LITMIR.BIZ

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lie in it,'and pushed past my father to gather up Grandma and Aunt Enid. It was only after the three of them had gone that Sam realised he had not seen the two women at all that morning, and it would be many years before he saw either of them again.

      My father's tourer was parked outside. He waited until he thought nobody was about; then, with me quieter now, he laid me in a wicker Moses basket and put it on the seat beside him. He could have walked the short distance from the rabbi's house to the Scarba Home. As he drove up, the morning sun barely penetrated the gloom of the driveway. He tucked the shawl closer around me before lifting me out and carrying me up the few steps to the entrance. The matron was summoned. Her chest was adorned with a large metal badge like some lumpy school prefect. Attached to it was a metal strip engraved with her name, G. McCechnie, Matron. She towered over just about everybody; she was the supreme commander of the Scarba Home of the Benevolent Society. She in turn summoned an inferior person, a dumpy girl who could barely walk for the starch in her uniform. Only when I was deposited into the girl's scratchy arms and my face was almost lacerated, did Matron McCechnie speak.

      'You are the Sampson Collins of the Jewish faith and this is your male child?'

      She commanded the greyhaired woman behind the high counter to hand over the application form, which she proceeded to read like a military charge sheet. Scratchy uniform stood by, her eyes glued to Matron's face for a clue as to the next order.

      Sampson Collins admitted everything: yes he was the person stated; yes, he had just been widowed; no, the infant had no birth defects (unless you count being born uncircumcised a defect); yes, he had the birth certificate here. Matron, who in the light of her long experience with male duplicity would have been happier to have fingerprints included, examined it minutely. Then her voice softened.

      'The little one has been breastfed, Mr Collins?'

      He admitted this was so, but caution made him refrain from naming the Irish midwife. He felt quite foolish then when Matron assured him that God in his infinite wisdom made all mothers' milk to the same formula. She turned to scratchy uniform. 'Martha here will be feeding little Alan. Off you go now, there's a good girl, and don't forget to change the dressing on his little thing, will you?'

      Martha gave me a conspiratorial squeeze. Somewhere beneath that sandpaper blouse was my lunch. I tried to turn my face away from it in time to see my father edging towards the door. He paused and came over to me. 'Goodbye, old son,'he said jovially. 'I'll pop in on Sunday and see how you're getting on.' The sandblasted glass doors showing a pair of stags rampant closed behind him. Stags, rampant or rutting 'it could not have been a more apt exit for my father.

      The Jewish mourning custom is wisely divided into stages: seven days of deep mourning (well, they had now elapsed), one month of reflection and then, pragmatically, at the end of the month, nobody would look askance if the surviving spouse was out and about. From then on, he or she was actually expected to take a new partner and, if at all possible, procreate.

      In this regard, at least, Sampson Collins was an observant Jew. Within a year he had wed again to a divorcee named Bella. She soon found his long absences from home as he travelled New South Wales not at all what she had in mind when she married her boulevardier. In their first year, she visited me twice - at any rate, she came into the building twice. On all other occasions she sat in the car buffing her fingernails while Sampson Collins remarked on what a bonny fellow I was, winking at scratchy uniform when enquiring if I was on the . . . and he touched his chest; pleased as Punch that I was, he happily paid for another six months board for me at Scarba.

      Bella was a manicurist at David Jones. Skivvying after a baby would damage her hands. I must say that on the two occasions she held me, she was soft as eiderdown and smelt divinely. I would like to have gone home with Bella if only for a change from the reek of disinfectant and the chipped white enamel cots and blankets that were more constricting than an iron lung. But this dainty, petite little china doll who was by now in her thirties and who could not walk past a mirror, did not want either someone else's child or her own. An interfering family had wrecked her previous marriage. She took Sam on because he showed he didn't care a damn for families and of course he had film-star looks (well, mature film-star looks), a touring car, and he was always good for a nod and a wink from the managers at Anthony Hordern's department store in George Street. Bella had kept the flat in Darlinghurst as part of her divorce settlement. At night she sat in it, waiting for Sam to be the husband she imagined from her film fan magazines. His artful lying did not fool her for one minute - she had heard it all a million times and was as adept at it as he was.

      .... ....

      I had my first birthday at Scarba. Somehow, Grandma and Aunt Enid managed to come on a different Sunday to my father. They coddled me and cried and said how much I looked like 'poor Alva' and thank God I wasn't a Collins - at least in looks. I was by now bonded to Martha and held out my arms to this oh-so-plain girl, herself an orphan, recently impregnated by a farm lad. Martha was now the centre of my own tiny world. I had returned her breasts to her with thanks and now allowed her to feed me the pap laid down in the Scarba handbook for infant care. Matron McCechnie told my father in the bluntest terms that I needed a proper home and that, in any case, my time at Scarba was nearly expired.

      'This is an infants' home, Mr Collins; we cannot care for the growing child. You will have to make other arrangements.' She stared at him severely. 'You have remarried, have you not? Surely your new domestic situation should include the care of your child?'

      He protested weakly that he was away 'on the road' most of the week and his new wife had a nine to five-thirty job. Matron took him into her office and sat him down like an errant schoolboy. She was quite impervious to his charm, even though in her dreams she might have clasped him in her narrow celibate bed.

      'We have an arrangement with the people in Ashfield who are able to care for the weaned child . . .'

      'How much will it cost?'

      This sort of bargaining the Hibernian matron understood. She did not 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

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