Labyrinth - Plague in Olde Sydney Town

I set this story in Sydney in the year 1900 - the time when Bubonic Plague hit the town, creating death and panic among the residents and those who would govern them. Another of the favourites I'm repeating for those who missed out on the first time around.

Cheers

June

'and then we got into a labyrinth,
and when we thought we were at the end,
came out again at the beginning,
having still to seek as much as ever.'
- Plato

It is a particularly dark and still February night in harbourside Sydney Town, a scorching airless night where hundreds of souls toss and turn on beds of straw and rags, wishing for the southerly to come and ease the heat, the latest of their discomforts.

Look close through the gloom to see outsize rats skitter from nearby docked ships. See them nuzzle the rubbish in streets and backyards, and watch them scamper through cesspits and ground depressions where foul slops lie.

Venture a little behind the fine facades of Kent Street to find those souls in the tangle of filthy brick huts. Little buildings packed tight in criss - crossed lanes and courts, hidden and forgotten. In rows of seven at a time those huts, stuffed with families and workers sharing four rooms at the rate of sixteen per hut. And them with one tap and two water closets to the row.

In one such room a candle flickers, throwing strange shadows about the walls, and lighting six sleeping bodies and another, with eyes wide open, staring.

Miriam McDonald is odd to this place, her red hair gleaming. She reclines on the dank straw, the fine cotton fabric of her nightgown stretched against her distended belly. Her long thin hands move to this roundness, stroking gently.

A deep sigh, and a woman nearby throws her arm loose as she rolls in her sleep.

Listen for myriad other sounds in the night. Groans, and screams and thudding bodies, horse's neigh, ropes strain and slack canvas flaps, distant train whistle. The body collectors trundle their cart.

Against these rough sounds, Miriam sings, oh so low and so sweet, to her coming child.

They say that the more respectable a family, the less patience is shown if a child should fall from grace. This was surely the case with Miriam’s Momma and Poppa who had worked in the employ of the Macarthurs at Parramatta all of their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them.

Through the years her family had invested much in achieving a good reputation, and were now showing very little tolerance in their daughter’s time of trial. To Miriam, it seemed as though they had thrust her aside, leaving her prey to countless horrors. She would never be so heartless with a child of her own, she whispered.

Mostly she was able to persuade herself that she had done nothing to bring about her troubles, and that there was nothing to feel guilty about. At other times she felt an unease and asked herself if she could have done anything to prevent the catastrophe.

Try as she might, she could not condone her parents’ attitude and that made her very determined that she would make her own way, and solve her own problems.

To be fair, Miriam’s parents were always kind and taught her the niceties of her station, and some accomplishments a little above that. She even played the piano a little, and wrote a reasonable copperplate. Her needlework was not perfect, as she lacked patience in that field, but it was passable.

Those who knew Miriam intimately would note that she knew how to seem docile and agreeable, but suspected that she didn’t always feel that way. Something in Miriam seemed to bubble at times. Some would say it was her nature to speak too loudly and too long. Her eyes did not peep out from fluttering lashes, but gazed boldly. Perhaps this was a predisposition for one with such red hair.

Miriam was eighteen when she first decided to take a path of her own. She'd heard of life outside of Parramatta, and she wanted to live it. It is perhaps an irony that her parents’ careful preparation of their daughter’s attainments smoothed the path to her downfall.

The decision made, Miriam had little trouble gaining a place at one of the more stylish residences in the colony. It is also true that this was made easy because of the connection between the Macarthurs and Lyndhurst. After all, its original owner Dr. Bowman married John and Elizabeth Macarthur's daughter.

Miriam imagined that her parents believed the new discipline would be good for her character, for they had supported her application. So, even when she found herself in a most horrifying and extreme state, because she understood the pain they suffered, Miriam still called her parents ‘dear’.

To a young girl away from home for the first time Lyndhurst seemed the most dismal and sombre of houses: two storeys with vast high ceilings at both levels, and sprawling on its own peninsular into Blackwattle Cove.

The darkness closed in as the sulky rattled up the bluff. The great bulk of the house threw deep dark shadows over the garden beds, and the leafless trees thrust their branches outwards: threatening and gnarled and ugly.

Miriam discovered herself cringing into the corner of her seat. She dabbed with a handkerchief at small beads of perspiration that had settled on her forehead. To that point she had been excited at the prospect of her new life. What was so different now? She pulled herself together and adjusted her bonnet as the horse clip clopped its way to the servants' quarters around the back.

For many days the girl with the red hair was tossed on a most turbulent tide. She was a maid, at the beck and call of everyone in the household. Her duties called her to answer to the slightest of whims, dashing through a maze of dark and shadowy rooms at the sound of a bell.

She fetched firewood and hot water to the upstairs bed chambers, humped mattresses, and moved furniture from parlour to dining room. She scoured and fetched and carried until exhausted.

Still, in her occasional quiet moments she felt a sense of accomplishment, and an enjoyment with the newness of it all. There were dinner parties and soirees when some of the most powerful people in the colony ventured along the Lyndhurst carriage way to pay their respects, and show their finery.

Always from a discreet distance, Miriam watched the ladies in their elegant gowns, and wondered at the miracle of their tiny waists. She could hear refined voices discussing Mr. Hordern's new emporium and the demise of the skirt bustle in Sydney fashion circles.

She noted that the gentlemen vied with each other for the heaviest gold watch and chain, and for the fine tailoring of their black suits. The new Constitution Bill also featured heavily in their conversations.

There was one man Miriam admired particularly, even though his demeanour made her strangely uneasy. Young Mr. Oswin was different from the rest. He remained detached from those milling around the piano, or gossiping on the various sofas. He simply stood quiet, a tall and brooding presence at one end of the room.

A friend of the young master, Mr. Oswin was staying as part of the household. For some days Miriam took any excuse to view his bearing and his languid brown eyes, apparently filled with secrets.

She fell to daydreaming about him, imagining him paying her attentions; offering her a posy he had picked from the garden. She imagined him bowing grandly and asking her to dance. She caught herself blushing at the thought.

One evening it occurred to her that Mr. Oswin himself was returning her glances, even though his gaze was more steady and unsubtle than she dared herself. His unwavering gaze became a compelling feature of her life and those eyes seemed to follow her everywhere, quite hypnotic.

Miriam would admit that she enjoyed the attention, and on occasions, she even found herself smiling in his direction. However, when she did so, a strange sensation of fear always followed.

Sharp needles of ice cold pricked her cheeks as Miriam moved through the darkened house, setting things to right before she could retire for the evening. Her hand lingered on the thick velvet of the drawing room drapery, enjoying its softness.

Outside, a gusty wind whipped through the trees on the bay. The dull glint of gaslights played on the buildings of the distant town, then slipped into the bay to shimmer on its restless water. She shivered. And then she turned swiftly to direct the light of her candle towards a subtle movement in the corner of the room ...

The light flickered, revealing Mr. Oswin.

He looked strangely uneasy, his frame ramrod straight and his eyes shuttered. He took a step towards her and Miriam’s prickling skin warned that there was something amiss. She reeled towards the door, but Oswin moved closer and his hand was a vice on her shoulder.

‘Be still,’ he whispered hoarsely.

The heavy candlestick clattered to the floor, snuffing its flame. Oswin’s hand stifled her scream and they struggled together, there in the half light. Then for a moment, the girl with the red hair seemed to relax, as though bending to his will.

But she sank her small teeth into his hand, felt the bone, and tasted warm blood. She broke free, ran to the end of the room and stopped, twisting to meet him.

Blue eyes flashing, Miriam brandished a scoop of red hot embers from the fire.

