Divided Houses

By Janice Paull

"It is vivid and convincing, its voice utterly authentic...And for all its record of distress it is written with love. I felt that the writer had to write it. Which is probably the most important thing you can say about any book."
ALEX MILLER, twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award

Set in Sydney and Melbourne between 1932 and 1955, Divided Houses depicts the doomed relationship of Eddie and Vivien, two people whose lives have already been affected by the Great Depression and its aftermath. Eddie takes advantage of Vivien; pregnancy, marriage and children follow. As World War II begins, and the fear of a Japanese invasion grips Australia, Eddie evacuates his family.
In 1942, the Bertoli family moves into an Edwardian villa in Toorak which is shared by two other families. Its elegant façade is in sharp contrast with its rat-infested, overcrowded interior. A partition which runs the length of the kitchen is the only physical division. The battles and betrayals of World War II are paralleled in the lives of its inhabitants.
Footscray-born Eddie Bertoli is a survivor: clever, brash and opportunistic. His Italian name, a legacy from his grandfather, attracts racist taunts. He makes decent, though flawed attempts to improve his circumstances. He sells condoms. The rubber is perished. He pickles onions. They rot. His battler optimism is undermined by his angry and violent responses to stress, rejection, and life's hardships.
Vivien, beautiful, impulsive and rebellious, is trapped by Eddie, but consoled by motherhood. She nurtures and encourages her son John and daughter Cathy who delight in her stories. In response to Eddie's violence and control she seeks relief in self-destructive activities and escapades.
John and Cathy are resilient and clear-eyed; their imaginative, amusing games and commentaries are a tender contrast to the family's trials.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tablo Publishing
• Release date: Mar 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922381804

Book preview

With thanks to Gerald Murnane, Christopher Wilkinson 

and Dr John Webber 

Part One

1932 – 1942

Chapter One

Eddie

Melbourne 1932

From the wings of the stage of the Footscray Town Hall, Eddie Bertoli waited as other contestants in the fancy dress competition shuffled, meandered or sauntered along the catwalk. Arab sheiks, tired Bo Beeps, Little Boy Blues in crumpled velvet and a Cinderella in grubby net bowed or curtsied to the audience before ambling away to the feeble sound of polite clapping.

Eddie stepped into the spotlight. The slanted brim of his hat cast a shadow over the left side of his face and, with his hands thrust deep into the trouser pockets of his grey, pin-striped suit, his back straight and head held high, he whistled in tune and in key Me and My Shadow. One clap at a time, applause grew until the windows rattled; when he finished his performance by singing the last line, the spectators rose to their feet.

The hall was lit by dazzling chandeliers, the gallery festooned by garlands of spring flowers. Tall, vibrant-green potted palms lined the spaces between paintings of councillors and mayors, past and present. The crowd was mixed, some men in dinner suits, their wives with fancy hairdos, and ordinary blokes like Eddie, with or without families in tow.

After the mayor handed him a gold sovereign and pinned him with a blue ribbon, a photographer took some snaps, asked a few questions then moved on to other competitors standing with friends or family. Eddie wished there was someone he could say g’day to, but his mates would be at the dog track or down at the stadium watching some would-be boxer cop a hammering. Nobody wanted to think about the depression on a Saturday night.

Outside he pulled his collar up against the drizzling spring rain and clutched his winnings in his fist. Now he had ten quid—another ten and he’d marry Ida. They’d rent a place of their own on the other side of the Yarra, somewhere her old woman couldn’t interfere. Ida should have come tonight, but she couldn’t stand up to her mother or wouldn’t.

He let himself in the back door and tiptoed up the hall. His old man was snoring fit to raise the roof, but Gran’s light was on. Her bed creaked; then she peered around the doorway and snapped, ‘You’re early. You gave me quite a turn.’

‘I made a couple of bob. Have a gander.’ He handed her the sovereign.

She bit it. ‘It’s real, all right. What you been up to?’

‘Came first in the fancy dress competition. Why do you always think the worst?’

‘At my age, you expect it.’

