How Beautiful Are Thy Feet

by Alan Marshall

  The Unjust have the Just’s umbrellers.‘

  The first bell rang. There was a stir in the factory.

  ‘That wouldn’t happen under Douglas Credit,’ said Correll, his hand on the door-knob. ‘No one would have a monopoly of the rain. There would be food for all. Those who had good crops would balance the losses made by those who had none. It’s coming, brother.’

  He walked into the factory. Clynes followed him. The accountant looked helplessly round the office. Miss Trueman returned.

  ‘You didn’t hear that, did you?’ asked the accountant.

  ‘Hear what?’ asked Miss Trueman.

  ‘I’ll tell you another time. We’ve got work to do. Did you get any rings from creditors when I was out this morning?’

  ‘Yes. Rosewood rang up. Gerald and Sons, Lower, Coughlan Brothers … I think that’s all.’

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ said the accountant. He changed his tone.

  ‘You know we’ve decided to sell our Richmond shop.’

  ‘Yes, you told me.’

  ‘Well, we are negotiating with a man now. If it comes off we will be able to let them have something next week. If I am not here when they ring, attempt to put them off till then, at least.’

  ‘What we get for Richmond won’t last long.’

  ‘No, unfortunately. Anyway, it’s something.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s possible for us to pull through.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ said the accountant.

  ‘You are taking Miss Claws out to Richmond this afternoon, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes … Mm …’ said the accountant, suddenly thoughtful. ‘She may be ready now. I’ll see.’

  He walked over to the stores office. Freda Beveridge looked up as he entered. Her eyes met his. She held them there by an effort of will. Her face quivered with a shyness that possessed her. She coloured, and dropped her gaze.

  The accountant breathed deeply. I will take that girl out.

  He sat on the edge of Miss Claws’ table. She was writing out an order.

  ‘Well, what about it?’ he asked.

  ‘Richmond?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Blast Richmond.’

  ‘That’s what I say. Do you think Bentley will buy it?’

  ‘He’s mug enough to buy anything. What do you think the stock’s worth?’

  ‘About a thousand.’

  ‘He may come at it. He’ll deal off us if he does. He likes our shoes.’

  ‘He doesn’t impress me as a very keen business man,’ remarked the accountant. ‘He will probably crash owing us money.’

  ‘Let’s go out and have a look over the stock.’

  ‘Come on, then. The car’s in front.’

  She got her hat and followed him, powdering her face.

  As she settled herself in the car, she pulled her dress up, revealing for a moment the fine, inner skin of the flesh above her knee. It was transparently white, and faintly clouded with patches of misty blueness as from old bruises.

  She leisurely pulled her skirt down, glancing sideways at the accountant.

  The accountant, his lips curved ironically, let in the clutch. The car moved off.

  He had said he would be there at eight sharp. It was now a quarter past. Her mother and father had gone to the pictures. She leaned over the wooden gate looking up the street. She had not told her mother. She could never tell her mother. She would rather die.

  She saw him in the distance. Her heart began to beat rapidly. Her breasts rose and fell. She clutched the worn, wooden gate. The cracked and splintered substance of it was infinitely friendly and comforting. She moved her hand along it, unconsciously loving it, as she loved everything when he was near.

  Her lips parted as she watched him. The street shadows stood aside and he strode into the light of the lamp. The swing of him, the skin and texture of him, the clothes upon his limbs, seemed to impregnate the air around him with the quality of his caress. Before he took her hand she had experienced all the ecstasy of his touch.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said casually.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said, suddenly desolate. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I was talking to Harry,’ he said. ‘Where will we go? Let’s walk down by the river.’

  He took her arm.

  She walked beside him, disturbed and fretting because of the clipped tones of his speech. She was in a sad darkness, stricken by her impotence to stir his moribund love.

  ‘You are different tonight,’ she said, looking up at him, ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Yes there is. You are hurt. Have I said something?’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’

  ‘Do you still love me?’ She held his arm tightly, her upturned face suddenly naked.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he said, exasperated. ‘I’m always telling you that.’

