Between The Wars Part 2

By Greg Tuck

Mary Evans, having survived living on the streets in Melbourne, Australia in the 1920's with her mother and her brother, has settled into becoming part of the family of the Hansens where her mother now works as a maid and companion. It was a remarkable change from the slums of North Melbourne to the well-to-do suburb of Hawthorn. Having won a scholarship to a private school, Mary in Part 2 is going through the strange adolescent period that every person goes through at secondary school. Sometimes very confident, sometimes very unsure and of course there are boys. It is the time of the Great Depression and the Hansens are doing what they can to support the less well off in the community. Mary, her brother David and her mother also pitch in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Tuck
• Release date: Jan 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463382509

Greg Tuck

I am a former primary teacher and principal, landscape designer and gardener and now a full time author living in Gippsland in the state of Victoria in Australia. Although I write mainly fictional novels, I regularly contribute to political blogs and have letters regularly published in local and Victorian newspapers. I write parodies of songs and am in the process of writing music for the large number of poems that I have written.

Book preview

Part 2

By Greg Tuck

© 2019

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, photos and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Photographs are used with permission from the State Library of Victoria.

Part 2

Chapter 1

I looked at the two people sitting opposite me and stared in disbelief. I racked my mind for some reference point. My total life experience was a mere ten and three-quarter years. Trust me when you are a young girl in 1930, you add the extra fractions of years on, even if they are just not a complete year. They say that when death comes, your whole life passes before your eyes. It seemed like I was about to die if that was the case. I wound back the clock in my mind. We had been living at the Hansens where my mother worked as a maid for nigh on three years. Before that, we lived on the street among the ratty buildings of North Melbourne. Prior to that it was a few months living with my two great aunts on my Mum’s side. But it turned out, they ran a brothel and expected my Mum, my younger brother, David and I to earn our keep. We had to move out of our first rented house when my Dad died from physical and mental injuries he got in the war.

(My mother’s parents)

In all that time I had never seen or heard from these people; the two people that I’d opened the door to and that Mrs Hansen had invited into her parlour and into our lives. Not more than three weeks ago, we had buried my grandparents in Dimboola. They were my Dad’s parents. I’d never met them because they were nearly a whole day’s trip away from us. Yet here in their tatty clothes and scuffed shoes, were my other set of grandparents. Mum had never spoken of them except once and that was in a fit of frustration when my father died. They had disowned my mother completely for marrying him. They had not come to her wedding. They were not around when either David and I were born, nor when we were thrown out on the streets and yet now, when our lives had completely turned around by a sheer chance of meeting the Hansens at the Queen Victoria Market three years ago, they sat on Mrs Hansen’s lovely couch having traipsed their muddy shoes across her beautiful rug. They didn’t even know my name. They didn’t recognise me when I opened the door. It was only when they asked for Mrs Ida Evans and Mrs Hansen said to me Mary, be a good girl and go and get your mother. They actually worked out who I was and what my name was.

This was not a great way to develop a loving rapport. My mother was even more scathing. She was visibly upset and barely controlled her temper. There was no loving greeting. Even Mrs Hansen and Mr Hansen gave hugs to David and me when we saw each other. Mum was so generous with her hugs and cuddles too. There was none forthcoming towards her own parents and perhaps guiltily, her parents weren’t brave enough to try one to their daughter.

What are you doing here? How did you find us? What do you want? Mum’s voice cut the air with a knife.

The last question surprised me. From all I had seen in the whole gamut of my life, it was parents who gave things to their children, not the other way around. Even when Mum sent some of her hard-earned money up to her destitute in-laws in Dimboola, they had been too proud to spend it. In the end that money helped pay for their funerals. They would have even been annoyed for it to be used for that, from what I gathered of the letters they had sent to my Mum. My mother couldn’t read or write and Mrs Hansen had done that for her. After her in-laws died, Mum retrieved the letters and I was allowed to read them.