‘You never get it from me.’ He handed her the blue ribbon. ‘I’ll get you to mind the sovereign after I’ve shown it to Ida.’ 

Too restless to sleep, Eddie stood in the back doorway from where he could see the vegetable garden, chook pen and, in the further distance, the woodshed where his dad used to give him a hiding if he reckoned Eddie deserved it. One night, Gran noticed he winced when he sat. She pulled his trousers down, saw the bruises and gave the old bastard an earful. ‘I’m ashamed to call you my son. You cruel, wretched bully!’ That sent him scurrying out of the house, but if Gran wasn’t around, he didn’t miss the chance to knock Eddie sideways.

Eddie was proud of the shed now; he’d lined it with sheets of plywood, given it a proper roof, a door with a padlock and put in a window—made it his place where no other bugger could go. 

The earlier rain had stopped and he walked down the crazy-paved path and climbed the ladder to the roof of the shed. In the distance, the beam of the Gellibrand Lighthouse was a steady beacon against a sky lit by a pale sliver of moonlight, its daily pall of smoke and haze scattered by a slight breeze. 

He imagined Ida smiling at him, proud-like, when he showed her the sovereign after tea tomorrow. Even her mother might lift the corners of her mouth for once. Eddie was allowed to go for tea on Sundays, but the old girl looked as if she were sucking on a lemon whenever he opened his mouth. No wonder Ida’s dad had scarpered, leaving them to take in boarders.

With her long red hair caught in a ribbon at the back, Ida always looked neat and pretty. He liked to imagine her hair flowing freely over her shoulders and trailing across her breasts. Her skin was pale and slightly freckled, her nose a bit flat, but her eyes were large and grey-blue; when she looked up at him all soft and yielding, he knew she was willing, but he wanted to get hitched the right way. They’d have a proper wedding and a decent honeymoon, not have to get married and put up with the neighbours’ jeers and Gran’s disappointment. 

Eddie smiled as he remembered Leggett’s dance classes where they’d met when Ida was seventeen and he’d just turned nineteen and how they’d stumbled through the first lesson. By the third dance, they had the hang of it. One night, the instructor decided they should ‘go formal’ and lined up the girls and boys facing each other. The instructor called, ‘Choose your partner, gentlemen, and bow before you invite her to dance.’ He added, ‘Don’t forget to curtsey to your gent, young ladies.’ Eddie bowed to Ida and although she curtsied, she couldn’t hide her cheeky grin. Soon they were the best dancers in the class. 

He had her name tattooed on his upper right arm after they came second in a dance marathon and won second prize of two quid. They’d stumbled around for thirty-six flaming hours trying to win a car. He’d have kept going, but he couldn’t do that to Ida, so tired she was blubbering, blood leaking through the sides of her shoes. You couldn’t really blame Ida’s mum for trying stop Ida dancing for a week or two, but Eddie reckoned she’d been trying to break them up ever since. Maybe Ida told her how he’d paid for his dance lessons. There’d been a bit of talk about the missing pickets from the church fence. He’d carved them into twenty-first birthday keys, painted them gold and flogged them down the market. Some bugger had talked, but not before he’d cleaned up.

His eighth-grade teacher, Miss Williams, told him he could be anything he wanted, even arranged for him to sit for a scholarship to a private school. When she came to congratulate him and his family on Eddie winning, his dad put the kibosh on that. Miss Williams pleaded, but he wouldn’t budge. It didn’t matter what she said, he sat with his arms folded across his chest. All he could say was, ‘The boy has to work.’ Eddie knew if he said anything he’d pay for it later, but he’d enjoyed the trip with Miss Williams to the big school, changing from the train to a tram where he could look through the windows at brick houses set high above gardens with winding paths and lawns. He’d imagined rolling down the sloping grassy slopes.

When she saw it was useless talking, Miss Williams left the house looking as if she were ready to cry and his dad sneered at him. ‘As for you, a man’s got to know his place. It ain’t goin’ to no posh school.’

‘Be like you? Humpin’ sacks of sugar all day for fuck all.’

