The Newspaper of Claremont Street (3 page)

Claremont Street was one of the longest and oldest streets in the town. Several of the old houses had been demolished and new ones, in varying styles of opulence and architectural skill, had been built in their place. Two doctors lived in the street, two lawyers, several architects, some teachers and university people, and many others who busied themselves to great advantage in trade, even one family who had become millionaires in cooking fat. The variety in the street was enormous, both in people and in buildings. Opposite the shop a tall block of flats had been built, and in the immediate area were a few of the large old houses with corrugated-iron roofs and wooden verandahs in different stages of mellow decay. In the
largest one Weekly had her room. All the old houses were waiting for the same fate, some day they too would be pulled down and the big old trees, Norfolk Island pines, Moreton Bay fig trees and the gigantic mulberries in the old gardens, would all be bulldozed and burned and cleared away. New houses in Spanish or Mediterranean style would take their place, together with two-storey town houses with white walls and red tiles, built in squares around car parks and furnished with certain similarities of white and gold furniture, cream carpets, deep and woolly, pictures in gilded frames of the
Mona Lisa
and the
Laughing Cavalier
and little wax and plaster statuettes of Venus and Eros and the kings and queens of chess.

Two kinds of women went into the shop on the corner of Claremont Street: those who rode horses and played tennis and shared car loads of children to kindergarten and school, and an older kind in floral dresses and cardigans. They held coloured parasols over their faces, wrinkled and dried out years ago in childhoods spent in the goldfields; they dragged their shopping home in plastic folding bags bumping along on little squeaking wheels.

Years ago when the houses of Claremont Street had been built the people must have been puzzled over the spelling of the name of the street: at one end it was Claremont with an e, Claremonte, and at the other end there was no e. Both signs had been renewed from time to
time but no real decision was ever made as to which was the correct spelling. These same people, years ago, had planted trees lovingly chosen for fruit and colour and size and scent. In every garden there was a lemon tree, a mulberry tree, a jacaranda, a kurrajong and a flame tree, as well as lantana, hibiscus, oleander, a species of giant cactus and huge bushes of datura, which seemed forever in flower. The long white bells hung motionless filling the night with a fragrance which brought temporary oblivion from the cares of the day.

In spite of the piecework demolition in the past fifteen years, some of these remained. The scarlet flowers of the cactus, together with the cat who had been there all that time, were reminders to Weekly of times gone by. She now spent her life entirely in Claremont Street, morning, noon and night working with a thoroughness and a regularity which never failed, in one house and then another. No house was without a visit from her and her methods of cleaning at one time or another. Even in one of the flats where a European couple lived Weekly was employed from time to time.

There was a cat who was called Crazy by those who acknowledged her. She went from rooftop to balcony and back to rooftop. In some places food was thrown up to her as well as other things including old shoes and gramophone records, bits of wood and plastic containers
—all of which were lodged along the gutters, higher than human hand could reach—when attempts had been made to move Crazy and her noisy companions to someone else's more distant roof.

Weekly was walking home after her usual rest in the shop. Her washed-out dress looked mauve and silky in the evening light. The sun had gone from the verandahs, except for the west side of the old house where she lived. Her room caught this last ray of the sun from the west. The herringboning on the bottom few inches of her skirt looked attractive and expensive in the dusk; such are the tricks the changing sun can play. She was adding in her mind what she had earned that day to the sum which was slowly growing. Thinking of the money gave her rest and a kind of pleasure. In the evening she did not ache as she did in the morning. The breeze stirred her hair, which was grey and ugly though no one ever said so; she kept it clean and that was all that mattered. As the breeze came she felt something brush against her legs and then Crazy walked in front of her so that she almost fell over her. She lifted one foot against the cat's body, only gently, to move her to one side but the cat persisted in walking to and fro from side to side, immediately where Weekly wanted to plant her own heavy feet, one after the other, on the pavement. Again she tried to move the cat aside.