My mother had guessed right; her parents wanted something, but they took their time to get around asking. Her mother rose of the couch and wandered around touching things, delicate things in the room.

You are doing well for yourself Ida, she said.

Those things that you are handling belong to Mrs Hansen who is probably too polite and too shocked to ask you to refrain from keeping your hands to yourself. Mrs Hansen is my employer and I work as her maid here. My children, yes, I have two, though I don’t suppose you even knew I had one before you fronted up here, live in the servants’ quarters with me. We haven’t spoken in twelve years and suddenly you turn up here. I am waiting to hear how difficult you found it to find me seeing that I was lost. Surely those two aunts of yours would have passed the message on when we stayed there, or had you excommunicated them too. They probably deserved it, but I certainly didn’t and Bobby definitely didn’t. He was the kindest, most loveliest person I have ever met and when he came back from the war all broken, you didn’t even notice. And don’t say you didn’t know. I put a letter in your letterbox asking for help. My neighbour wrote it for me and we together walked from Footscray all the way to Brunswick to put it there. It even had my address on it so you could have come to see me then, when I needed help. So how did you find me now? Just passing, were you?

Mum’s words did little to prick the confidence and conscience of my grandmother who just turned and smiled at her daughter.

It doesn’t matter how we found you, but we have found you, she said silkily. Let’s let bygones be bygones.

Mum must have still been irked by how her mother had found her at the Hansens, Did you know that Bobby’s parents have just died, or did you just assume that he was the sort of man who didn’t have any.

I didn’t understand what Mum was inferring by that and couldn’t see the link. Being an orphan was just an unfortunate thing in life according to what I had read.

They didn’t have any money to leave me, if that is what you are after. The drought took everything that they had years ago. At last I began to see what my mother might be suspecting.

Mary that’s a lovely dress you have on and those shoes look so nice, my grandmother said sweetly.

I think that she underestimated me by a long way. I was a very grown up ten-year-old. I had helped my mother nurse my father until the end. I had grown up after that as a street kid and I was not only street smart, I was very intelligent and worldly wise, so I threw back at her, My mother worked hard to buy these and because she works so hard, I take great care of all my things I said as I cast a meaningful glance at her shoes.

It was like water off a duck’s back. So, subtleties were out, I thought. It dawned on me then just how they would have located us. Mr Hansen had found that my mother’s pension had been wrongly cut off when my father died. He had tracked down through his solicitor just what had gone wrong and right at the last minute when Mum was due to be paid a backlog of all the money owed to her and some extra compensation, the local politician had organised a photo shoot for the local paper. Mum had been named in the paper as had the local politician. Of course, that was how they knew. They had seen the photo, contacted the politician and probably said that they were trying to track down their long-lost daughter. He would have given them the address hoping for some more glory in the paper about reuniting a family.

So, Mrs…. I don’t even know my grandmother’s surname. That shows just how close you have been to us, I said, adopting the same tone she had used to me, Will Mr Wilson our local politician be coming up the driveway soon? I mean he was the one who gave you our address wasn’t he?

Mum looked at me shocked that I had put two and two together before she had. Mrs Hansen who had been a passive observer, though ready to step in at any time, covered her mouth so that her smirk couldn’t be seen. My mother’s mother stopped in her tracks and was caught short for a moment. She looked towards her husband who was sitting down doing his best to follow what was transpiring, but failing badly. Then she regathered her composure and said, Ida, I think that this is something we should discuss in private. I mean Maria is a bit young and no offence Mrs Hansen, this is a family matter.

No offence taken, but I would like to point out that your granddaughter’s name is Mary, not Maria and that if you wish to discuss something in private with your daughter you are very welcome to. Perhaps instead of here, maybe at Ida’s solicitor so that she has someone there to remind her of her rights, or I could stay. I am sure that Ida would find both of those options acceptable, wouldn’t you Ida, Mrs Hansen said directing her last question to my mother.

