by Rod Jones
‘My dear child, it is a sin to hate.’
‘Actually I have been thinking ill of him for some time, ever since he made the acquaintance of—that woman.’
‘Wait a minute. I thought he had just met her. Now you tell me he has known her for some time.’
‘Yes, yes, I think he knows her. They seemed like chums.’
‘Like chums?’ Mrs Lovett repeated. She looked at Alma with a new scepticism, as though she would have to reconsider everything she had been told. ‘Of course, I realise how awful your situation is, I really do, but if you knew for some time that the two of them had a relation…’
‘Oh!’ Alma said. ‘But that is just it. I do not know. Perhaps Frederick has been cosy with her for some time, but I really do not know.’
‘Can the love between husband and wife die in a single day?’
‘You think I am suffering from pride by not going back to him on bended knee.’
‘What you are saying sounds very much like pride.’
‘When he brought her to the house yesterday, that’s when I said, enough.’
‘So he did not actually kick you out of the house?’
‘Well, he told me I could like it or lump it, so it amounts to the same thing. I will not be his doormat!’ Alma said.
‘Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive him?’
‘Don’t you see? Once faith is torn, the cloth remains torn forever.’ Then Alma relented. ‘I’m very confused. My feelings are pulling me in opposite directions. I can’t judge which is the right way.’
‘Let us wait and see what Mr Goble has to say.’
Teddy and Olive had stopped on the corner to wait for them. Together they turned into Barkly Street and walked the rest of the way to Paisley Street in silence.
As they entered the imposing brick church, Mrs Lovett whispered, ‘Let’s sit up the front. The pews fill quickly.’
The four of them sat in the sixth row. ‘It’s a good thing we came early,’ added Mrs Lovett, looking around as the congregation filed into the church. ‘Mr Goble has been the minister here for twenty years. Sometimes hundreds of people come to listen to him preach.’
From time to time she checked on her children. Teddy and Olive were on their best behaviour, looking around at all the unfamiliar faces, the bare-headed men with their reddened, newly washed necks and their starched collars. The air was loud with conversation as people chattered with their neighbours.
A lonely-sounding bell began to ring in the steeple. It went on for several minutes, then subsided just as suddenly with a few careless clangs, and an expectant hush descended over the congregation.
Mr Goble was a man of about fifty. From where they were sitting, Alma had to crane her neck to see him. He stood six feet four inches: so tall that, according to Mrs Lovett, he needed a specially reinforced bicycle. His wife had died from typhoid fever in the 1890s and Mr Goble had never remarried, though he had been known to dance a lively mazurka at social functions.
A shock of greying wavy hair swept back from his high forehead. Although shadowed with exhaustion, his eyes were lit with hope. A tired, compassionate smile persisted under his moustache. He was wearing an old suit and Alma noticed, along with the sagging shoulders and curling lapels, that one of the buttons on his waistcoat was missing. But he had attached a clean white collar to his shirt, and he gave, above all, an impression of great dignity.
Mr Goble called on his congregation to understand Christ’s ‘personal socialism’. He talked about his time as a worker and a trade unionist before he became a pastor. When he was fifteen years old, staying at the Bethel of the Victorian Seamen’s Union in Port Melbourne, he had felt the Lord’s Grace descend upon him. He preached solidarity between workers, the brotherhood of man, the example of the Good Samaritan. Before the war, Mrs Lovett whispered, Goble had preached against the arms industry and compulsory military training. He was known to eat little, accept the minimum stipend for his work, and spend his days out on his bicycle, helping the poor.
A crowd milled around him on the steps after the service. At his residence next door, there were others who also wanted to speak to Pastor Goble.
Alma waited with the other supplicants in the parlour. There were a few hard chairs, but they were already taken, so she and Mrs Lovett and the children stood together against the wall. The door of Mr Goble’s study opened and closed. Mr Goble lumbered in and out of the room, seeing this one, asking a question of another, fetching documents from his portmanteau. He was so tall that he had to stoop under the lintel of the doorway.
Despite Mrs Lovett’s moral support, Alma felt alone in that crowded room. This was the class of humanity to which she now belonged. Waiting with the charity cases, Alma felt she had made a mess of her life.
Finally it was her turn. Mrs Lovett said she would come in with her.
‘Now you two wait out here,’ Alma told the children. ‘We’ll only be a minute.’
Mr Goble sat on the other side of the desk in his threadbare black suit. His eyes blazed as if with the light of another, better world. After the introductions, Mrs Lovett went back to wait with the children.
‘I have helped many women who have got themselves into trouble,’ Mr Goble told Alma. She knew he must have mistaken her for one of the women she had seen plying their trade outside the Plough Hotel.
‘I did not get myself into trouble,’ Alma told him. ‘It was my husband who caused the trouble.’
