Hunger Town (25 page)

The next day was Sunday and Harry arrived at the hulk early in the afternoon. He brought a bunch of flowers, a bit the worse for wear, as he had clutched them while riding his bike. My mother greeted him with her usual friendly warmth.

‘I've work to do,' I said stiffly.

‘No, Judith,' my mother said, ‘you don't have work to do. Harry has come to see you.'

I flounced into a chair refusing to look at him.

‘But
I
have work to do,' she said hurriedly and left.

Harry hovered irresolutely in front of me. ‘I'm sorry, Judith,' he mumbled.

I still refused to look at him.

‘Really, Judith,' he pleaded, ‘I am sorry. It was just …' He ­stumbled. ‘I loved your hair and I had bought some ribbons to give you.'

He placed several strands of blue, green and red ribbons on the table in front of me. ‘And now,' he sounded desolate, ‘they're no use.'

I looked at the shimmering ribbons, imagined how much money they had cost him, heard the unhappiness in his voice and burst into tears. ‘Oh, Harry,' I sobbed, ‘thank you. I can grow it again, you know. I'll keep them. My hair grows quickly, really quickly and cutting it will make it even thicker.' I gulped and looked up at him.

He smiled down at me. ‘Friends again, Judith?'

‘Yes,' I said and smiled tearfully in return.

He leaned across the table and kissed me.

Nathan spoke with his sisters and they arrived for our first meeting to organise a women's march. They wore the smug self-congratulatory air of people who believe they have been proved right. My mother had enlisted the help of Mrs Danley and Mrs Thornhill from the soup kitchen.

‘I may not be right, Judith, but I think Mrs Danley will be a match for Miss Abigail and Miss Adelaide,' she said.

Mrs Danley, I knew, managed several church committees and her skills at organisation were talked about with bated breath. Mrs Danley was a good woman, a community-minded woman, even if a little overwhelming. She was also physically dominating with her powerful voice, stentorian tones, and large bodily presence. Beside her Miss Abigail and Miss Adelaide were small, sparrow-like women pinched into their dark clothes. I felt it was like having a galleon and two mosquito ketches in our saloon: one majestically commanded the waves, the other two buzzed in and out of small ports.

I saw Miss Abigail and Miss Adelaide glance askance at Mrs Danley and then look anxiously at each other. Clearly they hadn't expected competition. My mother had flared at them when they first suggested forming a Women's Defence Army. Now they assumed that the terrible circumstances of the wharf had subdued her.

Mrs Danley was another matter and they sensed the forthcoming battle over the pecking order. My mother, rather nervously, explained why the preliminary meeting was being held. Mrs Danley and Mrs Thornhill nodded.

‘Good, Eve,' Mrs Danley said, ‘well done.'

My mother looked pleased. Everyone looked pleased when praised by Mrs Danley. I was never quite certain why Mrs Danley's praise ranked higher than anyone else's, but there it was. When Mrs Danley praised my cartoons I glowed, then afterwards laughed at myself. Why some people could establish a sort of command over other people's feelings puzzled me. But then, everyone agreed that Mrs Danley was a very good soul so there was no harm in it.

My mother had introduced her to Nathan's sisters and Mrs Danley had taken it upon herself to say some words of welcome. Miss Abigail and Miss Adelaide bridled at this condescension. Good, I thought spitefully. When Harry had had the temerity to welcome them to the communist meeting they had repulsed him with equal condescension. Serve them right.

‘What we need,' Mrs Danley boomed, ‘is a plan of action and proposals to take to a larger meeting in the Federation Hall, and we need to enlist the support of the women in the Port. That will take some time. They'll need persuading. In the present climate we can't advertise but we can spread the word. The soup kitchen's a good place to begin. The women who come there are desperate, angry and mostly destitute. We need to tell them exactly what we plan and that the meeting is not open to men.'

Up until now Miss Adelaide and Miss Abigail had remained silent in the face of this determined onslaught. Now Miss Adelaide produced a piece of paper with careful handwritten notes. She began as if giving a prepared speech. ‘This is a great opportunity,' she said, ‘to rouse the revolutionary spirit of the masses.'

