by Alan Collins
The car stopped at her little cottage and she got out, holding me tight. 'Have him ready at ten next Monday,' my father yelled at her and drove off to his dreary room at the Commercial Travellers' Club in the city. There he stared at the prints on the wall of Norman Lindsay nudes, sprites so voluptuous they would cause a miniature tidal wave if they entered the limpid pools.
The Scarba Home had popped into his head out of fear of the black-hooded women whose pale faces with thin-rimmed spectacles seemed more at home with death than life. The Scarba Home was run by the Benevolent Society of New South Wales. Cold statuary of a tortured, torn, impaled body marked the driveway of the convent down the road. By contrast the path to the door of Scarba wound between gloomy Norfolk pines. Its records of the discarded and motherless infants and the homeless pregnant girls it succoured were either secret or erratically kept, as I discovered when, more than halfway through my life, in the vaults of the Mitchell Library, I tried to find some record of my stay.
There was a telephone booth downstairs in the common room of the Commercial Travellers' Club. Sampson Collins took his address book and his gold Eversharp propelling pencil into the tiny cubicle and proceeded to give Shirley, the club's telephoniste, a series of numbers to call. After nearly an hour, he had nine men agreeing to meet at the rabbi's home. He had expected ribald jokes but was surprised at the serious manner of the men. Despite the interruption to their work, they had all assured him it was an honour to attend and witness my circumcision. Perhaps, too, they were touched by the tragedy of the circumstances.
On Monday morning Mrs O'Donohue was waiting at the door of her cottage. A car pulled up and my grandmother, already hobbling with arthritis, was helped out by my Aunt Enid, looking as though she was going to a morning tea at the Australia Hotel. Her sister Beryl, the eldest of the three Davis girls, was married to Alf Safran, a returned serviceman who had borrowed the car and now sat authoritatively behind the wheel. The two women walked up the narrow path, the privet grabbing at their clothes. The dear midwife had me wrapped tightly in a shawl. Wordlessly, I was taken from that breast I loved and placed into the inexperienced arms of my aunt.
'I've fed him,' said Mrs O'Donohue through trembling lips. She folded her arms over her near-empty breasts. 'He'll need another about twelve o'clock.' She added forlornly, 'Y' can bring him back here if you like.'
Enid said grimly, 'I don't think any one us will be seeing much of the child after this day.' She looked down at me and shook her head. 'Your stupid father will live to regret what he has decided, taking you away from a good home.' Mrs O'Donohue could contain her tears no longer and sobbed deeply as Grandma, followed by Aunt Enid holding the baby awkwardly, went back down the garden path, climbed into the car and never looked back.
As one of the men joked later, the scene outside the rabbi's house reminded him of the bunch that stood around outside the SP bookmaker's on a Saturday afternoon. When the black car drew up, their first reaction was to scatter. Alf got out and asked, 'Where's Sam?'
'Inside having a heartstarter, I reckon.'
'Give us a look at the nipper, Enid.'
'Struth, he's the livin' spit of poor Alva, wouldn't y' say, Izzy?'
Enid held me out to the men for just long enough and then marched to the door with Grandma limping behind. She knocked with a sharp rat-a-tat. The rabbi's wife opened it and beckoned them in. At this point Enid lost some of her cool composure and held me tight. The rabbi's wife sat Grandma down in a tall Jacobean chair in the hall and put out her arms to take me from Enid.
'Better now I should take the little one,' she said. 'The mother should - oy, forgive -Ich hob fargesn - you are the aunt, yes? Listen, give me the baby. This is no place for a woman. Now go sit in the hall with the buba. I'll call you when it's over.'
She winkled me out of Enid's arms just as the tears flowed. First her sister, now a motherless baby taken from her. She col lapsed into a matching chair alongside Grandma. 'Just so long as I don't see Sam,' she sobbed. 'I hate the mamzer.' The two women sat in the hard chairs waiting, waiting until Alf, the tenth man, would reappear to drive them home.
