Scraps of Heaven (6 page)

He points to a lane diagonally opposite and returns to the pub. Josh sets off in search of the cocky. Is it white, sulphur-crested? Is it caged or perched upon its owner's shoulder? Does it speak or is it mute? All Josh can see is a man loitering by the lane.

‘Have you seen a cocky?' Josh asks.

‘I
am
the Cocky,' he laughs.

The Cocky escorts Josh to an alcove in the middle of the lane. Within the alcove there are punters dressed in worn suits, or short-sleeved jumpers over open-necked shirts. Some pace anxiously, or huddle over newspapers pared down to their racing guides. Several have exercise books in which they are scribbling notes. Others lean on the back fences, arms folded, lost in thought.

Josh hands the list to the bookie. He scans the list and quotes figures as the men gather round. ‘The prices for the Juvenile Stakes,' the bookie announces. ‘Fresh from the course. They're close enough to starting price.'

‘About bloody time,' says one of the crowd. ‘The race is almost over.'

‘Gay Tabri is a good bet at two to one,' claims the bookie, unaffected by the remark. He scrutinises the list. ‘Astounding is worth a try at evens,' he says. ‘She is the only nag who won at her last start. Lauriston Bay is a fair bet at five to one. Regal Dream is a good long shot at fifty to one. After all, it's his first start. And Elder, with Bill Williamson in the saddle, now there's a safe gamble at ten to one.'

The bookie collects the bets, and places the cash in a leather bag. He scribbles the names of those who deal in credit. ‘This is none of your business,' he snaps, when he realises Josh is still standing by.

‘I was told I'd get paid,' says Josh. He has plans for the money, and is anxious to get away. The bookie tosses him a two shilling coin.

‘Now scram. And don't tell anyone what you've seen or done.'

Josh makes his way back to the end of the lane. ‘Polly want a peanut?' croaks the Cocky who has remained at his post. ‘Never seen a cocky that can talk as much as this one,' he says, with a belly laugh. But Josh does not mind. He has a florin firmly in hand. He walks via Fenwick to Canning Street, skirts the median strip and approaches the corner store.

A tin-roofed verandah sprouts from the shop to the kerb. The building is low and squat. From a distance the roof is a broad-brimmed hat. Secondhand goods lean against the dirt-encrusted windows. Magazines, picture cards, jars of marbles and hard-boiled sweets, lie in disarray. The flywire door is ajar. Josh prises it open and ventures inside. The room smells of mouldering floorboards and stale breath. Beige wallpaper curls in the corners. Flies buzz against the wire, and in the darkness of the back room someone is stirring.

An ashen face sprinkled with warts materialises from the gloom. Magnified eyes peer from thickly rimmed glasses. Mrs Boucher's slack jaw gives way to a succession of rolling chins. Her mane of white hair is curled into two tiers of disorderly buns. She is an apparition who dwells in the netherworlds. She watches warily as Josh rummages though her stacks of comics. Her hands shake as she handles the goods. Each movement is accompanied by her rasping breath. Mrs Boucher is beyond small talk or polite exchange. She conducts her business in silence. Flies continue to buzz against the flywire in a vain attempt to escape. Josh is relieved when his transactions are over.

As he regains the footpath he sees Zofia walking towards the median strip. Her back is straight, there is a firmness in her stride. She wears a pastel yellow summer frock she herself has designed and sewn. She is beautiful, thinks Josh, as if discovering it for the first time. Yet despite her fashionable dress and purposeful steps, she looks out of place. She is not fully present. She does not register or acknowledge those who walk past. She moves on her own private path.

Zofia glances about her. Perhaps she senses she is being watched. As he observes her, Josh is surprised at his detachment. She is a stranger, a woman from another world exposed by the harsh light, and Josh is on the outside, moving apart. He takes care to remain in the verandah shadows, just out of sight. He is beginning to see the woman who happens to be his mother, as a separate being. The thought excites him, but also fills him with dread.

Zofia turns left from Canning, past the corner milk bar into Fenwick Street. It is a two-block walk to the Nicholson Street tram. The neighbourhood is girdled by many exits, a grid of bus routes and trams. The Fenwick Street houses are tiny cottages, tightly packed. Their doors are set one metre from the footpath, drab and dark. Zofia's eyes are intent upon their task. She has an appointment with her dentist. He has fitted her into his busy schedule, on a Saturday afternoon, when most of his colleagues have long ceased work.

