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20

1949

“T
HE LITTLE BITCH!” Madame du Pont screeched. “Ungrateful little bitch!”

She paced the room, glaring at the naked mannequins that yesterday had displayed expensive dresses due for delivery to her clients.

“I'll make them again,” pleaded Patricia, trying to stop Madelaine from calling the police. “I won't stop until they are finished.”

Madelaine turned to face Patricia.

“This is your fault. I did this thing for you, gave you this chance. You begged me, I felt sorry for you. Both of you. And this — this! This is my thanks. The little bitch!”

“I'll make replacements. I'll pay for the material from my own money. I'll work on them all day and night until they're done.”

“You'd better. It was your idea that she should come here in the first place. I did it as a favour to you. I put a roof over her head, I gave her work, I saved her from the orphanage. And this is what I get.” Madelaine swept her arms around the room, from naked mannequins to ransacked jewellery box.

“I'll make the dresses and then, I suppose, you will want me to leave too,” Patricia replied quietly.

At this, Madelaine shot her a sharp look. “No, no, you'll not leave. You'll stay here and clean up this mess that you've made. I'll not have you leaving,” she said. “But I never want to hear the name of that little bitch again. Ever.”

Patricia could tell by the mix of panic and anger in Madelaine's voice that she really did not want her to leave, and that although she would have to weather Madelaine's self-righteous indignation, she had not lost her job or her home.

Patricia worked long hours to complete the dresses and then worked hard to develop more designs to please Madame du Pont. This seemed to lessen Madelaine's anger but it was a long time before she brought another bottle of Chanel No. 5 to the shop. In the meantime, Patricia had to endure Madame's comments to her clients about how ungrateful her little thieving apprentice was. “Of course, it's in their blood, those half-castes,” she would hiss, after she had described her woes.

Daisy's departure had left Patricia angry and hurt, but she missed having her younger sister with her. As she laboured to win back Madame du Pont's trust, and as she worked the long hours on her new designs, she thought of Daisy's comments about how Madelaine was taking advantage of her. She had been surprised at how panicked Madelaine seemed when she'd mentioned leaving and was also mindful that Madelaine was using Daisy's behaviour to extract more work from her. She'd taken advantage of Patricia's guilt and had made her work Sundays, which meant she could not see the boys. Patricia thought of Danny, waiting on the stone wall, of how disappointed in her he would be as four o'clock passed and he would head back to his dormitory.

Two months before Bob's fourteenth birthday, Patricia had an idea. She waited for an opportunity to mention it to Madame du Pont. That came when a client wanted her three new dresses completed in just two days.

“Well,” Patricia addressed Madelaine, “I would like to do it but I'm afraid it'll have to be my last. I need to find a new job so that I can have my brother with me. I thought, after your experience with Daisy, that you wouldn't be interested in helping me, and, since he is a boy, he does not sew.”

Patricia could see the panic spill across Madelaine's face. “But…” she spluttered, “what about your work?”

“Well, I did think of one way that I could stay here, but I'm not sure you would be happy with it.”

When she saw that she had Madelaine's attention, Patricia continued. “Perhaps we could find him a job doing something else, perhaps in your husband's factory.”

“Don't talk to me of Monsieur du Pont,” Madelaine said with a dismissive wave. “I hardly see him these days and he thinks I'm fool enough to imagine that it is his work that keeps him from home.”

“Well, my brother can find work. He's a hard worker, even though he's small. He always helped beat eggs or shell peas at home, any small thing that he could do. And he has the sweetest nature.”

“Is he dark like you or light like your sister?”

“He is light, like her, I suppose,” replied Patricia, looking at her arm.

“Well, I've found the lighter-skinned ones to be less reliable.”

Madelaine simply could not afford to let Patricia go. So it was agreed that Madelaine du Pont would apprentice Bob, but when he arrived he would have to find a job.

At first Patricia thought she should take Danny, as he was the youngest and, much more than Bob, clearly suffering from being institutionalised. She made inquiries but was told he was too young for employment. Bob was fourteen, old enough to work.

Patricia and Bob sat silently on the train, barely able to make eye contact with each other. Patricia's excitement at having Bob with her had been crushed by Danny's reaction to the separation from his brother. She knew that Danny would find it hard to be left alone, but she had not been prepared for the frantic tears and the way Danny's hands desperately clung to her jacket as he screamed, “Don't leave me. Please. Please. Don't leave me.” She remembered how he would cry when he was a baby shaking his arms and legs, and their mother would say, “Look, Patsy. He looks like a little bat, a little unhappy bat.”