His dad turned red, pulled off his belt and swung it. 

Eddie dodged, then wrenched the belt out of the bastard’s hand.

‘If I’m fuckin’ old enough to work, I’m too old to cop any more hidings.’ 

Sizzling like a firecracker, Gran was out of her chair holding them apart, shouting, ‘You’ve just spoiled your own son’s chances.’

‘You mean forgettin’ who he is, like you did with old Crighton.’ 

‘You should be grateful. It’s thanks to him we’ve got a decent place to live.’

‘Grateful? All that time I had to pretend I was the son of the bloody cleaner.’

‘I looked after you and yours. Still do. Always will.’

‘You’ll never let me forget it, will you?’

Eddie joined in. ‘Who’s Old Crighton?’

Gran turned on him. ‘Never you mind.’ Then she was back at his old man. ‘That poor slip of a girl you married. No wonder she got the consumption, living the way you did.’

For years, Eddie had begged Gran for stories about his mother who died when he was three. Gran always reckoned she couldn’t remember anything, but he could. He’d sneaked into his mother’s room where she was propped up in bed. He ran to her, she cupped his face in her hands, then someone hauled him away; he heard her cough and saw the bright blood gush. 

If he hadn’t left school after eighth grade, his life might be different now, although he couldn’t see himself wearing one of those fancy-nancy straw boaters. Bad enough being picked on for being a dago, but a dago in a straw boater, struth! He knew he was a bitzer. A bit of dago, a bit of pom and whatever else, dark, but not as dark as the old man. You’d swear he was one, even though he couldn’t speak the lingo. Black hair all over him and big dark eyes. Angry eyes.

Gran reckoned Eddie’s grandfather, Eugenio, was a true gentleman who never raised his voice or his fists. All through school, Eddie had been targeted because of his name. ‘Dago mongrel’ stuck from grade to grade, but by the sixth, nobody dared to call him that, or anything else. He’d wait for the name-caller after school and get even. Three of them tried to jump him one day, but he got so mad they all went home with bloody noses and black eyes. 

Eddie wished his grandfather’s name had been different, Chapman or Taylor, anything but Bertoli. When he was a kid, Gran often sat beside the wood stove, knitting or crocheting, and told him Eugenio had left Italy in a hurry because he fought for Garibaldi so wore a red shirt. He got a job on a Swedish ship just before it sailed, but the blokes after him were hot on his heels, gave chase and ordered the captain to stop; by then, they were in international waters, so when the captain dared them to board, they turned tail. Eugenio was killed when a piano fell on him while he was helping a friend move it down some stairs. ‘He’d never say no to anyone who needed some help, whatever it was.’ She always sniffed when she said this. Eddie could never work out if she was sad or angry.

Even after all these years, the thought of working in the Yarraville Sugar Refinery made him shudder. He did a stint helping the women repair hook holes in the bags. Bloody dusty work. When he was older and stronger, they put him to work unloading sacks of raw sugar from the horse-drawn drays that carried the sacks from the port, hauling them to the top of the ten- or twelve-foot high stack, never sure whether the whole bloody lot would come down on top of him. The worst job was in the steam and heat of the boiler room where the brown raw sugar was boiled until it turned white, then dropped from the big boiler to the lower floor and other vats. For ten hours a day, he’d slaved in the stinking wet heat wearing nothing but his underpants and wooden clogs to stop footrot. The only good thing about the place was lots of the other blokes had stupid names like his, or worse. 

After work, Eddie hung round with members of the Crays’ push, guarding their territory from the Vills. At first, there’d just been a few skirmishes, a bit of shoving and pushing, hurling bottles outside the corner pub, chucking bricks and chunks of road metal through shop windows, grabbing some loot then bolting when the coppers came. It turned serious when bloody Eric Parsons, the biggest lout at Yarraville State, took over as new leader of the Vills. One arvo Parsons led the Vills on a march down Napier Street, right up to where the Crays lounged against the pub, fags hanging from their lower lips, some wearing caps, some with bare feet or boots too big for their skinny feet and legs. Parsons waved a razor around like a band leader conducting his musos then stood back while Vills charged Crays. After Eddie had flattened another big bugger, he took on Parsons, kicked the razor out of his hand and planted one on his nose just as the coppers turned up. One of the coppers pulled Eddie away, took him to the station and sat him down in one of the cells. Tall and strong looking with brown hair and dark blue eyes, the copper looked a bit younger than the old man. 

