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First published in 2008 Copyright © Vicki Hastrich 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email:
[email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Hastrich,Vicki, 1960–. The great arch. ISBN 978 1 74175 399 8 (pbk.) A823.4 Internal design by Kirby Stalgis Set in 12/16pt Bembo by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For M um, a city and a br id ge; and for F rank Cash , a second volume.
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Es t-ce une vie à mépr iser? Is t his a life to disre gard? au g u s t e f r i an d
(1880–1918)
Auguste Friand was an academic at the Sorbonne, best known for his discourse on the New Humanism. He became a captain in the army during the Great War and a slim volume of his fine war poetry was published posthumously in 1919. Though he was by far a better philosopher than he was a soldier, he made it through the worst of the war only to die of a freak accident when, just prior to receiving his discharge, he was run over by an English tank backing out of a warehouse.
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1967 Mater Hospital The nuns are washing him. They talk quietly to each other, something about a golden throne or is it the cricket scores, he can’t be sure. He is sure of nothing. Though they have put a towel over his genitals for modesty, he feels naked as an old plucked bird as their hands lift limbs to wash crevices. They are young or not young? This is the unknowable thing about nuns. And do they mind tending the ageing body of an Anglican minister? Their handling is firm but gentle and he cannot hold onto his embarrassment, it takes too much effort, he drifts and their touch becomes Stella’s. In their honeymoon bed she lay beside him and let her hand roam under the blankets all over. The next morning she sat back and stared frankly at his anatomy. ‘You—and I suppose all men—look an untidy mess.’ This was the first and last time they spoke openly about sex, though enough was accomplished mute: occasional pleasure, and four children. 1
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She leans over him now, hello, and he’s glad to see her. He’s missed her, but he’s not entirely sure what she’s doing here, since she gave up the ghost in ’62, dead of a heart attack on the rectory kitchen floor, feet pointing towards the pantry. What were you thinking, Stella, to get about in your bare feet at such a crisp hour? He cannot help wondering if footwear might have prevented her sudden departure. ‘Where have you been?’ he says to her, a little peevishly. She snaps back, ‘Where I’ve been every morning. To get you a cup of tea.’ He would like to smile, but cannot.The familiar is comforting, even conversation between them which borders, as usual, on argument. She disappears as doctors arrive. ‘Will you be coming again?’ he asks after her. The senior doctor examines him and the junior ones stand at a distance in a semi-circle like fence posts around a dam. The senior man pats Ralph’s hand from time to time as if he’s considering putting him down. It’s true he’s old—he was born in 1887, so has a leg in each century—and it’s true he does not wish his dying to drag on because he’s always been energetic—but neither does he wish to be denied the full experience of the process. This is personal. And professional— the meeting of his Maker.The doctor bends down and talks loudly and very closely into his left eye, as if whatever cognitive abilities he has left are now all centred there. ‘WHAT IS YOUR NAME?’ Disappointingly, his eye does not speak back to the man, but he does feel responses forming themselves into boat-like shapes in the mist of his brain. Ralph. Reverend. Cage. Anderson. Cage Reverend. ‘We’ll have to wait for the swelling on the brain to subside,’ says the doctor to the eye, ‘and then . . . we’ll see.’ We’ll see, indeed. What we’re left with. They go and quiet settles. He has many times wished for quiet 2
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and rarely got it until Stella died, and then he found it overrated. He would like to lift his tongue now and yell into the antiseptic hall, he would like to raise his fist and rail against the silence. But his body stays as the doctors have left it, neatly arranged. In the workshops the noise was deafening. When the mangle straightened the largest plates of steel, the land shook all the way to the beach at Manly. And up on the bridge, inside the chords in the sweltering dark, the riveters’ pneumatic hammers rat-tatted a black headache— decorated by small fires of glowing scale falling from the red-hot rivets. This is when you knew you were alive, in the roar of work. How does an ordinary man live big? He must attach himself to big things.
Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge VOLUME ONE (A Second Volume shall be published just as soon as the Bridge is finished.)
by Rev. Ralph Anderson Cage Hello. What is the purpose of this book? It is to explain the facts and engineering processes involved in the building of our MARVELLOUS Sydney Harbour Bridge so that all may share an appreciation for that great work and the ingenuity of its builders. It will also praise God (who so kindly bestowed us with a brain capable of such invention). 3
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Why am I the one to write this work? Proximity. I am the Rector of St. Christopher’s Parish, on the North Shore at Lavender Bay, whose Church and Rectory are sublimely situated overlooking the city of Sydney and its Harbour. There could not be a more advantageous nor picturesque position from which to daily view Bridge developments. People run to me telling of this or that place which affords a special view but I say to them, why should I travel here or there when my own front porch, my own bedroom window, allows the best vista. Special Permission. By special arrangement with the Director of Construction for Dorman, Long & Co., Mr. Lawrence Ennis, I have access to the entire work site (including the workshops and the very Bridge itself) and may visit at any time of the day or night. This is a unique privilege not afforded to any other member of the general public. I have the permission paper folded in my wallet but must rarely produce it, being by now a well-known figure on the works. Proximity combined with Special Permission makes me Johnnyon-the-Spot. Via the telephone, or sometimes by foot messenger knocking at my door, I am often summoned (early or late) to witness crucial phases of construction—perhaps the imminent collapse of a wall at a demolition, or the crane-lift of a heavy member, or the start of a day-long concrete pour. Perhaps the stonemason is setting his first piece of Moruya granite. Whatever it is, I can be there in minutes and, more often than not, can take a photograph. Duties and Responsibilities. Being Johnny-on-the-Spot carries with it certain duties and responsibilities. Everyone—in our suburb, in the city, in the countryside, in the nation, along with peoples all around the world—is fascinated by the building of this bridge. It is my duty to share my observations with all. It is my responsibility to do this as comprehensively as I can. To that end I have already taken 10,000 photographs, 118 of which appear in this first volume. This first volume extends to over 4
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500 pages (including a detailed index) and deals only with the START of construction up until the imminent closing of the arch. As I put my pen to paper today to complete this introduction (in the book trade we must sometimes do first things last) the date is June the 7th, 1930, and though the bulk of the work on the Bridge seems done, no one can tell for sure when it will be entirely finished. Some guess a further two years! But the story of that labour must be held over for another volume. This volume has been published entirely at my own expense. It is not written for profit. Its sole purpose is: to delight. If that purpose is well served, proceeds from this will finance another: a second, and imperative, volume. After all, what is a curd without becoming a cheese? Every beginning needs its ending.
1967 Mater Hospital Marian in the . . . dusk? . . . light standing by the window. He remembers when Stella and he waved her off on the Orcades when she was a young woman on her way to London. Stella had streamers in her hands like the reins of a horse, giddy-up horsey. When the ship made its first laboured shudder from the wharf it let go a horn blast which quivered in their stomachs. Along with the rest of the crowd, Stella jumped up and down, bouncing on the tips of her worn shoes. Her eyes were shining with excitement for her 5
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girl, she was laughing crying, she shouted, ‘Hooray to the wide world! Bon voyage!’ He didn’t want to wave but knew he must. He stuck his arm out straight and tick-tocked his hand, looking like a man who might in time learn how to polish a window, but who would never master the art of pretending a glad goodbye to one of his daughters. That evening he drove over to North Head and looked out to sea, half believing he’d see the glittering lights of the Orcades still receding. Marian’s not a young woman now. He watches her staring out the window. The frown on her face isn’t becoming. If it was a cobweb on her, a kind passer-by would brush it away. She turns, sensing him awake. ‘There you are,’ she says, as if he’s been the one away. ‘I bought you some grapes,’ she states. Grapes. He wants to ask her where in England did she get grapes? At this time of year they’d be out of season. He wants to say, ‘How lovely to see you,’ but he can’t make the words. Just as vowels and consonants begin to coalesce, they shatter apart, as if they’d tripped dynamite. She says to herself as she pokes the offered bag of fruit on the trolley table, ‘It’s stupid, I know.’ She says, ‘I just wanted to give you something.’ She comes over to the bed and strokes down his pillow-messed hair. He thinks the gesture is more appropriate than she can know: his head is a lion which needs taming. He looks and looks at her with his one good eye; she is almost middle-aged. Hard to believe. She speaks. ‘I went round to check on your place. Threw out a few things from the fridge. And I took your washing home.’ Of course, his house. A suburb away from hers. She’s been back all these years. He’s an idiot with his blood-clotted thinking. His bad eye waters involuntarily and Marian takes a tissue from the nightstand to wipe it away. She pulls a chair over and perches on 6
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the edge of the metal seat. She says Alice has telephoned again and sends her love, she’s looking into booking a passage. Ralph pictures her clinging to a ship’s rail and green around the gills with seasickness. Neither the discomfort nor the inconvenience of the long journey will persuade her to come by plane. Marian says they’ve been doing their best to reach Grace but Bill says she’s on a field trip somewhere in the bayous south of Tallahassee—somewhere, trust Grace, where the lines of communication are unreliable. Time floats, a long time, who can say. Marian turns the pages of a newspaper. The printed headlines are strange to Ralph. Their shapes do not represent any of the alphabets he knows and he knows some—Greek, Latin, a smattering of Hebrew. But this is English. And he cannot read. He thinks the realisation should set him wailing; how could this be borne, a lifetime of the written word come to an end, never to learn another marvellous or mysterious thing about the world or one’s place in it? Instead, he observes the change dispassionately. Is this, he wonders, the first blow in the process of losing everything? Marian folds the newspaper and gathers her things to go. She leans to kiss her father, and notices his lips are dry. ‘You’re parched. Shall I ask the sisters to bring some ice, or a swab?’ But she goes to the grapes instead and squeezes the juice from a few into a waxed paper cup. ‘Here.’ She dips her fingers into the cup and gently wipes the syrupy moisture over the tip of Ralph’s desiccated tongue and over his cracked lips and along his gums. The welcome wetness of it, the sweet sweetness of it, explodes in his parched mouth so that he did not know how poor he was before this richness. Perhaps, after all, he thinks, there are still some things to learn which print cannot teach us. ‘Goodbye, Dad.’ She kisses him again. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ 7
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He shuts his bad eye and tries to communicate with the good one, putting everything he’s got into somehow showing gratitude and love for her. He thinks the effect most likely mad so, harder than he has before, he concentrates to form speech. He steels his will, marshalling each and every swollen and scrambled cell inside his body to say her name. She’s watching. He tries harder. The sound comes out, a gullet click. It comes out . . . ‘Golin.’ ‘Colin?’ she repeats. Her voice drops. ‘He’s gone, Dad. Remember?’ He would never forget. He meant, ‘Marian.’
Late at night, Lennie Gwideer rides his horse up and down the hospital corridors. Lennie Gwideer is coming. How is it that at nine years old he’s allowed to open the farm gate and ride out for the border and beyond, riding for six hundred miles? And in the morning, who will milk the cows? Who cares? Lennie Gwideer is coming.
29 July 1923 Cats-and-dogs rain. Mud to the ankles.The Minister for Works gets his hand wrapped up in the wet ribbon on the shovel as he turns the first sodden sod. Manacled. There’s a to-do as he tries to disentangle but in the end he gives his speech tied to the tool, pretends it doesn’t exist, nonchalant. Even the most common person there can see a shovel is a shovel. When the rain stops, the earth smells slightly faecal. 8
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This is the site of North Sydney station. So far, the only impressive thing about the whole dismal ceremony is the minister’s fat wife in her big-checked woollen coat which looks like a dressing-gown (very cosy) and the way she laughs with a horsesnort when the hemline cakes in mud and turns shale coloured. Is she also wearing slippers? It would be appropriate, a small outrageous touch, a signature of flamboyance, for in fact this gathering is meant to celebrate an act which is truly audacious. Come Monday they will mark houses for demolition, send tenants packing, start digging tunnels underground for a railway to meet a bridge which is not built, for which no builders have been chosen, for which a final design, a plan, does not exist! The bridge is only an idea. Mostly, it is the idea of the New South Wales Government’s chief engineer, Dr John Job Crew Bradfield. He takes his hat off now, nodding with respect to the little Union Jack which is stuck into the mud at a wobbled angle near the minister’s shovel, exposing his massive cranium. What a head ! Big as a cartoon, a skull on the verge of fracture, enormous brains, capable of brewing and pursuing the grandest visions. He is a genius, an engineer of daring, who, with mathematics, will supervise the throwing of a span across the harbour from the city to the northern shore; in all likelihood the longest bridge ever built— perhaps the biggest manmade structure on the planet. Well-wishers shake his hand and an official photographer bustles in to ask Bradfield to join the other dignitaries. The photographer is careless with his composition and lets his subjects stand in assorted shapes and heights like a row of broken teeth. Bradfield tilts his moustache towards the lens, trying to suppress a smile of pride, but appearing instead as if he’s suffering from a nasty wind pain. Fumbling with his camera behind the official set-up is Reverend Cage, eager to make his own record. He is dark haired (could do 9
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with a haircut) and is tall but stooped, stiff in places, like an unfolded paperclip. His toes twitch in his shoes, not against the clogged weight of mud but with the zizzle of genuine excitement. This is the first day, the beginning of the bridge, and he will savour it along with every other day of construction to follow (as it turns out, another 3157, but as yet nobody’s counting). The dignitaries shuffle in the mud, afraid of sinking and becoming permanently stuck. When the official photographer is finished the reverend waves his long arm, beseeching them to stay put for a minute longer. He promises to be quick, just one quick photograph. They don’t deny the young clergyman. And young he is still, at thirty-six, though awkward and unfashionable looking with his angular face and his gangly body. He grew up on a limestone-scribbled coast on the other side of the continent where the only things taller than the dunes were water-pumping windmills, creaking and clapped-out. The new bridge, the reverend thinks, will surely tower, not just over the harbour and the city, but over the whole land. Citizens everywhere must wish to billyo that they were here today. Well then—he will be their proxy! Ralph checks the aperture of his camera, sweating a little despite the weather. So important to get this right. He has one chance; he steadies; he takes the picture. There are eight dignitaries. And six of them blink.
16 January 1924 Termites. So far the inspectors have crawled and lifted and poked their way around the church and shaken their heads at hidden mudding and informed Ralph that a good deal of the vestry floor has been a staple of the insects’ diet. The rectory may also have been food. 10
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‘Well, come on then,’ says Ralph. ‘Get on and look.’ Neither of the two fellows are particularly speedy. They must be practically pushed through the rectory front door. In the parlour, Stella pulls furniture about to make more space for the chairs and tables required for tonight’s supper party. Alice, six, sits in the big armchair and is shrill with surprise when Stella swings her hip and shoves it on its castors back against the bookcase. Colin is asleep upstairs. Alice jumps up and points to the other big old chair. ‘Do that one.’ Stella is not long pregnant with Marian, and Grace is a further twenty months away. In the hall, on a chair outside the rector’s study, a young man about eighteen years old is waiting. Telling him he’ll be a little while longer, Ralph leads the termite men out to the utility room, where a trapdoor in the floor gives access under the house. An unknown woman in the kitchen is bent over the cutlery canteen polishing spoons and cake forks. On Ralph’s best guess she’ll need to clean about sixty sets of implements. He checks his watch. Half past eleven. The back door opens and in walks a bunch of flowers. Behind it, Mrs Makem. ‘Hello, Rector,’ she calls. The cutlery woman lifts her head and Mrs Makem does the introductions just as the pest men resurface with their torches and give the all clear, qualified by the words, ‘for the time being’. Good, eleven thirty-five. Now to interview the lad and surely there’ll be time left over, a moment’s wait for the noon deadline. A tender box in the city in a mahogany-lined hallway awaits opening. ‘Think twice before cutting down any nearby trees,’ the senior pest man is saying, ‘because if the little blighters have been lodging there 11
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they’ll march off for a new home and too bad if yours is the closest.’ The tender box, so the daily newspapers report, has been fitted with double locks and the Minister for Works holds one key, and the under-secretary the other. ‘Anyway,’ says the junior man, ‘seems like you’ve got more pressing worries than the borer.’ He points up the stairwell to a dark pendulum-shaped stain marring the wallpaper. The roof slates are shot and, according to last month’s quote, repairs will cost forty-five pounds and are therefore quite out of the question. The state of the parish funds is parlous and now even more so, since the white ants have decided the vestry is haute cuisine. Stella will have to manage with the household drips and waterfalls. The church must take priority. The churchwardens mutter glumly over the books but Ralph urges them to exercise their wits to find a way of performing the necessary financial resurrection. He reminds them they must rebuild the church both physically and spiritually after the long tenure of the last incumbent, who died in office, but not before he’d let the parish go to pot. Twenty minutes to twelve. The corridor in the Department for Public Works will be hushed. Closed doors reflecting down the length of the highly polished floor. The termite men depart and the waiting lad enters Ralph’s study. He’s uncomfortable in his best clothes, which are freshly pressed but undeniably shabby. His manner is polite but this barely masks his natural puppishness. In a strong northern English accent he says his name is Syd Addison and grins, adding, ‘Call me Nipper.’ There’s an opening for a boilermaker’s assistant at the Cockatoo Island dockyards and he wants a reference. ‘So, Mr Nipper Addison,’ Ralph says to him, ‘you think you’re tough enough to join the men at the shipyards?’ 12
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Addison grins again (teeth none too clean, the remains of breakfast) and slips a piece of paper over the desk with a man’s name written on it. Will the reverend write the reference and address it to this person? He’ll do better than that, Ralph tells him, taking the paper. He will also telephone. He finds that if he telephones ahead and speaks to the manager, the applicant’s chances of success are enhanced in most cases. ‘I will vouch for you personally,’ he tells the lad. Then, ‘We haven’t seen you in our church, have we?’ The young man is caught out and uneasy. ‘You must consider giving up just a little of your time on Sundays to join us. Morning Service, or Evensong. Myself, I find the early morning peace of Holy Communion the most refreshing. That’s it, you know. Church is a solemn duty but the gift it offers is profound refreshment.’ The rector leans in to him, looks straight into his eyes and says boldly, ‘Are you not thirsty?’ Addison breaks Ralph’s gaze and shakes then nods his head, looks around, as if half expecting to be served a cup of tea. At the front door Ralph tells him he must call again if, at any time, there’s ever anything else he can do to help with other matters. ‘Perhaps we’ll see you this Sunday?’ the reverend says, and he shakes the young man’s hand as firmly as if he too were used to wielding a seven-pound hammer. Four minutes to twelve. Through the study window Nipper Addison disappears along the path which splits the steep lawn down to the flat corner of land where the church hall stands and a gate opens onto Lavender Street. Beyond the street lies the bay and the waters of the harbour which will, in six years’ time, wash over this same young man’s broken body. Today 13
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the harbour is a slate-grey punctuated with surging ferries and all manner of ships of commerce. On the southern shore is the city. The untidiness of the waterfront gives way to a jumble of buildings and rooftops, financial streets and shopping, and, most importantly today, the sandstone edifices which contain the state’s public servants. The tender box waits in a corridor in the Department for Public Works. Three minutes to twelve. No last-minute clattered footsteps race towards the box for a late posting. Two minutes to twelve. Office doors open and out come half a dozen suited men. Principal among them, the gentlemen with the keys. The under-secretary holds out his. One minute to twelve. The minister, because he is the minister, makes a little play, feigns worry and pats the pockets of his vest and coat before at last, ha-ha, he produces his key. Polite, muffled laughter. But not from Dr Bradfield, who looks as if he’d like to give the minister a sharp poke. This man and his moment deserve more respect. Since 1912 Bradfield has cooked up schemes of roads, and railways underground, all linked up to a mighty bridge—the centrepiece of the city—plans requiring thousands of man-hours to commit to paper. He has lectured, lobbied, toured the world to gather information and sound out prospective tenderers. He’s appeared before inquiries and sat through parliamentary debates, sweated on the outcome—the passing of the Sydney Harbour Bridge Act, at last, in 1922. More travel, more calculations, rewritten specifications. He’s in no mood for the minister’s folly. Noon. 14
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Great minds around the globe have worked towards this hour, testing their genius against the specifications. Cantilever, or arch bridge? The double locks are breached and the box is opened. Twenty designs from six different international engineering companies. They are initialled as received and then, escorted by two men, Bradfield takes them. A knock at Ralph’s study door. Alice enters bearing a slice of cake on a plate—cake which has been baked for tonight’s party to mark the anniversary of Ralph’s first year at St Christopher’s. Ralph can’t believe his luck, that the tiny neglected parish he was given is destined to become the centre of the nation’s attention for years to come. His own success is assured for, as the bridge grows, so shall the importance of his parish. He swells with pride, feels somehow specially chosen: all his life he has looked for a story to belong to and this is it; he recognises it, embraces it as it will surely embrace him. He is in the story, part of the story, and he will make it his job to record it all as it unfolds.
24 March 1924 A contract is signed by the New South Wales Government and the winning tenderer, Dorman, Long & Co. Ltd of Middlesbrough, England, for a two-hinged steel arch bridge, designed by Mr R. Freeman. Mr Lawrence Ennis, director of construction for the company, is at hand to put his signature to the paper. The price—£4,217,721. And 19 shillings. And 10 pence. The contractors are to provide the bridge complete with five approach spans either side. Meeting those approach spans with road 15
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and rail links is the job of the government. This, in itself, involves extensive demolition and construction work on a scale never before undertaken. KA-BOOM!
1925 Explosions—not a hundred yards from the back wall of the rectory, where they’re blowing out rock for North Sydney station. Explosions—at Milsons Point, where a whole cliff face must be blasted into broken bits and loaded onto horse and cart and dumped into the harbour to provide a flat deck for the erection of the fabrication workshops. Excavations—on the southern and the northern shore for approach-span footings and the foundations of the abutment towers, on top of which will grow the pylons. Explosions and excavations—in the city streets and parks, gouged for the slow job of building an underground rail loop. Explosions—down at Moruya, one hundred and eighty miles south of Sydney, where the granite is quarried which will decorate the approach-span pillars and the four mighty pylons. In order to build a bridge, it seems, it’s necessary to dig up and blow up a fair percentage of the state of New South Wales.
Demolisher’s song: Rip up the concrete paths, send down the walls, topple the smokedout chimneys. Peel off the roof tiles: terracotta piano notes crashing to the gutter. Bring down the old suburb! 16
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1967 Mater Hospital Ralph wakes. He has no idea what day it is or how long he has lain in this bed in this room nor even how he got here. His lucidity comes and goes, sometimes for minutes or for hours his mind is dishwater: grey and sudsy and floating with unrecognisable lumps. A hospital room. A Catholic hospital room. He remembers his shirt wet and heat emanating from the vinyl back seat of a stranger’s car then being dragged from it. He remembers a blue neon sign and rolling down corridors, lights—and a peculiar smell: the pink and yellow scent of frangipani. But what events led to his delivery here? And before that, who was he? He searches for memories, he tries to relax, forcing back the panic of being a blank, which in any case only sets the boom boom pain in his head going. He remembers sand stinging the backs of his legs when he was a boy and the crust of it inside his ears. He remembers living with his grandparents. The wind creaking through their cottage. They are his father’s parents. And then he remembers who he is and why he resided there. He is Ralph Anderson Cage. Son of a murdered shopkeeper. 17
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* 1886. Fremantle. George Anderson Cage, a thirty-two-year-old shop assistant, marries Katherine Cullen, fresh off the boat from the Old Country and half his age. George is no great shakes in the looks department but as far as Katherine is concerned he’ll do—at least his breath is sweeter on her neck than that of her father. George is fastidious about his person and ambitious, and Katherine is pretty in a sharp-toothed way. A year later their son is born. He is long as a skinned rabbit and has sticky-outie ears. ‘Just like his father.’ (Katherine is quick to apportion blame.) They name the baby Ralph. With a small cash tin of savings, the Cages move out to the newly settled town of Southern Cross in the year 1890 to start up their own shop, the Pioneer Etcetera Store (Grocers, Drapers, Ironmongers, Etcetera). They work day and night to make their business a success, provisioning the wheat- and sheep-farming community and the few goldminers who are dotted about. Katherine Cage has neither the time nor the inclination for fussy mothering and spends her days shooing three-year-old Ralph out of the way as she darts around the shop. And then one October Saturday night in 1891, the little family is shattered. George Cage, asleep in his bed, is shot dead by an impatient customer who cannot wait till Monday to settle the matter of a perceived mistake on his monthly account. Though the culprit is caught straightaway, the investigating policeman, Sergeant Fred Etcher, returns to the Pioneer Store repeatedly over following days to go over the case with Katherine. By the time her husband’s killer has been unchained from the gaol tree and tried and hanged, Katherine has sold the policeman two cases of jam, an imported flock pillow, a dozen tins of kerosene, a set of bone-handled fish knives, three pairs of dungarees, 18
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a crowbar, a packet of Condy’s Crystals as a cure for snakebite, a canvas bucket, and eight pots of moustache wax. Who knows what the man does with so much moustache wax. 1892. Katherine Cage, shopkeeper, aged twenty-two, marries Frederick Thomas Etcher, ex-policeman, aged twenty-nine. Fred Etcher is a manly sort, a sportsman who is fond of his own reflection. He is not ambitious. This exactly suits Mrs Katherine Etcher, who is not about to relinquish control of the shop and give away her new-found power. She works so hard that sometimes Fred must pout to get her attention, whereupon she coos into his ear and makes him feel like a tiger. Little boy Ralph stares at Fred and asks when his father will be back from the dead. Fred finds the earnest child unnerving; the thin face, the big ears, a junior version of the murdered man he is meant to have supplanted. And so it’s only a matter of time before the boy is sent away to live in Doubtful Bay, twenty miles south of Perth, with his paternal grandparents. 1896. Katherine Etcher moves her business out to the boom town of Kalgoorlie where the cry is gold, gold, GOLD! Fred Etcher opens his second-last jar of moustache wax. 1897. Ralph gets twelve stitches in his leg when he slices it open falling over a barbed-wire fence (Glidden’s Twist, patented 1881). The next day he limps to school. He’d rather do anything than stay home. He swims. He remembers swimming. He swims like a garfish underwater over the ribbon weed, his white body crazed with sunlight piercing the shallows. He holds his breath. In this brief realm he is never clumsy, nor does he find the quiet lonely; indeed, he loves the ear-filling, sandrumbling harmonics of the sea. He goes to school, hides in the uproar of the fifty-two other 19
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children who are dried out and toughened by the salt and the sun into kippers. They’re beyond the governance of the city-bred teacher but somehow Ralph manages to attend to his spelling and his sums. He writes his name upon his slate in a creditable cursive. Over and over. Then there’s the Mechanics’ Institute. The key hangs from a nail under the tank stand and he lets himself in whenever he likes, which is all the time. Behind the stage are three double cupboards full of books which act as the local lending library, though to his knowledge the dunny cart man is the only other occasional user. For all the hours and hours that the wind blows, scourging the building and lifting the iron roof against its nails, Ralph sits at a trestle table in the middle of the hall, reading. He reads as if under the influence of another power, consuming without apparent pause to digest: The Arabian Nights, followed by The Geology of Great Britain, The Life of Sir Walter Scott, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Modern American Animal Husbandry—it doesn’t matter what, as long as the hours are swallowed up. When he finishes them all he begins again. His lips move silently over the words like someone uttering a concentrated prayer. What’s he praying for? When hunger takes him home he tiptoes about, cuts himself a slice of bread and eats it in quiet bites so as not to disturb his grandmother. She’s always in her bed, asleep or pretending to be. She has no vigour at all. The most startling image—his grandmother sprawled in a greyskinned slumber in the hipbath with an empty gin bottle on the floor beside her. It’s his first sight of a naked woman. Pages of the newspaper she’d been reading float on the water, covering and exposing various parts of her body like surgical drapes. Her long breasts roll off her chest, sagging away from each other, one curved pink-grey nipple pointing indifferently to port, the other pointing to starboard. Sparse wires of pubic hair twist up to meet an illustration of a prize horse on the sporting page which stockings one of her legs from thigh to knee. 20
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He wonders if all women wear this strange suet-grey anatomy under their clothes. His grandfather does everything and asks for no help with the chores. He cooks all the meals, he washes all the clothes. At night he darns and mends with man-sized stitches while outside the wind lifts the sand from the lips of dunes. This is Ralph’s childhood, watching a silent man, with infinite patience, minister to his sick wife. She dies in the autumn of ’01 and Ralph is secretly relieved to be free of her leaden presence. Two weeks after she’s buried he takes himself to bed with a cold and waits for his grandfather. He does not come. He coughs louder and makes himself sicker but still the old man does not present himself. Ralph gets up, better, only to discover that his grandfather, who never drank a drop while his wife was alive, has taken her place with the bottle. Over the coming months, the drink loosens obscenities from him, unuttered all the years of his married life. In the chicken yard one day, his hands shake as he collects the eggs and he tells the hens, ‘She was my goodness.’ The chooks blink and turn away from him so he leaves them for days without food and water. From the back door at night he calls out to their distressed clucking, ‘Fuck you. F-fuck you, I say.’ School ends and Ralph’s grandfather finds him jobs. At the timber yard, at the fellmonger’s. Ralph pretends to go to work then sneaks back to the Mechanics’ Institute. A last chance at the turtle factory on Mains Beach, where they tin the white meat for soup and render the fat, sell off the shells, and grind the hooked beaks down into powder. He quits the day they send him out in the boat, catching. He doesn’t have the stomach for it. It’s the lady turtles which bother him most; in their eyes are all the dark beaches they have hauled themselves up on. 21
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He is unemployable. His grandfather shakes his head and hires a buggy to drive him to Fremantle railway station. They shake hands on the platform too soon; the train isn’t due to leave for another half-hour. Ralph boards the train, watches his stationary grandfather through the stationary window. After Perth the loco heads quickly east through the few suburbs to the Swan Valley, to Guildford, Midland, and beyond to the hills, Stoneville, Parkerville, Clackline. Once in the flat country, the rails begin to sing: I am the only person in the world, I am the only person in the world. He is fourteen years old, on the train going east, to Kalgoorlie, to live with his mother. Whether she likes it or not. The sea breeze pushes him inland. This is what he remembers. The olden days. I’m the only person in the world. Am I still the only person in the world? Has so little changed? What happened to my aspirations?
8 September 1925 The day Ralph steps out of his first-floor bedroom window (onto the roof slates) is a day that changes his life. First, he is reported to the Archbishop’s office as a suicide risk, and though this is clearly nonsense and easily discredited, it’s the beginning of unwelcome attention from church officials which is to last for years. Second, he conceives of a grand idea. For his book. It’s an idea which in time will tip the cost of production way over and nearly send him broke. ‘But worth it,’ he whispers to himself. It’s as if, by stepping through the dormer window, he has stepped over the frame and into the picture. This is not to denigrate the value 22
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of his customary view, but it’s amazing what a difference it makes to be several feet higher up and six across: he now has peripheral vision! And up here normal boundaries don’t apply, one’s mind broadens, one’s idea of what a book should be—could be—expands. In his imagination he opens up the handsome cover of the first edition (bound, perhaps, in pigskin?) to reveal the title page (good-quality paper) and then (here is the bold innovation) there’s a fold-out panel a foot long—a panoramic photograph—showing the bridge, the workshops, the city, everything that he now sees this very minute (except more because the bridge isn’t yet built). But there’s something else: visualise a sheet of tracing paper over the top of the photograph with a numbered key to identify all the important parts of construction and all the surrounding landmarks. One will only have to look at the photograph and say, ‘Oh what is that tallest point on the horizon?’ then flip across to the perfectly matching overlay: ‘Yes, Number 45—the Post Office Clock and Tower. And look, Number 17 is the Bottom Chord of the Arch.’ He feels like hugging himself (but luckily doesn’t, as this may also have gone on report). Left to right, this whole wide vista, will be his in print. Though it’s a pity about the Moreton Bay fig trees. He wonders if he could get them chopped down.Their spreading canopy really does obscure what will be the start of the northern approach spans. Felling them would be a big job, and quite a delicate operation; they’re rather close to the south wall of the church and if one of those big boughs fell the wrong way, whoops! . . . Early English rubble. Best not. For the time being. ‘What do you think you’re doing up there?’ It’s Stella. Standing on the lawn below with her hands on her hips, she’s foreshortened and, he registers (a little maliciously), the angle makes her fat. ‘Nothing,’ he says. She screws up her face. 23
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‘Looking at the slates. To check their condition.’ ‘And what is their condition?’ ‘Jiggered.’ As if they didn’t know—when it rains she’s the one who shifts the buckets. Stella shakes her head. What’s he up to? She says, affecting a sarcastic tone, ‘If things get too bad I suppose we can always move into the garage,’ referring to the ugly new brick building squatting by the fence, which is quite at odds with the sandstone of the church and the rectory. ‘Yes,’ agrees Ralph. ‘You’d better get down,’ she orders, and she wipes her hands on her apron and starts back to the house. ‘Robert’s on the phone.’ On the hall table, the telephone’s black receiver looks ominous, the way it lies there listening for his footfall. So long as he doesn’t pick it up, it can’t do a thing to him. He’s taken his time coming. He puts his hands in his pockets and stares at it. And then after awhile he bends at the waist and puts his ear near it. Nothing. Delighted, he picks it up between two fingers as if it’s covered in filth and drops it delicately onto its cradle. Bring-bring! Brrriiiiiiiiinnnggg! He swipes it up and barks into it, ‘St Christopher’s Rectory.’ ‘Robert here, what have you been doing?’ ‘Hello. Strange question. I’ve been busy, writing my sermon. Very busy.’ ‘You have not—you’ve been on the roof.’ Ralph can’t believe it and slams down the phone. Bring-bring! He picks it up. ‘Sorry, we must have got cut off.’ He presses his fingers into his forehead at the onset of a headache and decides to give up. He forces himself to be pleasant. ‘Now, Robert, what seems to be the problem?’ 24
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The problem seems to be that a ‘concerned’ parishioner, passing on Lavender Street, had chanced some twenty minutes ago to look up and spot him teetering on the roof, apparently considering a fatal leap . . . ‘I was not teetering!’ snaps Ralph. . . . and had rung in to ‘Head Office’ . . . Ralph grimaces. Robert (Pipsqueak) Retont loves to call it that since his promotion. Though he’s barely boss of the cloakroom at present, he’s on his way up. . . . and although parishioners’ ‘concerns’ are not strictly Retont’s area, the information was passed on to him, ‘Since I am a relative.’ It makes Ralph bilious to be reminded. Robert in his suit bought from the boys’ department, probably leaning back in his chair, trying to look world-weary behind his diocesan desk. At theology college he was by far the youngest (and the brightest) but behaved like he was sixty-four. When he listened during student discussions, he’d crimp up that vealy face of his as if the words coming into his ears had been overseasoned, and when he spoke he’d half close his eyes, veins showing in his waxy lids, eyelashes fluttering. Whatever he said was inevitably patronising. Dux of the class, but really! Such unbelievable bad luck that he became a relative. ‘. . . And do you, Ralph, think you need to talk anything over?’ ‘No! I need to fix the roof! Is there anything you can do about that now you’re at “Head Office”?’ ‘Probably not.’ ‘Not your area?’ ‘So you are sure you’re alright?’ ‘I was inspecting the roof.’ ‘Well, we do get the odd parishioner who’s overzealous. But it does help us to keep tabs on things.’ 25
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Maybe Retont should start growing his fingernails long since it seems he so aspires to becoming a church mandarin. When Ralph finally puts the phone down he still feels Retont’s spindly hand upon his shoulder. The truth is, they are inextricably linked. Not only by an accident of marriage but by a moment prior to that, a mere moment which cannot be undone—no matter how much Ralph wishes otherwise. Oh why did that pipsqueak move his arm to reveal the answer to Question 75? Ralph feels disoriented. In talking to Retont he’s lost his good place in the day. He takes out his pocket diary. He’s down for the weekly 11 am service at Garland House Veterans’ Hospital, which is not good, followed by his monthly visit to the Dudley Bell, which will be much better. He turns to the Notes pages at the back of his book and his List of Unfinished Things. It reads: 1. The Bridge 2. The Book 3. The Garage √ √ 4. THE CAR 5. The Columbus Hall 6. More clubs/fellowships. Boy Scouts? 7. Read Shakespeare (all) 8. Visit every house in parish (and flats). Save people and/or get money 9. Go to Moruya quarry Now he pencils in another point: 10. Find out who is Retont’s snitch 26
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He turns the page and jots a note to put into the next issue of the parish paper: If you see me on the roof, please ignore. I am not about to jump, I am carrying out vital Bridge work. Ralph gathers his satchel and his camera in its bashed brown leather box and throws the straps of both criss-crossed over his shoulders. He fancies he looks a man of action, ready to tackle whatever the day throws up. To complete the effect he straightens his glasses in the hallstand mirror but the minute he turns away they tilt again, irreparably bent where he’s sat on them. Outside, in front of the new garage, he pauses, as he has done most days for the past three months, to admire the double doors before swinging them open. He loves the little square panes of frosted glass and the spick two-tone paint job of the timber. He lifts the bolt and the doors float effortlessly apart on oiled hinges. He pauses to enjoy this moment too, the revelation of a clean and never-used space. Totally empty. Apart from his bicycle. Which lies tipped over on the concrete floor, dead centre. Up until recently, he has been in the habit of leaning the bicycle against the built-in workbench (which has also never been used) but has lately decided it’s time to start practising for full occupation. He’s hoping for a Dodge. A second-hand Dodge which will swoon around corners. He’d like to own something American. The visit to Garland House is predictably horrible—for all the usual reasons, including not knowing where to look (he’s not good with disfigurements and maimings), but also because the staff are increasingly hostile. They seem to hold him personally responsible for the bridge detonations and the corresponding distress it causes to the nerve patients. Today the charge-sister snaps at Ralph, ‘How long before all this is over?’ He replies, ‘Only seven or eight years.’ When she sees him 27
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out her goodbye is so curt she might as well have been sending him off with a kick in the pants. It’s a relief when he’s away and cycling down Union Street. The breeze picks up and an occasional strong gust puts a wobble in his progress. He feels undignified on his high-wheeled conveyance and knows he’s a spiky black picture in his parson’s suit, all elbows and knees. In his head he composes a piece for Sunday’s service—at least it mitigates his lie to Retont if he’s worked on it some time today. He decides on a subtle approach to the problem of the car: ‘Many of you will have heard me speak before of the priests’ ordination ceremony and the special charge the Archbishop puts upon each of his new ministers.’ Without pausing to check for traffic he dashes into Lavender Street and along past the church. ‘He exhorts us “to be Messengers, Watchmen and Stewards of the Lord, to teach and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord’s family, to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever”.’ Ralph pumps hard on the pedals. ‘As you can see, the Archbishop asks us to do rather a lot.’ He turns right into Alfred Street, noting another house down since yesterday on the eastern side. Now he’s pushing into a headwind. ‘I do strive to live up to this exhausting ideal but find much of my time is wasted in travelling to and fro between missions.’ He passes two shops in a row with blank windows and To Let signs. ‘Since we have recently satisfied the bank over the matter of the garage, it’s time to get cracking with stage two of our grand plan. Just think how much more I could accomplish in the service of the parish if only I had a motor car. Why, I could conduct a funeral in no time if I didn’t have to dally getting to the cemetery by tram and motor bus. I could visit three hospitals in the time it takes to do one, I could carry the sick to the 28
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doctor, the aged to church, the bereaved on their day of sorrow.’ Ralph bumps over the tram tracks and swerves across Junction Street, nipping ahead of an overloaded lorry. ‘And of course, anyone may telephone the rectory at any time if they have an important use and I shall drive them wherever they need go. After all, the motor car would belong not to me, but to the whole parish.’ The camera box bounces and digs into his back. ‘To this end, won’t you see this week and over the weeks to come if you have a little extra left over to give to the Special Motor Car Fund? Envelopes will be handed out at each service. I shall start the going with a personal donation of five pounds.’ That, he thinks, is sure to do it. He’s ashamed to admit it, but when it comes to donations, he’s noticed that a certain wheedling tone can be quite effective. And then he decides to finish on an upbeat note with a little joke. He chuckles to himself. ‘We can do this! Remember my friends, I’m not asking for Elijah’s chariot of fire—just a Ford or a Dodge!’ He’s so thrilled with his own good humour he nearly crashes into a parked meat van and the carter who’s stepping down out the back with a pig slung over his shoulder. The pig slips on the man’s bloody canvas yoke, he juggles the carcass, he makes to yell but Ralph’s gone, cranking the pedals and zooming to Kirribilli. Halfway up Dent Street and Ralph’s no longer smiling. He’s red in the face and sweating into the tight armpits of his jacket as he pushes the bike up the almost vertical incline to the Dudley Bell. The greywhite masonry of the convalescent home teeters up top on the high side of the steep road, and when Ralph glances over the handlebars from his hunched pushing he can see a cheerful Jimmy de Bruce up by the gate waiting for him. Jimmy, that natty little manipulator, is in his late sixties and fit as a fiddle since a gall bladder operation four years ago, but he’s fond of the Dudley Bell and has no intention of going 29
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home to his sister and her collection of spoons. There are others like Jimmy in the home, with plenty of money and nowhere better to go. ‘Hurry up, Rector,’ he calls from the gate. ‘Just about there, heave-ho.’ Ralph can’t reply, his heart’s thumping under his shirt. ‘How about that,’ says Jimmy, shading his eyes and looking out to the right over the roofs of the lower flats and down to the harbour to a place Ralph can’t see. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much they get done in a day.’ Ralph presumes he’s referring to the workshop site where they’re erecting the sheds. ‘A lot more than me,’ he puffs. He gets to the gate and mops himself with a hanky, and though Jimmy tut-tuts, he doesn’t offer to push the bike the last little way up the path. ‘What about a Dodge?’ says Jimmy, screwing up his face sympathetically. ‘If it was me,’ says Jimmy, ‘I’d get a Dodge. Rudimentary but reliable.’ Inside, it’s another climb up a flight of stairs to the day room; while Ralph wonders how they ever get the old people up to the home in the first place, he doesn’t wonder that they can’t get them out. Strictly speaking, the Dudley Bell isn’t situated within the compact bounds of Ralph’s parish, but many of the residents are ex-parishioners so he includes them in his monthly rounds—and besides, Jimmy always does a whip around. If it wasn’t for the generosity of the Dudley Bell, he’d still only have half a garage. He never conducts services, though, as this would be stepping on the toes of the man from St John’s, but he does hold informal prayers. Today Mrs Benson asks him to make special mention of the home’s missing cat, but Jimmy whispers it’s gone tomming and not to work it up too much. Ralph circulates after the blessing and tries to exchange a word with everyone until slowly, 30
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imperceptibly, the conversation falls away and almost simultaneously, as if on an unseen cue, everyone turns to the windows to wait in silence. They are focused on the grim little pile of rocks in the middle of the harbour which is Fort Denison—a place where convicts formerly starved and later a Martello tower was built to defend against Russian invasion. And then there it is, a puff of smoke from the one o’clock gun, a cannon not otherwise fired seeing the Russians wisely stayed put, and who wouldn’t against such an arsenal. Everyone in the day room checks and re-winds their watch and the hubbub of the room resumes. At the Dudley Bell, luncheon isn’t signalled with a gong, it’s signalled with ordnance. ‘Reverend Cage, would you care to join us?’ asks Matron Marks, motioning with a genteel hand towards the dining room. Ralph feigns delighted surprise but everyone knows he times his visits just so, and he’s shown to a place which has already been set next to Jimmy’s. A lovely fried flounder is served and halfway through, just as Ralph is about to remove the broad fan of the backbone, Jimmy leans over. His shiny bottom lip is stuck with a fleck of the white fish. ‘What about a Nash Tourer? Have you thought about one of those?’ At table, and later when they are seated in the day room in the easy chairs with cups of tea, the talk is all to do with the view out the plate windows—the harbour and the coming bridge. The old folk tell him which overseas ships have lately arrived (which sets off a string of reminiscences), and about the near collision of two ferries witnessed last Thursday during morning coffee, and how raw the city looks with the bald scar of Dawes Point so prominent. The crane never stops at the wharf there, they tell Ralph, unloading materials for the bridge. On their side of the harbour they marvel at the size of the workshops, the framework of which grows daily, and Ralph obligingly provides, off the top of his head, all the costs and dimensions. 31
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Sensing an appropriate moment, he flips open his satchel and offers a fat wad of parish newspapers for sale, commending to all his article on the recent relocation of the vehicular ferry. From here they can easily see the cars lined up on the road waiting for the return of the punt. Jimmy de Bruce holds a little brass telescope to his eye—he looks like Lord Nelson—and he calls out the makes and models. Then, ‘By crikey,’ he says, tilting it up and over to the dusty ground behind the cars where they’re excavating the foundations for the skewbacks.‘Look at that.’ It’s a willy-willy, a mini tornado, twirling over the work site. Loose rubbish swirls up, the men hold their hats and caps and turn their backs against the quick sting of dirt and grit, and then it’s gone. ‘Well, what do you know,’ says Jimmy. ‘A whirling dervish.’ Being without the benefit of the Lord Nelson spy glass, no one else in the day room at the Dudley Bell has a clue what he’s talking about. Surely that’s not the name of a new type of car?
1967 Mater Hospital Wind, Marian says, is everywhere. Yes. It is. He nods, or does he? She seems not to see his agreement. Wind, she says, has battered the whole of the metropolitan area all last night and this morning, but the worst hit, with semi-tornados, have been suburbs up the line. In a corridor of destruction, trees have been ripped from the ground, branches have smashed down on houses and cars, and hundreds of streets are without power. ‘At a busy intersection, a woman was blown into the path of an oncoming truck,’ reads Marian 32
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from the newspaper. ‘Recovering in hospital, she is reported to have told doctors, “I had no will of my own.”’ Funny, Ralph wasn’t even conscious last night of a rattle at the window, but he can hear the oceanic rush of it now, surging through the room. It’s a wonder the newspaper isn’t plucked from Marian’s hands.Why did Stella and he think it was possible to play tennis in this weather at all? Because, when you’re young, a tennis party isn’t really about tennis at all—it’s about meeting the opposite sex. Wind can be quicksilver; it can change your face and your fate. It’s the spring of 1915 and Robert Retont looks swamped in his tennis whites. But who’s going to tease him here in his own backyard? Actually, it’s the backyard of his mother’s house in Strathfield and it’s she who has urged him to invite some friends over as a way of entertaining his second cousin, Stella, who is here on a visit from Albury with her maternal aunt. Since Retont doesn’t have any true friends, he’s gathered together a random selection from college who have brought their fiancées and sisters along. But perhaps Retont’s guest list isn’t random at all. On the court he’s a crafty player. His palsied serve puts off opponents and his cross-courts unerringly snick the chalk lines. Big men thunder up to his drop shots and Retont smiles. Mrs Retont has been a perfect hostess and, though lunch will be provided inside, picnic rugs and chairs are spread out on the lawn beside the tennis court, and tea-making things are set up in a cute little three-sided gazebo. All very merry—except for a stiffening breeze. The morning starts with men’s doubles and the sets are semiserious but competitive interest drops away when it becomes clear no one can best Retont and no one can stomach being his victim. After lunch the women are invited to join in and then it’s the turn of the hopeless and the never-played—enter, respectively, Ralph and 33
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Stella. The wind cranks up and sends others grumbling inside but it makes Ralph feel brave; it’s the wind of his west coast childhood and he loves the way it buffets and bosses him around. Only Stella and he are left on the court and when he skies a ball high over the fence into a neighbouring yard the last of his customary stuffiness goes too. He feels happy and silly and wild with nothing to lose. Stella likes the shy goofy grin on his face and when he does an extravagant pirouette and nearly falls over she thinks he’s being funny and sweet to make her feel better about the shot she’s just duffed.The wind wrenches at her curls; one minute her face is obscured and the next it’s revealed, shining eyes, flushed cheeks. She grabs helplessly at her coiffure and half laughs and half shrieks. She can’t see. Ralph swats the ball to her, she cramps up, she misses, it stings her in the hip and the sudden indignity of it triggers a reflex flash of anger and before she knows it she’s flung her racquet in irritation. The instant it goes skittering away she’s appalled by what she’s done and feels exposed, but Ralph runs to retrieve it, thinking it all part of their exaggerated game. When he hands it back to Stella his eyes are filled with admiration for her uninhibited sense of play. Relief floods through Stella. Another blasting gust, dust lifts from the court, leaves twirl, Stella’s hair flicks over her face, she gives a mock groan. They call it quits and run for the shelter of the gazebo. The wind chases them in and with inspirational quick thinking, Ralph grabs the tea cosy off the teapot and gallantly offers it to Stella as a hat. He means it as a practical measure, but she thinks he’s joking, and to show she’s a sport she jams it on her head and laughs and even dances around, holding up the teapot to catch a glimpse of her own reflection. Ralph is momentarily perplexed by her antics but she’s delightful, he can’t deny it, and he finds himself laughing too. In a week she’s gone. Back home to Albury, escorted by her young Aunty Ditty. Ralph corresponds. He writes his best letters when it 34
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blows a gale. But then, one summer night when the breeze is just a zephyr, he rises from his bed in his room above a Newtown bakery. It’s 4 am. He can’t sleep. He takes up his pen and the baker’s work rises in layered scents and changes his sentences. One minute he’s telling her about the annual rainfall of the Holy Land, the next he’s proposing marriage. Melted butter, steaming bread, sugar to glaze the buns, flourdusted knuckles. He cannot remember the colour of her hair. He writes next, ‘Stella, if you’ll have me, please send a tinted photograph.’ And to show he’ll be a generous husband, he encloses two pounds. Studio sittings don’t come cheap. It’s agreed. But before there can be a wedding, he must first pass his final exams. A pass is imperative. But Robert Pipsqueak Retont, oh Robert, why did you move your arm to show, inadvertently, the answer to Question 75? Marian stares out the window of Ralph’s hospital room. The outlook, especially today, is desolate. There’s a patch of ground where grass struggles to grow around a central rose bed, planted long ago with a tough, tall-growing variety whose foliage is sparse, especially after the wind. Yesterday the flowers were blowzy and bruised in a decadent display, today they’re ripped and gone. Only their centres, like naked light bulbs, are left on stalks. Around the square are covered walkways with ramps to other wards and joined-on buildings. Brick walls and uneven rooflines, industrially ugly with pipes and flues, barrier off the sky. At ground level it’s not a space in which anyone would care to linger: an occasional patient is trolleyed along a walkway from one department to another; on the first day a man came out to smoke (from his uniform he might have been a cook); later a young priest strode twice around the concrete path staring at his shoes and then stopped abruptly, as if deciding something, before heading back inside. A cook and a curate, 35
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that’s all. Mostly, the courtyard is blankly hers. Already she’s becoming dependent on it as a way of escaping her father’s room. Generally he’s only semi-conscious so what’s she to do? She can’t spend all day staring at him and she’s only capable of so much one-sided babble. Sometimes she reads to him, from the newspaper or a book from home; she thinks it probably doesn’t matter what just so long as he can hear a familiar voice and know someone’s with him, waiting with him while his body does its silent work of trying to heal. The doctor says medical science is curiously helpless to assist when it comes to stroke, which is, by their definition, ‘a sudden and catastrophic event in the brain’. If Stella were to hear this she’d be wryly amused, reflecting that Ralph has suffered from many such events before but called them ‘good ideas’. Marian has noticed how the doctors rather like this word ‘catastrophic’ and have requisitioned it for official use, having first somehow rendered it bland. She wonders how on earth they managed that amongst themselves, since to a layperson it’s a word loaded with wailing and hand-wringing and hard questions hurled at the sky. How can catastrophe be so miniaturised as to fit inside a brain? In the building opposite, several storeys up, a window opens. Marian sees someone’s arm come out—just an arm; nothing of the body to which it is attached can be seen from her low angle. The arm is white and slim, it rotates and the fingers of the hand stretch and curl expressively, almost sensuously, as if trying to feel the quality of the air. The arm withdraws, the window slams. Did the arm find the breeze chill? Ralph is restless. He stirs, and for a moment Marian thinks he’s about to wake, but then he seems dragged back into sleep, as if by something glimpsed which is compelling. And it’s true, Ralph is arrested, but not by what he’s seen. It’s what he’s heard. 36
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The cock crows. The farm gate creaks open. Lennie Gwideer steps through. Lennie Gwideer is coming.
Lennie Gwideer is nine years old and glad to be gone from the stitchedsmall paddocks of his father’s dairy farm. He’s glad to be gone from the dawn/dusk ritual of chores, gone from the thick-skulled cows and the obedient steps of their waxy hooves in and out of the milking stalls. He’s glad to be rid of the smell of milk and the way it comes steaming out of his clothes at school when the sun finds its strength mid-morning. Lennie is taking a holiday from it all. Perhaps he will miss his younger brothers and sister and their squabbles, their brawls, certainly he will miss his mother, probably he will not miss his father at all. What’s there to miss in a volcano? Goodbye to the town of Leongatha, situated in a region called Gippsland, situated in the state of Victoria, situated in a country called Australia, and hello to the state next door, New South Wales! How is it that, at nine years old, Lennie Gwideer can be making this trip—on his own with his horse Ginger Mick—a trip of six hundred miles? How is it? Easy. One night, when Lennie is poring over the lately arrived Melbourne newspapers, he exclaims out loud, ‘Gee I’d like to go to the opening of that Sydney Bridge.’ 37
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And his father replies, ‘Well, why don’t you?’ His mother drops her knitting. ‘Who’s stopping you?’ A sudden and terrible silence. His brothers and his sister stop their reading, the dog stops licking its paws; in the kitchen the weevils stop weevilling in the flour bin and the mice stop scuffling in the walls. No one knows where to look in the challenge-charged air. ‘Alright then,’ says Lennie, as an experiment. ‘I will.’ He picks up his pair of scissors and cuts out the bridge article, snipping by mistake into the picture a little, momentarily blind with shock. Nobody speaks. He tries to reread the text. The words do not make sense anymore. He spreads glue on the back and sticks it into his scrapbook then turns back the previous paste-fat pages, surveying his collection. Bridge story after bridge story since his father first drew his attention to the weird and wonderful construction underway in the distant city. Outside the pages of this boy-made book, does such a bridge, such a place, really exist? ‘You don’t have the guts,’ his father taunts. The cock crows. Lennie Gwideer shuts the gate, leaves his father and the farm behind. Lennie Gwideer is coming.
19 November 1925 The telephone shrills at 7.10 am. Stella can get it. Ralph is sequestered in his study working on the next issue of the parish paper. The copy is due at the printers by the end of next week. The telephone rings and rings—why doesn’t she answer it? Upstairs Alice is singing the 38
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national anthem full bore, she’s very taken with it at the minute, God save our gracious King, over and over again except when she interrupts herself to yell out to Stella for help finding various parts of her school uniform. How on earth is he meant to work with all that racket? He should get up and shut the study door but then Stella appears—good, she can shut it. She’s carrying the baby, and stumbling in the orbit of her skirt is eighteen-month-old Marian. ‘That was Mr Cale,’ says Stella. ‘He can deliver the trestle tables today. About one o’clock this afternoon.’ ‘Excellent,’ says Ralph. ‘No . . . !’ moans Stella, and she dumps the nightgowned baby Grace into Ralph’s lap and runs after Marian, who’s waddled off stinking and dripping something explosive out of the saggy left leg of her nappy. The baby, abandoned to Ralph, fixes her father with a startled, wide-eyed, blue-eyed, round-eyed stare. Her head wobbles but her stare is pinned. Ralph studies her face; it’s the first time he’s looked at her properly in ages. He wonders if she always looks like this, as if she’s just been electrocuted. Perhaps he should have a word with Stella. Has Stella ever considered that their youngest child might not be normal? He’ll have to be gentle when he broaches the subject: women can be touchy about that sort of thing. He gingerly lifts the baby up onto the desk and lays her down on top of the mess of papers. Grace jiggles her arms, scrutinises the unfathomable ceiling. Ralph returns to his notes and is vexed to discover he has misspelled the word ‘fenestration’. Stella, meanwhile, is just about to collar Marian when Alice, running down the stairs, sizes up the situation in a second and obligingly offers to catch her runaway sibling, yelling, ‘I’ll get her,’ which she does, making her cry as she bumps her against the hall wall where there now appears a brown smear. Unbeknownst to anyone, Colin is in the 39
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kitchen, where he’s meant to be, but, sick of waiting in front of an empty plate, he is standing on a chair and climbing onto the bench. From there he reckons he can just about reach the shelf where the Cornflakes are kept. Stella enters the kitchen with the two girls just as Colin makes his great leap down with the cereal box tucked under his arm, though unfortunately that’s not where it stays. Lighter than air the golden flakes shoot out the open top of the box as it slips from Colin’s grasp and a glorious shower cascades over the floor. He scrapes a pile together and gets his bowl. ‘You can’t eat it now!’ screeches Stella. ‘Get off it.’ Colin hits out at Alice, who is deliberately crushing the cereal under her shoes. Alice wails, ‘Mummy, Colin’s smiting me.’ ‘Orh, she stinks,’ says Colin, as Marian is swung past his nose. Stella crunches across the kitchen out the back door to the laundry to clean Marian up, and as the flywire slams she yells back over her shoulder, ‘I do the smiting around here. Alice, get the broom.’ Back in the study, Grace jerks her fat baby arms in little spasms but she’s turned her head sideways and is now staring, at point-blank range, into a lump of Moruya granite. The granite rests on a pile of merit certificates which need signing for Sunday school. Distracted by Grace’s snuffled breathing, Ralph looks up from his pages. Her gaze is so intent—could it be an intelligent inquiry? That would make a change. On the whole he finds babies unnerving and uninspiring. Strange creatures—one can never tell when they’re alright.When Alice was born he wondered if she had perhaps come out of her mother underdone, her skin didn’t seem thick enough—he could see through it to the workings beneath—and her hair was bizarre: it had a forward sweep which seemed to go against all the laws of aerodynamics. But he patted her tiny hand dutifully and kissed her cheek and said, ‘Hello, 40
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Alice Enid Cage.’ When Stella passed her to him it was the first time in his life he had ever held a baby away from the baptismal font and it seemed terribly negligent that the first baby he ever held was his. He should have practised first on someone else’s. But the novelty and awe and anxiety of the experience wore off when, after several minutes, the baby-bundle grew surprisingly heavy and he realised, with his hands thus tied, there was nothing to do. After he looked at his daughter he looked at the floor, he looked at the wall. He was bored. Though he didn’t wish to be impolite, he was relieved when Stella showed signs of wanting to take her back. Then when Colin came along he was proud to have a son, of course he was proud—they were meant to be better—but again, what to do with one? He made an effort to be fatherly and bought him a book of Bible stories and a geometry set he’d had his eye on for some time. The geometry set remained on a shelf in the nursery for a whole month before Ralph, unable to resist, took it down to the study. Thereafter Colin received many such presents: a slide rule, a box of jeweller’s screwdrivers (handy, as it turned out, for dismantling the cameras), a plumb-bob (which didn’t turn out to be handy at all), and a rain gauge. When curly-headed Marian arrived, she was no more interesting. So he ignored her and, having got away with it once, did the same with Grace. It seemed reasonable to expect that as the children grew older they’d become more worthy of attention but so far that hadn’t happened. When they did start to talk he couldn’t understand them, and when he could understand their speech he couldn’t understand their behaviour: logic is logical, why had they no grasp of reason? But Grace, staring into the grey-and-white-speckled granite—is she different from the others? Her eyes drill into the rock as if seeing all its mineral components. ‘Felspar, quartz, mica and hornblende,’ he 41
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prompts her. She wrenches her gaze from the stone to him. At last, one of his children is showing an interest in something important. He goes to the cupboard to get out his rock collection and lifts the lid on the compartmentalised box. ‘Mylonite and basalt,’ he points. ‘Obsidian.’ And then he seizes one of the bigger specimens he has on the window sill, a mini-boulder. He holds it an inch from Grace’s baby face and tells her, ‘Telluride. From Kalgoorlie.’ A knock at the front door. ‘Unimpressive to the naked eye but gold-bearing.’ He puts down the ugly lump of ore, picks up something else. ‘What about this? Laterite.’ Further doorknocking. ‘And this one’s ironstone. Useful if you’re a primitive man and need to make an axe to kill your dinner.’ The knocking is louder. Ralph sighs.Why doesn’t Stella answer it? He supposes he must go himself. On the doorstep is a workman. The man has been sent by his boss regarding a three-storey wall on Lincoln Street which has been undermined. Would the rector like to see it come down? Of course. Ralph dashes upstairs to the darkroom for his camera, grabs his hat from the hallstand and they set off. If only baby Grace could turn her head far enough to look through the study window. She would see her father waving his arms around, already engrossed in animated conversation with the workman, and the pair of them disappearing down the path to Lavender Street. She may also notice that the path on which they walk is made of sandstone (quartz sand, silica, lime, gypsum). Instead she jiggles, she snuffles: a baby lying in the middle of a desk covered with rocks and papers. 42
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The Great Arch Page 2 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Dec. 1st, 1925
The Rector’s Letter Hello Everyone. If you are wondering why no religious picture fronts the parish paper as it usually does at this time of year, when we embark on the season of Advent and the celebration of Christ’s birth, let me reassure you: it is not absent by error, it is absent by necessity. There is simply no room. Instead I have furnished a very handsome set of photographs of falling walls and toppling chimneys taken at demolition sites around the parish. It behoves us to understand something of the process which goes on around us in preparation for the coming Bridge, and in doing so, I am sure we shall also find revealed a salient Christian message. Consider the top left picture in our quartet. Months ago the auctioneer brought down his hammer on this house for a mere song. Imagine buying a whole house for £3! But the trick of it is you must take it away with you in pieces. This is exactly what the contractor does and very rough work it is too. The camera captures the high-speed event and stops it forever. The walls fold in half as they fall. The walls fold like bent cardboard. As Christmas approaches, so many people in Lavender Bay have been forced from their homes. By coincidence, at about this same time of year nearly two thousand years ago, another couple were forced from their home also, albeit temporarily. That couple, namely Mary and Joseph, were required by Imperial decree to register their names in the town of their ancestor David as part of a great Roman census. And what a very great inconvenience it was for them to do so. Mary was heavy with child yet travel they must, 80 long miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem, carrying with them only the very few things necessary for a poor Eastern household. On arrival in the overcrowded town no accommodation could be found but for a rude building in which beasts were housed. It was here that Jesus condescended to be born. 43
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Thus, for the sake of tidy administration, Emperor Caesar Augustus put the Holy Couple to much trouble, yet in this he unwittingly acted as a servant of the Lord. A Davidic Messiah was promised by the prophets: Out of Bethlehem, vowed Micah, shall he come forth to be ruler in Israel. Christ must be born in the city of David. And thanks to Caesar Augustus he was. Thus: As demolitions are to the building of the Bridge, so the Emperor’s decree was to the birth of Christ, a necessary inconvenience to fulfil a prophecy or plan for the greater good. Therefore, as you go about the parish and see houses empty or smashed, and as you wonder at the many more yet to follow, be of good cheer. Remember God’s plan and the Bridge builders’ plans are one and the same. If we are patient we shall come through our hardships and unprecedented bounty will be ours. On completion of the Bridge people will flood to settle on our convenient and most beautiful shore. People will fill every pew of our most beautiful church. We at the Rectory extend our best wishes to all for the coming season.
