‘The barmaid breaks it up. You go straight to them as soon as you hear their voices begin to rise. You don’t wait till they start swinging punches. You appeal to them first. If that doesn’t work you get the boss.’
‘What an interesting job!’ I said, almost to myself.
‘It is. Barmaids are like plumbers and mothers-in-law; they’re used in funny stories. But they are not like that. They can turn their hands to anything. The cook leaves and the barmaid goes in to the kitchen for a day or two. The boss’ wife is away and the barmaid looks after the kids. Men pour out their troubles and she listens. She doesn’t advise them. She gives them tips out of her experience. She knows most of the answers. Even when she slips herself she knows why.
‘In most of the respectable jobs girls just sail along till they get married. They can never hold you in talk. That’s why men would sooner talk to a man than a woman. Women are brought up wrong. Most of them never have an idea how to run a home, the most important job in the world.
‘I was in hospital a few months ago and one of the nurses brought me my dinner. “What is it?” I asked her, “beef or mutton?” She looked at the meat on the plate. “I don’t know,” she said.
‘When I was twelve I knew that and could turn out a meal as good as my mother. Barmaids have big hearts, and hands that always answer. You remember that.’
She rose to go.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘You’re one of the best ears I’ve met.’
17
‘Dolly Trevis,’ said the barmaid to me one day, ‘has loved and lost so many times she looks on Harry as her last chance. She’ll take anything from him so long as he doesn’t drop her. She’s a doormat that’s still hoping. That’s what lonely women of forty-five come to sometimes.’
We were talking about a friend of hers who had come to share her flat. She would pay half the rent and ‘be no trouble’.
Dolly was a ‘kept’ woman and didn’t have to work. She was kept by Harry who was sixty-five and fat with cheeks of a yellowish hue obscured in their plump centres by a flush of red.
He slid from the seat of his expensive car with heavy breaths, frowning down at his belly into which the lower edge of the steering wheel always seemed to be embedded.
When he alighted he straightened his vest, brushed cigarette ash from his trousers, adjusted his tie and walked briskly to the door, challenging in his walk the demands of his body to move slowly and uncertainly.
He never had to ring the bell. The door was always opened ready to receive him by Dolly, her vigil at the window of the barmaid’s flat upstairs having been rewarded.
‘Harry!’ she would exclaim, and there was gratitude in her voice.
Dolly stood for long periods in front of the window, sometimes for hours. She did not stand there happy in an anticipation of a lover’s arrival but in a strained torturing despair.
Harry lived in an apartment that could be seen from the window and to this apartment he often brought girls. He was a wealthy man with a profitable agency in the city and he spent freely on his pleasures.
The girls he brought to his apartment may have been picked up in the lounge of a fashionable city hotel or they may have been girls working in the offices of firms with whom he did business. They were always well dressed and confident and sometimes one would smile up into his face as he showed her through the doorway. They might stay there for an hour or more; they might stay there all night. Dolly knew exactly how long they stayed. She timed them all.
‘She can’t complain about it,’ the barmaid told me. ‘Harry would drop her if she did. He gives her five pounds a week and takes her out when he has nothing else on. She’s good company, dresses well and is still pretty. He treats her well enough when he’s out with her. He wants a regular he can call on at any time. Well, that’s what she is, poor girl.’
She had told me about Dolly’s compulsion to watch Harry’s apartment through the window. I commented on its futility and expressed compassion for her.
‘I’ve told her,’ said the barmaid. ‘I told her that if she goes on looking out that window like as if she’s listening for a scream or something she’ll end up going off her head. I told her she’d have to go if she keeps doing it. It puts a strain on me. I can’t relax. She stands so still when she sees a girl get out of the car. She looks quickly at the time then watches them with a face that no one should have to look at.
‘I saw a girl hit by a car once and her skirt was up over her head and she lay there and didn’t know. It was terrible her not knowing anything about it, and men there. She came round and she was bleeding and she tried to pull her dress down but she couldn’t. I pulled it down and she looked at me and I’ll never forget that look. It wasn’t just thanks; it was more than that.
‘When Dolly looks out the window at Harry with another girl I feel terrible like when I saw that girl on the ground.’
‘Why doesn’t she drop him?’ I exclaimed.
‘You’re not a woman of forty-five with nothing left,’ she said looking at me from some pinnacle of experience I did not know. ‘You wouldn’t know.’
There were times when Harry took Dolly away with him on one of his business trips to another state. The preparation for these trips gave Dolly the greatest pleasure. She bought a new frock, had her hair set and spent a lot of time rubbing creams and lotions into her betraying cheeks. She smiled a lot, spoke with animation. She sought excuses to talk about Harry as if the love she had for him was too expansive to be contained within her joyful body.
Words of praise for his generosity and wonderful companionship stood in leash behind her eyes like excited children waiting for the opening of the schoolroom door that would release them into the sunshine.
One could open the door confining Dolly’s happy tributes with a word. Then one learnt that Harry was good and kind and was going to marry her some day. All that she asked for her confidences was that you agree with the praise she bestowed upon him. This I could never do.
