Freedom Ride (2 page)

Nan took over with a scoff. “Always was too high and mighty. He won’t return to Walgaree.”

“Didn’t you hear, Dawn?” China chinked. I guessed Miss Johnson had set her cup on the saucer. “Bet saw him yesterday at the petrol station. Didn’t you, Bet?”

“Indeed, I did,” said Mrs Scott. “Scruffy-looking fellow these days. Needs a haircut and a good wash.”

This time a chorus of squawks and tweets filled the soupy air.

Gossipy old bags.

I wrenched open the fridge as information shifted in my head, pieces slipping into place like tumblers in a lock.

Dead husband.

Son overseas.

Scruffy, long hair.

The Arthur they spoke about was Mr Gregory from Walgaree Caravan Park. His funeral was last week. I knew because I’d heard Nan on the telephone, mobilising the CWA troops to make cakes, scones and sandwiches for the afternoon tea at the RSL.

I never met Mr Gregory, but I’d seen him around. Over the winter he worked at school, pruning trees and shrubs, looking after the rugby pitch and fixing the flaking paint on the gutters. When I was stuck on algebra or sick of Dickens, I’d watch him through the classroom window, his shirt buttoned to his throat and wrists, tucked into his belted trousers. His tools gleamed in the winter sunlight. One time, on my way home from school, I’d seen Mr Gregory behind the garden shed, hosing off his spade and rubbing oil into the handle with rag.

The man at the milk bar with the long hair and strange accent, the one who asked Wobbly to serve the Aborigine first, had to be his son.

“Eavesdropping, are we?”

I hadn’t heard Nan enter the kitchen.

“I was looking for lemon squash,” I stammered.

She tsked, eyebrows pulled down. “Drink water. And Robbie …”

I looked into her eyes.

“Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.”

She turned and left the room before I could answer.

Bugger this. I stormed out the back door and grabbed my bike.

I opened the wire gate and wheeled my bike up the path to Keith’s house. Keith Axford lived in the police residence on Deakin Street with his mum, dad, three brothers and sister.

Keith and Billy Weston were the closest things I had to friends. What bound us wasn’t that we were always chosen last for teams, or that we were the only boys in our grade who didn’t play rugby for the Walgaree Magpies or cricket for Walgaree Central. The glue that stuck the three of us together was we were outsiders.

Even though my dad was born in Walgaree, I didn’t qualify as local because I’d been born in Inverell. That’s where Dad moved when he was twenty-one to take a promotion with the bank. He met Mum, married her, had me and stayed.

Dad and I had moved in with Nan back at Walgaree twelve years ago, after Mum died. I was three.

According to Nan, you had to live in Walgaree for fifty years to be a local – I had thirty-seven to go.

Keith’s dad had been the Walgaree police sergeant for the last five years, so that made him less local than me.

As for Billy, his dad took over as manager of Willanbee, a massive sheep and cropping property twelve miles to the Narrabri side of Walgaree, three years ago. That made him even more of an outsider than Keith or me.

I lay my bike on the patchy lawn in front of the police house and walked around the side to the back door.

“Keith, for heaven’s sake, leave your brother alone,” yelled Mrs Axford, from somewhere inside.

I knocked on the wooden doorframe. Mrs Axford came out of the kitchen frowning and wiping her hands on her apron. “Robbie. Come in.”

She bellowed over her shoulder into the house. “Keith, Robbie is here.”

Keith’s head popped around the kitchen door. “Want to go for a ride?”

“Sure.”

“That okay?” asked Keith, as he flung open the cupboard.

Mrs Axford folded her arms. “Have you finished cleaning out your pigsty of a wardrobe?”

“Yes, Mum.” Keith opened a tin and took out a handful of what looked like almond biscuits. He stuffed one into his mouth.

“Be back in time for lunch. Dad is off-duty today, so we’ll all eat together.”

“I’ll be back.” Biscuit crumbs sprayed from Keith’s mouth.

“Offer one to Robbie.”

Keith rolled his eyes and held out his hand. I took a biscuit from the top of the pile.

