The Blue Mile

by Kim Kelly

  ‘True. Ha!’ He barks a laugh at my disbelieving face. ‘As it happens, I know of someone who’s just had a tenant do a flit on them – little old place, round behind White Bay, but it’s good enough and might do you, if there’s not too many of you, that is. Three rooms, only nineteen a week.’

  ‘That sounds exactly what I’m looking for.’ Nineteen shillings a week? You can’t get anything under twenty in the Neighbourhood – not a house. Can’t be worse than the one we’ve come from. A broom cupboard will do us. I say: ‘We’ll take it.’

  ‘Hold your horses,’ he says. ‘You come round, in the morning – Fawcett Street, on the corner with Gladstone. Come at eleven o’clock, after Mass. We can go across to Birchgrove after then too.’

  ‘All right.’ Saints alive, and he’s Catholic, too? Can this get any more promising? Keep my head on; thinking: might have to try a pub round there after all, for a bed for me and Ag, for tonight, get us to Mass, somewhere . . . ‘See you tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Tomorrow it is.’ He nods, and he’s got one more surprise for me as he does: ‘Eoghan, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Yaw-in, he just said it; more than near enough, he knows the name. My name. ‘Eoghan it is,’ I say. ‘Eoghan O’Keenan.’ And my kneecaps want to slide down my shins again at that: he’s known my name all along? Mr Harrison must’ve said, I suppose, but – ? But the clock on the wharf says it’s half past four – horseshit. The girl said never mind how late, but – sweet Jesus, I’m going to see that girl again. Don’t think about the girl. I’ve got to find Ag. Find them kneecaps, O’Keenan, and get running first.

  Olivia

  ‘Olivia Jane, I must,’ Mother hisses, whispering in the fitting room, buttoning me up. ‘Before he leaves to meet us.’

  Must call Bart at Rose Bay to nark Agnes in to the Children’s Court at Surry Hills before you nark your own child in to an evening of misery and humiliation at the Merrick.

  ‘No,’ I hiss back. ‘It’s only five – perhaps they don’t finish until five.’

  ‘It’s ten past and they don’t finish at five – I know they don’t. They went on strike about it – their shift hours and what have you. One of Bart’s associates is an industrial lawyer. The unionists – they won.’ She says that as if victory entailed finding a typhus-infested bag of rats on the doorstep.

  And doesn’t Bart just know everything and everyone.

  ‘Wait until half-past,’ I insist.

  ‘We have to leave at half-past,’ she insists.

  ‘We do not – don’t have to be there until six, do we? And you’re always late.’

  ‘Ollie, you are impossible.’

  I peep out the curtain into the salon: Agnes is still there, at my work table, daintily and slowly eating the cheese sandwich I got her from the Aristocrat just now. So quiet and dainty, she’d turn herself into a Florentine lily and vanish into the rug beneath her if it were at all possible. She’s not going to the Children’s Court. Whatever she is, whatever her brother is, she’s not a criminal.

  Mother hisses at my ear: ‘You’ve been had. This child is unwanted. Ollie, these sorts of things are happening with increasing –’

  ‘No,’ I hiss back; this child can’t be unwanted. That is impossible. Look at her: she is a perfect and perfectly dear little human being. I don’t know what to do about her, though. What could have gone wrong? A kind of panic starts to bubble up in me. The boy has fallen off the Bridge. Or been eaten by one of the big machines in the workshops: I saw a picture of one in the paper: a wheel of torture. Spitting out hot metal; they’re always getting burned and cut and packed off to the Royal North Shore, shop siren going waaa waaa waaa across the bay in the middle of the night. And my hiss now is shrill as a kettle about to boil: ‘If we telephone anyone, we must telephone the Bridge people.’

  ‘Bridge people? Who, where and what for? Don’t be silly.’ Mother yanks me back into the fitting room by the crystal choker, fixing the clasp. ‘Now, put the shoes on.’

  The shoes. Heels. Navy satin sling-backs, pointed toes. ‘No.’ I will look eight feet tall and my feet will look enormous: clown feet flapping on the end of my stick legs.

  ‘You are not wearing mary-janes with this.’

  ‘My black ones – why not?’

  ‘Because I said so!’