When she returned from these holidays her happiness seemed to have vanished. She was silent and depressed and stood for long periods before the window. Harry was always busy when he returned. Sometimes he didn’t visit her for a fortnight, then he came with flowers for her.
One evening I was standing at the foot of the stairs and I heard a cry from the flat beyond the landing, then there was silence. I stood for a while wondering whether to go up then I went into my flat and sat at the table smoking and thinking.
After a while the barmaid came down. She sat at the table opposite me and said, ‘Harry’s been killed in a car accident. Dolly read it a few minutes ago in the Herald.’
I did not answer her. I leant back in my chair and took a deep breath.
‘There was a girl with him,’ she went on. ‘She didn’t get killed.’
We sat there together looking at the table then I said, ‘How is she taking it? What is she doing?’
‘She’s lying on the bed with her head in the pillow,’ said the barmaid. ‘She doesn’t want me to see her face.’
She rose to go. ‘I thought I’d come and tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ll go back now.’
‘Thank you,’ I said.
She paused for a moment in the doorway looking down at the worn linoleum.
‘Poor Dolly,’ she said. ‘She won’t have to look out the window any more.’
18
The name of the lonely wife in one of the top flats was Mrs George Richards. The tenants knew her as Faith.
Since the failure of her attempt to change our relationship she had assumed a virtuous character that I accepted as genuine. When I cleaned the stairs in the morning she would lean on the top rail of the landing and converse with me while Mrs Scrubbs listened from the shelter of her flat’s open door.
‘You shouldn’t be cleaning stairs, Mr Marshall; a woman should be doing that.’
‘So you think I should be married, do you?’
> ‘I don’t know about being married. You wouldn’t be happy married.’
‘Why?’
‘You wouldn’t be able to go out every night like you do now.’
‘Is that so important?’ I asked.
‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘I used to go to a lot of parties once. George often took me. He used to make friends with people travelling on his ship and they would invite him to their homes when he was in Melbourne. I think everybody should go out when they can and not stop at home. You’ve got something to live for when you go out.’
‘It could be so, I suppose,’ I said mechanically, not bothering to consider an answer.
‘George told me I could give a party if I liked. He goes to parties when he’s in Sydney and Brisbane.’
‘Why don’t you and George have a party while he’s in Melbourne?’ I asked.
She pouted.
‘I don’t know. He’s funny like that. He can’t be bothered with parties when he’s at home. Men only think of them-selves. If they want to go out, you go out. If they want to stay home, you stay home. If they don’t want a party, you don’t have a party.
‘When I was going with George he’d fall over himself to please me. He’d buy me chocolates and everything. Now he moans about money and getting nowhere. He doesn’t even talk to me like he used to. We used to have long talks together. Now we never talk.
‘My mother told me all husbands are like that. You can never sit down and talk to them, she reckons. “If he doesn’t tell you anything, don’t you tell him anything,” she says.’
A few days later she asked me if I would mind her giving a party. A German cruiser, the Köln, was in port and she had met a number of the crew. They were all nice boys, she said. She wanted to invite them to the flat with some girls she knew.
I told her I didn’t mind.
‘It won’t be a booze-up party, will it?’ I asked.
‘Oh no!’ she hastened to assure me. ‘I’m not like that.’
The party was to be on the Saturday night. I was visiting my parents at Warpoon, a township some twenty miles from Melbourne, that weekend and I felt a sense of relief that I would be away from my flat.
Mrs Scrubbs objected strongly to the party.
‘If you allow that terrible girl to give a party for sailors, I’m leaving,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s disgusting the way sailors behave. They’ll be singing all night and drinking and carrying on. No decent woman would stand it for a minute. And me with an ulcerated stomach that the doctor said I must take care of. I mustn’t be upset by carryings-on. I said to Perce, “Mr Marshall doesn’t know what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s encouraging vice,” I said. I spoke to Miss Oxford about it and she said, “Lock your door that night, Mrs Scrubbs,” she said. “I wouldn’t like to see you raped.” Yes, she used that word. That’s the very word she said. I’m a decent woman, Mr Marshall and I don’t like vulgarity of any kind but Miss Oxford meant well and knows a lot about sailors and the way they carry on. Perce heard her and Perce said, “By hell, they’ll never touch you while I’m about!” and Perce never swears; he’s not that sort of man. A better husband no woman ever had, though I say it myself. And what about him with all the girls drunk and that. You never know what could happen. I tell you we’ll leave if that girl has this party. Poor Miss Trevis, she’s leaving.’
‘Miss Trevis was leaving in any case,’ I said.
‘Yes, but if she wasn’t she’d have left over the party, I know that.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Richards you object to it.’
Mrs Scrubbs became agitated.
‘No, don’t do that,’ she said quickly. ‘You mustn’t say I was speaking to you about it. You say you have thought about it and you don’t want drunken sailors in your house. You say that.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ I said feeling angry. ‘I’ll go and tell her you’re all against it.’
