The Sparrows of Edward Street

by Elizabeth Stead

  The paper plates, edges flopping lower and lower in the heat, were handed around with their sparse arrangements of melting cheese cubes and fish-pasted crackers gone soft, decorated with the odd coloured onion, but there was plenty. It was simply too hot to eat much.

  The mood, at first awkward and tense, gradually lightened. Our imaginative cocktails loosened tongues fairly quickly. Hanora opened the ice chest as little as possible, and served the cooked sausage-mince balls cold with tomato sauce. No one minded. Neither did the blowflies. We concocted cocktails of gin and lime cordial and gin and orange cordial, and chilled the flagon of wine I had delivered with Leon’s compliments. There was practically nowhere for people to sit so they stood, panting in the heat and the haze of alcohol, and fanned themselves with crepe-paper ‘cocktail’ napkins and anything else they could find – one or two of Hanora’s paperbacks were put to work. One woman, who said she suffered ‘something awful’ from prickly heat, rubbed herself up and down against the ice chest. A man occupied himself by running his fingers over the cocktail cabinet. ‘Very nice,’ he said as he drank gin and lime.

  The mixture of heat and alcohol was a worry, but I thought caution would be rude. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves once they’d loosened up. With any luck most of us would be upright at the end, despite Rosy’s warning that everyone would be ‘blotto’ long before the sun went down.

  Only four of the guests had worn hats so far. One was a replica of the green hat Scarlett O’Hara wore in Gone with the Wind. It was stained and crushed and long overdue at the hire shop, so I was told. Someone else had gone to a lot of trouble with a crepe-paper and rag turban. Leon eventually arrived just before seven in a yellow wig of long corkscrew curls that included a clown’s hat and joke glasses. He’d brought another bottle of wine, and something else I couldn’t identify, but it was alcohol of some sort.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Leon!’ I said. I’d been truly relieved to see him. ‘Love the wig.’

  ‘A policeman made me take it off in the car.’

  ‘No sense of humour, coppers,’ said a woman I didn’t know.

  Mr Sparkle, I thought, looked quite dashing as Daniel Boone because he was not in the least handsome, and not at all courageous in appearance, no matter how he tried to swagger. But at least he’d gone to the trouble on top of everything else he had to do. He did try very hard to please, and always finished what he’d started. Why he couldn’t find himself a job was puzzling to me. He wore a rabbit-fur hat with the striped tail of some other animal hanging from it. The woman in the Scarlett O’Hara hat paid particular attention to the tail Mr Sparkle had stuck on to his cap – she had recently lost her cat.

  ‘Where did you get that tail?’ the woman demanded through a fog of heat and gin.

  ‘Out and about.’

  ‘My cat’s missing!’

  ‘I didn’t steal your cat.’

  ‘It had a tail just like that!’ She pointed.

  ‘I shoot rabbits!’

  ‘Maybe you can’t tell one from the other after you’ve had a few!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ the woman’s husband asked. He’d been sitting on the step outside, drinking beer and keeping an eye on his kids.

  ‘I reckon Kelly Sparkle is wearing our cats’ tail off the back of his hat.’

  ‘I found it,’ said Mr Sparkle. ‘It’s not real.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up country.’

  ‘People don’t just find cats’ tails, real or not!’ said Scarlett O’Hara’s husband.

  ‘Maybe a dog got your cat.’

  ‘Our cat could have murdered any dog in the Camp!’

  ‘Well, I just know I didn’t murder your cat!’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Rosy. ‘Oh, God! I knew it!’

  ‘Mr Sparkle, I wonder if you could pop over here for a moment,’ said Hanora.

  I was enjoying every minute of it. And so was Leon. I think we were both a bit tipsy.

  ‘Perhaps we could just leave the hat off for a moment, until they calm down.’

  ‘Pity – but whatever you say, Mrs Sparrow.’

  ‘You can put it back on later. It is truly a wonderful hat, Mr Sparkle.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be Daniel Boone.’