‘I do not judge you,’ he said calmly. ‘Whatever misfortune has befallen you, I shall try to be of assistance. If you need money, for example, I can help you.’
He was still smiling at her, full of good will. Yet Alma felt that he was judging her, waiting for her to share some shameful secret.
‘Do I give the impression that I am of bad character?’ Alma had a needle of temper, which she usually tried to keep in check, but she was sensitive to any slight to her honour, and especially any aspersion on her fitness as a mother. ‘Anyway, why should I be judged? Just because the bugger kicked us out onto the street?’ Straightaway, she regretted her outburst. ‘I’m sorry. I think it’s just that the events of the last few days have begun to catch up with me.’
‘It’s quite all right.’
‘I didn’t mean to use such language.’
‘I have heard worse. I used to work on the wharves. You’ve never heard swearing until you’ve heard a wharfie.’
But at the moment he was telling her it was quite all right, another voice inside Alma was telling her it was not true. It was really all her own fault. Where had these doubts come from?
‘Mrs Lovett seems like a kind of angel, allowing me and the children into her home in my hour of need.’ Alma drew in a deep breath to keep her feelings under control. ‘If it had not been for Mrs Lovett, God knows what would have become of us!’
Mr Goble continued to look at her with his pale, intelligent eyes. ‘I have seen many times how some small act of kindness can transform a life,’ he said. ‘We cannot predict the consequences of caring for another, how it might save that person from despair, or how it might help her achieve a completely new understanding of her life.’
His voice was quiet, almost a whisper, yet she felt it soak deep inside her, warming her heart. Now, being in his presence was like bathing in sunshine.
‘
The act of kindness might be something apparently insignificant, something tiny,’ Mr Goble went on. ‘But that selfless impulse to help another is the most powerful magic. I think Mrs Lovett understands that. It is God’s love working through us, transforming men’s and women’s lives. Bringing about change so that the poor can live full, happy lives—that is the true work of Christ, and those of us who call ourselves His followers.’
‘I don’t know why I’m crying,’ laughed Alma, brushing away her tears. ‘I’m not usually one to turn on the waterworks. Your words have affected me, that’s all.’
In the end, Mr Goble suggested that Alma write to her husband requesting he send money to support the children. He could send it care of Mrs Lovett, or, if they preferred, she could ask her husband to send money directly to Mr Goble, and he would pass it on. Everyone in Footscray knew where to find him.
‘Very well. I shall write to him. But I won’t hold my breath waiting for a reply.’
Alma felt that Mr Goble didn’t really understand how precarious was her position; no one but she knew just how loathsome it had become to continue living with her husband. People would judge her simply on the fact that it was she who had packed her case and taken the children and left the family home; no one would be interested in the list of complaints against her husband that she could recite chapter and verse.
‘How do you find our preacher?’ Mrs Lovett asked, on the way home.
‘It isn’t really what he says,’ said Alma. ‘It’s the way he says it.’
‘Yes, that’s very true.’ Mrs Lovett gave her an appreciative look.
‘I felt something quite strange while I was in his presence. I don’t really understand it.’
‘Mr Goble’s charismatic gift does have an unusual effect on people,’ said Mrs Lovett. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he has taken a shine to you. And,’ she added slyly, ‘he has been a widower for many years.’
Alma quickened her pace to catch up with the children.
‘Well, he’s a remarkable man, our Mr Goble,’ said Mrs Lovett from behind her. And, to her surprise, Alma felt herself blushing.
‘My dear, how glad I am that Alfred brought you home to us yesterday. I am pleased that you and the children will stay in our house for a while. You must pray and continue to believe that things will soon get better for you. Yes. I can feel it in my bones. Soon things will be ever so much better!’
OFF THE KITCHEN was the washhouse with the copper. On Monday mornings, before he left for work, Alfred lit the fire under the copper and soon the house filled with the smell of soap and ash. There were Teddy’s and Olive’s clothes to wash, as well as the sheets and towels Mrs Lovett had let her use. Alma stirred the washing in the copper with the wooden stick.
Mrs Thomas from next door didn’t have a copper, and Mrs Lovett let her use theirs when they had finished their wash. When Mrs Thomas arrived as usual that Monday morning, with her washing basket of woven cane, Mrs Lovett introduced Alma as her niece, visiting from the country with her children. It was clear Mrs Thomas didn’t believe a word of it.
‘How’d you get down to town? On the train, I suppose,’ asked Mrs Thomas.
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Alma turned back to her work.
‘On the train with the little ones, eh? Was it a long ride?’
‘Long enough.’
‘Where did you leave from?’
‘A little place, you wouldn’t have heard of it.’
‘I might have,’ Mrs Thomas said.
‘Up near Bendigo.’
‘Ah, up Bendigo way,’ Mrs Thomas said, sounding disappointed. ‘Your husband has a farm up there, does he?’
