The Sparrows of Edward Street

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘I think I’d rather call it something else. For ages I’ve been wanting to write about Hanora’s library. What about The Book Saver’s Lemon Gum?’

  ‘Done! We’ll plant it and christen it tomorrow.’

  ‘Lemon-scented gums have the most beautiful perfume. You couldn’t have chosen a better tree, Mr Sparkle. How on earth did you think of it?’

  ‘Some birds have beaks that squeak.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been a sparrow, by any chance?’

  And Mr Sparkle tapped his nose.

  *

  I should explain about the fairly recent rise to success in the life of Mr K. Sparkle. That is, the brief stage of his life as he rose from being a Housing Commission Camp nobody with a bad suit and holes in his shoes to a businessman negotiating pies and stews and rabbit kills with the ice man and the butcher at a cocktail party. His clean clothes and new tie seemed to have given him confidence.

  Rosy had rummaged through one of Madame’s bins and found a strip of red silk with white dots on it. She’d asked if she could have it and Madame had said ‘yes’. Rosy asked Hanora to help. Between them they machined a very nice tie – or at least something very close to a very nice one – and there’d been enough left over for a bow tie to match. In the end, with collars and cuffs turned, suit cleaned and shoes polished, Mr Sparkle looked very nice indeed. The only problem was his teeth. None of us had been able to afford a dentist. He agreed to keep his mouth closed unless it was absolutely necessary to open it. We Sparrows were very proud of our handiwork. Even Rosy, to a certain degree.

  Mr Sparkle found a pair of red braces in a church charity shop, and I have to say he stood out on centre stage, in a manner of speaking, when he wore them with the bow tie. With the confidence he’d gained he had begun to grin a lot, with his top lip tight over his teeth, and he had taken to rocking back and forth with his thumbs hooked in his braces.

  During the party he’d taken the ice man and the butcher outside to discuss supplies and costs. He offered to make pies for one and supply skinned rabbits to the other. I peeped out the door and saw that Mr Sparkle had taken charge in a most businesslike way. I’d been very proud. Mrs Sparkle, their children, and a Housing Commission house in a suitable location seemed to be only hours away.

  *

  True to his word, the morning after the cocktail party, Mr Sparkle dug a hole next to our steps for the lemon-scented gum tree. It looked healthy enough, and raring to go, with its grey-green leaves full of life and in its new home of good dirt and manure. It made the steps to our iron hut more civilised. Hanora was as delighted as I was.

  Mr Sparkle made a simple wooden plaque that said The Book Saver’s Lemon Gum. People stopped to admire it. He protected it with stout stakes and hessian, and I made another, smaller sign that warned Tree vandals will be dealt with while they sleep. I thought it just might work. I thought the note had a certain nervous tension about it.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely?’ said Hanora.

  ‘I can smell the leaves already. Like the gully behind the flat,’ I said.

  ‘But what if it dies?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Rosy!’

  *

  Cleaning up after the party the night before had been a real chore – very messy and smelly.

  It was still as hot as a hell-hole in the hut. The iron walls had a strong odour stuck to them, as though they had been in a bush fire. We could have fried eggs on them. Leon had offered to stay, but I knew he had an early shoot the next morning, and sent him home with my love. I hoped no one had tampered with his car.

  ‘We couldn’t have done it without you, Leon.’ Somehow I was never uncomfortable when Leon helped me, or comforted me with his strength and sympathy. I can’t possibly explain any of it.

  ‘I think it was the most fun I’ve had in a Housing Commission shed full of chooks and chicks.’ His wig had left stains all over his ears.

  ‘Sorry about that man being so rude to you.’

  ‘Used to it.’

  ‘And thank you for looking after poor Mrs Biddle. You were kind,’ Hanora said, but she was very pale. I noticed that she was favouring her arm.

  ‘Take care on the road, Leon,’ and I kissed his cheek.

  ‘It was lots of fun, Hanora, wasn’t it? You did a great job. You were very generous,’ I said. ‘Is your arm hurting?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Rosy and I will do everything. Sit down and read a book or something.’

