Mrs Psozcowski's dog is dead. Mrs P lives round the road in an old beach shack. It is one of the few that survived the middle class suburban spread to the beach.
Where's your dog, I asked her.
He is dead, she says. He was seventeen. Her accent is still guttural and she hisses when she uses the letter S. She seems a lot older and walks with a staff. There is no way you could call it a walking stick.
A man in the Polish community gave him to her for company. He was the second dog she had owned and I asked her one day why she called the gentle golden labrador Brute. She said she heard women at the day centre say - oh my husband is a brute - and she thought it meant a darling. But she knows better now. He is buried quite deep in the sandy soil in her garden, wrapped in an old duvet she brought with her when she came to Australia.
Once upon a time, she tells me, one day I had a husband and two sons. My husband was a gypsy boy and his family did not approve. But we were very much in love. When the War came to Budapest my husband had to go out and be labour on the farms with other gypsy men but I think they just hid them in barn.
I had forgotten, she says, that I ever had a husband.
I like to think that he was dashing and handsome, flashy in bright clothes and that he fell head over heels in love with little Mrs P when she was young. I look at her now and I can see that she is quite old. I do not know what she would look like as a young girl.
I had to go to work in a factory, she says. I have always worked in factories except once when I was in Australia I worked for the Government department. That was just another factory.
She smiles to herself.
The factory I first worked in was in Budapest, in 1944. All the women had to work so I worked in the button factory with my friends. You think that will be nice to make buttons but I was at the end of the factory where all the buttons were still grey. I had to sort the shapes and take out the ones that were mistakes. The factory floor was damp cement and there was no money for the heating so we were always damp and cold. That is how I remember. But on Friday nights we always had a dance in the canteen and we had to dance with each other because we were very lonely and we did not have our men. This was a very happy time.
The woman who looked after my children let one get very sick and he died in the hospital. I had no money for the funeral so the priest buried him in a shroud and I had to say thank you very much. Humph, she says. Thank you very very much. After that my youngest child went to stay with my sister in the country.
After the War Budapest was not such a beautiful place any longer. Many of the gypsy men did not come home. We waited at the station on Thursday nights when the trains came in from the north with men who had been fighting and were now mending and coming home. Many people left with their money to, go to America. The man who owned the button factory sold it and I had to go and work in the factory that sorted feathers for pillows and duvets. We were not allowed to wear any jewellery in that factory and I lost my wedding ring when I put it in my pocket. It was just a little thing of twisted wire dipped in something shiny but I thought it was very valuable then.
Mrs P speaks while she breathes out. It feels as though she is blowing her story at me. She gets this effect by adding the letter H to many of the English words that start with a vowel. We sit down together to feed the ducks and I think I must bring my grandson to join in. We have a group of chestnut teals that live in the shallows on the beach with a very old and bedraggled goose. We don't know where the goose came from but it protects the ducklings from the seagulls.
At the feather factory I got very ill she tells me. All that dust. I came out in rashes and coughed all night. The doctor told me I could not work there any more. It was when I thought my husband would still come home and every thing would be all right. But the government changed at this time and things became very cruel. I am always looking like one of the old Magyars and I was very sick and upset when two friends say to me let us go Nashi, let us go, and so I went. I was so sick I did not even think of my son who was twelve by then.
We caught trains and had to hide and sometimes we walked and got lost and I got so thin I had to tie my skirt to my tummy. It was the first time I could see the sea. Oh, the blue and the white of it - and the smell. I want to have it always I said to my friends. In Italy we got on a ship with all the rest of our money to go to somewhere I had not heard of and I thought oh dear are they taking me to Austria. But I came to Australia and I went to Melbourne where I lived with my girlfriend for a long, long time.
Mrs P ends many of her sentences with a question in her voice, and her eyes. I rarely reply because this is her story.
This is so long ago, she says. I really forgot I had a husband and children once upon a time. My son who lived with my sister wrote to me once when he was a grown man but it would not be the same would it when you think you have a child and he turns out to be a man.
My girlfriend and I worked in a button factory in Port Melbourne for a long time. But always on the grey shapes and never, never do I get to the colours. But oh dear what does it matter. We had lovely dances at the pub on Saturday nights and all the girls from the factory would dress up and put bright red lipstick on.
Her eyes drift away remembering.