  ‘Of course you are, and that’s exactly who you look like,’ said Hanora with a moist smile. She fanned herself with a copy of A Guide to the Museums of Florence. To the casual eye Hanora looked pale and interesting, but she was a bit too pale, I thought.

  Mr Sparkle had gone to so much trouble for the evening I for one ignored whatever it was he’d done, or might have done, tail-wise. And there was of course the rabbit stew simmering on the stove, the aroma of which had begun to attract all who came to the party. I have to admit I’d forgotten about spoons for everyone, but I was delighted to see guests tearing strips from their paper plates and using them as scoops; there were drips of stew everywhere.

  ‘This is bloody delicious!’ said one.

  ‘Well, leave enough for others!’

  ‘I didn’t take more than my share.’

  ‘You!’ hissed his wife. ‘You’ve never done anything else! You’d fuck anything that moves and eat anything that doesn’t and to hell with the rest of the world!’

  ‘Nice, I must say!’ someone commented, whose coloured crepe-paper hat had run in the sweating heat and formed little rainbows all down his cheeks.

  There was the odd spat but nothing serious, due to the heat on top of the practically neat alcohol. The mixture of wine, spirits and beer did not help, either. It was to be expected. Our peculiar bathroom was given a good work-out, and one man who couldn’t wait ducked under the hut and watered the dust, ignoring the shrieks of his kids. I was pleased to see the butcher and then the ice man eventually arrive while there was still stew in the pot. As soon as I’d introduced them to it they scooped it up into two of Hanora’s cocktail glasses.

  ‘Very nice – bloody good, this,’ slurped the ice man.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ said the butcher, with parsley stuck in his teeth. ‘I’m allergic to passionfruit pips; I’ll just have the gin, thanks,’ he said to Hanora. ‘It’s the bowels.’

  Rosy had surprised us by making clever little hats from cardboard, crepe-paper and streamers. Hanora’s hat was a purple Chinese concoction, and she looked very exotic. Mine was a pirate’s thing with skull and crossbones. I thought it best not to comment.

  The cocktail cabinet was admired again, and the records and books lining the walls were inspected and criticised. A selection of Baroque music played softly on the record player. Hanora thought the soft sound would keep us cool, but it did not please everyone.

  ‘Haven’t you got any dance music?’

  ‘I have.’ And I think it must have been the first words Rosy had spoken to the common rabble since she’d been in the Camp. ‘I’ve got a terrific Glenn Miller.’

  ‘Then put it on, darls. We can’t have a party and dance around with that classical stuff.’

  So she did, and people began to dance on and around the ‘Gyppo’ rug, tripping on the crease in the middle. I wished Hanora had covered the cocktail cabinet with something. There were already splash marks on it. She’d moved her sewing machine into her cell for the night.

  It was all going pretty well, I thought, but I was disappointed that the Biddles had not come, or Mrs Gardiner, and none of the residents of Queen Street. I’d put a notice in their laundry too.

  An unidentified male came in and out at odd intervals, drank and grinned a lot, and left his appreciation in the form of small vomit puddles on the outside steps, like a cat marking its territory.

  ‘I’d say it’s all a great success, given the heat,’ said Leon, who loved a party and wasn’t too fussy. I was enjoying myself. It was good to see people getting together like this, despite the cruellest of summer evenings.

  A man I did not recognise, sucking on a bottle of beer like a baby, with his eyelids half closed, asked Leon, ‘Are you a pansy or aren’t you?’<
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  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘How did you get in here, then?’

  ‘Aria Sparrow asked me. We work together.’

  ‘Don’t tell me she’s queer too.’

  ‘Queer as a coot. Here, have the rest of my gin. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘I wouldn’t touch that mug with a bargepole, mate. Not after you’ve had your mouth to it.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said the man he’d come with. ‘We had a bet.’

  I overheard the exchange, and in the heat of an alcoholic moment flew to Leon’s side.

  ‘Shut up! Don’t be so rude! What’s the matter with you?’ I said. The summer had cooked my gin and lime. I could feel it fermenting all over me like a rash.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Aria. Leave it.’

  ‘It does matter! You’re my best friend. Leon here is my best friend.’ I rubbed a chip of ice over the back of my neck.

