Kal

by Judy Nunn

  Several months later, Gaston informed him by telegraph that the drapery adjoining the Sheaf Hotel had been acquired and that arrangements for the building of Restaurant Picot were well under way. Furthermore, steps were being taken to devise a solid council election campaign: ‘Harry Brearley, the people’s choice’. By this time, Harry had decided that any moral doubts he may have had about brothels (which were, after all, legal on the goldfields) were utterly inconsequential. He was a partner in Gaston Picot’s Kalgoorlie enterprises and he owed the Frenchman his loyalty and commitment.

  Following a quick inspection—late at night with his hat on, his collar up and McAllister doing all the talking—Harry decided that the brothels were not working to capacity. They could be making a far greater profit if they employed more girls—at least three more at Red Ruby’s alone. And if extra girls were employed then of course the rentals could be increased.

  The percentage of the daily takings must also be increased, he announced—according to Emily there had been no increase for two years. Each of the three madams was to be notified of the new arrangements.

  ‘They won’t like it,’ McAllister grumbled as he swigged his mug of tea and slouched over Jeanne’s kitchen table.

  Jeanne and Emily never conducted business with McAllister anywhere else but in the kitchen. He entered by the rear door and left by the rear door, and always at night. It wasn’t just to protect their reputations. Neither of them liked the humourless Scot with his rasping Glaswegian accent, his ill-fitting clothes and his big clumsy boots. ‘He’d quite ruin the finish on the drawing-room floors with those boots,’ Emily confided to Harry. But the women needed McAllister. He was big and strong and, although he liked to grumble, he did as he was told.

  ‘The madams won’t like it at all,’ he repeated. ‘Particularly Ada at Red Ruby’s—she thinks she owns the place.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t. And the amounts will be small,’ Harry said dismissively. ‘With the profits they’ll be making from the additional girls, the madams will barely notice.’ He rose from the table. ‘Then in a year we’ll review the situation and, depending upon profit margins, we will once again increase both rentals and percentages.’ Harry was enjoying himself. It was a pity there were not others to see him playing the businessman—it was a role which suited him.

  McAllister shrugged and shuffled to his feet. It made no difference to him anyway. He was paid a healthy regular amount by Gaston Picot to act as front man, so who was he to argue?

  When McAllister had gone, Harry gently chided Jeanne about her expenses and suggested they be cut back a little. Jeanne pouted prettily and said she wasn’t sure how she would manage but she would do her best. Emily signalled her approval immediately.

  ‘Quite right,’ she agreed. ‘You waste money ridiculously, Jeanne, and you know it.’ It had been a constant bone of contention between the women. Emily worried continuously that Picot would find out he was being robbed and call a halt to their arrangement. Emily would be forty-five soon—not a good time in a woman’s life to be left high and dry—and she did not intend to be deprived of her meal ticket if she could possibly help it.

  Emily Laurie had been the madam at the brothel in Fremantle where Gaston Picot had first met Jeanne Renoir—although of course she had not been Jeanne Renoir then—and Emily had watched as, like many before him, Gaston became besotted with the young prostitute. So much so that he refused to share her with anyone.

  He had property in Kalgoorlie, he told her. He could set her up in a grand house and visit her there regularly. ‘But I would be bored, mon cher,’ she said. ‘What would I do in Kalgoorlie?’ She made it sound like a disease. Gaston offered to make her a receptionist at one of his hotels but she displayed no enthusiasm at all. ‘What do I know about hotels?’ she had shrugged with disinterest.

  It was then that Picot had decided to open a brothel in Kalgoorlie—a string of brothels, if that was what she wanted. She could be his manager, he told her. ‘Discreetly, of course,’ he added. ‘From a distance.’ No other man was to come near her; those were his rules.

  She’d kissed him and said that she was very tempted, very tempted indeed … But she would be so lonely in a place like … Kalgoorlie without female company. And Emily was like a mother to her … Gaston had no alternative. Emily became part of the bargain.

  It was an arrangement which proved eminently practical in the long run. Not only was Emily a talented businesswoman but, with her impeccable English manners and appearance, she was the perfect smokescreen of respectability. Furthermore, she was a clever and creative ally. The story of Jeanne’s widowhood and the friendship which had existed between her deceased husband and Gaston was just one of Emily’s many inventions.

