Kimberly Gold

By Stella Perkins

Kimberley Gold follows the trail of a family as they survive life in early Sydney. It is the story of my grandfather, whom I never met, a man who changed his name as he tried to change his destiny.

We all have secrets and hide the truth with lies, but how many of us believe our own fabrications?

Where is the truth?

Does it lie within these pages?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514446515

Stella Perkins

Stella Perkins has qualifications in health science, art, and teaching. She studied at Sydney Teachers' College and has worked as a kindergarten teacher, a primary teacher, and a secondary teacher. She has taught at TAFE, at schools, and at drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres and correctional centres. She was born in Parramatta in NSW Australia. She is widowed with four children and lives on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Stella has been published previously, but this is her first novel.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I am old and fast approaching eighty. How strange it feels to write those words. I don’t feel old, except for aches and pains that wrack my joints and my inability to run and climb, as I loved to do when I was young. My days are numbered now. The time has come to record the family history before I lose too many words.

Lost words haunt me. Simple little things, like the name for a word to describe the colour of the sea or the collective word for a lot of crows, worry me. I feel the urgency to set the story out for my grandchildren, especially the youngest one, whose goal in life is to own a bookshelf full of books by the time she is forty. Perhaps by then words will not be on paper any more.

This is the story of my grandfather, who fought in the Boer War. He not only changed his name but altered the place where he was born and frequently changed his date of birth as well. He declared his trade as an assayer. Was this a fact or another wannabe? He was not easy to trace. It is also the story of my grandmother, Amy. I never knew either of them. I have seen photos of them, but their true personalities come via the filter placed on their lives by their children, a filter often coloured by bitterness, recriminations, and the clarity of hindsight.

During the search I discovered a branch of the family I never realised existed. My mother had cousins she never knew and relations she never met. I gathered many stories from my cousins; eulogies and obituaries were read at the funerals of my aunts and uncle when they passed away. But there are lots of gaps in the stories, and plenty of questions still need to be answered. One is the story of the uncle who, so Mum said, went down in the Titanic.

My mother felt no fondness for her father, and she deeply resented her stepmother. I never knew the reason for this deep resentment that seemed to eat away at her. The mere mention of her stepmother’s name caused my mother’s pretty face to twist into a bitter line. It stimulated my curiosity. I wonder if I will feel the same bitterness when I reach the story’s end.

I found we had some convicts in the family, and I was delighted and amazed when I discovered P. J. Grealy, barrister. Maybe there would be some pleasant surprises. But then I discovered there were two P. J. Grealys living in Sydney Town in the 1890s. One was a barrister; the other was a drunken plumber. Sadly, the drunken plumber belongs to us.

Searching through the Sands directory of streets, occupations, and houses throws up a web of overwhelming details and confusion. But I found a pattern of regular relocation every year, and gradually a tale emerged. Throughout the story are scattered details of strong and inspiring women and weak and deceptive men. Is this merely an overlay of my own perception of life through my nigh on eighty years of experience? I hope not. I dread that perhaps it could be so.

I have scrolled through innumerable lists of names. I’ve followed red herrings in all directions and read more history books than I care to remember. Much of the South African experiences are pure speculation, as many of these documents were destroyed or lost during the period of the Boer War. But pictures have emerged from old books and records that help recreate what life must have been like in those days.

These days are short, and despite rising early and working here at my kitchen table throughout the day, I work in spurts of energy. My day is filled with papers and old books as I search for the story. I find I doze off easily as the day wears on. Perhaps it was not actual research but dozy dreams that fill the gaps in the tales for which I search.

What sort of a man could live a lie so constantly that his own death certificate claimed he was born in Bideford, England? Can there be a legitimate reason for a lifetime of deception?

Who am I to decide a reason is legitimate? Death certificates are only as accurate as the person who relates the details to the scribe. If my grandfather was so intent on living this lie, perhaps none were still alive who cared enough to enumerate the truth. What does it matter anyway? How important is truth? It is only a matter of history, and truth varies from person to person. Memories are subjective.

I know many of my closest relatives will disagree about the truth in this narrative, but I commit it to paper for future generations. We all have choices in life, no matter what hand we are dealt. We do not have to feel trapped on a path cast in concrete. There is always another path.

