Four Fires (99 page)

He sends me clippings from the fashion magazines every once in a while and it seems him and a young designer called Vivienne Westwood are the up and corners with a big, big future. Sophie is broken-hearted he isn't coming back because she loves Mike, and Nancy isn't too pleased either. The Suckfizzle label is now getting to be really big and, even though Mike continues to send the odd kid's design, Sophie has to employ other designers to keep up with demand.

Templeton, who is pretty as a picture, goes down to stay with them during school holidays and Sophie uses her as a model when the buyers come in. The kid loves showing off and is a natural extrovert. Sophie has turned out to be a brilliant businesswoman and she and Morrie are going to be very rich, except that she says Mike always owned fifty per cent of the business and always will. She will finance his share of his London business until it starts to make money. She doesn't want Mike to go cap in hand to his partner's relatives.

Well, my course is finished by mid-October and with most of the marks being for essays throughout the year, I pretty much know I've graduated with two double majors and a major.

One of the final year subjects taught by Dr Alan Rundle is Land Management, the role of bushfires in shaping and changing the Australian ecology. I don't have to tell you how well I did in that.

With my study finished, I'm told to report to Canungra in Queensland to do the Officer Qualifying Course. I don't have to but I'm sort of into studying and so I agree to do the 'Knife and Forker', which is the name other ranks use for one of their kind doing it. This is because they reckon the main purpose of the course is to teach you how to use a knife and fork properly.

I get my uni results during the course and they're pretty good. I do quite well on the Knife and Forker too and because I've got the Science degree, I'm commissioned as a captain. It seems to be going all right, except for what's happening inside my head. I'm given a posting to Vietnam, which worries me because of the stuff going on in my head. But the posting is adjutant of the Training Team, which I'm told is a desk job at Headquarters, Australian Force Vietnam, Saigon, and well out of the battle, so I reckon it will be all right.

Then Sarah phones, crying. Nancy's real crook and has kidney failure. Sarah explains that she's been taking three Bex powders a day for thirty years and the phenacetin has had an insidious effect which has been chronic for some time but has now reached end-stage kidney failure. Sarah, not sparing the details, says Nancy's had a minor urinary infection and, small as it seems, it's the last straw. I'we organised a dialysis machine at Albury, but she won't hear of it.'

She tells me what Nancy said: I'we had enough, darling. Ever since Tommy done himself in, it's not been the same. You're all grown up now and I've got the best family in the whole world.

Every one of yiz has achieved something, crawled out from under the rock. The Maloneys are no longer on the bottom rung, we're damn near at the top. Can't ask for more than that, can yer.

Now little Colleen's engaged to John Barrington-Stone, she'll be right as rain. It's all done and come out well enough.'

John Barrington-Stone is Mrs Barrington-Stone's nephew. His family also owns a big property
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near Bright, abutting the Mount Buffalo National Park.

'How long has she got?' I ask Sarah.

'She's going fast,' Sarah says tearfully. 'Can you come please, Mole, she's asked for you? She said you've stickybeaked everything up to now, may as well be there when she goes.'

I get compassionate leave and catch the plane that night to Melbourne. John Barrington-Stone meets me at the airport, he's a nice young fella and he's got a Piper Cherokee and we're in Yankalillee slightly more than an hour later.

We've always thought Nancy would go with a heart attack, because of her weight. Sarah's been trying to get her on a diet for years. When I arrive at Bell Street, Nancy's still conscious and there's a black Holden Special parked outside, a cross painted on its door with flames twisting around the cross. Nancy was right, Father bloody Crosby has got himself a limousine. I wonder if he's just come barging in as usual. If he has, I'll send him on his bike quick-smart, even if it is a car now.

When I walk in, the whole family is there except, of course, for Mike. There's also Morrie and Sophie, Mrs Rika Ray, Big Jack Donovan, Mrs Barrington-Stone and Father Crosby wearing his crook-looking, fire-appliqued surplice.

Sarah sees me looking aggressively at Father Crosby. 'It's okay. Mole, Mum wanted all of us to be here, Father Crosby comes as a friend.'

'Aye, and that I've been all my life,' says Father Crosby promptly. 'We've had our differences, that I'll admit, but we're both Irish, that's how it should be, a good stoush and then all is forgiven. With Nancy now, I'm sending a warning up to heaven that she's on her way and the Lord will need to be on his toes!'

