The Sparrows of Edward Street

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘Yes, I will. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘No. No thank you.’

  ‘Rosy?’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  It was a most unhappy time for the Sparrows, and everyone else in the winter Camp. A blowing, howling winter Housing Commission Camp of horrors. In my imaginary album this avalanche of miseries would not go unrecorded!

  ‘Put your poncho on, Hanora. It is so cold.’

  ‘Damn winter! Let it do its worst.’

  *

  In the laundry the washerwomen gathered. The atmosphere there was as thick as the smoke in the Gardiners’ hut.

  ‘I’m still shaking like a leaf,’ said one.

  ‘Practically all the flesh was burnt off her fingers – right down to the bone,’ said another.

  ‘Father Beale said he’d have a special Mass.’

  ‘That’ll do a lot of good, I don’t think.’

  ‘He means well, I suppose.’

  ‘I told him to shut up!’

  ‘At least poor Tom’s at peace now. Poor bugger. Someone should tell the army. He should have a special grave. The army should have been looking after both of them! It makes me sick! They send these blokes off to war, but if they come back off their rockers they don’t lift a bloody finger!’

  ‘They should both have been in care somewhere long before this happened. I asked Father Beale to do something a long time ago, but he just said they weren’t Catholics and he didn’t know which church they belonged to.’

  ‘Ha! Isn’t that bloody typical?’

  ‘And where the hell is the Gardiners’ family? There must be some relative. Did they have kids?’

  ‘Never heard of any. I’ve never heard of anyone close to them.’

  The woman with the cauliflower hair had come into the laundry unnoticed.

  ‘I think it’d be a blessing if she went too,’ she said. ‘At least it’d let this one’s mother off the hook, wouldn’t it?’ and pointed at me with her skinny thumb.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Her and her poetry!’

  I was so angry I didn’t know what to say. Elsa Bentwick stepped in.

  ‘Get out, Alex! Go on home!’ I’d never known cauliflower’s name was Alex. ‘You’re not welcome here right now.’

  ‘I’ve got as much right . . .’

  ‘You’re not rostered.’

  ‘It’s never stopped you lot.’

  ‘Get out!’

  And the cauliflower flew out the door. If there’d been a broom handy she’d have ridden it. I thanked Elsa.

  ‘I can’t remember when I’ve been struck dumb,’ I said. ‘I just hope she’s not on her way to my mother. Things are bad enough in our hut.’

  *

  I’d been told which hospital Mrs Gardiner had been taken to. She was in intensive care, and we couldn’t visit. Only close family members could see her, and we had no idea there were any until we had a very strange visit from one of them in the laundry. It was a man in his late twenties, I guessed, and, apart from Father Beale scritching at the window, as far as I knew no man had ever shown his face in the laundry.

  ‘I’m the Gardiners’ son,’ he said, and you could have heard a pin drop. ‘Is there anything in here that belongs to them?’

  ‘No,’ said a washerwoman. ‘And I wouldn’t hand stuff over to you if there was.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And where have you been all this time, Sonny Jim?’ said another. ‘Where were you when your mum and dad needed help?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Too busy to care for your sick parents, are you?’

  ‘I didn’t know they were sick.’

  ‘You didn’t want to know they were sick! Are there any more of you lot?’

  ‘I’ve got a sister. She checks on them.’

  ‘When would that be? Every other Pancake Day?’

  ‘Maybe we could have checked up on them a bit more.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe you could! Too late now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, go to hell!’ said the man.

  We were all angry. The laundry air fairly swirled with it.

  A washerwoman calmly picked up a bucket of suds and the dirty nappies that had been soaking in it and tipped the lot over his head. Bubby turds take on a very special colour after they’ve been soaking for a while. They dripped all over him like a mud man’s ochre painting. The laundry ignored his cries and threats, and pushed him out the door.

  As the Gardiners’ son wiped and shook and brushed and howled as he ran to his car, a man who’d begun to walk past stopped, stared and laughed.

  ‘You didn’t go to the laundry, did you, mate? It’s either guts or you’re raving. You must be new.’