CHAPTER TWO

M eg opened her eyes and took a deep breath. It had been a dreadful night. Philip, her husband, had come home in a drunken rage, banging doors and shouting. Meg and Phillip had married only a few years earlier in 1875. Now his behaviour was upsetting the children.

Meg and Philip lived in a small rented shack in Sydney Town. At first it was to be merely a temporary place to live, a place where the child Meg already carried when they made their wedding vows could be born. Time went by, and a second child was born. Money that was to be saved for better living conditions was frittered away on alcohol. Meg was growing accustomed to the one-room shack with its dirt floor and damp walls. This was not how she had envisaged married life. It pained her to see young Philip crawling around on those dirt floors. She sighed as she put baby Eve to her breast and remembered with bitterness the warnings from her mother before she married Philip.

Margaret, be warned. I think the man has a convict past. I am sure he is a government man. I know my grandmother was a convict and my father too, but Margaret, it leaves deep scars which never really fade. Take care.

Margaret had replied, But Mother, he makes me laugh. And although she did not say it, she thought to herself, Laughter is such a joy and such a delight, especially after living with you two, where laughter is a very rare occurrence.

Margaret Mary Cane, nicknamed Meg for short, first lived with her father, Thomas Cane, and her mother, Isabella Robinson, at Figtree Cottage in Liverpool Street, Sydney. It was near the docks and was a handy place for finding work, but it was also a handy place for desperate folk to sneak in and pinch anything they could lay their hands on. Isabella had a hand-knitted counterpane stolen one night while she slept. The theft was reported to the police, but there was little hope of ever recovering it again. The quilt had sentimental value, for Isabella’s mother, also named Isabella Robinson, had knitted it for her only daughter many years ago.

The elder Isabella Robinson had come to Australia on the ship Indispensible in 1811 as a convict and had raised her daughter, whose father was unknown, single-handed except for assistance from a series of uncles, some helpful but most abusive. Children born out of wedlock to single women were often taken from their mothers by the crown, especially in Tasmania. That Isabella managed to raise her own child is a testimony to her survival skills.

Life was not easy in those times, and children frequently died. Sometimes they were helped to die because they were not wanted. It was a struggle to feed and shelter one person, let alone a whole bunch of children. Work was inconsistent, wages were low, and the price of food and shelter was beyond the reach of many.

Margaret Mary, now twenty years old, needed a husband. She was a tiny, frail-looking woman but very determined. She was inclined to be stubborn and was not known for her tact or her sweet tongue. She was not unattractive, but it was obvious that she would not be a meek and obedient wife. Her choices were becoming rather limited.

Philip Grealy was older and seemed to be a reliable, funny, and charming man. He had been a customer at the tavern where Meg served the patrons with a cheery smile and a quick quip to keep the men from becoming restless and quarrelsome. He charmed her and delighted her with funny stories. Once, when a patron had been rather overzealous in demanding prompt service from Meg, Philip stepped in with just the right amount of assertion to prevent an uncomfortable situation escalating any further.

Meg agreed to meet Philip after she finished work, and it was not long before she found herself with child. So she married him, regardless of her mother’s advice. They were blessed first with a dear little boy, who was named Philip after his father. Twenty months later, the baby girl named Eve arrived. However, the more babies they had and the greater the family responsibilities became, the more her Philip began to drink. It seemed he had serious problems balancing the responsibilities of married life and alcohol.

The only life Philip had known was on the goldfields. His father had been transported to Australia, served on the road gang, and tried desperately to make a fortune but barely scraped out a living for his small family. On their wedding day, Philip’s father, James, had blessed the couple with a little chamois bag of gold, his only legacy from the goldfields. Unfortunately, James Cane had celebrated the wedding with a surfeit of alcoholic cheer and told all and sundry about the bag of gold he had given the couple for a wedding gift. Some lowlife stole the chamois bag from the little shack they were renting during the night. The police had regarded the incident as suspicious. There were so many chamois bags of gold that each one looked the same as the other. Philip was quite upset that the police should doubt his word and suspect him of fraud. He had taken to drink a little too frequently to drown his sorrows.

On this night, Philip, too drunk to behave normally, had picked up the crying child by the arm from her bed in the bottom drawer that belonged to the wardrobe.

Here, woman. Feed your brat and shut it t’ hell up.

