The Sparrows of Edward Street

by Elizabeth Stead

  ‘Still a bit of settling in to do, and then it will be an honour to bring them to meet the Sparrows, or you might come to us. I’d like you to see the house.’

  What Mr Sparkle did not say was that Mrs Sparkle had said that hell would freeze over before she’d stick her toe into a Housing Commission Camp, even briefly. ‘By the way – and I hope you don’t mind, Mrs Sparrow – but I collected your mail on the way here. Thought it would save you the trip.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all. Thank you very much.’

  Amy Scully packed her wedding photos back into their envelope and said her goodbyes.

  ‘Time I was stoking up for dinner. Nice to meet you, Mr Sparkle.’

  ‘We loved seeing the wedding photos,’ said Rosy. ‘Mr Sparkle makes the rabbit pies and stews for the butcher’s shop.’

  ‘That’s you, is it? I’m already a fan!’ declared Amy Scully. ‘They’re bloody delicious!’

  ‘Thank you. Always good to hear from a happy customer.’

  And Amy Scully was off, with purpose – not a movement wasted, or a hair out of place. The kind of woman who’d cook a dinner with pudding and a loaf or two of bread on a fuel stove even if she’d never seen one before. I imagined she would have controlled the bath heater within an hour of moving in. Now, there was a covered-wagon woman if ever we saw one!

  ‘Do you have time for a cup of tea, Mr Sparkle?’

  ‘I do, Mrs Sparrow.’

  ‘I’ve been keeping Iced Vo-Vos especially for you – and a Bach cantata next to the player.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Mrs Sparrow. Just like old times.’

  I had a fleeting look at the mail. One was an electricity account, and the other had the Housing Minister’s identification on the top left-hand corner. I sensed that Mr Sparkle’s eyes were turned in my direction.

  ‘Do you want me to open the mail, Hanora?’

  ‘Can’t it wait, love? It’s only bills.’

  ‘One is, and no, it can’t wait.’

  ‘Well, if you think so, love.’

  ‘I do,’ I said.

  ‘And so do I, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ said Mr Sparkle.

  ‘Good heavens! What on earth are you talking about?’

  *

  The Minister’s letter advised that the Sparrows had been selected for flat number three (top floor) within the Holt Estate, and could we please move there within ten days of this notification. The other letter I put aside. It was July 14th 1949.

  ‘You’d better start packing, Hanora.’

  ‘Why? Aria? What’s happened?’

  ‘Oh, my God! Could it be what I think?’ said Rosy. ‘Could it? Oh, Aria!’ And as cold as it was in the hut, her cheeks were flushed as orange as one of Mr Sparkle’s carrots.

  ‘We’re moving in ten days, if not before!’

  ‘Oh, good heavens, love! Do you mean it?’

  ‘I mean it!’

  Rosy was in tears of relief and joy. She steadied herself against the wing-back chair. Mr Sparkle had a smile all over his face that could have lit up the butcher’s window.

  ‘If you need a bit of help with the move, you know where to get me.’ And he quietly left us to it. He left his tea and disappeared. He must have known how we felt. ‘It’s a bit of a shock at first, isn’t it?’ he called to us from the bottom of the steps, still grinning.

  *

  It is important to note exactly how we felt about packing to leave the Camp.

  When we’d said goodbye to the flat and Mr Kellog so suddenly, Hanora had been in a state of barely controlled hysteria. Rosy was ashamed and very afraid, and I was bloody angry. I would have paid my respects to the possum if it had been given a decent burial, and if there had been time I would have given a last saucer of crumbs to my sparrows. But everything had been rushed. Even the men who moved us for a pittance in their broken-down truck were a last-minute arrangement, but somehow it had all fallen into place.

  Then, suddenly, with a whole ten days to pack in a more leisurely way – sort books and music into boxes, find cartons for kitchenware, hangers for clothes and rope to tie up the bedding and the rug, and book a removalist from two or three listed on the laundry noticeboard – Hanora fell into another state of barely controlled hysteria. Rosy was too excited to do anything, and I, well, I could hardly believe it, but I felt almost sorry to be leaving. I simply did not believe the way I felt.

  ‘The tree,’ said Hanora suddenly. She held her face together, with her hands over her cheeks.

  ‘What about the tree?’

  ‘What will happen to it?’

  ‘We can’t very well pack it, can we?’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mother,’ said Rosy. ‘The next people will care for it. We’ll leave a note.’

  ‘Rosy’s right. We should sit down until we can think clearly,’ I said. ‘We should sit down with the Iced Vo-Vo afternoon tea Mr Sparkle left, and let it all sink in for a while.’

  ‘Then what, love?’

  ‘Rosy will find us some boxes and cartons. Then I will go to the laundry and then to the telephone box, and book someone to move us.’

  ‘We can’t pay much. When do you think they’ll be able to come, love?’

  ‘Hopefully next week.’

  ‘I’ll never be ready to leave here next week! I couldn’t possibly, love.’ She had glued her buttocks to the seat of the wing-back chair, and gripped its arms for dear life. She pulled the front of her poncho up over her head with its hat on. She was a mind suddenly cast adrift on the raft of her chair. ‘I can’t think what to do – I can’t think! It’s too soon.’

