‘Okay, we can put the bathroom aside.’ This came from June.
Ross groaned. Now things would really go downhill.
‘This house has its drawbacks.’ They looked at her as she stated the obvious. ‘One of which is that sounds do travel.’
‘You’re talking about me?’ Ariana cut to the chase.
June shrugged. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of noise.’
‘Coming from our bedroom.’ Ariana finished the sentence. ‘It’s just the way I express myself.’
Ross suppressed a snigger. What an expression!
‘And it goes on and on and on.’ June was not easily deterred.
Ariana got the giggles. Ben managed to look sheepish and self-satisfied at the same time.
‘It’s only sex,’ said Ariana. ‘It’s healthy as far as I know.’
Her flippancy fired June up. Rachel and Jacob joined in. ‘I’ll open another bottle,’ said Ben, retreating to the laundry.
Though he did not tell June, Ross relished what followed. He took a back seat as the others dived headfirst into an in-depth discussion about individual versus community rights. ‘You can’t have rights without responsibilities,’ decreed June, presaging the impassioned welfare debates of years to come. ‘What about freedom and tolerance? cried Ariana. ‘There are limits,’ said Jacob and Rachel in unison. ‘Exactly,’ said Ben. ‘Why can’t we have time limits on the bathroom and the bedroom?’
This admirable compromise did not cut the mustard.
After more heated exchanges, and a few tears from Ariana and Rachel, the group settled down to a more recognisable version of peace and love. The wine helped. Houghton’s White Burgundy, 1966, a good drop.
‘I guess there are advantages and disadvantages,’ reflected Rachel. ‘Living together as we do.’
‘Maybe we’re about ready for our own places.’ This was from Jacob.
‘And break up the swinging sextet?’ Ariana and the burgundy had taken a liking to one another. Her eyes were bright and a strap escaped from her shoulder. Ross belatedly averted his eyes.
‘We’re more like a trio of old marrieds,’ responded June. ‘Perhaps it’s time to please our parents.’
She did not appear to be joking. Later, as they lay together under the covers, he asked her if that was a proposal. ‘You have to say it,’ she insisted, twirling her toes around his.
‘Will you marry me, June?’ He hoped it was not the burgundy talking.
She pecked him on the nose. ‘Sure I will. Sure I will, Ross’.
They were the first to make a move, going to the altar a few weeks after her birthday. With the preparations out of his hands Ross renewed his interest in events around him, in particular the political scene. Gough’s immense shadow hung over the land, dwarfing the opposition and its Disney-esque leader. Bruised by the Vietnam War and bored to death with the grey conformity emanating from the nation’s capital, baby-boomers linked political arms with the blue-collared brigade from the fibro suburbs. Though never a done deal, it seemed pretty clear the last remnants of conservative rule – the Ming Dynasty, some called it - would disintegrate when the voters went to the polls. On television, Little Pattie, that uniquely Australian, vertically-challenged surfer chick, sang It’s Time. Ross turned up the volume, and he and June belted it out as they soaped one another under the shower.
The raucous message, in all its buoyancy, symbolised the group’s destination. It was time. Time for him and June, and for the other members of Duncan Street. A new beginning. They had evolved from mates to couples to feisty friends and soon, in a separation that felt essential and appropriate, to marriage, and in due course, they assumed, to parenting.
The stars had indeed aligned. It was great to be young.
4
Yes, they barely made it to their fifth anniversary. It could have been different. It should have been different, Baxter thought, as he nursed his beer and stared forlornly at the gulls congregating around a woman with a pram. She glanced at him and tossed scraps from her sandwich. From inside the pram, a baby cried out and the woman bent down and made soothing noises. The crying continued and the woman scooped up the child and rocked it in her arms. She hummed a tune, a lullaby that jogged his memory. He turned his head away and felt his eyes moisten. Images of his own children, as tiny babies and later as lively toddlers, burst inside his head. His thoughts returned to Alice and those early years together.
