Season of Hate (24 page)

"I'm the first to admit I made a mistake with that one. He's one of the gooduns."

Johnny spent the whole afternoon proudly wearing the contents of the velvet box – a solid gold Certina wristwatch bearing the inscription: 'Always in my thoughts – Lillian Wood'. Binda never left his side.

Money raised, including donations from town businesses was put into a special account at the bank. It met most of the costs of Johnny's multiple skin grafts and other medical bills. Dad would quietly top up the account when it was exhausted.

It took many months before our community could put Steve and his dad's death behind us and get on with everyday life. To some, Johnny's presence would always be a constant reminder of that night's tragic events. Sadly, the goodwill shown toward the rest of the town's Aboriginal population at the barbecue was brief.

They were banished to the edges of town, with restrictions on their movements. Most shopkeepers still only admitted them if they could produce money before entering.

It didn't take long for the conscience of Mr Green and a few other shopkeepers to revert to their old ways of treating them either, still only serving them at the doors to their shops.

Doug and I were there one day standing beside Johnny and a few other Aborigines outside Mr Green's. They waited patiently to be attended to – not in turn mind, but only after every white customer was served, whether they were there first or not. Johnny, though still welcomed to enter his store whenever he wanted, chose to stand and wait with his black brothers and sisters. It took over an hour and a half.

The last white customer left Mr Green's store a good fifteen minutes before he made any effort to serve the patient group outside. He checked they had money first, because unlike others of the community, he refused Aborigines credit. Johnny let everyone else go before him. Mr Green only showed any trace of embarrassment when it was Johnny's turn. A number of white households in the town had already joined the Walshes, Nan and the Symonds in boycotting Mr Green's store, but he remained steadfast in his beliefs.

More importantly, the badgering and violence toward the Aborigines and even the piercing almost nightly gunshots ended after Mr Wood's death. This season, this season of hate, had passed. Others would follow, bringing their own issues and violence. For as Pindari foreshadowed at the Hudson fire, not all the blacks were prepared to put up with the treatment they were receiving at the hands of some white aggressors. Some fought back, with varying success and the ensuing consequences.

Of great concern to our household was Dad. I can only ascertain that whatever atrocities he had witnessed or perhaps was even forced to perform to survive in World War II, must have resurfaced even stronger with his attending to Bob Wood's suicide.

Doug and I only saw the splatter of blood and human tissue from a distance. Dad saw the waste of human life close up. I wondered as well, had the shooting caused Dad to revisit the events surrounding the loss of his best mate Girra on the battlefield.

For Doug and me he was our dad and loved and cared for us, but from time to time there was the return of the darkness to his eyes that told us the 'Black Dog' had come to visit again. Seeking help for depression was not common in the 1950's, even if one were a doctor as in Dad's case, and should have known better.

People just got on with life as best they could. Anyway, out where we lived there were no specialist doctors you could pop in to for a session once or twice a week. Mostly, he continued to cope by going off into the shed by himself for a few hours until it passed.

One weekend well after the fire and the funerals, Nan had gone to a CWA fund raiser at Mrs Grady's place and Doug had shot off somewhere on his bike with Barry. It was around midday and I'd been in my room finishing a Social Studies project for school. I came out to the kitchen with the white shoe polish I'd used to paint the snow on my drawing of Mount Fujiyama. Dad was sitting with his back to me at the kitchen table reading his newspaper.

"Finished the drawing. Looks great. I'll just have an apple for lunch and a glass of Milo. Would you like a cheese and tomato sandwich? Dad?" He just sat there. I went around to the other side of the table and stood in front of him. His head was slumped forward as he stared blankly at the page. His hands gripped the edges of the newspaper tightly. I felt both worried and useless at the same time, not knowing what to do. I moved to his side and rested my hand on his shoulder. He turned his head and looked at me with haunted glazed eyes, as if trying to find his way back through the fog. Gently I released his hands from the paper and led him to his room, sitting him down on the bed while I took off his shoes.

With a gentle pressure to his shoulder I managed to get him to lie down. I closed the curtains and the door before getting up on the bed myself. By then, Dad had shut his eyes and I slid my hand into his. I just laid there next to him listening to him breathing. It was at least an hour before Dad emerged from that terrible place he inhabited. It was like a veil had been lifted from over his face. 'Dad' had returned. He sat up and looked at me as he got his bearings.