Mrs Axford regarded her son with a raised eyebrow and sighed. “Why don’t you come for lunch too, Robbie?”

“Thanks, Mrs A, but Nan will be expecting me.”

Mrs Axford gave me what I swear was a sympathetic look. “All right then. Have fun. And be good.”

“Mum,” moaned Keith. He shoved my shoulder and we headed out the door. Keith stopped at the tangle of bikes by the fence. He tossed aside a battered smaller bike and lifted his.

We rode side by side along the dirt footpath.

“You going away over summer?” asked Keith, finishing the last of the biscuits.

“Nah, just me, Nan and Dad. For six long weeks. Why would I want to miss that?”

Keith laughed. “Good one.” We pedalled hard onto Main Street, not slowing until we drew level with the RSL. The Australian flag fluttered at the top of the white flagpole.

“Dad had to go into the RSL Friday night,” said Keith, flicking his thumb at the building. “Bloody boong decided to try to have a drink there.”

I glanced at the handwritten sign, “No Abos!!!”, in the front window. Most of the Walgaree stores, pubs and the pool had colour bars, which meant Aborigines weren’t allowed inside, but the RSL and The Railway Hotel were the only places with signs in the window.

“At the RSL? Really? Dad didn’t say anything.”

“It was late – most of the Diggers had moved on.”

I frowned. I always thought they stayed at the RSL ‘til it closed. “Who was it?”

“Reggie Jenkins.”

“I reckon he was in New Guinea with Dad.”

Keith scoffed. “So? Doesn’t give him the right to go to the RSL. Dad locked him up. He and Morph took him back to the Crossing this morning. Pretty sure Dad and Morph reminded him of his place.” Morph, or Senior Constable Morphett, was known for the bruising way he made a point.

“I bet.”

We rode in silence, past the parked cars and the old men in hats and long-sleeved shirts outside the post office, to Memorial Park at the river end of Main Street. Without exchanging a word, we dumped our bikes on the lawn and sprawled under the sparse shade of a massive gum tree.

“Hey, it’s Monday. Cards day.” Keith brushed gumnuts and twigs from the patchy grass. “Shouldn’t you be playing the piano for the old crows?”

“That was one time. I was ten or something.” Nan swore I mucked up the Beethoven piece just to spite her. My piano lessons ended soon after. “Had to get out of there. Bloody house sounds like a–”

“How are you, lads?” Ian Wright, Colin Rhook and David Edwards stood over us. Last year at school I’d had to share a double desk with Ian Wright. It would have been better to sit next to a gorilla. If he wasn’t knocking books and pens off my desk, he was slamming his lid closed to make me jump. And when I did jump he’d cackle and wheeze like a hyena. He tormented anyone unlucky enough to sit in front of us, too. Drawing on the backs of girls’ necks, firing spit bombs at them or just muttering insults. I plucked at the meagre grass.

Keith sat up as though a charge of energy had surged through him. “Beaut day, isn’t it?” He crossed his legs. The expression on his face reminded me of a puppy. “Sit down.”

Since when did Keith ask Ian Wright to join us?

Wright lifted his chin in reply and dropped to the grass.

“Hey,” said Rhook, scowling. “What are they doing here?” He spat “they” as though it tasted like brussels sprouts.

We turned to look where he stared.

Four Aborigine boys sat on the riverbank.

“They don’t belong here,” said Keith.

Wright, eyes narrowed, nodded. “That’s the whole problem. They just don’t know their place. There’s plenty of river out where they belong.”

There were three Aboriginal settlements on the outskirts of Walgaree. The Anglican and government mission, Walgaree Station, or the Station, to the north and Brindabella Crossing Reserve to the south. The shanty town on River Road was better known as the Tip, mainly because it was beside the town rubbish dump. All three were situated on the Narondow River, which twisted and turned through Walgaree.

“There was a black in Wobbly’s this morning,” I said. Waves of disbelief swamped the others. “For real. And this bloke asked Wobbly to serve her first.”

“Fair dinkum?” Keith’s face was distorted.

“Was the bloke from out of town?” asked Rhook.

“Don’t think so.”

