S03 2011 words Mermaids maybe - flying fish never! By Betty Bell Pigs in Mud At the farmhouse on the hill, Kate had been given the best bedroom. Snowy-quilted double bed, silky-oak dressing table with winged mirrors, so you could see the sides and back of your hair, tiled washstand with flowered china jug and wash-basin, and a matching chamberpot sitting on the lower shelf. Every surface was covered with embroidered linen, except the floor which had a rose-patterned linoleum and a bedside rug of tanned calf-hide. A double door of lace-curtained glass opened onto the front verandah, with a dress-circle view of the town across the valley, on its own little hillside. Talatta was much the same size as Narrton, but differently arranged and coloured. Houses, pub, corner store, railway station, tiny steepled church, bakehouse, bank - all bore the red stain of volcanic soil on their wooden stumps and stairs. The three roads that threaded the town were of the same rich red soil, which clung to shoes and bare feet, dusted one's entire person, and found its way into the homes of the fussiest housewives. The town was ringed with cultivated hillsides patched with the pale green of peanut crops, sage of cowpeas, deep rich emerald of lucerne, red of fallow paddocks, and it was dotted with the browns and tans and off-whites of dairy cattle. Up the hill, behind the house, was the original family home, unpainted, sagging-stumped, rust-roofed, bare-floored; but solid in the way of old pioneer houses. It was used as bachelor quarters for the two farmhands. Kate often shared a smoke and a cup of tea with these two eccentrics. She would be offered black tea and cheese on dry biscuits for afternoon tea, smoko as they called it, by teenage Ron, and a roll-your-own cigarette by old Charly who rolled hers and handed it to her so that she could lick down the edges. You didn't use your own spit on a lady's smoke. Charly always seated Kate on the one good chair, which he dusted first with an immaculate handkerchief. `Gentleman always carries a clean handkerchief, dear. I keep one fer me nose and one fer good manners, like now.' Charly's wide smile exposed brilliantly white false teeth with bright pink "gums". The dentures were his pride. "Had 'em since I was sixteen, love, when I was humping me bluey. Used to clean 'em with sand from the creekbed or ashes from me campfire. But the best way was if you camped near an antbed and you could leave yer grinders out at night fer the ants to clean. Squeaky clean by morning, mate." Yarning and smoking like this was what Charly liked best to do, during his off time. "You do smoke an awful lot, Charly," - Kate worried about his chain-smoking. "Don't you worry, love. I never do the proper drawback. Only as far as me Adam's apple." He drew a gnarled hand across his throat. "And I'll never burn the house down, either. See, I'm careful!" He picked out his cigarette, spat on his hand, and ground the still-hot dumper in his palm. Charly was full of yarns. And Kate was a new audience. The year she was transferred to Talatta had been one of lush growth after seven years of drought, one of the worst the district remembered. But Charly could always go one better. "When I was a kid around Cunnamulla, the rains came after a long dry. Me and me mate was camped near the Four-Mile Plain, and I sez to him `I don't remember seeing this scrub before', and neither did he. So we took a closer look. It turned out to be a patch of thistles, most of 'em higher than a house, and few as high as a flaming windmill. And stalks as thick as a telephone pole. And up in the fork of one of 'em was a ringtail possum peeping outa its nest, with a young 'un on its back. Never seen anything like it!" Charly's tall tails reminded her of her father's. There were no mermaids or flying fish in the bush, but the heady mix of fact and fiction was much the same. Charly shared a cottage on the hillside with Ron, a happy-go-lucky seventeen-year old dropout from one of Sydney's most prestigious schools. This cut no ice, and he didn't want it to, in Talatta, where no one had heard of The King's School, Parramatta. Ron, for a year, had been Charly's workmate, learning all he could about the land, in the vague hope that some day he might acquire a property of his own. Perhaps a piece of his father's wide acres. But Ron was really too happy as he was, too easy going, and much too lazy to have much prospect of becoming landed gentry; and too much of a rebel, anyway, to have fitted in. After years of boarding-school discipline, Ron was revelling in his independence, and in his status as a wage earner. The cottage, at one time occupied by a share farmer and his wife and children, still kept some signs of them. Cheap flowered curtains framed the front windows. The lavender-mantled jacaranda, poisonous pink oleanders, and a tangle of honeysuckle shared the front yard with purple Scotch thistles and knee-high grass. On the once-scrubbed and pot-planted verandah stood a rusty wire stretcher with lumpy striped mattress and a couple of stained pillows, a pile of comics, Charly's, and a pair of football boots, Ron's. The kitchen spread right across the cottage, a sort of all-purpose room. There was a scratched silky-oak sideboard with the drawers missing and one door-handle resting on the dusty top; four cheap pine chairs, painted and repainted, with the last coat a brave scarlet. A small wood-stove had a hot-water fountain alongside the firebox. There was a row of nails for saucepans, and a potholder which was simply a piece of blue-and-white football jumper. Each man had his own kitchen table, Charly's draped in oilcloth, Ron's covered with newspaper. On each table, grouped at one end, sat the basic non-perishables - sugar, flour, tea, cornflakes, bread, biscuits, all in brown paper bags. In a corner were potatoes in a hessian sack; and on the back verandah, a pile of pumpkins. For each man, there was a kerosene-operated refrigerator for meat, butter, eggs and beer. Charly's table of basics also included a jar of indigestion tablets, taken all his life after every meal; and a packet of Epsom salts to keep his insides moving. And, of course, his blood pressure tablets. "Have to watch that ... but the doc fixes me up every now and again. Always feel a lot better after he pumps me arm up a bit." Charly's bedroom held a neat row of treasures: a framed photograph of Sydney Harbour Bridge, a plaster kookaburra and kangaroo won at the sideshows at the Brisbane Exhibition, and a pink-ribboned kewpie doll. A couple of open shelves across the inside wall held his whole wardrobe, mostly blue workshirts and twill trousers, and navy blue underpants and singlets, a khaki pullover, wool socks and a black silk pair for best. And, neatly folded, his navy serge suit and one white shirt; and a couple of ties, one brightly striped, one black for funerals. His checked felt slippers stood beside the bed and his suit+case, a leather one with someone else's initials on it in brass lettering, was stowed under the bed, and only brought out for his annual fortnight in Sydney, his birthplace. Charly had spent his last holiday, not in Sydney, but in the district hospital, the year Kate was at Talatta. Having what he called A Man's Operation. "Been nursing a hernia for years," Ron told Kate. "Bloody old stoic!" She took the train to the hospital in Kingaroy one Saturday, to see how he was getting along. He was hugely enjoying himself. "Them nurses, love, only kids like you; but real smart. And do anything for yer." Just then, one of the "kids" appeared, all starch and smiles. "Hullo luv. This is me mate, the teacher from home." Luv smiled at Kate, winked at Charly, took his pulse and temperature, settled him more comfortably on his pillows. "Feeling chirpier today, Charly?" "Well yair, mate, now the stitches*stiches are out and I can get around a bit." "How long since you had a motion?" "Aw Gawd, luv, I couldn't tell yer that." "Come on now, Charly, I have to write it down." "Can't tell yer, luv. Just can't." "Well, Charly, I have to know. I'm sorry. I'll have to get matron. Could you tell her?" "Fer Gawd's sake, leave her out of it. She's not human, that old starchpot. No, I'm not telling anyone, and youse can't make me. It's me own private business when I had a motion, and that's all there is to it." "Please, Charly, don't be naughty now! I've got to write it down." "Well, if yer must know a man's private business, it was three flamin' year ago. With a Mungindi gin." Charly was allowed a few hours uptown the day before he was to go home to Talatta. He got back to the hospital pleasantly tipsy, with a taxi-full of presents: silk stockings for the nurses, a flowered hat and a parasol for Matron, a bag of tomatoes for the wardsman, who ate tomatoes the way most people ate apples; and an outsize teddy bear and a frilly dress for the small girl who was the sole occupant of the children's ward. Laden with his parcels, and halfway up the hospital steps, Charly wheeled round, dropping and smashing his concealed bottle of beer on the concrete steps, and yelling to the taxi driver, "Hey mate, I've forgotten the cakes," and an aside to Matron, "Could yer use a bootful o' cakes, Missus? They was left over from the fancy dress ball, and they auctioned 'em off up the street today for the Salvos." Charly had enjoyed his hospital stay almost as much as his Sydney trips ... "And a lot cheaper, with a man off the grog." But he had missed Ron and the little cottage, and his own room. As she sipped her tea and smoked Charly's tobacco, Kate could see most of Ron's bedroom, a closed-in end of the front verandah. There was an unmade bed and wall-to-wall dirty clothes which he would gather up and wash in two buckets, at the weekend. His town gear hung from nails on the walls: cream linen pants, pale blue cotton shirt with two pockets, plaited leather belt, wide felt hat. There was a picture of his mother, hair neatly set in ridged waves and wearing pearls, a cashmere twin-set and a steady smile. And there was one painting, his own .... "Only thing I was much good at, at school." With strong, sure strokes, he had painted the bunched tops of the wilga trees, and a huddle of sheep, seen from the plane that took him home on school holidays. He called it "Green Bombs And Grey Maggots". In addition to their wages, Charly and Ron got free milk and free meat, Charly cutting up the killer on the back verandah, where the sole furniture was a scarred chopping block and an oil drum for rubbish. The two men seemed happy enough to Kate, in their comfortable squalor. "Happy as pigs in mud," was how Charly put it. The Sticky Beak Up at the big house, private board had turned out to be something less than private for Kate. Mrs. Steel's hearty meals around the kitchen table could turn into inquisitions. She was the best cook in the district, but Mum Two would certainly have labelled her a "sticky beak". The kindest of women, she had a reckless tongue. She just had to know, and she just had to tell. Her family was a captive audience at mealtimes. Now she had Kate as well. "What do you think of the head teacher?" and "Did he tell you about Jason's glass eye?" S04 2000 words There are mountains to climb By Phyllis Shatte A Family Split "Is there a doctor present?" Elinor asked anxiously, as she held Susan to her. "I'm a doctor," a quietly spoken young man stepped out of the crowd. He bent over Susan and felt her pulse. "I'll get my bag from the car," he said. He instructed the crowd to step back, and proceeded to examine Susan thoroughly. "She's had a complete nervous breakdown," he informed the family, as he introduced himself as Dr. Cornell. "She'll have to go to hospital for treatment. How many children has she got?" "Five!" Elinor replied. "The youngest, a baby girl, is only nine months old." "Is she still breast fed?" "She is practically weaned," Elinor advised. "She will survive on the bottle." "Can the children be placed with somebody?" Dr. Cornell asked. James was hovering around, anxious to help. "They can accompany me to my parents' place," he told Dr. Cornell. "I'll take the baby," Elinor ignored James. "We can stay with my sister, Greta in Stanthorpe, till Susan recovers. I think Rob and Samuel can go to their grandparents at Rockvale, and Pam would probably prefer to go to her grandparents at Cottonvale." Pam was crying. She had not forgotten the previous fire in which Mandy had perished. She was very upset. "I'd like to go to Irma's place, and go with her to school at Dalveen!." "I'd forgotten about school for Pam," Elinor apologised. "She goes with her brothers to Thulimbah School. If that is all right with her father, she can go to Dalveen!" "Yes. Pam likes to be with Irma. I'll go down and see if I can help dad out. The cottage is empty." James gave his consent willingly. The crowd was beginning to disperse. Emily, Fred and family were too upset to speak. They were going to miss Susan and the children. They had grown to love Susan as their own daughter. "We'll be in town to visit her," Emily told Elinor, and Elinor wrote down Greta's address for them. Susan was still unconscious. She looked so small and frail. How could this happen to her again? She was such a wonderful, hard-working person. Somebody was out to drive them away from Cottonvale. Elinor had a feeling that this time they had succeeded. "I'll take her to Stanthorpe," Dr. Cornell said. "My wife is with me. Susan needs treatment immediately." "I'll come with you," James offered. "There's nothing to be gained by that," Dr. Cornell, who had overheard Susan's bitter