Illywhacker

And although she could put up with Lenny's whingeing about his husband's tongue, she would permit nothing to prevent her letter-writing and even Izzie had learned to leave her alone when she was occupied with what they both now chose to call "bookkeeping".

Do not imagine that she was lazy in regard to her other duties. Leah, at twenty-five, worked as hard and unrelentingly as any widow who does not wish to think. She rose at five thirty every morning, washed and dressed her husband, made him breakfast, cut his lunch. At six thirty they left the house and she pushed the wheelchair up the steep hill out of Bondi, right up as far as Neil Street where they met Izzie's headmaster, a Mr Wilks of tory views. Together they would pick up the crippled teacher and strap the light wheelchair to the spare tyre. Mr Wilks would not have the chair inside the car (although it was a collapsible American model and would have fitted easily) and complained about scratch marks on the paintwork on the outside.

Leah then walked briskly down to Campbell Parade, sparing no time to admire the pounding surf, bought a newspaper for Lenny, returned to the house, did the washing if it was a Monday, went shopping if it was Tuesday or Friday, and because these were the days of the Popular Front against Fascism and there were demonstrations, meetings, anti-war rallies, seminars and fund-raising exercises like the Artists Against War exhibition she -being only a young wife with no children to care for – was always busy organizing something, arranging a hall for an exhibition, begging paintings from artists, borrowing a tea urn from a union who wanted her to pay a deposit. She did all these things without complaint, but she would not give up the time allocated to "my bookkeeping" for anyone. During these two hours of every day she would not answer a telephone or door or even make a cup of tea. She sat at the kitchen table celebrating imaginary birthdays and picking fruit from unplanted apple trees.

Even when Charles arrived in Sydney to find his mother, even though Leah was delighted to see him, although she may have cooked him a huge breakfast with steaks and chops and kidneys and bacon and sausages and eggs and onions, although she accepted his invitation to see the Chinese boy acrobats, she would not give up her letters to help him find his mother.

Of course she was guilty. She probably cooked him fried bread and liver as well. She apologized more than was necessary. She hovered around him with a teapot. But she would not give up her bookkeeping.

Instead she conscripted Lenny, who was doing nothing better than studying the racing form and worrying about his constipation, to help in the search.

They were a bizarre pair, the neat little Jew with his dark suit and black hat (which he wore like a Riley Street larrikin, tipped forward over his eyes) and the wide-hipped, pear-headed youth who did not know what to do with his big red hands. Thus she was able, when they finally left her alone, to incorporate a truthful portrait of the pair into the letter that began "Dear Herbert"; this reflection of the real world was like a little piece of mirror glass sewn into the fanciful patterns of a Hindu bride's dress.

7

Charles had never talked to a "foreigner" in all his life. He had met Englishmen, of course, and the Yank who taught him how to trap the rabbits, but he had not met a real foreigner. Yet by ten o'clock on his second day in Sydney he was sitting in tea-rooms at Bondi and the tea-rooms were full of foreigners. Lenny bought him a cake and showed him how to eat it with a fork. The fork was tiny and hard to use. Charles pressed his knees together and tried to keep his elbow to his side. When the cake was finished they set out for the Bondi Post Office. It was still early, no more than ten, but there was a dance hall already open and they stopped to peer through its open lattice walls at the couples gliding on the floor. Lenny nudged him and winked. Charles blushed. He would never have the nerve to go into such a place.

"You know how to dance?" Lenny asked him. They were walking past the newsagent's towards the Post Office.

Charles admitted that he didn't.

Lenny then showed him how the foxtrot was done, right in front of the newsagent's. Even though Charles was embarrassed he was also impressed at the light graceful movements of the silver-haired man. He was so dapper and neat. He held his hands out as if embracing a slightly taller woman.

"Foxtrot," Lenny said, and smiled. "You can teach yourself." They then went into the newsagent's and picked up the Sporting Globe.