  Years later when, pressured by his wife, Gaston ended the affair with Jeanne, Emily assumed he would also terminate their comfortable arrangement. She was deeply thankful when he did not and watched, with horror, as Jeanne proceeded to unashamedly rob her benefactor.

  ‘Expenses,’ Jeanne would gaily declare, extracting half a dozen pound notes from one of the bundles delivered by Donald McAllister. She refused to listen to Emily’s protestations and there was nothing Emily could do but invent a list of expenditures that might sound vaguely plausible.

  The end was in sight, Emily was sure, and she worried. While Jeanne was Gaston’s mistress her extravagances were quite permissible. Indeed, the man loved to pamper her. But he was no longer receiving payment in kind.

  ‘Why should he spend good money when he’s getting nothing in return?’ she argued time and time again. But Jeanne wouldn’t listen.

  There was nothing Emily could do but wait for the end. If she and Jeanne were to be thrown out of their grand house and deprived of their income, they would face the consequences together. Although she never spoke of it, Emily’s love for Jeanne was far more than maternal.

  And then came the arrival of the charming, arrogant and ambitious Harry Brearley. Surely this spelled the end, Emily thought. But it didn’t. Harry had succumbed to Jeanne’s allure, Emily realised, as all men did, but he didn’t appear to want to sleep with her, and he obviously was not going to report her misdemeanours to Gaston. Emily swiftly revised her opinion of Harry Brearley and assisted him in every way she could. She became his ally and he trusted her implicitly.

  Now, secure in his position as Deputy Mayor and co-owner of Restaurant Picot, Harry barely concerned himself with the brothels.

  He was too busy basking in his glory. Restaurant Picot was flourishing as the social centre of Kalgoorlie’s elite and, although he had appointed a manager, Harry was invariably to be found there of an evening. Not only did he enjoy playing the host, he simply loved being in the place. It was magnificent.

  Gaston’s love for jarrah was reflected throughout the splendid building. The floors and the grand staircase and railings showed off to perfection the rich red hue of the timber. In the front of the restaurant were wooden booths with plush leather seats which looked onto the pageant of Hannan Street through large plate-glass windows. The booths were popular during the weekend luncheon hours when men brought their wives or their sweethearts to dine and be seen by the passing parade. The rest of the ground floor, dominated by the grand central staircase, constituted a spacious lounge and bar—table service only—while upstairs was the essential Restaurant Picot with French windows opening onto a balcony overlooking the street.

  Restaurant Picot was a masterpiece, just as Gaston had envisaged, complete with huge gilt-edged menus, silver cutlery and fine linen napkins. The only missing element was the giant chandelier. In its stead, on each table, was a flickering candle in a delicate, silver candlestick.

  ‘Upstairs will be elite,’ Gaston had declared. ‘Haute cuisine. Upstairs will be for the lovers of fine food and wine. Downstairs…’ His shrug was patronising. ‘Downstairs will be fashionable, a place to mingle, a place to be seen. But the food will be more … general.’ His tone implied ‘for the hoi polloi’: Gaston did n
ot yet trust the palates of Kalgoorlie. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘we will accommodate more tables that way.’

  In the early dusk, Harry would stand on the upstairs balcony saluting the passers-by with his cigar and enjoying the soft background music which emanated from the brand-new Berliner gramophone in the corner. The gramophone was the most sophisticated of musical inventions, Gaston said, vastly superior to the Edison phonograph, and he’d had it specially imported from Germany. The first of its kind in Kalgoorlie, it was Gaston’s and Harry’s pride and joy.

  As the evening progressed, Harry would greet the diners on their arrival and pass briefly amongst the tables to enquire whether all was satisfactory. He enjoyed playing the host. Particularly when the guests included those who, not so long ago, wouldn’t have given him the time of day. And this evening was no exception.

  ‘Perfectly delicious, Harry, thank you.’ Beatrice Bromley, wife of Dr Garfield Bromley, prominent physician, hated calling the man Harry but she couldn’t afford not to. Everyone who dined upstairs at Restaurant Picot called him Harry; she couldn’t have people thinking she wasn’t on a first-name basis. ‘The creme caramel was superb. As always.’