outburst, informed him firmly. "She needs complete rest. Nobody gets in to see her for several days. We've got a lot of work to do to get her back on her feet. The shock has been horrific!" James assisted Dr. Cornell to carry Susan to his car. They placed her on the back seat, and tucked a blanket around her. The children were upset, but they did not play up. James put Pam in his car, and wished his other children goodbye. "I'll be in touch," he assured Samuel. "We'll take the boys and Deanna to Rockvale now, and take Deanna into Stanthorpe tomorrow. Susan is sure to ask for her first," Elinor gave Dr. Cornell Greta's address. She lived only a street away from the hospital. Elinor had collected the big nappy bag Susan had carried with her. It also contained the takings over the past few days, and Elinor kept quiet about that. She knew Susan would not want James to know she had salvaged the money. As she was about to step into the car, having settled the tired boys on the back seat, a black hand reached out to her. "Take this," kindly old George Sorlie said. "It's the night's takings. It might help to buy a few clothes for the children. It's times like this I wish I were a real magician. I'd put the house and shop back where they were, and make this small amount of money into thousands of pounds. Unfortunately, I'm not really as brilliant as I'd like to be!" Elinor burst into tears. "That's wonderful of you," she said, "Susan will be forever grateful." "I wish I could do more. I hope our paths cross again one day. I'm an excellent judge of character, and I have a feeling that little lady is in for a tough time, but she is a battler. She will win through. That I can predict!" "If she doesn't, it won't be for the want of trying," Elinor shook his hand firmly. "God be with you," she said as she got into the car. John handed Deanna to her, and they waved goodbye to the Smiths and other folk they knew, and drove slowly away. Albert and Sue Chapman heard the car approaching about one o'clock in the morning, and expected the worst. They never had visitors at that hour of the morning, unless something was wrong. John explained what had happened. The children were too tired to talk. "They've got what they stand up in," Elinor explained. "They lost everything, and James had not paid the insurance premium." "Where's Susan?" her mother asked. "She's in hospital," Elinor replied. "Dr. Cornell drove her. She's had a complete nervous breakdown, and we had to place the children. Pam is going to Dalveen. John and I are taking Deanna to Stanthorpe. We'll stay with Greta and Ted. We've brought the boys here to you. If you can't look after them, we'll place the boys with Arthur or Victor." "No! They are welcome to stay with us. We have them during the school holidays. We'll manage. There are a few clothes here for them. Susan always leaves a few things behind on purpose. It saves packing a stack of clothes every time they come to stay. It's incredible!" Sue Chapman continued. "You wouldn't believe that fire could happen three times to the one family!" "This time they lost everything. Susan gave James the insurance money to pay the account, and he didn't do it!" "That's typical of James," her mother answered. "Then you and John must have lost all your wedding presents too." "All the breakable gifts," Elinor replied. "The rest are packed in with our furniture, and on the way to Rockhampton with some of our clothes. We've lost a lot of our own personal belongings, but at least we have a few things." "What about your honeymoon?" her mother asked. "It can wait," Elinor answered. "John and I will stay with Greta and Ted for a while, and take care of Deanna, unless Susan is in hospital for some time. Then we'll work something out." They were soon in bed, but Elinor and John could not sleep. They were thinking of Susan, and the family split up because of another tragedy that was no fault of their own. They were sure it had been deliberate! Despite the late night, they were all up early next morning. The boys were upset over the loss of clothes, toys and school books. However, Sue Chapman had most of the books from her own children, and she gave them to Samuel and Rob. "Did you lose your trike, Max?" she asked unhappily, knowing how much Max valued his trike. "No! It's with Mrs. Smith. I left it in their picnic area when I was called home to get ready last night. She will look after it for me!" "I think Susan's sewing machine was at Smiths too. Emily borrowed it a week ago, so Susan has it and a lot of things stored in the shed. Other than that, they lost everything." Fortunately it was the weekend, so Sue Chapman was able to get herself organised. Elinor handed her the money the entertainer had presented to them. "This will help to buy clothes for the children. At least they can start school on Monday with new clothes. It will mean a trip into town today. If you and dad take the utility, we can go in our car and stay with Greta and keep Deanna with us. Then you can bring the boys back. " "Can we see mum?" Samuel asked, when they were told they were going to town. "If you are allowed in," Elinor promised. "We'll certainly try to see her." The latest disaster had left them feeling very quiet and detached, but they were excited over the trip to town. Elinor went shopping with her mother, and they bought clothes for the children, including Pam and Deanna. Elinor still had the money from the shop takings, but she didn't want to touch that until she had a chance to discuss with Susan what accounts were outstanding, in case she required the money to settle any debts. They had lunch with Greta and Ted, who advised they would gladly put Elinor, John and Deanna up. Greta advised if they wished to proceed with their trip to Rockhampton, they would be pleased to look after Deanna. They had no children of their own, and Greta dearly loved babies. So there would not be too many visitors for Susan to cope with, Elinor took the three boys and Deanna with her to hospital. They were lucky to strike Dr. Cornell, who told Elinor she could go in for a few minutes with Deanna, but the boys had to wait at the door. "She's been asking for Deanna and Max," Dr. Cornell reported. Elinor was upset when she saw Susan's face. This latest tragedy had left its mark. "I'll never forgive James for not paying the insurance," Susan said. That seemed to hurt her more than the fire. "He didn't even hand the money back! I suppose he spent that on his girl friend as well!" "Girl friend?" Elinor was shocked. "Yes. He's been two-timing me for some time, and using our money to purchase expensive gifts. I had our joint account changed into separate accounts. At least he can't touch what I have in my bank account, so we are not entirely destitute!" "Poor Susan!" Elinor said in disbelief. "I didn't know anything about that! I'm really sorry. No wonder you had a nervous breakdown. You have more than your share of problems!" "Bring the boys in," Susan said to Elinor. "I want to see them." "The doctor said they were not to come in," but when Samuel heard his mother say to bring the boys in, they came, and stood meekly beside her bed. "We'll be all right mum," Samuel assured her. "You just get better. We want you back home with us." They didn't have a home any more, Susan was thinking, but she brightened up considerably. "Where's Pam?" "She is going over to Irma's place, and James has gone to his parents. We are staying with Greta and Ted, and minding Deanna," Elinor explained. "I think you and John should get on with your honeymoon, and leave Deanna with Greta. You've suffered enough and lost some of your wedding gifts and personal belongings. The doctor said I'll be here for at least a couple of months." "We'll talk it over with Greta," Elinor said as she kissed her sister warmly. "Don't you worry." The boys kissed their mother goodbye, and Max gave her a special hug. "I'll keep away from the creek," he promised her, and Susan felt relieved. She knew when Max made a promise he would keep it! Susan made up her mind to co-operate and do all she could to get better. She wanted to be back with her children. Elinor and John talked things over with Greta and Ted, and decided it would be sensible to continue on their honeymoon to Rockhampton, and start in their new business. Greta and Ted loved children, and Deanna was settling down well with them, without her mother. They called at the hospital and said goodbye to Susan, promising to keep in touch. Susan wished them well, and hoped they would never suffer loss of their living by fire. S07 2010 words Widdershins By Jack Beasley THE MASTER of Apprentices at the steel works was an avuncular retainer who hibernated, all year round, in a grimy little wooden shack built as a kind of afterthought just through the main entrance. On the wall of his office was a framed Elbert Hubbard homily, If You Work For A Man, For Heaven's Sake Be Loyal To Him, blasphemously known to the apprentices as the bumsuckers' oath. He probably*propably didn't know it was there nor was he for long after breaking a leg, later amputated, when he jumped over the back fence of a hotel to escape an after hours police raid. His replacement was very BHP, a soldierly gentleman named Mr Piper who cleaned the office up, placed the bumsuckers' oath in a more accusing position and began supervising our health, morals and craft training. Within limits, that is. I was never cited before him, but I did go to him more than once with problems and complaints of my own and of others, and always found him polite and reasonable. The real master of the apprentices, the man to whom we were bound, body and soul, for five interminable years, was a remote, austere grey figure whose signature on my indenture was a simple L. Grant. Leonard Grant was a BHP product made flesh, the model steel industry oligarch, yet I'm sure his neighbours on the heights overlooking Merewether Beach, the right side of the tracks, would have found this difficult to believe. We lived not a great distance apart, across that socially insurmountable coal line, so it wasn't surprising that I'd sometimes encounter him on my lonely Sunday afternoon ramblings through the ragged scrub along the hills sloping down to the Pacific. He walked with the steel works efficiency expert, for, like policemen, the top management seemed to feel more secure in each other's company. He was achromatic still on Sundays, the week day grey suit exchanged for trousers and cap with a grey bow tie sitting primly at his collar, but I fancy he wore his usual black shoes. Bent slightly forward from his trim waist, hands clasped behind, face revealing not a thing as he listened to his voluble companion, Grant moved through the bush as inconspicuously as some of the bush creatures themselves. Even the invisible whip birds, about the last of the native songsters, maintained their long shrill note and cracking finale, undisturbed by his passing. He didn't exactly select each place to put a foot but appeared to, progressing quietly and evenly. If he ever recognised me he gave no sign of having done so, not even the non-committal Australian g'day, but on the last occasion we chanced together, I'm sure he did. That was quite a few years on, just after the Coal Strike, and I was on a party assignment travelling by the late afternoon express carrying business people back north from Sydney. Grant was travelling too, as always without ostentation, sitting across the aisle from me. Towards Newcastle an apologetic untidy figure of a man claimed him, a union official recently installed by the Arbitration Court in the anti-communist shake-up, words tumbling incoherently about something he couldn't handle and how sorry he was to have to bother you. Perhaps my former master recognised me, perhaps he didn't. Perhaps my eyes revealed that I was listening too intently, for he quietly cut through the gabble of his supplicant, `Don't talk about it now, I'll contact you, we have to protect your position,' thus dismissing him, still clutching his forelock. Leonard Grant resumed his newspaper, with not the slightest impression showing on the mask he turned to the world. Always listening, giving away nothing, the unchanging features inevitably earned him the ironic nick-name he would carry through his life, right up to the general managership of BHP. He stood unobtrusively in the background when accompanying the more flamboyant Essington Lewis on plant inspections, but the department managers and supers knew that it was Smiler Grant who observed, who noted, who acted. Getting to be a steel works apprentice wasn't all that easy even with a certificate from a junior technical school and only came about for a lot of us because by 1936 there was a slight easing of the tough times. Not for everybody, some had missed the bus and would never catch up. The new steel works at Port Kembla, and expansion at Newcastle started the ball rolling and a few workers began to get jobs in a buyer's market. Before sitting for BHP's own examination, no mere Education Department was going to set their standards, and before going before their selection panel after the exam, I'd applied for a counter jumper's job at the Co-op Store. A hundred or so young hopefuls lined up for the sole position advertised, long odds in anybody's book, then presented myself as a possible delivery boy for a cut price grocery chain. I flunked that one too, for to get the fifteen shillings per week you not only had to work about fifty hours but make an investment in the firm by providing your own bicycle. In the event, this mightn't have been an altogether