The departmental store was in Bourke Street. It was arrogant. It was blatant. Its concrete belly, sunk low in the earth, was full of human beings. It sat secure, and like the flowers that feed on flesh, it flaunted colour and perfume to lure its victims. They cluttered round its eyes. They surged in its mouth. Slow movement of massed people like food through a digestive tract. . . .
Cut glass bottles full of fragrance—powder—lipstick—the silk of stockings—frocks—materials—imitation jewellery. . . .
A contagious feverishness. . . .
‘What can I get for you, sir?’ Red lips smiling; tired eyes . . .
I clung to the counter. Women flowed behind me. ‘The lifts?’ I asked. ‘Where are they?’
‘On your right. Turn here.’
I left her.
Round the turn.
‘Excuse me, madam.’
I squeezed into the lift.
‘Stand back, please.’ The liftman was a dictator. We rose into the air. Bodies crushed me. I breathed odours.
‘Crockery, glassware, ironmongery . . .’
No.
‘Coats, frocks, mantles, ladies’ lounge . . .’
Not yet.
‘Silks, dress materials, manchester . . .’
Right. I got out. The floor was practically deserted. I looked round. I took from my pocket a piece of paper to which was pinned a scrap of material. Three men were measuring cloth at a long counter. I handed my sample to a fair youth with a freckled, smiling face. He took it and murmured, ‘Check gingham.’
‘Four yards,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he replied.
The electric light made him appear even fairer than he was. The dark, massed shelves behind him, too. The absence of the sun. . . .
‘Nice day out,’ I said.
‘Is it?’ he said. He smiled. ‘We don’t see much of it.’
‘No,’ I said.
He talked about how hot it was on Sunday. He carried a roll of material from the shelves behind him and placed it on the counter.
An elderly salesman came through an arched doorway at the end of the department. He took up a position behind the counter a few yards to our left. His hair was going grey. He lifted a roll of material to the counter and began measuring off a length by holding a section taut along his outstretched arms and, by contact, comparing it with the distance between two brass tacks hammered into the counter.
The salesman attending me looked up and said, ‘If this weather keeps up I’ll go swimming over the weekend.’
‘The papers say it will,’ I said.
‘The papers . . .,’ He laughed scornfully.
I laughed, too.
He searched for his shears. The elder salesman on his left spoke to him in a quiet, unemotional voice. ‘Clarkey’s dead,’ he said. He did not look up from the material he was spreading upon the counter. He stood square upon his feet. His head moved as his hands moved, his eyes following the journeying of his fingers over the cloth.
The young salesman looked startled. ‘What’s that? What did you say?’ he asked quickly.
‘Clarkey’s dead,’ repeated the man.
The youth smiled unbelievingly, sensing a catch. He lifted the gingham for cutting. ‘I don’t believe it.’
The older man made a tick on a docket. ‘Yes. He’s dead. He committed suicide—shot himself.’
The youth was shocked into inaction. He stood holding the shears loosely in his hand. He stared at the speaker. ‘What . . .?’ he said. But the other had moved farther along the counter.
The youth looked down at the check gingham as if it contained some problem that he must solve. He smoothed it with his hand. He abruptly turned away from it and spoke to a dark, thoughtful man standing on his right waiting for change beside a vacuum tube.
‘Clarkey’s dead,’ he said. He spoke in an undertone. There were other customers in the department.
The dark man gave an exclamation. The container plonked from the tube and fell into the wire basket. He grasped it instinctively, his expression incredulous.
The youth had returned to the gingham. He cut the piece free from the roll. He lifted the roll and placed it back on the shelf. All his actions were mechanical. He was thinking of Clarkey.
He lifted the piece of gingham then replaced it gently on the counter. He walked towards the left, passing the elderly salesman wrapping methodically, and stopped beside a man writing in a docket book at the far end of the bench. He bent to him and said, ‘Clarkey’s dead.’ His voice was quiet and sad.
‘Dead!’ ejaculated the man dropping his pencil. ‘Dead!’
‘Yes—dead,’ said the youth. ‘He committed suicide.’
They both stood in silence looking at the floor and thinking. The man did not ask any questions. He was quiet with understanding. The fair boy turned to go. The man said: ‘He had a great laugh.’ ‘Yes,’ said the boy.
The youth returned to his position. The dark man, still holding his change, was waiting for him.
‘Hey. Is that true—dead?’
‘Yes. He committed suicide. He shot himself.’
The dark man turned his back and walked slowly away.
The youth wrapped my gingham in brown paper. He slipped string around the parcel. He knotted it abstractedly. With the ends of the string held in his hands he turned once more to the elderly man on his left.
‘But I only saw him the other day. He came in to say goodbye. He was going to New South Wales. He was all right. He was smiling.’
The grey-haired man said: ‘Yes. I know. I saw him myself. He said good-bye to me, too.’
‘I can’t understand it.’
The elderly man moved as if to reply but a faint, bitter smile touched his lips a moment and he did not speak.
‘Well,’ said the youth drawing a deep breath. ‘There’s an end of him, anyway.’
He slid the parcel towards me. ‘Four shillings,’ he said.
I gave him a ten shilling note. He stood before the vacuum tube staring moodily at the floor while he waited for the change.
I placed the parcel beneath my arm. I looked up at the shelves and the grey roof and the electric lights.
‘Your change,’ said the salesman. I took the silver wrapped in the crushed docket and put it in my pocket.
I raised my head and our eyes met.
‘Clarkey worked here for forty vears,’ he said. ‘He only got the sack a few weeks ago.’