Page 3 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Dec. 1st, 1925
The Churchwardens have advised against plans to rename the Hall, at least for the time being. It is no secret that your Rector wishes to elevate the status of our all-purpose venue by conferring upon it a new appellation—The Columbus Hall—in honour of the improving activities which increasingly take place within its walls. In the last six months alone we have started up a Young Men’s Club, a Glee Club, a Basketry Class, and have ideas for more. Are not all the participants of these diverse groups discovering, like the great man, a New World? Education and Enlightenment belong to all and the name Columbus Hall would surely inspire us towards those goals. 44
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However, the Wardens remind us that rapid change can be confronting and new ministers should be careful not to startle parishioners with their enthusiasms. As a temporary measure, they have suggested a compromise. At their behest, the Hall shall no longer be called the Hall but will be hereafter known more properly as the Church Hall instead.
___________________ The All Sorts Sale held on November 21st and 22nd in the Church Hall was a very great success, not merely in monetary terms but in regards to fun had by all. Trading on both nights was brisk with the White Elephant and Busy Hands stalls proving the most popular. Madame Denovski, the gypsy fortune-teller, had a constant queue of customers at her booth, but wishes to advise that next year her predictions will not include matters marital. As ever, the Toffee Table and Lucky Dip Basket were much patronised by the children. Refreshments were served on the new trestle tables made and donated by Mr. Cale. They shall no doubt see service for many years. Overall we are pleased to report the taking of £21/3/6. As a result, a marvellous necessity has finally been purchased for the parish—a Dodge Motor Car! In the short space of time since securing the vehicle, we have already provided many rides.
___________________ The Missionary Committee have been busy selecting and wrapping gifts to send to our dark-coloured friends in New Guinea. The presents are such that anyone would be glad to receive: pocket-knives, whistles, brush and comb sets, spinning tops. They make up a very large parcel indeed, which is now ready for despatch and is expected to reach the Port Moresby compound in a few weeks. Rev. Derek Arlott and his wife, Maria, will be mightily pleased with the effort from St. Christopher’s.
___________________ Weddings. Nov. 3 – Herbert Roland Stropping and Vera May Peters. Nov. 16 – Lesley Terrence Gimble and Eleanora Fay Wakefield. Nov. 16 – William Stanley and Irene Primrose Patterson. 45
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Baptisms. Oct. 27 – " – " – " – " –
Douglas John Petty Elizabeth Portland Gibbs June Dora Watchley Doreen Joans John Alfred Kennedy
Burials. Oct. 29 Nov. 6 Nov. 7 Nov. 22
Katherine Porter, aged 69 years, at Northern Suburbs. Albert Seal, aged 4 months, at Rookwood. Vincent Allerton Pedigrew, aged 84 years, at Northern Suburbs. Patricia Anne Thoms, aged 44 years, at Rookwood.
– – – –
Nov. 4 Nov. 17 " " "
– – – – –
Stuart Arthur Apps Kenneth Turner Hawkes Beryl Casper Edith Anne Haverton Ernest John Haverton
In Time of Bereavement. Clashes happen surprisingly often and of late there has been an unfortunate spate where people have decided on a day and a time for a burial but have forgotten to consult with the Rectory. It stands to reason that I cannot be in two places at once, even given the increased mobility of the parish Motor Car. At any rate, in your time of trouble, the first person to communicate with is the Minister. First of all, fix the hour with the Minister, then see other people afterwards.
___________________ Christmas Day Services. Holy Communion 6.45 a.m. Holy Communion 8.00 a.m. Matins and Holy Communion 11.00 a.m. Carols at Garland House 3.00 p.m. Evensong and Carols 7.45 p.m.
___________________ A Visitor. Rev. A.B. Attwell has kindly agreed to serve in your Rector’s place on the third Sunday of the New Year, as your Minister has been invited to travel south to inspect the granite quarry at Moruya, in the company of Mr. Lawrence Ennis (Director, Dorman, Long & Co.) and Dr. John Bradfield. 46
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We are to proceed by Company steamer and all told shall be away for four days. Rest assured, I shall be very pleased to provide a full and detailed account of the quarrying operations upon my return.
___________________
23 January 1926 Moruya The river is paved with aggregate; marble chips, spilled from ships, sparkle up from the bottom through the clear water. It’s enchanting. Ralph leans against the steamer’s railing. All around is a pastoral scene, green farmlands down to the banks of the wide river and blue hills to the west, splendid and tranquil it would be but for the approaching gash on the northern shore—the working quarry. As if to herald their arrival a steam whistle blows, gunpowder blasts, a massive slab of the quarry wall spills forward. As a welcome, it’s operatic. Bravo! The S.S. Dorlonco docks at the wharf. Ralph disembarks with a large yellow leather suitcase (borrowed from Mrs Liner and supposedly the latest thing) as well as a tripod and several camera boxes. It’s a struggle for him to catch up with Bradfield and Ennis who, having wisely left their effects on board, are already halfway down the wharf shaking hands with the quarry manager. Ralph arrives in a rush with strands of his long dark fringe plastered to his brow; he drips with a sudden sweat. He drops his accoutrements and proffers his hand after wiping it first on his trousers. Bradfield says nothing, so Ennis, always the diplomat, does the introductions. The manager, Mr Gilmore (a no-nonsense Scot with bulbous, seeeverything eyes), immediately leads them off on a tour. They bypass the stock of finished stone waiting for shipment in front of the nearby masons’ shed and head straight to the quarry. Men there are up on flimsy scaffolds drilling a line of holes into a mammoth lump of rock 47
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which dwarfs them all. Gilmore explains they’ll put feathers and plugs into the holes and hammer the plugs till the granite splits down the grain. Simple really. These pieces, which are still large, will then be craned to the shed for dressing into blocks. ‘Impressive,’ says Bradfield, in his crackly old voice, to Gilmore. Bradfield tips his battered hat onto the back of his head and looks up, shading his eyes with his hand from the glare. ‘You up there,’ he says to the quarrymen. ‘Good job.’ ‘Yes, good job,’ Ralph echoes. Bradfield twitches and walks off. By the time Ralph opens the door to his upstairs room at the Vulcan Hotel it’s seven o’clock in the evening. He throws the light switch to reveal a room which is rather stark but sufficient to his requirements. There’s an iron bed, a washstand and basin, a wardrobe disproportionately large; net curtains hang at the open window, which in the morning will afford a view back down river. Ralph sits heavily on the edge of the bed, which sags in the middle. He puts his hand out to test the springs and leaves dirty fingermarks on the bedspread. At the wash basin the soap is dried up and worn to a thin tongue, long cracks in the cake are ingrained with the dirt of past travellers. Ralph turns it in his bony hands to work up a lather. He washes his face. Next he must get himself unpacked. He places his camera equipment neatly in one corner and shifts Mrs Liner’s precious suitcase. To his horror he notes that, somehow in transit, its beautiful leather has been deeply gouged. At 7.25 pm Ralph goes downstairs for a dinner of lamb’s fry and eggs which he eats alone. Bradfield and Ennis are staying at Gilmore’s house across the river from the quarry. As he nibbles on a brown frill cut from the edge of the over-fried eggs, Ralph imagines their gentleman’s 48
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meal—a polished mahogany table, crystal glassware, claret—and their gentleman’s conversation—relaxed pleasantries, gallant compliments to Gilmore’s wife, then on to more important topics: personnel, production estimates, pressure from London, views on the new state Labor government. Perhaps they’ll take a little port later on the verandah, insects flitting to the lamp and the night beyond warm and still. In the distance, the lazy thud of surf on the beach at the mouth of the river. Ralph puts his knife and fork together on his empty plate. He burps into his serviette then, remembering where he is, looks around guiltily, but no one’s there to hear him. Across the hall the bar closed over an hour ago—though now and then shapes move behind the frosted glass panels in the door—and the publican’s wife, who brought his food, has long since retreated out the back to the kitchen. Ralph climbs the stairs to his room. He must be the hotel’s only guest from the vacant feel. He dons his pyjamas and gets into bed. The mattress dips and his spine follows. It’s strange to be so far from home. He thought he’d revel in the freedom but now he’s not so sure. In his life he has only made three other journeys and then he was not so much leaving home as setting out to find one. The truth is he’s not very good with strangers. Out of his own territory, he’s nervous. And his awkwardness transfers itself to others: he stands, he waits for more talk to blossom, but after a few words conversations take dead-end turns and peter out.There must be a knack to it he never learned. Ralph’s head reels from the day’s noise—wherever they went it was fearsome: the powerhouse, then to the masons’ shed, with ninety men belting ninety hammers; then outside to the dunter machines, where the men are paid more to treat the stone because the dust they make is almost lethal; then to the Baxter crusher, where sprawls are crunched into aggregate which is dumped into bins and then conveyed to waiting ships 49
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to feed the concrete mixers at the works in Sydney. So very interesting. But standing on the edge of the intimate group of Gilmore, Bradfield and Ennis, his questions seemed unwelcome. He blames the noise, such a necessary part of work it never normally bothers him, but today, by the end of the long afternoon, it blunted him into silence. He turns over in his bed. If Stella were here she’d talk to him. Perhaps he should write her a letter. But has he forgotten how? Dear Stella . . . He has not spent a night apart from her since the day they were married—not counting the long hours when he’s been called out to families in trouble. The wedding was held in St Philip’s church in York Street and the weather was overcast with the threat of rain—indeed a sharp shower did whip through after the service and Ditty’s confetti was not easily flung. Stella’s parents did not attend. An upset two evenings before when they all first met had not been mended. After a string of nervous errors at a dinner at the Isswright’s hotel, Ralph spilled the contents of the gravy boat over his mother-in-law. Naturally Ralph apologised, but Mrs Isswright was not appeased. In an apoplectic aside, she demanded of her daughter, ‘You turned down Stephen CornAdelaide and the whole Corn-Adelaide family for this praying mantis?’ Mother and daughter left the dining room arguing. Ralph sat glumly while Stella’s father and Aunty Ditty and Retont and Retont’s mother polished off a bottle of hock. In retrospect it’s easy to see where Stella got her liverish nature. Ralph stretches in his saggy bed, writes in his head, Dear Stella, today I missed you . . . Even picturing her cranky makes him feel more settled. He says his prayers. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow he’ll fit right in. Ralph is talking to Burt, the seventeen-year-old apprentice stonemason. Burt has missed his chisel and smashed his thumb.They sit on a timber 50
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stack outside the masons’ shed. Burt has his throbbing lobster hand stuck in a keg of water, his thumbnail tilts out of the flesh. A wizened master mason walks past and says with a sadistic snarl, ‘Your hammer likes meat, laddie.’ Burt scowls. But when the man is gone Burt talks. Burt talks and talks. Burt leans in to Ralph to whisper, ‘This is the life of a slave.’ Burt is fair headed and fair skinned, his face narrows to a pointed chin, his eyes are red-rimmed from granite dust but also from a certain desperation. ‘This is the life of a ghost,’ says Burt. Burt taps his boot in the dirt as if to an urgent rhythm. ‘This is the life of a ghost. A bleeding ghost,’ and he pulls his bashed and bloated hand out of the water and raises the other: both are nicked with new wounds ranging in size from a thruppence to a shilling, both bear cobbled scars, both bear scabs whose lids are lifting. Burt puts on a thick Scottish accent. ‘You’ll be a mason, son, when you’ve taken off enough of your own skin to make a leather apron.’ Burt talks and talks: His father put him here to learn a trade so he wouldn’t be like him, always scouting for unskilled jobs. Except his father is free and he is not, he is indentured. He doesn’t ever want to work the dunter. He goes to the beach on Sunday but he can’t swim. He takes two weeks to finish one stone and then, immediately, they bring another. They laugh at him. Try working the Brunswick Black, laddie. He hardly ever goes into Moruya because he’s too tired to walk the ten miles there and the ten back—what for? He camps with his father in the bush out the back of Granitetown. 51
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He dreams about the point of the chisel. He says, This is the life of a ghost. Look there, in that shed, you can’t see twenty-five yards in front of you for the dust, especially through clogged goggles. The man in the next bay down is only a shadow; all day we are only shadows. He says, Is it to be like this for all my life as a man? He says, I hate this life. This is a life of desolation. Ralph nods and considers, looks concerned, then says, ‘Have you thought of going to church?’ At dusk Ralph finishes writing up his notes at the spare desk they’ve given him in the quarry office. The desk is Ennis’s doing. ‘Everyone needs a place to work, Reverend.’ Burt waits outside. Ralph checks the accuracy of his information with the quarry engineer, a knock-kneed knickerbockered Englishman called Perkins. Unlike everyone else, Perkins is unhurried and seems delighted to answer his questions, at length. Facts turn into colourful opinions and in the end it’s Ralph, conscious of Burt waiting outside, who reluctantly curtails the conversation. Perkins offers Ralph a lift into town on his BSA motorbike but Ralph declines. Perkins starts his machine and begins an elaborate farewell; he waves, then does a big figure-eight in front of the blacksmiths’ shed (slowly because of the sidecar), before opening up the throttle and beetling off. ‘What an affable character,’ says Ralph. Burt says, ‘He’s a dill, Reverend. Everything he touches turns to shit. Just now he probably told you any old tom rot. He just likes to hear the sound of his own gums flapping.’ Ralph is shocked. ‘He seemed very knowledgeable.’ ‘Gilmore’s supposed to be asking Ennis for permission to sack him.’ 52
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Burt holds his bad, throbbing hand crossed to his chest like a corpse. ‘Lucky Perkins. He can get out of here.’ Down the road and around the bend, tucked in the lee of the hill behind the quarry, is Granitetown, the company-built village which houses the skilled tradesmen they’ve brought in from overseas. Burt leads the way, keeping his head down as they cut past the Italians’ quarters. Harp-like music floats to them, surreal after the workday noise of the quarry. It’s played by a man sitting on the mess hall steps with a zither. His big fingers with their wide-whorled prints coax pristine notes from the strings. On the ground is an empty soup bowl and a half-eaten plate of bread and cheese and olives. The man stops playing, calls out, ‘You want zuppe? We got plenty.’ Burt stops but shakes his head. ‘Your father away again?’ The man looks concerned for the skinny kid. Burt talks to the ground. ‘Fencing.’ ‘Padre?’ Picking up the plate at his feet, the man offers it to the visiting clergyman. Ralph shuffles forward, curious. Olives: the branches, the groves, the fruit, the oil, all famous and familiar from the Bible and yet he’s never seen one, or eaten one, in all his life. He puts it to his mouth. He thinks it tastes as parched as the place it came from. Ancient and salt as tears. And he is strangely moved. The man takes up his instrument again and picks out random notes, then a melody emerges. Burt starts up the hill with Ralph in tow.The melody follows them. They pass the houses of the Scottish families and it fades away. The shelter at Burt’s campsite is comprised of a few sheets of corrugated iron dragged there somehow and a couple of plywood walls made from packing cases. Inside it’s a mouse’s nest; it seems their 53
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bed is their wardrobe and they sleep on their spare clothes. ‘Does it keep out the rain?’ Ralph asks, dubious about the roof. Burt says, ‘Mostly.’ He’s got the fire going and a mess in a pot cooking; he’s nimble round the camp and his hand doesn’t seem to bother him so much now he’s home. Ralph doesn’t know how he’s managed to find himself here, in the bush, by a campfire which, contrary to all clichés of cosiness, lets out only a mean degree of light and comfort when darkness falls. They are surrounded by the towering trunks of trees disappearing into nothingness. The crashing of possums. A few miles away behind their backs is a long beach and the whole Pacific Ocean. At the Vulcan Hotel they tell him it’s fun to go there and fish for sharks. Indeed, he has seen a photograph behind the bar of a stiff pile of shark bodies on the sand, fifteen or twenty of them, caught by Misses Constable, Loneworth and Jenner, and Messrs Constable and Jenner. When he commented to the barman it seemed rather a lot, the barman replied, ‘There’s no shortage.’ Ralph thinks of those great fishes swimming out there now with their pig eyes and their open mouths and their glinting white teeth, masses of them, chewing through the blacky, green-bubbled water. Burt hums and stirs his pot. ‘You never tasted anything so nice as kangaroo tail. A very nice lot of jelly.’ Ralph sneaks another look into the hut while Burt is busy. A few tools in one corner. A set of makeshift shelves with nothing much on them: utensils, mugs. Candle stubs. No sign of a book or a newspaper. What does a mind do in such a room? Ralph has to get this straight.‘You and your father couldn’t have been up here last year in the rains. May, wasn’t it, when the river flooded?’ ‘This is high ground.’ ‘But it rained for four days!’ Enough to threaten the quarry. How 54
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on earth did the boy and his father wait it out in their mouse’s nest for ninety-six hours? ‘It was worse for them in town,’ says Burt. ‘The bridge over the river was cut, the shops were wet up to their top shelves. But the oldtimers reckon that was nothing compared to the great flood sixty years before.’ Burt fends off further inquiries and finds enamel plates and pours in the stew. He tucks into the food, ravenous. Ralph is more circumspect; it’s a long time since he’s eaten marsupial. After dinner they fall into a reverie. Tiredness creeps into the boy and fills him till he brims with it. The fire pops and sparks rise. They stare into the embers. Burt glazes over. Ralph stands, knees cracking, signalling it’s time for him to go. Burt doesn’t move, he’s still staring. He says softly, like someone who has no hope of ever being heard, ‘Now there’s only tomorrow.’ They emerge from the tree line on the brow of the hill and Granitetown is laid out before them; its few, sloping streets, the lines of identical bungalows, some with lighted windows. Though it’s still early on this Saturday night, the dance at the recreation hall is already rowdy. Shadows slip along the side of the building to a shed out the back where a brisk trade is done in home brew. Ralph says to Burt, ‘Do you ever go to the dances?’ Burt shakes his head. ‘You might meet friends. Perhaps a girl.’ Ralph is not accustomed to giving this sort of advice, especially to one so young, but the boy is isolated and needs bucking up. Below, a family walks up the dark street to join their neighbours in the hall. Two children break from the group and run ahead. ‘If you were to set your hat at a pretty girl, you might have a future worth looking forward to.’ Ralph thinks this splendid advice, this 55
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ought to do it, but when he checks the boy’s reaction he’s dismayed to see the lad’s face is constricted from the effort of holding back an imminent snivel. Ralph is rattled. He hesitates, prevaricates, and then he clears his throat. As a desperate measure he ventures, ‘Once, um, Burt, you are intimate with a woman—that is to say, a wife—you will, um, never again feel so alone.’ His cheeks are burning, talking of such things. ‘It’s like . . . being received by God. You become part of a greater fellowship, the fellowship of the human race.’ Burt takes in a big breath in jerky stages, gathers himself. He wipes his nose down the sleeve of his shirt then pinches snot between his fingers. And then he turns his back on Granitetown and Ralph and stumbles into the bush. Feet stamp in the hall below, louder, louder, a Scottish reel, whoops and catcalls. The company launch picks Ralph up from the Granitetown wharf at 9 pm as previously arranged. Gilmore’s son, John Junior, is the skipper. The bow of the little vessel parts the black glass of the river but in truth the engine is so loud their progress is graceless. Around a wide curve the lights of Moruya can be seen up river. Ralph thinks what he told Burt was true. Though he could never articulate the details, and although he normally tries his best to deny the body’s functions, he is grateful for their private knowledge. He would mean to say if he ever could that in the dumb compulsion of the basic sexual act there is majesty too. Through Stella, with Stella, via the tawdriness of mixed body fluids, they are linked with the immemorial past and the ongoing future. And having taken part in that great mystery they can never entirely be again lone individuals. A thought brightens him. ‘Burt,’ he should have said, ‘sex is like the taste of olives!’ 56
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Ahead, across the width of the river, is the long low barrier of the bridge and its more fragile reflection. The town wharf. The launch slows, and John Junior brings the boat in gently, cuts the engine. Ralph doesn’t get out immediately. He says to John Junior, ‘Do you know Burt Stevens?’ John Junior has a likeable face, a young man’s thin moustache shadows the curve of his upper lip. ‘Sure,’ he says, in his soft Scottish accent, ‘I know him. He’s not my particular mate, but I know him.’ ‘How is he getting on there at the quarry?’ ‘My dad says he wants to concentrate on his job and he’d be a lot better off. People think he’s a whinger.’ ‘What about you? What do you think?’ ‘Ah, I suppose he’s alright.’ John Junior jumps lightly onto the landing and secures the launch. Ralph hauls himself up. A lorry rattles over the bridge and they watch as it passes and then pulls up in front of theVulcan.Three men get out of the cab and another couple jump off the back where they’ve been riding. ‘Lads from Granitetown,’ says John Junior. Though the pub’s shut they look confident of supply. Ralph takes a step, expecting John Junior will accompany him to the hotel and go on to join his friends, but John Junior stays put. ‘I’m to wait here for my dad and the other gentlemen,’ he says. ‘Oh yes,’ says Ralph. Tonight they are dining with the mayor and members of the Hall of Commerce. John Junior looks content to do his filial duty. He smiles and reminds Ralph he’ll be back here at one o’clock tomorrow to pick him up and take him home for Sunday lunch. Ralph thanks him and wishes him goodnight. He starts up through the grass on the low bank of the river towards the hotel but then he stops and looks back. John Junior has made himself comfortable, sitting on the edge of the wharf 57
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with his back to a piling.The river sucks slowly by. Reflected in it, in a watery patch of moonlight, is the name of the launch: Bon Accord. Ralph finds the service dull at the Moruya Church of England, the sermon in particular. Too much scripture, with barely a reference to people’s daily lives to render it relevant. The minister is decrepit, his delivery is dry and clipped and he seems not to notice the congregation in front of him. When he reads he never takes his eyes off the page to glance up, nor does he vary his monotone. In another life, Ralph speculates, the fellow might have been a watchmaker, working all day in a back room on his own, content in a miniature world of cogs and washers and oblivious to anything else. It makes him realise what a modern he is. And how lucky he is to preach in the hurly-burly city and not a backwater like this where the parishioners seem resigned to wait out the time by nodding off. Wouldn’t his progressive style wake them up! All his hard work now seems doubly worthwhile. He smiles to himself; he has the pulse of his times—minister à la mode! Ralph is still buoyant when he hurries up the path from the river to Gilmore’s house, following the lead of John Junior. The house is a sprawling weatherboard raised on high stumps for ventilation and surrounded by accommodating verandahs. A picket fence and a firebreak separate it from the enveloping scrub. John Gilmore greets him and shows him up the steps to where Bradfield and Ennis are ensconced in wicker chairs. Further down the verandah a large table is laid, shaded from the sun by a screen of lattice. The smell of roasting lamb climbs out of open windows. ‘Welcome to Tuffwood,’ says Gilmore. Ennis puts aside his newspaper and pushes out of his chair to say hello. He’s such a big man, broad chested too, that Ralph always feels like a thin boy beside him. Indeed, Ennis has the manner to match his 58
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physical form; that of a remote but kindly uncle. Bradfield, though, is all spiky crustacean. He pokes his head around the edge of the broadsheet he’s reading to nod a curt greeting then he immediately retreats. Ennis exchanges pleasantries about the morning. They have been to the Granitetown recreation hall to worship as visitors with the Gilmores (which explains their absence from the Anglican church). A very strong Presbyterian gathering. Of course the Italians travel into town to attend the Sacred Heart. ‘Each to his own,’ quips Ralph, though underneath he is a little miffed to find his status so gazumped; he’s unaccustomed to being in the religious minority. He rubs his hands together and smiles to cover up. ‘Such a charming view, Mr Gilmore.’ And it is. The river is a broad blue mirror for the cloudless sky. Gilmore says, ‘I never tire of it. Beautiful.’ ‘He hath made everything beautiful in his time,’ declaims Ralph, finishing smugly, ‘Ecclesiastes 3:11.’ ‘Well, I don’t know,’ laughs Gilmore.‘Some places are more beautiful than others. There’s nothing beautiful about working the granite in the sleet on Ailsa Craig in the middle of the Firth of Clyde late in the season. I went some years to Canada, to St John and St Canute, and that was an improvement, but to me this country, with its year-round temperate climate, is sublime. I’m spoiled for hard places now.’ Ennis pushes his metal-rimmed spectacles up his nose and says in a mellow chuckle, ‘Yes, John. That’s what all the men at the quarry tell me.You’re going soft.’ And then there is a ruckus as a stream of children of various ages pour onto the verandah from all quarters. ‘Ah, the Gilmore Nine,’ rasps Bradfield from behind his paper. ‘The pitter-patter of tiny feet—all eighteen of ’em.’ From among the milling clan comes Mrs Mary Gilmore carrying 59
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the first dish of what will be a vast amount of food. She welcomes Ralph warmly and apologises for being tied up in the kitchen. During their exchange she pushes back her scooped fringe repeatedly but it’s not a nervous gesture; her dead-straight hair will not stay put and she seems not to notice how often she does it. She is unperturbed. She is imperturbable. She pats the smaller children on the head to steer them out of her path and returns inside with the eldest following. Out they come with the rest of the food. Ralph is, unfortunately, seated next to Bradfield with John Junior on his right. Bradfield tucks his serviette under his chin and reaches across Ralph for the salt. ‘What do you say, Mary?’ says Gilmore, carving up a great haunch of meat. ‘We should have a beach party after lunch.’ The children are keen. Bradfield says under his breath, ‘You can count me out.’ ‘Why?’ asks Catherine Anne, one of the younger of the eight girls. She has a very serious need to know. Bradfield considers. ‘I don’t like sandflies.’ ‘But we don’t have any, Mr Bradfield.’ ‘Then I don’t like sand.’ Catherine Anne examines her plate. ‘I don’t like pumpkin.’ ‘Me either,’ says Bradfield. ‘Come along now, eat up,’ says Ralph, trying to join in and sound hearty. ‘It’s very good for you.’ Catherine Anne and Bradfield give him a look. ‘You don’t say,’ says Bradfield. ‘Are you a beachgoer, Reverend Cage?’ asks Mrs Gilmore and Ralph immediately shapes to reply no, but then he remembers and says, ‘Not for a long time.’ * 60
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John Junior steers the Bon Accord into a nook on the north bank, the last sheltered landing site before the mouth of the river.They trek over to the beach which runs in an uninterrupted stretch way off to the distant smudge of the point at Tuross. To their right is the mouth of the river and the passage looks easily steered today given the low swell. In fact it is Ennis who has stayed behind and Bradfield, for all his grump, is doing a very nice job of conversing with Mrs Gilmore and the changing team of little girls who come and go from the straw mat on which they are seated. John Junior and Annabelle and Agnes are swimming in the deep, Gilmore stands in the shallows watching over the paddling others. Ralph takes off his coat and his socks and shoes and rolls up his clergyman’s trousers. He has not felt sand underfoot for more than twenty years. As he walks along, the clear water rushes over his white feet. The black hairs on the tops of his toes seem to spring up blacker and strongly alive. If he’d known he’d be walking thus he would have trimmed his toenails. He strides, loves the full stretch of his legs, the sand’s shifting pull on his calf muscles. He could go for miles, walk right back into (selected) parts of his beachside boyhood, one long footprint after another. Clean waves break, not another soul in sight, not even a seabird. Up ahead some sort of grey log is washed up but when Ralph gets closer he’s alerted to another possibility. It’s a shark. Flies rise from the ripped hole of its mouth from which a hook must first have been cut, then its jaws. Ralph looks a further fifty yards down the beach and there’s another dark shape, this time not far out in the water. He hurries towards it, then in two minds he stops, looks back to the faraway party of the Gilmores. Should he run and give a shark warning and get them out of the water? But when he checks the shape again he sees it’s not moving of its own accord, it’s being pushed by the wash of the surf. It’s dead 61
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after all. He walks closer and then it comes to him in a rush that it’s no shark, no log, it’s a fully clothed person. He wades in, crashes through the thigh-deep water, grabs hold of the face-down man and turns him over. It’s Burt Stevens. He’s wearing a coat and tie and laced-up shoes. He’s wearing his Sunday best. He’s all dressed up for going out. Ralph half drags, half floats Burt’s body in. In the end he must hold him under the armpits and strain and tug him up the beach in spurts. The dead, wet weight of him. Ralph, exhausted and with pounding heart, stops, falls back, finds himself sitting on his backside with his knees wide apart and Burt before him as if he’s given birth to this still child. He is sorry for the sand in Burt’s hair and for the fine crusted grains around the rim of his nose. They’re downwind of the shark and the smell is putrid. Has Ralph heard the story sometime in these last days of the Great Flood of 1860 when the waters ran a mile wide at a speed of fifteen miles per hour? A whole hotel and all its occupants came floating by after a wild ride down the gullies from the goldfields in the hills at Araluen. Out to sea it went, coughed up through the mouth of the Moruya River. A whole barful of people and a Shetland pony washed up on the beach over ensuing days, surrounded by a litter of saloon furniture; tables and stools, a spittoon, a chandelier. At first glance it seemed the folks slumped in the sand were sleeping it off after a big party. Flotsam and jetsam. Now on this beach there’s more debris—the boy and the grey fish. Become rubbish. Burt’s eyes are closed. His lips are upturned in a lilac sneer, as if whatever he’s looking at now behind his lids is no more impressive than what he saw when they were open. Ralph mumbles, ‘God forgive you.’ It’s too late for Burt to speak, but if he could he’d say, ‘Shut up, you’re just like Perkins.’ 62
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The Great Arch Vol. IV., No. 2 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER
Feb. 1st, 1926
A PILLAR! 63
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A pillar . . . Stalwart support! Built of concrete and faced with Moruya granite. Each block made and numbered at the quarry to fit its pre-designated spot here, each block shaped, with the point of a chisel, to an accuracy of 1/8th of an inch. Very soon the steelwork will commence which will sit atop the pillars, bringing road and rail up to the level of the Bridge. In issues of the parish paper to come, I shall furnish a meticulous report of my trip to Moruya as promised, however, due to my recent return, for the time being it must suffice to say that my days there passed without blemish. And what a rare privilege and a pleasure it was for your humble Rector to be so much in the company of the Bridge’s famous men, Dr. Bradfield and Mr. Ennis. Now I know it is sometimes difficult to be patient when a good thing is promised, but I entreat you to bide your time. When my account comes, who shall fail to be impressed by the story of that valiant enterprise? Fearless men wrest that noble stone from the clawed grasp of the earth and shape it with skill and diligence till it is fit to adorn our great Bridge. In every detail, both in the parish paper and in my book to come, their great work will be immortalised.
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Coroner’s report no. 536 Henry Waters, 50, dogman, born in Moruya. Injured at Moruya quarry while riding on the loco-crane and died the next day in Moruya District Hospital on April 7th, 1926.
Coroner’s report no. 510 Percy Poole, 30, quarryman, born in Young, NSW. Killed when crushed by stone at Moruya quarry, March 28th, 1927.
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1967 Mater Hospital Travelling, unravelling. Lennie Gwideer and Ginger Mick are alone away from home and heading for the highway. But first they must pass through the Strzelecki Ranges. All is green and quiet and dripping. Tree ferns and bracken and eucalypts are ghostly in the drizzle. Greasy road. In the ground below their feet Lennie imagines the blind tunnelling of yard-long Gippsland worms. If the earth were to open up and swallow horse and boy would the worms come, winding around their necks like cold scarves?
Coroner’s report no. 1484 Robert Craig, 63, braceman and member of the Ironworkers’ Union, born in Ayrshire, Scotland. Knocked down at Milsons Point ballast heap, September 14th, 1926. Died in the Royal North Shore Hospital.
5 May 1926 He is at the park. He has arrived with a bundle of sticks under his arm as well as a set square and has briefly scanned the open space, concluding it will do nicely. Though the blustery wind is enough to keep most people indoors this afternoon, it has not deterred Ralph from rising from his desk fully charged by a sudden idea which must be immediately acted upon. As Stella chased after him, asking if he’d take the children, he waved her away—no time. 65
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Selecting a patch of dirt between tufts of grass, Ralph drills in one of the sticks, the point of which promptly snaps off in the hard ground, whereupon he searches his pockets for some sort of instrument or tool and, coming across his fountain pen, immediately sacrifices it to the cause. Kneeling, he digs his hole and plants his stick which is now a little shorter than he would have liked. He ties to the top a bit of rag which he has got out of Stella’s duster bag and which she would not be pleased to see publicly displayed, it being a small piece of a larger piece which was once her drawers. Now he begins in earnest, pacing out a distance of 224 feet.Then he plants his second stick and lays down the set square to help him reckon the right line. Away he goes again—161 feet this time. Near a stand of plane trees on the edge of the park, a thin man throws a ball to a dog. His overripe, grown-up son watches on. They barely register with Ralph though he knows them, they’re parishioners. The father is Bob Stoop, his son is Eddie. The dog scampers through the fallen autumn leaves; it’s a mongrel, a low to the ground variety, but agile. Eddie stands apart from his father and the overexcited dog, his arms hang loose by his sides. He’s maybe twenty years old, big and cumbersome and shaped like a top with trousers pulled up to a highbelted circumference. The ball goes high and the dog jumps to catch it, crashing in a heap but springing back on all fours, eager for more. Eddie is impassive until the dog does a mid-air twist and then he tips back his head suddenly and laughs in a coarse braying staccato. He has too many teeth in his mouth. A gust of wind brings Eddie’s laugh across the park but Ralph won’t be distracted. He has his fourth stick in by now but, despite the set square (too puny for the size of the job), he’s inadvertently made a parallelogram and must rush from stick to stick to make the necessary
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adjustments. At last he strides to the centre of his giant oblong, and the immensity sends a thrill through him.Then he looks up. He looks up into the sky imagining a point nearly a hundred yards distant in the air (nearly three hundred feet high!)—oh God, it’s beautiful, it’s colossal: this . . . this is . . . a PYLON. This will be their finished size. Involuntarily, he has raised both arms up and put his palms together in what could be mistaken for an elevated attitude of oriental prayer (but it helps him keep his point in the sky). He has his head tilted back on his neck as far as it will go; a passer-by, making comparisons, would be sure to think him far more retarded than Eddie. How glorious these Egyptoid monuments will be; ornamental yet with structural value, since their weight will hold down the foundations as they take the force of the arch’s compression. He can already see the words he’ll use to describe the pylons in next month’s parish paper and, later, in his book:
Art must be blended with usefulness. In the months ahead, the pylons will probably grow into the most beautiful feature of the whole design, making one of the loveliest works, of its kind, ever originated by man.
For a moment he even toys with the idea of making the text look like the pylons:
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Art Art must be must be blended with blended with usefulness. In usefulness. In the the m m o a o a h h n n e e t t a a h h d d s s the pylons will the pylons will the pylons will probably grow -probably grow into the most -into the most beautiful feature -beautiful feature of the whole des-of the whole design, making one -ign, making one of the loveliest -of the loveliest works of its kind, -works of its kind, ever originated by man. ever originated by man.
Brilliant concept though it is—because it, in itself, would demonstrate art blended with usefulness—he feels immediately bound to abandon it, knowing the old lady parishioners would turn the page this way and that and upside down and ask him all sorts of sticky questions, most of them quite off the point. As it is he must already explain many of his articles and ideas over and over again. ‘What’s this about?’ they are always saying. Ralph knows it’s a vicar’s job to be a patient teacher but the bridge should be enough to inspire a brisk march, if not a sprint, towards modernity and more radical modes of thinking. Granted, not everyone can read plans and visualise the future, but this is why he tries so hard to paint pictures with his words. In some ways, he’s a translator. 68
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A translator of progress! Yes, he likes the tag. With his head tilted into the cold blue sky he can see every inch of the pylon. Surely everyone else wishes they could see it too. Such a serious and serene structure, such strength. He summons up more adjectives: ageless, enduring. It will surely stand, he thinks, until the last day. Ralph’s neck is getting sore but it’s not this which brings his consciousness fluttering down from the top of the pylon. There’s a commotion coming from behind him. He turns to find one of his sticks is missing. But wait, there it is—being chewed by the dog. Bob Stoop is running towards the animal, clapping his hands and yelling, ‘Winkie, get out of it!’ But Winkie has no intention of getting out of it, in fact he’s quite into it, in fact he likes it a lot better than the ball.The stick is nearly bitten through and the dog pauses to savour a chunky splinter, he rolls his tongue around it and shifts it to his back teeth for a crunch. ‘Winkie!’ Bob Stoop tries to grab the stick but the dog’s too quick, it snaffles it up and runs away. It settles fifty yards distant and, holding the stick down with its paws, proceeds to tug at, and salivate over, Stella’s underwear. Eddie is slow to arrive at the scene and in any case stops twenty feet short of Ralph and his father. He puts his podgy hands on his hips and squints into the sun at them, his head tilted to one side. He has spotty skin and very pink lips and there is something blunt about the ends of his hair so that it always looks recently cut. Dark smudges under his eyes show he often has bad nights. Bob Stoop takes his cap off to speak to Ralph. He’s a quietly spoken, hard-working man. Shy. He apologises for the mutt; they’ve not long had it. Someone didn’t want it—he smiles wryly—now he can see why. ‘And I was probably rude . . . I should’ve come straight over . . . to say hello, but you looked busy. Not a very good example,’ he says, nodding towards his boy. ‘And how are you, Eddie?’ says Ralph in a hearty voice, then 69
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coughs to cover the silence. ‘You’ll never guess what I was just doing!’ And it’s true, Eddie wouldn’t. Ralph turns to Bob and starts to explain. He drags them to the centre of the imaginary pylon.‘This is part of the Harbour Bridge, Eddie.’ Eddie scratches his arm.‘Of course,’ Ralph says, ‘the pylons are made of reinforced concrete and will be hollow inside, then faced with granite.’ He rattles off a list of statistics interspersed with spittle which the wind takes away. He points three hundred feet up into the air—look how high. He’s getting wind-burned, his face is red and shiny. Eddie looks up but he can’t see anything. Ralph tells Bob what a shame it is they’re not going to install lifts in the pylons. They’ve got a lift in the pylon of the bridge at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and that was also built by Dorman, Long, and though it kills him to admit it, the omission is a blemish—it is a blemish—the only one he’s spotted in the whole of the bridge design. ‘To get to deck level, you’ll have to use a set of stairs way back there,’ he says, pointing to a corner shop up the road to indicate the relative distance. ‘But imagine how quickly you could walk across the bridge if you could only take a lift from the ground straight up!’ He jabs his finger in the sky. Bob, like a spectator at a tennis match, has been closely following Ralph’s gestures, including this last (eternal) lob, but he’s aware that Eddie’s getting restless; his son is glancing fretfully about as if he’s tired of standing up and wants a chair. ‘A lift would be a good thing,’ Bob agrees. He searches for a better comment.‘I wish I had your education.’ And then he nods his head towards Eddie. ‘I’d better get him home. It’s cold . . . his mother’ll have a fit. He’ll get wheezy.’ He shakes Ralph’s hand but doesn’t quite look him in the eye. ‘We’ll see you on Sunday, Rector.’ Ralph rather hopes not.And then he catches himself. He knows that’s mean—it’s awful—and he doesn’t wish to be mean at all; God loves all creatures. It’s just that sometimes Eddie’s presence in the congregation 70
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can be . . . off-putting. He’s apt to make inappropriate noises: little yelps and quivers. For this reason, and because he is very often sick, his parents don’t bring him every week. When they do bring him, they usually come to the early service when there are fewer people. ‘Right then,’ says Ralph to the departing pair. ‘That would be wonderful. I look forward to it immensely.’ He has to make up for his bad thoughts. ‘Lovely, actually. I’ll see you then. And this week I’ll be sure to have a new parable up my sleeve . . .’ Bob whistles up the dog, which now has dirt all over its nose, having buried the stick in a garden of agapanthus. Ralph watches them go, the lean father walking slowly to match the pace of his heavy-footed son. The nutty dog runs alongside. Bob and Eddie seem to be having a conversation. Ralph doesn’t know how this could be since, as far as he knows, Eddie isn’t capable of proper speech. But as they disappear into the shade under the plane trees, he sees Eddie nod his head, he sees the father gesture, and he sees Eddie waggle his finger at the dog.The dog barks.The shade of the afternoon takes them. That night, before retiring, Stella is in the kitchen sponging Ralph’s suit. She has attended to the trousers, which were very bad at the knees, and now she’s inspecting the jacket. She discovers the fountain pen. A cold fury grips her. She marches out to the study and thrusts it under his nose. A clump of earth is stuck to the snapped-off nib. The pen had been a birthday present to him, from her. He snatches it out of her hand. ‘It can be fixed.’ She explodes, ‘If you were going to the park to scratch in the dirt, the least you could’ve done is take Colin. Even at six he would have had more sense than to use a bloody fountain pen!’ ‘It can be fixed.’ ‘It’s ruined.’ 71
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1967 Mater Hospital Someone should bring him his typewriter. If he can’t talk he may as well type. Type, type. There’s so much to do: explain how the concrete was poured for the skewbacks, how the main bearings were set in position, how the steel is prefabricated for the approach spans and the bridge. He sees his fingers flying over the old Imperial so fast the keys sometimes jjjjjjjjjjam. And now and t en the aitc goes missing. Must get the old girl serviced—the typewriter, not Stella! After all, he’s worked her so hard—the typewriter, not Stella! She was always good with presents. W en he opened the wrapping he immediately regretted giving her cake forks. Of all the things he could have bought. But in the store, the dull weight of them in his hands was somehow— seductive. She never understood. Though his fingers race his tone must be measured. The book. Finish the first and then get on with the second volume.
Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge CHAPTER 7 Come then, Reader, it is time. Let me, the Author, take you on a most invigorating tour of the Fabrication Workshops. You must walk in your imagination where I have many times walked for real. Stand first with me on the wharf in front where the trusty steamer from overseas 72
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is tied up, safe after its long journey and having made good on its commission: the delivery of steel from the Dorman, Long factory in Middlesbrough, England. Imagine the day is sunny—why not?—who would not rather take a tour in prime conditions? See the sparkle of the water and wonder at the natural beauty of our harbour, the like of which no other in the world compares. Only the very best bridge, made of the very best quality materials, is fit for crossing such a waterway. But where is the noise of work? If we have not remarked upon it already it must be lunchtime, since even when standing outside these massive sheds it is often necessary to cover one’s ears. Even as I have held high the communion cup in St. Christopher’s church on the hill, have I felt the bass thrill of rumbling machinery in the joints of my knees. If it is such a nice day, and if it is lunchtime, why then there are sure to be ’prentices about the wharf fishing for scaly mackerel. Do not be tricked if they try to sell you one or two for tonight’s table—they are not good eating. But let us send them all, lads and men, back to work. Let’s tap our pocket watch and say, ‘Timekeeper, sound the siren, please!’ Watch out! The electric cranes are on the move, unloading the steamer and carrying the steel to the stockyard. In the stockyard order is the rule—much as it would be in a fussy woman’s pantry, only more so, for there is no nearby shop to go to should a plate of steel be lost: it is not delivered for anyhow use. It is delivered for a specific purpose, and would take three months to replace from England. When the plate arrives it is sometimes damaged and must be straightened in the giant mangle. So massive is this mechanism that it can accommodate a plate 60 feet long, 12 feet wide and 2¼ inches thick. Imagine a mangle in your laundry so large! With it you could wash very big clothes! Now the plate is fit to enter the Light Workshop. Let us follow it in. Lo! but the noise is now wonderful and nightmarish at the same 73
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time. Activity is everywhere: in obedience to the dogman’s signals the travelling overhead cranes lift huge pieces of steel to men at their work stations. First stop is the shearing machine, where the hard plates of silicon steel are cut to length. It is this machine which makes that dull clang we hear above all other sounds. Next the plate passes to one of the edge-planing machines which are driven with rack and pinion and perform a similar job to the carpenter’s plane. Watch as the workman travels along with the cutter, marvel at this, the one long, unceasing, perfectly accurate plane. See the great heat generated by the intense friction, be awed as the shavings fall off red hot, taking on brilliant colours and turning into fantastical shapes. This coil, burnished gold, or this one opal blue and green, wouldn’t you like to place it on your mantel at home? Unique ornaments, yet every day they go to waste and what a shame when anyone would be pleased to have one. I myself have many and they are always remarked upon. Only be careful. Do not touch the rough side with its fine, needle points of silicon steel that are so easily broken off and embedded in inquisitive forefingers. After edge planing, the steel plate is next marked out for drilling. The holes must be drilled in exactly the right places to exactly the right dimensions, for the rivets which will later fill them are designed to fit very snugly indeed. To ensure absolute accuracy the marking of the holes is done from wooden templates made in the template shop upstairs. Let us take a detour up there now. Go via the outside stairs and hear how our shoes ring so importantly on the steel steps. Inside, in the dimmer light, it takes a moment for our eyes to adjust. Here is a vast and empty place where draughtsmen rustle, making their measurements squatting on the floor. So careful is their work that in hot weather they dip their metal rules to cool in the harbour lest they expand a fraction. Every member is marked out here in wood full size before it is fabricated in steel and sent up to the Bridge. There is no room for error once the steel is in the air. 74
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Downstairs, after drilling, the steel is wiped clean and painted with a coat of red lead to prevent rust as some sections, when joined together, will never be accessible again to the painter’s brush. Now the steel plates are bolted together with assembly bolts, a temporary measure until the rivets fix them tightly forever. Look how the tradesmen smile as they operate the hydraulic riveting machines, the largest of which exerts a pressure of 95 tons on the rivet. Not all riveting can be done with these machines—some must still be done pneumatically, and how spectacular it is to watch! Through the air fly glowing rivets cooked hot in oil furnaces dotted throughout the shop. The cooker, a youth, tends the fire and heats his rivet till it pulses red, whereupon he picks it up with long tongs and tosses it through the workshop gloom, 40, 60 feet it soars, scale dropping in orange showers. The catcher catches it in an empty tin which he promptly turns out and the rivet is sent home with a few blows from a small sledgehammer. While the head is held firm the skilled tradesman holds up the pneumatic hammer and rat-tat-tat— the end of the rivet is rounded off so tight to the steel that the inspector when he comes will not be able to discern a gap. All day the rivets fly and the rat-tat tats. The activity is infernal. Now the steel sections and light members are finished and must pass through into the heavy shop where they are assembled with other sections to become heavy members. The steel is again studded with assembly bolts and rivets and then the ends of the assembled members are planed with the planing machines to a level of great accuracy so they will fit perfectly together with other members. Remember, although our great arch will look curved, not one curved piece will be used: the effect is achieved in increments with small and precise angles. Lastly, the finished heavy member is hoisted by crane onto the barge at the dock at the end of the heavy shop. The barge will proudly bear its burden to either harbour shore where the fabricated steel will become part of the approach spans. Later, when at last the arch begins to grow, mighty Creeper Cranes will be waiting to receive the members and gather them up to the top of the unfinished Bridge. 75
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Now, was not your tour wonderful? Did you miss anything? For I would gladly do it all over. Just as I could gaze at an anthill all day, I could gaze here forever in the workshops at the industry of man. The analogy is worth pursuing since both creatures, man and ant, are capable of together building something greater than their individual size. Sometimes in the building of the Bridge we have worried about ourselves and the discomforts and disruptions which have been wrought in the name of change. But how can we bow down under these temporary burdens when we look to our brother ants, who struggle on and bravely on, who lift great weights with their skinny little legs and arms? Look you and look you again, in each miniature thorax there beats the stoutest heart! And so applaud the tradesmen of the workshops who (with the aid of the contractor’s modern machinery) labour to prefabricate the national enterprise piece by piece—560,000 pieces there will be all told, according to estimation. The siren sounds the end of the day’s work and the men down tools, putting on their coats and caps which have all day hung from handy nails. In the timekeeper’s office, under the timekeeper’s watchful eye, they take their numbered medals from the numbered hooks then out they stream, a river of men, each to their different homes. They are tired but proud, knowing, an ANTHILL or a BRIDGE, both are great works under Heaven and blessed by the foreman, God. So ends the tour. The workshops are idle. Machinery never tires but men must rest until the morrow. On your way out, do mind your step. 76
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9 March 1927 Dr Zam-buk has this morning pulled a metal splinter out of a man’s eye with a large magnet. He has also treated a lad with a burn to his foot: slag from a hot rivet had dropped inside his boot and the damage was done before the kid could run and plunge it into one of the standby water buckets. The smell of burnt flesh always does Zam-buk in; charred twists of it fill the room still, bringing back battlefields. He lies on the hard treatment table feeling, as he always does come midday, as if someone has performed an operation on him, as if his heart and lungs have been removed and he’s been sewn up empty. He turns on his side and surveys his barren domain, the first-aid room. A bench and a telephone. The cabinet with its few pieces of equipment, bandages and salves. A broom in one corner with which he sweeps the wooden floor, a canvas stretcher in the other, and also a cradle, for getting a man down from somewhere high. Reflected back in the cabinet glass is his face, pitted where acne marked him in his youth. His hair is tawny, flecked with early grey, his eyes are blue. He’s Zam-buk, nicknamed after a patent medicine, an ointment for anything and everything. ‘Surgery in a two-inch box,’ goes the slogan. The joke is he’s small in stature. And he’s not a doctor, he’s a patch-up man—he was a stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli and then again in France, where his anatomy lessons were quick and vivid. Artillery fire unzipped the skins of men until there were no secrets left for him. What he did not learn from the bodies strewn in front of him, he learned from parts slung from trees. In France especially, men did not resemble men, nor trees trees. Zam-buk sits upright. The sun ticks on the iron roof of the firstaid shed, announcing its noon presence. Later, around 2 pm, the rector will come by and they’ll play chess outside, Zam-buk seated in 77
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a wrecked armchair fetched from a demolition, and the rector upright as a spinster on a stool, the board on an upturned box between them. Zam-buk likes the order of the black and white squares and the quiet discipline of the game where competing interests vie only in accordance to strict rules. The rector makes quick moves which are sometimes brilliant and sometimes ridiculous, there’s no predicting which. He talks too much. Always the bridge, the bridge. While the men work in there with the steel, he’s here in the sun in front of a chess board, building it in words.The funny thing is Zam-buk almost believes—wants to believe—more in the rector’s bridge than the one before his eyes. The rector’s bridge is all glory and, to hear him talk, hasn’t cost anyone’s pain. The rector assures Zam-buk that the bridge proceeds according to measurements and plans; that with method, chaos can be spanned. Today is the second Thursday of the month, the day Zam-buk visits Charmaine, his substitute for love. She’s a widow, she works in the ferry ticket office. She’s from the country, from an inconsequential family who live scattered like flyspecks across the state’s western plains. She thinks that by living here, near the big buildings of the fast city, her two sons will learn to wear good suits and belong to the hard pavements. When Zam-buk pushes open the squeaky back door of her house every month he’s making a down payment on their future. Over the years, on those Thursdays, she has dug her fingernails into Zam-buk’s back and now the accumulated scars are silver-purple, like fish scales. He asks her to do it. ‘Hold me a little tighter,’ he says in an embarrassed whisper after he’s come, and she knows the code. She digs short and deep until she feels the slipperiness of blood. He whimpers, ‘A little tighter,’ but then she always leaves off, going to the kitchen and turning on the tap to wash the crescents of blood from under her fingernails. 78
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To indicate it’s something more than a transaction he leaves a gift with her for the boys each Christmas, something in the order of a Meccano set or cricket bat. She gives him socks. The boys and him, their paths don’t cross. When he opens the back door to her house on those Thursday afternoons there’s only ever her, then him, in it. Over the years he has gleaned a little about the absent sons, their presence glimpsed in abandoned plates of food, scattered books or clothes, something unguarded she’s said. He thinks she probably loves the eldest best; the way she says his name is hard-proud and quick, like she’s fighting to deny it. Zam-buk gets up from the treatment table to sweep. The broom is worn down to an old man’s uneven moustache. He starts in one corner of the room and when he’s finished he begins again. He does not want the telephone to ring. He does not want a shape to appear in the doorway, he does not want to hear a shout, his name urgently called. He wants to stay, mesmerised, inside the sound of the broom.
Coroner’s report no. 690 ‘Angel’ August Peterson, 23, slinger, born in Sweden. Died in Prince Henry Hospital on 23rd July, 1927, of spinal injuries sustained six months earlier while stacking stringers at the Milsons Point workshops.
1967 Mater Hospital Marian has her chair pulled up to the window. But today the outlook is of no interest—she hasn’t bothered to register the state of the garden below nor has she checked the windows of other rooms to see if 79
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any mysterious arms are signalling. Today she’s engrossed in an old newspaper. She’s been back to her father’s house this morning to return his washed clothes and fetch him a fresh set of pyjamas.The little Geary Street bungalow where Ralph has lived since retirement depresses her: long-time family possessions are out of place in unfamiliar rooms— and that goes for her father too, she realises. He has only ever seemed a temporary occupant there and she has only ever been a strangervisitor. Somehow her own identity has been jumbled and made to look tenuous within those walls. This morning she felt like an intruder creeping through the house, opening cupboards and drawers. She paused at the doorway of her father’s study (converted from the second bedroom) before going in. Despite being crammed with bookcases and filing cabinets it still has a bedroomy look, due to the sheer nylon curtains scalloping over the venetian blinds, and the wardrobe in the corner, too. His desk is small, stacked with books and littered with half-eaten packets of Quick-Eze. On the seat of the chair, the garish bundle of a knitted rug. Left in the typewriter, a half-typed page entitled: Address to Willoughby Legion Club—Our Marvellous Bridge, Forty Fascinating Facts and Figures. The bloody Harbour Bridge. Marian thinks the audience at the Willoughby Legion ought to thank the Lord for the intervention of her father’s stroke. Beside the typewriter, a March 1932 copy of the North Sydney local newspaper is open at a similarly headlined article written by Ralph. There are more dusty newspapers of the same vintage in a cardboard box on the floor. Heralds and Telegraphs. In the hospital now she flicks through a few she picked up. The times are feisty and chaotic. Though the bridge is about to open, the state verges on political and financial collapse. Rural news is prominent while crimes and violent deaths are gleefully reported in more detail than the top international stories. She browses the 80
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women’s pages which contain the usual fashion talk as well as a great deal of society gossip which is mostly middle-brow. Any and every occasion is reported and commented on and full of atrocious name dropping—nothing is too inconsequential to go unmentioned— even silly little morning teas, even the arrival at someone’s home of interstate visitors. The city of Sydney in 1932 is so small-town it gives her the shivers. In that tight milieu, the glimpsed potential for cruelty. This is supposed to be the era of her own childhood but the way it’s represented here seems to have nothing to do with the person she is now and how she thinks and feels. An enormous gulf separates the 1930s from the 1960s. She sees it even in small examples: in the paper there’s a snippet about a boy who has travelled by himself on horseback to see the opening of the bridge—what responsible parent would allow their child to do that now? Marian thinks of her own son, Jeff, gone up the coast on his uni break, how she worries about him in that bomb of a car with his surf-mad mates. As a baby he was as serene as Buddha, wrapped up against English weather, plump and content. He stayed where she plonked him and showed no inclination to move.Yes, times do change. We change. For better and for worse. She turns the page.
Lennie Gwideer is coming but a slow day he’s had of it. Dusk has switched to night before he finds the gate of his billet six miles out of Traralgon. Dogs bark as he and Ginger Mick approach a farmhouse which hunches in the lee of guarding cypress trees. Out comes a man, slow moving and lanky. He calls for the dogs to quiet then to Lennie, ‘What’s your business here?’ It’s the only thing Lennie doesn’t like about his journey: the crazy 81
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web of people his father has built with whom he must mostly stay— friends of friends, relations of relations, a traveller from the pub, an old army mate, a fettler, the ex-wife of a stock agent—a whole mesh of unsettled and resettled acquaintances who have planted themselves for life or a time on the long road to Sydney. No matter how many miles he puts between himself and home, each night he feels like his father is dragging him in by the ear. Now he sits down to eat with strangers. He would gladly go to sleep right there with his cheek on the table except he is so hungry he knows his stomach will crawl all night with the echoes of nothing in it. The man and his two children stare at Lennie and make no attempt at conversation. The wife, bringing them their food, is the only one to speak. ‘Did your father send money with you?’ When he says no she removes one of the two potatoes on his plate and puts it onto her son’s. Though he’s worn out, Lennie sleeps fitfully in his hard cot, imagines he can hear the shuffling step of a heavy animal outside, imagines he can hear its mournful trumpet cry. Up from the Gippsland coast it’s the ghost of the Alberton elephant, doomed to roam. Lennie’s father tells the fireside story: in the 1850s it was shipped from far Ceylon, bought by farming brothers who thought to put it to the plough. By day it laboured in cold paddocks, by night it rocked in chains. Cousins of the clouds, elephants can cause the strike of lightning. One night in weather foul the beast broke loose its bounds, blundered free but terrified through virgin bush, blue gum and stringy-bark. Wild in the wild night: lost. For weeks the brothers searched for their missing investment only to find it close to home. Of course, it was too big to bury. Did you ever hear a more melancholy sound than the ghost of 82
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the Alberton elephant calling? In vain it wanders Gippsland nights looking for a jungle path. Lennie wakes with the weight of the elephant’s sadness on him. In the pre-dawn he rises to saddle up Ginger Mick; he wants to be free of here. Ginger Mick senses Lennie’s disquiet and lifts his nose to nudge Lennie’s proffered hand. If Ginger Mick was a person he’d be a fine, old, slow-winking gentleman. Wise. ‘Aren’t ya gunna stay for food?’ It’s the boy. His little sister stands beside him twirling a filthy camphor bag on a string around her neck. Lennie shakes his head. ‘Are ya really gunna see a great bridge?’ Lennie nods. ‘Where is it?’ ‘At the end of the road.’ ‘One day, I wanna go too.’ ‘You can,’ says Lennie Gwideer. He leaves the brother and sister standing there by the fence under the boughs of the cypress trees. He heads for the gate and the road. When they step out onto the highway his tiredness lifts, as does his dreamy sadness. The sun rises on the first clear summery day of his journey. He is the prince of the Princes Highway. He is Lennie Gwideer.