All was ready in the rabbi's lounge room. My father, dressed to kill, was seated in a wide, comfortable chair, his legs apart and with a pillow and a towel across his knees. A small table at his side was covered with a pretty white cloth. On it was a silver goblet, a bottle of wine, a prayer book and a shiny metal case. The men stood around sheepishly, jokingly enquiring if their mate Sam was fortified enough for the job or perhaps another shot of whisky maybe? They hardly noticed when the rabbi's wife glided silently into the room, gently placed me on my father's lap and withdrew.
The rabbi appeared from a side door wearing a white gown, which could have been a concession to surgical sterility, or more likely was his kitl, an outer garment worn by orthodox Jews on the High Holydays and in which they are also buried. He skilfully unwrapped me from the shawl down to my wet nappy, exposing my minuscule dicky to the cold morning air. I howled long and loud until the rabbi took a wad of cottonwool, dunked it in wine and squeezed it into my open mouth. Its insidious pleasure enveloped me. My father breathed whisky fumes over me. I shut up and shut out the unpleasantness of having my legs forced apart by an ugly man who clamped my dicky in cold steel and then cut away enough of it to initiate me into the Covenant of Abraham. The rabbi's wife reappeared and forestalled my father's inept attempt to wrap me up again. The men all behaved as though they had come through some terrible ordeal and had another drink and slices of teacake. They wished my father good luck, consulted their watches and trooped out.
Uncle Alf was the last to leave. 'The sister and ma-in-law are waitin' in the hall for me, Sam. You sure you won't . . . y' know, me and Beryl would love to take the little one and give him a good home.' Sam stood up, holding me awkwardly.
'They blame me, Alf, for poor Alva dying. Said I should have had her in a hospital. It's all very well being wise after the event. I know they'll go to their graves blaming me but you don't, do you Alf ? Things go wrong - you've seen enough of it yourself in the trenches.'
The alcohol was deserting the both of us by now. I was hurting like hell and crying. So was my father, snivelling with self-pity and calling out, 'As God's my witness, I didn't want her to die!' Alf, noncommittally, replied, 'You made your bed, you gotta lie in it,'and pushed past my father to gather up Grandma and Aunt Enid. It was only after the three of them had gone that Sam realised he had not seen the two women at all that morning, and it would be many years before he saw either of them again.
My father's tourer was parked outside. He waited until he thought nobody was about; then, with me quieter now, he laid me in a wicker Moses basket and put it on the seat beside him. He could have walked the short distance from the rabbi's house to the Scarba Home. As he drove up, the morning sun barely penetrated the gloom of the driveway. He tucked the shawl closer around me before lifting me out and carrying me up the few steps to the entrance. The matron was summoned. Her chest was adorned with a large metal badge like some lumpy school prefect. Attached to it was a metal strip engraved with her name, G. McCechnie, Matron. She towered over just about everybody; she was the supreme commander of the Scarba Home of the Benevolent Society. She in turn summoned an inferior person, a dumpy girl who could barely walk for the starch in her uniform. Only when I was deposited into the girl's scratchy arms and my face was almost lacerated, did Matron McCechnie speak.
'You are the Sampson Collins of the Jewish faith and this is your male child?'
She commanded the greyhaired woman behind the high counter to hand over the application form, which she proceeded to read like a military charge sheet. Scratchy uniform stood by, her eyes glued to Matron's face for a clue as to the next order.
Sampson Collins admitted everything: yes he was the person stated; yes, he had just been widowed; no, the infant had no birth defects (unless you count being born uncircumcised a defect); yes, he had the birth certificate here. Matron, who in the lig
ht of her long experience with male duplicity would have been happier to have fingerprints included, examined it minutely. Then her voice softened.
'The little one has been breastfed, Mr Collins?'
He admitted this was so, but caution made him refrain from naming the Irish midwife. He felt quite foolish then when Matron assured him that God in his infinite wisdom made all mothers' milk to the same formula. She turned to scratchy uniform. 'Martha here will be feeding little Alan. Off you go now, there's a good girl, and don't forget to change the dressing on his little thing, will you?'
Martha gave me a conspiratorial squeeze. Somewhere beneath that sandpaper blouse was my lunch. I tried to turn my face away from it in time to see my father edging towards the door. He paused and came over to me. 'Goodbye, old son,'he said jovially. 'I'll pop in on Sunday and see how you're getting on.' The sandblasted glass doors showing a pair of stags rampant closed behind him. Stags, rampant or rutting 'it could not have been a more apt exit for my father.