  ‘I’m all right, love. Just a bit worn out.’ But she didn’t look ‘just a bit worn out’.

  ‘There weren’t any decorations or fireworks or anything special. I didn’t think it was like a real party at all. And can’t you do something about that terrible smell of sick, Aria? I can’t breathe!’ Rosy complained.

  ‘Oh, grow up! You know I didn’t want anyone to know about my birthday. You’re the greatest pain in the bum who ever lived, Margaret Rose! And if you want to breathe, clean the mess up yourself!’

  ‘Aria!’

  ‘I’m not sorry!’

  *

  We were all very tired. The party, the terrible heat and the alcohol had taken their toll. Leon had been a bit boozy when he left, and I hoped he’d drive safely. With his wig slipped to one side, like one of father Sparrow’s sculptures, and his stained ears, he did look very funny. I hoped he wouldn’t attract the wrong attention on his way home.

  His car, I learned later, had not been messed with. He’d parked it outside the Camp, on the proper side of the fork in the road, under a street light.

  *

  We picked at leftovers while we cleaned up, Rosy and I, and prepared to go to bed. I had scrubbed the remains of the accident with white vinegar to disguise the smell.

  ‘You really don’t look too marvellous, Hanora.’ She had flopped like a rag doll into the wing-back chair. She’d become the sort of pale grey tinged with blue that makes the danger instinct sit up and take notice. ‘Is that possum scratch still bothering you?’

  ‘I’m not sure, love, but I really don’t feel very well.’

  Hanora still wore sticking plaster on her arm. The skin around the strip looked red and angry, and a red line, thin as half a vein, had worked its way up her arm. I had not been aware of this before the party. I was alarmed.

  ‘Rosy! Go and see if you can find someone with a car. See if Leon is still there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think Hanora’s arm is infected. She needs treatment now!’

  ‘Can’t it wait ’til the morning?’

  ‘Rosy! Go now!’

  ‘Aria, I’m sure it can wait,’ Hanora said, but quietly, like a sick person. I thought her breath was a little shallow, but I might have imagined it.

  ‘This can’t wait. There’s a late clinic in the village, near the station. It’s only eight forty-five.’

  ‘I don’t know who to ask. Tell me what to do, Aria!’ The bloody useless princess Margaret Rose . . . bloody useless!

  ‘Rosy, go to the laundry and ask someone there if Leon has left. Ask Mr Sparkle. Ask anyone. Use your bloody head for once.’

  ‘Aria!’ said Hanora.

  ‘I don’t care – she’s thick as a plank!’ I shouted as Rose scampered out the door.

  Closing Scenes

  I expect I should explain about the remains of that night. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  Rosy came back in a surprisingly short time, not with Mr Sparkle or Leon or any of the others we had met, but with Father Robert Beale, who had been called to the side of a woman who’d been close to death for the third time in a month.

  ‘I understand you have something of an emergency here.’ Father Beale looked to me like a toffee apple on a stick. He had a very red face, a long, thin neck with a prominent Adam’s apple, and a sharp, round priest’s collar that made him keep his head up straight so he could get the required oxygen. His clothes were black and shabby. I could not help wondering why the Vatican, which I was convinced had more money than any other
human corporation on earth, and possibly in the universe, could not spare Father Beale a pound or two for a new suit of clothes. I’d seen one in a window the other day for five pounds, sixteen shillings, and it looked reasonable. However, I was grateful for any help at that time.

  ‘Father Beale said he’d help us, Aria. I found him behind the laundry looking through the window.’

  ‘I was just about to say good night to the women. Not many there tonight.’

  ‘They must have been out. Father, I thank God for sending you here at this time. Do you have a car?’ I crossed myself. I remembered the old pattern, spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch. I wasn’t sure if there was a female version.

  ‘Aria!’

  ‘Miss Sparrow told me your mother needed medical attention. Yes, I have a car.’

  ‘We need to go to the after-hours clinic in the village. My mother needs penicillin or something urgently.’

  ‘Oh, Lord. Come then – come!’ he said. And as I helped Hanora down the steps he said: ‘I don’t recall having seen you at Mass?’

