Black Diamonds (41 page)

 

DANIEL

In the real world the barking is getting harsher and louder, right here in front of me. In the paddock, where we're having a collective meeting, or were until it became a brawl. Verbal at the moment. Probably a bit more than that in a minute. I should do something authoritative. Say something. But it's too stupid. I'm looking at it in
morbid
fascination.

It's started because there's been a riot in Brisbane, more than five hundred miles and a whole state away from here. Apparently a thousand or so returned men pulled apart the Russia Association building, doing a very proper job of it, because the trade unionists had marched the day before against the War Precautions Act continuing, keeping wages low, the cost of living high and mouths closed in continued censorship as well as hunger. The Queensland constabulary, who are not Hughes's best mates and who act under the only Labor state left in the country, opened fire on the Anzac rioters. No one was killed, but the police were not being careful to avoid hitting anyone with bullet, bayonet and fist. I'm split.

I can appreciate the returned men acting like animals, because that's what some of them are now, if they weren't animals before the AIF taught them how to be. They were carrying on about the unionists being in bed with the Bolsheviks and Sinn Feiners; said they were all waving the red flag. And The Red Flag, as we all know, has been banned by the Federal government. Better keep my autographed copy of the Manifesto under the bed from now, if I can find it in France's
Islands of Slovenliness
as she calls her bookshelves in the sitting room. Our government has also, just a few weeks ago, finally come through with a housing plan for the veterans. Hard not to see some sort of a connection between this momentous event and the riot. France, when she mentioned it last night, is convinced they'd been encouraged to stir things up, to set an example against disloyalists — she would: she'd find a connection between the ends of a rainbow if you gave her a moment to think about it. But if this particular thing's supposed to be a Hughes show, it backfired, because the so-called enemies of the state were well behaved on their march, just saying their piece; the Anzacs' attack was actually unprovoked, so the response of the police would seem fairly appropriate. I'm inclined to shout above the brawl: ‘No one died, so who fucking cares?' But clearly a lot do.

There's about thirty or so blokes in front of me who are frothing for the returned men, at the police brutality, and a few are returned men themselves. Then there's about fifty who are frothing for the unions and for Russia's right to run its own game, without Australian communists getting belted for having an opinion. But then there's every two-bobs' worth being thrown in, from the blind murder in Ireland, to Hughes deliberately inciting trouble in all unions to prevent the One Big National Union, which some poor bastards still think is a possibility. One bloke's even going off about Welsh independence. Jesus.

All of these men work at the Wattle, where, regardless of whether they have a stake in it or not, they are all on the best fucking wicket in the country probably, when it comes to coal anyway. And every single one of them is a paid-up member of the union. Thought I was an expert at irony. Not today. No class confusion, Dunc, just confusion. All I can see is about eighty different flavours of anger, banging away, letting off four years' worth of steam and more, and I'm thinking how well this sort of thing must suit the Nationalist government, state and commonwealth, and right across this wide brown land of ours. Solidarity is dead, even if it was only ever half alive. Who's going to hold a mourning service for that? No one. Mateship was born in the AIF, wasn't it: not in a mine. Eureka. True blue. Never forget.

I look at Evan next to me. He's looking off at the sky above the hill, thinking about rugby no doubt. It's a look of weary contempt. He's saying on that hard old stone face:
Let them brawl and think about it tomorrow, when they've hurt themselves for no purpose.
Ten minutes ago, before the brawl took off, I'd been talking about the bathhouse going ahead. Your fucking
heated
bathhouse, and probably the first one in the state. Thank you all very much, lads.

Punch is thrown, rowdy now. All in.

Evan says: ‘Come on then, Danny, let's go and have a cup of tea.'

Yep.

And anyone who doesn't turn up tomorrow won't be paid injury time. I've half a mind to order that box of machinery and get rid of the lot of you.

Anzac Day, my pretend birthday. This time, it's fear of the national reverence that keeps me at home with my own mourning and silence. That and the service medal I received in the post last week: thanks for the reminder. Got shoved straight in the kit, still in the back of the wardrobe. I realise there's not a lot of room for those who'd rather forget. There must be thousands who don't show up to services and get-togethers, so we're invisible; won't be anything in the papers about the abstainers. I don't show up to work either: I go for a run and come home and paint instead. France comes back from the shops in the afternoon, says it looked more like Lest We Forget The Publicans in town. That'd be right.