bad thing, for the local manager was a gentleman who used to run an SP book on the side. Inevitably, he tickled the peter, spent time in one of His Majesty's prisons, to emerge wondrously transformed from this pupation during the post Coal Strike turmoil as secretary of the Ironworkers' Union, executive member of the Labor Party and an MLC. Following which efforts he died, sooner than expected. Although two of my sisters were tailoresses, theirs was a hit or miss arrangement, nothing legal, no indentures. The only apprentice on either side of the family, hitherto, was my uncle Dave Morgan, who had been a jockey. It was a minor event round the place, Mum crowing over a niece whose son hadn't made the grade, and the old man remarking, not to me, to her, that I'd done pretty well, considering. Getting my short back and sides, with a smear of Spruso on top, at the barbers I also got much advice from the man himself and even more from his roost of clients. Your set for life now, young feller, a trade will always stick to you, a growing trade everything's electric now, a trademan's tools can't*cant be taken from him legally, you'll always be able to make a living. Then for a little time afterwards, I believed them and for most of the apprentices it was the truth. For me though, some continuing disturbance of which I was just then becoming aware seemed to have me often out of step, or going the other way. Something beneath the surface, felt not seen, a dissonance in the back of my mind never quite in tune which I couldn't get hold of, and couldn't get rid of. It was the only steel works in Australia and it was an intimidating place for a fifteen year old in the middle of winter. Miles out of town, it was reached by bus or bike, through Hamilton and Islington, across Throsby Creek, up through Tighes Hill and down the long slope past the general office, where Les Jones had found a job of sorts, to the barbed wire beyond which you reached your work bench on foot by seven thirty a.m. You discovered the home of the minotaur whose crashing thumps had been a menacing accompaniment to your whole life, the mill where the giant blooms came, red hot from reheating after gestation in the blast furnace and open hearth, to be battered into a more manageable shape. Searing heat, smoke, steam and thunderous noise was the working environment of those who toiled and moiled in this labyrinth, and you wondered that their bodies could withstand such punishment. Five days a week you worked till four o'clock, showed up for another four hours on Saturday and on three nights you went to technical college. Quite often on Saturday morning you were handed a breakdown job and expected to get a full days work done by the whistle which meant, in your first year, getting a little less than two bob for your efforts. The first two years were hard, you were kept at it and you had to do a diversity of jobs, some menial, in addition to learning your trade. Jobs such as lunch boy, office cleaner, messenger, store assistant, and billy boy. This latter was an incredible balancing feat with two of us on the ends of two notched poles, like stretcher bearers, carrying forty or fifty billy cans all the way to the direct current substation, (home also of the works whistle, heard all over the town), and back again. Any suggestion of putting an urn in the workshop would have seemed like quixotic nonsense, or dangerous subversion, to the management. We were good cheap skilled labour and no two ways about it, yet over the five years there was mostly no frantic pressure to do more work, apart from the Saturday lurk noted above, just an insistence on doing things properly which was probably cheaper in the long run. Work clothes had to be bought, and tools of trade, from the pittance paid to us fortnightly. There was a gala event, the quarterly `tech bonus', which depended on your attendance and progress in your evening and week-end studies. For a long time I wore my one and only suit, bought in the last school year, to work each day with overalls drawn on over the trousers in the colder months, then brushed it up and polished the only shoes, a pair of black sneakers, to go to the pictures on Saturday nights. There was no religion, as we understood it, in the works, for the god that was worshipped there was of heavier metal. We passed religion on the way to and from on a large notice board outside a church which said, If You Watch The Clock You Will Remain One Of The Hands. So there they were, and there we were. Trade unionism was of the meekest and most subservient kind, only the craft unions being organised until the war years when the unskilled workers began to gain ground. Every so often a decimation of the tradesmen was carried out, to sharpen the morale of those remaining. The method of this was to notify the condemned at ten thirty on Saturday morning because, even if their fate had been decided weeks before, only one hour's notice was legally required. This procedure prevented those being sacked from seeking another job until they were right out on the street and epitomised Newcastle's second system of industrial relations. Always the word was passed around that things were tough on `the outside', the menacing shadow world beyond the barbed wire, while we inside were warm and cosy in the womb of the steel octopus. Somewhere in all that smoke and grit and noise there was a ladder. We knew it was there because the man in the shiny blue suit had told us so, though not in metaphor, at our induction. The BHP Review regularly carried photographs of former apprentices who had climbed up a few rungs of that ladder during a lifetime of devotion to the company although it didn't say much about the new breed of university graduates, untainted by any former contact with the lower classes, who were moving into supervising positions. This ladder was something like Napoleon's symbolic baton, or even the stairway to the stars, except that a staircase offered an easy way up which would be spurned by the stout-hearted BHP apprentices. Ron Laidler evidently climbed the wrong ladder when he was decapitated under a rail mill crane and Jimmy Davis must have stepped off on the wrong foot to be bisected by the blast furnace larry car. Cec Frith would never be much of a ladder climber again, after he lost a leg in the coke ovens. S09 2008 words Land of hope: an Australian family saga By Gay Scales "In this district Currawong shed is the key. Would you both agree?" "Well, the squatters seem to think so." "Yeah, I reckon the shearers would go along with that." W. G. Spence drew a ring around a dot on the map spread out before him. "Then Currawong Station has to be our target", he said. "It's our one point of common agreement." The three men were sitting at a table in Spence's hotel room. It was long past midnight, and all discussions seemed to lead back to the one plan. Since the latest coachload of scabs had arrived, this time from New Zealand, and been escorted to neighbouring prop+erties by a team of mounted police, one thing had been plain. The Shearers' Union would have to grasp the initiative and organise a key shed in the district. All three knew it would be seen as an out-and-out act of provocation. There would be an angry confrontation. Possibly a violent outcome. But they had to take a stand now to protect the men. To turn the other cheek would be seen as weakness. It was almost unbearably hot in the small room, and William Lane wished McNair would get a bit closer to the soap. The window had been jammed open with a water jug, but he could still smell the rank odour of the man's body. God, he looked such a pig sitting there, with that warm boozy breath and sweating body. He moved over to the window and wrestled with the rotting sash to let in more air. Outside in the street below a handful of the newly-arrived scabs were sitting disconsolately on their swags. Lane gave a sigh and returned to the table. "Jamison's shed is bigger. Awkward to get to, but more shearing pens." Spence shook his head. "Jamison is an animal", he said. "Even his own breed don't go for him. On the other hand, they respect Darling. He's a natural leader." "Yeah, he's leading us all right", said McNair glumly. "Bastard's brought in enough scabs to shear the colony. I reckon ye'll have ter do something before it gets outer hand." "How many of these scabs know how to shear?" Lane asked. "Not too many. Except for the New Zealanders", McNair added sourly. "Some of them shear like a bastard." "Yes, and they're hungry enough to do it, too." They fell silent while each man thought of the war that was taking place around them. Strike camps were pitched across the western plains of Queensland, and police deputies were guarding them day and night, seeking any excuse to shut them down and get the men off the land. There were eight hundred men in one camp at Wilcannia, and more `free labourers' arrived each week by paddle steamers which carried the wool bales through the plains on the way to the ports of Australia. The real truth was that the pasturelands had been devastated by overstocking in the past. Millions of tiny black feet, which carried the wealth of the new nation on their backs, had destroyed the turf which was not suited to the grazing of large herds of cloven-hooved animals. The rich western plains had been eaten away and eroded within twenty years of the sheep's arrival. Now the boom was over both pastoralists and shearers were left to face the consequences. "Are we going ter do something", McNair asked? "Or are we just goin ter talk about it?" While the two leaders considered the question McNair sat slumped in the cane chair, thinking of the sort of conditions the men would face in the shearing sheds tomorrow. Work would begin at daybreak and continue to sunset, with only a short break for food and smoke-oh. The contract with Darling had the usual clauses which forbade swearing in the shed or treading on the fleeces, which sometimes got torn by a shearer's sack moccasin*mocccasin. If Darling wanted to really play it tough he would insert the `raddling' clause as a means of with-holding payment. Red raddle was used by some squatters to cheat men of their pay after the work was done. By marking a badly-shorn sheep with red crayon, it would not be counted in the final tally. But there were many instances of squatters condemning a whole penful, and dodging a day's pay. Darling had never used that tactic, to be fair. But if they pushed him hard enough ... perhaps? Knowing which way he was going to jump was the problem. Compared with some of the others he was a gentleman. Yet some+times the gentlemanly type were the worst. With their English accents and country squire manners, they would smile and nod their heads. `My dear chap, you may have a point there'. Later on they would stand by, still smiling, while the mounted police beat the Christ out of you. Even worse, they were part of an interlocking system of pastoral and political interests that went from the country magistrate right up to the colonial governor. There was never anything you could actually prove about collusion. It just so happened that a word in the right ear at the Queensland Club meant your name never appeared on a shearing shed contract again. The word was spread on the bush telegraph. "Well, come on", he said aloud. "Make up yer bloody minds." Spence looked at Lane, as if waiting for a suggestion. Finally he stood up and sighed. "We're going to unionise Darling's shed", he said. "It's as good a place to start as anywhere else." "Good. I'll go and tell the others." Spence raised a warning finger. "Tell them the union is totally opposed to violence of any kind. Our men will run the meeting at the shed. You just make sure everyone gets there, understand?" McNair nodded and made his way to the door. The last they heard of him was the clatter of boots running down the stairs that led to the front bar. After he had been gone a few minutes Lane looked up from the shorthand notes he was sorting out into several piles. They were scraps of background colour which he would thread through the story for The Worker in Brisbane. After adding a few more squiggles something occurred to him. "It's only an opinion", he said, staring out the window so as to avoid Spence's glance. "But something tells me we could do without Kerosine Jock McNair." "No, no, you're wrong, Billy. He needs a bit of watching, I'll admit. But he's got as much fire in his belly as any three other men I can think of around here." "So long as he keeps it in his belly." On Sunday morning there were family prayers at Currawong, the one day of the week when the Darling family had breakfast together. They gathered with the servants in the large, formal drawingroom where Mr. Darling read the text of the week from the Darling Family Bible. It was a household rule that prayers started at eight on the dot. At precisely that moment he opened the gold embossed King James edition at Timothy 1, Chapter 6. