Jack Cox - Dodge Rose

mrs gamack came asking for mother one afternoon while x and i were doing our homework. it was miss fox apparently, whod lost it. we went behind them. mrs cohen was already on the landing. its because of the business at mark foys said mrs gamack. they gave her the sack. sure to get it said mrs cohen. sometimes soon as the holidays are coming, they do it to all the girls, all the stores do, no sense of loyalty. no, said mrs gamack, it was for stealing. of course she didnt touch anything its because of that horrible female store detective. she usually goes after the customers, follows them around until they drop their dockets then forces them to sign the confession book. sally caught her at it and naturally said shed tell the management but that woman got in ahead of her and they fired sally. said shed been stealing. of course it was one persons word against anothers then and sally only started with them a couple of months ago. its horrendous said mrs cohen. the stores are crawling with detectives now. you know there are mirrors on the roofs of the powder rooms at snows. frankly its becoming scandalous. this purity gang. and all those poor girls they treat like a pack of animals. the labor party and the papers are behind them, there are thousands just like her.

please, said mrs gamack and took hold of mothers hands. please come and see her. i dont know what to do. she wont get up. there are feathers all over the room. ash. troy. unfortunately at that point mother spotted me between the less than infinite lines of mrs gamacks mulberry, burgundy, cedar or saxe calves and sent us both packing. ali. never did see miss fox again.

mr george has finally had the idea to take us on a real historical sightseeing trip. mother suggests darlinghurst gaol. the old one. it was no longer a gaol. x is still dressing. its me and her. no we are not alike. like mother. if i remember. had a little circular scar in the palm of her hand. interrupts, breaks through a barrier of perfume. chick put that camera down. why dont you go photograph something nice like the dog. are we ready. its mr george. dont forget to cover up, ca caille.

that was a great age for transformations. before the mafia got in and started knocking them all down. o hordens isnt the only one to have kissed the dirt. they were constantly planning to knock down the mint. it closed and the machinery was sold off or transferred but at that time they only meant to move the government departments and the law courts in temporarily. found a considerable amount of gold dust in the walls and floors. this way. i am afraid it doesnt leave us much room for detours said mr george. we stopped in green park and took a seat in the bandstand. the gaol towered above us on the hill. green park for, no, but this is a gruesome palace of memory you have chosen for us to visit, mrs rose. the walls were probably designed by greenway in the early twenties but then there wasnt enough in the coffer even for macquaries favourite architect and his absconded pattern book so it had to be lewis who built it a decade later with a little help from philadelphia. it was known as the stockade. when we go in you will see the principle of the layout. the round house in the middle was also known as the chapel. the radial buildings were the cell blocks. je ne suis quun bien faible historien but ive been told it was a thrill to hear the call of the warders echo through the suburb, nine o clock and all is well.

inside we wandered pretty freely among the art students. in those days they looked like anybody else. do you see the grooves in these blocks of stone. they are the tally marks to keep track of a convicts output. a chain gang quarried the stone from the loo and barcom glen then drew it up over the hill and it got chiselled into blocks here. if a convict did enough stones he could take work with a free settler for the rest of the week and add to his rations.

its quite spacious isnt it.

i am sure the prisoners were glad to get out of the so called smell hole on george street, though i can assure you this place was no. there are certain mauvaises langues say when sarah bernhard came to visit they gave her a demonstration with the implements. where do you put a cat o nine tails when youve run out of use for it. if only these walls and the obsolete hydraulics. the inmates could give back if they got the chance, in a diminished way. they were quick to turn the new fire hose in the compound on the warders.

mr george pointed out the womens block and mother asked if we could visit. i believe, said mr george, it is condemned, but there would be no harm in trying. together we pushed through into the murky void of the pill shaped chamber laid with packed earth where two higher floors had been knocked out leaving two dark lines a third and two thirds of the way up the wall and the iron gaolers door shut up there where the last had been, the sunlight falling in twin narrow beams through the uncovered peepholes. such an unhappy place. they say the walls crawled with insects an inch deep. the poor souls. mouldering in the hand of. what are you doing. chick get out of there!

thats drole, she has tried to write exit on the wall.

oh no, its our name.

i just hope thats charcoal. dont give it to me.

thats enough practicing for today mite. youll get it.

careful of your dress. here hold them out ill have to spit on them.

the barber kept a blunt razor for certain cutomers. yes im sure if i were to be packed off in a black maria id be thanking my stars i was headed for longbay and not this place.

