Hunger Town (41 page)

I had no idea what he said to Nathan and Jock that evening but they each greeted me pleasantly as I got into Pat's car. Bernie, who had stayed to eat with us, again squeezed into the back between Harry and me. At the end of the track we turned towards Mildura and he directed us through now quiet streets to a small wooden house with an iron roof. It was set back from the road amidst some straggly dried-up shrubs.

No light showed from the windows so I was startled to enter and find a well-lit room with a dozen men. A couple sat at a central table, the others ranged around the walls. I hadn't been able to see any lights because heavy blinds and some rigged-up dark sheeting shrouded the two windows. There was an eerie claustrophobia about the room that made me uneasy. Instinctively I looked back to the door as an escape route.

At my entrance a train of startled glances ran around the room. Then, as one, they stood and raised their hats to me. Overcome with embarrassment, I halted.

Nathan was impatient. ‘Sit down everyone.' And he waved his hand around the room. ‘It's Judith, Harry's wife. We had to bring her.'

‘Rude bastard,' Harry snarled in my ear, his comment thankfully lost in the murmurs of greeting.

Extra chairs were found for us and I drew mine into a corner where I could sit as inconspicuously as possible. Nathan appropriated a chair at the table and laid out all his material. Jock, meanwhile, was full of conviviality. He shook hands, asked names, quipped and joked. Harry stood irresolutely beside Nathan, thoughtfully watching Jock. After a moment he spoke to Nathan who briefly looked up at him, then at Jock, who was deep in conversation with one of the Mildura men. Nathan's glance was short and uninterested before he returned to his papers. It reminded me of his earlier visits to the Chew It, where, embedded in his book, he had no awareness of me or the people around him. How, I wondered, did he ever hope to persuade anyone to agree with him.

He grew restless. It was clear he wanted to start the meeting. He took up one of his papers, showing no sign of introducing himself nor of speaking words of greeting or thanks. Jock was quick and fully aware of his ineptness.

Before Nathan could launch into his prepared speech, Jock took over. He spoke briefly of his impoverished childhood in Glasgow, his hard life in the ship-building yards and the struggles of unionists. His message was simple: united we stand, divided we fall. This his audience knew or they wouldn't have been secretly at this house in the middle of the night. They grimaced at some of his story, shook their heads, and finally nodded wisely in agreement. Jock, by his understanding, held them in the palm of his hand.

Nathan lost them. He droned on about Marxist economics and the role and importance of the industrial proletariat. At first they listened courteously and then finally with impatience. At last one of them could endure the lecturing no longer.

‘Look, mate,' he said, ‘you come here to a farming place and talk to us about the industrial proletariat changing the world. Do you see a lot of industrial proletariat around here? We're fruit pickers, mate, and poor farmers. I've read a bit of your Marx and Lenin. Which one of them was it that called the peasants ‘ignorant dolts'? Well, mate, he got it wrong and so have you. We want a say in how we run things, not some bloke from the Central Committee ordering us about.'

Nathan was squashed. He had no redress. He wasn't flexible in his thinking and that was his trouble. He sat down and his glance at Jock appealed for rescue. But even as Jock opened his mouth we heard cars rocketing down the road outside and a voice blaring through a megaphone. One of the men leaped to his feet and immediately doused the lights. I had never liked complete darkness. Out of it always emerged those furtive shadows, figures of undefined and therefore terrifying evil. My heart accelerated and if I had known where the door was I would have leaped to it and dashed outside.

I felt around me and called Harry's name but the noise from outside drowned my voice. A scream rose in my throat.

‘Ssh, girlie, ssh,' a voice hissed beside me. ‘Ssh.'

Terrified I bit my tongue, shut in the cage of my own silence. The noise outside escalated. Now chanting, bawling voices abused and threatened us, clamouring for red raggers to get out of town or they'd be chucked out. A barrage of rocks bombarded the iron roof. Glass splintered in a window and a thunderous deluge of sound went on and on. A hoarse voice sang through the megaphone, ‘Run rabbit run.'

I covered my ears and shrank in my chair. This was worse than a police baton charge. In the Port the community didn't hate us.

At last they left. After they had gone no one spoke or moved for some time, then someone put on the light and we all looked around. No one was hurt. Harry rushed to my side and enclosed me in his arms. I was shaking and immediately became the centre of attention. It was as if having a target for their concern deflected their fear and provided an outlet for their anger.

‘To do this to a woman,' someone muttered.

‘But they didn't know I was here,' I said later to Harry.

‘I doubt whether it would have made any difference to those hoons, Judith.'

Back at the camp we made a cup of tea on a primus and discussed the events. Nathan was shocked, Jock furious, Harry tight-lipped, and Bernie continually flicked his throat with a pretended knife.

‘It's the train for you tomorrow, Jude, and no argument,' Harry said.

‘No. While you'll stay I'll stay. Go home and worry myself sick. Not likely.'

‘You're a good girl, Judith,' Jock said, ‘but Harry's right. We can't do the job while you're here.'

