Absolution Creek

by Nicole Alexander

  ‘And so I said to my husband, “Mr Whitney, you cannot possibly expect me to wear the same diamond ring for another year.” Of course he appeared quite affronted, with the ring having been handed down on his grandfather’s side –’ Mrs Whitney held up her right hand for inspection.

  ‘It’s a lovely ring, Mrs Whitney,’ Mrs Jessop enthused, teasing a reluctant curl around her finger.

  ‘Oh, I don’t expect you trade people to understand. Look.’ Her wedding finger, which had recently discarded the family heirloom, was now graced with a large square diamond surrounded by two rows of sparkling counterparts.

  Olive’s employer gave compliments worthy of the Crown Jewels as Mrs Whitney’s attention turned to her own reflection in the mirror of a gold compact. The woman gave a tilt of her head, obviously pleased at what she saw.

  ‘Mrs Jessop,’ Olive interrupted politely, ignoring the two ugly frown lines forming an M on Mrs Whitney’s brow. ‘Have you found another place to live?’

  ‘Good heavens.’ Mrs Whitney snapped her powder compact shut. ‘How the mighty have fallen. Aren’t you Olive Peters? Well, I see the apple hasn’t dropped far from the tree. The newly moneyed can never break from the past. It takes more than one generation.’

  ‘You would know, Mrs Whitney. My father tells me your father was a wheelwright,’ Olive retaliated.

  ‘Olive,’ Mrs Jessop reprimanded, turning towards Olive and in the process burning Mrs Whitney’s cheek with the curling tongs.

  ‘Good heavens, I’m paying you good money, Mrs Jessop! I don’t come here to be disfigured!’ Mrs Whitney examined the tiny red mark in the hollow of her cheek.

  Olive took one look at the tears welling in her employer’s eyes and removed the cape from around Mrs Whitney’s shoulders. ‘It’s not a decapitation, silly.’

  Mrs Whitney glowered at her, and Olive returned the favour. She had a whole family from which to draw forth condescending looks. Clearly Mrs Whitney either had few relations or they were unconscionably happy.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Whitney,’ Mrs Jessop apologised. ‘Susan, a cold compress for Mrs Whitney, please.’

  Susan, who was busy cutting a brown bob, frowned but did as she was told.

  Mrs Whitney clasped the compress to her cheek and scattered some shillings on the narrow ledge before the long mirror. ‘Well I never, Olive Peters. And to think that your mother goes about putting on airs. You can tell the true nature of people by their offspring, and if you, my dear, are the true indication of your mother’s breeding then I pray for the rest of us who have to put up with you and yours.’

  The crash of brick and timber sounded and Susan looked skyward, crossing herself in the process. ‘Another home lost.’

  The noise quite took the edge off Mrs Whitney’s comment. She held a handkerchief to her nose, her back straight.

  Susan opened the door for Mrs Whitney to leave. ‘Maybe your house will be next,’ Susan said tartly.

  ‘Here’s hoping,’ Olive said under her breath. She wasn’t brave enough to say the words too loudly. She already feared she had lost Mrs Jessop’s most fashionable client.

  ‘It won’t stop, you know,’ Mrs Jessop announced when Susan’s client also excused herself, her hair not quite set. ‘There’ll be more houses gone, you mark my words.’

  Olive had heard similar rumours. ‘They’re going to have to close streets.’

  ‘Well, they’ll have to, won’t they?’ Susan swept around her chair, gathering the short locks of brown hair into a dustpan. ‘The place is going to be like a war zone.’

  Mrs Jessop pressed a sodden hanky to her nose. ‘There’s talk of them moving the Milsons Point wharf and terminal.’ She hiccupped. ‘There are new train lines to put in, underground. Why, Mr Adler told me that they’d be blasting under the North Shore Grammar School with no thought to those poor boys inside; they’re just as likely to fall through to China.’

  Olive patted her arm. ‘Come on, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘It won’t get any better you know, Olive. You and Susan will have to finish up. I’m sorry, I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

  ‘Finish up? But I’ve only just started.’ Susan and Olive both stared at their employer.

  Mrs Jessop blew her nose noisily. ‘It’s the boarding house. It wasn’t Freddy’s. I leased it.’

