The One That Got Away
When I was studying to be a minister of the Gospel, my student churches were two adjacent wooden churches in the inner slum areas of Melbourne. For seven years during the 1950’s and 1960’s the people of those inner slum areas were my parish.
I had very few weddings during my time as a student minister and then part time minister at the Ascot Vale and Newmarket Churches of Christ.
Most of the people who lived in our area were very old. Like most of the people who lived in the little workmen’s cottages around Newmarket and Ascot Vale they had, in earlier years, worked on the railways or at the sale yards, the abattoirs, or the racecourse. On the other hand there were also the new, poor, young families who had shifted into the Housing Commission flats that were being built, and who tended to be no older than teenagers.
The first wedding I took I was never to forget. It crept up on me in the most unusual way.
There was the knock on the door of our small manse one night, not long after my ordination and our moving into the new little cottage that we had purchased as a manse. At the front door stood two mismatched people. The woman spoke quite powerfully in a rather harsh voice, as if it had been used to 70 years of continuous smoking. “Excuse me Vicar, I want to know whether you will marry me. I know your church, and I want to hire it for our wedding, and I want you to do the job.”
I felt rather flattered that she had mistaken me for a vicar, but I invited them in because she obviously was referring to the church of which I was the new minister. We sat down in my study, which was the second bedroom of the little house. She told me that she wanted to get married. She had the date and the time all picked out. Her name was Sheila Birt and she wanted me “to do the job”.
When she said her name I realised who she was.
Sheila Birt, or “Sheila Flirt” as the men used to call her, was well known around Newmarket as the popular barmaid of the Doutta Galla pub.
The old Doutta was just opposite Debney’s paddock, not far from the sale yards and the tanneries. The smell of the men who used to come straight from work permanently pervaded the old pub, and Sheila Flirt was the laughing, smiling, convivial woman behind the bar. She had flaming red hair, and over the next few occasions I was to meet her prior to the wedding, I noted that it changed shades of red a number of times. She had long red fingernails and always wore dresses of nylon with lots of lace, especially around her ample bosom. She wore a powerful perfume and the dresses were rather short for a woman of her age. She wore very high heels and had a good figure, although I guessed it was well wired up and corseted.
I had seen Sheila Birt a few times when I had been in to the old Doutta to talk to some of the guys who used to ride the Harley Davidson bikes when I used to ride my BSA 500. The Harley Quins, as they were known, were a tough mob but there was a sort of rough fraternity between people who used to ride motor bikes in those days and I often spoke to them.
Sheila served behind the counter, her long black eyelashes fluttering at every man who came in. She was an outrageous flirt and deserved the nickname that the men had given her.
Mrs. Sheila Birt had no children and had been a widow for many years although the talk of the town was that she would marry any man that would go along down the aisle.
The man who sat in my study that night beside her, did not utter a word. It took me very careful questioning to even get out of him that his name was Denzel. He was a weed of a man, thin, nervous, not much older than half of her age. Denzel was a mouse of a man, a bachelor who for many years had lived with his mother who had recently died. Now he lived alone in her house. I noted that he had a frayed collar and frayed trouser cuffs, but at least he had a steady job and a fine house in Flemington.
Every time I asked Denzel a question about himself Sheila would answer.
I met them three times over the next few weeks as we filled out all the forms. Then came the day of the wedding. It was a glorious Saturday morning and I went down to check that everything was ready at the church. The real grandfather of the congregation was working out in the memorial rose garden at the front of the small wooden church. I walked over and talked to Dave Monk for a while. He was one of the most gracious men I had ever met. Into his eighties, he had spent all of his life working in the church and serving God.
Everything was ready for the wedding. I made some remark to Dave that poor old Denzel looked like he was being pushed into this wedding, and as for Sheila, she was full of confidence and had more front than Myers. “And you know, Dave, this is her fourth marriage so she certainly knows what to do.”
“Fourth?” Dave looked up at me, puzzled. “It is her fifth marriage.”
I was not one to argue with Dave Monk about anything, but I had been through all the business of the previous marriages, including writing out the official numbers from the Death Certificates of the deceased former husbands, and I had written out their names in triplicate and in full for the government, so I was pretty sure of the fact that she had had three previous husbands, all deceased, and that Denzel was to be her fourth.