‘I’m Constable Nicholls. What’s your name, son?’ he said.

‘Eddie Bertoli,’ Eddie muttered.

‘Don’t mumble. Speak up. How old are you?

‘Seventeen.’

‘I’ve been watching you.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Do you want to end up in a cell like this?’

‘Nah. Course not.’

‘You’re headed that way, and worse, if you don’t stop hanging out with mobs of stupid louts.’ 

Eddie looked long and hard at the copper. He looked decent enough, wasn’t one who pulled out his baton, laying into them at the first sign of trouble.

‘What’s it to you what I do?’ Eddie scoffed.

‘I reckon you come from a decent home, and struth, you can bloody well fight.’

‘So?’

‘My mate Arnie Taylor runs a boxing gym. He might be willing to see what you can do in the ring, take you on if he thinks you can box instead of brawling like a thug.’

Eddie imagined himself in the ring. Dodging, weaving. ‘Dinkum?’

‘Yeah. There’s another tip I can give you, if you’re willing to listen.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A few new buildings are going up in the city. They need fit, young blokes to do the hard yakka. You got a head for heights?’

‘I can walk across the pitched roof of me Gran’s house, barefoot,’ he boasted.

The copper grinned and stuck out his hand. ‘You’ll do. I’ll talk to Arnie.’

Next thing, they were shaking hands. Eddie stuck out his chest and claimed, ‘I’ll give it one hell of a go.’ He paused and added, ‘Ta, yeah, ta.’

Constable Nicholls introduced Eddie to Arnie Taylor who sparred with him a bit, agreed he had the makings of a boxer and could start training any time he liked.

Eddie dozed off and woke to the sound of the tins rattling on the milkman’s cart, his horse snuffling and neighing, then trotting off after each stop. He topped up the electricity register with a couple of zacs, picked up the billy of milk, left it in the kitchen cooler with the butter and the Sunday roast, then built up the fire under the stove before heading to bed to grab a couple hours of sleep.

Chapter Two

Melbourne 1933

The Boxer

Eddie knew he was luckier than a lot of blokes. Fit and quick, he’d taken the copper’s advice, was hired and trained by the builders until he was a rigger on one of the tall buildings going up in Collins Street. When he and Ida married, they’d be all right, but he wanted more, much more, enough to buy a decent house in one of the suburbs that had mushroomed in the eastern suburbs before the depression. When kids came, he didn’t want them to grow up in this slag heap of a suburb, where oil refineries and chemical plants spewed out smoke, gases and fumes so you were trapped under a yellow, fog-bound sky. 

From where he worked, he saw other, cleaner places. To the south was a wide curving bay, flanked by sand that looked gold in some light and white or pink in others. On the sea that changed colour from hour to hour, sailing ships, tugboats and oil tankers looked like painted toys.

To the east were mansions set in gardens splashed in some seasons with gold and red and in others with pink and blue and white. In all seasons, he saw green hills and the clefts between where trees grew tall and free.

Some of his mates grew up in places like disused shops some landlord partitioned so he could cram in a few families who’d pay rent, put up with rats, rotten floors, walls made of Hessian or paper—grateful just to have any bloody roof.

At twenty years old and five foot ten in his socks, Eddie trained as a middleweight at Arnie’s gym, skipping, running, belting a punch bag, sparring with the trainers, going a few rounds with the professionals. When he’d knocked out a contender for the club championship, Joe Tar Brush Morrison, he caused quite a stir.

One night after training, Arnie called him into his office where photos of famous boxers were pinned at odd angles on the walls. Most of the photos were signed, and some had messages of thanks scrawled on them. He motioned Eddie to take a seat.

