The Sparrows of Edward Street

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘You’re not under contract, so I guess you can do what you like.’

  ‘I don’t want to risk anything here, Leon, but I want to get as much work as I can.’

  ‘Just don’t tell the boss.’

  ‘I don’t think Eli would dare say anything, not after the way he pokes around the studio. Anyway, Naomi would say it was okay.’

  ‘So? How was the move to your new home?’

  I told Leon everything – the first day, the removalists, Mr Sparkle – everything. I’d told him that if he’d wanted to photograph a bloody scar on the landscape, if he wanted to shoot still lifes under their own clouds, then he should pop over.

  ‘It’s the worst place on earth, but we’ll get by somehow.’

  ‘Poor you.’

  ‘I just need lots of work to take my mind off it.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, Aria, and I’ll help as much as I can.’

  ‘I’m already getting to know some of the other inmates.’

  ‘Thought you might. Probably didn’t take much longer than a day, I would have thought.’

  ‘They’re an interesting lot. But there’s so much tension there – shame, humiliation. Like fear, really, and it has made some of them mean and bitter. There’s a certain atmosphere there that’s dense enough to cut. I have to say that Hanora is taking to the place reasonably well, but Rosy’s a real problem.’

  I suddenly felt cold and shivered despite the studio lights. I wrapped the towel tight around me. Leon hugged me and pecked my cheek. We didn’t have to say any more – I knew he understood. It saddened me that someone as nice as Leon sometimes came to the studio looking as though he’d been in a fight.

  *

  At the end of the day, I wiped myself down and dressed. I took a layer of the make up off and brushed my hair.

  ‘Heaven knows how long we will have to live there, Leon.’

  ‘You’ll make it what you want it to be – I know you.’

  ‘But I’m beginning to feel trapped already. You’re the only one I can say that to. I’m supposed to be the one who cheers everybody else up, but it’s hard, you know. I do feel trapped at the moment.’

  ‘You?! Trapped? You’re not going all bird in the gilded cage, are you? Paint the bloody place gold, then!’

  ‘God! But wouldn’t that be a fantastic thing to do? If only. Good night, wonderful Leon. I love you.’

  On my way back to the Camp, I bought six slices of leg ham for a treat, and a half-loaf of fresh bread. Hanora and Rosy liked ham and it was something Hanora wouldn’t have to try to cook.

  Camp Ghosts

  As I approached Edward Street a sudden swirl of wind created a willy-willy, a corkscrew of dusty air and dead leaves that I could walk through, even spin through if I wanted to, but I left it alone and walked around it. A pity. Anywhere else on earth a willy-willy would have been an updraught of air light as feathers, a thing of magic – a sort of joyous madness that might leave a mysterious feeling of happiness for a short time – but in Edward Street it looked like a twist of smoke from a Charles Dickens roof top: ochre and black and thick, rising from one of his workhouse cook fires.

  The light was fading and the gloom that veiled the huts was a gruesome sight despite the flicker of street lights and the low light of cheap globes from some of the windows and the curls of wood smoke from the flues. The thought of having to come back to this every night after a long ride from the city almost made me cry. Almost! I imagined it would make Rosy cry every day.

  That evening, other Camp dwellers crept from the bus like ghosts and pretended to be as invisible. They slipped silently in and around the slums on their regal streets and into their burrows like tired scavengers. I remembered what Mr Sparkle had said – that sometimes the sense of hopelessness became so great it was difficult to overcome. It could be a chronic disease, and this evening I had to agree with him. But fight it I would! Tooth and bloody nail!

  There was one inmate who caught my eye – another grey ghost of a man. I had noticed him, greying at the temples, a grey suit well pressed, shoes polished brighter than they deserved to be. I soon discovered that he caught the same bus and train every day and tried not to sit next to anyone who might recognise him. He carried a briefcase that bulged in a businesslike way. He was very pale, and his eyes seemed to me to be deep and drowning in pools of grey water. I always tried not to look at him but I couldn’t help noticing. I asked Mr Sparkle if he knew him.