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke", he intoned, "Count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and His doctrine be not blasphemed ..." The door was already closed when Maureen sped along the hall from the diningroom where she had been laying the table. At the last minute the cook had reminded her of extra serving spoons for the stewed apple and rhubarb. There were sausages and flapjacks to follow, and he was dancing about the stove with a pan of batter which had to be poured into the pans exactly one minute after they raised their voices to sing the hymn. He alone was excused from prayers on the grounds of his heathenism. When she opened the door they were all seated in rows, and Maureen had to make a place for herself. Trying not to rustle her skirts, she knelt down beside the housekeeper and made the sign of the cross. Nesta noticed her mother's scowl. Maureen had attended six o'clock mass at a neighbouring farm, and she thought this a very strange service indeed. So much talking and sermonizing. Mr. Darling's words sounded quite fierce, too. Not at all like the lovely, liturgical words spoken by the priest. "But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition ..." Was Mr. Darling, she wondered, speaking of himself? After all, he was the only rich man here. Was perdition a place or a state? Whatever it was, he didn't seem to think much of it. "For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows ..." Out in the hot kitchen the Chinese cook was piercing sausages with a sharp fork. They were sizzling in the pan at the front of the stove, and he now ladled them on to a serving platter which he set in the lower oven. Two iron frying pans now took the centre of the stove, and the fat began to splutter soon as he poured ladlefuls of batter into evenly sized circles. On a warming shelf above the stove sat baking dishes of fried chops and eggs, all swimming in mutton fat. Served with a crockful of boiled potatoes the domestic staff would find them appetising enough. Sunday was a treat for them too. All the meat they could eat, and an hour's rest afterwards before preparations for the Sunday dinner were started. Yes, the hymn had begun. The cook grinned to himself at the perfection of his timing. The master would be rejoicing in the faith of his fathers plus the fact that his nose would tell him of the delights which would soon be awaiting him in the diningroom. The mistress would be noticing which girls did not close their eyes in prayer, and Little Missee, with the hair like spun gold, would be noticing her mother. In his mind he liked to imagine the Christian ritual next door - right down to the housekeeper peering short-sightedly at the hymn book while her hands ran over the keyboard. What a strange God these people worshipped! So particular about how men and women behaved in public! `Where pity dwells the peace of God is there. To worship rightly is to lo-oo-ve each other. Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.' Crisp sausages were surrounded by the plump, speckled flapjacks. All ready now, but where was that girl? The cook looked anxiously towards the door which didn't open as it should. The piano had stopped, and he could make out the sound of chairs being pushed back on the polished boards. Where was that girl? But Maureen Corrigan had been waylaid by Mrs. Darling. With one hand on the doorhandle she was about to open the door when Mrs. Darling bore down on her. "My dear child." Her voice, with its tired drawl seemed to penetrate the entire room. " I really can't have you joining us for family prayers like this. I really can't." Now the focus of all eyes, Maureen could feel her cheeks begin to burn. A couple of the other servants started to giggle, and she cast them a withering look. "The Holy Roman Church will make arrangements for your worship while you are at Currawong. This is a Protestant household, my dear, and therefore we have the right to make our arrangements as well." Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. What had she done wrong? It must have been something really awful judging by the vexed expression on the dowager's face. To hide her shame she turned the handle of the door, and darted into the kitchen where the cook scolded her for her tardiness. S11 2022 words The seed's inheritance By Colin Thiele The next five years of Anna's life raced by as if time, like a river, had hurtled over a waterfall. She began to have her children in quick succession now - Esther in 1853, Ernst in 1854, and Hermann in 1855. They were followed by two miscarriages before the cycle established itself again with the births of Clara in 1857 and Edwin in 1858. Almost overnight the house seemed to be bursting at the seams. There was always a baby at her breast or on her hip or crawling about under her feet. There were constant alarms when toddlers disappeared - chilling fears that they were drowning in the well, wandering lost in the wheat crop, or being bitten by death adders. There were dangers from boiling water and fire, and from sudden illnesses that were for ever stalking children and threatening to carry them off in the night. Yet, in spite of the turmoil, Anna's home was a warm and happy place. Little Hans was old enough to fetch and carry, and Johann as always was strong and helpful. The heifer had long since grown up and produced calves of its own. There was milk and butter and cream, eggs from the small flock of hens, turkeys for Christmas dinner, and plenty of vegetables in the garden. If flour ran short, Anna kibbled some wheat in the shed and made meal cakes to tide them over. She was not alone in her burst of childbearing. Aunt Maria kept pace for a time, her last child - Martin - being born on the eve of her thirty-ninth birthday. There were now four small Australian-born Schmidts to fill out the family, and Franz, after so much heartbreak and tragedy, was at last able to thank God for his goodness. Christiana bore two more daughters, Esther Himmeldorf three sons, and Magdalena a son and a daughter. Freya Hartmann tragically lost three of her five children in infancy, but timid Emma Nitschke surprised the district by outstripping them all. In addition to young Karl, who had been born so dramatically in Rio on the outward voyage, she now produced seven children in five years, all as strong as lion cubs. Two sets of twins had set her on her multiplying way. It was clear that the productivity of the people had more than matched the productivity of the land. Both the church and the school had had to be enlarged. In the midst of all this, Johann was prospering. Each year added something to his wellbeing, steps on the stairway to success. The harvest of 1853 was phenomenal; record plantings and abundant rain had led to a cornucopia of wheat. And there was an insatiable market for it on the goldfields. Overnight South Australia became the granary of the country. Prices soared. Wheaten flour was powdered gold, more precious than the metal the diggers were sweating and dying for. Teamsters strained and cursed to get waggon-loads of it to waiting ships. Paddle-steamers were being built to haul it up the Murray to Victoria, where other teams could overland it to the fields. Millers laboured short-handed. For there was only one shadow on the sunshine of prosperity. There were no labourers to do the labouring. They had all gone to the diggings. It was April before Johann had threshed and bagged the last bushel. He had slaved away unremittingly since December - four months of back-breaking toil, haste, and anxiety, for ever looking up at the sky for signs of storms or smudges of smoke. And he was one of the lucky ones, because Bruno Bormann again helped out during the main part of the season, and Anna herself worked miracles. Though pregnant again, tending two children, and acting as caterer, cook, cleaner, washerwoman, milkmaid, poulterer, wood-chopper, and nurse, she nevertheless worked long hours out in the wheat crop with the men - raking, carrying, stacking, bullock driving, sieving, and bagging. The rewards were rich. The ten acres of wheat yielded better than 20 bushels to the acre, and the price was a pound a bushel. To celebrate, Johann bought an 80-acre allotment nearby that had come on the market because the owner - an Englishman named Wiggins - had decided to sell up and run off to the diggings too. It was beautiful country, so mildly undulating that it looked as if the folds of the land itself were breathing gently in sleep. On the night after he had signed the purchase documents and paid the money, Johann sat silently in front of the rough fireplace with Anna. Hans and Esther were both asleep. Outside, the cow was bellowing for its calf. After a while Johann put his hand on Anna's arm, and pressed it gently. `Anna', he said, `you have brought me luck, unbelievable luck.' She stirred. `God has brought you luck, not I .' He nodded. `Yes, of course he has. But you are at the heart of it. I think he sent you to me on purpose.' `He ordains everything', she answered simply. `So he is the one for both of us to thank.' He sat in a reverie. `There is no doubt that we are the lucky ones, we who came later. All of us - Franz, Andreas, the Kreigs and the Kramms, cranky Otto Nitschke - we are all so much better off than the poor souls who led the way. We had a little money, we could get our own land and our own animals. And now we have struck the high prices for wheat and flour. That ten-year gap made all the difference.' She nodded and sighed. `But it hasn't been easy for us, either.' `No, but think of those poor creatures at Klemzig and Hahndorf, at Lobethal and Bethany, right at the very beginning. They had nothing. Nothing. They even had to borrow money to live. And then for years and years they had to labour to pay off their debts.' `But they did it, every penny.' `Some are still doing it. But we have got so much further, and so much more quickly.' She stood up. `Johann, you are starting to talk like a landlord. Soon I suppose you will want to buy one of those new reaping machines.' `Never. I'd rather trust in my own two hands.' He chuckled. `But Otto Nitschke was so furious when he lost some of his crop in that storm last month that he'll probably want to buy one tomorrow.' Not long after this, Johann met Joseph Seppelt again. It was after a special harvest-thanksgiving service at Langmeil, which many of the outlying families attended. The men were standing in knots outside as they always did, discussing wheat, weather, water, and wickedness, and interchanging points of view on doctrine and dogma. Because they had met once before, Johann and Joseph Seppelt shook hands cordially and immediately fell into friendly conversation. It went on for a long time, and Anna, surrounded by a grouup of older prattling women, was beginning to grow impatient. Esther was petulant, and Hans kept on disappearing between different pairs of male legs as he trotted from one cluster to another. She managed to get Johann away at last, and they set off for home across country, Hans trotting between them, she carrying baby Ernst in the shawl, and he hoisting little Esther on his shoulders. `What on earth kept you and Herr Seppelt so long?' Anna asked. `Tobacco?' He laughed uproariously. `No, the tobacco was a failure. And some of his men - the ones he brought out specially - have left him and gone off to the diggings.' She swished a fly from the baby's face. `I told you that tobacco wouldn't grow.' `It grew', he answered gaily. `Perhaps it grew too well. The leaf was much too rank.' `And it took you such a long time just to hear that?' He leaned toward her as they walked, and dropped his voice in mock conspiracy. `We didn't talk about tobacco. We talked about something much more important.' `What? Mettwurst?' `Wine!' He glanced sidelong at her, with his look of boyish enthusiasm. `What do you think of that, Anna? Wine. Seppelt has high hopes of it. And there are others, too, who are already growing vines.' `Why all this ecstasy about wine? Does it mean so much to you?' He leaned toward her again. `Yes, it does, to both of us.' `I don't see why.' `Because we are going to plant vines too, on some of our new land. We are going to grow grapes and make wine. And if we are unable to make it properly, Herr Seppelt will show us how. He will even buy our grapes if we want.' He eyed her excitedly `So what do you think of that? Etwas ganz erstaunendes, nicht? Astonishing, isn't it?' He put Esther down for a minute, hoisted Hans on to his shoulders, and galloped off like a horse, whinnying and cavorting in front of Anna. The little boy shrieked and kicked with laughter. Finally they came galloping back and turned sharply before her, scuffing up the dust. `Yes, vines', he repeated, jubilant and panting. `What do you think of that, eh?' She laughed. `I think I have a lunatic for a husband. He is not like an earnest German at all. He is only a schoolboy - or a frustrated horse.' He walked beside her sedately while he recovered his breath. `But it is a good idea, isn't it - to plant vines? We will still grow wheat, of course. But the vines will be something special, something extra, something to fall back on if things should change. Who knows, some day the vines may be more important to us than the wheat.' She loved him for his vitality. `Of course you shall plant your vines', she answered. `And I shall pick the first bunch of grapes.' When the little vineyard was planted 12 months later, it looked beautiful - the soil combed out so carefully, the rows of vines so symmetrical that they looked like the painstaking design of an old German craftsman; and in a way they were. `All we have to do is wait', Johann said delightedly as they stood gazing at the incredible orderliness of it all, `and in God's good time the wine will redden on our fingers.' While all this was going on, there was more and more movement up and down the valley. It was impossible to imagine that only 15 years previously the whole place had scarcely been seen by white men's eyes. There was a new congregation at Gnadenfrei, new settlements northwards at Stockwell, and beyond the valley at Pine Hut Creek and St Kitts. The township of Tanunda