‘You’re lookin’ a bit flabby, Ed. Been hittin’ the booze?

‘Nah, Arnie. Too many of me Gran’s jam tarts.’

‘Is that all?’ Arnie chortled. ‘You’re just a big kid.’

‘Gran puts on a real good spread. Anyway, what’s it to you, Arnie?

‘Tar Brush wants to get even. He reckons you flattened him with a lucky punch.’

‘Bullshit. That wasn’t luck. I could take him any time.’

‘You’d need to be a lot fitter. Give up your Gran’s tarts, turn fat into muscle.’

‘Does he wanna have another go in the gym?’

‘A bit more than that. How’d you like a bout at the stadium?’

‘Too right.’

‘It’ll be a preliminary for the lightweight champion later.’

‘I’ll take ‘im easy.’

‘Don’t be too cocky; he’s never lost a fight. I reckon you could win, but ...’

‘What’s the but?’

‘It’d mean laying off booze and fags.’

‘Easy.’

‘You got a girl?’

 Eddie was quiet. Ida would really do her block. She’d cut up a bit rough when she found out he was learning to box. Why, Ed.? Yer nose’ll go crooked, yer’ll get yer face smashed in and start dribblin’. He’d talked her round, but she always set her mouth in a straight line if he mentioned boxing. He’d never seen her so dead set against anything. They were going to the pictures later, a box of chocolates and she’d be real happy, but that’d only last until he told her about his big chance. Better wait until they’d cuddled for a while by the front gate.

‘Ed?’ Arnie prompted.

‘Yeah, Ida’s her name.’

Arnie tipped his chair back and lit a cigar. ‘You’d be training every spare minute. How’d Ida feel about that?’

‘She wouldn’t like it, but I reckon she’ll cop it sweet.’

‘There’s something else—your name.’

‘I learned to fight because of me name. Fought tougher blokes than Tar Brush because of bloody name callin’.’

‘It’d go down well with the punters if you had an Aussie name, seein’ as how Tar Brush is more than a bit on the dark side.’

Eddie decided. He’d change his name, win the bout, and start a new life. ‘I come out fightin’ when the bell rings. What about Bell?’

‘That’ll do.’

Eddie trained two hours before a shift and two hours after. He trained six hours on Sunday. Arnie ran with him on the beach, sparred with him in the ring, timed his responses, massaged his muscles and egged him on with the promise of winning.

‘You’re still a bit green, Ed. Plenty of others with the right build and strength like you, but I reckon you’ve got bloody brains as well, so use them. Good boxers never lose their heads. Timing, watching, thinking. That’s what makes Tar Brush so good.’

‘I’m gunna win, Arnie. You’ll see. I’ll do you proud.’

Eddie dreamed. Beating Tar Brush would be just the beginning. He’d win the club championship, the state title, the national and then the world title. He’d travel. He’d be in the money.

He still saw Ida on Sunday nights, but getting horny didn’t help him sleep, so he told her he wouldn’t see her until after the fight. ‘I’ll be flat out trainin’ for our big chance. Just a few weeks, Ida.’ She was sore all right, but she’d get over it when he won.

The blokes at the building site chiacked him, but Lofty was the worst. Always needling, taking the piss. Trouble was he and Lofty were the best riggers and often pulled the same shift. A few days before the fight, Lofty tried to trip him when they were clocking off. Eddie sidestepped, but Lofty moved in front of him and poked him in the chest. Eddie caught a whiff of alcohol. Spittle hit his face when Lofty snarled, ‘Bloody loud-mouthed liar. You couldn’t knock the skin off a rice puddin’.’

Eddie knocked Lofty’s arm away. ‘Back off.’

‘Reckon you’re so bloody good, ‘ave a go. Come on.’ Lofty started bobbing about and punching air.

Eddie tried to push past. ‘Get out of me way.’

‘Make me.’ Lofty moved in closer.

Eddie stepped back. ‘I wouldn’t waste me time.’

‘Changin’ your name doesn’t fool anyone. You’re still a bloody dago.’