  ‘Is there something wrong, love?’ From across the cell Hanora called, like a ghost from a family plot, dug up and put together with a pill and half a cigarette.

  ‘No – nothing at all. It’s a wonderful party. Isn’t it a wonderful party, everyone?’ I would have given anything for a swim. I drank water instead.

  ‘It’s nothing of the kind!’ Rosy cried from our cell. She’d shut the door and had pulled the bed against it. ‘It’s just what I thought it would be!’

  One of the washerwomen shimmied over to Leon and hugged him to her enormous bosom. ‘I heard all that, and I’m here to tell you I can change your mind – sexy-wise – in the split of a sec, darl. Well, maybe a bit longer.’

  ‘Kind of you, but no thanks.’

  ‘To hell with you, then.’

  Mr Sparkle announced that there was not even one caper left in his stew pot. He’d had compliments from everyone, especially the butcher and the ice man.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I could sell this if it was in a pie,’ said the butcher.

  ‘Just you wait on. There’s a bit of negotiating to go on here,’ said the ice man. ‘Who’d buy a rabbit pie from a butcher? Butchers are for raw meat, not stews and pies! There’s probably even a law against it.’

  ‘Who’d buy pies from you? They’d be frozen stiff and stink of the bunny corpses you’ve got hanging all over the place! It’s like a mort-u-ary in that cool room of yours. How bloody unhealthy is that?’

  ‘Bugger off!’ said the ice man. ‘You could eat off the floor in my cold room. My customers are not up to their bloody knees in bloody bones and sawdust!’

  ‘Christ!’ The butcher was red in the face. ‘Mr Sparkle, would you be able to make a pie out of this stew of yours?’

  ‘I can and I would. The wife likes my pies. Been making them for years. Even the kids like my pies.’

  ‘Then I think an order for rabbit pies might not be too far out of the question,’ declared the butcher, leaning back on his heels like a man who worked in a bank.

  ‘And what about the bunnies I was given to understand he’d ferret out for my shop?’ said the ice man.

  ‘He won’t have time!’

  ‘We’ll bloody well see about that!’

  And Mr Sparkle grinned from one to the other as though he’d won the lottery.

  It surprised me that there was no banging from next door, and I wondered if the hillbilly woman and her beaten family had left the Camp already, or maybe sneaked in for a quick drink without us noticing. There were one or two people I didn’t recognise, but as soon as they left they were replaced by newcomers. In and out. In and out. Curiosity and the prospect of a bit of fun had got the better of them, I imagined. I was very pleased.

  Leon managed the best he could as a grog waiter. The blowflies went mad around the sausage balls, even though it was well past their bedtime, and a hot wind blew red spirals of dust that then lay on the steps to 19B Edward like a mat, and sent a little red dune just inside the door.

  All in all, we thought it had become an entertaining evening. Even Rosy had to admit it, up to a point, when she eventually emerged from her cell.

  Rosy put on another Glenn Miller record.

  A woman grabbed Leon and jiggled her bum on a space the size of a postage stamp. Leon had a jug of wine in his hand and spilled some onto the rug and onto the woman. I took the jug from him.

  ‘I don’t think I know your name,’ Leon said to the woman. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I don’t know you either, so that makes us equal.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’ And she laughed, a little worse for wear, reached out and grabbed the jug from my hand, gulped wine as though drinking at a water bubbler, dribbled sick, coughed, and passed out on the floor.

  ‘Who is that woman, Mr Sparkle?’ asked Hanora, having abandoned the book, and fanning her face with a paper plate.

  ‘I’m buggered if I know, excuse the language. I can’t see her properly on the floor.’

  Hanora sat alone and sipped gin with a slice of lime from a martini glass. I thought she did not look very well.

  ‘Aria,’ she said, weak as a kitten, ‘someone told me the cistern’s not working.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry about it now. You look sick, Hanora. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes – I think so.’

  Iris Feather came to the rescue at the sick zone, with a bucket of suds and a mop. She prepared to clean the puddle on the floor that had missed the rug by an inch. Leon dragged the fainted woman outside and laid her gently on the slightly cooler evening dust. Rosy ran into her cell and slammed the door again.

