Those Brisbane Romantics by Danielle de Valera
Author:Danielle de Valera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, FIC 019000, FIC 043000, FIC 014000
Publisher: Danielle de Valera
Published: 2021-10-29T00:00:00+00:00
They were being ground in the mill of procreation. They thought they were the masters of their fates, but all the while nature had plans for them. Their beauty was only temporary. Designed to attract, like the flowers. Nature didnât care how many of their dreams bit the dust as long as their DNA went trundling on.
When Klari left she had nowhere to go. It took her two days to travel by train from Brisbane to Sydney, and it was another three days before Mrs Nadassy received a letter revealing her address. By the time Joe found her on the following Saturday, he knew what must be done.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed in a small room on the top floor of a run-down boarding house, knitting. She looked up when he reached the doorway.
âSo Bill told you; I knew he would. And Mumma, she gave you the address, yes? She was always the romantic, poor Mumma.â
Joe dumped his backpack. Heâd come straight from the train, sitting up all night as poverty decrees. âIâm sorry I didnât meet you that Saturday morning.â He began to pace about the room. His mind hovered around the conversation, waiting for the right moment to alight on the problem. âDid you wait long?â
Klari went on knitting. âNot very long.â
Joe had never seen anything like that boarding house in the slums of Paddington. The room contained a wardrobe, a single iron bedstead and a battered dressing table on which stood a toothbrush in a glass and a crazed cup containing flowers. The walls were painted a bright unlikely blue. On two of them hung Victorian prints in ornate, faded gilt frames. The only window in the room faced west, the room would be an inferno in summer. And she was planning to stay here six months?
Joe went to the window and looked out: there was no fire escape, only a three-storey drop to the pavement below and a row of run-down terrace houses, where old men and New Australians sat out on the front verandas aimlessly watching the passers-by. He walked to the door of Klariâs room and saw that it was at the blank end of the hall. Twenty rooms away the old wooden staircase ricketted down to ground level.
He came back inside, frowning. âKlari, you canât stay here. The place is a fire trap; itâd go up like matchwood. Why didnât you at least get a room downstairs?â
âIt is cheaper up here than downstairs and, although it is bare, it is clean. Some of the places I saw were so dirty they would sicken you. Do you like the flowers?â She pointed to the cup on the dressing table. âOne of the old women downstairs gave them to me. She is very old and has arthritis; still, she has a little garden. I help her sometimes and cook for her. She is almost blind.â
Again, Joe protested. She couldnât stay there. What was she going to doâjust sit there for seven months? Klari shook her head.
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