I went upstairs and knocked at the door of Faith’s flat. The expression she had placed upon her face as she opened the door was as guileless as that of a child.
‘Hullo.’ She suspected why I had come but she was smiling.
‘About that party …’ I said.
‘Oh, the party! Yes.’ Her eyes became defensive. She watched me.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to give up the idea. All the tenants are against it. They’ll all walk out if you go on with it and that means you’d have to go too because I’d lock up the place.’
‘I can see Mrs Scrubbs has been talking to you.’
‘It’s not only her.’
She hesitated, biting her lip and looking away from me.
‘What a bunch of psalm-singers they’ve turned out to be,’ she said angrily.
I remained silent.
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll call it off.’
But she gave the party. On the Monday, after my return from Warpoon, I went straight to work without calling at the flat. At ten o’clock there was a ring on the phone at my desk.
‘Modern Shoe Company here,’ I said into the receiver.
‘Police here,’ said a voice. ‘Could I speak to Alan Marshall please?’
‘Speaking.’
‘You run an apartment house at 4 Roger Street, Albert Park, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s been a blue on here. You’d better come straight out. We’ll wait for you.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘One of the women here took a poke at another and she rang the station. I can’t get the strength of it. They’ve stopped screaming at each other but they’ll start again unless you’re here to stop them. How long will you be?’
‘Half an hour,’ I said.
‘Righto. Don’t be any longer.’
When I reached the apartment house I found two policemen in charge. They were standing on the veranda talking to the barmaid who had apparently not gone to work that morning.
‘I thought I’d better wait till you returned,’ she told me later.
The two policemen standing with her gave the impression of men under an obligation to give serious consideration to trivialities the importance of their position did not warrant.
They were both big men, confident, secure in a profession where their conduct could never be questioned.
‘You got here,’ said one, a man who had obviously never felt the restlessness of ambition. A man of settled and accepted habits I concluded.
‘Yes. What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘Two of your women have had a crack at each other. One of them rang us up.’
‘Mrs Scrubbs,’ explained the barmaid.
‘Yes, that’s her. She said she wanted police protection from the other one—the girl upstairs.’
‘Faith,’ said the barmaid.
‘Yes, that one. We came down and broke it up. Now they’re laying charges against each other. They won’t go on with it but they wanted a chance to tell each other off. Then there’s the husband fellow …’
He turned to the barmaid, ‘What’s the name of that fellow in there with the neck?’
‘Mr Scrubbs—Perce,’ said the barmaid.
‘Yes. He says the girl upstairs kicked his wife in the stomach.’
‘She has an ulcerated stomach,’ I said, proffering the information as a matter of human interest.
‘Go on, has she!’ said the policeman. ‘It’s been well hammered this morning by the sound of it.’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s twenty-five to eleven,’ he said to his mate.
‘Yes, I know,’ said the second policeman. ‘We’ll have to
He turned to me. ‘It’s just a blue during a hangover. You quieten them down if they start again. Come on, Ted.’
When they had gone the barmaid said, ‘Faith went on with that party, you know. That was the trouble.’
‘Did she!’ I exclaimed. ‘Good Lord! So that’s what happened! She’s certainly put one over me. It staggers me what liars t
hese women are. Did you reckon she would go on with it?’
‘Of course I did. Once you were out of the house she had an open go. Who was to stop her?’
‘What was the party like?’ I asked, not wishing to hear any more evidence of my gullibility.
‘Like them all,’ she said. ‘You should have known how it would go. Half of them were drunk when they got here. They sang and danced for a while then they began losing their tempers—there was competition over the girls.
‘I thought I’d better go over. I had a drink with them and told Faith to break it down or she’d have the coppers in but she couldn’t register. She was hanging on to the arm of a fellow. Her eyes had gone heavy. It was no use talking to her.
‘Most of the sailors couldn’t speak English so it was no use talking to them. They were parking on the stairs and staggering round the hall. The trouble was they had to go downstairs to the lav. Two of them fell down. Mrs Scrubbs must have got a kick out of it.’
‘She didn’t go up to the flat, did she?’ I asked.
‘No. She kept sneaking in and out of her door listening and looking up the stairs. I felt sorry for her. I told her to go to bed and forget it but she just couldn’t. Perce kept fluttering around. I think he’d have liked to have been in it. But all his life he’s been looking on. Now he thinks he hates that sort of thing.
‘One of the sailors offered Mrs Scrubbs a drink. I think it must be the first drink she’s ever been offered. Perce told him off from inside his doorway. The sailor couldn’t understand it. He wanted to go into the flat with the bottle and drink with the two of them.
‘Neither of them knew how to handle a drunken man. He was persistent and they were making him worse. I came down and took him away. I gave him some strong coffee in my flat and got him talking about his mother. He was that sort of drunk, easy to handle if he thought you liked him and were interested in what he was saying.
‘The girls were the worst. They all wanted to be thought good sports, sophisticated women of the world. Their faces were all loose. All they proved was that they had never grown up. A drunken girl is a horrible sight.’
In Mine Own Heart Page 16