Bridge of Triangles (6 page)

Clarrie came to the door in his blue singlet and his pants hung below his belly. A cigarette, no longer alive, hung from the corner of his mouth. He pushed open the tattered screen door.

“You've come then. I thought you and Rose were cookin' up somethin'. She's out the back somewhere.” He looked at the family without affection and regarded the suitcase. “Ya sister's here!” he called, turning his head and scratching his stomach.

“Well, can we come in or we gonna stand on the bloody step all day?” Sissy thought of this house as Rose's and this showed in the proprietorial tone in her voice.

Before Clarrie could answer, Rose ran across and pushed him out of the way as she hugged her sister. Both the women cried.

“Just look at them kids—'aven't they grown. And look at Joe—he's so tall. 'Ere, come in, come in. 'Ow's Mum and Paula? Whendya get 'ere 'eh? Clarrie, bring that port in. Jesus it's good to see ya, Sis. And all these kids too. Just look at them—'aven't they grown? Rose dabbed at her eyes and Sissy and her lot went inside.”

A Sydney house. Yes, there was a television in the corner. Its screen was a dead dark grey and the cloth grid covering for the sound was silent. The house smelled faintly of leaking gas and stale toast and poverty. “Jeez, I don't know if we got any bread left Sis. I mean I'm sorry but I wasn't expectin' nobody. I've got some tea. I can make a cuppa tea.”

Rose saw Chris eyeing the television. “You won't get nothin' on that till six o'clock love. But the kids are round somewhere. Youse can play with them. But I'll make a cuppa tea first. 'ow many cups we got Clarrie?”

Chris looked again at the TV. A Sydney house, with a TV. He kept thinking—a Sydney house with a TV and he looked up at the ceiling. Yes, there was an electric light. It
had a fly-blown shade with yellowed tassels hanging from its scalloped border. It must be real because it was on even though it was daytime. A Sydney house with a TV and electric lights. It must have lots of rooms too. These wonders somewhat allayed the gnawing feeling of hunger which he had. But when Aunty Rose and Sissy came out of the room where the gas smelled strongest they banged a plate onto the laminex table. It held a pile of broken biscuits which Rose had smeared with butter.

They sat around and ate the food and drank sweet tea. Clarrie fiddled with his cigarette and matches and rubbed his rough chin while making little clicking noises of disapproval with his tongue. Rose seemed not to be the queen the boy remembered with her clothes and cigarettes and lace hankies. But she had a TV, he reminded himself. And electricity in this Sydney house.

Later Rose's two boys returned from the neighbour's house where they'd been playing. They were both older than Chris by about three years so they showed little interest in him. After filling their mouths with biscuit they ran off again, taking Joe with them. The boy explored the backyard which was wrapped around by tall straight paling fences which separated Rose's place from three other houses. The houses all had thick corrugated fibro roofs and low brick chimneys. A few had TV aerials.

There was an outside lavatory, which made him think—after all this was Sydney. Even Grandma Leeton's house had a toilet inside. But this one did flush, so that was nice. But it still smelled, and had a few dirty newspapers strewn about the wooden floor. Manton Street had had an outside lavatory which was emptied once a week by men on a horse-pulled cart. And Waterbag Road had a can which his father emptied into a hole he dug and covered with earth.

He explored the wonders of the yard: concrete paths; a clothes line which spun around. It had some pegs on the
wires. And wooden steps leading down from the back door and an old fridge lying under the house. There were several bikes under there too, with flat tyres and bits missing. He poked around until he couldn't think what else to do. Keith and Mary were still inside. He tried to feel the excitement of being in Sydney and sure, there was something—a waiting feeling—but it was not anything like he expected. He didn't know what he expected but surely Sydney should be more than this. He kept going up to the power pole that stood outside the front fence and looking at the wires which were attached to the fibro wall, just to the right of the front door, under the eves. The wires hung down in a gentle sway across the yard. Somehow, mysteriously, they connected up to the television set which stood inside waiting. Perhaps Sydney would get better at six o'clock. But six o'clock seemed as far away as Christmas.

There were a few straggling shrubs lining the front fence which someone had planted with the best of intentions. They still held a few torn looking leaves and a couple of plain grey sparrows flitted about in them. There were ants on the footpath. Ants in Sydney, now that was something he didn't expect. Fancy ants living on this concrete foot-path. Perhaps there were lizards. He would look all around, he would look everywhere for lizards. The boy looked as the screen door made its little sound. There was Clarrie, leaning against the frame. “So, youse 'ave come to the big smoke, eh? Pissed off from the old man eh?” It was more a statement than a question. Chris remained silent. His head hung down and he raised his eyes a little to look at this man who seemed to pour out so much hostility.