Marian turns the brittle old pages of the newspaper with care. Ralph flutters awake to the crinkle and rustle of them.He glimpses a photograph of a boy on a horse outside a pie shop in a country town. Ralph knows the caption off by heart: ‘Determined to follow his dream’. 83
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19 September 1927 It’s Sunday. The doors of St Christopher’s are open. Ralph is in the pulpit, halfway through his sermon. Stella is seated in the front-most pew, looking entirely satisfied by the whiteness of her husband’s surplice. Post-tantrum, two-year-old Grace rests her hot head in Stella’s lap in an exhausted slump, while next to her is the glamorous Aunty Ditty who is visiting from Albury. Ditty has her hands patiently clasped. She wears a polite expression of focused attention but in fact she’s far away, planning her outings: a recital at the town hall, shopping in the city with Stella, the art gallery, and a picnic at Audley Weir with friends up from Melbourne. Ditty was born for travel, is inquiring, intelligent, non-judgemental, possessed of cosmopolitan tastes which cannot be satisfied by a life lived entirely on the banks of the River Murray. There is something about her hometown being situated on the border between states which keeps her forever restless. Behind Aunty Ditty, a ripple passes through the congregation. A raked aisle divides the pews with its bold new strip of red carpet, which cost the Ladies’ Auxiliary all of their funds and most of Stella’s saved dress money. Its thick pile and vital colour is intended to cheer down-at-heel parishioners, the church at least one place to go for richness and for comfort, but instead it shows up the shabbiness of the people. Of course, not all in the parish are low-income earners by any means. Mrs Valmay Liner’s new calfskin shoes cost enough to feed a family for six months; imported Italian footwear doesn’t come cheap, especially in mannish size ten, and especially when she’s so hard on them she must buy several pairs, for in no time the pointed toes look wrinkled and stubbed as if she’d gone round kicking cows’ backsides. To pass the time while Ralph drones on, Mrs Liner twiddles with her wedding ring. As a widow it’s her most precious possession. She lost 84
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her husband when he fell overboard on their honeymoon cruise—it was a tragedy of course (the holiday was ruined)—and never saw fit to encumber herself with another. As it turned out all she ever needed from marriage was the ring—marvellous little thing—since it allowed her to keep her status and her independence. But what is going on? Something is being passed from hand to hand among the congregation. Recipients examine the item briefly, usually with a puzzled expression on their Sunday-scrubbed faces, before sending it on. It’s a photograph, a copy of a much larger one which Ralph holds up in the pulpit. ‘When I developed this photograph in the rectory darkroom,’ Ralph is saying, ‘I could hardly breathe, such was the majesty of the appearing image. Who could fail to be impressed by this striking shot of one of the four main bearings of the Sydney Harbour Bridge?’ Mrs Liner, for one. She flicks it over in her hands and gets rid of it quick smart. She thinks there’s something brutishly futuristic about the great triangular block of studded metal which thrusts forward, filling the whole frame. Ralph goes on, ‘Set into the base of the abutment towers, these bearings will take the entire weight of the structure, or its live load, as our friends the engineers are fond of saying. In addition, they will act as vital hinges or pivots, allowing for movement in the arch as the steel expands and contracts according to changes in temperature. Why, the bridge could almost be said to breathe, the way it will rise and fall over the course of the day, like one of our very own lungs. Look here . . .’ And then he points out the hexagonal nut which indicates the position of the bearing pin and Mrs Liner rolls her eyes, goes digging in her purse for a nail file. Also otherwise engaged is Norman Tuck, noted ornithologist and respected author of the book The Australasian Bird Identifier, now in its seventh edition. He is scribbling a note on a scrap of paper while Ralph continues, ‘Is not the main bearing reminiscent of the 85
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Son of God who took on the great weight, the terrible burden of the sins of the world?’ Indeed, Norman Tuck is often inspired to write in church, not by anything Ralph says but by Norman’s need to ignore it. He has a narrow, squeezed-up kind of head, sharp nose, eyes slightly bugged—in short, the kind of pinched profile which would do very well for the back of a coin. But unlike most monarchs so incused, it is a face which is hyper-alert. That intelligence at first attracted Ralph, and he thrilled to think he might make a pal with whom he could talk matters literary, but over time he has come to the conclusion that the man’s a hopeless crank. Tuck is clearly so obsessed with working on refinements and revisions to the Bird Identifier that it will likely be his only publication ever. His special interest (which in Ralph’s opinion is quite ridiculous) is in the written descriptions of bird calls, and it’s these phonetic snatches which he constantly updates, striving for ever more accurate transcriptions. Sometimes a discordant note played by the organist, Mrs Poke, has been known to inspire in him a whole new train of thought. That there is no shortage of such musical mistakes is not entirely Mrs Poke’s fault since the organ is due for repairs. Ralph concludes the sermon and the congregation rises for a hymn. Favourite hymns command their own respect, thus Norman Tuck stuffs his notes back into his jacket and pops his pencil behind his ear and Mrs Liner puts a hasty finish to her manicure. Today old Ned Tooms, the verger, is turning the pages for Mrs Poke, as the boy who usually does it is away. Ned can’t read music so he glares at Mrs Poke with his wild eyebrows raised, on the lookout for the slightest sign of her curt nod. He’s so afraid he’ll miss his cue he doesn’t sing—and he loves to sing—he sings the way a tree would sing if it could sing, loud and serious. Though he’d never say so, he doesn’t feel he should be asked to perform this extra task. Setting up the service, ringing the bell, mid-week maintenance: these are his 86
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proper responsibilities, done in his own good time, in his own same way, and no one can say he doesn’t do them properly. He polishes and cleans with slow diligence as if the church literally was the house of God, as if the vases, the urns, really did belong to God, and God, the owner, had just stepped out of the room. Mrs Poke gives a vigorous nod and her fresh-washed curly hair bobbles. Ned’s hand shakes as he turns the corner of the page and she nods again to giddy him up; it’s hard, she thinks, under these circumstances, for an artist such as herself to be truly professional. And blast, there it is again, the damp spot in the action of the third pedal. It puts her off, she misses a note and, as if simultaneously stuck with a pin, a dozen faces in the hundred strong congregation screw up in expressions of pain. They’re a mixed lot: there’s an insurance agent, a garage owner, a school teacher, a fruiterer; there’s Perry Gordello, who’s a dance instructor at the Ron Stannard Waltz Academy in Cremorne; there are navvies, ferry hands, a boat builder, iron workers and a crane driver from the bridge; there’s a saw miller, a dentist, an ice man, an usher, a stablehand, an electrician; there’s the lady who works in the cooked shop in Blues Point Road, there are boarding house mistresses, a milliner, there’s the manageress of Moran & Cato’s accounts payable, and there’s the laundry woman from Garland House; there’s a waitress and a shirtmaker, a postal sorter, a lift controller; there are wives (more wives than husbands), quite a few widows and widowers, there are single young men looking for single young women, there are two babies wrapped up in shawls. In the last pew, there’s also Jimmy de Bruce. He’s not a believer but he’s fond of a good roast dinner and he reckons it only polite to sit through the service before he takes up his invitation to share in the rectory lunch. At his feet is a present for Ralph. It’s a brick. He 87
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has carried it all the way over from the Dudley Bell at not a little cost to his hands, which are chafed from the mortar left on one edge where it once was attached to the nursing home fence. But Jimmy is pleased with his effort and deems Ralph to be in more pressing need of the brick than the Dudley Bell. It’s insurance. He’s worried about the handbrake on Ralph’s Dodge. He plans to train Ralph to nip the brick under the back wheel of the car whenever he parks on a hill, which is often in this hilly town. In retrospect, he thinks he really should have talked Ralph into waiting till he could afford something less second-hand, like a late model Hudson or an Oldsmobile— something closed in. Jimmy hopes he’ll be seated next to Ditty at lunch. Basking in the sun of beautiful women has been one of his lifelong pleasures and so what if he makes a bit of a fool of himself being overattentive in the passing of her mint sauce. Though he hasn’t been to church off his own bat since the day he was married, Jimmy de Bruce knows the hymn and mouths along with it. Amazing what’s retained from childhood inculcation. Jimmy turns the photo of the main bearing over in his hands; as the last person in the last pew it’s come to a stop with him. He thinks it’s smashing, but even he wonders at its place in church. Should he have a word with his friend, who was so involved with the delivery of his sermon he probably didn’t notice the restless signs which at times were quite obvious? But on that issue he’d find Ralph dismissive: ‘Dear boy, at theology college they trained us to ignore the congregation.Whatever one says there’s always a percentage who don’t listen, and though I do try to accommodate them, they’re often the people with the lowest IQ. No, we must keep ploughing on. Eventually it’ll all sink in.’ After the service, folks gather on the lawn in the dappled sunlight and an air of gaiety prevails now people are released from the polite 88
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constraint required inside. Children scramble up the hill from Sunday school in the Church Hall to rejoin the adults and run between groups. Alice is quick to dump Marian back with Stella, who’s snapping at Colin to take off his choirboy’s tunic before he plays. Ralph mingles, shaking hands, accepting congratulations on the service which are given automatically but received by him as the freshest praise. He loves this fatherly, head-of-the-household time among his parishioners and spreads himself about. He beams, especially at his newest communicants, twelve schooled by him and blessed by the Bishop at a confirmation service last week—a service which was splendid except for the Bishop sniffing, ‘Is this all?’, for there’d been more the previous year. Here and there as Ralph moves around, he pauses to point out the view. ‘With a good pair of eyes you can see the main bearings on the south side from here.’ Behind him, Perry Gordello’s in a flap trying to get his mother to shush; she can be heard crossly repeating the word ‘hardware’ to one of the churchwardens. ‘Not so loud, Moth,’ he pleads. ‘Really, it was lovely,’ he says to the warden, then to his mother, ‘You’ll get ill if you work yourself up.’ But the ageing Mrs Gordello is not as infirm as she looks, as attested by the hard line which soon comes to her mouth if Perry is ever slow fetching her something. He always calls her Moth, even writes it on Christmas cards. Moth and I send our best wishes . . . Stella, receiving one one day, mispronounced it in her head—Moth as in insect—and it dawned on her how appropriate the name was for the hunched grey woman who slowly ate holes in her son with her tyranny of small demands. Mrs Gordello is not pleased to be contradicted now. She twitches at Perry to be quiet and says to the warden, ‘Whatever happened to Bible stories? We haven’t had one for such a long time.’ Ralph, hearing the word ‘Bible’ loudly spoken, wheels around, but Aunty Ditty rescues the situation: ‘Mrs Gordello, I’m told you’re the 89
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most beautiful seamstress!’ At the same time Jimmy de Bruce steps up to arrest Ralph’s attention. ‘Look here, Rector, a new accessory for the Dodge!’ And he offloads the brick into Ralph’s hands and jokes about the lack of gift wrapping. Ralph thinks he’s the luckiest man alive. Here he is being given a present by his funny old friend while standing in the sunshine of a sublime morning in front of his own church, St Christopher’s, with his family and his congregation all about him, poised here at Lavender Bay on the cusp of the harbour and the city, and with the great play of the bridge and the bright future unfolding before them—he feels truly blessed. This is his place in history. But suddenly Aunty Ditty’s conversation with Mrs Gordello is disrupted by a magpie swooping in. Hands automatically spring to heads and hats, the group dips simultaneously to avoid the whoomp whoomp of the bird’s wings and the threat of its beak, their tight circle breaks: the bird’s gone. Aunty Ditty and Perry Gordello and Mrs Gordello and the churchwarden find themselves standing in a line like judges, and central to their attention now is a singular figure stranded on the lawn before them. It’s Ralph, of course.The Rector of St Christopher’s. And, inexplicably to them, he’s holding a brick. Mrs Gordello and the churchwarden exchange looks. Mrs Gordello snaps, ‘Don’t tell me that will be the subject for next week’s sermon!’
Page 2 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Nov. 1st, 1927
The Rector’s Letter ‘My goodness!’ many of us can be heard to constantly say these days, as we survey the effects of rapid change on our little parish. From a point 90
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in Walker Street only 50 yards up from the church it’s possible to draw a straight line to St. John’s in Kirribilli where not a single house exists due to the demolitions, sometimes to a width of hundreds of yards. It’s a desolate scene and, for diverse reasons, causes a good deal of distress amongst us. Let me tell you a story. One night of recent times, I was cycling home at dusk (the trusty Dodge being ‘laid up’ in ‘hospital’) when I chanced to take a shortcut through a street of houses half-demolished. Only odd walls still stood amongst piles of bricks and rubbish; here a lace curtain hung from a glass-less window, there a lonely chimney stood, its hearth blackened. I myself have been a visitor in many of those same homes, coming by in times of trouble and joy. I have raised my hat on the footpath to familiar friends, have paused to listen to the shrieks of children playing in the lanes, have sniffed the hearty smells of family dinners cooking. All gone now. The street, in the last stages of undress, and in the failing light of day, was a scene of utter melancholy. To better consider the vista, I stopped in the middle of the road and was disconcerted to hear a strange noise, a kind of whimpering, which interrupted the otherwise eerie silence. A man, prostrate in the rubble, was sobbing. Now I’ll grant you, it’s unusual to ever see a man crying, but as we shall shortly see, the poor fellow had a fairish excuse. Upon setting down my bicycle, and having no wish to startle the fellow, I called gently to him, but he failed to respond. Instead, over and over again, he murmured the name of a French town. When later he would speak a little I came to understand the wrecked appearance of the street had reminded him of the village where he had lost both his brothers. It was, apparently, a terrible place, smashed out by artillery fire and in ruins. Now who would have thought a neighbourhood of ours would ever so closely resemble one destroyed by war? Though I offered the man a warm meal up at the Rectory and thought I would beg Mrs. Cage to find him a new coat, he was inconsolable. Duties called me home and I had no choice but to leave him there since he showed no inclination to go—and in truth, I couldn’t help wondering if he felt the weight of his burden the more so for being under the influence of John Barleycorn. As I wheeled away I recalled those difficult days during the war when I was a young priest at my first parish. I was not always a welcome sight. In the street people would shrink from me in fear in case I carried a telegram, 91
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and indeed there were many times when I did. It’s not an easy thing to knock on a person’s door and say, ‘The Bright Angel has come for your husband, your son.’ Especially when you’re new on the job. Then, too, it was hard to refuse to say prayers for the dead when people asked, which was often. How to explain that that’s a Roman practice? The Church of England Christian must get right with God in this life, and no amount of prayers by his distraught relatives will get him unrepentant into Heaven afterwards. The mothers were the worst, grief-struck they would wail, then bargain, then threaten; but however hard-seeming, the rules cannot bend to any one person’s pressure. Undeniably, our parish has the look of a battlefield at present and many people have been forced away like refugees to make way for the coming of our great Bridge. And if our streets are lonely, our church is lonely too. Records show we are down roughly 200 folks at Evensong, when three years ago we numbered 450 at a good showing. We must work harder to keep our church going, pressing friends and neighbours and relatives to come along to do their duty in Christ. We at the Rectory have not lost heart but are busier than ever. A survey of the last few weeks alone shows the bounty of the hospitality offered: 70 for supper one night, 60 for tea, 20 for afternoon tea and another 16 for supper that same evening, refreshments for meetings on eight nights, lunch for the District Visitors and their families, 35. Hard work is the key to the future. As Armistice Day approaches this year and we remember the many fallen, remember also the importance of getting right with God. Do it today, don’t leave it for later, for you really never know what might happen. Out of the ashes of war, and from the rubble of our wrecked suburb, the arch of the Bridge will rise to herald a different age. Modernity promises peace and prosperous times.
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Coroner’s report no. 968 Nathaniel Swandells, 22, boilermaker’s labourer, born in Glasgow, Scotland. Fell 50 feet from the north-east approach-span pier while riveting from temporary staging on 6th December, 1927. Never regained consciousness. Died at the Mater Hospital.
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The Great Arch Coroner’s report no. 489 William Woods, 42, ironworker, born in Glasgow, Scotland. Overbalanced and fell 60 feet from a gantry rigged to the north-east approach-span, killed, 24th February, 1928.
Page 8 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Mar. 1st, 1928
The Annual Vestry Meeting is set down for Thursday 27th of March at 8 p.m. in The Church Hall and what an important night it is. Do come along. At this one meeting of the year all serious church business is discussed and many matters are put to the vote. Financial reports are given, representatives for Synod are chosen, and the People’s Churchwardens are elected by ballot. This last is a serious task. Churchwardens have certain responsibilities and rights: they must supervise finances, keep the church and churchyard in good state, and they must report to the Archbishop any irregularities in the celebration of Divine Service and any misconduct of the Minister or neglect of duty. For some years now, the Rector’s Warden (chosen by me) has been Mr. George Howard, Costing Clerk for the New Guinea Division of Burns Philp, and we all know what a steady fellow he is. Won’t you come along on Thursday 27th and choose two stout men to serve beside him? Together they will guide me in the running of your parish.
_______________ Of interest is one particular item on the agenda of the forthcoming meeting: the returning issue of renaming The Church Hall. Do give it some thought. The proposal is to call it the Columbus Hall. (I note there is some confusion over Christophers. Our Saint Christopher carried the Christ Child across a stream and a very heavy Child he turned out to be since he bore the weight of the whole world. Christopher Columbus is the one who discovered the New World. They are not the same being.)
_______________ Termites have again struck at St. Christopher’s. For very small creatures they have exceedingly large stomachs. This time they have managed to 93
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cram in the better part of an electric light pole. You will all be familiar with the one in question—it is the second down on the path between the church and The Church Hall. The cost of replacement is substantial.
_______________ The Sunday School Superintendent is of the opinion the children should see beautiful things around them. He has therefore painted the fences of the church property.
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May 1928 The south side pylon is completed to deck level and, on top of it, work begins building the creeper crane. Ralph begs a copy of the plans from the Dorman, Long office, the better to understand the crane’s complex mechanisms.
Coroner’s report no. 1981 Edward Shirley, 27, carpenter, married. Sustained a skull fracture when scaffolding collapsed at the Fitzroy Street arch on the bridge approach at Milsons Point. Died four days later at the Royal North Shore Hospital, 28th July, 1928.
October–November 1928 At last! Work on the arch has begun! The first steel goes up—the end frame and portal—from which the first panel will grow. Ralph crosses over on the ferry twice a day to take detailed notes of the process, to drink in the atmosphere, to stand where the tin hares stand. He cocks his ear for the dogman’s whistle, for the curses of the rivet cookers and 94
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the holder-uppers. In one month alone he takes thirty photographs of the creeper crane. How could life possibly be bettered? And yet of course it will when the same work begins on his own north shore!
20 October 1928 ‘Breakfast!’ yells Stella up the stairs. ‘Alice, round up Marian and Grace.’ Ralph follows the melee of children as they descend but keeps a discreet distance. He’s wearing his best suit for Synod today and is leery of his offspring’s touch, somehow whatever they finger is instantly dirtied or wrecked. As they pile into the kitchen Stella turns from the cooker and a spitting pan to zero in on Grace and snap at Ralph, ‘I told you to take that off her last night.’ Grace is wearing a coronet party hat and the elastic is way too tight under her plump chin. She’s bright red. Alice helps Marian pull out a chair, Colin pours milk. ‘She must have had it on all night!’ Stella, exasperated, gestures at Ralph with the egg flip. ‘Well go on, take it off her.’ ‘She’ll cry,’ says Ralph. ‘So what?’ says Stella, scraping viciously at a lump of bacon burning stuck. ‘There’ll be trouble,’ warns Ralph. ‘And what will happen when her circulation is completely cut and her head drops off?’ Stella bangs the pan. Colin puts down his glass of milk, gets up. ‘Come ’ere, bub,’ and he gently bumps Grace over to a chair and sits her down. He talks seriously. ‘You gotta give your hat a rest or you’ll wear it out, alright?’ and he doesn’t wait for an answer but takes 95
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it off.Their faces are so close as he unhooks the elastic they may as well be sharing the same child’s breath. Ralph is mesmerised by their proximity, the trust of brother and sister. Some impulse compels him to speak. ‘Son . . . ?’ Grace clumsily rubs her neck, surprised at the relief. ‘What?’ ‘Nothing.’ Ralph really can’t think what it was he might have said. Stella abandons the cooker to swipe up the hat and, as she passes, she briefly touches Colin on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she says. And the hubbub of breakfast resumes. At Synod the morning session is lively but predictable, voices wash and boom: tithes and pew rents and the income from the Glebe Estates and then the question of vestments—The chasuble as a sign of Popishness: Why did we have a Reformation at all? The Archbishop is distracted in his seat, perhaps by a sinus pain, a half-blocked ear; the man is never well. Though he appears not to listen, whenever he makes a comment it’s incisive. Debate continues, he grimaces: a creak in the pressure of his nose. At lunch, Ralph is perplexed to find himself the guest of Robert Retont at the Grantham Hotel. Despite elaborate fibs to do with homemade sandwiches Retont will not be dissuaded. ‘My treat, old boy.’ In the men’s room of the Grantham, Ralph tidies his hair with a comb which, by luck, he had that morning picked up from the deck of the ferry thinking it a good find for Stella, to put her in a better mood. Staring into the gilded mirror, Ralph ponders Retont’s motives. To show off ? Yes. But here at Synod wouldn’t he rather hobnob with any number of great and powerful men to further his position? Ralph wriggles his shoulders then squares them, thinking it might improve the hang of his suit which, though new, is cheaply tailored. He decides 96
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he’ll be urbane, every bit the man about town, to match Retont; he’ll pretend to be bored with it all, used to this sort of thing, not impressed at all—and then he’ll choose the most expensive dish on the menu. But when he returns to the dining room Retont has already dispatched the maître d’, having ordered for them both. He’s ensconced at a corner table and a large frond from a nearby potted palm curves over the top of his head like a private green cupola. He’s a diminutive emperor in charge of the room. The riesling is very decent but the food, when it comes, is disturbing: cold trout dressed in dinner jackets.The waiter, with his apron so tight around his narrow hips it’s a wonder he doesn’t trip, is reverent as he sets down the plates—this is clearly not intended as a culinary joke. Coloured, savoury jellies adorn the fish, flecks of black prune for a bow tie, slices of gherkin for a cummerbund. Ralph hesitates to tuck in, feeling as if he’s eating a little human. Retont, he notices, makes a lateral slash down the length of his fish’s tuxedo. When the waiter returns to refill Ralph’s empty glass, Ralph can’t help thinking he looks rather like his fish’s cousin, since both are wearing black and white and sport dark rings under their eyes. In order to proceed, Ralph covers his trout’s head with a little cress. Retont talks about the complexity of the duties attached to his latest office but in a quiet, precise tone which shows he has the position under perfect control. He has a not-so-little wart or wen growing above his right eyebrow and it moves up and down whenever he frowns, which is quite often since disapproval forms much of the content of his conversation. The riesling really is excellent. Crisp as mountain water and scented with pollen. Ralph finishes off another glass and Retont’s wen continues up and down on the subject of economics: these difficult times, challenges, the need for the church to consolidate, changes in the wind; the wen up, the wen down. Behind 97
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Retont’s head is a painting depicting an English hunt scene. Redcoated men and horses and hounds are gathered in a courtyard prior to departure while a servant serves sherry. Everything very real in the frame—in fact one of the horses looks so twitchy to be away Ralph feels compelled to call out to those milling English canines, ‘Watch out or you’ll be under their hooves!’ Quite a handsome artwork. Retont picks a transparent trout bone from between his teeth and mentions having heard that Ralph’s parish is soon to be further carved up by the bridge. Alarming to see the numbers of parishioners continually shrinking. Ralph distractedly agrees, ‘It’s barely viable.’ ‘Yes,’ says Retont. ‘We’ve been hearing one or two rumbles along those lines.’ He leans in to Ralph. ‘Did you know,’ he warns, ‘there’s been some vague talk of amalgamating the parishes of St Christopher’s and St John’s?’ But Ralph’s not listening. He points and asks, ‘Isn’t that a lovely picture?’ Retont screws his head around but barely glances at it. ‘What?!’ He throws his napkin down and makes a great fuss about getting back to Synod. ‘God help you, because I can’t!’ Just as the waiter is about to pour the last of the riesling Retont waves him away. Ralph is appalled by the waste. On the way out he delays the waiter and urges him to drink the last of the wine. ‘It’s so very good,’ he says, and he’s puzzled when the waiter glowers at him. At Synod, Ralph dozes. A strange dream: Retont is a spider who lives in the girders of the bridge. Wherever Ralph walks he drops down in front of him on a dangle of web, waving his hairy legs as if to point over Ralph’s shoulder. Ralph wakes himself up with a snorty-snore and all afternoon feels saggy. He’s unaccustomed to melancholy. And then, going home, he is cheered to remember Stella’s comb and pats his pocket. * 98
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In the kitchen: Stella: ‘You picked that filthy thing off the ground and you want me to have it?’ Ralph: ‘You could wash it.’ Stella: ‘Three of the teeth are broken!’ Fair enough. A woman’s hair is longer and thicker. Next time, he resolves, he must check the teeth more carefully.
8 November 1928 When Mal Cradock, bridge painter and one-time ice skater, swings in his bosun’s chair, his vision blurs and nausea swirls up his gullet. Funny how he once could do a dozen tight fast spins at the Glacie and pull up with perfect equilibrium. Dangling up here under the steel of the third approach span, his head aches, a stomachful of puke threatens to loosen. He shuts his eyes and waits out the grey minutes—tries not to listen to the humming in his ears. Saturday nights he used to lace up the boots of his skates and stand tall on the blades; that’s how he wooed himself a wife—she fell in love with the princely arcs he scored. The ice, no matter who else was on it, was always quiet, no matter who else flew or fell around him it was always private, no matter who else cavorted or called all he could ever hear was the crisp emptiness of his own concentration. He sped over the cold. It was his favourite place to be—balancing on a knife’s edge—at the Glaciarium. Mal opens his eyes. The turvy earth has righted and the trusses above his head are level again. He spits out a gob of sour saliva and away it falls, slow and drifting wide till it disappears. He’s never going to get back to the Glacie. He picks up his paintbrush. His wrist hurts. 99
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All his joints are swollen. He dips his brush into the Bridge Grey paint. It’s made of vegetable black in a base of linseed oil and white lead. It’s slow poison.
4 March 1929 Herbert Hoover is inaugurated as President of the United States of America. On that chilly morning in front of the Capitol building, a hundred thousand people shuffle in their cold shoes. Do any of them know there’s a photograph of their thirty-first president, taken in 1897, sitting in the middle of nowhere in the Western Australian desert on the back of a camel? And what on earth was he doing there? Why, he was doing what everyone was doing back then—he was looking for gold.
1967 Mater Hospital Ralph wakes to the sensation that his bed is moving, swaying to the clickety-clack rhythm of a train. And then through the hospital window he sees noonday paddocks sliding by, wheat, a grey mob of skinny sheep scattered but cohesive like an archipelago. And then the country dissipates into scrub, red dirt and salt bush, his bed rocks, he’s on the goldfields train and he’s fourteen years old, heading towards Kalgoorlie. He’s drowsy and night comes.
11 pm. Town lights. Briefly. And then the train stops. Disembarking at the station Ralph waits for the crowd to thin in order to deduce, 100
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rather than identify, which of the remaining women might be his mother. Likewise guessing, she is brisk, Katherine Etcher, when she steps forward. She asks his name then merely nods at his reply, claiming him like lost baggage. Upstairs in the rooms where she lives above her Hannan Street emporium, she gestures to a strange-looking Frenchie-styled couch, which is to say, a chaise longue, and then she disappears. So this is where he is to sleep, neither sitting up nor lying down. Though he doesn’t know it, as a piece of furniture it’s highly rated in the town and a mark of his mother’s prosperity that her bid was the last when the hammer came down at Noland’s auction rooms. Ralph, fourteen, skinny as a bean and already six foot tall, tries to recline. His ankles hang over the end of the couch. His mother’s voice comes like a vine through the thin walls and is mixed up with that of a man’s, her husband, Fred Etcher. Later there’s the rumble and whistle of their combined snoring. Ralph stares into the latticed pattern of the pressed tin ceiling. He misses hearing the late-night kitchen scuffles of his grandfather going about last chores, he misses the wind tapping, the window rattling in its frame, the beach, the sea, crouched like a live thing in the dark a hundred yards away. In the morning Ralph is presented with a bicycle and a waterbag. From the deep shade of the verandah outside the shop he is pointed into the glare-struck street which is alive with people and buggies and trams and carts early about their Saturday business before the gates open at the racecourse. He is told to ride to the top of the street and turn left, then to follow the railway line. A hundred miles away in a town called Niagara there’s a job waiting for him as a butcher’s boy. His mother gives him a canvas bag of provisions and the man, her husband, Fred, tells him by way of a parting tip that so long as he sticks to the railway he’ll find water every so often in wells which have been dug for the trains. 101
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His mother squares her shoulders and turns back to the shop. Ex-police sergeant Fred Etcher follows. Ralph sets off but he’s not game to join the mixed vehicles and the many pedestrians surging in the street. Apart from his recent glimpse of Fremantle from his grandfather’s buggy, he has never been to a busy town. He sticks to the shaded footpath and pushes his bicycle past shops and hotels and offices, wondering at the array of goods for sale and the range of businesses and services. So this is what a city is like. In ten minutes he has caught onto the buzz, the feeling that here are possibilities and opportunities and a life he’s never known to even dream about. But in another minute his excitement drains away with the realisation that he’s already exiled. Pushing his cycle past the city markets he hears a voice cry out, ‘Bunnies and birds! Bunnies and birds!’ and he peers into the poultry shop where plucked fowl of every description hang by feet from hooks, elongated and scrawny with last feathers left on heads down to the line where the chopper will fall. Best birds, geese and turkeys, are displayed breast-up along the counter, necks dangling to the floor. Dead eyes stare stupid and upside down. The butcher spruiks again. Bloody specks cling to his forearms. Is this to be Ralph’s job, attendant to a gallery of corpses? He turns his pale face back to the street and continues on, but as slowly as he can to savour the experience. The top of the street comes all too soon but here another sight confronts him for which he’s ill-prepared; it’s a wonder to match the town—industry—on an unbelievable scale, a landscape transformed. Ahead of him and to the south-east is a confused vista of head frames and roasting chimneys, stamp mills, cyanide plants and tailings dumps, massive iron sheds, dusty ground and not a tree in sight which isn’t timber cut and neatly stacked to feed the boilers of countless engines. Goldmining, Kalgoorlie style, 102
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is big business financed from half a world away in London. The mines of the Golden Mile are so close to the town they’re practically in the town—they are the town—but away to the north where Ralph is to go is an empty skyline. Somewhere beyond the barren horizon and the glinting steel of the railway line is his new life. But looking out there into the nothingness, he simply cannot imagine where or what sort of life that will be. The bicycle, it transpires, is quite a sensible mode of desert transport after all, with the ground being so hard and flat, and for the first two hours Ralph leans keenly over the handlebars, pushing on under the blue dome of sky and imagining with this turn of speed he might be there by lunchtime. Niagara, whose name promises so much—maybe it won’t be so bad. Niagara: he knows a little about those famous falls having read about them in The Every Child’s Enquire Within (a six-volume set of Mechanics’ Institute tomes which smelled inexplicably of anchovies). That murderous dress circle of water comes from the Upper Great Lakes and falls at a rate of thirty-five million gallons per minute. In autumn ethereal mists veil the basin; in winter ice bridges cross the river and people can walk up close to inspect the flow which, contrary to popular myth, has never yet frozen. What he would not give for a cool quart of water now; the stuff in his waterbag from the last well is warm and orange coloured and so metallic tasting he could be swallowing gold or any of a half-dozen other bankable minerals. The landscape begins to shimmer, the railway line by his side spears forever onwards. His Niagara lies out there, somewhere, a town gazetted at vanishing point. He remembers the subheading: Niagara daredevils. The first stunt at the falls was staged by a trio of hoteliers who, in 1827, bought a decommissioned lake schooner, the Michigan, and advertised their 103
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intention to fill it with wild animals before steering it off the Horseshoe Falls—just for the fun of the wreck. In the event, no panthers or wild cats or wolves could be found and the promoters made do with a less sensational zoo: a buffalo, two bears, two racoons, a dog and a goose. Done up to look like a pirate ship, the Michigan was set loose into the current. At the rapids, the river ripped itself up first and then the hull; the schooner filled with water. The bears abandoned ship but the other animals, who were tied or caged, bucked on with the vessel towards the sheer edge of the falls. And over they went. One hundred and seventy feet the Michigan plunged before hitting the basin below and busting to pieces. It was a long slow drop but all too brief for the crowd of ten thousand, who cheered. Only the goose survived. It was caught by a Mr Duggan and later cooked. By everyone’s account it was a highly successful enterprise—especially for Mr Duggan. And from then on a list of swimmers, divers, barrel riders. Daredevils of every type were attracted to those falls—that edge—and tossed themselves off it. Tightrope walkers—the Great Blondin who, when balanced on a manila rope, cooked an omelette on a stove in mid-air above the Niagara River Gorge. Naturally, he inspired a rival. William Leonard Hunt changed his name to The Great Farini and threw in his shopkeeper’s job to follow a new dream. Farini walked the Niagara rope two times a week in the season. He did it blindfolded and with baskets tied to his feet; he did it carrying a wash tub on his back and midway paused to lower a bucket for water to launder a dozen hankies. He had a driving desire to be the best but whatever he did he could not outdo Blondin, who had the favour of the press. Farini broadened his experience and travelled. In 1862, while performing a tightrope walk above a bullring in Havana, Cuba, the 104
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woman he was carrying on his back fell to the ground. She died a few days later. It was a setback. But again Niagara called. This time Farini determined to walk on water. He had a pair of special stilts made and was walking on them to the brink of the falls when one got caught between rocks. The Great Farini tottered, the stilt snapped. He could not proceed one-legged. Blondin and Farini, Niagara gave them both fame and fortune. What was it about that place which so inspired men to lose their heads and risk their necks when, in that great theatre, the thunder of water would always be mightier than any crowd’s applause? Ralph wondered at their courage then and he wonders at it now as he cycles on through a desert which crumples at the margins in waves of heat. Would he have the courage to commit himself to a barrel shaped like a caterpillar’s chrysalis? Would he allow himself to be tossed off into a torrent, placing more trust in luck than in the technology of his container? Could he step out on a 1001-foot rope and curl the soles of his feet into a grip of iron in order to dance across an abyss? As Ralph cycles through the long day and into the afternoon, his Niagara seems no closer. Ahead a salt lake ripples in horizontal bands and though he knows—of course he knows—the water is phantom, he cannot help himself and pumps harder on the pedals. Niagara must be just beyond, a town of promise, of gold, and surely sited on the shores of some majestic watercourse of its own. What will a town like this give him? It will bestow fame, inspire courage. He wants to be a Great Farini too, great at something, a man not afraid to die in order that he might live. He becomes convinced; Niagara, in the northeastern goldfields of Western Australia, will give him this. When night falls and he is nowhere, Ralph throws down his bicycle and cries. 105
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He begins to think Niagara is a trick, it doesn’t exist. His tears are bitter but short-lived. He is simply too tired and empty to rack out another sob. He lies beside a jam tree and through eyes swollen with dust and fatigue sees the whorled stars. Just before his eyelids flutter shut he thinks he sees them untangle and turn themselves into a dotpoint word, glittering: Niagara. He falls instantly asleep and does not even wake when dew falls. Morning. He rises, he yawns, he stamps, he shivers. He’s cold to the bone. He climbs back onto his cycle and continues his journey in hopeful obedience to the stars. At nine o’clock he comes across a crude signpost; his destination is close, two miles. Ralph rises in his seat and strains to see the first signs of civilisation, the first sighting of his new life, of his destiny. What he takes to be the outskirts of the town is in fact the town itself. One glance is all it takes for Ralph to learn the hardest lesson of all: irony. Niagara is a dust bowl and a dump. It’s already in decline, a mere clutch of buildings dotted along the widest of streets for which trolley trams were once planned. Boom and bust in seven years. Shops and houses are boarded up and everywhere there are vacant blocks where a hundred others were never built. It’s a town with its teeth pulled. There’s no lake, no silvered river, there’s only a muddy reservoir which, he later learns, is located a mile away in a fault in the flat ground. It’s only a joke that one of the main streets is named Waterfall. The stars lied. ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ says Charlie Knox the butcher, Ralph’s employer, and he absolutely beams as if he’s unaware it’s a cliché, as if he himself invented the saying, as if it’s the most satisfactory saying there 106
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ever was, as if the full sun of its indisputable good sense has entered his very being. Ralph, scrubbing down the main chopping block, glances up at Charlie’s face which is, as usual, a model of bovine contentment, though the big man is melting a little in the heat of the afternoon; the ends of his moustache are moist and bedraggled and his large forehead glistens before it meets the high scallop of his receding hairline. He’s too young but too bad, he’ll be bald before he’s forty. To compensate he has the hairiest arms Ralph has ever seen; a forest of curling black hairs springs from his forearms, which he scratches constantly thanks to a skin irritation caused by overuse of his favourite cleaning agent, carbolic acid. Charlie reeks of the stuff, always smells sweet and tarry. Ralph is fascinated by the way the thick mat of Charlie’s arm hair stops abruptly at his wrists, giving a strange flayed appearance to his hands, where only a very few strands sprout from knuckles. As well, he notices hairs creeping out the back of Charlie’s collar which march up towards his head only to stop short at a white crease of neck-skin. Ralph wonders at his boss’s tide marks of hair and is often mesmerised, paying no attention at all to the hundred butcher’s secrets Charlie tries to impart, oblivious to Ralph’s lack of interest. Of all Ralph’s chores the only one he doesn’t botch is soap-making. He renders the fat in a big cast-iron tub in the unlined shed at the back of the shop and gets a thrill every time he pours in the caustic soda and the whole mess bubbles up. Though Charlie demands no such precision, Ralph measures and cuts the soap into identical blocks with the fanatical care of a master craftsman, placing them gently to dry on the timber noggins. It’s the first time in his life outside the classroom where he’s applied measurement to a practical task and he finds there’s a strange pleasure to be had in losing oneself to a narrow focus of concentration. Congenial Charlie seems not to mind Ralph’s time-wasting. Indeed 107
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one wonders why he needed a boy at all, since Charlie does all of the work and custom through the shop is invariably slow. It seems likely he just wanted someone to talk to. Charlie’s wife is a shy, twitchy type and not one to smile much, though twice, in a good mood, she has ruffled Ralph’s hair. After a few months of living with them it becomes obvious from Gwen’s changing shape that she’s pregnant. Ralph, lying on his bed on the back verandah of the Knoxes’ house, is jealous. He’d been beginning to think Charlie might like him as a son. Ralph’s restless. He jumps when Charlie gives him deliveries to do round the town and on his time off he rides out and sniffs about the small shows in the nearby scrub where the men are fifteen different ways crazy but all mad for gold. One day a toothless old bloke scares him witless, raving, ‘If it kills me, I’ll never give up the hunt for the yellow boy.’ But there’s a better place to go than out bush, and a much better place than deadbeat Niagara. Only five miles away there’s the parasite town of Kookynie. When richer lodes were discovered there it ate up Niagara in no time. Saturday nights it’s aglow with electric lights, its shops are open and its bars are full; whoever’s not dead drunk already, in hospital or under the age of two is there promenading, socialising, vocalising, womanising; a town jumped up and throbbing while just down the road Niagara slumps in the dark. Charlie Knox and Gwen sometimes take him there. He enjoys those evening outings (avoiding the sight of Gwen’s growing stomach the better to pretend they’re a family), but he loves his lone daytime trips there the most. If he’s sent on errands he lingers at the window of the confectioner’s or the stationer’s, or at the telegraph office, or he explores, riding past the railway station and the houses where the Japanese prostitutes work and reside. Though he dallies in town, he 108
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almost always finds himself cycling to its edge, to the Cosmopolitan Proprietary Mine, the biggest, most prosperous mine in Kookynie. Mr Waldo Wedderbeck is the mine’s general manager, an American and a geology graduate from Stanford, employed by Bewick, Moreing and Co. at the behest of his old classmate, Herbert Hoover. Hoover has long since left the country but not the company, which is an international one. Wedderbeck and Hoover are young moderns, bent on bouncing up profits with new management techniques and better science. As a consequence, Waldo Wedderbeck is not much liked by the old-timers. It does not help that he owns a French bulldog called Prince Leopold who is liable to bite whenever it’s upright—which is thankfully not too often due to the cooling down-draught of the ceiling fan in his master’s office, where it is usually to be found, asleep on the floor, sprawled and exposing its scraggy Gallic balls. When Wedderbeck sees Ralph hanging about the Cosmopolitan asking shy questions he hollers over to him, reels him in like a kid brother, says, ‘Hey, sport, whatcha doing there? Don’t listen to those motherless sons of bitches—ask me whatever you want, I’ll steer you true.’ And so Ralph becomes a familiar figure at the mine, though he only goes underground once, breaking out in a clammy sweat even before the daylight leaves his face when the cage descends.Wedderbeck laughs when the men bring him up ashen-faced and hyperventilating. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he says. ‘You’re a good-for-nothing surface man!’ And he whacks him on the back hard. But he continues to indulge Ralph, treats him like a pet, like another Prince Leopold, though being a favourite comes at a cost since no one else much cares to talk to him. For Wedderbeck it’s just a matter of time till he’s out of this camel town. The company will reward him with a new project soon, maybe a mine in Burma or Brazil, and that’s when his life will really begin. Who knows, maybe later he’ll make partner in the firm, like Hoover. 109
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Ralph spends more and more time at the Cosmopolitan and Charlie seems barely to notice his absence, distracted as he is by his wife’s welfare in the last weeks of her pregnancy. And then the day comes when Gwen gives birth and the baby dies. Ralph accompanies Charlie to the cemetery and there are three other little graves there already, side by side; more babies who had briefly belonged to the butcher and his wife. Each of the graves is edged by galvanised-iron pieces cut crudely into the shape of a cradle and filled with hard orange earth. The butcher’s family keeps the tinsmith in work. The postmaster says a few words, standing in for the circuit priest who’s gone to perform a christening in Butterfly. Over the following months the butcher’s wife declines. Sadness saps her until one day she throws herself in front of a train. No one could pretend it was an accident: it was the train, the only train. She had to wait for it all day. A week later Charlie Knox closes the door on his house and his shop and walks off to the railway station with a battered suitcase. He has left Ralph a handful of money and what else? Oh yes, the lingering scent of carbolic. Ralph goes out to the Cosmopolitan to ask for a job but Wedderbeck’s not in his office. Mr Mack, the man in charge of underground workings, comes out of the engine room. ‘Where’s Mr Wedderbeck?’ Mack spits, squints into the sun. ‘Dead,’ he says. ‘Typhoid fever.’ Ralph is incredulous. Waldo Wedderbeck, it seems, would be staying on in Western Australia after all. Ralph turns to go but then remembers to ask, ‘Where’s Prince Leopold?’ The man does not reply. 110
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17 January 1929 The Great Farini dies, aged ninety-one, having remained active in his later years. Tightrope-walking (funambulism) was not his only interest. During his life he was the inventor of a sliding theatrical chair, a new telegraphic apparatus, and an improved watering can; he was an explorer of the Kalahari desert; he was a secret service agent in the American Civil War; he was a horticulturalist, writing Ferns that Grow in New Zealand and How to Grow Begonias. He was a military historian, producing a thirty-volume account of all the battles of the Great War from the German point of view. He was a sculptor and an oil painter. For him, Niagara was never a destination—it was a beginning.
March 1929 The first panel on the south side is completed and the creeper crane crawls forward onto it to begin building the second panel. The ramp on which the crane has been resting is dismantled for use on the north side so assembly of the second creeper crane can commence.
Coroner’s report no. 582 Thomas McKeown, 48, rigger, born in Ireland, veteran of the Boer War and the Great War. Was shifting a painting gantry slung under the approach span on the Dawes Point side with three other men when the chain in the open block started to run and the safety pall would not engage. Fell 100 feet. Pronounced dead on arrival at Sydney Hospital, 27th March, 1929.
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Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge CHAPTER 11 Five cranes in one! the Creeper Crane is the chiefest player in the epic drama which is the building of our most beauteous Bridge! the the
Creepers weigh a massive 565 tons each. Radius within which the Crane operates is 54 feet. A nd the main hoist can lift 122 tons while its little helper, the
jigger hoist, manages the angle, or cant, of the lift to assist with the positioning of heavy members. ear the front of the crane’s undercarriage is the 5-ton walking crane which lifts the cage in which the workmen travel. At the back are two derricks to assist with riveting operations. lectricity powers the whole operation. as a afety precaution an alarm bell rings every time the crane is about to move.
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oodness knows how the crane driver sees what he’s doing, you may think, but the truth of it is, he mostly doesn’t! He communicates by telephone. The apparatus hangs about his head and neck leaving his hands free to work the levers. ovely is the driver’s little cabin. He keeps it most wondrous neat and clean, polishing the windows till they gleam, s proud is he. For in all the world, did a man ever work in a place with a more superlative outlook? ight-thinking men and women of this city watch with a sense of awe as the Creeper Cranes perform their Herculean tasks— ea, though their loads are heavy, they will not rest till the Bridge is built by their strong arms.
L O R Y
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August 1929 The arch is growing on the south side with four panels now in place. On the north, first lifts are performed. The cable tunnels are complete and the cables are all drawn through. On the northern approaches the concrete arches of Fitzroy, Burton and Lavender streets are finished and roadways and footways are well advanced. There is so much going on Ralph is at the works day and night, and when he’s not there he’s frantically writing up notes, or drafting new chapters, or developing photographs. In the red glow of the darkroom safelight Ralph mutters precious book sentences which have flown inspired to mind and must be committed to memory till his hands are free and they can be written down.
1967 Mater Hospital Ralph exists on a dark plane of unconsciousness. Peace. And then a pinpoint of light. It grows, becomes a steady beam, it grows again; from somewhere inside himself he watches: it accelerates, rushes towards him, it’s beautiful, and then in a too-late flash he recognises it, it’s a searing shaft of pain, it hits his skull and spills to fill his whole brain and then pours molten down the inner roads of his body. Gold at the Cosmopolitan mine. He watched wherever they did a pour to make it into bars; the crucible heated over the smith’s fire and lifted with long tongs, tilted. Out it comes, an ethereal yellow rope of metal, a substance between states: not liquid, not fire, not solid, but all of those things combined. In it he glimpses something supernatural and ideal. If a man’s soul had form it could look like this—luminous and lithe and pure. 113
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Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge CHAPTER 14 I cannot wait to tell you a secret. It is something I discovered all by myself that you will be very pleased to know. It is . . . the secret of . . . .............................. ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... .......................................................…………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………….... 114
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....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ....................................................................................... .......................................................…………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………………. ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ....................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ...................................................................................... ..........................................................………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………………………………… ….................................................................................... ...................................................................................... 115
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. . . the SOCKETING OPERATIONS! You who travel to work every day on the ferry, did you ever look up and espy the little huts atop each of the abutment towers and say to yourself, I wonder what goes on inside? By dint of my very special access to the Bridge works, I can knock on the door for you and say, ‘Open up, please!’ 116
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But let me digress a minute: You will be aware that temporary cables must be attached to the end posts of the half-arches to tug them back so they may take the weight of the Creeper Cranes inching out over the water. The thick steel cables are slung in a loop through huge horseshoe-shaped tunnels in the ground behind the pylons. The cables are a great weight in themselves and so it stands to reason they must be very well attached if the whole enterprise is not to come undone and flop into the harbour. The end of each cable must be somehow put into a socket so the socket can be bolted onto the bridge and tensioned up. (To visualise the cable set-up see the little illustration below. Though not professional, I believe the quality of the draftsmanship will suffice.)
Now, back to that striking photograph of the socket. It looks rather more like an ornamental floral display than an essential piece of the Bridge, and might admirably serve as the centrepiece on a dining table, set for a special occasion. It may surprise, but those petals are actually wires: 217 make up the cable and are thus separated out, and if you look closely you will see that 79 of them—no more and no less—are bent over at the top. Scientific experiment determined the rightness of the ratio and in the close quarters of our little shed, five especially trained workmen do the job. Afterwards, using the natural weight of the cable, the floral bouquet is pulled back inside the socket and on it molten white metal is 117
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poured to fuse the lot. Since this is the most exciting part of the whole process, let us tarry a moment to watch. See the large Bunsen burners arrayed around the melting pot and hear them hissing; watch as other burners are directed to heat the socket and the wires inside; smell the gas, the metal, and the human ‘effort’ (for on a hot day the air in the shed is a pungent alloy); taste the fumes. And when the white metal is ready and molten, stand back in a circle with the rest of the gang while the chief among them pours. He is as an alchemist; the scene is arcane. The job is done, the socket cools. Five hours have elapsed since the men commenced and the end of the cable has been transformed. 128 cables must be treated thus for each half of the bridge, whereupon they will be attached and tensioned up to take the colossal strain of our growing structure. That they are strong enough to do so, never fear. Though they be only as thick as a window cord, from each strand of wire which you see in the photograph, we could dangle a five-seater motor car complete with five passengers inside. (Picture a Ford or a Dodge with your wife, your mother- and father-in-law and an uncle and a grandma ensconced in the seats and the whole lot airborne.) Now the SECRET OF THE SOCKETING OPERATIONS has been revealed, complete confidence in the safety of the construction is yours, for you have seen all the doings and know that the quality of the workmanship which goes on, even inside the twin huts atop the abutments, is nothing short of . . . perfection. Perfection is a tall order but worth aiming for in all we do. I count the Photograph of the Socket as one of my best, and between you and me, as close as I’m likely to get to that lofty mark. The photograph was first published in the parish newspaper and caused a great deal of comment at the time. Looking at it fondly now, it’s easy to see why. 118
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1967 Mater Hospital Ralph feels good today. If only he could walk his step would be jaunty. Sunlight streams in through the window, his bed has been freshly made (though the sheets are so tight he feels strait-jacketed in), his hair has been combed (with the part on the wrong side, funny how different it makes him feel), all done in readiness for ward rounds. Sister Ignatius pokes her head round the doorway to check, gives a starched nod. The doctor arrives, he glances over the notes, gives out several important hums and haws, asks Ralph a question to which he knows the answer but can’t physically reply.The doctor says,‘Well, well,’ and leaves, for any moment, in the ward pantry, silver service refreshment will be served. The flurry of activity over, Ralph lies sheeted in. What to do? Not much, the effort of being attended to has tired him out after all. Motes of dust drift in the sunlight, the observation of which would have Sister Ignatius appalled. Ralph closes his eyes, feels the red warmth of the sun on his eyeballs.
It’s a bright day. The faithful, flat ribbon of the Princes Highway stretches ahead and Lennie Gwideer can’t think of any place he’d rather be than on it.The travelling has been easy and in preceding days he has passed through the provincial city of Sale and made a detour to one of his father’s billets in Maffra (a fella called Pop Parker, the licensee at the Crown Hotel, who turned out to be nobody’s grandparent, who pointed an angry finger at Ginger Mick and shouted, ‘A kick from one o’ them made me a eunuch’). Apart from Pop Parker and the all-invasive burnt-hair smell of the beet cooking at the beet sugar factory there, Lennie thought the town and its surroundings pretty. 119
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Everywhere, dairy-farming flats of vivid green, and to the north, a long line of blue alps rising.The mountains continue to accompany the boy; he’s not lonely, far from it. Occasional traffic passes by, someone waves, sometimes a vehicle stops and there follows a conversation and questions with parting handshakes and wishes of good luck. Lennie loves his walking-pace view, slowly passed paddocks. A cow and her calf stand in the shade of a billboard advertising Vacuum Motor Oil. He says, ‘How d’you do?’ And the cow nods back. Lennie Gwideer is coming.
DRAFT SERMON for Sunday 12th October, 1929 Now here is a question to wake you all up if you are not already awake on this Sunday morn. What if every bird was an angel? It’s quite something to think about, isn’t it? The magpie on its nest and the kookaburra on its bough—even that foreign interloper, the Indian mynah and his paler Australian cousin, the rascally noisy mynah, who eep-eeps at us from the telegraph wires—all of them angels. What do you think? Lately, I have heard this person cry out and that person cry out, ‘Such badness is afoot, what has happened to the world; may we be forgiven for thinking God is not in it?’ But of course he is here, he is all around us, though I’ll grant you, it is easy to forget sometimes that he is still operating. In these times, too, it is easy to resort to looking after oneself first and forgetting to help one’s brother, and before we know it a day and then a week has passed without us thinking a single Christian thought or deed. All of us here profess to be practising Christians. Well then, let us practise. We should practise by performing our rituals of worship 120
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together, and we should practise by being practiCAL and giving aid to those in need. But above all, we must practise practising, so we can be the very best Christians we can be. Let us use our feathered friends of flight as a mnemonic in this regard. Take a walk this afternoon after your roasted lunch, or perhaps tomorrow morning before work when the crisp air will be inviting, and look about you. You shall be surprised by how many birds you will see once you start looking: big ones, little ones, shy ones and even some very bossy ones indeed. And every time you see a bird, pretend it is an angel. If we thought every bird we saw was an angel, I’d like to bet—although I never bet!—that our Christian behaviour would rapidly improve.You wouldn’t be caught dead slacking off or mucking up in front of a real angel, now would you? ‘No sir, St. Peter! On account of those bird-angels I’m only doing good things from now on, so write me down in your best book please!’ So this is how a bird can remind us to buck up and practise our Christian duty with greater regularity. And we will not feel so bereft in the world if everywhere we see God’s emissaries. For like God, birds are everywhere. On a recent outing of one and three-quarter hours, I counted 218 birds (33 in the street trees alone from here to the gasometer) and two flocks (which, though I tried, comprised too many individuals to number). What a lot of Christian thoughts I had that day which I might never have had otherwise! I invite you cordially to try it. You might even be amazed to see birds in your place of work. Why I have seen sparrows hopping across the floor of the greengrocer’s shop, and at the door of the stationmaster’s office at the railway, and I have also seen them flitting through the lofty rafters of the famous Dorman, Long & Co. workshops. You men there who wrestle with the steel in such high clamour, look up! 121
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In your saw-toothed roofs flies a tiny angel.And why? Because, because our great Creator put him there. So mind your manners now in front of any and all of those little feathered ones. Note to Stella—Have to dash off briefly to the works. Can you re-type
this page as it is rather sticky where Marian rested her honeyed toast, but the next page will do as is. What do you think, on the next page, about the parrot? Also can you telephone Swanson’s and ask them how much for 195 ice-creams? I think every child at the Sunday School picnic should be given the opportunity to eat at least three ice-creams each, don’t you? Ralph—Thank goodness for our children’s health you are not in charge of the catering in this household. All told Swanson’s bill will be ridiculous.—Stella. Stella—You have £5 hidden in the duck vase Aunty Ditty gave us for our wedding. Use that.
13 October 1929 Ralph—The Bishop rang. Has heard reports about angels and birds. x Stella. 9.05 a.m. 11 a.m. The Bishop again. Unhappy about Indians and other native species. S. 11.50. Bishop. And why didn’t you return his call before you left again? I know you saw these messages. 11.55. The Archbishop’s office. They want to know which Bible you’re reading as at no point does theirs refer to the Archangel Gabriel as a 122
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currawong. I tried to tell them you never exactly said that but they were difficult to convince. You have an appointment with them at 8.45 a.m. on Wednesday to discuss inappropriate use of metaphor. Bring text. Didn’t I tell you it might be better to stick to doves and swans and geese? Partridges.
15 October 1929 The Archbishop blows his nose into a handkerchief as big as a table napkin and Ralph wonders if the old boy has perhaps retained it from breakfast, but there’s no sign of egg, of sauce, or the grease of bacon. The Archbishop blows mostly air. When done, he folds the cloth with the same elaborate care which Ralph has seen his daughters give to the wrapping of their dollies, and then he slides it over his polished desk to a neat position beside the telephone. ‘Are you a parish priest or an ornithologist?’ the Archbishop finally says. He glances through the document before him; it’s Ralph’s sermon. ‘Perhaps neither.’ He takes his glasses off to reveal a pair of shrewd blue eyes all the more startling for the tiredness in the face which surrounds them. ‘You have other interests too, I hear?’ Ralph doesn’t feel he’s being invited to respond. The Archbishop folds his glasses. ‘Reverend Cage, did you ever hear the saying, “Jack of all trades . . .”?’ Robert Retont and Ralph sit glumly together in the big black church car.They’re on the vehicular ferry and Ralph has the weird sensation as he looks out the passenger-side window that they are actually driving over the water. This would normally pique his interest but today it doesn’t. He sinks deeper into his melancholy and the strange gliding 123
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seems appropriately funereal. Even the Bushell’s Tea sign, emblazoned high on a warehouse wall at The Rocks, fails to cheer him as it usually does; the trademark lettering has a casual curl to it which any other day reminds him of steam coming out of a kettle and cosy thoughts of home. A tugboat passes by. Retont stares straight ahead, hands gripping the steering wheel tight though he’s going nowhere. He’s fuming. At the rectory, Stella, who’s been anxious, comes out to greet them. ‘How did it go?’ Ralph is pale. Retont answers crossly as he marches over the driveway gravel towards her,‘Oh, not too bad considering—the charges were dropped right back from heresy to schoolgirl rubbish!’ Retont’s tone has a husband’s authority, as if Stella and he are the parents and Ralph is their silly son. ‘And the Archbishop was most interested to find out how long Ralph’s been counting birds!’ They go inside. Stella says,‘Can I get you anything, Robert?’, but he ignores her and pushes past to open Ralph’s study door. ‘Where is it?’ Ralph goes to the cupboard behind his desk and opens the brass latch. He points to a thick sheaf of papers loosely protected by pieces of cardboard front and back. ‘And this?’ says Retont, pointing to papers stacked tight on the other shelves. ‘Notes.’ In three trips to the car, Retont takes it all. Ralph slumps in the visitor’s chair at the edge of the desk while Stella stands aside in the hall. Then, as Retont gets into the car, Stella rushes to the open front door and yells, ‘What are you doing?’ Retont pauses, turns, says in an icy voice, ‘Until further notice he’s forbidden to go to the bridge.’ He drives off and Stella runs down the verandah steps after the moving car. ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ 124
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* Next morning Ralph and Stella are having breakfast but Ralph can’t eat and even his tea seems thick and hard to swallow. He’s trying his best to pretend nothing’s wrong but he can’t manage much more than a glazed stare into the newspaper. The telephone rings and Stella gets up to answer. Ralph hears her say, ‘Thank you, I’ll tell him.’ She returns to the room. ‘It’s Matron, from Garland House. She says to tell you Nurse Graham’s not in and there’s no one else to play the piano.You’ll have to get someone.’ Ralph nods solemnly. Re-stirs his tea. Stella offers, ‘Shall I telephone Mrs Poke for you?’ ‘No,’ he says. ‘No.’ The teaspoon makes tiny chinks against the cup; he stirs and stirs again as if this will somehow make his situation palatable. ‘She’s never there on Fridays.’ ‘There must be someone else,’ says Stella. Round and round Ralph stirs. He shakes his head and then pretends to rally with a twitched smile. ‘We’ll get by.’ At Garland House the numbers for the service are poor—there’s only four, worse than usual. Ralph slips out to the verandah ward to see if any more of the men would like to join in. Most of them look away. Collings, who had been a school teacher before he served in France, is dozing with a book in the sun but half opens his eyes to see what’s going on. Ralph, taking this as a sign of interest, encourages him further. ‘Come on, Collings, what about it?’ Collings comes coldly awake. His look hardens until it skewers Ralph to his place by the doorjamb. His words, when he speaks, are clipped by abhorrence: ‘How can you ask me to worship the master of a slaughterhouse? Despite having dwelt there, I am not yet insane.’ 125
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The silent ward is watching. Ralph has no breath. What to do? What to say? How can he say anything, he who never went to war, who never saw what Collings saw? But he must not look away, he must bear the burden of Collings’ gaze, even if it means he has to stand there in the doorway for the rest of his life. It’s the only satisfactory reply he can ever give Tom Collings. He must take responsibility for his incomprehensible God. The veteran’s eyes are glassed with hatred. Ralph takes it. He takes it and takes it. He looks away. Five thin voices, unaccompanied, trail after the melody of the hymn. ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’, they sing. But He’s not near at all. Tom Collings has taken Him prisoner in the mud of the Somme and He won’t be back today. Ralph sings, the words are empty and his throat is tight with grief. But he opens his mouth for the four who follow.
