by Kim Kelly
Mr Jabour waves his genie hand as if this were all a nuisance: ‘The girl, Agnes O’Keenan, I am here to adopt her.’
Because that’s how seriously Mr Jabour takes his fatherly responsibilities.
The man at the desk is naturally a little startled. He says: ‘Er . . .’
Mr Jabour is a busy man: ‘Where is the child?’
‘Ahhh . . .’ the man shuffles the papers until he finds the answer. ‘Yes, here she is. O’Keenan. In the shelter – she’ll be brought up any minute now.’
Brought up? I imagine from some mouldy rat-infested cell.
My heart thuds in time with the ticking of the wall clock. These are the most interminable minutes of my life. The man has gone back to his paper-shuffling. How can he do that when Agnes is – Please God, if she’s been beaten, I shall sue for cruelty. I shall cable Bart and have the best barrister in this city send the whole of the Welfare Department to prison.
There’s a shuffle of footsteps up a side hall and as I turn a small voice calls out: ‘Miss Olivia?’
My little curly-topped dear. Oh! In the midst of half-a-dozen others, poor urchins, being filed in through another set of doors.
She breaks from the line and runs to me, too quick for the matron with them, and she dives into my arms. She’s still in her school uniform; plaits askew but ribbons perfectly tied. She doesn’t say another word; she only sobs, almost noiselessly, trembling, right into my heart.
I hold her dear little head to my heart and I tell her, as if I could tell them all: ‘I’m so sorry, poppet. I’m so sorry. I’ll never let you go again.’
*
I have to let her go, though, while the Welfare officer, a Mrs Merridale, takes her back to the shelter to retrieve her bag and coat, and to wait there while the paperwork is sorted out. Mrs Merridale is so helpful and almost as relieved as I am; she says: ‘I’m so very glad it was me who went to the school on Friday.’ Suggesting things might have worked out very differently otherwise. ‘Agnes and I are old friends, aren’t we?’ She smiles, a gentle smile under a stern grey fringe; and I return the smile that Agnes can’t. ‘Come along,’ the Welfare lady says, and Agnes looks so fearful at the idea it’s a crime in itself.
‘It’s all right,’ I promise her. ‘I’ll be here when you return. Right here, in this foyer.’
‘Shall we say twelve o’clock on the dot?’ Mrs Merridale promises too, and then she assures me: ‘We should have sorted out all our particulars by then.’
I suspect she wants a few hours to satisfy herself that Mr Jabour is indeed the fabulous agent of rescue he appears to be before informing the magistrate, and I’m glad about that. That she cares.
Meanwhile, the legal particulars on our side are sorted out in about two minutes. The clerk shuffles some more papers, stamps one and scribbles on another, before explaining that while Agnes can’t be adopted straightaway by the Jabours, they can foster her through the Children’s Relief Department, a process which appears to me to be so easy anyone in want of children could walk in and pick up half-a-dozen. Obviously not too many are. Every children’s home in the state is full to overflowing. And while it appears that the state cannot risk Agnes going into a home with a mentally handicapped child in it, it is perfectly acceptable that she be whisked away by a complete but obviously wealthy stranger just now charged in off the street. The only question is:
‘The current status of the child – it must be officially recorded,’ the clerk says, his nib hovering over the form. ‘If the child is orphaned or abandoned, then it will be a simple matter for you as legal guardian to adopt it later. If it’s in need of temporary custody only, then that’s another matter altogether. It’ll have to be investigated in due course for verification, but you’d be better off saying abandoned, so that the past family can then have no claim on it.’
No claim on it? What is a child? Not a person. A piece of property. No, less than that – there’s not even a solicitor here to witness the transaction. Mr Jabour looks at me with the only relevant question, and I pray as I never have: ‘Temporary. Of course it’s only temporary.’
‘Temporary,’ Mr Jabour confirms and then signs the bottom of the form. Agnes is safely in our protection, or will be at midday, with magisterial approval, please Mrs Merridale. Then he looks at his pocket watch – ten past ten – and he looks to me: ‘Chippendale. You said this boy of yours grew up in Chippendale?’
‘Yes.’ I said that on the way here, glancing down a side street and not wanting to see what was down there at all. Not wanting to see these slum lands.
