Beneath the Southern Cross

by Judy Nunn

  ‘If that were the case, Aunt Mary, he could do a lot better,’ William protested, ‘Hannah’s hardly wealthy. None of we Kendalls are wealthy.’ They saw little of the Kendle side of the family these days, which suited William. He found the Kendles’ obsession with money and power made for boring conversation.

  ‘She has the cottage,’ Mary retorted. Then, sensing her nephew’s disapproval, she added, ‘Oh well, I suppose it’s better she marry a ne’er-do-well, and an Irish one at that, than remain an old maid.’

  When he was introduced to the family, Daniel didn’t help matters by boasting, ‘I’m a happy man, ’tis a woman of property I’m marrying.’ And Hannah laughed, knowing it was a deliberately provocative statement. Daniel cared nothing for the fact that her grandfather Thomas had bequeathed her his cottage in the Rocks. ‘Although,’ he said to her privately, ‘’tis a convenient place to hang my hat.’ Preferable, he admitted, to his one-room lodgings off the South Head Road. Daniel was employed as a labourer on the building of the new Victoria Barracks nearby.

  Despite their own generous legacy, the Kendles had been critical of Thomas’s last will and testament. The cottage should not have been left to Hannah—property was never left to female descendants, certainly not when there were male heirs. But Hannah knew the bequest was a declaration of love. Her grandfather had given her his precious cottage, the cottage where they had sat together in the little back garden overlooking the water, he dictating his stories and she recording them in her journal.

  Now she sat in the same little back garden with her son, looking out over the same water but at a very different view. Massive tall ships rested in the haven of Sydney Cove—the great wool-clippers which she loved to watch race into the harbour—and dozens of windjammers were berthed beside the horseshoe-shaped sea-wall of semi circular quay. The sea-wall, which served as a quay along the entire waterfront of Sydney Cove, was a masterpiece of engineering construction but Hannah found it quite absurd that these days it was referred to as Circular Quay; the term really didn’t make sense at all.

  Directly below the cottage lay the tangled mess of the Rocks. Still a den of vice, still home to drinking and gambling and whoring, it was home also to the many who now lived in the tiny terrace houses which marched in rows down the hill. Washing was strung from garden to garden; neighbours exchanged produce grown in their little vegetable plots, a carrot here for a turnip there, a tomato or two for a lettuce. A strong community spirit existed amongst the residents of the Rocks.

  ‘Do you want to join us tonight, Ma?’ Paddy strode about, looking oversized in the small courtyard of the garden. He was elated, and Hannah wondered just exactly what it was he’d been up to. She hoped he wasn’t gambling again, his wife would leave him if he was. Dorothy was a tough little woman and she’d threatened to do so before. Hannah knew her son could survive without his wife, but she would take the child, and the loss of his little girl would destroy him.

  ‘Just the four of us,’ he said. Then, arms wide as if he were about to burst into song, ‘Dotty, the light of my life; Kathleen, the jewel in my crown; and you, the best mother a man ever had. Me and my three girls, out for a Saturday night on the town.’

  Hannah laughed loudly, as Paddy had known she would. The pose and the brogue were pure Daniel O’Shea. But even when it was not a deliberate ploy to delight his mother, there was an Irish lilt to Paddy’s voice. Born and bred in Sydney, he was Australian all right, and proud of it, but he was proud of the half of him that was Irish too.

  ‘Come along, Ma, what do you say?’

  ‘No, no, dear. All that walking, it would be more than my knees could take. Besides,’ she added before her son could insist, ‘there is an orchestral recital this evening, to celebrate the third anniversary of the Garden Palace, and I am to accompany Anne.’

  ‘Ah,’ Paddy mocked, ‘fraternising with a Kendle, as I live and breathe.’

  ‘She may be Charles’s sister but she is not a Kendle,’ Hannah insisted. ‘She is a Goodlet.’