  ‘But I don’t want –’

  ‘Put them on!’

  Rattle the windows with shrill.

  And a thunk, thunk, knocking at the salon door.

  As a little voice cries: ‘Yo-Yo!’

  I dash out of the fitting room to let him in, telling Mother behind me: ‘Told you.’

  And then I see him – it’s him all right. Good God, look at that shoulderline. Male mannequin. Live one. Smiling eyes for his little sister. Perfectly dear, sweet boy. Sunburned too. Laughably gorgeous nevertheless, and I am laughing as I open the door: ‘We’d just about given you up.’

  He looks at me and something in his expression changes; his words dulled, not dancing: ‘I’m sorry I’m late, miss, I missed a ferry and then I went to the wrong arcade.’

  ‘Oh dear, not to worry,’ I assure him, ‘honestly,’ but he’s already looked away. He must be embarrassed at his lateness.

  ‘Come on, Ag,’ he calls her over to him. ‘You look like you’ve had a good day. Say thank you to the lady.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Greene.’ Agnes smiles up at me as she attaches herself to her brother’s side, her hand in his. ‘Thank you for a very nice day.’ Oh, but I do want to steal her back.

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ I assure both of them, but the boy doesn’t look at me. He’s deliberately not looking at me, isn’t he.

  Ah, I see. My reflection. In the window. I am a great glamorous vision of multi-blue catastrophe. Shoeless one.

  Embarrassing all round, really.

  Yo

  She is no lady, she is no girl. She is a jewel risen up from the sea.

  Jesus, what are you doing to me this day? I promised I’d not think of her again, and I didn’t. Are you having a laugh at me with this?

  What do I say to her? ‘Ah . . .’ I can see out the corner of my eye she’s gone straight-backed, disdaining me down her fine long nose. Done her good turn for the season, now clear off so she can get to the theatre or wherever she’s going. No wonder she didn’t want paying; look at this place, all this finery. I knew she was a lady, and I knew she was a beautiful girl, but Jesus, spare me. I can’t look at her; I say, to Ag: ‘Thanks again. We won’t keep you further.’

  ‘No. Well. There you go.’ She says it quick and sharp: hurry up, clear off.

  ‘Yeah, there you go.’ Can’t lift my eyes from Ag to her; start turning back to the door: ‘Wherever you go, there you are, ay, Ag?’

  Ag rightly frowns at me: monkey-nut, what are you going on about?

  The girl says: ‘Well, goodbye then, I suppose.’ But softer now.

  Jesus, her voice has me wanting to throw myself on my knees at her feet again. I’m still away with the music of her laughter, caught in her smile as she opened the door. That song is not for me, though, is it. ‘Right, yeah,’ I say over it. ‘Goodbye. Thanks. Sure. Bye. Yeah.’ Or some such string of bejabbering spoonery.

  I look round my shoulder with a nod, so I don’t seem completely lacking in manners as well as brainless, and I see her again, just for a second.

  Jesus, but she is blindingly beautiful. Her curly blonde hair has been made into these ripples around her face, shining ripples. And what a face. Her eyes are the same colour as the waters of the harbour, not blue, not green, but exactly in between. As I look away again, though, I see the face of this other woman, by a curtain in the back corner of the shop, same eyes, maybe her sister, but with the blank stare of hatred in them: Get out. I’ll oblige her.

  ‘Bye bye,’ Ag waves as we leave, and she says to me as we near the stairs: ‘See,
I said Miss Greene was a fairy princess, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, Ag. Yes, you did.’

  And I don’t know if I’m thankful or shattered that I’ll never see her again.

  Olivia

  ‘I forbid you from having anything to do with that young man ever again.’

  ‘Forbid all you like, Mother.’ It’s hardly likely we’ll cross paths ever again. A sadness sweeps over me at that, swiftly followed by relief. The way he looked at me: couldn’t look at me. I’m used to boys not looking at me, but that one . . . that was rough. I’m not that much of a Medusa. Not as though I didn’t do him an insanely enormous favour today, either; he could have been a little kinder. Why would I ever want to see him again? Who is he to not look at me like that? Some dustman. Some stupid sunburnt dustman.