  Susan crossed her arms and a bulge of fat strained at the material of her dress. ‘I’ve got mouths to feed.’

  ‘I just agreed on another three-year lease with the real estate agent but I didn’t sign anything, and when it was resumed the tenants left.’ Mrs Jessop looked at them meaningfully. ‘They all left, owing me rent. The boys and I, poor dears, have to move into the shop tonight. I can barely afford the lease on this business now and I certainly can’t afford to pay you, Olive. I’m sorry.’

  Olive sat numbly in one of the chairs near the shop entrance.

  ‘What about me?’ Susan’s voice rose. ‘You need me.’

  Mrs Jessop shook her head sadly. ‘Not as much as my boys and I need to eat, Susan.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take what’s owing to me.’

  Mrs Jessop unlocked the wall cupboard and counted shillings from a tin. Olive didn’t see what Susan received, however by the look on her face it was insufficient. Susan stared for some moments at the coin in her hand and then glared at Olive, her nostrils flaring with each breath.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here anyway, Olive Peters. Your family has money. You’re robbing an honest person of a day’s wage when it’s just pocket money to the likes of you.’

  Startled, Olive listened as Susan babbled about the state of the economy and the ignorant attitude of those who should know better. By the look on her employer’s face, if there had been an intention to pay her it was now lost. Olive collected her hat and gloves and thanked an unresponsive Mrs Jessop. Outside, the street was cold, the air filled with grit and noise. Olive narrowed her vision to the pavement and walked home.

  At the entrance to the drawing room, Olive paused. Her mother was giving curt instructions to their maid, complaining about a cracked punch bowl and the benefits of proper packing to prevent such disasters. Although intent on hurrying to her room, Olive turned in a half-circle. The hallway was empty. The Persian runner, which had once graced the polished timber boards, was gone; and a row of hand-tinted paintings, which had hung for many years above a cedar hall table, were also missing, along with the table.

  ‘Well, Olive?’ her mother asked brusquely, dismissing the maid. She sat down at her polished walnut desk. Sheaths of creamy paper and a glass oval paperweight competed for space on the desk’s surface. An oblong configuration of diamonds as flat as her chest glinted on her hand as she ran a finger down the list. ‘Now, if you pack your room by week’s end we can all be out by the Saturday. Yes, that should work very well.’

  Olive flopped into the armchair of the overstuffed three-piece suite and removed her gloves.

  ‘That suite cost fifty-nine pounds, child. I’ll remind you that it is silk tapestry over the horsehair.’

  Olive poked a fingernail at the strawberry-pink pattern. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Mrs Peters twisted on her stool. ‘The move, Olive. We did discuss it this morning at breakfast.’ She tapped her fingers against the black gabardine of her skirt. ‘Then at lunch.’

  ‘I haven’t been here.’

  ‘How unusual. Well, your sister and brothers decided to go today – something about rats leaving a sinking ship. Your father has secured a new house for us on the southern side. Do stack the fire a little will you, Olive, it’s quite cool in here once one stops moving about and there has been so much to do today. I don’t think I’ve rested even when we lunched. Izzy made a fine beefsteak pie. Very fine.’

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Yes, right, back to your siblings. They have lodgings in the city until the weekend, when we can all be together again. Of course it suits Henrietta as her young man is on that side of the pond, an
d Eddy and Hal have always found it a struggle travelling back and forth to the Exchange. Quite frankly, I’ve been suggesting this move for some time. The North Shore was always so removed from the more cosmopolitan aspects of this great city.’

  Olive wanted to pull on her mother’s stays until all the bluster puffed out of her. She threw some kindling on the fire instead then kicked the brass fender surrounding the tiled hearth. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

  Her mother twisted the beads at her throat. ‘Really, Olive, you can’t possibly have failed to notice what is occurring not two streets from here. Why, everyone realised that once the resumptions began it would be best to vacate the area.’ She raised a thinly plucked eyebrow. ‘For an intelligent girl you are really quite stupid at times.’

  Olive thought of the wreckage of Blue Street, the inevitable closure of Mrs Jessop’s salon and her own unedifying time in the work force. ‘Is our home to be resumed?’