After the marriage, they took up residence in the Hexbury Road house. John Bailey bought the block at the turn of the century as an influx of settlers saw the young suburb of Subiaco expand rapidly. Local builders constructed a fine brick and iron home, surrounded by an ornate wrought iron fence. Colourful leadlight panels were positioned either side of a heavy entrance door that led into a long passageway. Eve occupied the second bedroom on the left, between Alice’s room and the front bedroom, used by Alice’s parents for many years and now kept free for their visits to Perth.
The newlyweds were allocated the other front room, formerly occupied by Alice’s brothers. The memories were strong and tinged with sadness. Baxter knew this, as he watched his wife move about, resting her hand on a shelf or opening a cupboard as she recalled where Tom left his glasses or hung his coat. Sometimes, she let out an involuntary sigh or made a remark before catching herself and changing the subject. He watched, and did his best not to interfere but he felt the shadow of Tom in the room, a shadow that never entirely vanished during the years they lived there.
There were other issues with the room and, if he was honest, with the household. Some were easier to deal with than others. When the couple inspected the premises prior to their wedding, Baxter noted the two single beds. To his father-in-law’s credit, John Bailey was attuned to the situation and undertook to provide a double. ‘A wedding present with a difference,’ John remarked, while his wife registered her faint disapproval. When the newlyweds returned from their brief honeymoon, the single beds were gone. Occupying the centre of the room stood a solid four-poster with an elaborate canopy. A billowing mosquito net gave the refurbished boudoir a distinct Arabian Nights flavour. He wondered what motivated his father-in-law, for clearly this was John’s choice not Joan’s. Perhaps it gave expression to a suppressed imagination. Perhaps he could do for his daughter what would not have washed with his formidable wife. In any event, Baxter was not displeased. The bed carried the promise of pleasure, a pleasure that lay dormant during their stay in the Poinciana Guesthouse in Albany. Though discretion was called for in a house shared with relatives, Baxter envisaged a future rich in romance, now the anxieties of the honeymoon were behind them.
He was not entirely wrong. Alice, whose sexual education was non-existent when they met, soon overcame her fears and became a willing accomplice in the nightly activities beneath the mosquito net. She was not, it has to be said, an initiator although she liked to look at him and to stroke his skin as if discovering a new and strange species. When the wall lamps were extinguished and the room descended into darkness, he would sense her beside him, waiting for his arms and for his embrace. Sometimes, simply to experiment, he also waited. But she would not move until he came to her and the caressing began.
Within a month she was with child. She did not realise at first and it took a visit to Doctor Neill before the pregnancy was confirmed. Initially, Baxter felt stunned if not cheated. In some unspoken way both of them assumed there would be a decent interval – a period of grace – before family life began, and it took them a few months to accept the enforced change that was coming. By contrast, other family members seemed pleased, making a great fuss and conjecturing about the sex of the baby-to-be.
Their pleasure compounded the guilt pangs felt by Baxter and Alice - nagging concerns they did not share the general enthusiasm, and an unarticulated fear their marriage was subtly compromised.
Within the four walls of their room a measure of compromise was already playing out. Alice did not travel well with any of her pregnancies and her fi
rst, in particular, was a major challenge. She was frequently queasy and unsure what to eat and what to avoid. Despite copious advice, neither her mother nor Doctor Neill gave any real help. As to what was permissible in the marital bed, neither doctor nor mother had anything to say. To Baxter’s chagrin, Alice tended to err on the side of caution. Their bed became the repository of a third force, as a small being began to inflate his wife’s belly and create an uninvited distance between them.
He sought solace in his work. Wentworths, a city firm dealing with medical and pharmaceutical supplies, employed him when he was fourteen. At first, he was a kind of errand boy in the office, at the beck and call of everyone. Through application, and a slice of luck when one of the delivery lads broke a leg, he was shifted to a job on the vans. Silas, his supervisor, evidently saw something in him. He was encouraged to study bookkeeping but found it too dry. As it transpired, his niche was in sales. Chemists and doctors bought direct from Wentworths but Baxter could see other opportunities. By the time war broke out he had graduated from sales assistant to deputy head salesman. He was then twenty and a bright future was predicted.
