Board and Residence

"Board and Residence" is a short story by Australian author Henry Lawson, exploring the lives of poor laborers in the urban landscape of Australia. Set in a boarding house, the narrative delves into the struggles and camaraderie among tenants, depicting their daily hardships, aspirations, and the impact of economic challenges on personal relationships. Lawson's vivid storytelling captures the essence of life in early 20th-century Australia, highlighting themes of class disparity, resilience, and the quest for dignity amidst adversity. Through his poignant prose, Lawson offers a powerful reflection on human experience and community in a rapidly changing society.

• Short story

								
One o'clock on Saturday. The unemployed's one o'clock on Saturday!
Nothing more can be done this week, so you drag yourself wearily and
despairingly “home,” with the cheerful prospect of a penniless Saturday
afternoon and evening and the long horrible Australian-city Sunday
to drag through. One of the landlady's clutch--and she is an old
hen--opens the door, exclaims:

“Oh, Mr Careless!” and grins. You wait an anxious minute, to postpone
the disappointment which you feel by instinct is coming, and then ask
hopelessly whether there are any letters for you.

“No, there's nothing for you, Mr Careless.” Then in answer to the
unspoken question, “The postman's been, but there's nothing for you.”

You hang up your hat in the stuffy little passage, and start upstairs,
when, “Oh, Mr Careless, mother wants to know if you've had yer dinner.”

You haven't, but you say you have. You are empty enough inside, but
the emptiness is filled up, as it were, with the wrong sort of hungry
vacancy--gnawing anxiety. You haven't any stomach for the warm,
tasteless mess which has been “kep' 'ot” for you in a cold stove. You
feel just physically tired enough to go to your room, lie down on the
bed, and snatch twenty minutes' rest from that terrible unemployed
restlessness which, you know, is sure to drag you to your feet to pace
the room or tramp the pavement even before your bodily weariness has
nearly left you. So you start up the narrow, stuffy little flight of
steps call the “stairs.” Three small doors open from the landing--a
square place of about four feet by four. The first door is yours; it is
open, and--

Decided odour of bedroom dust and fluff, damped and kneaded with
cold soap-suds. Rear view of a girl covered with a damp, draggled,
dirt-coloured skirt, which gapes at the waistband from the “body,”
 disclosing a good glimpse of soiled stays (ribs burst), and yawns behind
over a decidedly dirty white petticoat, the slit of which last, as she
reaches forward and backs out convulsively, half opens and then comes
together in an unsatisfactory, startling, tantalizing way, and allows a
hint of a red flannel under-something. The frayed ends of the skirt
lie across a hopelessly-burst pair of elastic-sides which rest on their
inner edges--toes out--and jerk about in a seemingly undecided manner.
She is damping and working up the natural layer on the floor with a
piece of old flannel petticoat dipped occasionally in a bucket which
stands by her side, containing about a quart of muddy water. She looks
round and exclaims, “Oh, did you want to come in, Mr Careless?” Then
she says she'll be done in a minute; furthermore she remarks that if you
want to come in you won't be in her road. You don't--you go down to the
dining-room--parlour--sitting-room---nursery--and stretch yourself
on the sofa in the face of the painfully-evident disapproval of the
landlady.

You have been here, say, three months, and are only about two weeks
behind. The landlady still says, “Good morning, Mr Careless,” or “Good
evening, Mr Careless,” but there is an unpleasant accent on the “Mr,”
 and a still more unpleasantly pronounced stress on the “morning”
 or “evening.” While your money lasted you paid up well and
regularly--sometimes in advance--and dined out most of the time; but
that doesn't count now.

Ten minutes pass, and then the landlady's disapproval becomes
manifest and aggressive. One of the little girls, a sharp-faced little
larrikiness, who always wears a furtive grin of cunning--it seems as
though it were born with her, and is perhaps more a misfortune than a
fault--comes in and says please she wants to tidy up.

So you get up and take your hat and go out again to look for a place to
rest in--to try not to think.

You wish you could get away up-country. You also wish you were dead.

The landlady, Mrs Jones, is a widow, or grass-widow, Welsh, of course,
and clannish; flat face, watery grey eyes, shallow, selfish, ignorant,
and a hypocrite unconsciously--by instinct.

But the worst of it is that Mrs Jones takes advantage of the situation
to corner you in the passage when you want to get out, or when you come
in tired, and talk. It amounts to about this: She has been fourteen
years in this street, taking in boarders; everybody knows her; everybody
knows Mrs Jones; her poor husband died six years ago (God rest his
soul); she finds it hard to get a living these times; work, work,
morning, noon, and night (talk, talk, talk, more likely). “Do you know
Mr Duff of the Labour Bureau?” He has known her family for years; a very
nice gentleman--a very nice gentleman indeed; he often stops at the gate
to have a yarn with her on his way to the office (he must be hard up
for a yarn). She doesn't know hardly nobody in this street; she never
gossips; it takes her all her time to get a living; she can't be
bothered with neighbours; it's always best to keep to yourself and keep
neighbours at a distance. Would you believe it, Mr Careless, she has
been two years in this house and hasn't said above a dozen words to the
woman next door; she'd just know her by sight if she saw her; as for the
other woman she wouldn't know her from a crow. Mr Blank and Mrs Blank
could tell you the same.... She always had gentlemen staying with her;
she never had no cause to complain of one of them except once; they
always treated her fair and honest. Here follows story about the
exception; he, I gathered, was a journalist, and she could never depend
on him. He seemed, from her statements, to have been decidedly erratic
in his movements, mode of life and choice of climes. He evidently caused
her a great deal of trouble and anxiety, and I felt a kind of sneaking
sympathy for his memory. One young fellow stayed with her five years;
he was, etc. She couldn't be hard on any young fellow that gets out of
work; of course if he can't get it he can't pay; she can't get blood out
of a stone; she couldn't turn him out in the street. “I've got sons of
my own, Mr Careless, I've got sons of my own.”... She is sure she
always does her best to make her boarders comfortable, and if they want
anything they've only got to ask for it. The kettle is always on the
stove if you want a cup of tea, and if you come home late at night and
want a bit of supper you've only got to go to the safe (which of us
would dare?). She never locks it, she never did.... And then she begins
about her wonderful kids, and it goes on hour after hour. Lord! it's
enough to drive a man mad.

We were recommended to this place on the day of our arrival by a young
dealer in the furniture line, whose name was Moses--and he looked like
it, but we didn't think of that at the time. He had Mrs Jones's card in
his window, and he left the shop in charge of his missus and came round
with us at once. He assured us that we couldn't do better than stay with
her. He said she was a most respectable lady, and all her boarders were
decent young fellows-gentlemen; she kept everything scrupulously clean,
and kept the best table in town, and she'd do for us (washing included)

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