Hunger Town (15 page)

The Depression, like a quagmire, swallowed the Port. Family after family was sucked into the bog of unemployment, even the most humble of their expectations gutted. Many, barely making do on the edge of existence, now looked starvation in the face. Day after day women struggled to feed and clothe their families, endlessly sewing and mending so that the few clothes they had left did not completely fall apart. They made small articles that their husbands could hawk around the Port, cadging a few pennies from neighbours as desperate as themselves. Men endlessly applied for jobs that only a few could get, hundreds of them queuing day after day at the Labour Exchange, all in their one good suit and hat. Most were turned away humiliated and bitter with disappointment and despair. They all wanted jobs, not charity, but it was the soup kitchens that kept them alive and staved off famine.

I watched this endless queue of pathetic people with their billies and saucepans and found myself bereft of understanding. Years later I was to learn that when The Great Depression fell on us Adelaide was hit first and hit hardest.

Harry quoted Nathan that it was all predictably the nature of capitalism and until the working class understood that they would always be victims of booms and busts. But this abstract analysis left me unsatisfied. To understand it was not to cure it. It wasn't like a bilious attack for which a particular remedy could be prescribed, it was a number of illnesses all attacking the body at the same time and tearing it apart. But my mother wasn't interested in the big picture; not then, anyway. As far as she was concerned feeding hungry people was the first thing to be done.

Mrs Grenville, Harry's mother, asked me, my mother and, of course, Winnie to afternoon tea on Sunday. Harry handed me the invitation written on elegant parchment and in a matching envelope. The formal words were in a careful copperplate script.

The afternoon tea was to thank us for our kindness to Harry when he was ill. ‘You don't have to come,' he said as I opened the invitation. He sounded apologetic as if the invitation was some sort of burden. His diffidence puzzled me, and to be reassuring I accepted enthusiastically. However this seemed to only increase his embarrassment and, scarlet in the face, he hurried away.

‘My goodness,' my mother said. ‘We'd better wear our best clobber for this do. To look at Harry you'd never believe that he came from such upper class folk.'

So all dressed up for the occasion in hat and gloves, we were quite unprepared for the pitiful genteel poverty of Harry's home and his mother's sad little pretensions. It was a small brick house with a narrow untidy front garden, the grass still a scruffy brown from the Adelaide heat. It occurred to me that it would be a good thing if Harry spent some time tidying it. I'd point this out to him next time we were alone.

Inside the house was shadowy because most of the blinds were either partly or fully drawn. It smelled of old furniture, its fabric embedded in years of accumulated dust. The couch and chairs in the parlour were sprinkled with crocheted antimacassars. One had slipped from its marshalled position on the back of the couch to reveal a tear in the cloth underneath. The carpet was threadbare although a hand-made rag rug concealed what I assumed was the charred area in front of the fireplace.

Mrs Grenville greeted us as timidly as she had on the hulk. Harry tried to cover for her nervousness by briskly taking my mother's coat and hat and talking quickly and rather too loudly.

Winnie had arrived before us, pretty as ever in a light green skirt and matching blouse. She jumped up and gave me a hug. ‘Doesn't Harry look well? I was so terrified when I saw him at the hulk. You looked awful, Harry.'

‘So you told me, Winnie.'

‘You remember?'

‘Of course.'

‘I thought …' she stopped.

‘That my brain had been affected?'

‘Well, you did look awful. And I read in the paper that some poor woman was raped. In the Victoria Square, Harry.'

Harry opened his eyes wide in amazement. He didn't look at me. ‘I never heard about that.'

‘Really, Winnie,' Mrs Grenville reproached faintly, ‘not nice.'

Winnie ignored her. ‘You were too sick to know, Harry. But it was in all the papers.' She spoke with the confidence of someone who believes in the veracity of the press. ‘You couldn't be expected to know. But everybody was talking about it.'

I concentrated on the intricate design of a crocheted doiley on a small side table and looked up at Mrs Grenville. ‘Have you made all these lovely antimacassars?' I interrupted Winnie.

She smiled tremulously. ‘In our school days we were all taught needlecraft and the art of fine writing.' She looked at me expectantly.

‘Yes, of course, your lovely invitation.'

