Hunger Town (17 page)

‘Yes.'

‘Been seeing a lot of him?'

‘Some.'

‘He's got tickets on you, has he?'

‘No, of course not.' His interrogation irritated me.

He sniggered. ‘No, of course not,' he mimicked me. ‘I'd know that panting eager look anywhere.'

‘It's not like that.' I was annoyed. ‘He brought me this.' And on an impulse I showed him my cartoon.

‘Jesus,' he said, ‘you have got hidden talents. Who'd have thought? You could knock me down with a feather. A second Will Dyson.'

I showed my surprise. His knowledge was unexpected.

‘Think I'm an ignorant bastard, just because I run the Chew It? And I know you all call it the Chew It and Spew It. Doesn't worry me. Not stupid, Judith. Just uneducated. But I know a thing or two you mightn't for all that. Don't know how much longer we'll be able to stay open. Got any other prospects?'

I shook my head and clutched the newspaper.

He grimaced. ‘You hang on to it. You may have a future there.'

Part 2
Waterside Warfare

IN THE END it wasn't a difficult decision to make. Shortly I would be unemployed. There were no work prospects for me. Clearly I had some talent and it was sensible to develop it.

I had not apologised to my father for my harsh abuse and he hadn't indicated in any way that he blamed me for it. But he was more affectionate and considerate with my mother and she was tenderer with him. He gave me his blessing and a rare kiss.

I dressed in my one good dress, a chemise that came below my knees. It was factory made. Waistless, it looked like a nightie but it was the fashion. Amongst other women I might look unattractive but not odd.

I took the train into the city and made my way along North Terrace to the imposing three-storey Exhibition Building with its ivy-clad walls and square turreted tower. It was the School of Design and Painting. I searched nervously for the entrance. My appointment with the principal was at two o'clock and in my anxiety I had arrived half an hour early. I found the office, was shown a hard-backed wooden chair, and instructed to wait.

The entrance hall was high ceilinged, painted an off-white colour, cavernous and smelt cold. I was used to the luminosity of light on the hulk. There were paintings on the walls but they looked rather old and faded.

At two o'clock a door to my right opened and a middle-aged woman, in a dress to her ankles, bustled out. She wore spectacles on the end of her nose and peered over them at me. ‘Miss Larsen?' she questioned in a deep musical voice.

I nodded and got up.

‘Then come in, my dear. So sorry to have kept you waiting. Have you eaten?'

I nodded again.

‘Of course you haven't. You've come from the Port, haven't you? My assent didn't seem necessary.

‘Ella,' she called over her shoulder to the young woman typing in the office, ‘Ella, please make us a cup of tea and some biscuits would be nice.'

She urged me ahead of her into her room. Unlike the corridor it was bright from light flowing through the window that overlooked North Terrace. It was an untidy attractive room. Papers lay higgledy-piggledy on a large desk; on the walls were pinned dozens of unframed drawings and small bright jewels of paintings. She drew forward a chair so that I sat opposite her at the desk. Carelessly she shoved the papers to one side. A few fell on the floor. Instinctively I bent to retrieve them for her.

‘Leave them,' she said. ‘Not important. I'll pick them up later. We are all at sixes and sevens at the minute because Miss Armitage has retired.'

I looked blank.

‘Miss Letitia Armitage. She has been our painting mistress for twenty-six years, an inspiration to us all, particularly the students. We have just held a farewell function for her and must now get down to the very difficult task of running the place without her.' She looked quizzically at me over her glasses. Her eyes were large, a little protuberant but exceptionally kind.

‘They say no one is indispensable, but as we try to sort out who will follow her, and that's a daunting task, I wonder.'

The tea arrived and a plate of biscuits. She poured me a cup and handed me the biscuits. ‘Things are bad at the Port?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Very bad.'

‘Have you work?'

‘No. I had work but the cafe is closing.'

‘So much closed,' she said, shaking her head. ‘So much. Some of our students arrive looking so pale and washed out that we have to ask if they have eaten. Please help yourself to the biscuits.'

I wondered if I, too, looked pale and washed out.

‘So you want to enrol here, Miss Larsen?'

I nodded and she looked amused.

‘You can speak to me, Miss Larsen.'

I blushed and she laughed. ‘This is not an interrogation. I have here some of your work.'

‘Yes. You requested it with my application.'

‘It shows a lot of promise, Miss Larsen, but it is of a particular style. What is it you want to achieve here?'

