The Blue Mile (31 page)

Yo

I
've never been much of a gambler, despite being raised with the form guide always pinned to the noticeboard at St Ben's – first thing you see before genuflecting. Never had the right amount of spare change or delusion for punting, but I have just enough of both today. It's Melbourne Cup Day. There's not a lot left for me to do, apart from put a bet on. Apart from go back to Balmain and get my dole forms in, sign on at the Labour Exchange for relief, but I can't do either of those things, not yet. I have to be sober to do those things. Ag, forgive me.

‘What'll it be then, mate?' the bookie is waiting for my bet, hurrying me up in this back lane in Botany. I look behind me at the line of other fellas come round here, line of no-hopers going from pub to sly tote, like ants we are, going for a worm that's got fried on the hot sandy path, and I wonder where the cops are with this. It's only Paddy robbing Paddy, who gives a – ‘Come on, I haven't got all day.'

I tell him: ‘Phar Lap.' Give him the three bob in my pocket. That's all I've got in shillings, and after this I have enough for one more beer and a tin of Champion. Probably not a lot more when Phar Lap comes in. I'm too fucked up to work out the figures, but it won't be a fortune I'll win. That's not the point of this bet. Phar Lap – he's the Big Red Wonder Horse, he's the favourite by far. I can't afford to lose, but the cash is less important than the winning. I need a win, to turn my guts around. When the horse comes in, I will think that's good. I will think that something is on my side. Some luck? You, Lord? Get yourself home now, you spoon-headed bag of bollocks, you say, Lord? You can get fucked. Go and get a job yourself, Lord, go and make a commandment called Thou Shalt Not Drink, and then get fucked. Show me I'm worth something now, ay? When Phar Lap come in, I will go home. Aggie, I will be home this afternoon.

I start walking back to the pub, somewhere in Botany, to listen to the race. I don't know Botany. Three mile from Satan's arsehole and I don't know where I am, do I. But I might have work at the new port here. ‘Come back tomorrow,' the fella on the dock said, taking pity. The first one to since Saturday morning, since I started following the line of no-hopers south, along the docks of the Hungry Mile from Dawes Point to Pyrmont, looking in every door for work, all through the warehouses round the Haymarket and then down through the Lebbo factories at Redfern and Waterloo, to the meat and veg railhead at Alexandria and then down here. It's only labouring, on the Mexican oil tankers, it won't pay the rent, it won't be enough for me to have Ag with me, but it's a job and it might lead somewhere. Maybe Mexico. If it will pay Ag's way, I will go to Mexico. I will send the Adamses all my pay to keep Ag for me while I'm in Mexico. Or Manchuria. The moon. I will go anywhere for a job.

Anywhere except the Neighbourhood. I went back there for a look the other night. I went looking for Jack, Jack Callaghan; thought I'd call in to the knocker at Strawberry Hills to ask for him through Hammo, maybe get a loan off him or something for the rent, I was that pissed by the time I got there. But I didn't find him. Only found Luke Finnerty at the bar of the pub next door telling me:
Your poor mum – yeah, Mrs Nash went in and found her. She wasn't there that long
. Fuck me rotten, but I started running again then. I was mad with running that night. I went round to Ryan's then, looking for Satan. Looking for Patrick O'Keenan. To kill him with a blunt axe, but he wasn't there and I got told to clear off by McKinley. Sergeant McKinley, who knows exactly what my father is. So I told McKinley to suck his own cock through a flyscreen, and had to get running again. What a night. Can't believe I didn't get my head kicked in after the Rag and Famish as it was. Six of them National Girl Guides chased me – right the way down to the High Street wharf, where I jumped the rail of the Neutral Bay ferry there and then ended up in the Loo, and that's where I started drinking.

I'm bound for Botany Bay. Pissed with the hot sandy sun on my head. Singing toora-li li-oorali li-aditty. Waiting for Phar Lap to come in.

Phar Lap comes in eighth.

