‘I raised it to two pounds and he lived like a king. He was a perfect chauffeur. He was born to be a chauffeur and nothing else.’
‘What were you born to be?’ I asked.
‘I am a bourgeois,’ he said.
‘What interests me about that answer is that you say it with pride,’ I said. ‘What lowly upbringings must have prepared the field for that tone, what envies and frustrations !’
He stopped pacing and looked at me with interest. He studied me thoughtfully.
‘Your articles could be good,’ he observed at last, then as if to himself, ‘strange mixture—child and man. Flashes of insight . ..’ Then directly to me, ‘You are an uneducated man, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity.’
He lit another cigarette.
‘I often think,’ he said, ‘that God works in a mysterious way his wonders to perform. Every time a church attacks me my income increases. I now have an income of ten thousand a year. After certain priests of the Catholic church attacked me from the pulpit I had to buy another Rolls Royce to cope with the extra rush of work. When some clerics from the Protestant church attacked me I had to get an extra room to accommodate an increase of patients. Some members of the Women’s Christian Association joined in the battle and I put on another nurse. It was very pleasing to me. One church sent a deputation to the editor of the magazine demanding he cease publishing my articles. He did so and his circulation dropped by thousands so he put me on again—at a higher fee, of course.
‘My public lectures on sex roused the same hostility. I heard that one lecture I was to give was to be packed by a church group dedicated to howling me down and having me arrested. Two days before the lecture I sent a courteous letter to the Police Commissioner enclosing twenty free tickets and explaining the need for constables engaged in work that brought them up against sexual aberrations to have these matters explained to them in terms they could understand.
‘I also stated that I was making a point of devoting part of my talk to the responsibilities of policemen engaged in work that brought them up against sex offenders. It was a good letter. It resulted in the first two rows being full of uniformed policemen on the night of the lecture. When the outcry started from the back they all stood up. There was silence after that. It was the most successful lecture I have ever given.’
‘About this hate you rouse in some people,’ I said. ‘How do you feel about it?’
‘The moon doth not heed the barking of dogs,’ he quoted. ‘Human beings are animals; they should all be exterminated.’
For the first time he smiled.
‘That would include yourself, of course.’
‘No, a few rare ones should be left.’ He gestured airily. ‘But most people have the minds of animals. The world would be a better place without them.
‘I get a lot of anonymous phone calls from such people. They call me a bastard and such names. I don’t mind being called a bastard because I have nothing against bastards. I rather like them. Most men if you call them a bastard want to hit you. I don’t.
‘I object on principle to some names. One man used to ring me regularly and after saying venomously, “You abortionist”, would pause then hang up. I could always recognise his voice so I used to amuse myself with him. I pretended I couldn’t hear him. Our conversation used to go something like this:
‘ “Is that Doctor Street?”
‘ “Hullo. Hullo.”
‘ “You abortionist.”
‘ “Hullo, hullo. Speak up.”
‘ “I say, you abortionist.”
‘ “Hullo, hullo. If you are speaking on a public phone put your pennies in.”
“‘You abortionist.”
‘ “Hullo there.”
‘ “YOU ABORTIONIST.”
‘ “Hullo, hullo. Shake up your phone.”
‘He’d hang up in the end.’
‘They usually abuse me in letters,’ I said.
‘Oh I get those by the score! One comes regularly from America. Someone in Sydney must post it to a friend in America who readdresses it to me. You must learn to live with abuse and ingratitude. Lend a person money and he becomes your enemy; borrow from him and he can’t do enough for you. Look down on people and they are pleased if you say “hullo” to them; look up to them and they despise you.
‘In Australia Jack thinks he is as good as his master. In England I never had trouble with those I employed; over here it is almost impossible to get service.
‘I advertised for a secretary a few weeks ago. A girl applied. According to her she was a humdinger. I thought I’d give her a trial. She wasn’t with me two days before she burnt my rubber gloves. I wasn’t worried over the value of them but they are hard to get. Then she ruined my stock of pessaries. I import them from England at a guinea each. She was clumsy, typed badly and couldn’t spell. I called her in.
‘ “I am ill,” she sobbed. “If you only knew how ill I am.”
‘ “What is the matter with you?” I asked.
‘ “I fainted three times yesterday,” she told me.
‘ “I didn’t see you faint,” I said. “You must have fainted when I was out.”
‘ “I don’t get enough to eat,” she went on.
‘ “Enough to eat!” I exclaimed. “I paid you in advance—four pounds ten.”
‘ “It’s not enough,” she had the impertinence to say.
