Hunger Town (11 page)

Winnie selected a poster and held it by the corner in one hand. With her other hand she tried to slap clag on its back. It puckered and crinkled and flapped against her arm. She put the brush back in the can and took out a cloth she had brought to clean her fingers but the poster had now stuck to them.

‘Bother,' she said. Then, ‘Oh, dear.' She giggled. ‘I've made a hash of it, Judith. What do I do now?' She started to peel the poster away from her fingers and the now gluggy paper tore in half. In exasperation she crumpled it into a ball. ‘Damn,' she said. ‘What a mess.'

Benefitting from watching her disaster, I said, ‘Let's do it this way. We'll put the poster face down on the lamp-post, slop on the glue, peel it off and replace it right way up.'

‘Is that what Harry's doing?' She peered along the darkened street.

‘Probably.' I held another poster for her against the lamp-post and she happily slapped on the clag. We peeled it off and re-stuck it right way up. It worked.

‘Hurrah!' Winnie was triumphant. ‘You are clever, Judith.' She surveyed our work. ‘It's not quite straight,' she said and tried to swivel it around so that it sat squarely, but it had stuck. She compromised by using her cloth to carefully wipe the edges clean of any clag.

While we had messed about Harry had stuck up several more posters. He returned to find us. ‘What on earth are you girls doing? We have dozens of these things and not much time.'

Winnie wiped her poster once more and with her fingers carefully firmed its edges against the lamp-post. ‘If a job's worth doing, Harry,' she said sententiously, ‘it's worth doing well.'

‘For goodness sake, Winnie, it doesn't need to look pretty. Come on.'

The streets continued to be very quiet. Once or twice a passer-by looked at us oddly but in the main we met no one and never a policeman. I supposed that at this end of Adelaide police didn't think Saturday night patrolling necessary. Everyone would be too well behaved. At the Port drunks would be rolling out of the various pubs and there would be fights and police to arrest them.

Before the movies were due to finish and people poured out of the picture houses we scuttled back to Winnie's. Harry went home. We did our best to wash the clag off our hands, faces and hair. Eventually we got into bed.

‘That was such fun, Judith,' Winnie giggled. ‘Can we do it again?'

‘Perhaps.' I was sleepy.

‘Judith?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you love, Harry?'

‘Of course, everyone loves Harry.'

‘Yes, I know that, but do you love him?'

I pretended to be asleep so I didn't need to answer her.

Harry had breezed through the incident with his usual easy confidence. Winnie was too innocent to recognise the danger. But I had been afraid and in a constant state of apprehension at breaking the law. After all, we had all been brought up to respect authority.

Naturally we had to follow up our evening's work of putting out the posters by attending the meeting. Harry had been to several and knew the ropes.

‘They're actually pretty tame,' he said. ‘The meeting is advertised, as we did. When the time comes the speaker, with a couple of helpers, brings along a box. Of course the police have also learned about the meeting and are hovering about. The speaker mounts his box and begins. After a few minutes the police move in and demand he stops. If he continues they seize his box, often tipping him off, then they arrest him. The crowd is ordered to disperse and any lingerers may also be arrested. And that's all there is to it: pretty flat really; a sort of continuing game between protesters and police. Nobody gets hurt, except, I suppose the speaker, who may get a bump on his backside. Most get dismissed from the police station with a warning. The police seem rather bored by it all.'

‘Who are the usual speakers?' I asked. ‘Nathan? Jock? Anyone else?'

‘Yes, both of those and Frank and Izzie. Frank appeals to the Irish Catholics there. He recalls the anti-conscription days and Cardinal Mannix. And many in the crowd love it and applaud. You can hear their Irish voices reclaiming their heroic past and spruiking for another Mannix to take on the government. The Irish do a lot of living in the past and never seem to forget any injury done to them.

‘Then there's Izzie. He's a Jewish chap and he's very very interesting, Judith. He speaks about a book
Mein Kampf
and the German threat.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Adolf Hitler.'

Harry was surprised. ‘You've heard of him?'

‘Yes. Joe Pulham. He said it's a nasty book written by a thoroughly nasty bloke and that if he ever gets any power the world will be in a proper pickle.'

