The Sequin Star

by Belinda Murrell

  The chauffeur parked the car under a tree, where he sat reading a newspaper. Claire and Kit strolled together over towards Rosina’s caravan.

  ‘Take a seat.’ Claire gestured to the chairs and crates arranged around the campfire. ‘I’ll let Rosina know you’re here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kit. ‘Tell her I can go away if she’s not up for a visit.’

  Claire ran up the steps of the caravan and tapped on the door.

  ‘Just a moment,’ called Rosina.

  ‘Kit Hunter is here. He’s brought a present. Do you feel up to seeing him?’

  There was a thump from inside. ‘Tell him I’ll be down in a minute,’ replied Rosina.

  The reason for the delay was apparent when Rosina opened the door several minutes later. She was no longer clothed in the shabby old dress that she had been wearing; she was now modelling a pretty sprigged cotton dress in green and white. Her hair was brushed out in waves, and she was no longer looking pale and wan.

  Claire glanced down at her own working clothes ruefully. Rosina had a pair of crutches that Jem had fashioned for her out of timber, with pads made of flour sacks to cushion her underarms. She hopped down the steps and took a seat on her chair by the fire.

  Kit stood and handed her the bunch of flowers. ‘These are for you,’ he explained. ‘To cheer you up. They’re lilies from our greenhouse.’

  Rosina blushed and buried her face in the blooms to enjoy the delicate scent. ‘Thank you, they’re lovely.’ Claire took the white lilies and popped them into a jug of water on the table beside the caravan.

  Kit held up the cane basket. ‘I also brought you some special treats. Our cook put together a picnic that she thought you might enjoy – chicken sandwiches, egg-and-bacon pie, grapes, lemonade and a chocolate cake. There’s plenty for everyone.’

  Rosina and Claire exchanged appreciative glances, given the quality of circus camp food.

  Jem arrived moments later, Jaspar at his heels, his curiosity piqued by the rumour that a toff townie had arrived in a limousine to visit Rosina.

  Rosina laughed. ‘Trust you, Jem, to arrive just as the picnic basket is opened. You’re as bad as Jaspar when it comes to begging for food.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was a picnic basket,’ complained Jem. Then he grinned. ‘But now that I do, why don’t I make a billy of tea to go with it?’

  Jem knelt down, added some sticks to the coals and set the billy over the flames. Claire brought over the table to spread the various dishes and cutlery out on.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ Kit said to Rosina, offering the plate of chicken sandwiches around. ‘I hope your knee is feeling better.’

  Rosina busied herself, cutting four wedges from the egg-and-bacon pie and serving them onto the plates.

  ‘It’s sore, but the hardest part is not being able to do anything,’ complained Rosina. ‘I just hope I’m able to walk by Saturday. It might be a little tricky swinging on crutches amongst thousands of people.’

  Jem helped himself to a slice of pie. ‘You’ll be fine. You couldn’t be the only knuckleheaded person in Sydney to miss the opening. Why, hordes of people, including us, will have travelled from all over the country to be there.’

  Rosina handed Lula a sprig of grapes. The monkey, sitting in her own little chair, ate each one delicately.

  ‘Like that nine-year-old boy, Lennie Gwyther, who rode on his pony by himself from Victoria,’ said Rosina. ‘That’s an amazing journey.’

  Claire swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. ‘You’re joking? A nine-year-old boy couldn’t ride that far by himself.’

  She thought back to her own childhood. Her parents hadn’t even let her walk to the corner store without an adult when she was that age. She was twelve before she was allowed to catch the bus to and from school.

  ‘It’s been in all the papers,’ Jem added. ‘It took him five weeks to ride six hundred miles from Leongatha in Gippsland. And then he has to turn around and ride home again.’

  That’s nearly one thousand kilometres each way, thought Claire.

  ‘What sort of parents would let their nine-year-old child travel that distance on a pony by themselves?’ Claire asked.

  ‘His father is a farmer and a war hero,’ explained Jem. ‘Apparently his dad broke his leg and was in hospital, so the little chap had to run the farm. He ploughed all the land with a four-horse team, by himself. His dad asked him what reward he would like for his hard work, and he said he wanted to be here for the opening of the world-famous Harbour Bridge.’

