Alva's Boy

by Alan Collins

  And there, framed in heavy silver, was Louis, alone, immobile and isolated in time. Not a boy for charging through the waves rolling onto Bondi Beach - the poor bugger!

  My hand in Mrs Gelman's went cold and clammy. I actually had to use my other hand to break her grip. Once I was freed from her clasp, she resorted to putting her arm around my shoulder.

  'What you think, Eln, is this not a beautiful room? I keep it so . . .'

  'Look, Mrs Gelman, I got to go.'

  'I know you have not to go anywhere, Eln.' Her hand firmed on my shoulder. 'You have nowhere to go. Is this not so? Back to sleeping outside a toilet? Running around the streets of Bondi like a...' She searched for a word. 'Like a gornisht ' a nothing, a nobody. What a life is this for a Jewish boy?'

  Too late, I realised I had confided too much of my life to this woman. Too late the penny dropped. I was to become Louis, to be fattened up on strudel, maybe even dressed like the frozen-in-time grandson, dead and lying in a grave in some unpronounceable town in Germany. No bloody fear, not for all the strudel - and cream - in the world. Sorry, Mrs Gelman, you can get someone else to (what was the word she used?) shlep your vegies. 'Eln' is bailing out, back to the dunny sleep- out. Once again I'd be Alan, the streetsmart tearaway whose shelter would not be Louis's mausoleum of a bedroom but a crevice in the rock around Ben Buckler where the waves rolled in but couldn't get me, where I could roast stolen potatoes in the ashes of the driftwood and where I could read anything I bloody well liked. Not Nietzsche or Schopenhauer or whatever else on Mrs Gelman's shelves. After all, didn't I pick it all up from diving into Havelock Ellis?

  .... ....

  Out in the street, the sun seemed to shine with a greater intensity and warmth. Its rays curled around my shoulders as I set off in a steady lope down Bondi Road, hardly breaking my stride to swipe a shiny red apple from outside Angelo's. At the lending library I returned a book, The Three Musketeers. In our gang hierarchy I had moved up a rung. (By default, the Greek Petros had dropped out, having to work day and night in his parents' fish shop.) I was now number three! Also, I kidded myself, because I could run like the wind. When we met, I was bursting to tell Charlie and Tom which one of these blokes they could be. I chose Aramis, for no other reason than that it was not so different from Alan. It just goes to show, a little knowledge can bugger things up. Hardly had I put the plan to Charlie and Tom than they turned on me as a bloody knowall with his nose always stuck in a book. My defence was that I had learnt to say fuck with nervous surety.

  'You're a bunch of fuckin' stupid bastards,' I yelled.

  'Say that again and we'll beat the bejesus out of you.'

  Pretty funny, I thought, for a Jewboy, as they got me down on the ground and applied a crude variation of the Indian Death Lock wrestling grip they copied from Big Chief Little Wolf who gave demonstrations at the Bondi Pavilion. The trouble was, in all my reading I could not truthfully name one Aussie hero figure. Charlie and Tom had never heard of Athos and Porthos but automatically had them tagged as poofters, like all Frenchies. Henry Lawson's heroes were a sad, defeatist lot; Adam Lindsay Gordon had some daredevil horsemen, but they had no place in Bondi. I recognised this - no use putting them up as examples.

  Tom applied the Chinese burn to my wrist but it didn't really hurt me. Reluctantly, I came to the conclusion that my days with this gang were over. Alan Alva Collins was destined to be a loner. There was a measure of relief in this. I had survived as an outsider at 48 Francis Street. I reviewed my short existence; of all those whose lives I had touched, truly, it was only Uncle Harry who had shown an undemanding empathy for me. Short of dying, I knew he would always be there for me. He and Havelock Ellis - what an incongruous pair to have an influence on a child. What if David Copperfield and Oliver Twist had been lucky enough, as I was, to have those two for help? At least I never blacked boots or washed pickle bottles for a few bob - I cheated death by hanging off moving trams, planted seed potatoes (eyes upwards!), pasted blackout paper - yet, I always had my freedom.

  I wandered off down Campbell Parade, past the seedy tattoo shops, soaking in the heady mixture of sea air, dim sims and hamburgers but withal gulping in the breath of freedom. I might be Mrs Gelman's gornisht running wild but I did not care. Only once that I can recall did I joyfully share this freedom and it came about in a most unexpected way.