  ‘I think I know the one you mean,’ he said. ‘I think that’d probably be poor old Sammy Biddle. And if you want to know, there’s nothing in that briefcase except ripped-up old newspaper and a paper bag with a sandwich in it. They tell me he tries to make that case look like a load of work, with maybe overtime. He takes it to town every day then sits around Central Station until it’s time to go home. I know that, because one of our blokes saw him once with his head in his hands and reckons he was crying all over his cut lunch. He thinks his wife, Nancy, doesn’t know he’s out of work, but of course she does. She’s known for weeks. She’s known for a long time how desperate he is – she told me. Nothing much is missed around here. They’re on welfare like most of us. Beats me why he goes to all that trouble to pretend anything else. Pride can give you a terrible kick up the arse – excuse the language.’

  ‘But I can understand it. It’s terrible for a man to have lost so much of himself.’ I noticed, after being told the truth, that Mr Biddle’s desperation revealed itself in the sad lines around his mouth and eyes, and on his forehead. ‘I think he’s hungry. He’s very thin.’

  ‘They tell me Sam Biddle started off in a bank up Armidale way, and then insurance in the city, and then I think they lost a kid to cancer.’

  ‘That’s absolutely tragic! How do you know all this?’

  ‘Laundry gossip, mostly. Nothing gets past the laundry. Not that I go anywhere near the laundries. God help a man who goes to a laundry, but I get the news anyway.’

  ‘Poor man, that poor man. Does anyone try to help him?’

  ‘I suppose we’re too busy helping ourselves. There’s not much time left for other people.’

  ‘Of course there is! There’s always time for helping. How does your new tie look, Mr Sparkle?’

  ‘Pretty bloody smart, I have to tell you. Did your sister really make it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I think it could be right out of Grace Brothers Men’s.’

  ‘Well, try not to spill on it until we work something out. You will be careful, Mr Sparkle, won’t you?’

  ‘Aye aye!’

  ‘Poor Mr Biddle. I wonder if he’d like a book to read on the station instead of crying?’

  ‘He might like that, Miss.’

  ‘Will you leave one outside his door for me, Mr Sparkle?’

  ‘I’d consider that an honour, Miss Sparrow.’

  ‘Aria, Mr Sparkle.’

  ‘Aria. Do you think I could have a book too?’

  ‘Of course – but only for a loan.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘Hanora and I will pick something special for you.’

  *

  Inside 19B something of a miracle had taken place.

  Somehow Mr Sparkle had managed to find a few uncleaned bricks near the telephone box behind the laundry block, he’d said, and three rough planks of timber. I was to learn that our laundry block was good for many more things than washing and gossip.

  The rough bricks, not cleaned of old cement, had an ancient look about them; much better than new, I thought, even if they made the planks lean every which way. They gave the cell character. The make-do book shelves lined with old faded paperbacks looked interesting, as though they’d always been there, and I said so.

  ‘They’ll do until we can find some paint to pretty them up. Wasn’t it clever of Mr Sparkle?’ Hanora had filled the shelves in a haphazard fashion, but there were still leftovers on the floor.

  ‘I think plain white will
do, Aria, what do you think?’ Rosy called from our cell. ‘The paint, I mean.’

  ‘I’d leave them unpainted. They look better that way. Very rustic. You’re home early, Rose.’

  ‘Madame had a migraine. And don’t ever call this home.’

  ‘I bought some ham and a loaf of bread, Hanora.’

  ‘Bless you, love.’ The small grill oven sat on the bench glowing red-hot with its door open. ‘There’re butcher’s rissoles and baked potato. The potato’s a bit burnt.’ Hanora wore an old wide-brimmed straw hat with a scarf under it because of the draught between the roof and the wall. She looked like someone who’d just come in from a kitchen garden, but without a basket of beans and herbs for the cook. Some sort of Baroque music was playing. It camouflaged the iron walls with its rich notes. I imagined musical notes all over the iron. An original idea, I thought. I wondered if I could paint musical notes all over the iron. I knew I could paint musical notes on iron!

  ‘We could get a fiddler in to play the walls.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?!’ Rosy said.

  ‘Oh, never mind. Just dreaming.’ I began to cut the bread. ‘Damn! I forgot the champagne!’

  The remark made Hanora laugh, but I too felt the draught from the gaps in the wall and even though they were hot and dusty and with all the smells of the Camp, they were strong draughts, and once again I tried not to imagine what the hut would be like in winter.

  ‘Never mind, love – we’ll drink our water from martini glasses.’