Eddie flushed. He sensed the other blokes getting interested. ‘You’re pissed, you stupid bastard. Now move.’

He was itching to plant one on Lofty’s nose, but shoved him aside and walked off. A bit of sniggering. He’d show them.

When news of the bout did the rounds, the odds against his winning were fifteen to one. Eddie bet everything he had on himself. Word spread that Eddie looked good and the odds shortened down to three to one on the day of the fight. His dad fished out three bob and told him to put two on Tar Brush and the rest on himself. ‘Just hedgin’ me bets,’ he sneered. Grinning like a chimpanzee, Gran gave him a bob to place on himself. He’d find a bookie at the pub after work. Being pay day, the bloody place’d be packed.

Eddie washed, then packed his Gladstone bag, smoothing his new red and blue satin dressing gown on top. Sweat streamed off him as he pushed his way through the crowded bar where wreaths of cigarette smoke hung over the heads of the poor buggers who’d been digging ditches, carrying bricks or haunting factories looking for work. He elbowed his way through the crowd and shouted over the babble and clatter of glasses to barman Alf.

Eddie pushed his bag across the bar. ‘Keep this for me while I place some bets.’

‘Barney’s takin’ ‘em down the other end. Yer want a cold one?’

A cold beer would hit the spot, wash away the dust and soothe his dry throat. ‘Make it a squash.’ Eddie edged his way down the bar to where he could see Barney taking cash and scribbling tickets as some of the blokes from work called out their bets. Most of them seemed to be backing him, but Lofty placed a fair wack on Tar Brush. He’d be sorry. He placed Gran’s bet then called his dad’s. ‘Two bob on Tar Brush.’

While Barney was scribbling the slips, Lofty jeered. ‘Hear that you blokes? It’s the dago bullshit artist bettin’ on Tar Brush.’

Eddie ignored him.

‘Knows he’s got Buckley’s ‘imself. Lousy swine.’

Some of the others joined in the taunting: ‘What’s up, Ed? Lost your nerve?’ ‘Where’s your guts?’ ‘Bloody bragger.’ ‘Piker.’

Eddie kept his mind on the betting slips. Only three hours to go. He choked on the smoke and the crowd, hostile now, was pressing him against the bar. Alf slid the squash along the bar. As he raised it to his mouth, Lofty knocked it out of his hand and hemmed him in, swaying and mean. Eddie itched to floor the drunken sod, get out quick and clean with the blokes back on side.

Lofty stuck his ugly mug up close. ‘Slimy dago ... drinking lolly water ... using your mates to drive up the odds ... tight-arsed bastard ... when was the last time you shouted a bloke a drink?’

Eddie sneered. ‘Fuck off.’

‘Make me. Stinkin’ dago.’

Eddie grabbed him by the shirt collar, gave him the bum’s rush through the crowd and pitched him out the door. A cheer went up; he was in good with everyone. Alf stuck a cold beer in his hand, but he passed it to the bloke next to him before shouting the bar. When a bloke came round selling prawns and crayfish, he bought them all the biggest feed some of them must have had in months.

Alf cleared the bar at six, handed Eddie his bag and wished him luck. He went to the stadium, stood under a cold shower until his skin wrinkled and his head cleared.

In the packed stadium, the smell of sweat, cigar smoke and alcohol mingled with the hot breath of fans waiting for the title fight later. Eddie looked up at the tiers of folding seats and the way the aisles radiated from the floodlit centre. A few of the blokes from work were in the first two rows. Beyond the circle of light and smoke haze were vague shapes and the pinpoint glow of cigarettes.

When Eddie stepped into the ring, clasping his hands above his head, the crowd rose to its feet and bellowed. He stretched his arms high and wide; pivoted to face each side in turn. The loudspeakers blared. ‘In the blue corner weighing eleven stone ten pounds wearing red shorts, the battler from Footscray, Eddie Baby Face Bell.’ Buoyed by the chant of Eddie, Eddie, Eddieeee, the stamping, bellowing and finger whistling, he was ready.

‘In the red corner weighing eleven stone seven pounds