by Rosalie Ham
At 253 Gold Street Margery paused in her knitting and said aloud, ‘Gracious. What was that?’ In her office at the brickworks Pat stubbed out her cigarette and reached for the phone. When no one answered at the pub, she trotted off along the footpaths in her high-heeled sandals, her big plastic earrings bouncing. When she rounded the corner to Gold Street, there it was, her pub, a smoking shell, black dust billowing from the vacant window frames and flames dancing along the lovely, curved wooden bar.
When the sirens raced down Gold Street, Margery put aside the blue-and-white socks she was knitting and came out to the street, looking for the telltale smoke of a house on fire rising above the rooftops. She saw the pub smouldering, smiled and clapped her hands, then caught herself. Up and down the street, neighbours gathered at their gates, hands on mouths, mesmerised by the black cloud rising and spreading from the hundred-year-old, two-storey brick building.
Bonita came running up the street in her brunch coat, her hair in rollers. ‘Mrs B! Is Lance in that pub?’
‘Yes,’ she said, just as Pat stumbled down the smoky street towards them, wailing. Bonita threw one arm around Margery, reaching to Pat with the other.
They say people as far away as Barry Street heard the whoomph and felt the ground leap beneath their feet.
Morris and Dubious One both still suffer tinnitus, and it took quite some time for the firemen to find the barmaid. Given that the explosion killed ‘Lance the Lad’ Blandon and William Archibald Cruickshank, as well as Dubious Two, there were post-mortems and a coroner’s inquiry. After some delay, the respective families were informed the bodies were to be released for burial. Margery stayed in her bedroom, her radio to her ear, while the Blandon children gathered at her kitchen table.
Judith sat between her brothers, weeping. ‘Dad’s the father of a middleweight champion,’ she cried. ‘He should have his funeral service at St Patrick’s Cathedral.’
Though her father had largely ignored her, he did include her in some things – she was a non-drinker so she often drove for Lance, Walter and the entourage. Happily, when Walter won his first professional welterweight title, Judith met Barry.
‘Mumsy won’t come,’ Walter said. ‘She doesn’t believe in God, hasn’t been to a funeral since her sister died.’
‘Well that’s just disgusting,’ Judith said. ‘What if there’s newspaper reporters and photographers there and his wife hasn’t even bothered coming?’
Dubious One said helpfully, ‘You could tell everyone she’s dead,’ which stopped the discussion for one heartbeat. Then Barry snarled, ‘Nobody’s interested in us anymore, Judith.’ When Walter lost that last fight, his brand-new brother-in-law, Barry, lost his brand-new career as manager–minder of the defending Middleweight Champion of Victoria, 1983, and was forced to ask his sister’s husband’s cousin for a job in real estate, where, again, success had so far eluded him.
‘We’ll have the service at the funeral parlour,’ Walter said.
Morris sat back. They eyed him, waited while he composed his words. His gold earrings were burnished like Margery’s doorknobs and he rubbed his gold skull-and-crossbones ring. ‘There are people who want a church service for him, people who were very important to Dad for many, many years.’
‘Like who?’ Walter said, genuinely intrigued. After that last fight, Lance regarded Walter a bit like a second cousin at Christmas lunch – someone you were compelled to be friendly to but had no interest in. To most people, apart from his brick-dusted mates and the sodden, addled men on their worn stools along the bar, Lance was just one of those tall, neatly maintained men with an invisible wife and a pub complexion, treading carefully along the back footpaths of working-class Brunswick.
‘His sisters,’ Morris said, poking his tongue up into the gap where his front tooth used to be.
‘Faye and Joye? They’ll be happy as long as there’s food.’
‘There are others.’
Judith snapped, ‘It’s not up to a bunch of smelly derros from the pub, Morris.’
Behind Morris, Dubious One sniffed and Walter said, ‘That’s harsh, Judif.’
‘We should decide,’ Judith continued. ‘Who could a man possibly love more than his wife and kids?’
‘His mistress,’ Morris replied.
