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Where Can I Sleep?

The Station Master’s discovery of me asleep in the railway carriage forced me to find a bed in Brisbane for college nights. If somebody else had found me like a copper, I could have been arrested for vagrancy even though I hadn’t intended to sleep overnight in the carriage.

Mother mentioned she had a friend at Sunnybank, who’d give me bed and breakfast for five shillings a night. The minute Mother said ‘friend’, I should have been suspicious. This friend I hadn’t heard of previously. Mother had probably met this supposed friend on her most recent train trip to Brisbane. My desperation won out however. I could stumble into bed at eleven yet catch my usual train from Sunnybank station, much later at 7.30 am. The arrangement seemed like a reasonable solution.

The next week, I walked from the train station with my small kit bag and a piece of paper with the address. It was 10 pm. Whilst I was familiar with the road, I didn’t know the house. I arrived at the address and looked twice at the ramshackle hovel and its overgrown surrounds. Surely not! I knocked on the door because I had nowhere else to go. The door creaked open a little. A haggard, sixtyish year old woman, wearing a stained and holey dressing gown, peered through the crack. She asked for the five shillings. Some cats and dogs inside awoke and started up quite a melee.

The woman beckoned me inside. My mother’s housekeeping was deficient but none was done here. The squalid scene before me was worthy of a graphic horror movie and the smell of a rubbish dump. Small furry creatures of varying sizes scurried away from my feet. I smelt their verminous odour. However, the cockroaches ruled the abode by sheer number. A black and white television caught my attention. My family couldn’t afford one of these. I tried to see the picture playing on it but some cockroaches were holding a party on the rear side of the television’s glass screen.

I had no other option. The trains were finished for the night. Whilst I knew I wouldn’t sleep a wink; I couldn’t camp somewhere outside. The streets weren’t safe. Street lighting didn’t exist. Dangers seemed to lurk in the shadows and made everybody fearful of darkness. Besides, the night was cold and damp. At a bare minimum, here I had shelter. Neither was the woman a physical threat to me.

The woman showed me where the bathroom was and to a bed. I gave the bathroom a miss. No way was I going to shower in it. Slimy used water filled the bathtub (which had the shower overhead) and the wash basin. A multitude of roaches had committed suicide in both. I took my trousers off and laid on top of the bed then counted the minutes one by one until morning. When the first peep of dawn came, I silently escaped out the front door before the old hag stirred. I wasn’t staying for my cooked breakfast; I had risked my constitution enough. I tidied myself up as best as possible in the train station’s bathroom and hoped nobody would notice my appearance at work that day. At least, the office’s omnipresent nicotine smoke cloud would obscure yesterday’s body odour. Never again, I vowed to listen to Mother’s advice and never I did!

About the same time, I heard the Bethania Station Master’s daughter had married and bought with her husband a home at Salisbury. Lorraine was a fine girl. We had worked at the Bethania Refreshment Rooms together. I thought the young couple might give me bed and breakfast for some extra income. They were struggling financially too. Well, Lorraine took pity on me and I was beyond grateful. Perhaps, a kind word from her father helped.

The couple’s house was no more than a two bedroom wooden cottage purchased from the Housing Commission, a government scheme. Still, it was clean and pleasant. It also contained a bathroom complete with a proper toilet.

Salisbury was fifteen kilometres from the City and was considered to be a fringe suburb. ‘Fringe’ was an overly polite description in its case. It was nothing like its majestic counterpart in England. It sat on a floodplain on which surrounding industry had sprung up as munitions factories in World War Two. The Brisbane tram terminated at it at a terminus located amongst the industrial buildings. Beyond these through some bushland and across a swampy creek was Lorraine’s house. A bush track wound up a steep bank and through the swamp to there. In daylight hours with people in the vicinity, the route was safe enough for an athletic young man. At night time, it was perilous. The factories’ surrounds were dimly lit and the swamp was cloaked in complete darkness. Alas, the route was the only available path. So being surefooted, I took my chances for a few nights and encountered nobody else.

Then one night, a middle aged, heavy set man rode the tram and alighted at the terminus too. I didn’t make eye contact with him. Other than him, I saw nothing unusual so began to weave my way through the maze of alleys between the buildings. At a subliminal level, I felt a presence behind me. All my muscles tensed. I realised the man was following me. He caught up to me as I neared the steep bank. He said hello in a gravelly voice. Given my rural upbringing, I treated all strangers with suspicion. I was polite yet apprehensive. I had never been propositioned before and couldn’t think what he'd want from me. I hadn’t a spare penny to give him neither did I look as though I had. Furthermore, if he were a thief, he’d have hit me on the back of the head rather than speak to me. I feared he was going to murder me but couldn’t fathom why. This man could easily overpower me. I’d be defenceless against his bulk. I increased my step size to put distance between us and thought quickly back to my childhood escapades in the bush. My advantages were agility plus knowledge of the track despite the darkness and of the treacherous swamp.

I ran with my hair bristling on my neck. The man came fast after me! I knew exactly where some saplings had been laid in the mud to provide people with a firm footing and to save their shoes on their walk across the swamp. A spot of moonlight shone for a moment at the crossing. I sprang and my surefooted feet landed on the makeshift sapling plank perfectly and I continued to run. My assailant didn’t land so! He slipped and fell into the mud and murky water. I sprinted faster than ever before to Lorraine’s place. Somehow, I recognised that this man was evil. I never used the track again nor caught the tram. I resorted to the later train and the longer route home along the main roads though slept an hour less.

I needed a driver’s licence and wheels!

#Where Can I Sleep #college nights #bed and breakfast #cockroach colony #Salisbury #Salisbury swamp