like Sam any more or less for his asking. She pursed her lips, fixing him with a look meant to forestall any attempt at haggling, a skill she suspected Sam possessed in abundance. 'Their Board has set the scale of fees, Mr Collins. I cannot depart from it.' She was about to say seventeen and sixpence per week when my father broke in, 'A quid, lady, that's all I can afford and that's five bob more than I've been paying, although I suppose the poor little bugger is growin' and he'll need a bit more tucker.'
(Interesting, isn't it? Fourteen years later, I boarded with a family in Ashfield. I paid fifteen shillings a week for full board and my washing.)
Matron McCechnie allowed herself the luxury of a smile. The Jews weren't so tough to beat after all. She gave two short rings on an electric bell which summoned scratchy arms, who descended the stairs, holding me tightly. I could actually waddle by now but Scarba rules forbade walking up or down stairs. Martha had been primed about my prospective departure. Her eyes were puffy and red. I was beautifully clothed in the most exquisite knitted suit with a pompom beret to match - all handmade by the Scarba Ladies' Auxiliary. Martha stood me on my shaky pudgy legs while I gripped her finger. She gently propelled me towards my father, disengaging herself as I grabbed his knee for support. Perhaps it was the rough tweed of his suit under my hand or the manly smell of hair pomade. More likely it was the abrupt separation from Martha that made me fall down and lie on my back screaming. Martha bent down to pick me up; Matron restrained her. 'Let Mr Collins deal with this,' she said. 'Healthy little chap, don't you think?'
Sampson Collins hoisted me onto his knee, made ridiculous clucking noises and, taking out a snowywhite handkerchief, dabbed at my face. 'Now, Master Alan Alva Collins, let's not have too much of that Irish paddy.' The hanky reeked of bay rum; its heady fumes were like chloroform to my immature lungs. My yells retreated to a snuffle. Sam grinned at Matron and Martha. He stood up and asked Matron where he had to sign 'to take delivery of me little parcel'. While he screwed the top off his gold-nib Conway Stewart fountain pen, he tucked me under one arm, waving aside Martha's offer of help. She ran upstairs to reappear with a toy bear which she forced into my arms. Matron immediately prised it loose from my grasp. 'Sorry, but this is the property of the Scarba Home.' Sam said audibly, 'Shit, and they reckon us Yids are tough!' He turned his back on the place and marched out to his Ford tourer. He smiled at me. 'Have I told you about Bella, old son? Me new missus? Well, she's not too shook on babies.' He patted my cheek and winked. 'Might be able to talk her round but you'll have to grow a bit first.'
My father opened the car door and propelled me into Bella's unwelcoming arms. Despite her entrancing aroma, I longed for Martha's scratchy bosom and the smell of Sunlight soap. Sam could not fail to notice the stiffness of her posture, her arms barely encircling me. 'For God's sake, darlin', he's not goin' to bloody well bite you. Hold onto him, we're only going to Ashfield.' And he flung himself behind the steering wheel and drove far too quickly down the gloomy Scarba driveway.
...2...
Lost years? Unable to account for the passing of time? Like the young Cavalier Prince being grilled by the Roundheads, 'When did you last see your father?', I saw very little of mine. I saw very little of anybody during my confinement in the meandering, mock-manor-house spread of the Ashfield Infants' Home. The philanthropist who had helped generously towards the purchase of 'Gorton' in the 1870s watched my growth from his ornate gilt frame in the dining room. In reality, his ice-blue eyes were on the horizon of his sizeable estate, not on some Jewish infant kept out of trouble for a quid a week. These are the things I remember: the benefactor's blue eyes, the carved newel posts of the staircase where my pudgy fingers traced the leaves of the waratah, the drying room because of its dank smell, the reek of roast lamb on a Sunday every Sunday as weeks and months became time without end or interruption to a life circumscribed by the bars of my cot. Except, except . . .