  Her mother displayed a number of expensive gold fillings. ‘No, my dear, your brilliant father has sold it for a hefty price to the Works Department. They are looking for offices close to the bridge construction, and although this street is to be closed your father persuaded the department that it was an excellent position for them.’

  ‘I see.’ Now she knew why Henrietta, Eddy and Hal had slunk away so quickly.

  ‘Fortuitous, don’t you think, considering the maelstrom that North Sydney will become. I’m moving south before the weekend, so I’ll leave the overseeing of the remaining packing and the locking up of the house to you. The removalists are highly reputable and the majority of the furniture will be gone by noon tomorrow. You’re old enough – and your father feels you’re intelligent enough – to be entrusted with this responsibility, and I have a concert to attend.’

  Olive pushed the sole of her shoes into the plush rug on the floor. ‘I don’t want to leave, Mother. This is our home.’

  Mrs Peters directed her attention back to her writing desk.

  ‘Mother, I really don’t want to –’

  ‘Five hundred buildings will be resumed, Olive. Then there are the street closures, the shifting of the wharf, the general inconvenience of the demolition process, not to mention the unhealthy air from all this dust and grime.’

  ‘I like North Sydney. My friends are here and –’

  ‘You’ll make new ones.’ She finished writing and looked at her youngest daughter. ‘We’re aware of your attachment to the grocer’s boy. A change will be for the best, my dear, and with your sister marrying Mr John Eton before the year is out we can’t risk a most inappropriate friendship. Although, I’ve a feeling your childish attachment is an extension of his kindness in saving you from that runaway horse.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Once you’re settled on the south side all your silly notions of work will vanish and then we must find you someone suitable.’ She tapped the side of her nose. ‘You will be quite in demand once the North Shore is dusted off you.’ She smoothed her skirt over her knees. ‘And you will adore our new home. We will be close to the water in the eastern suburb of Rose Bay. Very gentrified environs . . .’

  Tears pricked Olive’s eyes. She wasn’t like the others: she didn’t want to move south and she certainly didn’t want to leave their neighbourhood. Henrietta was four years older and moulded in their mother’s likeness, while her brothers were money-market men, impressed with their abilities and well-planned futures.

  ‘It will be wonderful,’ her mother said decisively. ‘You’ll see, my dear.’

  Jack knew what was afoot as soon as he saw the two vans outside the Peters’s terrace. Beds, wardrobes, lamps, tables and paintings were being wrapped and stacked inside the vehicles. Mrs Peters, dressed in black with a double strand of waist-length pearls and a large hat, motored past in her husband’s six cylinder. Jack ran across the busy street. The noise of a jackhammer blasting into rock echoed in the air, and as he side-stepped a youth carrying a crate he envisioned the sandstone heart of North Sydney crumbling.

  ‘Jack!’ Olive was at the front door, a handbag tucked under her arm. ‘I was just coming to see you.’

  ‘Were you now?’ Both of them moved across the tiled porch to make way for the drawing-room chiffonier.

  ‘Come in.’

  Jack followed Olive into an empty entrance hall and left as she turned into the drawing room, where boxes and packing were strewn about. A fire glowed pitifully within an elaborately carved fireplace.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Jack.’

  ‘Is it?’ He backed away towards the window, tugging the velvet curtain open. ‘Resumed?’

  ‘Sold to the Works Department as a field office.’

  ‘I see.’ He turned his back towards her. ‘You were fortunate to make the sale.’ The material of his jacket strained across broad shoulders. ‘Where are you moving to?’

  ‘Rose Bay. I was coming to see you, Jack. It’s just that everything has happened at once. Mrs Jessop couldn’t afford to pay me so I lost my job. Then Mother announced we’re to leave.’ ‘I was coming to see you.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your job.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Well, it was good of you to think of me.’

  Olive touched his arm. ‘Jack,’ she said softly, ‘of course I think of you. I’ll never forget how you rushed across the street that day . . .’

  ‘Anyone would’ve done it.’ He looked about the room. It was as big as his house. Two crystal chandeliers showered light across polished boards and richly coloured scatter rugs. ‘My father went over to the city this morning to see someone from the Works Department. I thought I’d drop by on my way to meet him at the ferry.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’ Olive twisted the strap of her handbag.