Can't believe it. I look at my ticket ten times as if it will stop swimming long enough to say something different from the wireless. Phar Lap has won every race for the last hundred years. But a horse called White Nose has won the Cup. Who the fuck is White Nose? No one knows. Wasn't even mentioned in the form guide.

‘You have got to be fucking kidding.'

No. It's not a joke. I check my ticket again.

Get fucked.

‘Let me buy you a drink, mate,' some fella says beside me. Hand on my shoulder. A new chum, this is. I sway a bit under his hand, from the solid diet of vitamin beer I've been on. I recognise him now, though. His name is Ced. Red Ced: he's a Communist. Opening bowler for the Unemployed Workers Union, he only got out of Long Bay last Tuesday – chucking rocks at the cops in Newtown, he told me, at the eviction riots. I met him yesterday morning, at that pub near Rosebery racecourse. We slept in the scrub by the Chinese market gardens last night, somewhere round here, and he congratulated me at having pissed almost the whole of my last pay away. I said:
It's only taken me three days, too.
He fell over laughing then. He said:
You are out of condition then, aren't you, mate?
He had half a bottle of Royal Reserve claret, his nightcap, he called it. But I don't drink that fucked-up poison, do I. It'll kill you, won't it, Kathleen. Hydrochloric acid, burning a hole in your guts. I'm not an alco. I only drink beer. ‘Yeah, make it a Star, thanks.'

I only drink Toohey's Star. None of that Tooths shit, either. And I've had too much of it. I have to stop now. I have to get home for Ag.

I have to get where? The tiles are spinning. Spinning me round with my own stink. Sack of shit. She's better off without me, Ag. She'll be coming home to Mrs Adams right about now. Coming home to a family. They'll love having her stop with them; she's old enough that she can help with more than entertaining Kenny, too. She can get the tea on. She can make biscuits with Mrs Buddle. She's playing tip with Gladdy on the way home. Reading her stack of library books by the fire. Without me. Yeah, that's what my sister is doing right now, while my sack of shit runneth over. I am fucking up a storm, I know I am. But what else am I supposed to do, Ag? Just stand there and have Welfare take you from me in the street? Farm you out to some stranger? How many ways do you want me shattered, Lord? No: you're better staying where you are, Ag. The Adamses are good people: the best there are. Everyone in Balmain will tell Welfare that if they've even got up to asking yet: my sister is safe with the Adamses. There's no chance Welfare wouldn't let Ag stop with them. And it's only while I'm working out where . . .

Where am I going, Aggie, my beautiful girl? I'm so sorry, I can't even see straight. But I'll come home. I will. I will get back to you when I've got . . . something. What?

There's a glass in my hand again and I can't keep hold of anything.

Ag, I'm so sorry. I've got nothing but shame to give you. Thought I was something special once, didn't you, Miss Greene? So did I, my beautiful Olivia, so did I.

Now I'm going down to Botany Bay in the morning, down to the tanker docks. Going to Mexico, rolling out barrels of Texaco Oil.

After I've had this beer, with Ced. Big Red Ced. I raise my glass to him. Ced is only a little fella, flyweight, jockey-sized.

The bar stops sliding around for a second as I look at him: ‘Opening bowler of the Unemployed Workers.'

He raises his glass back at me but he's not laughing. ‘Oath I am, mate,' he's saying. ‘Oath I am. Stick with me and I'll show you how it's done.'

Six

Olivia

‘I
don't want to go to Mass,' Agnes says, her first complete sentence, not forgetting her manners: ‘Thank you.'

I understand her silent protest: the tight little fists balled in her lap. It's been a week now. Mr Jabour has sent the word out to everyone he knows in every trade, to look out for a lad called O'Keenan, and he even sent Glor's Paul off to the police to press them to search for him. They said no – you need to get yourself an actual genie for that. If the police took to searching for every man who walked off from his responsibilities, that's all they'd ever have time for.

I also understand, too well, that there is nothing I might say to soothe Agnes's abandonment. Anger and fear must be in constant quarrel inside her, as they are in me, an argument that never settles but can only be packed away, so I can only tell her: ‘I don't want to go to Mass, either. Let's make new bathers instead.'