  ‘You go to hell, too! Bugger the lot of you!’

  ‘Nice. Sounds like you’re headed down there yourself. But I think he’s already there.’ The laundry, with its ears flapping, thought so too.

  *

  When I told the story to Hanora and Rosy they managed half a weak smile between them.

  ‘The smell on him made me retch,’ I said. ‘He looked as though he’d fallen into a cesspit.’

  I presumed that the son would take care of Tom Gardiner’s funeral, so we did not intrude. But having that monstrous tragedy happen so soon after Mr Biddle’s suicide laid a heavy shroud over the Camp that I suspected might take a very long time to lift.

  *

  With Nancy Biddle’s permission I visited the funeral home of her choice – or rather, as it turned out, Father Beale’s preferred business of disposals. Nancy had been at a loss to know what to do. She’d asked for my help.

  The woman in the reception office was sympathetic and attentive, as she would have been trained to be. She held her head to one side and her hands softly clasped, in the way of a concert singer, or a statue of the Mother of Christ.

  ‘I believe you’ve told Mrs Biddle that she owes fifty pounds for the Biddle funeral.’

  ‘Biddle – Biddle,’ said the woman, as she licked her finger through the pages of a velvet-covered account book. ‘Ah, yes, here we are. We do have an outstanding account for a fifty-pound funeral. Are you a relative of the Biddles?’

  ‘No. Who told you she wanted the fifty-pound job?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Mrs Biddle asked me to represent her. You can check. She was too upset to come, herself. She seemed unaware that her husband’s funeral would cost fifty pounds. Did Mrs Biddle say she wanted the fifty-pound funeral?’

  ‘Yes, well, perhaps not in so many words.’ The woman’s head righted itself to a level position, and her hands moved from her lap to the ledger and a pen in a most unsympathetic way. ‘It was Mrs Biddle’s request through Father Beale. Father Beale told us to bill . . . It was Father Beale who suggested the fifty-pound funeral on her behalf. They decided it would be the most suitable farewell for poor Mr Biddle.’

  ‘What the hell has Father Beale got to do with it?’

  ‘Father simply told us that was what Mrs Biddle wanted. He told us that his congregation had helped to pay for it.’

  ‘Ten pounds.’

  ‘Ten pounds, was it? Well, the fact remains that the fifty-pound funeral was ordered.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Biddle did not order it.’

  ‘It’s owed. Payment is needed by the end of the month at the latest, Mrs . . . Miss?’

  ‘I am Aria Sparrow. Miss, if you must. And if the bill is fifty pounds you’ll have to send it to the church. Mrs Biddle can’t afford it.’

  ‘But the priest . . .’

  ‘The priest had no bloody right to tell you to charge that amount,’ I said – and I was in full flight. ‘I hope you’re not going to tell me Father Beale takes a cut?’

  ‘Heavens! What an absolutely terrible thing to say. That is a most unacceptable accusation. Perhaps we could bring it down a little. What about forty-five?’

  ‘Father Beale recommends your funeral home to a number of his dying flock
, I believe?’ I had no idea, but it seemed to be a suitable comment at the time.

  ‘We have known and served that good man for some years. How about forty pounds?’

  ‘Thirty-five!’

  ‘We could not possibly dispose for that price.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? Well, every business needs to make a little profit.’

  ‘Bloody rubbish. I hear you and Father Beale are cleaning up very nicely indeed.’ I hadn’t heard, but a minor detail.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Father Beale.’

  ‘No need. I represent Mrs Biddle legally, as a favour, and I smell something here. If not a rat, at least a very large church mouse.’ Half a lie. I was getting awfully good at it.

  ‘Thirty-five, then.’

  ‘Done. I’d like that in writing, please.’

  ‘Oh, very well. I think I’m doing the right thing here. I hope I am. I’m not the owner of the business, you know.’

  ‘You’re doing very well.’

  ‘You’re very difficult to deal with, Miss Sparrow.’

  ‘I know.’

  And Nancy Biddle, despite her grief, and her guilt for not being able to do more for her husband, was extremely grateful.