18 October 1929 There’s a fake grotto in the harbourside park. It’s made of concrete and is just big enough to hunch over a small concrete table and four concrete stools. It’s meant to have the appearance of a bush rock cave but instead looks like an old elephant’s hide, with the elephant scooped out. Ralph sits inside. He has retreated here for a while to quietly survey his picnic. There are children everywhere. Some are playing games on the grass, some are still hanging around the food-laden trestles, some hardy souls are in the baths swimming and jumping and bombing off the diving board, but one thing’s guaranteed—none of them are stationary. 126
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Everywhere there’s movement and noise. Ralph’s eyes shift from one group to another. He watches as scattered individuals come together for a short while then something happens and they explode, only to reform in a new combination. Near the rocks some bigger boys and girls are taking turns to throw around a dead water rat they’ve found. They hold it up by its hooked rigor-mortis tail and fling it at one another with much screaming and laughter. Ralph is pleased. His picnic’s a success. Everywhere the children are having fun. When everything else has gone wrong lately he’s glad he was right about the ice-creams. Maybe all their lives these children will remember this one church picnic, this one fairytale day in the middle of times which the coming bridge has sometimes made hard. And he’s not above buying goodwill towards God as a hedge against years in the future when the deity will inevitably wear out his welcome. Ralph can see the Sunday school teachers and the volunteers are almost at their wits’ end running around trying to contain the children’s overexcitement. But he doesn’t care.
24 October 1929 Unprecedented scenes of frenzied selling take place at the New York Stock Exchange, with ticker tape running some three hours behind trading at one stage. Five billion dollars of value is wiped out and, though the governors step in and start buying in a bid to stimulate confidence, the crash on Wall Street is the worst ever seen.
25 October 1929 Another black day in Manhattan, while in London, on Throgmorton Street, the market drops in response to the American financial crisis. 127
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26 October 1929 President Herbert Hoover asserts that the fundamental business of his country is on a sound and profitable basis.
November 1929 Australian export prices fall.
9 November 1929 Ralph thinks he must be ill. Though he has slept in (when he never sleeps in), he still feels dead-dog-tired. His dreams through the night and into the morning have been deep and comfortless and the shroud of them clings to him as he dresses. He creeps into his clothes, turns to the tilted cheval mirror to adjust his clerical collar, can’t get it comfortable. This is usually the favourite part of his routine, setting himself straight and buoying himself up for the day, telling his tidy reflection, ‘I belong, I belong. To the queen of professions!’ Today the collar exerts a sick pressure on his windpipe. He hooks his finger in to stretch it but there’s hardly any room. It is surely not possible to grow the thick neck of middle-age overnight? He sinks onto the end of the bed. His head and only his head, decapitated, appears in the bottom of the oval mirror. Downstairs, the telephone rings, it rings and rings. Doesn’t matter, it will only be someone wanting something from him, someone who will inevitably be displeased with whatever he offers. Muffled stamping from somewhere in the house as someone runs to answer. He continues to stare at his blank face, can’t think of a reason to move. Stomp, stomp as Stella ascends. At the doorway she pauses, then she says, ‘They want you to come. They’re loading the northern link plates onto the barge.’ 128
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Ralph gives his reply to the miserable head in the mirror. ‘But I can’t . . . I’m not to.’ ‘I’ll get your hat and coat,’ says Stella.
26 November 1929 He is riding in a coal bucket, hauled up by the Wilson runabout crane on the Dawes Point side and left to hang for a minute over the water in order that he might take a photograph. He is thrilled with the daredevil angle though his second-best suit is ruined. If spotted, he runs the risk of a further ticking-off from Bradfield, who has twice already told him to get out of the way. For his trouble, Ralph has promised the crane driver a pound of sausages—the fellow cooks them in the furnace on his shovel. Some days on the south-side works it’s mouthwatering, the lovely and unexpected smell of browning bangers. But there’ll be no fry-up today. Eighty men are toiling together to see a world record of five hundred and seventy tons of steel erected in one day. Momentum gathers. In his precarious bucket, Ralph feels like a fairy in a thimble wielded by a giant, and it occurs to him the bridge is beanstalk-like in the rapidity of its growth, though, of course, its progress is strictly ordered, unlike that famous and untidy plant. The arches, now seven panels on the south side and two on the north, reach across the water like tendrils eager for each other. Down to business. He wipes his black hands on his handkerchief before opening the camera box wedged snugly at his feet. He fits the Ross wide-angle lens and is completely satisfied to find his frame includes the curve of the panels, as well as the massive steel member which hangs in its entirety before him as it’s lifted from the barge. Just as he depresses the shutter, the dogman riding the steel salutes. Ralph 129
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is miffed. He’d like to call out and tell that pesky fellow to concentrate on his job. And now the steel has been hoisted further up, the whole balance of his composition has been thrown out. He retakes the shot anyway. A hundred yards up the hill, in the Dorman, Long offices, Lawrence Ennis puts down the telephone. He looks out the window bemused and rises ponderously from behind his desk. With a small hand signal which the crane driver nevertheless perfectly reads, Ennis, standing on the foreshore near stacked blocks of Moruya granite, motions Ralph down. Ennis advances when the bucket settles on the ground. Ralph stays where he is, nervous of this impromptu interview with the great man. Has Bradfield perhaps prevailed and insisted on his exile from the works? Ennis says, ‘I have a message for you.Via a complex set of relays it has apparently, and not entirely appropriately, come to me to deliver.’ He slightly inclines his big owl head in what might be the mildest of mock bows. ‘Padre, you’re wanted at home.’ While it was one thing to climb into the bucket, Ralph finds it’s quite another matter climbing out. All the way home he brushes and pats and smacks himself to shake off the coal dust to no effect, except to further blacken his face and his hands. Indeed, he looks not like a chimney sweep, but like the sweep’s broom. On the ferry over and on the wharf at Lavender Bay, people exchange looks. He hurries up the hill and enters the lower church gate, puffs up the path and reaches the rectory verandah just as a church car swings into the driveway. It’s a brand-new Buick. A flash of jealousy, which Ralph quickly quells as disloyal to the Dodge. Robert Retont gets out of the car. He is of course immaculate in his dainty grey suit. He sucks in his pallid prefect’s cheeks and looks Ralph up and down. ‘What are you,’ he says, ‘a priest or the furnace man for Satan?’ 130
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He waits for an explanation. Ralph prevaricates. He can’t lie but if he tells the truth he’ll be done in. He decides on the usual counterattack. ‘Hello, Robert, how nice to see you, and how lovely to receive your customary warm greeting!’ Ralph proffers his filthy hand. Retont gives him a withering look and walks round to the passenger side of the car.‘Here,’ he says, opening the door. ‘Take it.’ It’s Ralph’s manuscript. And his notes, in boxes on the back seat. ‘Somebody looked at it,’ says Retont. ‘Or most of it.You can have it back.’ He starts dragging the lot out and dumping it on the verandah steps. Tears spring to Ralph’s eyes. He swallows. For a minute he can’t move. Then, alarmed at Robert’s rough handling, he rushes to help. At the first physical touch he lets out a girlish giggle. He fusses, organising the boxes into rows—then suddenly stops. Something sinks in. He straightens. ‘Somebody read it?’ His voice is curiously squeaky. There it is, in the box nearest his feet, with its title page clearly visible: Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. ‘It was read?’ Retont, irritated, nods. Ralph opens his mouth then reconsiders. The question he proposes to ask is not without peril, but then again he is secretly, gleefully sure of his achievement and dismisses the risk. His stomach flutters. Though he knows he should be above such base and shameful needs, the anticipation of praise is delicious. He can’t resist. Neither can he suppress a foolish grin, and a very dazzling grin it is, given his black face. Though he glances away and sways on his heels to look like an author who is shy and modest, he more closely resembles an inebriated golliwog. ‘Well, then,’ he says, as casually as he can. ‘My book—your reader. What did they think?’ Robert Retont rolls his eyes and walks away. 131
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The dogman rides the hook of the crane down for another load. Foot in the hook and hugging the cable he feels like a lord fucking a fat lady—in full view of the city, what’s more, in full view of all those ground-level saps and their mean-snatched wives.
24 December 1929 ‘The rector, in the city with four children! The very thought of it! Dear man. Has he ever looked after them alone? And on Christmas Eve? Chaos!’ Mrs Liner chortles into the mirror as Yvonne, the hairdresser, leaves off levelling her fringe to recheck the line at her nape. Stella, under her gunked helmet of perming cream, panics. Mrs Liner’s right—what was she thinking to let him go? Mrs Liner cackles on. ‘He’ll be lucky if he comes back with one alive!’ ‘They’re very good children,’ says Stella, suddenly angry with Mrs Liner, with herself, with Ralph. Mrs Liner raises a carefully plucked eyebrow. ‘He’s their father,’ adds Stella. Mrs Liner’s eyebrow stays raised. ‘My dear, what does that prove?’ She looks up under her fringe to enlist the mirth of the hairdresser. ‘He’s the sweetest thing, but hopeless really.’ Yvonne agrees and Stella steams. Contrary to the feminine opinion of possibly the whole parish, including Stella, Ralph is not entirely without resources when it comes to marshalling his children. When Marian and Grace skip away to dance around a letterbox while they’re waiting in a crowd to cross 132
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the street, Ralph retrieves a piece of string from his pocket (found the day before in the gutter of Blues Point Road near where he’d parked the Dodge) and ties it around their waists. If he loses them now then at least they’ll both be lost in the same place, but in any case, as long as he holds the middle of the twine he has control over them both. They are not displeased: they play at ponies and tug on their reins. Colin drags a few steps behind, but Alice, eleven years old, walks close by Ralph’s side with her nose in the air, pretending she’s grown-up and important, pretending to be a wife. Up Hunter Street they go; the little girls’ legs begin to tire near the top of the hill (after all they’re only four and five). When the family finally arrives at St James’ Church, they are disappointed to find a long queue snaking out the gate. The new Chapel of St Mary and the Angels is so small that only a certain number of people can be let in to view it at one time. The chapel has been converted from a cell in the crypt, and a miniature altar and miniature pews have been installed—it’s a chapel for children. If it takes all day, Ralph will wait. Newspaper reports of Sunday’s opening service describe the chapel as a buried treasure: murals on the ceiling and walls depict the Christmas carol ‘I Saw Three Ships’ in a Sydney Harbour setting which is lively and vibrant; the panels of the mural are riotous with colour which is further enhanced by the lavish use of gold leaf in decorative touches and borders. What’s more, the landmarks of Sydney are clearly identifiable, including the Harbour Bridge. The queue is slow to move. Marian and Grace squat on the footpath dirtying the hems of their dresses, Alice and Colin bicker. By the time their group is led under the church and let inside, Alice has broken a strap on her little woman’s handbag and refuses to be interested in anything else. She claims one of the petite pews and slumps there scowling at her best shoes. Colin takes one glance around 133
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the tiny room and slips out to further explore the crypt and is later found eating biscuits with an old lady in an alcove which houses the kitchen facilities. Marian and Grace tug at Ralph’s trousers; it’s too crowded and they can’t see. Ralph lifts them both up and they think the colours are nice and St Joseph’s hat is funny, but just as Ralph begins to point out the bridge they wriggle to be put down. The bridge is gold. How marvellous. He loves its colour in reality, thinks the grey mysterious and solemn, but in these heavenly harbour scenes of course it must be gold and fit for the gaze of angels. He only wishes it were bigger. He shuffles closer.The artists have shown it under construction, three panels complete on the south side, while on the north the creeper crane is poised on its ramp ready to begin the end frame and portal. His heart lifts—these artists have understood, God and the bridge; the whole room sings. He calls to Alice to come and see but she pouts and shakes her head. He looks for Colin—gone. For the little girls. And then he sees them. And then he wishes he hadn’t. They stand close to the wall in the corner and when they laugh and move he sees they have picked off a patch of gold leaf, leaving a white scratched patch of plaster four inches square in the painting. Ralph gets to them just as they dab a large fleck on each other’s tongues, thinking it will taste pretty. ‘Put it back,’ squeaks Ralph, and he pushes his daughters to the wall. ‘Lick it back on!’ One ounce of gold can be beaten out to forty-six feet of gold leaf. Ralph knows this from his days at the Western Australian School of Mines. As they wait in the deacon’s office he makes the calculation. The price of gold is eighty-five shillings an ounce. A square foot thus costs a bit under two shillings.The girls ate four inches—why, it comes to next to nothing! He owes St James’ Church less than a penny. But when the deacon comes in and Ralph reaches for the small change in 134
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his pocket, the deacon says, ‘But are your children aware of the true cost of desecration?’ No doubt Retont will ring at the first opportunity to exercise his dry and disapproving wit. ‘I hear your lot think the Children’s Chapel quite a delicacy. One wonders what would have been left of it had they gone without breakfast. You know, we do pay you a stipend to feed them.’ ‘Ha, ha,’ Ralph will say back into the phone, before putting it down with a quiet click.
1967 Mater Hospital A breeze lifts the hem of Ralph’s hospital gown. How did he get to be here, standing on the harbour shore at night, chicken legs exposed? It’s New Year’s Eve 1929, that he does know. He has stood here before, fully dressed and in perfect health but in the same frame of mind. It’s raining and the shadows contain men who have dropped out of windows. Their descent from New York skyscrapers has ended here on the dark, wet foreshores of Sydney Harbour. Homeless men shuffle in makeshift beds under makeshift shelters. It’s a night for vinegar ghosts. Ralph stands with the fortress wall of the abutment tower at his back. The massive end frame and portal and three panels hang over and above. On the south side, thirteen panels of the arch protrude into the gloom. For the first time ever he is troubled by doubt. What if it turns out to be so much junk? He glances around at the building refuse, discarded 135
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tackle and tools. Do jewellers work in pig pens? How can they know what they’re doing, surrounded by so much rubbish? Is this the debris of things coming together, or the debris of things falling apart?
People warn Lennie to stay away from tramps on the highway. Though some he’s encountered look dead-eyed and beaten they are easy to avoid; gone silent, it’s all they can do to touch their hats by way of interchange. Poor people he’s seen but rich people too: a glamorous couple who are picnicking by their roadster invite him to share their lunch. They have a proper wicker picnic basket, they have bubbly wine and glasses and they pour him a nip, they have chicken and ham and potato salad, and peaches, and chocolates in a fancy box. But all Lennie can talk about is the car. ‘It sure is sharp, mister.’ It’s a Willys-Knight. ‘Is it just out of the showroom?’ ‘Get in,’ says the man. And Lennie scampers over, slides in behind the wheel and pretends to drive. He jiggles up and down having only ever travelled in vehicles with rock-hard suspension, but even then he can barely see above the sporty dash out the windscreen. ‘Hey, Ginger Mick,’ he calls out. ‘No offence,’ he grins, ‘but this is the life!’ Ginger Mick swivels one ear to his young master’s voice but keeps on grazing.
January 1930 The template shop is tent-like with its short walls and sawtooth roofs, a place of immense and unbroken floor space. It’s extraordinarily still 136
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after the workshops below, where all labour is muscular and percussive. Here, draughtsmen shuffle, marking timber guides for the making of each fabricated member to ensure each piece is a perfect fit with its brothers. Merv Lockhardt, the supervisor of the template shop, sniffs into the dim quiet. He can always tell how the work goes. He is inflexible and pernickety and is disliked because of it but doesn’t care because the work is important. The lads joke he’d measure his mother’s funeral satin to the thousandth of an inch. They do not know he goes to art school at night so that when the bridge is done he’ll be employable as a commercial artist. At life classes his eyes nearly pop out of his head—whether the models are young or old, female or male—but sometimes, when he is able to empty his mind for a minute and look with eyes slightly glazed over, he can draw a line without a rule which is nevertheless somehow true: the sagging upper arm of a naked singing teacher, a young clerk’s skinny dick. On those evenings, he does not take the tram but walks home, perplexed. The draughtsmen, their knees aching from the hard floor as they crouch over their rules, will never know this about him.
All of the arch panels on the south side of the bridge are in place.Work halts there while the north side catches up.
14 February 1930 Ralph has never felt so insubstantial. She must be over six foot tall. She has legs like house stumps. She has a bosom big enough to suckle ten babies and smother a husband. 137
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She has a broad pale face and her prematurely grey hair is pulled back in a bun.Though it’s a steely style, it cannot entirely hide her large ears, the pink tips of which poke out like inquisitive grubs. ‘You’re the Church of England,’ she says. Deadpan. ‘I’m Reverend Cage,’ he says, and he offers her his hand but she doesn’t take it. ‘May I come in, Mrs Pessey?’ She looks dubious; these bludgers always want to sting you for money or, worse, get you to go to church. Well she’s not doing either, but she’s got enough religion in her to be superstitious and she won’t be outright rude for fear of God getting back at her. She nods Ralph down the dark hall which smells of mildew and Golden Rough tobacco and shuts the front bedroom door as she passes. ‘My old grandfather lives in there.’ She draws a bolt across the outside of the door to lock him in. ‘He’s gone funny in the head and he wanders. That wouldn’t be so bad except he takes off all his clothes. I tell yer I’m sick of looking at him.’ Boxes are stacked along one wall of the hall, there’s a cricket bat made out of a fence paling and a set of stumps is crudely drawn on the end door that Mrs Pessey opens to reveal a tiny sitting room. Laundry hangs chock-a-block on clothes horses and draped over furniture, stockings and socks droop from the mantelpiece over the little gas fireplace though the fire isn’t on. A lamp is bedecked with long johns. Strung across the room from the picture rails is a line hung with bed sheets. Mrs Pessey parts the linen and Ralph follows but she immediately lets it drop and his face is covered. He reels. Trapped in the damp cotton is the ingrained smell of sex. Bodies. Oozing and seeping. Nakedness and SEX. When Mrs Pessey finally leads him to the kitchen he’s bright red. ‘Rain’s bad for the laundry business,’ she says. ‘I dunno what I’ll do if it keeps going.’ Like the sitting room, the kitchen is crowded with manchester and 138
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clothing. Mrs Pessey shoves the ironing board up against the sink and lifts a wicker basket on top of the cooker so they can get by. ‘Sit down,’ she orders, but Ralph doesn’t know where. The kitchen table is piled high with folding and the few chairs are similarly occupied, except for one which is clearly hers. When Ralph makes no effort to make himself a place Mrs Pessey bosoms past him and snatches up a pile of folded underwear from a rickety kitchen chair and flops it up onto the table. She hurumphs to make it known he’s a damn nuisance. Ralph sidles into his seat and is disconcerted to find his line of sight obscured by the pink stack of intimate apparel. Given the quality and the petite size of them, he very much doubts they belong to Mrs Pessey. It’s only a minor blessing. As he leans sideways to look past them, his chair rocks and squeaks. Mrs Pessey arches her eyebrow in critical wonder at him—the way he leers out at her, he looks like he’s playing an obscene game of peek-aboo. She decides not to offer him tea. ‘Mrs Pessey,’ says Ralph, ‘I’ve come as an agent on behalf of someone else.’ She straightens up. An agent? For the Real Estate or God? Peering past the undies, he asks, ‘Would you like a job?’ Just then the back door crashes open and Mrs Pessey’s husband Dexter falls inside. He slams the door on the rain and the whole jerry-built back wall of the closed-in verandah shakes. He’s a compact, well-proportioned man, all the more so in comparison to his mountainous wife. He brushes the rain off his jacket and shakes out his form guide. ‘Couldn’t hear myself think out there.’ It seems he’s been in the outhouse, variously occupied. He flashes a grin which is embellished by a gold filling in a tooth, a tooth which, when Dexter comes home skint from the track, Mrs Pessey has many times threatened to knock out and cash in. 139
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Mrs Pessey makes the introductions and Ralph restates his offer. ‘Whacko,’ says Dexter. ‘This calls for a cup of tea.’ Mrs Pessey starts to lurch up but Dexter pats her affectionately on the shoulder to stay put. He works his way around the obstacle course of the kitchen and keeps up a lively chatter, saying every so often, ‘Isn’t that good, love?’ But Mrs Pessey is not as excited as Dexter about the job since she’s the one who’ll be doing it—on top of the laundry she takes in. ‘And just around the corner. Isn’t that good, love?’ Ralph says proximity is important and the reason Mrs Pessey’s name was given to him in the first place: the job might involve odd hours since the woman she’ll be keeping house for is ill. ‘Poor thing,’ says Dexter. ‘No wonder we never seen her if she’s been sick. What’s her name again?’ Ralph says, ‘Mrs Carmel Aneil.’ ‘No!’ says Dexter, putting two and two together. ‘She was married to a bigamist, it was a scandal in the paper. Isn’t that true, Rector? Fancy that.’ Ralph flushes and cautions, ‘It’s not my business to say.’ ‘Oh yeah, of course.’ Dexter scratches the flat back of his head, wondering where the sugar jar’s gone, until Mrs Pessey reveals it by shifting a set of towels. ‘You’ll be working for someone famous. Isn’t that nice, love?’ Mrs Pessey’s not impressed. Privately she thinks one spouse is quite enough and there’s no reason to get excited about someone having two. Dexter spoons the sugar into the cups. ‘What about it, Rector, they say they had a lot of money but with the scandal it all got lost?’ Ralph wiggles his finger across his lips. ‘Oh yeah, of course. Oi, let’s get this out of your way,’ says Dexter, 140
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and he scoops up the offending underwear stack and balances it on top of the bread crock. Ralph straightens up with relief but his comfort is short-lived when his chair tilts into the pre-collapse shape of a parallelogram. Dexter says, ‘There, love,’ and as he puts down his wife’s cup of tea he plants a little kiss on her implacable cheek. To Ralph, ‘The minute I saw her I knew she was a keeper.’ Dexter pours a fourth cup. ‘I’ll just nip up the hall and give this to the Old Boy.’ Ralph fills the void by asking Mrs Pessey about her grandfather, has he been seen by doctors? ‘Oh yairs,’ she exclaims. ‘They’re no help.’ And that cuts off that avenue of conversation. She watches Ralph take little sips of the strong tea like he’s trying not to drink too much. Like he’s mindful of filling up his bladder. She can’t blame him for it. Out the back window, the dilapidated outhouse doesn’t look inviting. She’s been at Dexter to fix the hinges on the door for months. She decides to make an effort to be warmer towards Ralph. ‘I’d give you a biscuit,’ she says, ‘but I haven’t got one.’ When Dexter comes bustling back he says, ‘I’ve been thinking, Rector, you look like a man who knows about money.’ Despite himself Ralph splutters with pleasure. ‘Do I?’ Mrs Pessey shakes her head. ‘And you’ve already proved you’re a man who can keep his trap shut . . .’ Dexter deliberates, runs his hand over his stubbled chin then turns decisive. ‘I’ve got a proposition for you.You could make money for the church, or for yourself—whatever you want—and at the same time help out a lot of people. I say to you the magic word: surplus. There’s a lot of money to be had in the disposal of surplus.’ Ralph leans forward with interest. 141
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Nup, thinks Mrs Pessey, who was weakening to a kinder view of Ralph. You really are a dope. She loves her husband but she knows his faults. She wishes it wasn’t so, but the truth is he’s the world’s most transparent con man.
6 March 1930 Stella pauses by the bedroom window with the folding. Since they came this morning with the news of Nipper Addison’s fall she finds herself stopping in the middle of her work, sometimes with an arm across her stomach as if she’s falling too and is trying to stop the air being forced from her. Ralph is over there, probably on the barge waiting to see if the diver finds the body. She knows Ralph in his thoroughness will sometime go and stand at the spot where the worker slipped from the bridge. She wonders where Addison will be found exactly. Is he hanging in some mid-strata of water, curled over like an embryo, in the dirty, gurgling stomach of the harbour? Or does he take up a muddy stance on the bottom, his white face ballooning in and out of clouds of silt stirred by the diver’s lead-booted feet? She decides on the latter and wonders if he still holds the spanner. Perhaps he leans to one side, tidepushed, as if listening hard for something. She wonders, too, what Mrs Preston, that artist from the Home magazine, might make of it—how she’d carve the now still life of Addison into one of her woodcuts. A man planted to his knees. One hand out by his side, palm open, his fingers gouged with her fine chisel until they’re bath-withered—the other hand outstretched and holding, in place of the spanner, a bunch of flowers. Red. All around, black ink. At first glance, Stella thinks, this may seem a modern way to die, a steel man and a great bridge—but no, she realises, it’s age-old; it’s simply falling. 142
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The Great Arch Coroner’s report no. 440 Sydney ‘Nipper’ Edward Addison, 25, married, assembly boilermaker’s assistant, born in Liverpool, England, resident of Naremburn. Fell into the harbour from the bottom chord of the arch. He was using a long-handled spanner with a six-foot pipe attached when he slipped and overbalanced. Witnesses report that during his descent Addison tried to straighten but was unable to maintain the position. His back hit the water. The body disappeared but was later retrieved by a diver, whereupon the deceased’s neck was found to be broken. There was no cash on him. 6th March, 1930.
1967 Mater Hospital Who’s that? Who’s there? Out of the corner of his bung eye he can see a man standing by the hospital window, holding a pony glass of beer. It’s Stan England. No drinker, Stan, the head’s gone flat and the ale’s lost its gold, gone brown cloudy like sick urine. Stan’s still a working man, with a working man’s tan. He’s fifty-nine, has a thick head of hair, looks neat in his walk shorts and a collared short-sleeved shirt of bri-nylon. Dressed just the way he was five years ago at the Commodore Hotel in Blues Point Road for the bridge workers’ thirty-year reunion. That day he was keener to talk about concreting the driveway of his owner-built home than about the old days. But someone brought it up, someone always does, apropos of nothing, saying, ‘Yeah, that was a shame about Nipper.’ Everyone immediately agrees and then eventually, ‘Yes it was,’ says Stan, and he stares into his slippery little glass of beer, silly thing for the size of his hand. ‘It was over thirty years ago,’ he says now, looking out the hospital window. ‘Shouldn’t still get upset.’ 143
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Ralph tries to shift himself on his pillows to get a better look at the man who was working alongside Nipper Addison the day he dropped off. ‘He wore sandshoes,’ says Stan. Ralph has heard parts of this story before: the incident happened so fast, it was witnessed in fragments by different people, at different angles. Stella was right; to better understand what happened he went up on the half-arch that afternoon to assess the situation for himself. He looked at the task, the tools, the distance to the chord’s edge and could only conclude the lad had been careless when the same work had been done safely before on countless occasions. Granted, the men worked unharnessed and there were no safety railings but the work area there was eleven feet wide—enough space to go ballroom dancing. ‘It was raining,’ says Stan England. It was. Lying in his bed Ralph recalls the feeling, as he stood on the edge of the chord, of the rain dripping down the back of his collar. ‘I was at the end of the spanner near the washer and the nut,’ says Stan England. The drip of the rain was the only sound; by then they’d sent all the men home. It was an eerie quiet. ‘Righto, Nip, we’ll take another purchase.’ Come back tomorrow—the men, they couldn’t work spooked. What had gone wrong? Stan says, ‘Cook, the inspector, was coming the other side from the scaffold he was on. And he let a yell out and as soon as he did, I thought . . . the spanner hit me in the chest and I rolled because it was on an angle, you know, and I grabbed Nipper by the sandshoe but, well, you can imagine a man’s weight . . .’ A long pause follows. But Stan’s not finished, Ralph can see him working himself up to say something more just as soon as he gets over the urge to blubber. Finally, in a firmer voice, he says, ‘He was younger 144
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than me. Not much, but still, I should have held him.’ And then he cracks. ‘I couldn’t hold him.’ He puts his glass down on the window sill and wipes his hand dry on the side of his shorts. Ralph hopes he’s not going to leave the glass sitting there, he doesn’t want to get in trouble with the nuns. Stan blows his nose. ‘Silly, isn’t it, after all this time?’ He stares at the floor. Ralph, sounding more impatient than he means to, rasps from his bed, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Stan England shakes his head. ‘You’ve got no idea, all those years, and still, how empty my hand feels.’
6 May 1930 The power of advertising. It’s amazing to Ralph that within only a very few minutes of hanging the notice on the church gates, a little group forms to read it, having materialised from nowhere:
DISCOUNT ORANGES! We are pleased to announce we have secured a quantity of oranges which we have fetched from Gosford ourselves with the aid of the verger, Ned Tooms, and his stalwart truck. The fruit is now available at the Rectory to anyone who would care to call by. 112 crates are on hand, which is rather a lot, and though we regret we cannot give them away free, we can pass them on for a THIRD OF THE PRICE! (Some few have weather marks on their skins but don’t be alarmed—however unsightly, these blemishes do not in any way affect the quality of the inside.) In these straitened times a healthy orange for every tummy in every home is our warm wish!
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Cases and cases of oranges are about the house, stacked in the study, the parlour, the hall, the kitchen, the utility room. As news spreads, there’s always someone at the door requiring serving and Stella is never out of her apron. A dozen for this family, two dozen for that, three oranges for the thick-legged widow who lives in the next road and who has never set foot inside the church. A stranger haggles for two crates and spills them out all over the parlour carpet to select the cleanest skins and is later seen selling them down by the ferry for the full market price. After two days of sales Ralph is pleased to go about the parish, where it seems there’s a person on every street corner eating an orange. It gives him a glow of satisfaction to see the evidence of his morale-boosting goodwill. But on the fourth and fifth days there’s a noticeable shift and the attitude abroad takes a downward turn. A man stops Ralph on his way to the bridge works and asks him for meat and is angry when he says he has none; another man asks for shoes. From the entrance to one of the waterfront lanes a mother yells out as he scurries past, ‘What was wrong with them fruit? My daughter was hungry and et seven and now she’s got the runs!’ At home, matters are likewise deteriorating. The oranges are picked over and fourteen crates are left. Little flies rise from them when they’re disturbed.The acid coil of mildew climbs in the air. Stella grows terse.The loss of outlaid money is one thing but she cannot abide the humiliation of living with rotting fruit. Ralph helpfully suggests recipes: orange cake, marmalade; ‘What about orange gravy?’ he says and she feels like hitting him. He resorts to eating them all himself, one orange after another, and, by day eleven, Stella is no longer capable of civil speech. Everywhere she goes, she finds peel littered throughout her house, hardening on desks, shelves, the floor, the stairs, the edge of the bath, until she begins to think she’s Gretel following a deranged Hansel and in danger of tipping over into insanity herself. It’s the little 146
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mountains of fresh pips she most hates picking up. They’re slightly slimy in their own right, but attached to them is the thought of spit. She shudders. Day sixteen and there are still three more mouldering cases to go. She doesn’t know it, but this won’t be the first time she curses her husband’s association with the Pesseys.
24 May 1930 Carmel Aneil is dying of disbelief, though no one would know so. To see her today, as Ralph sees her, sitting in the backyard on a kitchen chair having her hair cut in the sun, all seems perfectly normal— but for the hairdresser being Mrs Pessey, who stamps and glares in a circle around her, brandishing scissors, muttering, ‘It won’t go straight, it won’t go.’ All seems perfectly normal except that the backyard of the neglected terrace comprises a concrete square, an outhouse and behind that a tangle of blackberry bushes and morning glory—a far cry from any beauty salon Carmel Aneil might have frequented in former times. Today, despite her frightful cut and her emaciated figure, she looks better than she has in weeks. She looks like a fifty-year-old woman who’s been seriously ill but who, bathed in the goodness of sunshine, will surely recover. Ralph watches; his seat is the low brick retaining wall of an empty garden bed built against the back of the house. Mrs Pessey bends and glowers into Carmel’s fringe, then slowly, as if sneaking up on it, she raises her big white arm that fills the short sleeve of her dress to bursting, and she snips. Grey-blonde needles of hair scatter over Carmel’s cheeks and nose. Mrs Pessey raises the corner of her apron and roughly brushes them off.‘That’ll have to do,’ she declares.‘It won’t get any better and it might get worse.’ She shoves a small rectangle at Carmel; it’s a handbag mirror. ‘Here, do ya wanna look at yourself?’ 147
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Carmel Aneil thanks her but declines. She’s got what she wanted and is wholly satisfied. What was shoulder-length hair is now up around her ears like a boy. ‘The best I could do,’ says Mrs Pessey, angry and embarrassed for the brutal hacking she’s given her charge. ‘I’m the help, not a friggin’ lady in waiting.’ She grabs a broom and sweeps up the hair with a few jabbing strokes. In the sunlight it looks so glassy it’s hard to believe it’s been cut from a sick woman. Clutching it to the end of the broom, Mrs Pessey looks for a place to dump it and decides on the grey dirt of the garden bed next to Ralph. She says, ‘For the birds.’ ‘For the birds,’ says Carmel Aneil. She shuts her eyes. Rests in the warmth of the sun. She cannot believe she was so duped. It’s never been the gossip and speculation which she has minded most—it’s the shock, which has never gone away, of being so wrong about having the whole love of her husband. One day when she was dressing, not long after it all came out and he left, she noticed a lump in her breast but let it be. It was a strange comfort to her, this physical manifestation of betrayal, and only when it turned gross did she seek medical attention. When the surgeon chided her for presenting with her condition in such an advanced state, she was impassive. He could not know how glad she was to have her breast carved from her. Ralph watches a line of ants walking along the bricks. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t disturb her. He has no idea what to do for this woman. He keeps her company, her and the unspoken but palpable presence of her hurt and surprise. But that’s all. Graciously, as she led him to the door at the end of his very first visit, she said, ‘Come again, Rector, if you like, but please don’t talk about God.’ She smiled apologetically. ‘I no longer have any capacity for faith.’ 148
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Now, on her chair in the backyard sun, she looks lonely as a witch on a ducking stool. She opens her eyes. She’s drained. Remembering her visitor, she makes an effort. ‘What news of your book, Rector?’ He tells her the book is due at the printers in three weeks, whereupon he’ll start work in earnest on the second volume. He tells her that the arch grows apace, the north side ever reaching for the south. He’s just starting to wind up, wax lyrical, noting how appropriate it is that his writing is structured in two halves, just like the bridge, how the halves need each other to be whole, when he stops. ‘Are you alright?’ She shakes her head. He calls for Mrs Pessey. Together they get her upstairs to her room at the back of the house, which overlooks the yard. Mrs Pessey gives Carmel a powder for the pain. Ralph says goodbye but Carmel barely answers. At the door his first instinct is to offer a parting blessing, but since that’s against her rules, he searches for something else. ‘When you feel better, when the two halves come together, I could drive you to the end of the street to see the bridge.’ She doesn’t reply. He’ll have to try harder—he can’t leave her like this, in pain and sad and mute. He mumbles, ‘Your hair looks nice.’ She turns to the wall. He departs. Carmel Aneil knows it’s hard for Reverend Cage. It’s hard for him to imagine the life she lived before this broken-down room where the daylight strips everything, including her, glaring through her overwashed nightie to show her cruelly flattened chest and her scars. She knows he can’t imagine the modern stuccoed curves of Bella Vista, her home at Cremorne Point, and how she once sat at her dressingtable reflected back three ways in the winged mirror, wondering which angle her husband loved most. And he can’t imagine how she felt 149
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when she first discovered that her husband was a man who could not choose. He can’t imagine how often she had picked up her hairbrush to tidy herself, reached for her lipstick when she thought she heard the sound of his car in the drive. He can’t imagine how much she enjoyed her former life before it was smashed, since even her husband’s long absences were filled with the joy of anticipating his return. And now, as she lies sickening here in this narrow bed, she knows he can’t imagine how stupid she feels.
Coroner’s report no. 1255 Frederick Gillon, 25, rigger, born in Bathurst. Struck on the head and killed instantly when a sheerlegs collapsed on the northern approaches in Junction Street, North Sydney, 25th July, 1930.
31 July 1930 Carmel Aneil has gone downhill. Ralph, on the telephone, could not seem to impress this upon her brusque barrister brother. The man’s interest in his ailing sister is confined to paying for her basic physical care and he refuses to visit. Indeed, no one visits, except Ralph. Surely her brother would find compassion if only he looked at her—grown so thin her rings slip off her fingers and are found loose in the bed come morning. Sometimes, where she has lain against them, they press cruel circles into her skin like biscuit cutters, prompting Mrs Pessey to express the opinion that they ought to be chucked away. ‘What good ever was they to her anyway?’ But since there is no family member to ask and since Carmel Aneil seems fretful without them, the rings go back on. 150
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Today there is a circle on her cheek. Carmel stares blankly at the wall while Mrs Pessey sticks her large breadmaker’s thumb over the welt and kneads upwards so it seems there’s no face left, only skeleton. Carmel’s teeth, small and dirty and narrowing up to shrinking gums, are exposed the way a farmer checks a sheep. ‘Don’t stand there like a fire poke,’ says Mrs Pessey. ‘Hand me that cream.’ Ralph fetches it from on top of the chest of drawers and Mrs Pessey scoops up a slab and pastes it on Carmel’s cheek, which is chafed now from her rubbing. The daily thinning of Carmel Aneil has become irresistible to Ralph. He watches, fascinated, as every day the disease changes her, takes away more of her, tapering her towards death—yet every day she lives. Mrs Pessey thinks Carmel is losing her faculties, since she rarely responds or speaks, but Ralph feels it’s more likely she’s sunk in a mortal depression. ‘I dunno why you come and talk to her,’ says Mrs Pessey. ‘She probably can’t even hear properly, though they say their hearing is the last to go. Hey—’ she slams the cream down, the lid crooked where she’s twisted the thread, ‘how do they know that anyway, when ya can’t ask them?’ She likes answers, Mrs Pessey, and she thinks an educated man ought to pay up with one when asked. Ralph takes up the jar of cream and re-screws the lid, and doesn’t answer. Mrs Pessey makes a face as if to say, well what good are you?, and bundles up the pile of dirty bed linen on the floor. ‘Another load!’ The humphing weight of her disapproval leaves the room. Ralph goes to the window and parts the curtains further, sees the top floors of two terraces over the back fence have been breached by demolishers, cracked open. Each one bare as a robbed pantry. Yet another street to go. 151
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He wonders if it’s true about hearing to the last, and if so, to what purpose? What will be Carmel’s final sound? A whispered call from God, or the contractors undermining her house with sledgehammers? Still looking out the window, he begins in a gruff but gentle voice. ‘Yesterday they started erecting the steel for the last panel. Each steel member is first bolted into place, then riveted.’ The bridge is all they’ve ever had as a conversation between them. Now he regrets not pressing her. Surely they’d both be better served if he read her something from the Bible. ‘When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.’ She said once, ‘How do you know the arch will meet?’ He says dully now, ‘All the rivets come from McPherson’s, manufactured in Melbourne. The heaviest weighs six and a half pounds.’ Through the window, he sees Mrs Pessey hanging out the washing—no, draping the washing—in the backyard. Carmel does not move, does not blink against the extra sunlight Ralph lets in as he parts the curtain further with the back of his hand. ‘The smallest rivet is three and five-eighths inches long and the largest comes to just on sixteen.’ The small oblong of yard is filled with bushes, waist-high blackberries they are, and Mrs Pessey snaps out the white sheets and lays them over the green leaves to dry. Ralph wonders what will happen when the fruit comes. He turns back to Carmel. ‘The rivets are rigorously tested.’ Behind him, he imagines the sheets blooming with clots of blackberry ink.
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Vol. XIII., No. 8
ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Aug. 1st, 1930
The Rector’s Letter The progress of the Main Arch across the Harbour has captivated the popular fancy, and interest in the bow of steel reaches a thrilling stage as the Creeper Cranes come together to whispering point. Everyone, from the most aged and venerable to the youngest child watching wide-eyed from the ferry, now calls it— the Great Arch. Finite man here below has copied to some degree, in the Great Arch, the infinite realm of God. And how apt it is that the joining of the structure will coincide with the season of Trinity. Three main materials have been used in construction: granite, concrete, steel. 153
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Therefore: The Harbour Bridge is a trinity of materials, a sort of splendid fingerpost, the crown of which points earthly travellers home.
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4 August 1930 The northern arch is complete, having caught up with and edged ahead of work on the southern side.
6 August 1930 Mrs Pessey shuts Carmel Aneil’s front door on the rector and she’s glad to see the back of him. He doesn’t realise how hard it is looking after a dead woman. Well, alright, she’s not dead yet—but she’s in a hurry. For herself, Mrs Pessey is not much bothered by the idea of dying. She supposes there’s a God and a heaven because . . . someone has to be responsible. But something about looking after Carmel Aneil makes her nervous for her kids and she wonders if she should get them baptised. Not that they’d ever do it at their age, when she can’t even make them come home or wash their faces. But the baptising would be for just in case. In case the rules for heaven matter. Mrs Pessey goes down the hall to the kitchen. A minute ago she tried to ask the rector for his professional advice. She asked, Do the rules for getting into heaven matter when it comes to children? and he said Yes but then he said about natural laws and the law of gravity and how it’s there even though we don’t see it and so we don’t go floating off. Mrs Pessey thinks he’s as confused as she is. At that point, she waved 154
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her hand at him to get him to stop talking, to indicate she had better things to do than listen to all that bamboozlement, and luckily he shut up. She finds hand signals quite useful on men like him when you want them to get the message but you can’t say anything rude. After that she put her hands on her hips and just stood there and he rightly picked up he’d better leave. She doesn’t know why he keeps visiting. When she’s out of the room he talks to Carmel Aneil and maybe tells her some prayers, but that Carmel she doesn’t know anything anymore, so he’s wasting his time. Well he is strange. See the odd way he dresses—his jacket is too short on him, high under his armpits and too much of his wrists coming out of the sleeves. Wouldn’t you think his wife would see to a proper fit? Mrs Pessey fills up the kitchen sink, makes some suds. For the first time ever he was cross with her today. He came in here to get Carmel Aneil a glass of water (She won’t drink it, Mrs Pessey said to herself, I don’t know why he’s getting it, she hardly drinks nothing) and he says, Mrs Pessey look at the state, just because there was a few days’ washingup, just because only a few things get used at a time and it’s a waste to keep doing it. So she said back, Well don’t blame me. Then he should have said, Well whose blame is it? but he didn’t. He left the room and she said under her breath, Bugger off. Mrs Pessey gathers up the dirty cups and plates scattered over the table. They’re mostly all ones she’s used herself anyway—what Carmel eats wouldn’t feed a flea. She thinks, That friggin’ rector. I’m the one who has to wipe her, I keep her clean, does he do it? It’s funny how probably anyone could do it for their family and it’s not dirty but it’s always dirty when you wipe a stranger. It’s for pay, not for love. Maybe she wouldn’t have to do it if Dexter hadn’t lost his bloody job at Bingo’s Gym. 155
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She decides she’s going to save up and one day she’s going to go on a holiday to the Blue Mountains. She’s never been there but she’s heard of Echo Point and she’s going to stand there at the lookout, all by herself. She’s going to breathe in all that fresh air and she’s going to yell out, GO AWAY, GO AWAY, GO AWAY.
7 August 1930 The final touches on the southern half-arch are finished. The gap between the bottom chords of the two sides is now only three feet and six inches. A short plank is laid across and Lawrence Ennis is the first to cross. Orders are given to start loosening the cables to allow the two halves to slowly come together.
12 August 1930 Carmel Aneil has many bruises today. Ralph had noticed one or two here and there on preceding days, but on her shoulders, her wrists and even on her neck they appear now in dark clusters. He glances sharply at Mrs Pessey and she’s ready for him. ‘Oh no,’ she fires back, alarmed and loud and resentful, defensive. ‘It wasn’t me!’ She rushes over to the bed and crashes her bent fingers into an unblemished part of Carmel’s arm as if she’s playing a piano chord. Marks are immediate on the pale skin. Then Mrs Pessey pinches up a thumb and finger full of her own arm skin and twists as hard as she possibly can. ‘There, I’ve done that violence fifty times harder to meself and there’s no bruise on me.’ Ralph stares at Carmel, the misery and wonder of her. ‘I wouldn’t do that—I need this job.’ Mrs Pessey, who never sounds panicked, sounds panicked now. Even louder,‘Something’s gone wrong with her blood.’ 156
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Ralph involuntarily puts his hands up to cover his own ears, as if this will somehow protect Carmel Aneil from that cruel news. But if she has heard, she doesn’t react. Ralph glares at Mrs Pessey, who is only too pleased to leave the room. Ralph takes up the chair by Carmel Aneil’s bed. She looks so terrible he can’t bear to look at her. He clasps his hands together, rubs at the lines in his palms with his thumb. ‘Every day,’ he says, ‘every minute, the arch gets closer to closing.’ He notices the dirt in his fingernails.‘It’s painstaking work.’ He clears his throat, speaks up a little. ‘The men are working twelve-hour shifts around the clock. They . . . ease the nuts on the cables, by hand.’ He nods to himself to affirm the information. ‘Just a three-quarter turn at a time. They’re doing it as we speak.’ He straightens in his chair. ‘Have you ever seen a hydraulic jack?’ He looks at her quickly. ‘I suppose not.’ Glances away. ‘They use them to take the strain . . . have to keep shifting them . . . it’s slow. But it’s happening. A matter of time . . .’
13–14 August 1930 The weather turns cruel, snow falls on Mrs Pessey’s Blue Mountains, violent winds brew, gusting in increasing speeds, rain smatters. At a quarter past 9 pm the full force of the storm front hits and the city is whipped, a tempest howls at seventy miles per hour through the cables holding up the bridge and the colossal unjoined halves of the Great Arch are swaying. In the crazy dark, Lawrence Ennis, who has gone down to check on his charge, has never heard anything so frightening. A banshee screams in the lurching steel and it seems every rivet must be loosened. The night nurse is due at ten though it’s so awful on the streets goodness knows when she’ll come. Mrs Pessey cranks her big buttocks 157
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onto the edge of Carmel Aneil’s bed near the pillows. She’s not going to bend low over her patient anymore today—her back’s killing her. What a night, it’s one for the devil; the wind moans round the corners of the terrace house, a cold draught stirs in the unlit fireplace and it’s a wonder that the roof stays put at all. She’s laid an extra blanket on Carmel Aneil’s bed and, feeling the chill herself, has borrowed a shawl from her patient’s chest of drawers. Though she is not a delicate person, Mrs Pessey lifts the semiconscious Carmel Aneil as gently as she can to put her head in her lap. She swabs out Carmel’s mouth with linen wrapped around the handle of a teaspoon and dipped in cold water, cleaning away the yellowed caked-on dryness of a mouth no longer capable of making enough spittle. Carmel Aneil’s breathing is laboured, her waxy eyelids flutter open then close again. For no particular reason Mrs Pessey thinks of her eldest, a tousle-headed kid, how he was born with a hot knot of anger in him and how he kicked and wriggled out of her arms the minute he could. At night she’d go to pull the covers warmer on him and he’d shoulder her hand away. He never bothered with school but roamed the streets all day and she didn’t know what he got up to but it wouldn’t be any good. When he came home, after dinner sometimes, she yelled at him, ‘This isn’t a bloody Circular Quay cafe to come to when you please! Get your own friggin’ food!’ Outside, in the wild dark, the gale blows. Mrs Pessey, with the warm, round, unmoving weight of Carmel’s head in her lap, holds her boy. When the day dawns the Harbour Bridge still stands, uncompromised. To the press, Lawrence Ennis concedes the sight of the storm was impressive but maintains there was never any cause for concern since 158
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measurements indicated barely three inches of movement occurred between the two arms. But what that sturdy man never tells is how, when he was going home, he was caught by a gust of wind and almost pushed over. It rattled him—more than he cared to admit—to think that he, of all people, could be so easily toppled.
19 August 1930 11 am. The gap between the arches is down to four and a half inches. Locking bolts are jacked home to prevent further distortion. 4.15 pm. The two halves of the bridge touch for the first time but separate again shortly afterwards as the day cools and the steel contracts. Work resumes loosening the cables. 10 pm. The arches come together again, this time for good. A central bearing pin is locked into place. The principals are telephoned and five men gather on top of the arch in the dark to bear witness. They are so overawed with the mightiness of it all that they cannot speak. The silence becomes embarrassing until finally Ennis manages to say, ‘Well, boys, that’s that and thank God she’s home.’ They shake hands and awkwardly disperse.
20 August 1930 Seven thirty in the morning and Mrs Pessey bursts through the rectory front door with the news, ‘She’s gorne. Carmel Aneil’s gorne.’ Ralph has emerged from his darkroom blinking; he’s already put in an hour’s work printing up shots of the link plates. He says, ‘I’ll 159
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just wash my hands,’ and she follows him, talking all the while, down the hall and out the back to the laundry. ‘I come in to relieve the night nurse and I called up the stairs hello like I always do—not that there ever was an answer—and I could tell straight off the house was soulless. To prove me right there she was lying in her bed dead-o.’ Ralph turns on the tap, reaches for the soap, pauses and says, ‘How did she . . . seem?’ ‘Seem?’ Mrs Pessey screws up her face, trying to guess Ralph’s meaning. ‘She seemed dead.’ ‘No . . . I mean, how does she look?’ and he gestures with the soap for more information. He’s worried for Carmel, going alone—and were they hard last moments? ‘Oh,’ says Mrs Pessey, getting it at last.‘She doesn’t look like nothing much—like normal.’ When Ralph arrives to see for himself, he finds Carmel Aneil turned towards the wall, her jaw slack, her open eyes dull. There is no fuss on her face. Indeed—and this makes Ralph feel slightly shocked—she almost looks bored. Against custom, he opens up the curtains to let the north sun fall on her a final time. He has never prayed aloud in this room but does so now. He uses a firm, clear voice and a matter-of-fact tone to try to match the everyday optimism of the sun. Psalm 23. And then, as a postscript, he adds a line he presumes he’ll be saying for her again in a few days’ time at her burial service: ‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us . . .’ The doctor arrives and scrawls out a death certificate; he has a hectic day of living patients ahead. Ralph must return to the rectory to telephone Carmel’s brother, but before he shuts the door on her he 160
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tells her one last thing. ‘Sometime today they’ll close the arch for sure. Did you know that, Carmel Aneil?’ Returning to the rectory, Ralph pauses on the verandah. It’s 8.40 am. The morning is clear and fine. He scans the broad view, the city, the flats and the houses, and wonders how many rooms out there are boxed and compressed by unutterable pain. And then he notices people hurrying. On the streets, people are heading down to the foreshore. Then there’s the noise—pots and pans banged and rubbish-bin lids bashed together to make any kind of impromptu music. A boy, cutting through the church grounds, brandishes a tin trumpet and yells out, ‘It’s joined. They’ve put up the flags.’ Flying from the creeper cranes is a Union Jack and the Australian ensign. The boy skips away. ‘Isn’t it grand!’ On the harbour a tugboat and a passenger ship blast their foghorns in celebration and when the long and hollow notes subside the people on the shore reply with cheers and tin-pot clanging on their homemade drums. Hooray.
24 August 1930 He would like to know the botanical name for the ornamental pine tree he’s staring at. It’s a spooky-looking thing, tightly twisting up out of a massive terracotta pot by the door of the Rookwood Crematorium chapel. Its sculptured shape, Ralph decides, looks artificial, especially when compared to a eucalypt, say, with its airy grace. This plant, he declares, is a gnome. 161
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Cremation is still an unfamiliar concept to most of Ralph’s parishioners and so he doesn’t officiate here on a regular basis. He finds the whole place rather distasteful. Though he usually embraces modernity, he does not embrace it here. He feels cheapened by the foreign architecture, as if he’s conducting a visit to the Californian home of a famous movie star, but the issue is further confused by knowledge of the incinerator out the back where the disposal of human bodies has become industrialised. It was Carmel Aneil’s brother who insisted on cremation. He pulls up now in a chauffeur-driven Packard; he’s six minutes late. ‘Sheddon, KC,’ he says, introducing himself to Ralph. He’s a bigfaced, big-boned man with wavy hair, worn long as an affectation. Sheddon shakes Ralph’s hand—‘Keep it short’—and off he strides into the chapel. In his hand, Ralph finds a silky roll of pound notes. The gathering inside is sadly small: Sheddon, and three other unknown gentlemen who get up to shake Sheddon’s hand. Ralph begins the service with an unscheduled extra psalm. Afterwards when Sheddon has gone and the few other mourners have drifted away, Ralph slips back into the chapel. He always feels his business is poorly done at cremations. He thinks he should be there at the furnace doors to watch the coffin go into the flames.There should be no unaccompanied last steps, with the witnessing left to strangers. The chapel is empty. They have already taken Carmel away. He sits in a back pew.The seat is cold, is probably always cold, this wood which never sees sunlight. That’s the other thing he dislikes about cremations: the setting is always the same, just with more or fewer flowers. It’s removed and artificial. There’s no heat or wind or rain to make the occasion part of the muddle of living.There’s no spume off the sea such as at Waverley Cemetery. There’s no rubbery lemon scent rising from the gum trees, as at Northern Suburbs. Nor grasshoppers clicking in the 162
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wild oats at the unkempt edges.There’s no sloping ground, graveside mud or dust, no unexpected discoveries between tombstones: the pokingout yellow flower of a self-seeded tomato plant, a left-behind jumper, the refracting red glass of a smashed vase. There is nothing so messy as ongoing life inside the crematorium’s chapel. In this room, there is only always the same unfaltering upward glow from the light fittings on the walls. Eternity would be upsetting if it resembled a place such as this. Ralph shuts his eyes—to pray, he thinks, but really to find a private minute to share with Carmel Aneil. But then the doors open and a man slides in. He’s slim, fifty-something, in a good but rucked-up suit. He seems not to register Ralph’s presence, has eyes only for the vacant space behind the lectern. He glances and leaves. There’s no doubting who this man is. Outside it’s quiet, no other funeral is scheduled to take place till after lunchtime. Ralph makes his way to his car and there’s the man, sitting on a low brick wall. He’s hunched over, elbows resting on knees wide apart, chin held and mouth closed tight by clasped hands. He is clearly distressed. Ralph hesitates by the car door. What one does now, right now, will be self-defining; Ralph feels it like barometric pressure. His instinct is to offer comfort, make some overture, but in the circumstances, he’s confused. What does the man want, need or deserve? And how can Ralph trust his own judgement to discern what is the right thing to do? And so he does nothing. He gets into the Dodge and starts the car, waits for the engine to warm—the usual full three minutes. He checks his rear-view mirror carefully and reverses, then drives, as quietly as he can, past Tom Aneil. He takes a slow route through the necropolis and the Dodge turns down the roads it knows best towards the Anglican section where Carmel Aneil could have been buried. Ralph pulls over and gets out 163
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of the car. From the high ground here a surprising thing can be seen, a way off, beyond the ordered fields of the dead. Seven miles as the crow flies and above the far tree line is the vein-blue tracery of the bridge. It seems even the departed have been watching the arch come together. Ralph thinks Carmel Aneil might have liked it here, in the aura of that distant crown. Behind him Ralph hears the sound of someone quietly at work, the dull tap of a soft mallet. A mason squats in front of an old white marble headstone, reapplying lead to the carved lettering. Ralph wanders over and the mason, sensing his presence, tilts up his rabbity face. ‘Some vandal picked it out,’ says the mason.And indeed the spoiling is arbitrary, a vowel missing, half a consonant here and there, and one whole word, beloved. The mason says, ‘You wouldn’t want to hang about here at night . . .’ and he pauses to push a thin liquorice strip of lead into the curve of the letter B. ‘Not for fear of ghosts, but for fear of the rancorous living.’ His fingers are black, and surprisingly nimble given the tight, hardened skin of them and a slight tremor. He beats the lead in with the mallet. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many poor sods camp out here at night, Reverend. Alright, no choice, but some of them have turned nasty. Just want to wreck whatever’s nice or important to others ’cos they got nothing.’ He takes up a fine chisel and trims away the excess lead, beats with the mallet and trims again. ‘This one’s alright,’ he says, referring to the headstone. ‘It’s perpetual care, but what if it wasn’t? Stay ruined forever.’ Elspeth Ogden 1871–1911 ‘What’s that you’re using?’ asks Ralph.The mason has pulled over a dipper and is dabbing a white-grey object into the water. ‘This?’ says the mason, holding it up and smiling as it drips onto his trousers. ‘It’s cuttlefish.’ He puts the chalky wedge of it to the finished letter and polishes, the smile still caught on his lips, as if he’s suddenly 164
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far away from the date palms and gardens of Rookwood and seeing the day and the beach where the cuttlefish washed up. He dips the now-blacked bone into the water and polishes again in small gentle circles. Beloved Wife of Charles Ogden 1869– Perpetual care was not to be for Carmel Aneil. Ralph sighs and turns back to the view of the far-off bridge. He feels scooped out and sad and this perplexes him; he’s sadder than the occasion should warrant. He doesn’t realise why. Behind him the mason polishes, in gentle circles the cuttlefish shishes. This is how people feel when they’ve lost a friend.
25 August 1930 The book has arrived! Boxes and boxes have come. A carnival atmosphere rules in the rectory and a stream of curious visitors pours in throughout the day. The children carouse through the house, stirred up by the hullabaloo. Sales are brisk and Ralph beams as he signs the title page. Stella is out-loud proud of him now his dream has materialised. She winds her way round the chaos of boxes stacked in the parlour to hand out cups of tea and when she remarks how much space they take up, Ralph laughs. ‘In a fortnight they’ll be gone!’
26 August 1930 Ralph loiters in the corridor outside Lawrence Ennis’s office waiting for him and Bradfield to come out of a meeting. The door opens and, with a flourish, he proffers to each a copy of his book. Ennis says, 165
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‘Well, well,’ while Bradfield gives a jerked nod. Ennis jokes he needs a creeper crane to lift it. Bradfield flicks unerringly to the last picture— the unjoined arch (taken in June). He shuts the book and mutters, ‘It’s already out of date.’
