Season of Hate (19 page)

"We were just –" I started.

"I pretty much saw the end of what happened and can work out the rest. I won't have any public fighting in my town."

"But Pat was only –" Doug began.

"Now you boys, on yer way. I think a night in a cell for one or two of our drunken vigilantes might have them thinking twice about their little games. At least I'll know who to come to if I ever need some back up. See ya fellas."

He gave us a friendly wink, then waited until we were back on our bikes before heading into the hotel. I knew 'drunken' sure enough and 'vigilante' I found later in the dictionary. When we told Dad about it after tea, he took his time to respond while we both waited.

"Mmm," was his considered summation of the events.

"Is that all?" I asked.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm pleased you went to someone's aid, but Sergeant Farrar's right. Leave the policing to him. You could have got on your bikes and reported it to him and he would have–"

"By then the bloke might've been dead," Doug argued.

"Mmm. Fellas I'm afraid the way things are going, there could be a lot worse than a drunken dust-up coming our black brothers' way."

"It's the bleedin' drink that causes all the problems," Nan offered.

"Anyway, that's a problem for the grown-ups. And you're a little too young to be taking on men three times your size." I thought I saw a trace of a pleased sort of smile quickly vanish from his face once I looked up at him, before he directed us to get changed for bed.

Once Dad had done 'lights out' we crept from our beds, out through the window and clambered onto the jacaranda branch. The air held the false promise of rain.

"We would've been better off keeping it to ourselves," Doug sighed. "No fight'd get his approval, no matter what."

"He did say he was pleased we went and helped him. It did stop the beating. Or maybe he's saying it's alright to defend yourself, just take on people your own size."

"Yeah. Steve's not that much bigger," reasoned Doug. We felt good again. We didn't get into or start a real fight that afternoon, but were prepared to if needed. And to me, and the rest of us, it left us feeling like John Wayne. It also proved just how strong the mateship was between us that in a time of crisis, we all stuck together.

"Shh," I whispered, my finger to my lips as the front screen door gave a gentle thud and Dad walked down the steps and across the road to the Symonds. We were about to climb back through the window, when Dad and Susan emerged from inside her house. There was an awkwardness between them as they walked down the Symonds' steps before stopping at the bottom. The night was so still, we could just pick up bits of what they were saying.

"Harry, what am I supposed to do? Do you expect me to just wait 'til somehow you get better and – ?"

"No. I'm … It's hard to talk about … the War and things. Things I'd rather forget."

"Harry, I want to help, but I can't if you won't let me in. Let me know what happened that causes these black moments. I want to understand. Please." She sounded exasperated. Dad didn't reply.

"I'll say goodnight then."

She started walking back up her front steps. When she reached the top he called out.

"I love you, Susan."

"I know," she replied, turning back slightly before entering the house.

We made ourselves as small as we could as Dad entered the front yard. Once he was safely inside Doug and I just looked at each other before crawling without a sound back through our bedroom window.

February marked the start of a series of dramas climaxing in a tragic sequence of events that no one could foresee. It would have repercussions not only on our family, but ultimately Johnny – indeed the whole town.

The first I s'pose on the scale of events was minor and involved Doug. He and Barry had got an empty forty four gallon drum from the service station and were taking turns standing on it and, moving their bare feet, rolling it forward along the street. They had a tree branch for balance. Its thinner tip rested on the ground and they held onto the fatter end, moving it forward bit by bit as the drum rolled along. Barry with his broad feet was really good at it and he was flying along.

Doug on his turn wasn't as well balanced on the drum and had to often jump off whenever it hit an uneven bit of bitumen.

"Ya better get off. You're gonna break ya neck," I called out as Barry and I ran beside him to keep up.

The older he got, the more stubborn Doug got. You couldn't tell him to do anything he didn't want to. Even Dad had problems getting him to follow his directions. Only warnings that he'd dock his pocket money or stop him from seeing our mates for a period of time would see Doug back down and do what he was told.

He was becoming so headstrong with no thought for his own safety, always taking risks and now he was determined not only to conquer the new toy, but go even faster than Barry. He was barrelling along at one stage. We were less than one hundred feet from where we hid our shoes when the tip of the branch broke and Doug took a nasty fall. He went over the front of the drum. Putting out his left hand to break his fall, he fell heavily on his arm. You could hear the bone snap. He cried out in pain as we got him to his feet. Barry stated the obvious.

