Freedom Ride
Authors: Sue Lawson
About the 1965 Australian Freedom Ride
Robbie knows bad things happen in Walgaree. But it’s nothing to do with him.
That’s the way the Aborigines have always been treated. But in the summer of 1965 racial tensions in the town are at boiling point, and something headed Walgaree’s way will blow things apart.
It’s time for Robbie to take a stand.
And nothing can ever be the same again.
A novel based on true events.
The novel
Freedom Ride
is historical fiction based on actual events. The confrontation between students and Walgaree residents in the novel is inspired by incidents that occurred during the 1965 Freedom Ride and information gathered by the students. I have merged and altered events and dates to suit the purpose of the story.
Walgaree is a fictional town, cobbled together from many towns throughout not only New South Wales but the entire country.
This novel features expressions and derogatory words that were commonly accepted in 1965. Today these words are accepted for what they are – ignorant, racist and demeaning.
Sunlight reflected off house windows into my eyes and sweat pooled on the top of my undie elastic. The grass on the nature strip drooped, as defeated as me. Ahead, half a block away, the sun-bleached awning over the milk bar door shimmered in the heat. It had to be cooler inside the shop than it was out here, didn’t it?
Stupid heat.
Stupid Nan.
It wasn’t me who finished the milk. Dad had used the last of it and put the empty bottle back in the fridge.
But did I tell Nan that when she thrust coins at me and snapped, “Rectify the situation, Robbie”?
Nope.
I just scuttled out the back door, right past my bike, towards Wobbly’s milk bar.
Beneath the milk bar awning, I wiped sweat from my face and pushed the door open.
A bell tinkled and the smell of stale air and bread swamped me.
Wobbly stood behind the counter watching Mrs Dixon, the town’s biggest gossip, count coins from her purse.
“How are you, Robbie?” asked Wobbly, looking up.
“I’m well, thanks, Mr Cavendish.” Everybody in Walgaree called Mr Cavendish Wobbly. Except me. Nan said calling him Wobbly was disrespectful.
Mrs Dixon stopping counting coins and squinted at me. “How is Dawn, Robert?”
“Well, thank you, Mrs Dixon.”
Ethel Dixon used to play cards with Nan on Mondays – until she brought packet biscuits for morning tea two weeks in a row. Nan and her “card girls” voted Mrs Dixon out and Thelma Fielding in.
The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Mrs Dixon. I hurried to the milk refrigerator at the back of the store. In my rush to avoid the old crow, I just about cannoned into an Aborigine waiting by the newspaper rack. She stared at the floor, arms wrapped around her stomach. Her dress was faded and shoes worn. She was too clean to be from the Tip and the Station, the government mission, was the other side of town. She was from the Crossing for sure.
Mrs Dixon finished counting coins and glared at the newspapers. “May I also have
The Sydney Morning Herald
, Stan?”
Wobbly sighed and limped out from behind the counter. As he took a newspaper from the rack, the Aborigine seemed to fold into herself.
“Anything else?” asked Wobbly, when he returned to the counter.
“That will be all, thank you, Stan.” Mrs Dixon pressed another coin on the counter.
I placed my palms against the glass of the refrigerator and, once the chill had seeped into my bloodstream, opened the door. As I grasped the milk bottle, the bell above the entrance tinkled.
“Barry!” boomed Wobbly. “When did you get back?”
“Hello, Wobbly. Morning, Mrs Dixon,” said the man. “Arrived home last week.” His voice had the usual Walgaree drawl, but something about it reminded me of an ABC newsreader.
“Barry Gregory.” Mrs Dixon clasped her gloved hands in front of her chest. “How is your dear mother coping?” Anyone who didn’t know better would think she actually cared about his mum. “I suppose she’ll sell–”
The man cut her off. “She’s fine, thank you, Mrs Dixon.”
Mrs Dixon’s eyebrows arched towards her silver hairline. Lips all tight, she put the paper and bread into her basket.
“What can I do for you, Barry?” asked Wobbly.
“Out of ciggies.” He glanced around the store. “Sorry.” He smiled at the Aboriginal woman. “You were here first.” He swept his hand from her to the counter. “After you.”
My mouth fell open.
The woman peeked at him from under her eyelashes but didn’t move.
“I insist. Ladies first.”
Mrs Dixon clucked her tongue. “Now, Barry. She can’t be served until you and Robbie have been, isn’t that right, Mr Cavendish?” She didn’t need to spell it out. White people were served before Aborigines in Walgaree, no matter what.
Wobbly stood a little straighter. “That’s right.”
Barry brushed his fringe back from his face. Unlike the rest of the male population of Walgaree, there wasn’t a hint of Brylcreem in his hair and instead of a chequered shirt and trousers, he wore a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. On a weekday.
“You don’t mind waiting, do you, mate?”