  ‘I still can’t believe they would let him do that. He might have been lost or hurt – or even killed.’

  ‘Claire, there are nine-year-old kids supporting their whole family right now,’ Jem reminded her. ‘Lennie’s family farm might have gone broke if he hadn’t acted like a man when his dad was crook. Mollycoddling kids is a luxury for the rich.’

  Jem glanced at Kit, as though expecting him to argue back. Instead, Kit topped up everyone’s glasses with cold, bubbly lemonade. Claire took a sip, thinking about Jem’s outburst.

  ‘He rode unaccompanied, but his parents made sure he had places to stay all along the journey,’ Rosina added. ‘And people looked out for him on the way – drovers and travellers. He’s really famous now.’

  ‘A massive crowd welcomed Lennie in Martin Place when he arrived last week,’ Kit said. ‘A real hero’s welcome. People went crazy. My father said he’s a quiet little chap, who hardly says more than one or two syllables, although he did say that the autograph hunters were “most pestiferous” along the way.’

  Rosina put her fork down. ‘Did your dad meet him?’ she asked.

  Kit shrugged. ‘Yes, well, my father is on the Citizens of Sydney Organising Committee. They asked little Lennie if he’d ride his pony, Ginger Mick, in the opening parade. He’s riding directly after the workers who helped build the bridge.’

  Rosina and Jem exchanged a quick glance.

  Jem raised his eyebrows. ‘Your dad must be pretty important to be on the organising committee.’

  Kit shook his head. ‘No, not really. He owns a few stores in Sydney and is friends with the lord mayor. He likes to help out on big civic projects, and this one’s taking a good deal of his time at the moment. The parade will be extraordinary. They think nearly one million people will be there to watch it.’

  ‘So basically every single person in the city,’ said Rosina.

  Kit took the big chocolate cake out of the basket. It was oozing with chocolate icing and covered in strawberries. A long knife was in the basket.

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Claire. ‘That looks wicked. Your cook is amazing.’

  ‘She is a wonder,’ Kit agreed. ‘I was lucky to get this. Father has her working hard all week, cooking up a feast for a big party he’s organising for Saturday night.’

  ‘Did I tell you, Rosina, that Alf has decided that we should close the circus next weekend?’ said Jem, changing the subject. ‘He said no one will want to come to a circus with so much excitement in the city. So we get a little holiday.’

  ‘Circus performers getting a holiday,’ Rosina huffed. ‘Well, that’s a first. I suppose he’ll want us all to spend the weekend practising new acts?’

  Jem snorted and tossed a stick on the fire. ‘Well, I for one am going to visit my family. I won’t be practising any new acts since I can’t even get a chance to perform my old ones.’

  Rosina nudged him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be like that, Jem. I was thinking, if you built me a little cart, I could train the dogs to pull it and the monkeys to drive. It will be a sensation.’

  Claire giggled at the thought of Lula driving a dog-drawn cart. ‘Lula would love that. Just make sure you don’t give her a whip! She’d be lethal.’

  A few minutes later, Kit left to go home, taking the basket and washing-up with him. The chauffeur drove over a
nd opened the door for him, stowing the basket in the boot.

  Rosina, Claire and Jem watched him go.

  ‘Cripes, his dad must be filthy rich,’ said Jem, looking enviously at the shiny limousine. ‘Only the cream of Sydney’s businessmen and politicians are on that organising committee.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Rosina, twirling one of her curls around her finger.

  On Tuesday, Claire slipped away early from the circus lot and went for a walk. She set off, wending her way in a north-easterly direction, taking in the sights and sounds of the busy streets. She passed a small shopping strip with a series of shops: a butcher, baker, barber, greengrocer, and the ham-and-beef shop. The baker’s horsedrawn cart was being loaded with the day’s deliveries. Bicycles jangled past. A tram clattered down the middle of the road, heading in the same direction, but Claire didn’t have any money for the fare.

  A man pushed a pram full of skinned rabbit carcasses, calling out, ‘Rabbit-oh, rabbit-oh.’