Mrs Thomas’s eyes narrowed, the ghost of a smile appeared on her lips, and Alma saw that the woman was one of those naturally suspicious beings who, simply through believing nothing, make themselves seem shrewd.
‘That’s right.’
‘What kind of farm?’
‘Wheat,’ Alma said with a sudden decisiveness. ‘And sheep. We run a mob of sheep, too.’
Mrs Lovett had begun the lie, so Alma felt she had no choice but to stick with it. Still, she didn’t like pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Listen here, you old sow, she felt like saying to Mrs Thomas, it was my husband who kicked me out, not the other way round, so why should I be made to feel ashamed of anything? But even as these words replayed through her mind, the dreadful feeling of doubt returned, eating away at her version of events, and her tale of being kicked out by her husband had begun to sound, even to her own ears, as hollow and concocted as her story of the farm.
When she had finished, Mrs Thomas carried her basket of wet washing home to peg on the line out the back of her house. Each of the houses in Empire Street sat on its quarter acre block, gardens at the front, big backyards, and paling or corrugated iron fences. Most of the houses had a vegetable plot and some people, like the Lovetts, kept a few chickens.
Mrs Lovett had told Alma she supplemented Alfred’s wages by giving piano lessons on Saturdays. The children would arrive with their shillings tied in a knot in the corner of their handkerchiefs, she said. Now, while their own wash was flapping in the sunshine in the backyard, Mrs Lovett was practising in the parlour, thumping out a hymn. She sang along loudly.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
When she was finished, she remained seated, her face flushed with the joy of it.
‘I would give anything to learn to play the piano as well as you,’ Alma said.
‘Do you mean to say that you cannot play at all?’
‘My mother didn’t have the money to spare.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Lovett, ‘it is never too late to learn.’
Alma sat on the seat beside Mrs Lovett, staring at the ivory keys grooved like fingernails, separated by the thinner, rounded black keys. Each note seemed to contain a feeling of its own, which lived on a moment in the air, before it died. The blinds were drawn nearly all the way down. The room smelled sour and airless. In the evenings the family usually sat in the kitchen, where it was warm from the stove.
Mrs Lovett showed Alma how to practise simple scales, told her what a crotchet was, and a quaver, and explained to her the key of C. ‘Don’t worry. If you practise every day, you’ll soon improve,’ Mrs Lovett encouraged her. ‘Practice makes perfect.’ At the front of the house there was a verandah, and a neat front garden where Teddy and Olive played on the grass. Boot came to play with them, too. He lived down the street, a redheaded boy who wore a brown boot with a steel stirrup. He had been struck down with polio. His mother, Peggy, sometimes called in for a cup of tea.
At the bottom of the backyard was the henhouse, where the children collected eggs. The lavatory against the fence smelled of wood and newspaper. Mr Lyon down the street kept pigeons. Each afternoon he released them from the coop. Alma could hear their wings flapping, freed of the day, wheeling overhead; she watched them ascend, a scatter of torn paper, then regroup, and soar off together in another direction. Now, that was freedom.
Alma spent her days in the kitchen, looking after the children and doing whatever chores she could find. She clung to the safety of Mrs Lovett’s home, lest the world unleash some further humiliation on her. Teddy and Olive should have gone back to school, but she let them stay home, day after day. She didn�
�t want their classmates or anyone else she knew to find out what had happened. But Alma lived in fear of Mr Mabbitt, the truancy officer. Lists of local parents who had been fined for their children missing school were published in the Advertiser. The fine for truancy was two shillings—some families had been fined eight shillings for repeated offences. If the worst happened, where would Alma find the money to pay?
Finally, it was Mrs Lovett who raised the matter. ‘Your children should be at school, Alma. We don’t want Mr Mabbitt knocking on our door.’
After two weeks living at Empire Street, Alma took Teddy and Olive back to the state school in Geelong Road, explaining to the headmaster that there had been illness in the house.
Alma walked her children to school along Gordon Street. Sometimes before picking them up in the afternoons she walked up Droop Street into Footscray to buy tea and flour and meat and, as a treat, if there was something left over from the money Mrs Lovett gave her, half a pound of broken biscuits.
The streets were full of returned soldiers, some of them crippled and useless, others unemployed, embittered, looking for trouble. Groups of them, still in uniform, blocked the footpath. Alma had to push past them, carrying her string bag of shopping. She heard the rattle of rotten lungs of those who had been gassed. There were those who were blind, or deaf, those with faces liked minced beef. She saw more than one with the arm of his shirt pinned where the arm ought to be; some were on crutches, or with bandages wound around their heads. These men weren’t able to find work, especially with all the strikes this year. Some of them were drunk, what people had come to call ‘the soldier problem’. The war had made the men like that. They blocked her way, or said things about her as she passed. ‘Now there’s a nice piece, isn’t it, Reg?’