  ‘But you tell lots of girls.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  They crossed the narrow footbridge. Behind them the factories, huddled at the water’s edge, gazed solemnly at the tree-clad banks beyond. Below them the black waters slid towards the sea. There was silence among the trees.

  They lay together beneath a clump of red flowering gums. The blossoms were dark and still above them.

  The bees that during the day had given the flowers voice, were gone. The perfume remained, mixed with the smell of leather from across the river.

  Leila, unresponsive to his urgency, began to cry, ‘What am I to do?’ she sobbed, clinging to him.

  ‘Haven’t those pills fixed you?’ he asked, raising himself on an elbow.

  ‘No, they only make me sick.’

  ‘I gave ten bob for them.’

  ‘They haven’t made any difference.’

  ‘Well, what can I do? The chemist told me they were good,’ he explained impatiently.

  She raised herself confronting him.

  ‘Couldn’t we get married, Ron?’ Her voice, rather high, was forced from the crest of a drawn breath.

  Her urgent eyes confused him, so that he glanced quickly away from her and said hurriedly:

  ‘Listen — now look — listen here — I don’t love you, Leila. I can’t marry you. You know that. I’ve had my fun —’ He suddenly stopped, hit by a choked cry from her. He smiled at her stupidly, conscious that he had betrayed a foulness in his character, yet unable to recall it.

  ‘I love you more than any other girl,’ he said with forced gentleness, placing his arms about her, unconscious that he was continuing to manifest his insincerity.

  She twisted within his embrace, and he, feeling the soft curves of her body, crushed her with sudden passion, distorting her flesh with crooked fingers.

  She broke away from him, gasping words of revulsion. She sprang to her feet.

  He stood before her.

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ he said, placatingly. ‘Let’s lie down again.’

  ‘I hate you,’ she said passionately. She snatched her handbag from the ground. He grasped her wrists.

  ‘You can’t come to any harm tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some more pills. Lie down here for a while and forget it.’

  She wrenched herself free from him and ran sobbing into the darkness.

  10

  The accountant was examining cards in the stores office when Freda Beveridge arrived next morning.

  ‘Another hot day,’ she sighed.

  She ran a comb through her fair curls.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, preoccupied. He lay down the cards and looked up at her. She met his look and they smiled.

  ‘You have a lovely smile,’ he said.

  She looked away, confused.

  He studied her face a moment.

  ‘Would you like to smell the sea with me tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Let’s go and drink cool drinks down at Frankston, and we will talk, and I will say things to make you smile, and then I will watch you, and we will both enjoy ourselves. W
hat about it?’

  ‘Well, yes. I’d — I’d like to.’

  ‘Good. Where can I pick you up?’

  ‘I could meet you in the City.’

  ‘Any favorite spot?’

  ‘In front of the Town Hall. Would that suit you?’

  ‘Anywhere suits me. At eight o’clock, say.’

  She nodded hurriedly, hearing footsteps.

  Miss Claws entered.

  ‘Good morning,’ said the accountant cheerfully.

  ‘Come out and have look at these shoes,’ said Miss Claws. ‘This is Clynes for you.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They are just through the Cleaning Room.’

  The accountant followed her out. They moved between racks laden with shoes, passed a bench coated with ‘cleaners’ before which girls dabbed a black liquid on to men’s boots. They wore a canvas glove on the hand they thrust within the boot. The glove was spattered with black gloss. With the other hand they applied the liquid, using a sponge at the end of a piece of wire. A bent piece of cardboard was used to squeeze surplus liquid from the sponge each time it was dipped into the tin beside them.

  The accountant noticed that the little girl who washed the dishes (what is her name now? Rene — yes that’s it—Rene) had received promotion and was brushing paste on to the leather socks which later she would press within the shoes on the rack behind her.

  She smiled shyly at him.

  He bent and said, ‘Keep on. You’ll soon be forewoman.’