  *

  The Gardiners were something else. Their tragedy seemed to have affected many more Camp inmates than all the misfortunes within the Camp put together. Perhaps it increased their fears for the present and the future, and being forced to endure a Camp winter was no help at all.

  Most of the laundry newcomers, I believe, were very distressed by the incident. But not one, apparently. Not Amy Scully, mother of three and divorced, who apparently ‘got over things and back down to earth’ with as little time wasted as possible. She had been in the Camp for only three weeks when she unexpectedly came to call on 19B Edward. Hanora answered the door.

  ‘Hello, I’m Amy Scully, and I heard that one of you Sparrows makes hats. Is that true?’

  She could very well have been a much younger ‘cauliflower’, Hanora told me – sharp as a tack, and a smile just as sharp as its point.

  ‘Yes. That is my daughter, Rosy.’

  ‘Does she take orders?’

  ‘I have no idea. She’s never done private work,’ said Hanora. She didn’t mention our ‘mistakes’. ‘I’d have to ask her. She’s not home yet.’

  ‘Well, I won’t beat about the bush. I’ve got a wedding coming up, and nothing to put on my head. I heard about you lot in the laundry, and I wondered if she could make something for me.’

  ‘I’ll ask her. Of course I’ll ask her. I’m sure she’d be delighted to help.’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow night. Will she be home then?’

  ‘I think so.’

  That night I had come back to the Camp fighting my way through a winter wind, blade-cold and on the attack. Hanora had become an old hand at keeping the stove burning, so that 19B, apart from the icy draughts through the wall gaps, was almost warm. We huddled around it. Our two-bar radiator had been no help at all. Useless.

  ‘Do you think Rosy will be able to make a hat for this woman?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, love. She’s very good at it now. I think she could easily make a business of it.’

  We were ready for Rosy the minute she opened the door.

  ‘Somebody in the Camp wants you to make her a hat for a wedding, love.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘One of the new ones,’ I said. ‘She’s coming tomorrow night.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly. I can’t.’

  ‘Why, Rosy? You’ve made us nice hats.’

  ‘That’s different: they were half made already.’

  ‘Rosy! It’s an opportunity.’

  ‘I don’t have the materials. I don’t have the blocks. I can’t very well do it at Madame’s.’

  ‘You’re always fiddling in your cell, love. What do you need most of all?’

  ‘Wooden blocks, I expect . . .’

  ‘Are they expensive?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell the woman you’ll do it anyway. You’re clever enough, Rosy, and you can use her money, and her head as a block . . . there!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Aria, you don’t know the first thing about it! A decent hat would cost anything up to two pounds – even more. How am I supposed to buy the materials for it?’

  ‘We’ll manage somehow, Rosy.’

  ‘Ask her for a deposit,’ said Hanora, quick as a beak to a crust.

  ‘That’s a good idea, Mother, but I think I’d be too nervous to make someone a hat for a wedding and charge for it.’

  But when Amy Scully came to 19B at seven the next night and asked Rosy the question, I jumped in and said, ‘Yes! She’d love to!’

  ‘Well, this is what I want, and this is the colour,’ said Amy Scully, and Rosy had no choice but to jot it down and take a measurement. After Amy Scully had left, Rosy said: ‘I’ll never forgive you for that, Aria! Never!’

  ‘Oh, yes you will, Rosy, and you’ll thank me for it. Now, where do I get these block things?’

  And after she’d told me Hanora said: ‘I have some news, loves.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dear old Mr Kellog died. He was sixty-three.’

  ‘Well, at least there’s some justice in the world. What caused his death?’

  ‘I don’t know, Aria. There was an item in the local newspaper. It didn’t say.’

  And without any trouble at all I pictured a coffin full of poisonous mushrooms and mixed grain, with the ghosts of mice, and a grave with a gravestone that simply said: Here Lies Mr Kellog. Danger – Toxic Material – Keep Clear!

  ‘What an awful man he was,’ said Rosy.

  ‘I hope he died in pain!’

  ‘Aria!’