And he threw the baby at her. Usually he called her Meg. Meg Merrily he had called her when she laughed at the tales he told. Now he just called her woman. When he was merry drunk he would sing this old ditty to her: Old Meg she was a gypsy and lived upon the moors; her bed it was the brown heath turf, her house was out of doors.

Meg used to smile and laugh at this ridiculous idea, but lately it failed to bring a smile to her lips. The song seemed perilously close to the truth. Meg had no plans to live a gypsy life. She was nicely settled, a little too settled, in her humble little timber shanty.

As the sobbing baby suckled on the breast, she soon stopped crying and began to fall asleep. Meg knew the baby wasn’t really drinking but merely using her breast as a dummy. It didn’t really matter as long as she was quiet and did not wake little Philip too. Her husband got into bed beside her after removing his shoes and his jacket, and it wasn’t long before his snores shook the rafters. Meg moved the baby to the other breast and drifted off to sleep herself.

Now here was little Philip Arthur, the two-year-old, shaking her awake. Mummy, wake up. Bubby gone.

Careful, darling. Don’t wake Daddy. Whatever is the matter?

Bubby gone, Philip Arthur repeated happily.

Little Philip had been the apple of his father’s eye until Baby Eve was born only three months ago, and now she had taken his place. Little Philip was rather pleased to see that she had vanished. Meg looked around the bed for the baby. She distinctly remembered putting the baby on the breast before falling asleep. Meg gently lifted back the covers looking for the baby, trying not to wake her sleeping husband.

She must be here somewhere, she murmured with a touch of panic rising in her voice. She jumped out of bed and looked on the dirt floor to see if Eve had fallen out and rolled under the bed, but there was no sign of her. Meg pulled all the covers off the bed as fear gripped her. There was a little foot sticking out from under Philip’s chest. Desperately, Meg rolled Philip back out of the way and recovered the tiny, limp body from beneath her husband.

Philip! Philip! You’ve killed her, she shrieked.

Philip jumped up, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes, trying to get his bearings.

What are you talking about, woman? You are having a nightmare. I never killed anyone.

He saw the tiny, limp body in Meg’s hands.

What have you done to my lovely little girl?

You squashed her, you great, clumsy, drunken oaf!

Meg ran from the house with the baby in her arms. She ran up and down the row of houses that defined the street, barefooted with her night dress flying awry, crying, sobbing, and screaming hysterically. It was barely morning, and the first rays of the dawn were just showing over the rooftops. Smoke was rising from a few chimneys, and the magpies were starting to warble.

Heads popped out from doors and windows all up and down the row of houses as people woke to the awful commotion that Meg Grealy was making. Philip was running after his wife and children, calling to Meg to calm down and come inside the house, but it was as though she could not hear him.

Mrs. O’Brien from next door was first on the scene. She was a large, plump, motherly woman with a big heart who had raised her own brood of six children along with several other orphans as well. She took Meg firmly in hand and pulled her into her own house. Meg staggered to a chair loaded with clothes as Mrs. O’Brien cleared the chair of clothes with one hand and settled Meg into it with the other hand. Meg was in a daze, but it was clear to Mrs. O’Brien what the situation demanded. Meg was incapable of knowing what to do next, but Mrs. O’Brien had experienced the death of a baby a few times too many.

Philip, get the doctor and the police. Quick, man.

Mrs. O’Brien rapped out the message as she grabbed young Philip Arthur, who was following his mother, bewildered by the whole proceedings. She settled the young lad down close to his mother and placed the dead baby in a box, covering her tiny body with a blanket.

Philip hesitated. It wasn’t Meg and the baby he was thinking about but his own skin. What if Meg was right and he had killed the child? Would he be charged with murder? His brain wouldn’t work. His feet wouldn’t do what he wanted them to do. He fell over in the horse manure in the dirt track that served as a road in front of the house but managed to pull himself to his feet and was pleased to see he was still fully dressed but for his shoes, unlike Meg, who was running the street in her nightgown.

Philip Grealy searching for the police? Before it had always been Philip Grealy running from the police or warning his father the police were coming when he took the role of cockatoo during some of his father’s more nefarious schemes. Was this what married life did to a bloke? If only he weren’t so hung-over. He had drunk far too much last night. Why, he didn’t even remember getting home, let alone getting into bed. It was impossible to find a policeman when you wanted one.