  For thirty years Hannah had disassociated herself from the Kendles. She hadn’t even attended the funerals of Mary and Richard. If Daniel O’Shea was not good enough for the Kendles, then the Kendles were not good enough for her. They were money-grabbing and power-hungry, and she disliked both her cousin James and, from the little she’d seen of him, his son Charles. She felt sorry for James’s daughter Anne, however, and from time to time arranged outings with her. Daniel had died three years ago, around the same time as Anne’s husband. The tenuous bond of widowhood existed between the two women but little else, apart from Hannah’s genuine sympathy. Barely over forty, Anne was a tragic figure. Lonely and isolated. Living with her brother Charles and his family, she was totally reliant upon his charity.

  ‘Ah well, Mother,’ Paddy felt an urgent desire for a large foaming glass of ale, ‘if you wish to play the good Samaritan, and to a Kendle of all people, I shall leave you to it.’

  Hannah felt lonely when he’d gone. Or perhaps it was simply boredom. If her knees weren’t so painful she would venture out more. She hauled her bulk out of the chair, she’d make herself a nice cup of tea and stop feeling maudlin.

  The trouble was, for all of her life Hannah had felt useful. Needed. She’d been useful on the farm, working alongside her brother. ‘As good with a pick and shovel as any man,’ William had told her often enough. But then the farm had gone and William had sold up and headed for Ballarat, joining the hundreds in their mad rush for gold. No matter. By then she’d been needed by Daniel. ‘I’d be lost without you, girl—how many times had he said that? But now it seemed to Hannah that there was nobody who needed her. Oh, Paddy loved her right enough, but he had a family of his own.

  No wonder she’d grown fat and lazy, she chastised herself as she plonked the old iron kettle on the wood stove and stirred the glowing embers in the grate. She really should make some effort. Perhaps she’d go and see her brother William’s son. Surry Hills wasn’t far away and she had always been fond of her nephew Samuel. But then Samuel Kendall, too, had a family and was busy carving a life of his own since his return from the goldfields, why should he welcome a fat old lady on his doorstep?

  Hannah sat staring at the harbour long after her cup of tea had grown cold. She hardly noticed the changing light until the grandfather clock in the hall chimed seven and there was barely time enough to wash, dress and get to the Garden Palace for her meeting with Anne.

  After a number of ales with the Irish contingent at the Lord Nelson, it was approaching dusk when Paddy set out for his home in Woolloomooloo. Down the hill, past the Sailors’ Home, aright-hand turn and he was in the heart of George Street.

  The block boys, or sparrow starvers as they were commonly termed, were already at work as he passed old one-eyed John Cadman’s cottage. The boys, each assigned a city block, and each with broom and long-handled shovel, collected the horse manure, ensuring the streets would be clean for the Saturday-night revellers. Cheeky young larrikins for the most part, the block boys were employed by the City Council, which had realised that lads were cheaper to hire than men.

  As always, George Street was bustling with activity. Amongst the pedestrians, an endless array of newspaper hawkers, boot-blacks, fruit vendors, and Chinamen with vegetable baskets slung on poles across their shoulders paraded the sidewalks. Hansom cabs, traps and drays crowded the rough pavements, the wiry ponies of messenger boys darting in and out amongst them. All hurriedly cleared the way, however, upon the arrival of a double-decker steam tram. Horses shied and people dived for cover as the fearsome vehicle thundered along the crowded thoroughfare.

  Paddy ducked into a side lane away from the traffic, wove his way through the backstreets, cut across the Botanic Gardens and fifteen minutes later was in Woolloomooloo.

  They were waiting for him when he walked in the front door. ‘Where have you been, Paddy,’ Dorothy demanded. ‘I thought you were coming home for tea.’

  ‘Forget the tea, Dotty,’ he sa
id. ‘Tis dinner out on the town for us tonight.’ His six-year-old daughter squealed with delight as he swung her up onto his shoulders. ‘Kathleen, Kathleen, the jewel in my crown,’ he sang as he waltzed around the tiny kitchen, his wife trying to steer him away from the breakables. Paddy’s exuberance could be expensive, she knew to her cost.

  Finally he put down his daughter and, with equal ease, picked up his wife. ‘Dotty, my Dotty, the wife a man dreams of …’

  ‘Have you been drinking, Paddy O’Shea?’

  ‘No, no, I swear … Well, only one small ale with the lads at the Rocks.’ It had been four full pints which Paddy had scoffed at the Lord Nelson, but a little white lie never hurt anyone.

  ‘And I had a tiny win on the boat race, so it’s a night on the town for my girls.’

