The place where I was born burned down the other day. Coincidentally the fire was on my brother’s 57th birthday, and he had been born there too. Before it had been destroyed the building served as a rambling old boarding house, but when my mother went there to have me, and two years later my brother, it was the Grange Private Hospital.
The hospital stood, or rather spread itself, over a fairly large block of land at the tram terminus. It was a low weatherboard structure, with bits jutting out here and there and several sets of steps and ramps.
The land fell away behind the hospital. The houses that occupied the suburban blocks on the slope resorted to varying levels of stumps to keep themselves in their rightful place. Right at the bottom were the sporting fields of the
On school days the fields were noisy with the shouts of teachers and children, but at night the place was quiet and dark: and it was at night when the event occurred that made the place infamous. Early one morning, a commuter on the way to the tram terminus, discovered the body of 22 years old Elizabeth Leggett, who had been strangled and bashed with fist and boot.
I remember that day in 1952. Word somehow got around that the body of a young woman had been found in the front yard of a house down the end of our street. It was September, and there were bauhinia trees on the footpath just there and they were flowering. They always reminded me of a row of pink and white brides.
“Must be Sheila,” my girl friend and I whispered in delicious wide-eyed speculation. “She lives down there near the school and she goes with all the boys.
Next day a picture of the murdered girl appeared in the paper, the same photograph that has appeared in newspapers and magazines many times since that day. The girl looked out of the picture with such candour, her hair stylishly rolled back from her open face with its broad forehead and generous lips. Was that why her murder so shocked the citizens of
The girl was not Sheila but we recognised her. My brothers and I used to wait sometimes at the terminus for our father to come home from work, and we’d seen her getting off the tram also.
“That’s the girl that man was talking to the other day. Remember?” I said to my brother.
“What man?”
“You know, the one who rides the bike. His kids go to our school. His daughter’s in my class but she’s one year older than me. She’s 14, but she was kept down last year.”
“Yeah, her brother’s in my class. He’s scared of the teacher and he’s always in trouble. He’s got sores and bruises all over his legs. Some of the kids tease him ‘cos his clothes don’t fit.”
We talked about it in excited voices. We knew who the killer was, but nobody asked us. Kids were seen and not heard in those days.
Rumours flew around the suburb. It was a case of mistaken identity; it was a soldier who was guilty - no, it was an Italian, a Greek, a reffo.
Aspersions were cast on the character of several innocent men, including the local chemist, who had been working late that night. Certainly he did have a nodding acquaintance with
But eventually interest waned and the case no longer was mentioned in the Courier Mail or the Telegraph, or even the Truth on Sunday, and the police seemed to have given up trying to solve the mystery.
We forgot about the man and his kids left the school, but he must have stayed in the district, because years later I saw him outside the Lutwyche pub, waiting for it to open. He was a shambling wreck, no longer frightening, talking to himself and asking for money from everyone who went past. I stepped out of his way so he could not accost me. But that was not the last time he came to my attention.
The old hospital had become a nursing home after the Brisbane Women’s Hospital opened, and then, much later, a rather run down boarding house for men. And now the place was in the news again. The building had been destroyed completely. At first it seemed all had escaped, but then the body of one man was found in the ashes. It was thought the fire started in his room. I recognised the name of the victim. He was the father of my former schoolmate – the man we had seen talking to
By coincidence four years ago I had run into his daughter, Judy who was in my class at school. The school was 75 years old and a reunion of past pupils had been organised. I had gone along when someone told me about it. I hadn’t been in the area since my family left the district years ago, and I was curious.
We gathered in the space on the parade ground allocated to our graduating year, all smiles and touching hands and each determinedly not showing on our faces the shock that we felt at how old the others had become. Judy stood at the back alone, still looking rather bedraggled.
The girls, and all but one of the boys had married, and spouses were present. Surprisingly most still lived on the north side of the river, a dividing line not many felt comfortable to cross. I was an exception, and I was alone as my husband had died.
I went over to where Judy stood looking uneasy and withdrawn. I’d sometimes shared my school lunch hours with her and she’d always been glad to eat what I didn’t care for in my lunch bag. I didn’t realize then that she was so hungry because she hadn’t had breakfast, and she rarely brought lunch.
To be truthful neither of us had been part of the popular set and I looked now at the other plump, self satisfied sixty year old matrons and businessmen and felt that I was still somehow different. Judy and I walked around and stood at the back for a photograph we knew we’d never see.
“Had enough?” I said to Judy. She nodded.
“Want to go and see if we can find a cup of coffee? Where are you parked?”
“I came by bus,” and she seemed ashamed by the admission.
“Well I came late and I’m a fair way away, but if you don’t mind walking…?”
She said she didn’t. She hardly met my eyes and a smile seemed something her thin lips could not manage.
As we walked to my car I said, “Good to see the old place again. I wouldn’t have known any of the others if I’d passed them on the street; except Sonia – those striking eyes and the black hair are a dead give away. And you of course,” I hastily added, not mentioning that it was her general downcast manner that had jogged my memory.