was growing, bidding fair to swallow Langmeil altogether. Some of the newcomers came individually, but most moved up in groups, preserving family ties or shipboard units, just as Traugott Gross's `Heimwald Herde' had done at Gutendorf. They were all Germans or Wends, everyone else having rushed off to the goldfields. They were used to hard work and frugal living, using every minute of daylight for useful labour, every minute of darkness for rest and sleep. The shortage of labourers affected nobody more severely than Angas and some of the other large landowners, so they came to bless the stolid Germans who stayed at home and worked hard, instead of chasing rainbows over the horizon. Additionally, as Anna had pointed out, some of the German settlers felt they owed a debt to Angas for the way he had helped their countrymen with offers of loans and parcels of land in their first destitute years. Even so, providing all the labour that was needed, especially at harvest time, was an impossible task. Back at Gutendorf, the women and children took up some of the burden. The older Himmeldorfs - Helena and Rudolf - who had helped Anna sell vegetables to the Kapunda carriers years before - were now 15 or 16, Adolf Noack was over 12, and many of the younger children were nine or ten. S16 2002 words Island - Winter 1986 Gladiator By Ian Beck There was no blood-gutter on the sword and when I drove it through him the blood sprayed out like the dye in one of the exploding bladders the clowns used, and lifted him a good two feet off the ground. He flapped around like a landed fish and hosed the wall under the sponsor's dais, and picked up his net and draped it over him to milk a few extra laughs, and chased the donkey boys when they tried to take him out. He'd caught me with the butt end of the spear in that last panic-rush of his, and walking back to the armoury I felt the way you feel when you dive deep - really deep - and the surface is a long way off. For a moment I was a kid again, moving up through shafts of green light with a bag of abalone on my wrist and the shadow of the boat above, at the furthest full-stretch limit of my breath. The Greek was waiting for me under the armoury gate. They called him the Greek because he dressed like a priestess, but he was really a German with one of those tangled surnames that pop the spit from your mouth when you try to pronounce them. "They'll be selling gold statues of you in Rome by the end of the month, he said. I brushed past him and sat on the big two-sided bench that ran the length of the room. It was cool and dark and as close to a sanctuary as I was ever going to get. "They won't see stuff like that in the provinces again." "Whose idea was it to sand the arena?" I said. "It needed it." "You almost got me killed." They'd brought in beach sand from somewhere and hadn't washed it properly. Moving around on it was like trying to slide on flypaper. "You did alright," the Greek said. "You really showed them something." "Get me a bucket." He picked up a leather bucket and held it under my chin, and I threw up a load of blood-coloured oatmeal. The pressure in my head was so bad I thought my eyeballs were going to pop. "Did he stick you, Dysus?" "He didn't get near me," I said. "You get yourself some steam and a massage. You've been working hard." "I'm quitting, Kurt." There was a roar from the arena - a truncated outburst that broke into jeers and clapping, like a fountain splashing onto stone when the pressure turned off. I could picture what had happened: someone had rolled out from under a spear or net. "That's it." "Listen ... we'll talk about this later. At the moment you're like a drunk with a hangover. Get yourself some steam..." He gave me his dirty-mouth leer - that lousy sweets-for-the-good-little- children grin. I had wiped it off his face a couple of times in the past, but always came back. "Listen, Dysus," he said, "How many toothpicks have you got now? Three isn't it?" Toothpicks were the small ornamental swords they gave you after your twentieth combat. "You'll have four more before you quit - two more than the Cypriot. I can guarantee it. You're good. I know it - they know it." I looked at him. I could put a finger through his eye - right up there until the threads and the eye reversed itself in its socket. "Alright," he said, "alright. We'll discuss it properly tomorrow." I tossed my wristbands at his feet and headed for the pool. The water was steaming and the wood panelling gave off the smell of a pine forest after rain. I rinsed the shreds of vomit from my mouth and washed my hair. The pads of my fingers were so rough they could scrub sandstone, and the fingers had stiffened and calcified. When I folded them into fists arthritic twinges shot through the joints. It was time to get out - before the night sweats came and I started looking for an opponent's moves on the tip of the spear instead of deep down in the ultimate focus of the eye, where the thrusts show a fraction of a second before they're made. At times now the hilt of a sword felt awkward in my hand, and a dirty little undercurrent of fear had begun to show in some of my moves. Money was no problem. I had the house and the vineyard and 10,000 a year from the lumber yard my father had left me, so I'd get by. I would not end up like Delius - as a masseur and stud for the capital's divorcees - or the Cypriot, murdered in his sleep in a night shelter for alcoholics. I could live comfortably on my own land and hunt with the local gentry. But there was something else, apart from the money - something I couldn't focus on properly. I did not feel it in my heart. In most people the heart is the exact size and hardness of a walnut. But I felt it just the same. It was like I had lost something valuable in a vault full of my own money. I dozed until the water turned cold, and dried myself in front of the fire. I needed a drink and a woman with fresh sheets on her bed and that kittenish manner the Roman whores have. A few drinks would kill the played-out feeling. Afterwards there would be a kind of release, and maybe - if I woke without a hangover and the morning was fresh - the certainty that things had really changed. It was dark by the time I left, and the streets were empty. I had never been in a town, even a garrison town, as scared as that one. The doors and windows at street level were barred and the lights in the houses glowed in back rooms, as though the owners were gambling there. The circus had frightened them, and the streets had been stripped of anything likely to attract a mob. I walked past rows of identical houses and into a square where a restaurant lit three storeys and sent a downpour of conversation into the street. The downstairs section was crowded and smelled of mutton and the cheap drunkard's wine they sold by the hogshead, but the voices and the whores' phony laughter were better than the deadness outside. Somebody called to me but I ignored them and moved up the stairs to the roof. There were banquet-sized tables in the kind of arrangement you see at conventions, and smaller tables for couples and the old people who eat alone. A group of ten or twelve men were sitting at one of the tables and talking about something in low voices. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but judging by their expressions it was either politics or money. I sat at a table bleached by spilled wine and waved the waiter over. "You did well today," he said, as he filled the cup. "Put some water in that, I said. "Certainly." He was a weak-looking kid, but with the sort of confidence that comes with money. His father owned the place. "I saw you fighting," he said. "You made some money then." "No. I was betting on the other fellow." "So was I," I said. He laughed and put the jug on the table. "With the manager's compliments, he said. I drained the cup and glanced back at the big table. The man at the centre of the group had plaited hair and the eyes of someone used to the glare of water. A fisherman probably, or a bargee. Despite the desert suntans they looked the way any group of Romans look when they're talking among themselves - like a street gang plotting a revenge killing. The waiter had brought oil for the bread and I dipped a finger into it and dabbed some onto my eyelid. There is a kind of webbing over my right eye where the flesh has melted. I got it in a fight in an army canteen when somebody threw boiling fat at the fellow behind me. But I see alright. I took a good long drink and pulled up the collar of my jacket against a draught. It hit me then, worse than the Turk had hit me. I had put pressure on the bruise or a nerve end, and the effect was the same as one of those minor taps that can knock you cold. I threw up again, and this time it was as though somebody was dragging my stomach lining out on the end of a line. I started grunting, and each time a half-cupful of blood splashed onto the tiles and tightened my throat another notch. This is it, I thought, this is how it ends, and isn't it the way you knew it would be - a dirty embarrassment that leaves you with about as much dignity as a derelict with his pants full. Then the rending feeling eased and my throat opened up, and I could breathe again. The man from the banquet table was standing in front of me. "Can you see me properly?" he said. "Yes," I said. "Your eyes are red. You've burst some blood vessels." I took a deep breath. I felt better. I felt as though I had broken through something. "Keep your head down," he said. "Go to hell," I said. He crouched beside me and dabbed at the pool of blood with a finger. "He's alright," somebody at the big table said. "It's too light-coloured for arterial blood. He's just vomiting wine." "You need a doctor," the man said. He said it as though we had both agreed that was the best and most reasonable thing to do. "Get back to your friends," I said. "I don't need your help." "You ought to be more polite, friend," a voice behind me said. A man with a weightlifter's build and the smile of someone who genuinely likes to fight had moved up to the table. I smiled back and shook my left arm to bring the leather worker's knife down my sleeve. "It's alright, Peter," the man said. And then, to me: "Your pupils aren't focusing properly." "I'm alright," I said. "Rest for a while." He moved back to the table and I pressed my hands against my eyes and watched a collection of red sparks jump and cartwheel. I felt light-headed but clear in my head, as though I had been on a fast. The sparks turned to points of residual light and I pushed my chair away and glanced back at the banquet table. The fisherman was tearing up a loaf of flat bread and passing the pieces around. The shreds looked like pieces of speckled flesh. For a moment I thought of taking my wine across and leaving it with them, but the business with the bread had a ritualistic quality that sealed them all in their own special place. The idea of joining them was one of those infantile impulses you get sometimes - like wanting to romance a whore. The sentiment was laughable, and I grunted in disgust and rose from the table. On the way downstairs there was some kind of commotion behind me, and I turned with the floor at eye level and saw that the group had broken up into squabbling cliques. They were yelling at each other and sticking out chins and thumping the wood hard enough to bounce the plates. The fisherman was the only one who was still calm. He was looking at the dried blood on his fingers and smiling in a smug kind of way, as though he'd just worked out how to pay back an enemy. So you're a Roman after all, I thought. Another gentleman-savage - the kind who gets all shivery when some kid screams at a spear thrust. S17 2007 words Quadrant - July/August 1986 The red back spider By Peter Skrzynecki 1 WHILE my father lived and worked in Sydney for the Water Board during our first two years in Australia, my mother found occasional domestic employment in town and on the farms around the migrant hostel where we lived in the Central West of New South Wales. Of the jobs she held, one was what might be called "regular" - as a washer-woman and ironing-and-cleaning lady on a sheep and wheat property, five or six mile from the hostel. Occasionally, however, requests for an extra day's, a week's or a month's work would reach my mother from the head of the household, Mrs Hunter - a small, grey-haired widow who ran the property with two sons and a daughter. In this case, a referral was made to a Mrs Burnett for gardening work to be done in the township. The pay was a dollar - or, ten shillings, as it was called then - a day. 2 The house in Carp Street was a fibro cottage built on a sloping block of land - the foundations at the back being high enough for a child to stand under and an adult to crouch or sit down. Except for its weeds, the yard was almost bare, empty of bushes or trees. A few geraniums straggled out of the caked earth down one side of the house, under a window. The weeds were dried by the hot summer sun - yellow, brown, white; they grew densely at the back and more sparsely towards the front and down the sides of the house; patches of reddish-orange clay blended in with them. This was the "gardening" my mother had been employed for - her task being to clear the yard of weeds and stack them. Later, they all had to be burnt. The lady of the house, Mrs Burnett, was also a widow - a bony woman whose brown-as-leather skin hung over her frame like a synthetic material and gave her an appearance of being fleshless. She spoke shrilly, bird-like, peering over her glasses as if