“Don't worry,” Patricia said, looking over at Bob whose face was turned to the window to hide the tears falling down his cheeks. Just like at Mum's funeral, she thought. “We'll work hard to get him home with us soon,” she said gently.

Bob smiled faintly back at her, but neither were encouraged by the attempt at optimism.

Bob answered a sign at the local post office, finding himself a job as a bicycle messenger delivering telegrams around Strawberry Hills. He would give the meagre amounts he earned to his sister who would pool their money for food. She also made his clothes.

He liked his job at the post office, enjoyed delivering messages as quickly as possible, finding short-cuts and pedalling fast. He also liked the men he worked with — old Mr Booth who showed Bob his wooden leg and told him that he used it to play cricket; Mr Green with his glass eye who studiously counted money and stamps making sure he did not make a mistake; Mr Scott who received and sent the telegrams and grunted more than he spoke; Mr Reed, whose dislike of blood kept him from joining his father's butchery business; and Mr Brown, who sorted the mail and who told Bob he could call him 'Harry'. It was Harry who noticed Bob's hungry response to praise and made a special point of bringing attention to the short time it took Bob to make a delivery.

But there was something about Harry that unsettled Bob. When they first met, their eyes had locked. Harry's brown pupils looked deeply into his. It was as though Harry knew the secret that Bob's father did not want anyone to know, as if he was saying, “me too”. Harry, like Bob, did not have dark skin but Bob knew that Harry had the same mysterious essence that had hindered the explorers and held back settlement and civilisation. Bob was unnerved, tom between the embrace that the meeting of eyes gave him and the discomfort that someone else knew his secret. His attempt to blend in, to claim another source of otherness (Greek, Italian, Lebanese) was always at risk of exposure by this kindly old man. It confused Bob that someone could see into him so quickly, render him vulnerable, could also, with just a gaze, offer him acceptance.

As time passed and no words were spoken, Bob relaxed with Harry and came to realise that the old man would keep his secret safe. Bob thought Harry was probably trying to be white like everyone else, just like he was.

Late at night, after ironing Bob's shirt and pants while he polished his shoes, Patricia would lie on her bed and Bob would lie beside her. He had grown since coming to live with her; now, almost sixteen, he was almost as tall as she. Stretching out side by side, they would talk about their day.

“I delivered four telegrams in fifteen minutes. Mr Brown said that I was the fastest person that they have ever had to deliver telegrams,” he bubbled proudly.

Sometimes they would speak about their family. “Do you ever think about Thomas?” Patricia asked, and continued before Bob could reply, “I wonder about him all the time.”

Bob suspected Thomas and William must have been killed in the war. As time passed it seemed more and more likely that his brothers had met the same deaths as so many others. Patricia's question raised memories of them full of life — chopping wood and playing football — and Bob could understand why Patricia held on, how she clung to the hope they were alive.

It had been months since Daisy had left Patricia and still they had heard nothing from her. “I worry about her, can't stop thinking about whether she's safe. But I'll have to wait to hear from her when she's ready. I keep remembering something Mum said to me once, 'Nothing matters more than family'.”

Patricia's voice broke and she turned on her side, propping herself up with one arm and looked at Bob. “I said that to our father once, the day I left Lithgow. You'd already gone and the house was so empty. I had my bags packed and as I walked out the door I said, 'You never deserved Mum, you never deserved us and you will end up old and alone.' “

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. He said nothing. Just kept looking at the fire. So I suppose it's up to us to make sure that Danny is alright.”

Patricia lay on her back and looked at the ceiling. She hadn't spoken those words to her father, but they were what she had been thinking in her heart, what she wanted to say. Now that she had told Bob, she had at least said them out loud.

Bob sensed that this was the end of any conversation about their father. He only saw him again once, in the most unanticipated way.

It was several months after Bob began his new job and his new life that he came face to face with his father. There was the slow recognition that comes when you see someone you know unexpectedly, as when your eyes are trying to adjust to the dark; Bob didn't know whether to stop his bike. He sensed his father's shock and hesitation and he slowed his pedals to the same pace that his father slowed his step. His father seemed to be staring at his bike, while Bob sat wondering why he was coming out of a terrace house in Strawberry Hills. After an initial “hello”, Bob did not know what to say to his father. The silence stood thick between them until his father finally said to him, “Keep your shoes clean, son.”

