed Blue, stopping him.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.’

  36

  Que sera sera

  Colm fidgeted, jumping from one foot to the other, barely able to contain himself. He couldn’t believe they were really going to have Rusty back. Tin Annie had arrived first and Blue had driven the old ute to Spencer Street Station to meet Rusty’s train.

  When the porter stepped out of the baggage carriage with Rusty on a red leash, Colm had to look twice to recognise her. She looked so clean and groomed, not the dusty desert dog that Colm remembered. He knelt down and pressed his face into the spiky red fur, remembering all the nights he and Bill had camped out in the desert with the swirling night sky above them. In his mind’s eye he could see Bill sleeping peacefully under that sky with the old dog curled against his side. He hugged Rusty tight. She let out a small yip and licked his face so hard he had to let her go.

  Blue and Colm’s new home was a simple weatherboard house with the paint peeling off the front. Colm led Rusty up the narrow concrete pathway and showed her every room with pride. There were only four of them but Colm couldn’t imagine wanting more.

  Life in Newport was a new beginning for all of them. There were so many things that Blue and Colm could share, from walking Rusty together in the early mornings to planting a vegetable garden in the tiny back yard. Joe brought them each a tomato vine and showed them how to tie and stake the plants.

  Now that they had a real kitchen, Blue decided she wanted to cook proper meals for both of them. Colm had to help stirring the thick, gluggy sauces while Blue wrestled with lumps of tough pastry or flicked through the pages of the Woman’s Weekly, studying the recipes section with a frown. Sometimes, he had to work extra hard to think up nice things to say about Blue’s experiments. Even Rusty looked worried by the leftovers that found their way into her bowl.

  If the wind blew from the north, soot from the nearby power station would come sweeping across Newport. When Blue raised the alarm, Colm ran around the house shutting all the windows while she raced outside to save the freshly washed laundry. Blue laughed with relief as she dumped the washing on the kitchen table. ‘Delaney and McCabe! What a team!’ she said.

  Keith was given a bicycle for his thirteenth birthday and on the sweltering summer afternoons, he’d ride down to Newport to pick up Colm and then they’d double-dink back along the Strand, with Rusty running alongside them.

  On a long, hot summer evening a few days after Christmas, Blue pulled out a bottle of Tarax lemonade from the icebox and gave it to Colm. Then she made herself a Pimms No. 1 Cup and handed Colm a pair of folding chairs.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Colm, as Blue opened the front door and stepped outside with her drink.

  ‘Come and see,’ she said.

  They walked down to the bottom of the street together where a crowd of neighbours were milling around, setting up deckchairs on the footpath and on the lawn of number 17. The family who had bought the first television on the street wheeled it out onto their verandah and everyone clapped and hooted. Colm and Blue hardly knew their new neighbours but they quickly felt at home once the television was warmed up and they’d settled down in their deckchairs to watch the evening programs.

  As they walked back home in the dark, Blue slipped her arm around Colm’s shoulders.

  ‘We’re turning into a real pair of local yokels, you and me,’ said Blue.

  ‘That’s not so bad,’ said Colm.

  ‘Maybe but we’re not staying in for New Year’s Eve. I’m singing with Joe’s band at a dance over in Carlton and you’re coming along.’

  ‘I thought you said they don’t like having children tagging along at those dances.’

  ‘You don’t look like a little kid anymore. Look at the size of you! You’re taller than me already! Besides, 1956 has been a big year for you and me, kiddo. I think we should see it out with a bang.’

  On New Year’s Eve, Colm sat at the table reserved for the band while Blue sang for a crowd of slow-dancing couples.

  ‘Que sera sera, whatever will be will be . . .’ It was the song from The Man Who Knew Too Much that had haunted Colm’s dreams but now when he heard it, he hummed along. The future wasn’t his to see, but what he could see of it was looking brighter all the time.

  Joe took a break from the set and came and sat with Colm at their small table near the bandstand. He laid his saxophone beside them and sat back in his seat with a grin on his face. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a small blue leather box.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ he asked, slapping the box down on the table in front of Colm. When he raised the lid, Colm laughed. Inside was a gold ring set with a sparkling pale green stone.

  ‘What’s so funny? You think she won’t like it?’

  ‘No, she’ll like it, no worries,’ said Colm, grinning.

  ‘You know why I bought it then,’ said Joe. ‘I’m going to take that girl "off the shelf" even if she does think she’s an old maid. How do you feel about being best man at the wedding, eh?’

  Colm laughed again. His chest almost ached with happiness.

  Blue’s voice sang out. ‘Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see . . .’ Colm s
hut his eyes and said a prayer of thanks for Blue Delaney.

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction, but many of the events are based on fact. Australia has had a long history of endorsing child migration schemes. After World War II, thousands of children were taken from institutions in the UK and Malta and shipped to Australia, often against their will. Many of these children suffered unspeakable hardship and cruelty at the hands of those who were meant to care for them. Colm, Tommy and Dibs are imaginary boys but their experiences are based on those of boys who were participants of those orphan migration schemes.

  At the same time as thousands of immigrant children were being sent to Australia, Aboriginal children were being forcibly separated from their families, and they too were institutionalised. It is ironic that in an age that celebrated the ideal of the family unit, so many children should have been forced to grow up in institutions.

  Although we remember the 1950s as an era of stability, like any era, it was complex and full of contrasts. It is often thought of as a conservative time, yet there were people who battled for change. Robert Menzies, Australia’s Prime Minister throughout the 1950s, attempted to outlaw the Communist Party of Australia but never succeeded. The Cold War, weapons testing, spy scandals, mass migration, royal tours and the Olympic Games were all issues that grabbed the headlines during the decade. Countless breakthroughs in technology changed the way ordinary people lived. Not least of these was the birth of Australian television.

  History is never a single narrative, but a rich tapestry of interwoven stories. In choosing the historical threads to weave into A Prayer for Blue Delaney, I found the colour and vibrancy of the red heart of Australia irresistible. The stories of the Chinese in the Northern Territory, the sufferings of the Aboriginal stolen generations, and the idealists who challenged the traditional norms of culture in the 1950s were all historical elements that demanded a place in Colm’s story.

  In creating the fictitious characters that live within the pages of this novel, I drew on many sources. Although some of the characters are composites of real people, only Brother Keaney is an actual historical figure. An Irish ex-policeman, Brother Keaney was head of the Christian Brothers’ home at Bindoon in the 1940s and 1950s.