"You've broken it." Tears were already forming tracks down Doug's dusty cheeks. There was nothing I could do 'cept take him along to Dad's surgery. Barry shot through so I was left to help him on my own. An hour later, after dressings on his grazed knees, the painful resetting of the bone and another lecture, Doug ended up with a plaster cast on his arm and a sling around his neck. Dad telephoned Nan, explained what had happened and said he was taking us for a milkshake to get over it. Before we arrived home he asked us where our shoes were and we retrieved them, getting us out of another lecture, this time from Nan.

"Oh it's all fun and games 'til someone loses an eye – or breaks an arm," Nan commented on hearing the whole story. "Thank God Pat here's got more sense."

"This'll get me outta school for months," Doug boasted that night in bed.

"If it was your writing arm maybe, but it isn't. Dad won't let you stay home."

"We'll see."

I was right. He not only had to go to school but suffer the humiliation of being taken and picked up by Dad in the car because he couldn't ride his bike or carry his satchel on his back. Dad still let me go by myself and come home the same, riding my bike with our mates. My grinning and waving at him when I cycled off, while he waited in the car for Dad, had Doug fuming. It often finished with me poking my tongue out at him. I knew once the cast was off I'd pay for it, but at the time I remember thinking, you have to take advantage of these situations as they come your way.

Everyone in the classroom signed the cast, including Mr Carroll. Nan wasn't impressed when she discovered the cock and balls Snotty had drawn on the underside and covered it over with white sandshoe polish.

Doug hated every minute of his loss of freedom and privacy, especially having to have Dad wash and dress him. His complaining stopped once Dad stated that if he didn't like him doing it, Nan would be happy to take over. I helped by getting him into his pyjamas of a night and putting his shoes and socks on for school. He had to have his meals cut up for him as well, but managed to feed himself with just a fork or spoon in his right hand.

Months later, once the cast was removed, my retribution for the teasing I gave him came quickly and without warning. A blue-tongue lizard secreted in my bed, which had me screaming like a girl and running from the room to the sound of Doug's laughter, evened the score. Needless to say, only weeks after the cast's removal, Doug and Barry had climbed up on top of a wheat silo and were skylarking about. They both stood on the top with arms outstretched and cooeeing at the world.

"Come down! You'll kill yerselves!" I yelled to no effect.

"Why don't ya run home and tell Dad. Go on, I dare ya," Doug shouted down at me. I went home alone and never did tell Dad. I was surprised and a little disappointed that he thought I would.

Johnny secured a full time job with Mr Horan the blacksmith that allowed him to buy riding boots and a new rug for Doctor, a little spending money as well as putting regular deposits in the bank. Every now and then he would insist on shouting Dad, Doug and me to milkshakes at Eleni's. With having a full time job, and sometimes the need to work some weekends, his weekends away in the bush became an irregular affair. When he did disappear even for one day, he was always back and ready for work come Monday morning.

Johnny's apprenticeship didn't mean our lawns and gardens were neglected. Every week or two we'd have a new man or woman, black or white, insisting on attending to it in lieu of Dad's waiving his fee. Some even chopped wood or painted the fence or dunny. One Aboriginal woman called Aunty Maisy and her husband Jacky used to bring along their two kids. While she tended the garden and he raked up the leaves and burnt them off or whatever, Nan would have their children sitting on the verandah drinking Milo and eating scones or fresh sandwiches. Inevitably, they went home with a dozen eggs and vegies from the garden as well.

Every other week, Johnny would hang out overnight with the mob that'd moved into the refurbished Hudson house. There was only an old man called Miro, his two adult sons, their wives and three children, two boys and a young girl, Binda. She was around Johnny's age. The two adult sons worked as itinerant farm labourers around the district. Others who had lived there before it being taken over by the Aboriginal Welfare Board, concerned for their safety, had heeded the directions of the white gangs that taunted and derided them, and moved on.

The gunshots I had heard on our first night in town became more frequent. It seemed every few weeks there was always some car chase, or shots fired into the air near the Hudson or the other Aboriginal houses late at night. Even neighbours living nearby them began to feel unsafe.

No one was ever hurt. It was just an ongoing campaign of intimidation to force them on their way and to let their neighbours know that any friendship displayed or assistance given to the Aboriginal families might see them getting some of the same treatment. It always occurred once Sergeant Farrar and the town had gone to bed for the night.