“Yes, sir,” were Bob's parting words.

With Patricia, Bob developed a set routine that gave him the same sense of security that the regime at the boys' home had given him, but he lacked contact with boys his own age. Sleeping at night on the small balcony of Patricia's attic room without the sounds of other children was the hardest thing for him to get used to, even when he could hear the noise from the street below.

After his sixteenth birthday, his thoughts turned more often to Danny, now approaching fourteen, the age when he could be apprenticed. On Sunday, Bob would travel with Patricia to visit him. Now, when they arrived at the home, Danny would sit sullenly on the wall. During their visit he would be quiet and withdrawn, and instead of crying when they left he would simply slink back to the dormitory with barely a goodbye. The change in Danny unsettled Bob. He still remembered the first night in the large ward and how he had comforted Danny's small, shaking form. The image stabbed into him and now, with the distance of time, he couldn't even remember why they had fought so tenaciously in those final months before Bob left to live with Patricia.

“Not long now until he's fourteen,” he would say to his sister as they travelled on the train back to Sydney.

“Soon,” she said to him, “soon.”

Bob imagined that when Danny came to live with them, it would be just like those early days in the orphanage when his young brother had followed him everywhere — his shadow, as Benny Miller had called him. He would send for his shadow as soon as he had some money, he resolved. He had always thought of him as Frankenstein's monster, the creature who struck fear in others but who desperately wanted acceptance. He could see Danny storming off the cricket oval, taking the bait when the other boys had teased him rather than turning the other cheek and laughing it off. Admittedly, Bob conceded, it was harder for Danny because he was darker — but he should have been more prepared to make an effort to fit in. Maybe when he was back with them, Danny would be happier.

And maybe it was Bob's own aversion to his black heritage, the wish that he was something other than Aboriginal that could not release him from his nightmares.

The man stood over the flames, beckoning to Bob. His face was ashen, his skin peeling. As the flames moved, the face became clearer. It was painted white. The paint was cracking. He motioned to Bob to cross the fire, to come. Bob could not move. He would not move.

Bob jolted awake, breathing heavily and sweating as though the flames in the dream had been licking his body.

21

1949

W
HEN PATRICIA NOTICED that there was an increase in Madelaine du Pont's business — with two other dressmakers, one new sales woman and a move to larger premises in Paddington — she knew the time was right to raise the issue of Danny coming to live with her. Patricia knew that she had made Madelaine rich, that Madelaine needed her, or at least her designs. Over the years, she had become more confident with Madelaine and although she didn't stand up to her boss in the way that Daisy had wanted her to, she had used Madelaine's need for her to secure Bob's apprenticeship. Now, with Danny's birthday approaching, Patricia approached Madelaine about him.

“I am not so sure. We have very little room.”

“With the new shop, we have two rooms. Danny and Bob can share.”

“I don't know…”

“Well, I guess I could always look for employment somewhere else,” Patricia said, confidently continuing to sew beads onto emerald satin.

“Oh, alright,” Madelaine snapped. “But I will not be able to give you a pay rise if you have him here.”

“I'm sure you could find a little something for my pay rise. I'll have two boys to look after now. Otherwise I'd have to find a better-paying job.”

After a pause and with the faintest of smiles, Madelaine replied, “I must tell you, Patricia, you were so quiet when you came here but now, with that confidence that is growing inside you, you might make a good business woman. I've taught you well. Perhaps a little too well.”

Patricia and Bob made preparations to welcome Danny. Bob tidied his room and made space for his brother. He cleaned the windows and swept the floor. He also used the threepence Harry had given him for the occasion to buy some candy.

Patricia decided to make a souffle, just like her mother had showed her. As she slowly melted the butter, added the right amount of flour and sugar, then milk and vanilla, stirring until it became a thick sauce, she recalled how Danny liked to stick his fingers in the mixing bowls. As the mixture cooled, she added the yolks of two eggs and beat the whites until they formed peaks. She then placed the mixture in a tin, set a band of paper around the tin to allow the souffle to rise, and baked it. She couldn't stop fussing over Danny, stroking his hair and kissing his forehead. On this first night, Danny stood quietly, hands by his sides, as Patricia touched him.