‘Do you know what street?’ Mr Jabour asks me now.
And I do know. ‘Myrtle Street.’ I remember it immediately because he made a joke of it one afternoon, the streets and the pubs around where he lived being named after trees – Pine, Oak, Rose, Myrtle – and not a single tree alive in any of them. But it can only be by some other power that I remember the number of the house: ‘One hundred and twenty-two.’ The dance in the number; the way he says hundred: hondred.
‘Stay here, Olivia, I shall make some enquiries there.’
‘Not without me,’ I tell him. I have to look now. I have to see where this mess began.
*
One hundred and twenty-two Myrtle Street is not a place fit for human habitation. The worst house there, was all that Eoghan said, and it’s no exaggeration, not now I’m looking at it. It’s the only weatherboard in this part of the street, wedged between two rows of blank-faced terraces, and there appear to be more and straighter boards across the front window than there are on the house itself. The transom above the door is smashed, but unboarded, and the right-hand edge of the awning, minus its verandah post, is on the verge of collapsing onto what remains of the fence. The idea that someone claims rent on this property is about as close to evil as I want to get. It smells of something evil here too: a broken sewage pipe?
The street is empty – soulless – but I prickle all over as if a hundred eyes watched the motorcar crawl past. Watching us now. I don’t need to be told to stay in the motorcar while Mr Jabour knocks at the door. While I pray that Eoghan is here, and pray that he’s not.
The door opens. It’s a woman. Pinch-faced, lines down her cheeks, but she’s not an old woman; a baby on her hip, another at her skirt. She looks so tired and careworn she might give one of them to Mr Jabour if he stands on the doorstep for long enough. She’s shaking her head: Eoghan’s not there. Thank God. I hear her say: ‘Nah. O’Keenans was here. The old woman, Kath, she’s gone but. She died. Grog got her. She come out of prison back in, orrr, middle of winter it was, and it got her real quick. The old man – dunno where he went. Be round somewhere.’
Round somewhere. Rage rushes through me at that. These men, who just walk off, leaving trails of destruction behind them. One difference between Eoghan’s father and mine, and one difference alone: real estate. This is a medusa rage: I would turn them to stone and smash them.
If it weren’t for the wave of pity now smashing over me. Into me. For Eoghan.
Oh, Eoghan. Where are you?
‘We will find him,’ Mr Jabour promises. ‘It is good that he is not here at least.’
I nod. And cover my mouth as I begin to gag: ‘That smell – Oh God, it’s putrid.’
‘It’s the brewery,’ Mr Jabour sighs, as if that might account for everything. Perhaps it does.
*
I take Agnes back to Lavender Bay, just the two of us, as it’s quiet here and she knows my house as well as her own. It would be too much for her to meet Mrs Jabour and Aunty Karma today; save that great wave of nourishment for another day. She still hasn’t spoken a word, and I won’t try to push her to. We cuddle on the sofa. She stares into a magazine, into a drawing of Jean Patou’s latest evening whimsy, of bias-cut satin flutes and angel wings.
I promise her: ‘We’ll find him. We’ll find Yoey.’
&
nbsp; She stares and I make her bacon rissoles. She has half a mouthful before falling asleep with her head on my lap and then I tuck her into my bed and I write to Mother, not of any of this. I tell her simply that I love her, for all that she has done for me. Her faults disappear inside this night, inside this sadness for all those less fortunate, as I tell my mother how much I appreciate her fortitude and all her care in raising me: all alone. Her selfishness was never without some purpose, some thought for me – for some future for me. As Agnes sleeps on, I make my sister a funny little doll from scraps, a mop of turquoise boucle for hair. I have a baby sister. Her name is Sophia. For the first time I dream of meeting her. I shall, one day.
I shall see Eoghan again sooner.
Please.
Be found. Be safe.
Come home.
Be alive, be around somewhere, so I might hate you for being a horrible fool.
Please.
It’s so quiet I can hear the ferry bell dingling at the wharf. So quiet I can hear the harbour sigh.
