The House That Was Eureka (12 page)

Noel moved, and his mouth-organ clattered to the floor. He reached over for it and lay there playing Dylan for a while, then got up and was about to go in to morning despot-duty but changed his mind and ran a bath. If he was to have a bath and wash his hair, he had to do it before he saw the despot. Otherwise the despot would
order
him to wash his hair, and then of course he’d have to let it stay dirty.

Noel lay in the bath a long time, playing the mouth-organ. If he stopped, he could hear the despot mumbling in the next room. She was well away today, the old Mumble-whine-rhubarb-rhubarb. Noel listened for a second.

‘Mumble-whine-rhubarb-rhubarb,’ the despot’s voice said.

‘And mumble-wine to you too,’ Noel said. ‘Sounds like you’ve had a drop too much of the old mumble-wine, if you ask me.’

He played a tune to drown her out. Made lots of mistakes. Very tricky it is, to play a mouth-organ while washing your hair. Especially when you have to duck under for the rinsing.

‘Still, as the man says, Life’s meant to be impossible.’ Noel read lots of newspapers. Not just the normal daily ones, but also the left-wing weeklies that people sold outside Coles Newtown on Saturday mornings. Noel sometimes played his mouth-organ up there, busking, and people gave him free copies. Noel liked reading them but they didn’t seem enough. There was sometimes a wildness in him that wanted action, any action, but he wanted quick, complete action like those kids in
If
; not marches and meetings like those weekly papers advertised.

‘No more tears, dooble-ey-doo…

Noel lathered up his hair a second time. Mum still bought baby shampoo, she hadn’t realized yet that he was fifteen.

‘
No more tears
,
dooble-ey-doo
,
no more tears
,
baby shampoo…
’ Noel tried to play the shampoo ad underwater.

He heard tap sounds next door. Then Evie’s voice and Sammy crying.

‘No more tears, dooble-ey-doo, no more tears Baby Blue,’
Noel sang as he surfaced. He thought he might go in after despot-duty and have a yarn to Evie. He hadn’t done more than say hello to her in passing since the night up on the stage. It was funny, that: the way you could feel really close to someone, and then just
because
you’d felt so close, you felt sort of embarrassed the next time you saw them. Noel sometimes even found himself feeling hatred for Evie, because she knew about his secret landscape.

‘Mumble-mumble-rhubarb-
Noh!
’ The despot’s voice loudly croaked out the sound she made for Noel’s name and Noel jumped out of the water, hurled on his duffle-coat and raced in still wet. She might have fallen out of bed.

False alarm. She was lying there like Lady Muck, like usual.

‘You okay?’

The despot just looked, then sighed. Wrote.

‘
I DIDN’T KNOW IF YOU WERE THERE
.’

‘Of course I am, Nanna. Or I was. I’m not there now, I’m here. Do you want something?’

The despot shook her head. A ‘No’ shake.

So Noel just got the breakfast stuff out of the food-warmer and packed up the tray. Once again, she hadn’t eaten. She hardly ever ate in the mornings any more.

‘Would you like me to leave it? You might feel like a pick a little later.’ It was steamed kipper and grilled tomato, the despot’s favourite.

The despot shook her head. Another ‘No’ shake.

Despite himself, Noel felt uncomfortable. This had been going on a bit long, even for a performance by the despot. He felt bad about the cold porridge the first time.

‘How about the blind? Is that how you want it?’ It was halfway up, as it always was in the mornings now.

The despot shook her head: No. But yanked it down herself. Noel could hear the voices of Evie and Sammy as they trampolined.

Up in the air

And down again

She lives in that house

And she gives me a pain…

Noel laughed. The despot reached for her powder compact and puffed more white powder over her face.

‘
TELL YOUR MOTHER I HAD ANOTHER BAD NIGHT
.’

‘Sure, Nanna.’

But Noel wouldn’t. She’d been complaining of that a bit too, the last fortnight or so; but then she’d used that trick in the past to get her own way.

The bad nights she’d had when Noel was six, and wanted a birthday party. She’d had them again when Noel was eight, and wanted a bike. They were the same nights she’d had when Noel was ten, and wanted to play football. And of course there was the whole string of them that had come to stop Mum going to dressmaking classes, and to Saturday-morning flower arranging, and even to church.

Noel didn’t believe any more in the despot’s bad nights: ‘She’s a can’t-help-herself-liar.’

Though, looking at her today, maybe she did look a bit strained beneath the powder. Serves you right if it’s true and I don’t believe you, Noel thought. The despot had brought him up on the tale of the little boy who cried ‘Wolf!’

That day, it was earlier than usual when Evie went in to do the despot. That day was a Wednesday, the middle day in the third week of Evie’s despot-duty. If she got it over and done with early, she could go to CYSS on the way to pick up Sammy. She’d been dropping in there a bit lately, and Roger was teaching her to use the video camera.

Evie let herself in the back, turned the gas on under the braised steak, frowned at the ticking clock that always made her feel hemmed in, put the kettle on, and found the teapot missing. Noel must’ve left it up there.

She walked up the stairs, silent in her sandshoes.

‘Noel. Don’t go, Noel. Noel. Don’t leave me.’

The voice coming from the despot’s room was quite distinct. It must be Noel’s mother. But Noel’s mother’s voice was apologetic and thin, and this…was a bit thin, but hardly the whisper-sorry tone of Mrs Cavendish.

‘
She speaks too, sometimes
.
That
’
s a secret
.’

Noel had said that the first night. That was the only time he’d ever talked about the despot to Evie.

Noel must be in there now, and the despot talking to him.

Evie made her feet make a noise as she took the last few steps: knocked, and walked into the despot’s room. Noel wasn’t there. Just the despot, on the bed, her mouth clamped shut, her eyes bright and watery, fixed hard on Evie. Evie felt frightened in her stomach, though why she should feel afraid, she didn’t know. Evie said nothing.

‘Hussy!’ The despot communicated with her voice.

One of the most serious disturbances ever dealt with by the police in New South Wales occurred at Bankstown this morning, when 40 policemen, in carrying out an eviction order, fought a pitched battle with 16 men defending a barricaded house.

Nearly every combatant was injured, some seriously. The most serious injury was that received by Inspector White, of Regent-street, whose skull was fractured by a piece of blue metal flung from one of the windows of the house. One of the occupants, Richard Eatock, was shot in the thigh by a policeman.

The police had to force their way into the house – a weatherboard cottage in Brancourt-avenue – which was barricaded in an amazing fashion with sandbags and barbed wire entanglements.

When the police approached, and surrounded the house, the occupants, who were mostly Communists, showered them with big pieces of blue metal. To cut their way through the barbed wire entanglements, the police had to expose themselves to the full force of the shower of stones. Although many of them were hit, the police succeeded in cutting their way through. Rushing the front verandah, they drew their batons and fought hand-to-hand with the defenders, who used axe handles, garden forks, saplings, and iron piping.

The raid was the result of a disorderly campaign which has been conducted by anti-evictionists in the Bankstown districts for many weeks.