On queue I had tiptoed through my praise, aware that Harry would see through me. My mother was silent but I knew she was taking in the dreary room, assessing it and adjusting her expectations of upper class living.

Harry's mother had little conversation and I felt tongue-tied so we were grateful that Winnie chattered aimlessly, a pleasant prattle: her dog had adopted the next door kitten and now they both slept together; she had purchased a lipstick in the latest colour but it was too red, you know that crimson red that makes a sort of slash across your face, too harsh, she hated harsh colours; she had been to see the latest Pearl White film. Pearl White always gave her a thrill.

Mrs Grenville responded feebly. To the dog anecdote she said ‘How strange'; to the lipstick story ‘How disappointing'; to the film a nondescript murmur which might have been either approval or disapproval.

Winnie's bright glances enclosed us all but mostly centred on her aunt. At one point she caught my eye and the tiniest flicker of awareness made me wonder if this babble of inanities had been a deliberate performance to help manage what was becoming a very awkward afternoon.

Eventually afternoon tea was served from a trolley, also set with crocheted doilies. Harry wheeled it in and then went back to the kitchen for the large teapot, which he placed on a stand on top of the trolley. Beside the teapot was a small jug of milk, a sugar bowl and a single plate of thin slices of bread and butter.

On the lower shelf of the trolley was a collection of cups and saucers, all of delicate English bone china but none of the cups matched either the saucers or the accompanying plates. I looked at this wretched collection of exquisite china and imagined Mrs Grenville scouring the second-hand shops of Adelaide for beautiful things that she could lovingly look at and hold. And, indeed, as she poured us tepid cups of weak tea and handed around the sadly parsimonious slices of bread it seemed to me that she caressed the china as fondly as anyone would touch the hair of a loved child. It was a doll's house party, a melancholy pretence and an assertion of gentility in the face of grinding poverty.

Harry fidgeted with painful embarrassment and looking at him I recognised beneath his usual bright gaiety the restless resentment that made him seek out Nathan and cling to his beliefs. Clearly he was painfully mortified that his mother could not share with us the sort of honest abundance my mother served from her galley. Mrs Grenville appeared unaware that his glances at her revealed both his pity for her plight and resentment at his.

Thankfully the afternoon tea was at last over and Harry jumped up to wheel out the trolley. His mother now seemed less anxious as if serving the afternoon tea had been the hurdle she most dreaded. She prattled on about Harry's job at the foundry; at the kindness of the men who had spoken to his boss; how it was just a matter of time before he was promoted to the office, even perhaps made a partner in the firm. She ignored Harry's mumbled protest, ‘No, Mum, it won't happen. Please.'

At his interruption she hesitated a second, then smiled. ‘Of course it will, Dear.' And to me it seemed that her smile held the same fondness she had shown her teacups. Her fantasy about Harry's future now seemed to give her the confidence to ask my mother what she did because it must be very interesting to live on a ship, even if it was a little dangerous.

My mother responded sturdily. I was certain she was fed up with the pretences. ‘For the last few weeks I've been giving my time to the soup kitchen at the Salvation Army hall. There are many families in the Port where the breadwinner is out of work and many single women struggling to make do. Judith helps by cadging food from various shops and we manage to provide a tidy meal for all the people who come. The butcher gives us offcuts of meat and this boiled up with plenty of vegetables and thickened with barley makes a wholesome meal. Two or three-day-old bread is good and can be broken into the soup. People come with their billycans and saucepans and mostly it's a happy community occasion.'

As Mrs Grenville listened to her she flushed painfully and my mother stopped abruptly. Winnie rushed in, ‘The poor souls. How lucky we are to live better.'

Harry sat slumped in his chair. I caught his eye and smiled. The look he gave me was one of total dejection. The afternoon had been enough agony for him. I searched desperately for something to say. ‘It's the children, you know. How fortunate, Mrs Grenville, that Harry is a grown man. You can be so proud of him and he plays the piano so beautifully.'

She replied in a die-away voice, ‘The piano. Oh, yes. But a partnership in the foundry is what he needs.'

I looked desperately at my mother. Rescue us, my eyes pleaded.