that night dad and mother gave a little party to return mr georges favour. my aunt was there, and the misses blomfields, mr harwood, mrs pickburne, sufficient of the usual suspects. i help x put out the punch glasses in the kitchen. mother comes in clipping on her earrings. i dont know why youve taken such care to scrub up she says to x, im going to want you in here all night. if you need me you are to send chick. one of the girls has started hammering out a tune on the palmer piano. for he hath strengthened the bars on thy gates. i am wearing. i dont remember what im wearing. must have been, no i dont remember. mrs rich compliments mother on the changes. melanie dont you know anything suitable for a party. her sister feints, shes kidding with you. shes a daft hand at all the hits. youve had your fun mel, lets have a quickstep.

would you believe there was an eviction on macleay street this afternoon. i thought it was somebody moving in at first but then, well you dont move that sort of furniture in. i could hardly believe it myself. the wretches sitting on the front doorstep, wouldnt even look at it anymore for shame. it was simply awful. and it was the most indiscreet bunch of odd job men ive ever had the displeasure of overhearing. i wasnt sure they hadnt hired them right off the street, i mean the peddlers for a few extra bob, what do you call them monsieur george, something more general, peddlers sounds archaic, i dont know, i could hardly say i recognised them, its all one face to me but there are more of them every week, that ill swear to. its as if. well. an eviction on macleay street, i know some of them are living more or less hand to mouth but it isnt as if. i dont know i dont understand it. frank cant make it this evening by the way, i dont know if he got word to you in time. he has a prior engagement at boomerang. he sends his excuses and health to the whole family. you must come down to boomerang one of these days, youll be ravished. it gives right onto the water. less new york, more hollywood.

waited in vain for uncle jim. how many soup plates did you say mrs rose. well i do not know about girls schools but parramatta is on the make as you say. ferme orne. youll wear pink or youll wear pink, its the candidates colour. but you will tell me i am biased, i believe yours is prodigious country. ryzanthella in the sweet crack. no thank you, not till after supper. you will want me to how do you say shut up but i shall never know how to underestimate the promise of the radically new. e. s. hall called it an extirpating war before the anti libel bill went through. then he complained the archdeacon had kicked him out of st james. convicted in the supreme court. his own undoing. the monitor came out with black borders and a coffin a la une, said i shall rise again. oh to be back writing your own rules. cest la ma place au soleil. comme les pauvres enfants. just what was to be read in that mute scowl emerging in the reflected light of jeoffrey connells fire that night on the station. tracked down with his one footprint in the riverbank. sagit il dune question de revanche. at the hand of every beast will i require it. when i was a goss i saw in a mayday parade a float with an ebonist pretending to work away at a piece of furniture and a man got up en chinois with a long ponytail coiled on top of his head, se demenait comme un diable. spinoza thought it was their protection against confusion. quel est votre homme. did i ever tell you about macarthur and george howell. howell had a mill on a bank of the parramatta serviced by a dam whose retaining wall ended on the property of a certain john raine. thieves used the causeway to steal barrels of pork and i dont know what from raines homestead old ranglehoo but howell would not remove the wall when asked, claimed an easement. so raine dug a trench to drain the dam and macarthur sent some of his employees from elizabeth farm over to fill it in. raine had it reopened. howells friends trespassed on raines property to shovel it in again. raine got his men down to start shovelling out. the two sides attracted quite a crowd before they were through. raine carried his gun. there were liquor and pick axes and john macarthur urging on the fillers in from the safety of his carriage. mr george has been playing the historian for us since the afternoon. yes i forget you dont much care for tales of rural improvement, mrs rose. you must remember however that potts point once had ridges of sand for roads just like mosman. george king the first italian consuls place was bordered by a dune. i mean waratah house. frederick tooths brother edwin moved in later and all the three were there supping in habitual style the night the news came running that kent brewery was on fire. in chippendale. you can imagine how it went up. there was no shortage of volunteers to profit from the free alcohol. if the brothers hadnt rallied. i mean a reputation for high living was here before the pipes, early as they were, with it pouring down the hill to. well, you can see from the buttresses in rowena place how keen the up and comers were to get an address in potts point from the get go, with vvoolloomooloo proper shrunken to the lowest hollow in the land one side of william street, but once it was the hill or the heights too, more than enough for one purser and a name. here, see if you can keep telling your story without spilling your pea soup.