Absolution Creek (3 page)

May crossed her arms. ‘You’re meant to be setting an example, Jack. You’re the eldest.’

Jack winked at his brother, younger by two years, as together they carried in the wooden boxes from outside and sat the displays of fruit and vegetables on the shop floor. Despite the cold, tomorrow they would have to pick out the soft ones and basket them up separately to be sold at a reduced price. ‘No doubt that will be the highlight of the day,’ Jack mumbled as Thomas drew the bolt on the shop door and May counted the till and wrote down the takings, depositing them into a strong box. Once behind the counter all three closed the door on another day.

Beyond was their timber-walled kitchen and living area. May placed the tin box in the centre of the wooden dining table, and they scraped back their chairs to sit down. The room was hot from the wood stove, and their breakfast of eggs and bacon still hung stubbornly in the air. The scents mixed with whiffs of escaping smoke, and not for the first time Jack wished for clean fresh air. He’d grown up in this house, with its crowded kitchen and cramped adjoining lounge room. Sometimes he wondered how he’d managed not to be stunted himself. From the rear of their dwelling they listened as their neighbour Mrs Farley berated her husband.

‘Yesterday it was the beans she complained about,’ May revealed, ‘now her cabbages are yellowing.’ She hung her long woollen jumper over the back of the chair. ‘There they are rambling about in that terrace, just the two of them, and here we are like a tin of sardines. And you –’ she pointed at Jack ‘– delivering his books for free. Why, I’ve a mind –’

‘Here.’ Jack passed his sister Mrs Praed’s novel. ‘Mr Farley said it was for you.’

May narrowed her eyes.

‘It’s a romance.’

‘Really, Jack Manning, and when did you start having romantic inclinations?’ she enquired, reaching for the novel.

Thomas snatched the copy from his sister’s fingers. ‘When he started pining for Olive Peters.’

May seized the book back. ‘And how does Mrs Peters feel about you outing with her daughter? You’ve nothing to offer the likes of her.’

‘Olive isn’t one for being told what to do,’ Jack retaliated. He could always rely on May to destroy any modicum of confidence he had, no matter the subject.

May poured water from a ceramic jug and took a long drink. ‘She isn’t one of us, Jack. Don’t be thinking she could be.’ With practised efficiency she gathered cups and saucers from the hardwood cupboard and sat them on the table with plates and cutlery.

Thomas cleared his throat and asked after his sister’s day.

‘I wasn’t born to be a seamstress,’ she complained, sucking on the fleshy pad of her thumb. ‘Why every thrifty woman in Sydney must live on this side of the harbour is beyond me. I wonder if the Farleys would take me on. I could do bookbinding, have a bigger room and share in their vegetable garden.’

Jack cut a wedge of bread from the half-loaf on the table. ‘You’re lucky to have the job you’ve got,’ he reminded her. ‘Things are tough.’ He bit into the day-old bread, wishing there was a little jam to sweeten it up. He’d always found it a mighty temptation having a selection of produce only a wall’s width away.

‘Where’s father?’ he asked when the stillness of the kitchen reinforced the man’s absence.

Thomas untied his filthy apron. ‘He went to deliver Mrs Davies’s order.’

‘Why didn’t you go, May?’ Jack asked.

His sister smoothed her skirts over her knees. ‘I wasn’t here, was I? I already have a job, plus minding the house for you lot.’ She pointed to the laundry basket on the floor, the saucepan simmering on its blackened cook top and a pile of partially peeled potatoes. ‘I’m always busy, and I’ll not be cajoled into helping in the shop. My sewing money’s far better than the measly pittance Father could offer.’ She gave a haughty stare.

Jack glanced at Thomas, acknowledging that their argument was lost. At seventeen, May had quickly assumed the role their dear departed mother left void last year. He opened a tin of tobacco and placed moist shreds into his palm, rolling a cigarette first for Thomas, then himself. They sat companionably, puffing rings of smoke into the warm kitchen air. May walked out to the lean-to where the Coolgardie food safe competed for space with the dishevelled bed Jack insisted on occupying, even in winter, and returned with dripping and sausages.

‘Father’s here,’ she hissed.

Jack and Thomas moved as one. The window was open and the smokes disposed of in seconds.

‘Wipe up that lip of yours.’ May nodded towards the washstand and threw Jack the towel strung over her shoulder. She placed the kettle on the wood-burning stove.

‘You’ve been gone half the work day, Jack,’ Nicholas Manning admonished as he came in and sat down wearily. Once, he’d out-stripped Jack in height, but age was now shrinking him in both directions. ‘There’s a lot of talk going on about Mr Bradfield’s bridge scheme, none of it good.’ He lay a piece of paper on the table. ‘We may have been a little premature in our celebrations.’

‘Last I heard, there was to be a tunnel. A train would go straight to the water’s edge and then . . . plop.’ May dropped a wedge of potato onto a plate. ‘The next thing I’m waving a banner with Bradfield himself talking about a bridge.’

There was a hollow look in his father’s eyes. Jack reached for the slip of paper. It was a listing of buildings to be resumed in Blue Street, North Sydney.

‘Everyone was so excited when the Bridge Bill was passed. I for one stood in this very kitchen last year with my own departed wife, your dear mother, and saluted the great Mr Bradfield. The man’s smart, I’ll give him that. The introduction of the land tax before the closing of tenders meant we would be assured of a bridge. No politician would ever renege with taxpayers already footing the bill.’ Nicholas cupped the steaming tea offered by his daughter. ‘Well, now it’s coming and some of us have been paying for our own demise.’

‘Mrs Jessop’s boarding house,’ Jack said, reading from the list. His thoughts went immediately to her two boys and then Olive.