“Remember Mr Thomas and his big black umbrella? – and Brycie? He could throw chalk with deadly accuracy; but then he was a good cricketer. Did you see Malcolm today? I used to have quite a crush on him when I was at school, but now he’s just a paunchy balding old man.” I struggled to think of something to say.
We drove up to the main road and found a little coffee shop that could not have been imagined when we were kids. We sat, and the burden of conversation was still with me. I told her briefly about my first marriage and divorce and the second one that had left me widowed.
“But life’s been good,” I said in an effort to lighten the atmosphere. “I’ve got two great girls and four grandchildren. But I must say, that contrary to the old adage my school years were never the best days of my life.”
“Nor for me,” she agreed. “I was glad to get out of the place and get a job. They were easy to come by then.”
I nodded, but she was looking off to one side and seemed as though she was about to say more.
“But I married a man who was a bit of a pig. Bit like my father really. I finally left and took the three kids. I’ve got grand kids as well, but only my youngest girl and my son have partners. My eldest girl never found anyone. We live together.”
I relaxed a bit, glad she had someone in her life to care for, and relieved I would not feel obligated to follow up this renewed acquaintanceship.
We’d lingered over our coffee but there was no one else in the place so we toyed with the froth around the sides of the cups and poked at the crumbs of cake. I had the feeling that now she had started she needed to get other things off her mind.
“I only came here today because I wanted to lay some ghosts, but I’ve only stirred things up for myself,” she finally said, still not looking at me, and I had to keep alert to hear what she was saying.
“My father was a bugger of a man. He bashed my mum and he was always looking for an excuse to whack me. He had big hands and loved to demonstrate his strength. Afterwards he’d come into my room at night and say he was sorry and kiss me and touch me…
She couldn’t go on and a shudder went through her thin shoulders. Her hands, where they rested on the table, clenched and her pale skin became mottled with purple blotches.
“He’d go out at night in the car. Not many people had one in those days and he only used it at night. He rode a bike to work and it was my brother’s job to keep the tyres pumped up just right. He often took my brother and me in the car with him – did it just to upset Mum I think. He liked to let us all know who was boss. He’d drive slowly through the streets after dark looking in through the lighted windows. My brother and I would be in the back half-asleep.
“If he saw a woman or girl walking from the tram he’d drive slowly beside her for a while, and when he’d scared her enough he’d drive on. If she was young he’d offer her a lift up the hill. Once a girl did get in, and then he started waiting for her on Fridays when she came home late, after she’d been to some college in the city.
“He gave her a lift a couple of times and was the perfect gentleman. The next time he asked her for a kiss and she was horrified and quickly got out of the car. He was mad. Went home and Mum copped it that night.
“Next week he parked down on the corner near the school sports field. You know, down near the end of
Judy put her hands in her lap and hunched her shoulders forward, rocking slowly back and forth.
“He told us if we ever said anything he’d kill us. He worked Saturday morning, and as he left the house he told me to clean his boots. There was blood on them. He was fastidious about his shoes which he repaired himself, and I was anxious to bring them back to their usual highly polished condition.
“I hated him. We moved from the district the next week. He left us soon after. It was hard for Mum but she was happier. So was I, and my brother. Never saw him again. We heard he came back to this area. Couldn’t keep away it seems.”
She lifted her eyes to mine at last. “Anyway, I never want to come back again.”
I reached out to touch her hand not knowing what to say.
“I’d better get home,” she said. “My daughter worries about me.”
I offered her a lift but she said she’d rather get the bus. And so we parted.
I didn’t know what to think of her confession. Surely she must have imagined it. Then I remembered what we kids had whispered about more than forty years before. In the end I decided it was not my place to stir up trouble. It was too late now and she’d had enough misery in her life.
But that wasn’t the end of the saga. When four years later, after the fire, a body was found in the ruins of the men’s hostel and identified as Judy’s father, her account of his life appeared in the Courier Mail. She told the police the same story that she had told me. However this wasn’t the first man to be suspected of the crime and there was no actual evidence that what she said was true.
The man who was the butt of malicious gossip at the time of the murder, the now ninety-one year old retired pharmacist, was quoted as saying he welcomed the news of his exoneration. But he didn’t know if he could take it seriously, and neither it seemed did the police. There had been more than one deathbed confession to the murder.
Knowing how intensely poignant Judy’s story had been that day in the coffee shop, I felt it must be true.
Ironic that the real culprit had finally died not far from where he killed
I just had to go back to see where the old hospital had been. The sight of the black devastation brought a lump to my throat.
Where had all the years gone? How could such a huge building have adapted itself to just an ordinary block of land? But then, Donilly Hill, where our father used to take us walking some Sunday afternoons was no longer as tall or as steep as I remembered it, and the deep creek where we used to play when we were young turned out to be a mere trickle. The very landscape must have been seen from our perspective as small unimportant children.