Yo
I’ve never been much of a gambler, despite being raised with the form guide always pinned to the noticeboard at St Ben’s – first thing you see before genuflecting. Never had the right amount of spare change or delusion for punting, but I have just enough of both today. It’s Melbourne Cup Day. There’s not a lot left for me to do, apart from put a bet on. Apart from go back to Balmain and get my dole forms in, sign on at the Labour Exchange for relief, but I can’t do either of those things, not yet. I have to be sober to do those things. Ag, forgive me.
‘What’ll it be then, mate?’ the bookie is waiting for my bet, hurrying me up in this back lane in Botany. I look behind me at the line of other fellas come round here, line of no-hopers going from pub to sly tote, like ants we are, going for a worm that’s got fried on the hot sandy path, and I wonder where the cops are with this. It’s only Paddy robbing Paddy, who gives a – ‘Come on, I haven’t got all day.’
I tell him: ‘Phar Lap.’ Give him the three bob in my pocket. That’s all I’ve got in shillings, and after this I have enough for one more beer and a tin of Champion. Probably not a lot more when Phar Lap comes in. I’m too fucked up to work out the figures, but it won’t be a fortune I’ll win. That’s not the point of this bet. Phar Lap – he’s the Big Red Wonder Horse, he’s the favourite by far. I can’t afford to lose, but the cash is less important than the winning. I need a win, to turn my guts around. When the horse comes in, I will think that’s good. I will think that something is on my side. Some luck? You, Lord? Get yourself home now, you spoon-headed bag of bollocks, you say, Lord? You can get fucked. Go and get a job yourself, Lord, go and make a commandment called Thou Shalt Not Drink, and then get fucked. Show me I’m worth something now, ay? When Phar Lap come in, I will go home. Aggie, I will be home this afternoon.
I start walking back to the pub, somewhere in Botany, to listen to the race. I don’t know Botany. Three mile from Satan’s arsehole and I don’t know where I am, do I. But I might have work at the new port here. ‘Come back tomorrow,’ the fella on the dock said, taking pity. The first one to since Saturday morning, since I started following the line of no-hopers south, along the docks of the Hungry Mile from Dawes Point to Pyrmont, looking in every door for work, all through the warehouses round the Haymarket and then down through the Lebbo factories at Redfern and Waterloo, to the meat and veg railhead at Alexandria and then down here. It’s only labouring, on the Mexican oil tankers, it won’t pay the rent, it won’t be enough for me to have Ag with me, but it’s a job and it might lead somewhere. Maybe Mexico. If it will pay Ag’s way, I will go to Mexico. I will send the Adamses all my pay to keep Ag for me while I’m in Mexico. Or Manchuria. The moon. I will go anywhere for a job.
Anywhere except the Neighbourhood. I went back there for a look the other night. I went looking for Jack, Jack Callaghan; thought I’d call in to the knocker at Strawberry Hills to ask for him through Hammo, maybe get a loan off him or something for the rent, I was that pissed by the time I got there. But I didn’t find him. Only found Luke Finnerty at the bar of the pub next door telling me: Your poor mum – yeah, Mrs Nash went in and found her. She wasn’t there that long. Fuck me rotten, but I started running again then. I was mad with running that night. I went round to Ryan’s then, looking for Satan. Looking for Patrick O’Keenan. To kill him with a blunt axe, but he wasn’t there and I got told to clear off by McKinley. Sergeant McKinley, who knows exactly what my father is. So I told McKinley to suck his own cock through a flyscreen, and had to get running again. What a night. Can’t believe I didn’t get my head kicked in after the Rag and Famish as it was. Six of them National Girl Guides chased me – right the way down to the High Street wharf, where I jumped the rail of the Neutral Bay ferry there and then ended up in the Loo, and that’s where I started drinking.
I’m bound for Botany Bay. Pissed with the hot sandy sun on my head. Singing toora-li li-oorali li-aditty. Waiting for Phar Lap to come in.
Phar Lap comes in eighth.
Can’t believe it. I look at my ticket ten times as if it will stop swimming long enough to say something different from the wireless. Phar Lap has won every race for the last hundred years. But a horse called White Nose has won the Cup. Who the fuck is White Nose? No one knows. Wasn’t even mentioned in the form guide.
‘You have got to be fucking kidding.’
No. It’s not a joke. I check my ticket again.
Get fucked.
