He didn’t wait for an answer. Beth was relieved, because her insides were quaking. She watched him move towards a portly, well-dressed man who she assumed was the landlord; they seemed to be discussing how things would proceed.
Beth handed her sign to Evelyn and walked up the steps of the cottage to the verandah. She put her hands in the air to get everyone’s attention. Her comrades clapped and a man yelled, ‘Sing us a song, love.’ The group of policemen laughed loudly encouraging the crowd to heckle her and all the men sniggered.
‘Go home you stupid hussy or I’ll have you locked up!’ said the big policeman but Beth just stared him down and said loudly, ‘Lock me up then! At least in jail I’ll be fed — unlike these poor blighters! At least on these cold nights I’ll be warm, unlike these sad souls.’ And she pointed to the family huddled forlornly by the side fence — the father who had given up and the mother whose clothes were wet with tears and the three terrified children who didn’t know where they would be sent next.
The policeman shook his head. While he conferred with his colleagues, Beth yelled to the crowd squashed into the tiny front yard and spilling onto the street.
‘If any one of you dares bid on one tiny item that in truth belongs to this family, you will rot in hell. Any one of us could be in the position of this poor family. Have Christian charity and refuse to buy any of the goods that belong to them when they are auctioned today. If you do bid on them, you are in fact stealing. I beg you — step into their shoes and do as you would have them do to you. If you wish to donate to their rent, my friend Clara has a hat open and ready. Everything put in shall be passed to the family.’
The small crowd was easily swayed by the last thing that was said to them and, wanting to sleep well that night, they cheered. Beth smiled and nodded. Then the landlord stood up on the porch and elbowed her aside and started the bidding for a rather lovely but worn bridge chair at an extraordinarily low price. One man, egged on by his wife, started to raise his hand but Beth glared at him and he put it down quickly. No one dared bid on the side table or the set of dented aluminium saucepans. Finally, after trying to sell a set of cooking bowls and a set of kitchen chairs, the landlord had no choice but to return every item to the destitute family. With the auction a failure, the crowd dispersed, dropping the coins they had planned to spend on bargains into Clara’s hat.
The family thanked Beth for saving their worldly chattels, few and tattered as they were, and for buying them a few weeks reprieve with the rent. Beth glanced sideways at a shadow under a tree; earlier the shade had blocked him from her view. Now she saw him waiting for her to finish saying goodbye to the family.
They looked at each other for some moments. He stayed rooted to the spot, waiting for her to come away from her friends. Finally she approached him and they regarded each other cautiously for some time before he said, ‘I’ve looked everywhere for you, Beth.’
‘Took your bloody time then,’ she said. ‘It’s 1924, you know. I thought you were dead. For nearly a good eight years you’ve been dead, Theo. In fact I think legally you are dead after seven years. Yes, you’re dead.’ And with that she started to walk off.
‘Beth.’ She stopped. She couldn’t pretend he was dead when he was standing flesh and blood in front of her. She considered him again. There seemed so much to say and nothing at all to say. She realised she wasn’t ready to deal with an alive Theo. This time Theo would have to wait for her.
‘I can’t talk to you today. Come and meet me after work,’ she said. ‘On …’ She wondered how much time she needed and then thought, Oh bugger it, she might as well get whatever was going to happen between them over and done with. ‘Meet me after work at the Coles Variety Store in Smith Street, Collingwood — Clara and I work there,’ and she looked over at Clara who was watching her and Theo and looking like her world might disappear.
‘I need some time to think. Come Monday the week after next, at six, and I’ll listen to what you have to say for yourself while you walk me to Flinders Street station. You’ll have forty-five minutes. I’ll ask Clara to take the tram so we can be alone.’
‘Monday week at six.’ He lifted his hat and turned on his heel like a soldier and walked away. As soon as he was out of sight Clara came running over.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
Beth smiled at her. ‘You know, Clara, I am better than I thought.’
Monday, 21 July 1924, when a walk is taken.
She saw Theo waiting when she came out of the store. He was leaning against the verandah post, his hat balanced at an angle on his head, one leg crossed over the other. People will think he’s my lover, she thought, and wondered how long he had been waiting. Knowing him, probably since ten in the morning.
‘So you sell nothing over two shillings, huh?’ he said as she approached.
‘Sorry?’ she said.
‘The sign,’ he said, and pointed.
‘Yes, and it’s so successful they’re opening another store soon. I’m going to be a department manager. The rest of the world might be getting poorer but Coles isn’t.’
She realised that small talk wasn’t going to save them from the big talk, so she took a deep breath and said, ‘Have you seen Edie?
