For the first time ever, Joy is here inside Number 23—and she’s holding a shovel.
And now she is speaking: “I don’t think the police will care who works for whom, Mr. Linton, when I tell them you have committed the crime of trespass by coming through my property, and worse than that, you have just assaulted my granddaughter.” Joy beckons me toward her.
“Christ, what is this, surrounded by bloody grandmothers!”
“Yes. Yes you are,” says Matilde, regaining movement. “Now, leave immediately, through the front door.”
“You’d better hotfoot it and finish that order,” he snorts. “I employ you. I pay you good money. I’m the one who allows you to work from home. You need me.”
“And we both know that with this strike at the factory, you need me.” Matilde is looking a whole lot of B words: Bold, Balanced, Bátor and Backed up.
“I will finish the work that you can’t get done by the women on strike if—and only if—you pay me for the last job.” Matilde is most definitely a spirited woman; how did I ever think that was even a question? “And I want full payment for this next one, immediately when I hand it over. With an extra dollar per garment from now on. In fact, I want you to agree to that for all of the outworkers.”
Mr. Linton looks what Rick would call snookered.
“But before you go, Mr. Linton,” says Joy, quickly handing Matilde a pen and paper from next to the phone on the hall table, “Mrs. Kaldor will write that agreement down, and you will sign it.” I’ve never seen this before: Joy and Matilde working together.
“I’m not signing any such thing.”
Whisky Wendy has arrived, looking every bit like another grandmother. “I’ve called the police and they’re on their way,” she says.
“Your choice, Mr. Linton, father of dear little Kimberly and pillar of the church,” says Joy. “You can leave through the front door into the path of those egg-throwing women, or through my place into the hands of the police. Signing the agreement sounds like the easiest way out to me.” Annabel Renshaw would definitely classify Joy as a women’s libber.
Patricia, who’d gone up to get Rick, bursts in with a flushed face just ahead of my dad, who looks ready for action. He stops himself short when he takes in the scene. He beckons me toward him, and I move from beside Joy to behind my dad. He says nothing, but his rib cage is fully expanded and he seems taller than ever before.
I can’t believe my eyes.
The Bully from Bolton’s is shaking his head, but he’s signing the agreement and he’s doing it on the ironing table with all of us watching. Matilde looks sideways at Rick and Joy and gives them both a pea-sized half nod. Then Joy and her shovel lead Mr. Linton out the back through the brown gate and down the side of Number 25 with Rick coming up behind like a cattle dog. Patricia and I move to the front window and watch as Mr. Linton tries to turn left out of Matilde’s house, but Rick stands in his path and turns him around so that he has no choice but to walk through the middle of the angry ladies with their signs, and their name-calling, and an enthusiastic round of pitched eggs.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Singer has stopped altogether and so has Matilde.
She has finished the rush job, but now that it’s over she seems completely exhausted. The man with the gray Plasticine face comes first thing for her perfect pieces, but Matilde can’t even go the door. She asks me to check that he has brought an envelope containing two hundred and twenty-two dollars, which I bring to her bedroom and count out on her nightstand. Then she asks that I help take the garments out to his car “while I put my head down on the bed, just for five minutes.”
After lunch I check on Matilde, and she’s still lying down. Just before dinner I check her again. She is murmuring in a disturbed sleep. I leave her a tray of tea and honey toast, whispering softly that it’s on her bedside table, but when I go in after dinner, the tea and toast are untouched and cold, and Matilde’s face is blotchy and hot.
And now Matilde’s words are making no sense at all.
“Do not let them see that you are weak, Elsa, never. Never let them see the slightest sign of weakness in you. They must think that you are strong. The strong ones are spared.”
I bend over Matilde, telling her it’s not Elsa, it’s actually me, her granddaughter, Allegra. She takes my hand and says with warm breathy words, “Here, have this corner of my bread. Take it. Quickly, do what I say. Eat it to keep up your strength.”
Matilde is holding out her empty left palm, which hangs limply from her numbered wrist. I obey her instructions and move my hand, taking the not-there bread, and afterward I loosen the buttons at the top of her blouse. Her words change to Hungarian so now I don’t understand anything she is saying.
But then Matilde uses one word that has recently opened a door inside of me.
Belinda.
“Belinda,” she says again. And then switching back to English, “I survived hell to give you life, and still you were taken from me.”
I hold Matilde’s hand in mine and lay my head gently down onto her chest.
“But I am here with you, Matilde. I am here,” I say. “Belinda’s daughter. Her alive daughter.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
Rick is seeing Dr. Scully off at the door.
I hear the doctor tell Rick that Matilde needs to have complete bed rest for at least a week: “She’s suffering from fever and quite possibly exhaustion. Just light meals for now, and call me again if you have any concerns.”
A few hours later Joy appears on the back porch. That’s twice in two days that my grandmother has stepped through the brown gate and into Number 23.
“Now, I’m no Margaret Fulton,” she says, looking as proud as punch and swinging her tie-dyed silk scarf over her shoulder. “But I tried my hand at making a lasagne. With pineapple pieces!”
