The Blue Mile (7 page)

Olivia

‘
N
o – wait,' I call after them, and I'm not entirely sure what compels me to, apart from gratitude at being spared a walk back across town as hatless Medusa.

The man turns on his heel, scruffy work boots that have never known a polish, and two sets of impossibly blue eyes implore me, one above the other. Almost a cornflower blue, touch of violet; extraordinary colour. I glance away from them again, into the crook where the stone wall meets the path: why have I stopped them? Perhaps because the man is not much of a man but a boy, not much older than myself, and like myself he's in a spot of bother on his way to work. I look up at the little girl on his shoulders: impossibly lovely, from jumble of jet ringlets to Indian red mary-janes. And although the answer must be,
No, I can't look after your little sister, as I have to go to work myself, and you shouldn't have asked such an outstandingly insane question of a lady in the first place
, I ask the near threadbare knees of the man's trousers: ‘Where do you work?'

‘I've got a job on the Bridge,' he says, ‘I start today,' heart on incongruously crisp white shirtsleeve, and the little one, her whole tiny person cuddling his head:
Please
.

Well, that's it then, isn't it. How can I refuse? A Bridge worker. He could be the dustman there for all I know, but he might just as well be a brave and heroic scaler of monstrous Bridge claws, mightn't he.

I look at him square on now, the whole of him, and when I do, something even odder strikes me. Whatever he might do for a living, he's been designed to inspire maximum giddiness in a girl – tall and dark, and those eyes – but I am not giddified by him in the least. The seething ball of nervous squirms I carry about inside me has utterly ceased. Perhaps because he is laughably handsome – original template of masculine beauty variety of handsome – I am somehow safe in his gaze. Such an intent gaze, he's not really looking at me at all, is he. He clearly needs this favour very much. A nice boy, obviously, looking after his little sister. Appealing for my assistance. Deserving of a good turn; as I might well be deserving of giving one.

And so, however impossible it might seem, I find myself replying: ‘I can look after your little sister, but she'll have to come to work with me.'

‘Miss,' he says, setting the girl on the path between us, his relief so plain I can feel his heart trip over it, ‘you are a life saver, you'll never know how much I appreciate this. I'll pay you – whatever you think is a reasonable thing. It's just that we've been caught short today for help and we're not from round here, and –'

‘No,' I assure him, ‘you don't need to pay me.' His gratitude is as embarrassing as it is charming. Such a nice boy should not have to beg help of strangers in the street, all but on those threadbare knees, and I look away from him again. I look at his hand resting on his sister's head; surprisingly well-kept hand, one that might belong to a tailor rather than a death-defying dustman.

And then I almost smirk – with the realisation of the favour this will do me too. Mother will be put out by my kindness, won't she. A small and yet noble act of spite with which I might pay her back for all the madness she's caused me, and for pinching my fabric. If she can marry a strange man, I can bring a strange child to the salon for a day. Petulant but fair. And priceless. Mother has affection for one child only: me. And Mother, beneath all her cosmopolitan savoir faire, is also a terrific snob: wait till she hears this little poppet open her mouth – coarse as the weave of her big brother's shirt. Appalling bargain-table mercerised cotton, blindingly over-bleached and soft-collared. Dreadful. Lovely. I look at him square again and say: ‘I had better tell you who I am then, I suppose. My name is Olivia Greene – with an e on the end. And you'll find us at a salon called Emily Costumière on the second floor of the Strand, do you know it – the arcade?'

‘I'll find you,' he says, and the neat proportion of his shoulderline has me mentally sketching him into a dinner jacket. ‘But I'm not sure when I . . .'

‘Doesn't matter – be as late as you need to be.' I dismiss his concern: with any luck, you'll be so late I'll have to give the Merrick a miss tonight. I don't suppose the Saturday Bridge shift ends at midday as it does for the rest of us. Good God but I'd taper the cut for him, snug on the hip and make it white, with a brocade vest, trousers in midnight. Very New York. Very nice. ‘You'd better tell me your name, though, too, hadn't you?'

‘Oh yeah,' he shakes his head at himself, and I shake mine at the outrageous dimples in his cheeks, and he says something that I don't hear properly – ‘Owing Keenly'? – his speech is so quick and fluid, dancing over his words. ‘Pardon?'