'Come no closer,' she seethed.

'Now my pretty. You want this. You know you do.' The gold watch and chain glittered at his waist.

'No sir. I do not. Get back. Get back .'

For a moment, he turned from her, and then he turned again, to step sideways and behind her small frame, capturing the scoop and her arms in one action.

'You little witch!'

He stemmed her cries again, this time with fierce lips, and they rolled to the floor.

The dying fire illumined her desperation.

The black water of the bay was thick with floating trash. The stench of human waste intensified as she approached the scramble of buildings on the other side of the swivel iron bridge. Lightning bolts split the lowering sky, and she shivered, although the sticky heat was intense.

The girl with the nest of red hair bent beneath the weight of her single cloth bag, and her gait faltered.

Sydney Town.

Humanity gathered to crush her in its grip, sweeping her past Sussex Street and left into Kent Street. Leering men and skinny crones, yelling and screaming children, and young women with lifeless faces.

Miriam approached one who sat suckling a child on the wooden steps of a house.

'Roach, ye say? Next lane, fifth on the right.'

The squalor was worse with each step. She fought her way past four children playing in mud, and a slobbering drunk propped up against a wall. Mrs Roach, toothless and gross, leaned in the doorway of a crumbling hut at the end of the row.

'Miss McDonald? They said you was comin'. A wicked girl, they said.'

Wicked. She didn't feel wicked. It was Mr. Oswin who was wicked. Him and his oily ways.

Miriam felt the sting of tears as the woman preceded her into a dim hallway, damp with earthen floor and corroding brick walls. Many eyes peered at her as they passed a row of doors lining the hall.

They were the eyes of people prostrate or sitting in semi-darkness, crowded into tiny spaces; people odious- and angry-looking.

'This room's yours. Only five in here, with yersel', an all of 'em females. Think yersel' lucky.'

The hag turned to shuffle down the hall. Miriam wiped the tears with the back of her hand and gazed at her new prison. It reeked of sweat and pain and hopelessness. She placed the bag with her precious possessions on a heap of straw in the corner, and sank down beside it.

Which way out of this hell hole?

That night on her squalid bed she tossed and then she dreamed. She dreamed of a woman, lone and proud, and her baby nestled in a field of spring flowers and sunshine. Beyond, distant dark figures of apprehension were lost in the mists of time.

'Have you news of The Plague?' Jenny Entwhistle, a little wisp of a girl, emerged from the shadows.

Mrs Roach was right. There were but four other women in the room. However, she had failed to mention Jenny's two children who also vied for the space: young Beckie, three years-old, skinny stick legs peeping from beneath a rag of a dress, and Grace, thumb in mouth, and snot from her nose rushing to meet it. Never had I seen such miserable little creatures.

'No,' I said absently. 'What, pray, is The Plague?'

'They say 'tis the cause of the most vile illness and death, and that it kills wherever it breaks out. They say a man has died from it in Ferry Lane, in The Rocks. You have na' heard?' The words tumbled into the dismal room.

I shook my head, but Jenny did not pause to take note of it, and prattled on: 'They say he 'ad great swellings on 'is body, and he was vomitin' and shakin' and died in no time, stinkin' somethin' awful. They say it could spread everywhere.'

I was still for some moments, the tangled sounds of human habitation all around. Jenny's panic was infectious. She now had my full attention, and the room was suddenly very cold.
My baby. I must make my baby safe from this terror.

I had not imagined such degrading and detestable circumstances existed as those of the Kent Street lanes.

They say the hidden parts of Sydney at the turn of the century were worse by far than the slums of London, of which I had heard whispers often enough. Many people held physical scars, with pock marks, wasting and many other afflictions quite obvious. One man had no legs at all, and bumped along on shrunken stumps. God alone knows how he managed.

Families fought over their differences in the streets, clawing at each other and rolling in the mud in fits of drunkenness. With seclusion so scarce, men and women could be glimpsed coupling within and behind buildings, night and day.

To move in these lanes was to stumble over rubbish and filth; attending to personal needs, such as the washing of bodies and clothing, a constant struggle.

The women in my dormitory had difficult lives. Sarah Campbell, the most determined of them, had taken to prostitution as a way out of her penury. She was an animated skeleton, and most brazen, always taking the Lord's name in vain.

A young woman who thrashed about on the litter next to me had a naturally surly expression made most remarkable by the absence of her left eye. The empty socket glimmered sideways at you, seeming more lively than her real eye, and as black as her soul.

Hannah Simpkins, a thief, was capable of stealing the leg from a donkey.

Paradoxically, my favourite among this brood was a woman who haunted the darkest part of the room. Mary Jones was quite mad, her frenzied dark eyes mostly hidden by grubby tangled locks. She bore her indisposition quietly at most times, venting her frustrations only on herself.

She would sit in that corner and scrape away at her arms with any sharp object which came her way, and her limbs were a mess of scars and raw red wounds. Regardless, she did have a certain dignity which was hard to overlook. I was indeed sorry for her, and did what I could to help in little ways. I wonder even now what dreadful matters came to pass to reduce her to such a plight.

Somehow these people existed here, as much a part of this place as werethe cockroaches that crawled around the walls and the floor.

Jenny Entwhistle had counselled me against walking up fashionable George Street, saying we should keep to Sussex Street which was more to our station. How I wish I had listened to her.

We'd barely reached the corner of Liverpool Street when a group of three larrikins and their girlfriends surrounded us, calling and jeering. Jenny and I huddled in a tight knot, she clutching tiny Grace, and me with Beckie cowering into my skirts.

'Get back to yer filthy holes,' they yelled. 'Ye molls.'

The boys stood there in their flashy bell bottomed trousers and high heeled shoes, arrogant and menacing, performing for their donahs. The girls themselves loved it, in turn parading in their cheap and fancy velvet jackets, a profusion of ostrich feathers fluttering from their hats.

The circle they formed grew tighter and tighter around us.

The little girls sobbed loudly. I knew I had to act. I straightened my stance and said as haughtily as I could: ‘'What would your parents think of this behaviour? Cease at once.'

In my experience, there is something in the heart of a delinquent which answers to such a response, whether it be shock or perhaps an echo of childish discipline. At any rate, the ploy worked.

They turned on their heels and walked north, yelling as they went.

"Prostitutes!"

"Sluts!"

We ignored them as best we could and soon breathed more easily.

It was Wednesday, rations day at Sydney Benevolent Asylum, and the queue outside the store was exceeding long with sad and ragged people. We would wait hours for an allowance of a little meat, flour, sugar, bread and tea ... supplies for a week.

This will not be my lot in life!

The poor house was also the lying-in hospital. It was large and rambling and evoked a distinctly supercilious air, guaranteed to keep the lower classes in their place. Cold as charity, as they say. I would keep my distance for as long as I could, but in the mean time, I must eat.

Jenny and the children entered the store first, but only Jenny herself emerged, clutching a parcel of rations to her chest, with tears tracing muddy paths down her face.

'They took me bairns,' Jenny sobbed. 'Said I wasn't lookin' after 'em proper and I could have no more rations 'less I gave 'em in.'

Grace and Beckie were to go to the Infants' Home at Ashfield, and Jenny could apply for them when she had reached a standard of living fit to support the two little girls.

How could she do that?

Shrieking whistles ripped the air as we turned the Market Street corner to find that horror ruled.

People young and old, singles and families jostled us and each other, scurrying south in panic and hubbub. They carried everything they owned, tied in cloth bags and humped on shoulders; and with fractured faces.