Zofia is on her way to her operation, alone. She prefers to be alone. She does not like to be escorted, or comforted. She shies away from physical touch, and keeps her own counsel. She is a world unto herself, elusive and proud. Josh stands beneath Boucher's verandah and watches her until she walks beyond sight. It is over. For the next day and a half he is done with the charade that barely keeps his family finances alive. Romek has packed away the laddered stockings and socks, the price tags, the string bags. He has dismantled the tables and folded the trestles. His goods lie in their storage trolley, which he has wheeled to its resting place. Romek leaves as he had arrived, a small man with a heavy load compressed into a
tchemodan
. He clutches it in his right hand; the biscuit tin jingles with coins as he walks from the market sheds.

The air smells of rot and ferment, the odour of a dying market week. Romek crosses Elizabeth Street. Its spaciousness disarms him. He feels lost within a congestion of trams and trucks. When he reaches the footpath, he glances at the bluestone brewery that occupies a block of its own. He detects the smell of burnt tyres and malt. He walks the final incline towards the tram shelter with a lighter step.

Romek stands beside market-goers weighed down with their weekend spoils. Three watermelons lie on the concrete, their skins sunlit in two-tone greens. A teenage girl holds slabs of beef wrapped in butcher's paper stained with blood. Beside her stands an elderly woman clad in widow's black; she holds two live chickens, one under each arm.

Romek's eyes are fixed upon the public baths opposite the shelter. Its five domes perch on the roof like tiled skullcaps. Two overcrowded trams go by, and Romek remains while the passengers board. He stays put until there is no one in the shelter except for the woman in black. She is also waiting for a more comfortable ride, but the third tram is almost full. Romek boards it, nevertheless, and behind him trails the widow with the hapless chooks.

‘No live animals are allowed on the tram,' says the conductor as the widow struggles on board.

‘Why no?' she says.

‘That is the law,' he replies.

The widow takes hold of the chickens and twists their necks.
Tschrk. Tschrk.
The passengers flinch at the sound. One sharp movement of the wrists is all it requires. It is over before the conductor can open his mouth. ‘No live chicken now,' she concludes with a triumphant smile.

Romek's suitcase rests at his feet like a faithful dog. He clings to the overhead support and leans to the left, the sunny side. The tram lurches on the rails. The widow retains her superior smile. The conductor scowls as he retrieves her fare. A young couple lean against each other. A man in overalls is engrossed in the sports pages of the
Sun.

A breeze funnels through the doors, and cools Romek's unshaven cheeks. When a seat becomes vacant he sits down beside a woman who holds a pocket knife and a slab of cheese. The cheese perspires in the mid-afternoon light. The woman chews as she cuts herself another slice. Romek looks at the red-brick facades of Melbourne University. It is a sedate enclave, even more so on a listless Saturday afternoon, inaccessible to those on the outside. Student residents stroll in and out of the university grounds with the ease of those who belong.

The tram swerves right from Swanston into Elgin Street. It passes a pub, a two-storey bank, and yet another pub as it curves into Lygon Street. Australia is a land of corner banks and pubs, muses Romek. They rise above the surrounding houses like neighbourhood temples constructed of stone, fashioned by master builders and expert masons, built to impress and last.

He is on the homeward run. Between the bars of the cemetery he glimpses crucifixes and headstones. On the opposite side of the tram the black widow is dozing. Drooping from the seat, the chickens' limp heads rock from side to side. Their combs are a startling red; their eyes are open, suspended in permanent surprise. The seats are emptying. Stop sixteen is drawing close. Romek steps off and retreats on Fenwick Street, shoulders slumped, a spent man with a
tchemodan.

Romek is too tired to stop and talk, too tired to even glance at his son. He passes Josh in the kitchen, and makes his way to the front room. His steps quicken as he enters the passage. One last effort and he is through the bedroom door. He kicks off his shoes. This final delay as he undresses is an agony. He peels back the covers with one sharp tug, and slips into bed.

It is heaven, this moment of giving way on a Saturday afternoon. His face is cooled by the bed linen. The bedroom is a palatial suite and he, a king living it up with his harem of blankets, pillows and sheets. Within minutes he is asleep. Josh tiptoes by the closed door, and again he hurries from the house out into the streets.