Wright snarled. “It’d be that Barry Gregory. He’s back from London or somewhere.”

“Who?” asked Keith.

“His old man owned the caravan park by the river. Died last week.” Wright set his piggy eyes on me. “What’d Wobbly do?”

“Reminded him whites had to go first. I left after Wobbly served me so I don’t know what happened next.”

“You should have stayed around to find out, Bower.” Wright scowled. “What the hell was a gin doing in Wobbly’s?”

“The Crossing and the Tip are that side of town,” I said.

“I don’t give a rat’s if they’re next door to Wobbly’s. They have no right being there.” Wright watched the Aborigine boys, his face twisted as though he smelled dog shit. He lumbered to his feet. “Let’s go move them on.”

Edwards and Rhook stood too, but before any of them moved, two thickset men crossed the road from the main street and called to the Aborigine boys. The six of them walked along the riverbank, away from town.

“Next time,” said Wright, hands opening and closing into fists. “We gotta go.”

The three of them swaggered towards the pool.

Keith slipped his hand in his pocket and then pulled it out. He smiled and held out his open hand. A few pennies lay on his palm. “Look what I found when I was cleaning up. Come on, let’s go to the milk bar.”

“Robert, set the table,” yelled Nan from the kitchen.

I placed the Biggles novel on my bed and plodded down the hall.

Nan tossed chopped carrots into the saucepan bubbling on the stove.

At the end of the kitchen table, Dad’s balding head bobbed behind the spread newspaper. Every day after work Dad sat in the same seat reading
The Sydney Morning Herald
, a Craven A cigarette smouldering in the ashtray and a glass of beer within reach.

His seat was always empty Friday nights, when he and his mates went to the RSL straight after work. Dad was a creature of habit. RSL Friday, golf Saturday, and Sunday after church he pruned, painted, cleaned gutters or did other jobs Nan wanted done.

“How was work, Dad?” I asked, laying knives and forks on the tablecloth.

“Busy.” When I neared him he raised the paper and rearranged his ashtray and glass then returned to the paper. “Useless, the lot of them. Bloody lazy. A stint in the army would sort them out.”

Useless, lazy and needing a stint in the army equalled university students. Didn’t matter if the article was about a protest or an achievement, Dad’s response was the same. And they weren’t the only ones who copped it. The Rolling Stones, American civil rights protestors and bloody commies were all in the firing line, too. And anything written about Aborigines just about made his head explode.

Nan slapped chops onto the bench. “For the life of me, I don’t understand why they bother going to university. There are plenty of good jobs for those prepared to work.”

Dad grunted agreement.

“Look at your father, Robbie. A huge success, and all achieved in his home town.”

Nan had wiped Dad’s eight years in Inverell from her memory. She’d also decided my future. Apparently I would work in the Walgaree bank, just like Dad. I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye.

The sound of sizzling and the smell of cooking meat swirled around the kitchen.

“For God’s sake.” Dad slapped the paper to the table and stabbed his cigarette butt into the ashtray.

I hurried back to the cupboard for salt and pepper.

“Frank!” Nan snapped. “Language!”

“Sorry, Mum, but those layabouts are planning to travel across the state to look at the bloody boongs’ living conditions! For the love of God.” Face as red as the tomato sauce in the jug, he snatched his glass and gulped beer.

“Francis.” Nan pointed the fork she was using to turn the chops. “There is no need for gutter talk.”

Dad slammed his glass on the table. “And there’s no need for those degenerates to poke their noses where they aren’t wanted.”

“I’m not disagreeing with your sentiments, just the way you express them.” A cloud of steam enveloped her as she strained the vegetables.

“Mark my words, this will end in tears.” Dad sculled his drink and stood. The chair slammed into the windowsill, a full stop to the conversation. “I’ll clean up before dinner.” He strode down the hall muttering. “Investigating boongs’ living conditions. What a load of bull.”

I was pushing soggy peas and mashed potato onto my fork when Dad next spoke to me. He and Nan had been discussing the gum tree out the back and whether it might drop a branch on Nan’s bedroom. As far as I could see that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. Unless she wasn’t in her room when the branch fell.