Officials yelled and screamed orders, carts rumbled, and the picks and shovels of sanitation teams scraped and scratched at the great piles of rubbish strewn around the streets. Men carted off the muck and ordered the scrubbing and scouring of hovels and the drains and lavatories surrounding them.

We struggled on to our lodgings.

A group of men with masks around their faces carried a body between them, on a frail litter, and we gagged as its stink submerged us.

The Plague had arrived and we were defenceless against its power.

Jenny and I edged down the hallway to our dormitory, but the space was skint - completely bare of any possessions. Someone had taken our belongings.

As we stood there, gazing in disbelief, I felt a sudden griping sensation, followed by a wrenching agony.

My baby would come, thievery and plague notwithstanding.

The handcart bumped and bucked as we trundled towards the lying-in hospital, past the George Street cemetery. Its gravestones shone in the light of a weak crescent moon: so many white teeth in the mouth of hell.

Aboard the cart, I was largely insensible, my entrails on fire.

The wheels shuddered again at the asylum entrance, and the men encouraged me roughly to my feet.

I almost fainted away in terror then, but made it up the steps. Here a severe looking woman stood, her face framed by a stiff white collar, and lit by a candle.

We moved forward, and I was in a very large dark space lined by portraits of imperious men.

The flickering light created strange shapes of the thick furniture, and threw into relief the rectangles of many doors around the perimeter.

As best I could, I followed the woman with her long skirts swishing across the tiled floor, my own steps slower, and faltering.

Perhaps sensing my terror, the matron turned to smile at me.

With surprise I realised that her eyes were kindly, and comforted by her softened expression, I made an effort to settle myself.

My stance became more confident and the pain lessened momentarily.

Whatever lay ahead I was determined to make a good life - for my daughter and for me.

© June Saville 2008. Not to be reproduced without express written permission of the author.

Read about the Bubonic Plague now and see some pics.

I thought this story was topical, even though The Black Death or Bubonic Plague was a much more horrifying disease than the swine flu has turned out to be right now.

It's the Australian flu season and many thousands of people have come down with sniffles, fever, aches and pains. However, it's impossible for the lay person to tell the difference between the usual annual flu virus and the new strain that is swine flu.

A bit more attention to everyday hygeine (like washing hands) is much more useful than any form of panic, in my view.

Has swine flu hit your town? How does it affect people?

HOPPING MAD - He breeds rabbits to save the world.

I've decided to re-post some of my old favourites on Journeys, to allow a little 'me' time while still keeping faith with my literary bloggy mates. The next few posts will contain stories which many of you have not read, as they were sent into the blogasphere when I had few visitors. I think some of them are among my best - let me know if you agree (or disagree). And please don't be afraid to offer constructive criticism, as usual!
'Hopping Mad' is a story told from the points of view of three different people - you'll work it out.

And please leave comments - what do you think of Ralph's situation? Did the story keep yopu reading?
Cheers
June


HOPPING MAD

Me wife’s an angel. Trouble is, she don’t like herself as much as other people do. She gets angry with herself because she’s is really terrified of crowds.

In a shopping centre or on a bus she begins to sweat and tremble. I tell er don’t worry so much, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. The other day we were near the butcher’s in the mall when she had a panic attack. It had er crumbled up in a corner in no time, with chest pains and a feeling of bein smothered. So do how can you wonder why she’d rather stay at home?

I’m a bit like that meself at the moment. It’s a struggle to get to the supermarket, or do anythin really … Everythin’s an effort. I’m always sayin’ to meself: ‘Ralph, get a wriggle on.’ I get terribly sad about Alice and I wonder why I can’t fix things for her.

I got up this morning a bit late and the kids had already packed their sandwiches for school. We made it to the gate just as the buzzer was goin for their assembly. They’re good kids.

They understand the problems Alice and me have. I just hope we don’t pass anything down to them …




Ralph is in his sullen mode – I twigged as soon as I saw him in the supermarket standing between the toilet rolls and the baby food.

Normally Ralph fills any room … with sound, and because he is big. He’ll usually greet you at the top of his voice. Today he seems diminutive by comparison, shrunken somehow. Quiet and unresponsive. So I know it is one of his bad days.
Ralph suffers bi-polar disorder — manic depression in the old money. So his life is high highs punctuated by low lows.

His wife, Alice, has problems with agoraphobia and her life is riddled with dark periods of wishing to shut herself in a cupboard and the other times when she steels herself to face the world, defying fear and trepidation. At times when she really hates herself she even slashes her arms, leaving great scars.

But those two – they’re good for each other. Ralph’s mania has him encouraging Alice to venture out of her cupboard to conquer the universe, and Alice works day and night to slow him down, for the sake of her own equilibrium.

Right now it seems as though Alice is winning. Ralph’s as low as the tide on June 30. He explains to me that he has given up on his Big Plan to apply for a government small business grant to breed rabbits. Last time I saw him he was all-fired to get into the scheme which was meant to produce high quality very large rabbits especially bred for meat production.

His idea was to build hutches on land belonging to a mate of his. The land is at the edge of town and he reckoned there wouldn’t be any problem. Now though the idea was dead.
I commiserate with him and move on. I know from long practice that trying to jolly Ralph out of his low moods is quite beyond me.




That person over there – the one in blue standing over there near the toilet rolls – he’s the bane of my life. Although I must say he seems calm enough today. It’s a case of be grateful for small mercies though. Normally he yells and rants around the shop aggravating the customers. Bails up my cashiers. ‘You owe me another dollar,’ he’ll say ‘it’s the wrong change.’ Then he’ll scream: ‘This tin of jam has a use by date of six months ago!’. Next thing he’ll have a loud conversation to himself about the shop staff being the stooges of international capitalism. We can hear him bellowing from the delicatessen counter all the way to the soap powders. He’s a raving lunatic and no supermarket manager should have to put up with him. He’s as loopy as they come.




I know this mood I’m in won’t last long. The extra lithium will kick in soon and things’ll look a lot brighter.

It’s about time. I’ve been as depressed as hell for six weeks now. It does horrible things to yer sex life. I’m as shitty as all getout if I can’t make it when we’re together. Alice is some woman in bed, except when she’s really depressed. I suppose sex is a comfort to her. A bit womb-like eh? Being in bed with me …
But right now I can’t be bothered.

‘Hey Alice! Have you seen me hat? I’m sure I put it here somewhere …’

Do you like me colour scheme? It can be depression blue or sky blue, according to my mood. Me mother used to say: ‘Make sure you match everything up Ralph.’ I have always had problems with that because, you see, I’m colour blind. I mix up greens and reds. So as I got to the age of consent I thought of a way out. I matched up me clothing with me eyes – they’re the same as me mother’s. A gentle shade of blue.

It’s worked well. I don’t have to think about what shirt is what colour. I just buy everything white and dunk it in a tub of dye. No worries. People make comments all the time, and it picks me out in a crowd ...

I thought I might get outside and water the fruit trees. But now, without the hat …

Yes, Alice is a gift from God. We’re good for each other. Teamwork in a marriage is the stepladder and the bookends as they say. The formula is sacrifice. The true blue bird of happiness has two wings – one male and one female – and they oughta fly in unison as though they were one.




Although they are on social security, Ralph and Alice have two kids who go to the best private school in their country town. He used to be a salesman in the city before his crisis hit, and a member of the Labor Party. Now the family survives, and very well thank you, because Ralph works the system.

He’s also a mad keen environmentalist, with a garden that is a mass of fruit trees and vegetable gardens; cutting down on the food bills.