  .... ...

  I still occasionally went to the small synagogue conducted at the Bondi Road School of Arts. Once in a while, I felt a twitch on a thread that brought me back to my Jewishness. After the Japanese shells lobbed in Bondi, the understandably nervous Jewish refugees vacated their flats and fled inland. Some made the peculiar decision to resettle on the north side of the inner harbour - right alongside huge petrol storage tanks!

  The empty flats were soon filled by US servicemen - officers in their chocolate and beige uniforms wore their raffish caps and had rows of ribbons before they had even seen combat. One Saturday morning, to my astonishment, an American serviceman took a place in the front pew of our ever-so-modest synagogue. Through his steel rimmed GI spectacles he studied the prayer book and, on receiving a call-up to the Torah, recited the blessings in accents straight out of a motion picture. Softly I mimicked his speech, rolling the 'r's in boruch until I sounded like Mickey Rooney.

  After the service he asked me about Bondi Beach. Could I show him around? Of course he would pay me. His name was Hyram something. I took in his immaculate uniform. Even his tallit was knife-edged and crisp with all the fringes intact.

  'You can't go to the beach like that,' I told him. He patted my shoulder. 'Don't worry, kid,' he said in a voice a dead ringer for Spencer Tracy in Boys Town. All morning our aged rabbi had been droning on. How I envied the Catholics with their worldly priests who could throw a ball and probably be just as at home in the surf.

  A taxi! Hyram hailed a taxi, deftly opened the door and handed me in. It stank of cigarettes and sick; its velvety seats were stained. It was my first taxi ride ever. We set off down Bondi Road but after a block or so detoured into side streets. I whispered to Hyram under my hand in my best gangster style, 'He's takin' us for a ride, mister.' The Yank leaned over and squeezed the back of the driver's neck. 'My buddy here says you're goin' the long way round.' Angrily the cab swung to the right and in a moment was back on the main road. Stretched before us was the glistening expanse of ocean. Hyram stuck his head out the window and sniffed the air like a dog.

  We walked together to the top of the grassy slope that fringed the beach. Hyram took off his cap and swore. 'Gaad, man, what the fuck is goin' on here?' The great crescent of sand was wreathed in barbed wire from one end to the other. Coils of the horrid stuff were a hideous garland meant to deter a Japanese landing. It may well have achieved this objective if put to the test. It was not impervious to boys and late-night fishermen: hardly had the army sappers gone than we had found a path through the wire that zig-zagged until we could reach the surf. Hyram, with me now in command, took off his shoes, socks and trousers to reveal khaki underpants, not so different from bathing shorts. He followed close behind me until we reached the water's edge. I grabbed his hand and together we plunged into the surf as though we had been mates for years.

  At dusk we left the beach. I never saw him again. He tried to force a five-pound note on me but this day could not be bought. I felt a new sense of pride in myself. Hyram was the first of many US servicemen I piloted through the wire so they could write home and say they had surfed at Bondi. Yes, they paid me and I did not knock the money back. I was embarrassed for a while, but not enough to prevent me from steering them to a bloke called Uncle Siddy who sold them cold tea in whisky bottles with a nice shiny foil on the top - hard to see at night! My profit went to buy a bicycle that I rode to see a barmitzvah at the impressive Central Synagogue in Grosvenor Street, Bondi Junction. When I came out the bike had been stolen. So much for my illicit trading.

  ...16...

  Just after my fourteenth birthday, my fath
er got the sack from his job at the munitions factory. By then, my part in the war had also diminished, now that the American servicemen were leaving Sydney, and Bondi in particular, which had quickly reverted to its previous indolence. Sampson Collins was honest enough to admit to me that he had lost his job because he was finally caught spending so much time turning out souvenirs - he had widened his market by using the bottoms of shell casings for ashtrays; these, together with the hexagonal nut cigarette lighters and tiny whisky mugs (which I thought were pretty grouse) were enough to get him booted out. The supervisor told him, 'Over the bloody top, mate, not only you, Sam, the whole bloody night shift is doing it. But listen, Sam, under the Manpower Regulations, you've got to have a job.'

  Sam told me this, at the same time putting a pound note in my hand and not actually mentioning my birthday. He did not seem worried. Together we walked to the top of the street to a phone box. I gave him the tuppence for the call. I squeezed into the box with him. He consulted a fat notebook, a relic of his days as a knight of the road, a notebook once a ready reference to ladies such as his current wife, Shirley Compton, and my hated stepmother.

