* * *
The next day at breakfast, all of them laughed at the way their beds had seemed to go up and down all night, so accustomed were their brains to being on a ship. Bright said it made her feel quite sick and hoped the illusion would not last too long for the heat in itself was enough to contend with. After breakfast, she sorted out a pile of their clothes that required cleaning and pressing after the long voyage, then all went out to explore the metropolis. Thankfully, the temperature was not quite as intense as it was yesterday, but the thermometer in the foyer showed it was already eighty degrees. Unable to believe that they would not need more protection than their dresses in January, the women took their lightweight coats with them in case it rained, but were forced to carry them over their arms and thus were soon imbued with a sensation of leadenness. Despite being dressed immaculately as usual, in a gleaming white shirt, buff suit and panama, Nat felt grubby already as the dust of the city clung to his perspiring brow.
Coming from war-weary Britain they felt as if they had entered another world, and not simply because of the heat. The city of Melbourne was such a contrast to the antiquity of York, with magnificent, cloud-touching architecture, square blocks and wide streets which its half a million residents shared with brown-and-cream cabletrams, hansom cabs, bicycles and automobiles, and even an incongruous team of bullocks hauling a dray. Although the streets might be straight, the land upon which they were built was undulating, creating vistas and valleys. There was a bank on every corner and all manner of building styles in between, some wildly ornamental, others sober and craggy, and others which Nat thought reminiscent of the kind he had seen in Canadian cities. There was also resemblance to the flickering motion pictures he had seen of America, saloon bars with Irish names, verandahs, skyscrapers.
Yet despite all this there was an air of conservatism, the odd glimpse of the old world in a narrow dingy lane where a dray horse shifted his weight from one hock to the other, blinking lazy lashes above the nosebag containing his lunch.
Urging his wife and daughter to proceed slowly, Nat made use of a cast-iron urinal before rejoining them. Oriel and her mother were flabbergasted at the luxury of the shopping arcades, one with caged birds and a hall of mirrors. It was all too much to take in at once. They gazed into window after window – many with ‘LATE AIF’ emblazoned across them to indicate the shop was run by a returned hero and so encourage profit – and were amazed at how much food was offered for sale. In the end it made Bright so dizzy that she announced she could not stand to be in the hustle and bustle for much longer and asked if they might take a sandwich lunch in the beautiful gardens by the river.
Swapping the stench of exhaust fumes for the industrial effluence of the Yarra, they found respite from the fierce midday sun beneath the shade of thick foliage, yet still the perspiration bulged from every pore, trickled in rivulets between breasts, dripped from nose and chin, making their once crisp outfits feel like damp rags. Barely rejuvenated, it was some ordeal to follow their intended proposal and investigate the bayside suburb of Brighton.
Having gained directions from Mrs Churchill before leaving the hotel that morning they knew this involved a journey of about seven miles by train, a common form of transport in the big city. Even so, Nat had to ask for directions to the station and felt conspicuous when his Yorkshire accent drew a gawping response. On the way, they caught sight of a poster advertising a Charlie Chaplin film and nudged each other, Bright laughing, ‘He’s everywhere, isn’t he?’
Reaching an intersection, they faced a scene of havoc, the two orderly streams of traffic thrown into sudden chaos by train passengers pouring out of Flinders Street Station and wandering willy-nilly across the road, ignoring honking horns. Unsure when to cross, Nat dithered – then grabbed Bright and Oriel’s arms and made a dash for the other side.
With several suburbs in between it took them about half an hour to reach North Brighton, though they did not alight, for Mrs Churchill had advised them to proceed to Brighton Beach. The journey was worth the wait. At the southerly end of the track they disembarked to an air of sedate conservatism, acres of park and farmland with few public houses, and the smell of the sea where handsome mansions and villas abounded along the foreshore. The moment she saw the area Bright overcame her heat exhaustion to exclaim that she had to live here, and when they discovered that some of the upper storeys were available for rent they immediately made a booking.