Now that Danny had come to stay, he seemed to be folding in on himself. His lively chatter when he was happy seemed to have deserted him. When Patricia reached out to him and asked what was on his mind, he would pull away, unable to look her in the eyes as tears swam in his own.

Bob had found Danny a job working with him in the post office. What would have taken Bob fifteen minutes to deliver would take Danny several hours. He would pretend to work, but hung out with other boys who loitered around the streets of Redfem.

“It was hot,” he said to Patricia by way of explanation. “I was thirsty.”

Danny was eventually fired, despite Bob's protests, when he failed to return after a delivery. When he worked as a paper boy, he abandoned his cart and went home. His work at the abattoir and the shoe factory both ended with his being fired for stealing.

Bob fretted about Danny's inability to keep a job. “You just need to apply yourself more. Try harder. I know you can do it,” he said to his brother one evening at dinner.

Danny put his fork down and stared at his brother, “Why don't you mind your own business.”

“I'm only trying to help you,” Bob pleaded.

“Well, don't. When I want your help, I'll ask for it.” He stood up, pushing his chair back. His look reminded Bob of the way Danny had looked at him that day he stormed off the cricket ground.

Bob rose and walked around the table towards Danny. “I'm your brother, Danny. I'm here for you.”

As he walked closer to Danny, Danny landed a punch squarely in Bob's stomach. Bob curled over from the pain. Danny had left before Bob could recover from the force of the blow.

That night, Bob went into Patricia's room and lay on her bed, watching as she sat in a chair by the open window and embroidered a scarf. “This would look good on our Daisy,” she said sadly, holding her handiwork up for Bob to admire.

“Danny doesn't seem very happy,” he said, his fingers tracing the flowers on Patricia's bedspread. “I don't understand. He wanted to leave the home so badly and now he seems to hate being here. And everything I do seems to make him more upset, more angry.”

“I know how you feel. I tried so hard with Daisy and I still don't know what I did wrong. I keep wondering what I could've done differently. Things were much harder for her than they were for me.” She stopped her sewing and looked at Bob. “Danny has always been much quieter than you, a bit more sensitive. And remember, he was so young when Mother … passed away. And younger than you when he went into the orphanage. You were only six so he can't have been more than four. So little. We have to be patient with him.”

Bob nodded in silent agreement, placing a hand on his stomach where it was still throbbing from Danny's punch.

Danny was changing the mood of the household. His absences required as much of their attention and energy with worrying as did fretting over him when he was there. Bob began to believe that it was because of his dark feelings about his brother that he could not shake his bad dreams.

The man beckons, his face of peeling paint intimidating. He is just a man. He cannot hurt him. Bob wants to move forward. He knows he must. It is his fate. There is something waiting for him. But he cannot cross the fire. He is too afraid.

Bob knew that sometimes changes in life happened without notice, and only afterwards is the change recognised. Like being in the orphanage when you are six and believing it will be only for a short while, until one day it's your eleventh birthday and there is no sign that things will change. But other things that change a life occur quickly. Like his mother dying, and his going into the home with Danny and Daisy. Like seeing the sign that changed his life:
See the World and Get Three Meals a Day.

Bob's eyes stuck to the words: Three Meals a Day.

He circled back and, standing astride his bike, read the ad in full:
Join the Navy. See the World and Get Three Meals a Day.

On Saturday he presented himself at the recruitment office and signed up for the test. He passed the English component of the entrance examination easily but failed the maths — it had been his worst subject at school. He returned the next week to undertake the test in front of the same officer, to pass the English and fail the maths again. On the third weekend, he arrived at the office and stood in front of the same officer. He passed the English and failed the maths, by one mark. The recruitment officer took the failed exam, moved by the determination and disappointment of the skinny youth, rubbed out an incorrect answer, placed the correct one in its place, and began the process for Bob Brecht's admittance into the armed services in the summer of 1955.

And so he came back into a secure world of institution and routine. He thrived on the order, and after the regimented life in the home, he found the discipline of the Navy easy to adjust to. He was better able to navigate the strict regimen of daily life, and less afraid of the consequences of breaching rules. It was his physique that handicapped Bob. He grew stronger with better feeding and regular meals, but he remained small-framed for his age.

Although he joined the Navy to earn better money, part of the reason was that he could no longer bear the anger that Danny constantly directed towards him.