‘ “How much a week do you spend on cigarettes?” I asked her.
‘ “Fifteen shillings,” she said.
‘ “If you can afford to pay fifteen shillings a week for cigarettes and thus deprive yourself of food you faint in your own time,” I told her, “don’t faint in mine.”
‘She’s been better since but I am afraid I will have to get rid of her.
‘My charlady is the same. I have to keep two hospital bottles beside my bed each night because of diabetes. I asked her if she would mind emptying them each morning.
‘ “What! Me empty them!” she exclaimed. “That’s menial.”
‘ “My dear woman,” I said. “Have you ever taken a sample of your urine to a doctor?” ’
“I’ ave.”
‘ “He has to empty the bottle you give him,” I said. “Now, I am a doctor. If you don’t empty those bottles you can go.”
‘She went into the kitchen to decide. After a while she came back and emptied them. I hope she continues to empty them. I wouldn’t like to lose her.’
He sat down and sank into his armchair with a suggestion of relief.
In my pocket were a number of letters from girls. It was my intention to discuss them with him if I found him a man willing to help. I took them from my pocket and asked him if he would mind giving me his opinion on the problems they presented; they were more in his line than mine.
He dealt with each one swiftly and confidently and I felt that his explanations were wise and true.
I discussed my column with him and told him that I was puzzled by the fact that letters dealing with the same problems, not related to the ones I had shown him, seemed to come in cycles. There would be periods of weeks when letters would come from all over Australia dealing with related situations. Then such letters would cease, only to recur one or two years later.
It was as if a contagious wave of resentment at the same condition swept across Australia impelling women and girls thousands of miles apart to express it in letters to a columnist dealing with such problems. After the wave had passed the letters reverted back to a normal variety.
He listened to me with interest but with an expression of amusement that suggested he was familiar with all I said.
‘All columnists who deal with the problems of women have had that experience,’ he told me. ‘It is a well-known phenomenon. I have discussed it with many columnists in England and America. It happens to me and you are evidently having the same experience. Hysteria can be contagious. It may be something like that. No one can explain it. The problems presen
ted in the letters are not much of a guide. They vary. There is the brutal husband, the drunkard who neglects his family, the girl ill-treated by her strict father, unrequited love, clearing out from home—those sort of problems. They come regularly but they also come in cycles. Your correspondents would be subject to these cycles much more than mine. You deal with the problems of youth.’
I was not satisfied with this observation which solved nothing. It was not until two years later, after I had kept charts comparing the influx of letters on the same problem with Australia-wide influences I had tabulated, that I realised the reason for these cycles.
A popular song sweeping the country that touched on frustration in love (‘I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me’) or bewailed the conduct of a strict father forbidding meetings with a boy (‘And Now Only Memories Remain’) brought spates of letters on the conditions they advertised until the songs were replaced by others.
A feature film casting a protest of youth across every state, in an Australia-wide release, started a similar wave of letters.
Colin Street had no desire to keep moving forward on voyages of discovery in the world he had explored; he was content to anchor at the port he had reached.
‘There are some things we cannot understand,’ he said rising to his feet, then added, ‘Now come and I’ll show you my collection of silver plate.’
We walked into the room of cruets and he talked with authority about his hobby.
‘Why are you so fond of cruets?’ I asked him.
‘Because of all the utensils that have ever graced a dinner table the cruet is the most interesting and the most useful. It is also beautiful. I view its passing with regret. Gracious living is passing with it. We now have bakelite salt and pepper shakers and mustard is bought ready-made—frightful!’
When he was showing me out the door he said, ‘Maybe you are worth more than three pounds ten a week. Ask for seven pounds.’
I saw the editor, Edward Ramkin, next day and got the seven pounds but he gave me the rise reluctantly.
‘I still doubt whether your article is worth it,’ he said glumly. ‘I always pay on the basis of what an article is worth to my magazine, not what the writer thinks it is worth. No contributor to this magazine can push his values down my throat. I’m telling you this so you won’t come at me again for further rises. If you were as reasonable as Colin Street I’d feel much happier about your future with us.’
As I sat there listening to him I had a feeling of unreality. Edward Ramkin and Colin Street and me … The juggling puppets we were bore no resemblance to the independent men we thought we were.
We were jugglers of pretence, each one the other’s enemy, each one the victim of a history we were encouraging to repeat itself. We could only rise by taking from the one something that reduced him.
I saw myself kneeling side by side with them scrabbling for money in a room beyond the door of which I could hear children crying.
I must get out of that dark room. Out … Out …
In Mine Own Heart Page 26