She doesn't smile, but when I give her a pencil to sketch us up a design she bends to it diligently. She draws us into purple halter-neck costumes, with orange belts and matching bathing caps, flowers all about our feet and the rays of the sun spreading down to the ground, all around us. It is a desperate need for beauty, for happiness, for losing sadness to a task, a need I recognise, and I shall indulge her however I can – forever if our kismet allows.

We can't stay malingering here forever, though. I've got to get back to the salon, assess what's left of my clientele – Coralie's taken three cancellations already, one of them from the Mosman set too, one of the Shadfords. Damn them all. And just as urgently I must sort out school for Agnes. It's about halfway through the final term and she's too clever at her books to miss out on any of it. She can't go back to Balmain, though: it's too out of the way, for me, and I truly don't want her wandering around the city on her own. It's too dangerous around the Quay, equidistant as it is between the Labour Exchange and Parliament House. There aren't enough policemen to keep the streets safe. Just this Friday afternoon past I listened to a whole conversation outside the wardrobe window between a group of those New Guardsmen on their way to the ferry, deciding on which workingmen's hotels they were going to ‘raid', from the Rocks to Woolloomooloo, to stir up trouble and then blame the pursuant punch-ups on the trade unionists. ‘God save the King,' they all shouted down the steps. Good God, what are we coming to?

Agnes looks up from her drawing, her blue eyes huge with searching. Lost in somewhere else. Wondering where he is, and if he's gone for good, if he might be dead, fallen down a ditch, hit his head, or if he's just somewhere round and being despicable. And as I wander those same threads myself, I wonder if we should both go to London, Agnes and I, so that we're not here waiting for him if or when he bothers to come back. But then my heart squeezes tight around some deeper knowledge: if he is alive, whatever has driven him to reject us, to reject his adored sister, it must be unbearable. What could it be? Shame at not paying the rent on time? Really?

Oh, but I want him here, I do. So that I might slap him – quite hard – for this pain he is driving into me. How dare he. How
dare
he do this, dead or alive. I want to scream it out into the wind.

*

It's odd how nature can occasionally throw up a perfect substitute object for one's anger and frustration precisely when one is in need of it. The shop bell dings and in walks Cassie Fortescue, this very Monday morning, and after all this time. I haven't seen her since that night at the Merrick, and this is the very first time she has ever set a white patent pump in the salon. Curious, most curious, and those shoes are an abomination – with those fawn stockings,
really
?

I wave, above the telephone. I'll finish my conversation first, with Gloria.

I say: ‘I'm thinking of North Sydney Girls Grammar.' For Agnes's schooling. It's not ideal: a little too Pymble Ladies, a little too one hundred percent Church of England, but convenience might have to win, only four stops on the Cremorne tram, if I can afford it. Agnes is in the stockroom with Coralie right now, setting up a nook for her in there so that she might keep ahead with her school texts and her increasingly voracious reading in the meantime.

Glor says, entirely impractically: ‘No, Ollie. Put her in at Sacred Heart. Then I can have her with me in the afternoons.'

‘Dover Heights is not exactly easy to get t– '

‘I'm only going to be bored with the baby.'

I hear her mother in the background yelling: ‘You won't be bored, Gloria, I can promise you that.'

‘Mum, shush, I'm on the phone,' I can hear Glor roll her eyes. ‘I've got to go, Ol. She's giving me a hard time about everything at the moment. You do what you think is best; Dad will agree. You're such a good soul, Ol, you always do the right thing.'

Perhaps not always. ‘Thanks, Glor. See you soon.'

I place the phone back on the cradle and wait another moment before looking up again to say: ‘Hello there, Cassie.' I remain seated at the table. I'm not getting to my feet for whatever has finally brought her here. There can really only be one reason she is here, and it's certainly not for style. She's come to crow. The tide of Sydney Witches is turning, she wants to tell me, even the Hardys are going to abandon me now, or perhaps she's going to announce that the King has just recalled the Games. Whatever it is, she looks dreadful and I'm not being entirely unkind with this observation: she is greyish and gaunt and cigarette-scented. Losing all of her snub-nosed sweets. The ravages of cocaine and hobo-murdering, I suppose.

