Hunger Town (13 page)

But his confident medical comparisons failed to reassure me.

‘Give him a few days.' His tone gentled. ‘And now the truth, young woman. Where were you two last night in this mess?'

I had done enough lying. ‘The Square,' I said. ‘Victoria Square. The railed area.'

He grunted. ‘A good thing you were. I've a patient in hospital with the print of a horseshoe embedded in his back. His vertebra may be crushed. Stupid fools the lot of you. Mounted police,' he snorted, ‘on the streets of Adelaide. I don't know what our society is coming to.'

I remembered the arrival of the four hundred unemployed men at the Free Speech meeting. ‘Starvation,' I said. ‘Unemployment. Desperation.'

He looked at me keenly and shook his head. ‘Well, I have enough to do without this sort of thing.' And he stumped out.

Harry managed to whisper, ‘He's gone?'

‘Yes. He's our family doctor. Don't try to talk.'

‘No,' he sighed, and relapsed into sleep.

Three hours later my mother returned. She walked heavily as if bowed beneath a burden too heavy to carry and sank dispiritedly into a chair. As was her habit, she removed the long hat pin, took off her hat and laid it carefully on the table. Then she pulled off her gloves and laid them neatly beside her hat. Her next step was usually to find her apron and put it on, but today she just sat, too overwrought to move.

‘There were a dozen other women at the union office, all of us, poor working-class wives, all with the same worry. We waited …'

‘For three hours, Mum?'

‘They weren't unkind to us, just distracted.'

‘But to make you wait for three hours?'

‘They had no time. People rushed about everywhere. There was constant commotion, constant coming and going from Matty Gibbs's office; agitated people shouting at each other; fuming about intimidation of the union, retaliation, retribution, throwing down the gauntlet to the government, tumult, anger and wild talk. Every face was grim and hostile. There were a couple of newspapermen but they got brushed aside and eventually left.

‘When Matty came to speak with us he apologised. He said the morning had been almost beyond his management skills. Everyone, so-to-speak, was armed and seething. He told me that last night's attack by the mounted police had swelled the mutterings for forming a Workers' Defence Army. Like they had in Broken Hill a few years back.'

I knew the Union organiser, Matty Gibbs. He was a courteous man who always managed to negotiate conflicts with fairness and reasonableness but latterly, as the economic situation worsened, he had become more strained, more uncertain of his abilities. Unemployment and the Crimes Act now divided most of his workforce from the rest of the community. He was beginning to feel they were all under siege.

‘He was sympathetic to us,' she said. ‘Some of the women there have children and are desperate for their husbands to return to whatever work they have. One woman said that only the soup kitchen run by the Salvos stands between them and starvation. He looked distressed, Judith. The burden of social ills falls heavily on those with a conscience.'

I dismissed her sympathy for Matty Gibbs. ‘It's his job to help.'

‘No,' she denied, ‘that's the problem. The meeting was organised by the Communist Party, not the Union. Strictly speaking the Union has no involvement.'

‘No involvement? But my father's a Union man.' I could see that explaining it all to me tired her further, but I had to know. I could feel the indignation swelling in me. ‘Are we to receive no help? Not even from the Waterside Workers' Union?'

‘They will help as far as they can, Judith. Matty promised that Union lawyers would represent your father and others and if necessary they will put up money for bail or bonds. However if the choice is between either jail or a fine they can't guarantee to pay the fines. It could amount to quite a lot and the Union is strapped for cash. Their priorities are the families of unemployed Union members and they can give them little enough.'

Tears ran down her face. ‘What are we to do, Judith? If there's a fine we must pay it. Your father mustn't go to jail. He can't lose his job. He's a winchman. The ship owners won't put up with delays.'

She wept with her head against my shoulder and I clutched her as if I were the parent and she the child.

‘We have so little money saved.'

‘I have some.'

‘Oh, no, Judith. That was to be yours, your future.'

‘Well, I won't have any future if we don't have a now. Whatever it is I shall pay. I am quite determined.'

I knew she was relieved but now tasted the bitterness of acceptance.