  ‘We’re new here,’ I said. I threw a warning glance at Rosy that all but knocked her off her feet. Hanora was too unwell to say anything at all. ‘But, God willing, you will see us soon.’

  ‘But,’ Hanora said, like a kitten on its last legs.

  ‘Come along.’ I grabbed my purse. ‘Don’t waste your strength talking, Hanora. We’ll have your arm better in no time, thanks to this wonderful, godly man . . . and the Lord, of course.’

  ‘Aria!’

  ‘Rosy! Why don’t you stay here and finish cleaning up? I’ll do everything else.’

  ‘It was only a possum scratch!’

  ‘Shut up, Rosy! Sorry, Father, I shall count a bead or two for that remark, I promise.’

  ‘What a good girl you are,’ said Father Beale with his thin, dry mouth.

  *

  Father Beale drove us to the medical clinic, told us that he could not stay with us, and left.

  Inside the clinic’s waiting room were about twenty people, either coughing, sniffing, blowing or blood-stained, and one boy child with a bicycle helmet jammed over his entire head. I went to the reception desk.

  Behind the desk sat a Gorgon wearing pebble glasses with thick, black frames, and beside her sat another, gentler soul.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’ The Gorgon did not look at me.

  ‘No. And this is an emergency, I’m afraid.’

  She then stared at me with her hard, experienced eyes.

  ‘And what might that emergency be?’ She pushed a clip-board towards me with a form attached, to be filled in.

  ‘My mother has a badly infected arm. An animal bite. She needs to see a doctor right away!’

  ‘So does everybody else here!’ The receptionist had been trained, as most of them had, I imagined, by the Gestapo. I try to think that they’re not entirely to blame. ‘Is she a patient here? Has she been here before?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I lied.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Hanora Sparrow.’

  ‘Address?’ She shuffled through cards like a casino dealer.

  ‘19B Edward Street, off Ryall Road.’

  ‘She isn’t here. That’s The Camp, isn’t it?’ she said, more loudly than she needed to. I could sense half a waiting room full of ears picking up the signals like radar.

  ‘What do you mean, The Camp?’ I glanced around at Hanora. She was shakily holding a magazine upside-down in front of her face.

  ‘The Housing Commission Camp, of course. We get a lot of you people in here. What’s your unit number?’ she said loud enough for the entire waiting room to hear, with the possible exception of the boy with the helmet jammed over his head.

  ‘I told you already . . . 19B,’ I said just as loudly. ‘Didn’t you write it down? And, by the way, I don’t think that couple in the back row heard you.’

  ‘Don’t give me cheek, young woman! Fill out the form and wait your turn.’

  ‘Oh, and another thing,’ I said more loudly than before. ‘The animal that bit her has been tested for RABIES!! It was very sick.’ Suddenly there was a very quiet audience. ‘RABIES!!! The vet said he had very little doubt about the results.’

  ‘You’re a smart little mutt, aren’t you?’ she hissed.

  ‘Takes one to know one!’

  ‘Are you calling me a bitch?’

  ‘No need – you just did it all by yourself!’

  Her serpentine hair slithered angrily in all directions.

  I honestly had no intention of having an unpleasant argument with the clinic receptionist, but if someone asks for trouble I let them have it. And I was worried.

  A frail and elderly man who looked as though he urgently needed medical attention himself shuffled out of a door and asked what all the fuss and noise was about.

  ‘A patient from The Camp, Doctor.’

  ‘Is it urgent?’

  ‘Bitten by an animal with rabies,’ I said before the woman could get a word in.

  ‘Then we’d better see her straight away.’

  ‘They’ve jumped the queue!’ spat the clinic warden.

  ‘But, rabies, woman! Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll get my mother. She’s the patient.’

  The Gorgon and I exchanged looks of death by a thousand asps. It had all been very dramatic. I apologised to the rest of the waiting room, but no one seemed to mind very much.

  I left Hanora with the doctor and sat as far away from everyone as possible. Behind me was a young man with a terrible cough. He seemed to be looking over my shoulder. I put my handkerchief over my nose and pretended to read a copy of Australian Home. On page twenty there was a half-page picture of me ‘loving’ a can of Bon Ami.