‘Yo'll break me bones if I fall!' Weekly muttered, trying
to lift the cat with her foot. But Crazy went on before Weekly, always in the way, and as Weekly opened the door of the old house Crazy went straight inside and, as Weekly unlocked her own door, before she could prevent it, the cat hurried into the room. This was strange behaviour for Crazy, who spent all her time, as far as Weekly knew, off the ground. Ever since parts of Claremont Street had been rebuilt Crazy had moved up, as it were, to premises with more safety and a better view and therefore more prestige.

Weekly ignored Crazy. She was used to being alone and she was used to rummaging in her flyscreen cupboard for her next bread and boiled vegetables as soon as she came home. Next to the cupboard was a pile of newspapers and magazines she had brought home from the Chathams' and which she would add to the pile afterwards.

Crazy, who was tabby, was old too, but not so old, as it turned out. She rummaged about the room in her own way. There were not many places for Crazy to search in, but she managed to give the impression that she was turning things over in the room, as well as in her mind. She jumped on the bed and gave herself a wash and then came down off the bed and over to Weekly and put a soft paw on Weekly's foot. Weekly noticed and shook her foot and the cat went back to the bed. Crazy repeated this several times so that, in the end, Weekly put down her newspaper and peered at her visitor. She got up from her
chair and followed Crazy to the bed. ‘Oh my Gawd. Not again!' she said, and sat down on the edge of the bed. The cat seemed to bulge and pant and, in between times, she put a paw on Weekly's hard thigh and Weekly stroked her soft fur gently. She wanted to finish reading certain advertisements in the paper before the daylight faded. But Crazy would not let her.

In a little while, in a tremendous bubble, a tiny black kitten was born. Crazy got up and turned round and round on the end of the bed swinging the kitten which was dangling, still attached to her, so that it smacked against the wall. The kitten began a thin crying and this brought on more panting. Soon seven tiny kittens were being cared for with the kind of singleminded unselfish devotion which Weekly had seen before and, on every occasion, had been more and more filled with admiration for this mother cat.

Some time later Weekly would have to find homes for the kittens. She chose their homes well.

‘Mrs Lacey. See I've brought yor kiddies a little gift.'

‘Oh Weekly you shouldn't have. Really you shouldn't.' ‘Aw it's nuthin. Yerse that's right, in the basket.'

Weekly lifted the noisy basket onto the table. Mrs Lacey was helpless.

The Lacey children had three cats by this time. All were gifts from Weekly. Gifts which it would not have
been wise for Mrs Lacey to refuse. After all, she would not want the whole of Claremont Street to know that she had not yet, in June, unwrapped the Christmas present her husband had given her. Foolishly, while trying to add to Weekly's already overcrowded hours, she had asked her to take down the packages from the top of a cupboard.

‘I think it's a dinner service,' she called back along the hall. She was all dressed for going out and did not want Weekly not to have enough to do. ‘Wash it carefully!' she called, ‘and put it away in the second sideboard, thanks!' She was in a dreadful hurry. She had so many dishes and glasses and plates that a few more really made no difference, even when chosen specially for her by her husband. Weekly knew she was capable of some uneasiness now and would not refuse the gift of another kitten. If it turned out that she was unable to give the kittens away she would be forced to dispose of them in the only way she knew.

Crazy, after attending to her babies, fell asleep in the middle of them. Weekly climbed into bed the best way she could with them all taking up so much room.

Before she fell asleep, she found herself thinking of Victor: Victor as a boy had loved cats. Long after he had giving up playing, he would pause in his ambitious career to play with a cat. He had even had a cat once, Weekly
remembered it suddenly: the only possession he had had for longer than a week. And then that too had been sacrificed, as his other possessions had been and for the same reason.