September 1930 Mrs Pessey is slamming around in the rectory kitchen and nobody quite knows what she’s doing there. For no apparent reason she has walked through the back door this morning and put down her bag and started washing up the breakfast things. Just at the minute she’s yelling out to anyone in the house who will listen, ‘Where do ya keep the sugar?’ and then, ‘Oh it’s orright, I got it.’ And then, ‘Whatcha keep it there for?’ Cupboard doors bang open and shut and she mutters, ‘Just what ya need when ya cookin’ a sponge—a friggin’ guessing game.’ Then loud again, ‘Do ya want me to clean out them cupboards later so ya know where things are?’ Stella retreats with alarm up the hall and into the parlour where Ralph’s having a cup of tea. He winces into the newspaper at Mrs Pessey’s distant hollering and says to Stella in an exaggerated whisper, ‘Don’t you think you’d better answer her? What’s she doing here?’ ‘That’s what I came to ask you,’ hisses Stella.‘She seems to be under the impression she’s got a job.You gave her a job, didn’t you?’ ‘What!’ The very thought is appalling to him. Mrs Pessey here, in their house, on a regular basis? ‘How could you hire her without even consulting me?’ ‘I did not,’ Ralph splutters. ‘I thought you must have. You’ve been saying you need more help.’ ‘And how do you think we can pay her—in shells? You have to get rid of her, she can’t possibly stay—she’s abominable.’ 166
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‘Of course she can’t stay, but you tell her.’ ‘Don’t be so spineless, you tell her.’ From the kitchen comes another call. ‘Have ya got any more eggs if I use up all o’ these?’ Ralph contemplates a life filled with these hallway screechings. ‘Very well,’ he concedes. ‘I will.’ ‘Right away. This instant,’ insists Stella. ‘Right away,’ Ralph agrees. 11 am. Stella is sitting on the toilet. She wishes she smoked. She’d fill this whole damp little tiled room with vile fug till her eyes stung. No one would dare to knock or dance outside with crossed legs hollering because those telltale fumes would leak out from under the door to warn them off. Though no one does knock, though no one is even home, she wants her family close so she can tell them to go away. She has never felt so claustrophobic in her own home. Downstairs a stranger rules her kitchen while her husband has run off to the bridge. It seems that an hour ago, when going out to set her straight, he somehow agreed to employ her three days a week at a generous rate. The awful fact of Mrs Pessey will not go away.
Working hours on the bridge have dropped from 44 hours per week to 35.2 to absorb more of the unemployed.
Dexter Pessey lines up in a work queue down at the wharves and sweats on not getting picked. He ought to be safe, he’s too runty, but his big brother-in-law is pushy and under orders to do whatever 167
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it takes to get them both a job. Though he chafes at the unfairness, Dexter’s in the doghouse for a deal gone wrong—a deal involving the household savings, a bribe, an abattoir, and a tender for a pig dehairing machine. He shakes his head at the thought of it.You can’t trust anyone these days. How was he supposed to know the other tenderers were also crooked?
9 September 1930 Today the top chords of the arch are joined and the bridge reposes in its final two-hinged state. Now the cables can be released and, with them out of the way, work can recommence on building up the pylons. The creeper cranes will knit up the hangers and the deck as they journey away from each other back down the curve of the arch, towards their own obsolescence.
Page 7 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Oct. 1st, 1930
Sales for Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge have been ticking over and at this rate the publication will be disposed of in a very short time, so may I urge you to avoid disappointment and secure a copy soon. Though I say so myself, it is without doubt a most handsome volume with blue cloth covers and gold lettering on the spine—in looks, a tome at home on the most learned shelves. We are currently filling rural and interstate orders for interested friends of the Sydney Bridge who live afar. Do you have a distant reader? Postage can be arranged for only a few pennies extra. This compendium of construction contains all the information everyone is dying to know about our first-class bridge, but it is dually designed to serve as a valued Christian guide. It is my humble hope that, with this work, I have made a small contribution to the nation’s literature.
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The back page picture (see over) on this month’s parish paper is an innovation I think we should keep up, don’t you? The building of the bridge now proceeds at such a cracking pace, we shall never properly appreciate the labour if the photographs in each issue only number one or two. Why, weren’t we all surprised late last month when the first massive hanger left the workshop and was in place by noon? In just a few days, several were strung, and now it is easy for the layman to see the intention of the engineers: how the deck or roadway will be laid on cross-girders attached to the hangers. People about the place are most relieved to see these developments and not a few have remarked, Thank goodness, we thought we had to cross the water by travelling over the arch and we dreaded the steep going!
_________________ Fond farewells have at last been said to the Dodge. I have before me the original bill of sale and see by the date the old dear has served us for four years, eight months and twelve days. During that time, how busy she’s been! By my calculation she has carried over 3,000 people! We give thanks for her reliable service, for remember, she was far from new when she came into our possession. We have traded her for a closed-in car, an Essex Six, and we do hope that vehicle will prove just as uncomplaining.
_________________ Without doubt our little parish is further shrinking and on current reckoning numbers a mere 1,000 souls while most parishes comprise four times the amount. We do not have so much trouble filling our pews on the big days of the church year, but our regular Sundays are increasingly marred by poor showings. A church service in front of a few people is depressing and only aggravates the situation; who would wish to keep coming, only to find themselves one of a subdued and meagre band? Come now! Buck up! Be regular! and we will all find ourselves reinvigorated!
__________________ Weddings. Sept. 5 – Arnold Tyne Henry and Iris Patricia Dandlebury. Sept. 12 – Rupert Barts and Myrna Bry.
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Baptisms. Aug. 30 – Edgar Roland Stropping Sept. 20 – Anne Farmer Cale Sept. 6 – Edward Norman North " – Margaret Lindsay " – Nanette Parkingson " – Leonard Martin Nightingale Burials. Aug. 24 Aug. 28 Sept. 7
– Carmel Jane Aneil, aged 51 years, at Rookwood Crematorium. – Margaret Gumm, aged 17 years, at Rookwood. – Bartholomew Timm-Johns Merryweather, aged 67 years, at Northern Suburbs. – James Jakes, aged 96 years, at Waverley.
Sept. 24
In Time of Bereavement. In your time of trouble, the first person to communicate with is the Minister. First of all, fix the hour with the Minister, then see other people afterwards.
_________________
MIGHT AND GLORY OF THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE
ON SALE NOW! _________________
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Page 8 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Oct. 1st, 1930
THE TWO CENTRAL HANGERS AND FIRST CROSS-GIRDER To view, turn the page on its side.
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21 October 1930 Mrs Pessey is bending over her stitching. She has dragged a kitchen chair to the back door for the slice of better light which spills through and for the breeze—she’s so friggin’ hot after the baking and running around getting the children’s afternoon tea she thinks she must be going through the change fifteen years early. But this is a job she’s been meaning to do for some time. She takes a little pair of scissors from the sewing basket she found in the utility room and sets to work unpicking stitches to lengthen the sleeves of a garment which is meant to be black but has aged green. It’s the jacket of one of Ralph’s suits.
Page 3 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Nov. 1st, 1930
MIGHT AND GLORY OF THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE Copies still available for sale at the Rectory— but do hurry to beat the Christmas rush! Don’t miss out as I cannot afford to reprint it.
1967 Mater Hospital At the counter of the hospital coffee shop, Marian’s hand hovers over the display box of Samboy chips. She’s hungry, having skipped lunch to get off work at the library early, here just in time before the end 172
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of afternoon visiting hours. No, something sweet. And then under a glass dome covering a plate of cakes and slices she sees a square of Raspberry Alice and she’s transported way back—to the rectory kitchen and Mrs Pessey offering some to Alice Cage: ‘Named after ya.’ Alice, taking a snooty tone: ‘I don’t like coconut.’ It was war between them after that. ‘Gimme some.’ Grace’s grimy hand reaching, she and Mrs Pessey always thick as thieves. Marian asks for two pieces. They’re warm in the paper bag, heated from the pendulum light blasting down over the counter. She was scared of Mrs Pessey, her loud voice, her alarming shape, and she took whatever she was given with a nervous nod of thanks. Colin, indifferent to Mrs Pessey, passed through her domain with friendly cheerios as if she was just some other church lady; he was always off somewhere, a football under one arm, or in uniform for Scouts. Mrs Pessey would stop to watch him go, perplexed, as if there was something about him she had to work out. Marian pays, detours around a parked stroller, and nearly trips down the couple of steps to pass through the seated area where the tables are busy: visitors, nurses on a break, here a dishevelled family group, there a table of gossips. A metal ashtray clatters to the parquetry floor. In her father’s room Marian sits in her customary chair; Ralph’s asleep. She nibbles at her piece of Raspberry Alice. The other one’s meant for her father though she knows he really can’t eat it. Dumb of her, but . . . so. Coconut crumbs drop. Ralph stirs, wakes to see his grown-up daughter pensive. Licking her fingers. Jam.
A sticky cake for Lennie and an apple for Ginger Mick. The town of Bairnsdale really knows how to turn it on. First there’s the mayor 173
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standing by a parked car on the edge of town, waiting for Lennie to arrive. He’s dressed in his official robes and shakes Lennie’s hand. ‘We heard about you being on the road, son. Welcome.’ ‘Yairs.’The mayor’s (young) wife also offers her hand. She isn’t one to come up with original comments of her own and to be honest is cheesed off with waiting.Then there’s the escort into town past the rotunda, where a band begins to play, thence up Bailey Street to the council chambers next to the courthouse, which Lennie at first takes to be a royal court and not a court of law, so fanciful is the building with its towers and turrets. Is there a princess inside, waiting and waiting? Outdoors, in front of the shire offices where the reception is held, women keep passing Lennie cakes and Lennie keeps taking them, since it’s easier than knowing what to say to all the adults whose shiny faces burble, ‘Marvellous’, ‘Plucky,’ ‘What this country’s all about’. Lennie wonders when Ginger Mick and he can politely get away. If it’s not soon, and he eats more cream sponge (which has been a long time in the sun), he might have to spew. A lady all dimples and curls bends to him, says, ‘What’s your favourite meal? I’ll send a message ahead to my daughter-in-law at Lakes Entrance.’ The editor of the local paper spins him away from the lady, feints a playful right hook. ‘Give my regards to the bridge, sonny.’ If he ever gets out of Bairnsdale alive, Lennie Gwideer is coming.
13 December 1930 Mrs Pessey yells out from the rectory laundry, ‘Have ya got any more bleach for these shirts? The armpits are stained. And they pong.’ Stella, away up the hall in the parlour, has no trouble hearing her but does not reply. She grits her teeth, upturns the can of Silvo onto her cloth and polishes vigorously. Lined up in a neat row on the table 174
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are fifteen gleaming cake forks ready for this morning’s meeting of the Bible Society. Stella has prettied up the table with an arrangement of flowers picked from the garden to distract from the ugly edges of the room, still lined with boxes of Ralph’s books. She’s just about had enough of her home being used as a warehouse and shudders to remember the oranges. It’s time Ralph was motivated. And then she conceives of an evil plan. When he comes home she’ll say in her sweetest, grimmest, payback voice, ‘You need some help, dear. How about I call Mrs Pessey in to do something with all those books?’
14 December 1930 Ralph is carrying a suitcase up the road and it’s a burden. His right shoulder is stretched, his fingers are sweaty around the leather handle, he lopes then limps, his hip feeling the pinch at the pivot point of his load. He has overestimated his strength and underestimated the number of words, the weight of too many of them, the distance to go. To the surprise of the regular ladies, Ralph has volunteered to help collect subscriptions to the parish paper, seizing on the door-to-door opportunity as a means to also increase sales of his book.After the initial flurry, the market for Might and Glory appears to have slumped—a possibility never previously considered by Ralph. Stella, however, is doing all she can to encourage him in his trade with dark mutterings on the twin topics of silverfish and divorce. At this point in time, Ralph is not overly concerned, but nevertheless the first volume must be moved to finance the second. When Ralph finds himself in Euroka Street the truth dawns on him: hoping to show their endlessly cheerful rector up, and unaware of his extra sales plan, the subscription ladies have hoodwinked him into canvassing the poorest territory and have kept the best for themselves. 175
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Though he’s managed to renew a few subscriptions and hectored several folks into new ones, so far he’s only sold one copy of Might and Glory. Though one is better than none, it’s likely not worth the risk to his skeleton carrying all these books. He puts his suitcase down to open the front gate of a weatherboard cottage.Watching him from across the road is Eddie Stoop. Eddie is sitting in the sun on a kitchen chair on the front porch of his parents’ house. All of him pours onto and over the little seat. His mother, Betty Stoop, comes out of the house with the last part of her big son’s lunch, a bowl of mashed banana. She shades her eyes, noticing Reverend Cage on the opposite side of the street. Eddie crashes his spoon into his teeth as he eats. Betty says to him, ‘The floor’s almost dry, you can come in soon.’ And then Bob Stoop comes out of the house. ‘I’m off now, love.’ Eddie stands up. A big cuckoo in Bob and Betty’s nest, he towers over them. His father pats him on the arm. ‘You stop behind now, Eddie.’ Bob has a carting business and some days, when Eddie is well, he rides around in the cab of Bob’s truck, which has Stoop & Sons emblazoned on the side panels. Bob had a signwriter paint it in fancy letters on the first truck he owned during those flush, optimistic days when his son was young, and though he now carts around his own mockery, his good heart seems oblivious to it. Eddie stays in the truck while Bob collects deliveries or unloads, and when they motor around Eddie points at things through the big front window—maybe two dogs mating (and Bob can’t help but laugh) or men on a street corner red in the face and gesticulating as an argument passes between them back and forth. But it’s too much for Eddie to ride in the truck all day; the big window seems to exhaust him and often he’ll end up with a sniffle which will likely turn worse and then he’ll have to stay home with Betty for days. That he’s often sick is not surprising, says the 176
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doctor, as his insides are bound to be cobbled together in ways beyond speculation. When it comes to treating Eddie he’s inclined towards quick consultations, as he privately reckons there’s no long-term gain in keeping the unfortunate young man in best health. After all, Bob and Betty Stoop are already in their late fifties, and who will look after Eddie when they’re old? When his father tells him to stay put Eddie is crestfallen. His shoulders and arms go limp and Betty takes the banana plate from him before it drops. There’s another reason it’s better this way. With the downturn Bob’s lost a lot of his regular jobs and it never goes well when he turns up in strangers’ yards looking for work with Eddie in the truck.A couple of the old blokes used to be real nice to Eddie but in these hard times people are on their guard and only look out for themselves. To appease his son, Bob Stoop reaches into his pocket and brings out a little painted toy horse. He waves it in front of Eddie’s face but Eddie’s attention is already captured by something else. Walking along the warm concrete in front of him is a centipede or a millipede— who can tell which? Certainly not Eddie, who cannot count or read. His parents don’t worry about him touching such things—he never touches, just looks. He shifts his chair along a couple of inches to follow the centipede. Bob pockets the toy for another time and then he hears Ralph calling from across the street, ‘Have you got one of these?’ He’s holding up his book. ‘Pardon, Rector?’ ‘My book.’ He crosses the road. ‘Recommend it for a Christmas gift.’ Ralph lifts his homburg towards Betty then chirps, ‘Hello, Eddie.’ Eddie’s still glued to the centipede. Betty nervously pushes her hair into better shape. She never knows quite how to take the rector—he’s such an exuberant chap. She feels shabby-looking and impolite, greeting him in her cleaning clothes, 177
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and immediately takes off her apron. ‘Say hello to the rector, Eddie,’ she says, but Eddie doesn’t look up. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ says Ralph with a hearty wave of his hand, and that’s the end of his obligation to Eddie. ‘Have a look at this,’ he says, thrusting the book towards the Stoops. ‘I think anyone would be pleased to have one.’ He puts down his suitcase. Despite her discomfort, Betty asks him inside, would he like tea? ‘Goodness no!’ he replies. ‘I’m up to here with the stuff,’ indicating a flood level well over his head. ‘Drowning by beverage—professional hazard—plays gyp with the system.’ He pushes his book into Betty’s hands. ‘Open it at random,’ he commands.‘There’s interest on every page. Facts nowhere else recorded are set down here for everyone to enjoy. And this is only the first volume—you must hurry and get this read before the bridge is finished and the second one comes out to complete the story! I did consider holding off publication, of course I did, I hummed and hawed, I struck the thinker’s pose: should I wait till the bridge is done and present it in one tome? Blow it! No! The thirst for knowledge must be slaked! Besides which, there was a practical consideration. As a single volume the book would have been so big that, as Mr Ennis himself jested, the reader would need a winch and sling just to lift it. This one already runs to five hundred and eighteen pages.Tremendous value. Of course editing was suggested, but that would’ve been criminal!’ Betty Stoop politely flicks through the book but then she pauses, almost imperceptibly, her puzzled attention caught by a photograph. Before she can flick past it, Ralph’s finger stabs onto the black and white plate. ‘See, just as I said, interest on every page!’ The photograph depicts a big square metal plate with holes in it and with cables coming out of half the holes. Lord knows what it is. The opposite page carries a set of seemingly hand-drawn numbers in sizes ranging 178
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from small to alarming and in ink that is shockingly bold. Ralph smiles at the photograph. ‘That’s a lovely one of the cable saddle. And there, you see,’ he says, tapping his finger on the list of numbers, ‘I’ve reproduced one of the identity tags attached to each of the cables. The numbers are a kind of code for the engineers. Everything’s explained on page two hundred and seventy-four.’ Betty passes the book to her husband. Ralph continues, ‘Not to forget the religious content. As you know from listening to my sermons, the construction of the bridge can be favourably compared to any number of religious topics. There’s the Lesson of the Abutment Tower, the Lesson of the Pillars, one on God the Engineer—well that goes into the whole Noah’s Ark business, three hundred cubits by fifty by thirty, a window, a door, three storeys, gopher wood. An ark to keep Noah’s family and the future of the world safe above the waters, a bridge to keep the people of Sydney safe above the waters too.’ Bob Stoop weighs the book in his hands. ‘I’m sure it’s very good.’ ‘It is.’ Bob doesn’t want to hurt the man’s feelings, but even if he wanted the book it’s a purchase he can ill afford. Ralph says, pushing the edge of his long fringe off his face the better to give Bob a sympathetic look, ‘Given the current economic situation I’m offering some people terms.’ Bob nods slowly. ‘Good, I’ll put you down.’ Ralph takes out his notebook. ‘Oh and the subscription for the parish paper’s due—I’ll need that now.’ All this time Eddie has been working his chair up the porch incrementally towards the cluster of Bob and Betty and Ralph, following the progress of the centipede. Again he lifts the chair, keeping his bum on it, shuffles sideways, plonks it down, stares.The glossy black arthropod trills all its many legs and stomps on. Again Eddie shifts, oblivious to 179
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almost banging up against his mother. Bob and Ralph are exchanging money, Ralph steps, Eddie squeals, Ralph dances, looks wildly around to see what’s wrong, Eddie flails his arms, bashes Ralph’s legs, Ralph— confused—skips away. On the centipede plods. Its path is cleared. Ralph, staring at it, proclaims, ‘“And God gave man dominion over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” What a relief I didn’t use my dominion to kill it! Eddie, if you’re interested in creeping things, ask your father to read you the chapter about the creeper cranes.Though it’s immodest of me to say so, it’s really rather good. “Tireless Workers” is the heading. It starts on page three hundred and eighty-one.’ Eddie looks at Ralph, nonplussed. By the time Ralph goes and Bob Stoop climbs into his truck, Bob is more worried than ever about the need to find additional work. Ralph waves heartily when Bob passes him further down the street and mouths something which Bob can’t catch. And then Ralph makes a signal with two fingers prodding the air. Bob is shocked. Ralph cups his hand to his mouth to yell out again to the disappearing truck, ‘I’ll be back before you know it with the second volume!’ At the Stoops’ house everything is clean and scrubbed and it’s time for Eddie to go back inside. Eddie takes elaborate care with the chair, and motions to his mother where to stand so they don’t step on the centipede as they negotiate the tricky business of getting the chair through the open door and then down the hall without any of the chair legs scratching the walls.
1967 Mater Hospital How beautiful the bridge was when it still bristled with workers but its shape was fully realised. It seemed a living thing, burly and buzzing, 180
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and with all Ralph’s own vital force coiled up inside. Those were his prime days, when he had strength and purpose and he savoured every moment spent at the works. ‘Hello, Padre,’ this one called and that. ‘Bring your camera this afternoon when we lift the next hanger,’‘Hello Padre,’ ‘Good day, sir.’ Their voices sing out, fill the hospital room, but though he tries, he cannot even raise his feeble old hand to return a wave. But oh, how he was in high spirits then, alert and alive.
At Lakes Entrance he is tied safe on the end of a thick rope, held by a fisherman standing in dry sea boots high up the beach. He screeches like a seagull, flaps his skinny white arms, whoops, high-kicks in the cold knee-high surf, a thin pair of underpants loose on his bony hips. His first touch of the ocean, his first try at swimming, his first dousing in surf. In the fizz of the wash the whole weight of his journey is gone for a minute. He’s a boy swimming, shrieking with pink-lunged delight. He is Lennie Gwideer.
31 December 1930 During the year, 144,596 motor vehicles have been registered in Australia. The bridge’s capacity will be six thousand cars per hour. Thus, in a twenty-four-hour period, every car in the country could cross over the bridge.
19 January 1931 Ralph is with them in the cage. He has travelled over in the launch with the men through the fog from the northern side and together they 181
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disembarked onto the barge, an iron island in the gloom, surrounded by rubbery sea. Low voices, muted engine noise, foghorns. The city and all its million people are out there somewhere, going slow, as if roped. In the cage they do not talk. It’s important to observe the world transformed and their own shape in it. For a while they can be different men. The barge reduces below their feet then disappears. Twelve men in a cage going up. Reeled in by the invisible creeper crane above. They reach deck level and the men get out to begin work, look up to where the chords should be. The hangers taper into damp cloud, solemn. Ralph stays in the cage and the cage ascends, slow and creaking, towards the crown of the bridge. And then, suddenly, the cage pierces the fog layer into blue sky and brilliant sunshine. A woolly mat stretches as far as the eye can see. Ralph feels like he’s wading in it, just the very tip of the arch is proud out of the cloud and Ralph thinks this is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He wishes Carmel Aneil could be here, to see this bed of God’s.
2 February 1931 There is a young woman eating her lunch on the top chord of the bridge. She sits with her sandwich in her lap and with her legs swinging over the girder. She is humming a little tune to herself—now isn’t that the strangest thing, humming while you’re eating? And she’s absolutely absorbed, looking down into the milky green-bottle water, as if anytime soon something might be seen beneath the surface. She rips the crusts of her bread into pieces and pops them into her mouth, chews seriously, and so her sandwich takes a long time to eat. It takes a whole song and maybe a bit more. 182
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Ralph is looking at her. It’s not something he ever expected to see up here, a white and pink and grey checked dress; it’s not something he ever expected to hear up here, a female voice, humming. Maybe she’s escaped from somewhere. Almost before his shadow arrives beside her, she senses him approaching and turns, shades her eyes so she can see him. He’s a tall shape with the sun behind. He says, ‘Look, you shouldn’t be here. Are you sure you’re safe?’ Thus making a muddle of the question. Is she in danger, or is she dangerous? She shifts to place him in the glare, doesn’t answer straightaway, and then, ‘Oh, I know who you are, you’re the photographer.’ And because it’s only him and too much trouble twisting and looking up into the sun she unwraps another sandwich. ‘Have you ever seen anything down there?’ she asks, gesturing at the water. ‘Like maybe sharks? Some of the men say they’ve seen sharks.’ Ralph shakes his head, he’s never seen anything, though now he thinks about it he doesn’t suppose he’s ever properly looked. He says instead, ‘The water’s very . . . green.’ She says, ‘I saw a dead man once with eyes that colour. It was a winter’s morning, outside the Taverner’s pub. He was lying in the gutter, half curled up, like a runover cat.’ She picks at her sandwich. ‘You know what he was staring at with his wide open eyes? A telegraph pole.’ Then she says, ‘Hey, will you take my picture?’ Curiously, Ralph agrees, even though he doesn’t do portraits. His work is more important than that—it’s functional; the people in his bridge pictures are there to demonstrate a process or show scale (and sometimes they just can’t be gotten out of the way). He has even been known to say of the people in some of his pictures, ‘Just ignore them.’ Nothing would be learned of the bridge if he spent all day taking faces. 183
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This particular person, then, is an accident and an inconvenience and she’s caught him off guard—just by being a woman eating a sandwich high up on the bridge. He reluctantly sets up his tripod. To make conversation he says, ‘So you like the view?’ ‘No,’ she says. ‘I like looking down.’ She says, ‘When the ships pass under they go flat. It’s not the same, but it’s a bit like looking out the window of a train when the track runs past miles and miles of people’s backyards.You get a chance to see a lot of what you never see—you’re looking over people’s fences, and you’re allowed.’ Ralph hasn’t got a clue what she’s talking about. She says, ‘Can you hurry up?’ This makes him irritable and indecisive with his aperture. For revenge he could shut it down and turn her face black or he could open it up and burn out her dress; one way she’s a stain, the other she’s a phantom. With light and chemicals he could turn her into anything. She calls out, ‘If it’s too much trouble, don’t worry.’ Ralph pulls his head out from behind the camera; he’s angry and flustered. ‘What are you doing up here anyway?’ In the viewfinder, he notices for the first time that the girl has different coloured eyes, one palest blue and one brown.The blue one’s almost clear, like gin. He’s uncomfortable. He’s too close to his subject, that’s the problem. He wraps his arms around the tripod legs and hugs them to his chest and moves the heavy plate camera holus bolus, retreating to a new position. She says her brother works in the template shop down at the workshops, which explains nothing, since he’s nowhere to be seen. Her name is Ann Patchett. She has a flat in Kirribilli—there, just there—and when she stands in the corner of her balcony she can see the bridge rearing between buildings, and at sunset, its striking silhouette. Ralph works with surer hands in his new set-up.The shot is wider, 184
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shows more of the Ann Patchett situation, how she’s sitting among a mess of cables and tackle; it shows the grade of the arch, which is studded foreground and background with rivets; it shows enough for any viewer to know that what lies beneath Ann Patchett’s dangling feet is a drop which is fatal; it shows, behind her, the spread of the city, though in the printed photo this will look washed out, a suggestion— not a real city, but the sort of city painted on a theatrical curtain. Ann Patchett says, ‘Tell me when you’re ready.’ He says, ‘Oh well, I guess I’m ready.’ ‘Hey, wait a minute—’ and she fishes out an uneaten half of sandwich, cut on the diagonal, and she holds it out to the camera and calls to Ralph, ‘Okay.’ He remonstrates with her—what’s going on, what’s she doing, what’s with the lunch, put it down—but she shakes her head and refuses to answer, maintains her pose and sets her face the way she wants it to be taken: she’s hatless, has one of her thick eyebrows slightly raised, she looks frankly at the camera. She’s not smiling but she’s unmistakeably, unshakably confident, take her or leave her, she doesn’t care which: her sandwich is a statement not an invitation. ‘Go on,’ she yells to Ralph, trying, like a ventriloquist, not to move her lips.‘Take the picture.’ And when he finally does depress the shutter he feels an instant prickling at the back of his neck. The picture which he takes this day is always going to peeve him. It will peeve him from the moment Ann Patchett’s face swims up to him in the bath of developer until his doddering old age, for it’s the only one of his thousands and thousands of images which will ever appear in print that’s not self-published. In books and newspaper articles about the bridge, at every big anniversary of its construction and at bridge exhibitions, forever Ann Patchett. Woman with Sandwich on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931. His real pictures will be thought of 185
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as technically competent but boring, and anyway, photographers from the Department of Public Works have recorded all that, the engineering and its progress, and done it better—of course they’ve done it better; they handle the light with more authority and this gives their pictures a professional edge which Ralph’s are lacking. Their work defines and relegates the work of the amateur. As for a sense of aesthetic, Ralph has never been capable of making the industrial transcend, except this once, unwittingly. Woman with Sandwich will somehow capture the greater imagination and he’ll never know why. He’ll always feel this picture has nothing to do with him or his bridge; its fame will make him feel trivialised. What is it then about this one portrait which will make Ann Patchett into an icon? Sure, she’s attractive, whereas the engineers were not—just look at Bradfield, who could have been the model for the Magic Pudding. But attractiveness is not what matters, what gives the picture life.What matters is that Ann Patchett is no one important. Which is not to say she’s no one special. She has that clear-faced look that nobodies in archival photographs sometimes have of being absolutely grounded in their own times, but who also seem to possess the uncanny ability to see out of the photo to future generations. They are unflinching. And their candid gaze affirms the value of the ordinariness of all people as something steadfast and noble. And so Ann Patchett will come to stand for an era, for a place and a nation at a particular point in time, when in fact she stands for nothing beyond her own good and solid self. She’s Ann Patchett. A woman who likes to eat her lunch high above sea level. She calls out to Ralph now, ‘Do you think you’ve done a good one?’ and relaxes her pose. ‘Yes, of course I have,’ he says huffily, when he’s not sure at all and even hopes he hasn’t. 186
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‘Do you want me to take one of you?’ The idea makes him gasp and splutter. It’s not just the thought of her touching his camera which bothers him, but the thought of her trapping him inside it as an image. In a sudden flash he knows how he would look—like a badly stuffed scarecrow in a field sown with rivets. He looks over the edge to the dented surface of the water. How can it be textured but at the same time flat and impenetrable? ‘I could do it, you know.’ She gets up, stowing her sandwich in her dilly bag, and picks her way nimbly towards him. ‘I’m an artist. Well, I was, before I was chucked out of art school.’ Ralph shivers and pretends the breeze is strengthening. ‘Or I could at least help you pack up.’ ‘I’m not packing up,’ he snaps. ‘I’ve got more work to do. I didn’t come up here expressly to take a photograph of you.’ She shrugs her shoulders. He holds himself up straighter. ‘I’m a clergyman,’ he says. ‘You don’t say,’ and she points to his clerical collar. ‘But what’s that got to do with any of this?’ and with the broad sweep of her hand indicates his camera and the bridge and all, somehow even managing to include the sky. He wants to say with a tired sigh, ‘Everything.’ But instead he says, ‘A clergyman is also a teacher.’ The wide movement of her hand has depressed him. The omnipresence of God can be overwhelming. Ann Patchett says, ‘I’ll find you and get the photograph. When do you think it will be ready?’ Ralph can’t think now why he came here today, what it was he was going to photograph. He rouses himself and says hurriedly, ‘No, it’s alright, I’ll take it to the template shop and ask for your brother.’ 187
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He turns back to fiddle with his camera and the siren sounds to signal the end of the men’s lunch. It’s a deafening wail. It’s the siren salvaged from the HMAS Sydney. Not made for mundane timekeeping, but for dire warnings. When Ralph lifts his head, Ann Patchett is no longer there—in his face—overcasual, overfamiliar, unmannered, unschooled, unaware of the respect he’s due. Why, she seemed to have no proper understanding of his position at all! She’s walking away. Down the curve of the arch, the breeze tugs at the skirt of her dress. She didn’t even bother to say thank you or goodbye. Ralph watches her. She swings her arms and disappears into the wall of noise sent up by the siren.
12 February 1931 The work in the template shop has all but wound down and only a few staff remain. The supervisor, Merv Lockhardt, gives Ralph a terse greeting. He should be more relaxed these days since he has largely and successfully discharged his exacting duties, but instead he feels increasingly tense. He misses the industrious rustle of the shop and this new quiet, of tidying up and finishing off, gets on his nerves. Though he never would have dreamed of doing so before, at lunchtime he retreats to his office cubicle and furtively practises his sketching: men’s hats on stands, babies’ layettes, sporting goods. When the time comes, he thinks, his best bet will be to look for a job in advertising. He points Ralph back down the loft to a pair of young draughtsmen and indicates the taller of the two. They have begun marking guides for one of the last pieces of deck steel and even from a distance it’s obvious they’re joking around, but the supervisor appears not to notice and turns tail. Reflected harbour light floods through the entrance to the shop where sliding doors have been pushed back as far they can go, and as 188
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Ralph approaches, the two draughtsmen appear younger and younger in that watery glow. They are certainly friends, there’s an ease between them, health and carelessness radiate from them and, despite himself, Ralph cannot think badly of them for their lack of diligence—or for the fact that one of them is Ann Patchett’s brother. It even pleases him to picture Colin in ten years’ time in the company of fellows such as these, and on the back of that thought he feels so warmly towards them, feels for a second he might even be like them himself, feels part of their bonhomie, that he calls out, ‘Hullo.’ His salutation booms and they immediately freeze. Seen from their point of view he’s a mad, lone figure emerging from the gloom of the cavernous shop; he’s wearing a black suit and a sat-on hat, and, what’s more, he’s caught them slacking off. His authority is unidentified so deference can’t be judged—the wrong word in the wrong ear could see them sooner out of a job.They retreat into postures of conservatism and before Ralph’s eyes their youthful ease evaporates. Ralph introduces himself and yes, though he’s never been a regular visitor up here, now they can place him. He tries to get them talking about their technical methods and calculations but their replies remain stilted, as if they don’t completely trust his interest. And so there’s no point dallying. Ralph recalls his business and the kernel of hostility which accompanied him as he left the rectory. He holds that kernel in his hands. It’s a stringbound parcel, which he gives to Bill Patchett saying, ‘For your sister.’ He doesn’t bother to explain; instinctively he knows he’d reexperience the petty irritation felt when Ann Patchett’s plate developed, and her face—and her stupid sandwich—swam up to him. And how, when he printed it on paper he knew it was good—but only good by her direction—and he hated her for it. Bill Patchett doesn’t understand Ralph’s change of mood when Ralph says curtly, ‘The plate’s in there, too.’ How can Bill Patchett 189
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possibly guess his little sister is way too big a presence for the reverend’s modest home. Ralph takes himself off through the bright light of the wide open doorway and down the steep steel stairs.
1967 Mater Hospital Oh to be young, with a body which doesn’t ache. Oh to be out of bed and up and walking around. Young and walking around. Arise, Ralph! He jerks his head from the pillow. Arise! But back he falls in a red blood-pressured-faint immediately. Red red He’s back in the red town. Kalgoorlie. All those years ago he left it and now he’s there again. Back at his scratched desk at the assay office, bored in the hot afternoon, no one’s come in except a couple of flies and one of them has drowned itself in the inkwell. He watches his twenty-three-year-old self using an old pen nib to dig deeper at initials carved into the side of the desk: R.A.C. Yes, that’s his name: Ralph Anderson Cage, mustn’t forget it. Don’t get confused by the monograms of all the other young assay clerks who have left their marks before him. And then it’s after work and he’s wandering to the edge of town and a vacant lot where men are struggling to erect a huge tent of justunpacked whiteness. The men are unfamiliar with its ropes and stays, canvas walls tilt upright then sag and sway, they curse and dogs cavort 190
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and boots and paws and wagging tails kick up powder-blooms of dust until the white tent is speckled orange. And now he’s sitting on a hard bench inside the tent and a voice breaks like iced water all over him and he shivers, alive for the first time in ages.The man up the front doing all the talking is six foot three and barrel-chested, with hands big enough to strangle wolves. His voice booms and his words stretch and twang with a ripe American accent: he’s Wes Millershine and he’s preaching the gospel according to the New Jerusalem Charismatic Church, Travelling Mission Division. ‘What’s wrong with the old Jerusalem?’ someone shouts. It’s a mixed audience. In this town a tent means the return of the Jerillo Brothers Juggling Team and Vaudeville Troupe, or it means a boxing show or a place for refreshments at the camel races (or at the foot races, or at the cycle races, or at the horse races), so it’s not surprising that a few Joe Blows have parked their bums on seats unawares. This is fine by Millershine, who loves the strong-man challenge of making the river turn. He puts a hand up to his prematurely grey hair, which contains all the complicated silvers of an animal’s pelt, and pauses dramatically— is he listening or thinking, or is he perhaps in pain?—and then he launches out on a new line of attack. ‘BE BOLD!’ he exhorts the gathering. ‘Talk out loud to God—don’t mumble and shrink and talk behind your hands. My dadda used to say to me, “Stand up straight when you speak and look me in the eye.” Now I say to you—tell God like he’s your dadda, tell God in no uncertain terms what you want!’ A rough-head woman calls out, ‘A new hat,’ and some people are shocked while others laugh. Millershine dances across the stage. ‘No, that’s alright. She wants a new hat. You, what do you want?’ And he points to a skinny woman with a black eye. 191
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‘I want my husband back,’ she cries. ‘Say it louder! Everyone now—together—say out in a loud, clear voice, say to God what you want.’ The congregation murmurs. ‘Louder!’ shouts Millershine. ‘This is an out-loud prayer. What do you want?’ Now everyone is speaking. A babble of shouts and calls. ‘What do you want?’ Ralph doesn’t know. He does know. But he’s too embarrassed to say it with an interior voice let alone out loud. He wants love. Millershine yells, ‘God helps those who help themselves. If you know what you want, pray, and try with all your might, and God will help you get it.’ Ralph wants someone to love him though it hasn’t yet occurred to him that this could be a reciprocal arrangement. Actually, Ralph wants rather a lot. He wants to be noticed. And he wants a destiny. A week on and the canvas of the New Jerusalem tent hangs limp between poles. At corners, rusty stains of dust and dogs’ piss grow. Near the entrance, the ground is trodden hard where the many come and go. Millershine preaches: ‘I was once a rich man who did business in frozen chickens. But one day when a cargo went sour and I was in danger of losing a million (dollars, not fowls), I saw the Lord.Yes, I did. As I sat in that freight car in the railway siding of a one-horse town, and outside yellow-eyed coyotes yowled my ruin, the Lord spoke to 192
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me. He said the way forward was the Resurrection, not refrigeration. He said I should spread the message. He reminded me, What does it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? ‘Now when the Lord God is good enough to speak to you, you’d better listen.’ Millershine wriggles his shoulders as if the memory of that remarkable encounter amid stinking chickens still gives him the shivers. ‘“What,” I began to ask myself, “are my long-term goals?” When I’m old will I be proud to stand back and say I spent my life preserving produce? No, I thought, I want a job preserving souls. I WANT A JOB WITH ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES.’ Millershine beats out the sentence, slapping the back of one hand into the open palm of the other.‘Helping people meet with the sweet solace of Jesus, leading folks to the grandeur of God, Creator of All Worlds—SAVING SOULS— that’s some job—that is a job with eternal consequences!’ Every person in the tent leans forward on their narrow benches, rapt, thrilling to a charged presence in the air under the big top. Millershine utters in a desperate whisper, ‘I will lead the way to God,’ and then he draws himself up to his full height and bellows, ‘WHO HERE WILL FOLLOW?’ In a tumble, people step up onto the rostrum to sign a ledger pledging themselves to God. An old geezer pauses before making his mark and says to Millershine, ‘I’ve got the miner’s complaint, will he do up me lungs?’ Millershine nods. Meanwhile an emaciated woman stands at the foot of the stage, staggering under the weight of a piano accordion. She squeezes out a hymn while a man passes around a sweat-stained bowler hat. In no time it brims with change, with the odd pound note, with a pocket watch, with an IOU, with a wedding ring, with a small chunk of gold-bearing rock. A child follows, handing out cards. Printed on one side is a picture of Jesus with his arms out 193
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wide and with a big rayed sun rising behind, on the other side is the Chicago address of the New Jerusalem Church along with a plea for subscriptions. Ralph doesn’t go forward but he does empty his pockets and the glow of the little card he gets in return makes him feel filled. In his louvred verandah bedroom at Mrs Donahue’s Boarding House Rooms To Let All Welcome, he can’t sleep and it’s not just the heat—something has stirred in him. The next day, outside the Palace Hotel, he comes across an old Egyptian man sweeping the footpath. The man pauses at his work to smile beatifically, saying to Ralph in careful English, ‘The day is good. God is great.’ Ralph follows his glance to the sky above, which is indeed of richest blue and glorious. For the old man it’s a proof: he closes his eyes and nods, a small but reverent bow. His deep satisfaction, everything in the universe the way it should be, both good and bad. Ralph is all day distracted by the tolling of the old man’s words. Their completeness. Their grand simplicity. God is great. In the desert Ralph walks and looks up to the sky but the sky is only sky. And then, on hands and knees as if to pray to Allah, he slides forward, gently putting his ear to the red dirt. It might be possible to hear past the scratched footsteps of ants down into the earth below, past different strata and densities, to reefs of crackling gold, and down still further, to the bass rumble of the planet’s core. In a mining town, this might be the home of God. Not high up in the firmament, but at the very, very centre of the earth. He listens hard. But he can’t hear anything, only feels the powdery kiss of bulldust on his ear. Striding back to town he periodically checks the sky but nothing’s changed, it’s all too big and simple for him to believe. He needs 194
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something more complicated, something held up with proper rules, but when he gets to his destination Wes Millershine’s New Jerusalem tent is packed up and gone, on the train he’s told, bound for Leonora. There’s no ledger to sign. Ralph keeps walking; he’s determined. To the main streets of town he hurries, his heart races. Though he hardly knows his own intentions, action feels manly and good—today’s the day. He walks into the first church he sees and asks to be received. It’s Church of England. Long live the King. A middle-aged minister greets the earnest young man who still sports a dusty red ear. At the boarding house, Mrs Donahue says when she learns of his plans, ‘Oh ’tis a shame you didn’t go over to the Catholics, they’re the best. Were you p’rhaps a bit rash?’ Comparing architecture, Ralph is later inclined to agree. But there’s no going back. Ralph, in hospital, remembers this. The red town and how he came to be. And, yet, he remembers something else. How, years later when he was alone in a cooling dusk and high up on the arch of the bridge he set his cheek against the steel and just for an instant, inside it, he thought he heard (did he really hear?) the roar of the forge. 195
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Coroner’s report no. 624 John ‘Felix’ Alexander Faulkner, 40, rigger, born in Westmount, Canada. Died as a result of leg injuries received while acting as a dogman on deck level during the dismantling of the creeper crane. Faulkner was struck by a steel plate which severed his femoral artery. He was taken by stretcher to the southern lift, but when the stretcher would not fit inside was craned down by the creeper then transshipped to the Dawes Point steam crane to complete the descent. Pronounced dead at Sydney Hospital, 30th March, 1931. No cash on him.
1967 Mater Hospital Marian’s there in the chair beside his bed. She’s reading a book, he doesn’t know what. She is so wholly engrossed her brow is creased in a frown of concentration, and he remembers the look. She is nine years old, standing in front of a spider’s web. She’s talking to the spider, not scolding, but in a firm, matter-of-fact tone. ‘That’s cruel,’ she says. She reaches into its web (wrecking it) and plucks out an insect spun up in a swag of silk, still alive but almost beyond struggling. She stands there frowning that so-serious frown and, taking her own careful time, unwraps it. That day the rigger died, Ralph was there then. The cranes, like industrial mothers, passed the swaddled bundle of Felix Faulkner between them. Only, he was no baby, there was no silk. Just Dr Zam-buk’s blankets dark with blood. Lennie Gwideer is coming. * 196
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A vein in Ralph’s temple throbs, bom, bom, his throat is parched. Bom. In the end what sent him out of Kalgoorlie was seeing the whole town turn out in the main street in black crepe, everyone in mourning, six deep in front of the shop windows and only quiet muttering and shuffling from foot to foot waiting, the rustle of new silk, not a bolt of black cloth left in Carmichael’s or the Wetton sisters’ haberdashery, nor Lum’s nor even Yuki’s, who dealt for all the Japanese, and it was all this waiting in the street which decided him, amid muffled coughs and glances at pocket watches, and then at last the slow march of the Great Boulder Brass Band in their finest, even the bass drum, bom-bom, decked with mourning ribbon, and following them a long line of brotherhood, men from the friendly societies and freemasons in full regalia, including white aprons, they keep tidy step down the centre of the wide road and Ralph and all the other onlookers keep their respects-to-the-dead distance, backs to verandah posts, and the horses drawing the closed hearse are plumed and blinkered and gartered and they nod and step, nod and step in time to the Great Boulder’s big drum, in time to the slow beat of their own big horses’ hearts, and to Ralph waiting in the street it seems to take an eternity for them to pass, time enough and then some to make his decision to leave town, for after the hearse comes the carriage carrying bereaved family and after them the mine managers and municipal officers who for reasons of status can’t walk to the cemetery but must be conveyed by vehicles, and the spectacle is such that everyone will later say, ‘By God, Kalgoorlie knows how to put on a handsome funeral,’ and that’s the reason Ralph will leave. He sees that next to the dead man, the most important person in that parade is the priest in the lead. I want a job with eternal consequences. It’s time to leave.
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17 April 1931 Such dust.The air is filled with it.The landscape is a desert. Roadworks at the bridge approach are piled with dirt and gravel. Lorries crawl over the site, stirring up further clouds and their gearboxes grind with the grit. Men hold rags to their mouths and tug down on the brims of their hats to shade their watering eyes. Buildings in the distance are phantom. Ralph visits frail Mr Minner who lives right by. Fine dirt lies in piles at his window sills and the windows can’t be opened. The old man coughs with it. Dust forms a scum on cups of tea left to grow cold. Ralph administers communion and the windows shake with a lashing gust, handfuls of sand tossed at the glass. Again and again Ralph loses his place. At their quiet work, Mr Minner and he feel besieged.
1967 Mater Hospital Ralph wonders if he’s had another little stroke. His right arm throbs and the fingers of that hand are clawed like the grab on the crane which was used to scoop aggregate. As well, his hearing is a little strange, gone hollow, as if the canals of his ears have been bored out to a wider gauge. Knock, knock. A hand, old and disembodied, taps on the open door of his room. And then a head pops round the corner. It’s Robert Retont. ‘Grapes,’ he says, holding up a paper bag with a damp patch at the bottom. ‘Thompson’s Seedless.’ He’s proud of his gift. He shuffles into the room proper and with great effort Ralph turns his head to follow. 198
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Retont is smaller than ever. His back is hunched (arthritis?), and his skin is dry (eczema?), and he’s wearing slippers (bunions). He sits himself stiffly on the edge of the bed (a strangely intimate position, who does he think he is—family?) and in a minute he’s in the middle of a long story about an important committee he’s chairing, a story which is impossible for Ralph to follow: a) because he doesn’t care, and b) because of the echo in his head. Instead he watches Retont’s hands, the glint of his bishop’s ring as he opens the bag of grapes and plucks one and then another selfish snack. His thin wrists. Forever Ralph will remember the pen poised in Retont’s hand during their final exam at theology college. Ralph was always the borderline student, the student who has learned so much but perhaps the wrong things, who typically is set a chapter of Foxe’s Christian Martyrs but gets sidetracked when the book opens at Bartholomew’s beheading and reads on and on forgetting all about the required pages; the student who knows by heart the dimensions of the Dead Sea and its mineral composition, who knows dew falls approximately two hundred and fifty nights a year in Palestine, who thinks the Book of Psalms the most beautiful poetry he’s ever heard, but who cannot write a convincing essay about permissive will and why God allows bad things to happen. (This, he is many times later to wish he mastered, especially when speaking to the bereaved. ‘Don’t ask, don’t ask,’ he used to whisper to himself, but they always did and then he was forced to distract and dissemble. ‘The Bright Angel has taken your husband, your child, your mother into his care.’) Yes, Ralph was the sort of student who sits down at his desk on examination day with no idea as to how he’ll fare. In a roomful of men. All his work, all his hopes, all his prayers down to this. His whole future, including his marriage, hanging on the short time spent scribbling at a small table. What does fate, God, have in store for him? He remembers 199
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thinking that if he were to fail it would be God rejecting him. It may all come down to a moment and it does. In fact, it all comes down to a pipsqueak, Robert Retont, and the movement of his arm. If he hadn’t shifted and attracted Ralph’s gaze, Ralph would never have seen the answer he craved. Inside out and back to front he had scoured his head for that answer but hadn’t a clue, then there it was, not in the dark folds of his brain where it should have been, but beside the skinny left wrist of Robert Retont.The answer to Question 75. And he wrote it down. Whoever heard of cheating on a theology exam? Retont continues to talk, has been talking for the better part of twenty minutes and still has not said one thing expressly to Ralph, like for starters, ‘How are you?’ or even the more basic, ‘Hello.’ The hand reaches, the bishop’s ring glints, another grape pops into his mouth. He licks his chapped lips. Talking and talking, the tongue licking, talking, the tongue flicking the table manners of snakes
On the downhill into Orbost Lennie Gwideer passes a fence post to which a snake’s skin is nailed. Desiccated, papery. When his dad was a boy they laid the milk out in shallow pans on the dirt floor of the dairy at night for the milk to separate into cream. Sometimes snakes came, bending their pretty necks to drink. The countryside here opens up to river flats and the soft air is loaded with the rich and familiar smell of cow shit. Lennie pauses on the hill and takes in a deep, appreciative noseful before leading Ginger Mick down to the water to drink. The great Snowy River flows at 200
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their feet, on its way to sea, come from far away in the mountains of New South Wales. Lennie is well on his way.
The tolling of painful head echo. Ralph winces and the small movement catches Retont’s eye and stops him mid-sentence. Retont puts a loosely curled fist to his lips the better to properly consider Ralph for the first time. And then he’s decisive. He shuffles off the edge of the bed to stand as straight as his arthritic spine will allow. He holds Ralph’s gaze and in a steady voice says, ‘Hear us, Almighty and most merciful God and Saviour; extend thy accustomed goodness to this thy servant who is grieved with sickness.’ Each word is enunciated clearly and with great authority. Ralph feels the tension at his temples relax a little: he is grateful for Retont’s sureness. Retont does not hesitate or shirk when he gets to the less palatable phrases of the prayer. ‘If it shall be thy good pleasure to restore him to his former health, he may lead the residue of his life in thy fear, and to thy glory: or else, give him grace so to take thy visitation, that after this painful life ended, he may dwell with thee in life everlasting.’ Sureness, reflects Ralph, can be very comforting. Knowing all the answers, it’s what always made Retont the better churchman. ‘Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’ Ralph’s eyes rest shut. Retont reaches for the paper bag which now contains only a few grapes and scrunches it shut, leaves it on the night stand. He shuffles away, at the doorway pauses. ‘Goodbye, Ralph,’ he says brightly, like he’ll be seeing him again sometime soon. And off he goes. 201
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Coroner’s report no. 1139 James Francis Chilvers, 54, dogman, from Stockton. Killed while unloading steel from a punt at the Milsons Point workshops. Knocked into the water and drowned, 8th July, 1931.
12 July 1931 Stella goes to the back door. There’s a man there waiting behind the flywire. Shivering in his thin coat. He wants to sell her something. She opens the screen door and he steps into the doorway but goes no further, only far enough to get a little more protection from the rain which has just started. He has a face like a sunken cake, he could be forty-five or fifty-five, Stella can’t tell which. In his blunt hands he holds up a little garment. ‘Baby’s layette, done in the finest grub stitch. The wife’s handiwork. She sews so fair she could stitch the wings back on a hummingbird.’ Despite his original sales pitch he speaks in a monotone. ‘Top-quality lawn cotton, a bolt of cloth that was in her trousseau. Matching bonnets.’ He presses the tiny white nightdress into Stella’s hands and, though the embroidery is delicate, the material is cheap and not very fine at all.There are fingermarks near the hem where it’s been tested and rejected before. ‘How much?’ asks Stella. Later, when she washes and presses it and wraps it in tissue paper and tucks it into the back of the linen cupboard, she can’t help feeling she’s shelving somebody else’s child.
Coroner’s report no. 1058 Alfred Edmonds, 56, labourer, born in Canada. Thumb crushed while packing stones at North Sydney. Died eleven days later of tetanus in Lister Private Hospital, Darlinghurst, 24th July, 1931.
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The Great Arch Coroner’s report no. 1193 John Henry Webb, 23, painter, born in England. Fell 120 feet from a girder inside the south pylons and died, 31st July, 1931.
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ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Sept. 1st, 1931
The Rector’s Letter Hello Everyone, Haven’t the days gone strange? What a trying month it has been for us all. Firstly, in a sudden hit, the weather turned terribly cold—winter in extremis—and so unkind on the hungry and poor. And then what a shock it was when a storm struck and our dear St. Christopher’s was almost cracked asunder by trees felled in the blow. The damage was widespread and though a great deal has been done in a very short time, we are not quite back to normal. Of course, the costs have been of a higher order than we could afford. The drear month continued on. Heavy-hearted were we to see more large-scale demolitions to make way for the broad thoroughfare which will join up with the Bridge. Our tiny parish is scarred all over and our nerves are jangled, and no wonder ’tis so for we have been subject to the loss of our landmarks and our homes for eight long years. Many local businesses, neighbours and friends have gone by the wayside, and still we ask, who will be the next to go? Only a fraction of our once robust community remains. In such testing times it is usual to look to the Bridge for comfort but sadness greets us even there as we mourn the loss of our friends the Creeper Cranes. Bit by bit they have been dismantled, and now they’re gone. Last week the last rivet was driven on the crown of the arch. Though work continues (surfacing the roadways, laying the tramways, painting and tidying up), it is no longer visually dramatic, and so it is easy to think, when looking from afar, that all progress has stalled. Let me reassure you, this is not the case. 203
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Our troubles for the last month, and indeed the whole season, have been many and real, but, as always, we have come through. We thank the Lord for this lesson in patience and pray for a bountiful future. Sincerely, Your Rector
_________________ Coroner’s report no. 1021 Robert Graham, 41, labourer. Knocked over by a tram while working on the northern approaches in Alfred Street, North Sydney, and died of injuries in Mater Hospital, 8th October, 1931.
6 December 1931 Grey moonlight fills Eddie Stoop’s bedroom. It’s not enough to read by and Eddie’s father, Bob, is reluctant to switch on the lamp just yet since Eddie has only moments ago gone back to sleep. A nightmare woke him and the scare of it triggered mild wheezing. Betty settled him, straightening his dream-tangled sheets and kissing away his confusion, the confusion of waking and not knowing where he was. Now Bob has sent her back to bed and he sits in the chair to wait a while longer in case his son stirs. In his lap is Ralph’s book. He has many times tried to read it, starting and stopping and starting again, and now the bridge will be finished in a few short months and he’ll probably still not be done. Soon he’ll be crossing over the bridge in his truck and he doesn’t suppose it will take people long to take it for granted and no one will care how it was built. All those slow times while he was queued up for the vehicular ferry and he stared up at it—gone. He knows for a fact when making things himself, there’s sometimes more pleasure in the doing than the done. 204
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Eddie puffs in his sleep, a gloss of sweat forms on his upper lip. He’s too hot, Betty has tucked the sheet too tight, wrapping him up like a loaf. Bob loosens it, tugs the collar of his twenty-five-year-old son’s pyjamas away from his clammy neck. He goes to open the window but he’s forgotten the sash cord’s broken and it won’t stay up. He should have fixed it right away. He gets Ralph’s book. Stands it spine up on the sill as a prop. In the moonlight the gold lettering of the title is dull: Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Bob Stoop returns to his chair. The air comes in good and fresh. Eddie looks easier and Bob’s more comfortable himself. He’s tired and in no time he falls soundly asleep.
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ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER
Jan. 1st, 1932
The Rector’s Letter The year has come at last when our great Bridge will be finished. Indeed, a date has been marked for its opening—the 19th of March. No better bridge the world over has ever been built, and it is no exaggeration to say that eyes from every corner of every country on the earth will be watching in wonder and envy when travel across it commences. Was there ever such a sublime setting for a bridge as our splendid harbour, the like of which is nowhere else found, with its deep anchorages, its sparkling waters, the sandstone and bushland of its natural shores? Captain Arthur Phillip thought not when in 1788 he turned the bows of his cutter through the heads and chose it as the first place of settlement. The convicts manacled in his ships, peeking out of their fetid holds, must have cried with delight to behold such a paradise. Though we in our parish have borne more than our fair share of the difficulties involved in the Bridge’s construction, we have carried that burden with grace and courage. Nevertheless, it is pleasing to know those days are numbered and the promise of our bright future is at hand. For 205
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when the Bridge opens all those who cross it, whether by foot or by motor car or tram, will look down and see the agreeable crescent of Lavender Bay. How charming it is, they shall say, and how lovely the church on the hill! In a very short time we shall experience a resurgence as a new population flows in to take up residence. And ready we shall be, the doors of St. Christopher’s stand open. Simple will be our prompt and genuine greeting . . . Welcome.
____________________ It is my sad duty to report that the Archbishop will not be able to attend this month’s Confirmation Service due to ongoing illness. A reminder to all that the service is to be held at St. Thomas’s, not St. Christopher’s, as, for the first time ever, we do not have enough candidates to rate a service of our own. We are confident the situation will be reversed next year.
____________________
12 January 1932 Dorman, Long & Co. hand over the bridge to the New South Wales Government for official testing, and with Dr John Job Crew Bradfield in charge, the government is a pernickety customer indeed. Ninetysix steam loco engines are shunted onto the bridge and parked end to end, first on one side, then on the other, then shifted to the quarter points, but there’s no trouble. The bridge loves her load.
15 January 1932 Today they are laying down the last piece of granite as well as the last broken man. Up on top of the north-west pylon of the bridge, Jock McKay, foreman stonemason, supervises the lift, guides the block. 206
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Like all the others measured way down by the river in Moruya, it’s a perfect fit. Bradfield and Ennis stand by and when the stone is set Ennis says a few words. A photographer is on hand to record the moment. Jock McKay takes out the makings for a cigarette. When they’re done here he’ll go on to Dind’s pub to join the rest of the boys who are bound for the funeral and no doubt already ten parts drunk. Most of them riggers like Campbell. Someone always falls at the last. Probably the minute they signed the armistice for the war in that railway carriage in the forest in France, someone got shot. McKay cups his hand round a match, lights his fag. There was no one more experienced than Campbell. High up, he was dismantling staging used by the blokes cleaning down the stone on the pylons.Those cleaners were the ones you’d feel sorry for, day labourers, half of them shit-scared but desperate for a job, scrubbing the granite with a wire brush and hydrochloric acid and all their clothes in rags from the burns. The scared ones, the pale-faced ones, worked grim like tattered ghosts. But it wasn’t any of them that went. It was Campbell. A loosened guy rope, a gust of wind, and then the beam he stood on yawed and there was only air to step on. Head to stone down the pylon. And then, the strangest thing, when he hit the deck his body somehow slotted through the nine-inch gap between the sleepers on the railway track and, like a posted letter, he was falling all over again. It was a brutal death. McKay drags in a lungful of smoke, breathes out again, feels the welcome, fanning rush of nicotine. He looks out, sees miles. Up here is like being nowhere else. He’ll miss it. A mason spends most of his working life close to ground. Up here the world is vast and flat and he’s the dominant vertical in it.Where he stands is a private stage—trouble is, it’s a stage that’s only as big as it’s safe to step. After they took the body away that day they slung a couple of men down in bosun’s chairs to clean up the pylon. They were volunteers 207
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but it was a bitter job. The red banner of Jim Campbell’s stain could not still be there when the bridge opens. That’s it then. McKay pinches the fag end between his stonehardened fingers. As of today he’s unemployed. So, well, he’ll do what any self-respecting, bagpipe-playing Scotsman would do; he’ll pipe the boys down from Dind’s pub to the service at Reverend Cage’s church in Lavender Bay. And to hell with it.
Canberra Times 26 February, 1932 th
L
ennie Gwideer, aged nine, rode his chestnut pony up to the steps of Parliament House this afternoon and paid a courtesy call on the deputy leader of the United Country Party, Mr Paterson, who is the member for Gippsland. Young Gwideer has travelled unaccompanied from his parents’ farm in Leongatha and is journeying to Sydney, where it is his wish to see the soon to be opened Sydney Harbour Bridge.
____________________
Sydney Morning Herald 27th February, 1932
The
new underground railway stations at Town Hall and Wynyard will be open to the public tomorrow.
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th
5
The Sun March, 1932
Lennie
Gwideer rode unheralded into the Moss Vale showgrounds yesterday and competed in the class for boy riders under ten. He won second prize but did not dally, departing shortly thereafter to continue on with his journey to Sydney.