‘I want to be a political cartoonist.'

She raised her eyebrows.

‘Like Goya and Will Dyson,' I said.

‘Goya,' she said sharply, ‘was a lot more than a political cartoonist and Dyson, our home grown genius he may be, and champion of the down-trodden, but he has always had to struggle with his draughtsmanship, the outcome I would think of having no formal art training.

‘Some critics have accused him of not being a natural draughtsman.' She grimaced. ‘Who is? These things have to be learned. It's only sloppy to assume that natural will do. It rarely does. The great artists base their work on solid learned principles and that is what we teach here.'

I was humbled by the certainty with which she spoke of my two heroes. ‘Then, can you teach me?'

‘No.' She smiled kindly at me. ‘I can't. My forte is china painting and I'm quite certain that won't interest you.'

I said nothing, for to agree with her would sound rude and to falsely praise china painting would appear to be currying favour. I think she understood my silence.

‘Most of our classes are combination lessons in drawing and painting and you'll benefit from broadening your skills.

‘You'll notice that most of our teachers are women. We're very proud of that. And,' she added, assessing my plain factory-made clothes, ‘we don't just cater for rich bored young ladies who like to dabble. You'll find most of our students are as dedicated and hard working as our teachers.'

Once again she thumbed through my work, then looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I think Miss Taylor will suit you. Her name is Stella Mary Taylor but she likes to be called Marie and if you manage to give it a French intonation she'll be tickled pink. She spent several years in Paris before the war and has exhibited at the Salon de la Societe des Artistes Francais. In her life classes she insists on nude models. You won't mind that will you?'

I shook my head.

‘She's a very skilled and dedicated artist. She has kept herself alive for years working in a flower shop. She has imbibed a revolutionary bent, presumably from her French experiences. I think you'll do well together. Her father is a wealthy grazier but she likes her independence. I fear that her work in the florist's may finish soon. People can't afford flowers in a depression. However,' she sighed a little sadly and then smiled at me, ‘flowers will still grow despite what we humans do to each other and whether we are able to sell or buy them doesn't matter to them. They will always be there to delight us and that's a great comfort, Miss Larsen.'

My classes were only on a Tuesday and Thursday so when I was not there I helped my mother in the soup kitchen. I grew used to the queues of women and children and some men waiting quietly both in and outside the Salvation Army hall.

Mrs Danley and I would fill the boilers with hot soup from iron cauldrons bubbling on the antique wood-burning stove in the Salvos' kitchen. We would carry them panting into the hall. Then we would struggle to lift them onto the tables. We had found that if we put them on the floor the constant bending to fill the ladles and then the receptacles hurt our backs. So did the lifting, so we were between Scylla and Charybdis. The boilers had handles but the heat and weight made our task arduous. Because I was young and Mrs Danley was a massive muscular woman the task was allotted to us. Until Herbie arrived.

Herbie had started to come every day for his meagre midday meal of soup and bread. He was a beanpole of a man with thin greying hair that hung over his frayed collar and baggy pants held up by a length of string. His age was indeterminate but I had noticed that with many of the unemployed men it was difficult to judge how old they might be. It was as if poverty had interrupted the normal timeline of their lives. He might have been thirty or he might have been fifty.

He watched Mrs Danley and I struggle with the boiler. ‘Too heavy for you, missus,' he said, ‘and for you, girlie.

‘Hey, Perce,' he yelled down the queue, ‘give us a hand here. Need some help for the ladies.'

Perce lumbered out. He was a good-natured but slow-witted hunk of a man with arms like legs of mutton. Herbie and Perce took over the job of lifting the boilers. As they heaved them onto the tables three cheers often went up from the waiting queue and there was the occasional ‘Good on yer, mates'. Perce flushed with pleasure at this praise and Herbie looked satisfied.

When it was their turn to have their billies filled we always gave them an extra helping. No one complained at this special treatment, at least I never heard any resentful comments. It was more often ‘Poor old Herbie'—a generous and grateful sympathy.

Once I asked around where Herbie lived. There were shrugs. ‘In the camp by the Torrens River' was the general opinion ‘with the other unemployed blokes.' I had seen the camp. It was a collection of makeshift lean-tos, made of bits of wood, cardboard, old sacks, tin and canvas. There was a small bricked-in area for a fire and a few buckets for carrying water from the river. I had made drawings of it and captioned them
The working man's paradise
and sent them to the
Despatch
where Nathan worked. He had offered to try to place my cartoons.

