claim victory, okay?’ She agreed only too readily. I let go of the grip on her hair and it took five minutes to untangle it from my fingers. The crowd roared its disapproval at my decision because most of them had backed me to win. Pat and I shook hands and she said, ‘You are one hell of a fighter for such a little person.’
Her thumb was in a sore and sorry state and we both apologised to each other and went our ways and never saw each other from that night onwards.
Carmen visited me one Sunday arvo a week or so later and after she had left I discovered my beautiful gold watch Mum had bought me had gone as well.
It wasn’t long after the second fight that I received a visit from my father. He walked up to the counter and said, ‘Hello, little darlin’ how’s my princess today?’ I was still very angry with him for the way he’d treated Edith and I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with him. I just glared at him and said, ‘What can I do for you, little man?’ I knew that remark would hurt his feelings more than anything and I enjoyed humiliating him. A few days later, Edith told me that Dad had been in touch with her. He told her that he had seen me and that he was coming back to live because he believed I was becoming too wild and out of control, he had said that I needed to be disciplined more. Neither James, Edward or I wanted him back, but we had no say in the matter.
Not long after that, I had arrived at work and was busy arranging the stock and getting the order ready for the disposable cups. I had my back to the counter and I became aware of someone standing in front of the counter. I turned to see the store manager standing in front of the counter. I smiled sweetly but he was stony faced and held up a canvas bag and said, ‘What’s this doing here?’
I blinked in disbelief as I recognised the cash register float bag. I had completely forgotten to put it in the register. The following pay day I was dismissed. It had been the longest drama packed five months of my life.
I went through a number of jobs in rapid succession after that, I was a slave in a laundry for three weeks. I had to start at six in the morning and work like a slave until three o’clock with only half an hour for lunch. I was dismissed for yawning too much. The woman who owned the business was a fair dinkum slave driver. I reckon if she had’ve had her way, we three girls who worked for her would’ve been chained by the ankles to the presses and only given bread and water once a day.
Then I worked for a corner store at Ironside for about a month, but the woman who owned the shop didn’t like the way I swept the floor. It wasn’t that I left the floor dirty she wanted me to hold the broom the same way she did. I didn’t realise that there was a law preventing people from holding the handle of a broom differently to others. But apparently there was, because I got swept out the door with the rest of the rubbish.
I worked at a milk/sandwich bar in Adelaide Street for a while. I can’t remember why I didn’t stay there for any length of time, but I do remember the man who owned the shop wanted desperately to take my co-worker into the back room. She was a very beautiful girl with olive skin and jet-black hair. She was nineteen, which in my opinion then, ranked her as being a sophisticated woman of the world. She goes down in my history book as having made the quote of the twentieth century. I can still here her saying to me about our boss, ‘He’s got no chance, the greasy old bastard. Christ it would be like putting a marshmallow into a money box.’
I finally landed a job making sandwiches and milkshakes and selling cigarettes and lollies. You didn’t have to be Einstein to figure out that the family who owned this business was not Mr and Mrs Average. They were far from being a normal, healthy, wholesome family. There was Mr and Mrs Grady and their two adult sons, one daughter-in-law with a three-month old baby girl and the Grady’s daughter who was in her early twenties. Nothing wrong with that, but this family was decidedly odd, to say the least.
In between serving customers and making sandwiches I was required to tend to the baby, which included feeding and bathing her. Every morning without fail I was made to put a suppository in the baby’s bottom. Now keep in mind that I had just turned fifteen and I had no knowledge about babies whatsoever. Every Wednesday like clockwork, Mr and Mrs Grady and their two sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughter would go out leaving Sonia (their daughter) and me to look after the shop, but not for long. About half an hour after the Grady’s left, Sonia’s ‘boyfriend’ would arrive and they would disappear into the back of the shop to her bedroom and they didn’t emerge until lunchtime. He would leave after having a passionate farewell with her in the doorway of the shop, she telling him that she wished he could stay longer, and he telling her that he didn’t want to go. She’d watch him walk away until he had disappeared out of sight then she’d hurry through to the back of the shop and emerge twenty minutes later with her long blonde hair still wet from the shower.
Ten minutes later at twelve thirty on the dot, her second ‘boyfriend’ would arrive. She greeted him with as much passion as she had farewelled the first ‘boyfriend’ and they would go to the back of the shop and wouldn’t surface for air until three o’clock. She would again go through the process bidding this poor sap a fond farewell. Then she’d go back to the shower and alight as fresh as a daisy. A few minutes later, her parents, brothers and sister-in-law would arrive home.
Whoever said the fifties were the innocent years were sadly mistaken.
I would’ve beaten a hasty retreat from that job within the first week but for one reason. The second day I was there a handsome familiar face came in and I was transfixed as I observed from afar, how friendly and at ease he was with all the members of the Grady family. Mrs Grady told him that they had employed a new girl and called me over to meet Tony. He was more handsome than what I remembered him from our first meeting eighteen months or so previously, when he had introduced himself as Constable Potlick. He didn’t show any signs of recognising me but he gave me a beautiful smile and a wink of approval as if he liked what he saw. I knew I looked older than what I was but I secretly wished I was at least two years older. I was given strict instructions by the Grady’s that Tony was a good friend and that I had to make sure that I didn’t muck up his lunch order. I had no intentions of mucking up his lunch order, he was going to get Rolls Royce treatment from me full stop. After he had gone, I asked if his last name was Potlick. They all laughed and told me his name was Tom Ermiston, but that everyone calls him Tony, but why did you think his name was Potlick?’ I told them the story about our encounter with him at Anzac Park and they laughed and told me that Tony probably would’ve joined in and had a smoke with us if you had invited him. He’s a really lovely bloke, and everyone around here thinks the world of him.’
Later in the day Tony came back into the shop to get another of his favourite malted milks and Jim Grady said, ‘That’ll be one shilling and six pence (fifteen cents) to you, Constable Potlick.’ I could have willingly choked him on the spot. Tony looked at him and said, ‘What made you call me that?’ Jim pointed to me and said, ‘Amelia thought that was your name.’
I was totally embarrassed and I knew he would know that I wasn’t as old as what I looked when he realised that I was one of the kids he’d spoken to in Anzac Park. He looked at me with a very approving eye
Constable Potlick ‘You sure have grown I wouldn’t have recognised you in a million years.’
Amelia (cheekily) ‘You’ll never be a detective then, will you?’
Constable Potlick ‘God I hope not.’
Amelia (Feeling more at ease with him) ‘You should be a criminal instead of a cop, giving people false names.’
Constable Potlick (laughing) ‘I knew you were all up to no good and I figured if you could tell me fibs, I was entitled to tell you fibs too.’
From that day, I made it my business to have lunch with Tony at the police station every day he was on duty. Except on Wednesdays when Sonia entertained her ‘boyfriends’ because I never got a lunch break on those days. Tony was a truly lovely young bloke and I enjoyed his company and our lengthy conversations. I would have given my eyeteeth (if I had any) to go out with him and I always had the feeling that he would’ve liked to ask me out too. If only I had been another two years