The Tower Mill (10 page)

SUSAN

October, 1974

I
was more
nervous than I’d been since my first seminar at uni.

‘Can you see her yet, Mike?’ I called through the front door.

He was watching the street from the veranda, which had come to feel like the ramparts of a castle in recent months, or the watchtower of a prison.

‘Not yet,’ came the reply.

‘Shit,’ I muttered, careful that Tom didn’t hear. I checked myself again in the mirror, and liked what I saw. Miniskirts had given way to the maxi and that suited my plans for tonight, for I wanted attention on my words, not my legs.

‘How much longer, do you think?’ I asked, walking onto the veranda, as though harrying Mike would make Muriel turn up sooner. She was great with Tom but she was prone to turning up whenever, and I didn’t want blackfella time to make us late.

‘She’ll be here. It’s just gone seven now,’ he said, defending Muriel as though he’d guessed what I was thinking. Shit, I was so on edge.

Muriel emerged beneath the weak street lamps and mounted the stairs. ‘Sorry, Mr Riley, doing my English homework, eh,’ she said, with a wicked grin.

‘Liar,’ said Mike, enjoying the game. She was his favourite.

Muriel chortled deep in her throat, then followed me into the house for last-minute instructions. ‘Tom can stay up for half an hour, but then it’s into the cot. The meeting shouldn’t go much past nine o’clock.’

Muriel waved us off from the veranda as though she owned the place. What had seemed like a prison earlier now afforded safety.

‘Maybe we shouldn’t go,’ I said suddenly.

Mike took my hand. ‘You’ll win them over. Think of the way Terry could move a crowd.’

There it was again, the way he could speak that name with ease while I was forever cautious, just in case it hurt him. It wasn’t a bad piece of advice, though. Terry had been fearless; he would stride into a meeting like this, up for the fight and with words his only weapon. I put one foot in front of another.

‘We haven’t been to anything political for ages. Feels good,’ I heard myself say.

The shire hall was just beyond the strip of shopfronts, its generous glow drawing figures towards it.

‘Geez, look at the numbers,’ said Mike. ‘I didn’t think there’d be this many.’

Neither did I. The electorate was safe for the government, which bred complacency among supporters and indifference from the rest. Eric Morris had been warming a parliamentary seat in Brisbane for twenty years.

We slipped inside the hall unnoticed by the locals, who greeted one another with masculine growls and grasps at weather-leathered hands.

‘They’re all wearing the uniform,’ I said, unconcerned that they’d hear me. ‘You should give up teaching, Mike. There’s got to be a fortune in akubras and moleskin pants.’

He found two seats at the end of the third row and commented again about the numbers. ‘Some of them must have driven sixty miles to be here.’

The rest took their seats, more than a hundred, less than two, and fell silent when the shire chairman walked to centrestage. ‘Tonight we’re honoured to have our local member visiting. After so long, there’s no need to introduce Eric Morris to this audience, I’m sure. He’s been Bindy’s man in state parliament for as long as any of us can remember—’

‘Speak for yourself, Jock,’ came a good-natured interjection that matched the tone. This was a homecoming, a low-key triumphal.

‘Well, if you’re a youngster like me, it’s hard to remember anyone else.’ There was more ribbing from the audience. ‘And if the turnout tonight is any indication, he’s doing a great job. He’s graciously agreed to come here tonight and keep us all abreast of what they’re up to down there in Brisbane, so please welcome Eric Morris.’

The man hadn’t even opened his mouth yet and the audience was cheering. When Mike turned my way, infected, now, with my earlier apprehension, I winked. Let Morris enjoy the adulation because I’d have him by the balls soon enough.

Morris spoke in an excruciating drawl that on any other occasion would not have held anyone’s attention for long. I’d heard true orators at work, Terry among the best of them; young, lively men who took possession of an audience with the energy in their voices and the fire of their words. Yet, as I marked him down for his droning ways, the faces all around us seemed enthralled.

The spellbinding topic was fertiliser: ‘Stopping the super phosphate bounty was a criminal decision and one that I have dedicated myself to seeing reversed,’ said Morris.