Valerio Bianchi emerges from his uncle's house jogging. He clutches a soccer ball to his chest. He drops the ball on the verandah, opens the gate, and dribbles it onto Canning Street.

Dressed in tight-fitting white shorts, black-sleeved skivvy, and white runners, he is a neatly packaged man, aged about twenty-five. His tight cropped hair and muscular body are offset by a refinement in movement that strikes Josh as odd. He leans his bicycle against a poplar and notes the bow in Valerio's legs. Valerio prances rather than runs. He juggles the ball on his right boot, traps it on his toes, and sends it spiralling overhead. He pirouettes, catches it on the heel of his boot, and brings it to ground on the median strip. It is an impressive debut.

‘My nephew!' exclaims old Bianchi from the verandah.

‘He is a
campione.
He play for Napoli.'

Valerio weaves a space between the growing band of onlookers and aims a full-blooded drive at the trunk of the poplar. He regains the ball with a subtle feint on the rebound. No one has seen such movements on the block. He points at Josh's bicycle. ‘Plis,' he says. ‘I can have?' He mounts the bike and cycles in widening circles.

As the bicycle gains a momentum of its own, Valerio begins his ascent. His bottom leads the way. His bloodless fingers grip the bar. The fully bent wrists take the weight. His arms are at full stretch, his elbows locked. His feet rise skyward, in one body-length thrust. For five seconds he manages to balance until the bike begins to wobble, and he dismounts just in time.

Valerio is not yet done. He returns to the verandah, dons a pair of boxing gloves, and jabs at imaginary rivals as he darts about. Valerio is showing off, exhibiting his skills. He is a young man fresh from Napoli, signalling his arrival, stamping his presence upon alien turf. His suitcases can still be seen in the hallway where they had been left the previous night.

‘Bravo artista!'
exclaims old Bianchi.

‘Bullshit
artista
,' sniggers Big Al, who has joined the crowd.

But Josh is impressed. He has never seen such bow-legged elegance, a body so finely tuned. Yes, Valerio is a true
artista
. A bit odd perhaps, but he has successfully pleaded his case. With one last flurry of punches he turns, and vanishes into the house as abruptly as he had stepped out.

The vacant lot is a paddock of long grass dying in the sun, a mess of broken clocks, disembowelled mattresses, shredded bedsheets and dirt-encrusted cards, the remnant of games long past. Dandelions and weeds rise from mounds of rubbish. A dog sniffs through the undergrowth, a grey cat sprawls in a cardboard box, asleep under a hot sun, while Josh sits back on a discarded sofa, the sports pages of the
Age
newspaper in hand.

He smokes cast-off cigarettes. A gaggle of younger children carve tunnels in the dirt. ‘Hoad Beats Gonzales in Marathon Tennis Duel', the headline proclaims. Josh reads the sports pages to the last detail. Olympic sprint champion Dawn Fraser is ‘Out to Better World Record', at a swimming meet next Wednesday night. Australian batsman Les Favell has ‘Starred Again in Bright Hand', against Transvaal. World-class milers, Merv Lincoln and John Landy, are due to clash at Olympic Park. There is a straightforwardness in the sport reports: it is all numbers, records, simple forecasts and yesterday's results. Josh checks the trotting guides, even though he has little idea of what trotting is about.

When he has read his fill he lies back on a patch of dirt. He prefers the closeness of the ground, the solidity of the earth. The hum of a motor car can be heard on the rim of his world. The rustle of long grass is the last sound he hears until he awakes, an hour later, to the aroma of smoke rising from an incinerator in a backyard nearby. Josh runs his hand over the cooling dirt. The sun is on its descent, its touch mild. He stretches his arms and yawns. He would do anything to stretch the minutes, to elongate the hours. To stop time.

Zofia comes home from the dentist's by the back lane
.
Her jaws are clamped on blood-soaked wads of cotton wool. The blood is still fresh upon her gums. She enters the house by the kitchen door. Her face is white with a stoic tightness that Josh has come to know so well.

Even though her mouth is swollen, an hour later, as she prepares the evening meal, she recounts her tale. It is not the first time Josh has heard it. She is proud of this tale. It is her signature story, the way she defines herself and maintains her self-belief. When she was a child, pre-war, in the city of Krakow, the dentist had removed several teeth without sedation. She had borne it in silence. The dentist had been impressed that one so young could be so brave.