Peter Carey - Illywhacker

She ate her meals with Mrs Ester in the dining room where there was always food in plenty – meat every day, even Fridays -and almost nobody, it seemed, could eat what they were given and the black-uniformed waitresses were always carrying back plates that had not been scraped clean. The hens in the hotel yard ate better food than Molly had been used to.

She had her friends: an old yardman who told her stories and showed her his odd socks sticking up above his boots and Patchy the barman who gave her pennies when he was drunk, and even Mrs Ester, on three occasions, read her stories from a book about India which, although she did not quite understand them, were appreciated all the same. However, it was not until Jennifer Grillet arrived that she had someone of her own age to talk to. Jennifer was a distant relation of Mrs Ester's. She had red hair that sat on either side of her head like a spaniel's ears and she was very thin. Jennifer arrived with a proper suitcase just after Molly's sixteenth birthday and when the door was shut in their small room above the stables, Molly began to talk.

"My," said Jennifer Grillet, "you are a chatterbox," but she listened just the same and showed Molly the birthmark on her shoulder.

Their friendship was not to last long. Before a month was out Jennifer had begged Mrs Ester for a room of her own because Molly kept her awake all night talking, but by then the real damage had been done and Molly had told her everything, how Walter pooed his pants, her father banged his head, her mother hanged herself. She had made no secret of her electric belt. She explained its purpose. She let Jennifer try it on and thought she was secretly envious, not only of the exotic apparatus but of Molly's figure which had become, by that sixteenth birthday, decidedly womanly.

"A real hourglass," she told herself proudly, standing before the mirror in petticoats and electric belt.

There were others who thought so too, and Mrs Ester was not slow in realizing the girl's potential behind the bar.

The bar Mrs Ester had in mind was not the public bar where Patchy ruled, sometimes ruthlessly. The bar she had in mind was called the "Commercial Room". It was not downstairs, it was upstairs. There were no tiled walls in the Commercial Room. You did not clean it as Patchy cleaned the public bar, with a hose and water. It had a woollen carpet on the floor and several leather chairs and low tables.

The Commercial Room was a meeting place for mutton-chopped merchants and frock-coated doctors, chalky-skinned solicitors and the moustached graduates of the School of Mines. Visiting gentlemen and their crinolined ladies could sit in comfort, drink champagne if they wished, and only occasionally be reminded of the realities of Ballarat when a fight erupted on the footpath below or fire swept through the wooden cottages on Battery Hill, and even these events could be comfortably observed from a balcony above the street.

It was quite clearly understood by everyone concerned, in particular by Molly and Mrs Ester, that this bar would, sooner or later, furnish an excellent husband. Certainly they did not hope for a dentist or a barrister, but a successful farmer or a stock and station agent would not be out of the question, provided Molly abandoned her habit of running along corridors and, when walking, shortened her stride, and swung her arms a little less enthusiastically. In conversation she should think more carefully about what she intended to say and when she said it, say it slowly, not breathlessly.

With these instructions firmly in her mind Molly stood stiffly behind the bar while Mrs Ester conducted her final examination.

"Two Scotch whiskies, one pink gin, one rum and cloves," said Mrs Ester.

"Four and sixpence," said Molly.

"One ladies' beer, two pints Ballarat Bitter, one crime de menthe."

"Six and sixpence ha'penny," said Molly.

"Do you have a decent burgundy, dear lady?" said deep-voiced Mrs Ester.

"Yes, sir, Chambertin and Cote du Rhone."

"And what is the price?"

"The Cote du Rhone is ten shillings and the Chambertin twelve and sixpence ha'penny."

"Very good."

"What is three hundred and five multiplied by eight-six, Mrs Ester?"

"Heaven knows," said Mrs Ester.

"Twenty thousand, six hundred and fifty-three," said Molly. "Oh Mrs Ester, I'm so excited."

When Mrs Ester had removed the pencil from behind her ear and checked this calculation she took Molly to her office where she examined her in arithmetic. She discovered that the girl could add up columns of figures in her head. She did not even move her lips.

"Now, my girl," Mrs Ester said, "you listen to me. You will not throw yourself at the first man who comes along."

"No, Mrs Ester."

"You are a decided commercial asset, you mark my words."

"Yes, Mrs Ester."

"You are only sixteen. There is no need to rush off and marry in a hurry."

"No, Mrs Ester."

"Would you like to learn about the business, how to pay the staff and the brewery and add up figures? I will pay you a pound a week."

"Thank you, Mrs Ester."

"You will not spend the pound, Molly. (Do not fidget.) You will put it in the bank every week as long as you work for me, and when you get married you will not tell your husband about it, is that clear?"

"Yes, Mrs Ester."

"Do you swear?"

"I cross my heart, Mrs Ester."

"How much is a glass of best stout?"

"Three pence."

"You are a good girl, Molly," said Mrs Ester taking the girl's two hands in hers in a rare, grabbing, embarrassed gesture of affection. "You will be a credit to the Crystal Palace Hotel."

And, had it not been for Henry Lightfoot, she would have been right.

Walter and Sean had not been given electric belts, and they were not happy. It was only Molly who was happy and she knew she had no right to it. No one could say that she was not a good daughter or a loving sister. Indeed she was, when she could be, a perfect Little Mother. When the remains of the family assembled on Sundays she brought a needle and thread for Walter's trousers, a newly knitted balaclava for Sean, wool and darning needles for her father's socks.

Walter was dark and silent and hit at the trunks of trees with stick or boot and Sean clung to her side while she darned their sleeping father's socks. Beside the weed-choked waters of Lake Wendouree their mother's death lay over them. Sean tugged insistently at her skirt. The men in their rowing sculls could not move freely through the water.

She hid the pleasures of the Commercial Room from her family. She did not tell them about Henry Lightfoot. She did not confess her hopes for the Hospital Auxiliary Ball. She fled these Sunday afternoons earlier than she should have, and was punished by guilty dreams because of it.

Henry Lightfoot had a property at Bunningyong and did not come to Ballarat as often as he would have liked, but when he did come he always wore nice suits, and although he was a big man his body did not fight against the constrictions of his suit and his neck did not bulge against his Oxford collar.

"Do you like to dance, Miss Rourke?" he had asked her. He had a warm sweet smell, like straw.

"Oh, yes, Mr Lightfoot," she said.

He had fair hair and dark black eyebrows. Apart from a slightly beakish nose he was decidedly handsome. He was going to ask her to the ball but she saw him frown, lose courage, and order a pint of bitter instead. She liked him better for his loss of courage.

Tonight, she knew, he would come again, because there had been sales in Ballarat and Henry Lightfoot had sold fifty fattened beasts for a record price. The little Scot from Elders Smith had already given her the details of the sale. He said it was a great day for Henry Lightfoot.