Mike leaned close and whispered, ‘That’s a federal issue, state
mp
s can’t do a thing about it.’

But Morris had moved on: ‘The worst thing those city folk have done is re-value the dollar. How can farmers like you compete for overseas markets when an overvalued currency makes your produce so expensive? It’s all right for the city types importing their shiny Japanese cars ’cause a high dollar makes the damned things cheaper, but who pays for them in the end? The blokes in this room pay this country’s bills.’

More federal grievances. Where was the shopping list of local achievements a backbencher rolls out like dodgy fabric to be sold off as the finest silk? I couldn’t wait to have a go at him.

‘Eric will now answer questions from the floor,’ said the shire chairman.

A couple of Dorothy Dixers followed, which let Morris repeat whole gobs of his speech, especially about the socialists down south. ‘You’d think Canberra was a shrine to Karl Marx,’ said Mike. He said something else but I missed it because the chairman had finally given me the nod.

‘Mr Morris, everything you’ve talked about this evening is a federal issue,’ I began. ‘Surely the federal election was back in May. Now it’s time for voters to turn their attention to state issues decided up here, not down in windy Canberra. That’s why I’m so pleased to see you in Bindy tonight, especially when you are a member of the ruling party in Brisbane.’

I’d rehearsed this opening. I’d never stood on the podium and harangued a crowd as Terry had done, but all those years of tangling with Sister Bernadette had given me a voice that demanded engagement. It was paying off, too. Faces turned my way and the occasional solemn nod showed they’d picked up the cues in my careful wording. ‘Up here’ meant Queensland, God’s own earth, and the line about windy Canberra mocked the capital’s legendary chill and, at the same time, slipped in the boot about windbag politicians. Perfect preparation for a right to the jaw.

‘And so, Mr Morris, I would like to ask you why it is your government’s policy to deny Bindamilla a bitumen road between here and the Warrego Highway.’

No one saw it coming, and certainly not Eric Morris, who looked stunned that anyone would want to take a swing at him in a meeting of his own kind. In the throat-clearing, chair-scraping silence after I landed my punch, serious glares were directed at the local member.

‘A sealed road to Bindamilla is a priority,’ Morris said quickly, ‘and I’m able to tell you that it has been slated for commencement straight after the election. In fact, once the government is returned, it will be among the first projects announced by the premier.’

Morris knew how to spar and he’d scored a point with the judges from Bindamilla, if the murmurs were any indication. I’d expected nothing less.

‘Mr Morris, I guessed you would say that. Do you know how I guessed? Because you say it a lot.’

That earned a chortle. They knew it was true, as I quickly reminded them. ‘I checked the newspapers, and you made exactly the same promise before the last election. You are getting a lot of practice at saying it,’ I pointed out brightly, and immediately felt the heady rush of watching an entire audience laugh at my victim. I paused to let it go on, at the same time judging the precise moment to start up again.

‘But no matter how much you say it, the people of Bindamilla still don’t get their road. I checked
Hansard
, too, Mr Morris. You haven’t asked a single question in parliament about our road in all your years as member for this area. The government might show more respect for Bindy if they weren’t so cocksure of winning your seat.’

A sheen of embarrassment broke across Morris’s brow and the skin of his flabby throat flushed red all the way into his flannelette collar.

‘You know so much about politics, do you?’ he said, the drawl gone. ‘I don’t know your face, to be honest. New in the area, are you? Well, if you were a local, young lady, you’d know who’s really to blame for the dirt road. It’s those socialists in Canberra. For years it was the Liberals who ignored our needs, and then when it looked like the funds would be available last year, Whitlam and his mates took the money for some pinko project down south.’

It was bullshit, but how could I prove it? For the first time, darkened looks came my way. They didn’t know my face any better than Eric Morris did. Doubt had been sown and it was a hardy truth that could stare down the suspicion of outsiders, especially in Bindamilla, it seemed.

The chairman looked away from me then, but when my hand was the only one left in the air he let me have another go.

‘Mr Morris, funding for Aboriginal housing has seen families become more settled in towns like ours. In other electorates, members have pushed for truant officers to make sure black children come to school. Why haven’t you sought similar improvements for your Aboriginal constituents?’