With uncanny know how Ralph smells out the latest government and community handouts. How to get cheaper drugs, treatment, accommodation and schooling. He seeks out support for his brood, making friends of health workers, pension officers, church goers and government administrators. That’s how he got the idea to breed rabbits.




Alice and I come from a long line of dysfunctionals y'know. Addiction to grog and mental illness as well – on both sides. It was a big decision to start producing kids together, I can tell you. We were shittin ourselves about it. It took us a long time to make up our minds …

We were both married before and Alice had a daughter by a schizophrenic father. I adopted her and now she’s surprisin everyone. She’s got a job, employed as a psychiatric nurse, and our own three kids are doing okay too. I worked the system a bit with the church and got them into a good private school down the road. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, y'know.

The youngest girl tops her class, so the way things are going it’s possible that two wonky people may be producing leaders of tomorrow. How about that …

Would I do it again? Most of the time … I would. The kids are our life. They force us … okay, because of them we get to eat baked beans on toast when otherwise we could sometimes eat caviar. But that’s all right.

We could’ve eaten caviar if I’d got on with me rabbits. I had this idea to breed rabbits. For meat. To slaughter for meat. But I just didn’t have the guts to go ahead with it.

Well, I dunno what’s come over me … I’ve talked more to you than I have for days; to anyone. I gotta put me feet up now though.

Maybe the lithium will kick in tomorra …




Well hi! It’s been months hasn’t it? Boy, have things changed fer me. How about coming to look at me rabbits?

You look a bit shocked… didn’t ya think I’d make it? Yeah, they arrived yesterdee. I bought a job lot of just a dozen, and I reckon it won’t be long before I treble me stock. Come on give us a lift – it’s not far.




It had been three months since our meeting in the supermarket, and he seemed to be keeping a low profile. Yesterday though I was crossing the main street when there was a bellow a few metres behind me.

It was Ralph. The old expansive, rowdy, fun-filled Ralph. Hopefully, the lithium was doing its job, I thought.

He caught up with me: ‘How about coming to look at me rabbits?’ he asked.

‘What, you’re on the way?’ I gasped, a bit shocked. I should have learned not to be surprised at anything after all this time; in his good periods Ralph was a real bulldozer. Before I knew it we had jumped into my car and were on our way. to the rabbits.




Well, there we were standing on his mate’s land alongside maybe fifty big rabbit hutches sitting in straight rows, all as neat as pins.

Forty-eight of the hutches were bereft of tenants. The other two were filled with healthy looking bundles of fluff.

‘They’re the New Zealand variety – great for fur and meat, but I’m just concentrating on the meat side af things at the moment. Beauties, aren’t they?’

‘I bet your kids love them, Ralph.’

‘Sure do,’ he bubbled. ‘I do meself.’

‘What about Alice? Does she like them too?’

He glanced at me, momentarily glum. ‘She ain’t seen them. She’s real dark at the
moment ... ‘

‘Oh well Ralph, she’ll come good. Tell me. Why the extra forty-eight hutches? A bit premature, aren’t you?’

‘Do you know your multiplication tables still? Well, rabbits seem to. They only arrived in Australia in 1858 and multiplied so fast that the population grew to 500 million in next to no time. That’s before myxomatosis hit, af course. A single doe can have a couple of dozen babes a year y’know. I reckon I’ll need these hutches.’

What could I say?




God’s on me side in this. I’ve prayed for divine guidance about the rabbits, and He has assured me I’ve got it. I’ve been given a big responsibility here. It’s the beginning of a project that will feed the whole world.

I wrote to ex-President Mandela the other day to give him the benefit of me experience. They’ve got lots a mouths to feed over there, so I’m expecting a reply any day. Maybe he’ll even visit, now he has more time.

I’ve let little Johnnie Howard in on the secret too, although I can’t stand a bar of him. But still, he’s in power at the moment, so you have to take advantage of all avenues.

Yeah, everything is going real well. Even Alice is swept up with all the excitement. She comes and visits the rabbits now and then, and tomorra we’re going to the school sports carnival. It’s maybe tempting fate with the crowd and all, but she’s determined to give it a go …




Over the months I used to see Ralph in full roar in various parts of the town. Invariably he’d call out to me with news of some progress in his rabbit scheme: ‘I’ve built another dozen hutches’ or ‘We’ve invested in six more does to help things along a bit.’ I even met Alice at a school sports day, and she looked pretty good, and once Ralph showed me a cheque he’d received after sending the first batch of rabbits to the abattoir. Things in the family’s garden were rosy. I just hoped all this energy was being directed in a profitable way.




We’re up to 100 hutches now. The Bank card’s taking a bit of a battering, but I know we’re onto a good thing. Had to buy a few more does to send the breeding along a bit, but that’s goin’ all right too.

I said to the kids: ‘Look kids it’s better that we’re on baked beans at the moment than give up on the rabbits. This is an enterprise that could save the entire world. You’re makin’ a noble sacrifice.’

They don’t always seem to understand that we’ve been chosen by the Almighty for this work. They want to put tickets to the movies and new clothes before the rabbits. Bugger them! They’ve gotta learn …

I’ve got a real buzz on at the moment. Made another two hutches last night. It took all night, mind you, but I’m on a high, so I may as well get into it. There’s a problem, though. The bloody neighbours are complaining. Old Jack screamed at me about two 2am, yelling about the hammerin and sawin. I just yelled back and kept workin.

If only people would understand. Like the chick at the supermarket checkout … I was in there buying me lettuces when she had to do her till right when it was my turn. Then, after I waited five minutes for er to tie up the little bag of change she said I had too many lettuces. There was a special on, she said, and there was a limit of only half a dozen …

Well! I said how do you think I’m going to make half a dozen lettuces go around forty rabbits? These multinational conglomerations make all the rules, I said. She called the manager and even then I couldn’t win. He stood his ground and I gave mine, and stamped out of their bloody store never to return.




Next time he comes into this shop I’ll call the police. If they can’t shut him up in a lunatic asylum he’ll have to spend time in a cell. I couldn’t care less. I have my bottom line to think about. Customers walk out of the store because of him, and he’s here so often it’s bound to affect business. It’s the ultimate embarrassment. Why he terrorises us I wouldn’t know. Why not give all the other supermarkets a turn?




Alice and the kids are startin to feel the stress of all this rabbit stuff, y’know. Alice is hidin’ in her room, in a real dark mood, and the kids go around starin me down and askin me if I’m takin enough lithium.

They can’t recognise an efficient hard workin human being when they see one. They think the rabbit enterprise is gamblin with the family finances. It’s not bein able to afford a computer and new school uniforms is what’s gettin them.

I say: Look kids, you’ve got to take the long view, like the Chinese. They’re the successful ones in this world. Short term pain for long term gain, I tell em. But I can’t seem to make a dint.

All together, things are startin to crowd in on us. I’ve been puttin a fair bit of pressure on God lately, askin Him for help with all these stubborn people around me.

I tried the Lord’s Prayer last night. I needed to get His attention so I have started goin to church three times every day and goin round the house at night. I’ve got a little ritual worked out for Him. I say the prayer to Him, fast and regular, and non-stop, and turn the various lights off and on in the house. He won’t be able to ignore that. I got the message back … to press on regardless.




G’day. Thought I might see ya here. Wanted to let ya know I’m goin real well. Getting so many things done. Really gettin things done. Goin hell for leather. Been a week since I slept. Since I slept. No need for sleep when there’s so much to do. One hundred rabbits now and 150 hutches. All in a row. Hutches. In rows. And rabbits. And all those lettuces. I get mates to go and buy lettuces. That gets around the conglomerations.