We were like fairies on the Christmas tree. Do you do that here she asks. What, wear red lipstick or put a fairy on the tree? She laughs out loud and I can see that she has only a few teeth left. Something I had not noticed before.
I thought I would go mad at that factory, she says, but sometimes I think it is out of order, the story I mean. I worked in a paper factory and I had to sort out the bags that were not stuck properly. Brown paper bags, she says with a sigh. But at night we went to night school to learn to write English and we would walk down after school at Port Melbourne and smell the sea and I was very, very happy with my girlfriend. There were not a lot of men for us to get a new man from. We were in our thirties but we were very happy and did not make rows or remember things that would be too hard to feel.
After I learnt English I could go to work for the Government department. A wicked sparkle comes to her eye. It is just like the factory, she says in amazement, but at the end of the day everybody goes home and we have made nothing! She looks at me and grins - don't tell me, she says, you don't make anything at the end of the day too? Oh no! And she laughs through her whole body.
When I worked for the Government department I wear very smart clothes she says. Lots and lots of lipstick and I have to keep the seams straight in my new nylon stockings. I go into the city everyday and I forget to smell the sea and then my girlfriend died and I had not noticed she was even sick. It was worse than my son dying because my girlfriend had been all of my life for many years and she went back with me to when we were girls in Budapest. She was very ill but waited for me to see she was ill before she went to the doctor. But I did not see. I was too busy being a new girl in the city. A very smart new girl.
Ach, she sighs, that was a long time ago.
After my girlfriend died I could just leave a job and get another one. There were lots of jobs in Melbourne then and you could just walk out and get another one the same day. So I worked in lots of factories and they were all the same. I was very miserable. I stayed on at the little house in Port Melbourne where I had lived with my girlfriend. I would sit down on the wall at the beach and smell the salt and hear the seagulls. They make a sound like you feel when you are lonely.
I was not very well in myself you must understand. She looks at me to see if I am listening.
Then one day I got sick of the sewing, singlets I think, at the factory I was working at, all the other ladies were different. They were not very friendly and some had come to Australia from other places. I just got up and I walked out. I caught trams all day till out in a suburb I had not been to before I saw the notice on a door. Vacancies. Here I thought is where I go next. The women were very gay and happy and they hugged me a lot because I had been crying from catching those trams all day and remembering my girlfriend and all of my life had gone.
In the factory part I was in we made jellybeans. I was allowed to pack the coloured lollies into the little bags so the colours showed.
She smiles remembering and her eyes almost disappear as she laughs.
The women, ah those women, she says. They told their stories all day. The jellybeans would go past on the long belt and I had to sometimes pick out the ones that had missed their colour. A lot of the women were older than me, with lots of things that had happened to them. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. But they made a joke of it and would cry too. Sometimes both together.
She looks at me and laughs again.
And on Friday nights we went to the hotel and we danced with each other because you must understand we had no men, she tells me. No men at all. We would hug each other and laugh and dance together. A bit like a long time ago before my girlfriend was my girlfriend in Budapest. These were the happy times in all the factories I worked in, all my life.
She suddenly sighs and looks at the ducks. They have finished eating our bread and are no longer squabbling.
Then they sold my house, she says. The house my girlfriend and I had lived in for such a long time. She turns to look at me and says - that was a terrible time.
So I packed up all our things and I came to Tasmania, I thought it was far away and I got a job at the chocolate factory. They fixed it up in Melbourne because I was not well again you must understand. But when I came to Tasmania I was very lonely at first. I was going one day with one of my friends from the factory to visit her grandchild who was sick and I did not remember if I even had a grandchild. I saw this little house just here by the beach, ah with the colour of the sea and the smell, and I bought it with all the money I had been saving. I did not always spend much money on things like fancy clothes or a car. I had saved for a long time but I forgot what I was saving for. That was just a long time ago.
She shakes her head a little and laughs. She stamps her staff into the damp sand and my small dog barks at her. Then she starts talking again.
When I stopped working at the factory, the chocolate factory, I started to go to the day centre. Oh my dear, she says, there are a lot of unhappy people there. So I go a lot of days just to talk to them. I think I started going after I had not been well and I could not remember some things. But the best thing is to live by the sea and I go for walks every day and I smell, oh yes I smell the sea.
But I have to go alone now that Brute is dead.