  ‘He wants an assurance either way as to our future. No one here will talk to him, and frankly I understand.’ He gave a half-laugh. ‘Things will never be the same again.’

  Olive sat the handbag on a tin trunk. ‘What will you do?’

  Jack thought of his carefully constructed speech, a heartfelt declaration of intent. Words such as starting anew now seemed pitiful. ‘Persevere,’ he replied flatly, scrutinising the plaster ceiling. In the face of such luxury he was at a loss for words. They walked outside to an overcast sky. The removalists were stacking boxes in the rear of the van. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Everything will be out of the house tomorrow.’ Olive stepped beneath the overhead balcony as a light drizzle misted the air.

  ‘Not much time to say goodbye.’ He looked at her.

  ‘No, not much.’ All night she had wondered whether her sister, Henrietta, was right. Maybe her feelings for Jack were just puppy love. He was, after all, her first beau, and although he’d saved her from the stray horse, a strained ankle was hardly life-threatening. Yet the memory of his kiss lingered. It was her first.

  He touched her cheek. ‘I’ve nothing to offer you, Olive. We’re like chalk and cheese.’

  The head removalist interrupted them.

  ‘We’re done, Miss Olive. Be back in the morning for the rest.’ He doffed his cap, winked at Jack and walked to the lead van.

  Jack took her hand. ‘Whatever I do, Olive, I’ll never be able to give you this life.’

  Was this how love happened? Did you look into a person’s eyes and, faced with their leaving, determine you could not live without them? Olive squeezed his hand and willed Jack to utter some declaration of love. Surely things weren’t meant to end so hastily, with her left miserable and Jack striding alone towards some manly adventure. Olive thought briefly of her sister. Henrietta would complain that Olive was merely being melodramatic. Was she? She wasn’t sure. ‘Won’t you write me, Jack?’ Her lips trembled. Why did she have to follow her family? This was the twenties and people were doing what they wanted everywhere. ‘Won’t you?’

  Jack’s lips were on hers. Olive kissed him back, tentatively at first, her heart racing. This kiss – their third – was not tinged with surprise but expect
ation, and Olive allowed herself to be held within Jack’s arms as rain began to fall. Finally they released their embrace to stand opposite each other in wonder. The vans pulled out from the kerb.

  Jack lifted a finger to her lips. ‘Stick with your plans; follow your parents. I’ll come for you.’

  From the harbour came the clanging of bells, the ominous siren call of an accident on the water. Jack latched the wrought-iron gate securely between them. The rain dripped from the hydrangea leaves that spilt over the fence, and gurgled along the gutters, washing the day’s grit from the road. Olive leant across the dividing fence.

  ‘I’ll think of something,’ he said. ‘Write me your new address.’

  He pulled away from her and began to walk briskly down the road, breaking into a run as the clanging from the harbour continued. Olive gazed after him, her clothes sodden. For someone who had spent the last few weeks trying to assert her independence, Olive now felt marooned between the family she was born into and the man she cared for. She brushed droplets of rain from her face recalling Jack’s words: I’ll come for you. Where on earth did he think they were going to go?

  Jack ran towards the terminus, his lungs crying out with pain. His father was due in on the three o’clock ferry and the clanging of the siren filled him with dread. He arrived at the ferry landing breathless, and slid the last few feet on the wet wharf into the crowd gathering on the foreshore. Jack elbowed the onlookers aside, ignoring their complaints.

  ‘The Manly ferry’s clipped the smaller Milsons Point ferry,’ a captain said, pointing towards the water. ‘Thirty passengers were thrown in. Luckily a passing punt fished most of them what fell in, out.’

  Jack tried to make sense of the sketchy details, however the buzz of the crowd and the pounding rain made questioning the captain near impossible. The punt materialised through the rain. It was a dirty grey afternoon on the harbour with limited visibility, and the open-sided vessel leant heavily to one side in the rough water. With the punt a good ten feet away from the wharf, Jack took a running jump across the gap to land with a thud on the wooden deck. The horses on board were skittish, and their owners tried to calm them as the drays and carts rolled disturbingly to and fro.