In the afternoon Winnie and Frank and Harry's mother visited. Harry's mother was a timid, defeated creature who looked at her injured son as if he were the ultimate disaster in her life.

One glance and Winnie burst into tears, wailing, ‘Oh, Harry, you look absolutely awful.'

‘Thanks, Weepy,' he whispered. ‘That's good to know.'

His mother took a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

We're going to have a crying competition now, I thought.

‘Your job, Harry. At the foundry?' his mother questioned, faintly and hopelessly.

‘No need to worry, Mum,' Frank intervened. ‘We're sending a couple of blokes around to speak with his boss. I'm sure they'll make him understand.'

‘How kind of them,' she murmured. ‘I've not met his employer but please thank him for me. I'm sure Harry will be grateful.'

‘Did you hear that, Harry? So kind.'

Harry had heard. He looked at me from the one eye he had managed to open and it held a flicker of his old sense of humour. Harry's mother was clearly incapable of reading the meaning behind Frank's words. She was a simple woman and defenceless because of it. I wondered how Harry had inherited or learned so much sophistication—possibly from his long-dead father. The tree people sprang from often grew strange shoots.

My mother, always kind to the vulnerable, made tea and served scones to console Harry's mother. The three left eventually and I hoped we'd have no more visitors. Harry was clearly exhausted.

My father returned home that evening. He had been bonded to appear in the magistrate's court at some future date. Unshaven, heavy-eyed and crumpled, he looked dog tired. My mother put her arms about him. Over her shoulder he saw me.

‘You're all right, Judith?'

‘Yes.'

‘I've been worried. And Harry?'

‘The police beat him up,' I said. ‘He's in the saloon. But Dr Banks says he'll recover.'

‘That's good.' He reached for a chair and sat down. Careful, measured, slow movements, so unlike his usual vigour.

‘I'm whacked, Eve. It's hard to believe that a night in the cells could so exhaust me.' He tried to smile. ‘After all, I've done a stint of forty hours on the winches, but jail, there was something villainous about it, something brutalising and hellish in being shut away. Too much of it and I'd be defeated. It's the inaction, the helplessness. One could so easily get to feel worthless. I kept remembering the windjammers and freedom.'

My father was not given to self-reflection. This tired old man with a confused expression was shockingly new to me and I was devoured by a rage so venomous that its poison consumed me. My father was demoralised, Harry beaten near to death, my mother distraught and afraid, some man I didn't know had the imprint of a horseshoe on his spine. It wasn't justice I cried out for, it was revenge, primitive, pestilential revenge. If authority had degenerated to such shamelessness then where were we, its helpless victims? Our feebleness had not been because we were bad characters or transgressors, our weakness lay in being unarmed. We had been lured into a situation where the violence had been apportioned unequally. That was the root of the problem. We could remedy that. Our first defeat need never be our last. The communists were right. We couldn't beat the police unless we had guns.

These were wild thoughts, bitter imaginings but later, when I had quietened and thrust out the idea of guns, the core of my conviction remained.

Three days later Nathan visited and brought along his sisters. I was surprised. After all, they didn't know Harry—had indeed ignored and insulted him at the meeting hall—but now they assumed a graciousness that was as irritating as their previous rudeness had been.

They walked into the saloon confidently and without being asked. Certainly a hulk is odd, in that there doesn't seem to be a formal front door, but some sort of hesitation on the deck would have been courteous. My mother, her antennae alert to any superior patronising, took in their appearance and manner and stiffened. Nathan's introduction was clumsy. ‘My sisters, Miss Abigail and Miss Adelaide,' he mumbled, eyeing my mother warily. ‘We hoped to visit Harry. That is, if it's convenient. That is, if he's well enough. Judith said …' he stammered and looked at me appealingly; his eyes large and defenceless like some bush creature, behind huge spectacles.

How could a man so dominant in his opinions be such a weakling in dealing with people? ‘This is Nathan,' I felt compelled to remind my mother. ‘You remember, he brought me home.'