Walter shot up from his chair like a cork from a fizzy bottle and started swinging – arms wooshing, feet dancing – and everyone scattered. Judith followed Barry outside, Dubious One leapt into the bathroom and Morris dropped under the table. Walter’s discharge notes stated that he was prone to ‘sudden, uncontrolled rages’, but his siblings had never actually seen one, until then.
Lance Blandon’s funeral was delayed again until most of his offspring could reconvene and, since a lot of people were still suffering after-effects from the explosion, Bill’s send-off at the Catholic Church was a quiet affair.
Again, Margery absented herself from the second Blandon meeting, so Morris was able to explain that Lance had maintained a steady, devoted relationship with a particular woman for nearly thirty years, and he insisted his father’s ‘long-time, love-of-his-life soulmate’ wanted a church funeral, and she deserved to sit up the front with Lance’s special friends and his sisters. Walter insisted she was most likely merely a drinking companion and ‘a bit on the side’ – she shouldn’t be there ‘for the sake of Mumsy’.
Judith wanted to know where she lived and what she looked like, but Morris had promised not to reveal anything to anyone because Lance had stipulated, ‘No child of mine’s mother should be upset in any way.’
On the day of the funeral, the parlour attendants stood sombrely at the door. Slim Dusty sang, ‘But there’s nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear than to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer’ from the portable tape recorder on top of the coffin, its extension cord draped across the wreath. Margery sat on one side of Lance’s coffin, calmly unpicking some cheap cross-stitching thread – Let the punishment be equal with the offence – which had bled into her white handkerchief. Beside her, Morris sat quietly while Judith and Barry scrutinised the women on the other side of the coffin. Behind them, respectful and stoic, were Lance’s mates, ruddy-nosed men with yellow teeth and smoker’s fingers. Though the cuts and abrasions of some had healed, others still had bandaged limbs, and one chap’s eye was taped over with a great wad of cottonwool dressing.
Finally, Walter strode into the funeral parlour. He looked at his family sitting fearfully on one side of the coffin, and then at the women opposite, Lance’s sisters, Faye and Joye, and between them a thin woman with movie-star hair and lips, sitting with the bar flies sniffing and dabbing their eyes with balls of damp tissues. He fixed on the slender blonde at the centre of the weepers, then his eyes glazed and turned to Lance’s coffin. After two long seconds he walked straight up to it and punched it, a haymaker, and it fell with a loud thud on its side. The lid popped off and Lance rolled across the polished parquetry like a log.
Walter paused and looked down at his father, then he eyed the crowd, spotted Morris, and reached for his shirt front, but Morris sprang up, striking out like a swimmer off a starting block. Only Margery remained where she was, the guests scattering around her. Someone called, ‘Fifty on the Brunswick Bull,’ and Barry said, ‘Fifty on Dodgy Morris.’ Walter and Morris fought, staggering, rolling and dragging each other from one side of the funeral home to the other, chairs toppling and vases falling. Finally, Morris got Walter in a clinch, ‘Give in, Wally, give in – you’re just walking up Queer Street anyway.’ Further enraged, Walter flung him off like a scarf, picked him up and hurled him through the stained-glass widow – a depiction of Pietá. Then he straightened his hair and walked calmly out of the parlour, knuckles bleeding. Behind him, the guests stayed pressed against the walls, looking down at Lance the Lad with his arms folded stiffly across his army uniform, his marbled ankles in his blue-and-white knitted socks
, all around him spilled flowers and shattered leadlight glass.
Faye and Joye asked for a copy of the will, but Margery told them to ask Pat. Pat was executor; she had the will hidden somewhere. As far as Margery was concerned, they’d spoken to Pat and everything was settled.
Morris left for Thailand the very next day. Margery doubled her cross-stitch output, Judith took up eating in earnest – ‘I thought Dad was a good bloke, but he’s just like the rest of them’ – and Walter took to drink, disappearing completely.
Margery waited and waited, running to the phone when it rang, gazing down the street, checking her letterbox several times a day, but her sons didn’t come back to her. She said to Cecily, ‘God does not exist, and those people who believe in their invisible friend obviously don’t understand that He is a cruel menace.’
