Playing Beatie Bow Popular Penguin

by Ruth Park

  But now, in the middle of it all, and real as she was, all she could feel was exasperation and grumpiness. It was partly because she wasn’t as clean as she was used to being. She loathed this. Her hair was lank and greasy. That morning she had asked Dovey if she could wash it in the bathroom and the elder girl had gazed at her in innocent dismay.

  ‘But there’s no such place, Abby love, only in the grand houses!’

  Abigail, who was accustomed to dashing under the shower whenever she felt like it, was aghast.

  ‘But however do you keep clean?’

  Dovey explained that on Saturday nights Granny and the girls bathed in front of the bedroom fire. Uncle Samuel brought up the wooden tub and the hot water, and emptied it afterwards.

  ‘The menfolk wash in front of the kitchen fire, do you see? But it must be on Saturday, so as to be clean and proper for the Sabbath.’

  ‘But your clothes, how do you wash them?’ asked Abigail.

  Dovey said, a little indignantly, ‘Our linen is boiled in the downstairs copper every Monday, rain or shine, and hung out to bleach in the yard. And our outer clothes are sponged regular every month with vinegar or ivy water, which is a fine cleanser, and better than the ammonia some use. Oh, we keep good and cleanly, have no fear of that!’

  ‘Oh, sugar!’ thought Abigail in despair. ‘No wonder everyone whiffs like an old dishcloth.’

  It had never occurred to her that manufacturers would actually produce a fabric that couldn’t be washed or dry-cleaned (though she supposed the vinegar and ivy-water, whatever that was, was a kind of dry-or-damp cleaning). Probably Granny’s black linsey-wool dress had never had a wash in its life, though it smelt clean enough – if you liked the smell of camphor and lavender water, that is.

  ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘I’ve just got to get used to it – even beastly grubby hair. Just fancy what these people would think of drip-dry clothes!’

  ‘Ye hae’na noticed I haven’t touched a sip of ma broth,’ complained Gibbie.

  Abigail, who had eaten hers enthusiastically, for she felt hungry this last day or two, said, ‘Too bad for you. It’s good.’

  ‘I been thinking on my funeral,’ Gibbie said pleasurably. ‘Six black horses I’ll have, with plumes, and four men in tall hats with black streamers and a dead cart covered in flowers. But my coffin will be white because I’m just an innocent child.’

  Abigail looked at him both amused and revolted. ‘You want to get those ideas out of your head, you silly little twit, or you will die. And then think how sad Granny and Dovey and Judah and Beatie will be.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Gibbie with satisfaction, ‘they’ll greet and groan for a month.’

  Abigail shook her head disbelievingly. She would never have thought there could be a child as repellent as Vincent Crown, but Gibbie had him licked into a cocked hat. However, she thought she’d better try to do what she could for him, so she said cheerfully, ‘Bet I can beat you at dominoes.’

  ‘It’s evil to gamble,’ said Gibbie, shocked.

  ‘Holy snakes!’ protested Abigail. ‘Who’s going to gamble?’

  Gibbie shrank back. ‘You blasphemed,’ he gasped.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m sick of you, you little creep,’ said Abigail. She went to the window. There was no doubt, her ankle felt stronger.

  ‘If only I could go barefoot,’ she thought, for Granny’s best boot felt terrible. The heel was the wrong height, the upper nipped cruelly at the instep, and the toe was pointed like a dachshund’s nose.

  ‘You must be from a foreign land, as Dovey said,’ observed Gibbie. ‘You canna speak proper English like the rest of us, poor soul.’

  ‘Who’s talking?’ asked Abigail. She pulled the dusty brown curtains aside.

  Behind them was a little window made of six square glass panes, and beyond it a busy street. But which street? By standing as high as she could, she caught a glimpse of china-blue sea to her right, a dark peninsula of land with something battlemented like a toy fort built on the end. Bennelong Point, could that be it? But the street itself drew her gaze. Dirty, draggletail, it was nevertheless an important street, as she could see from the carriages and the jaunty horse-drawn sulkies that jolted past. The extraordinary thing was that the pedestrians seemed more important than the wheeled traffic.