One Sunday, many months after Sam deposited me in the Ashfield home, my maternal grandmother was pushed up the driveway in a wheelchair by Alf, her son-in-law the Gallipoli veteran, too shattered by the gas of Flanders to do any sustained work and thus on call to his mainlaw and sisters for odd jobs such as the rare visits to an unclaimed child. I was now fleet enough to be able to run anywhere other than where directed. My health card was gratifyingly free of those ailments so contagious and rife when thirty infants are in nursery propinquity. Grandma had been propped in the common room. From a distant doorway, urged forward by a nurse I detested, I saw this black mass peering at me through pince-nez and then a blackgloved hand beckoning me. The nurse shoved me in the back.
'Gwan, go and meetcha granny.'
Halfway towards her and the purple mole on her cheek with hair sprouting from it was enough to propel my stubby legs into a gallop, past her and out the door she had come through. The girl did not give chase; she had seen it all before. Alf stuck out a feeble arm but by then I was free, free and stumbling down the steps and heading for the noise of the Parramatta Road traffic. It was the gardener who grabbed me a few yards from the iron gates. His giant, earth-stained hands were imprinted on my spotless Sunday clothes. He tucked me under his arm like his bags of blood and bone fertiliser, which now shared its pungency with me. He dumped me just inside the doors where the wheezing Alf duly took over and presented me to Grandma.
'Just what y'd expect from Sam's kid.' And with an exhausting heave, he plopped me in Grandma's lap.
Grandma Davis was of that era when widowhood seemed to come early and stay around for an eternity. She was in her mid-fifties when I was born but had lain in a cold bed for the past twenty-five years. Her three daughters were raised on the payout of a life insurance policy which even now allowed her to live at least up to a similar standard to her Jewish neighbours. She arrived by taxi to inspect me, the first of only three such occasions while I was resident at the Ashfield Infants' Home, in a period of nearly three years.
You may have noticed that I was a very olfactory child. Go back over the events I have so far related and you will see how, from my earliest days, this sense was the one that received messages and triggered responses above all others. My father: bay rum on his skin; Mrs O'Donohue: congealed breast milk; Martha: Sunlight soap; Matron McCechnie: carbolic; Bella: a perfume that sent my little mind reeling. And now the nameless gardener's blood and bone permeated my Sunday clothing, for which I was grateful, as it so repulsed Grandma with her purple hairy mole that she almost managed to stand upright in her chair in an effort to rid herself of this noxious infant, grandchild or not.
The nurse retrieved me. Alf eased Grandma back in her chair; the notsoold lady took a vial of smelling salts from her bag, wafted it under her nose and in doing so released enough of it to reach me and partially subdue the blood and bone. She now had her own identifiable smell, which was not unlike that which emanated from the dirty sheet bundles in the Ashfield Infants' Home laundry room. When the smelling salts restored Grandma enough to have the nurse once more deposit me on her sable-clothed arthritic knees, she developed a to-and-fro rocking motion, at the same time crooning, 'Poor Alva, oh, poor Alva.' I began to feel quite nauseous and my little arms flailed about seeking freedom. Just as I was about to achieve this, which would have meant falling onto the paper-thin carpet, gallant ex-private Alf grabbed me and swung me up onto his shoulder as he had once done with his army kitbag. 'Whoa there, young shaver,' he wheezed from his gas-attacked lungs. 'Y' nearly flattened me poor old ma-in-law!'
A good man, uncle Alf. A man I took to. He could have been a real fullquid father to me, had my own not been the criminally stupid, vain, irresponsible bastard that he was. Married to Beryl, Alf Safran provided on his meagre army pension and part-time work as a bookkeeper. Alf was at this time the father of two boys only a year or so older than I was. He and Beryl had begged Sam to give them the care of the newborn child to raise with their own. Why did he refuse? Was it to 'snout' Grandma Davis, a mother-in-law who saw him as the epitome of everything she had heard and willingly believed about the alleged lurid ways of commercial travellers? She had read the riot act to 26-year-old Alva for keeping company with Sampson Collins, 40-something and divorced after only two years. His marriage