One Monday a woman came in to the hall with two small children, a frightened boy of about six and a silent pale little girl of about four. Their mother, anxious and nervous, carried only a small saucepan, hardly enough for one meal, let alone sufficient for a family. One side of her face was stained by a purpling-greenish bruise. The hand that held the saucepan shook.

Immediately Herbie went to her side. ‘Been beating you up again, missus?'

She nodded. Tears ran down her face and she clutched her daughter's hand. The little boy stood silent and stiff. Herbie took her pathetic saucepan. ‘We can do better than that,' he said loudly. ‘We can do better than this, can't we, Mrs Larsen?' he shouted across the hall and waved the saucepan above his head. The woman cringed, embarrassed, but Herbie saw no shame in it. He marshalled her and the children to the front of the queue. Everyone shuffled back and made room for them.

My mother found a good-sized saucepan with a lid and Herbie ladled the soup into it up to its brim. Then he squashed on the lid. Liquid squelched down its sides forming a messy glutenous patch on the table. Mrs Danley, supervising the distribution, sighed but said nothing. She went out into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of water and a cloth to mop up the mess. No one would think of reproaching Herbie. My mother and her friends had a secret pact to tolerate him whatever minor inconveniences he caused.

In triumph Herbie handed the dripping saucepan to the woman. ‘There you are, Mrs Blighty.'

His eyes were caught by the pale still children. ‘Milk,' he said, ‘they need milk. We need milk for the children,' he ordered me loudly. ‘They need to take some milk home.' He patted them on their heads. ‘Miss Judith will see to that.'

I hurried to the kitchen, amused to be running at his bidding, searched for and found an empty bottle. I washed it and rinsed it in hot water always boiling in an iron kettle on the stove. That day I was in charge of milk distribution for the children. ‘Our battle against rickets' my mother had forcefully persuaded the local dairy farmers. It was skim milk, not wanted after the cream was removed, and usually sold to pig farmers for a pittance. My mother cadged it for the children, shaming the dairy farmers into forfeiting the few pence they received if they sold it.

Herbie led the family out the door. ‘I'll be back later,' he called over his shoulder. ‘Perce, you get some other bloke to help lift the boilers. I have to see Mrs Blighty home and have a talk to her husband.'

Having organised his foot soldiers, he went out. A couple in the queue laughed and although not a hearty laugh it was good to hear. Perce was chiacked. ‘Got yer orders, Perce? Jump to it.' Perce flushed again but looked proud. Someone said, ‘That's Herbie all right'. Another, ‘He'll straighten that Blighty bastard out.' And a third, ‘Far too quick with his fists.'

That same day Harry bounced in to the hall. I hadn't seen him for several weeks and, as I had been so busy coping with my own affairs, had not met with Winnie to hear news of him.

As if we had met only yesterday he bounded up to me and gave me a bear-like hug. ‘How do, Comrade Judith?' His cheer was genuine, unforced and unapologetic. I wanted to be annoyed at his neglect and appear remote and hurt but my mother's warm welcome undermined my intentions.

‘Where have you been, Harry? We've missed you.'

‘The foundry closed, Mrs L. Jobless now, isn't it great? Hated that place. The smell of quicklime made me gag.' Despite his bravado he was shocked.

‘The Chew It closed, too,' I said. He wasn't entitled to have the shock of joblessness on his own.

‘Well, you'll be as overjoyed as me. You hated that place.'

‘It was a job,' I said tightly, ‘and money. How are you managing? And your mother?'

‘In a minute,' he said cheerfully, ‘I'm going to find a place in the queue and take her home a bowl of your delicious soup. See, I've brought my billy.'

‘Harry!' I was horrified. ‘Your mother. How will she— ?'

‘Judith,' he interrupted me, the humour fallen away, ‘Judith, we're all in this together, and the sooner we realise that we are working-class people, all with the same working-class problems, the better it will be.'

‘Better for whom?' I asked tartly. ‘You've been talking to Nathan.'

‘And why not?' He was defensive.

Yes, I thought, why not? Nathan's ideas made some sense.

‘So, comrade Judith, how about a bit of soup for a poor working-class boy?'

But there was a certain bitter twist to his mouth, an ironic gleam in his eye, which made me wonder if he had managed to grow into the new clothes he had put on. ‘Don't call me comrade,' I was peevish. ‘It sounds false. You don't have to prove your Bolshie leanings to me.' He grinned.