about it.
Twelve months later, with John toddling around upstairs and another baby on the way, Viv was busy and seemed contented enough, although he could see it was getting even harder for her to manage the laundry downstairs, the housework upstairs and help him in the shop.
One day he heard her cry out, put his head around the door and when he saw her with a full washing basket in her arms, teetering on the stairs, lunged and broke her fall but not the washing basket’s. She was shaken and blubbered a bit, then the shop bell clanged, and he left her there picking up the sheets and towels. He heard her slam the back door on her way to the laundry. Made him think, it did.
Even though life was better, he had to admit he’d rented the wrong shop. Should’ve gone for the newer, single level one further out in the suburbs, but he thought he’d save money on the older one; he was tired of the daily routine, the same customers, their gossip.
He missed the milk round, watching dawn break, yakking with the blokes at the dairy.
They didn’t open the shop on Sunday. Mostly they visited Gran and his old man. Struth—women and babies, clucking and fussing. Gran had gone along with the christening nonsense, turned up at the Catholic Church in her best bib and tucker and beamed through the whole stupid thing.
Sometimes they walked along the Yarra Bank to hear the soap box brigade. Eddie liked to listen to the men who were mad enough, brave enough or who cared enough about something to stand on a box and talk until either the crowd broke up or a smart aleck heckler got the better.
He had a sneaking admiration for the anarchists. One of them, Chummy Flemming, was there every Sunday. He’d ring his old cow-bell and drape his favourite tree with his two red flags worked in white with the word Anarchy on one and Freedom on the other. He was a little bloke who wore his trousers rolled and preached to his listeners, new and old, about the evils of government and religion. ‘Solidarity, brothers, solidarity! ....Cling to your principles…We are fighting for freedom… Why should you falter?’
Flemming pitched his message to working blokes like him, but Eddie had survived the depression by keeping an eye out for himself and taking a chance when one came his way. He’d seen what happened to some—decent blokes, family men, standing in queues waiting for a handout. Those black coats were a dead give-away if you ended up on susso. Bloody government. Some drongo’s bright idea to dye army surplus overcoats and ‘give them to the needy’. Shame a bloke for life that would. Solidarity didn’t help them. Whenever he’d seen a bloke wearing one and standing in one of them blasted queues, he swore he’d never let it happen to him.
Most of the talk these days was about the Fascists, and the tip was Mussolini would join Hitler pretty soon. You wouldn’t want a dago name if that happened, even though he was third generation and his grandfather had married an Aussie. Eddie remembered the German baker who’d been interned during the first bloody war; a pale, stooped, shuffling figure who mumbled to himself. Gran reckoned he’d been a ‘fine, handsome fellow’ before the war. He took John from Vivien and tousled his hair. ‘I reckon we might change our name to Bell soon.’
‘Why Bell?’
‘That was my fighting name. Baby Face Bell, they called me.’
Vivien laughed. ‘Baby Face? I thought you were the “Killer Kid”.’
‘That was in the bush.’
‘Bell’s got a nice ring to it. You’re sure there’ll be a war?’
‘It’s coming, Darl.’
‘Wouldn’t it be England’s war?’
‘Maybe. But the bloody poms’ll want diggers for cannon fodder. Just like Gallipoli.’
‘Mum hates the English almost as much as Presbyterians. She told us her father used to say “if there’s a government, I’m agin it.”’
Eddie laughed. ‘Fiery is she, your mum? The Fascists are bad buggers. Someone should stop them. When I read about Germany celebrating ten years of Nazi rule in ’33, I got the willies so bad some of it stuck in me mind. “…democratic institutions abolished…unbridled tyranny.” Don’t need much of a brain to get what they’re on about. They’re gobbling up Europe. Government by force, I reckon.’
‘What about the League of Nations?’
‘Let’s hope they come up with something.’ He looked down at Viv’s worried face and winked. ‘It’s about time we got out of the business.’
‘How would we live?’
‘The bloke who delivers the soft drink would be willing to swap his semi for it. He reckons if I took on some country runs, I’d be making a packet, especially if I picked up some back loads.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’d take boxes of soft drink up bush, drop them off then pick up a back load to sell down here. Timber from the mills is the best lurk; paper factories pay a bundle.’
‘Is that what he does?’
‘He used to, but reckons he’s too old now. I’d be away a bit, but I could make some real money.’
Eddie’s daughter was born a few weeks after he settled his family into a double-fronted semi-detached villa in Prahran in a street too narrow for the semi-trailer. He parked it at the soft drink factory and kept his Austin 7 at home.
When Eddie first saw his daughter being bathed, he expected to see a bald head, red cheeks and no chin. She wasn’t red and her chin seemed normal, but she had fine black hair growing low on her forehead and down the length of her backbone. ‘This one looks like a bloody monkey.’
Vivien was disgusted. ‘It’ll fall out,’ she snapped.
Eddie shrugged. ‘What are we calling her?’
‘I like Miriam.’
‘Bloody hell. First a damn dago, and now a blasted Jew.’
‘For goodness sake! You choose.’
‘We’ll name her after Gran. Catherine. Cathy for short.’
When Eddie took John to see his mother and sister, he took one look at the dark-haired bundle nestled in Vivien’s arms, threw himself to the floor then kicked and screamed until Eddie hauled him away bellowing. ‘Stop your flamin’ nonsense.’
A few weeks later, in the quiet of the early afternoon, both children were asleep when Vivien answered a knock on the door, sighing as she opened it to see a gaunt, aging man, carrying a small black case. He swept off his hat, made a mock bow and smiled. His teeth were long and nicotine-yellow.
‘Smiley’s the name from Better Brushes for Busy Bees,’ he crowed. ‘But to a beautiful girl like you, I’m Harold, ready, willing and very able.’ He leered and winked. Vivien’s skin prickled. She shrank back shaking her head, ‘Nothing today, thank you.’ She tried to close the door, but he’d planted his foot inside.
‘Don’t be like that, little lady. I’m just trying to earn me daily bread,’ he wheedled.
Her thoughts galloping, Vivien imagined him forcing his way in and what he might do. Her heart thumping, she kept her voice cool and distant.
‘When you’ve removed your foot, Mr Smiley, you may show me a catalogue—here on the porch,’ she snapped.
He nodded, opened his case and began his spiel. ‘Brooms, mops, brushes, scrubbing brushes, top quality last a lifetime…’
She held up her hand. ‘That’s enough. I’ll have a mop.’
‘In me van. Back before you know it.’ Like a giant cockroach, he scuttled off. Vivien grabbed a shilling out of the housekeeping jar, exchanged it for the mop and breathed normally when the van turned the corner.
Two nights later when he came back from a