  Abigail, coming from a time where a pedestrian ventured onto the road at his peril, could scarcely believe it. The roadway itself was crowded with people crossing at all angles; filthy scamps of children played with a skipping rope; a man was driving a small herd of goats; there were street barrows laden with fish, old clothes, boots, garbage, and even a water barrel. A man passed at a fast trot. He wore a dozen hats, one on top of the other. A board about his neck proclaimed Tanner Heach, Hatts All Clane.

  Abigail mumbled this over to herself and at last worked it out. She laughed.

  ‘Do come and look, Gibbie. It’s fun!’

  But the boy was bawling: ‘She’s gunna open the window and kill me! Dovey, Granny, Faither, she’ll open the window if you dunna take care!’

  Abigail had not thought of opening the window. Now she gave it a heave, but the sash was screwed down. She withdrew her head, and became aware that there was uproar in the shop, Dovey and Granny scolding, a strange male voice, of a customer perhaps, raised in a yell of pain and fury. Mr Bow stormed into the parlour. Ignoring Abigail and the cowering Gibbie, he jerked down a rusty sword that hung by a green tasselled cord above the mantel.

  ‘The Rooshians are coming, fousands of ’em! Let’s show ’em what we’re made of, lads! Hearts of oak, hearts of oak!’ he roared as he charged out, and Abigail hopped to the window just in time to see him pelting down the street, the people scattering before him.

  ‘Wow!’ cried Abigail. She went into the shop.

  Dovey was pale and frightened. ‘I dunna ken how he got at the rum, Granny, honest! He must have had it hid. And he’s spilt all the glessie, just as it was about to crackle, and scattered the lemon bonbons everywhere!’

  Abigail saw also that Dovey’s arm was streaked with a long burn; but the girl said nothing about it, so neither did Abigail. She understood the situation now. Mr Bow was a placid, timid man until he drank, and then his head filled with fancies and he ran wild.

  Mrs Tallisker was taking off her apron. Her firm brown face was calm but stern, her lips compressed.

  ‘I’ll be awa’ after him, lass. You try to make order here.’

  She took Dovey’s stick, which was leaning against the wall, and marched out. She took no notice whatsoever of the soldier, treacle-plastered from top to toe, swearing without pause for breath.

  Abigail limped over to him. ‘You!’ she commanded. ‘Shut up!’

  He ceased in mid-expletive, and snarled, ‘I’ll get ten days in the clink for having me gear in this state. The sergeant will say I’m a slummerkin and very likely sozzled.’

  ‘And so you are,’ said Abigail boldly. ‘You stink like a barrel of beer. Tell your officer it was an accident.’

  ‘And who are you, ordering one of the Queen’s men around, you damned saucy wench? Sure, you’re as homely as a cow’s behind.’

  ‘That may be,’ replied Abigail, ‘but there’s one thing I’ll tell you … get out of here before Mr Bow returns or he’ll take you for a Russian and slice off your head like the pumpkin it is!’

  The soldier backed out, but not before he shouted, ‘They’ll have Bow in Bedlam if he don’t keep off the wet!’

  ‘But he only drinks because of his sorrow, poor man,’ said Dovey. ‘And when he does he goes awa’ out of his head. But it’s true … sooner or later they’ll come and put him away. Oh, if only Judah were home – he can manage him, and keep him from the drink, too!’

  Abigail peeped out the door. There was a brief commotion down on the corner. She saw Granny’s tall white bonnet bobbing above the crowd.

  ‘Granny’s got him,’ Abigail called to Dovey, ‘and there’s two men with him holding his arms.’
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br />   ‘Oh, the Dear help us,’ gasped Dovey. ‘Not the constables?’

  She, too, hurried down the street. Abigail, her ankle beginning to pain savagely, clung to the lintel of the door and looked eagerly and urgently about her. The shop was on a corner. Five stone steps, scooped out like ladles with wear, led to the footpath of slab timber sunk in the earth and interspersed with areas of cobbles and rough gravel. To her right was the Argyle Cut. She was amazed to see above it a rock precipice surmounted by excellent mansions. Late winter roses wavered over their massive stone walls. It seemed incredible that wealthy people lived up there, with all the stenches and rat-ridden poverty of The Rocks washing up to their back fences like a disgusting tide. But she had no time to ponder that now. Through the struts of the wooden bridge that spanned The Cut she saw the low peaked roof of the Garrison Church. That had not changed. Abigail’s heart jumped with excitement. Now she knew where she was. The confectionery shop was on the corner of Cambridge and Argyle streets. To the right was Circular Quay, and George Street, and between them and Mr Bow’s shop was Harrington Street, where she had first accidentally stumbled into the nineteenth century.

