‘But I dunno … you touch her and you’re gone. They’re so bloody soft in your arms, these women. It’s got me beat. They take the fight out of you. You know you’ll never be able to talk to them like, say, you and I talk. Yet you toss at night thinking about them. You think they’re kissing someone else—like that.’
Arthur’s love for Florrie developed in a series of compulsive bounds, each bound being given impetus by her production of some evidence that suggested an admirable quality in her character. There was no expansive growth of affection springing from similar objectives and values, but sudden revelations that presented marriage with her as a rewarding experience. Under the influence of his needful reasoning, a compelling emotion was developed in him, an emotion against which he could not prevail.
Florrie’s love for him was deep and unselfish, though it demanded from her occasional displays of calculated thoughtfulness.
‘Don’t have rissoles today,’ she would say theatrically, talking from the side of her mouth as she bent over the table arranging the cutlery.
This unnecessary advice, unnecessary since no person in his right mind would eat rissoles in a cafe, always imbued rissoles with a more sinister quality than the most doubtful of them deserved. But Arthur regarded this warning as evidence of great thoughtfulness.
‘See how she looks after us,’ he would say when she had departed to the kitchen, and on his face would come an expression of satisfaction with the implications he saw in her remark.
Florrie’s angling went unobserved by Arthur who, despite wide experience with women, was quite unable to observe her in a detached way. This inability to appreciate the finer points of courtship which Florrie so frequently demonstrated must have been frustrating to her.
‘She’s a funny girl,’ he told me once. ‘You never know what’s driving her. I was walking up the street with her the other day and there was a bloke ahead of us carrying a baby and I was watching him and she looks up at me smiling—you know the way she does—and she says, “I bet I know what you’re thinking, Arthur.” But I wasn’t thinking anything.’
Florrie began doing Arthur’s laundry. She washed and ironed his shirts, pressed his clothes and ensured he always had a clean handkerchief. His appearance changed and with the change came alterations in attitude. His future appeared full of possibilities and he and Florrie began discussing ways of earning a living that had nothing to do with punting, though Arthur always saw some connection in the ideas with which she plied him and the attitude to human beings one acquired as a gambler.
‘I can’t think of anything to do that doesn’t mean fattening on someone else,’ he told me. ‘Like—take any business … Say we sold fruit and vegetables … No, not fruit and vegetables; you’ve got to get up in the dark to go to the market. A cake shop now … Florrie can cook. Well, the idea is to give as little as you can for as much as you can get. You start cutting out butter in the cooking and that sort of thing. You go easy on the cream. You mix it with something else. I don’t know what you mix it with but that’s how it goes.
‘By the time you’ve finished you look on everybody as a sucker. Bookmakers are the same. I’m a sucker to a bookmaker. And the trouble is the bastard’s right. But I’ve still got the edge on them—that’s what I think anyway. Florrie thinks I might be right now but there’s a crash coming.’
He changed his tone. ‘I’m darned if I know what to do about Florrie. I go out when I like now. What’s it going to feel like when I have her tagging along every time I go out?’
He was silent a moment then said, ‘There’s no doubt about her, you couldn’t get anybody more thoughtful.’ He turned and looked directly at me. ‘What do you think about it?’
‘I’m certain she would make a good wife,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you want to know. But I don’t think good wives always make you happy.’
‘That might be so,’ he conceded, ‘but I reckon she’s got it both ways. I doubt whether a bloke could better her.’ A vision of her changed his voice to gentler tones. ‘She’s a kind girl.’
I didn’t tell him that the night before, when I had arrived at the cafe before him, she had placed her two hands firmly upon the table and faced me with a resolute expression on her face.
‘Now tell me before Arthur comes,’ she said, restraining a desire to speak loudly. ‘What have you got against me? Why don’t you want him to marry me?’
‘I’ve never said that I was against it,’ I said evasively.
‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I know. Come on. What is it?’
‘Maybe you are not suited to each other.’
‘You wouldn’t know,’ she said. ‘Only Arthur and I know that. You keep out of it.’
‘All right,’ I promised her.
5
The palm tree that grew in front of the boarding house was an intrusive tree that could not be ignored by anyone standing on the balcony. The boarders leaning on the rail of an evening gazed at its head a few feet away, first with interest at viewing it from such an angle, then with calculation as they considered its possibilities.
Its value as a fire escape was often discussed. It was considered as a means of leaving secretly by night to avoid paying accumulated board. One boarder wondered if it were possible for a girl seeking a lover to climb it. But there was that gap between the tree’s crown and the balcony to overcome and such a notion was regarded as impracticable.
A tall, thin boarder with a face that often reflected sudden ideas was contemptuous of the difficulties of escape down its jagged trunk. The butts of discarded fronds extended halfway down the trunk and he claimed these could be used as steps. The only reason why he wouldn’t give a demonstration of his theory, so he said, was because Mr Shrink valued the tree as a symbol of superiority in boarding house proprietorship and had warned the boarders against using it as a ladder. To Mr Shrink the tree represented affluence and success and we were all aware of this.