  I look at myself square on in the cheval now: I’m not that bad. The gown does compensate somewhat. I can almost vanish into it, it’s such a spectacular creation, and this fabric is . . . it is a little slip of heaven, nothing less. I am wearing air. And you have to be a bosomless stick to carry off these diagonals or you’d look like a house – lopsided one. My hair looks nice, too; Marjorie knows what she’s doing. My face might remain all schnonk, but I’m no Medusa.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Mother asks behind me, holding those navy heels, and wanting a name for nark purposes.

  I’m not going to tell her. Eoghan O’Keenan. E-o-g-h-a-n. Owen. Yoey. Yo-Yo. I’m not likely to forget it. And another strange sort of panic bubbles up at this: I don’t care for boys. I never have. Why should I care about this one, or what he might think? I don’t know who he is. I don’t know anything about him. He’s just a mannequin. For hideously cheap mercerised work shirts.

  I don’t care who he is.

  God, but I see us meeting in the Gardens again, along that path by the wall, and my stomach flips.

  No. I never want to see him again.

  I won’t see him again.

  This is merely residual intrigue. That I’ll never know anything about them. I’ll never see dear little Agnes again or find out if she lives in the Botanic Gardens or a flat in Randwick. Never know if he’s a death-defying dustman or . . . But there was something about him, something heroic – those fine, long fingers . . .

  ‘Put your shoes on. Please, Ollie,’ Mother says.

  I take them from her. Resigned to whatever the evening holds for me. The future. Phlergh. Grow up and thank God Glor never saw him; I’d have to hear her go on and on and on about his gorgeousness, how Lebanese girls always fall for the Irish boys. She’s plying one with her mother’s coffee cake in the lounge at her house right now, that Paul boy. It’s all in the eyes with Irish boys. All in the deep blue sea of their eyes, and everywhere else. So gorgeous, and I’m the only one who saw this boy. It was just a dream after all. Little Agnes a sweet dream. Half a cheese sandwich is all that remains. And her rickrack and Fuji creation on my miniature. Oh but I meant for her to take that home.

  Mother mists me with a fine cloud of Number Five, never mind that I always wear Coty’s Lily: ‘Pout all you like, darling – enigmatic on your features. Smoky.’

  She pencils my eyes, powders the schnonk. A coat of plum lipstick, grab handbag and wrap.

  ‘Out you scoot, darling, our cabbie awaits.’

  Yo

  ‘Will we visit Miss Greene again one day?’ Ag asks me as we’re walking back down to the Quay.

  ‘No, I doubt that,’ I tell her. ‘But we will have egg and chips for tea.’ While we’re waiting for the pubs to close and the streets to clear. I doubt that six o’clock Saturday is any different in Balmain than anywhere else for fucked-up: maybe worse with a job load of wharfies.

  ‘But I don’t want egg and chips for tea,’ says Ag, that whine getting into her voice.

  ‘But I do,’ I tell her, over the pointless want of saying to a seven year old, don’t ask me how my day went, will you? I went up on the Sydney Harbour Bridge today, if you want to know, didn’t miss a rivet. First go. I did all right. Never mind. I’m that tired and that hungry now I could eat a buttered frog through a flyscreen.

  ‘Miss Greene bought me a cheese sandwich,’ Ag says.

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘That was nice of her.’ Miss Greene doesn’t give a silver-plated shit about you, Aggie. But how do you tell a kid they’re not good enough for some and will never be? I’m not about to.

  ‘Miss Greene let me play dresses with her little wooden mannequin.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘I made a skirt that was red and yellow. I sewed it all by myself, and Miss Greene said it was very good.’

  Ag’ll run out of things to say about Miss Greene. With any luck in this lifetime. Keep ignoring it. I’m not thinking about the girl; she’s gone, a lifetime behind me. I’m thinking about getting my tea, and my bed, please, we need a good bed tonight, and I’m otherwise thinking about what I should say to Mr Adams about Ag when we meet him tomorrow. Should I tell him the truth? Or tell him she’s mine? Should I take her to Mass with me in the morning or not? She’s got to start her Holy Communion lessons in the new year. Somewhere. Don’t think that far ahead; it’s too much to consider. On more practical and immediate matters of salvation, how am I going to get my hands on a pair of sandshoes, never mind the hat, for Monday? All the shops are closed from now until then. And what will I do with Ag come Monday? I’m not leaving her with some strange sheila again. Got away with that once; never do that again. But where will she go for all the weeks of school holidays ahead? Somewhere . . .