The Jewish mourning custom is wisely divided into stages: seven days of deep mourning (well, they had now elapsed), one month of reflection and then, pragmatically, at the end of the month, nobody would look askance if the surviving spouse was out and about. From then on, he or she was actually expected to take a new partner and, if at all possible, procreate.
In this regard, at least, Sampson Collins was an observant Jew. Within a year he had wed again to a divorcee named Bella. She soon found his long absences from home as he travelled New South Wales not at all what she had in mind when she married her boulevardier. In their first year, she visited me twice - at any rate, she came into the building twice. On all other occasions she sat in the car buffing her fingernails while Sampson Collins remarked on what a bonny fellow I was, winking at scratchy uniform when enquiring if I was on the . . . and he touched his chest; pleased as Punch that I was, he happily paid for another six months board for me at Scarba.
Bella was a manicurist at David Jones. Skivvying after a baby would damage her hands. I must say that on the two occasions she held me, she was soft as eiderdown and smelt divinely. I would like to have gone home with Bella if only for a change from the reek of disinfectant and the chipped white enamel cots and blankets that were more constricting than an iron lung. But this dainty, petite little china doll who was by now in her thirties and who could not walk past a mirror, did not want either someone else's child or her own. An interfering family had wrecked her previous marriage. She took Sam on because he showed he didn't care a damn for families and of course he had film-star looks (well, mature film-star looks), a touring car, and he was always good for a nod and a wink from the managers at Anthony Hordern's department store in George Street. Bella had kept the flat in Darlinghurst as part of her divorce settlement. At night she sat in it, waiting for Sam to be the husband she imagined from her film fan magazines. His artful lying did not fool her for one minute - she had heard it all a million times and was as adept at it as he was.
.... ....
I had my first birthday at Scarba. Somehow, Grandma and Aunt Enid managed to come on a different Sunday to my father. They coddled me and cried and said how much I looked like 'poor Alva' and thank God I wasn't a Collins - at least in looks. I was by now bonded to Martha and held out my arms to this oh-so-plain girl, herself an orphan, recently impregnated by a farm lad. Martha was now the centre of my own tiny world. I had returned her breasts to her with thanks and now allowed her to feed me the pap laid down in the Scarba handbook for infant care. Matron McCechnie told my father in the bluntest terms that I needed a proper home and that, in any case, my time at Scarba was nearly expired.
'This is an infants' home, Mr Collins; we cannot care for the growing child. You will have to make other arrangements.' She stared at him severely. 'You have remarried, have you not? Surely your new domestic situation should include the care of your child?'
He protested weakly that he was away 'on the road' most of the week and his new wife had a nine to five-thirty job. Matron took him into her office and sat him down like an errant schoolboy. She was quite impervious to his charm, even though in her dreams she might have clasped him in her narrow celibate bed.
'We have an arrangement with the people in Ashfield who are able to care for the weaned child . . .'
'How much will it cost?'
This sort of bargaining the Hibernian matron understood. She did not like Sam any more or less for his asking. She pursed her lips, fixing him with a look meant to forestall any attempt at haggling, a skill she suspected Sam possessed in abundance. 'Their Board has set the scale of fees, Mr Collins. I cannot depart from it.' She was about to say seventeen and sixpence per week when my father broke in, 'A quid, lady, that's all I can afford and that's five bob more than I've been paying, although I suppose the poor little bugger is growin' and he'll need a bit more tucker.'
(Interesting, isn't it? Fourteen years later, I boarded with a family in Ashfield. I paid fifteen shillings a week for full board and my washing.)
Matron McCechnie allowed herself the luxury of a smile. The Jews weren't so tough to beat after all. She gave two short rings on an electric bell which summoned scratchy arms, who descended the stairs, holding me tightly. I could actually waddle by now but Scarba rules forbade walking up or down stairs. Martha had been primed about my prospective departure. Her eyes were puffy and red. I was beautifully clothed in the most exquisite knitted suit with a pompom beret to match - all handmade by the Scarba Ladies' Auxiliary. Martha stood me on my shaky pudgy legs while I gripped her finger. She gently propelled me towards my father, disengaging herself as I grabbed his knee for support. Perhaps it was the rough tweed of his suit under my hand or the manly smell of hair pomade. More likely it was the abrupt separation from Martha that made me fall down and lie on my back screaming. Martha bent down to pick me up; Matron restrained her. 'Let Mr Collins deal with this,' she said. 'Healthy little chap, don't you think?'