‘Let me buy you a drink, mate,’ some fella says beside me. Hand on my shoulder. A new chum, this is. I sway a bit under his hand, from the solid diet of vitamin beer I’ve been on. I recognise him now, though. His name is Ced. Red Ced: he’s a Communist. Opening bowler for the Unemployed Workers Union, he only got out of Long Bay last Tuesday – chucking rocks at the cops in Newtown, he told me, at the eviction riots. I met him yesterday morning, at that pub near Rosebery racecourse. We slept in the scrub by the Chinese market gardens last night, somewhere round here, and he congratulated me at having pissed almost the whole of my last pay away. I said: It’s only taken me three days, too. He fell over laughing then. He said: You are out of condition then, aren’t you, mate? He had half a bottle of Royal Reserve claret, his nightcap, he called it. But I don’t drink that fucked-up poison, do I. It’ll kill you, won’t it, Kathleen. Hydrochloric acid, burning a hole in your guts. I’m not an alco. I only drink beer. ‘Yeah, make it a Star, thanks.’
I only drink Toohey’s Star. None of that Tooths shit, either. And I’ve had too much of it. I have to stop now. I have to get home for Ag.
I have to get where? The tiles are spinning. Spinning me round with my own stink. Sack of shit. She’s better off without me, Ag. She’ll be coming home to Mrs Adams right about now. Coming home to a family. They’ll love having her stop with them; she’s old enough that she can help with more than entertaining Kenny, too. She can get the tea on. She can make biscuits with Mrs Buddle. She’s playing tip with Gladdy on the way home. Reading her stack of library books by the fire. Without me. Yeah, that’s what my sister is doing right now, while my sack of shit runneth over. I am fucking up a storm, I know I am. But what else am I supposed to do, Ag? Just stand there and have Welfare take you from me in the street? Farm you out to some stranger? How many ways do you want me shattered, Lord? No: you’re better staying where you are, Ag. The Adamses are good people: the best there are. Everyone in Balmain will tell Welfare that if they’ve even got up to asking yet: my sister is safe with the Adamses. There’s no chance Welfare wouldn’t let Ag stop with them. And it’s only while I’m working out where . . .
Where am I going, Aggie, my beautiful girl? I’m so sorry, I can’t even see straight. But I’ll come home. I will. I will get back to you when I’ve got . . . something. What?
There’s a glass in my hand again and I can’t keep hold of anything.
Ag, I’m so sorry. I’ve got nothing but sha
me to give you. Thought I was something special once, didn’t you, Miss Greene? So did I, my beautiful Olivia, so did I.
Now I’m going down to Botany Bay in the morning, down to the tanker docks. Going to Mexico, rolling out barrels of Texaco Oil.
After I’ve had this beer, with Ced. Big Red Ced. I raise my glass to him. Ced is only a little fella, flyweight, jockey-sized.
The bar stops sliding around for a second as I look at him: ‘Opening bowler of the Unemployed Workers.’
He raises his glass back at me but he’s not laughing. ‘Oath I am, mate,’ he’s saying. ‘Oath I am. Stick with me and I’ll show you how it’s done.’
Six
Olivia
‘I don’t want to go to Mass,’ Agnes says, her first complete sentence, not forgetting her manners: ‘Thank you.’
I understand her silent protest: the tight little fists balled in her lap. It’s been a week now. Mr Jabour has sent the word out to everyone he knows in every trade, to look out for a lad called O’Keenan, and he even sent Glor’s Paul off to the police to press them to search for him. They said no – you need to get yourself an actual genie for that. If the police took to searching for every man who walked off from his responsibilities, that’s all they’d ever have time for.
I also understand, too well, that there is nothing I might say to soothe Agnes’s abandonment. Anger and fear must be in constant quarrel inside her, as they are in me, an argument that never settles but can only be packed away, so I can only tell her: ‘I don’t want to go to Mass, either. Let’s make new bathers instead.’
She doesn’t smile, but when I give her a pencil to sketch us up a design she bends to it diligently. She draws us into purple halter-neck costumes, with orange belts and matching bathing caps, flowers all about our feet and the rays of the sun spreading down to the ground, all around us. It is a desperate need for beauty, for happiness, for losing sadness to a task, a need I recognise, and I shall indulge her however I can – forever if our kismet allows.