She responded determinedly. ‘Well, my husband will be expecting his tea.' She got up, thanked Mrs Grenville and smiled at Harry. ‘Where have you hidden my coat and hat, Harry?'

He brought her coat and gallantly helped her put it on.

‘Thank you,' she said and patted his hand. ‘He's a good boy, Mrs Grenville, a good boy. We're glad he's well again.'

She bustled out and I trailed behind her with Winnie. Harry took my arm. ‘See you soon, Judith?' he asked anxiously.

‘Of course,' I said.

When we reached home my mother said, ‘I could have bitten out my tongue, Judith. I never thought until I saw her face. She thought I was suggesting that she should come to the soup kitchen for a meal. Mind you, she looks as if she needs it. But some can't bear to think they've come down in the world. What a poor soul she is to plague herself with pretensions and expectations so unreal. To be so afraid. I don't know how much support that Harry gives her.'

‘I think he gives her all his earnings from the foundry,' I said, but he may keep some of the few bob he earns at the dance halls.'

She shook her head. ‘That house, Judith. Isn't it wonderful to have the clean sea air of the hulk?'

My boss was in a bad temper. He was in a fix. He grumbled, 'It's all these free loaders, Judith. I expected a few, the odd free meal until they got on their feet again, but more come every day. It's a bloody deluge. Chew It is packed and they all demand what others had yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Do they think I own the Bank of England? Neimeyer in disguise or something? Jesus Christ, Judith, I'm going broke. You'll have to tell them. Nothing on tick. Payment first, food after.'

I looked at him disbelievingly. ‘I can't do that.'

‘You'll have to.'

‘You expect me to tell them that while you hide in the kitchen?'

‘Don't be impertinent with me, Judith. You'll judge differently when we close down and your job as well as mine is up the spout.'

He wheedled, ‘You're a good girl, Judith. They'll take it from you. I don't want any violence.' He looked shamefaced. ‘I thought I was being generous.' His round babyish face looked so miserable that I felt sorry for him.

‘You were, but a lot of your customers are single blokes and there's no government help for them.'

‘And there'll be none for me,' he said flatly.

I hadn't realised that he was unmarried. All these years the Chew It and Spew It must have been his family, his link with our community. I was trapped, caught between my own fear of losing my job, his despair at losing the Chew It and Spew It, and my horror at turning away hungry men. I felt all my earlier disgruntled surliness return. Once again circumstances beyond my control were forcing me to do something I hated, and depriving me of choice. In a voice tight with anger and frustration I said, ‘Very well.'

‘You're a good girl,' he pleaded.

‘No,' I snarled, ‘don't say anything more. You know and I know that I have little choice.'

‘You needn't be so rude about it,' he grumped. ‘It's not my fault.'

‘And it's not my fault that you're making me bell the cat.'

Usually so hail-fellow-well-met, he was silent and his fat body looked crumpled and shaken.

But of course it wasn't his fault that the Chew It might close, and it wasn't my fault. Whose fault was it then? I asked myself angrily.

I dreaded the lunchtime rush of customers. As I diced vegetables in the kitchen I debated with myself how to say the dreadful words. Should I be cheery and casual and try to carry it off with a bright confident we'll-have-no-nonsense smile, or should I be humble and apologetic but firm in the face of their distress? Would it be better to be cold and distant or warm and sympathetic with their plight? The anticipation was agony.

At twelve o'clock a large group of customers arrived. I stationed myself near the entrance to the cafe, stiff with anxiety, prepared to tell them one at a time, but they brushed past me with a quick nod or brief g'day and rushed to find seats, jostling each other for a perch. Confused I didn't know what to do. Silent and miserable I just stood as if rooted to the spot by the door.

The drone of noise escalated. Then someone called, ‘Hey, Judith, what about a meal?' Cheerfully they chorused, ‘We're waiting, Judith, just waiting for you.'

I cleared my throat but no sounds came out. Their cheer defeated me. They were mostly gaunt men but in their shabby suits and ubiquitous felt hats they asserted what dignity was left to them. My voice was stuck. I swallowed as if trying to get rid of a fish bone. It was all too much. I couldn't tell them. I burst into tears and stood sobbing, a helpless and hapless figure in the doorway.