my mother and I were hard of hearing. Despite her appearance, she did not seem to be very old. As she spoke, she pointed with a crooked finger. "The gardening implements are under the house. You may stack the weeds over there, in the left corner. They must be burnt when they are dried out. I shall pay you at the end of the day ... Thank you. Oh yes? The child may stay with you providing he does not become a hindrance." With that she hurried away, but at the top of the steps she closed the door slowly, deliberately, with a metallic "click": as if to establish the necessary barrier that must exist between mistress and servant. According to my mother the work would take two or three days, and these she would slot in between the days she worked for Mrs Hunter. As it was the period before Christmas, school at the hostel was finished and I was allowed to accompany her. We would catch the bus from the camp to the centre of town, then walk among the shops and houses with tidy rural gardens, past the post office, police station and courthouse: skirt the hospital grounds and walk around the hill with a War Memorial on top - its pale blue light burning all night and into the early hours of morning. Carp Street lay at the end of this circuit. On the first day, while my mother worked, I played in the dirt and among the weeds - with two small rectan+gular blocks of wood that were imaginary cars: making roads, bridges, tracks and roads. When the sun became too hot I would go under the house, continuing my game there. My mother wore a broad-rimmed straw hat and made me a cap by tying knots into the four ends of a handkerchief. We drank water from a tap by the back steps and next to an outside toilet. We had sandwiches for lunch under the house together - in the cool, where we could hear Mrs Burnett walking around and the muffled sound of conversation, as though she were speaking to someone. There were boxes and cases under the house, some nailed and some shut: and when my mother returned to work after lunch, I found an open one. Inside, to my surprise, were lead toys - animals of all kinds: sheep, cows, horses, pigs. There were soldiers, too - standing at attention, firing rifles, attacking, charging with bayonets. Magically, as if in a dream, they became part of another dimension - a contrast to the world outside in the dirt and weeds. At last I had some real toys! In the shade, under the floorboards, a new world of experience opened up to me that afternoon: as I made an imaginary farm and invented a war that my soldiers fought to the death to win. Talking to myself, giving orders and calling to animals, I became totally immersed in my games. Then, at one point, as I galloped a brown horse through a scattering of weeds, there was a cry from my mother and I rushed over to the side fence where she was kneeling. "Zarazliwy!" she cried. The word meant "poisonous" and I recoiled instantly. Under a beam of the paling fence where the hoe could not reach, between a small rusty tin and the ground, was a spider's web. Hung in its centre, like a black pearl, was a red-back spider: glistening in the sun, the red stripe on its back even more brilliant than the glossy-black some. Its front legs were raised, slender and fine, like a dancer's. My mother held up a hand in caution. "Uwazaj", she warned. "Be careful." With a stick she started to extract the spider from its web - awkwardly, because the web was sticky; but in the blink of an eye it scurried into the tin, its slim legs becoming a blur of movement. Turning over the tin, my mother indicated the egg-sacs, four or five, of yellow-brown silk. "Inside are its eggs," she said. "Hundreds of them." Peering over her shoulder I wondered why the spider had to hide its eggs like that: in a rusty tin, under the fence among the weeds? What was wrong with laying them out in the sunlight - where they could warm more easily? Birds made their nests out in the open, in the trees; a butterfly spun its chrysalis and left it on a branch. Was it because it was poisonous, or was there something evil in its nature, that it had to hide? Without speaking, my mother prodded the inside of the tin with a stick. "Did you kill it?" I asked. "I don't know; but we must make sure. It is a poisonous kind." She dropped dry weeds into the tin and pushed them in with a stick. Taking a box of matches from the pocket of her apron she dropped a lit match into the tin. A tongue of fire rose up; smoke curled in its wake - wispy, slowly becoming thicker. Then all the grass in the tin seemed to catch on fire at once. Smoke poured out. Where was the spider? I thought. Why doesn't it come running out. "What is the matter?" It was Mrs Burnett; she stood behind us, hands held out pontifically, her myopic eyes straining in the sunlight, peering at us as if we had green skin. "Spider," my mother replied. "Black - with red on back." "Oh, I see ... Very well, you may continue." Turning around, I stepped back to look at her. "What is that you have, boy - in your shirt pocket?" It was the galloping brown horse I was playing with when my mother called out. I must have put it into my pocket. My mother stood up, wiping the sweat from her eyes. "He not take the horse ... He only put it in pocket." She took the horse and handed it to Mrs Burnett. "You found the suitcase, I see. Please return all the toys and do not play with them." She took the horse and clasped it in her hand like it was a precious stone; then she returned to the house, up the unpainted steps and clicked the door behind her like she did that morning. In the last few moments I had forgotten the spider; suddenly, I remembered. "The spider! The spider!" At our feet the fire had gone out; smoke rose from the tin and its contents were a small heap of ashed, barely distinguishable from the blackened interior. We both knelt down on the hot earth. "There is no more spider," my mother said tersely. She tipped over the tin and scattered its contents with her foot. Then she picked up the tin on the end of the stick and carried it over to the garbage next to the toilet. It fell in with a "clunk" and she dropped the lid with a clatter, as if she did not care whether it made a noise or not. She began to talk about something different - something that had nothing to do at all with the events of a few minutes earlier. But I could tell she was upset, that she was only pretending - distracting herself so as not to become upset. She was sad. I could tell that by the tone of her voice; and although I could not bring myself to ask why, I knew it had nothing to do with the spider. That night, as I lay in bed, I wondered about Mrs Burnett and her house. There was something mysterious about them, a secret - the sort of puzzle that one receives intimations about but nothing definite can be pinpointed, nothing tangible. But the feeling remains. And nags. I had returned the toys; my mother was paid her ten shillings and we returned to the hostel an hour before dinner was served in the mess hall. Nothing more had been mentioned about the spider or the galloping horse. What was it, then, that was bothering me? I tossed and tossed for a long time, unable to sleep. Fretting. However, I could not dismiss the house or its owner from my mind. It was as if another mind was sending me messages - trying to make contact: calling out for help. 3 The second day passed without incident; the toys had been removed from under the house, presumably by Mrs Burnett, and I played with my own blocks of wood - back among the tracks and roads, tunnels, bridges and weeds. I half expected my mother to find another red-back spider and we would burn it also; but no, nothing of the sort happened. Luckily, the weeding was finished by the end of the day and all that remained was for the grass to be raked into heaps, waiting until it was ready for burning. Mrs Burnett and my mother arranged for one more day's work, this to be completed between Boxing Day and the New Year; any extra weeding that needed doing could be done then and the present lot burned off. With the weather being as hot as it was, the weeds should dry out quickly enough. And that night, again, the house and its owner began to trouble me - like they were trying to draw me back: to seep into my brain and leave an indecipherable message. This time I told my mother the house and its owner frightened me. She was quiet, as if she had trouble finding the right words to answer me. "It is because of the horse," she said. "Try not to think about it. Do other things - occupy yourself and it will go away ... When I return for the last time, you need not come. If you want to stay behind, I will find someone to mind you." S18 2019 words The Fremantle Arts Review - June 1986 The immigrant By Andrew Lansdown The first few days? Yes, I can remember. I came on account of the coal strike. We were out for a year. This was 1925. At the end of it, they wanted us to go back on less pay. So I booked for Australia. Assisted Passage. Came out on The Bendigo. When we docked at Fremantle, it was sweltering. This was a week before Christmas. We were thinking of snow and plum puddings. As I was disembarking, I heard one of the crew say, "I'll just pop down to the stokehole to cool off a bit." That raised a laugh. Well, after the heat, the first thing I noticed was the wharfies. Honest to goodness! I'd never seen such a hard-faced lot of men - not even in the trenches. Looked as if they'd hang you for sixpence. Blimey, I thought, I hope they're not all like this. And another thing. There was a young chap standing at the bottom of the gangplank giving out headache tablets. Aspros. Little sample packets. That's a good start, I thought, giving you headache tablets first up. I began to wonder if I shouldn't have taken my brother's advice and gone to Canada. There was a fellow selling hop beer in front of the customs building. He wasn't having much luck. Everyone just wanted to clear customs and get about making their fortunes. Well, he looked pretty dejected, and I was feeling thirsty, so I thought I'd part with a penny. He took my money happily enough, but then he started giving me the eye. Looked me up and down, hands on his hips. "Whatcha come here for?" he said. "Got enough Poms to clear the land already. That's all we want you for." I dropped his glass and it shattered on the pier. "See if you can get a Pom to clear that up for you, then," I said, and left him to it. After customs, they shunted us off to the Immigrant Home, where we had a wash and a meal. Then a chap came and gave us a pep talk. "What do you think of Australia?" he asked. Well, I guess none of us thought much of it at all, so noone said anything. Finally one of the women said, "It's as hot as Africa." And that set him off. "You're better off coming to this part of the Empire, Madam," he said. "You can lie down in this country anywhere you like without fear of tigers or lions or any wild animals." Well, I don't know if she appreciated that. Her only thought of lying down was on satin cushions. Anyway, this chap kept it up for a good ten minutes, telling us what a wonderful country Australia was and how we were lucky to be here. Then another fellow came with a parcel of papers. He had a list of jobs and he read them out, and you had to put up your hand if you thought you were suitable. There were a lot of jobs for dairying, but they were low wages. Fifteen shillings a week with keep. Some of them as low as twelve shillings. Then he started announcing jobs on the wheat farms - the `wheat belt'. They were better paid, I remember one clear enough. "Wanted, youth, strong, must be able to cut suckers. 