  ‘She took me to see the Santa display and she bought me a pink cake there, Miss Greene did.’

  ‘Right. Shush for a minute there, will you, Ag?’

  She does. She doesn’t say another word, right down to the grease traps at the Quay. Her Yoey is a mean bastard. I’ll make it up to her, get her an ice-cream for the ferry. After I’ve had my egg and chips.

  Olivia

  ‘Don’t speak, then,’ Mother says as we get out of the cab. ‘Suits you too. Every fault’s a fashion if you wear it well.’

  We’ve only travelled a block and a half up Elizabeth Street, not a long enough trip for me to have let go of anything but the tight clasp of my hands, hanging on to each other as they were all the way, awaiting the call to the gallows. Which is here: the Merrick Club. It doesn’t look like a place of execution; it looks like a small bank, wedged between Studebaker Motors and the Manchester Unity Oddfellows Society of the Secret Handshake, minarets of the synagogue beyond. Establishment but slightly shady.

  A strip of red carpet at the threshold, less vice-regal crimson, more folly rose; the celluloid spike heels of these stupid satin pumps squish into it, as my heart and soul begin their inevitable squish into . . .

  An empty foyer. It’s only a dot after six; I don’t suppose the fabulous people arrive until after eight. So they can’t see me struggle to negotiate spike heels on the parquet. It’s a fabulous foyer, though: elliptical columns like ships’ funnels clad in silky oak veneer inlaid with bands of turquoise and bronze, the walls too. Snazz as. The oak is honey-coloured watermark taffeta. But as the girl at the cloakroom counter greets us with a cool, ‘Good evening,’ lids so heavy with paint and the tedium of her own fabulousness, I can’t help thinking: welcome to the Titanic.

  As a tuxedoed man emerges from behind one of the columns and makes a lunge for Mother. ‘Em, hello, you naughty little minx,’ kissing the air either side of her face and just about startling me back out into the street. He is obviously not Bart Harley. I am aware that barristers are notoriously theatrical, but possibly not quite this theatrical. White spats, maroon cravat, and I’m sure he’s pencilled his brows.

  ‘Arthur, darling.’ Mother kisses the air around him in return, as he makes a lunge for my hand, and just about shrieks the silky oak veneer off the walls.

  ‘Em –
oh Emily, is this yours?’

  ‘Of course.’ Mother is droll and dry and utterly triumphant: ‘The girl and frock both, yes, all mine.’

  ‘Superlative,’ he says to me and he looks right into my eyes as he does; something warm-hearted about him, puckish, dropping his voice to a whisper as he kisses my hand: ‘Superlative.’ Before he shrieks at Mother again: ‘Oh but I must fly away, precious Em – got to go pick up something before the show. Nudgy nudge – you want some too?’

  Mother’s laugh is a soaring glissando of gaiety, but I catch the deadly daggers she looks at him as she waves him away.

  So I have to speak – I have to know: ‘You want what too?’

  ‘Nothing, Ollie, shush. Up we go.’ She waves me towards the staircase past the columns: ‘Bart’ll meet us for a cocktail in the Library Lounge.’

  ‘Who was that Arthur man?’ I pester as we take the stairs, ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ tinkling on a piano somewhere.

  ‘Arthur Spence – he’s an actor. The ringmaster of the cabaret here, the supper show.’

  ‘Oh? You seem close in with him.’ She’s never mentioned anyone called Arthur to me before.

  ‘He’s close in with everyone,’ she says, shooing me up again. ‘Theatre people are always good to know – sequins, darling.’

  Millions of hours of work, yes, and the last sort of work I’d ever want to do. But I wouldn’t mind seeing a show, though; I love a good show, not that I’ve been to that many. You can disappear into the theatre, lights down, another place and time. I want to disappear right now as the chandelier above the staircase shimmers across the band of crystal drops at my hip. Dear God. I ask Mother, beg her: ‘Are we going to see this cabaret tonight?’ Immediately?