~
Five years on, outside the recreation room of the psychiatric wing at St Vincent’s Hospital, a tram slowed, clanging its bell twice. Inside, Walter leapt from a corner, his footwork taking him around the ping-pong table, his fists pounding an imaginary opponent. An attendant said, ‘Ding-ding,’ and Walter retreated to his corner.
‘You’re the Brunswick Bull, eh?’ the attendant said, and Walter leapt up again, his boxing gloves raised, his opponent lifeless on the canvas beneath him, the lights hot and the crowd chanting: ‘Bull, Bull, Brunswick Bull.’
Consequently, Walter was resurrected, again, dried out and woken from a nightmare where he’d spent years fighting the sucking arms of an alcoholic octopus, swiping insatiable worms from his ears and smacking at ants under his skin, and then his mother reappeared above him again, her arms ready to hold him. He returned to things he knew – his mother, brother-in-law, sister and neighbourhood. He had no idea they had all fallen with him – once when he lost the fight and again when he lost the battle – nor did he know that they would all fall again.
I’d like to go down for a bite to eat but I’m not confident about the door. They give you a plastic card to unlock it, and it’s very heavy. But there’s cheese and biscuits over there, and I’ll make another cuppa, though it’s only a tea bag.
Anyrate, while Anita was dusting that day, she picked up the photo of Lance. I remember it clearly. She asked, ‘Did your husband ever talk about his war experience?’ Those were her very words: ‘Did your husband ever talk about his war experience?’
He did, but it sounded to me as if New Guinea was a terrific place, the highlight of his life. The occupying forces had a wow of a time, and he always spun Anzac Day out for a week or more, but I couldn’t very well say that to the new home help, could I? So I said no.
She dusted Pudding next, so I told her the photo was taken when she won the Victorian Amateur Scottish Dancing Association Championship. Pudding gave up the Scottish dancing when she started going to the private high school, which was a pity, if you ask me. The dancing might have kept her weight down a bit. Not that she’s fat, exactly, but she’s inclined to be hefty, like the Blandons.
Then this Anita really shocked me. I didn’t ask for her opinion, but I got it anyway. She got a chair and took the photo of our ex-Prime Minister down from above the door and sprayed him with glass cleaner, and all I said was, ‘Be careful with that photo. He was the most important and influential leader of the nation we’ve had since Menzies.’
She said, and I’m quoting here, Cecily, ‘Yes, his influence played an important role in prejudice.’
I said, ‘I think he was only trying to protect us from terrorists,’ and she said, ‘Well, I think he was a heartless, old retrograde who wanted votes from all the bigots who think refugees should stay at home or die or both.’
‘They’re queue-jumpers,’ I said, and I remember thinking at the time, Well, that speaks volumes about the type of person you are, Anita Potter.
Pat was exactly the same. During an argument about boat people one day, I’d said to her, ‘At least the Prime Minister’s got the economy in good shape,’ and she replied, ‘Yep, the rich are richer but he’s gunna get booted out by the workers, if you ask me.’
I said, ‘Why would I ask you anything, Pat Cruickshank?’
‘You’ll find out,’ she said, nodding. ‘You’ll find out everything, Princess Margery, and then you’ll know I was a careful friend to you.’
At the time I just scoffed at her, but of course I did find out. But I also know now that Pat, my oldest neighbour, didn’t tell me anything because she was one of them, the conspirators.
But she was right. I do know everything now. She must have enjoyed herself so much at my expense.
A careful friend to me, indeed.
The shame of it all is that Morris knew everything as well, it seems. He was in the middle, I imagine, torn amongst his family, and so he couldn’t say anything, I suppose . . .
~
Anyrate, then Anita asked me all about my life. No one’s asked me about myself since Great Aunt Fanny asked years ago what I was going to do when I left school, so I suppose it was considerate of Anita, though I imagine they’re trained at the home-help school in how to conduct a respectful conversation with senior citizens.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m seventy-nine. There was a special birthday lunch for me at a very grand hotel in the city on Sunday.’