I would be comfortable in either of those places, thank you Mrs Hansen. Mum then turned to her mother. Surely you weren’t going to be rude enough to ask Mrs Hansen to leave her own room just so that we could talk? Mary will stay too if she chooses to. If this is family business you wish to discuss, then she is family too. She is closer to me than either of you have been or ever will be. Now, say what you want to say and then we can all go our separate ways and get on with our lives.

You realise that we have come all the way out here just to see you and this is the gratitude we get. Her feigned indignation was obvious.

The gratitude you get is what you deserve. The respect you get is what you have earned. If you want money, then I have none to spare. There are school fees to be paid, clothes to buy and I have just paid for Bobby’s parents’ funeral. If you want to build a relationship with your grandchildren then, although it’s better late than never, you need to build one with me first. As for me, I haven’t seen you for twelve years and perhaps in another twelve years I may be more inclined to want to see you again. I somehow doubt it. If you are going to cry poor to Mrs Hansen in the hope that she will help you because of me, I think that you have a difficult path ahead of you. There are far more deserving and worthwhile people that she is already helping and there are others waiting to be helped. That is her choice of course. What do you think Mrs Hansen?

Ida, they are your family and though they haven’t said it, from the looks of them, they are need of something and perhaps something to remind them of their visit here. We can’t let them go empty handed. Mary, could you come here for a moment please? Mrs Hansen said and when I did, she whispered in my ear. I smiled and left the room. I don’t think Mum was overly pleased with Mrs Hansen’s response, because she thought that she had made her feelings quite clear.

After going to the Helping Hand vegie garden shed, next to the huge vegetable garden that the Hansens had constructed on over an acre of their property to feed the homeless and poor, I returned with a brown paper bag. Mrs Hansen smiled as she took it from me saying, Thank you Mary. She said and handed the sealed bag to the two visitors saying, This is just a little something that someday you may run out of. To us here, it is highly valued. We hope that it will remind you of your visit here and perhaps express or gratitude of having come so far to see your daughter. Brunswick to Hawthorn is such a long way nowhere near as far as Footscray to Brunswick. But then you travelled by tram, I see by the ticket stubs in your husband’s jacket. If only Ida and her neighbour had caught the tram from Footscray to Brunswick all those years ago; or could have afforded to. As you said bygones should be bygones. Sorry that you can’t stay but as I said, this gift may serve you well when you run out.

My grandparents blinked and didn’t fully understand the words as Mrs Hansen’s sweet tone belied what her message was. Even Mum was taken in by the tenor of Mrs Hansen’s voice. Our visitors stood and followed Mrs Hansen to the front door where she handed over the gift and then shut the door firmly on them. Mum was still furious that her parents had been given a gift let alone the time of day by Mrs Hansen. She and I hadn’t even left the parlour to see her parents out. I then turned to her and said, I wonder what they will do with the bag of manure when they get home.

Chapter 2

My brother David came in to catch both Mum and I laughing. He is eight years old but doesn’t understand what most eight-year olds do, but I love him all the same. Most girls don’t say that of their younger brothers. You can’t help but love David. He has a huge grin and a way of viewing things unlike any other person I have known. Most of the schools around refused to take him on because of his special needs so Mum saved all she could to pay for a tutor. David went through tutors the way a hot knife goes through butter. Then one day, through the aid of yet another influential, assertive woman in my life, Miss Watson, Georgie turned up ad made huge inroads with my brother. A new school opened up near the Hansens that catered for children like David. Georgie was able to secure a job there as a teacher. Sometimes life has some very pleasant surprises. I’m glad David never saw my mother’s parents. That would have been one of his life’s unpleasant surprises. They didn’t deserve to meet him. I am sure they would have commented on the way he looks and the way he acted. He didn’t need that. He didn’t deserve that.