18 shillings a week with keep." I looked at the fellow next to me. "Heaven knows what a sucker is," he said. "Us probably," I said. Another one I remember. There was a man wanted to drive a team for a harvester at 30 shillings a week. Only you had to be experienced. The chap next to me said, "By George, it must be a wonderful fella to get 30 bob a week." Now I had my own pony in the pits, so I thought maybe that'd pass for `experience'. But by the time I put my hand up, another fellow had beat me to it. Well, finally there were only one or two of us left. Everyone else had got a job. I said, "What else is there?" "Well, there's coal mining down south at Collie," he said. "Only I don't think they want anyone at present." "Well, I don't want to go in the pits anyway," I said. "What else is there?" So he rummaged around in his papers and found one that said, "Wanted, young man, must be strong, used to horses, and willing to work. Twenty-five shillings a week and keep." So I took it. Next thing they had me on a train to South Walgoolan. I had to change trains at Perth. Transferred to the Kalgoorlie Express. Why they called it an `Express' is beyond me. It stopped at every station. I heard some of the passengers refer to it as The Rattler. I asked the guard, "How will I know when I get to Walgoolan?" We'd gone through five or six stations, and I hadn't heard him call a name out once. "Oh," he said, "the same as everybody else." "How's that?" I said. And he said, "Stick ya head out the window and when ya come to Walgoolan, that's it." So I had my head out the window half the night to make sure I didn't miss it. Couldn't see anything much, of course. But one thing that did surprise me was the fires. There were little fires all along the track and across the countryside. I'd never seen anything like it. I asked one chap what they were. "That's just people camping out," he said. "What people?" I asked. "Fettlers and road gangs mostly," he said. "Maybe some cockies burning off." Well, I didn't know about `cockies'. When I asked him, he just laughed and said, "You're a new chum." Anyway, the fires were strange and beautiful to me. About the only beautiful thing I saw those first few days. There was an old man on the train for the first leg. He was a German. And the thing that struck me as odd was that he liked England. He said several times, "England is a beautiful country, it'll grow anything." Maybe he only said it to be polite. A kind gesture to a `new chum'. Anyway, we talked a bit about what England could grow. He got off at the Northam station. I tell you something that took my fancy at Northam. There was a chap on the siding selling hot tea in beer bottles. One shilling a bottle! But he sold the lot. Seems I was the only one on the train who didn't understand the distances in Western Australia. We pulled into a place called Merredin at about 5 o'clock in the morning. It was just light, but there were a lot of people on the siding. Everyone was standing back a bit from this man, watching him. He held the body of a little girl. Rigor mortis had set in. She was curled up with her hands clasped about her knees, so he held her awkwardly. And he was weeping. Weeping without a thought for anyone around him. I had never heard a man weep like that before. It frightened me. It seems the little girl had been lost since late afternoon. They were afraid that she had wandered into the bush. They'd had parties out looking for her all night. Found her just before the train pulled in. She'd climbed into a powder magazine which was on the platform awaiting shipment to Fremantle. The lid had fallen down and locked itself. No one heard her calling out on account of the box being padded on the inside. Smothered, poor mite. The train was late leaving Merredin. Everyone had got off, including the driver. Burracoppin was the next major siding. And there were camels there! A whole herd of them in a holding paddock by the hotel. The travel people in London had suggested I go to Persia, to work for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. When I decided against the idea, I thought I'd lost my chance of ever seeing a camel. Except in a circus maybe. Now here they were in Australia. One of the passengers told me that the camels were used by the men who serviced the Number One Rabbit-Proof Fence. I asked him, "What's a Rabbit-Proof Fence?" "Like it sounds," he said. Then he asked me where I was heading. When I told him, he laughed and said, "You'll learn about the Fence soon enough. Walgoolan's the wrong side." Walgoolan was next up. I was the only one who got off the train. I must have been a pathetic sight, standing on the platform with my gear littered about and not a soul around. I felt pathetic. Walgoolan was just a name. There was a big stack of wheat on the siding, and a tin shed at back of it. And a small corrugated-iron store across the road. That was it. Walgoolan. I wandered around the wheat stack. It was huge. Fifty yards by fifteen, and maybe seven high. Hundreds of sacks stacked like slabs of stone. And mice! Scampering everywhere like tufts of shadow. Then I sat on my trunk and waited. And that's another thing. Parrots. There were dozens of parrots. Twenty-eights and Smokers, as it turned out. Smokers are extint now, of course, but they were plentiful then. And the thing that intrigued me was the way the parrots walked. They even climbed the sacks one foot after the other. The birds back home hop, so it tickled me, seeing birds walk like people. Eventually I saw some smoke coming out of the store, so I wandered over and knocked. A chap came to the door and said, "What d'ya want?" I said, "Well, actually I've come to work for a man around here, by name of Johnson." "Which one?" he said. "Oh," I said, "is there more than one?" "There's three." I had written it down, so I got out my bit of paper and told him, "S.L. Johnson." "Him," he said. "He'll be in about 8 o'clock." This was a bit before seven. "How will I know him?" I asked. "There'll be a lot of people in shortly," he said. "Your man'll be in a Chev. Ford. It's got no canopy on, and he'll have a little black dog sitting alongside of him." Well, pretty soon farmers started arriving with their wheat. Waggons and trucks, Model T's and Morrises. And on the dot of 8, along came a chap in a Chev. Ford. I walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, are you Mr Johnson?" "No," he said, "There's no misters in this country. I'm Sam Johnson." "Well," I said, "would you be S.L. Johnson?" "That's me all right." So I said, "I've come to work for you - from the Immigrant's Home." "Oow," he said, sort of surprised. "Oow, I believe I did send down for a man." As if he'd sent down for a spanner and forgotten all about it. I said, "Anyway, I was told to come here, 25 shillings a week." "Yes," he said, "I think that's right." Then he looked me up and down like I was a horse and said, "There's not much of you, is there? Are you strong?" "Yes," I said, And so he said, "Well, don't just stand there. Knock on these bags." He had twenty bags of wheat on the back of his truck. I had to lift each one down and place it on the scales. The agent would weigh it, then his man, the Lumper, would take it and stack it on the pile while I fetched another. Well, I'm no weakling, but I was fair done in by the time I'd lifted those twenty bags. They weren't that heavy - around 180 lbs, most of them - but they were awkward. And I had my good clothes on. When I had finished, Johnson got a couple of bag hooks from the front of the truck and threw them to me. S20 2005 words The Adelaide Review - May 1986 Tottie Tippett By Barbara Hanrahan SHE USED to dream she could fly like an angel, but she didn't know where she wanted to fly to. She just had to use her hands and go, but she always woke up before she left the ground (if you flew that'd be the end of you). Riding was the nearest thing to flying - the faster the pony went the happier she was; the harder she rode the better she liked it. Though once she had a nasty buster on Maud when she came back from the Ardrossan Post Office with the letters; and she rode Ruby, the cream pony, when she brought the cows in and stayed on her back when she opened the gates and once she fell off and skinned all her knees. When she rode the ponies on the cliffs they'd go down the steep path by Mallee Creek to the beach, and she'd really have to hang on. Riding, she never had any fear. Then, she had confidence in herself and everything, she always had an idea that God was going to look after her. But she was frightened of the sea and couldn't swim. The seas round that part of the Peninsula were so rough that when you looked out from the front door of the house, one minute you could see the steamer from Port Adelaide making for the jetty, then the next it'd be hidden by the waves. Her father had helped put the new piles in the jetty and the first thing she remembered was walking down there with his dinner on a plate, wrapped in a teatowel to keep it warm. She was only four then, and when she was six Queen Victoria died, and the next year it was the earthquake and her mother knelt down in the front room and prayed they'd be saved. And that year, 1902, was when her father got smoker's cancer on his lip. He was a fine looking man, clean-shaven, who never hit her but he'd sometimes tell her to get out of the road. Towards the end they had to syringe the food into him and he only had half a face. Her mother was changing the bed when he lay back on the pillow and died. Because he'd been born in Germany their surname sounded like the dirty word. Her mother was that angry when the Aldridges said their name the bad way - but Mother couldn't write; it'd been Father who'd written all their names in the big German Bible that was kept in the front room cupboard. Her name was written in as Ernestina Louisa, but they called her Tottie, and sixteen brothers and sisters came before her. Her sisters were Emma, Lizzie, Elsie, Clara, Rosie, Winnie, Gertie, Hilda; two of her brothers had died as infants of convulsions, then there was Herb, Arthur, Dick, Jack, Bill and Tom. Some of them had married and moved away years ago, so Tottie didn't know them. Arthur drove the coach from Ardrossan to South Hummocks before he went to live with Elsie, who'd married a fellow from Yongala where the cauliflowers weighed twelve pounds each and foxes bit out the lamb's tongues. Tom was the only one in the family who had a big nose and Bill had lovely curly hair. Jack worked at the butcher's in Ardrossan and his wife made a gallon of soup at a time and it was that thin you didn't know whether you were having soup or water. When Dick shifted to Adelaide his wife took to the drink and one day when he came home from work all the furniture was gone (she'd sold it for booze). Winnie and Gertie were the ones who'd nursed Father and then they went up to Maitland as housemaids, to work off the debt to the doctors. Hilda was very dainty and thought she was a bit above everybody else. Rosie got struck by lightning - Mother put her to bed but in the morning she was dead. Clara's husband was a fisherman at Port Wakefield, where there were picture shows and Japanese wrestling tournaments and a circus; after Clara died he still sent a box of fish over now and then, and it was always Tottie's job to clean them. Over at Kadina a fellow had six or seven girls in the family way, and Mother was horrified at girls wandering. She whipped Hilda with a piece of rope tied to a stick when she sneaked down to the town one evening. `Your body is your own,' she'd say. `Don't let anybody interfere with it.' She'd married Father when she was fifteen; they'd come to Ardrossan when the country was all mallee scrub, tea-tree and kangaroo bush, and lived in a hole in the ground before they built the house. After he died, she took the steamer to Adelaide to see a Chinese doctor and then she married Andy Yates, the carrier. Andy had been bitten by a snake when he reached into a burrow to grab a rabbit (he killed it, then put his finger on a plough wheel and cut it off with a blunt tomahawk). He was a small man, gingerish, and Mother was boss. The ponies were always sweaty after Andy had been riding them (he had to keep riding all day to see the cows didn't get to the wild onion weed that went straight to their milk) - sometimes when Tottie rode Ruby to bring the cows in, Ruby was so sweaty that the saddle slipped round and off she'd come. Tottie walked in her sleep. She'd fetch the milk-can, then put it down beside her mother and Andy's bed and get in with them. As well as the cows they had pigs and sheep, hens and geese and a bit of wheat. When the geese were sitting, they pecked at Tottie and chased her. She stuck a big thick goose's quill through a cork in a bottle of milk to bottle-feed her pet lamb. She loved him but he grew fatter and fatter, and one day she came home from school to find that Andy had killed him - he was hanging in the meat house, cut up. Tottie hated Andy then, but she still ate the lamb chops for tea. A sailor gave Jack a monkey. Monkeys were dirty little beggars and Mother made Tottie and Hilda stay inside when he sat on the underground tank stand and fiddled with himself. Monk was a curiosity in the district, he used to get up to some tricks. He walked along the telegraph wires and followed Tottie to school. Once he got down the chimney of old lady Aldridge's bakehouse and threw the dough that was rising over the walls. He kept going off to the rubbish dump but got tangled up in some wire and they found him there, dead. There was no money to splash round, they couldn't even afford a headstone for Father's grave. But the front room had boards on the floor, not dirt like the other rooms, and at Christmas there were cherries to eat. Mother had a china ornament in the shape of a hen sitting on a china nest and she made wonderful dampers that tasted better than bread. Mother had nice skin, no pimples or anything; she dressed up in leg-of-mutton sleeves and a hat with a feather and one Sunday she went to the Methodist Church, the next to the Church of England, but she had a bit of Catholic in her somewhere. Old Mrs Wundersitz visited Ardrossan twice a week from Maitland to meet the steamer and get her vegetables, and as soon as her one-horse van came into sight, the kettle would be put on. When the Afghan hawker came walking round with his big white bag on his back full of sheets and pillowslips, laces and ribbons, he always stayed in the wash-house overnight, and Mother would never have a word out of place said to him (he was a neat old man with a turban who cleaned his teeth with a stick off a gum tree and his teeth were as white as snow). She was kind to anybody who passed the house, swaggies and all. Ardrossan was a little town famous for its cliffs and farm implement factory where Mr Smith had perfected his stump-jump plough, the Vixen. And Mr Cane was the butcher, Mr Polkinghorne the baker, Mrs Huckvale had the hotel; and Barton's, opposite the Institute and Post Office, sold groceries, ironmongery, furniture, drapery and clothing, boots and shoes, and patent medicines; and Tiddy's was another shop to sell all sorts, and the early settlers had carted water from Tiddy Widdy Wells. There was a Vigilance Committee, a brass band, and the football club's first uniforms were made out of sugar bags dyed blue and white. In summer, when the tide was out, boys dived off the ketches Stormbird and Crest of the Wave to have a swim; and every New-year's day, past inhabitants of the district