  ‘Who was that, Iris?’ I asked.

  ‘Nancy Biddle. She must have just let herself go. Poor Nancy’d be pent up most of the time.’

  ‘I didn’t recognise her,’ said Mr Sparkle.

  ‘I didn’t think they’d come,’ I said.

  ‘Only her. Sammy’d be sitting in a corner of their hut – in the dark, most likely.’

  ‘Oh, the poor woman. Thanks for helping, Iris. And Leon, too, thanks.’ I’d brought some dirt from outside to cover the mess, but the smell began to fill the cells like something solid. ‘Mrs Biddle mustn’t be made to feel bad about this. She’d be terribly embarrassed.’ I glanced at Hanora again. She looked tired – no, not tired, absolutely done in. At last the banging came from next door.

  ‘I’ve called the cops!’ the rough voice shouted.

  ‘Better late than never,’ I shouted back. ‘I’ll tell them where you live, you old bat!’

  ‘Aria! Please!’ Hanora sounded as weak as she looked. The banging on the iron made Glenn Miller’s ‘String of Pearls’ vibrate so much the string eventually broke and pearls rolled all over the place.

  I looked outside and saw Leon supporting Mrs Biddle. He was stroking her forehead while she sobbed all over his wig.

  The broken record and the mess on the floor signalled an early end to an evening that had certainly had its ups and downs, but I liked to think the ‘ups’ were clear winners. As the guests helped each other away I was sure there’d been more smiles than tears.

  ‘Aria! I’ve got to tell you something.’ Mr Sparkle was also somewhat the worse for heat and gin. He had replaced the Daniel Boone hat upon his noggin.

  ‘Could it wait for a while, Mr Sparkle?’

  ‘No,’ he said, with a grin on one side of his face.

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘I brought something for you, and your mum, Miss Aria,’ said Mr Sparkle as the last ones staggered off into the heat.

  ‘Sssshhh! No one was expected to bring a gift.’

  ‘I haven’t let on to a soul,’ he whispered. ‘It’s outside. Come and have a look.’

  At the bottom of the steps, partially hidden underneath the hut, was a black plastic pot with a young tree in it.

  ‘It’s a lemon-scented gum. I brought it down in the train.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Sparkle, how wonderful! Thank you.’ My pleasure was genuine enough, but my words of gratitude sounded awkward.

&nb
sp; ‘I got a bag of good dirt with manure for it as well. I had to stand near the door all the way. The smell wasn’t too good. It’s sheep.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Sparkle! Come and have another cocktail.’ I must have sounded like a fool. ‘I hope your family is well, Mr Sparkle. Fancy you thinking of a tree . . . Fancy you thinking. You are thoughtful.’ I was gushing like a water spout.

  I have to say here that I was overcome and somewhat awkward in the presence of such generosity. It was something I was not too familiar with. The kindness of virtual strangers was something new to me. Not Hanora – it was easy for her – and Rosy: they almost expected it, but I found it to be unusual and a little disturbing. Disturbing? I couldn’t possibly say why. Maybe because I have always seen myself as the ‘giver’ and the ‘fixer’. Perhaps, without thinking about it, I did not want that scheme of things interfered with. I simply did not know how to react to such kindness. I found myself stumbling over words of thanks like an idiot. I’m sure if I had asked Rosy she would have been able to put her finger on it straight away, but she’d tell me with a sliver of glass on her tongue. I decided it would be better to work me out myself, as usual.

  ‘After all you did for me, Miss Aria, well, this is nothing compared. I’ll dig a hole tomorrow and get it going.’

  ‘I did very little for you, Mr Sparkle, just a nudge of confidence. Do you really think it will grow?’

  ‘It’ll find its feet.’

  ‘What about the local kids? They’ll kill it.’

  ‘I’ve thought of that, too.’

  ‘Hanora will be delighted, Mr Sparkle.’

  ‘I thought maybe we’d call it Aria’s Tree,’ said Mr Sparkle, smiling all over his face.