  ‘Here they are,’ said Miss Claws.

  The accountant took the shoe she handed him, examining it critically.

  ‘The buck is not so hot,’ he said. ‘It’s too pipey.’ He bent the upper between his fingers. ‘It should be much firmer.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’m expected to sell,’ she said, closing her lips. ‘I don’t know what they think I am. I’m going to see Mr Fulsham about this. What is wanted here is a good clean up.’

  The accountant caught the eye of Mrs Bourke. She winked at him.

  ‘It certainly wants investigating,’ he said, turning to Miss Claws. ‘If you get many more through like that, you’ll never sell them.’

  They walked back through the racks together, discussing the shoes. Miss Claws returned to her office.

  The accountant, noticing a signal from Tom Seddon, walked over to him.

  ‘How is the lad today?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s all right now, the doctors say,’ said Tom, bending to place shoes on the lower shelf of his rack. ‘He can come out any time now—as soon as I can go out for him.’

  ‘Will they let him leave there at night?’

  ‘Oh yes, any time.’

  ‘I will go out and get him for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr McCormack. It’s worried me, getting him home. I’ve been busy on a job at nights. Mick will go out with you if you like. Mick goes out to see him a lot.’

  ‘Right. You tell Mick to be standing in front of the Metro Theatre tomorrow night at seven, will you? I’ll pick him up.’

  ‘I will, Mr McCormack. Thanks …’

  In the office Miss Trueman was listening to a carrier.

  ‘Yes,’ the carrier was saying. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I get up tired every morning. I’ve been in bed at nine o’clock every night, too.’

  ‘You should take a tonic,’ said Miss Trueman sympathetically.

  ‘I think I will,’ said the carrier, raising his parcel. The accountant held open the door of the factory for him. He walked through and placed his parcel on Correll’s bench. Correll advanced upon him radiating propaganda. The accountant, watching them through the glass panels, smiled to himself.

  When the carrier returned he said, theatrically, ‘Well, the Douglas Credit is coming into its own. I said to him, “What about them taking all their money out of the bank, then?”‘

  He waved his hand airily, mimicking Correll’s voice and gesture. ‘“That’s what we want them to do. After all it’s only paper. The printing press can run it off any time”.’ He resumed his ordinary tone, ‘I said, “I wish I had a few pounds of it”.’

  He paused at the street entrance and looked back.

  ‘Aw, he’s a maniac. I never come in here but what he argues with me. He reckons we’re fools to march on Anzac Day.’

  ‘Why?’ asked the accountant, interested.

  ‘Oh, the capitalists are working it, or something — So long.’

  ‘He is an interesting bird,’ said the accountant, turning to Miss Trueman. She was answering the phone. She hung up the receiver and said, ‘Some woman said to tell Miss Richards that Biddy of the Skiver was taken to the Melbourne Hospital last night with appendicitis, and can’t come in, and would Miss Richards keep her job for her.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the accountant. Then — ‘I’ll tell Miss Richards.’

  ‘I believe Leila’s running hot in the box,’ said Sadie tossing a crust on the roadway.

  ‘She’s not? exclaimed Mabel eagerly. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I heard,’ said Sadie non-committally.

  ‘That just shows you,’ said Mabel, feeling pleasantly virtuous. ‘Those quiet ones are always the same. Ron Hughes, is it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sadie, then added contemptuously, ‘He’s a dirty dog.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Mabel, ‘I’d rather keep a fast man down than bring a slow man on. He’s fast, but every man is. He doesn’t kid you that he’s not.’

  ‘Anyway, I feel sorry for Leila,’ said Sadie.

  ‘Oh, so do I,’ defended Mabel. ‘But what’s she doing about it? Has she taken anything?’

  ‘Those black pills. But they’re no good.’

  ‘Gladys fixed herself up,’ said Mabel. ‘I don’t know how she did it, but she says it’s good. You ought to tell Leila about it.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with me,’ said Sadie, opening a sandwich to examine the contents. ‘You can get blood poison that way. Those things you use are always dangerous. I’d sooner have an operation.’

