and enter, more a bend and enter.
I was in a small back porch which had been boarded up and provided with a couple of small windows. There was a narrow bed and about a seventh-hand cup-board; a cardboard box by the bed contained dirty socks and several copies of a racing tip sheet. Somehow this didn’t look like the room of the late Stan Livermore, secretary of the Veterans of the Bridge Society. I went through a curtained doorway to the kitchen, which was like old kitchens everywhere in the city-lino on the surfaces, brass on the plumbing and cockroaches in the woodwork. There was a smell of some sort in the air, vaguely sweet and recognisable. The stove was still hot and I found an empty Rosella tomato soup can in a bucket under the sink. Memories of a Sydney boyhood. We used to pour a bit into the mugs, top up the can with milk and heat it. No saucepans, no spoons. Some-where in this house was a traditionalist.
I moved through to the passage which led to the stairs. I know these kinds of houses. On ground level there’d be a front room, with the window opening onto the street, and two rooms upstairs. A bath-room off the landing. The verandah to the front room up top would be built-in, like the porch below. During the Depression these houses slept up to twenty people. My guess was that Betty Tracey occupied the front room by the door. That’d give her the greatest control over the movements of the people in the house. First grab at visitors and the mail, best snoop at the street. I went quietly down to the door and listened but there was no sound. No chance of Betty being the soup eater, I was pretty sure you’d be able to hear her at it from the backyard.
That left the stairs, which from the look of them-ricketty treads, gap-toothed banisters, lifting lino-would certainly creak. No chance of surprise. I marched up the first flight calling, “Mr Livermore. Mr Livermore! Are you in?”
A man appeared at the top of the stairs. “Who are you?” he said. “How did you get in here?”
“Mrs Tracey let me in. I met her outside.” I waved my hand in the direction of the street. “I paid her five dollars and she let me in.”
“Five dollars, mmm. That’ll keep her happy in the pub for a few hours.” He came down the stairs far enough into the dim light to enable me to see him. Bald, sixty maybe, strong-looking, in a heavy cable-knit sweater and flannel trousers. “Didn’t she tell you Mr Livermore was dead?”
“No. No, she didn’t. I’m sorry to hear that. Recently, was it?”
“The other day. She’s a shameless old extortionist. That’s what she is. Well, afraid that’s the way of it.”
“Ah, I’m a journalist. Brian Kelly. I was hoping to talk to Mr Livermore about the Veterans of the Bridge Society. Thought there might be a piece in it, you know. Mr…?”
“Lithgow, Charles Lithgow. A journalist, eh? I’m a bit of a writer myself. Who d’you write for, Mr Kelly?”
“Freelance.” I went up a few more steps; he came down a few and we shook hands. He had a hard, calloused hand, very strong grip. “That’s a pity. There’s a lot of interest in the bridge, what with the tunnel going through and the toll going up.” I tried a smile.
Mr Lithgow’s slightly wrinkled but composed features arranged themselves in a corresponding smile. “It’s a shame you missed him. I really enjoyed talking to him myself. I’m sure he had a lot of memorabilia, in fact I know he had. His room’s full of it.” He gestured above and behind him. “Would you like to see it?”
“Do you think that’d be all right?”
Lithgow retreated a few steps. “I’m sure it would. All he lived for, really. Poor old chap. I’m sure he’d be pleased there was someone taking an interest.”
We went up the stairs, past the landing, to the top floor. The light improved a little, coming in through a room with an open door. Lithgow pointed to the closed door opposite. “Stan’s room.”
“No family or friends to…” I shrugged, “handle his affairs?”
Lithgow opened the door. “Apparently not. Lonely old soul, apart from the members of his society, of course.”
“Many of them?”
“A few.”