____________________
9 March 1932 ‘Good grief,’ says Ralph and he leaves off tapping at the crown of his boiled egg with his knife to bring the newspaper closer. ‘That boy has arrived.’ ‘What boy?’ snaps Mrs Pessey, coming in from the utility room. Ralph looks up, startled, having expected Stella’s voice in reply and forgetting the regrettable—it’s a Mrs Pessey day. He glances around. ‘She’s gorn upstairs. To take Alice a cuppa tea.’ Ralph is puzzled. ‘Alice ain’t well. She’s indisposed.’ Ralph’s continued vacant expression irritates Mrs Pessey. Sometimes she thinks he’s as dumb as a donkey the way nothing sinks in. She talks louder and ticks the information off on her fingers. ‘She ain’t going to school. She feels bad. She’s got her monthlies.’ Ralph coughs and shoots a look at his two younger daughters who, thankfully, seem fully engrossed in the business of fighting over the last 209
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of the jam and therefore deaf to such crudities. What a blessing Colin has already left for school. Mrs Pessey flicks open the lid of the sewing basket she’s brought in with her. ‘’Ere you,’ and she motions to Grace to get up and stand close by her chair while she resews a button which is dangling by a thread from the front of her blouse. ‘Ya mother’d have a fit if ya went out like that.’ Since Marian is now in full control of the apricot jam she slathers it onto her toast and then turns the bread upside down to eat it, believing it tastes better that way.Thus organised, she turns her earnest attention back to her father. ‘What’s monthlies?’ she asks. Ralph flushes crimson from his white clerical collar to the dark roots of his hair. ‘It’s nothing,’ he says. ‘Can it kill yer?’ asks Grace, straining away from Mrs Pessey so Mrs Pessey doesn’t accidentally stab her in the neck with the needle. ‘You,’ corrects Ralph. ‘Can it kill you, not yer. What’s happening to the grammar—and the manners—in this house?’ ‘Well can it?’ asks Grace. ‘No it cannot! It’s nothing, forget it. It’s got nothing to do with you.’ Mrs Pessey shapes to open her mouth but Ralph warns her, ‘Mrs Pessey . . .’ ‘Yairs?’ she says, peering at the hole in Grace’s button and guiding the point of the needle through. Agitated, Ralph goes back to cracking his egg and lops it too low, yellow ooze.‘Getting back to that boy,’ he says, addressing his daughters. ‘That boy . . .’ He whips out his serviette to mop up the dripping yolk. ‘Now what was I saying? Yes, that boy, the one in the newspaper—I’ve been following his progress. He’s a kindred spirit. He rode on his pony all the way from his home in Gippsland (that’s in Victoria) to Sydney, 210
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especially to see the Harbour Bridge. All by himself. The journey has taken thirty-five days.’ Mrs Pessey snorts. ‘Well that was a waste of friggin’ time.’ The children giggle. ‘Well it was,’ says Mrs Pessey, warming up. ‘The bridge this, the bridge that—I’m sick of hearing about it and I’m sick of lookin’ at it already. When the damn thing finally opens and I have ta cross it I’m gunna do it with me eyes blindfolded. Whatcha wanna come all that way for, just to see a big old bunch of grey struts? When it’s all said and done it’s just a thing to get ya from A to B.’ The girls’ eyes widen at this heresy and Grace, especially, is almost dizzy with admiration for the outspoken daring of Mrs Pessey. Mrs Pessey snaps at her, ‘Stand still,’ and tugs at the edge of the blouse, turning it over so she can finish off. ‘Look here, Mrs Pessey,’ says Ralph. ‘In this establishment we do not share your limited views—and in any case they’re irrelevant to the discussion at hand. What’s really at issue is the boy, not the bridge. Everyone in Sydney lauds the spirit of the boy, except you, it seems. His journey is nothing short of heroic. In his shoes I’d have done the same.’ Marian sniggers, picturing her gangly father trying to stay upright on a horse. Ralph taps the table in front of her. ‘I’ll have you know I was quite a traveller myself, as a lad.’ But then he pauses. An image flashes of a godforsaken desert town. And then another of Charlie Knox’s locked-up shop. He blinks them away, mumbles, ‘My destination did not, however, turn out to be so marvellous.’ His egg has lost its appeal. He reaches for the Herald while Mrs Pessey mutters, ‘Kid probably just wanted an excuse to run away from home.’ Ralph clears his throat, continues with the article. ‘It says here 211
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thousands of people turned out spontaneously to greet the boy in the city and, as he entered Martin Place, they gave him three cheers. Twenty-five policemen had to form a square around him and his horse to hold back surging onlookers. Someone even pulled hairs from the horse’s tail for a souvenir.’ Marian, talking with her mouth full, protests, ‘That’s awful.’ ‘Extraordinary story. A mere boy and yet he understands the uniqueness—the purity—of the bridge.’ Ralph skim-reads. ‘He’s apparently impressed by everything he’s seen and thinks Sydney is a “bosker town”. He’ll be speaking on the radio this evening.’ ‘He’ll get spoilt,’ says Mrs Pessey. ‘End up with a head as big as the Harbour Bridge.’ Now she’s hunting for the scissors but they’re lost somewhere under the pages of Ralph’s newspaper, which covers half the table. She backhands it up. ‘Oi,’ says Ralph. ‘I’ve lost my place!’ ‘Too bad,’ says Mrs Pessey. It’s such a nuisance when he breakfasts in the kitchen instead of the dining room. She cuts the thread and Grace is released. ‘Gotta get a push on or you girls will be late for school.’ ‘I don’t wanna go to friggin’ school,’ says Grace. Ralph is too busy wrestling with the newspaper to notice the language and only looks up when Stella enters the kitchen with an empty teacup. Grace runs to her. ‘I’ve got the monthlies too!’ Stella blanches. Ralph gulps. Mrs Pessey looks at their appalled faces, slams the lid of the sewing basket shut, shakes her head. ‘You people.’ She heaves her great weight up from the chair. ‘Sometimes I just dunno.’
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th
10
The Sun March, 1932
A
Alligator
man who appeared in court yesterday on charges of disorderly conduct was said to be a Communist, a violent man, and an associate of methylated-spirit drinkers.
shoes are on sale at David Jones in three heights of heels: Baby Wurt, Medium Louis and Stilt (also Baby Stilt and Baby Louis).
__________
Gippsland
___________
boy, Lennie Gwideer,
Adolf
Hitler has emerged
has been out and about in
as a candidate for the
Sydney. Though somewhat
German presidency.
daunted when shown the view
__________
of the city and the Bridge from high on top of the Sun office building, boyish high spirits were later restored when he was invited to take the wheel of a powerful speedboat on an outing to Messenger’s boat sheds.
__________
11th
The Sun March, 1932
Diphtheria
has been reported in Albury. __________
F
ighting continues in Shanghai. __________
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Every
L
effort is being made to discover the whereabouts of the kidnapped Lindbergh baby. __________
ennie Gwideer will have a rest day today and shall groom his horse. He is staying at the Randwick home of his new acquaintance, Mr. Alan Petford, a radio reporter for 2FC.
__________
The Sun 13th March, 1932
Lennie
T
Gwideer has spoken on another radio broadcast. He has said, regarding his horse Ginger Mick, ‘When we came to a farmhouse at night I would ask them if they would stable him and give him a feed, because everything depended on him.’ ___________
he Gandhi gown is in fashion. The lean and ascetic Mahatma Gandhi not only exerts a vital influence on his followers, but he has also furnished inspiration for a new type of lingerie. Sheer flat crêpe material is draped diagonally in tunic style from one shoulder to the opposite side of the waist and a dolman effect is worked out with the other side of the bodice while the skirt is cut in a circular fashion and falls ankle-length.
Racketeers
rule America. ___________
___________ 214
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The Sun March, 1932
Lennie
Gwideer last night met the Lord Mayor and received a roaring reception from the Chamber of Commerce.
___________
Sydney Morning Herald 15th March, 1932
The
Harbour Bridge will be officially handed over to the NSW Government today by Sir Ronald Kitson, the Deputy Chairman of Dorman Long & Co.
___________
th
16
The Sun March, 1932
M ost
Diggers
people are happy with the choice of grey for the colour of the Bridge. Some wanted white but agreed it might get too dirty while others thought sealing-wax red a good option. __________
dying. According to figures announced at yesterday’s Soldiers and Sailors Fathers’ Association conference, Australia has lost a further 60,000 returned men since the end of the war. ___________
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M auve
Sydney
and pink asters were floral decorations in a home hosting a Harbour Bridge cocktail party. ___________
Ferries Ltd say they will continue to run vehicular punts in a declaration of war against the Sydney Harbour Trust. __________
Digger
charged with suicide. A digger has drunk poison after having undergone over seventy operations on his spine. ___________
17
th
The Sun March, 1932
Children’s
Day. Yesterday over 50,000 schoolchildren were given the chance to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge before it opens. Teeming rain, which poured throughout, failed to spoil the occasion. ___________
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Daily Telegraph 18th March, 1932
The
Bridge will open tomorrow. Organisers have announced a late inclusion to the official pageant which is to cross the Bridge directly after the opening ceremony. By popular demand, marching between a group of bridge workers and a group of Aborigines, will be the young lad Lennie Gwideer. It is understood he is to be accompanied by his horse Ginger Mick. ___________
19 March 1932 There will be no last-minute invitation. Ralph can see that now. He has watched the post like a hawk believing that, any day, the unthinkable oversight would be redressed, but as he steps out onto the roof slates this fine morning—this very morning when the bridge will open—he finally understands there’s been no mistake. So sure had he been of an official invitation to view the opening ceremony that he told Stella to buy a new hat and dress. Got his best suit pressed. Declined other invitations to join municipal celebrations on the North Sydney side, saying modestly he would be wanted elsewhere. Of course he never expected anything from Bradfield, but from Ennis . . . What did Mr Lawrence Ennis, OBE, Director of Construction, Dorman, Long & Co., mean by repeatedly patting him 217
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on the back whenever they met for all those years, what did he mean by shaking his hand, by declaring Ralph to be a best friend of the bridge? What did he mean when he introduced him to visitors at the works, saying in a tone which intimated essential belonging, ‘This is our mascot Padre’? Mr Ennis, who wrote a glowing foreword to Might and Glory, praising Ralph for the detail the book contained and for the way he had sought out his information with complete disregard for personal safety: what did he mean by all these various gestures of admiration for Ralph’s part in the bridge if they did not translate today into two lousy seats in one of the half-dozen stands erected near the vice-regal dais? The back row would have done. Ralph retrieves the weathered cushion from under the eaves and gets himself comfortable, wedged in the V where the dormer meets the roof and he cannot be easily seen. In the front garden below Stella is directing a small army of helpers to set up trestles and chairs for the last-minute party she’s arranged. The day is magnificent, the church grounds are manicured and have never looked better, the blue harbour glitters and the proud bridge crowns the scene. Ralph has looked forward to this day above all others and now it’s finally here it feels dull and strange. To be so humiliated. And what’s more, to think they didn’t think twice about slighting a clergyman. From the Church of England! Great bustle continues below. Everything must be ready for the start of proceedings at 10 am. Stella orders Ned Tooms and Jimmy de Bruce inside to shift the radiogram closer to the open parlour window so everyone will be able to hear the radio broadcast. Under normal circumstances, Ralph would leap from the roof rather than let those two old duffers near his radio set but he stays put. Though he knows 218
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he’ll later regret it he can’t summon the energy to care. In due course static hashes forth at a hundred decibels and everybody grabs for their ears until Colin is dispatched to lend his expertise. In a minute the dial rests on a clear station. Aunty Ditty, who is visiting, who would not miss this occasion for all the world, cheers, ‘Clever boy,’ and he comes out onto the lawn all pleased with himself and accepting the applause. He takes the urn Ditty’s carrying and hauls it for her to the tea table in the shade. His strong skinny arms. His twelve-year-old’s manly courtesy, not learned from his father. In Ralph’s absence, his unconscious willingness to step up to the mark. ‘Where is he?’ hisses Stella, casting around. Mrs Pessey jabs her thumb up in the air towards the roof then cups her hand to her mouth to yell him down, but just in time Stella stops her. ‘I’ll go.’ ‘Hey, you mongrels, get outa there.’ Mrs Pessey slaps at a couple of her own brood who are digging their fingers into the icing on the cakes. ‘Dexter, I told yer to look after them.’ But Dexter’s gone. Ten minutes of hearty helloing and handshaking and hail-fellow-wellmet—‘Nice ta see you, Mrs C. Pleased ta meetcha, Mrs Liner’—and he’s pissed off to the pub. Upstairs, Stella steps out of the dormer window and onto the roof in her stockinged feet. Ralph starts, can’t believe this rooftop apparition, his wife, and then, she’s not safe! But in fact she’s as nimble as a cat. He slides the cushion from under him to her and she settles beside him. It’s like she’s sat up here a hundred times before. That physical confidence, it’s the country girl in her, he decides. Sometimes he’s shocked to remember that she had a life before theirs together, that his childhood wasn’t hers and that he has no pictures in his head to know who she was then. She surveys the wide vista before her, harbour and city, and then the bright gathering of friends below and says with great satisfaction, 219
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‘Why would we be anywhere else but here, when we already have the best view?’ She pats his bony knee. ‘Come on.’ Somehow Ralph manages to function through the morning. On the radio they hear the speeches and then the startling on-the-spot news that a rogue horseman has disrupted the ceremony, galloping in as a political protest to slash through the ribbon with a sword and falsely declare the bridge open. Officials scramble to retie the tape so the Premier can cut it with a pair of ornate scissors as planned, but what a farce. A slight delay then streamers shower out of the pylons and a twenty-one-gun salute blasts. From the armada of ships swarming over the harbour, horns toot and sirens blare and the radio commentary is completely drowned out. Serious listeners move inside to the parlour to better hear descriptions of the parade, tea is served and the children start up a cricket match on the lawn. Ralph wanders among his guests. He slips from conversation to conversation, dismissing congratulations which he would have once accepted as completely appropriate, as if he had built the bridge all by himself. He’s a shadow of himself, so hurt and thin he wonders how people fail to notice, but no one does. Except for Aunty Ditty. Later she finds him alone and sitting on the verandah edge staring off towards the bridge. She hands him a cool drink, sits herself close beside him, makes her gentle inquiry: ‘Are you alright?’ He doesn’t trust himself to reply. She turns his glum face slowly to hers to make him listen. ‘Cheer up.’ Her warmth is genuine. She has always been fond of Ralph. Good-looking unmarried women of Ditty’s age are always accused of being too picky but Ditty has never been interested in perfection: she’s interested in difference, and sees too little of it around. If Ralph’s enthusiasms have sometimes been haywire over the 220
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years, at least he’s had them, and they’ve been his and no one else’s. She thinks he’s a dear. She says, ‘The culmination of a mighty task is often anticlimactic, you know.’ He nods. He knows.The invitation is nothing. Over and over in his head run the words . . . what now?
20 March 1932 Sunday papers describe all the events of opening day. There are photographic spreads of the floats in the pageant, the fireworks, the flyover, the crowds of people walking over the bridge when the public were allowed on. There’s a report about the rider who cut the ribbon, Francis de Groot, a furniture importer and crank member of the rightwing militia group, the New Guard. (Having been declared mental by police he’s apparently sojourning in the Darlinghurst Reception House over the weekend.) But mostly there are pages and pages of selfcongratulation. We are a nation at last. The Dunlop Tyre Company, in a full-page advertisement, would like everyone to know they support the bridge. So does the Arnotts Biscuit Company. As does Ampol Oil.
21 March 1932 Francis de Groot has today been ruled sane by medical experts. Instead he’s been charged and found guilty of a criminal offence—damage to public property: to whit, one ribbon. Fine: five pounds. Everyone laughs; de Groot is the butt of jokes by journalists and other wastrels who hang in public bars. A funny runty chap, de Groot is a big-noter who almost couldn’t find a horse on which to carry off his stunt until the day before when he begged one off some passing horsy North Shore lass, a Margot Reichard, who lives in Pymble, in Telegraph Road. 221
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In fact, there are laughs all round: the government has the police running around like a bunch of goons going from cinema to cinema to enforce the ban on showing newsreel footage of de Groot’s trick. Coppers struggle in king-sized silhouettes with picture palace managers from Ashfield to Bondi to Collaroy and Epping while the punters hoot and jeer. With the situation thus defused, a hundred thousand disaffected returned servicemen who are also secret New Guard members put their rifles back under their beds and, for the time being, call off the talk of civil war.
24th
The Sun March, 1932
One
hundred ferry staff, men and women, will draw their last pay today. ___________
26
th
The Sun March, 1932
Companionship
lost due to the Bridge. A mood of unease is about amongst some commuters who are missing friends with whom they have travelled for years. Formerly, ferry passengers shared special compartments and even sat in the same special seats year after year. As well, people are missing the life of the harbour and an intimate knowledge of the ships coming and going. ___________
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th
29
The Sun March, 1932
Teething
troubles. People are complaining about receiving electric shocks as they pay their bridge toll. As well, some nearby residents note that fast-running trains rolling across the Bridge are very noisy within a three-mile radius. In further suburbs—Mosman, Vaucluse and Balmain—the Bridge rumble is said to sound like distant surf.
____________ 30th March, 1932 Sydney Dear Reverend Cage, Mr. Ennis is currently winding up company affairs prior to his imminent departure and has put me to the task of dealing with outstanding correspondence. The company hails your publication, Mind and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as a very thorough endeavour, but is regrettably unable to provide any assistance towards publishing your latest work as all accounts are currently being reconciled. We do, however, wish you luck in securing the necessary financial backing. Sincerely, Mr. W.B.H. Mills for Mr. Lawrence Ennis, Director of Construction, Dorman, Long & Co. Ltd.
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Page 4 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER May 1st, 1932
THINKING OF A PRESENT? NEED SOMETHING GOOD TO READ? Why not purchase a Bridge Book? Copies available at the Rectory now. Secure one soon. Don’t go without. Special consideration willingly made for hardship cases. Remember, it was not written for profit but to delight. And to finance a second, most necessary, volume to end the story. Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge THE PERFECT GIFT FOR MAN OR WOMAN, GIRL OR BOY.
June 1932 Just gone are the blackest four weeks of the Depression. Thirty-two per cent of the state’s workers are unemployed. In Melbourne, the Defence Department has unlocked their warehouse and released great coats and tunics to the destitute, having first dyed them a dull black. Black crows walk the streets.
Page 6 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Jul. 1st, 1932
The folk at the Rectory are delighted to announce the procurement of a quantity of grey woollen blankets. Whilst they are not of the finest grade, we are assured they are stout in quality and shall serve admirably 224
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to stave off the worst of the winter cold. The blankets are due for delivery to the Rectory on Wednesday 10th and will be given away free to those in demonstrable need.
_______________
10 July 1932 The blanket van is running late. Ralph watches out for it from an upstairs window; he doesn’t want to be seen by the restless queue below, which snakes from the front door, past the church, through the gates and into the road. He’s dismayed and appalled. By the number of people. By their pinched faces. By their too-thin clothes.They can’t all reside in his parish. Or maybe they do. There’s one thing for sure—he doesn’t have nearly enough blankets to go around.
24 August 1932 All week Ralph has been working so hard over his personal accounts that he hasn’t had time to prepare a sermon. No matter how long he studies the figures the reality stays the same: he does not have enough money to publish the second volume. The painful truth is he still hasn’t recouped expenses from the first. It hardly bears thinking about, the thought that Volume One will be denied its rightful twin, especially when that neat sibling sits in full view on his desk, ready for typesetting. As he shuffles through his papers panic rises; the potential waste, the tragedy of an unrealised vision—THE BRIDGE STORY WITHOUT ITS RIGHTFUL END. Would the bridge builders have been content with half an arch? All his beloved information unread! There must be a way. * 225
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Ralph’s eyes are red with lack of sleep and unresolved troubles as he rises to the pulpit. He grasps the lectern to steady himself. The effect of his stance is unintentionally stern. And then he begins, speaking extempore on the Ten Commandments, always a good standby. He rattles through the first few laws but gets stuck for a while on honouring thy father and mother when he remembers how cheeky the children have been. Now and then he thumps his hand on the big Bible before him to give himself encouragement and his sermon the appearance of structure. When he gets to Thou shalt not steal he cannot guess the effect he has on a poor woman huddled in a pew at the rear of the congregation. Running through her head is a flash of yesterday, when she grabbed a pullet from her neighbour’s yard and wrung its neck in the neighbour’s outhouse. In the gloom there she held its beak together and clamped its body to her chest, enduring the grim bucking of its initial struggle. Ugly silence. Emerging from the dunny she was pregnant with the bird and all under her cardigan. She felt, as she stepped through broken fence palings into her own yard, on her brow and under her armpits and in the cleft of her bottom, a sweat which was hot and slippery. It was the first time she’d ever stolen anything. Her heart raced, the feathers of the chicken and its scrawny legs had scratched her stomach through her dress; it was the first time she’d ever killed something. She fed her children with the bird but she herself could eat nothing. And now the sermon singles her out. It’s as if the minister knows. She shrinks into her clothes. She can’t come again. At the end of the service Ralph takes up his usual position at the church door for handshaking. He keeps an eye out for the new woman he spotted in the back-most pew, intending to make a fuss of her. What a pleasant change to have one more instead of one less in the congregation. 226
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19 December 1932 Tonight, as on every night for the last two and a half months, Ralph sets up his tripod at the bedroom window and points his camera. Stella regards the paraphernalia as normal and steps around it as she turns down the bed and puts away slippers and hangs up their dressinggowns. She says, ‘Good luck, dear,’ as she turns into her pillow and Ralph reads for a while, waiting for the thin-skating sleep he’s got used to. His dreams, when they come, have their own meteorology, are fleet and absurd. Tonight, at about 3.30 am, as on every night for the last two and a half months, Ralph wakes and listens. And when he doesn’t hear very much at all, the beat of his blood quickens. He dumps the covers aside, gets out of bed and stands by the window. An eight-knot westerly, he guesses. He waits in case there’s a pre-dawn drop but the breeze ruffles on, over the harbour water and the bridge and the dormant suburbs. Beautiful in its own way but not the perfection he needs.Tonight, as on every night for the last two and a half months, he unscrews the camera from the tripod and places it in its battered leather case, shutting the lid with a mixture of disappointment and relief. Relief because he senses this picture will complete his collection of the bridge. By the time he slips back into bed he’s chilled. Stella stirs and murmurs, ‘Any good?’ But before he replies she’s gone again, heavy with sleep. ‘No,’ he says to the wallpaper near the window as he watches its creamy embossing turn rose with first light. ‘Not tonight, Josephine.’ And he smiles.
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Page 2 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Feb. 1st, 1933
The illuminated Bridge at night: bejewelled CROWN, of our regal harbour. Like a young woman off to become a debutante, look how well our Bridge wears her evening finery. This photograph (view at arm’s length) may well also be your Rector’s crowning glory, for it was hard caught and took all his wile and cunning. It may now be admitted that the task sometimes turned him into a ‘sleepy-head’ during daylight hours as he also toiled to complete his usual parish duties. (Apologies to Mrs Poke for forgetting to book maintenance on the organ blower last month—though surely we have not suffered too greatly—indeed, many in the congregation have remarked on the added interest of the odd unusual note.) 228
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Dazzling and elegant, the Bridge is here seen, in perfect reflection. After three months of waking each night to check the conditions, at last, at 3.57 a.m. on January 1st (New Year’s Day), the world took a deep breath and hushed itself. There, in the Adams’ viewfinder, was the stillest vista. The Bridge and all its sparkling lights, in double. Is not the finished product remarkable?!! TWO BRIDGES! Test the replication by turning this booklet upside down and you will be hard pressed to pick the difference in the arches. Which is the real one, and which its ghost? (Though you cannot be permanently tricked, of course.) Such a splendid image—no wonder Her Ladyship the Moon chose not to make an appearance that night, jealous she was, of the Bridge with its 292 electric light fittings. This photograph was achieved by: A) PATIENCE—waiting for exactly correct weather. B) DILIGENCE COMBINED WITH KNOWLEDGE—many experiments performed with equipment and night-time exposures. With so much at stake, you would be right if you are thinking how the Rector’s finger must have trembled as he depressed the shutter on this long-awaited scene. All of the children of the Rectory were awoken to share the great moment, although, it is true to say, some were more appreciative than others. Charmingly, the youngest was heard to ask if the enchanted view was the work of fairies. ‘No,’ her father replied. ‘This was the work of Dorman, Long & Co. And God.’ And now it is also the work of Kodak. With the aid of their factory-made chemicals and paper, I can now reproduce photographs quite economically. Thus, it is within my capabilities to make a copy of ‘The Bridge in Perfect 229
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Reflection’ for anyone in the Parish who might wish. If you place an order at the Rectory I shall do my best to have it ready in a little while. It would be a happy labour. Especially if, in looking at this picture, you shall be reminded, like me, of the psalmist when he says, ‘For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.’ The LORD lights my candle in so many ways. May he light yours with this photograph of the Bridge.
_______________
4 March 1933 Mrs Pessey opens the door of Ralph’s study.As usual she hasn’t bothered to knock and Ralph swivels in his chair—this time he’s determined to admonish her. But before he can open his mouth she plants her feet firmly in the doorway and blurts out, ‘I’m handing in me notice.’ ‘Oh,’ says Ralph. He waits for her to pass over her written resignation but she has her hands stuffed into the pockets of her apron and nothing materialises. ‘I’ll be gone this afternoon.’ ‘Oh.’ Ralph blinks. ‘I’ve found a better job. With better pay.’ ‘Better,’ says Ralph. ‘As a tea lady at the Gas Company offices.’ ‘Better pay,’ he nods. Then he ventures a little nervous laugh. ‘Well, that wouldn’t be hard.’ ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ she says. ‘Right then.’ ‘Yairs.’ 230
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‘We’ll miss you.’ ‘Yairs.’ ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Pessey. I’ll fix you up after afternoon tea time, shall I?’ ‘That’d be good. And don’t forget the extra two shillings you owe me from last week.’ She stamps off, leaving the door open, and when Ralph gets up to shut it he feels like dancing the Highland fling. And then he wonders if he could ever trick Stella into believing that he took a firm hand with Mrs Pessey and initiated her departure.
17 May 1933 A man has taken to playing a double bass outside the entrance to the North Sydney railway station. Between trains, and if the breeze is right, Ralph can sometimes hear the instrument at the rectory. All day the man stands there, leaning into the neck of the thing, sometimes shutting his eyes with emotion as he drags his bow for the lowest notes. It unsettles people as they walk past. The man and the bass are like a foreign couple having a conversation which is far too intimate to be conducted in public. What’s worse—suppose the bass was a woman— he’s pleading with her.The bootmaker in the arcade keeps coming out of his shop to heckle and complain. ‘You can’t even play a tune.Where did you learn to play, at funerals?’ Rumour says the man used to play in the orchestra at the Empire Room but had been chucked out for turning up late and drunk, and now, of course, he can’t get another job. His soft hands only know how to carry notes. ‘That ain’t a fiddle for going solo on.’ The bootmaker again. It 231
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drives him nuts hearing the same mournful noise all day. Sometimes, when he can’t stand it any longer, he yells out from his booth to passers-by to toss money at the musician to get him to stop playing. He threatens to call the cops and once they do come—though whether as the result of complaint or coincidence, the bootmaker won’t say. Over the course of the past few weeks the musician has grown shabbier in appearance and his music has frayed. Lunch is a brown bottle. Dinner too. Ralph, who has been in the habit of giving him money whenever he passes, is no longer generous. But today, the musician has stopped playing. He simply stands. No sounds come from his lady bass. Ralph opens the rectory front door to find it’s the bootmaker who’s been knocking. The bootmaker says, ‘You better do something.’ At the station Ralph persuades the musician to follow him home and, since the man can barely walk straight, Ralph and the bootmaker carry his instrument for him, horizontal between them. Ralph sits the musician at the kitchen table and gives him food and asks him several blunt questions. Then he shows him where he can wash, points through an open door. ‘You can sleep there,’ he says. Ralph goes out, armed with the information the musician has given him. Stella, coming in later from shopping, and putting away her hat and gloves, is surprised to see a strange man asleep in her bed, but at least he is clean and if a faint smell of liquor is present in the room, well, it might easily also be cough mixture.The man’s face is worn with recent worry but softened by the deep comfort of much-needed sleep. She supposes his presence will be explained sometime soon. At an address in a suburb not too far away, Ralph knocks. A young woman answers and Ralph talks. She looks with disdain at his minister’s clothes; she’s the sort who’s not fazed. He explains but she won’t let him finish. ‘He’s a fool and a creep.’ She slams the door. 232
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That night at the rectory the musician takes up an extra place at the dinner table. The children are in awe of the way he shovels food. He has a thin man’s appetite; to watch him, the food has no taste, nor is it filling. In the corner of the dining room stands the double bass, which the children would like to touch but they know it’s forbidden. Stella makes up a stretcher bed in the study and is grateful to the young man when he comes into the kitchen to help her wash up. His hands shake and dish rattles on dish as he puts them away. Later, when the children are all asleep and Ralph and Stella are reading, the young man sits with them, listening to the radio with his eyes closed as 2FC plays a favourite Beethoven, whose notes are the softest rain on his tired soul. And then there’s a knock at the door—some parishioner in trouble. Ralph goes. But it’s the girl.Yes, that’s her with her permanent wave and her strong jaw and her lipstick talking. She wants her man, he’s an idiot but she wants him anyway—he’s always going desperate like that to win her back, to prove the depth of his love. She says why doesn’t he buy her a scarf, a ring instead—anyway, who is she without him? She doesn’t know, though for a while she thought someone else might. The musician steps into the hall. She stops her noise and walks up to him, stands on her toes, and kisses him hard on the lips. ‘You dopey prick,’ she says, then she cranes her neck to look down the hall. ‘Where’s your bass?’ Ralph and Stella make their customary late cup of tea but instead of taking it back to the parlour they settle for the kitchen table. They are bemused. They have never before been at the centre of a storm of love. Not even their own. Prone to bickering, yes, but they have never been passionate—tempestuous. Early on this might have been a disappointment but tonight they feel wise and content together. But 233
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also glad to be reminded they are man and woman.They go up to bed and undress in the dark. They don’t speak—on such nights they never speak. They lie warmly and become one body.
2 September 1933 Colin comes running up the lawn and galoots around in front of the study window to attract Ralph’s attention.The panes of glass crosshatch him into squares. He points down the hill to the harbour and his face is lit with incredulity. In his unbroken thirteen-year-old’s voice he calls, ‘Come see, there’s a crazy pelican!’The pelican is apparently aggressive and standing on the end of the wharf flapping its wings and rushing at anyone who tries to get onto the ferry. Colin scoots off—he can’t wait for his father, who insists on finishing the paragraph he’s reading before he’ll come. At the wharf, a crowd has quickly gathered. The next ferry to Balmain turns up but without the other one gone it must stand off; passengers scramble to windows and onto decks, straining to find out what’s going on. The ferry lists. Ralph weaves through the wharf throng and wedges into a spot against a lifebuoy hanging from a pole. It digs into his back, distracting him for a moment from the strange drama being played out in front. The bird is formidable. Its great round eye sees every trick: at the jab of the deckie’s boathook it dances aside, cranes its neck low and wrenches open its beak, showing the wide inside, shell pink. Someone yells, ‘Get a rope and lasso it.’ It seems there’s a sort of mad jubilation that the traffic could be stopped by just one bird and so the efforts to dislodge it are half-hearted and carnivalesque. Anyway, the police have been 234
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called, let them deal with it, though how no one knows. Meanwhile the pelican throws out its wide wings to protect its position. Something is lobbed, a scrap of orange peel, but the bird bobs and ducks and holds its ground. And then, with the permission of the first missile, more follow: a rolled-up newspaper is skittered towards its broad feet, coins are flipped, none of them designed to hit. Boys rush off the wharf to look for stones and the bird takes high uncomfortable steps over the litter. Ralph studies the faces near him.While many are full of enjoyment for the event, others change with the light and dark of the turning moments. And then, among them all, Ralph sees the musician. The man cannot conceal his disgust. Seeming to feel Ralph’s eyes on him he turns. He recognises Ralph and shakes his head. He mouths, ‘Do something.’ Just then an adolescent pelts a rock, a deliberate miss, it cracks an inch above the pelican’s head into a piling. The bird flinches, and then it goes at the encroaching crowd, pushing them back. In the scuffling retreat, people tread on each other’s toes and there’s a ripple of laughter. ‘Mad bastard.’ Ralph feels the musician willing him to step forward. He’s surely used to speaking to crowds and how could he, of all people, condone a stoning? He glances up at Colin, who’s sitting with a group of boys on top of a railing. A shower of tossed pennies land at the bird’s feet and a man yells, ‘Do the Charleston.’ Ralph takes a step forward. He opens his mouth, he urges himself to speak, nothing comes out. Thinking that if he commits himself, strands himself in front of the crowd, the words will come, they will come, he takes another step out. The pelican, terrified, assumes another assault and charges at Ralph, who scurries back. The crowd laughs. And then a boy sitting next to Colin shies a stone. He straightens his posture, raises his arm and flicks his wrist all in one motion and 235
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he shies a stone. It clips the pelican’s body. A shocked titillation runs through the crowd. Ralph’s head bursts open and he pushes past people to get to Colin. He sees a half-smile at play on his son’s face and when he gets there he grabs up his hand and smacks it hard. ‘I didn’t do it,’ Colin yelps, stung with injustice and embarrassment and surprise. His father has never hit him before. He opens up his hand to show a stone chip still in his pink palm. Ralph closes his hand over the boy’s fingers and squeezes them tight until the stone hurts and he says in a cold voice, ‘Yes you did.’ He yanks Colin’s arm and pulls him off the rail; they weave through the densely packed gaggle which unexpectedly parts—not for them, but for the arrival of the authorities. Without hesitation, two approaching policemen break into a run, meaning to manhandle the bird to the ground, but it beats its wings, steps out of the tackle, and counterattacks, pecking the coppers. The crowd hoot and redirect their missiles at the law; when it comes to coppers there’s no ambiguity: they’re delighted when they hit. Rubbish rains down. The brawniest copper isn’t having any of it—jobless yobbos taking it out on those in charge. He unholsters a gun, takes up his stance and shoots the bird. The report is deafening. The crowd gasps. Black blood seeps onto the timbers of the wharf.What a pile of awkward angles the bird is now, feathers, bill and half-opened wing. Nothing at all to stop so many people going on their way. Without life to hold the pelican up it’s nothing at all. Ralph re-engineers his grip on Colin’s hand and tries to make it softer; the boy is crying. They are both dazed. They stumble past the silent bystanders and go up the hill to home. Too late a man runs panting onto the wharf with a bundle in his arms. It’s a fishing net to capture the bird. * 236
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That night a pall hangs over the rectory and the evening meal is eaten in silence. Over the following days, both Ralph and Colin are subdued. For different reasons, and for some the same, they can’t look at each other. Ralph knows he’s been too hard on his son but he can’t let him off the hook. In his head he says, You’re meant to be a better version of me, the next instalment.
1967 Mater Hospital There’s a squeak, squeak, as if from a rusty wheel and Ralph can’t for the life of him work out where it’s coming from. Must be something outside in the hospital corridor. But then the wall of his room dissolves to reveal a country road and he can see in the distance ahead the distinctive shape of Ginger Mick and Lennie. Squeak, squeak. He hails them but they don’t turn around, they don’t hear. Squeak. He knows he’s moving towards them but whatever the effort he puts in he gets no closer; he’s hot and he’s out of breath. He calls out, ‘Lennie Gwideer!’ but sees only the backs of the boy and his horse, ever ahead on the road. Try harder. To catch up. Squeak, squeak. Where in tarnation is that grating noise coming from? And then the perspective changes and Ralph sees the highway as if from the air. There’s Lennie and Ginger Mick and behind them an empty stretch, and then there he is, fourteen years old, pedalling a bike with a wobbly wheel for all he’s worth, squeak, squeak, and he’s calling out, ‘Lennie Gwideer!’ 237
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22nd September, 1933 Chicago, Illn., U.S.A. Dear Friend, Well your book arrived in the mail, wasn’t that out of the blue? It sure is nice to make your reacquaintance, and though I don’t recall your face, of course I remember being in Kalgoorlie. Only place I’ve ever been where there was no creeping vermin.You should be proud of that. Though it was most likely to do with cutting down every tree they could possibly live off. Anyway, it was a good plan. I am deeply touched my presence there brought you to God and your vocation. I had someone check our records and we did get your donations. They were on the smallish side, my checker said, but were loyal and have come regular over all these years. It’s important to give to big organisations, we have such reach and fingers in so many pies. I myself have not done much missionary travel these last years, having various new interests to attend to—including broadcasting into seven states via the radio—but do not think for a minute the World Mission languishes. In my stead I have many vice-reverends to deploy. However, I am hopeful of stepping out soon and fully intend to visit your fair land again to pursue a particular enterprise I have in mind, whereupon I certainly will take up your kind invitation to stay at the rectory and see your bridge. We had news of it in our own papers. It looks just like one we’ve got in New York. They say yours is bigger—well, it would want to be, it took long enough to build. The next time you want something done, don’t go to the Brits. We did the Empire State Building in eleven months. 238
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Regarding your book, did you take those photographs? It’s a hobby I’ve lately taken up myself. Mine are pretty good. Say, you only sent one book in the package. Where is the other volume? Regarding your inquiry, I really couldn’t guess if it would sell well over here—I haven’t read it yet and besides, like I said before, we already have a bridge similar. That’s all then. I do look forward to meeting you and your delightful family when affairs will allow. Until then, I trust you enjoy best health. ‘The way forward, God will provide.’ With the sincerest sincerity, Wes Millershine
5 October 1933 An open window, a spring zephyr. A missing paperweight. Lifting from the top of a sheaf of papers, a crinkled, tea-stained page slips from Ralph’s desk. At the end of its graceful, zigzag fall it comes to rest on the carpet near the door. And there it lies all day till Ralph, coming home in the late afternoon, enters his study and steps on it. He’s tired. He leans grumpily to pick it up.What is it? It’s the title page of Might and Glory of the Sydney Harbour Bridge VOLUME II. He feels punched. In his hands is such a burden. How much it weighs, his own humiliation. For a long time he stands where he is and then, finally, he moves to his desk. Gathers up the stacked pages of manuscript, locks them in the cupboard. Locates the paperweight, a lump of basalt, and places it in the middle of the freshly empty space on his desk. He sits. Today was the first warm day. He looks out the window into the spring twilight. He has never felt less like making a new beginning. 239
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1934 A very boring year. Church-wise, there’s the invigoration of a new archbishop, Archbishop Mowll.An adventurer.Apparently.With missionary experience in Canada and China. But at the ordination Ralph couldn’t see a thing and then, though the venue was posh, a very plain luncheon was served afterwards. Parish-wise, Mrs Poke gets shingles. And all the drains are dug up at the back of the Church Hall. Car-wise, the backseat upholstery on the Essex gets ripped while carrying a roll of wire for the construction of Colin’s pigeon loft. Family-wise, Stella is crabby for months. And then she has the hide to tell Ralph to stop moping around. ‘Go and take a photograph of something—anything,’ she says. ‘Flowers. Just get out of the house!’ And so he goes to the Botanic Gardens. Just the once. He takes a brief interest in the flowers, that don’t look like flowers: kangaroo paws, strelitzias. Then, sitting on a seat to eat his lunch, by a trick of topography, above the trees, he sees the bridge. Reduced to garden sculpture. He shoulders his camera and heads home.
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Vol. XIII., No. 2 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Feb. 1st, 1935
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16 July 1935 Ralph comes out of the picture show feeling faintly depressed. He waits in the foyer for Stella and Aunty Ditty to emerge from the ladies’ lavatory. Against his better judgement he had been talked into the outing—Ditty, always open to new experiences, had insisted on treating them to the latest Hollywood offering, a horror movie of all things, Night of the Mummies. But the characters were so maddening, their own blockheadedness releasing the monstrous and causing the slide into chaos. How could they not see it coming? The hero pauses before the crypt door and everyone in the audience knows he’s going to open it and that it’s a disastrous thing to do, when he could so easily turn away and just go home, leave things alone. No, Ralph wanted to call out. Don’t do it. It’s that stupid inevitability which Ralph finds depressing. It’s exactly the same feeling he gets whenever he reads Genesis. He gets to the bit where the snake tempts Eve and he wants to say to her, Just this once—don’t do it, but she always does. He wants to say to her, Think of all the trouble you’ll save yourself and your children and all the rest of us if you just keep your hands off that fruit.There’s only one thing God asked you to do and you can’t do it. And for that you lose the whole of Paradise. The thought causes a sudden and overwhelming pang of personal grief—the loss of Paradise. Stella and Ditty emerge from behind a Doric column. They’re rosy-cheeked and high-spirited on adrenalin, having enjoyed a good old fright. It’s a curious thing but Stella always seems younger in the company of her aunt, as if there is something deeply relaxing in the bond of a shared family past. Outside, it’s just stopped raining and the footpath is temporarily thronged with well-dressed patrons who have spilled out through the 242
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double doors of the theatre. A group jostle forward; they’re in a hurry to catch the late bus that’s just pulled up. Ralph has Stella’s arm and Stella in turn is arm in arm with Aunty Ditty and they’re the real couple, the older woman and the younger, high-spirited on the North Sydney night-time streets and leaning into each other. Cars hiss by on the wet road but the trio are dry, keeping well away from the gutter. Ralph falls slightly out of step and Stella, laughing, hauls him into line. ‘Hey, you’re dragging the anchor of our ship.’ Ralph mutters sorry. At the corner of Walker Street they wait for a break in the traffic to cross the road and Ralph can’t help himself—he glances left to see the curve of bridge. In its night light it’s greeny grey, a mysterious web of struts and shadows. Majestic. And solemn. Ralph’s eyes glisten with sudden tears. Stella sneaks a quick look at him, squeezes his elbow out of concern and sympathy. But really she’d like to curse the bridge; her husband’s too young for his life to have peaked. It stings her pride to see him so diminished. And the bleak thought occurs: what if her own role has narrowed as a consequence? Must she spend the rest of her days nursing him and his disappointment? A brief gap in the traffic opens. ‘Run!’ shouts Stella, and, more gaily than she feels, she takes off, tugging Ralph and Aunty Ditty along with her.
Page 6 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Jan. 1st, 1936
The New Year is here and it’s time to bolster ourselves and try something different. We at the Rectory have decided on a new initiative and will throw open the Rectory parlour on the third Thursday evening of every month for an invigorating series of informal, secular talks. The speakers will be anyone at all, from both within the parish and without, and the topics 243
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shall be of everyday general interest. Primarily, this is designed to be an evening of entertainment but I am sure we shall all learn much along the way to improve our store of knowledge. Already we have some fascinating orators slated: Brigade Chief Stewart Goddington from the Metropolitan Fire Brigade will deliver the thrillingly titled talk, ‘Midnight when the Fire Bell Rings’, while Mrs. Valmay Liner will transport us with ‘Ten Days in Capetown’ and promises to bring along lantern slides. However, we are delighted to announce that, at the instigation of the Rectory’s own keen-asmustard would-be aviator (Colin Cage), our first speaker will be Squadron Leader Mark Aspen of the RAAF. Come along, at the time of 8 p.m., to hear him speak to the topic, ‘Flying the Bristol Bulldog’. Of course, the hostess at the Rectory wishes to advise that supper will be served afterwards. All welcome.
_______________ The spectacle of Father Christmas on fire caused consternation among those gathered for the annual parish Christmas Party at the Church Hall on Saturday, 19th Dec. The incident was not rehearsed and might have ended in tragedy. The verger, Mr. Ned Tooms, who assumed the role, came near naked flame, when his costume caught alight. It was quickly torn from him but his arms and neck were somewhat burned. The costume was thrown outside, where it set fire to the grass. Many willing hands, however, suppressed the fire. We are grateful to Miss Erica Tooms for taking over her grandfather’s duties while he recovered, and we are pleased to say that this is now the case.
_______________ Mrs. Kathleen Macey, one of our long-standing Sunday School teachers, has left us for a new life in Wollongong where her husband, Mr. John Macey, has taken up a position in the port. At a party held in her honour a few weeks ago, she was heartily thanked and presented with a Hecla Electric Kettle of the very best quality. We wish Mrs. Macey well and also take this opportunity to thank her young replacement, Miss Alice Cage.
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In this life it does not do to form lazy habits. A senior member of the laity came to me the other day and said, ‘We have been very lucky to have had so many of your Bridge articles and photographs in the parish paper over the years and yet you continue to supply us. Why not save yourself the trouble of getting them up, and print religious pictures instead?’ What a kind gentleman to be so concerned with my welfare, but of course I hurried to reassure him, it is no trouble at all. Only a very little re-jigging here and there is required to make previously published material pertinent to a new issue, but in any case, I’m proud to say I’ve never been attracted to the easy option. I shall never give in to slothfulness. Even if one is tired in the morning, one must still rise. And often one feels better by lunchtime.
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1967 Mater Hospital Ralph is restless; he wishes he could get out of bed and walk a little. How good it would be to feel his weight on his legs again and be upright. He’d need some help to do it but no one comes—won’t someone come? And just then Grace taps him on the shoulder. ‘Time to get up,’ she says. ‘Mr Tooms will be here soon.’ At last she’s come to see him but there’s something strange . . . Why is she only eleven years old? Isn’t she meant to be all grown-up and away on a field trip to some wintering ground? She helps him up anyway. It’s 2 am and they wait by the lower church gate. Behind them the sandstone pile of the church rises. The air is middle-of-the-night balmy, the weather of no-man’s land. The headlights of Ned Tooms’ truck bear down the road towards them. The truck pulls in and the old man keeps the engine running while he gets out to load Grace’s birds, which Ralph now notices have been in baskets at their feet all the while. They climb into the cabin and Grace slides to the middle of 245
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the big bench seat. She chatters to monosyllabic Ned and periodically leans to look past Ralph into deserted night-time side streets. ‘It’s like nobody but us is alive,’ she says to Ned. Ned agrees. Grace’s bobbed hair is shiny, she’s fidgety with the thought of the task ahead; for weeks she’s asked Ralph if she could go, just once, and he didn’t mind, couldn’t care less if the truth were known, wasn’t sure why he was even being consulted until it was revealed that Stella insisted he go too. Ned leans over the wide steering wheel and also seems eager. Under the tufty white bracken of his eyebrows, his eyes are clear and alert. He’s wearing his good luck pigeon hat, as he always does on these occasions. There’s nothing outwardly significant about it to indicate what bearing it might have on the day’s fortunes; it’s simply an old, grey felt hat with a hole in the broad brim where his thumb and forefinger have met a thousand times to tug it on. Grace would dearly love a hat just like it. To her, Ned is exotic, the keeper of arcane bird lore which is leaked to her sentence by slow sentence. To Ralph, Ned has always been just the part-time verger, reliable but frustratingly unimaginative and slow about his duties; with a modicum of extra speed much more could be accomplished. Tonight, in the intimate gloom of the truck cabin, Ralph is beginning to see another side to Ned. His old sun-scabbed hand rests on the gearstick between changes and he drives easy, elbow on the window sill, his footwork graceful when he double clutches. This is his realm and Ralph is his passenger and it’s comforting. Behind the upholstery at their backs is a living cargo; stacked and rattling. The old green truck is a cradle, rocking them all down the dark road. When they have left the suburbs behind and the houses become few and scattered, Grace’s talk slows. The slinking, skittering run of a fox through the headlights goes uncommented upon.Ten miles further, when trees are bending over the curved road and it feels like they’re 246
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not driving but tunnelling, Ned says, ‘She’s gone, Rector.’ Somehow she’s still upright but so sound asleep her head is bent heavily to her chest like she’s broken-necked. ‘You want to put my jacket on her?’ offers Ned. Ralph supposes so, and in the process of arranging it Grace slumps against him and snuggles. He puts his arm awkwardly around her and her warmth radiates through the stiff cotton of Ralph’s hospital gown. Miles more with hardly a word between Ned and Ralph. No need. Ralph’s tired too, the marrow in his bones feels like it’s shrinking, but still, it’s good to be out on a road climbing upward, headed heaven knows where. It’s still dark when they turn off onto a powdery dirt road. After a few miles’ drive along what appears to be a ridge line, Ned pulls up at a gate. He signals to Ralph to stay put so as not to disturb Grace and swings it open in a rusty arc. Grace stirs as Ned lurches back in. He holds onto the open door as he drives through. Gets out and shuts the gate again. They head down a rutted track and then abruptly the travelling is over. Ned douses the lights, switches off the engine. Like a blind pulled down, there’s silence. Ned reaches behind for a tuckedaway thermos and pours hot tea, passes a rough sandwich. Bread and honey. ‘Let them settle,’ he says, jabbing a thumb towards the back. They sip in the tea and the soft pre-dawn light.The paddock begins to form itself around them. They are on a hillside, a mountainside, and below them stretches the whole of the Sydney basin: north to Newcastle, south to Wollongong, if they could see that far. They get out and Ned rolls up the canvas covers of the truck, exposing layered rows of baskets. Unerringly Grace picks out her birds which, like all the others, shuffle and dance on the spot. She 247
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whispers into the wicker, ‘Nero, Marcus Aurelius, hello, it’s me.’ They give no sign of recognition. They turn their heads stiffly on their petrol-coloured necks and blink their pink-rimmed eyes dumbly. But she doesn’t care, she doesn’t need them to love her back. These two are her most experienced birds and once were Colin’s. She’s taken the loft over from him now his interest has withered. That’s the way with him—his passions are many and intense but usually short-lived. Colin named all his birds after Roman emperors, regardless of sex, but under Grace’s guardianship the names of new ones don’t always fit the established rule if Colin isn’t handy with his high school history. To Ralph’s certain knowledge, ‘Spook’ and ‘Whitey’ never donned a toga to address the senate of Rome. Ned checks his watch and moves quickly. Deft with purpose. He’s the pigeon man now, not the verger. He rigs the basket flaps to long strings so they’ll open in rows. The sun is rising. He steers Grace and Ralph off to one side at the rear of the truck. Positions himself. Checks his watch. Scans the sky for hawks—sniffs at the weather. The new day is still. And then the sun cracks up behind the distant sea and becomes a bulbous swelling. It sends the patchy cloud crazy with pink and orange, then gold yellow. Ned cuts the strings. An explosion of birds. In sunlight, first light, body and feather and sawdust flecks, silhouette and scrawny leg scramble, a grey beating rattle, wings against sun. A hundred dusty hands clapping. Worth the drive. The applause of birds. Grace raises her hands to her mouth with the wonder and glory of it. ‘Yahoooooo!’ she shouts; it’s epic, the grey flurry against yellow sky. She jigs in the starched paddock, waves wildly. ‘Go Nero. Go Marcus Aurelius. Friggin’ yahooo!’ 248
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Ned watches from under his pigeon hat. The nervous cluster of flighted birds wheels and steadies, locks to a compass point and beats on. ‘They’ll be home before we are.’ He turns to the truck. Grace remains in the paddock, a wiry, strong-limbed girl, watching birds. Back in the hospital room, Grace says, ‘I’m putting the rails up on your bed, to keep you safe if you toss and turn.’ ‘Thank you, Grace.’ ‘You’ve been restless.’ ‘Not anymore.’ She beams. She can’t wait to get home to check on the condition of her birds. When she’s sure they’re alright she’ll go down to the local pigeon club where Colin, doing her a favour, will have already taken the clock to record race times. But it’s not really the race she’s interested in. When she examines the birds’ plumage for feather damage she’s looking for clues to explain the journey. How and why they come home. ‘Goodnight, Dad.’ ‘Goodnight, Grace.’ The applause of birds.
25 September 1937 He’s swinging in a hammock slung between two trees in a stand of palms between the garage and the clothes line in the tiny temperate rainforest that is the rectory backyard. Stella, upstairs putting away damp-to-the-touch folded clothes, glances out Colin’s bedroom 249
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window, down to her sleeping husband. A book is open on his chest, which rises and falls according to his snoring. It’s a Monday, parson’s day off, but Ralph never has a day off, just perhaps a secluded hour like this which does for refreshment. The tether ropes of the hammock creak (stout hemp given to him by a rigger who assured him they were not stolen but had fallen off the back of a truck), they creak, he sways as if cradled in the rigging of a ship—the Santa Maria. Christopher Columbus, the subject of the book which has slumbered him, stands on deck, knees slightly bent to accommodate the ship’s gentle rocking. Before him is a golden meadow of sargassum weed interspersed with pools of bluest blue. The weed slips by the hull, it slishes, and the sailors shiver. Unbeknown to them, two hundred fathoms below their feet, eels mate, thousands entwined, all the eels of Europe and the unknown Americas, the eels of their villages. West the trade winds push them: the wind pushes them, the wind, and Christopher Columbus, and the exhortations of the Spanish queen, ‘In the name of God, make sail!’ But what mariner’s heart does not quail before these unharvestable acres and acres, never before seen, beyond which they are promised land and the golden-roofed houses of Japan? At night, flying fish thud onto the deck, chiming with the half-hourly ringing of the ship’s bell. Where is the point of no return when there will be neither food nor water enough, nor favourable winds, to return them home? Will it be today, or tomorrow? Ralph in his hammock twitches with the dilemma. Eighteen days out and the sailors have gone as far as they are contracted to go but Columbus urges them to continue. He alone is confident; with faith he will conquer the horizon. 250
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At sunset on the twentieth day an island is sighted and all the crew are sure it’s so but in the morning it has floated off, an aberrant piece of sky. Days pass: more ghostly islands, a whale, breezes bearing the scent of flowers, a visit from a dozen variegated birds. Thirty-one days gone and mutiny is no longer muttered, it’s an out-loud proposition. How could they keep trusting their lives to a foreigner who did not know what he was doing! Columbus pleads for more time; he is superb. ‘Give me three days more then do what you will—throw me into the sea for all I care. Three days and I promise you gold for the taking and the enduring gratitude of your King and Queen.’ He stands before the ship’s company and declares, ‘Follow me. For I am the agent of Heaven!’ Given three days, he needs only two. At 2 am on Friday 12 October 1492, by the light of a three-quarter moon, a line of breakers is spotted and the low dark smudge of land. Come daylight, Columbus will kneel upon that beach and give thanks to God and then he’ll erect a cross (and a gallows—but Ralph chooses not to dream that part). Three cheers for Columbus! He has found the Bahamas—though all his life he will insist it’s a land to the south of China. Like a leisurely millionaire, Columbus tours his islands for the next three months, writing down all the wonders he sees in a log addressed to his po-faced queen. Your Highness may rest assured that this land is the best and most fertile and temperate and goodly that there is in the world. Here the fishes are of the brightest colours in the world—blue, yellow, red, multicoloured; and the colours are so bright that anyone would marvel and take great delight in seeing them. The woods and vegetation are as green as April in Andalusia, and the song of the little birds might make a man wish never to leave here. The flocks of parrots that darken the sun are so different from our own that it is a wonder. In addition, there are trees here of a thousand kinds, all with fruit according to 251
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their kind, and they all give off a marvellous fragrance. I am the saddest man in the world for not knowing what kind of things these are because I am sure they are very valuable. Oh, Queen Toad-Faced Isabella, are you the type to tire of superlatives? Just in case, on exploring Cuba, Columbus bows. Your Highness will have to forgive me for repeating myself concerning the beauty and fertility of this land, but I assure you I have not told a hundredth part. And the weather? Esteemed Blancmange-faced Queen, Athlete of Christ, let it be known, The days are hot and the nights are moderate as May in Andalusia. And what of the natives? These people have no religion whatever, nor are they idolaters, but rather they are very meek and know no evil. They do not kill or capture others and are without weapons. They are so timid that a hundred of them flee from one of us, even if we are merely teasing. They are very trusting; they believe that there is God in Heaven, and they firmly believe we come from Heaven.They learn very quickly any prayer we tell them to say, and they make the sign of the cross. Therefore Your Highness must resolve to make them Christians. I believe that if this effort commences, in a short time a multitude of peoples will be converted to our Holy Faith, and Spain will acquire great domains and riches and all of their villages. To finish, This land is paradise; bountiful and beautiful and benign, surpassing anything ever seen before, pale in comparison are all the Aprils of Andalusia. In Ralph’s dreaming head scrolls a list of titles for Columbus: Viceroy and Governor of All Lands Found, One-Tenth Stakeholder of All Treasures, Greatest Dead-Reckoning Sailor Who Ever Lived, Navigator Whose Compass Was Faith, Inspired Servant of God, SingleMinded Personage Dedicated to His Task Beyond Reason, Unlocker of the Secrets of the New World, Genius Who Would Not Give Up. It took Columbus the better part of a decade to raise support for 252
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his voyage. Many times was he knocked back and told he was deluded in his enterprise until even the children of Castile pointed their fingers in ridicule whenever he passed by. What if he hadn’t ignored the best scholars of his day who rightly figured the world much larger than he did? Thank goodness he was pigheaded. A little mix-up with the Italian mile and the Arabian mile and hey presto—the Atlantic ocean was suddenly do-able! Tenacious Columbus, stick to your guns and follow your dreams! Ralph wakes. Bing! He’s recharged and immediately sits up, forgetting he’s in the hammock, which suddenly swings, tipping his book onto the ground and him, like a beetle, onto his back, arms and legs scrambling the air for purchase. Then out he sprawls, stands upright, then he’s off, running towards the house—in his socks, having forgotten his shoes—he ouches and oowtches over bark and stones. Through the back door he flies up the hall not knowing what to reach for first— notepad or telephone. He’s divinely inspired, the time has come, he will take no truck from detractors. He’ll renew his campaign. If he has to stand with a sword in his hand before the churchwardens, he will win this time. By nightfall, when Stella puts a plate of Welsh rarebit in front of him, he has dashed off next Sunday’s sermon, written a passionate piece for the parish paper and lobbied all of the most prominent parishioners, talking long and hard into the telephone until his jaw is sore and his ear is red from the pressure of the receiver. He’s in such a heightened state of excitement mixed with exhaustion that he cannot eat. He lifts his fork and almost loads it with a white mouthful before putting it down again, remembering some extra detail to recount to Stella; his brilliant tactics, the power of his ardent persuasion. He savours anticipated victory ahead of anything Stella has provided from her pots. Stella is hungry and only pretends to listen. 253
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The next day, when the sun rises to warm the backyard, a breeze nudges the hammock, sets it swinging so it looks as if Ralph has only just now departed. It swings—that netted bed, invented by the Caribbean Indians, which Columbus noted and thus introduced to the world’s sailors. Gently backwards and forwards, its shadow falls over Ralph’s forgotten book. An ant climbs up and explores the open pages, its sensitive forelegs seeming to feel for the print. Here and there it pauses as if to read a word—the ones Ralph ignores? For while the first two-thirds of the book are well thumbed, the condition of the last third is clean. Ralph is only interested in his hero’s story up to a certain point: after the triumph of discovery the rest’s problematic; the return voyages, the administration of the New World. The ant treads carefully towards a woodcut illustration on the right-hand corner of the page. Its feelers bend to the ink. The Indians of Paradise, once so happy, are shown in various ways taking their own lives. One hangs from a tree, one falls from a cliff, one clubs a child, one impales himself on a stick, a mother eats a poisoned tree root and beside her lies her baby, already deceased. This they would rather do than serve their overlords. The netted shadow passes.The ant waves its feelers over the thin black lines delineating their nakedness.