‘I really must find a church too,’ she added. ‘I haven’t been in weeks – a real one, I mean.’ There had been a Sunday service aboard the liner but to a lifelong Catholic that did not count.
Nat had other priorities. The train journey giving some hint of the metropolitan vastness, its suburbs sprawled over miles to all points of the compass, his first necessity must be personal transport. Though he had hitherto favoured a horse-drawn vehicle and was not mechanically inclined, he accepted that the world was changing and so, after they went back to their hotel he made enquiries as to where he could purchase a car. Driving, he announced, did not look difficult; he’d soon pick it up. A few days later, after a great deal of red-faced cranking and muttering and struggling with luggage, they were on their erratic way back to Brighton to be shown around their new seafront residence by the very genteel middle-aged couple who owned it, Major and Mrs Johnson.
The hallway was huge, leading on to a dome of mosaic tiles. Bright’s eyes scanned the high ceilings with their elegant cornices as she, Nat and Oriel took the staircase to the upper floor. She had thought her previous home to be grand but this far surpassed it.
The journey up the staircase was retarded; the Major had a limp. ‘Came through the war unscathed, did you?’ he asked his tenant as they reached the upper landing. Nat nodded. ‘Lucky. Got through the first two years myself, then copped this.’ He tapped his right leg which issued a different-sounding response than flesh. Then he looked at Nat with suspicion. ‘Weren’t a conscript by any chance, were you?’
Nat replied truthfully, ‘No.’
‘Good! I’d have to reconsider our arrangement if you were.’
Mrs Johnson explained. ‘He can’t abide anyone who didn’t volunteer. We didn’t need conscription here, you see. All our boys went voluntarily.’ More fool them, thought Nat, and glanced at Bright and Oriel who were both rather flushed. His wife took a paper fan from her bag. ‘Where were you stationed?’ asked the Major.
Bright tensed and began to fan herself rapidly.
‘I was a prisoner for most of the last year,’ replied Nat, hoping to save his wife’s blushes, though he did not care at all what these people thought of him.
‘Really – in Germany?’
‘Oh, this is wonderful!’ Oriel seeking to alleviate her mother’s discomfort swept out on to the balcony that overlooked Port Phillip Bay. ‘Come and look, Mother!’
Distracted, the Major and his wife forgot about Nat and joined the two women on the balcony.
‘Yes, it’s a pleasure to sit here and sip long cold drinks and watch the sun go down,’ smiled Mrs Johnson. ‘I’m sure you’ll be most comfortable. Well, we must leave you to settle in. Do call if you require anything.’
When the Major and his wife had gone, Bright performed an exuberant twirl. ‘I’d love to buy a house like this.’
Nat did not know if he could bear to look out over the sea every day but said, ‘We’ll see what we can do.’
However, upon investigation he was to discover that the cost of these residences was prohibitive.
‘There’s nowt much here under two thousand quid – not of the sort that you like.’
Bright and Oriel gasped – this was over three times as much as they had got for their house.
‘We’d only be paying for the view. I feel rotten having to disappoint you,’ he told his wife, ‘but if we put all our money into one of these houses we’ll have nowt left for me to start a business without borrowing any. If you really love the sea that much I can at least buy you one o’ them bathi
ng boxes so you can say you’ve got a little house on t’beach, then we’ll buy a place elsewhere.’
Oriel shrank from offering her inheritance to a father who had abandoned her, but to grant her mother’s wish, said, ‘Well, I suppose I could pitch in. I can’t see me needing my cash just yet.’ Despite the imitations of Englishness that she had witnessed since arriving, Australia was very foreign in some ways and faced with her own inexperience she was rather glad to be living with her parents.
Her mother refused the offer, saying Oriel would need it when she got married. So too did her father.
‘Nay.’ Straight of face, he held up his hand to quell any argument. ‘You keep it – but don’t stick it all in the bank. I’ve been studying house and land prices in general. They’re quite low at the moment. Buy yourself a place whether you want to live in it or not, then rent it out. By the time you need it it’ll hopefully have made a nice profit.’ He made a suggestion to both women. ‘We haven’t looked around t’other parts of Brighton. Shall we go and have a look tomorrow?’