  ‘I met an Aboriginal woman in the bus this morning. She lives here with her daughter. She said there are quite a few of them here . . .’

  ‘I know, love. I saw them on the way to the shops. They all live in a special section in Queen Street. In fact, it was one of them who told me about the rissoles. She said they were still cheap and had a fair amount of vegetables in them.’

  ‘It’s still only sausage mince! God knows what goes into sausage mince,’ Rosy called.

  ‘I can help you there, Rosy. They put the eyes and hoofs and snot and tails and gut into sausage mince. Nothing is wasted, not even what’s in the gut. Delicious if you don’t think about it.’

  ‘If you’re trying to make me sick, Aria, you have. I’d rather starve.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ I said.

  Hanora turned a burnt rissole over to burn it on the other side.

  ‘I was told that there is also a special section for migrants in the Camp. At the northern end, I think. Away from us.’

  ‘This place must be enormous,’ I said. ‘Where have they come from?’

  ‘Mostly England, a few from Europe.’

  ‘The migrants’ huts are lined,’ said Rosy. ‘They have proper walls. And apparently they are treated very well. Someone told Mother they even have a dining room and are provided with meals! They get roast beef! I think it’s disgusting if it’s true!’

  ‘You might be right, for once, Rosy. I’m damned if anyone in this place should be treated any better than anyone else.’

  I pictured poor Mr Biddle lying, filled with guilt and sadness, on a hard bed with his worried wife and draughts, stuffing his briefcase with newspaper and his sandwich in a brown paper bag all over again in the nightmare of his mornings. I determined to try to help Mr Biddle after I’d sent Mr Sparkle on the road to success, and I said so.

  ‘You’re just an interfering cow, Aria. You can’t barge in to people’s lives at the drop of a hat; it’s not right. Mr Biddle might want to work things out for himself. Mr Sparkle might have wanted to work things out for himself.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t doing a great job, was he? I care about them, Rosy. I really like helping people.’

  ‘I think you’re patronising.’

  ‘Of course you care, love,’ Hanora said. ‘But we mustn’t forget to help ourselves. In fact it might be better to let everyone help themselves, love.’ There was the slightest edge to her voice, like a faint ripple in the middle of a pond. As though a ladybird had fallen. ‘Your orphans might resent being interfered with just a tiny bit, love.’

  ‘But what if they ask me for help?’

  ‘Then of course you must. Asking for help is a different matter altogether.’

  ‘Try and stop her . . .’ Rosy muttered from her cell.

  In the time I had been at work that day, ‘loving’ things, Hanora had begun to make the main cell almost livable. The standard lamp stood behind the chair and the light from beneath the old silk shade warmed the reds in the rug and the deep pinks in the chair. The ironing board stood against a wall near the cocktail cabinet and was draped with scraps of colour and prints and had a pile of records on it. An invisible tenor gracefully turned on the record player while he sang Bellini.

  ‘Is this not the most wonderful aria he is singing? I bought new needles for our music today,’ said Hanora. ‘What did you “love” today?’

  ‘Underarm deodorant, then “get well” cards. Tomorrow it’s a bubble bath with Bouquet soap.’

  ‘You should have had the bath today, love, and put on the deodorant tomorrow. It’s the wrong way around, isn’t it? I had to give Mr Sparkle tea after doing the shelves. There are no biscuits left.’

  ‘And they were the last of the Vo-Vos,’ Rosy called. She’d brought work home and was fiddling with the veil on a black velvet cloche. She showed it to me. It was very elegant. It had a tiny chandelier of crystals on one side. I wished it had been a ‘mistake’, although I hadn’t the slightest idea where I’d be able to wear it.

  ‘I’ve been offered a job modelling for the illustrator of the Weekly’s short stories. His name is Booth, and he’s awfully good. Leon said it would be all right.’

  ‘That’s wonderful, love. The more the merrier. Will they pay you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Every little bit counts.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know. Anyway, I’m just looking forward to doing something different. I have to wear clothes that look as though I’ve been stranded on a yacht at sea.’

  Hanora and even Rosy laughed.

  ‘That won’t be hard,’ Rosy said. ‘Everything we own looks as though it’s been stranded somewhere.’