18 October 1937 All day Ralph’s been skittish. Kept late at the bank he was hardly able to answer the manager’s tedious questions. Really, he doesn’t know what else the man expected—of course the parish is behind with repayments to the loan. Once home he hurries upstairs to change from his more formal black suit into his grey, then he dons a sombrero and a false moustache, 254
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checks in the mirror to make sure they’re on straight, and rushes off to the hall.The children and Stella are already there, along with the rest of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, and other people are starting to arrive. Ralph takes up his greeting position at the door.‘Welcome, hombre,’ he bleats. ‘Good evening, señora. Señorita, what a beautiful frock! Welcome to the new Columbus Hall!’ In fact there’s nothing new about it at all, except for the fumes rising from the thin coat of paint hastily applied to the interior walls—oh, and the repairs to the treads on the stage steps where the termites have gorged. The place is as unexotic as it’s always been—budget weatherboard church hall circa 1905. Alice, newly engaged and wanting to use the occasion to show off her fiancé, is aghast at the spectacle her father’s making. Since her beau, a young actuary, has all the personality of a pilchard, she has reason to worry. Ralph pumps his hand hard when he arrives. ‘What do you think, Keith? In two years’ time, when Alice is twenty-one, you can have your wedding reception right here!’ Alice wrenches Keith away. Now a steady stream of folk enter and Ralph is more exuberant than ever, so eager is he to share his delight in the occasion. The shy ones quail, can’t get away, he doesn’t realise he’s standing too close, that even the wide brim of his hat has an overbearing effect; it’s a sort of portable portico, roofing them in. ‘Splendid decorations, wouldn’t you say?’ The Union Jack and the Spanish flag hang in front of the stage, and a paper chain in alternate links of yellow and pink scallops its way around the walls. ‘Well, why shilly-shally? Go on, join in!’ Ena Jensen, emerging from her duties in the kitchenette, gives Ralph a villainous look and makes a beeline for Stella. ‘I thought we decided against fancy dress!’ 255
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‘We did,’ admits Stella. ‘It’s just his . . . little thing.’ Ena turns up her lip. She’d been one of the keenest when the issue was considered at the committee meeting but there were no women aboard Columbus’s ships and they couldn’t all come as Queen Isabella, or Columbus’s dead wife, though, for the sake of variety, Mrs Liner had offered to come along naked, as a Native lass, carrying only her handbag and a spear. The committee failed to find Mrs Liner amusing—why, the very thought was disgusting, a St Christopher’s woman turning up as a darkie! Suitably chastised, Mrs Liner is fully and conventionally dressed tonight, apart from the bohemian hint of an ivory snake bangle choking the freckled flesh of her upper arm. Ralph’s giant black sombrero nods away in the middle of the throng near the door, a magnet for Ena Jensen’s sharp gaze. Though Stella tries to distract her, she’s not appeased and privately thinks it just goes to show there’s one rule for the Cages and another for all the rest. At home in the bottom drawer of her tallboy is a lovely antique lace mantilla she could have worn. ‘Ena,’ says Stella, ‘I think it’s time we got everyone to sit down.’ For now the night begins. Before the buffet dinner is served there’s a lengthy program of entertainment to get through: the Glee Club starts with a couple of tunes; Ned Tooms recites ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, which he speaks to the ceiling (at some point every single person in the audience looks up too, just in case there really is something up there worth seeing), but mercifully a tickly cough stops him at the end of Part II (Instead of the cross, the Albatross / about my neck was hung); the Sunday school children sing ‘Yes, Jesus Loves Me’ and several rounds of ‘Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree’, flapping their wings charmingly at the end; and as a grand finale Perry Gordello’s Rhythmic Gymnastics girls put on a Spanish dance in lavish flounced skirts run up by Perry’s mother. 256
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Only one girl drops her castanets (creditable, given the dancers’ lack of practice), but for the rest of the night, including during dinner, there is the black-lipped yip of them from some quarter of the hall or other as they pass from child to child. Only the meal is a disappointment to Ralph. In the planning stages, the Ladies’ Auxiliary had thought they might serve Spanish cuisine, but nobody knew what sort of food that might be. They asked the welltravelled Mr Wilf Carter, who had once been to Switzerland, but he didn’t know either; said, vaguely,‘Bull?’ Ralph consulted his Columbus book for New World-appropriate foods, came up with sweet potato and corn, but it didn’t rub with the Ladies’ Auxiliary, who decided on ham and Aberdeen sausage with salad followed by jelly for dessert, instead. And everybody tonight says how relieved they are not to be eating anything funny. Ralph grumbles, pushing the uninspiring items around his plate, longing for something more unorthodox. ‘Columbus ate iguana once,’ he says, to no one. ‘Barbecued.’ And then at last it’s time for the unveiling. Folk gather in front of a royal blue cloth which shrouds a small portion of the back wall. When the cloth is swished open an empty glass cabinet is revealed. It’s a noticeboard, with a wood panel across the top on which two golden words are written in gothic script: Columbus Hall. Everyone claps. Mrs Liner says, ‘What a shame the Archbishop couldn’t be here to see this.’ Ralph agrees. But nothing can diminish his satisfaction tonight and he grins and grins behind his itchy moustache. He has finally made a difference. Now that he has put the great name of Columbus before them, the people of this church—this parish—will never lack for inspiration. When the hubbub dies down, Ralph turns his back on the milling crowd and takes out his pocketbook and pencil. 257
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THINGS TO DO LIST Trade in the Essex. For a Chevrolet? Clean out Rectory gutters. Read Shakespeare. All. Conduct popular hymn survey. Favourites big drawcard. Join Aquarium Club? Visit all households (after dinnertime). Speak man to man. 35% increase in church attendance. Min. Money. Trade in Essex. For a Studebaker? Rename the Hall. With great pleasure, Ralph takes his pencil stub and runs a thick line through the last.
1938 Lawrence Ennis dies. He is sixty-six years old. His first job, at age fourteen, was with the Rochester Bridge Company on the Niagara Falls Bridge, connecting Canada with the United States.
18 March 1939 ‘I have dined in homes across America,’ says Wes Millershine, putting his napkin down on the table, ‘and never, Stella, have I eaten a fish as delicate and moist as that.’ Stella glows and looks expectantly at Ralph, hoping he’ll take the cue and chime in agreeably, but instead he’s poking big lumps of bread into his mouth and making theatrical swallowing motions. Stella swipes his plate away at speed. ‘Oh Mr Millershine, you exaggerate— 258
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surely there is some corner of America which can do justice to a bream!’ Ralph’s neck is a ladder which his Adam’s apple climbs up and down and Stella hopes that whatever bone is lodged there is very large. Aunty Ditty says, ‘What about catfish? They do that so well in the South, I’ve heard?’ Stella thinks she’ll only administer first aid to her husband when his eyes begin to bulge. After dinner, Wes Millershine sprawls in the floral armchair. His long legs stick straight out, he leans way back with his suit coat flapped open to expose a belly straining against shirt buttons—the man is casual in the extreme with his body. Indeed everyone in the room is separately and privately quite shocked. Has a visitor ever been so relaxed in the rectory parlour? The man may as well be taking a bath in front of them! And does Millershine realise how prominently he displays the not inconsiderable length and breadth of his trouser fly? Stella and Ditty aren’t sure where to look and Ditty can hardly contain a smirk. Stella offers around shortbread, hoping Wes might rearrange himself in the process of reaching for one, but no—he simply extends a long crane arm and plucks a delicate square from the plate. ‘Why thank you Stella,’ he says. ‘I’m a hard man, but I cannot resist a sweet.’ He pops it into his mouth whole. ‘Mmmn, that’s good,’ he says when he’s finished, and Ditty is pleased to see him crumbless, whereas Ralph has somehow managed to shower himself. ‘So, Mr Millershine,’ says Aunty Ditty, ‘is there a state in America to which you have not travelled?’ In the process of considering, Wes blows the air out of his mouth and lets it blubber over his lips. ‘Well my goodness, let me see, I don’t believe there is, Miss Ditty. I even got right up to the Alaskan territories 259
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in my early refrigeration days. Ketchikan, 1908—now that was a wild place: salmon and halibut, saloons, canneries, card games and cold storage plants. It was a devil’s pit, hee hee, but it sure was a lot of fun.’ In a fake aside to Ralph he says, ‘No wonder I saw the light not long after that.’ Then returning to the girls, ‘Yes sir, that town stank of sin and salmon.’ He tugs at the belt of his pants as he shifts in his chair, exchanging the weight from one buttock to the other, then he continues, ‘Of course travelling for business is very different to travelling for pleasure and I have not done enough of that and I count it as an oversight.’ He takes a sip of his chicory coffee and hides a grimace. ‘The previous Mrs Millershines, well one was insane and the other grim (a badly chosen souvenir from my church days—I don’t know what came over me), they weren’t neither of them open to . . . experiences. To get the best out of a journey it should be shared with a companion who’s . . . simpatico, don’t you think, Miss Ditty?’ He swivels his big head towards her. ‘For example, would you care to drift around the South Sea Islands on a white-hulled schooner if alone?’ ‘No, Mr Millershine,’ says Ditty, openly amused, ‘I would not.’ ‘The tropics, the town of Paris—some destinations are pure romance. And it does not make any sense to go visit those places without it.’ For the second time this evening Stella and Ditty are shocked; neither can ever recall a man discussing romance in the rectory parlour. Ralph has tuned out and is secretly trying to long-distance read the afternoon newspaper lying at an angle on a side table. Stella passes the shortbread again and kicks Ralph on the way past to encourage him to join in. ‘Oh Mr Millershine,’ she says, ‘there’s still time to enjoy those places in the way you dream—you may yet find your perfect companion.’ ‘Don’t worry about me in that department, Stella,’ says Millershine, ‘because I have not given up hope.’ 260
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‘No,’ murmurs Ralph as he squints to decipher the headline over the third column. ‘One must . . . never give up hope . . .’ Stella glares at him. Aha! He’s got it, the third column headline—Nazis take Czechoslovakia. ‘And was it you, Miss Ditty,’ asks Wes Millershine as he holds up the proffered biscuit to examine its excellence, ‘who taught your niece to be such a wonderful cook?’ They are on the verandah for Wes Millershine to smoke his polite American pipe away from the ladies’ delicate nostrils. It’s a novel, and peculiarly masculine, experience for Ralph. He almost wonders if they might soon pass a jug of moonshine. Inside, Aunty Ditty glows with uncharacteristic girlishness as she scrapes Wes’s plate into the rubbish. A delicately nibbled fish’s fin is all he’s left. Stella’s not so enamoured by Ralph’s leftovers and twists her face with an aversion which has nothing to do with tobacco. Leaning with his back to a verandah post, Wes Millershine looks out and the view sure is pretty; the lights of the cosmopolitan city spill across the harbour, boat lamps blink and dapple. Ralph, who is not so used to lounging around outside at night to no purpose, feels he should lean on something too, but when his chosen post feels sharp and rejecting against his back he settles for standing adjacent to it with hands in pockets, though he is never normally a man for hands in pockets. For once it’s not the harbour which catches his attention, but the dark semi-circle of lawn and garden in front of them. He’s surprised by it, the way it teems with nocturnal noises. Insects galore—cicadas, mozzies, beetles and moths flitting and dropping— possums bashing in trees, fruit bats flying across in their dark hordes, e-eing. The busy surplus of so much wild life is suddenly shocking to 261
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Ralph; it surrounds the house and (he works the thought up further), should mankind’s grip on civilisation slip, it seems poised to take over. A little beaded chill forms on his brow. He straightens himself up. It’s fanciful thinking, the sort one might expect from slouching around with hands in pockets. As if God would allow insects and animals to overrun the boundaries of their natural empires! Millershine, with his eyes on the city, appears not to have noticed any neurotic potential in the garden. His thoughts are far from abomination. Instead he puts a match to his pipe and puffs out an aromatic cloud. He sighs with the contented appreciation of a man in love with his chosen drug. ‘When I joined the ministry,’ he says, tossing the dead match out onto the lawn and jamming the box deep into a trouser pocket, ‘I gave up tobacco for Jesus. But later I decided he wouldn’t mind if I smoked. Especially once I realised they didn’t even have tobacco back then in the Holy Land!’ He chuckles softly. Ralph feels he really ought to chuckle back but he can’t work one up. Wes asks, ‘You ever have the habit?’ Ralph shakes his head. ‘You should take it up,’ says Wes. He gestures with his pipe.‘Seriously. You’ve got to remember, Ralph, tobacco’s a cash crop which sustains many a marginal economy—that’s why I consider smoking to be a charitable act.’ Ralph had never thought about it like that. ‘Do it for charity.’ He puffs out another satisfied blue cloud. ‘Here I am, though no longer a professional man of religion, doing good works just by standing on your front porch—and there you are, fully priested and doing nothing!’ Millershine chuckles again. Ralph feels compelled to defend his failure to support marginal economies. ‘It made me cough . . .’ 262
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‘Oh well,’ says Wes. He puffs into the dark and his spittle rattles happily in the pipe’s stem. ‘Why did you give it up?’ ‘What?’ asks Wes. ‘Give up your ministry.’ It’s the question he’s been dying to ask since Millershine arrived and declared he was here on business. Millershine nods and talks with the pipe clamped between his teeth. ‘Well, Ralph, you know you can only do the cha-cha for so long until you get tired of it.’ ‘Cha-cha?’ asks Ralph, who has never heard of the cha-cha, much less clerical duties thus described. ‘It’s like the mambo.’ ‘Oh,’ says Ralph. Wes, with only a slight trace of impatience, spells out his meaning. ‘It got too easy. There was no challenge. Got so I could snaffle up converts as quick as a hog with its snout in a bucketful of carrots.’ With a twinge, Ralph wonders was he only ever a carrot? And not even a carrot of distinction—just one among many? Ralph is deflated and he can’t help feeling he’s lost a certain amount of respect for this man whom he’d once believed so sincere. Could Wes be trusted now, on even the most basic level? Did pigs even eat carrots? (He would be careful never to repeat the saying in case not.) Why was Wes being so . . . American? Surely he didn’t give away his vocation just because he was bored? It had never occurred to Ralph that the ministry could be treated like a casual job, or worse, like clothes tried on and tossed aside when found unfashionable. If Ralph thought of his ministry at all, he thought of it as a marriage: on bad days it was something one must put up with, till death do us part, no further questions asked. If it wasn’t always possible to love God, it was at least possible to be loyal. That had to count for something, and maybe quite a lot. 263
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Suppose Ralph, like Millershine, stripped off his clerical collar. What would become of him then? What would he stand for? God is my spine, he thinks. But now, thanks to Wes, he doesn’t know if he should be pleased with that thought.What sort of man is he who can’t remain upright of his own accord? He tries again: God is my steel. That’s better. God is the steel arch of my bridge. Better still. It’s only in increments such as these that he can build towards the imagination necessary to believe in God. Only sometimes, with the tangible, the magnificent, the beautiful bridge before his eyes, can he feel the emotional surge which makes the idea of God seem possible again. The rest is loyalty. A dogged act of will. ‘Out of the blue,’ Millershine is saying,‘an old buddy contacted me, had a new refrigerant in development. I invested and it took off and here I am to introduce it to your local manufacturers.’ He whispers, in case there’s someone standing in the shadows ready to steal the patent, ‘A variant of Freon 12. Some day the world’s going to personally thank us for perfecting these chlorofluorocarbons.’ Ralph looks vacant. He’s not up to date with his chemistry. Millershine’s pipe’s gone out, he relights it. Puff, puff, the flame of the match sucks down to the bowl. ‘Matter of fact, my first call will be to a fella with a factory just up the way, fella called Hallstrom.’ Ralph knows of him; he’s rich, a self-made man. Wes says,‘They tell me he’s wild about wild animals,’ and he chortles at his own phraseology. Ralph nods, with indifference says, ‘He sold five hundred refrigerators in Africa and bought two rhinoceroses. Gave them to our zoo.’ ‘Heck,’ says Wes, ‘maybe I should’ve brung over an armadillo to trade! You have to admit, mixing it with a fella like that’s got to be a lot more exciting than singing gospel.’ 264
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When Ralph fails to respond, Wes gives him a sideways glance, is smart enough to pick up on his disapproval; it hurts Ralph to hear his profession disparaged. Millershine drops his bombast. He’s apologetic. ‘Action keeps men alive.’ Then he gives a wry smile. ‘It doesn’t make us smart but at least it keeps us busy.’ He perks up. ‘Say, didn’t you used to write books?’ ‘One,’ says Ralph, and at some length he explains the fate of the second volume. He finishes, ‘And so I missed the boat.’ Wes says, ‘Then hell, you need to build a new one.’ Wes moves, energised, taps out his pipe against the step. ‘You need an occasion to re-pique interest.’ He nods towards the bridge. ‘How old is that big widget? You could publish your book to coincide with the next important anniversary.’ ‘That would be the tenth,’ says Ralph without hesitation, ‘in 1942.’ ‘It’s a way off, but what the heck—it would give you something to aim for.’ A little candle lights itself inside Ralph and he starts to feel its warmth spread. It could be possible. Three years would give him plenty of time to save up the money. The second volume could still come alive. ‘Are you gentlemen staying outside all night?’ It’s Stella. ‘Ditty’s finding some music on the wireless.’ ‘No,’ says Millershine, tugging up the belt of his pants and stuffing his pipe in his jacket pocket. ‘We’re done here.’ Stella steps out of the darkened doorway towards them, then stops short. ‘Oh, just look at those moths!’There must be fifty of them.They flutter and knock in a dizzy orbit of blurred wings, beating themselves against the high verandah light fitting. Though Stella’s way too short, she tries to bat them away. ‘Forget it. That’s life,’ says Wes Millershine. 265
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Page 8 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Apr. 1st, 1939
The speaker at last month’s Every Day Interest Talk was autograph hunter Rev. F.B. Watkins. During his talk, which went for 2½ hours, he listed his best ‘gets’ (among them, three royals, Walter Lindrum, important clergy), and went on to explain how he ‘bagged’ the Earl of Worchester after ten refusals. Our next guest will be Mr. Aidan Woodhouse, a retired School Inspector, who is now a petrified wood collector.
___________________ Thankfully, the Essex Six is back on the road, so beautifully repaired one would never know it had been in a ‘bingle’.
____________________
23 May 1939 When Ralph enters the dining room for breakfast he’s displeased to find Wes Millershine already there and in full command of the newspaper. What’s more, he’s ensconced in Ralph’s customary place at the head of the table with his chair pulled out at an angle and with his bad leg propped up on the seat of the nearest other.Without taking his eyes off the paper Millershine stretches out a big hand and feels across the table like a blind person for the plate, which contains a last finger of marmalade toast. ‘Ahem,’ says Ralph, clearing his throat to signal his presence. Wes folds back a corner of the newspaper to peek at Ralph. ‘Well, good morning to you too,’ he says cheerily. ‘More toast?’ asks Stella, bustling in. Millershine goes to shift his leg off the chair. ‘Leave it,’ she says. ‘Keep it elevated.’ Ralph sits but Stella puts the fresh plate down at Wes’s end of the table. The children poke their heads around the doorway. 266
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Colin: ‘We’re off now, Mr Millershine. Goodbye.’ Alice: ‘What time does Aunty Ditty’s train get in?’ Grace: ‘How’s your leg this morning?’ Marian: ‘Bye.’ The front door slams. ‘Goodbye and not a word addressed to me,’ says Ralph to himself. He watches them through the window when the curve of the driveway brings them into view. Alice is stepping out ahead, trying to set herself apart from the others now she’s a working woman, a kindergarten teacher, and soon to be married, but Grace is throwing pebbles at the backs of her legs. Alice turns and makes a face and swipes an angry hand in her general direction. Grace should be more mature at fourteen. They’re nearly all grown up. They could all have jobs but instead Ralph has insisted on a full education. Though Colin has started a science degree this year at the university, Ralph hasn’t given up hope he might later switch to theology. Why not, father and son in the same profession? He’s a brilliant student and could turn his hand to anything. In fact, they are all clever. Marian has her nose in a book right now and nearly walks into the stone pillar of the church gate but at the last minute Colin puts his hands on her shoulders and steers her through. She trusts him and doesn’t even bother to look up. ‘Ralph, can you recommend a barber?’ Wes repeats. Stella plonks down another pot of tea. ‘Oh he always goes to the Continental man near the station who does a terrible job. Cheap,’ she says behind her hand. ‘Plus he’s got a limp.’ Wes laughs. ‘Stella, you are charming.’ ‘But illogical,’ says Ralph. ‘The poor man’s crippled leg has no bearing on his skill with the scissors.’ ‘I think it does,’ counters Stella. ‘It puts him off balance. Just look at what he does to you—he can’t cut a straight fringe!’ 267
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Wes puts the paper down on the table like a place mat and neatly places his cup of tea in the middle of it. Ralph wants that paper. It’s a cherished part of his morning routine. And now it’s doing nothing, a broadsheet acting as a doily. ‘Well, maybe I’ll find a place in the city,’ says Wes. ‘I’ve got some business there this morning and I’ve got to look my best for Miss Ditty’s visit. Hey, you know,’ and he pats his bad leg, ‘some things happen for the best. I would have been on my way back to the States and missed her if it wasn’t for this.’ ‘You will go adventuring.’ Stella pours herself a cup. Ralph passes the milk jug but she ignores it; she’s trying it black, like Wes. She says, ‘We warned you Darwin was a primitive place.’ ‘It is,’ says Wes. ‘But I couldn’t turn down Hallstrom’s invitation. It was worth this graze to my leg.’ He turns to Ralph. ‘Any case, how many times in a man’s life does he get to go on a crocodile safari?’ Ralph says, ‘May I have the newspaper?’ Wes says, ‘It was exhilarating.’ Ralph says, ‘I thought I saw an interesting article on the front page.’ He’s heard the crocodile story umpteen times in preceding days. Wes passes the paper but keeps talking. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that croc’s bite was mostly air swing. I wouldn’t be having a skerrick of trouble if it weren’t for his dirty old teeth causing infection.’ There it is, the headline that caught Ralph’s eye: Pact of Steel. It must be something to do with the Harbour Bridge. ‘That old man crocodile,’ says Wes, ‘he got nothing of mine worth having—but I sure got a nice pair of shoes out of him.’ Stella needs extra sugar in her tea. Ralph reads on and is disappointed to find the story isn’t about anything important at all; it’s just something to do with the Nazis forming an alliance with the Italians. 268
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At 3 pm Ralph drives them all to Central Station. In comes the Albury train and the platform, which was empty a minute ago, is awash with people. ‘There she is,’ says Stella, spotting Ditty somehow in the weaving throng of coats and hats. Ditty materialises, looking fresh and elegant as always. She hugs Stella, kisses Ralph and then she steps back. ‘Mr Millershine, now look at you with your cane! So it’s true, you have been wounded in the course of big-game hunting!’ She is not so much impressed by the story as thoroughly amused. Her eyes sparkle, she shakes her head in disbelief at the man standing before her. Wes gives back a boyish, rueful smile. She teases, ‘Thank goodness for your natural athleticism, or you may not have outrun the beast.’ ‘Miss Ditty,’ he says, ‘you would not believe what the prospect of being eaten will do for a man’s turn of speed.’ She laughs outright. ‘You are incorrigible. Whatever will you do next? What could compare to the excitement of that encounter?’ ‘Oh,’ says Mr Millershine, ‘don’t worry. I’ve surely got my sights on some other game.’
3 September 1939 France, Britain, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
4 September 1939 Colin Anderson Cage is one of the first men in Sydney to enlist in the air force. Men? Man? He’s nineteen years old and still has model aeroplanes hanging from the roof of his bedroom. 269
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4 December 1939 ‘Finally!’ hoots Stella as she skips into the study waving a card. ‘Look, Ralph!’ But Ralph is disinclined to be distracted by her hullabaloo; he’s engrossed in a technical drawing. It’s a diagram of the cradle system used to lift the hangers, which he intends to reprint in next month’s parish paper with certain improvements. The amendments will also warrant inclusion in the second volume. Stella wafts a postcard in his face, too close, and the Eiffel Tower jabs him in the nose. ‘From the honeymooners,’ she says. ‘I haven’t got my glasses. Read it, will you.’ Ralph takes it and tilts it to the light, screws up his nose, the better to decipher the loose black flow of Ditty’s handwriting. He clears his throat. He reads in a monotone: 30th of September, 1939 Dear All, Are we the only two crazy people in the world to be going to Paris when everyone else seems to be leaving? Never mind, Wes and I met a distinguished French general in the dining room of the Hotel Meurice who assured us the war is nothing to worry about. (Chateaux Briand is my new favourite food!) Oh, the elegance of this city! The people, the conversations! I have starved for this all my life. We adore strolling through the streets and simply being here. But leave we must, on the 5th for New York then on to Wisconsin. Love you all dreadfully, hugs and kisses, Ditty 270
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Ralph adjusts his glasses. ‘Wes has added a few lines of his own,’ he says, and he continues in a mild imitation of Wes’s accent: I thank God for my wonderful Missus Ditty. I am daily in heaven. She gives me everything I need. ‘Well, they sound happy,’ he says, turning the card over to look at the picture. Stella agrees, though privately she’d rather have done without Wes’s postscript and its too many conjugal clues. Clues which, she uncomfortably notes, seem underscored by the choice of card with its photograph of the rearing prong of Eiffel’s tower. She snatches it out of Ralph’s hands.Though she likes and admires Wes, she is not curious about this aspect of her dear aunt’s marriage. Ralph makes to ask for the postcard back but on second thoughts he lets it pass. The (over) famous tower isn’t really worthy of further study. Noteworthy for its use of riveted wrought iron, yes, but little more than an ornament, a toy with no real function. Merely a structure for tourists to clamber about upon. ‘I’m so glad they’re safe and sound,’ says Stella. ‘And thank God as far as Colin’s concerned. Isn’t it good to know—from the horse’s mouth—that the war’s nothing to worry about.’
22 June 1940 In a railway car at a siding in the quiet forest at Compiègne, northwest of Paris, sits Adolf Hitler. Such a sense of drama. He has had the carriage extracted from a French museum and brought here especially for the occasion and now he occupies the very chair that cradled Marshal Foch’s buttocks in 1918. In that year, in this exact place, the marshal watched unmoved as the Germans capitulated. How it galled them to agree to the hard-knuckled terms of the armistice. 271
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Today, Adolf Hitler muses at the comfort of the fit when the boot is worn on the other foot. This time it is France who surrenders. To further insult the French generals, Hitler delegates proceedings and leaves before the business is finished, as if to say the fall of a country (well, especially one like theirs) is not worthy of his further consideration. He decides he’ll have the carriage transported to Berlin—to the victor go the spoils and, you never know, it might come in handy again.
30 November 1940 The news comes via the post today; Colin Anderson Cage has passed his advanced training. Ralph and Stella go to the pictures.They have become semi-regulars. Tonight’s feature is Strike Up the Band, a musical, in which neither have a genuine interest.Though they do not say so out loud, they really only come for the newsreels. The images they see from around the world connect them to it and to their son: an aircraft-manufacturing plant in Britain, a pilot-training camp in Canada, briefing rooms, flights over vast tracts of empty land, lakes and acres of firs; a passing-out parade with hats tossed in the air. Bless the camera’s wandering eye, for you never know what it might see, what it might show: a pan along a row of smiling, expectant faces, and even though they’re not Australian boys, Stella is almost sure Colin will be the one on the end. Of course it’s always some other mother’s son but Stella feels her breast swell just the same. For his part, Ralph has taken to studying the films for shots of planes, noting the different types. He has begun compiling a list at home and is learning it by heart: models, features, specifications. It has 272
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not occurred to him to go into Colin’s room, where all the information he craves has already been expertly gathered. The next newsreel item features a monkey wearing a hat and coat, driving a little car at the Chicago zoo. ‘Hey, fella, don’tcha know the rules of the road?’ The monkey honks the car horn, a keeper leaps out of the way. ‘Wiseguy! I got right of way.’ Ralph laughs heartily, Stella joins in, nudges him, points to the screen. ‘That’s you.’ And then the just-released footage of the Tacoma Bridge comes on. No one was hurt so the collapse is reported as a novelty, but in an instant Ralph’s good mood evaporates. An undulating bridge— convulsing—rubberised. He can’t take his eyes off it, how the deck tilts and sways, the extremity of the oscillations. A final wrench, then in slow motion, in black and white, it sheds cables and road the way a dancer sheds scarves. The bridge is less than six months old. Designed by a renowned engineer. Who’s infamous now. Nausea climbs in Ralph’s throat and his mouth fills with excess saliva. Some element of trust has disappeared from the world which will not be easily recovered. The musical comes on. Ralph can’t get comfortable and twists in his seat during the whole thing despite Stella whacking him to keep still. When they get home Colin’s letter lies where it was left—open on the kitchen table. And there’s his photograph. He’s smooth-skinned (couldn’t grow an aviator’s mo even if he wanted to), has a baby’s clear gaze and thick eyelashes, and of course he’s in uniform and wearing his wings. Ralph folds the letter, picks up the photo, and slides them both back into the envelope. Away.
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December 1940 Ralph is at his aviation homework. He’s teaching himself the rudiments of navigation and is especially gripped by calculations regarding fuel capacity and range. He wants to know how the pilots make sure they don’t run out of petrol in mid-air.
Tuesday 14 July 1941 11.39 am. Ralph is in his study, humming and content. From the rear of the house comes the sound of Stella vacuuming. Her motorised cleaning really does make a terrible racket but the sun is shining, the day is sharp and clear: it’s good weather for thinking. Ralph is marking papers for the boys’ college, an essay competition which the headmaster has asked him to judge, and he’s relishing the job. While he points out every error of spelling or grammar or fact he is also careful to write a cheery remark at the end of each one to encourage the young scholars. He has enjoyed seeing these fresh minds at work as they tackle their topic, ‘My Seven Wonders of the World’, especially this one by a certain lad named Pritchard, who argues passionately for the inclusion of the Woolly Mammoth—which is quite against the rules as all the Wonders are meant to be manmade. Ralph looks up, amused, and in doing so sees, through the uneven thickness of the glass in the study windows, the wavering black shape of an official church car pulling up outside. A Buick sedan with a gas producer on the back. Ralph has no doubt it’s from the Archbishop’s garage. For a long time there has been a kind of truce between Ralph and the church hierarchy—they’ve left him alone, pretended he didn’t exist—so what are they up to now? Ralph is disinclined to get up from his chair to find out. 274
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It’s Retont. The Hoovering is louder. Stella must have moved upstairs and is cleaning directly above the study. Ralph watches as Retont gets out of the car. The sound effects of Retont’s actions are lost to the electrically powered roar of the cleaner. Retont reaches into the car for his hat, he straightens his jacket, adjusts his cuffs, looks anxiously about as if to be sure he’s got the right house—what’s he playing at?—but then he takes a resolute step away from the Buick. As he moves, his figure alternately thickens then narrows in the old window glass. He’s got something small in his hand. It’s yellow. Stella bashes the Hoover repeatedly against the skirting board as if she’s sucking up something stubborn and that’s when Ralph realises. The thing in Retont’s hand. It’s a telegram. At number 22 Euroka Street, North Sydney, Bob and Betty and Eddie Stoop are frightened. Eddie is suffering an asthma attack.The doctor has been summoned. Eddie’s airways are narrowed; he struggles to expand his lungs and his heart races. Bob and Betty do their best to keep their son calm but they don’t feel calm, they feel terrified as they watch, powerless to help him in his distress. He can’t breathe. Ralph opens the front door, pre-empting Retont, who has his fist raised ready to knock. Retont looks foolish in such a frozen pose, as if he’s been caught stealing. And still there’s the dreadful racket of the vacuum cleaner. Ralph opens Retont’s hand and takes the telegram. He reads it then stumbles up the stairs to Stella. She’s at the end of the hall vacuuming the carpet runner. He waves his long arms to get her attention. When she finally looks up and sees him she smiles at his antics, thinking her noise has sent him complaining from his study. But when he waves more wildly and she notices the strange, strangled look on his face, she stops pushing the Hoover. As he lumbers towards her, 275
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she sees all at once the clutched telegram and his mouth in an ugly gape saying the word ‘Colin’ and she knows. They stand there helpless in the hall until Stella takes a few wobbled steps towards Ralph and he catches her. The abandoned vacuum cleaner continues to roar. Retont comes up the stairs and stands a minute before registering the machine’s chord. He bends low to the power point and shuts it off. At 22 Euroka Street, Eddie Stoop passes away.Time of death: 11.47 am. Stella and Ralph and Retont are sitting around the kitchen table where they’ve been for the last two hours. Retont has made tea which is untouched. Stella’s eyes are puffed and her face is red. She’s finished crying for the minute, mostly because her head so aches she feels kicked. She says stupidly, ‘I suppose I should get lunch . . .’ Retont signals he’ll go soon. ‘Are there people I can telephone for you—the churchwardens?’ Ralph shakes his head, stares at the table. For a long time he’s barely spoken or moved. Caught in the back of his throat is the word, NO. He can hardly swallow for the way it’s lodged there. NO, it can’t be true, this couldn’t have happened to Colin. The son he was waiting to get to know. Retont goes to put his hand on Ralph’s shoulder, saying, ‘Sorry, old man,’ but Ralph shrugs it off. He doesn’t want any sympathy, not Retont’s. NO, this could not have happened to Colin. His handsome, intelligent son who could have been anything. Then, mercifully, there’s a knock at the front door. Retont stirs to answer it but Ralph shoulders past; he’s got to move or he’ll choke on that NO. Down the hallway it grows in his throat and fills up his head, NO, NO, and he throws the door open to discover the surprise presence of the Stoops. Their faces are stricken, NO, and Bob says falteringly, ‘We’re sorry to interrupt but—’ 276
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Ralph cuts him off. He feels his face prickling with anger and he wants to yell, NO, NOT MY BOY, but he somehow holds back and, grappling for civility, he clips out, ‘Thank you, but . . . perhaps later,’ and he shuts the door in their faces, he shuts out the Stoops. Back in the kitchen Ralph is angry and he says to Retont,‘Who did you tell before us? There are people here with condolences already!’ NO, NOT MY BOY. What he really wanted to say to the Stoops, as they stood there in their pathetic little well-meaning huddle, was, WHY NOT YOURS INSTEAD?
Page 8 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Aug. 1st, 1941
Weddings. June 7 – Eric Lippingdon Barnard and Mary-Anne McCarn. June 16 – Murray Graham Ecclestone and June Dora Watchley. June 16 – Bernard Axeswill and Hilary Elizabeth Dattiner. Baptisms. June 27 – " – " – " –
Florence Hunter Barr July 3 – Isobel Jean Aitken Margaret Maud Mendlesson July 16 – Theodore Ambrose Neville Manfred " – Anne Tooms Shirley Wilma Wilsck
Burials. July 6 – Dorothy Davitt, aged 71 years, at Rookwood. July 8 – Edward Allen Stoop, aged 35 years, at Northern Suburbs (Rev. A.G. Attwell). July 22 – Helen Marjorie Ray, aged 58 years, at Northern Suburbs.
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Memorial Service. A memorial service, to be conducted by Rev. A.G. Attwell, will be held in the church on Wednesday, 7th August, at 10 a.m., for Colin Anderson Cage, aged 21 years and five weeks.
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August–December 1941 Ralph knocks on the door of the Stoops’ house and nobody answers though he knows someone’s there. When he opened the squeaky gate coming in, he saw the front curtain move. He knocks again. ‘Please.’ Betty Stoop opens the door but not very wide. It’s clear he’s not welcome inside. ‘Bob’s not here,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ He falters. She looks him full in the face and finally says in a tight, wrung-out voice, ‘There was no Bright Angel.’ He says nothing but nods, and he feels his own desolation increase tenfold.
Flames flick out of the top of the rusty old drum incinerator in the rectory backyard. In the midday sun they lick up, partly orange, partly blue, partly transparent. Ralph is vaporous too; he stands behind, rippling in the haze of heat.The fire is quick and hungry, the way fires always are when fed on paper. It leaps for the manuscript pages almost before they’ve left Ralph’s hand. They blacken in an instant and curl and fall apart and lift on the updraft. In the air, charred flecks swirl. The second volume is smoke and ashes. 278
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Everyone turns out. The church is full, the memorial service is underway, and Ralph has just begun to deliver the eulogy when in come the Stoops, late. Ralph spots them sidling in and shuffling along to find a place among the other folk standing at the back; there isn’t a seat left despite the extras Ned Tooms has brought up from the hall. Mid-sentence, Ralph falters. Suddenly he can’t think straight. Though he tries to look away, though his gaze democratically rakes the whole congregation, in that general blur, the faces of Bob and Betty Stoop stay sharply focused. Listing the achievements of his talented son, he gets the chronology muddled, goes back to his notes, corrects himself, reads from the list in a formal monotone. He knows this won’t do, he tries to improvise but he loses his way again and cannot give life to Colin. Every time he says Colin’s name, he pictures Eddie instead and so Eddie hijacks Colin’s service. People think Ralph’s speech is incoherent out of grief for his son but it’s out of grief for Eddie, and for the Stoops standing up the back there, and for their truck parked outside, Stoop & Sons, and it’s for himself and his own faults and imperfections and his need to howl them out loud to the congregation. What sort of father is he, to have lost sight of his own son, in the middle of his memorial service? Afterwards, everyone mills on the church lawn talking in subdued groups and Ralph and Stella move gingerly between them; condolences and thanks and clutched hands. Ralph hesitates as they approach the Stoops.The Stoops are apprehensive too. Bob looks at his shined shoes. Betty holds his arm at the elbow and almost imperceptibly pulls herself in closer to him. Bob licks his lips and says louder than he means to, ‘We were closed up in our troubles and we didn’t know about yours.’ 279
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Ralph nods, says, ‘Me too.’ They shake hands. But all of them in that awkward circle, they all know Ralph did something he shouldn’t have that he can’t take back; that he broke a covenant when he shut his door in their faces. ‘Will you be coming back?’ asks Ralph, and he means to church, to St Christopher’s, where for several weeks they’ve been missing. Bob and Betty look at each other and shrug and nod, yes then no, and shrug again. Stella gives Betty a quick mother’s hug. Then, though it seems a further indecency, she leaves Betty to go to the comfort of her other children.
The Stoops do return to church, they try for a while, but it’s terrible, for Ralph and for them. There’s always this broken thing between them, as well as Ralph’s confusion over sons and grief.When they’re there in the congregation Ralph delivers the service like an amateur; he can find no authority in the words and he secretly feels as if God has ruled lines through the meaning of the liturgy to teach him a lesson. Thou hast covered thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through. Lamentations. He has the Stoops’ forgiveness, but what good is it? It’s a cold pudding dumped in his lap.
Months pass, then one Sunday Ralph is singing the designated hymn, ‘My Soul doth Magnify the Lord’, when, on a big note, he notices he is singing loud and flat and he’s forgotten himself. Like one bucket 280
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poured into another, he has emptied himself out in praise of another, the way he used to. He almost cries with relief. He realises the Stoops are not there and did not attend last week either. He asks about among the parishioners to discover they’ve upped and gone, having taken up a haberdashery shop in Gilgandra. Nobody knows any further details. With the absence of the Stoops, Ralph’s deep sense of disgrace dulls to regret. He thinks he’s beginning to forgive himself but really, with the passing of time, he just forgets to feel so ashamed. It’s too hard to keep up. But one thing never seems to change. Ralph can still recall Eddie’s face better than he can Colin’s. From time to time, as a prompt, he gets out the photo of Colin in his airman’s uniform. It doesn’t take a minute till Eddie materialises, slack-jowled, thirty-five years old but with the long, soft stubble of an adolescent clinging to his neck. Neither Eddie nor Colin were ever properly men.
Stella likes the sizzling sound of her wet finger on the bottom of the iron as she gauges its heat. She leaves it there half a second longer than is necessary as a secret test. Stella versus pain. This is also the way she manages her mourning: remembering her son in flashes for as long as she can stand the hurt, then shutting him out again.
19 March 1942 Ralph opens the newspaper this morning with a sore heart. Today is the tenth anniversary of the opening of the bridge.There are no boxes stacked in the rectory containing a newly printed second volume— and there never will be. 281
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A special edition of the newspaper has been put out today; a six-page section of celebratory articles and photographs is promised inside. Ralph’s unhappiness prevents him from turning straight to it as he would have done in former times, but as he browses through the regular news, almost against his will anticipation builds. In the middle of a report on wheat prices his attention wanders . . . What story or photograph, what angle, will be chosen to lead the special feature? He turns the pages, he turns the pages, Ann Patchett! There it is, an entire half a page of picture! Woman with Sandwich on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931. What a shock! And worse—there’s his name, he’s been credited! He’s outraged. That’s his photograph and nobody asked his permission to print it. Who gave the paper the plate? Ann Patchett! Woman with Stupid Sandwich making the Sydney Harbour Bridge look stupid too.That ridiculous pose, that challenging stare. Ralph weeps into his toast. All day as Ralph goes about his parish business people stop to congratulate him. He cuts them short, he scurries away. He’s not quite out of earshot when he hears one man say to another, ‘For once he’s taken a picture that’s not boring.’
31 May 1942 The night the Japanese midget submarines attack Sydney Harbour, Ralph and Stella are at a surprise supper party in Chatswood. Just as they are hiding behind furniture waiting for the arrival of the guest of honour, the first of three mini-subs sneaks through the Heads. 282
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‘Surprise!’ Ralph and Stella yell as the lights go on, and everyone laughs to see Alby Attwell, the birthday boy, so taken in. When the party’s over Ralph and Stella drive home. Ralph pulls into the garage and turns off the engine.Without speaking, Stella and he stay put, suddenly worn out and deflated from the hilarity of the evening and the playing of parlour games. As the engine cools it seems they can hear something—something unfamiliar.They strain to listen.They get out of the car and Stella, with her handbag held tight to her body, walks to the front of the house and waits while Ralph closes up the garage. Frowning, she looks out over the harbour and says, ‘Something’s wrong.’ They stand together on the verandah steps. Where the harbour should be dark they see the sweep of searchlights and the grey-white collars of churning wakes—boats and ships and launches all on the move. The night is cold, Stella clutches at her fox fur, Ralph puts his arm around her. Across the water comes a quick, flashed signal and the hairs on Ralph’s forearms ping upright. Some drama is being played out in the dark waters of the harbour. And then, a brilliant flash and a huge but muffled boom. Stella clutches at her fur. She does not know she holds the shrunken head of the animal; she pushes its wrinkled snout into her breast. Ralph and she huddle together on the rectory steps wondering what’s going on. What’s going on is this: Japanese submarine Midget A has fired a torpedo which misses its target, USS Chicago, and explodes under an old ferry-turned-depot-ship, Kuttabul, killing twenty-one sailors and wounding ten others. It slips away and is not seen again, by anyone, Australian or Japanese. Midget No. 14 is already scrap metal, having become tangled in a boom net. Her crew, realising their situation is hopeless, have destroyed themselves by setting off demolition charges. 283
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The third sub, Midget No. 21, arrives late and is hunted long. Confusion lasts till dawn. Depth charges are fired by patrol boats in Taylors Bay, near the zoo; from those waters, bubbles and oil rise. A cable and anchor are dragged to find the submerged craft. Finally, contact. The anchor holds. Last depth charges are dropped for good measure. Later in the day divers are sent for. The wind falls away; the animals at the zoo—the great baboon, the peacock and Hallstrom’s rhinoceroses—are all calling. The divers go down. Through the oval glass of their frogmen’s masks they see the dark cigar of the mini-sub. The hum of motors still running. Propellers turn slowly in the gloom. The next day, when the midget-sub is raised, men take off their hats out of respect for its occupants. Lieutenant Keiu Matsuo and Petty Officer Masao Tsuzuku are dead of self-inflicted wounds.Wounds made by revolver. The newspapers never say if they had one gun or two. Rumours abound for weeks. Everyone says the military have mined the Harbour Bridge. If the Japs come someone will be ordered to depress a plunger and blow it up. Ralph imagines sitting on his grassy knoll at Lavender Bay and watching; first the earth shaking under him, and then the bridge lifting up entire to hang for a second before dropping, in a curtain of a million shattered pieces, into the harbour. Men from Kuttabul dead instead of men from Chicago. Men in Midget No. 14 dead because of a tangle. Life and death—the difference between them may only be a series of balls-ups.Who’s to say someone won’t mishear ‘The Japanese aren’t coming’, and blow up the bridge for nothing? Over the coming days Ralph leans into the radiogram, hand on the dial hunting news bulletins. In the mornings he snatches at the newspaper; pages scattered and broken-backed lie over the dining table and between teacups. Stella stays in bed.They are shocked and violated by the enemy having been only yards away. Imagine the imperialist 284
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flag of the Rising Sun hung over the nave of the church instead of the Union Jack! But what if, what if . . . ? Is Colin so different from them? The squadron leader’s letter is folded in Stella’s underwear drawer, its story already imbued with dried flowers, lavender. It says he died on a blue sky day flying over the Mediterranean. Two Messerschmitts came from nowhere. He shot them down and then, crippled himself, spun into the sea. Colin and the Japanese, they both ended up in enemy territory and on the bottom. Dry-eyed, Stella twists the corner of her pillow.Those Japs, those boys, she could have had them here for dinner. They could have beached their silly machines in Lavender Bay and climbed out and walked up the path to dinner: a full plate, chops and grilled tomato and boiled peas. And after that a bed with clean linen. Couldn’t she have just given them dinner?
1967 Mater Hospital Ralph has a dream—someone is on the bottom of the sea, planted like a weed. At first he thinks it’s Nipper Addison but then he knows it’s Colin. Notched rays of sunlight filter through the gloom. False ladders promise sky. At Cabbage Tree Creek the bush becomes dense, a strange region of almost-rainforest. Lennie feels wary, trees closing him in.
1943 There are no boy choristers left for their master has gone to war. During the best of times, they once numbered thirty-five.
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Late September, and Ralph sits with his fingers poised over the keys of the typewriter. What to say . . . The news this morning that Bradfield is dead. His passing must be remarked upon in the parish paper, but how? Ralph’s fingers are resistant to tapping out more of the glowing praise which fills the morning papers. The old crab. Would Ralph’s parishioners like to know the truth? ‘We never got on. And all because at a public meeting, long before the bridge was built, we had an altercation. Over a chair. Whenever we saw each other after that we were always reminded of the worst of ourselves.’ It embarrasses him that the truth is so true and so silly. The Herald says Bradfield was a genius, a marvel, the father of the modern city of Sydney. Well he was also stubborn and capable of holding a grudge. Accompanying the obituary is a photo of him seated on the dais at the opening of the bridge. He wears little round silver-rimmed spectacles which were known to turn blank white when they caught the light. He’s short, of course. His posture is straightbacked but his knees are spread untidily wide to accommodate his little potbelly, which rests on the seat of the chair. His suit is dusty, of a cloth and a cut which are neither good. Though he loves having his photograph taken he doesn’t care two hoots about his appearance; his presence in a million pictures is about owning everything: I was here and here, and this and that and this exist because of me. So, he’s proud of himself. Beside him his wife looks startled, as if she’s woken from a dream and can’t account for finding herself out in public. She is plain, has a narrow bite, is perfectly suited to the flat-chested fashion. She looks as if she would rather be out working in her garden than there at the opening of the bridge. Resignation rests on her face. This won’t be the last of her husband’s schemes. And it’s not. There are other successes, bridges, dams, but there is also an unrealised plan—a grandiose idea to turn the coastal rivers 286
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inland, bringing water to the country’s desert heart. Simply put, by flooding the vast salt basin of Lake Eyre, Bradfield believes he can make the climate change. He can make rain. Ralph thinks it could have worked but needless to say others don’t. That’s the trouble these days, there are no big thinkers. An invented landscape!—marvellous idea. A name for the place whispers itself to Ralph: New Niagara. But—Bradfield didn’t get his way and it rankled and ate away at his remaining days. Ralph lifts his spidery hands to the keyboard of the old Imperial and writes: Despite building the great Bridge, Dr John Job Crew Bradfield died a disappointed man. He hesitates, then types, Do all men die disappointed?
A young Danish architecture graduate, having left his Germanoccupied homeland, is working in Stockholm. He’s a member of a Danish resistance group which is located there, and his name is Jørn Utzon.
April 1944 ‘Of course, I think the baby is a Yank. It looks American. It’s got a big wide mouth. Verna, she won’t say about the father, or probably can’t—though I don’t mean that as nasty as it sounds—but her baby, my grandchild, I’m telling ya, when it starts talking, it’ll talk foreign.’ Mrs Pessey laughs. ‘It’s the cutest thing,’ says Mrs Pessey, and her cheeks pink up with love. ‘Even if it’s gotta mouth like a friggin’ frog. At first I thought, 287
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gawd Verna, you’re seventeen years old, but she’s a good little mum.’ Ralph, returning home from a meeting of the Garland House building committee, has a headache from refereeing arguments about the layout of a much-needed new wing. Nothing that a good cup of tea won’t fix but in the hall he pauses, hears the sound of voices in the kitchen. Stella’s (occasionally) and that of a visitor. Ralph sticks close to the wall and edges his way along. He wants to make an identification before he waltzes in; he’s not in the mood for anyone too hard. ‘And what’s the baby’s name?’ asks Stella. ‘Meredith. Nice, eh? You watch, if that mouth shrinks a bit I’m gunna put her in a competition.’ No. It’s Mrs Pessey! Ralph makes to scuttle back up the hall but then he hears Stella laugh and he realises it’s something she doesn’t do much anymore. ‘Of course, my boy Len is a worry. Takes after his father.You know he did a bit of time inside after he got caught up in that monkey business selling motor car spare parts?’ Ralph pricks up his ears. Could Len get hold of a set of new tyres for the Essex Six? No, of course not, he wouldn’t ask, he’d never ask. ‘He’s got no job, he’s only fresh out and he’s sorry for himself, but I said don’t think you’re just gunna sit around here and be another friggin’ lump in my settee. Get yourself down to Manpower. They’ll fix you up for work quick smart.’ Ralph leans against the wall, enjoying her up-and-down stories. ‘Anyway, I hadn’t seen you for a good long while. I meant to come after I heard, you know . . . and then I didn’t. But today for no reason, I musta had dust in me throat, I thought I’d pop in and get myself a cup of tea.’ Ralph launches himself off the wall and strides through into the kitchen. ‘Hello, Mrs Pessey, I’ve just arrived home—how are you?’ 288
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8 May 1945 Victory over Europe. People dance in the streets. But Ralph and Stella feel like they’ve lost the war.
Page 4 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Nov. 1st, 1945
Thanks to God were given when, on August 14th, the Japanese surrendered and the war was declared over. Throughout the country, church services were well attended over the following days. By way of celebration, on the cover of this parish paper, I have reproduced a picture of the Creeper Crane.
_____________ One invasion may have been thwarted but another is destined to go on forever more. White ants are back in the Columbus Hall.
_____________
1949 A year of comings and goings—mostly goings. First Marian goes off on a working holiday to England, paid for by Aunty Ditty, the holiday part of which soon ends when she gets married there suddenly. Then good old Ditty and Wes fork out again and Grace departs to complete her PhD at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Finally, Stella spends a month in Melbourne where Alice now lives with her husband (Keith was transferred there by his company, one of the top insurers). Stella finds the visit trying. She’s meant to be there to help Alice after the birth of her first child but Alice had trouble conceiving and is so overanxious with her little mite that all Stella’s no-nonsense advice is ignored. Patience is not Stella’s long suit and it doesn’t help a bit when know-all Keith chips in. 289
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14 July 1951 It’s the tenth anniversary of Colin’s death. Ralph has a gut feeling, which he acts upon. He has a memorial stone made and set in the western wall of the church underneath Colin’s. It reads: Edward Allen Stoop 1906–1941. The sons are now side by side, but it has helped, somehow, to separate them.
10 March 1952 Wal Cooper, the features editor, looks more like a bouncer or a boxer than a man who works with words, and when he talks his voice is gravel, as if he’s more than once been punched in the throat. But when at last he smiles, Ralph is sure there’s something trustworthy in that crooked-nosed face. Cooper escorts Ralph out of his frosted-glass nook and extends a puffy hand, and Ralph, the happy deal-maker, gives it an over-robust pump. Turning his broad back, Cooper retreats. As Ralph shoulders his satchel and surveys the busy newspaper office—the rows of untidy desks, the ebb and flow of harried staff—he feels like a negotiator, a fixer, entirely satisfied with the business done (why, it didn’t take more than a minute or two, conducted man to man). Making his way down the aisle between the desks there’s a slight swagger to his step as if he suddenly feels quite at home in this worldly hub. In the corridor (walls painted fern green with tan trim, green lino on the floor), Ralph tarries, peering through glassed sections into other offices. And then, in the distant corner of one of the rooms—Art Dept says the stencilled letters on the doors—he spots someone he recognises: it’s Merv Lockhardt, the chap who used to be the supervisor in the template shop at the bridge workshops. His 290
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coat and hat hang on a stand in the corner behind his desk and he wears a drab office cardigan, although the temperature is warm and all the other men are in their shirt sleeves. His hair has further greyed but he’s otherwise unchanged, though he was probably born looking middle-aged and from now on will never seem to get much older, until one day, relative to his peers, he’ll start looking young. Ralph slips in to see him and Lockhardt is surprised, his smile diffident under his discoloured moustache. Lockhardt keeps working while they talk, busy with a diagram which must be for a gardening page—something to do with setting out a vegetable patch and planting distances for seeds. He tells Ralph he’s been working on the paper for nearly twentyone years—he was one of the lucky ones and was only out of work for three months after the template shop closed down. ‘I give thanks for that,’ he says. A younger man walks past and asks, ‘Will you be done with that on time, Lockhardt?’ and the ex-supervisor replies, ‘Not a problem, sir.’ Merv Lockhardt inks in a cross-section. He’s never done any more life drawing since his art school days and he’s never allowed himself to puzzle again over an exquisite line. Such concerns are not his to have and would never have put food on his family’s table. ‘Those were the good old days,’ says Ralph. With no conviction Lockhardt agrees. The sound of the nib of his pen, drawing dashed strokes, takes the place of conversation between them. Finding himself back in the corridor, Ralph is momentarily disoriented. Painted on the walls are officious black hands like cocked revolvers pointing to the Ladies, to the Gents, to News, Accounts, the Foreign Bureau. He walks on, rounds a corner, trusting, till finally a hand points to Lifts and another points to Stairs. He hesitates.Then he remembers the satchel in his hand and the importance of the business 291
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to which he must still attend: today he has appointments with every paper and magazine in town. He opts for a tycoon’s descent and heads for the lifts.
19 March 1952 How dare that newspaper man, Wal Cooper, the one with the face only Ralph and a mother could love, how could Wal Cooper—what sort of name is Wal?—how could Wal Cooper, the pug! print such an abomination! When he went to so much trouble carting himself around town to personally hand the press a selection of his best photographs and negatives, when he explained, when he begged, how could they do this to him? The twentieth anniversary of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and there, a double-page spread. Of Ann Patchett!
Page 6 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Nov. 1st, 1953
A further matter considered by Synod last month was the issue of a minimum wage for ministers. Synod recommended a basic payment of 660 pounds—to your Rector a tidy sum indeed, since he currently receives well below that figure.
_________________ After more than thirty years as a faithful servant of this church, the verger, Mr. ‘Ned’ Tooms (as we have always known him), has retired. At a party at the Rectory, the verger was presented with an ‘easy’ chair, while his wife was most certainly surprised to unwrap a Westinghouse electric iron (automatic and bevelled). Two volunteers have offered to take up the verger’s duties, split between them, until a permanent replacement can be found.
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28 June 1954 2 am. Wild cries. Orange light. Pulsing. Ralph in pyjamas and bare white feet running. Tracks in the dew—his and then others until the lawn is a crazy lace of panic. The Columbus Hall in flames.
30 June 1954 The only thing of any worth salvaged from the fire is stolen overnight: fifty feet of fence palings.
16 November 1955 Wes Millershine pulls up on the gravel driveway, plumb in front of the rectory, and there it is, attached behind his car—a marvel of modernity, a house on wheels. It’s a caravan. Brand-new, in white-painted ply, it has the aerodynamics of an egg. Blue gingham curtains hang at its windows and when Millershine toots the horn and Stella comes running out the front door she thinks it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen, though she can’t help doubting the practicality of the strange little vehicle. How will big Wes and tall Ditty ever abbreviate themselves to fit inside? Though Ralph has been keeping an eye out for their arrival all afternoon (looking out through the study window after any and every unusual noise) he doesn’t now immediately move. He’s jealous. With a pang as real and as hard as any induced by a malfunctioning body organ, he wants that caravan, feels a deep need for all its foldaway gadgets. When he thinks of that egg van and Wes and Ditty towing it behind their Vauxhall down the road, and all the places they’ll roll by, roll into, and roll away from, it doesn’t seem fair. They’ve already been around the world and he’s never been anywhere (not counting 293
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those few bad days in Moruya). Pinched alternately by curiosity and reluctance, he finally gets up from his desk. Car doors slam, shrill greetings. Exclamations and inspections. Ditty unfolds a deckchair for Stella and one for herself and they sit down then and there in the driveway while the men continue inside the caravan, looking into all its nooks and crannies. The very leisureliness of all this is breathtaking; this egg home has somehow wheeled in and changed everything. Ralph has trouble concentrating while Wes demonstrates the correct method of pumping water into the tiny sink. Could this be the key to happiness—a life lived in transportable miniature? Oh, for the simple freedom of the open road! It has never occurred to Ralph before to be discontented with his lot but that new and sour sensation settles upon him now. Out of one of the odd-shaped latched cupboards, Wes fetches a present for Ralph: a map and a pictorial travel guide. ‘We got a set for us and a set for you,’ says Wes. ‘So you can follow where we go.’ Wes unfolds the map and they sit opposite at the tiny table, knees bumping, and Ralph is forced to follow Wes’s big manicured finger along a sinewed route when he’d love to be the one pointing. Even if it’s not his holiday, it is his country. ‘We’ll take the Hume Highway and go to Albury so Ditty can show me her hometown, then down to Melbourne.’ After that they’ll return to Sydney following the line of the coast along the Princes Highway and taking their time.Then they’ll stay over at the rectory for a bit before hitting the road again and heading for Queensland. ‘We’ll go as far as we can.’ Millershine winks. ‘Why there’s nothing in the world to stop us but the potholes in your roads.’ He spins the travel book over to Ralph to make him look; it covers not just Wes and Ditty’s eastern itinerary but the whole of Australia in broad terms. 294
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Ralph flicks through the colour plates: Tasmania. Two ginger-haired sisters in an apple orchard. They have permanent waves and identical jutting noses and their lipstick matches the apples. Central Australia. Cattle and stockmen at a watering hole. Queensland. An underwater photograph of riot-hued fish and corals, the velour lips of clams. It makes him miserable. Millershine takes back the book, looking for a particular page. ‘We might make a detour inland here.’ Again the book spins. The Snowy Mountains Scheme. ‘Where they’re building that string of dams.’ A picture of the Guthega hydro-electric power station. There are patches of snow on the ground. ‘Say,’ Millershine’s finger stabs the concrete building, ‘do you think they do tours? I said to Ditty you’d be the man to know.’ Ralph doesn’t know, doesn’t care.The Snowy Mountains Scheme— he doesn’t want to hear another blasted word about the whole costly project. The biggest engineering development the nation’s ever seen. Skilled workers brought in from all over the world. People keep mentioning it to him, quoting statistics; the highest dam wall, at Talbingo, will be five hundred and thirty feet tall; Lake Eucumbene will have nine times greater capacity than Sydney Harbour. He doesn’t like it at all. He doesn’t like it downgrading his harbour and outsizing his bridge. He shrugs and turns the page. When Wes and Ralph step out of the caravan, Aunty Ditty and Stella are still nattering. They barely look up as Wes moves past to demonstrate putting on the jockey wheel. He winds it up, winds it down, then at last he gives Ralph a turn. On to the rear of the van to inspect the stabilisers, where the two men are satisfactorily engaged for some time, dickering, when one is stuck. Eventually they drift back to the company of the women and there they stay seated till dusk, arrayed on the deckchairs and the rectory steps with the Wayfarer Caravan, door open, in front on display. Ralph keeps stealing glimpses 295
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at it past Ditty’s smiling, nodding head. It’s a darling thing. So much so, it seems no one can bear to leave it for the ordinariness of going inside. Wide horizons. Far fields. If it was his he could be the Columbus of the open road. Ditty, in the middle of a story, pats her husband’s knee as a jog to her own memory. ‘What was that woman’s name?’ ‘Honey,’ says Millershine, ‘I don’t know—I wasn’t there.’ They laugh, the story continues, Ralph’s attention detaches. In that little circle he’s a man apart. He looks beyond Ditty, beyond the egg caravan, into the dimming light: his bailiwick of church and bay, and harbour and bridge, has never seemed so dull.