I jumped when I realised this Barry bloke was talking to me. Did I care if Wobbly served her first? I was supposed to, but … my shrug was more a twitch than a real movement.
“Good on you, mate,” said Barry. “So, love, after you.”
The Aborigine, eyes fixed on the floor as though the mysteries of the universe were printed across it, didn’t move.
“Go on,” said Barry. “It’s okay.”
Mrs Dixon jerked her head at the woman. “Stan, if you serve her, I’ll take my business elsewhere. And the Catholic Ladies’ Guild will hear all about it.”
Beads of sweat formed on Wobbly’s forehead. “Barry, you’ve made your point, mate.”
“Please.” The Aborigine woman’s voice was a whisper. “I’ll wait.”
Barry sighed. “At least serve the kid before me.”
Wobbly’s breath rushed from him. “Just the milk, Robbie?”
“Yes, thanks.” I stumbled past the black woman to the counter.
Mrs Dixon huffed. As she left the milk bar, the bell above the door shuddered more than tinkled.
Wobbly looked over my shoulder to Barry. “Now, Barry, you know how this town works. Don’t go stirring up a hornet’s nest.”
The screen door slammed behind me. I counted – one, two, three.
“Don’t slam the door,” bellowed Nan, right on cue. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
Bluey the budgie screeched in support.
I trudged from the darkened porch to the gloomy kitchen. Anytime the weather forecast was for a day of eighty degrees Fahrenheit or more, which was pretty much every day from October to April in Walgaree, Nan closed the curtains, blinds and doors to “keep the place cool”. It was as though she was a vampire, like Dracula, and scared of the light. All her closing up just made the house hotter and more depressing.
Nan was still ranting about doorframes and springs and her poor nerves when I entered the kitchen. “Honestly, young man, I’m at my wits’ end, trying to civilise you.” She stood by the kitchen bench where she’d lined up the best china teacups ready for the card girls.
Bluey screeched and flapped. Nan bustled to the cage and kissed the air.
“Sorry, Nan,” I muttered, placing the bottle by the milk jug.
“Next time we run out of milk, tell me.” She didn’t turn from Bluey.
“Yoo-hoo, Dawn.” Thelma Fielding’s voice made me think of the cockatoos in the gum trees by the river.
“She’s ten minutes early,” hissed Nan, before calling, “Coming, Thelma.” She turned back to me, voice flattening. “Fill the milk jug. And stay out of the sitting room.”
“Yes, Nan.” Why would I want to go anywhere near old crones drinking tea and gossiping?
She took off her apron, blew the budgie another kiss and bustled to the front door.
Bluey fluttered around the cage. A spray of seed husks scattered across the lino.
“How are you, Dawn, dear? Stinker of a day, isn’t it? Never mind …” Mrs Fielding’s endless stream of words swirled through the house like leaves caught in a northerly wind. The moment the kettle hinted at boiling, I filled the teapot and escaped to my bedroom.
As soon as I opened the door, I knew Nan had been in here. It wasn’t the smoothed bedspread or the closed curtains that gave it away. The air was somehow bruised.
Why couldn’t I have one place to escape from her and Dad?
I stomped to the window and flung back the curtains. A blast of heat and light hit me. Once my eyes adjusted I stared outside, past the skeletal clothes line at the end of the cement path and the sagging wire of the chook house, to the giant gum tree looming over our backyard. Nan hated that tree because it dropped bark and leaves and twigs into our yard.
At the top of the tree a magpie plunged its beak between its feathers. It shook itself, lifted its beak to the blue sky and warbled. A thought drifted into mind, riding on the back of the magpie’s carolling.
Was this it?
No nooks or crannies to escape into?
A town of trees bowed by heat, grass sucked dry and dusty footpaths?
A neurotic budgie, a pain in the bum grandmother and a father who didn’t care about anything except for the bank or the news?
I pressed my forehead against the window. Not for the first time, I wondered how different my life would have been if Mum was alive, if we still lived in Inverell and if Dad wanted to be around me.
With a huge effort, I pushed back from the window and crept to the kitchen to make a cordial.
Voices, punctuated by Bluey’s chirps, filled the stifling air. Between Bluey, Mrs Fielding’s cockatoo squawk, Mrs Scott’s canary trill, Miss Johnson’s sparrow twitter and Nan’s goose honk, it was more an aviary than a house.
“She’ll have to sell the caravan park,” trilled Mrs Scott.
“Well, of course. It’s hardly the place for a woman to live alone, is it?” declared Nan.
“Perhaps her son will help,” said Miss Johnson.
“He’s overseas,” said Nan. “Has been for years. Didn’t even come back for his own father’s funeral.”
“Hmmm.” I imagined Mrs Fielding’s beady eyes. That woman was made of animal parts. She had a bat’s face, a cockatoo’s voice, a wombat’s body and snake’s venom dripped from most things she said. “If you ask me, Arthur spent too much time with those darkies. And his son–”