‘There are blanks here.’
‘Yes, I know. But I don’t have that information.’
‘You don’t know your mother’s full name, before her marriage? Or where you were born?’
Ellis did not even know when her mother and father were married. There had been no certificate in the tin box. And he had certainly not kept a copy in the old cardboard expanding file.
The clerk blew out of her mouth. ‘This might be tricky,’ she said. ‘And you’ve signed it here without a witness.’
She hadn’t realised it was meant to be signed in the presence of a witness.
‘Could I submit it anyway and see what happens? And maybe you could witness it. Please?’
The clerk shook her head again. ‘Sorry, you’ll have to do it again, then bring it to me to be signed in my presence. Anyone could be applying for this, you know.’
‘No, I didn’t. But how likely is that?’ Ellis could not imagine why another person would be wanting her birth certificate, why anyone would be interested enough in her life.
Then the clerk proceeded to tell her a long elaborate tale about how many fake passports were being obtained. People were applying for birth certificates of the deceased, people who had died very young, and who would have been of similar age. Furnished with these, they could then go to the Passports Office and get as many passports as they wanted. This way drug dealers and other criminals were evading detection, dealing and committing other crimes all around the world. Even babies’ identities were being appropriated in this way. How disgraceful was that.
‘How do they get the details of dead people?’ Ellis said. The clerk regarded her as if she were stupid.
‘They just go to the cemeteries,’ she said. ‘Walk around until they spot a suitable grave, note down the full name, and the parents, and come in here. That’s why we’re required to enforce regulations strictly,’ she concluded.
All those people roaming graveyards and cemeteries with such a pragmatic and criminal purpose. The prospect struck Ellis as somewhat fanciful, but then she had never been one to visit cemeteries. She had not done so even once, her entire life, until after her father died. She had known people who had died, that was true, but when she was younger her father had not taken her to funerals since he didn’t believe that children should be exposed to them. And when she was older only people distant to her had died. It had never occurred to her to visit a cemetery but now the idea took shape: perhaps if she visited the local cemeteries she might find more clues about her mother.
But in the meantime, how having her signature witnessed in the presence of someone she had never met until half an hour ago could confirm her identity and assist national security was beyond Ellis’s understanding. Still, it would not do to question the clerk. She would not wish to jeopardise her search even more. She took another blank form and filled it out again, this time leaving the space for a signature and writing Ashfield in her place of birth. It was her best guess. She queued again, waiting even longer, and took it back to the clerk. The woman solemnly scrutinised Ellis’s hand as she signed her name, then took the form, turned it around, held it up and slowly read across every line, her mouth a tight purse of concentration. When she was done she placed it on the counter and in a slow childish hand wrote her name above ‘Signature of Witness’, then the address of the registry. She took an enormous stamp and pressed it hard on the bottom right-hand corner of the form.
‘That will be forty dollars, please.’
*
Four weeks later a manila envelope poked out of the letterbox slot in the foyer of her block of flats. When she pulled it out a fistful of flyers for local shops fell out onto the floor. Ellis realised the floor was becoming littered with them, and not just from her slot. She put her umbrella and bag down on the terrazzo floor and gathered them up into a pile. The floor needed a good sweep too. Leaves had gathered in the corners and she could only imagine the dust. She didn’t know why the building manager did not do his job better and organise more regular cleaning. She hated the way the elegant little Art Deco block of flats, just eight of them, was beginning to look so down at heel. At least when she got upstairs, to her top-floor flat, she was in her own world, with her modern kitchen and pale timber floors, and views of the city both day and night.
The automatic light, activated by pushing hard on a large plastic button that slowly eased back out, went off while she was on her knees. She had been later than usual leaving work, and the foyer was gloomy due to the rain. She got up and pushed the button back in, quickly collected the junk mail and went out the doors and down the side to the garbage bins, not bothering with her umbrella. Inside her flat she dumped her bag on the kitchen bench and fetched the broom and dustpan from the hall cupboard, then went back downstairs, propping the foyer door open with a wooden chock before sweeping the floor. The downstairs neighbour walked in, straight over the pile of dirt. He apologised, shaking his umbrella out and leaving a puddle under the letterbox slots. He apologised again but it was as if he was unaware how it got there.