Whenever she thought about Victor, which she did all too often nowadays, she realised that what had happened to him was bound to have happened. If only she had not played such a part in the whole thing herself. Trying to sleep, she remembered a splendid shop they used to visit together when they were children. It was in the expensive part of town and had a curved brass sill low down outside the bay window. Behind the bulging glass were trays and boxes and jars of sweets and chocolates. In European style, the sweets were wrapped separately in twists of sparkling foil and coloured transparent papers. The chocolates reposed, dark and rich, in beds of black and cream plush. Velvet chocolates, very handsome.

‘They're handmade,' Victor explained to Weekly, ‘every one of them especially designed and made by hand.' They stood in the cold, staring at the brightly lit world of sweets beyond their reach.

‘They've got liqueur in them,' Victor pointed to one selection.

‘What's liquoor?'

‘Liqueur silly! Spirits and stuff blended with eggs and things, curacao—advocaat—benedictine—kirsch—kümmel—crème de menthe.' He rolled the names off his pointed pink tongue. He pushed three pennies into her hand.

‘Go in and buy some.'

‘Aw, I dursn't.'

‘Go on!'

‘It's too posh.'

‘No it isn't. I want some of that chocolate. Just go in and ask for that one.' He pressed his finger on the glass, pointing at a chocolate whirl, a luxurious nest for an almond delicately frosted with something pink that glittered.

Three times, against her will, Weekly entered the shop and timidly offered her money, coming down in choice, every time, to smaller and more ordinary looking sweets displayed on the glasstopped counter. The third time the owner of the shop came round the counter and opened the door for Weekly, overgrown and awkward as she was, to leave. Victor lay as if dead or in a fainting fit, his head in the gutter.

‘Get him away from here,' the owner of the shop growled at her and went back inside, the door bell swinging and clanging like an alarm.

‘Oh my Gawd!' Weekly groaned aloud before closing her eyes. She tried to forget her brother, but in spite of herself she remembered things from time to time. And
when one has had a long life there are a great many things to remember.

During the night for some reason Crazy moved all her kittens, one at a time, to some other corner in the room. Then, for some reason known only to herself, she brought one kitten back to the end of the bed and left it there so that Weekly was disturbed by its mewing which, for such a tiny creature, was a considerable noise and had a plaintive quality which made it quite impossible for Weekly to sleep properly. She dozed uneasily.

‘Margarite Morris, is the sun shining today?' Miss Jessop entered the classroom at the Remand Home. The passage boards and the stairs were reinforced with some kind of metal edging, it looked like lead. The girls were able to hear their teacher approaching for some time before she appeared. They were also able to hear each other; at times the noise of their boots on the metal was like machinery, out of order, in a factory.

Weekly, or Margarite as she was in those days, looked up at the clouds which filled the high window. Outside it was raining, the classroom was religious with the dark from the rain clouds.

‘No Miss Jessop,' she said after a pause

‘Margarite Morris, you are quite wrong, you have forgotten all you learned the last time you were here.'

‘Yes Miss Jessop.'

‘Margarite Morris, it is daylight outside, is it not, and the sun
is
shining up there behind the clouds.'

‘Yes Miss Jessop.'

‘Now copy down from the blackboard...'

There was a rustling and a scratching of nibs and the noise of pens in inkwells.

‘Margarite Morris read out what I have written.'

‘Yes Miss Jessop.

The word ‘love' sent a whispering sigh of laughter through the girls. Miss Jessop rapped the blackboard with her pointer.

‘Before we proceed with our scripture we will add up the marks of the arithmetic test. Every girl add up her own marks, put down the total and then pass her paper to the girl behind for a check over.'

The room was full of adding up; it seemed to get darker.

Weekly put her paper over her shoulder, she made her marks 78 and was quite pleased with herself but that hippo, Amelia, who sat behind her, got them down to 68.

Miss Jessop recorded all the marks as the girls called them out.

‘Margarite Morris,' she said, ‘you don't seem to pay attention. Can you remember anything of what we have been reading?' Weekly stood up.

‘Yerse Miss Jessop.

‘And exactly what do you understand by that Margarite?'

‘I don't know Miss Jessop,' Weekly replied, ‘it's in the Bible and only God understands the Bible.'