‘Yo-un,' he says it slowly. ‘It's e-o-g-h-a-n. Owen, but with a bit of a y at the front, or not . . . Eoghan O'Keenan.'

An Irishman. Of course you are. That'll annoy Mother even more. Probably Catholic, too.

‘And I'm Agnes,' the little one says, working her hand into mine. And I don't mind a bit, she's such a dear, dear, perfectly scrumptious thing.

‘You be a good girl now, Ag,' he says to her and he assures me: ‘She's a good girl, Miss Greene, I promise you. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times.'

And so we wave him off. ‘Bye-bye, Yo-Yo,' little Agnes calls after him.

He turns once more, and I think he's about to say something else – such as
Wait, no, this is not right, I have no idea who you are, or if you might eat my sister for lunch –
but he only waves back, and then runs off, towards the Quay.

How extraordinary.

‘I like your scarf, Miss Greene,' little Agnes says. ‘Is it made of fairy wings?'

Extraordinarily lovely. I might have to eat her for lunch after all.

Yo

‘
Y
ou've not got an issue with heights, have you, lad?' this Mr Harrison says, raising his voice above the noise coming from the shops, looking me over outside the door that says
OFFICE
. He's head foreman in charge of something to do with butting something or other, he said on introduction, and he's got arms on him that look like they're made of the stuff that's being pounded into existence in the sheds behind him.

‘No,' I shout back, I've got no issue with heights, though I wouldn't know if I did. The tallest thing I've ever been on would be them escalators at Hordern's yesterday, and before that the ladder up to the leather stores at Foulds. I look at the workshops again: they are tall, they are the famous iron shops of Dorman, Long and Company, they are enormous, and there's a lot going on in them, a hundred men or more going all about and that much noise, but I don't get the feeling that's where I'll be labouring today. Mr Harrison met me right here,
Oi you, young fella,
he saw me looking lost as I came up from the ferry, and he doesn't look like he's about to invite me anywhere inside now. I don't look at the crane moving up near the open edge of the Bridge above his head; that's quite a bit taller than anything I've ever seen. A lot taller than it seemed at any view I've had from the south side. I'm not sure I want to go up there.

Mr Harrison looks at my paper again and he says: ‘Boot-making before this, eh? Good eye for getting things right with that work?'

I nod and have no issue with that one: I'm particular at any work I do.

He looks at the paper yet again: ‘Funny name you've got – how do you say it?'

‘Yo-un.' I wish I had a penny for every time I've had to say it, and having to shout it here is even less entertaining.

‘Ian?' he cups his hand to his ear.

And I say, ‘Yeah, that'll do.' We can argue the difference another time.

‘S'pose you will, too.' He shoves my paper into the front pocket
of his leather apron. He's got no more time to waste on the matter and he points behind me down the wharves, to what I suppose is the loading dock, as another crane is moving a great beam of iron onto a barge there. ‘You're with Adams – Wal Adams, boilermaker, sub-foreman,' and something I have no idea what he's talking about, then: ‘See on that rear punt, bloke with the grey shirt, red braces. Get over there now, and do as you're told, or you end up dead, right.'

That's not a threat, that's a fact, it seems. I look at the punt, but I can't help seeing the crane behind, with that beam, which I can now see has a man balancing on either end. Jesus, what have I got myself into? A job. Six pounds a week. A home somewhere for me and Ag. If I ever see her again. Now that I'm here, now that I made it on time to these wharves at Milsons Point, I can't believe I've left my sister with that girl – she could be anyone – and I can't believe I told her Ag's my sister, either. She could be taking her off to Welfare now. No, she's not. Why would she do a thing like that? She's Ag's fairy anyway, and Ag'd not have gone with her otherwise. Have faith, for that's all I can have. And don't look up, and don't waste any time doing as I'm told getting over to this last punt, to this Wal Adams fella with the red braces. When I find him I see he's not a big fella and he'd be forty or more, but he's built from iron too, and he could slice the lid off a tin can with the bastard look in his eye, for me, as I step onto the punt. I'm about to tell him who I am, when he says to the six or seven others standing with him: ‘Won't see out the day, this one.'