  Mabel shuddered. ‘Isn’t it awful? It makes me sick. I’d like to see the man that would catch me.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind to tell Leila about a nurse I heard of out at St Kilda,’ said Sadie. ‘I know a girl who went to her. She fixed her up for a fiver.’

  ‘Isn’t that robbery!’ exclaimed Mabel, shocked. ‘She ought to be run in.’

  ‘It’s cheaper than having a baby,’ said Sadie succinctly.

  ‘Where’s Leila now?’ asked Mabel, feeling compassionate.

  ‘She didn’t come down,’ said Sadie.

  ‘Let’s go up and talk to her,’ Mabel suggested.

  She rose eagerly from the curb. Sadie brushed crumbs from her clothes.

  ‘Hurry up,’ said Mabel. She noticed Sadie’s hair. ‘You’ll have to get your hair cut or you’ll be getting in a row,’ she warned. ‘The inspector told Miss Richards yesterday to speak to some of the girls.’

  ‘I push it back behind my ears,’ said Sadie, rising. ‘I’m getting it trimmed on Saturday.’

  ‘The week before I came here one of the girls got her hair caught,’ said Mabel. ‘It pulled half of it out by the roots.’

  A workman, passing, poked her in the ribs. Mabel grinned at him understandingly.

  The accountant was mounting the stairs when they arrived at the foot. ‘Where’s he going?’ whispered Mabel.

  In the machine room he glanced round, then walked over to Leila, who was reading before her machine. He rested his hand on her bench.

  ‘Your friend Biddy has been taken to the Melbourne Hospital to be operated on for appendicitis,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like to know.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Leila, staring at him, confused by his sudden appearance.

  He turned to leave her before she recovered from her surprise.

  Sadie and Mabel were behind him.

  ‘Hullo, Sadie,’ .he smiled at her. He turned to Mabel. ‘I belive you won a dan
cing competition the other night, Mabel?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pleased that he knew.

  ‘By jove, that’s good. Did you make anything out of it?’ He moved away, looking back at her.

  ‘A guinea,’ she said.

  ‘You will be winning the championship next.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  She watched him swinging across the room. ‘Isn’t it a pity he’s crippled?’ she said to Sadie.

  Leila told them about Biddy. They arranged to visit her.

  Sadie sat down on the edge of Leila’s bench and swung her legs.

  ‘We know the fix you’re in, Leila.’

  Leila, suddenly stricken, looked into her eyes. Painful colour slowly suffused her face. She attempted no defence. She said piteously, ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  ‘Have you tried everything?’ asked Sadie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Leila huskily.

  Look, I know a nurse,’ began Sadie …

  They talked until the start work bell stirred the factory into life.

  ‘Eight o’clock in front of the Town Hall,’ said the accountant to himself.

  He pulled up in front of a flower shop.

  ‘A big bunch,’ he said to the woman with the grey hair and the lines around her eyes.

  ‘How big?’ she asked.

  ‘Two bob big,’ he said, and laughed.

  ‘No,’ he became serious. ‘Put in gladioli and all that sort of thing. Ferns, with drops of water on the leaves, and wrap them in coloured paper.’

  ‘I’ll make you a lovely bunch,’ she said, glancing at him.

  ‘I’ll let you know how I get on,’ he said.

  ‘You say it with flowers, do you?’ she asked, her head on one side, arranging, altering.

  ‘I open up the conversation with flowers,’ he said, sitting on the corner of her table.

  ‘Well, what sort of opening is that?’ she asked, holding up the bunch.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘If I can follow that up, I’m right. How much?’

  ‘Three shillings.’

  He paid her.

  ‘I’ll carry them to the car for you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re the one,’ he said, ‘I’ll come here again.’

  ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  ‘Here’s hoping,’ said the accountant, raising his hand as the car moved away.