Philip was running without realising where he was going, up and down the rough streets of early Sydney Town in the half light.

A great hand clasped Philip’s shoulder. I’ve got yer this time, a deep voice boomed. Don’t try to get away. Now! What are you running away from? Just tell Constable Maloney all about it!

Philip looked up into the dark eyes of a tall strong, young constable. I’m not running from anything. I’m running to find the police.

Well, now you’ve found the police. What do you have to say for yourself?

In a shaky voice Philip managed to stammer out his story. A short time later he knocked on Mrs. O’Brien’s door and went inside with the policeman. His son was eating warm milk and bread at the table. Meg had a blanket draped over her shoulders and a cup of tea clasped in her hands. Her eyes were red rimmed. She jumped up when she saw the policeman.

It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with her on my breast. I knew it was the wrong thing to do.

Philip went over to her and put his arms around her. She shied away at first. The smell of stale grog was coming from his skin, and Philip was reminded of his activities the night before. He persisted in trying to comfort her, and soon enough she gave in and clung to him.

No. If anyone’s to blame it is me. I’m the one who squashed the tiny, fragile thing, he sobbed in tortured gasps.

Bubby tired, Daddy, said a little voice. They looked down to see little Philip Arthur on his knees, looking in the box where Mrs. O’Brien had placed the dead baby.

The policeman went over to the box. Can I see your bubby? he gently asked young Philip, lifting the box to examine the tiny body.

Philip watched the policeman closely as he examined the body, no doubt looking for bruising or other signs of abuse. He wanted to turn and run but stifled the urge and stayed to comfort the sad remains of his family.

I’ll have to take her for the coroner to be checked out, I’m afraid.

Little Phil jumped up. No! My bubby, he cried.

I’m just going to borrow her for a little while, the policeman said, bundling the baby in the blanket she’d been wrapped in. He bent down to show young Philip and then stood and addressed the parents.

It is obviously an accident. Call into the police station tomorrow, and we will do the paperwork then. He left the house with the tiny, still bundle.

This was 1878 in Redfern, Sydney NSW. The Redfern streets were still dirt and unpaved. After rain they became a quagmire. The long dresses of the women usually had muddy, heavy hems that dragged around their ankles. Hawkers took their horses and carts or pushed barrows around the streets, so horse manure on the roads was an additional hazard. Occasionally enterprising young boys would collect the manure and sell it later to householders for their gardens, but more often than not the manure was trodden into the mud.

Philip took his wife and child back to their rented house. They were in a simple, single-room wooden tenement that opened straight onto the street. Quite a number of houses in Redfern at that time were one-room houses, and of course they were the cheapest to rent. Meg seemed dazed and bewildered, but at least she had calmed down. Phil felt bewildered himself, but he had work to go to, and he did not want to leave Meg alone.

Come on, me darling, get dressed and go and see your mother. She’ll have to be told, and better she be told the news by you than by the local gossip-mongers. I’ll have to go to work, as I have a few jobs promised for today, but I will call into the police station on the way home and fill in the paperwork. You will be all right once you talk to your mother. And be sure and catch a cab.

Phil remembered the nasty business that everyone was talking about: Women were being attacked on the street by gangs of unemployed youths called The Push, who were looking for excitement. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins.

Here’s some money. I don’t want anything to happen to the rest of my family. Take care. Philip kissed Meg tenderly on the cheek.

Meg wandered around the tiny room in a daze, picking up and putting away odds and ends. Her mind was far from the task in hand. Gossip-mongers! she thought. I’m going to be their favourite topic. Whatever will people think of me? It is not as though there was anything wrong with little Eve. She was a perfectly healthy baby, not like Mrs. Packham’s baby, born with a cleft palate and a twisted leg. I’ve destroyed my perfect child.

Little Philip tugged at the blanket that was still around her shoulders, and she realised she must return it to Mrs. O’Brien. She dressed young Philip and herself, rolled up the blanket under her arm, and went out to face the street. Everyone was looking at her; she saw a few curtains pushed aside as the neighbours peered through their grimy windows. Mrs. O’Brien was at the door to greet her.

That’s my girl, she purred. Keep your head high, and don’t let the bed bugs bite. They don’t know nothin’, and I’m not telling them a thing.

And she gave Meg a reassuring pat on the backside as she left. Meg held her head high but kept an eye out for pats of manure on the