...17...

Arthur Symonds, his arms folded over his chest, a smile a mile wide on his open face, steered me back to the centre of the shop and burst into laughter. 'What was that I said before about chutzpah, young'un? You've got it in spades, sonny Jim, and no mistake.' He drew breath. 'Bold as brass, there you were kissing Harry Rosen's little girl and hiding behind Don Bradman!' And he went off into another fit of laughter. 'Caught behind, wouldn't you say?'

    I saw the joke but with the taste of Trudy's lips still on mine I didn't think it was as funny as all that. The bag of money now dangled from my wrist. It was beginning to become an encumbrance. Arthur Symonds sat me on a high stool and then began very skilfully to draw out what I could tell him of my life. Poor Arthur, he was about to open a floodgate. When he realised what he had started, he shut the shop door and put out a sign: 'Back in 15 minutes'.

    We were sitting virtually eye to eye; Arthur folded his arms and then, fearing he may have looked a bit intimidating, shoved his hands in his pockets. There was an eerie silence, broken for me by the cheering sound of the Bondi tram rattling down the hill to the beach. I wished I was on it with my new towel around my neck instead of perched uncomfortably on a high stool, wondering what was expected of me.

    Ignoring a tap on the shop's window, Arthur began by asking me my age but before I could reply, 'I reckon you'd be about twelve? Maybe even thirteen? Right?'

    'Fourteen,' I answered, 'a couple of weeks ago.'

    He looked beyond me, then he said softly, 'Poor Alva ' and now here you are -poor Alva's boy.'

    I slid off the stool. There seemed to me to be no gap in time from the infant Alan to the brat to 'poor Alva's boy'. I was as tight as a bowstring, my jaw clamped fast against any emotional break in the dam wall. I headed for the door. Arthur walked beside me. 'Oh Alan, you've forgotten your towel.'

    Well, that did it. He had called me by my name. At the sound of my name spoken in a lovely gentle non-threatening tone, I fell apart. Or, as it really happened, into his arms that folded around my thin shoulders. We stood like that, unperturbed by the rapping on the shop window until my chest stopped its convulsive gallop. Arthur released me and we resumed our former situation, me on the stool and Arthur once more in front of me.

    Looking into his plump, open face, I started to tell him what I could - no, what I thought he could take of my life. What good would it do for him to know of the streeturchin existence I had led and in fact was still living? He asked me about my father. He shook his head in amazement at the fool's chaotic marriage adventures, as I saw them first through a child's eyes and then as a conjoined victim of the most recent disaster. He wanted to know more and more, but two or three irate customers rattling the door put a stop to it. He let them in. One of them, a lady I knew from Angelo's fruit shop, whispered loud enough for me to hear, 'Isn't that poor Alva's boy?' Arthur answered tersely, 'Could be, Mrs Rothberg, now what can I show you?'

    He served them all with a brusque efficiency. The cash register rang out frequently and only then did I become aware that I still had my Commonwealth Bank moneybag dangling from my wrist with its contents of more than thirty quid, less the fifteen shillings I had paid for the towel, so I still had . . . well over twenty-nine pounds!

    In a brief interval before the next customer entered the shop, Arthur Symonds reminded me to call him Uncle Arthur. I nodded. Having established this, his tone changed. 'Now, sonny Jim, reckon you could make yourself useful around here?' Again I nodded, thought better of it and said, 'OK . . . Uncle Arthur.' He led me into the storeroom at the back. Without wasting words, he showed me how to open the cardboard boxes, take out their contents and put them onto the shelves around the room. Then he was gone and I set about the job with a willingness that surprised me. 

    Uncle Arthur left me alone to work on until late afternoon. It was not hard work, sometimes interesting when there were items that in the past I might have wished for, but mostly just sorting stuff out and putting it on the racks of shelves. Now and then I made a mistake - they were the occasions when I thought of Trudy and felt a delicious flush go through my whole body. I did not know of any other sort of kiss than the one we had shared, a kiss of firm lips against each other's teeth. It came back to me again and again, and each time I was reduced to pressing my own lips to the back of my hand.

