Richmond 1927

Chapter 1

Richmond July, 1927

Bessie was called early that morning to Griffith Street. It was a cold, wet July morning; streaking the dawn with grubby squalls that squealed along failing fence palings as the early horse and jinker of the milkie tumbled over the broken ruts of the Richmond streets. May was silent but quick to labour, and only an hour or two after her older girls left for school, a dark-haired baby appeared – a girl like her older sisters; tiny, angry and yowling. She bellowed frantically, as Bessie, the woman of her clan that was responsible for birthing all the babies, cleaned and wrapped her in a grey, wollen blanket; a mass of black hair cresting her scrunched brow. May Redding had lost track of the time, it had just been her, the pain, the moribund midwife and the sound of scattered footsteps on the late morning streets forever. She dozed, waking bleakly to the sound of the front door and excited footsteps of Eileen and Lorna.

Usually the girls did not walk home together. They preferred to wait and let the other leave the rain potted school yard before them, chatting with their own friends on the walk home. If there were no friends who tagged along, the omnipresent magpies were preferred company to each other. However, this day, they called a truce on their estrangement ritual, and rushed home together through the wind lashed terraces to their own street for news of the little one. Bessie informed them of the stark fact that no little brother had been forthcoming, and they tiptoed down the hallway firing questions to her and each other about names and when they could view their new sister. 

May was disappointed it wasn’t a son. It could have made up for this unsought surprise so late in her life, when her other daughters were almost out of school themselves and off to work.  Yet holding her some time later, May noticed her round sweet mouth, and wet, tiny sighs and she thought her prettier than the other girls from what she could remember.  There was a sad, glazed look in the little one’s eyes as she looked desperately around the room for a familiar sound or warming shade. Bessie had wrapped her tightly and put her in the tiny basket, wedged against the wall of the scrappy room.

A few small hours she was spared the crying of the newborn, and then the shouting started. Like a shock of cold water, the new life howled at the night, and foraged for whatever food it could get. Some evaporated milk in the kitchen was heated by Bessie and it seemed to soothe the baby and keep it quiet. All May wanted to do was sleep.

It must have been evening again before steps appeared suddenly in the hallway and it was her husband Arthur. He was a few years older than May and his thick head of hair had begun to grey lightly; his once handsome face had taken on a wary, averted gaze and it seemed his eyes had receded behind his eyelids to protect his soul from the light. This night however his voice was strangely clear and jolly.

‘You have another girl!’ Bessie consoled Arthur. It must have behoved even him not to go back to the pub after work, with the expectation of news of his third child’s birth. The celebrations would be saved to the following evening instead. Bessie had the baby warm, clean and wrapped and gave her to May. Arthur appeared vaguely at the door and restated the instruction he received.

‘Seems like we got another baby girl.’ He looked uncomfortable, a little sheepish in his sober-ish mantel.  ‘What sort of name do you like May? Have you named her?’

‘Shirley …Shirley Kathleen.’

Shirley was a pretty name, and Kathleen after his sister back home. The baby kept looking at the dark from her basket and seeing shadows moving glazed, into light.

Lorna and Eileen fussed over the baby and would fight over who would nurse her first as soon as they returned home from school. Looking down at the tiny sack, warm and squirming, her musky smell moving around them like a mist, they were intrigued.  Their mother spent a week lying in a darkened room and when she appeared eventually, it was much to everyone’s relief. Arthur would return home at 6.30 after last swill at the pub, and if the baby was awake, and he was in a good mood, he would coo over her briefly before he retired to the front room.

When May first suspected she was in the family way, she flatly refused to consent that it could be possible. Each day, she would convince herself that this was not reality and go about her housework, or head out to do the errands. On Friday each week, she would brush down her summer coat and polish her new shoes and head into town before 9 am so that she could be there in time for the stores to open. Each day she would choose a few of her favourite stores and window shop for hours. Occasionally she would see something so rare and beautiful – a dress perhaps, or a pair of gloves…a new hat – brogues – a scarf that was the colour of wheat. She would then take herself in to admire this exquisite piece and spend the next two months working out how she could scrimp and save what was needed to put a layby deposit down on it. May would work out her limited budget over and over again, convinced she could find some new tiny amount that could go towards her dream outfit. Eventually the house had no butter, only a few treasured pieces of bread that survived each day, and an empty pantry that whistled with the sound of starving cockroaches.

However she managed it, (the housekeeping was never enough for the four of them already) she always bought home whatever it was she had set her heart on. Hats from Dugdale’s on Collins Street, leather gloves from Stanton’s, a suit from Greville’s in Spring Street – grey with a black inset, and pleated peplums. Shoes were the most lavish purchase; dainty brown leather heels with pointed toes and elegant satin bows from the Paragon Shoe Store in Elizabeth Street.

The pregnancy had eventually forced her into her simple work clothes with the darts let out. May refused to plan for the child, but luckily her sisters and Arthur’s mother began knitting and sending small parcels of nighties, booties and shawls. Her and Arthur rarely spoke, but she silently hated him for what he had done. It was all right for him to retire to his library in the front room with his whisky and his books. She watched the Winter creep relentlessly across the backyard and the rusted outhouse. Slowly, a horse and jinker rattled past. May thought it made the loneliest sound in the world.