  ‘Thank you, Beatrice.’ She winced. She did every time. ‘I’ll tell Jean-Marc; he’ll be delighted. Garfield?’ Harry turned to Bromley who had pushed the dessert he’d barely touched to one side and was leaning back in his chair. ‘Is everything satisfactory?’

  ‘Yes. Excellent, old man, excellent,’ Bromley answered in his plummy tone which denoted superiority, ‘just not very hungry that’s all.’ He fiddled with one end of his waxed antennae-like moustache and gave a vague wave of his hand. ‘I say, could you get that fellow to bring me your best French brandy?’

  ‘Shall we wait for the coffee, dear?’ Beatrice asked tightly.

  ‘No, no. Now’s fine, now’s fine.’

  ‘Of course, we have an excellent cognac. I’ll send the waiter over immediately.’ As he left, Harry heard Beatrice hiss, ‘You should have waited for the coffee.’ But Bromley was always more interested in the liquor than he was in the food. Harry could never understand why the man was the most sought-after physician on the goldfields. People obviously didn’t know he was a drunk.

  As Harry caught the waiter’s eye and gestured to the Bromleys’ table, he heard a disturbance through the open French windows behind him, raucous men’s voices from the street below.

  Damn, he thought, the waiters hadn’t closed the windows. Harry had instructed them always to close the balcony windows early on a Friday. Friday was payday for the timbercutters who frequented the hotel next door. Payday and the end of the work week. Friday was a rowdy night at the Sheaf.

  Harry quickly crossed to the windows, noticing that one or two of the diners were already distracted by the din. He signalled a waiter to turn up the gramophone and, as he stepped out onto the balcony, the string quartet swelled in volume.

  Harry closed the windows behind him and looked down into the street below. Half a dozen men had staggered out of the Sheaf and one voice was raised above the general drunken din. It was a voice Harry knew. Rico Gianni. He stepped back out of the light, not wishing to draw attention to himself. But it was too late. Rico had sensed the figure on the balcony and looked up. He yelled something out in Italian and his voice was ugly.

  ‘Look, my friends!’ he was shouting. ‘Look at who is watching us from his castle. Mr Deputy Mayor himself!’ The others tried to quieten him, but he refused to listen. ‘Tell him to come down and join the common people,’ he jeered.

  As his friends dragged him away, Rico yelled up at Harry. In English this time. ‘You are a thief, Harry Brearley! You are a thief and a coward and one day you will pay for it.’

  ‘Come on, Rico,’ one of the men urged. ‘Leave him alone, it’s not worth it.’ Every couple of months Sergeant Baldy Hetherington was forced to lock Rico up for the night. Drunken behaviour, inciting an affray, using indecent language in a public place, and always relating to the Brearleys. ‘It is still early. We will go back to your house and drink some wine,’ the man insisted. ‘Come on.’ And the others started to drag the protesting Rico down the street.

  ‘Bastardo!’ Rico kept screaming up at Harry, but he allowed himself to be led away.

  Harry slipped back inside the restaurant, angry more than shaken by yet another episode. If there was any way he could have the entire Gianni family run out of town he would. But Giovanni Gianni was a respected citizen, and although Rico was generally avoided, there were many who sympathised with Teresa and the constant fight she must have in protecting her young family from her husband’s madness.

  Teresa had not expected Rico home this early tonight. She did not like the raucous group of timbercutters he had brought back with him, but it was safer for him to bring his work friends home to drink. He was less likely to get into trouble that way.

  Teresa looked at her son and shrugged her shoulders. She knew Enrico hated it when his father came home half drunk. She worried about the boy. Carmelina still knew how to charm her father, and six-year-old Salvatore was Rico’s pride and joy…’ but Enrico, who had always been a sensitive boy, was withdrawing more and more from the brutality of his father. And the more he withdrew the more Rico challenged him.

  ‘Stand up for yourself, boy,’ he barked constantly. ‘You are thirteen years old. Soon you will be a man; you must learn to fight.’ This followed the time Enrico had come home with a swelling eye and a bloodied face.