    'Girls' swim cossies go with girls' bathing caps, Alan, don't forget.' Arthur inspected my work. 'Not too bad, young'un, I think you can knock off now.' We went together back into the shop. Arthur pressed a key on the cash register, a drawer flew open and he took out a ten-shilling note. 'Here's your wages, Alan.' He picked up my moneybag and popped the note in it. 'Better than selling papers on the trams, eh?' Arthur began his routine for shutting the shop, putting dust covers on some items and then finally pressing a key on the giant four-drawer National cash register. I jumped as all four drawers sprang open at once. Arthur took a bank bag like mine and placed it on the counter. He then beckoned to me. 'OK, Alan, over here, mate. You should be good at this.' He piled all the money on the counter. 'Now, I want you to sort it out into pounds, shillings and pence.' I did not hesitate for one moment. Putting my own small moneybag to one side, I did as he wanted, accurately and neatly and earning a pat on the back.

    By now it was dusk; Uncle Arthur went around and switched off the lights. I picked up my bag, he picked up his much heavier bag and we headed for the front door. Uncle Arthur opened the door and I stepped out into darkening Bondi Road. 'Where are you off to, son?' I was still in my 'better clothes' and, for the first time, began to worry about my moneybag. The lending library would be closed and really, I did not want to take the money back there; there was no place 'at home' safe from Shirley or even my father. On top of all this new worry, I was bloody hungry! I started to tell Arthur that I would walk down Bondi Road and into Francis Street.

    'Home,' I answered. 'I've got to get up early to do my paper job.' It was then I remembered my towel. It was just as big a problem as the moneybag. I turned to go back into the shop; Arthur stopped me. 'Can't go back in there now, Alan, I've set the burglar alarm.' An unworthy momentary feeling of distrust gripped me then fell away. Arthur took my arm and steered me across the road. A tram ground to a halt in front of us and I made a move to jump on. Arthur's hand slipped from my arm to around my shoulders. The tram trundled on its way without me. We walked to a side street where a latemodel Ford stood at the kerb. He selected a key from a huge bunch, put it in the car's door-lock and the door swung open.

    'Well, poor Alva's boy,' Arthur began with a laugh, 'I've got a bonzer idea. I -that is we - Clara and me, we live in a house in Old South Head Road and right now she - Clara, my wife - is waiting with dinner for me. She always cooks enough for an army.' He went to go around to the driver's side of the car, paused and declared in a friendly but firm voice, 'You're coming home with me for tucker.' He propelled me unresisting to the front seat, leaned in through the window as the door closed. 'I forgot to ask you, Alan, do you eat kosher grub only at Francis Street?' And he roared with laughter. What am I in for, I asked myself, first the Don Bradman joke and now this one. I wouldn't know kosher if I were to trip over it - whatever the hell it was. And the sad truth was that I really did not know what kosher was. Some Jewboy, me! Thinking back, I might have known something of Jewish dietary laws if I had lived longer at Uncle Harry's but we never reached that level of discussing things Jewish, never got beyond the heroic Bible stories like David who slew Goliath with the jawbone of an ass. Like kosher, I would not have known the jawbone of an ass if it jumped up and bit me on the bum.

    Arthur drove off in style, perhaps to show me he was master of this hunk of machinery, and I was impressed, but then how many motorcars had I ridden in? A smelly taxi with a Yank and . . . and sitting in the back seat of Harry Rosen's Buick with my hand resting ever so lightly on Gertie's chest. Seemed like years ago - until today, this very morning, when, with the blessing of the famous Don Bradman, we kissed once again.

....    ....

Uncle Arthur's house was situated on the low side of Old South Head Road. Only the gables were visible from the street. He nudged the car in low gear down a very steep driveway, switching off so that we halted with its door right opposite the entrance porch. One stride, a jangle of keys, an unnecessary push on the electric doorbell and only then did he come round to my side, sort of unloaded me and shepherded me to the front door. I tried to get behind Uncle Arthur, don't know why, it was a futile move anyway; he steered me down the entrance hall, booming out, 'Good Shabbes, Clara, look what I've found.'

    Was I lost? A parcel left in his Bondi Road shop? And it was Friday night. A nervous tremor gripped me, despite the gentle pressure Arthur exerted in the small of my back. I certainly felt lost at that moment. Here I was in a strange house, no brandnew beach towel, no idea what was to happen next . . .