Later on that night, after the disappointment of the grainy television and Aunty Rose had made up a bed on the floor in her boys' room for Keith and himself—lucky Joe was sleeping with Paul—he listened for the sounds of Sydney.
It seemed like the middle of the night. Five boys in bed in the small room, but he couldn't hear them breathing. He could only hear the silence, like a buzzing, ringing sound which was not exactly in his ears. The room was black. Aunty Rose had not shut the door but all the big people were in bed. His mum and Mary in bed with Rose. And Clarrie, well he didn't know where Clarrie was sleeping. But even with the door open the house was black and silent. Was he the only one awake? Why was he left watching the dark and wondering? Why was he left listening to this silence? He could feel Keith's side. It was a little comfort in the silence. The air seemed full of tiny grey dots that swirled about in the blackness. The faint smell of gas seeped along the narrow hallway and into the air he breathed. What made that sound which seemed to be inside his head? Could it be an insect in his ear? No it wasn't on just one side. Perhap he got an insect in both ears? It didn't sound like an insect. Once an insect had got in his ear at Waterbag Road and his mum had poured some melted butter into his ear and he heard and sort of felt the poor thing squelch around till the high pitched screaming stopped. Then he'd kept sticking a finger in his ear to see if the insect had floated out on the slippery butter. This noise, he decided, was the sound of silence. He lay there thinking about that in a vague sort of half sleep. His mum's face and trains and the TV and ants on concrete drifted all around a lonely man huddled in front of a smoky fire in a little place in a lane a great distance from here, and none of it would go away, not even when he finally slept his first sleep in Sydney.

The Sydney days at Rose's became weeks and Clarrie was getting sick of everyone. Sissy had been led by Rose's two boys to the low cream painted school and enrolled her four kids on the first school day after the family arrived from the bush. She fidgeted and spoke in low little whispers in the school office when answering questions about the birthdates of her kids and where they'd been to school before and everything. But the bespectacled lady was helpful and had a kind smile and the only thing Sissy had to do was sign her name. She did this slowly and rested her free hand carefully on the enrolment forms. Keith was led off to the infants in shuddering sobs and Joe went off to the big school and Chris and Mary were put into different classes.

No one seemed to notice Christopher Micky Leeton, not even the teacher very much. He was given a free-standing table and a chair with a curved wooden seat to himself. Sydney seats he thought of them as. All the seats in the room were like that. The kids scraped them about and had different haircuts and seemed smart and probably had TV's. He saw a few of them furtively glancing at him. A couple smothered giggles into their hands and he thought he heard them say something about his hand-me-down clothes. He looked out the window at the grey scudding sky and the few birds. Sydney did not have many birds he decided.

The teacher seemed not to care if the boy did any work or not. Perhaps his mum had said he was only staying a few days or weeks.

Routines at this school were different from the one he'd known back in the bush. Here the huge crowd of kids had a big assembly every morning and the teachers sat up on a stage. Songs were sung very loudly and uniformed kids carried flags to the platform and stood there holding them until the assembly ended. Even prayers were said. The Leeton kids had barely begun to adjust to these new
requirements when Clarrie kicked them out of Aunty Rose's place.

The first the kids knew of it was when Sissy, for the second time, came to their school and took them out long before home time. The only thing he really liked about that school was that if you put some money in a brown bag first thing in the morning it came back late in a box with a pie and a cream bun in it. Chris had never eaten a cream bun before. And the only school work he ever remembered was when the teacher drew with his hairy hands a map of Australia and marked where first Captain Cook arrived and then Arthur Phillip had settled the country.

“But what about the people who already lived here?” Chris had said.

“Well, they didn't really live here. Not properly—not like us. They just moved away a bit further into the bush. You've got to understand, they just wandered around the place—there was plenty of room for everyone. Now let's get back to how the first people in the new settlement set about clearing the land and building their houses.”

Something disturbed the boy deeply. Sitting in a strange room surrounded by strangers a vague recognition that something of enormous importance had just been said, but he couldn't identify just what it was. It was somehow connected with the accepted convenience of the teacher's explanation—the dismissive tone and the neccesity to now get back to a discussion of things that really mattered.

A vivid memory of a fire by a great flowing river on a night when the moon sailed across the wintery sky, flooded his mind. No, something was wrong here, not just in this room but with the whole world. He looked out the window and the sky seemed not to reach away to forever but to crouch down low over this room, this school, this suburb and the whole great sprawling city.

“Christopher Leeton, will you go to the office please?”