I got the priest to help the other night. I collected all the rabbit crap and all the rancid lettuce leaves out of the hutches. Dumped em on the presbytery doorstep. Asked him to do his bit for the world’s hungry. Help me get rid of it I said. Everyone must take their part. You too. What are you goin’ to do?

Saw yer daughter yesterdee. Down the main drag. I thought to meself: What a lovely person. Just like her dad. I gave er a big hug and a kiss. She understands me rabbits. I told her about em. And she understands. I had to tell her about me rabbits. Feeding the world. With rabbits.




Maybe a year later I was in the supermarket again, buying milk. As I closed in on the refrigerator my eyes nearly popped. I blinked purposefully, but no, my first impression came through again. There, cringeing in a corner not far from the cream and the margarine were two fluffy white rabbits.

I couldn’t help thinking of Ralph at the time, but put him out of my mind and dutifully reported the rabbits to the store manager who dispatched two underlings to deal with the situation. It was a fun time, watching the staff chase the rabbits down the aisles and finally out the main door.

Fifteen minutes later I was driving home when I noticed three more rabbits in the main town park. I nearly skittled another near the bowling alley and then saw another six or so quietly munching grass in the school playground. It was time to investigate.



That’s the last straw. It’s him. I know it’s him. The rabbit man. The loony. This company has been the laughing stock for the last time. They say he has a wife and children to feed, but it’s now him or me. He’s a ratbag – completely unhinged. Customers complain and respectable citizens are suffering. Next stop for him – a padded cell.




I made it to Ralph’s rabbit enterprise, and got out of the car. There had been a sea change since I last visited. Now maybe 150 hutches peppered Ralph’s mate’s land, all sturdy and standing in military style rows. But there the similarity to precision and shiny buttons disintegrated, for the place was a shambles.

There was a horrible smell of filth and rotting vegetation. Matted grass had grown halfway up the walls of the hutches and there was a general air of untidiness. The doors of most of the little houses were wide open and there was not one rabbit in sight.

I walked down the rows in a sort of mourning. So much energy had been expended there. So many dreams and hopes.

Right down the back of the place there was a feed and equipment shed and I put my head in the door. Ralph was sitting on a ricketty chair at the far end of the room, sobbing – his whole body racked with despair.

It was so sad to see this grown man cry.




G’day. Things aren’t real great are they?

Two weeks ago I blew a gasket, and they wheeled me off to the funny farm. They say I’ve been overdoin it and they’ve been pumpin heaps of drugs into me. Far too many of em … Far too many … They reckoned I was overdoin it. I tried to say to them: If you’re given a task you ave to overdo things to get things done. They don’t seem to understand …

There, in me PJs in the funny farm I said to em what about me rabbits? I’ve got to look after me rabbits. I tried to convince them, but nothin seemed to work. And then after a few days I said to meself: Why worry? Why worry about the rabbits? Why worry about the starvin millions? Me shoulders just aren’t big enough. Not big enough for all that.

The kids came to visit and it was so sad to see their dark little eyes filled with disappointment. They said their mum couldn’t come to visit. They said she spent the night in the walk-in wardrobe, and couldn’t see her way clear at the moment …

I asked them – the kids – about the rabbits. They said they had fed them the last of the lettuces, and what else could they do?

I thought a bit. Yes, what could we do with the rabbits? I couldn’t just let them starve. There in their hutches while I’m locked up in the funny farm. So I said to the kids: Look mates, just go out to the Enterprise and let them out. Let them all out. Open the doors to all of the hutches and shoo them until they get loose. They’ll have to fend for themselves. And so that’s what they did …

Well, as you can see, I’m out of the funny farm and back into me depression blue … It’s a month now since I’ve seen the Enterprise and there’s been a lot a changes … A lot a water has gone under the bridge as they say. The rabbits are all gone. All gone. Along with me dreams of savin the world.

The kids tell me their school friends are talkin about seeing rabbits all over the place. They’ve scattered to the four corners of the compass. I hope they make it. The rabbits. I don’t think they’ll starve. Not with the grass growin like it has since the rain.

But what makes me sadder than anythin is President Mandela. I gotta letter today. He said I was doin a mighty thing for mankind, and must keep it up. How can I break the news to im? How can I tell im what’s happened?


© June Saville 2008 All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without written permission of the author.







Constructive feedback and criticism VERY welcome!
To me, it's important to separate the person we know from the new personality that sometimes emerges in an episode of mental illness. The old person is still there!
Ralph suffers a mental illness but he's a most caring and worthwhile person. Do you agree?

LABYRINTH - Plague in Olde Sydney Town

'and then we got into a labyrinth,
and when we thought we were at the end,
came out again at the beginning,
having still to seek as much as ever.'
- Plato



It is a particularly dark and still February night in harbourside Sydney Town, a scorching airless night where hundreds of souls toss and turn on beds of straw and rags, wishing for the southerly to come and ease the heat, the latest of their discomforts.

Look close through the gloom to see outsize rats skitter from nearby docked ships. See them nuzzle the rubbish in streets and backyards, and watch them scamper through cesspits and ground depressions where foul slops lie.

Venture a little behind the fine facades of Kent Street to find those souls in the tangle of filthy brick huts. Little buildings packed tight in criss - crossed lanes and courts, hidden and forgotten. In rows of seven at a time those huts, stuffed with families and workers sharing four rooms at the rate of sixteen per hut. And them with one tap and two water closets to the row.In one such room a candle flickers, throwing strange shadows about the walls, and lighting six sleeping bodies and another, with eyes wide open, staring.

Miriam McDonald is odd to this place, her red hair gleaming. She reclines on the dank straw, the fine cotton fabric of her nightgown stretched against her distended belly. Her long thin hands move to this roundness, stroking gently.

A deep sigh, and a woman nearby throws her arm loose as she rolls in her sleep
.
Listen for myriad other sounds in the night. Groans, and screams and thudding bodies, horse's neigh, ropes strain and slack canvas flaps, distant train whistle. The body collectors trundle their cart.
Against these rough sounds, Miriam sings, oh so low and so sweet, to her coming child.

* * *
They say that the more respectable a family, the less patience is shown if a child should fall from grace. This was surely the case with Miriam’s Momma and Poppa who had worked in the employ of the Macarthurs at Parramatta all of their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them.

Through the years her family had invested much in achieving a good reputation, and were now showing very little tolerance in their daughter’s time of trial. To Miriam, it seemed as though they had thrust her aside, leaving her prey to countless horrors. She would never be so heartless with a child of her own, she whispered.

Mostly she was able to persuade herself that she had done nothing to bring about her troubles, and that there was nothing to feel guilty about. At other times she felt an unease and asked herself if she could have done anything to prevent the catastrophe. Try as she might, she could not condone her parents’ attitude and that made her very determined that she would make her own way, and solve her own problems
.
To be fair, Miriam’s parents were always kind and taught her the niceties of her station, and some accomplishments a little above that. She even played the piano a little, and wrote a reasonable copperplate. Her needlework was not perfect, as she lacked patience in that field, but it was passable.

Those who knew Miriam intimately would note that she knew how to seem docile and agreeable, but suspected that she didn’t always feel that way. Something in Miriam seemed to bubble at times. Some would say it was her nature to speak too loudly and too long. Her eyes did not peep out from fluttering lashes, but gazed boldly. Perhaps this was a predisposition for one with such red hair.

Miriam was eighteen when she first decided to take a path of her own. She'd heard of life outside of Parramatta, and she wanted to live it. It is perhaps an irony that her parents’ careful preparation of their daughter’s attainments smoothed the path to her downfall.