‘Hello, Olivia.' Her smile is drawn on with a blunt pencil. She runs a finger along the top of my jewellery cabinet, as if she pops in here regularly for a browse. ‘Amazing what they can do with fakes these days.'

‘Isn't it?' I say, as if any costumière would carry real gems. Get to the point and get out.

She says, peering into the lower shelf of bangles and brooches: ‘It can be so hard to tell what's what and who's who. So confusing . . .' Scrutinising the earrings now. I see what she's doing. The inspection: that was always one of her tactics of intimidation, particularly on house parade, looking for signs of mended stockings and homemade bloomers.

She turns to me: ‘But you've never been confused, have you, Olivia?' There is a look in her eyes that can only be described as diabolical, and I am well and truly intimidated. She says: ‘You've always been the real McCoy, haven't you? Always so far above the rest, haven't you?'

I'm not sure what she's referring to. Somehow I manage to raise my voice above the pounding of my heart to say: ‘Not always above the rest, Cassie, no – certainly not when you had my head pressed into the lavatory bowl at school. What do you want?'

She doesn't reply. She just stares at me. She's mad. Quite mad, I'm sure of it. And she always has been. I want to ask her, scream at her: Why do you hate me? Why are you such a horrible bully? You have everything and you always have had: you're the daughter of a banker. Go away and enjoy your life. Lady Game's a banker's daughter too – go away and be impressive like her.

But she can't and pity swooshes through me, through that place where revenge used to be. Who would ever be Cassie's friend? Truly. Cousin Min's finally ditched her for a public servant, for purgatory in Canberra. Even Denis has ditched her: five minutes after his father paid the fifty pounds worth of good behaviour bond to the Crown.

I say: ‘Cassie, can I help you with something?'

She shrugs, but awkwardly: ‘Help me? No. I want to ask you something, though. Is it true, what I've heard along the grape, that you've got a certain boyfriend? A labourer? Irishman. He has a child, hasn't he?'

My heart is pounding faster. How could she know? I might have been seen with him, yes, someone's seen us on the ferry with the picnic basket or whatever, but that detail? Wrong as it is. No one knows about us but the Jabours and the good people of St Gus's in Balmain. No one else would know he's Irish. My mind swoops around the Witches, to Mrs Bloxom, to Warwick at his Hunter Street chambers, and to the magistrate at the Children's Court: an old chum of Bart's. I can't at this present moment recall the man's name, nor the name of the clerk at the front desk, but they'd know mine from the vague exchange that day retrieving Agnes and this nasty snip has somehow swept from the court and along the grape like fire, growing horns and a tail as it goes. Who knows? Perhaps it's on its way to London now. And I won't deny it. I won't deny it ever.

I could not look more imperious as I tell Cassie Fortescue: ‘That's right. His name is Eoghan O'Keenan. Go tell the grape he's Catholic and unemployed now too.' Wherever he damn well is.

Not the retort she was expecting, and it takes a moment for her to state the obvious: ‘You're finished now, you know.'

‘In your world, perhaps,' I scoff with disgust and I mean it sincerely. ‘For whatever that might be worth.'

She snorts in return: ‘That's right – you don't need us.' The blunt pencil line of her mouth twists downwards. ‘I'd always wondered why you were so stuck-up. You're a viscount's bastard, aren't you? And your mother was always a slut. Never wondered how she danced till two?'

I did, once. Bit of magic Merrick fairy dust to see the long show through, might I suppose? But I am no
bastard
, no suppose about that. I look down at my hands on the table, at the blades of my pattern cutters too easily in reach, and I tell Cassie Fortescue: ‘Get out.'