  He caught the glint in his wife’s eye and hastily added, ‘I haven’t been gambling, I swear, just a small wager on a sure bet.’ It was true, Paddy’s heavy gambling days were over. He still felt the yearnings, but he kept well away from the Randwick Racecourse and he knew better than to venture into the back rooms of the Darlinghurst pubs where poker was played in earnest.

  ‘There you go, girl,’ he handed Dorothy the four one-pound notes he’d separated from the wad in his top pocket, ‘put those in your housekeeping jar, and spend one on something nice for yourself.’

  ‘Paddy …’

  ‘I swear to you, Dot,’ he gathered Kathleen in his arms again, ‘I swear to you on my daughter’s life, just a small sure bet on a boat race is all it was.’ He kissed the little girl and put her down, kissed his wife and patted her bottom. ‘Now you two get into your party dresses, I’ve another two pounds will give us a night on the town to remember.’ He wouldn’t tell her about the seven pounds in his top pocket, it would only worry her. Besides, who knew what luck might come his way, the seven pounds could well become seventy over the next several weeks. He wouldn’t gamble heavily of course, just the odd little wager here and there. And the odd little wager did a man no harm.

  Dorothy knew better than to nag any further. It wouldn’t be fair, he’d brought his wages home regularly for a full six months now, and there’d been no heavy drinking. But she prayed he was telling the truth. Much as she loved Paddy, she would carry out her threat and leave him if he returned to his old ways.

  It was the drink she feared as much as the gambling. There was no harm in a pint or two, she had no trouble with that, but Paddy in the rum was another matter. He was a different man, violent. Not to her or to Kathleen, but to any man who would take him on. Rage, uncontrollable, consumed him when he was in the rum, and many a time she had locked him out of the house when he’d staggered home in the wee hours to smash on the doors and shutters and bellow in the street like an enraged bull. She could not live with a man like that.

  She must give him the benefit of the doubt, she thought now as she took Kathleen off to get changed. ‘Put on a jacket, Paddy,’ she called back to him. ‘We’re not going out with you dressed like that.’

  Paddy stepped outside, lit up a smoke and sat on the steps of the front porch. He looked up the street at the rows of poky, little terrace houses, identical in design, but each one bearing the distinctive stamp of its tenant. Green shutters here, yellow railings there, a tub of flowering geraniums in a porch corner or a window box. It was an attractive street.

  He waved to Tiny O’Rourke who was sitting on his chair on his own front porch, enjoying the early evening as he always did. There was room for no more than the chair and Tiny’s bulk between his front door and the porch railing.

  Paddy drew heavily on his cigarette, then called to Betty McCall who had stepped out of her front door in her bright purple dress, feathers in her hair.

  ‘Evening, Betty.’

  ‘Evening, Paddy. And a lovely one it is too.’ She trotted down the hill towards the docks, where the pubs and the brothels did a brisk trade. Betty was a professional girl, but she was very polite and very discreet and no-one minded in ‘the Loo’. Residents there were only too ready to live and let live in the knowledge that if you needed a hand there would always be one offered.

  Paddy gazed up at the fine houses of Potts Point high on the ridge overlooking Woolloomooloo Bay. The finest of them all, its gas lights burning brightest in the gathering dusk, belonged to Charles Kendle. Surrounded by pillared verandahs, with an upper balcony of fine-laced ironwork, Kendle Lodge boasted a magnificent garden which extended down to the wall of rock in Victoria Street. Not only did the house command superb views across the Woolloomooloo valley to the city beyond, but from both the valley and the city, Kendle Lodge itself dominated the skyline.

  Aware of the seven pounds in his top pocket, Paddy silently thanked Charles Kendle. He had not been told directly, but he was quite sure it had been Kendle who had rigged the race. It certainly wouldn’t have been his partner and co-owner of Wings of Honour. Howard Streatham was said to be an honourable man.

  Paddy looked about, with irony, at the dusty streets of the Loo, then up at the gaslit mansion above. Strange to think that he was related to Charles Kendle. The man was a bastard by all accounts, but tonight Paddy bore him no ill will. Tonight Paddy O’Shea would swap places with no man.