Harry looked sober. ‘Everyone in the Communist Party is talking about it and worrying. But you know, Judith,' all at once he was merrily confiding, ‘sometimes I think the communists revel in thinking themselves victims. I guess it's just another book.'

The meeting was held at a corner of the crossroads near Victoria Square. Quite a crowd had gathered. Jock was billed to speak and Nathan stood unobtrusively behind him. I noticed that Bernie-Benito was in the front row. Wherever Jock went, Bernie followed. My father had accompanied us. ‘It's no good, Harry,' he said, ‘unemployment has seriously worsened this year and the bloody mayor has no right to stop people venting their anger. Why shouldn't they say they are destitute? Their kids starving? I know this meeting will be joined by a lot of unemployed men. Then we'll see who can or can't speak out. And let the police try to stop them.'

Dusk was darkening into night and more people began to gather as we arrived. Suddenly there was a sound of marching feet. I looked around and saw a large contingent of at least four hundred men bearing down on the meeting. Those at the front of the march held a large banner FREE SPEECH FOR ALL—WORK FOR THE WORKERS. They swelled the crowd, surrounding and merging, while their leaders stood to the side holding up the banner. They were a motley group, some hefty, some weedy, all in shabby clothes and down-at-heel boots, their faces rock-like with determination. Harry's eyes flew around the crowd, taking it all in. ‘This is more like it, Judith.'

I, too, caught the excitement. It rumbled through the crowd as if it had a single continuous heartbeat. But having arrived in such triumph, the marchers were now a warm if robust group. ‘Evening, comrades,' they shouted, waving to friends or colleagues they knew, and they pushed their way through the crowd shaking hands and slapping backs. A sense of common grievance and common purpose united everyone.

Jock mounted his box. The police stirred, suddenly watchful, alert, waiting, rather, I thought, like a dog which scents unwelcome visitors. Quietly they moved to encircle the crowd and quietly they drew nearer to the box.

Jock began with his usual gesture of raising his hands and shaking them as if to throw off shackles. The crowd cheered. ‘Fellow slaves,' he trumpeted, ‘slaves of the capitalist system, throw off …'

The police rushed the box, seized it and knocked him backwards. We heard the thump as he hit the road. The box was only a plywood vegetable crate and a couple of cracks with batons broke its top. Two police manhandled Jock and began to hustle him through the crowd. ‘Move on!' they shouted. ‘Meeting's over! Move on!'

Strengthened by an army of four hundred unemployed the crowd, instead of dispersing, closed around them.

‘Move on!' the officer in charge bellowed, ‘and clear the way!'

The crowd remained a wall of defiance. From the unemployed a burly workman grabbed what remained of the box and lifted it above his head. ‘Here is your platform, comrades, your free speech platform. Smashed. Like our wages, our families, our future. Are we going to endure this suppression?'

‘No!' roared the crowd. ‘No!'

Beside me Harry was bobbing up and down, trying to see over all the heads what was going on. I cringed beside him. The press of bodies around me was claustrophobic and frightening. Somehow I had become separated from my father and I looked for him anxiously and fruitlessly. Harry still held my hand and I clung to him.

‘Tame?' I laughed uncertainly. ‘Not exactly tame, Harry.'

But there was too much noise for him to hear me.

The police and Jock were corralled together in our midst and no one seemed to know what to do except shout and there was plenty of that. Suddenly a cry went up, ‘Horses, cops on horses, mounted.'

Like a swarm of fish dismembered by a shark, the crowd splintered. Released from the suffocating enclosure I saw before me a row of remorselessly advancing horses and mounted police with batons in their hands and as people ran they caught them in flight and clobbered them about the shoulders, backs, heads and faces. Some fell to the ground and were trampled beneath the hooves.

It was dark now but there were enough streetlights to see it all.

‘Harry,' I screamed, ‘they're killing people. Dad,' I shouted, ‘Dad, where are you?'

Frantically I searched the shapes of the fleeing people but he wasn't there. Harry tightened his grip on my hand. ‘Run, Judith,' he said, ‘quick. We can dodge along the side. Quick.'