  I heard the two pennies drop as the number connected.

  'Hullo, Morris? Is that you? Morris Stein?' said my father. I reckon if he didn't have to hold the earpiece he would have struck one of his postures with his hands thrust in his braces. As it was, he gave me the notebook to hold and stuck his thumb into his belt. 'Guess who this is, cobber?' A pause, then, 'It's Shmuelly from the Commercial Travellers' Club days - remember? You and me and the boys?'

  My father? Shmuelly? I curled up inside. But Sam took his thumb out of his belt and actually ruffled my hair. My father repeated this corruption of his name, this time with a note of exasperation. Then a smile broke out and he went on. 'Listen Morrie, the Manpower will get me if I don't get a job. They'll stick me any bloody where. You're flat out with the shmattes. How about I come and work for you?' His voice took on a whining note. 'All those orders for uniforms to get out. Put me in packing, Morrie, I don't care - day or night work.'

  I couldn't stand it. I pushed open the telephone box door and leaned against a pole, all the time watching my father's changing mannerisms inside the box. Finally he came out.

  'Howdja go, Dad?' I asked.

  'He'll take me on, son, but the dough is a fair bit less.' We walked back to 48 Francis Street, and all the while he was muttering about tough Yids and so on. I nearly laughed out loud. I had heard it all before: at school, in the streets, in shops. What else was new!

  It was a Saturday. I was still wearing threadbare clothing, including sandshoes with my toes poking through; I hadn't changed from my early-morning job selling papers on the trams. Sam entered through the front door. Immediately I heard Shirley pounce on him.

  'Two bloody weeks and no money. How am I expected to feed you and the brat? Live on fresh air and love?' She corrected herself. 'And not bloody much of that either, thank Christ.'

  My father replied, 'Got a job, start Monday. Now will you for Chrissake get off my bloody back, and while you're at it, stop picking on Alan.'

  I could hardly believe it. In the entire few years of their marriage, this was the first time that he had come to my defence. I hugged myself with the thrill of it. I was nearly tempted to abandon my usual habit of skulking down the side passage and instead to mount the few steps to the verandah and go through the front door! Instead, I found my fingers tightening around the pound note. Bugger it, I assured myself, I had money, I had power now to . . . I didn't know quite what.

  I continued on down the side passage, quickly changed into my best pants, shirt and jumper, and a pair of sandals Sam had bought me at the insistence of the school. My two halfbrothers no longer lived at home. The stick insect, their grandmother, had died. With the proceeds from the sale of her Marrickville house, her daughter Shirley had packed the two small boys off to a Catholic boarding school at Bathurst. The idea was to give her a clear run with Abe Feldstein, whose enthusiasm for his shikse was beginning to wane. My father had the temerity to suggest that I be permitted to move into the house. He was still forced to sleep alone in one room and thought it might not be a bad idea for me to share. No and no, she made it very clear, the brat is not coming into this house.

  Togged up in my best clobber, the pound sticky in my fist, I entered the lending library, my very own bank. The place was its usual scene of depressing quiet, as mute and silent as the owner who sat hunched over the desk. If, instead of books, the stock had been fags or booze, I wondered whether I could have waltzed off with my schoolbag full of them.

  Under the yellowish desk lamp his thick-veined hand lay deathly still, holding open, like a sculpted paperweight, a book that looked and smelt new and would not lie flat and be subdued.

  'That's a big book,' I said in a silly effort to be noticed.

  'About blackfellas.'

  'I know about blackfellas,' I said.

  'Ever seen one of 'em - face to face? Not a bit like the pictures in your school geography book. Standing there with a spear or nulla-nulla gazing out at . . . at nothing.'

  He raised his eyes from the book he had imprisoned like a pinned butterfly. I grabbed the chance to tell him of the Aboriginal carvings in the sandstone on the plateau on the North Bondi headland. Having engaged him in a sort of conversation, I asked him what the book was. He released it from under his hand; the book sprang closed. Smart as paint, I read the title. We of the Never Never. On the cover was a middleaged lady wearing a floral hat and a blackfella child kneeling before her. Her name was something Gunn, I couldn't say the first name. Anyhow, since my experience with the Seventh-day Adventists and kneeling and all that . . .