  ‘How long did it take you to leave the flat, Hanora?’

  ‘Not very long, I suppose.’

  ‘Then, you just sit there if you really can’t think what to do, and Rosy and I will attend to the move.’

  ‘Oh, love, I couldn’t let you do all that.’

  ‘Then get off your bottom and help. There are always empty boxes in the laundry – they’ll do for the books.’

  A sliver of icy air slid like an ice pick under the door, and lifted a corner of the rug. Its chill brought me out of my own brief mood of sentiment and loss and back to the reality of ‘planet Camp’. ‘Bugger off!’ I whispered to winter. ‘You can do what you like – good try!’

  *

  We were to leave the camp on July 24th. Two nights before that we had a sort of laundry send-off with cards and kisses and exchanges of addresses. Sadly, Elsa Bentwick was not there, but she’d left a message to say she would visit us when she could. Even Rosy was there, and Hanora, who’d had a nice shiny pill pack made up especially for the move. Rosy had given Hanora a length of white muslin for curtains, and I had thought to give her a song bird in a cage, when the time was right. I told one of the washerwomen quietly what I’d planned as a flat-warming gift. And she said: ‘You never give anything in a cage to someone from the Camp, darl. Think about that!’

  And I did. And she was right. I changed my mind and decided to give her a kitten. A Persian with blue eyes.

  *

  It was a ‘proper’ removalist van that arrived on the morning of the 24th. There were two men who smiled and said what a good day we had for it. When the cocktail cabinet was being wrapped in its blanket, one of the men remarked upon the quality of the timber.

  ‘Nice bit of silky oak, that.’

  So different from the terrible day we’d arrived.

  ‘Do you think they might be able to fit us in the front of the truck, love? It would be quicker than the bus and train.’

  ‘We’re not going to our new home like that, Mother.’ Rosy had just finished wiping the iron down behind the stove. I needed to repeat that to myself: Rosy wiped the iron behind the stove! ‘Aria and I have booked a taxi.’

  ‘Oh, lovely!’

  And while we waited for our transport I imagined a final heading on a page of the album for the Ministry. I was glad that the album’s entries had been merely thoughts and wishes – a bit like the small camphor
box I’d whispered to when I lived in the flat. But there was an album. It was real enough, but empty except for a photograph of a cow by a roadside. Max had given it to me.

  As the last of the boxes were loaded into the van, Mr Sparkle arrived with a bunch of white camellias and a rabbit pie.

  ‘I’ll come and visit, if you’ll have me,’ he said. ‘It’s not far away.’

  ‘You’ll be welcome at any time, Mr Sparkle.’

  Then the taxi arrived and Rosy burst into tears.

  ‘Nothing to cry about, Rosy. What’s the matter?’

  ‘These camellias are so lovely. I was just remembering the flowers I brought to the Camp when we moved in here. They were awful! Weren’t they terrible?’

  ‘You just held their stems too tightly. I told you it would kill them.’

  *

  We tried not to look behind us as the taxi drove past the fork in the road and crossed to the ‘proper’ side. We gave the driver our new address, and settled back and admired the views. We had been very sad to leave The Book Saver’s Lemon Gum surrounded by its whitewashed stones. I had written a note and tied it to a branch. It was difficult to leave something so precious, but perhaps it was meant to be that way. Nothing of value disturbed. A bit like a sacred site where nothing is removed. The Camp should look after its own. The Camp should be allowed to keep its secrets.

  ‘Isn’t this lovely, Mother?’ said Rosy.

  ‘Lovely!’

  The new key had made a red print of itself in the palm of Hanora’s hand. She opened the taxi’s window and let white muslin fly in the wind and distracted the driver for a moment.

  ‘Careful love,’ he said.

  But he was laughing.

  Acknowledgements

  I warmly thank friends and colleagues who have assisted me with encouragement, inspiration and professional expertise: John Brooker and John Gourley for sharing with me painful memories of Second World War victims; my cousin Dorothy Basili, her friend John Robinson and historian Joan Rowland for their valuable contributions to research; photographic artist Rex Dupain whose images in monochrome inspired a scene; Louise Porebski for planting the novel’s seed; my publisher, UQP’s Madonna Duffy and her wonderfully creative team; editors James Grant and Christina Pagliaro who struggled bravely with everything the author missed while cloud-dreaming through classroom windows. To my agent, Margaret Connolly, sincere thanks and admiration for handling manuscripts while renovating a kitchen and special thanks to my support team: Professor Steven Goldsberry, Emeritus Professor Elizabeth Webby, Yvonne Jenkins, Joy Storie, Victoria Jay, Suzanna Hammond and Marian Beswick for her information of a canine nature.

  The Sparrows of Edward Street is a work of fiction. Names and dates are fictitious. Some characters are loosely based on Camp records of that time and letters of past Camp dwellers.

  First published 2011 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  This edition published 2012

  © Elizabeth Stead 2011

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover design by Christabella Designs

  Cover photographs © Trevillion, iStockphoto

  Typeset in 12.5/16 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  is available from http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

  The Sparrows of Edward Street / Elizabeth Stead

  9780702249242 (pbk)

  9780702248108 (epub)

  9780702248115 (kindle)

  9780702248092 (pdf)

  University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.