By the time she fetched her mop and dried the floor and washed her hands and poured a glass of white wine she had almost forgotten about the envelope. It was sticking out the top of her bag in the bench. She decided to watch the ABC news first.
*
She had a toasted cheese sandwich for dinner sitting at the kitchen bench with another glass of wine. The television was still on. After eating she rubbed a damp finger over her plate, collecting all the crumbs and sucking her finger. When the last crumb was cleaned she pushed her plate aside and took out the envelope. It was a simple business letter size, with the return address of the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages stamped in small black lettering in the top left-hand corner. She peered closer at the address. It was printed in an official typeface, one of the forbidding black-letter styles favoured by the government printer. She sighed and slipped her finger along the seal.
Somehow she thought the document inside would look old too, with compressed type and numerous stamps and flourishes. But it was relatively simple, with the bluish stamp of the Principal Registrar next to a printed signature, initialled in red biro. It was pink, with faint diagonal white stripes. Baby girl pink.
She placed the document on the bench and smoothed it out, exhaling. She realised she had been holding her breath. Her name was simply her first name, she had no middle one, and under that was the date. These were the only certain facts she had ever known. The remainder was new. Under Parents her father was listed first but it was not her father’s correct name. It said: Clifford Shaw. Occupation Landlord, Aged 30 years, Birthplace Haberfield, NSW. Her mother was listed, Christian name and Maiden surname, as Catherine Ellis Granger, Aged 22 years, Birthplace Tasmania. In the box next to Informant was the name Edgar E. Shaw and their address in Ashfield. Against Witnesses to the birth were the names Doctor Hare and Sister M. Bede.
As the tears pooled the sudden crazy ideas running through her head receded and the story began to become clear. There had not been a silly typographical error at registration. It was not a mistake that her father’s first name was entered as Clifford, or his occupation landlord instead of bank manager. The name Catherine Ellis Granger loomed out from the page, then receded. She had all the information she wanted, but still nothing was clear.
31
I told you your mother left when you were a baby, said Nell Wood on Ellis’s final visit. And that was true but there was more to it than that. In the first instance it was not your mother who went away, but your father, for a brief period. After he returned, I came to look after you and maintain as much of a household as I could for both of you, until you were old enough.
There were a lot of mysterious goings-away in that family. Edgar and his brother had long left the family home, Edgar to study accountancy, and then to pursue a traineeship with a branch of the bank in a small town out west. Cowra, I think it w
as. And Cliff went away to sea at first, the merchant navy. He was always restless. He returned and left several times before he was in his twenties. When your grandmother became ill and bedridden Cliff was away, no one seemed to know where, and he could not be contacted. Edgar was assistant manager at the local branch by then. He sorted out the arrangements so that she could be looked after at home, while he kept working. He moved her into the larger front room and gave up his own room for the district nurses, who came every day, and moved into the smaller one at the back, your bedroom later on. She remained like that for several years, until the last few weeks when they took her to a ward at Concord hospital. The house was left unchanged apart from his mother’s personal belongings, which he took away. After that he lived there alone, until he married Catherine.
Looking after his mother all those years had used up all his youth, though he also looked a good deal older than he was. So when he met her, your mother, it was like entering another world. They met one night at a dance in the old Eureka dance hall in Surry Hills, not far from Central Station. It later became a garment factory I think. Some friend of Edgar had dragged him along, because I gather dances and such were not really his thing.