  Claire walked down a hill and came to a familiar sight, the Gothic sandstone towers of the historic Northbridge, which gave her suburb its name. The sight was at once heart-achingly familiar, but also strange. Trams crossed the bridge, together with the odd car. The surrounding hills looked different with fewer buildings.

  Her heart sank, but still she walked on, crossing the bridge. At last she arrived at her own street. She walked to the block where her home should have stood. For a moment she had a vision of a row of modern, rendered three-storey townhouses with precisely clipped hedges and formal courtyards. Her room was at the very top, with its cute dormer window and sloping roof. But of course the townhouses were not built yet.

  Instead, there was a modest brick cottage surrounded by a big, rambling garden. Several children and a dog ran and played in the grass, while a mother sat on a wicker chair mending clothes.

  Claire watched them for a moment. She closed her eyes and wished to go home. She longed to see her parents and her grandmother, her friends and her own safe bedroom. She opened her eyes as a cricket ball whizzed past her head. Tears filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She slowly turned around and walked all the way back to the circus lot.

  11

  Happy Valley

  On Wednesday, Jem and Claire hurried through their jobs. Jem had invited Rosina and Claire to go with him to visit his family at Happy Valley at La Perouse. Claire was worried about Rosina travelling the long journey by tram, ferry and tram, but Rosina was determined not to miss out. She was still on crutches but swung along more easily now.

  The tram pulled up on the main street and the three climbed on board. Jem paid their fares to the uniformed guard. The tram was crowded with lots of people clutching bags of shopping and small children. A man in a patched and faded suit stood up and doffed his hat at Rosina, offering her his seat. She sank gratefully onto the bench while Jem and Claire hung on above her.

  At Milsons Point they changed to a small ferry crossing over to Circular Quay.

  It was a glorious day. They settled on the bench seats out in the sun. The ferry chugged across the water with the breeze whipping up a fine, sparkling spray, which settled on Claire’s face. Looking up, Claire could see the familiar arch of the big, grey bridge. She had often walked across it with friends into the city.

  ‘Gosh – it’s huge,’ said Jem. ‘Do you remember, Rosina, when we were in Sydney a year ago, the two halves of the bridge hadn’t joined up yet? There was a wide gap in the middle.’

  ‘Yes, but it looks magnificent now, doesn’t it?’ replied Rosina, gazing upwards.

  ‘It’s one of the world’s greatest engineering marvels,’ Jem explained to Claire with pride. ‘It’s the largest single-arch bridge in the world and cost well over four million pounds. Those pylons are nearly three hundred feet tall.’

  Claire smiled at his enthusiasm. Rosina rolled her eyes.

  ‘They call it the iron lung,’ added Jem. ‘It has kept hundreds of men in work during this depression. For many Sydneysiders, it’s a real symbol of hope, defiance and strength.’

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it like that before,’ Claire confessed. ‘I just thought of it as a bridge.’

  Claire glanced across towards the city and had a shock. It was as though she was looking at a different city to the one she had known all her life. There were no shiny glass skyscrapers, no built-up expressways and, most surprisingly, no glossy white sails of the Opera House. Instead, there was a cluster of low-rise buildings along the foreshore, a tangle of wharves and, at Bennelong Point, a square fort-like structure.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  Rosina shot her a questioning look. ‘Fort Macquarie tram station.’

  At Circular Quay, they jostled through the crowds to the tram station. There were men standing out the front dressed in three-piece suits with hats and ties and cardboard signs tied around their necks, begging for jobs.

  Claire read the sign around one man’s neck: ‘I want work not charity. Age 37. Fifteen years accounting experience. Returned Serviceman. Family man. I’m a decent man who wants a decent job.’ He looked at her with sad, desperate eyes.

  Claire glanced away feeling a hollow in the pit of her stomach. She wished she could do something to help him and all the other men who were standing there trying to preserve their hope and dignity.

  It was standing room only as the tram jolted and rattled all the way south to La Perouse on the northern shore of Botany Bay.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ said Jem.