‘I can’t tomorrow, I have something important on.’ Bright watched her husband’s face drop, and laughed. ‘Your birthday. You’d completely forgotten, hadn’t you?’
‘So I had! It’s this weather that puts you out of kelter.’ When asked if he would like to do anything special, he was at a loss. ‘I suppose we could always cut up some dead wasps. That used to be a lark.’
Oriel blurted a laugh. ‘What?’
‘It’s what your father and me used to do for enjoyment when we were ten years old,’ explained her mother. ‘Now there’s a thing I haven’t seen here, wabbies.’
‘I don’t bloody want to neither,’ muttered Nat. ‘There’s enough to contend with with flies that nip like crocodiles. I’m covered in lumps.’ He scratched his leg to endorse this.
‘What weird children you must’ve been,’ opined Oriel.
‘Aye, we were nobbut strange,’ agreed her father, still raking at his flesh.
‘Getting back to the subject of your birthday,’ Bright directed herself to Nat, ‘we could have a little celebration and invite the Ratcliffes.’
She had not forgotten the episode with Dorothy’s father, but as it had never been repeated she had decided to give him a second chance, if only because his wife was the only female she knew here and Oriel had no one but Dorothy.
‘It’s a lot o’ bother for nowt,’ replied Nat. ‘All that work preparing food and all folk do is shove it down their necks, then go home and leave you with the washing up.’
‘Oh, suit yourself!’ She lashed out playfully. ‘We’ll go and look at houses instead – but don’t say I didn’t offer.’
* * *
A wide tour of the bayside suburb the next day told just how large an area it was. With so much farmland and market garden between structures the roads were much longer than those in York and even by noon they had barely seen half it had to offer. Throats dry, they retired to the Brighton Coffee Palace, a local temperance hotel. After lunch they collated the details they had taken from For Sale boards and went to enquire at the real estate office for further information on the properties that had caught their eye, but these too turned out to be very expensive. There were much cheaper dwellings, but feeling it a bit of a comedown Nat refused these. The agent asked if perhaps they might like to see something completely different, a very special property, and upon receiving details they accepted his offer to take them there.
In vacant possession, its elderly owner having died, the rambling old single-storey farmhouse was in need of a few repairs but even so its shabby gentility took their breath away. Built in wood except for two brick chimneys and an iron roof, it was like nothing they had seen at home, with wide verandahs all around, each bordered by intricate iron lacework. It was as if someone had bisected delicate lace doilies and pinned each half to the top of every verandah post. There was a peeling front door with a window to either side. Inside was a central hall with rooms off. Bright made allocations as they toured – one for dining, one for sitting, two good-sized bedrooms and two smaller ones, one of which Oriel designated as an office, whilst Nat said the other would make a bathroom. The kitchen and laundry were at the rear of the building and part of the back verandah had been boxed in to form a long and narrow sleepout.
Emerging from the back door they discovered that the lavatory was in a separate outhouse away from the main building.
Becoming irritated by the agent’s descriptions, Nat demanded some time to think, and the man went to sit in his car, leaving the three to their discussion. Bright thought the place was glorious – so too did Oriel, but not without a reservation. ‘I don’t know if I could live in a house without an upstairs.’
Her mother retorted, ‘You didn’t have to run up and down four flights of stairs carrying buckets of coal and water for twenty-odd years! It’ll suit me fine. And I don’t have far to go to church either.’ On their drive along North Road she had noticed the sandstone edifice of St James.
Nat’s concentration was more on the land that went with the house, almost ten acres in all. It would make a good investment. On top of this, there were paddocks everywhere. ‘It’s like being in t’country with all these cows around, in’t it?’
‘Yes! Don’t ye just love the smell of cow muck?’ exclaimed Bright quite seriously.
‘Personally I reckon it’s crap.’ Nat remained deadpan.