May slumped down in the chair beside her father and took his hand. She brushed a finger across his blotchy skin.

‘They’re posting notices on all the buildings.’ Jack flicked the paper. ‘Anything that’s in the way will be knocked down. Blue Street will be nearly demolished. Schools, churches, houses . . .’

Nicholas looked at his children. ‘I’m glad your mother’s not here to see this.’

Jack crumpled the list in his hand. They were only one street away from the planned carnage. ‘You can be sure they won’t pay us much,’ he said angrily.

‘They’ll be blasting the rock for the North Sydney rail line next week,’ Nicholas advised.

‘I don’t understand,’ May said. ‘Jack, you yourself said it was the most marvellous thing. That it was an incredible engineering feat, that –’

Nicholas silenced his daughter with a raised finger. ‘Unless, my dear girl, you happen to be in its way.’

‘Everyone’s been too preoccupied with what it would look like,’ Jack reminded her.
So much for Olive’s rainbow
.

‘We’re being sacrificed for the benefit of everyone else,’ Thomas said, stunned.

Nicholas rattled the few items on the wooden table as he leant heavily on it. ‘Mark my words, this project is going to cost the government a fortune. There’ll be no money spent on getting rid of the likes of us. Well, we’ll have to make plans. Even if this building isn’t resumed I’d imagine that the disruption to our business will be substantial. The majority of our clients are in Blue Street and its surrounds; so, no more credit and no sales to any customer who hasn’t paid his account in full.’ He turned to his eldest. ‘And you’ll have to pull your weight, Jack.’

‘I’m not afraid of work, Father, it’s the type I dislike.’ He helped himself to the bowl of dripping on the table, smearing it thickly on a slice of bread.

Nicholas frowned. ‘It’s good honest work. My father raised his family on it, as I have you and your brother and sister.’

‘And I’m betting Thomas will be content to do the same,’ Jack countered, glancing at his brother. ‘Anyway, by the looks of it we may all be out of a job.’ He didn’t mean to sound flippant, however if Manning’s Grocers ceased business tomorrow he would be free.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Nicholas stared at the grainy black-and-white photograph of his wife. It sat next to her favourite spot in the kitchen: a horsehair-covered armchair. ‘If we lose the shop, our home, if the worst happens, then it will fall to you to provide for the family, Jack. I’m too old to start anew.’

The kitchen was deathly quiet. It was as if his mother stood before them, reproaching Jack with her pale eyes, her fingers flicking at her rosary beads, reminding him of what it meant to be the eldest. The small carriage clock on the cupboard struck six. Sleety rain began to pepper the window. Suddenly the kitchen, the house, the family business suffocated him.

‘Jack?’

It was his father again. Waiting for his question to be answered; waiting for the demands of the parent to be accepted by the child. Jack saw his life spread out before him: one in which he would never be his own person. He could feel the weight of responsibility like a large rock on his chest.

‘Jack?’ May touched his shoulder.

He looked at Thomas, at the wooden crucifix hanging on the wall.

‘May, fetch the Bible from my night stand,’ Nicholas commanded his daughter. ‘I believe we need to pray.’

Chapter 2

O
live left the house early. Her siblings were still breakfasting on fruit, eggs and freshly baked bread, the household having long ago forgone the staple of eggs and bacon. ‘Too working class,’ their mother declared. Fresh fruit was the chosen food for those who could afford it.

As the front door clicked shut behind her, and no querying voice followed, Olive felt relief. She was yet to inform her family of her new employment. It was only her third day at Mrs Jessop’s salon yet her excitement was already diminished by the shock rippling through the suburb. This morning Olive was torn between visiting Manning’s Grocers for the first time to see exactly where Jack lived, and detouring via Blue Street to see if the rumours were true about houses being auctioned. Morbid curiosity, however, won over romantic love, despite Jack being the most handsome boy – in a roughish sort of way – she’d laid eyes on.

At the corner of Blue and Walker Street a crowd gathered in front of a boarding house. The harried occupant, who was no doubt a war widow like many landladies in North Sydney, was carrying a suitcase from the building. This she piled precariously atop an upturned four-poster bed and mattress. The bearer of her possessions – including wooden crates with protruding saucepans, blankets and a large dresser – was a dray pulled by a spotted horse. The animal’s head hung despondently and each of its legs lifted in turn as it shifted its weight. Olive puffed her cheeks out against the cold. Why, she wondered, when everyone in Sydney wanted a bridge, did this seem so wrong? She hugged her arms around her body to ward off the morning chill, doing her best to isolate herself from the bystanders huddled together. There was much shaking of heads and pointing. For the first time in her life Olive was afraid for these people, who were being forced from their lives in the name of progress, and afraid of her own place in the world.

The houses in Blue Street that were already sold were in the process of either being demolished or dismantled and carted away. Olive watched this gradual unravelling as those uprooted packed belongings into cars, trucks or drays, some residents crying openly in the street. The dust and grit in the air stung her eyes and throat and she clasped a lace-edged handkerchief to her nose. There was nothing to be done but to ask Mrs Jessop what the future held. She turned and walked the two blocks to the hairdressing salon, as trams buzzed by and taxis hooted.

Now that Mrs Jessop’s boarding house was being resumed, Olive wondered where her employer would relocate. Maybe Olive would be placed in charge of opening the salon, for she lived the closest of any of the staff members. Such a responsibility, she reasoned, would have to be worth a few more shillings which, when added to her weekly allowance, would make her purchase of a white silk clouche hat and pair of flesh-coloured silk stockings seem hardly outrageous. Olive imagined Jack’s face when she displayed her new hose. At the thought she gave a little giggle. Oh, she did like Jack, really.