‘I remember.' Her iciness did not melt.

‘I'll take them in to see Harry,' I hastened. ‘He has been moved into my cabin for his privacy.' I suspected that Harry would not enjoy their visit, although he might be pleased that Nathan showed his concern. Personal touches meant a lot to Harry. They showed affection and he craved love.

‘There isn't much room,' I said as I showed them in and retreated to the saloon.

‘Has there been a funeral in their house?' my mother was sarcastic.

‘Not as far as I know. They just seem to like black.'

‘Dreadful colour, so draining for an ageing woman. Makes you look like a death's head, particularly if you're scrawny.'

‘Shush,' I laughed, ‘they'll hear.'

‘Let them. Waltzing in here as if they owned the place—and uninvited, too.'

‘I invited Nathan.'

She sniffed. ‘Not his sisters?'

‘No, not his sisters.'

They reappeared a short time later and hesitated in the saloon. My mother didn't ask them to sit. Miss Abigail said, ‘Nathan would like to spend a little more time with the young man.'

‘Harry,' I said, ‘his name's Harry. You met him at the Communist Party meeting.'

She looked disbelieving. ‘Is he then some follower of Nathan's?'

‘No,' I said, ‘he's not a follower of anyone. We came to the meeting only out of interest.'

I knew that this was not quite true about Harry. He had followed Nathan, too much like an acolyte I had thought at the time, but I had no intention of giving his sisters the satisfaction of knowing this.

‘We are forming a Women's Defence Army and looking for recruits,' Miss Adelaide began abruptly. ‘Would you care to join us?' She looked expectantly from me to my mother.

‘Defence Army? Women?' I was puzzled.

‘Defence Army?' My mother was coldly antagonistic. ‘And what will that do?'

‘We will march with our men, but in front of them. At future protests we can't leave them unprotected to be picked off by the police.'

‘And how will a group of women stop that?' My mother was incredulous.

‘The police won't attack women. Our vigilance will save our menfolk.' Miss Abigail was the Greek chorus.

My mother snorted scornfully. ‘And you will swallow that fantasy? You have the gall to expect my daughter to risk another baton charge from mounted police in order to protect your brother? Hasn't he caused enough trouble? You might just as well ask the police not to bash anyone who is wearing spectacles.' She laughed derisively.

Miss Adelaide drew herself up, offended, rather, I thought, like the Queen in
Alice in Wonderland
. Any minute now she would shout the order,
Off with their heads
. I would have thought they'd had enough but she persisted, ‘We understood that given your experiences you'd like to help.'

‘Our experiences?' my mother choked. ‘I'll help,' she said, ‘but at a Salvation Army soup kitchen. That's real help.'

Now their scorn matched hers. ‘Bolstering up the system? Handouts?' Miss Adelaide scoffed. ‘Amelioration rather than revolution? Helping people survive so they won't fight? Promising them rewards in heaven for their miseries?'

‘You've never had children, have you?' my mother threw at them. ‘No children to watch starve?'

They were silent, affronted.

‘I thought not.' She stormed to the saloon door and pointedly held it open. There was nothing they could do except leave. She huffed and puffed back to the galley and clattered saucepans around to relieve her angry feelings.

I didn't know what Nathan was talking to Harry about and didn't much care but I gave the argument between my mother and Nathan's sisters careful thought. My mother had been outraged at the thought of our involvement in a Women's Defence Army. Certainly Nathan's sisters had assumed too much. It seemed that they had confidently considered that martyrdom had made us good pickings for their cause. However, unlike my mother, I did not reject the idea of matching physical violence with confrontation but it would have been easier for me to accept their proposal if I had disliked them less.

Half an hour later Nathan also left. I think he would have liked to talk with me but my mother's mutterings from the galley daunted him.

I went to join Harry.

‘Have they gone?' he whispered.

‘Yes.'

‘They're still singing flat.'

I laughed, recalling Nathan's meeting and the botched rendering of
The Internationale
. ‘And quite out of tune. For all their fine political principles they were visibly offended when my mother lumped them with her as working class women.'