She cuffed him. ‘And there’s another lovely smell—’
‘I think it’s those.’ Oriel pointed at the numerous eucalypts. ‘Aren’t they an unusual shape?’
Showing curiosity, her mother approached one of the trees and picked at some peeling bark. ‘Oh Jesus!’ She leaped back, clutching at Nat. ‘Will you look at the size o’ that spider? It’s like a carthorse.’
Her husband seized a fallen branch and dealt the arachnid a hefty whack. ‘Not now, it’s not. So, what d’you think to the place then? Handy for shops and everything. There’s a lot of warehouses just around t’corner on that main road. I might be able to get me hands on one. I noticed a printer’s round there an’ all. I could have some leaflets done and shove ’em in folk’s letter boxes, see if I can get a scrap business going again. I haven’t noticed anybody else having one round here. Would you mind helping me?’
‘So, you’re forgetting about army disposal?’ Oriel squinted at him through the sunshine.
‘Oh nay! I’m doing the lot. I noticed in the paper this morning they’re asking for tenders for a load of army tents. I’m gonna put my bid in – but there’s no saying I’ll get it and scrap has always been good to me.’
‘Well, we don’t mind helping you deliver the leaflets,’ responded Bright.
‘I were rather hoping you’d consent to doing my books again once I get going.’ Nat hardly dared look at his daughter, anticipating a negative response.
But Oriel was quite amenable. ‘Well, I’ve nothing much else to do, have I?’
‘Good! So are we all agreed on t’house?’
After gaining approval of the purchase Nat went along the driveway to make his offer to the real estate agent, returning with the news that the house was not in Brighton at all but in Gardenvale, being on the ‘wrong’ side of North Road. So if either his wife or daughter were bothered by the snobbery of the likes of Mrs Churchill they should speak now or for ever hold their peace. With much laughter at being regarded as the poor neighbours they made their purchase, then returned to their lodgings for a celebration of this and Nat’s birthday.
* * *
During the next few weeks of January they alternately sweltered and shivered in the unpredictable climate, waiting for the cargo vessel bearing their furniture to dock, whilst the farmhouse received quick improvements, the addition of electricity, new copper fly-wire and a few coats of paint. Nat made frequent visits to the site to check that the workmen were not slacking, though he was unable to keep watch for long as there were other demands on his time.
Never one t
o let his money sit idle, he toured the city looking for investment properties, and with his usual flair for supply and demand he decided almost immediately on two buildings in an industrial inner suburb where there would be a ready supply of rent-payers. Conveniently, the houses were already filled with tenants so he would be assured of an instant return on his purchase. The sale took place within a matter of days, depleting his liquid assets, but that was no sacrifice. To one with an eye for business there was definite indication that the property market was about to boom.
Eventually, by the end of the month, they were able to move into their new home. Farmhouse it might once have been, but with its decorative fireplaces, pressed metal ceilings and other intricate features, it provided a suitable background for Nat’s elegant furniture.
It was very different indeed to the houses they had previously owned. Accustomed to city living, each of them liked it for the reason that even though it was not far from convenient industries – garages, smiths and coachbuilders, shops and a railway station – it appeared to be out in the middle of nowhere, set back as it was from the road amid all these gumtrees. How wonderful it was to relax on the verandah after a hard day’s unpacking and look out over these rangy-limbed trees, senses overwhelmed by the scent of eucalyptus and the call of magpies, their fluid toodle-oodle-oo so much easier on the ear than the raucous cackle of their British counterpart. Nat felt a great sense of exhilaration and achievement – there was so much to build on here. Oriel, too, felt happy with her lot, sharing her father’s urge for discovery.
Alas, by four o’clock clouds of voracious mosquitoes drove them indoors, and a mere three hours later, as if by the flick of a switch, darkness fell, cutting off any expectation of the sun-kissed evenings they had enjoyed in the gardens of the Northern Hemisphere. Yet all agreed that the magical light of the day, the vastness of the sky and the wonderful feeling of space were fair compensation, erasing for Nat all memory of that claustrophobic greyness of home.
A Complicated Woman Page 12