  As the tram rounded a corner, an extraordinary sight greeted them. Sheltered in a gully among the sand dunes were dozens of shanty homes and tents. They were built from sheets of tin, cardboard, scraps of timber and sacks coated with lime and lard to make them weatherproof. Some had bright flower gardens and vegetable plots, others looked forlorn and neglected.

  ‘Welcome to Happy Valley,’ said Jem, waving his hand towards the camp. ‘Population three hundred and thirty-odd – and growing rapidly.’

  They jumped off the tram and Jem led the way towards the dunes. Urchins were running and playing everywhere, along with dozens of dogs of many breeds. The boys wore baggy shorts with suspenders and shirts, while the girls wore knee-length dresses. None of them had shoes and most had raggedy, short hair. Claire couldn’t believe how thin the children were. Ropes of washing were strung up between shacks. Many huts had a campfire out front.

  Several children were gathered around a tap in the middle of the camp. Some had billy carts that were filled with a variety of containers – buckets, kerosene tins and billies. Others had poles across their shoulders with buckets suspended on each side. The children were filling them with water then hauling the carts back to their homes.

  ‘Jem! Jem!’ came a chorus of cries. A gaggle of barefoot children darted towards them. There were six of them, ranging in age from about twelve to four. Several flung their arms around Jem, hugging, wrestling and punching him. Most of them had sandy-blonde hair and a mass of freckles, just like Jem.

  ‘Kids, these are my friends Rosina and Claire, who work with me in the circus,’ said Jem. ‘And these are my brothers and sisters.’ He pointed in descending size: ‘Nancy, Tibby, Billie, Freddie, Becky and little Lizzie.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Claire and Rosina. Some of the children looked bashful for a moment and then they started to talk over the top of each other: ‘Jem, tell us a story about the circus. Are you performing in the ring yet? I caught a rabbit last week. Mum’s made spiced raisin cake for tea. Can we play cricket? Did you bring us a present? Archie’s dog had puppies. Archie’s mum says we can have a pup for our very own, but Mum says she doesn’t know how we could possibly feed it.’

  Jem sank down on his heels and spoke to his youngest sister, a solemn-eyed child who was clutching a doll sewn from rags. ‘Who’s this, Lizzie? Did Mum make her for you?’

  Lizzie no
dded. ‘She’s my dolly. She called Lucinda.’

  ‘Lucinda’s a very fine name. Now, would you and Lucinda like a piggyback home?’

  Lizzie nodded again so Jem swung her up on his shoulders and carried her through the sandy laneways between the shacks. He tried to answer one question before another was asked.

  ‘Here it is,’ Jem said to Rosina and Claire.

  He paused outside a freshly whitewashed hut surrounded by scrubby trees. At first glance it looked pretty with a riot of orange nasturtiums, red geraniums and purple petunias growing in kerosene tins around the doorway. Then Claire noticed it was patched together with a hotchpotch of materials, with a hessian sack hanging from the doorframe. There were only two windows, neither of which had glass, with timber shutters propped open to let in fresh air.

  To the side was a vegetable garden planted in halved fuel drums that contained beans, cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, radish, parsley and lettuce. Another pair of drums held rainwater.

  ‘Mum, Mum,’ called Tibby through one of the windows. ‘He’s here! Jem’s home!’

  A faded woman came to the door, wiping her hands on an apron. A huge smile spread across her face and her eyes brimmed with tears.

  ‘Jem, my dear boy, welcome home,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Come in, come in.’

  She hustled everyone inside, surreptitiously wiping her eyes on the corner of a tea towel. Jem introduced Rosina and Claire.

  Claire tried hard not to stare as everyone crowded inside the sand-floor shack. There were two rooms – a sleeping room and a combined kitchen–living room, divided by a wall made of sacks. More flour sacks had been sewn together and thrown on the ground as rugs.

  One wall held a fireplace made from an iron fuel drum cut in half. The chimney was a corrugated iron pipe. Hanging over the brick hearth by a metal bar was a huge kettle and a flame-blackened stockpot. A camp oven sat over the glowing coals, releasing an appetising aroma of hot nutmeg and cinnamon. A stack of driftwood sat in an iron bucket on the hearth.