Mrs Danley stared at her. ‘I beg your pardon,' she said, ‘what opportunity do you have in mind?' The direct approach confused Miss Adelaide. She had her script and was set on proceeding.

Oh dear, I thought, sharing a look with my mother, Nathan has prepared this for them. He wasn't expecting a Mrs Danley. Then I was annoyed. Probably he had expected my mother or even me to be pushovers.

Miss Adelaide continued doggedly, ‘It's not piecemeal reforms we need but the overthrow of capitalism which must be inscribed upon the banners of the working class in the struggle against the exploiters. We women must be in the vanguard of this realisation and fight against the continuing and increasing degradation of the workers.'

Mrs Danley listened courteously to this speech but I could tell by the restless way she shifted her large buttocks on the chair that her patience was limited. Her expression said clearly that they were wasting her time and again I found myself expecting that, like the Queen in
Alice in Wonderland
, she might shout at any moment in a voice of thunder: “She's wasting the time. Off with her head.”

However she did not do anything as drastic as that. ‘Quite,' she said. ‘I'm sure there'll be time for that later but just now …' and she returned to the details of organising the meeting in the Federation Hall. Miss Adelaide looked offended at being dismissed and Miss Abigail bristled on her behalf.

‘I'll chair the meeting,' Mrs Danley continued. ‘You're too soft, Eve.'

My mother looked grateful. Earlier she had confessed to me that the thought of managing a large meeting terrified her.

But Miss Adelaide was not beaten yet. ‘Our brother,' she squeaked, ‘Mr Nathan Ramsay, he's well experienced and has offered to chair it for you.'

‘No.' Mrs Danley did not excuse her sharp refusal.

‘It's a women's meeting,' my mother said, ‘a women's march. I think you, yourself, said that the police will not bash women.'

They were not mollified by her attempt to smooth over Mrs Danley's directness and they fought a rearguard action. ‘If we don't have the right principles, the right political ideas, if we don't educate the workers about their plight, we cannot arouse them from their slumbers. It is the long-term goals we must bear in mind. These are just preliminary events that we must see as leading to a new socialist state.'

Mrs Danley was now thoroughly impatient. ‘They know what their plight is. They don't need you to tell them.' The meeting threatened to descend into angry words and reprisals. Heavens, I thought, we all want the same thing and we can't even get along here.

Mrs Danley won the day by force of personality and despite the glowering disappointment of Nathan's sisters she organised us into ways of getting the women of the Port to the meeting in the Federation Hall. My mother walked the sisters to the gangplank, aware of their humiliation, but they ignored her soothing conciliatory comments and stalked off stiff-backed.

After they had gone Mrs Danley moved into the galley where I was making cups of tea. Mrs Thornhill who was more or less Mrs Danley's second in charge had said nothing throughout the afternoon. She thanked me for the cup of tea and smiled. Mrs Danley plonked herself down at the table, her thighs spreading over the edges of a wooden chair, and wriggled herself comfortably into position.

‘Well, Eve, Judith, Ailsa, what did you make of those two ninnies? A sillier more impractical pair I've yet to listen to. Where did they get those highfalutin, outlandish ideas from?'

‘They're communists,' I said.

She gave me a pained smile. ‘Is that what they are? Well, if that's communism and they are communists, I don't much like their chances. Why did you invite them, Eve?'

My mother picked up her cup of tea and put her hands around the cup to warm them. The late afternoon was cool and a sharp salty wind had sprung up off the river.

‘They suggested a Women's Defence Army and a women's march after the terrible fracas in Victoria Square. Their brother is a friend of Harry's.'

‘Humph,' Mrs Danley said.

‘I think they have high expectations of being a part of this,' my mother said.

Mrs Danley guffawed. ‘Did you hear that, Ailsa?' She assumed Mrs Thornhill would share her disgust. ‘High expectations. I don't doubt it. We may have to put a lid on their expectations. What was it they said? “Our hardest task will be clearing the palliative-mongers off the track of revolutionary progress.
”
'

I laughed and my mother grinned. ‘How do you remember it all?'