  ‘Where’s your jacket, Paddy?’

  He turned. She’d lit the gas lamp in the front room and he could see them, pretty as a picture, standing there. His raven-haired daughter with her sapphire eyes. And Dot. Dot, not pretty by conventional standards, her body too slight, her face too thin, but to Paddy she was beautiful.

  ‘Pretty as a picture,’ he said as he stood and admired them. ‘Pretty as a picture, my two girls.’

  Dotty had put on a little weight, he thought as he kissed her. It suited her, there was an unaccustomed fullness to her breasts.

  ‘Stop it, Paddy,’ she said as his hand lingered, but he could tell she enjoyed it.

  Dorothy could feel the love in him and she could feel herself responding. She wondered whether she should tell him tonight that she was pregnant. Perhaps not. She would start to show soon enough anyway, and it might bring bad luck to announce it. After two miscarriages she wanted to be sure that this one would last.

  Paddy O’Shea and his wife and daughter stepped out into the evening to join the countless swarms who thronged the streets of Sydney on a Saturday night. Barrel organs pumped out melodies on every corner; cheapjacks yelled themselves hoarse in the crowded marketplace, and shopfronts gleamed enticingly in the garish glitter of gas.

  It was during Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphony Eroica that Hannah started to feel decidedly ill. She glanced sideways at Anne, whose rapt attention was on the orchestra, and decided to say nothing. Gently, she dabbed the perspiration from her forehead with her handkerchief and breathed deeply. It was just the warmth of the evening, she told herself, and the overpowering music. She didn’t like Beethoven, she decided. Not that she knew anything about music, the rare occasion she attended a concert or recital was really only to keep Anne company.

  She always enjoyed coming to the Garden Palace, however, and she looked about the giant interior of the dome by way of distraction as she prayed for the dizzy spell to pass. The central dome, towering ninety feet high, was the grandest feature of the impressive Garden Palace which had been built three years ago to house the Sydney International Exhibition and stood in the centre of the Botanic Gardens.

  Around its central stained glass skylight, the dome’s ceiling was painted blue and scattered with stars, and circling its cornice was a verse printed in gold lettering: ‘The Earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, the World, and they that dwell therein.’

  The massive circular interior was a series of arches and pillars, above which the walls were patterned with endless and intricate friezes, paintings and tiles of all fashion and design. And on its central pedestal, inpride of place, stood the bronze statue of Queen Victoria.

  The dizzy spell began to fade but Hannah wished the music would stop, for her head was beginning to a
che.

  Again she tried to distract herself from the relentless swell of the orchestra. She thought of the basement, which housed the offices and archival storage areas. The basement was possibly Hannah’s favourite part of the Garden Palace. She had made friends with an employee there who was very obliging, and she derived a great deal of pleasure from looking at the land occupancy records, and the maps and plans of the colony’s early days, proudly noting the name of Kendall which featured prominently in the first land grants.

  She found it strangely moving to see her grandfather’s signature on the deed transferring Thomas Kendall’s Parramatta lands to the people of the Gadigal tribe, and remembered with great clarity that day when she had visited the camp with him. She wondered what had happened to the land, and to the people who had been so brutally evicted. She should visit Parramatta and see, for herself, she often thought. But she never did.

  Hannah glanced anxiously at Anne. She needed some air. ‘I might pop outside for a moment,’ she whispered, fumbling for her walking stick.

  Anne looked up horrified. ‘Oh Hannah,’ she whispered back, ‘you cannot. We are seated in the front, it would be so rude.’ Her horror was swiftly replaced by concern. ‘Are you not well?’

  ‘Alittle dizzy,’ Hannah murmured, dabbing once more at her forehead, ‘and it’s so warm in here.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Anne said. ‘Oh dear.’ It wasn’t warm at all. ‘There will be an interval at any moment, I know there will.’ She took her friend’s hand, it was clammy to the touch. ‘Oh dear.’

  By the time the interval came ten minutes later, Hannah was unsure as to whether she could even stand. ‘Wait with me, Anne,’ she said faintly. ‘Wait until the people have gone.’

  ‘Oh dear, shall I fetch someone? Someone to help?’

  ‘No, no.’ If she could just get out into the air, Hannah thought, everything would be all right.