There was an evening when a group of us on the balcony referred to this attitude of Mr Shrink’s as a restraining influence to which we objected. The tall, thin boarder, suddenly giving way to impulse, stood upright upon the balcony railing then leaped like a frog with outstretched arms and legs across the gap between him and the tree. It shuddered as he embraced it. Its leaves were thrust against his face with so forbidding a pressure that he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky, his expression that of one experiencing the taste of bitter medicine.
The shuddering of the tree ceased and it slowly bowed its head, spilling from the hidden recesses between its leaves a shower of weathered cigarette butts, burnt match sticks and a faint cloud of dust.
The dignified bowing of the tree was suddenly interrupted by a lurch and a loud crack whereat, as if death had struck it, it fell to the earth with great speed.
Those of us upon the balcony looked down at the tall, thin boarder who was kneeling in the attitude of a Moslem praying, the tree still clasped between his knees. We hurried downstairs and reached the front door at the same time as Mr Shrink. The tall thin boarder was walking across the veranda, bow-legged and stooped, his face bearing an expression of great melancholy. He made for the bathroom, passing through our little group in silence. He was too absorbed listening to the messages from within him to notice us.
We all looked at Mr Shrink, waiting for his rage, his denunciation, but he stood looking through the doorway at the fallen palm as if its destruction did not concern him, as if it had never played a part in any dreams of security and comfort he once may have had. He looked at it, then shrugged and turned away.
We had been noticing a change in Mr Shrink for some time. He had lost his optimism, his faith in the future. He seemed to have given up hope of winning a lottery or bringing off some profitable deal in second-hand goods bought cheaply.
Over the next few weeks he became increasingly worried. He vacillated between states of despair and compulsive gaiety, moving swiftly from one state to another seemingly without reaso
n.
When serving breakfast he would sometimes pause to relate some amusing incident of the day, making of it an excuse for engaging in laughter that was obviously serving as a protection rather than as an expression of happiness. As he returned to the kitchen his shoulders slumped and he faced his wife empty of words to unite them in confidence.
She had become a silent woman occupied with shuffling and re-assessing her entire stock of solutions, all of which had failed her scores of times over the last few months—charge more for board, get a reduction in rent, cut down on food, sell the business, sub-let the house …
None of these could help her now. Their debts were too great, creditors were pressing them, they were going bankrupt.
To Mrs Shrink it must have seemed an unbelievable situation that would presently vanish and leave her and her husband free of worry and able to carry on. To lose all the furniture, all their possessions and just walk out with nothing was a catastrophe that happened to other people but could never happen to her. She had lived such a respectable life, trusted by her neighbours, the tradesmen …
She could not reconcile the situation with her character, her upbringing. With her despair and fear of being homeless was a torturing shrinking from the slow, inevitable approach of shame—shame at being bankrupt. She was that kind of woman.
She did not talk to the boarders about her troubles, though she had hinted at them to me and prepared me for the seizing of her possessions by the bailiff when her creditors demanded it.
‘I owe on everything,’ she said to me once.
I came home from work one evening to find the room had been emptied of furniture. The tracks of creditors’ trucks were impressed on the gravel of the driveway. The Shrinks had gone.
I stood in my emptied room and looked at my possessions stacked against the wall—my clothes, books, papers, shaving gear and some aboriginal relics I had collected. It was not fitting that they should be resting on dusty linoleum that a few hours before had been hidden beneath my chest-of-drawers. Their relationship with me was tied up with the places in which I kept them and now that they were exposed unprotected from the gaze of any who entered my room they appeared pathetic and inadequate. I wanted them secure within closed drawers, behind wardrobe doors, hidden from sight till brought forth in their cleanliness for my need.
The room had become objectionable. There was no place to sit, no bed to lie upon. The walls were patterned with dust-shadows of the furniture that had rested against them.
I hurried out to see how the other boarders had fared. They had gathered in the sitting-room and were angrily discussing their abandonment by the Shrinks, upon whose shoulders they were laying the blame for the disappearance of the furniture and the disordered state of their clothing piled on the floors of their rooms.
I explained that the Shrinks were worse off than we were and that, after the house had been stripped, they had left because they were ashamed to face us.
They were good fellows. Soon they were expressing regret at the Shrinks’ plight and it was while we were recalling Mrs Shrink’s fine qualities that the owner of the house walked in.
He gave an impression of wealth. He had the confidence in facing people that money brings, an attitude that placed us apart from him while still recognising our value as aids to his ambitions. He was a florid, thickset man with blue eyes whose glance suggested that he was about to oppose anything you said. He wore a grey, tailored suit, hand-stitched and exclusive. He wore a red carnation in his buttonhole. He had a grey moustache across which he rubbed the side of a forefinger while he glanced round the room. Then he turned to us.
‘I’m not to blame for this; you all know that. The couple who ran the place just didn’t have what it takes.’ He raised his hand to give emphasis to what he next had to say. ‘Now look, I don’t want you to leave. I have to sell the leasehold of this place as a going concern. You stick to me and I’ll stick to you. I’ve arranged to put a cook on for a fortnight till I sell the business and I won’t charge you a penny while she is here. You all eat at my expense. I’ve arranged for this woman to come tonight so your meals for tomorrow have been provided for. I don’t care what you do after I sell but give me a fortnight.’