‘If you'd sat through as many church meetings as I have, Eve, you'd probably remember it, too. It's a habit of concentration. And now, Judith, you've been very quiet this afternoon, what are you up to?'

I smiled. She did not really want a reply. She had just made a gesture to include me rather as one would acknowledge at long last a neglected child in the room.

It seemed that Nathan also had expectations and dealing with them, relayed to me through Harry, was irritating. Harry reproached me that I didn't draw cartoons in the spirit of working class liberation.

I was tart. ‘And what exactly does that mean, Harry?'

He looked confused. ‘I suppose like Soviet Union art.'

‘And you've seen a lot of that?'

As his opinion was parroted from Nathan, he was naturally defensive. ‘Nathan says it would be better if you drew the working man as nobly striding forward.'

‘Flaunting a banner, I suppose? With a black hammer and sickle on a red background?'

‘If you like.' He was sulky at my jibes but so discomforted I repented.

‘Harry, I draw the people at the Port as I see them. Don't you think they are noble in their suffering?'

‘But, Judith, they look so down-trodden and desperate.'

‘They are down-trodden and desperate, Harry.'

He watched me as I worked with pen and ink. He sighed. I was using a fine nib and China ink. It was almost impossible to correct a mistake and I worked carefully. I had first made a rough pencil drawing so I had a good outline. Now I was filling in light and shade with cross-hatching. It had taken me months to learn the subtlety and control of different pen strokes.

‘You do such beautiful work, Judith. For me it's enough but Nathan …' He hesitated. ‘I don't know why Nathan doesn't understand, and he's such a fearfully compelling sort of bloke.'

Harry never took umbrage at my jibes. He neither bore a grudge nor was moody. I loved him but sometimes found it difficult to understand him. When he was with Nathan he was enslaved by his fixed ideas. When he was with me he seemed to see Nathan more clearly. When I asked him if he believed in communism he quipped, ‘I'd believe in anything that paid me to dance, Judith.'

Women are good at secrets and small deceptions and the poverty at the Port honed their skills and united them. In small groups they strolled along the street past the fruit stall and while one or two engaged the stallholder with chatter the others filled their bags with stolen vegetables or fruit. I knew that later they divided the spoils amongst themselves, allotting them in terms of need.

On one occasion I watched this small piece of theatre. As they casually walked away talking to each other old Ben, the stallholder, looked up and saw me watching. He shrugged resignedly. ‘They think I'm too stupid to notice, Miss Judith. They're not very skilled at thieving. I'd give them the stuff but to think that they've succeeded in snaffling it from under my nose gives them a small sense of triumph. I wouldn't deprive them of that. They all have kids.'

These women and others argued with the baker, swearing that bread baked today was really two days old and badgering him into selling it at a cheaper price. They descended on the dairyman, begging for skim milk, dressing their children in old wheat sacks to convince him that their children were starving. And, of course, they were.

They invented imaginary members of the family in a ploy to get more ration cards. They queued at every food distribution and every charitable clothing distribution. They gritted their teeth and gave up any pretensions to pride. If somebody died in an unemployed camp he was often found dressed in his underwear. Someone had stolen his shoes and clothes.

They foraged for fuel. Gaunt and skeletal they were old before their time. Those who suffered most had been deserted by their husbands who, unable to find work in the Port, went on the wallaby, searching for work in the labourers' camps. Many never wrote home and simply disappeared.

Dr Banks bustled around town as usual, going in and out of houses. His clothes got shabbier, his face thinner, greyer and more lined. I heard mothers complaining that he gave them unrealistic advice.

One day he stopped me in the street and looked intently into my face. As he had done when I was a child he pulled down the lower lid of one of my eyes and peered into it. ‘Tell your mother to give you some iron, Judith. You're anaemic. Some good red meat several times a week. And green vegetables,' he instructed.

I looked at him disbelievingly.
Good red meat?
Where did we get that from these days? But I didn't argue with him. There was a vagueness in his expression that troubled me.

‘Rickets,' he muttered as he left me. ‘Rickets. I tell their mothers to give their children milk and good food but they ignore me. Really, Judith, it's quite irresponsible of them. Now you take my advice. Young women shouldn't be anaemic.'