July is Anzac Month for me this year. I don't know why; maybe it's because drought has brought the wattle out early and my eyes are full of water as soon as they're open. Doesn't help that I don't sleep more than a couple of hours a night. No nightmares, no dreams at all, but when I wake up it takes me a moment to work out where I am. France can hear the wheels turning, but she doesn't rag me about it this time. She wraps herself around me, I think to remind me where she is; not that I need telling. She's always with me, somehow: how did an idiot like me catch one like her? Who doesn't question why I'm not going into work much at the minute, and why I can't seem to get into town at all. Just the thought of going into town makes me sweat, because I know I'll run into someone who'll make me lose it: one of the permanently damaged, and there's something like a hundred thousand of them all over the country. It sounds more than backward, but I find it very hard to accept that I was spared. That grinds into my mind more than the thought of the sixty thousand who died. I really want to believe in France's magic, I really do; I'd want to believe that her parents were
in cahoots
, that Frank said
kill him
and Josie said
no, just hurt him so he knows about it
, if it wasn't just one of France's funnies against
miserable facts.
I'd even believe Hughes's jabber about Australia's sacrifice being the largest of any of the Allies, if that would help me sleep through. But, over there, there's millions dead, and more millions damaged; and I wasn't one of them. And then there's more millions that starved to death. The hollowed-out faces of little French kids, not asking for money, just food. Starvation. That thought will never stop horrifying me; personally, I couldn't think of a worse way to go. France reckons more will have died of the Spanish flu in the past year, but it's not the same, is it: we don't make the flu.

I'm not
melancholy
exactly, not mad like before; but I am in a very strange place. I try to paint it, not even sure what I am painting. They don't look like pictures. There's one that makes me laugh, though: a headless woman in a wedding dress holding a wooden leg like a baby. I don't know why it makes me laugh; something about the way she seems to be smiling, in her hands. She's grateful to have that leg, over the moon, and I suppose she's slinging off at the disgust that made me think her into being, having a joke with herself, without me. France thinks it's the most obscene thing I've ever done. It is. I'll definitely send this one to Doctor Fanny; see what he thinks of this pretty. He's going off to Europe at the end of the year; wrote to ask if he could take the monsters along, to show some mate of his, said Mr Duncan was keen that he should; I wrote back telling him I don't care if he takes them on a tour of Mars. And I don't.

It's a letter at the end of July that shakes me out of it. It says:

Dear Sir, not sure what else to call you, mate,

I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive, despite myself. I'll be passing through Lithgow on Sunday the tenth of August and would like to drop in to see you, not for the conversation, just to say g'day. Let me know at the above address if that's all right with you.

Clem Foley

The thrill this little note gives me just about knocks me over. I'm sitting on the front steps and I see France, running around with Danny and Charlie and Harry. They're chucking slushy snow at each other. Davie's holding onto my trouser leg as he laughs at them, staggering like a drunk, wanting to run out there too.

France sees me smiling at her and chucks a handful at me. ‘Good news?'

Yep.

 

FRANCINE

Mr Clement Foley is precisely the sort of man who makes you wonder what the AIF were thinking when they were recruiting. He's around thirty-five, with huge brown, thoughtful eyes and wispy fair hair, and so tall and reedy slim you feel you should ask him if he'd like to sit down to save him the trouble of standing. The absolute sweetest gentleman, too, polite to a fault. And he is, funnily, a bookkeeper by trade. No specs, though. Very hard to imagine him going through all that; hard to imagine him digging a hole. But it's true. And even more surprisingly, he's ridden his horse all the way from Sydney; camped out last night in the mountains.

He and Daniel are sitting on the back verandah now, and I'm finding it very difficult not to eavesdrop. I'm hovering in the kitchen, near the back door as much as possible, overfeeding the children, while I check Sunday lunch every five minutes. Stop it, Francy, or the beef'll never cook. I pick up that Clem got back in March, that
things weren't too good for a spell
, and that he's got a job and a house in Mudgee. Stab of sadness at the thought that he appears to be on his own, but maybe he wants to be, or has to be. They talk about Dunc and Stratho and some others I've never heard of, but not about each other I don't think. Daniel's not one for talking about himself much anyway.

Then Daniel clumps inside and says: ‘Clem's staying for lunch. That's all right, isn't it.'

Goodness, my darlingest can raise a giggle out of me; I don't think he knows how to ask a question. He tries, I'm sure, but just about everything that issues from his mouth sounds like statement or command, just can't manage the upward inflection. You have to look at his eyes, and the position of his eyebrows to see the enquiry.

‘Course it is,' I say. What difference would it make when there will be twelve Ackerman overeaters at the table already? Sarah, Miriam, Kathryn, Roslyn, Harry, Charles, Bronwyn, Jennifer, Isobella, Large Daniel, Small Daniel and David. Plus me.

Besides, ever since Daniel got his friend's note, he's slept like a bear in winter. I'll feed Clem Foley for the term of his natural life for that gift. Meantime, hope he survives the experience of Sunday lunch at our place.

He does. His large sad-sleepy eyes float around us and spark with delight at the noisy chatter of the children, twinkle at a squabble over the last of the bacony bits of the creamed spinach. He doesn't say much but he spends the afternoon smiling, and despite his rangy frame he puts away his food like it's his last meal.

Charlie, who wouldn't sit at a table for the length of lunch if you tied him down, wanders over to our visitor and asks: ‘Are you really a soldier too?'

And Daniel cuts him off: ‘Was. And don't be rude.'

Clem chuckles and tells Charlie: ‘I wasn't much chop at it, young man.' He taps his nose. ‘Don't tell anyone, though.'