Not even Patricia can stomach Joy’s lasagne, and I don’t think Matilde would go anywhere near it, even in full health. So the light meals are mine to prepare. I bring down Matilde’s cookbooks, and Patricia and I decide to have a go at making a pot of spring-vegetable soup. We pick carrots, beans and spinach from Matilde’s garden, chop them and simmer them in some chicken-bone broth that Matilde keeps in her stockpot in the fridge. We add parsley and shallots, salt and pepper, more salt and a sprig of chopped mint—that’s Patricia’s idea, she says its freshness might cool Matilde down. The soup turns out a bit salty and looks kind of greasy but after I wipe Matilde’s face gently with a face washer, the way she does mine whenever I’m sick, and pop a few pillows under her head, she eventually swallows five small mouthfuls—then one more—which I feed to her slowly from her favorite dented silver spoon.
Patricia and I agree: that should keep the wolf on the other side of the door.
Rick tells us the next day that the house needs to be kept extra quiet so Matilde can rest, and it’s time to take Patricia back to Glebe. He agrees that I can come for the drive in his van to drop her over there to her mum.
“Hey, Ally—here—sneak your pj’s into my bag,” Patricia whispers as she packs up her things, which are scattered around my room. “When we get to Wendy’s place, let’s ask your dad if you can have a sleepover with me. My mum won’t mind, and Matilde will be resting so she won’t say no.”
I hand my pajamas to Patricia, but I’m not really sure that Rick can make a decision like that.
We arrive at Whisky Wendy’s, and Patricia jumps out of Rick’s van. I follow her in “just to say goodbye,” I tell Rick, who stays firmly put. He has no interest in going inside Wendy’s place; I think he was put off from the last time we were there. Patricia plays hopscotch around the holes in the floor and bounces into the back room, the one I walked through the day we brought Joy home, the one with the cane furniture, fishbowl and poster about women’s lib. There’s a circle of women sitting under a clo
ud of cigarette smoke, some busy with notepads and pens, and others with little kids on their knees or playing at their feet. There seems to be some sort of a meeting going on.
Patricia O’Brien’s mother is Hula-Hoop happy to see my best-ever friend after four whole nights of her being away. She ruffles her hair. Then Patricia, with a pleading burst, asks: “Can Ally stay here, Mum, just for one night? Her nana Matilde is sick as a dog.”
“Oh really, sick as a dog? That’s no good,” says her mum. “Well, yeah, it should be all right for her to stay here for a bit. That okay with you, Wendy?”
“Actually, we could do with some help from you two girls looking after these little ones at the moment,” Whisky Wendy replies, wiping up a spill on the floor.
“Can you come out and speak to Ally’s dad, Mum? He’s waiting outside in his van.” Patricia’s already scooped up a tiny boy with one rosy cheek high onto her back.
Luckily, Patricia O’Brien’s mum is really pretty, with moss-green eyes framed by glossy black hair. Rick seems a bit taken with her. He looks like he’d go along with just about anything she suggested.
“I suppose one night is okay, Al Pal. You two have been pretty useful helping out at Number 23 while Matilde’s been sick, so yeah, I guess you can stay.”
“Glad to hear they’ve been pulling their weight,” says Patricia’s mum, leaning slightly forward into Rick’s wound-down window.
And just like that the sleepover is bedded down.
Rick starts pulling out and I realize that I have something important to tell him. I tap hard on the side of the van and he stops with a jolt.
“Can you make sure you give Matilde the rest of that soup we made? It’s in the large stockpot at the back of the fridge. Maybe with some small fingers of toast if she’s up to it. Don’t heat the soup up too hot. And you might have to feed it to her, Rick, one small spoon at a time. You will look after her, won’t you?”
“I’ll give it my best shot, Al.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. You have fun with your friend. Matilde will be all right.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
“The best you can get at the Salvation Army shelter is one night, two tops. But that’s it. You can’t stay during the day. They kick you out.” The lady speaking in Wendy’s back room has a baby across her lap, its head nuzzled under her blouse, and one slightly bigger pulling at her skirt. “That’s why most women stay at home, whatever the circumstances. They don’t leave, they can’t, they just put up with it….It’s too disruptive to take off with little kids, especially when you’ve nowhere to go during the day.”
“And when the Salvos kick you out in the morning, there’s a limit to how long you can spend in a library with three under three,” says another lady, who is pushing a stroller back and forth with one hand.
“Or a shopping center, without a cent in your purse,” pipes up another.
All the other ladies are blowing smoke from different-shaped lips, nodding and agreeing with whatever is said. Patricia is busy building a fort out of blocks with four toddlers on the floor and doesn’t look like she’s paying much attention to the conversation going on around the table. I’m on the floor too, sorting the blocks into sizes and colors and passing them to Patricia one by one. But I’m taking in every word.
“We need somewhere we can stay with our kids, during the day as well as overnight,” says a lady with a slightly old face but a young-sounding voice.
“And help getting a job would be good,” says another woman who Matilde would think needs a brush through her hair. “If I had a job, I could get my own flat. I’d only need something small. And my twins start school next year, so I could work during school hours. That would be enough. Yeah…I reckon we could survive on that…at least we’d be safe at night.”