1967 Mater Hospital Two orderlies come into Ralph’s room. They’re young: one chews gum but he’ll swallow it if the sister comes within a twenty-foot radius, and the other has dead-straight hair in a cut Ralph has somewhere heard described as coconut. They push a shaky-wheeled trolley bearing equipment covered by a cloth—it looks a mean-natured little conveyance, stainless steel. Ralph reflects that it’s a curious thing to lie inert, entirely subject to the will of others. Coconut flicks back a cloth on top of the trolley to reveal shaving equipment; what’s to stop him picking up the razor and slicing Ralph’s windpipe open? Certainly not Ralph himself, whose only protest would be an outgoing gurgle. He watches the two young men carefully with his good eye. Gum Chewer swipes yesterday’s newspaper off the visitor’s chair and there he slouches while Coconut lathers Ralph’s face. Gum Chewer flicks through the newspaper, mutters, ‘I told you she was a tease.’ 296
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‘Yeah, but it’s not only that,’ says Coconut, beginning with the razor. ‘It’s the waste of all that money taking her out.’ He’s pressing too hard. ‘Her friend’s alright, but.’ ‘Yeah, I could do her.’ Ralph looks into Coconut’s face. His skin is soft, his cheeks are pink, he has a small mole above his top lip; what does this face mean when it speaks of ‘doing’ women? A rustle of newspaper and Gum Chewer reaches for his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, looks in the billfold, hooks out a piece of paper and checks it against the printed columns of numbers in the newspaper. It’s a lottery ticket. ‘Halves if you win,’ says Coconut. ‘Piss off.’ The ticket slides down the columns. ‘My aunty gave it to me for my birthday, not yours.’ Coconut stops shaving, leans over to look. On the ticket is a woman’s handwriting: Shangri-la! ‘Shangri-la,’ he says. ‘Is that a place overseas? I wouldn’t mind travelling if I won the lottery.’ Then he snorts impatiently and grabs the ticket out of Gum Chewer’s hand. ‘Hey!’ ‘You drongo, you’ve got the wrong draw. Look, this one hasn’t even been drawn.’ Gum Chewer snatches it back, then says to Ralph, ‘Whadda you lookin’ at?’ Ralph, one good eye, one bung, a crooked mouth. An island of shaving cream left on his cheek. Shangri-la. Coconut finishes up, wipes Ralph off with a warm wet cloth, towels the hair at the side of Ralph’s face above his ears where the water has run, is firm but gentle enough, as if drying a pet dog. 297
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Ralph’s hair is sticking out, his skin is red, he’s been scraped clean. ‘There,’ says Coconut, chucking the towel on the trolley and winking at Ralph. ‘You’re a prince!’ They go and Ralph is amazed at how exhausted he feels, though he did nothing to assist with his own ablutions. A young trainee nurse arrives to feed him soup for lunch. She props him upright on his pillows (the orderlies left him crooked). She is patient and expert with the spoon, tipping the broth over his bottom lip, a napkin ready to catch the drips. Between spoonfuls she taps him gently on the cheek with her index finger to stop him drifting off to sleep. Mothers do that to babies. Bellbirds pipe unseen as Lennie Gwideer and Ginger Mick pass through tall forest. Winding their way down a hill and across a little wooden bridge, they come upon the settlement of Cann River. Two shops, a couple of pubs and a turn-off. Here Lennie Gwideer, prince of the Princes Highway, at last must leave his namesake road and take the way north to the mountains.The new road clings to the steep side of a valley. For a day the phantom tink of the birds stays with them. Once, through dense trees, a glimpse of a woodcutters’ camp and mill. Another day and the next and the trees change in type but not abundance. Longing for home and the bald paddocks of dairy, Lennie and Ginger Mick are small on the road. Walls of bush and a steady incline. Nowhere else to go but on and up towards the alpine ranges. Lennie Gwideer is coming.
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block in Australia. Just beyond the fall of its shadow, in Little Arthur Street, seventy-nine out of one hundred and twenty dwellings have been condemned while another nineteen require major repairs. The situation is not much better in Little Walker Street, nor in Bank and Euroka and Ancrum streets. The Sydney Morning Herald has declared them slums—and all are within St Christopher’s parish bounds.
19 March 1957 The twenty-fifth anniversary of the bridge. Woman with Sandwich on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1931 does not appear in any of the newspapers or magazines—but then again, neither do any of Ralph’s other photographs.
June 1958 The tram tracks across the bridge are ripped up. Buses will take the place of trams.
Page 4 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER Dec. 1st, 1958
There is no choir left at St. Christopher’s, and on Christmas Day we are down to only two services, though I would gladly put on another if only a very little group could be got together.
_______________ Since no man could be found for the task, Mrs. Cage has taken over the lawn-mowing chores from Alfie Binks (who has gone in for a hernia operation). Mrs. Cage has been in charge of the Tecnico for five weeks now and is reportedly enjoying her assignment. Though we cannot hear 299
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her over the engine’s powerful roar, the opening and closing of her mouth suggests that as she goes about her work, she’s singing! If you should see her striding about in her straw hat and pushing her machine with great vigour, do stop and pat her on the back, for without her the churchyard grass would be knee high. __________________
2 March 1959 Where the old tram sheds at Bennelong Point have been demolished, a ceremony takes place to mark the beginning of construction on a new opera house. The Premier makes a speech and unveils a plaque. Nobody bothers to mention the architect—the young Dane, Jørn Utzon—who is also on the dais, and whose ten simple but radical drawings won the design competition. From St Christopher’s, the opera house site can be seen clearly, low on the opposite shore, under the deck of the bridge. The Premier waves his arm and a police siren sounds; six workmen get busy with pneumatic hammers while another climbs into the cab of a bulldozer. As guests mingle, the police band strikes up and brassy notes float over the harbour.They play ‘With a Little Bit o’ Luck’ from My Fair Lady.
2 July 1959 With the trams gone, two additional traffic lanes are opened on the eastern side of the bridge.At peak hour, the cars, the trucks, the buses roar. At Lavender Bay the distant rumble of traffic can always be heard, high up, crossing backwards and forwards. Never coming—always going.
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A Sunday towards the end of July, 1959 Holy Communion, 8 am. The vestry roof is leaking, a neon light at the back of the church is fizzing and another only comes on dull grey, like a nerve-damaged tooth. It might be safer to do without illumination but it’s so gloomy—for the fifth night and day in a row it’s raining, and only four parishioners have turned up. Though Ralph delays the start of the service no one else struggles in and he finally whispers to the verger to go and get Stella. He can hardly be bothered to begin. He knows he should say a silent prayer for strength; it should be possible to turn this all around, he should celebrate in the presence of these few stalwarts. But he feels too leaden ever to pull it off and when he speaks his voice is muted by the rush of rain pelting on the slates and spilling over gutters. Stella bursts in, shedding her dripping umbrella and her wet coat and after mucking about finding a safe place to let them drip she busies her way crankily down the centre aisle to a front pew. She hasn’t had time to change out of her house clothes. She shoves at her hair to no effect: the grey that grew in place of the brown is tough as mistletoe. Settling, she wraps herself tighter in her cardigan and frowns up at the ineffectual radiators hanging high on the walls, checking to see if they’re on. During the first hymn she leaves to check on a pear tart she’s got cooking in the oven and when she returns Ralph’s in the middle of his sermon, which he mostly reads direct from his notes. Stella drops one shoe off to examine the wet toe of her stockinged foot. Ralph wishes he was in bed. Probably Mr and Mrs Cornish and Dave Pinkton and Mrs Paris wish they were still in bed too. Mrs Poke, the organist, doesn’t seem to mind either way.
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The day is so bad it feels like even God hasn’t bothered to turn up. Perhaps attendance will be better at 11 am but Ralph hardly cares. He’s like a football fan who barracks for a loser team, attending one game after the other and completely forgetting what it feels like to win. He dispenses communion, but as he does so he cannot summon one holy thought.When it comes time to read out the few notices, even church business is scant, as if the parish has all but closed shop for winter. The downpipes gurgle, Stella shifts abruptly along her pew, glaring up at the roof, having felt a fat drip. Ralph struggles to his feet while Mrs Poke’s fingernails click over the organ’s keys and then, after a slight delay, first notes squeeze out of the pipes above—the introductory bars of a final hymn. Ralph drones, Mrs Cornish twitters, Stella overenunciates, opening her mouth in an exaggerated O in obedience to the teachings of the last choirmistress (now a long time ago).Their voices are a small, discordant rabble: He who would valiant be ’gainst all disaster, Let him in constancy follow the Master. Stella shifts left and grimaces upwards again. The organ plods on but they can hardly hear themselves as a wave of heavier rain dashes against the darkened stained-glass windows on the south wall. There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim. They struggle on, the rain drums. The voices of the tiny congregation diminish. Sotto. 302
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1967 Mater Hospital The rain. And still he must keep singing. Did Christopher Columbus sing, white-haired and senile and raving his way around the Caribbean on his fourth and last trip, surveying his paradise, by his own hand ruined? The rain down pours. Ralph sings in murmurs. Through the hospital window he thinks he sees Lennie Gwideer but the view is confused, blurred mergings of colour through spots on the glass and runnels.Yes, there they are, Lennie in cold rain, big drops. Ginger Mick and Lennie staring at the road ahead and Lennie with no thoughts beyond the next step. His feet are wet inside his boots and his fingers, clasped around the greasy leather of the reins, are white and drained of blood. Surrounded by trees. In the chill of the rain is the breath of the ancient alpine peaks still miles away. Ralph sings—he’s singing in his old man’s sickbed rasp but then his throat goes dry and his song is taken up by someone else. A boy. A bell voice which wavers but continues: Who so beset him round with dismal stories Do but themselves confound—his strength the more is. A droplet from the brim of Lennie’s hat hits his nose and runs over his lips and down his chin but he rides on, and in his mind’s eye in the grey sky ahead he sees the steel curve of the bridge. The bell voice sings, No foes shall stay his might; though he with giants fight, He will make good his right to be a pilgrim. Lennie and Ginger Mick trudge on. 303
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19 March 1962 The thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the bridge. Ralph slams the newspaper shut in bunched handfuls. ‘Guess who! Guess who!’ he rants. Stella says mildly, ‘Ann Patchett?’
14 April 1962 6 am. He is cut open by the act of holding her in his arms. He thinks his guts will spill out onto the kitchen floor,warm and untidy, and if so, well, the extravagance wouldn’t matter so long as it somehow countered her cooling and her shrinking, the sudden compactness of her body in death. He feels his own irrelevance to her, already. What on earth could she have been thinking, not to have worn shoes?
April–August 1962 The first night after Stella’s death he sleeps as if he had joined her. When he wakes he knows there’s something wrong but for the first minutes can’t think what. Stretches, thick-headed; tilt of the room. And then he realises. And his whole self aches. He sits dazed on the edge of the bed wondering what to do, how to proceed with this day, this Tuesday, which has lost its regular notches of Tuesdayness. The week the girls come home for the funeral is like an extended slumber party. They are up talking till all hours of the night, conversations crumble with emotion here and there only to be quickly repaired with banter, with living, a dragged-up family joke, an old 304
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argument remembered but with the sting gone from it. The shifts of sibling history, of alliances and rivalries, are present underneath but neutralised by grief. And their physicality. The way they repossessed the house within minutes, helping themselves to sweets in the canister on the tray-table, slumping onto the lounge and tossing the lumpy cushion with the tassels onto the floor, letting the back door slam, the thumping of feet up the stairs, calling out from the bathroom, ‘Who’s using the water? The shower’s gone cold!’ Ralph feels he doesn’t really need to talk to them, just watch. He has forgotten what they’re like. Women on the verge of middleage but in this one place still children. He marvels at how powerful they are; they’re a clan. They had a good mother. But if they ever needed a father, they don’t seem to need one now. He’s glad. They have somehow managed without him. And they seem not to blame him.They steer themselves around him as if he’s a piece of furniture, comfortably ignoring him or including him in conversations as they please. He thinks this is probably a better outcome than he deserves. The girls complain about the old copper smell of the water coming out of the laundry taps. Hadn’t he noticed? Really, they say to each other, the place is like an unattended museum, falling to bits. It’s as if their parents have been living in a display: Anglican Rectory, circa 1930. They have a date of birth, will both (eventually) have a date of death, but circa 1930 will forever be the date of their living. In the parlour, on the table between the armchairs, Ralph finds an emery board. Stella had used it the night before she died while they sat there listening to the radio, as they always did, except while Stella tilted her head to listen she was filing her nails. A Brahms concerto. He remembers being slightly annoyed by her scratching. He picks up 305
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the emery board now and pockets it quickly, can hardly bear to see where her nails have scored the coarse paper, suppresses the thought that as she lies in the dark of her coffin right now her nails are still growing.
In the weeks after the funeral, when the girls are gone, the thing Ralph can’t get used to is opening up the fridge. It’s well stocked by church friends but it’s all strangers’ food—and, worse, increasingly the dishes arrive named after other countries. An unspoken competition has begun between members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, who compete with recipes cut from newspapers and magazines. Confronted by Pork Hawaiian, Ralph decides he does not like having his main course doubling as dessert. Sometimes he craves just a-little-bit-of-something such as Stella might make: mushrooms on toast (butter and black pepper), bubble and squeak, fried tomatoes.
He remembers the look of Stella’s broad, white back at the age of, say, forty-five, when she had put on weight from child-bearing, childrearing and countless church teas, so she was no longer quite firm but was still curved and womanly. He thinks, of all her ages and body shapes over the long years of their marriage, this was her best, and probably when he desired her the most—and she wanted him least— for she had come into her own.
For four months he feels he’s close, she’s close, he talks to her as he goes about his jobs, says hello to her in his head each morning while 306
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looking up at the sky. She’s so near: it’s like she’s in a low layer of heaven. And then one day he wakes up and feels empty. She’s gone.
Night. He brings the toothbrush up to his mouth and stops. His open lips are frozen in a gawp, the same gawp as Stella’s as she lay dead on the kitchen floor. He experiments in front of the mirror, how a mouth ends up like that, a last breath, the last breath, pushing past soft, resistant lips—pah—with no following energy to inhale. He repeats—pah. It’s animal. A low, basic sound which could belong to a dog or a horse; Stella was an animal. In front of the bathroom mirror the very business of the body dying fills him with fascination and horror. We are beasts. One day, one last breath, and we must lie down in the hay. The toothbrush is still suspended in the air; his hand shakes. Tek. He notices Tek is the brand name stamped on the handle of the toothbrush. He carries it into the bedroom and over to the bedroom window. Across the harbour, like a halo over the warehouses of Pyrmont, is the same word. He’s never known its meaning before. Tek. He sits by the window for a long time, staring at the unwavering neon.
May 1963 Twenty-one years ago the demolitions stopped and now they’ve begun again. Ralph walks Alfred Street and Arthur Street and Little Arthur Street and the two blocks of Mount Street which are to go. Taking their place will be a new expressway which will join up to the bridge. As Ralph tramps the old footpaths, his steps sound slow and hollow. 307
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September 1963 He’s up and down to the toilet four times a night—trouble with his old prostate.The house is so familiar to him he doesn’t need the lights; the moon is his banister. Sometimes he checks the children’s rooms, though why he can’t say since for years only strangers have slept there. Visiting missionaries, country ministers. All those forgotten names somehow rubbing away his children’s earlier presence.Then there were latter days when Ditty and Wes stopped over. In the hall, wandering past their room one night, he remembers hearing them chattering and finding it shocking—the murmured bed-talk of another couple in another room. But also strangely comforting. The intimacy of Stella and him replicated. But now there’s just him, pausing at the window before he returns to bed. Him and the bridge. Together, they’ve stayed the same, but the rest of the view hasn’t. City buildings seem to lean over Circular Quay and crowd around the bridge (though at night-time their lights are high and pretty). Lights, too, on top of the cranes at the opera house work site. Ralph thinks the design of the proposed building is strange, though he doesn’t say it’s bad—it’s just that it clashes, will never sit well with the bridge. Every day over there at 5 pm there’s a detonation. They do it then, hoping the dull rumble of peak-hour traffic will hide the noise from commuting taxpayers. The Gelignite Solution. The whole project’s a mess with the young architect in charge seeming to make it all up as he goes along. Now he’s come up with a new idea for constructing the roof and so the support columns they’ve already built are no good and must be demolished. Every day at 5 pm. Just like the old days of setting your watch at the Dudley Bell. Ralph hasn’t thought of the convalescent home in years; it was closed down, turned into flats after the war when Jimmy de Bruce was already gone, passed away in his sleep suddenly. 308
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Yes, the view has changed. Ralph lurches towards bed, is just about to climb in when, drat, trouble with the waterworks again. He shuffles to the bathroom, ankles clicking, flicks on the stark overhead light and tries to pee. Stands there a long time. Stares into the toilet water waiting for something to happen.
October 21st, 1964 The New York Times HERBERT HOOVER IS DEAD; SERVED COUNTRY IN VARIED FIELDS by McCandlish Phillips
Herbert
Clark Hoover, former President of the United States, died here yesterday at the age of 90. Death came at 11.35 in his suite on the 31st floor of the Waldorf Towers, following massive internal bleeding that began on Saturday. His two sons were with him as he slipped into a coma that kept his last hours pain-free.
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1967 Mater Hospital Tonight, he misses the rub of humankind. For a long time, people have been disappearing. After the bridge: alone in their cars and retreating to distant suburbs where even the dogs have left the streets to guard dug-in bones. After his prime: the wrinkling and scabbing of unlovely old skin and the touch of others shrinking. 309
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He would like to stand again at Circular Quay where trams and cabs met the ferries and the ferries crissed and crossed and scribbled all over the harbour and folks jumped from moving boats with lists in their heads and parcels in arms—a kid, worried about the sole of his shoe come loose and flapping and crouching to check the leather and he, Ralph, in his hospital gown, stooping, to make a bigger island for the crush to flow around. He would like to hear that quay, smell that quay, soot and chips and brine. He lies here in his bed with the roof of the hospital cracked open.
December 1964 Ralph has been keeping busy. Though his finances are limited he has gone and spent a small fortune on a stained glass window as a memorial to Stella. Underneath the window he has set a marble tablet into the wall with lettering in gold: Stella Agnes Cage 1890–1962 beloved wife of Reverend Ralph Anderson Cage and devoted servant of this parish. Ye shall rise up! He’d had to fight the Scottish stonemason for the exclamation mark. The fellow was unaccustomed to such extravagance. Then, when mice ate through the electrical wiring of the church and the wardens decided at the same time to update all the light fittings, Ralph paid in Stella’s name and screwed a small brass plaque into the wall next to the main switchboard: In memory of Stella Agnes Cage. Now Ralph wants to buy new altar cloths and has expressed the wish that 310
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her initials be stitched somewhere discreetly—S.A.C.—but there are ripples of discontent: her name is becoming church graffiti. It’s not his own house he’s decorating, it’s the house of God. Of course the old set had all been fond of Stella, but what after the altar cloths—a new printing of The Book of Common Prayer with the dedication, For Stella? It is widely felt that when it comes to memorialising his wife, Ralph should be content to stop at the light switches. He has borrowed from the children and spent his own last sums commemorating Stella and only has everything in place and just so when the churchwardens ask him—pretending a casual inquiry—if he’d any thoughts of retiring. One covers with a flat quip about golf. Ralph blinks. Golf? He clicks the door shut quietly behind the wardens. It’s a shock. He’d come to think of the church and the rectory as always his. Stella here: and now the day when he must leave her behind threatens.
Page 4
ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER
Feb. 1st, 1965
We do not have so much to report in the Parish Paper these days, and since funds are precarious we have decided that from now on four pages must suffice. As well, after this issue, no more photographs will appear on the front of our little magazine. We simply cannot afford the cost. Therefore return to the cover now and gaze upon The Bridge in Perfect Reflection (the picture was taken on New Year’s Day, 1933, and first reproduced the following month) for this is the very last time it will be publicly seen.
_________________ Though I do not usually dally in this publication with news of a personal nature, I shall here recount a recent conversation had with a lady from years back, who had returned to the area on a visit. We met at the bus stop (the VW Beetle is up on bricks in the Rectory garage after a little 311
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altercation with a parked police car outside Woolworth’s in Crows Nest. An appeal against licence cancellation is pending). The lady in question was a bright type and interested in all the doings at St. Christopher’s. She remarked upon the disappearance of the Columbus Hall whereupon I told her it was lost in the fire of ’54 and no replacement could be got up for, no matter how hard we tried, our savings were insufficient. In any case, by and by, we got used to making do without, and in truth our need for space has been much reduced due to our dwindling (and ageing) congregation. My bus stop friend sighed with sadness to think all the fun times of fetes and concerts and parties were long gone. She then asked after the children of the Rectory and since two other folk have recently made the same enquiry, I shall take this opportunity to pass on that happier news. Eldest daughter, Alice, is living with her husband and two children in Hong Kong, where her husband has a high up job with Lloyd’s of London. Middle daughter Marian has returned home to a nearby suburb after being in Britain first and then in Canberra for the better part of a decade. Lastly, the youngest, Grace, is based in Toronto, Canada. Her American husband and she have positions as biologists at the university there, though Grace’s research very often takes her away. ‘How adventurous your daughters are,’ the bus stop lady exclaimed when I finished. ‘And how scattered afar!’ ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have often wondered if that is because I did something right as a parent, or something wrong.’ To which the lady countered, ‘Whatever, the result is the same and intended by nature—the proverbial empty nest.’ How right she is.
_________________ As we go to press the element in the Rectory hot water system has gone on the blink. A plumber has been booked to install a replacement.
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1965 He has to do something about the flower wars. A certain Mrs Judy Beer (a divorcée) has taken over the flower duties and, with an excess of ideas, has come up with some unusual displays. Palm fronds amid arced canes of crimson bougainvillea. Last 312
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spring, a vase full of brown boronia—a heady scent, but the small, nutty blooms, hidden in foliage, fit no one else’s definition of flowers. Everywhere Ralph goes he is waylaid by the hissed whispers of members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary: ‘unseemly’ and ‘tatty’ and ‘mocking the church’ are the most common charges, to which he replies, placatingly, ‘Some arrangements are better than others.’ But when walkouts are threatened, Ralph knows he must don the leader’s heavy mantle. He makes a decision—it’s time St Christopher’s made the move to plastics. They would do, just for everyday, just as a reliable standby. On special occasions they could still swing in the real thing (and bought ones). Without telling anyone he takes himself off to a florist shop in North Sydney. He stands in front of the window.There’s a good range. The centrepiece is especially impressive, a formal bunch of white plastic roses on a white plinth and around the white vase there’s a nice yellow ribbon.The petals of those icy buds curl with uniform elegance but Ralph is particularly impressed by the manufacture of the leaves and the delicate cut of their serrated edges. Perfection persuades him; he goes inside. The woman behind the counter is reluctant to sell, as that particular arrangement is a permanent display, but Ralph is persistent and when he leaves the shop his arms are full and the plinth is empty. Too late and up close, inside the buds, he sees the petals are black-specked with fine dust. Ralph sighs. There’s no such thing as perfection. We must make do with kidding ourselves at a distance.
Page 4 ST. CHRISTOPHER’S CHURCH PARISH PAPER May 1st, 1966
May 14th is set down as the last day I shall conduct the Sunday service. The churchwardens have selected a new man who shall start thereafter. I’m sure he will do very well. Forty years and more is a long time to serve a parish 313
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and there have been many highlights. Thankfully, I have found a simple place to live and the address is not hard for anyone to remember: No. 28 Geary Street, Willoughby. Tel. A 3261
________________ Termites have ravaged the blackbutt wattle near the Rectory. What remains standing must be removed.
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15 May 1966 For the last time he steps out onto the roof. He hasn’t been out on the roof for years but he must now despite the hazards. There are no more days left. He has to be out of the rectory tomorrow. He’s forgotten how cool the roof slates go in winter. Beads of drizzle cling and swell, roll silver—drip down to gutters lined with leaf slime. Ralph sits on his old cushion, found jammed in its customary spot under the dormer eaves, but even its weathered toughness can’t keep out the hard cold. Ralph clenches his buttocks. He hunches; an open umbrella rests over his shoulder. He thinks if he was a smoking man this would be the perfect time to light a pipe, let loose a blue plume to hang in the damp air. Men look so thoughtful when they chew their pipe stems. He wonders, can tobacco make one wise? Himself, he doesn’t seem to know anything. All he knows is the house he sits on and the green apron of lawn below, the church with its old spires, with its old stories inside. All he knows above the rooftops and the harbour is the bridge. But is that enough? He watches as a hard shower of rain comes sweeping up from the south, replacing the drizzle. First the city fades, and then as it crosses 314
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the harbour the shadow of a different grey passes over the water. In another minute drops dance on the tops of his boots. At long distance the bridge looks ghostly soft yet he knows up close it spouts and gushes, the steel tinks. Rivulets divide and course. Cascades crash from gantries and girders, the great arch sheds in torrents. That he does know. But for all his seventy-nine years of living it doesn’t seem very much. The rain rolls off the back of the umbrella and down the roof, soaking his backside right through to his BVD underpants. But he doesn’t move. Anytime he chooses he can step back inside and get dry. Anytime. When he moves to Geary Street, he can’t take the bridge with him. And then what will he know?
July 1966 Geary Street He wakes and is instantly alert, as usual. Rising, he heads straight to the window. The bland street. It tells him nothing much and rarely changes but still it must be checked. In case. Overnight, with his hearing aid turned off on the bedside table, something may have happened without his knowing. He hopes. But the same houses stare back at him. He says good morning to the day, believing it important to keep on with all the regular little niceties no matter if there’s no one else to hear. Social rituals are the flying buttresses of civilisation and without them he fears his own imminent slip and crumble. He washes then goes to dress, reaching into the wardrobe for his workday suit and clerical collar. He supposes he might now be 315
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expected to wear what he calls ‘holiday clothes’—corduroy trousers and cardigans, a tweed jacket, perhaps, when it’s cold—but it makes him uncomfortable to get about in such garb. He does not know what shape he’d be without his collar to hold him up and hold him in. It’s the mark of a servant and he has not renounced his master.
November 1966 Geary Street He knows when he begins to take his afternoon walks up and down the surrounding streets that he has, in the eyes of others, become an old codger. Overdressed for the weather (at least according to everyone else’s thermometer) and sporting a pork-pie hat, he looks the epitome of an old person trying to put himself in the way of a conversation. But of course that isn’t him at all. He still rises early every morning and attends to his chores, to the newspaper, and his correspondence, but after making himself a little lunch in the quiet kitchen (the clink of a single plate and a single cup) he invariably finds himself nodding off in his chair. That’s why he begins to go walking straight after eating, as a way of avoiding the nasty groggy feeling he gets upon waking from those digestive naps. For a while he seems to have made friends with a man who lives several streets away who is wheelchair-bound and parked most days on the front verandah of a house built in liver-coloured brick. For company the man has a skinny budgie in a cage which hangs from a stand. Ralph takes to passing by every afternoon and stopping for a bit to talk, but eventually the man tells him to go away. Ralph has other friends, and outings to go on, and appointments, of course he does. There’s the telephone, and visitors sometimes. Marian, who has settled nearby, calls in to check, do his little bit of washing. 316
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But it’s strange for him to have gone overnight from being a working man and a resident for forty years of the same rambling Early English house to being the retired tenant of a modest suburban bungalow. Streets and streets of houses and a long walk to the shop and the bus stop; a far cry from being next door to the city and the busy harbour. Even the weather seems reduced here: it switches itself on and off neatly and can’t be seen coming.
March 1967 Geary Street All day the suburb has baked and everyone has hidden inside their houses. Finally, with the fall of night, people are beginning to emerge, including Ralph, who takes a small parcel out to his dustbin then lingers in the backyard, finding it cooler out than indoors, where the heat clings to soft furnishings. He shuffles over to a lawn chair under the frangipani tree and takes off his airline slippers and his socks. The grass is cool against his old feet. Fallen blooms of pink lie scattered all around and he leans awkwardly to grab one up. Not a strong scent unless he buries his nose right in it, but when he twirls the flower gently at a more sensible distance past his face he begins to remember. He’s not sure what. And then he’s certain. Stella—the back of her neck, the skin of her wrists and, when they were young, the flat of her belly. Those whitest places of her skin smelled like this. For air, he unbuttons his shirt and flaps it modestly open. He wears a singlet underneath. His old chest is concave.There he is out of doors and half undressed—something he’s never done before in all his years, but why not? It’s a pleasure, waiting for breeze in the dark of his own backyard, surrounded by frangipani. 317
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It is as if his centre of gravity has shifted. Today, walking down the street, he notices himself placing more weight on his right leg and even leaning to his right, as if that side of his body is being pulled by an invisible force. He concentrates to resist the bias, knowing he risks veering off to bump along fences. Part of him enjoys the novelty of the sensation: when had life—simply walking—last been a physical experiment, interesting to observe and the outcome unknown? And then suddenly another strange thing; he can only hear one source of sound, the sound of birds, and it’s magnified. He can hear all their nest arguments, all their leaf chatter and wire singing. How has he not heard it like this before? If only they would speak one at a time he feels certain he would be able to pick out the odd word or phrase. It’s frustrating—there is vital information within that great bank of avian noise. And now, just as suddenly as there is only one sound, there is only one smell. Frangipani. When he comes to, he is lying on his back on the footpath and he cannot move. His head is an anvil for pain. He’s crying. No, he reconsiders. He is not crying. On his face, the first drops of rain.
1967 Mater Hospital Mrs Pessey sits in the bedside chair with her handbag on her lap and a string bag of shopping at her feet. She glances across at Ralph and wrinkles 318
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up her nose (to stop it dripping, she’s got a bit of a summer cold) and she says by way of a greeting, ‘Well, don’t you look a mess.’ Ralph is bad today, he’s barely present. He knows she’s there but she keeps telescoping away then coming back. Her voice, too, modulates in strange waves. She says, ‘I was at Paceway’s an hour ago picking up a few groceries and I saw Erica Tooms and she told me what happened and how you probably weren’t going to get much better.’ She peers at him. ‘But you’re worse than I thought. Are you in there?’ She doesn’t notice but the good side of his mouth tightens ever so slightly in an involuntary smile. ‘Anyway, I don’t really know why I came. I’ve never been good around sick people. They bore me.’ She goes on, ‘Well just look at you now and that Carmel Aneil— you’re a do-nothing pair. Can’t ask you what you want, can’t ask you what you need, what was I supposed to be with that woman, a friggin’ mind reader? I did my best back then, I did, but I was young and I probably was a bit impatient. But now I’m a lot more . . . forgiving.’ Then she laughs unexpectedly and rocks back in her chair. ‘Gawd,’ she says, ‘I even let Dexter back into the house last year after I found out the old goat had been jabbing another woman. House was a bit empty without him. Anyway, in those Carmel Aneil days I used to think you were rubbish.’ Ralph’s eyes spring open. ‘You were so weak. But later, when you give me that job at the rectory, that was exceptional. You don’t have any idea how desperate things was for us then. Dexter was always at the friggin’ track spending I don’t know what and losing it, and with Carmel Aneil dead there was no food on the friggin’ table.’ Her voice goes shrill with the anxiety 319
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of the times. ‘But when you give me that job you saved us. After that I changed my mind about you. And of course when I was working for you close up I saw you for what you were—a colossal try-hard. And I felt sorry for you.’ Her nose starts to run so Mrs Pessey snaps open her handbag and she fishes out a hanky and gives her honker a businesslike swipe then she stuffs it back in. She accidentally kicks the string bundle at her feet and it reminds her. ‘I brought yer some grapes but it looks like ya can’t eat ’em so I’ll take them home.’ She looks about the room and says, ‘It’s a bit knocked about. Did they use ta keep people’s luggage in here?’ She says, ‘I didn’t know they had a room for one. Maybe they’ve got it for their own kind, like they wouldn’t want their priests tangled up with the rest in the wards. ‘My Verna was here a few years ago. After her kids she kept having troubles, you know, she got the milk leg and then something went wrong with her womb, and they told her she’d be better off without it. So that’s what they did, they came and took it. The ward she was in was very nice with everything neat and tip-top and of course she had the company of all the other women. But look at you all alone in here. Aren’t you lonely? Hey, you could get left for days and ya couldn’t even call out.’ Mrs Pessey lapses into a long silence. Then she says, ‘Dexter’s uncle said that in the Great War he shot a man to put him out of his misery. Couldn’t stand to hear him screaming.’ She tips her seat closer to the bed and frankly studies Ralph’s face: his bad eye drooping and weeping, and his good eye flickering without the requisite strength to stay open. She says with quiet curiosity, ‘Are you alright in there, or are ya screaming?’ She falls silent again. Then, ‘I went on a holiday to Surfers Paradise.’ 320
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Pause. ‘I stayed in a motel.’ Silence again. Then, ‘Anyway, I’m gunna go now. Anyway, I just come because I wanted to.’ She leans down for her shopping and gets up. She juggles the bags and accidentally bumps the night stand. And so she stops to tidy up, mops the water that’s slurped over the lip of the jug and straightens a small, empty, brass vase. And then her fingers linger and drift towards the night-stand drawer. She opens it up. It contains Ralph’s spare pyjamas, his reading glasses, his comb, a set of house keys, his wallet. In the billfold there are two five-dollar notes. Mrs Pessey takes one. She leaves, but not before her cold gets the better of her and she lets out a sneeze. Misty particles float through the air. In the end it won’t be the stroke which kills Ralph. It’s Mrs Pessey’s germs.
He dreams he dreams of Surfers Paradise. A place he’s never been, a place he doesn’t know, where is it? He dreams O.
Surf
In the middle of the night he wakes up clearly hearing Mrs Pessey say, ‘You give me that job at the rectory. I changed my mind about you.’ And then he hears his voice and Stella’s, and they’re in the parlour, arguing. 321
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The border crossing. To say so there’s a scratched, white-painted sign. But the country either side of the imaginary line looks the same, same it’s been, same it will be. Trees for miles. Then fifteen out from Bombala the timber stops and suddenly the great burnished dish of the high plains. Grasses, scoured purple and gold-green, sky, no trees: a place owned by weather, not by men. Acres and empty acres. Rocky outcrops. Then cattle in huddles, miles apart. Lennie Gwideer thinks this barren flat-top the hardest, most beautiful landscape he’s ever seen. Slow they go, Ginger Mick and he, enjoying the keen lick of the wind, and flanked by shadows of clouds. For two days they walk through the high-grass kingdom of the Monaro, then it’s time to descend to the bridge.
1967 Mater Hospital Marian feels wobbly. She’s feeling the strain of managing on her own and wants her sisters with her—one of them at least. Grace is supposed to be getting on a plane at the end of the week but Alice keeps putting the decision off, saying she doesn’t want to leave the children. For the first time in ages Marian misses her ex-husband—not him, but the idea of a husband. With a man beside her the doctors and nurses wouldn’t give her such short shrift. She needs some support. Not that she ever 322
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got it from Terry. He gave her a lot of things but never that. She means it in the bitterest sense. She remembers the day she told her father she was getting a divorce. He didn’t approve. ‘But why?’ he asked over and over. She couldn’t tell him the truth. But how, with all his years of experience in pastoral care, could he not even hazard a guess? He thought it was wrong. ‘But why?’—again and again until in the end it was all she could do to stop herself saying, ‘Take a wild guess, Dad. Pick one of the worst.’ Alone in her father’s room she’s forced to confront herself. Who is she alongside this man? Who is he next to her? The questions seem strung between them like telegraph poles on an empty road. She watches a twitch pull at the grey stubbled skin at the corner of his mouth, sees too how pulses of thought seem to shadow across his brow and cause him pain. She notices with a pang how sparse his eyelashes are. Perhaps just standing here is enough. That the questions exist at all may be sufficient. She’s afraid. These past days he seems to be slipping. His breathing has a different, difficult quality, and while his condition has been up and down since he was brought in, he only seems down now. What about that thing—you go how you lived? Marian doesn’t know very much about how her father came into the world to imagine how he’ll go out. He was an only child, he lived in the west, moved to the east, on an opposite track to the sun. She supposes he always did go his own course. How quickly it happens that even a few basic plot points of a life, and a generation, go missing. Suddenly there’s no one left to ask. There’s Uncle Robert Retont, though she doesn’t know him all that well, and of course there’s Aunty Ditty. Aunty Ditty’s last postcard was sent in 1960 and was an aerial view of an elegant square in Buenos Aires. She had marked a biro cross over a second floor window of one 323
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of the colonial buildings, which was their hotel, on the roof of which stood a giant Cinzano sign. On the back she had written, They give you this postcard and a very nice overnight bag when you travel Pan American World Airways. You could tell then she was getting tired. Now Wes and she are holed up in a Florida nursing home, in their nineties and fairly fit though Wes is deaf as a post and Ditty is away with the pixies. It makes her feel bleak to realise how briefly a generation occupies the stage. How she’s the only one left in the audience for this session.
1967 Mater Hospital He’s a body in a bed. He’s whole. He’s not busted up, ripped up or burnt or crushed. Hairs sprout out of every one of his old man’s pores. But he feels as if everything inside his skin is broken: bones, organs, tortured and kaput, every tiny cell excruciating. And he wonders how—it’s just beyond him how—he never really understood the pain of all those wrecked others; the illnesses, the accidents, the deaths he’s officiated over and buried. In his time he has compiled a lot of lists: girl babies named Anne 1924 to 1959, Margarets too, the median temperature of countless Junes, types of birds in the trees from here to the gasometer. But he’s never compiled a list of ways to die and he has surely seen them all. He has pretended it doesn’t hurt to be crushed by a thousand tons of stone, or by a tram, or a fall from a bridge, or by an electric wire when you’re a boy on a roof reaching for an uncaged canary. Why doesn’t that hurt? Why doesn’t it hurt to die from a disease when your body’s on fire with fever, or being eaten from the outside in by canker? Death. He has comforted the bereaved but not known how to care 324
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for their suffering loved ones while they lived. Over and over, he has said, when the drama was done, the Bright Angel has come for them. Whisked them away. Implying in whisking no time for pain. There was no Bright Angel, said Betty Stoop. As if she had waited and waited. To Carmel Aneil, he wishes he’d said a lot less and asked instead, ‘How does it feel?’ Wishes he’d whispered, ‘I need to know.’
1967 Mater Hospital When Marian leaves the hospital she’s despondent. Her father is getting worse and there’s nothing she can do to help him. All she can do is sit by his bed, though he probably doesn’t even know she’s there. She thinks a turning point’s been reached and he’s beginning to die and it’s her lonely duty now to watch him do it. There’s everything to say and nothing. She runs for the bus. In the city she hurries up Hunter Street to Phillip Street but is intent on the incline and her appointment ahead. She doesn’t look down the side streets to the Quay where the bridge shows itself in unexpected glimpses; its grey industrial bow looms high and strangely between buildings, as if it’s outgrown the need for water. It follows her. Marian locates the solicitor’s office, a name she found in her father’s papers. She needs Ralph’s power of attorney—his rent is overdue and bills have arrived and after her divorce her own resources are limited. The solicitor, a Mr Aubrey Beale, is in his mid-sixties, moustachioed and charming. He explains her father’s affairs are really very simple and from a thin manila folder he retrieves the document she needs. He says gently, ‘We have all his other papers safely here if need be.’ 325
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With their business concluded, Aubrey Beale looks at his watch and asks Marian if she’d care to join him at a lunchtime church service.‘I’m a warden.’ He smiles gently. ‘I was going anyway.’ She doesn’t really reply but he is so assured and kind she allows him to steer her from the room. He’s safe and fatherly and for once she’s glad not to have to make a decision. As he ushers her onto the pavement of Phillip Street she thinks she’d go anywhere with him but it’s not until she notices the simple Georgian spire that she realises they’re headed towards St James’. It’s high church and she’s never been inside. As a courtesy, Aubrey Beale takes her elbow as they mount the steps. Marian is curious about the interior of this, the city’s oldest church. She expects something worthy of ritual and imposing but is shocked to enter and find herself standing under a flat ceiling. Faith’s hard enough, she thinks, but without a pitched roof, forget it. She feels clamped down and decides the place is like someone’s large, but not very nice, lounge room. Aubrey Beale is well known here and when he excuses himself to shake hands with a group of suited gentlemen, Marian slips away. This isn’t a church for doubters. Outside, she stands in the sun and lets it soak into her. Bureaucrats, office workers and wigs at this parliamentary end of town push past on lunch-break missions and it seems strange to Marian that everyday life should continue unabated, that these people care what they’re doing. She’s in a separate zone. Though this afternoon she’ll go to shops and stand in queues and buy bus tickets and go to the bank she won’t be the same as other people there. For the time being, whatever she does, all her business is mortal. On the street, she hesitates. A sign on the church gate points to the bookshop which, intriguingly, is located in the crypt. It lures her. Maybe she can get something there to read aloud to her father—she doesn’t know what, something to comfort him, if he needs comforting. 326
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Down a short flagstone ramp under the church, the bookshop is quaintly recessed into an arched space off a poorly lit main thoroughfare. But Marian has no eyes for the shop. Her attention is arrested. Diagonally opposite is another whitewashed archway. Through open glass doors there’s a cell-like room, narrow, with a low-arched roof, and she’s irresistibly drawn to it, because, like a jewelled cave, it pulses colour. Light and colour. Painted scenes fill every wall and every inch of the plaster ceiling: blues and greens and yellows and mauves and tans, and everywhere gold leaf sends the whole room humming. Everywhere the dull, deep sheen of gold thrums in thick borders around panels and in decorative highlights within the murals. And then Marian registers the delicate little pews arranged to face a tiny altar. She blunders out the door and across the hall to the bookshop and blurts her urgent question to the saleslady. ‘What’s that room?’ The woman looks up startled from the Women’s Weekly she’s secretly reading. ‘It’s the Children’s Chapel,’ she says. ‘But what is it?’ demands Marian. The woman blinks at her strange customer. ‘It’s a little chapel. For children.The walls depict the Christmas carol,“I Saw Three Ships”. A group of wall painters did it in the late 1920s.’ Marian doesn’t thank the woman as she walks out.The saleswoman privately thinks this is exactly the sort of deranged clientele they’ll always attract, as long as the bookshop is situated in the crypt. Standing in the middle of the chapel, Marian does a slow 360-degree turn. She’s transported. Onto a page of an illuminated manuscript—yes, that’s exactly it, the rich colours, the gold leaf. But no page like this was ever illustrated in the Dark Ages: though the gold is sacred and regal and speaks to the everlasting, the colour is applied in quick dashed strokes, it’s rich and vital and insists on the throb of life . . . and the subject matter . . . Surely it celebrates the discovery of a new world. 327
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On the walls are the waters and the shores of Sydney Harbour. Everywhere there are boats, crewed by children and captained by angels. It’s a joyous flotilla of skiffs and dinghies racing to greet the Holy Family as they sail through the heads of the harbour. I saw three ships a sailing there, A sailing there, a sailing there; Jesu, Mary and Joseph they bear, On Christ’s Sunday at morn. Overhead hang painted garlands of jacaranda and purple morning glory—Sydney flowers—sprays of wattle. An angel wearing an exotic floral robe and pansies in her haloed hair bears a cockatoo on her wrist, its crest combed forward and alert.There’s Circular Quay and Taronga Park Zoo. So the right-hand wall is recognisable as the harbour’s southern shore and the left-hand wall is obviously the north, but one particular set of landmarks catches Marian off-guard. Although she should have suspected all along, she’s completely nonplussed. On respective walls, near the doors, are the unmistakeable beginnings of the bridge, including the fingery crown of one of the creeper cranes. And of course the steel’s not Bradfield’s grey—it’s shining gold, the girders are gold and, like two open arms, promise a radiant greeting. Welcome, says the bridge, welcome to our shores this holiest of families, we welcome you, we welcome the whole world, hallelujah, we welcome life. But the surge of elation is too strong to last. Marian shivers, feels it all drain away, is dumped in the backwash of the wave. It makes her feel suddenly old, this Children’s Chapel. And ineffably sad. On the seat of the last spindly pew near the door there’s a shoe box 328
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and inside are roughly guillotined pieces of paper on which the carol is roneoed. She picks one up and pauses before the door, turns for one more gasping intake of that golden cave. It’s her childhood up there on the walls in gold leaf. Buttoned coats and bobbed fair-haired children in harbour boats, there they are, Alice and Colin and Grace and she’s there too, little Marian. There’s an angel at the helm. Breeze in a tight sail. In the queue at the North Sydney branch of the Bank of New South Wales, Marian clutches her father’s worn passbook. It’s filled with neat, pressed entries in tellers’ tight handwriting, their stamps and initials approving modest transactions. In the front of the book is the unchanging copperplate of Ralph’s signature. It fills every bit of the line provided, Ralph Anderson Cage. She’d know that writing anywhere and will till the end of her own days, though who will know it then? Already, it’s the handwriting style of a bygone generation. She runs her finger over the signature and the passbook’s thick paper. How quickly our everyday possessions become artefacts. At the teller’s window, Marian offers the book and the newly acquired power of attorney. She begins straightforwardly enough but at the first out-loud mention of her father’s name finds herself suddenly choked and teary. She tries to regather herself and stay matter-of-fact but her concentration wavers. This is just a little business at the bank, she tells herself, her eyes welling. The teller needs senior advice and is anyway nervous of her fragile state so he asks her to take a chair while he fetches the manager. Marian finds a discreet seat near a timber-clad pillar and riffles through her handbag for a hanky; she’s got to get a grip and stop this pathetic sobbing. There’s the piece of paper printed with the stupid Christmas carol but where’s her hanky? Why didn’t her father ever take them to the Children’s Chapel when they were kids? 329
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Today, for the first time, she’d glimpsed something of the power and joy at the heart of his obsession—which he’d done his best to make tiresome to them all. She’s angry, she’s so bloody angry; where’s the bloody hanky, she put one in this morning. Her comb falls out onto the floor. Bending over to pick it up, she sniffs, she snivels. How could he not take them to the one place which might help them understand and share—yes, God forbid—share in that golden bridge? Even children could surely understand the naive power of such a vision the way it was represented there. There’s no bloody handkerchief, she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, feels a glazing smear of it stuck to her cheek, she gulps back sobs, she hiccups, she has to get out of here. The muffled impersonality of the bank, the mediocrity, the dull thud of the tellers’ stamps seem suddenly obscene. She rushes out to the street, the afternoon traffic roars by and she’s relieved, glad to be howling into all that bristling noise. She lets go and blubbers—the innocence, the lost bloody innocence—blubbers into the tooting horns and the screech of truck brakes, into the black belching exhaust of accelerating buses. And all the bells on earth did ring, On earth did ring, on earth did ring; Welcome be Thou, Heaven’s King, On Christ’s Sunday at morn.
1967 Mater Hospital He wakes up thinking: ‘Death is the ancient heart of God.’ 330
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1967 Mater Hospital He wakes up thinking, ‘Where’s Stella?’ And then he knows.
Way too late, he finds her, when her feet are starting to purple. After he has calmed down, after he has sat holding her for a while, he rings for the doctor, telling him there’s no need to hurry. He takes the knitted lap rug from the sitting room and puts it to her waist and tucks it under her feet—those feet, bruised and old-blood coloured, which had already walked away from him. He sits on the hard polished floor with his back against the table leg, an awkward old man beside his old wife. He has not sat on the floor so since his children were babies and toddlers and then his visits had been brief and uncomfortable. How curious the world looks from this level; the same but changed. He has seen this kitchen abuzz with fifteen women bumping into each other and calling orders to each other as they got food and drink out to some crowd or other and he has thought lo! what a shambles, what disorder! But this morning with Stella dead beside him he sees into the true heart of chaos and it’s stillness, absolute stillness, and it’s terrifying. Already Stella’s face is no longer wholly hers. In the moment of falling—or in the moment of dying—her hair has somehow softened and dropped its curl and it shocks him to see she has transformed into her mother. Her mother’s skull had all that time been waiting underneath for Stella’s skin to slacken and hang on its true frame. So in the end, her family has reclaimed her from him. 331
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It occurs to him that Stella may be reborn in the faces of Alice and Marian and Grace when they pass on. Against nature, he has survived his son so there’ll be nowhere for his own death’s head to go visiting. The doctor does take a long time to come. Ralph, mindful of Stella’s usual impatience, says to her, ‘He’ll be here soon.’ He strokes her cold cheek. Her lips are parted by a last pah of exhaled breath when there was no consecutive intake to draw them closed again. He tries it for himself, a primitive pah, and he repeats it many times over waiting for the doctor. The pah must be faced up to. It’s the sound of something being extinguished. It taps his grief and sets it running and the hurt of it honours Stella. Staring at the ceiling of his hospital room, again Ralph tries to purse his crooked lips to make the sound. He takes a breath, holds it, then blows it out against the resistance of his almost-too-tired-toopen mouth.Yes, that sighing pah. It always does leave the lips slightly parted.
Lennie stands at the window of his upstairs bedroom at the Petfords’ house. His new friends, the Petfords, have been very kind. He’s wearing the new suit and the new shoes they’ve bought him but, while he’s very pleased with his smart outfit, he couldn’t exactly say he feels comfortable. He looks down to the backyard and the lanes. The weather is going to be good but it’s still fresh at this early hour. Lennie’s nervous. The big day has arrived and a marathon party stretches ahead, but is it to celebrate the beginning of something or the end? Alan Petford knocks on the open bedroom door and says, ‘How are you going?’ 332
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Lennie turns back to the window and takes a deep breath to try to get rid of the tight feeling in his throat. And then he sees a soft, white, downy curl of a feather floating by the window and over the lane and on towards the rooftop of the stables where Ginger Mick is housed. Of course. There’s Ginger Mick to think about in all of this. His friend has come all this way on purpose to cross a bridge. And so they will. Lennie nods his head to the downy feather as it lifts and sails away. ‘I’m ready,’ he says, turning to Alan Petford, and on his face is a broad grin.
1967 Mater Hospital Baptisms Confirmations Marriages Funerals all those doors Ralph has stood attendant to, opening them one after another for people to pass through. He’s been the doorman, Dorman Long. This way, this way please. Up and down the hallway he runs, now to this door, now to that other. How do you do? Come through. What makes a ceremony sacred? It’s when people bring their joy, their grief, their trepidation and transfer that to him and the very air thickens. He takes a few humble steps and for the shortest while goes with them. This has been his privilege. And if he has not known how to love individuals as well as he might do, he has at least loved the idea of humanity. And no mean feat—the scale! 333
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This river of souls which he has ushered through his hallway, through his church, look how it flickers with light and shade. St Christopher’s (sandstone most beautiful, windows to the saints, saints to the Messiah) would be better suited to the flow of souls had it been built open-ended like . . . a railway station or a bridge. Who will open the last door for him? Lennie Gwideer is coming.
The tumult! The press of bodies! A father brings his sleeping son wrapped in a blanket to take his place with all the rest bagging spots at 6 am on the southern side. Nearly a million people desert their homes and suburbs and drain down to the shores of the harbour. It’s the nineteenth of March, 1932, and everyone, everyone from Great Aunt Thelma to Baby Dan, is there to see the opening of the bridge. Picnickers vie for elbow room and there’s already a queue outside the eight can toilets thoughtfully provided for the throng at Kirribilli. And such glorious weather! Only a few days before the rain was teeming but look, this is quite the best day there’s been for weeks, wouldn’t you agree, Aunt Thelma? By nine o’clock Hyde Park and the streets around are packed for the start of the parade. Nervous energy in the marshalling area: a quick few notes on the tin whistle, tuba honk, a cymbal dropped, a soft pum-pum out of earshot of the drum-major. Last-minute touches are applied to floats, paper flowers straightened, the lion on the Empire float pushed closer to Britannia. Dignitaries arrive at the official dais, vice-regals and commoners, lady wives (lapis blue georgette, another in red, a hat with a blue 334
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mount feather). Three cheers for Bradfield and Ennis. Three cheers for the Premier and three for Sir Philip Game (though what the state governor’s doing in that ridiculous uniform no one knows: perhaps he’s just auditioned for a Gilbert and Sullivan).They speechify and after a kerfuffle finally cut the ribbon. Bagpipes make their first sustained complaint and then get on with it. The parade begins! Bands are interspersed with marching groups, first the schoolchildren and then one hundred bridge workers keeping the perfect step most learned in wartime—hey, only a hundred? Where are all the rest? Laid off yonks ago! but watching, dotted around the city in their unsung dozens of dozens. Anyway, the men here are properly cheered and then comes Lennie Gwideer and Ginger Mick; they’re the darlings of the crowd. Lennie feels so swell he’s almost overpowered but in the middle of the bridge he looks up and marvels at the light and air. How come the weight of steel is not oppressive? Instead he feels as if inside the bones of some great breathing cathedral. Behind him are twenty Aborigines and the 4th Cavalry Brigade, then come the floats and veterans from the wars, the colour and the noise are endless. Underneath, every ship in port sails to and fro, the Majola, the white-hulled Dutch liner Nieuw Zeeland. On board the Orford they’re drinking Bridge Cocktails and eating Bridge Salads while the punters at the Quay are eating Bridge Meat Pies. On the parade rumbles, across the bridge and through North Sydney and then it doubles back.The crowd’s impatient now—BRING DOWN THE BARRIERS!—let the people claim their bridge. The hordes surge, hundreds and hundreds of thousands and more: they jostle, they run, they walk, they point and exclaim, they hang from every girder and rail they can climb up on and no one’s stopping them. Larks yell from the first trains, the air show roars, a regatta follows; garden parties, boating parties, rooftop parties, dancing when the sun 335
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sets and every restaurant filled to capacity. There’s not a lobster left in the sea nor an oyster stuck to rock: fish and fowl and beast and watercress alike have given up their lives in honour of the bridge. Bakers have baked, vintners have conjured bubbles, artisans of ice have slaved for hours. Pub walls wobble with the drink and bonhomie; Jack is always as good as his master. On the fall of night cars line up in a queue which stretches way off to the Town Hall in no time. They toot their horns, they flick their lights, it’s a long wait till midnight when they’re let through. Until then lovers promenade under the steel bow, a waltz, a two-step to the music of competing orchestras. Ocean liners glitter in the harbour dark below, a light in every porthole, a brittle laugh, a broken glass. Back on the footway of the bridge a woman drags her eyes away from all that floating glamour to resume her search for a lost handbag. Her best bag and two pounds gone she thinks but no, tomorrow it can be got from the honest members of the South Sydney Bowling Club who chanced upon it: apply to the clubhouse please. ‘Watch meee!’ cries a youth, letting go from a high-up lamp pole; watch me indeed, mothers do that, not girlfriends. At 7.30 pm the lights come on for the Venetian Carnival, coloured fairy globes along the shore and in the ships’ rigging. One boat is lit to be a whale with an alluring eye, another is a bird with fiery wings. Searchlights probe the bridge and probe the skies. And then the fireworks, Vulcan’s hammer strikes in sparks, indeed it does: a rocket crashes into a man’s chest and people are treated for burnt fingers and temporary blindness when flares go off prematurely. Sydney Hospital is a war zone with faints and fractures and twenty-three drunks. The day’s toll includes two fatal heart attacks, one thousand people treated at first-aid stations and two hundred children lost. 336
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But what a party! And then the stroke of midnight clangs, the ferries stop. The bridge is open for business.
It’s been a long day. Ralph’s tired. He’d like someone to pick him up and put him in his old bed at the rectory, but it seems he must lie here, in this dingy room. What’s the hour? Is it midnight? The hour for cats. Or is it later, 3 am, when the night rests in its deepest trough, barely breathing? He doesn’t know. Except it seems a labour just to lie surrounded by pillows. He expands his rattling chest and in that phlegmy rhythm he can hear . . . something else. The clatter of hooves. Lennie Gwideer comes riding down the hospital corridor, it’s him for sure. Ralph’s disappointed. Though he so likes Lennie, he was hoping for something more . . . celestial. But when Lennie ducks under the doorway and tips his hat and grins and they fill the room, horse and boy, and the horse is steaming, perfumed with hay, it doesn’t seem so shabby an apparition after all. Lennie plugs his hat back on his head any-old-how crooked. He looks around the room and at the medical equipment, at the drip winding its way into Ralph’s arm and he grins. ‘Looks like you’re hooked up to a milking machine. Whatcha doing here?’ Come to think of it, Ralph doesn’t have a clue. 337
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Lennie nudges Ginger Mick towards the window. ‘Good view of the bridge.’ No there isn’t. There’s only ever been a bit of starved garden and the walls of other wards. ‘Yes there is,’ says Lennie. ‘Come and have a look.’ Ralph stands beside him and puts his hand to steady himself on the warm flank of the horse. The animal smells of living: of summer and grass and thunderstorms. The animals breathes, pah, pah. Ralph looks out the window and Lennie’s right. Dear God, the bridge is fine. Lennie and Ralph and Ginger Mick, they’re fine too. A fine kettle of fish. Though Lennie’s only an arm’s span away from Ralph, when he speaks Ralph can hardly hear him, as if his voice comes from afar. Lennie says, ‘Let’s go.’ The animal exhales . . . pah Why not, indeed? pah What a beautiful thing it is now that it’s finished.
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Acknowledgements Greatest thanks for this book resoundingly belong to Frank Cash, who was the rector at Christ Church, Lavender Bay, NSW, from 1922 to 1961. Frank Cash’s life and times and his writings inspired and influenced this story in more ways than I can say. In April 1930 Cash self-published one volume of what was intended to be a two-volume work about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge; it was called Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Throughout his ministry he wrote and reprinted articles about the engineering of the bridge in his monthly parish paper. Many incidents and details in The Great Arch have sprung from my reading of the parish papers and Parables, however, I would like to especially note that my August 1930 parish paper entry is a composite of Frank’s May, June and August 1930 parish papers. I am grateful to the Christ Church Parish of North Sydney for granting me permission to use those words and others, and also to Miriam Perry, the daughter of Frank Cash, for permission to include lines from Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Though the lives of Frank Cash and the character Ralph Cage are broadly similar, I would like to take this opportunity to stress that this novel is not a fictionalised biography of Frank Cash. Ralph is my invention. Other real people appear in this book or have inspired characters, most notably Lennie Gwyther, the remarkable nine-year-old boy on whom Lennie Gwideer is modelled. The motivation for my Lennie’s journey is imagined, as are the incidents that take place along the way. However, most of the details about Lennie’s activities in Sydney and his instant celebrity are true, and he certainly did take part in the official parade that crossed the bridge when it opened. 339
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The minor character Stan England is also based on a real man—Stan London, who, along with Nipper Addison, was a construction worker on the bridge. I have used a few words of Stan London’s account of Addison’s fall, which was recorded by historian Richard Raxworthy in 1982 as part of a series of interviews with bridge workers. This wonderful resource, lodged in the Mitchell Library, NSW, was particularly helpful for the Moruya section of the book. Many other bridge histories and works of general history across a range of topics were consulted and I’m grateful to all those authors for their collective knowledge. Any errors of fact that appear within these pages are my own doing. Apart from the image of the koala, which comes from the La Trobe Picture Collection, all of the photographs that appear in this novel are Frank Cash’s work. They are held in the Samuel Marsden Archives at Moore Theological College Library, and permission to reproduce them has kindly been granted by the library. The translation used as the basis for Christopher Columbus’s log was Robert H. Fuson’s The Log of Christopher Columbus, published by International Marine, 1992. The research and writing of The Great Arch has been a long endeavour and many people have assisted in a variety of valued ways. Special thanks to Sue Woolfe; thanks also to Bob Mazza, Jamie Mazza and John Beesley; to Jane Palfreyman, Annette Hughes, Clara Finlay, Kirby Stalgis, and the astute and precise Ali Lavau and Angela Handley. My various families have been caring and patient as always, as have my dear and indispensable writing friends—Eileen Naseby,Tegan Bennett Daylight, Lucinda Holdforth and Charlotte Wood. This work has been supported by the University of Sydney, and that assistance is greatly appreciated; by a grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council; and by a fellowship to Varuna, the 340
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Writers’ House. Peter Bishop, the Director of Varuna, saved this book when I thought it was lost and I could not be more grateful to him for his insights. Finally, again, to Frank Cash—my deepest thanks. Though he is long dead and knows nothing of our association, I owe him much and regard him fondly as a colleague in this work.
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