What a lovely man he is. Miriam clearly thinks so too; she's barely taken her eyes off him, and has been unusually quiet today. I sniff the air for hyacinths. Say a prayer for all the lonely lovely ones. Get up with some dishes; splash some water on my face.

We're celebrating Daniel's birthday this Sunday, for September the twenty-fifth, and he's twenty-five. We've just given him a good teasing about the fact that, as we've recently discovered, he shares his not-pretend birthday with none other than Billy the Troll; I sent the prime minister a lump of coal through the post a few days ago to show how much we care; attached a note saying:
Don't eat it all at once. Lots of love, Lenin.
Here and now, we've just completed feeding time of industrial proportions, all seventeen of us, since Peter and Violet and their too little and too adorable to be naughty daughters Rose and Daphne are with us. It's raining buckets, and women and children have retired to the parlour, listening to Sarah play the piano, or trying to above the din of raindrops and chatter. She's playing Liszt's
Consolation
, D bloody flat, and I'm trying not to look too much at Violet, who's quite pregnant. I'm trying very, very hard not to be jealous. Failing miserably. I should be pregnant now; it's been five months since I stopped feeding Davie. I just can't accept it. I can dream my sweet fantasies of Joe; even yearning for him now, when I do, is more a tender affirmation of my acceptance of it; I usually stick my head in the linen cupboard to do it and the smell calms me. But barrenness? Resentment curls up through grief again. Just not fair. It's not that I want to make up for Joe, either; it's that I want … I don't know. I think I want ten babies against all the loss. New national pastime I can't take part in — can't go anywhere without seeing babies — everywhere. The too lovely, too pretty music is eating into my brain. I know that I'm a bit menstrually deranged today, but I'm suddenly not coping at all. I wish Father would materialise from his photograph and start playing something vulgar.

Try to let my mind drift and linger upon pleasant, funny things … Received the most beautiful letter from Louise Beckett last week. She's in Brisbane now: sub-matron in a headcase hospital; one of the doctors there keeps bothering her, and she said she might go to the pictures with him if he'd recommend her for some physical therapy course. She's got radical ideas of her own on the benefits of touch and gentle exercise aiding the mentally distant. And the poor doctor said yes, so now she has to come good and go out with him. She said that if he's not too much of a pain, then she'll look into what other courses he might like to recommend her for. She also thanked me, profusely, for our lunatics-together interlude, said she wouldn't be so at peace or anywhere near where she is today without it. Good for her. And now I'm not coping again.

Kathryn, wise and peachy little woman that she is, wafts over and snuggles against me on the sofa. That does me in. I squeeze her tight and kiss her on the head; fib to her I've a sniffle and need to find a handkerchief.

I go out to the kitchen, because it's as far away from the parlour as I can get, and look out at the apple trees, streaky in the rain, streaky like me. Should be happy about all this rain; we've had the most dreadful drought all year and the tanks were down to nearly nothing. I can hear Daniel and Peter talking on the back verandah; they usually go for a walk after lunch when Peter comes over, but it's too wet today. Their voices are so similar, I can't tell who's saying what, when one of them bellows: ‘He asked you if he could
what?
'

The other one laughs: ‘Write to her. Isn't that special?'

Special; that's a Danielism.

‘Have you told Mim?' Peter asks him.

‘No. Not going to. She'll be more hysterical if it comes as a surprise.'

What?
And why haven't you shared whatever this is with me? Brothers' business evidently.

Peter says: ‘He is a good bloke, this Foley character?'

Very audible gasp from shameless eavesdropper.

‘The type that asks a woman's brother if he can write to her.' Daniel laughs some more.

‘He does know that she's got seven kids, doesn't he?'

‘Yep. Met them last month when he stopped here. All the hard work's been done for him.'

‘Is he insane?'

‘Yep.' I can hear Daniel slap his thigh with laughter now.

Peter says, serious: ‘Don't you let her get upset.'

Silence, then: ‘I won't.' Daniel switches to fierce so fast I flinch at the sink. I can appreciate his attitude, though: he adores his sister and Mim's sons have virtually become his own, so he's hardly likely to be flip about this, regardless of the joking.

Now Peter laughs: ‘All right. Settle down.'

‘Don't tell me to settle down,' says Daniel, but he's back to joking too.

‘I'll tell you to settle down and I'll make you.'

‘Go on.'

‘All right.'

And I can hear chairs and feet scraping and a few thumps. The sounds of boys. Very large ones. ‘You bastard.' Someone falls off the verandah. ‘Watch your language.'

Clump, clump, clump, here they come. I make myself busy at the sink filling a glass with water. Slightly less glum now. Daniel gives me a sly slap on the bottom as he walks past, heading for the parlour. I stay where I am, and hear him say, ‘Give it a rest, Mum,' before bashing out some ragtimey dance tune. Quite a bit less glum now. Done my dash with magic; what more could I possibly want? It's Mim's turn to have a little. Hope so.