Tim Winton - Cloudstreet

In bed she listened to the sound of someone crying. There was always someone weeping in this place. So many people lived here it was hard to figure out who it was. Just a quiet sobbing, it lilted in the walls, and willed her to sleep.

Rose Pickles was twenty-four years old and a woman, though she hadn’t got used to thinking of herself in this way, and even a stranger could tell this by the girlish look on her face which she wore underneath every other expression she ever had, whether happy or miserable. She had a noticeable face — strong nose, brown unsettling eyes, and a complexion that always had summer in it. She had the Pickles shortness and their cocky way of walking. A man’d be stupid to think she wasn’t pretty, but then most men are at least a little stupid. Rose Pickles was proud, and difficult to slow down long enough to get a good look at. She never looked anyone in the eye, and as often as not, she went unseen as a result.

She voted Labor every election because she knew it would break her old man completely to have a bosses’ pimp in the family. Still, it didn’t do much good because Pig Iron Bob was still there in Canberra queening it up, and no one looked like moving him yet. Actually, she didn’t care or know much about politics; she just hated Australians who tried to be English (though she figured it was reasonable for a Pom to try to be an Australian — at least there was a future in that). For years she’d enjoyed working on the switch in Bairds, but she was bored with it now and would have changed jobs years ago if the Depression hadn’t hung so heavy over the old man. When it came to jobs, Sam Pickles threw incaution to the winds. Better the devil you know, he’d say. You’ve got a good job, now be grateful and keep it. And though she had her own ideas, Rose could never bring herself to leave.

Besides, she had fun on the switch. There was plenty of safe mischief to be had, and friends, and talk at teabreaks. Darken, Merle and Lyla were older than her, and they weren’t the marrying sort, though sometimes Rose suspected that was something they said to protect themselves. They never seemed to go out with the same bloke twice. They were loud, hearty and big, like farmers’ wives, with plenty of clothes and makeup and no one to go home to cook for.

Rose learnt ways to meet men that Darleen, Merle and Alma had been using for years, and she discovered that with a headset and a bank of wires between her and whoever she was talking to, she was as confident as all getout; full of cheek and fun, able to knock up a rendezvous with a Nice Voice in the time it took to put them through to Accounts or Hardware. The trick was to arrange a meeting at lunchtime on the steps of the GPO, to organize the bloke to stand beside the first pillar off Murray Street so you could spot him as you walked past, anonymous in the crowd, and if he was a dag, as most Nice Voices turned out to be, you just walked on and got yourself a salmon and onion sandwich at the counter at Coles till his lunch hour ran out. Still, they weren’t always dags. She got friendly with a few decent-looking blokes who took her to the flicks at the Piccadilly or the Capitol and then shouted her a milkshake or a spider before putting her on the bus home. They were always perfect gentlemen, to her vague disappointment, and at the humid discussions that went on in teabreaks between the girls from the office and the girls from the switch, Rose had to lie to keep up with the others. But she hardly had the imagination to compete. Her friend Marge from Mail Order always stole the show.

And then he says to me: Do ya knock? And I says: Not if I’m oiled. Ah, like a motor are ya? Well, I says, I do take some startin. What are ya, six or twelve volt? And I tell ya, he was all over me like a rash. I was lucky to get out of that Buick alive!

Rose could never figure out why blokes never acted that way with her, though she had a feeling about the salmon and onion sandwiches. But she wasn’t miserable the way she could remember being when she was younger. At least now she was out of Cloudstreet all day and half the night, and even if blokes did wave her off on the bus from a night at the pictures, even if she came home alone from the Embassy, at least she’d got to do the things she loved — see movies and dance.

The morning after she’d gone to sleep with the crying in the walls, about a week after the old man came home from the bush stuffed like a scarecrow with money, Rose had a run in with a Nice Voice that got her excited in a strange way.

It was barely nine o’clock when she got the call. The light came on, Rose put down the nail file and jacked in.

Bairds, good morning.

Hmm. Bairds. The voice was male and resonant and the tone wasn’t matey.

Can I help you, sir?

It’s about Earl Grey.

Does he work here, sir? I’ll have to check because the name’s not familiar.

It’s tea, love, he said drily.

Mr T. Earl-Grey, is it?

Oh, a card, are we?

Sir?

Look, I’m expecting ten pounds of tea from you people and it’s weeks overdue.

I’ll give you to Mail Order then, sir, said Rose. Gladly, she added as she plugged him through. Earl-flamin-Grey, my bum.

A moment later, he was back.

Heard that, I did. I should report you, girlie.

The firing squad in haberdashery or death by moron on the switch, it’s all the same to me, mate. Go look for Earl. And she plugged him through to Farm Supplies. He was back inside a minute.

Now listen here!

She jacked him through to Boys Wear and counted.

Very smart.

There’s a ladder in your stockings, sir.

She gave him to Haberdashery and Hosiery, and thought she could feel the old switchboard heating up. When she heard his line back, she waited only to hear him draw a breath before punching him on to Mail Order and his mysterious ten pounds of Earl. She was flushed with excitement and took a few moments to see that the switchboard was lit up like a pinball machine. The last light on the board was him again.

It’s me again.

You don’t say. Any luck with Earl?

They haven’t found it yet.

Dear, dear. Want me to put you through to the Governor-General?

You — re a cheeky bugger.

The board was lighting up again.

Well, thanks a dozen, but I’ve got to get back to work. There’s a lot of buggerizing to be done.

She heard him laugh.

Well, I’m going to keep after this tea.

Good luck, Earl.

Rose pulled the plug on him, and went to work on the rest of them before the whole three floors fell on her. Darken came in and Merle and Alma behind her. Rose glared at them; they were ten minutes late.

Bairds, good morning … just putting you through … one moment please … Where the hell have youse been? I’ve had the Charge of the Light Brigade on my hands here … Bairds, good morning …

Gawd, look who’s in a tizz this mornin!

I spose we’d better begin, ladies.

Heads on, bums down, I reckon.

But by the time they got their headsets on, the switchboard had cooled off.

You bludgers, Rose said with a smile. What have you been up to?

Oh, a meetin of minds in William Street.

Sailors, I spose.

How’d you guess?

Who else is gunna go you three in a group at nine in the morning? They must’ve been at sea a good while to pick a pack of rough sheilas like you. Bairds, good morning … Oh, it’s you again.

Listen, he said on the other end, sounding sort of mature and well-fixed, why don’t we meet somewhere? You sound like a smart girl.

Only meet smart ones, do you?

Somewhere close to your work? You’re on Murray Street, right?

That’s right.

Righto. What about lunch? Let’s meet at the GPO.

First column on the left as you go up the stairs, she said. Twelve o’clock. Bring your teapot.