‘What hotel?’
‘The Tropic. It’s very tall with a hollow bit in the middle – an atrium, they called it. People go there to jump off. They land in the buffet area.’
‘Handy to the service entrance, I s’pose.’
‘Are you Irish?’ I asked.
‘Not Irish. Why?’
‘We had an Irish girl at school called Potter. She believed in pixies.’
‘I’ve been away with them once or twice. Where were you born?’
‘Well, Anita,’ I said, and I told her all about our wonderful life and how Dad worked on the railways, how he was a station master at one stage. I told her about our brothers and sisters – Clarry, Shirley, Willy and Terrence. They’re all dead now, except possibly for Shirley. Remember our family picnics and the sing-a-longs, Cecily? Our favourite picture, Mrs. Miniver? Remember the letters we got from Walter Pidgeon? I kept our membership of the Walter Pidgeon Fan Club until he died in 1984. I was more upset when he died than I was when Lance died two years later. Wasn’t Walter Pidgeon respectable and decent? He was kind and handsome, too, a perfect husband really. ‘We were happy, back then,’ I said.
Anita said, ‘Yes, the “good old days”, when everyone was happier,’ as if it wasn’t true, so I said that we were happy. She just shrugged and said, ‘I’ve come to understand you’ve got to live in the now, seize happiness now – you can’t just be happy with memories and hindsight.’
At the time I thought it was a cruel thing to say. So I said to her, ‘In the good old days we were thoughtful, we had manners.’ She might be able to make tea, but she should have known better than to say something like that to someone whose greatest asset is their past, since there’s not much future left. And everyone’s gone now.
Now that I think about it, perhaps because she looked after old Mrs Razic and others she was able to see it’s best to live for the now. People live for themselves these days.
Funny that I mentioned you that day, especially to a stranger. It was nice to say your name out loud to someone after so long.
Cecily!
Do you know that if you had meningitis now you wouldn’t have died? Ambulances come within minutes these days and save you. Mind you, they don’t hurry when they’re called to bowling clubs because they know it’s just some old bloke twitching away on the hard, perfect lawn, clutching his shirt front.
His teammates at the bowling club told Mum that the last word Dad ever breathed, as he lay there fading away, was your name.
Anyrate, the truth is we were happier back then. These days to feel fulfilled
you have to have a lot of money; in our day we had fun, and we had our whole life together planned, but we never had a chance because you died. Just when we were about to become the people we were meant to be.
‘That must have been sad,’ Anita said.
It still is.
Not only did she rehang the picture of the Prime Minister upside down that day, she also seduced Walter. He called in after his hygiene class, came bowling up the passage with his book, pens and pencils in a plastic bag, intending to have it out with Anita the Hun, but he was ambushed. Didn’t stand a chance. From the second he laid eyes on her, standing there on my kitchen chair hanging the ex-Prime Minister, he was helpless. She got down and stood there in front of him, shining like a lorikeet – blue eyes and blue uniform, the thick eyeliner, hair electric and her scent mixed with my homely roast-chicken atmosphere.
I said, ‘This is Anita, Walter, the new home help. The one with the list.’
Anita held her hand out, smiling in her seductive way, but Walter was paralysed, his mouth hanging open. I wanted to put my finger under his bottom lip to prop it up. She said, ‘How are ya, Walter?’ and Walter wiped his hand on his footy jumper and shook her hand, saying, ‘I’ve never been better in my life.’
At the time I thought she was better than those Diana Dors blondes, mostly card girls, who used to hang off Walter. In the newspaper photos there was always at least one buxom tart under his arm, smiling under a rigid platinum thatch, eyes like boot polish brushes. Pat used to be platinum-blonde in the sixties, and look at her now. Bald. Walter actually had a proper girlfriend once, before he got famous. Doreen was her name. She was Catholic. I asked him if she was a practising Catholic and Morris called from the sleep-out, ‘It’s not Catholicism she practises, that’s for sure, eh, Wally?’ Walter didn’t think being Catholic was important. ‘The important thing is that even Catholics have got the important bits,’ he laughed.