During the war years, Baxter consolidated his position and pushed for increased newspaper advertising. By a prodigious amount of door knocking, he secured important new customers including a number of public and private hospitals. He developed a polished presentation which he found was adaptable to the particular audience. With doctors, he was brief and to the point, aware of the demands on their time and that they would see through any hyperbole. With chemists, he found more scope for a yarn, especially if he showed interest in their concoctions and products.
The ending of the war did not put an end to misery. Spanish Flu decimated Europe and Australia was not immune. Attempts were made to quarantine returning servicemen. Not all were successful. Baxter read in the paper of an aborted effort by the authorities to spoil the homecoming of hundreds of soldiers aboard the Somali. The men held a meeting and resolved to ignore the procedures. Faced with mutiny, the authorities relented and the men marched ashore for the official reception. But even this was subverted. According to the paper, ‘impatient mothers and wives made a massed flank attack and hugged their soldier heroes and practically broke up the procession’.
He smiled when he read that article. It came out as Alice entered the fifth month of her pregnancy. The bump had grown, and for the first time he began to conjecture what might be beneath. ‘A girl,’ whispered Alice, when he put his head to her belly. ‘I have a feeling it’s a girl.’ Her certainty amused him. She was not overly superstitious. ‘You have a feeling? That’s a very scientific approach, my darling.’ She looked at him and made a face. The morning sickness had abated and they began to relax together, re-establishing a closeness that was present in the period after their wedding. He rediscovered his jauntiness and found space in his heart for the child, speculating to himself on what it might be like to be a father.
One person’s misfortune is another’s salvation. Silas taught him that. The epidemic brought misery but it also brought business. He worked long hours as the demand for supplies soared. Each week his team met – for he was now head salesman. Targets were set and strategies devised. His general manager often dropped in, complimenting him in front of the others. When Baxter spoke about gaps in the advertising the manager listened. A few days later, Baxter sat in the advertising department and offered his views. ‘For example, we all know there is a flu epidemic and people want help.’ The admen nodded, wondering where that would lead. ‘So,’ – and Baxter drew with a flourish on a sheet of paper – ‘we need to emphasise and re-emphasise both the epidemic and the remedy.’ In bold headlines he scrawled THESE EPIDEMIC DAYS – WORDS OF ADVICE and below, in slightly smaller print, Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills. Concluding his pitch, he suggested that the assembled group fiddle with his ideas and see what worked.
Needless to say, Indian Root Pills – for which Wentworths was the licensed supplier – proved immensely popular and sales soared. Within a short time, Baxter’s influence straddled sales and advertising, and the talk in the office was that a management position lay just around the corner.
In the meantime, there were developments on the home front and within the family with which he had to contend.
Bram did not seem right after he returned from overseas. The gas affected his lungs, not that it stopped him smoking. Baxter observed that his brother spent most of his time at the pub with a fag dangling from his mouth and a hollowed-out, almost desolate expression on his face. Baxter tried to talk with him about the war but was brushed off and soon understood the unwritten rule was to let sleeping dogs lie. He noted this rule did not only apply to his brother. Most of the returning soldiers had seen too many abominations and were in no mind to relive them, even in casual conversation. He was content to respect their wishes. But with Bram he sensed a dark melancholy that embedded itself far below any surface damage. ‘Are you alright, really alright?’ he asked, on one of their joint visits to the Criterion. His brother looked at him. After a moment he withdrew his cigarette. ‘None of us are alright. Don’t believe anyone who says they are.’ Bram paused, flicking ash on the tiles below. ‘Our lives are gone, just as our mates over there are gone.’
Baxter returned home feeling miserable. ‘I’m useless,’ he said to Alice. ‘My own brother and there’s nothing I can do.’ A few weeks later Bram took a steamer to Broome. ‘The government’s given me a job. I get paid to count the ships come in.’ Baxter could not be sure how much was true but he felt a sense of relief to see his brother depart. Perhaps Bram could get back on his feet up north, fingers crossed.