  Looking down there now she caught glimpses of the Harbour, and saw Granny’s tall form and white cap, and Mr Bow himself, sagging between a mighty blue-aproned butcher in a bowler hat and a floury-faced baker in a stiff white paper crown. All the fire had gone out of Mr Bow.

  Abigail trembled with relief and joy. As far as time went she might be a long way from home, but in space she was just five minutes from the alley up which she had come from Mitchell and the children’s playground.

  ‘I don’t need Beatie’s help after all,’ she thought. ‘The poor kid hated promising to do it, anyway, going against her granny and everything. But I’ll have to wait till my ankle is a little better, and this bruise gone from my face. I can’t let poor Mum see that – she’ll be frantic enough as it is. I’ll just have to bide my time, that’s all, and climb out a window if necessary.’

  Dovey and Granny gently lowered the collapsed form of Mr Bow to a bench in the shop.

  The butcher, who had the rusty old sword over his shoulder, said gruffly, ‘You ought to throw this old pig-sticker away, Missus. Only brings back memories to the poor silly cove. Better forgotten, I say, wars and all them things. Well, Barney ’n me’ll leave you, me old cocksparrer. Back you go to the gobstoppers.’

  Dovey hastily closed the door behind them and barred it. The little shop was an indescribable mess: treacle and half-solidified caramel all over the floor; the piles of shining tins cast down; the huge cauldrons that hung over the fire sullenly spitting and glugging.

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Abigail. ‘Give me an apron.’

  While Granny stirred the cauldrons and blew up the fire to redness again, Abby got down on the floor with a brush and bucket and scraped up the sugary mess. Mr Bow, as though in a trance, sat yellowish and silent. He smelled strongly of rum.

  Gibbie trailed out from the parlour, saying pathetically, ‘I’m a very sick laddie, and there’s not one of you has been to see if I’m quick or dead.’

  ‘You go up to bed, if you’re poorly,’ said Dovey soothingly. She passed a hand over the little boy’s forehead. ‘There, you’re no’ so hot today. Why, you’re a deal better!’

  ‘Nay, nay,’ said Gibbie crossly, ‘I’m no’ fit to climb all those stairs. I’ll wait till I’m carried.’

  As he trailed back into the parlour Abigail thought, ‘Little fake! Making the most of it.’

  Scrubbing away, she found opportunity to look closely at the shop. The walls were whitewashed, and the surrounds of the vast open fireplace made crimson with a glossy paste. The grates, the spits and hooks, were bright. Only the outside of the four large cauldrons, dangling from their hooks and chains, were sooted over. On the wall, over an iron hook, hung a solidified cascade of toffee that Dovey had been pulling to make it creamy and malleable.

  ‘It’s ruined, I fear,’ Dovey said gloomily. ‘That’s Black Man, Abby. ’Tis cut into six-inch sticks with scissors. What a sad loss of good treacle.’

  ‘Not so, hen,’ said Mrs Tallisker. She lifted the huge irregular slab of toffee onto a marble work bench, gave it a whack with a little mallet. It shattered into hundreds of pieces of glassy amber.

  ‘Put it in the big trencher, lass, and into the window with it. We’ll sell it at a ha’penny the quarter.’

  The windows were not display windows but cottage windows of many-paned glass, with benches behind them where the wares could be shown. When the girls had cleaned the floor and washed themselves, Dovey showed Abigail the many different sweets Mr Bow could concoct. Gundy, flavoured with cinnamon or aniseed; fig and almond cake, which was a lemon-flavoured toffee poured over pounded fruit or nuts and allowed to set; Peggy’s Leg; liquorice; and the favourite glessie, a kind of honeycomb. Abigail had never seen any of these sweets before, but did not say so.

  At last everything was spotless again. Gibbie appeared from the parlour and gazed reproachfully at them all.

  ‘And what about poor wee Gibbie?’ he inquired.

  ‘Oh, Gibbie love,’ pleaded Dovey, ‘we must wait for Beatie to come from school to help Granny carry you up. Ye ken verra weel I’m no use at all, and Abby can scarce walk.’