He loved her from the moment he met her. He asked her to dance every number for the rest of the night. This was just after the war. Men were returning and young people like us were dancing everywhere, including Frank, who had joined the army when he was fifteen, right after leaving school. It was always his dream. Edgar had wanted to join up right from the start, but he couldn’t leave his mother. Cliff had disappeared again and Edgar resented it, I know. He doubted Cliff had joined up to fight, though I still wonder: a war would have suited Cliff’s reckless spirit. Like everything, he would have turned his experiences in a war into one big adventure.
Catherine was from Brisbane, or so she said. Right from the start I wasn’t inclined to believe her, since she seemed so vague, so evasive, but I suppressed my instinctive suspicions. It sounds irrational, but to me she looked like she was from a much colder climate than Brisbane. There was something in the way she wore her gloves and threw on her fake fur cape that suggested she was used to dressing for the cold.
Frank adored dancing. He took me out every opportunity he could, dancing swing numbers. He was a wonderful dancer, fast and elegant. I could never match him, barely keep up with him. We went to the Eureka every Saturday night for as long as I can remember. This night, Edgar bumped into me coming back from the punchbowl in the side room. He spilled pink drink all over my white lawn blouse. Frank came over to see what the fuss was about, and they shook hands while I held the punch cups, then Edgar explained why he was so excited and clumsy.
‘I’ve just met the most enchanting creature,’ he said, nodding over to where Catherine sat on a stool at a table. I thought she had a dangerous beauty. Her dark hair and distinctive eyes struck me as almost gothic. Her skin was always very pale.
She was still wearing her hat and gloves, which were kid, fine and soft grey, when all the other women had discarded theirs for the night. Beside her I felt shabby, and there was that stain where Edgar had spilled the punch. She smiled and extended her gloved hand, then drew it back, removed the glove, then extended it again. It was gesture of courtesy but an exaggerated one, designed, I realised later, to make me feel even more inferior. Edgar did not seem to notice, but Frank and I decided when we were walking home later on that she was to be regarded with caution. All night she seemed to be appraising me, her eyes playful and mocking, and not knowing if she was ever serious or not made me feel uncomfortable.
We met up regularly for months afterwards, at the Eureka and other places all around the city. Then Frank went back to base and I stayed in the flat we had secured, because accommodation at that time was so hard to come by we decided we couldn’t afford to let it go. I told the landlady that he would be back at any time, and I know she wasn’t approving, but she put up with it so long as I paid her rent. Something about her was hostile to young women living on their own, which was strange considering she was on her own too. I suppose she had earned it, with her husband long dead and her children grown up and gone away. Anyway, I found work in a department store, using my maiden name and not wearing my wedding ring to avoid being sacked. So long as Frank was away it was all quite possible. And of course when he was sent to Korea, and then killed, there was no longer any need for pretence. Extraordinary how much more a widow was respected than a married woman. And a widow was not respected all that much, I can assure you.
Over the next couple of years I lost touch with Edgar, since we were no longer two couples. Those days of the four of us spending nights out dancing were over by then. And all that time I’d had no idea that there was a brother until Edgar contacted me again. He came up to me at the notions counter in David Jones. I was surprised to see how he had aged in just a few years. He looked thinner, and his hair was already greying. He told me he had married Catherine and that Cliff had appeared at the wedding, unexpected. ‘From the day we were married,’ he told me, ‘my life changed.’ He was both happier and far more miserable than he imagined possible.
Catherine took a great and abiding joy out of living. She always wanted to have fun, and as Edgar’s life had been so sober and steady this took him by surprise. Infatuation made him indulge his wife, or refashion his idea of what a wife should be. She loathed living in Ashfield, the house being far too gloomy and old for her liking. She wanted to move somewhere fancy, Rose Bay or Manly, somewhere on the beach, and he promised to do everything he could to move, although he had to stay where the bank wanted him. He would often come home from work to find she’d done nothing but browse the shops in town for the entire day. Or she would skip off on a whim, sometimes taking the train up to the Blue Mountains. She’d return after dark, breathless, her face burnished by the crisp air, laughing at his concern and teasing him for sitting in the cold kitchen waiting for dinner. She would heat up a tin of soup and make toast and they pretended they were camping somewhere, making do.