Johnny still stopped by for the occasional evening meal, after which he and I would go out onto the back verandah and sit on the cane lounge. While moths bashed away at the bulb overhead, I'd read to him. Dad had bought an illustrated children's collection of novels by Dickens. We both liked
David Copperfield
and
A Tale of Two Cities
the best. Each week we'd take up where we left off the week before. Johnny was able to read alongside me, my finger skipping from word to word. He'd mouth the words as I spoke. "'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness …'" and more. Not being able to speak the words, did not mean he couldn't hear, read and understand them for himself. Sometimes he'd borrow one of the books and take it with him to reread by himself.

It was only a month after Doug had his cast removed, that the next disaster struck. I was parking my bike under the house after riding home from school. Doug was still out with some mates.

"Nan, I'm home," I called out. No response. I remember not thinking much of it at the time, until I had run up the front steps and on reaching the screen door, called out again.

"Nan, I'm home." There was still no response. As I entered through the screen door, "Doug's off riding with …" I stopped at the kitchen door. Nan was on her back on the floor. I threw my satchel on the floor and knelt by her side. In my panic, all I could think of to do was to shake her.

"Nan, Nan, wake up!" Putting my ear to her mouth I felt a faint laboured breath against my skin. She was alive. I ran out the front door, down the steps and through the palings to Miss Kitty. My heart pounded in my chest. She quickly telephoned Dad then came back with me to our place, gently assuring me that Nan would be alright, before sending me off to the bathroom to get a cool washer. When I returned, she had her sitting upright against the kitchen cupboard. Nan'd wet herself and Miss Kitty was mopping up the urine around her with old newspapers. Nan's eyes were swimming in her head. She slowly began to focus on the two of us.

"Wha haffen?" Her speech was slurred and the left side of her face had dropped ever so slightly. Miss Kitty folded the washer and pressed it gently on Nan's forehead.

"You've had a fall, love," soothed Miss Kitty. Nan made an awkward attempt to get up.

"Now now, you just rest there. Harry's on his way." Nan slumped a bit. Miss Kitty sat her back up. "Pat love, get us a glass of water will you."

Miss Kitty held the water to Nan's lips and helped her take a few sips. Most of it she dribbled down her front. We could hear Dad's Holden pull up then his running up the front steps and pushing through the screen door.

"How is she?" he asked as he knelt down beside her and Miss Kitty. I stood and moved away to give him room.

"She's had some sort of turn I think, Harry."

"Mum, I want you to try and smile for me." Her mouth twisted a bit but couldn't form a complete smile. "I want you to raise your right arm, good, now your left." The right arm was easy, but the left resting in her lap, just shook a bit. "Who's the Prime Minister?"

"Thath Menthies bath-ted. Not a pat-th on Cur-thin."

"Well, your mind's working okay." Dad looked into her mouth. Her tongue was curled a bit lengthways. He got out his stethoscope and checked her heart then her pulse, then re-examined her eyes this time with his torch. "I'm pretty sure you've had a slight stroke." Nan looked scared. "I'll take you to the hospital for some tests to be certain."

"Gonna die?" she forced out. My heart sank at the thought.

"No, not at all. It does mean though, you'll be on medication for the rest of your life. But there's no reason you can't make a full recovery." The relief showed on all our faces.

"However, for that to happen there has to be some changes." We all waited, especially Nan. "I'm talking diet and exercise. No more butter or dripping on your bread and only half a teaspoon of sugar in your tea for starters. Not to mention no more fatty chops or lambs fry, kidney and bacon."

"Bugger," cried Nan. "Why don't ya justh slith me throath and be done wiff it." Dad smiled and tapped her hand reassuringly.

"Now now, it's not as bad as that. You can have chops, but with the fat cut off. Same with steaks. But more fruit and vegetables and less salt on everything."

"Like bein' back on rathionth."

"The important thing is you have to move more. Walk up town once every day or so. There are exercises I'll show you that will get the strength back in that arm and some facial exercises as well. The speech should correct itself in time. But for now, it's rest. Mate, can you turn Nan's bed right down and Miss Kitty, could you give us a hand getting her to her feet?"

By the time I came back out of the bedroom the two of them had edged a wobbly Nan up the hall. They then led her into her room. Miss Kitty emerged first and closed the door behind her. It was a good half an hour before Dad came out with his medical bag, closing the door quietly behind him.

"She's sleeping. Thank you both for your quick thinking. It could have been worse."

When Doug got home a half an hour later, Dad was preparing a salad for tea. Doug was quickly filled in on what had happened by Dad, with my interjections rounding out the drama. He was allowed to tiptoe into Nan's room to see for himself, with Dad's specific instructions not to wake her. I had never seen Nan in such a vulnerable state before. It was the moment I first became aware that she was getting old.