So, while Mum and I laughed about the manure and Mrs Hansen joined in, when she had seen my grandparents off the premises, David didn’t know what it was all about. He just laughed because we did, and he was happy because we were. Someone who wasn’t happy was Mr Hansen. He understood about the manure, but the person he was most unhappy with was the local politician. Normally he is very polite on the phone, but not so this time. That politician got an earful for divulging where someone lived and sending people up here to cadge money. It didn’t matter what Mr Wilson said about relatives, he got nowhere and was forced to accept that if this sort of thing continued a certain amount of anonymous donations to his next election would not be forthcoming. That shut Mr Wilson up almost as much as Mr Hansen did when he slammed the phone down.

But Henry, you don’t donate money to anyone’s election campaign, Mrs Hansen stated.

You know that and I know that, but Mr Wilson will never be sure, will he? Mr Hansen replied.

I’d hate to play poker with you Henry. You are too good at bluffing, his wife laughed.

The thing was that I knew when he was bluffing and wondered whether I should tell her. I’d played cards with Mr Hansen and he was not very good. His left eyebrow would rise a little and the corners of his mouth turned up a little too when he thought he was winning. In gin rummy, he’d make a play of throwing out a card as if he didn’t need it. His face would tell you the opposite. He was hoping I’d throw out a similar card and he could swoop on the pack. I never would. Well, that is not quite accurate, I did sometimes just so that he didn’t feel he was losing all the time. I’d play poker with him. I’d have him penniless and out on the street in no time at all. When I thought about it though, perhaps Mrs Hansen wasn’t really talking about cards, but how good Mr Hansen was at managing to make people do the right thing. There were subtleties in the English language that I, as a nearly eleven-year-old, hadn’t managed to cover yet.

I was a star pupil and had won a scholarship to go to a private school and, though being the odd one out not having a rich family, I had worked hard at being accepted in this very old-fashioned school. Not by Hiss Havers the school headmistress nor my grade five teacher, Miss Drage, the Dragon who epitomised the traditional way of teaching. All children learned the same at the same time and in the same manner. Any brooking of discipline and the cane was used. Consequently, I was monumentally bored most of the time. I was reading Greek myths and legends and classical literature when I could at home, and at school we read the Fifth Book as our only written material. I had won the scholarship as a grade three even though it was meant just for grade fives and sixes. I could do anything with numbers and had already covered some high school work, though in Miss Drage’s grade I chanted my tables ad nauseum whilst in my head I was chanting tables of random three figure numbers. I had won the scholarship, not just for arithmetic, but because of my writing and public speaking. My grade five year didn’t allow for public speaking and any writing was based solely on a format that Miss Drage prescribed, and so we wrote to please her and her opinions. I was manifestly unhappy with my situation because I was in a grade five and six; and next year, in grade six I would have Miss Drage again. She always taught grade six and always the same way. Some of the girls were struggling and the only help they were given was from myself and one or two others who held break and lunchtime classes as long as Miss Drage was not on yard duty. There would have been hell to pay if she had caught us.

Miss Watson, my mentor and when I come to think of it, my sponsor as she was the person who donated the scholarship prize I had won, had told me to be patient. Just because the Dragon had been teaching the same grade for twenty-three years didn’t mean that would always be the case. I had little faith in her unwarranted optimism and was going to query her about it again when she came to visit here on her regular Friday night forays into establishing just how much wine can be drunk before you fall asleep. She had met the Hansens through my receiving the scholarship which paid for my uniform and all my fees as long as I went to that school. They immediately had formed a bond with her, as had I. As outrageous and eccentric as she was, this journalist owner of a large newspaper, was a very down to earth and astute woman who wielded enormous power and influence. I wondered what she would make of the visit from my mother’s parents. I didn’t like to call them my grandparents. The two wonderful and selfless parents of my father whom I hadn’t met, but who wrote such beautiful letters to my mother, merited that title. The others merited what they received or as Miss Watson would have called it, plain bullshit, because that was how they spoke.

