she derives lessons from the caramel sisters. what will he do to this world by and by. burn it. thats the morning now. then mother will sometimes bring me back a toy or a new dress. the wireless oracle. toy phonograph plays six inch records. natty little dolls for tiny tots with hard heads and nicely dressed. kiddies love to see him eat the pennies. you name it. flying air ship. books sometimes but with pictures. head to foot. oh what a bummer. in a minute. in a few minutes. look out here i go. the best was a toy kodak camera that was like a real one. i carried it around on my neck. we went, x and i, to call on dad at the bank. i took my camera and my money box. not quite a dolls house. it was a model looked just like the head office with a slot in the roof i think it must have been made before the head office. mother got it and five pounds when i was born. a penny for the bank mother. it had all the windows and columns painted on not as fresh anymore as the actual ones. every time i had a birthday dad put a sovereign in it. he even put a sovereign in it that year which was obviously a lesson in something. it was strictly forbidden to take it out of the house but i wanted to bank it already. probably you do not encourage your child to ask for money. id seen mother do it with her handbag.
so we went down through the cry of the needle and mothball man to the stop for the tram into the city. please des. x half pointed at the sandstone clock tower in martin place as if she meant to say something but then turned on her heel and put her finger to her lip and squinted off in another direction and i grabbed her arm with my free hand and said come on snap to it its this way.
it looked shinier then, it was i guess. it had only just come out of its packet. it soared above the neighbouring buildings apart from the post office which as it was down the hill a little tended to recede in comparison anyway, grains. the new midpoint. seemed to in those first weeks at least. the workers were still coming out of it here and there, dusting off on their trousers the last powder from some chiselled nook or cranny beyond the normal purview of the banking or curious public, and nothing for the cleaners to do yet. it simply shimmered, it still does at the right time of day. assembled into one imminently punctual symbol every one of its polished details blew the news from the coded telegrams passing at that moment between the bruce government and the agent in new york. a terribly kept secret if anyone was hoping to. there wasnt a place in the country like it. unique use of reinforced concrete and architectural terra cotta. chicago style. the latter got up a local industry at.
o well there was kingsclere. plenty of people pretended to want to open an account but had really just come in to look. and these magnificent columns. serpentine green. no it isnt what you think it is its called scagliola. no one knows how. the workmen put up screens while they worked. a jealous race. im sure i know someone who would love to know. had horses haul the vault door up martin place. no longer moore street. yes chubbs. x was stupefied in my opinion but then it was enough to make even a city girls mouth hang open. it was better than hordens. really gave you a feeling of something you could depend on, i mean the building. unlike the roman high court. had a pneumatic front door fell into a cavity in the basement every morning. every morning you understand. higher up a mechanical fire escape had been disguised as a first floor window in elizabeth street. the false sill and keystone it could be moved aside to allow a wide steel stairway to descend eight metres to the street. well x and i sidled under the counter see if i could spot anyone i recognised or at least a way through to another level. the clerks had little bells if they didnt just keep hitting something metallic. appetite of the spirit, maam, natural as hunger to the body. a reason between two people. dont consider that very professional. if i had a mind. obliged. as i was saying when i was with the mutual life trust. in adelaide. no a sinking fund, no, no to retire indebtedness. down at the thingammieborough wool store, you know opposite the wharves, yes the rams heads. well thats just where i lost it. oh stop. it was precious. of course i couldnt say a word to charlie. you know they keep it under the street. thats a lie. honest to god its flowing free down there its an aladdins cave. hed think it was bad luck. europe i said like everyone has been turning back. as if they dont have enough marks to make houses with. stop. popular longing to get back to something solid. instinctual really, distracted times. want something solid under. please ladies if i can have your attention for the matter at hand. excuse me. the members leant over us or pressed themselves against the counter without interruption and then we went around them but never so far out the clerks could see us. of course in the end we ran smack into a security guard who said what are you doing snooping around this side those stairs are out of bounds. my ward wishes to deposit the contents of her piggy bank. her father is on the board of directors. well if you say so half smiled the guard then, lifting the visor of his cap to scratch his forehead. x didnt blink. ill take you up.
we waited pretty much where we were told to until we almost got sick of it. hullo there you two said langley as he turned into the corridor ahead of the guard. he had a portfolio under his arm and he was carrying his hat in the other hand. thank you peters i can look after them from here, i was just on my way over myself. he was more animated than id ever seen him at kingsclere. beads of sweat had broken out under his nose. he nodded to x and tapped my money box which must have made a hollow enough sound but he almost lost his grip on the portfolio in the process. youve come to the wrong place pumpkin, your pa works here. obviously that was an extremely disturbing thing to hear at such an age. of course they hadnt made tin boxes like the savings bank yet dont know what i was thinking. in the public mind the bank was the building and the building was the bank. langley laughed. someone must have. it was right behind you. come on, i have a message i want to get to him before he pops out for a bite.
so we crossed the place with langley to the other head office. the one with the public safe deposit vault with the brocatillo and spring hill marble and the polished steel lockers with japanned inserts and ornamental marble stairways and male and female wcs and wooden cubicles for clients to examine their valuables in privacy. next time youre on our side ill take you to our own attic floor said langley as we went into the banking chamber. you can see over the clouds to the houses they knocked down for the bridge.
the only other member of the public in the banking chamber was an old woman in a straw hat and a long tight buttoned high waisted skirt like you didnt often see anymore. she wanted to do what i wanted to do. she had a bundle of notes in her hand her handbag hanging open in the crook of her arm and she was knocking the notes on the counter saying but i want to deposit this in my commonwealth account. the clerk was telling her she was in the wrong building. theyve strangled you said the old woman, theyve eviscerated you.
madam this building has never been —
ive had it from butchart and others. you didnt have to work for them. you could have made them exercise their rights to draw. you had the people behind you the whole time as if you didnt know. miller would never have stood for a scam like rural credits. its this spat wearing gangster.
madam we have never managed your account in these offices. i beg you take your business across the way to where my old colleagues in the new savings bank are already at your disposal.
all that must have happened after the amalgamation, this is impossible.
dont forget you put us through the war. you helped me buy my quarter acre. if it didnt start with this new housing policy. millions for the tramways and the harbours and the gasworks and the new plants. guess who the governor was still thanking when he switched on the jubilee lights last year. a million twinkling globes of red white blue green amber. a city of. a million twinkling globes. some promise. the woman was shoving the money back in her bag and making for the exit. i suppose ill just get back on the ferry and stuff it in my mattress. you wait and see how many do the same. just wait, well put you back. those crooks going to get their comeuppance.