“And some legal representation to get custody of the kids and what’s rightfully ours,” says a woman as she stubs out one cigarette and lights up another.
“What is rightfully ours?” says a lady with red welts around her neck.
Wendy plonks down a plate of grilled cheese on toast: “It depends on your circumstances, but if you own a house together you should get at least half of its value—that’s if you get a good lawyer and go through with a divorce proving he was at fault.”
“Gawwd, who can afford a good lawyer!” replies the red-welted woman.
“Too right,” agrees another woman with a croaky voice, reaching for a second piece of toast. “But we certainly need some sort of legal help to make the break away for good, so we can build a decent life for our kids.”
“Yep, and in the meantime a safe place to stay, just for women and children, no men. A place that’s run by women,” says a lady blowing smoke from her nose.
“You’re spot-on there!”
“Run by women who actually understand what’s going on, out there in the real world.”
“And more than an overnight shelter. A refuge—somewhere safe where we can stay on for a while.”
I’m remembering Joy telling me that Liberty Club was trying to set up a safe house, something that she also called a refuge. She spoke about it the night we took the net down to the creek. I look around at the little kids on the floor, playing and giggling. Wriggling like tadpoles.
“And then we can support one another,” their mothers agree.
“Exactly. Somewhere we can actually live, just till we sort ourselves out.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
I help Patricia bathe a pile of kids. We wrap them in towels and roll them into the lounge room, some chuckling, some squealing and all of them wanting us to roll them again. Wendy gives us a plastic bag full of pajamas, and Patricia makes a game of finding the tops that best go with the bottoms that are close to the right size for each child.
When we’ve dressed them all, Patricia announces, “So everyone, listen! Go get under Ally’s wings on the mattress. Quick, run, onto the floor in the front bedroom. It’s time for the Blanket Show.”
Patricia stretches an orange-and-purple crocheted blanket across the open wardrobe doors, and with soft toys and a doll she performs a puppet-show story about a princess who is being chased by a monster. She does the actions and the different voices, and the kids all love it as much as they love Patricia.
“Run your fastest, run your fastest,” screams a little girl no more than four. “Or the monster will get you and hurt your mummy.” She is wriggling in closer to me.
“But then…along came…Brave Aunty Bear!” says Patricia from behind the blanket. “She’s old, but she’s strong and she’s powerful, and she tells the monster, ‘Bugger off, you horrible monster. Leave the princess alone. Go back to Monster Land and never come near here again.’ ” Patricia does a very convincing Brave Aunty Bear voice.
“Yay,” calls out the little girl, “and leave all the kids alone too!”
“Yeah,” says Patricia’s Brave Aunty Bear voice. “ ‘Leave all the baby princesses alone and the baby princes too. Go back to Monster Land and have a big sleep and think about how you can be a good monster.’ And so he stayed away forever and ever, and they all lived with full bellies happily ever after.” Patricia comes forward with the toys in her arms, and together they take a bow in front of the blanket stage.
The kids are cheering and I’m thinking that Patricia would make a really good teacher. Though her spelling could be a bit of a problem: I might have to help her with that.
* * *
■ ■ ■
We’re sleeping head to toe again, this time at Wendy’s, with Patricia planning where we’ll go in our van once we’ve painted a red-and-yellow sunset down the sides and a purple peace sign on the back.
With my close ear I’m listening to her rattle off a list of all the places around Australia that she knows, and it seems like a lot,
but with my distant ear I’m listening to the women who are still up talking with each other in the back room.
Finally Patricia drops off to sleep so I can hear the conversation with two ears instead of one, and I can make out most of what they are saying.
“It took me months to work up the courage to leave the first time, but those church places just want to patch you up and send you back. One of the God-botherers at the last place I went to had the hide to say to me, even before I was stitched up, ‘Just go on home, don’t ruffle his feathers and think of the children.’
“Well, I am bloody well thinking of the children, and that’s why I’m never going back. Never again. He’ll probably kill me next time. Then who’ll look after my kids?”
I think the lady speaking is the one who liked the cheese on toast.
“It actually happens,” says another one. “It happened to my friend’s cousin. She got her head slammed into the fridge door, over and over, until her husband left her with blood pooling from her mouth to die alone on the floor while the baby was asleep in the cot. Apparently what triggered it was her telling him she was pregnant again. With his kid!”
This is so awful….I don’t want to hear any more, but I can’t stop listening.
Now the lady speaking is raising her voice. “It was the only time the cops ever came. Afterward! Too bloody late then.”
“Those cops are useless,” they’re all chiming in.
“Righto, enough! It’s urgent now. We can’t wait any longer for a place to just become available. You know what? There’s an empty house down the road here, all boarded up, a bit past where Lesley was squatting with her friends from uni.”
“What street is it in?”
“West Street, I think.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the one,” pipes up the lady whose friend’s cousin had her head slammed into the fridge door. “The BLF green-banned it a while ago, which means the developers haven’t got their greedy hands on it yet. Actually, I think there might be two empty places there, side by side.”
A Girl in Three Parts Page 16