"Fancy some lunch, Dad?"

"That'd be great." He slipped his shoes back on as I headed for the door.

"And son …" I turned as I opened the door. "Thanks." followed by a warm smile. My heart soared. I had been of use.

Doug and I prayed that Dad's 'turns' as we called them, would end and we'd have our old dad back again forever. We found out then, that not everyone's prayers are answered. He never wanted to talk about it or explain the cause of these bouts of depression and we respected his need to deal with it himself, in his own way. Whenever Nan asked us in a soft, concerned rather than her exasperated directive to "go outside and play", it was our signal that all was not well with Dad.

His changing moods however, eventually ended whatever relationship he had with Susan. Her plea to him that night to let her in, to open up to her about these dark episodes, must have eventually failed despite the best efforts on both their parts. Within six months, she'd moved to Brisbane for good.

On the Saturday afternoon she left, Doug and I felt empty and sad. Dad drove her to the station before coming back an hour later with four bottles of beer. He headed straight to the shed and locked himself inside away from us. His seclusion we understood, but this was the first time he'd taken in any grog or locked the door before. Through the window we could see the back of his head as he sat slumped in an old chair. He had the radio on and occasionally he'd sing along to a song being played. Nan sought us out and called from the verandah for us to come away and let him be. By the time we went to bed that night he was still in the shed, now with the light on. Next morning Nan came into our room and whispered to us to get dressed, not to wake Dad sleeping in his room and have our breakfast in silence.

"Ya dad's feelin' a bit off-colour. We'll walk to Mass and let him sleep it off."

We'd never seen Dad drink more than a glass or two of beer at any one time and certainly never seen him drunk in front of us. This behaviour would prove to be a one off. Susan's leaving had hit him hard. To the widows, divorcees and single women in town, Dad was again a good catch back on the market. They used every social opportunity to try and snare him, but he remained acceptingly single, sober and free of nagging from Nan to find a partner.

Our time revisiting the town was almost over. Penny and I had cleared out Kilkenny completely. Every surface was cleaned and painted readied for sale. The paling fence, although reasonably new was deliberately left with three swinging palings by Dad – as Poppie had done for him and he for us. Now it would be used as a short cut by the next generation of kids and their adventures.

With Johnny's and Pindari's help the three of us loaded into the rented van only what we wanted to take back to Sydney. Working shirtless, the raised welts on Johnny's back from the whipping all those years ago were now just faint shiny strips. The skin grafts to his arm and chest though were still plainly evident.

Johnny already had a truck of his own so we gave Dad's old Holden to Pindari and his family as we had two cars of our own back in Bondi. The rest of the furniture and belongings we put out on the street for the taking, were quickly snapped up.

Over the twenty years since I'd left town, Johnny and I had stayed in touch through letters and caught up with each other every time I'd visit. In those years I returned not only for our wedding but also those of Johnny, Barry, Shen, Raymond and Snotty Norris. Johnny was my best man. There were also the funerals of Doug, Nan and Miss Bridget, and to visit Dad, now with my own kids, during Christmas holidays.

During those stays Johnny and I became even closer. One weekend every visit, he and I and a couple of his Aboriginal mates, including Pindari would go bush while Penny and Binda looked after the kids. Barefoot, but now conscious of the sun's effects on my skin, I wore a hat and long sleeves. We'd take off armed with only a machete, spears, skinning knife and a woomera, along with basic supplies.

We'd sleep under a cloudless starry sky, just like when I was a kid, either with Dad and Doug camping in the bush, or on the front verandah sleep-out. We lived off the land the way Johnny's ancestors had done for thousands of years. He and Pindari and the others taught me how to hunt and forage, and more importantly, how we are all connected to the land through our ancestors; all of us, black and white. Of most importance, they believed that no one owns the land; the land owns us. We are mere custodians – carers only. And during our time on this land, we must all honour and protect it.

I became an expert at detecting the witchetty tree with its prized grubs buried in its roots. Johnny could eat them raw but I still cooked mine in the ashes. Honey ants were often on the menu as well as fish. Rabbit, bush pork or wombat, and kangaroo I could now skin and cook properly. There was never any wanton killing of animals for sport though, only what we needed to eat. Everything was precious and shared.

There were also those memorable holidays when Johnny, Binda and their kids visited our house at Bondi beach. It gave Penny and me great pleasure to see the stares of excitement mixed with terror on all their faces, as they gawked at the crashing waves, followed by squeals of delight playing in the surf. All our kids got on so well with each other.