  ‘Just a boy at school,’ he had explained, knowing that if his father found out it was Jack Brearley, there would be hell to pay. Enrico wanted no repercussions from the fight—it had been a fair one. Although it was out of character for him, he had entered the fray as readily as Jack—the two of them had been spoiling for a fight for a very long time. But Jack Brearley was undoubtedly the stronger and more aggressive of the two and Enrico had been sorely beaten.

  As a result of his beating, Rico had insisted his son learn to fight. Enrico detested the whole exercise—not so much the lessons themselves but the hostility they brought out in his father.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Rico would yell, exasperated when the boy failed to respond. ‘Where is your rage? Fight me! Come on fight me!’ When Enrico’s efforts continued to be half-hearted, he would throw up his hands. ‘You are just like your uncle. Soft. Giovanni would walk away, too, before he would face his enemies. Well, go to him, see if I care.’ And Rico would walk off in disgust.

  The truth was, Rico was jealous of the boy’s relationship with his uncle. Since Giovanni had left the family home, Enrico had been slipping away to spend more and more time with his idol. And recently, when Giovanni had bought a piano accordion, he had given Enrico the old concertina.

  ‘Shut up that noise,’ Rico would bellow on the occasions when, in his drunkenness, the music became a symbol of the distance between him and his son. And then Teresa would turn her full venom upon him.

  ‘If he stops that noise I will leave this house!’ she would yell back at him. And later, when they had made love, she would try to talk sense to him. ‘Why do you fight the music, Rico? You love the concertina, you love to sing along. And the boy is a fine musician, Giovanni always said he was.’ Even as she sensed the tension, Teresa continued boldly. ‘You must let him spend time with Giovanni, he is a sensitive boy.’ And, for a while, there would be a grudging sense of peace until the next drunken rage.

  Knowing the effect Rico was having on his son, Giovanni had tried to discourage Enrico’s constant visits. If they exacerbated his father’s anger they served no purpose. But eventually it was Teresa herself who encouraged the relationship.

  ‘It is better that the boy sees you, Giovanni,’ she had said during one of his visits to the family home.

  Giovanni had deliberately called on a Friday night when Rico was out drinking so that he could insist she accept some money from him. ‘For the children, Teresa. Please take it. What else can I spend it on?’ She had rel
uctantly agreed.

  ‘He is the firstborn,’ she continued. ‘Rico is trying to mould him as himself. It is wrong. When Enrico is grown perhaps he will be able to see the pain in his father. If not,’ she shrugged, ‘at least he will be able to defend himself. He needs you, Giovanni.’

  So the visits had become more and more regular. And Giovanni enjoyed the company of the boy. Enrico never spoke of his unhappiness at home and Giovanni never encouraged it. Instead, he asked the boy to teach him to read and write, a request which filled Enrico with pride. And they played music together and sang and sat in silence watching the sunset and then Giovanni would say, ‘It is time to go home, Enrico,’ and the boy would reluctantly leave.

  ‘ENRICO, BRUNO’S GLASS is empty,’ Rico shouted drunkenly. ‘More pasta, hurry up, boy…’ His brush with Harry Brearley had enraged Rico and as usual, he decided to take his ill-humour out on his eldest son. Any interruption from Teresa merely angered him the more. ‘Shut your mouth, woman. The boy wants to behave like a girl, let him be treated like a girl. He can wait on the men like a good daughter should.’ The other men took no notice as they played their cards and held their glasses out to be filled.

  When one of the glasses smashed to the floor, Enrico was roared at, as if it was his fault, and ordered to clean up the mess. He stood looking at the glass for several moments while the men returned to their cards. Then he picked up his concertina and walked to the front door.

  ‘Where are you going, boy?’ Rico growled. ‘I told you to clean up that mess.’

  ‘Clean it up yourself,’ he answered. There was a deadly silence and all eyes were turned on Rico, waiting for his reaction. Rico was momentarily lost for words. Never had his son answered back to him.

  Enrico glanced briefly at his mother. ‘I’m going out,’ he said and he didn’t look at his father as he gently closed the door behind him.

  It was barely dusk when Enrico arrived at the boarding house where his uncle lived, but Giovanni was already on his way out.