Chris could hardly remember where the office was. Sissy stood outside the headmaster's office looking more angry than worried this time. The headmaster was standing beside her, looking not unrelieved.

“Well here's the last of them. Goodbye Mrs Leeton, and good luck.”

A quite new car with a lady stood waiting just outside the schoolgate and Sissy gathered up her kids and led them to it. They all squeezed in and they were driven off by the lady who chatted all the way about furniture arriving later—although it wasn't much it would do—and she hoped that that would be alright—but it should be—and they would soon settle in—it was only temporary she was sure and anyway there were lots of families there with children and it wasn't too bad all things considered.

The car joined a wide arterial road and stopped frequently at lights which changed colours and there were people crossing the road while all the other cars and trucks stopped too. They drove past a very long building with two huge wrapped lollies on the roof and under bridges that had trains going over them. And Sissy said, “Jesus, I don't know if I like Sydney. It's a bit bloody busy for me.” Chris looked at the lady driver and wondered what she thought of a mother who spoke like that. The boy was learning that the world was very big and that not everyone was like all the people he knew best.

Even Mrs Ladell spoke differently from his mum. And Grandma Leeton never said bloody or Jesus. The teachers at school never spoke like his mum either. Words fascinated him. Why did his mum sound so different from the rest of the world?

The lady just smiled and said, “Yes, Sydney's like that. Never mind, we're nearly there.”

The land was quite flat and the road was wide and busy.
There were buildings everywhere, big ones with triangle shaped roofs all along their length. Along the side of the road some people walked; old people mostly, with dull coats and hands in their pockets. One old man was waiting at a light and the car stopped so he could cross with his little fox terrier. The man had grey stubble on his face. He was a Sydney man. So, Sydney had old people and dogs too, thought Chris.

“There” soon came into view.

“Here we are. Doesn't look much from the outside—but it's not bad once you're inside—and when you get your furniture all arranged and everything...”

The lady smiled as she edged the car along a muddy track which curved and followed a line of grey power poles to a long building which carried the memory of dull green paint. The flimsy walls were weatherboard up to the window line, then fibro. The windows were small and some of them were open, swung out from either side. Chris saw that power lines hung down and connected to the end of the long house.

“Is that ours, is that ours? Isn't it big. It must have lots and lots of rooms.”

For the first time in Sydney the kids seemed excited.

“It's bigger than I thought too,” said Sissy with a puzzled look on her face. She went to the back of the car and lifted the large suitcase out. “Jesus that's heavy.”

“Well, let's go inside then, shall we?” and the lady picked her way over the muddy holes to a door of green boards. Stepping up two small steps she put a large key into the key-hole and turned it. There was also a grooved brass knob which rattled as she gripped it.

“Well, you go in. I'll be off now. Your furniture should be here soon. Well, ah, goodbye.”

Leaving the key in the door the lady carefully weaved her way over the puddles. She wore high heels. She hunched
her back and her head shrank into her neck as she walked away to the car in her cheery red suit.

Sissy stepped into the house. The four kids crowded around her. They stood in a large room with walls that went only partly to the roof. The windows were tightly shut and there was an unused stale smell. The kids hurtled across the wooden floor boards exploring the place. That didn't take long. There was one large bedroom and a smaller one.

“Aw, it's not very big,” said Mary, with a look of disappointment. “Where will I sleep?”

“I'm sleeping here!” announced Joe, as he stood under the only window in the long room. “Then I'll be able to get out the window!” He'd already thrown the windows open and was pivoted on his waist across the sill.

Meanwhile Chris and Keith were exploring the front room. They delighted in the enamel sink with its dull terrazo draining board. Chris turned the single tap; cold, discoloured water sputtered out and eventually cleared and flowed. It smelled like no other water Chris had ever smelled.

“Look Mum, look—a tap inside—a tap inside.”

“Don't waste water youse kids.”

High up in the roof was a single bare light bulb. It was operated by a long dirty string trailing down. They took turns at pulling the cord until Sissy told them off for wasting power. These words caused a ripple of excitement to run through all the kids. They took up the admonition with each other for the sheer joy of the words, “Don't waste power youse kids—don't waste power!” They now lived in a house where you could waste power because it had this mysterious power. Chris looked at the dirty string and was full of wonder. He looked again at the tap. The furphy at Waterbag Road had been the training ground for careful use of water. But power, this was a new idea which would take some getting used to.

The walls were simple divisions made from sheets of fibro and in the bedrooms the painted framework could be seen. The kids continued to investigate—tapping on walls, pushing the windows open, checking the lights in the three rooms over and over.