The decision made, Miriam had little trouble gaining a place at one of the more stylish residences in the colony. It is also true that this was made easy because of the connection between the Macarthurs and Lyndhurst. After all, its original owner Dr. Bowman married John and Elizabeth Macarthur's daughter.
Miriam imagined that her parents believed the new discipline would be good for her character, for they had supported her application. So, even when she found herself in a most horrifying and extreme state, because she understood the pain they suffered, Miriam still called her parents ‘dear’.

* * *
To a young girl away from home for the first time Lyndhurst seemed the most dismal and sombre of houses: two storeys with vast high ceilings at both levels, and sprawling on its own peninsular into Blackwattle Cove.
The darkness closed in as the sulky rattled up the bluff. The great bulk of the house threw deep dark shadows over the garden beds, and the leafless trees thrust their branches outwards: threatening and gnarled and ugly.

Miriam discovered herself cringing into the corner of her seat. She dabbed with a handkerchief at small beads of perspiration that had settled on her forehead. To that point she had been excited at the prospect of her new life. What was so different now? She pulled herself together and adjusted her bonnet as the horse clip clopped its way to the servants' quarters around the back
.
For many days the girl with the red hair was tossed on a most turbulent tide. She was a maid, at the beck and call of everyone in the household. Her duties called her to answer to the slightest of whims, dashing through a maze of dark and shadowy rooms at the sound of a bell. She fetched firewood and hot water to the upstairs bed chambers, humped mattresses, and moved furniture from parlour to dining room. She scoured and fetched and carried until exhausted.

Still, in her occasional quiet moments she felt a sense of accomplishment, and an enjoyment with the newness of it all. There were dinner parties and soirees when some of the most powerful people in the colony ventured along the Lyndhurst carriage way to pay their respects, and show their finery.

Always from a discreet distance, Miriam watched the ladies in their elegant gowns, and wondered at the miracle of their tiny waists. She could hear refined voices discussing Mr. Hordern's new emporium and the demise of the skirt bustle in Sydney fashion circles. She noted that the gentlemen vied with each other for the heaviest gold watch and chain, and for the fine tailoring of their black suits. The new Constitution Bill also featured heavily in their conversations.

There was one man Miriam admired particularly, even though his demeanour made her strangely uneasy. Young Mr. Oswin was different from the rest. He remained detached from those milling around the piano, or gossiping on the various sofas. He simply stood quiet, a tall and brooding presence at one end of the room.

A friend of the young master, Mr. Oswin was staying as part of the household. For some days Miriam took any excuse to view his bearing and his languid brown eyes, apparently filled with secrets. She fell to daydreaming about him, imagining him paying her attentions; offering her a posy he had picked from the garden. She imagined him bowing grandly and asking her to dance. She caught herself blushing at the thought.

One evening it occurred to her that Mr. Oswin himself was returning her glances, even though his gaze was more steady and unsubtle than she dared myself. His unwavering gaze became a compelling feature of her life and those eyes seemed to follow her everywhere, quite hypnotic. Miriam would admit that she enjoyed the attention, and on occasions, she even found herself smiling in his direction. However, when she did so, a strange sensation of fear always followed.

* * *
Sharp needles of ice cold pricked her cheeks as Miriam moved through the darkened house, setting things to right before she could retire for the evening. Her hand lingered on the thick velvet of the drawing room drapery, enjoying its softness.

Outside, a gusty wind whipped through the trees on the bay. The dull glint of gaslights played on the buildings of the distant town, then slipped into the bay to shimmer on its restless water. She shivered. And then she turned swiftly to direct the light of her candle towards a subtle movement in the corner of the room ...

The light flickered, revealing Mr. Oswin. He looked strangely uneasy, his frame ramrod straight and his eyes shuttered. He took a step towards her and Miriam’s prickling skin warned that there was something amiss. She reeled towards the door, but Oswin moved closer and his hand was a vice on her shoulder.
‘Be still,’ he whispered hoarsely.

The heavy candlestick clattered to the floor, snuffing its flame. Oswin’s hand stifled her scream and they struggled together, there in the half light. Then for a moment, the girl with the red hair seemed to relax, as though bending to his will.

But then she sank her small teeth into his hand, felt the bone, and tasted warm blood. She broke free, ran to the end of the room and stopped, twisting to meet him.

Blue eyes flashing, Miriam brandished a scoop of red hot embers from the fire.
'Come no closer,' she seethed.

'Now my pretty. You want this. You know you do.' The gold watch and chain glittered at his waist.

'No sir. I do not. Get back. Get back .'For a moment, he turned from her, and then he turned again, to step sideways and behind her small frame, capturing the scoop and her arms in one action.

'You little witch!'He stemmed her cries again, this time with fierce lips, and they rolled to the floor.

The dying fire illumined her desperation.

* * *
The black water of the bay was thick with floating trash. The stench of human waste intensified as she approached the scramble of buildings on the other side of the swivel iron bridge. Lightning bolts split the lowering sky, and she shivered, although the sticky heat was intense.The girl with the nest of red hair bent beneath the weight of her single cloth bag, and her gait faltered.

Sydney Town.

Humanity gathered to crush her in its grip, sweeping her past Sussex Street and left into Kent Street. Leering men and skinny crones, yelling and screaming children, and young women with lifeless faces.

Miriam approached one who sat suckling a child on the wooden steps of a house.

'Roach, ye say? Next lane, fifth on the right.'

The squalor was worse with each step. She fought her way past four children playing in mud, and a slobbering drunk propped up against a wall. Mrs Roach, toothless and gross, leaned in the doorway of a crumbling hut at the end of the row.

'Miss McDonald? They said you was comin'. A wicked girl, they said.'

Wicked. She didn't feel wicked. It was Mr. Oswin who was wicked. Him and his oily ways. Miriam felt the sting of tears as the woman preceded her into a dim hallway, damp with earthen floor and corroding brick walls. Many eyes peered at her as they passed a row of doors lining the hall.

They were the eyes of people prostrate or sitting in semi-darkness, crowded into tiny spaces; people odious- and angry-looking.

'This room's yours. Only five in here, with yersel', an all of 'em females. Think yersel' lucky.'

The hag turned to shuffle down the hall. Miriam wiped the tears with the back of her hand and gazed at her new prison. It reeked of sweat and pain and hopelessness. She placed the bag with her precious possessions on a heap of straw in the corner, and sank down beside it
.
Which way out of this hell hole?

That night on her squalid bed she tossed and then she dreamed. She dreamed of a woman, lone and proud, and her baby nestled in a field of spring flowers and sunshine. Beyond, distant dark figures of apprehension were lost in the mists of time.

* * *
'Have you news of The Plague?' Jenny Entwhistle, a little wisp of a girl, emerged from the shadows.

Mrs Roach was right. There were but four other women in the room. However, she had failed to mention Jenny's two children who also vied for the space: young Beckie, three years-old, skinny stick legs peeping from beneath a rag of a dress, and Grace, thumb in mouth, and snot from her nose rushing to meet it. Never have I seen such miserable little creatures.

'No,' I said absently. 'What, pray, is The Plague?'

'They say 'tis the cause of the most vile illness and death, and that it kills wherever it breaks out. They say a man has died from it in Ferry Lane, in The Rocks. You have na' heard?' The words tumbled into the dismal room.

I shook my head, but Jenny did not pause to take note of it, and prattled on: 'They say he 'ad great swellings on 'is body, and he was vomitin' and shakin' and died in no time, stinkin' somethin' awful. They say it could spread everywhere.'

I was still for some moments, the tangled sounds of human habitation all around. Jenny's panic was infectious.
She now had my full attention, and the room was suddenly very cold.