Those people who just left, Ida, Mrs Hansen said not wishing to say in front of David who they were, Do you realise that they were dressing down just to visit you. There clothes may be tatty, but they were cut of good cloth and had just not been washed for a few days. Those shoes weren’t theirs, about one and a half sizes too big. Of course, they may have been so poor that they had hand me downs from someone else, but when you add the fact that they came here by tram, which means they had some money to spare, and the lady was wearing what I guess was a special brooch to her, one that is actually quite valuable; I think that they were putting on a performance for you. The man I could tell was quite uncomfortable about the whole situation and he kept wanting to look at a watch that should have been there in his fob pocket but he hadn’t worn it today. Henry knows people and he can make certain of their actual circumstances, if you wish. I am wondering whether the gift I gave them will have any impact on them. I doubt it. To my mind, and please excuse me for saying so Ida, I think that lady was full of it.

David looked at Mrs Hansen and asked, What was that lady full of Mrs Hansen?

Mrs Hansen immediately regretted using those words but it was Mum who intervened, Full of manure, David, manure.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeyuck! said David sticking out his tongue pretending to wipe it. I’d hate to have to kiss her.

Cook waddled up the corridor. She should have been called duck, but her name was actually Cook and she was able to concoct the most delicious of treats at a moment’s notice. She was old school and knew her place in society, despite Mr and Mrs Hansen having a very informal approach. Mum, though a maid was also a friend and close confidante of Mrs Hansen. Cook would never have allowed that to happen to her. Her realm was the kitchen and though she wouldn’t admit it, now that her only sister and she had a major falling out, the Hansens and us were her only family.

"Now that someone has finally got off the phone, I expect you will be wanting the afternoon tea that I have prepared. If my scones are a shade browner, then it is not my fault. If you will come down to the kitchen, I can serve them there, otherwise I shall need a hand from young David to manage the trolley to bring them up here," Cook’s voice contained a small air of reproach that we had all become immune to. Underneath she was as soft as putty.

David was all for driving the trolley up from the kitchen. I think he was trying to set some sort of land speed record, regardless of the fine china and beautiful food that was to be carried on the trolley. Mrs Hansen was well aware of this and she knew that Cook was too. Her face twisted into a knowing nod of disapproval towards Cook, who completely ignored it. She had worked for Mrs Hansen for years and knew that the nod was for form sake only. We all made our way to the kitchen for scones, beautifully cooked and perfect in colour. We piled them high with fresh jam and cream. Our visitors now long forgotten.

Chapter 3

I was not one to let things go and so when Miss Watson arrived for her Friday night soiree, I cornered her; that’s if you can possibly corner a tall, lithe tigress without getting hurt yourself. I asked her about me foregoing the scholarship and moving to another school. I said that I would sell some of my drawings or do some cartoons for her paper to pay for any school fees. Despite my academic talents, the one thing I really took pride in was my ability to draw very accurate pictures of people. Mr and Mrs Hansen had two I had drawn of them, in pride of place in the parlour. The painting I had done on their parlour windows of all the people who helped transform their very large part of their property into an abundant vegetable garden for the poor and destitute, had faded somewhat and only the cartoon outline remained. I had once even drawn Miss Watson mounted on a horse; parasol raised in a charging motion about to run rampant over anyone who got in her way.

However, I stood my ground. I was not going to be fobbed off. I was not going to be treated as just a little girl. She would not have expected that of me. That was not how she behaved, nor my mother, nor Mrs Hansen when I came to think about it. Miss Watson was probably the most open of all three of my role models. She said what she thought, the way that she thought it. She didn’t have my mother’s slightly subservient tone nor Mrs Hansen’s tact and diplomacy.

Things are happening Mary, just give it a few more weeks and you won’t even need to consider changing schools. Certain things need to line up and your patience will almost definitely be rewarded. I can’t say anything else at the moment, but you will just have to trust me, she said.