    'I can't come, Arthur. Whatever it is, bring it here to me in the kitchen.'

    Well, that did it, I turned to bolt back up the hall but there was no getting past Arthur's bulk, and the nearer we got to the kitchen, the more the pangs of hunger knotted my stomach until we stood together, a plump Jewish man and a very skinny Jewboy with a big nose now being assailed by the most delicious smells I had ever known.

    Finally, Clara put down her dishcloth and turned around. I looked at her open-mouthed. I could not believe it: she was a mirror image of Arthur, like peas in a pod! She hugged him and kissed him, wished him good Shabbes, then, wiping the cooking steam from her glasses, stuck out a very moist hand for me to shake. Bending down, she said, 'And a good Shabbes to you, young man 'whoever you are.'

    I stiffened and waited for the inevitable. Arthur said, 'You'll never guess, Clara, this is Alva's boy.' Well, at least I was not poor Alva's boy. Clara put her hands on my shoulders, turned me around and said almost to herself, 'Alva Davis, one of the three sisters. There was Beryl, a softie, then Enid - quick with a smart answer - and then there was poor Alva, married Sam Collins. Is that right, Arthur?' He nodded. 'My second cousin, Flash Sam, we called him.' 

    Clara turned back to her cooking. 'Now, no more in front of the boy. Get washed up and I'll be there in a minute for you to make Kiddush.' Arthur led me into the biggest bathroom I had ever seen, shut the door behind me and left me to stare at my reflection in the huge mirror. I turned this way and that. Come to think of it, my nose wasn't that big really. There was a knock on the bathroom door. Arthur strode in, took no notice of me and had a pee and washed his hands. 'Dinner's ready, sonny Jim, but first we make Kiddush for Shabbes, f'shteyst?' Shades of my father and his pathetic knowledge of the Yiddish patois. Yes, I said to myself, I do understand, but Kiddush? Then it came flooding back to me: Friday night at Uncle Harry's while Cissy stood by impatiently, hovering over the few flaccid pieces of fried fish while Harry made a blessing over the plaited loaf of bread.

    Now here we were, the two of us, the big and the small, the homely one and the scared 'Alva's boy' entering the dining room as though joined at the hip. Two tall candles stood like sentries guarding the three cups of wine placed between them. Brusquely, Arthur pronounced, in quick order, the blessings for the wine and the bread, all under Clara's watchful eye. I sat on his left staring like an idiot at the array of cutlery, glasses and plates while the little silver wine goblet remained untouched in front of me until Arthur winked at me. 'Don't you drink, Alan?' I put the little goblet to my lips and the sweet wine trickled down my throat. He smiled approvingly. 'Now you can have lemonade, Alan, but wait until after the chicken soup.'

    And so it went: dish after dish and, to my amazement and Clara's delight, I ate the bloody lot! For the first time ever, I experienced the waist of my Paddy's Market pants pressing hard against my stomach. When the dishes stopped coming, I saw Arthur's head drop to his chest; Clara had retreated to her kitchen. I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece - nearly half past ten. I slid down from the dining chair and in my rubber- soled sandals silently made for the front door. On the hallstand was my moneybag, next to a bowl of fruit. I sneaked an apple, stuffed it into my pants pocket (already as tight as a drum) and made it to the front door. It must have been a wonderful example of joinery, it swung open without so much as a squeak. I laboured up the steep drive to the street, looked around like the sneak thief I now was and headed down the hill, taking any road that led towards the beach. It never entered my head to go to 48 Francis Street.

    I continued down the hill. The curve of the beach was bathed in moonlight. Stoked with the fuel from Clara's cooking, I kept up a steady pace and sprinted the full length of the concrete promenade. Where it ended, the rocks took over. With familiar agility, I hopped from one to the next until I rounded Ben Buckler where the waves broke over them. The salt spray seemed to wash away the new experience of the night. I reached my crevice in the cliff and tucked myself into it. The apple bulged into my thigh. Bugger it, I would leave it there, it could be breakfast or something, anything. I fell asleep. Whatever tomorrow might bring, 48 Francis Street, I dreamed, was not going to be a part of it.