“No – fifth”, said Dave. And Dave Monk said it in that kind of voice which indicated that there was no argument about it. “I’ve known her most of my life and I’ve known all of her husbands and this is the fifth. There was Dougie the horse trainer who was a rather decent chap but who got thrown off a horse while he was training him for the jumps and broke his neck and died. Then she married Eric the S.P. Bookie, and then Charlie who was killed in the war. He was decent fellow. He got killed by the Japs at the Battle of Morotai. He was the best of them all, really. She had some hope while she was with Charlie, but she never realised what a good wicket she was on. As a matter of fact, her behaviour during the war was really disgusting. While Charlie was up at Morotai she was carrying on with some Yank. They went out necking and pecking in public like they were some teenagers, and all the time her husband was up there fighting for the country.”
“Well it was about ‘42 when we hear that Charlie had been killed at Morotai and old Sheila did not waste any time. She married the Yank not long after she heard that Charlie was dead. No one would speak to her after that. They all reckoned she did the wrong thing by Old Charlie. The Yank was a decent enough bloke. A bit smart though. He thought he knew everything. None of the blokes liked him, and none of the women would talk to her. The poor old guy had a terrible cough and died of lung cancer.”
“Sheila seemed to go a bit queer after that. She used to chase every man in Newmarket but when they got close to her she would back off. Never really understood, what with her being married four times and all.”
Dave looked at me and shook his head quite firmly, “No, it is not the fourth marriage. Denzel is the fifth.”
I thought back to the pre wedding interview and to the fact that only that morning I had checked their “Notice of Intended Marriage”. I remembered noting the comparisons between the two columns on the back of the blue form. Under “Groom’s Name” there was Denzel’s full name and then a whole list of answers which said either “Nil” or “Not Applicable”. Opposite the question “Number of Previous Marriages” he had written “Nil”; “How Previous Marriages Terminated” he had written “Not Applicable”; “Date of Previous Marriage Termination” he had written “Not Applicable” and so on right down the column including the “Number of Children Born”, “Date of their birth including any stillborn”. He had a “Nil” report for every question.
But Sheila Birt had filled up all the boxes opposite her name with the names of three previous husbands, how they had each died by “death – natural causes” and the dates of the death of Dougie the horse trainer and Charlie who was killed in the war and the Yank who was into Charlie’s bed before it was even cold. There was nothing there about Eric the S.P. Bookmaker.
I quizzed Dave Monk more closely. “Are you sure, Mr. Monk, are you sure she actually married Eric?” Dave looked at me with steady eye. He was sharp of mind and I could trust anything he said. “She married Eric O’Loughlin at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Brendan up in Wellington Street. She turned for him and became a Catholic but she never kept it up.” Dave spoke with measured tone. There was no doubting the authenticity of this information.
“Eric was always flash with the cash and after Old Dougie the horse trainer broke his neck, Sheila teamed up with Eric without pause for breath. Eric used to work in the back lane behind the Doutta Galla Hotel. He was an S.P. mainly but he did a bit of Two Up on the side, as well.
“Oh no, she married Eric O’Loughlin all right. But it did not last. She went through his money. They used to live in Princess Street and she tried to set herself up like royalty. We all said she behaved like a princess just because she lived in Princess Street. Old Eric was a nerve case – he had got gassed in World War I in France and was very depressive and one day he just went out and shot himself. Oh no, she was married to Eric O’Loughlin all right.”
I looked at Mr. Monk and the enormity of the information that I did not have on my wedding form almost overwhelmed me. I had not long had my licence to marry and I had been reminded of the severe penalties for ministers who married people without obtaining all the official information or who conducted services improperly.
I left Mr. Monk tending the rose garden and raced around to our manse. I rang the Doutta Galla Hotel. Sheila had a room up on the third floor overlooking the sale yards. No, the woman at the counter said that Sheila was not in the hotel, that she had gone up the street to the hairdresser’s.
There was no further information. I decided I had better find Sheila for myself. I drove my Volkswagen up Racecourse Road and went to each of the ladie’s hairdressers that I knew along the shopping strip. I went into each hairdresser. In those days it seemed improper for a man to go into a woman’s hairdresser. There was none of this “Unisex Salons” in those days. Even walking into the ladie’s hairdresser made women sitting along under big black hair dryers clutch their clothing around their legs as if you were invading a most private place. I could not have felt worse if I had been caught in the women’s changing room at the North Melbourne Baths.