*

‘My dear, we have ourselves a boy!' Mr Jabour waltzes me across the tiles of the ground floor as only a father of daughters might and I hug his precious joy to me. Finally, a boy for Mr Jabour.

‘What are they going to call him?'

‘Robert,' his chest puffs out over his belly. ‘Robert Nicholas Gallagher. A fine name, don't you think, dear?'

‘Yes,' I whisper. ‘It's a beautiful name.' Nicholas is Mr Jabour's name. ‘Is Gloria terribly bored?' I ask him.

‘Lost her mind to it – Robbie, Robbie, my little Robbie, that's all she can say now.'

‘Good.'

He squeezes me tight for a moment, in wordless consolation, for all that is not good. It's mid-December, eight-thirty on a Wednesday morning, and you wouldn't know that Christmas is nine days away. The arcade is a crypt and will stay that way most of the day, doubtless. I listen to his steady genie heart telling me that this isn't the first or last time the till has been empty. Things will work out. Maintain consistent quality, be confident of your stock and your expertise, always keep an attractive window display, give the impression of opulence and ease, treat every customer as if they were special. Simple; but for the last: largely impossible. I'm reduced to relying mostly on passing trade now, and that's a little difficult up in the gods, on the very top floor. Mr Jabour sends what custom he can my way, but it's not going to be enough; his clientele all sew: they don't need me. I'm going to have to make a move. Sometime in the New Year. London. Paris. Chatswood. Homebush. I'm a little paralysed in the face of it. The decisions that will need to be made.

Numb with worry at what might have happened to Eoghan. Has he disappeared, a swagman hobo trudging out into the countryside, hanging his head in shame on a road gang somewhere, or is he . . . ? Say it for real, not a wonder. He is dead. He must be. How else can he keep away from Agnes like this? Almost seven weeks now, seven long, slow weeks without a word. It's not like he's some poor illiterate, not like he can't put a sentence together. Why not send a note? He has to be dead. Or he should be bloody well dead. In the New Year, if we still haven't heard from him, the Jabours will apply to adopt Agnes. Did you hear that, Eoghan? They're going to adopt her. You won't
have
a sister anymore. And then . . . and then . . . we're all going to disappear. We're going to leave you. Should you ever come back, we won't be here. The Jabours will help us. You'll see. I should . . . I should –

‘I should go up and put the shingle out, I suppose,' I say with my last cellophane shreds of defiance.

Mr Jabour gives me one last squeeze: ‘Sometimes that's all you can do.'

Whatever it takes, to keep going.

I go up and stare at the telephone. Should I call Government House? Beg for custom. Should I dare? The Games were booed at the opera on Saturday evening, quite overshadowing
The Mikado
at the Conservatorium Hall. Some would say suffering an Australian performance of any opera is torture enough. But publicly booed? In front of the students at the Conservatorium? What sort of barbaric society is this? If the King wanted to sack the Premier, he'd have asked the Governor to do it by now, and being insufferably rude and obnoxious isn't going to achieve anything but insult to one least deserving of it: poor Lady Game. I doubt she's much interested in how she might be attired for being ignored and booed at wherever she goes. But . . . damn it, I will dare. I pick up the phone.

‘Yes, good morning,' I say to the butler at the other end. ‘Miss Olivia Greene, couturier, for Lady Game, please.'

‘One moment, please, madam,' and I get Miss Crowdy's impatient: ‘Who is it?'

‘It's Olivia Greene, from – '

‘Yes, what is it?'

‘Ah. Um. I'm only enquiring as to whether Lady Game is in any need of ward– '

‘Not at present, thank you, Miss Greene. Good day.'

Well. There the dare came and went. Perhaps the nasty snip has reached vice-regal ears, despite no one speaking to Lady Game. Would Lady Game really not want to be served by a labourer's girlfriend? Perhaps. But
really
? Not too saintly of her, but it would depend upon how great the horns and tail have become on the story, wouldn't it. How could she trust me with a confidence now? Perhaps she's decided she can trust no one at all in this big, fat small-minded city anyway, and who on earth could blame her?