Johnny and I struggled to make eye contact this visit. Neither of us wanted to be the one to broach the subject that this could be a long, if not possibly our last goodbye. With our life firmly established in Sydney – school, work and friends all there, there seemed little need to return, certainly not every year for Christmas as we had done previously when Dad was still with us. It was a wrenching decision, but Kilkenny was now on the market.

I watched as the real estate agent finish hammering the 'For Sale' sign in the purple petal-strewn front yard before driving off. It occurred to me that soon it would be time for the slow transport of the grain train along Railway Street, taking the season's harvest to the main line and on to market. I stood for one last time on the verandah as the warm memories of my childhood wrapped themselves around me.

It was a time of innocence and wonder, as the mysteries of life revealed themselves to us at a much slower pace. Those airless summer days, so hot that the whole wheat landscape was one hazy golden shimmer. Days when we'd spend all day catching frogs and swimming naked in cool water. That delicious squelch of mud between your toes as you searched for worms along the creek bank to skewer onto fish hooks. Times when we'd ride for miles on our bikes or run through the long dry grass playing hide and seek.

Those carefree days of street cricket, or others where you pretended you were a pirate or a cowboy, a Red Indian or an Aborigine as you acted out your fantasies. The time we first became aware of the changes in our bodies as we went from children to teenagers. Many seasons had past and yet it all seemed as real and remembered as if it were yesterday.

My children would never experience the joy we took sitting around at night listening to the serials on the wireless, the euphoria of dancing around in a drought-breaking rainstorm or going bush for a couple of days. There are no witchetty grubs or native berries in Bondi shops. They'll never know the bonds that bound us as a community either; all looking out for each other and lending support and comfort when needed.

Our kids, ten year old twins Harry and Charlotte, or Charlie as she prefers, are good kids, but city kids – exposed daily in subtle ways to all the bad influences city life can have on growing minds. No, they'll never know the anticipation we felt coming home and smelling the kitchen air, heavy with the aroma of a homemade mulberry pie baking in the oven from fruit we'd picked. The delirious taste of a slice smothered in custard and oozing warm fruit – mmm, magic.

Sitting on the rope swing, with the old shoebox we'd found at the back of Dad's wardrobe on my lap, I realised my life had been so rich and full. I'm so fortunate to have had that happy carefree childhood, a good education, a loving wife and children, and a rewarding profession. More really than a man could hope for, so much so that as Nan would say, "I wouldn't say 'bum' for sixpence".

Funny, you break your neck to leave home, to see other towns, cities, the world, yet something always draws you back to your little town.
My
town, not so different to most small towns I suspect – but special to me. It's like putting on that old comfortable cardigan you just can't throw away, or sitting out of the wind in the sun on a winter's day – mmm, magic.

I opened the lid of the box and sorted through its contents. There were Dad's WWII medals, unworn all these years, a stack of old photographs of himself as a child with Nan and Poppie as young parents and another of himself and his war mate Girra in army shorts having an arm wrestle over a wooden barrel in the jungle. Several letters were inside as well. I took them out and opened one up.

My darling, I cannot wait to see you tonight. You are my life, my knight in shining armour. I love you so much I feel I'll explode. They say there is one man for every woman and you are mine, now and forever. I'll have a beer on the bar waiting for you. All my love always, Claire.

I put the love letter back into its envelope, feeling a little grubby, like I had violated an intimate moment between them. I chose not to read any of the others. There was a larger photograph at the bottom of the box. I turned it over. It was a wedding photograph of Dad and Claire. She was as beautiful as Dad had said, in a flowing wedding dress and veil. He looked strong and handsome as he stood beside her in his dark suit. By their gaze into each other's eyes, you could tell they were so much in love.

I spotted Dad's gold wedding band and held it between my fingers. The inscription read,
Harry & Claire forever
. I sat there staring at it. My eyes moistened. Dad had lived the inscription. I remembered that meeting with our mother on the verandah and thinking how different her words to Dad were then, to the love letter I had just read. I felt so sad for Dad. He did love her so much, all his life. I slipped the wedding band on my middle right hand finger and set the box on the ground.