“Where's the lavvy?” asked Keith.

“There's another key here—it must be outside,” Sissy said.

The combined bathroom and lavatory was at the end of the long block and was shared by each of the four flats. It smelled of rancid soapy water and mould and other people. A water heater with an inverted funnel for dropping paper and sticks into its interior stood at the end of the stained and chipped tub. Chris remembered the shiny bath at Grandma Leeton's gloomy house—the bath where once the old lady had scrubbed him till his skin hurt. That was the only proper bath he'd ever had. He wouldn't rub so hard if he had to get into this tub. The excitement grew as each new discovery was made. Only Sissy looked worried as the incomplete family sat about the front room; three kids on the floor, with Joe perched on the terrazzo sink and Sissy on the step rolling a cigarette. They could do nothing else till the furniture arrived.

“Can we get a TV Mum? It's got power,” said Chris.

“We'll see son, we'll see.”

A ute loaded with the furniture edged its way as close to the flat as it could get. Two men unpacked the pile of stuff and carried it inside. There were three single beds and one double, all with stained kapok mattresses; a dressing table with many small ornamental looking drawers; a wardrobe with a cracked mirror; a kitchen table and five chairs of a scratched dark green colour; a collection of mismatched crockery, and a cardboard box of cutlery and cooking gear. The flat already had an electric stove but there was no
fridge. There was another box with sheets, pillows and thin grey army blankets.

A single bed was set up in the front room for Mary. Another went into the long room under the window for Joe. It had jangly black knobs decorating the rails at its head. The double bed, which had many more and larger jangly knobs, but of brass, was set up in that room for Chris and Keith. The remaining single bed went into the small room. Sissy would sleep there. The boys had the dressing table and Sissy had the wardrobe.

“You and me can have this one Mare,” said Sissy.

Joe took great delight in arranging the furniture in the boys' room. He used the dressing table to divide his bed off from the two smaller boys. The family had never used sheets so it went unremarked when Sissy hung these at the windows. Her dream of living in a flat in Sydney had started.

All she had to do now was find a job.

The fragmented family began to shape this new beginning with the little routines which map out lives. Sissy cooked sausages on the electric stove. The trailing cords became for the kids merely things which worked the lights. Despite the meanness all about Sissy set her jaw and told herself that everything would be alright—alright.

The Leetons had been allotted this flat by the Welfare. The flats were, strictly speaking, for immigrants, but an exception had been made for Sissy. She was treated as an emergency. In fact there were a number of Koori people scattered about that sprawling, regimented, ramp-connected collection of huts. But Sissy would have nothing to do with them. Her determination to make it by her own efforts had no room for the memories of the life she'd left far far behind. Sure, she'd write to the Old Granny—Harry could read the letter to her and Paula. But they were all down there and she was going to make it here—in Sydney.
No, she'd left all that struggle and suffering behind her. If only she had known what struggle and suffering lay ahead.

Not a dozen miles away the crashing waves of the ocean beat against the tall cliffs and surged around the rocks as they had done for thousands of years, utterly beautiful. Softly quiet, the thick bush held the twinkling glow of campfires. And then the gaolers had arrived. And the bush had rung with the torment of men and women in irons as the trees were felled and the ground dug up. One by one the twinkling lights went out—never, ever to be re-lit. Until in dumb imitation Sissy cautiously fiddled with the electric element to cook a few sausages.

The night was not silent like at Rose's. Here was a spread of humanity all doing human things. Children crying, adults swearing, television sets urging their messages, pots being banged, dogs barking, older kids tearing along the ramps shouting, and all the thousands of sounds and smells blended together into a common mass with a common purpose—a new beginning in a new country. Even after the lights were out and only a glow from the street lamp outside Joe's sheeted window shone yellow into the long room, the noises didn't stop. While Chris lay in half sleep, disturbing, strange sounds—human sounds—flowed easily through the thin fibro walls separating each flat. This was the closest he had ever been to strangers.

The boy was being re-formed, like soft clay under the feet of the city: pushed into shapes by others who passed and pressed into his flesh and soul in the darkest of nights. And when the light came in the mornings he would be twisted into something quite unrecognisable; no longer known as a bush boy—one of Girlie's mob—part of her family, part of the old gnarled river gums and part of the broad flat river over which those gums had leaned forever. The worst part was that the boy had only begun to get a notion of how the world was seen by others. Now this view threatened to
overwhelm and smother him. Intuitively he feared that the smell and taste and promises of this new world were foul, shallow and ultimately treacherous. He moved closer to Keith's warm back and felt the rough wool of his jumper.