Fiction – paperback; Fremantle Press; 176 pages; 2008.
In the delightful black comedy Mr Scobie’s Riddle, which I read last year, Elizabeth Jolley had much to say about the lack of respect society has for those we brand “old folk”. In The Newspaper of Claremont Street, first published in 1981, she has a lot to say about the way in which we tend to view the working class.
Despite its title, the story is not about a newspaper but tells the tale of an old cleaning woman who is nicknamed ‘Weekly’ or ‘The Newspaper’. This is because she works in so many different houses that she picks up gossip and is able to pass it on just like a tabloid newspaper.
Though she knew of accidents and weddings, births and deaths and told the news from one house to another, she never spoke of things that really mattered. About these things Weekly held her tongue. […] Weekly knew which wives didn’t want their husbands to come home for lunch; she heard sons snarling at their mothers and ungrateful daughters banging bedroom doors. She heard the insincere voices and laughter in telephone conversations and she wondered how friends could be so treacherous to one another, so watchful over the successes and failures of each other’s children.
Along with her discrete nature, Weekly is a hard worker. Even before she’s left her room in a local boarding house, she’s scrubbed and cleaned and made everything spic and span. She then spends the rest of the day, and often the evening, cleaning the homes of the doctors, lawyers, architects and millionaires who live on Claremont Street.
Her strong work ethic is only matched by her ability to save her pennies. Indeed, Weekly is motivated to keep working — despite the agonising hours, the exhaustion and her aching bones — by the promise of creating an “exquisite cone-shaped mountain made entirely of money, with a silver scree of coins on its steep sides”. She plans on using this money to buy a second-hand car and then, a little later, a property of her own in the country.
Of course, the story wouldn’t work without some narrative tension, and this arrives in the form of a Russian widow, who Weekly “adopts” and memories of an older brother with whom she had a troubled relationship.
Told in simple, elegant prose, The Newspaper of Claremont Street, feels like an easy-to-read fable with a comic touch. But underneath the spareness lies a macabre streak. Weekly might be hard-working and slightly eccentric, but she cannot be taken at face value…
Reading Matters 
A number of my Australian friends have spoken very highly of Jolley, but my local library doesn’t have anything by her. Clearly, I am going to have to do some lobbying, although with funds as low as they are at the moment I may lobby in vain!
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It’s been a while since I’ve read any Elizabeth Jolley, might be time again.
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It might be worth checking out Amazon marketplace, or even Abe Books, because you might be able to locate used copies for just a penny! Of course, you have to pay postage on top of that, but it still makes for a cheap book — and a delightful read.
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Yes, I remember you being a fan, Tony. I’m planning on reading The Well next…
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First of all thank you for the timely reminder that I have still not read the Jolley you gave me, I will make good on that in the very new future, promise.
Secondly, I think I want this book in part because of the gossiping cleaner and also because I now live on a Claremont Street!
Thirdly, do you know anything about the out of print now back in print Australian classic ‘Blue Skies’?
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Hi Simon. I’m sure you’ll love Mr Scobie’s Riddle when you get around to reading it — it’s delightfully dark!
And The Newspaper of Claremont Street is almost childlike in its simplicity, but then there’s a few moments of “bloody hell, did she really do that?” which make you realise it’s actually quite a dark read, too.
As to “Blue Skies” I can safely say I’ve never heard of it, but a quick Google tells me it’s going to be reprinted, so will keep my eye out for it.
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I’ve just had a bizarre experience: I was looking at secondhand copies of this on Amazon and then came to your site (stream-of-consciousness as know Elizabeth Jolley mainly because of you/short stories in collections). I need to read my copy of The Well first but this one will be purchased at some point.
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It is fate, Claire!
I have a copy of The Well I must dig out for a re-read. Its been at least 20 years since I first read it and I can barely remember the storyline.
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