Theo stood in the doorway, his hat in his hand, and said quietly, ‘You don’t have to say anything, Mum. I know exactly what you’re thinking because you always tell me.’
‘So you know just what I’m thinking, do you?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘because you just said it all.’
‘Well, go on, I’m listening to what I think.’
‘If it takes years I will wait for Edie. She needs time to get over the shock of her mother dying and feeling she has to look after the baby. When she feels free then she can marry me.’
‘And when will that be?’ Lilly asked.
He thought for a moment. ‘When the child turns six it can go to boarding school or to a nurse and it won’t need a sister for a foster mother any more, so Edie will be free to marry me.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes!’
‘Fat lot you know about babies and children and mothering,’ she said.
Sunday, 24 November 1907, when the children have a pleasant walk.
As soon as the town’s children had forced down their greens they asked to leave the Sunday lunch table and ran to Ligar Street to wait outside Mister Hooley’s house. They had been doing this for months. When it was cold their mothers made them rug up first in their pullovers, but now it was November and it was hot, so their mothers made them wear hats. In the beginning it had been just a few of his piano students who had waited outside Theo’s door. But as the weeks and months went by the band of children had grown. Lilly heard the noise of children’s voices growing louder in the street outside as if it was lunchtime at the school. She peeked out from behind the curtains to see how many had gathered and saw that the street was crowded with a good hundred or so children. The girls stood in huddles and the boys tossed stones on the road while they waited for Theo to appear.
‘There’s more of them every week. You’re the Pied Piper of Ballarat.’
Theo ignored her disapproving tone as he adjusted his hair and straightened his jacket in the hallstand mirror.
‘Well, you encourage them, Mum,’ he said.
She opened her mouth in a perfect O. ‘Oh, I do not!’ she said.
He kissed her on her forehead, ‘Yes you do, come on,’ and then he went out the front door with his rose. He had no shortage of roses to choose from these days. ‘Oh Theo, I have beautiful red roses if you want to have a look and see if any suit your purpose,’ the mothers of his students said. ‘Oh Theo, I have grown the most beautiful red rose bush just for you,’ said the women who stopped him in the street. But Maud had Milton Blackmarsh move her best rose bush into the backyard behind the tool shed where it was safe from Theo’s eyes and his mother’s scissors,
Lilly followed behind Theo with the tray of honey jumbles she had made for the children. Thank goodness she always cooked more than she needed.
‘Just one, just one each or there won’t be enough to go around,’ she said as little fingers grabbed for the biscuits.
Theo didn’t speak to the children. He just straightened, adjusted his collar, looked again at the rose in his hand and the children knew that was the sign they were off. The children followed him all the way to Edie’s. The girls skipped and jostled to be nearest to Theo, the boys tumbled and ran and kicked at stones on the road. Women came out of their houses and stood in their front gardens, waving their fans to cool their faces and chatting to their neighbours as they waited for Theo to pass by. As he passed they called out hello and dreamt of having a man so devoted to them that he would visit every Sunday for years and years.
The men sat on their front porches drinking beer and they raised their glasses to toast him and wished him good luck as he passed. When he was out of earshot they complained to each other that he was ruining everything for ordinary blokes like them whose wives were going to expect roses from them now.
When he got to the front gate of Edie’s house the children stopped. Theo wouldn’t let them follow him to the door. It was all very well for them to come on the walk but what he said to Miss Cottingham was private. The children always moaned as if he was cutting them out of the best part and then they waited on the street for him. If it took him a while to knock on the door they got bored and the boys played mock fights and the girls dreamt that they would get to be flower girls when Mister Hooley finally won his love. Some of the older boys lost patience altogether and wandered off to swim in the lake.
Theo checked his watch and knocked on the door. The girls, leaning against the letterbox watching, put their hands over their hearts. Maybe this week Miss Cottingham would come running into his arms.
Beth answered the door. ‘You again?’
‘You knew it would be me,’ he said, ‘so don’t pretend to be surprised.’
‘You and all the town’s ratbag children.’
‘It’s going to be a hot summer, don’t you think? It’s already sweltering and we haven’t even hit December