And that was it. What could I do? She always had me over a barrel when it came to her use of words. If I argued now, then it would be seen as a breach of trust between us. If I said nothing, then I was where I was before I even asked the question. Her words were fiendishly simple, yet so powerful. Was she always so good at such manipulation? Did it come natural to her? I thought as a tough business woman and journalist as she was, it was a delightful skill to have. My own mathematical mind couldn’t think that far ahead when I spoke. When I wrote I had a fluid writing style that weaved an argument, but such cleverness in language that she displayed was well beyond me. I did the only thing that I could do and that was to hide my disappointment. If she was hoping to see that, she would be the one who would be more disappointed.

As usual on a Watson Friday night, David didn’t last long. After dinner he went off to bed. Whatever he was doing at his new school tuckered him out by week’s end. In the past I would struggle to stay awake too, but with the lack of stimulation at school, I was ripe for the conversations that ensued post dinner between the adults. The more wine they drank, the balder the stories and the less they noticed my presence. I noticed that my mother lagged well behind in the drinking stakes, but she contributed her tuppence worth to great effect; that night’s was no different.

The main topic as usual was how difficult that life had become for everyday people due to the failure of the government to manage things properly during the 1920’s. Instead of paying off loans to banks in England they, like the rest of the world, had free-wheeled their way through until last year’s financial crash occurred. Banks closed and money invested couldn’t be redeemed. Those who were wealthy lost a lot, but they had a lot to lose and could ride it all out. The politicians would be safe. They caused the chaos, but had their salaries and pensions to fall back on and they were the ones who set those. It was the small business people who were caught. They had invested their own earnings into what now had become a millstone-like irredeemable asset. With these businesses going down along with the fall in wool, wheat and beef prices causing our farmers to go under, everyday workers were suddenly on the employment scrapheap. So many people were struggling to make a living and were turning to welfare. The ‘Susso’ or sustenance payment was all that kept some people going. For people to get the Susso relief they had to work on public projects. Mr Hansen said that the depression of the 1890’s was handled much the same way and that’s how the Melbourne sewerage system was built. Miss Watson, already having consumed a large amount of liquid said, That must have been a shitty job to have.

Normally Mrs Hansen would have blushed with such language, but she showed another side of her that alcohol had loosened up, for she just laughed and added, No-one would want to take their work home with them.

However, there was also some serious discussion taking place. As much as Melbourne was getting the Shrine built and bridges and roads were being constructed, both Mr Hansen and Miss Watson likened it to slave labour. Ruthless people, both in government and those still up and running in business, were making the most of people desperate to get a job, any job. People were willing to work for virtually nothing, just to feed their families. Mr and Mrs Hansen’s Helping Hand garden was the opposite in a way. They ran a market garden of about one acre in Hawthorn, next to their house. They paid people a reasonable wage to work the garden and all the produce was given to the Salvation Army to distribute amongst the poor. Miss Watson said that was the way that government should work. Instead of grandiose projects for even more grandiose politicians to officially open, the community should begin to feed itself.

(Large families living in slums)

What I do find depressing is the number of people who aren’t going to make it through………. Miss Watson began but then halted when she realised I was still in the room. She nodded to my mother and soon I was evicted from the room and sent to bed. Deep down I think I knew what she was about to say. Some people were going to end their lives, like my grandfather did, because it all got too hard. In later years I was to find out that my ‘some’ was really a hell of a lot. Suicide rates peaked during 1930-31 jumping by half again of those in the mid 1920’s. I am glad that I didn’t hear them talk about that. I had trouble dealing with people dying. I didn’t understand why it happened and more importantly what happened when you died. To discover that people saw that as their only alternative was unnerving and made me think how hard life was for them and how lucky I was. It made me remember how tough it was living on the streets after Dad had died. Mum wouldn’t have ended it all. She wouldn’t have left David and I all alone. She would have stubbornly battled her way through. But not everyone was as strong as my mother. Talk of death and suicide scared me. I imagined that one day I might see someone just passing by and then never have the opportunity to see them again. I didn’t sleep well that night.

As usual by morning Miss Watson was gone and in her