We ran.

‘Into the square,' Harry panted. ‘It's railed. We can hide in there.'

There seemed to be police everywhere, on foot, on horses. We heard more shouting and screams and groans. The square was within reach. The railed area seemed a haven. We entered it at full speed but others had had the same idea. A melee of police and protesters fought each other. They surged around us enclosing us and now there was no escape.

A couple of police grabbed Harry and shoved me aside. They pinned him against the railing and I saw their batons flail him. He struggled and tried to protect his head and face. They increased their attack. They would kill him.

I leaped at one of them, hurling my weight against his shoulder, trying to push him away to deflect the horrendous blows, but he threw me aside. ‘Out of the way, girlie,' he snarled.

Then, instinctively, I did what women throughout centuries have done to divert attention. I screamed at the top of my voice, over and over, ‘Rape! Rape! Rape!' And to be convincing, ‘Help! Police! Help! Rape!'

I threw myself into the garden behind me, and continued to scream.

The police thumping Harry heard me and swung around. I saw their faces white masks in the darkness and shouted again, ‘Help! Help me! Rape! He's getting away!'

From the ground I couldn't see Harry but I saw Bernie-Benito loom out of the darkness, a tall panther-like figure in dark clothes that merged with the night. I saw the flash of his knife but he did not strike for the two policemen had turned their attention to me.

‘Rape,' I moaned, and from shock burst into hysterical tears. It was no pretence as I sobbed and sobbed.

The police stood irresolutely, looking down at me. I had rubbed dirt into my legs and along my jaw bone. I must have looked a desperate sight. They spoke in low voices to each other. ‘Take her to hospital?'

‘What if she accuses us?'

‘She looks pretty bad.'

‘Rape's a hanging offence.'

‘Hard to prove our innocence.'

‘She's with the protesters. Probably a lying little bitch.'

‘But it looks genuine.'

‘Yes, and we don't want to get the blame. No way I'm going to try to defend myself in a rape trial.'

They melted into the darkness.

I lay there for a long time it seemed. At first the noise of the affray went on around me. I heard grunts and shouts and muffled thuds and groans and curses. Occasionally I heard the sound of running or stumbling feet, then it quietened and I heard people urgently calling names and sometimes more stumbling steps. It was odd that no one had fallen over me. Now I remembered where I had thrown myself. Grass, twigs and clumps of dirt stuck into my back. Probably I was in a garden bed.

Eventually there was complete silence and only the darkness breathed around me. I relaxed. Perhaps I would go to sleep here. That would be nice. My mind and my body were strangers to each other and I had no intention of trying to stand up. Stray thoughts flitted through my mind but I felt nothing. I hadn't been able to find my father. I hoped that he was not dead like Harry. With curious detachment I thought of my poor mother.

The darkness was soft and kind and protective. They hadn't found me before; they wouldn't find me now. I could hide here forever. My mind drifted. I was in a dark picture house and suddenly out of the blackness a brilliant image of Harry spread-eagled against the railings, his face a mask of blood, flashed on the screen. I put my hand across my eyes to shield myself from its horror but it was still there inside my head, not on a screen.

The flash of brilliant light was something else. It bobbed around and a voice accompanied it. ‘Judith,' it called, ‘Judith, are you here?'

I shrank. I wasn't here. I wouldn't answer. There were murderers in the darkness.

The light bobbed nearer. I peered at it between my fingers.

‘Judith,' the voice was questing, insistent.

Still I remained silent.

‘It's Nathan,' the voice said. ‘Are you here?'

Nathan, not a murderer.

I tried to speak, to call out, and failed twice before I managed to croak, ‘I'm here.'

‘Where?'

‘I don't know.'

He floundered around.

‘In the garden, I think.' My teeth clattered like castanets.

He found me, dropped to his knees and played his torch along the length of my body. He drew in his breath on a hiss. ‘Judith.' His tone was the same as my mother's when she questioned me determined to get at the truth. She had been severe and always said, ‘Now I won't brook any lies, my girl.'

‘Judith,' he repeated, ‘have you,' he gulped, ‘have you been … interfered with?'