  ‘I’m not sorry. I mean it!’ Then I remembered murdering him, and the orgasm at the scene of the crime. ‘Well, maybe not a lot.’

  The Studio

  Winter had begun in earnest in the studio. Among the bubble baths and chopping boards and, unbelievably, sandsoap, there were backdrops of ski resorts with Swiss chalets, situated nowhere near Australia, of course, and swimsuits had been replaced by sweaters, ski wear and something they called ‘aprés ski resort wear’. The American account worked with the seasons, and I had been in demand for sweater shots of all types for some time.

  Of course, we had been shooting winter wear at the end of summer for magazines that were prepared for publication at least six to eight weeks in advance. My currencies were enhanced by a new type of heavily stitched bra, pointed at the nipple, that made the sweaters look more like a weapon than a comfort, I thought. Taller models wore ski suits and goggles, but the shorter model, me, in the bra and sweaters, was doubtless expected to be the ‘loved’ one in the ‘aprés’ section.

  Heaven help me if I ever lost my currencies.

  I had a disturbing dream one night in which I had lost them – I had mislaid my breasts. It was one of those dreams remembered clearly the next morning. I searched and searched, and found two cats playing with them in Edward Street. They had become two balls of wool – purple, no doubt from the cold – but I knew they were mine, and I took them and stuck them back on.

  Dreams are amazing things. Maybe I was just cold in bed. Maybe I wanted a cat – who knows?

  There were, however, many nights when the chill winds were too much for our thin blankets. Hanora covered herself with everything she could find at night, and wrapped herself in our blankets while we were at work. She unravelled two motheaten sweaters she’d bought at a market and knitted scarves. Rosy’s nose had a permanent leak – and so did Leon’s.

  ‘You’ve had that cold for an awfully long time, Leon.’

  ‘I just can’t shake the damn thing.’ He coughed and grimaced and spat something into his handkerchief. ‘It’s stuck in my chest.’

  ‘That wasn’t blood, was it?’

  ‘No – sorry I did that, Aria.’

  ‘You don’t
say sorry to me, for heaven’s sake. I care about you. Have you seen a doctor? It’s not good to be going from the hot studio out into the cold all the time.’ I remembered the time he’d pecked me on the cheek and his lips and face had felt hot. That had been weeks ago. ‘I think you might have had something stirring for a while, Leon. You must not ignore these signs.’

  ‘I got something from the chemist.’

  But the cough medicine – Friar’s Balsam, I think – had not been enough, and two days later it was Max who ’phoned Boston’s with the news that Leon was too sick to come in. He was well and truly in bed with the ’flu.

  I ’phoned Max, but he said not to visit unless I wanted the bug too.

  ‘Give him my love, Max.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Eli Boston and the rest of them rushed about and put replacement photographers through their paces. Since I’d been at the Boston studio, Leon had not missed one day. I was sorry for Leon, but in a way I thought it was a good thing for Boston’s to be without him for a while. It was about time they knew how valuable he was.

  *

  I had done two parades in big stores in the city, so I’d been able to buy Rosy a couple of second-hand hat blocks from a millinery store in the city, and I helped her out with felt and trims. Amy Scully’s brother’s wedding was not until July, so there was time to scavenge for materials.

  Rosy took a great deal of time cutting, moulding and stitching, and after her first fitting Amy Scully seemed well pleased. Rosy had been very nervous about it. The hat was a closely fitted forest-green felt, one side longer than the other, and stitched in a way of leaves overlapping each other. Hanora and I thought she had done a wonderful job.

  ‘Madame would charge pounds for that, love.’

  ‘Mrs Scully is paying almost two, but she has to buy a dress. She’s had it on lay-by.’

  ‘It’s very stylish, Rosy.’

  ‘I couldn’t have managed without you, Aria.’

  ‘I don’t have to go to the studio today. Why don’t you come back early tonight, Rosy, and we’ll all go to the pictures? It’ll be warmer in there.’

  ‘Why aren’t you working, love?’

  ‘There’s nothing urgent to be done, and Leon hasn’t been in the studio for a couple of days. He has the ’flu.’