It was true. The money was there but Morris had sat on his hands. It was more outrageous than the neglected road, yet this time my question was greeted with open hostility. From the row behind us a man muttered ‘sit down’, and from the back of the hall came a louder call: ‘Don’t answer such a stupid question, Eric.’

Don’t answer! Morris couldn’t believe his luck.

‘Aboriginal families are well catered for in Bindamilla. They wouldn’t have the houses they do if the government hadn’t bought up the properties for them. As for truant officers, if a few black parents keep their kids at home, that’s their business.’

‘Hear, hear.’

Mike was trying to get my attention. Something about ‘the black thing’, but I couldn’t pick up what he was saying and the interjections made it hard to think.

‘My husband here is a teacher at Bindamilla School, Mr Morris, and he’ll tell you that the greatest frustration teachers have is lack of regular attendance. Are you suggesting that black children don’t need an education?’

‘Never did me much good,’ a voice called over mine, earning an easy laugh.

‘Turned you into a snooty bitch,’ called a second heckler in the row behind.

Mike was on his feet looking for the culprit, but the hall had dissolved into laughter more than jeers and there would be no punches thrown.

Other hands went up; more body blows to the devils in Canberra.

By then I was playing a farcical game with the shire chairman, who wouldn’t look my way. In the end, I had to interject.

‘Staff at the hospital, there aren’t enough nurses.’

Faces glared at me with contempt. I didn’t notice a figure making his way up the side aisle until he stopped a row or two in front of me. I was trying to make a point and then – flash – he’d snapped my picture.

Mike was tugging at my sleeve. ‘Sit down, Suze. You’re only making things worse.’

I snatched my arm away, but it was hopeless and I slumped into my seat, arms folded until the meeting ended. Mike was quickly on his feet and eager to be out through the wide double doors and into the street.

‘I’m not going to run like a scared rabbit,’ I told him, loud enough for half the hall to hear.

When we did make our way towards the exit, we had to cut a path through milling bodies. Most of the faces wore complacent smiles, like footballers who’d had an easy win and could afford to offer gratuitous pity to the vanquished.

That changed when a voice said, ‘You should keep your wife at home, mate. Teach her some manners. This is the bush out here, not a tea party for prissy women.’

The words weren’t even directed at me. It was Mike they were having a go at, as though his cattle dog had let the team down.

A few paces ahead, one man stood his ground rather than shift to let us pass. Mike stared him down, but once we’d passed out into the night, the same man called, ‘Go home to your little nigger boy, lady. Be a decent mother like you should be.’

And if the hilarity had shaken the floor minutes earlier, this time it brought the house down.

I wasn’t going to let the slip-up with Morris discourage me, and the following Saturday I set up a table and chairs on a street corner near the Bindamilla Hotel. Locals, townies all of them, gave me a fair hearing and went away perusing the leaflets I’d handed out. This was better. I felt like I was getting traction.

On Monday, the first letter turned up wedged in the cyclone wire of our front gate. Unsigned, of course. I don’t know what made me laugh more, the four-letter words or the spelling.

‘You should correct it in red pen and pin it to the notice board outside the post office,’ I said to Mike.

He didn’t crack a smile, though; instead, he read the letter again and again for the least hint of a threat.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I told him. ‘Just proves we’re getting under their skin.’

‘Will getting under their skin win votes?’ he asked.

I snatched the letter from him and threw it into the bin. ‘Where it belongs,’ I snapped.

His comment had hurt, because it was true. But stirring people up was part of politics and if you wanted to change minds, first you had to engage them.

When the election was announced for 7 December, I rang the local Labor candidate, Alan Dowd, who’d impressed me at the branch meeting weeks before.

‘Alan’s doing a sweep through the area next week,’ I told Mike. ‘We’ll turn things around, cut through all the bushy bullshit and show the town which candidate deserves their vote.’

Unfortunately, the turnout was poor for the meeting I’d arranged in the shire hall – barely twenty and that was counting three Rileys.

‘Better than I had up the road,’ said Dowd. ‘All I hear is stuff about Whitlam, like it’s still the federal campaign.’