When I was a kid at Box Hill State School the biggest dare that you could ever do was to race through the girls toilet with all the little girls screaming their heads off, while you tore through and raced out the other side. I had this same feeling 15 years later as I opened the door and walked into the ladie’s hairdressing salon. Each one had rows of black metal hooded dryers with ladies sitting under them, mostly just sitting there reading a magazine. The atmosphere was heavy with the potent smell of perm lotion.
She was in none of the hairdressing salons in Racecourse Road. I suddenly remembered that there was another hairdressing shop, up Railway Place just opposite the Newmarket Railway Station, next door to the Sunbeam Mixmaster repair shop.
I went in and looked at all the headless torsos sitting beneath the hair dryers. She was not there. I was about to leave when one of the ladies called me by name. I turned. It was Sheila. She was wearing a pink housecoat and slippers. None of her usual high heels and nylon dresses with many petticoats underneath them and lots of lace around the bosom. Her air was set in wet waves with aluminium alligator clips holding them in place. She had no make up on at all and looked dreadful.
I walked over to her. “Sheila, can I speak to you privately? I have something very important I must discuss with you.”
As if on a given signal, all the other women leant forward in their chairs and the hairdressing ladies switched off the dryers.
Sheila said, “What is it? Is everything right with Denzel?” I said, “Everything is right with Denzel but I must speak to you privately. Will you step out onto the footpath for a moment?” We stepped out into Railway Place. Everybody inside the hairdressing salon was staring at us. I turned round so they could not read my lips as I said to Sheila very bluntly, “I have got everything ready for this afternoon, but I believe you were married once to a Mr. Eric O’Loughlin.”
If I was bowed down with the enormity of this information, Sheila certainly was not. “Oh him! Oh yes, I was married to him but that hardly counted really. I’ve never counted him as one of my husbands.”
“But Sheila, you must. It was a legal marriage. You must count him. The government counts him as one of your husbands.”
“Oh whatever you do, do not tell Denzel. He thinks it is common that he is following three other men already. If he knew that there were four men in front him he would die on the spot. Whatever you do, you must not tell Denzel.”
“Sheila, I think I must. I do not know what the law says but you should tell him yourself because he is bound to find out from someone after you are married.”
“After we are married then it will not matter”, Sheila said firmly. “Do you have to put it on the Marriage Certificate?”
I thought for a moment, visualizing the Marriage Certificate that I would give to them after the ceremony. “No, it simply says that I have married you to each other. And actually the Parish Register also only records the name of your previous husband from your immediate past marriage. Only the government “Notice of Intention to Marry” which goes back to the government will actually have Eric’s name on it.”
“Then put it on that and do not say anything to Denzel.” Sheila turned and went back and got under the dryer thinking of some story or other that she would tell the other women who were just dying to know what this private conversation on the footpath with a woman in wet waves, a housecoat and slippers was all about. I went back and duly wrote in Eric O’Loughlin’s name, date of marriage, being the same year as the date of his death.
When the wedding came Denzel stood in the front of the church waiting for his bride. He had no best man. He was standing alone, nervous, in a rented evening suit.
Sheila arrived at the door of the church. She was to walk down the aisle by herself. Nancy, our organist, looked up, broke off the music she was playing and immediately started to play the introduction to the wedding march. As she played the first few bars of single notes announcing the beginning of the wedding march, there was a flash of brilliant red and Sheila had come down the aisle and was standing at the front next to nervous Denzel before Nancy even got to start the march proper.
Denzel was nervous. When it came to vows he stumbled over them and Sheila prompted him. It was just as though she had been through all of this marriage business four or five times before!
She had and he was none the wiser.
Poor old Denzel. Nothing could help him now. The service over, I wished them both well and if you could have seen in the vestry behind the platform of the church, you would have seen me handing to them their Marriage Certificate with both of their names on it, duly signed and witnessed. But if you had stood behind me you would have noticed that as I gave them the Certificate with one hand, my other hand was behind my back with my fingers crossed.
They had never told me that marriages could be like this when I was training in the College of The Bible to be a minister. And never once did I imagine that situation on those long nights when, as a student minister after the church services were done, I would go out into the heavy air with the wind blowing from the abattoirs, start my motor bike, and head back towards the College of The Bible to train as a young minister, thinking of my meeting with some of God’s children in the slums of Newmarket.
GORDON MOYES