We all laugh, old enemies are friends at last. Though I wonder if Nancy will be willing to make her confession and take communion.

We're all crowded into the small bedroom. I fight my way through and kiss Nancy on paper-dry lips. She gives me a weak smile and squeezes my hand and I immediately burst into tears. Shit, it's not like me, I've seen scores of people dying, but I can't help it, she's my mum. All I think about is that I hope she's too far gone to notice Father Crosby's fucking appliqued surplice.

Nancy going to heaven with that being the last thing she sees is just not on.

I'm about to ask Father Crosby to take it off but then Nancy speaks. It's not her usual booming voice but it's Nancy, still clear-minded. 'You've all come except Mike and that's not his fault. All the people in this room are my whole life. My whole beautiful life.' She fixes a beady eye on Father Crosby. 'Even you, Father.'

Despite ourselves, we grin. Then Nancy looks at me and points to the dresser. 'In the bottom drawer, Mole.' Her voice is fading, 'There's a parcel, bring it here.'

I go to the drawer and there's a brown-paper parcel like all the other ones we'd left dozens of times in people's garbage bins when they'd showed us kindness. It was usually a christening dress when someone in the street was having a baby. This parcel is tied in the traditional Nancy manner with a piece of butcher's twine.

I take it over to Nancy who says I should give it to Father Crosby. Inside is a cotton surplice, made from the finest sea-island cotton. We all gasp as Father Crosby unfolds it. The back has an embroidered gold cross set among a stand of green eucalyptus trees, the trees are on fire, the flames leaping up, high into the sky. It is the most beautiful piece of embroidery I have ever seen.

'Put it on,' Nancy whispers.

Father Crosby removes the surplice he's wearing and replaces it with Nancy's. The silk embroidery catches the light, it is a truly magnificent garment. Nancy closes her eyes, 'Silly old bugger, why didn't you come to me in the first place? Now you look decent, I'll make my confession, make my peace with my Maker.'

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'Bless me, Father, for I have sinned/ she begins, then finally says, 'But there's nothing I'm ashamed of doing, nothing I wouldn't do again. I confess to being angry at the Holy Church, but never with you, God. Thanks for a lovely life.'

Her eyes are closed and her lips hardly move as Father Crosby places the wafer on her tongue, the drop of purple wine he offers her runs down the side of her mouth. Nancy, a soft sweet young Nancy, who let Tommy's bag of bones into her compliant, safe body when he came back from the war. The Nancy who was a fierce defender of her children. The Nancy who, single-handed, took on the Church. The Nancy of 'hell hath no fury'. The Nancy who always welcomed Tommy back home no matter what. The Nancy who made us Maloneys crawl out from under the rock. The Nancy who drove a

garbage truck and then went home to embroider exquisite baby clothes so her children could grow up to be respectable. The Nancy who taught us to take the spoon out of the sink before turning on the tap. The fearless, uncompromising Nancy. All of them were our mother, and now our mum is dead. The best Maloney of them all is gone from us and we're howling, even Father Crosby.

I don't want to rabbit on, but after Nancy's death the insides of my head becomes even more unmanageable. At least my posting is a desk job.

On the twenty-second of December 1970 at 11 p.m. I catch the 707 back to Saigon. The government has all flights carrying reinforcement troops leave at this late hour to escape the possibility of picketing by the 'Save our Sons' mothers and the anti-war demonstrators. 1 guess they figured all the good and worthy citizens who make up the demonstrations are safely tucked into their little wooden beds.

Vietnam and Saigon are deja vu, the heat, the smells, the jabbering, bustling world where sudden death is as common as the Mr Whippy truck outside an Australian school. I fly to Nui Dat, where after a two-week orientation course, I am to return to Saigon to take up my job.

However, arriving in Nui Dat on Christmas Eve, I have the distinction of being made duty officer for Christmas Day. I don't really mind, the other officers deserve a break and, as I don't know any of them, it's nice they can have a drink with their mates and celebrate Christmas Day.

Lunchtime, Christmas Day, I'm having a bite to eat, American turkey with cranberry sauce as well as good old Aussie brown gravy poured over everything, when I hear a burst of rifle fire.