  'No, you can't borrow it.' No reason. Ah well, this was not the purpose of my visit. I took the pound note from my pocket and pinned it with my hand to the counter. 'Could I please have my tin?' Now he took notice of me, dressed neater than in my usual ratty clothes. His sharp eyes drilled into me. 'Done up like a dog's dinner, aren't you, and you've got another quid, Alan. You must be as rich as Croesus.' I kept quiet. He paused for an interminable moment, then felt under the counter and I heard the click of a switch. Somewhere under there a drawer slid out enough for him to reach in and bring out my tin moneybox. The thrill of avarice ran through me - and I hadn't even opened it. The (nameless) librarian, custodian of all I possessed, again with tantalising slowness, slid it across the desk. He withdrew his hand to resume pinning down the Never Never.

  The tin box had a lock but no key. This never worried me. I never kept a tally of what was in the box; I just liked the idea of seeing actual money rather than a figure in the Commonwealth Bank's savings book. Opening it in front of the librarian didn't worry me either; in any case, there was nowhere else to go - just shelves of books, not even a chair. He didn't encourage borrowers to sit around once they had selected a book or two but he did clear a small space for me on the desk. And moved the desk light to beam down on my tin box.

  I levered the lid up. I could not believe my eyes. It had been a while since I had looked in the box; sometimes when in a hurry I would dash into the library and leave him a handful of coins and notes - I just knew he'd add them to my tin. But the bloody tin was half full, even without counting . . . just by looking, I was dead sure there was more money than I had 'deposited'. In the cleared space on the desk and in the light of the lamp, I emptied the tin, letting the coins trickle out slowly and as quietly as I could. Next I folded the notes flat - all were ten- shilling and pound notes, and then . . . and then a fiver! I lifted it out gingerly and put it to one side, then the other notes in another little stack. Next I sorted out the halfpennies, pennies, threepenny bits, sixpences, shillings and two-bobs.

  The librarian took no notice of me at all - at least that's what I thought, but with those hooded eyes . . . Anyhow, as noiselessly as I could I put the coins into stacks, counting them as I did, then mentally adding them to a total. Fourteen pounds, nine shillings and tenpence-
halfpenny. Now for the notes. Six orangecoloured ten-bob notes, seven dark-green pound notes and . . . my miraculous beautiful dark-blue five-pound note. Let's see, that comes to £29/9/10 - twenty-nine pounds, nine shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. Shit, oh shit, I nearly forgot - my father's pound note at the other end of the desk. I swept it into the pile and I had more than thirty bloody quid!

  Even at this moment of acquisitive greed, I had to be honest with myself; it was just not possible to have saved all that - if for no other reason, the mysterious presence in my tin box of a five-pound note had to be explained. I picked it up and put it on the page of We of the Never Never which the librarian was holding flat.

  'Mister,' I began nervously, 'how, how for gosh sake, did this get into my tin?'

  'Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies.' He removed the fiver from the page.

  'You put it there, didn't you?' I placed the fiver right under his nose. I felt hot tears starting to well up, a sensation I had managed to suppress for most of my young life. Now his eyes met mine for perhaps the first time ever. Was I mistaken or was there a moist film over them? He took out a handkerchief, passed it over his eyes and pulled the desk lamp back beside him. He was not going to answer me. I was dying to have him ask me what I was going to do with all this wealth. Instead, he found a little calico moneybag and held it open for me to sweep the money into it. I did this and pulled the drawstring tight. He put the tin back in the drawer. End of matter. Finished. Piss off, Alan.

  .... ....

  I did not know how to cope with this bag of money. It hung from my wrist as I left the lending library, and with every step it seemed to grow heavier. What was more, I found to my dismay that the bag had printed on it the emblem of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Straight away I took it off my wrist and stuffed it inside my shirt. I dared not bend down because the weight of the coins nearly burst my shirt buttons. I walked up Bondi Road, bent over like some decrepit old man. I wanted to stop and look in the shop windows, to let my fingers wander over the merchandise. There were toy shops with things I had at one time longed for, such as a Meccano donkey engine that steamed and whistled, a magic set with a wand held aloft by Mandrake the Magician while Narda (whose allure made my crotch tingle) looked up at him adoringly. A cutout figure of Don Bradman holding a cricket set did not tempt me.