Bram’s leaving triggered an exodus. George took off shearing in the Katanning region. He limped from a leg wound but had powerful wrists and arms and, as he pointed out to Baxter, no attachment to city life. If appearances could be believed, his war experiences were less traumatic than Bram’s but he could not settle in Perth, not even with the knowledge his mother was faltering.
Lizzie McCall held out in her home for as long as she could but, as her body deteriorated, she needed full-time care. Normally Jennie would have filled the breach but like George she had returned to the country. Faced with their mother’s poor health, Ann and Baxter searched for a solution. His sister felt her duty lay towards her mother. He protested. How could Lizzie be accommodated in Ann’s house - a house already crammed with children and a husband? In the end, Ann agreed. It was unrealistic but what else could they do?
The next day, the Hexbury Road household met for morning tea. Alice’s parents were up from the farm. Baxter explained his dilemma. Joan sympathised but neither she nor her husband came forward with any ideas. Eve, endearingly offbeat as usual, wanted to give up her bedroom and share with Grace. ‘I could pop off anytime,’ she proposed. ‘Except I can’t guarantee the exact date.’
Grace had remained silent. She smiled at her aunt. ‘You don’t need to pop off or give up your room. I’m the one who will leave.’
‘What!’ exclaimed her mother.
‘Jim and I are moving to Melbourne.’
This came out of the blue. Baxter saw the senior Baileys were more than just upset. Appalled, he thought, as Grace’s announcement hung heavy in the air.
Eve attempted to come to the rescue. ‘Wonderful! Melbourne’s a great city for the arts. So much better than dreary Perth.’
Grace’s parents were not swayed. ‘Are you getting married?’ asked Joan.
‘Of course. We’ve booked in at the Registry Office on Friday. As you know, we don’t want a lot of fuss.’
‘That’s not what we want for you.’
‘Have some cake,’ said Eve, ever the conciliator.
‘Aunty Eve is right, Mum. Jim is an artist. He can’t progress here.’
John Bailey looked at his daughter. ‘An artist? And how do you propose to live?’
The conversation spluttered on, eventually reaching a point where everyone knew that nothing more useful could be sa
id. Grace was of full age, born the same year as Baxter. She was legally free to marry who she pleased and reside where she liked. Her parents, much as they wished to bring pressure to bear, could do no more than express their forebodings. And to them, Grace’s future remained as cloudy as the London weather.
By default, Baxter’s conundrum was now resolved. Lizzie would move to Hexbury Road and spend her last days in Grace’s room. Preparations for Alice to give birth would continue. Before long, he thought wryly, we will see both an exit and an entrance. That would keep the vicar busy, as if he didn’t already have enough to do.
Had the stars aligned? At the time Ross was quietly confident. He even found himself using June’s vernacular: ‘I have the feeling it will all work out.’ They made it an in-joke, between themselves and with their housemates. The Mistress of Feeling, Jacob dubbed her. June did not appear to mind. It was a queer label, he thought. For the most part she was so practical and unsentimental.
Thinking back, he was not altogether sure the stars made much effort to align although the wedding went off reasonably well. He wanted a simple Registry Office affair but June waxed and waned.
‘My folks would hate that. They are pretty traditional.’
‘So? Mine aren’t exactly Haight-Ashbury.’
She was not moved. ‘Come on. They want the church thing. All parents do.’
In the end he gave in. It wasn’t such a big deal. And from a financial viewpoint it struck him as better to have the family onside. He hoped an injection of cash would result, not just for a fancy wedding but to tide them over as they began married life.
Choosing the church was a breeze. He had zero input. ‘St Marys,’ said his father. ‘Our family church.’ June reached out and took his arm. ‘Thank you, Mr Basset. I know you would love that for us but Dad has already booked the Guildford Chapel.’
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