came back to Ardrossan on the steamer and there was a picnic on the beach (the only thing that spoilt the beach was that the tide fretted the cliff away and they got a dirty sand). Mr Ryan was the schoolmaster and you were in awful trouble if you copied, but Tottie never needed to because she was a clever scholar; she liked arithmetic and reading and was a very good writer. She sat next to her best friend, Lily Slaughter, whose mother was half an Aborigine, but only one of the Slaughters had turned out really black - they called him Israel, he ran the hand truck up and down the jetty to load goods on to the steamer. Annie Evans sat in the seat in front; she had a lot of hair and was one of the certain kind of people who bred lice. One day Tottie's head felt itchy so she got straight on to the fine-tooth comb and found a couple of big ones. She had a beautiful head of hair and was scared stiff; she rubbed kerosene into her scalp, just to be sure, and made it all red and itchy. When Tottie left school at thirteen, she wanted to be a dressmaker and she dreamt of a dress of heliotrope cotton voile with a six-gored skirt, a blouse of Peking messaline, a coat with a suggestion of the Russian mode. But Mother wouldn't let her use the sewing-machine so she had to watch for her chance - they were down with the cows and the needle went through her finger and she worked the machine till she got it out and never ever told a soul. When she learnt to sew she made dresses for her mother and she had a wonderful eye for measurement, but mostly she milked the cows and drove the dog cart into Ardrossan to sell milk from a five gallon container with a tap on it; and she sold eggs and did Mrs Tiddy's washing. Tottie's ambition was to always go on working. The evangelist came to church and told about scarlet and crimson as indicating shades of guilt in the same kind of sin - murder would be a scarlet sin if committed by a worldly person, but hatred would be a crimson stain (a sin of deeper dye) if cherished by a child of God. Old Mr McGeoch, who was a bit cranky and often called out in church, shouted that all mankind had inherited sin-tainted blood from Father Adam; Tottie and Lily went forward with the others who believed in the new age of Messiah's Kingdon and vowed they'd never touch alcohol. A young man took Tottie home from church, but when they were crossing the paddocks he put the hard word on her and tried to have connections. Tottie yelled out and Andy Yates heard and the young man ran away. S22 2000 words Westerly - September 1986 Gravity By Gillian Higginson I was thirteen years old in 1969. That year was the end of a decade, the beginning of which I could not remember. Week after week - or so it appeared to me - I watched television documentaries about the sixties, all with titles like "This Is The Decade That Was". I sat through them, silently, while my parents exclaimed and sighed and shook their heads at the catalogue of debacles and disasters which paraded across the screen. I seemed to be always at home that year, watching television with my parents on Saturday nights. Weekends were interminable in the dozy Blue Mountains town where we lived. My sister Louise, three years older than me, wasn't at home very often, and her absences only increased my own sense of dreary captivity. Old rituals that had once bound us as a family were disintegrating. Louise had scorned Sunday drives long ago, and now I sullenly resisted them too. My mother would stand in the doorway of my bedroom where I would be aimlessly be arranging my hair with my sister's curling tongs or, perhaps, bending over a bowl of hot water, steaming blackheads off my face, and she'd say to me wearily, "Dad and I thought it would be nice to go for a drive out to the nursery this afternoon. I don't suppose you're interested?" I would make a face of disgust and shake my head; she'd survey me for just a moment before going out to tell my father. "Anne's not coming," she'd sigh. "Anne's not coming," he'd repeat sardonically. "Alright, we'll bloody well go by ourselves then." And off they would go alone, most Sundays, my father tightlipped; my mother sad and appeasing. After their car had disappeared out the end of our street I'd retrieve the packet of Alpine cigarettes that I kept hidden under my mattress, lock up the house and go out, usually, down to the shops (which my parents, hankering after a different, more English way of life, referred to as "the village"). I walked, head down, hoping not to meet the eyes of neighbours out gardening. These streets, which until only recently had inspired, and provided the stage for, all my games and fantasies, now yielded nothing to my imagination. They were intolerably familiar. The shops when I reached them - all shut up and silent and empty until Monday morning - depressed me more than anything I could imagine. There was nobody about. I stood and looked through the window of Mrs Betts, the grocer, and thought about heaving a rock through it, just to hear the crash echo through the still streets. No place on earth could be as deadly as the town I lived in. I sat at the empty bus stop and listened to the mournful, hypnotic drone of model aeroplanes down on the oval, and to the far off sound of cars toiling up and down the Great Western Highway, lucky city dwellers just out for the day. Then, my energy low but with my heart beating quickly - racing with nervy restlessness and desire, desire for something else, for somewhere other than this place - I would go across the park to the public toilets at the back of the School of Arts, to smoke a cigarette. Standing there in the graffitied gloom, inhaling deeply, I would feel a little restored. The cigarette, forbidden and frowned upon, made me feel less a part of this town, less a part of my family, and somehow closer to my true, as yet undiscovered and unexpressed, self. Those packets of Alpine represented the unknown side of my life, my secret potential, my future. But once the cigarette, occasionally followed by another, was over, there was nothing left to do but drag myself home again, to be back in my room with the door shut by the time my parents returned from the nursery or wherever they had been. On Sunday nights I drifted from room to room, dissatisfied in all of them, impatient for the weekend to be over. Every year in May my father would get the big electric heater out of the hall cupboard and, grimly, install it in the open fireplace which during the warmer months of the year was occupied by an elaborate dried flower arrangement. The fireplace was a persistent sore point with my father. When he had had our house built three years earlier he had requested an open fireplace, a feature not included in the development company's plans. The company had hummed and hawed and warned of additional expense and how there wasn't much call for them these days, but my father remained firm. He had always dreamed of an open fire, he said, and he was now going to have one. So the fireplace and chimney was duly built and, a few weeks after we had moved in my father, savouring the moment, declared, "Well, there's a real nip in the air today, isn't there? I think we'll have a fire tonight." When all the newspaper and kindling and logs had been neatly assembled on the hearth we gathered around, my mother ready with the inevitable pot of tea and a date loaf to mark the occasion. My father got methodically to work with not too much paper and just the right amount of kindling, starting a lovely blaze with just one match: it would have annoyed him if he had been unable to do it with one. He sat back on his haunches, proundly, and Louise and I cheered and clapped and my mother poured the tea. For just a moment we all joined with my father in his dream come true. The sweet smell of burning wood, the dancing golden flame and the glow of snug well-being - it was suddenly what each one of us, too, had always longed for. But within minutes the lounge room was filling up with smoke. Something wasn't working right. My disconcerted father bent down to the blaze and poked and proded, but smoke continued to pour forth, into the room. The chimney just didn't seem to be drawing at all. "Maybe there's a bird's nest up there," my mother suggested soothingly. Louise and I looked at each other and quietly left the room. Our eyes were starting to stream. We could hear my father's frustrated, angry curses as we sat in the kitchen, silently eating slices of date loaf. There was no bird's nest in the chimney, nor any other impediment which could easily be removed to solve the problem. They had just built the whole thing wrongly, that's all, so that it was never going to work. My father blamed God, who was usually at the bottom of his disappointments and failures. He would regale visitors, unwittingly admiring the very englishy charm of the fireplace, with the saga, telling them how he had always wanted an open fire, how he had argued for it with the builders, how it had cost him extra money which he could ill afford, how much he had been looking forward to cold winters by the hearth, so that the guests could not help but laugh at poor Robert's bad luck. But my father was seeking more than that, something more than sympathetic amusement. He wanted confirmation from them for his own belief that this story, after all, was only typical; that life, indisputably, singled him out for particular punishment. Usually the guests, still laughing, protested. "Oh Bob, it's not that bad." "It is," my father insisted, still smiling tightly but banging his teacup in its saucer. "It's always been the bloody same." The fireplace episode became a parable told to outsiders, of hopes not realised, of pestilence, sent down to blight him. The installation of the electric heater each year marked the arrival of winter, a season taken much more seriously by my parents since their move to the mountains from the city's milder climate. We became intrepid pioneers, battling the elements. We wore overcoats instead of cardigans, and protected young plants from frosts. In 1969, it felt to me that winter signalled a closing in, a shrinking of the world around me. Our family seemed to take up permanently in a corner of the lounge room; the television and the heater - still called the "fire" - became the dreary focus of daily life. My father discouraged us from using the rest of the house: heating more than one room was a waste of electricity. Summer, with its space, its light, its new year bringing hopefulness, seemed remote, an impossible fantasy that would not become real again until the taunting smell of jasmine in the September air brought the heart up sharp. I hated the cold weather, the layers of warm underwear and the early nightfall which demanded I be home early too. It suffocated me more than summer's thick-scented heat. That winter the Americans put the first man on the Moon. For a few weeks in June and July all other world events paled before it; as Apollo sailed closer to its destination, it seemed the decade would end on a heroic note after all. My father took a huge interest in the Apollo mission, and he tried to arouse similar enthusiasm in my sister, and then in me. Neither of us responded. For some reason that I could not quite define the whole business annoyed me, it made me feel resentful, somehow, and irritable. Every time I sat*sad down in front of the T.V. at home, or in front of the science teacher at school, or switched on the radio, it was being discussed, people were talking about it with pride and confidence. They were all hailing it as the greatest thing ever: this voyage into space, into the unknown. But I suppose that was just it, they all seemed so sure of what they would find when they got there. I had already been assured that there would be no surprises, that there was actually nothing there. No life, not even any trees or grass, just dust. And craters. That's all, they kept assuring me, my father, my teachers, some man who was interviewed on the radio. I kept hoping they'd all be wrong, that when the astronauts actually arrived, when they climbed out of the ship onto the dusty surface of the Moon that it would instantly, spitefully, swallow them up, like quicksand. Or that people - Moon people - would appear out of nowhere, and invite them home for a cup of tea. That would give everyone something to carry on about. But that was nonsense, they said, the Moon simply could not sustain life. "Just matter floating around out there," my father said comfortably when I asked him. "Why don't you sit down and watch it?" There was some programme about it on the television. My mother smiled encouragingly at me and patted the seat on the couch beside her. "No thanks," I said, "I'd die of boredom." I slouched off, feeling my mother's disappointed gaze on my retreating back. In those days, I felt my mother's eyes were permanently implanted in between my shoulder blades. As I left the house each morning to catch the bus, hitching my school uniform up over its belt to make it shorter, I could sense her watching me from the front door. Whenever I stalked out of the room in the middle of a quarrel she'd remain, quietly observing my exit, gazing and sighing after me. Once she stopped in the middle of washing up - I was standing beside her, reluctantly drying - and stood staring out the kitchen window. Her face quivered, as if she was about to cry. "What's the matter?" I said, uneasily. She turned towards me vaguely, I think she'd forgotten I was there or something. After a moment her expression cleared, and I was relieved to see she wasn't going to cry.