Sampson Collins hoisted me onto his knee, made ridiculous clucking noises and, taking out a snowywhite handkerchief, dabbed at my face. 'Now, Master Alan Alva Collins, let's not have too much of that Irish paddy.' The hanky reeked of bay rum; its heady fumes were like chloroform to my immature lungs. My yells retreated to a snuffle. Sam grinned at Matron and Martha. He stood up and asked Matron where he had to sign 'to take delivery of me little parcel'. While he screwed the top off his gold-nib Conway Stewart fountain pen, he tucked me under one arm, waving aside Martha's offer of help. She ran upstairs to reappear with a toy bear which she forced into my arms. Matron immediately prised it loose from my grasp. 'Sorry, but this is the property of the Scarba Home.' Sam said audibly, 'Shit, and they reckon us Yids are tough!' He turned his back on the place and marched out to his Ford tourer. He smiled at me. 'Have I told you about Bella, old son? Me new missus? Well, she's not too shook on babies.' He patted my cheek and winked. 'Might be able to talk her round but you'll have to grow a bit first.'
My father opened the car door and propelled me into Bella's unwelcoming arms. Despite her entrancing aroma, I longed for Martha's scratchy bosom and the smell of Sunlight soap. Sam could not fail to notice the stiffness of her posture, her arms barely encircling me. 'For God's sake, darlin', he's not goin' to bloody well bite you. Hold onto him, we're only going to Ashfield.' And he flung himself behind the steering wheel and drove far too quickly down the gloomy Scarba driveway.
...2...
Lost years? Unable to account for the passing of time? Like the young Cavalier Prince being grilled by the Roundheads, 'When did you last see your father?', I saw very little of mine. I saw very little of anybody during my confinement in the meandering, mock-manor-house spread of the Ashfield Infants' Home. The philanthropist who had helped generously towards the purchase of 'Gorton' in the 1870s watched my growth from his ornate gilt frame in the dining room. In reality, his ice-blue eyes were on the horizon of his sizeable estate, not on some Jewish infant kept out of trouble for a quid a week. These are the things I r
emember: the benefactor's blue eyes, the carved newel posts of the staircase where my pudgy fingers traced the leaves of the waratah, the drying room because of its dank smell, the reek of roast lamb on a Sunday every Sunday as weeks and months became time without end or interruption to a life circumscribed by the bars of my cot. Except, except . . .
One Sunday, many months after Sam deposited me in the Ashfield home, my maternal grandmother was pushed up the driveway in a wheelchair by Alf, her son-in-law the Gallipoli veteran, too shattered by the gas of Flanders to do any sustained work and thus on call to his mainlaw and sisters for odd jobs such as the rare visits to an unclaimed child. I was now fleet enough to be able to run anywhere other than where directed. My health card was gratifyingly free of those ailments so contagious and rife when thirty infants are in nursery propinquity. Grandma had been propped in the common room. From a distant doorway, urged forward by a nurse I detested, I saw this black mass peering at me through pince-nez and then a blackgloved hand beckoning me. The nurse shoved me in the back.
'Gwan, go and meetcha granny.'
Halfway towards her and the purple mole on her cheek with hair sprouting from it was enough to propel my stubby legs into a gallop, past her and out the door she had come through. The girl did not give chase; she had seen it all before. Alf stuck out a feeble arm but by then I was free, free and stumbling down the steps and heading for the noise of the Parramatta Road traffic. It was the gardener who grabbed me a few yards from the iron gates. His giant, earth-stained hands were imprinted on my spotless Sunday clothes. He tucked me under his arm like his bags of blood and bone fertiliser, which now shared its pungency with me. He dumped me just inside the doors where the wheezing Alf duly took over and presented me to Grandma.
'Just what y'd expect from Sam's kid.' And with an exhausting heave, he plopped me in Grandma's lap.