My baby. I must make my baby safe from this terror.

* * *
I had not imagined such degrading and detestable circumstances existed as those of the Kent Street lanes.
They say the hidden parts of Sydney at the turn of the century were worse by far than the slums of London, of which I had heard whispers often enough. Many people held physical scars, with pock marks, wasting and many other afflictions quite obvious. One man had no legs at all, and bumped along on shrunken stumps. God alone knows how he managed.

Families fought over their differences in the streets, clawing at each other and rolling in the mud in fits of drunkenness. With seclusion so scarce, men and women could be glimpsed coupling within and behind buildings, night and day.

To move in these lanes was to stumble over rubbish and filth; attending to personal needs, such as the washing of bodies and clothing, a constant struggle.

The women in my dormitory had difficult lives. Sarah Campbell, the most determined of them, had taken to prostitution as a way out of her penury. She was an animated skeleton, and most brazen, always taking the Lord's name in vain.

A young woman who thrashed about on the litter next to me had a naturally surly expression made most remarkable by the absence of her left eye. The empty socket glimmered sideways at you, seeming more lively than her real eye, and as black as her soul.

Hannah Simpkins, a thief, was capable of stealing the leg from a donkey.

Paradoxically, my favourite among this brood was a woman who haunted the darkest part of the room. Mary Jones was quite mad, her frenzied dark eyes mostly hidden by grubby tangled locks. She bore her indisposition quietly at most times, venting her frustrations only on herself. She would sit in that corner and scrape away at her arms with any sharp object which came her way, and her limbs were a mess of scars and raw red wounds.

Regardless, she did have a certain dignity which was hard to overlook. I was indeed sorry for her, and did what I could to help in little ways. I wonder even now what dreadful matters came to pass to reduce her to such a plight.

Somehow these people existed here, as much a part of this place as were the cockroaches that crawled around the walls and the floor.

* * *
Jenny Entwhistle had counselled me against walking up fashionable George Street, saying we should keep to Sussex Street which was more to our station. How I wish I had listened to her.

We'd barely reached the corner of Liverpool Street when a group of three larrikins and their girlfriends surrounded us, calling and jeering. Jenny and I huddled in a tight knot, she clutching tiny Grace, and me with Beckie cowering into my skirts.

'Get back to yer filthy holes,' they yelled. 'Ye molls.'

The boys stood there in their flashy bell bottomed trousers and high heeled shoes, arrogant and menacing, performing for their donahs. The girls themselves loved it, in turn parading in their cheap and fancy velvet jackets, a profusion of ostrich feathers fluttering from their hats
.
The circle they formed grew tighter and tighter around us.

The little girls sobbed loudly. I knew I had to act. I straightened my stance and said as haughtily as I could: ‘'What would your parents think of this behaviour? Cease at once.'

In my experience, there is something in the heart of a delinquent which answers to such a response, whether it be shock or perhaps an echo of childish discipline. At any rate, the ploy worked.

They turned on their heels and walked north, yelling as they went."Prostitutes!""Sluts!"

We ignored them as best we could and soon breathed more easily.

* * *
It was Wednesday, rations day at Sydney Benevolent Asylum, and the queue outside the store was exceeding long with sad and ragged people. We would wait hours for an allowance of a little meat, flour, sugar, bread and tea ... supplies for a week.

This will not be my lot in life! The poor house was also the lying-in hospital. It was large and rambling and evoked a distinctly supercilious air, guaranteed to keep the lower classes in their place. Cold as charity, as they say. I would keep my distance for as long as I could, but in the mean time, I must eat.

Jenny and the children entered the store first, but only Jenny herself emerged, clutching a parcel of rations to her chest, with tears tracing muddy paths down her face.

'They took me bairns,' Jenny sobbed. 'Said I wasn't lookin' after 'em proper and I could have no more rations 'less I gave 'em in.'

Grace and Beckie were to go to the Infants' Home at Ashfield, and Jenny could apply for them when she had reached a standard of living fit to support the two little girls.

How could she do that?

* * *
Shrieking whistles ripped the air as we turned the Market Street corner to find that horror ruled.
People young and old, singles and families jostled us and each other, scurrying south in panic and hubbub. They carried everything they owned, tied in cloth bags and humped on shoulders; and with fractured faces.

Officials yelled and screamed orders, carts rumbled, and the picks and shovels of sanitation teams scraped and scratched at the great piles of rubbish strewn around the streets. Men carted off the muck and ordered the scrubbing and scouring of hovels and the drains and lavatories surrounding them.We struggled on to our lodgings.

A group of men with masks around their faces carried a body between them, on a frail litter. We gagged as its stink submerged us.

The Plague had arrived and we were defenceless against its power.

Jenny and I edged down the hallway to our dormitory, but the space was skint - completely bare of any possessions. Someone had taken our belongings.

As we stood there, gazing in disbelief, I felt a sudden griping sensation, followed by a wrenching agony.
My baby would come, thievery and plague notwithstanding.

* * *
The handcart bumped and bucked as we trundled towards the lying-in hospital, past the George Street cemetery. Its gravestones shone in the light of a weak crescent moon: so many white teeth in the mouth of hell.Aboard the cart, I was largely insensible, my entrails on fire.

The wheels shuddered again at the asylum entrance, and the men encouraged me roughly to my feet.
I almost fainted away in terror then, but made it up the steps. Here a severe looking woman stood, her face framed by a stiff white collar, and lit by a candle.

We moved forward, and I was in a very large dark space lined by portraits of imperious men. The flickering light created strange shapes of the thick furniture, and threw into relief the rectangles of many doors around the perimeter.

As best I could, I followed the woman with her long skirts swishing across the tiled floor, my own steps slower, and faltering.

Perhaps sensing my terror, the matron turned to smile at me.

With surprise I realised that her eyes were kindly, and comforted by her softened expression, I made an effort to settle myself.

My stance became more confident and the pain lessened momentarily.

Whatever lay ahead I was determined to make a good life - for my daughter and for me.

© June Saville 2008. Not to be reproduced without express written permission of the author.

Read about the Bubonic Plague now and see some pics.

FRIENDS FOR A TIME - Love in a Nursing Home

The ginger cat languishes in the best chair on the nursing home verandah, purrs loudly and occasionally preens himself.

A ray of sun plays on his fur, making it shine, and trickles onto the paved verandah floor and over to the garden bed of brilliant pink azaleas and maiden hair fern. A locust hums in the gum tree in the centre of the lawn. It is an idyllic day.

Inside the building, the sun shines only occasionally. Where it does, it lights the wide expanse of highly polished corridors, the neat counterpains on the beds, and brings a sparkle and a flash to the fish pond in the large television room.

There is a squinch of rubber soles on linoleum, and the tap tap tapping of a stick as a young nurse guides an old man down the hall and onto the verandah. She watches as he sighs into the second best chair on the verandah, next to the cat. She pats a rug around his knees, adjusts the shawl lying on the shoulders of an elderly woman sitting in the third best chair, alongside the man, and leaves them.

At the same time, the man and the woman turn towards each other and smile. He leans over and strokes the cat. The three are very comfortable together.

Mr Reynolds is a godsend. He is such a gentle man, and so full of interesting conversation. My days now seem to revolve around our times on the verandah, for he has changed my life. With him, I feel so warm.

The man and the woman are both quite small, shrunken with age. Their bodies respond slowly now, but their eyes are bright and flit over the details of their landscape. Their expressions change in unison, and with the conversation: sometimes twinkling over a story, or growing still with a thought from the past.