‘And sleep on the floor?’ I asked.
The owner paused. ‘Well—yes—for the time being. You’re getting your board for nothing. I’ll get you in some blankets tonight. I’m getting in the furniture and beds just as soon as I can. I’ll start going round the auctions tomorrow. Once I get the furniture in I’ll have a buyer within a few days. Just hang on and give me a break.’
We were all silent. He went away to get the blankets and we argued as to what we should do. I decided to stay. I didn’t have enough money to hire a taxi to shift my things and I knew of no other boarding house to go to. Two weeks free board meant a lot to me. However, three of the men decided to leave next day.
‘The rent of this place is far too high,’ one of them said. ‘He’ll break anyone who takes it over and then we’ll go through all this again.’
The cook arrived that night but I did not see her till next morning. She was a short, fat, garrulous woman with a face blotched and puffed through drink. She wore a floral frock that was too small for her and dirty felt slippers around the tops of which were borders of blue feathers. According to one of the boarders they gave her the appearance of a French bantam.
I was up early—the floor was hard and the blankets thin—and I went into the kitchen where she was frying sausages.
‘’Ullo, dearie,’ she said. ‘How ya goin’?’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘How’s yourself?’
‘Aw, not bad. ’Ow many of you are there?’
‘Nine, I think.’
‘That’s eighteen sausages,’ she said, then added, ‘Any girls in that lot?’
‘No.’
‘Bloody good job,’ she said. ‘Once you get girls into a boarding ’ouse the rows start.’
‘You’re pretty hard on girls, aren’t you?’
‘I know ’em,’ she said, lifting her head and looking at me, and across her face were the clamped lips of immovable conviction.
‘Got any daughters of your own?’ I asked her.
‘One, if you can call ’er that’
‘Well, girls go through stages,’ I murmured, fumbling through the implications of her remark.
‘Yair! Stages is right. Right now she’s going through the free love stage.’
‘Go on!’ I exclaimed. ‘Is that so! Well, well!’
‘Well, well what?’ she asked, the pan held poised in her hand while she looked at me suspiciously.
‘Blowed if I know!’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I’m well-welling about.’
‘Yes,’ she went on, satisfied. ‘No sense, she’s got. I’ve worn my fingers to the bone for that girl and what do I get—a kid to look after. Not that I’ve got anything against the kid,’ she hastened to add. ‘I’ve got real fond of him.’ A smile softened her bloated face. ‘He sleeps with me. You couldn’t drag him out of my bed. No, you couldn’t drag him out.’
Her conversation interested me and I spent a lot of time talking to her in the kitchen. But her cooking was atrocious. We had sausages every morning, ‘English stoo’ every night. The food never varied.
‘Do you like English stoo?’ she asked me once.
‘Not every day.’
‘What in the hell else do you want?’ she asked indignantly. ‘Roast duck? All I’m here for is to keep you alive till the old boy sells the place. A fat chance he’s got of doing that,’ she added.
I sat before my plate of sausages one morning reluctant to start eating. She placed a cup of tea on the table beside me then, observing my expression exclaimed, ‘What! Don’t you like sausages?’
‘No.’
‘Well I do,’ she said emphatically, leaning over and taking one of the sausages from my plate with her fingers. She stood beside me while she ate it and I suddenly felt I couldn’t bear to have anothe
r meal in the place.
That night one of the remaining boarders (there were now only three left) told me there was a room available in a house two streets up. He had seen the notice in the window. No meals were provided and the rent was seven and six a week.
I walked up to have a look at it. The house was a bleak, weatherboard building badly in need of a coat of paint. The woman who came to the door had the tired, resigned face of one whose burdens had been accepted as inevitable. She took me into the kitchen where, upon a plain wooden table, lay a pile of black bloomers. She was a piece-worker and they had been delivered to her from some clothing factory. She was paid sixpence a garment to pick out the tacking that held it together before machining.
‘It’s hard on the eyes picking black thread out of black clothes,’ she said and she rubbed her thin fingers across her forehead.
She told me I could have the use of the gas ring to cook my breakfast. Then she showed me the room. It was larger than I expected and had a table in it. The only window looked out on to an alley skirted by a high paling fence. The iron bedstead did not wobble when one sat upon it and the nap was still on the blankets. The pattern on the linoleum was bright and new beneath the table and the bed, but over the rest of the floor it had worn away to a uniform brown.
There was a fireplace in which the mortar between the worn bricks had long since vanished. Now the cracks were filled with ashes. Ashes were sprinkled over the hearth. The lining-board walls were dark brown but the varnish that once had brightened them had cracked and blistered with the years so that the surface was now rough like sandpaper.
The room contained one picture. It showed an angel with outstretched wings and a white gown holding the hand of a child with golden curls he was guiding across a narrow bridge in a forest of darkness and gloom. The title read ‘Her Guardian Angel’.
In Mine Own Heart Page 5