Swinging back and forth I looked up and could see suspended on the fat branches of the jacaranda, the wooden platform and the rope ladder Dad had maintained for my kids. Suddenly come to life in my mind's eye was a young Doug and me acting out our fantasies. All around the she-oak trees, more now then all those years ago, still whistled in the afternoon spring breeze, while two kookaburras laughed in a distant gum tree. What was that song we sang as a round in the school choir? Something about a kookaburra.

I pictured Honey wandering across the road and begging for a rub on her stomach, while Poppie shovelled chook poo around all the plants in the garden. And over next door, Miss Bridget hacked away at the lantana while the kind and lonely Miss Kitty sat on the verandah with a glass of her homemade ginger beer and biscuits ready for me. She was one of the first I visited this trip and the last I'll say goodbye to before we leave. Now in her nineties, she still lived at home with a live-in nurse. Her hearing was intact but cataracts had almost completely spread their milky film across her eyes. Yet she still knew my voice and who I was.

"I've still got all me marbles. Not bad for an old chook," she restated as she did on most visits. Only this time there was the early onset of a Parkinson's tremor to her voice. "You pair of little scallywags. Remember the time you fell off the lattice?"

She retold the story to the nurse for the umpteenth time as we shared afternoon tea on the verandah. This time there was a difference to our time together. She wanted to hear me play
Heart and Soul
on the piano and we all moved inside to the lounge. The piano was just in tune and I managed after a few attempts to get it right and repeated it several times at her insistence. When I finished it she started to sing/talk the lyrics as if transported to another time.

"Heart and soul, I fell in love with you, heart and soul, the way a fool would do, madly …" her voice trailed off as tears formed in her eyes.

"There, there Miss Walshe. Don't go upsetting yourself," soothed the nurse. Then returning from the past, Miss Kitty sobbed.

"He told me I was beautiful. And with him, I was."

"You are. And always will be," I whispered before kissing her cheek.

"Some days she doesn't know what she did five seconds ago. The past seems clearer than the present," the nurse conveyed as I was leaving. But it didn't matter, for she was Miss Kitty and I loved her. It would be hard to say goodbye this time for I was conscious of the fact that it could be the last time I see her alive.

Ahead, there was Doug and I as eight year olds, necks craned as we hung over the front fence, watching our first wheat train roll through town and counting the number of boxcars that passed into view at the intersection of Railway and Main.

Opening our picket fence gate I decided to take a last walk down Main Street. I was still greeted by cordial cheerios from well known faces from my school days, now parents themselves. I called out to Barry as he played with his youngest baby daughter in a tiny swimming pool in his front yard.

"G'day Barry."

"Oh hi Pat. Settled yer dad's affairs?"

"Yeah. Leave tomorrow."

"Pity, it woulda been good to catch up and have a good old chinwag over a coupla beers."

Though there had been several other families living there over the years, passing the old Wood house still disturbed me. It was like I was moving in slow motion. Closing my eyes I could still see vividly Steve's young body stretched out on the bed. I swallowed deeply to keep my stomach down at the memory of seeing Bob Wood's brain splattered violently around the lounge room and Dad distraught over the waste of human life. A chill ran through me.

Further on was Snotty's, or rather
Carl
Norris' place. He and his wife and son lived at home with his mother. I waved at him as he did the mowing. He waved back before miming a big nose wipe up his arm and finishing with a huge laugh. The only one missing from our group really was Raymond from next door. He'd moved his family to Melbourne in search of work over ten years ago.

I was sickened to see small groups of Aborigines gathered under the clump of gum trees in the distance. Malnourished fringe dwellers, humiliated and degraded and some, not all, drinking from flagons and falling about – their wages from what little work they could get and welfare payments often blown this way. It seemed like their spirit was disconnected from the land and their very being, vulnerable to abuse from unscrupulous white landlords, shopkeepers and publicans eager to exploit the situation. The amount of government housing had increased over the years but was still inadequate for the size of the town's black population.

The irony of this scene was that some of the white drinkers at the Exchange Hotel, some on welfare assistance as well, were doing the same thing to their bodies on a regular basis and it was accepted. Yet only the Aborigines were subjected to public condemnation and ridicule.

In 1965 Charlie Perkins and the other students of the University of Sydney's Freedom Ride had drawn the attention of the Australian public to the discrimination and segregation of the indigenous population from the whites. We all thought it would galvanize Australians into affirmative action like the American Civil Rights Movement, and for a while it seemed it might, but over the years Perkins' efforts lost their impetus with the Australian public at large.