I have lived here for twelve months now, and a mixed up time it has been for me. I felt a freedom when I was first shown my very own room. Suddenly I had a space of my own. Always until then someone else had made the running for me. Mostly it was my husband who set the pace, sometimes with my welfare in mind, but mainly for his own reasons. In his self-centred way he made all the decisions, and didn’t ask what I thought. It was the same when the children left home. Nothing really changed.

He was a person who swept all before him. Yes, he was efficient. And capable. But he never seemed to have time to spare for little things. He was just a spinning top. I looked after the children and the house, but he put his stamp on everything. Everything was his creation, not mine. I was always an extension of another’s life.

He died suddenly and of course there was a void. Take a huge personality like his out of the equation and there has to be loneliness. I lived with my daughter for a while, but I felt I was in the way, and when my chest got worse I had the excuse I wanted to get a place of my own. Even though by then it had to be a room only, with 24-hour care.

So I really enjoyed my new room, putting my bits and pieces around, and ordering curtains and bedspread to match, just to my liking. It was pleasant to have quiet times too, when I knew no-one would interrupt, or be demanding.

There are always nurses, of course, but they’re nice here, and very insightful when it comes to seeing that you want some time to yourself.

There is a clatter of teacups and a rattle of a trolley coming down the hall. The two old people stir in expectation of a cup of tea, and a scone with jam and cream. Today they are remembering their childhood. Spinning stories of school time, of Christmas, and holidays. Of parents and siblings. Of joys and sadness. Their faces shine with involvement and appreciation. The tea is always hot and strong, and peps you up so the conversation keeps on rolling.

The solicitous tea lady and her cups have rattled down the hall again. There is the sound of muffled crying in the bedroom across the way, and the voice of a nurse reassuring a bewildered new resident. Cooking smells give away the secret of tonight’s menu: baked lamb. A cleaner swishes a mop, and clanks a bucket.

A loud insistent voice shatters the calm, and a pudgy woman in a flannelette nightgown with bare feet and curlers in her hair rushes past. ‘That patient should have been discharged yesterday. We need his bed!’ she yells at the top of her voice, and indicates a man sitting at the far end of the verandah. He is oblivious to the fuss, and continues staring into the distance. The woman is the former matron of the local hospital.

The couple near the cat watch on. Then they laugh. They have seen this sad circus before.

Well I suppose I enjoyed my solitude for perhaps a month, when I began to feel the need for some company. The occupational therapist suggested a game of Scrabble in the television room. That really appealed to me, for I love word games. But I found that the other residents and I parted company when it came to the game itself. The therapist tried valiantly, but it seemed that I was the only person in the room capable of putting a couple of letters together.

It was a shock to learn that most of the residents were afflicted mentally in some way. Many of them had dementia, it seemed, or had simply let themselves slow down. Their faculties certainly left a lot to be desired.

That discovery left me a very lonely woman. Except for the nurses, I was in an intellectual desert. Of course, the staff members didn’t have much time for long conversations, although they did what they could.

Three months after I arrived there was a young man in a wheelchair. He had car injuries but he was still very alert, and he was a real gentleman with all the old people, however vague they seemed to be. There was no-where else for him to go at the time, and he and I became quite friendly even though we were poles apart in so many ways. I did enjoy our conversations. Lucky for him, and sad for me, he got a place in a rehab centre just a few weeks later. That meant I was alone again, sitting here on the verandah with only the cat for company. I did miss him. Terribly.

The elderly couple ease themselves from their chairs now, and make their way to a sunnier corner of the verandah. The man is tap tapping with his stick; the woman holds the shawl tightly around her shoulders. At this spot, near a display stand of pot plants, the nursing home gardener has set out a watering can and a small container of implements. The man and the woman take turns watering the pots which are a riot of annuals. They loosen the earth around the plants and scatter fertiliser granules. It is their private garden.

Mr Reynolds arrived three months ago. At the first opportunity, my favourite nursing sister brought him around to the verandah where I was sitting, and introduced us. I could see immediately that he was such a nice man. He had suffered a bad heart attack – his third – and he was left in a very frail condition.

His brain was quite intact, though. We hit it off immediately, and we have been sharing our days ever since.

The shadows are lengthening a little, and a middle aged woman makes her way along the verandah, and finds the couple at their garden. She is the man’s only daughter, and it is obvious that she enjoys her father’s company, and is glad of his friendship with the woman. She has come straight from work and stays only a short while. She has family responsibilities at home.

I think I’m in love. It might seem ridiculous at our age, but why shouldn’t it be so? Does love have to mean an overwhelming urge for sex? Why can’t it be a comfortable feeling. A sharing and a happiness? Can’t that be love?

The sun rises and it sets at the nursing home. Some days are bright, and some wet and cool. The private garden is in full bloom, and commented upon by staff and visitors. The lady and the man share the limelight, and enjoy their flowers. They are blooming themselves.

I am feeling more happy within myself than I have been for many years. It is so wonderful to share one’s days ... Mr Reynolds and I have so many common interests. Comfortable is the word. Perhaps it is our time in life to some extent, for there is no need for competition. No need to impress. Simply a shared requirement for peace and companionship.

The piano tinkles softly in the television room. A community volunteer is playing ‘The Rose of Tralee’, and a dozen residents sit in a row of ergonomic easy chairs, memories stirring.

Today there is a chill breeze on the verandah and clouds are scudding across the sky. The annuals in the private garden are almost spent, and the gardener has taken away some of the pots. The lady and the man draw their winter woollies closer, and amble into the television room where someone has set a log fire not far from the piano. It has only been weeks since they met, and yet it has been a lifetime.

Mr Reynolds isn’t well. They took him to hospital for a check up a week ago yesterday. I asked the nurse to tell him not to worry about the garden. I would look after it while he is away.

The lady wandered over to the cat lying there, as usual, on its chair. She bent painfully, and stroked the soft ginger head. She smiled and spoke quietly to the animal, as though in reassurance. Then she sat down in her own chair, with the second best seat empty between them. The lady looked at the empty chair and then out towards the garden, unseeing.

Ants were swarming on the poppy seeds in the nearby sprouting troughs. A knife thin breeze edged its way onto the verandah, and the cat stirred and stretched itself before gliding towards the warmth inside. The lady remained still.

Day after day she sat on her chair. Only occasionally she moved – mostly to scratch with a garden fork around the last of the petunias. The grey sky lingered, and a fine rain brought a liquid shine to the leaves of the poinsettia grove. Each morning and afternoon a staff member placed a cup of tea and a scone on a small table beside her chair, but on each occasion the liquid grew cold and the scone developed a hard crust in the crisp air.

The doctor came to see me this morning. He came especially. Especially … to tell me that Mr Reynolds had died in his sleep. Mercifully, he went quickly, the doctor said. It was another heart attack, but this time stronger, and lethal.

I feared this. Inside myself, I feared this …
It is so horrible. Poor Mr Reynolds …
What shall I do now? What can I do?

He was such a nice man. A gentle man. I keep imagining I can still hear the tap of his walking stick on the linoleum ...


The young nurse squinches along the hallway to deliver a bowl of fruit to B Wing. There is a whiff of urine, overcome by a disinfectant smell. The notice boards on the wall speak about a bus trip to town and a visit from a local choir, and there is a display of brightly coloured drawings from the primary school. The woman in the water bed in Room 6 is restless, and in pain. A chaplain speaks to the matron about next Sunday’s church service, and Mrs Jeffries has her hair set.

On the verandah, the lady with the shawl dabs a tear with the corner of her lace handkerchief. She then moves from her customary position to the second best chair, next to the cat.

© June Saville 2008. Not to be reproduced without express written permission of the author.