  The young man said, between coughs: ‘Is that you?’

  ‘It is me – and would you mind very much coughing into a handkerchief?’

  ‘Strewth! It is you. Sorry.’

  A muffled moan, sob and sneeze came from inside the bicycle helmet.

  ‘Shut up, Eric,’ said the woman who was with him.

  Hanora was out in no time and back with the keeper of the desk. She had been injected and the wound had been cleaned and dressed. She had been given a prescription for a course of penicillin. I went to the desk and joined her. She looked a little better and much relieved. The old doctor said he was pleased there had been no sign of rabies infection.

  ‘Have you got your pension card?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s extra after hours.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Father Beale said the Vatican would pay the bill.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Great sense of humour, has that Father Beale.’

  ‘I’ll ring him. We know him well. You’re not getting away with that!’

  ‘Oh, but he won’t be there at the moment. He’s attending a death AT THE CAMP!’

  ‘By rabies, I suppose?’

  ‘I really have no idea, but you’ll be able to speak to him tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you at Mass.’

  ‘We’ve been busy unpacking the silver.’

  ‘You, my girl, should go straight to confession.’

  ‘I can’t: I’m not a Catholic.’

  ‘And you’re a liar!’

  ‘And you’re a bitter old hag!’

  ‘Aria!’

  ‘I’m not sorry.’

  ‘Can we get a bus at this hour?’ Hanora asked.

  ‘Yes . . . if you hurry,’ said the other girl in a more kindly voice, while she stifled a smile. The Gorgon scratched her snakes and stuck a pencil behind their ears.

  ‘You’ll have one week to pay the extra, or you’ll be in trouble, my girl. Don’t think you can come in here and make a fool of me!’

  ‘But I just did.’

  As we passed the young man who’d sat behind me and the magazine, I patted his arm.

  ‘I hope your
cough gets better soon.’

  ‘Thanks. Gee, I’ve never met a real person from a magazine before.’

  ‘It’s just a job. We all do the best we can. Good night.’

  *

  The bus stop was opposite the clinic. We had to wait half an hour, and when the bus came it seemed to be as full as it was in the mornings. A man in a very nice suit, with a silk hankie flopped from his pocket, tipped his hat, stood and gave his seat to Hanora, all bandaged and pale and delicate. He obviously didn’t know where we lived, I thought, but then, you never know, he might have. I smiled and thanked him.

  *

  Hanora was feeling a bit better the next morning. I expect it was the relief of treatment, and knowing it wasn’t an injury worse than we’d feared. And I have to say that Rosy had done a fine job at clearing and cleaning. On the floor where the stains, smells, suds and vinegar had been she’d scattered some vanilla essence as well, but I really thought the combination made everything worse.

  The news of the medical emergency had spread through the Camp – via the laundry – like a brushfire. Mr Sparkle was on the doorstep at seven o’clock with his spade, offering his help, and because of it I felt it was safe for me to go to work. Rosy had already left.

  I expect I should have explained that while we were at the medical centre attending to the ‘rabies’ infection, the southerly buster that had been fighting its way through the barrier of stored heat and dust and ash had finally triumphed. The change in temperature had been amazing. The corrugated-iron walls had cracked and pinged as the night turned from hot to cool.

  I suspected – no, I had discovered, a long time ago – that not only corrugated iron has a language, but possibly other metals. I would have liked very much to have learned more about it.

  I have long had the belief that nothing is inanimate, that everything on earth has a life of its own, in some form or another. I’d felt strongly from the first day in the huts that the iron walls had a thousand stories to tell, mostly stories of sadness and fear and dashed hopes. There were moments when I heard them deep inside me. Of course I could never identify the human source. I know it sounds strange, but I’d long come to terms with the fact that I am a bit that way too. I could never have told anyone that I believed corrugated iron had a language and that very often I understood it. It would have been madness to share that secret with sceptics, but I’d always been very sensitive to the atmospheres in different huts, because of the stories stored there. In the Camp, I believed that the corrugated iron was a library of lives of misfortune. It would perhaps have been better if the cells had been lined with steel, because steel has no memory.