  Hanora had managed to sell the big console wireless we’d had in the flat and had bought a second-hand table model. Its plastic was scratched and chipped, and it looked terrible, but at least it worked. Hanora said she would probably only use it to listen to the news and the odd serial anyway, and at other times she would drape a scarf over it. Rosy could borrow it whenever she liked for her ‘pop’ music. And me? Well, maybe they’d fit me in somewhere.

  Little by little our iron cells had begun to take the shape of a very unusual dwelling. Somewhat eccentric, but eccentric enough to be almost bearable, I thought. It was ours. The bathtub was ours. The toilet was ours. There wasn’t a Mr Kellog in sight. So far there’d been no sight or sound of a neighbour on the other side of our cells.

  *

  On the following Saturday Rosy and I set out to explore the Camp. We had no idea it was so vast.

  We followed the boundary along the roadway to the north and found a butcher’s shop, a general store, a post office and, further along, a kindergarten and primary school, and further yet, a motor repair shop where a blacksmith used to be and an ice maker who sold fish, rabbits and ducks he said he’d caught himself. I didn’t think so. The ice man showed us skinned rabbits hanging in a cool room and even a hare. He said the hare was for his wife. The hare looked as though it had been run over by a truck.

  ‘Did you catch these too?’ I asked.

  ‘Most of them. The hare was a bit of an accident, I’ll admit that. Doesn’t look too good but it’s still okay, as long as I keep it cold. The wife likes hare to hang around for a while before she cooks it up. Her grandparents were English, that’s why. To tell the truth, I used to bag the rabbits and everything else myself, but I’ve lost a man and now I’ve got a supplier. That costs a bit more. But folk still eat bunnies – they’re still cheaper than ot
her meat. A lot of folk in the Camp buy them.’

  I opened my purse and fished out some coins.

  ‘You’re not going to buy one of those things, are you?’ Rosy said.

  ‘I am. I’m buying two. I want to taste Mr Sparkle’s rabbit pie.’

  ‘Now, that’s something I like,’ said the ice man. ‘I like a good rabbit pie, myself. Carrots and white sauce – very fond of that.’

  ‘Well, then, very soon I hope to be able to supply both rabbits and pies to you.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sakes!’ said Rosy.

  ‘I won’t ask you how, but I’ll look forward to that. You sound as though you’ve got your head screwed on, girl.’

  ‘She’s mad!’ said Rosy.

  ‘I am Aria Sparrow,’ I said. ‘And, yes, I think I do have my head screwed on.’ When we were out of the ice man’s hearing I said to Rose, ‘You wouldn’t know an opportunity knocking if it gave you a black eye!’

  On the way back to Edward Street we called at the butcher’s shop, and I bought a sheep’s liver, a small piece of suet and three rashers of bacon. Rosy waited outside.

  ‘Lamb’s fry and bacon tonight, Rosy. What do you think of that? I’ll cook it.’

  ‘I think it sounds terrible! Both of you can have my share. I’m sick of offal and rabbits! I hate it!’

  ‘Then you’d better take care you don’t waste away, Margaret Rose.’

  *

  I expect I should explain something about the food we eat.

  I prefer a good, honest liver to some fancy meat that costs a lot more and usually isn’t what it’s supposed to be. Rosy, of course, reads the price tag first.

  Before we moved from the flat we’d saved up for ages and bought a rolled roast of beef as a treat. I put potatoes and pumpkin under it to catch the dripping. It was supposed to be a rolled sirloin roast, but when it was carved bits of goodness knows what fell all over the plate. Some of it might have been sirloin, but most of it was certainly not sirloin – the scrags were even a different colour. With rabbits and chooks and livers and kidneys you know exactly what you’re dealing with from the beginning. But Rosy ate the ‘sirloin’ roast as a matter of high principle, even though it was bloody awful. She ate it just because it cost more than kidneys and it gave her pleasure to pay the butcher for it . . . she ate it as though it was stuffed pheasant. She can be such a pain in the bum! I remember thinking at the time how amazed I was that she’d captured so many hearts and souls, almost from birth. Colonial princess Rosy with her fair curls, soft and feathery, and blue eyes all sweetness and light – a sparrow never intending to go too far from the comfort of the nest and needing protection for life. She attracted protectors. I sometimes can’t believe that I was one of them.