As duty officer, I have a look-see. Jumping into a jeep, I go towards where I heard the rifle fire.

It's Christmas and there's a lot of grog about and I think some clown has fired his rifle into the air. Probably some grunt on his way home in a day or so. Still, that's not allowed on the base and I'm obliged to do something about it.

I arrive at the Task Force sergeants' mess and I am confronted with a scene of utter horror. A soldier, Private Faraday, has staggered down the road blind drunk and somehow entered the Task Force sergeant's

mess and fired a full magazine from his SLR 7.62 mm rifle into the room. Two men are killed and four wounded, one will be a quadriplegic. Both the sergeants killed were due to fly home on Boxing Day, having completed their tour of duty.

I've been in Vietnam less than forty-eight hours. Somewhere, deep within me, I hear myself asking why I've returned, but there's no answer. I take up my job in Saigon, which, as I've said, has the singular advantage of not being anywhere near a jungle patrol. There are captains doing the hard yards in the boondocks, but, thank bloody Christ, I'm not among them. I've got a cushy job by most standards, I travel throughout South Vietnam visiting our outlying bases, bringing a bit of news, checking they're okay, being a general dogsbody.

In May 1971 I visit a warrant officer who is responsible for a fire-support base at Dang Hoa in the Mekong Delta. I come in by helicopter arriving with a case of VB beer and a box of frozen steaks for a Saturday barbecue, a bit of a treat for the blokes. But as I jump out the helicopter
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and the box of goodies is handed out, I realise things are not right. In fact, the support base is standing to.

The weather clags in and I am unable to leave and, instead of a friendly visit with old friends, the Viet Cong and the NVA mount a major assault which lasts two days, including them breaching the wire and storming some of our forward weapon pits with bayonets before we can repulse them. Hundreds of them are killed in two days of barbaric fighting, with twelve of our guys also dead. I finally leave on Monday evening on one of the first relief helicopters. I haven't been injured and I've done pretty good with the SLR. Being a good shot has come in real handy, but my nerves are shot. I can't take much more.

As it turns out, there isn't a great deal more to take. The Americans are getting out. I now understand the utter futility of Australia's ten years in Vietnam. It's not a war I can support any longer. Troops are not being replaced, units are downscaled, equipment begins to be sent home and I'm drinking heavily, trying to avoid feeling anything and to keep my nerves under control.

It's late 1971 and I fly to Nui Dat on the final day we abandon the Australian base. The main gates are known by all Australian troops as 'The Pearly Gates' for the obvious reason. Now, stretching from The

Pearly Gates for several kilometres down the road to Baria, is every type of vehicle you can imagine, right down to people pushing wheelbarrows. As the last of the Australians fly out from Luscombe Field, I watch while the Vietnamese, like a swarm of locusts, strip Nui Dat down to the last nail and bolt. Thirty years of fighting have taught them how to survive.

Back home I am posted to the officer training unit at Scheyville. It's a paradox that, now that the bulk of Australia's forces are out of Vietnam, there's a huge increase in volunteer recruiting. Why is that? Buggered if I know. But we're overworked trying to cope, twelve-hour days, seven days a week. I'm sleeping less, drinking more (if that's possible), and I'm no longer known for my good humour.

Then, at the end of 1972, Gough Whitlam is elected the first Labor prime minister in twenty-three years, conscription is abolished and National Servicemen are sent home. The training centre is closed and we're all thinking about finding jobs in civilian life as there's suddenly a surplus of officers in what's become a shrinking army.

I hang on a bit, I reckon I'm in no shape to take on a new life dressed in civvies. I get posted to Randwick Barracks as the staff officer. This posting is best described as supervising ground maintenance, lawn mowing and soldiers' recreation. I know for sure that I am dying.

Well, the Sydney Morning Herald once again comes to my rescue. I see an advertisement for a lecturer at the Catholic College of Education. Nancy wouldn't have approved but I get the job. I resign my commission and join the Army Reserve and start a new life as a civilian. Living alone in a small flat is torture but I keep at it. I'm not worth a pinch of shit as a married man, that much I know for sure, so I stay single and occasionally, when the old fella will respond, I visit the girls at the Cross.