A big ginger-headed fella takes a notebook out of his apron and says, ‘Right now, what's your call for pretty boy?' and they start taking bets, it seems – on me. Pretty Boy. ‘A week?' Wal Adams says to him: ‘Why don't you put your five bob in the poor box and save wasting the lead there, too, Tarz?' And at that I've just caught in his accent that this Wal Adams is an Ulsterman, with possibly a natural disregard for my skinny Kerry arse right there. I wonder if I can avoid telling him my name altogether.

‘Don't mind Wal,' the ginger-headed one says to me, and puts out his hand: ‘Clarrie McCall – but you can call me Tarzan, and you'll be my follow-up, not Mr Adams's, right?' I nod, for whatever a follow-up might be, and shake on it. He's wearing an apron too, but none of the others are; he must be a boss of some sort as well; he says: ‘What's your name, then?'

‘Keenan,' I say, swallowing the O, and it's all swallowed by the winding up of the punt engine anyway.

‘Keen, ay? Good for you, Pretty Boy,' says this Tarzan, and we're moving out from this dock, back out into the harbour a bit and under this making of the Bridge that looks like a great big wall of ladders going all ways from here.

I'm going to a big crate below it, hanging by a hook and chains, that a couple of the other fellas catch. One hops over the rail of it and in. And they're all getting in.

‘Pick up that bucket and broom. What are you – decoration?' the Ulsterman yells at me from behind.

I pick up the bucket and broom he's pointing at and it's all I can do not to cross myself when the crate pitches with my weight as I fall lead-footed over the rail and in myself – and it's not six inches off the ground yet, hasn't even started taking us up.

‘Don't look down is the trick,' Tarzan says to me as it does start upwards. ‘Look out.'

I do as I'm told. I look out as we go up, out across the water, and the breeze is cold on my face. This is not difficult, this looking out. One of the other fellas is sitting up on the rail opposite, arm round the chain there, rolling a smoke, not difficult at all. I look out past him, across this blue mile of harbour to the Gardens, fix my eyes to the point of the land where Ag and I slept last night, to keep the rest of me from swaying, and it's not difficult to keep looking out. What a beautiful city it is from here – a million trees worth of it. Merciful Lord, thank you. Whatever this day brings, it'll be worth it, it'll be better than yesterday, it has to be. And at the end of it, I'll get to see the girl again. Olivia Greene. That smile, under her hat, lets me forget for a moment where I've left my guts and my sister. I know I can't have the princess, I know I can't have any girl as things are, but I ask the little folk in the figs anyway: go on, give me a chance.

The breeze has a different plan, though, as it picks up now to a gust and has a more enthusiastic go at throwing me into the sea. Mother of God, all I can see is blue as the crate swings, the world seems to turn upside down. I drop the bucket, and a hammer that was in it slides out across the floor of the crate, Tarzan stopping it with his foot, and me by the scruff.

‘Hold on to the rail when it rolls, you crack-headed faggot,' the Ulsterman is giving me a gobful over the hammering of my heart, repeating it in his own Irish that I have no issue with understanding here, no doubt informing me that I am as useful as a sack full of crack-headed faggot farts, an inch from my ear, in case I didn't understand it in the English: ‘There are no accidents in my gang. None of any kind. Hold on to the rail or you go back down to the ground – now – go home. Fuck off. Is that clear?'

I might nod; I don't know. I've just been told off by the Devil and he's from Dungannon. Who else would use that language outside the Neighbourhood? That's almost as stupefying as being where I am.

‘Fair go,' says Tarzan in my defence. ‘At least he didn't spew.'

I hold on to the rail as they all have a laugh, and I look down at my boots, and down through the cracks of the boards to the sea, and I pray, with all my faith: please Lord, if I am anything at all to you, let me just see out this day. I won't think about the girl again. Let me just see out this day.

Two

Olivia

‘
M
iss Greene?' Little Agnes squeezes my hand as we turn into the Strand and the answer is already yes. ‘Can we go in the lift?' she asks.

‘Of course,' I reply, and wave at Velma – Glor's sister – rushing past the other way, no doubt on some errand between her father and her husband, Eddie Nasser, whose Tycoon Clothing factory in Redfern has gone absolutely hectic lately with orders from Gowings for business shirts and ties.

‘Hidee, Ol,' she waves back, a querying eyebrow for the child at my side, but too rushed to stop, court heels echoing on the tiles through the pre-rush hush.