  ‘Me faither is offending Providence by touching the speerits,’ pronounced Gibbie, stern as a parson. ‘He canna even carry his wee dying laddie up to his bed!’

  As though on cue, Mr Bow produced a great roaring sob, dropped his head in his hands and wept bitterly. ‘My ’Melia, my ‘Melia, how will I raise the young ’uns without you? Why did you go for to leave me, wife?’

  ‘Because God called her, Samuel,’ said Granny gently. ‘Would you go against His holy will?’

  Gibbie began to croak and grunt about the soreness of his throat, the feebleness of his legs, and Abigail gave him a sharp nip on the back of the neck. He yelped once and shot up the stairs roaring. Dovey limped after him.

  ‘That was not kind, Abigail,’ said Granny, with the nearest thing to severity the girl had yet heard in the old woman’s beautiful voice.

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Abigail, ‘but it worked, didn’t it? That youngster will turn into an invalid and get his four black horses and his wee white coffin if he’s not pushed out into the fresh air and sunshine. If Beatie can recover from the fever and go back to her lessons, why can’t he?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the old woman with a sigh. ‘Beatie is different. She has a will like iron. The Dear alone knows what will become of her, with all the wild thoughts she has. But there, hen, you should be resting that ankle. I’ll just get Mr Bow to bed, and then I’ll put a wee poultice on it for you.’

  The poultice was of mashed and heated comfrey leaves, which Mrs Tallisker called ‘boneset’. A comfrey paste was also applied to the bruise on the girl’s face. It must have been effective, for day by day the bruise faded.

  Now that she felt confident of making her escape when she was fit enough, Abigail began to observe the Bows and Talliskers more closely than she had previously done.

  When she had first come to this time she had been like a plane passenger who had disembarked in the wrong country, without luggage or passport. But now she knew where she was. She knew that she could leave.

  She realised there would be many problems. Her parents would be half crazy with anxiety; they would certainly have alerted the police. She had no idea what she could tell them back in her own time. No one would believe her.

  There was also the problem of clothes. Dovey’s blouse and skirt, so heavy, so much the wrong shape and the wrong length, the frightful stockings that made even Abigail’s slim legs look like striped woollen table legs – how could she explain them? Even in a Sydney where almost everyone dressed casually Dovey’s clothes were so uncouth they could not possibly be anyone’s choice.

  ‘Well,’ thought Abigail, ‘I’ll meet those hassles when I come to them. First I have to be able to walk properly on this ankle and
, if possible, have a face that doesn’t look as if it’s been caught in a door.’

  She began to look attentively at these people amongst who she had come to live. After all, she thought, there aren’t many twentieth-century girls who can speak of Victorian times from experience.

  The first thing was their kindness. How amazingly widespread it was … the butcher and the baker catching and bringing back Mr Bow in his frenzy; even the treacle-smeared soldier, who she was sure would not blame the confectioner for his accident. And then, herself. Suppose some strange girl had been knocked down outside Magpies, what would her own mother have done? Brought her inside, rung the ambulance, sent her flowers in hospital, perhaps worried a little whether Magpies’ insurance covered such accidents. And yet Kathy Kirk was the most soft-hearted of women. But here were these people, not as poor as some of the malformed scarecrows that dawdled around the lanes perhaps, but still far from comfortably settled; people, too, who had recently suffered a painful bereavement: And yet they had believed her worse off than they were, a solitary girl with only the clothes she stood up in. They had taken responsibility for her, nursed and clothed her. Someone had given up her bed, probably Beatie; no one had complained when she was snappish and rude about Dovey’s best clothes, about the lack of sanitation; no one had condemned her unsympathetic attitude towards Gibbie.

  ‘I’m not kind,’ said Abigail with a sickish surprise. ‘Look how I went on with Mum when she said she wanted us to get together with Dad again. Look what I did to Dad when I was little, punched him on the nose and made it bleed. Maybe I’ve never been really kind in my life.’

  And she remembered with a pang what Kathy had said, that awful day: that she had never, either as a child or a fourteen-year-old, offered a word of sympathy to her mother.

  ‘Yet here are these people, happy and grateful to be able to read and write, just to be allowed to earn a living; and they’ve shared everything they can share with me, whom they don’t know from Adam.’