Jack Cox - Dodge Rose

but we could not exactly say we were in woollamoola could we.

you wont get any letters addressed to queens cross. the post dont know it yet. better say you are in potts point.

but today, mr george, would you say it is safe. you understand my asking. five bullets in the back in darlinghurst. if you believe me the runners around here, they are just the showoffs.

i hope you arent speaking from too close an acquaintance, i mean for your own sake.

ah it is what one knows in general. it is what counts. i say the worst will blow over sooner or later.

we bought the vegetables at lo blancos so that we could get our hands on them first and make sure that they were good. crammed into those little shops with the windows under the awnings you could get flour from a barrel and sugar from a vat and bon ami with the chicken that said it hasnt scratched yet and old dutch cleanser with a scuttling woman with no face on the label and cod liver oil and castor oil and heenzo for coughs and colds and dr morses indian root pills and woods peppermint compound and treacle and stove polish and knife powder and oatmeal and kerosene. we did not go down to the water for fish that day. there were nets strung over the balconies of the town houses and men and women mending them in their shirtsleeves, calling out to one another.

where do they come from.

they have run away from mussolini.

when we get back to kingsclere owen has the doors open and is polishing the door handles. all of it is new then, the wide rooms, the soft smell of the place, the sound of our things dull on the new carpets, the days passing through the bay windows. that bygone parade of tilting furniture. it gets old, it settles. down we go. first thing i did on arrival was eat a watermelon. lovely insipid fruit. i spat the pips into dads rusty palm. he had been at the prow all morning with his hands on the railing. because he was nervous he put them in his pocket though we were standing at the edge of the wharf where the water lapped the trash around the pylons. the crowd and the gulls swarmed above. dad gripped me by the blouse. mother held him by his waist. the sun streamed down on us. we all sway in the flat. why is the ground so stiff i think i asked. dad said because you are still rocking with the boat. so am I. our things arrive. odd coming out of boxes into the light of the flat. dads old paintings, a chair put back together with copper wire, porcelain stuffed with newspapers. highland cattle. i want to move them myself, feel something familiar, but mother takes charge of handling the furniture. she arranges it as best she can though afterwards she will look at the room and say something is not right. so she lays things out reluctantly at first. dad fills the place faster than she does. he buys an upright piano and they play for his friends, sing paddlin madelin home and no, no nanette. mother makes friends with the girl opposite and they sit and chat in the olive chairs until dad rises in the elevator in the evening. on friday mother roasts a bird and people are invited to eat. afterwards miss fox plays the piano and dad sings. because i cant drink the liquor he gives me a shilling from his pocket. i ask him what has he done with the watermelon seeds. thats what they were, your watermelon seeds! why i threw them out the window. happily he slaps the piano lid and there is laughter round the living room. when my light goes out i count the unfamiliar cars that roll below the window. interruptions in the luminous bar beneath the door intrude upon the gloom and slip away. from your dust. there is music playing on another floor, a record going round, tinkle of sherry glasses. a stifled what. i press my face to the cold dark glass and it gives back my face and the city lights. soft toys are consoling, i can keep a cats tail in my crack till dawn.

and then i have been to the saturday matinee at the rialto or one of them. it would get so stinking warm. all those boys hollering in the dark, and if the reel snapped, why the uproar it was enough to burst your. then the stamping and all of them counting together, one big rising pack chanting and stamping till it got spliced and whoosh there was the pretty girl again wrapped up on the tracks. sucking acid drops after interval. some blew up paper bags and burst them and the worst threw bungers. we had buttered crumpets and strawberry ice cream soda for sixpence at bright lights near the strand arcade afterwards and mother would say i think perhaps we will not do that again.

dad was in the living room playing backgammon with mr george when we got home and miss fox was there and mrs rich and mr harwood, and mrs pickburn, perhaps, and langland and john busby. where have you been ma ptite.

mother suggests a boy threw rotten egg gas in the second half and it was a shame. it was after all someones son.

that sullivan is an enterprising devil mr harwood said, scratching the back of his neck and rolling his right foot to let a little air in.

o sullivan, said langland. he lost that getting off the boat in london. probably hoped no one else picked it up too. he went to school at the marist brothers you know. was there with him. theyre a part of st marys, maam, just here in the loo. now where did he get a wild idea like that i dont know.

peter felix, said mr george. checkmate, no, pardon, i win. do you remember peter felix. i believe he fought here in the state heavyweight championship in o nine. he dressed himself head to toe in black. it was a sort of stocking i suppose. gave me a real fright. he terrified all the children. truly, you dont believe me. cozens spencer told me, you know cozens spencer who built the rushcutters bay studios, filmed jack johnson knock tommy burns teeth out, you remember that . well he told me crazy pat got the idea watching peter felix. i dont say. in any case that is what i heard. you dont have to believe me.

im sure i dont know where a wild idea like that comes from.

how are you liking your new home mrs rose.

i was just saying to peter this morning how lovely i find it. its a wonderful building, even quite beyond my expectations. we were so fortunate mr alberts friends happened to leave when they did, i really dont know a place in town id rather be.

ah but can you sing and dance like franks friends.

if you please, madame riche, an alto like mr roses is not to be found every day among the non professional classes. a command of feeling that, well, if you dont mind, for a banker.

mr george.

je marrete la. oh. he struck his forehead. i was almost going to leave it behind incognito. listen, ma puce, guess what, i have prepared a little surprise. do you want to know what it is. can you guess where i have hid it. mon grand drageoir. theres something in there with your name on it.

you are not to touch it now, chick.

but i want to see her face.

she has just had crumpets and strawberry ice cream.

what is it.

you know perfeclty well.

it is only the good old cacao like mum makes.

what did you say.

a little sweetened. they are only her what do you call them. she will get a new set in any case. all the better to see candy with.

may i ask how you found the apartment.

my wife. word of mouth. she has her associates here longer than i have.

yes of course, many of the tenants at the astor are country folk. perhaps youve met my ruby.

im sorry to say i havent, mrs rich. it was my brother in fact who put us on to it. hes known the alberts for some time.

how nice. im sure the character of host suits the alberts terribly well. i can hardly bring myself to call them landlords. have you been up to the little cinema yet. well, the next soiree you are in for a treat. and the company needless to say is divine. no stink bombs up there i can assure you.

they buy into the astor dont they. one takes shares. is it like that here. it seems a very efficient way of conducting the business. what do you say, mr george, its the air of the times. that was quite an end to the year, mr rose. have you noticed how the domestic interior is beginning to take cues from industry. no more fitted carpets. i could only wish they had shops on the lower floors as they do below the temperance and general insurance company apartments. fitzgerald had a fine idea but one has to know when to be an integralist, no mr rose. to my mind it would have been a happier use of the street level property in an area like this, any chance to open it up on rational principles. the townhouses appear mercifully on their way to falling down by their own volition. it was quite inspired of albert to buy up this place. he told me he first considered it when he read an article more than a decade ago called the profit possibilities of tall buildings, and now, well, it has to be seen to be believed, but there are more projects in the pipeline for this year than there have ever been. the prospect certainly looks clear. i mean with the price of primary products, and the foreign loans. now the obstacles to a central bank have toppled. the department stores are extending credit to the working class. it does look promising doesnt it, i mean, and it is stable.