I look down at Agnes as we step into the lift – she's looking straight into Jabour's Oriental Emporium, eyes wide with amazement at this cave of many colours, as if she's never been inside a shopping arcade before, not to mention a fancy draper's. Perhaps she hasn't. What an awful thought, and a curious one. She's impeccably turned out. New frock from Hordern's – I checked for a label, the pin tucking at the bodice too precise for your average homemade. But there's something about her that's . . . not exactly of this world. Or my world, at least.

She asks me as we judder slowly upwards: ‘Will we really go to the Christmas Tea Party today?'

‘Oh yes, we shall,' I assure her. The children's morning tea on at David Jones, at the new Elizabeth Street store – they always have one, and I've never been. I want to be amongst the tinsel snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and see the mechanical Santa display, too. I also want to abandon Mother to the five-minutes-to-Christmas Saturday morning super-rush for an hour or so, see how she likes that herself.

She's on the telephone when we arrive at the door of the salon. Frowning into it: ‘Oh, I see.' And looks up with a frown for me, and the child:
What is that thing you've brought in with you?
‘Of course, Mrs Bromley, I do understand. Absolute confidentiality and discretion, yes, you may rely upon it, and your kind offer of settling the account as agreed is most appreciated.' Mother closes her eyes with concern: ‘Yes, Mrs Bromley, thank you. Goodbye.'

She places the telephone back on the cradle, a pained expression; rare display of crow's feet, wincing. For Mrs Bromley, Min Bromley's mother, who's telephoned to settle the account, at eight-fifteen Saturday morning, when it's not due until Monday. Oh, no. I think the Bromleys have found out about Mother's illicit liaisons with Bart Harley and withdrawn their custom. My world is in ruins. I demand to know: ‘What, Mother – what has happened?'

‘Poor Minerva; poor Bromleys,' she sighs, and she looks tired about her eyes, too much concern, too late at night. ‘The groom must delay the wedding – Samuels have gone into voluntary liquidation.'

Oh dear. Right. Samuels, wheat merchants and family company of Min's fiancé, Bryden, have gone under. My first thought is an uncharitable one: good. Cousin of my Pymble Ladies tormentor Cassie Fortescue takes tumble from high horse. Serves her right for entangling her heart in a boy. But this is quickly followed by: good God, we've lost our best hope of
entrée
into the upper circle via Commonwealth Bank board of directors. Not ruin exactly, we're clearly going to be paid, but our business has just taken a trousseau load of backwards. Min Bromley will not be wearing my bebe roses; going-away frock not going anywhere. All my work – mothballed.

‘Damn that,' I say, and stomp my foot: damn them.

And Mother chastises: ‘Swearing and stamping will not alter the situation.' All her work mothballed too. That's business. Live with it. She glances at Agnes and back to me: ‘What's this? Lost child?'

‘Lost? Ah. No. Hm . . .' I search the perfume cabinet for the answer. Why have I brought a child to the salon today? That's right, the bottles of Number Five remind me: I am a fool sabotaging my own best interests. ‘I'm minding her today, a favour for an acquaintance.'

‘What acquaintance?' Mother glowers. I don't have any friends she doesn't know of – indeed, as the Jabours don't really count as people as such to her, I don't have any friends at all.

And, the situation having altered as it has, there is no triumph of preposterous payback in my announcement now: ‘A young man, the girl's brother –'

‘
What
young man?' Mother's impatience is sharp as her pattern cutters.

‘A young man I met this morning. Ah. I went for a walk in the Gardens, and I . . . ah . . .' I am shame-faced and resentful at once. ‘Well, he was desperate, he needed help, for someone to mind his sister today – hardly a criminal offence. And he's a Bridge worker. I thought I would be kind, and –'

‘Kind?' Mother's not in the least convinced of that, nor sympathetic: ‘You met a workman this morning, in a public park, and you have brought his sister here. To mind her. What – all day?' Her face is sculpted of cold alabaster contempt. ‘Of all the vindictive and wilfully infantile things you could do, at this time. I should telephone the Department of Child Welfare – and turn
you
in as delinquent.'

And at that, little Agnes's hand slips free of mine, and the whole of her tiny person slips right out the door.