I felt strangely reluctant to go into the dead man’s room. I was disconcerted by Lithgow’s manner. His clothes weren’t expensive and he wore a slightly shabby air but he smelled very clean. His voice was clear and his accent was precise; he sounded old-fashioned rather than well-educated, almost as if he’d picked up a set of mannerisms from a play or a book. “Not a member of the society yourself, Mr Lithgow?”
“Me? Heavens, no. I suppose you’re wondering why I’m living in a place like this?”
I took out my notebook. “Would you have the names of the society members? Yes, I’m wondering, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“No objection at all. I’m retired from the public service. Had a lifelong interest in this area. Generations of Lithgows lived here until, well, until I broke the tradition. But now I’m back and I’m writing a book about the old place. What d’you think of that?”
“Sounds fine to me, Mr Lithgow. Are you sure about going into Mr Livermore’s room?”
“Of course, of course.” He pushed the door wide and we went into the room. It was rather dark and cold, being on the side of the house away from the sun. A small window let in a little eastern light. It was also obsessively neat and clean. The bed, with a thin, grey blanket on top, was made with military precision; all books and papers were set on shelves with aligned edges and right-angled piles. The few personal items on the chest of drawers and bedside table-comb, bus timetable, nail scissors-were clean and carefully laid out.
“An orderly man,” I said.
“Very. And a very nice old chap, too. But we all have to go. I just hope I get long enough to do this book. Well, Mr Kelly, I have my researches to get on with. Take as long as you like. I’m just across the hall if you want me.”
He ducked his head and almost bowed himself out of the room. I set about a systematic search, which Stan Livermore’s efficient habits made easy. He had a collection of books about the bridge, including those I’d seen in the library, and a good deal of related material- pamphlets, magazine articles, newspaper clippings and correspondence. What it all came to was an obsession, a fixed idea that the building of the bridge had exacted an enormous toll of lives and happiness. The dislocation and eviction of people from houses on the land resumed for the approaches, the closing of schools and businesses, the diversion of traffic-they were all documented. There was a voluminous recording of the accidents and deaths, and a minute tracing of con-sequences for wives and families. In the bottom drawer of the chest were files on scores of cases which ran from medical reports to correspondence with members of parliament. It was all alphabetical; all the handwriting was clear and legible; all clippings and photographs were annotated with dates and sources. It was too much of a good thing.
I worked through it using the only system I could think of-checking for names. Livermore appeared to have had no special interest in any of the bridge builders. The names came up-Ennis, Madden, Glover, Bradfield-but none was traced beyond the completion of the bridge. There were files on the sixteen men killed, but these petered out in the 1950s, as if twenty years was as long as anyone cared to remember them. The society had devoted itself to getting a suitable memorial for the dead, helping the families of some of the injured men and attempting to keep people who had worked on the bridge in touch with each other. It seemed a vain task. There was a large bundle of letters returned from the post office marked “address unknown”.
Stan Livermore himself had been a riveter who worked for five years on the job without suffering injury. I found a complimentary reference to Captain David Guthrie, for his intervention in the case of a worker who had been sacked for being asleep on the job. Captain Guthrie had demonstrated that fumes from an ill-maintained piece of equipment had overcome the man, who was reinstated. Casting about, I found no reference to anyone named Tracey or Burton or Lithgow. No Hardys either, or Broadways. I was running out of analytical tools fast, and aware that I might be running out of time. Lithgow had given me carte blanche, but that wouldn’t cut much ice if Betty Tracey returned and blew my cover. I did a last search for active members of the society as of the latest date and came up with six names. But the last time these individuals and Stan Livermore had convened a meeting was almost a year back. Still, it was something.
As I was tidying up the files I wondered if the old men had turned their attention to the new disruption caused by the harbour tunnel-the extra traffic through North Sydney, the noise of the tunnelling, the pollution of the harbour. Probably not. Their obsession was with the past and the people now being plagued by the tunnel- builders would have had as much trouble getting a hearing from them as from other Sydneysiders. In a way, it was the same story all over again-the greater good of the greater number and to hell with the rest.