He told me they had been married for about a year when one night Catherine did not come home at all. He sat up all night with the light on in the front window. He left for work as usual the next morning, stopping by the police station to report her missing. When he returned home that afternoon she was waiting for him, in a fury. How dare he try to alarm people! How humiliating it was for her to be met at Strathfield train station by a police officer and escorted home as if she were a common criminal. They had an argument, shouting in the kitchen, which culminated in her slapping him on the cheek and locking herself in their bedroom. He sat up in a chair in the sitting room all night.
After that she did exactly as she pleased. She played housewife for days at a time, presenting Edgar with platters of butterfly cakes and coconut macaroons, sweet things he did not care for, or cooking up great stockpots full of soups or enough stew to feed a family of ten, which would have to be thrown out into the garden at the back. Meanwhile her jaunts continued. Up the coast to Woy Woy, or Cardiff. Down to Kiama to see the blowhole. She would return, radiant, her eyes bright with excitement and Edgar learned not to question, never to argue, to wait patiently until she came home. He loved her so much he would allow her anything.
It did not occur to him that she was even seeing Cliff, let along spending time away with him. Cliff hinted that he had made quite a handsome amount of money, and no one was ever sure where or how, but by the time of his brother’s marriage he had returned from another long trip away. And he always had cash to spare. One Sunday morning he appeared in their street driving a new Chevrolet Stylemaster, sky blue. People came out of their houses to have a look. He took Catherine off for a spin, as he called it, and Edgar waited all through lunchtime, spending the afternoon clipping the hedge and mowing the lawn at the back, for something to do. He was doing the edges with hand shears, on his knees in the afternoon shade, when he heard the sound of the Chevrolet out in the street. He
stood up and went to the gate to see Cliff escorting his wife out of the car with exaggerated courtesy. They were both laughing. When his brother spotted him, in old khaki shorts and stained Chesty Bonds, he lifted his hat to him.
‘Come on in,’ Catherine said gaily. ‘I’ll make us all cheese on toast.’
Cliff had brought two bottles of dark ale, which he held up in each hand with a shrug and a smile as if to say to Edgar, Hell, it wasn’t my fault, but your wife’s such a devil for fun, before following her down the hall and into the kitchen. Her feet clattered loudly on the polished floorboards. Even going for a Sunday drive she wore her best heels.
Edgar stood at the door. ‘There’s no bread,’ he said.
Catherine had forgotten to order it. Or been out when the baker came.
‘Never mind, Edgar. We’ll have a drink anyway!’ She hummed as she sniffed at a block of cheese she took out of the refrigerator. Cliff poured three ales and sat down at the kitchen table. Holding one up he said, ‘Good health!’ and winked at his brother like this was the greatest lark ever. Edgar was still standing at the doorway, shears in hand.
‘Well, I’ll go and get changed,’ he said.
*
Your father was blind stupid, for an intelligent man. He was thrilled beyond words when Catherine announced she was expecting, and devoted himself to her as much as he possibly could, despite his work obligations. He was promised a promotion to manager of a much larger branch. She was ill during the pregnancy, and for a long time was virtually an invalid, suffering from the terrible nausea you hear about that afflicts some women all the way through. For the first few months she lost weight, rather than gained it, and remained confined to her bed for most of the time. Edgar engaged a girl to come and care for her for part of the day, and every evening when he returned from work he would warm up the meal she had prepared and serve Catherine something, beef broth or scrambled eggs, light food that she could manage to keep down. She was worse during the day, and in the mornings. I would have come and helped out too, but by that stage she would have none of it. Possibly she could bear to meet me when we were all together, but in her own house, when she was invalided, it was unthinkable. Frank had been more suspicious of her than I, and she disliked him even more I think.
The Women's Pages Page 18