I rounded on him. ‘Bugger your job. Mind your own business. And you, too, Nathan. And don't either of you dare tell me what I can or can't do. I'm not going on the train and that's flat.'

Bernie smiled at me sweetly. ‘Lovely Judith,' he crooned. ‘I knew a girl in Italia … just like …' and he became dreamy.

Diverted, I said, ‘Did you, Bernie? What happened?'

He didn't answer but I guessed. He had fled and left her behind. How little I really understood about dear Bernie and his life.

Harry looked miserable.

‘You're not going to be some sort of sacrifice, Harry, not for a set of ideas.'

‘Ideals, Jude,' he said unhappily, ‘not ideas.'

‘It's the same thing. Pie in the sky.'

He sighed, defeated, and looking at him I felt awful. I couldn't go on the train and leave him to be injured in some political brawl but in refusing to go I had somehow deprived him of something important to his manhood. It was all too much for me and I did what I usually scorned: I burst into sobs of distress. And it was all muddled up with Harry's and my dream of a honeymoon and the beauty of the river and the burly timeless eucalypts and the birds at dawn and the gentle water on my skin.

I sobbed pathetically as Harry helped me to put on my pyjamas. Then he squeezed onto the stretcher beside me and held me tenderly. ‘Don't weep so, darling. We'll both go home tomorrow.' But I knew that I exploited his love and was blackmailing him into a decision he hated and I cried even harder.

He continued to try to soothe me and the warmth of his body against mine was a comfort, but neither of us thought of lovemaking: I, because I was too distraught, he because his thoughts were troubled. In an emotional trap of my own making, I eventually hiccuped myself to sleep.

The emotional turbulence of the night before left its scars on us all. Next morning Harry was so withdrawn Nathan glanced at him warily and Jock being overly cheerful did not help. Andy served us breakfast breezily. He looked us over with amusement. ‘Shock, eh? Didn't expect it?'

As the three men remained silent I replied, ‘Yes and no.'

‘Forget it,' he said cheerfully. ‘Happens all the time. One of our blokes got chucked in the river. He'd been giving out some pamphlets about a union meeting. Not even Communist Party stuff. They roughed him up and pitched him in the Murray. Broke his nose. Luckily we were there to pull him out. Poor bastard, coughing up blood and water. Nearly drowned.'

He slapped a piece of bacon on my plate.

‘Another time they grabbed one of the pickers and flung him on a goods train bound for Melbourne. He had a wife and kid here so he jumped off and walked back. Collected his family and high-tailed it out on the next train. Reckon he'd had enough. Right scared he was. Then, of course, commitments weaken a man. He had a wife and kid.'

I flinched and poked the bacon around on my plate. My egg had congealed. Was that what I was to Harry? A commitment that weakened him? I had always believed, perhaps wrongly, that we gave each other strength. I tried to think rationally. Was this sort of violence really any different from the police beatings at the Port or the wars between scabs and unionists? Why did I feel it was? Why did I feel that a menace hung over this town?

But Nathan wasn't sensitive to nuances. Andy's stories frightened me but they seemed no more than water off a duck's back to him. He finished his plate of eggs and bacon, scraped it clean with a piece of toast, drank his mug of tea, and put plate and mug neatly beside him on the ground.

‘I'll wash those later,' he said to Andy.

He had been punctilious in doing his share of the jobs. He polished his glasses with a clean handkerchief and then looked up at us all. The morning sun caught his spectacles and for an instant the light dazzled across the lenses so that it was impossible to see his eyes.

‘While we drove around yesterday,' he said, ‘I took careful note of where we might hold our street meeting. There's a store on the corner of two of the main streets and it has a large plate-glass window. Jock, you can speak from a platform in front of the window and that should prevent any missiles or attacks. I'm certain the store owner would be most unhappy to lose such an expensive piece of glass. He's doubtless influential in this town.'

Jock raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘Och, laddie,' he responded, his Scots burr rich and cynical, ‘is that your plan and all? And what do you think will happen afterwards? Yer daft. They'll slaughter us and Nathan, you bloody dolt, I canna swim.'

Nathan was not put off. ‘It takes time and sacrifice to educate people.'

‘They don't want us!' Jock was short. ‘Didn't you understand what they said? They don't want a Central Committee ordering them about.'

Nathan persisted doggedly, ‘Another meeting might persuade them. Maybe they didn't understand the first time.'

‘Did ya hear that, Andy?' Jock was scornful.

Andy smiled quietly and went on drinking his tea. Bernie whittled away at his piece of wood and the sun danced along the blade. As always he whistled ‘
Avanti popolo
' but when he looked up at Jock his eyes were understanding. I wondered if, of all of us, only Bernie had experienced the complexities and pain of sacrifice. Certainly Nathan hadn't. He burbled on about the necessity of doing the job we had come to do, that the Party expected us to form a branch in Mildura, that's why they had financed our trip.

Now, incensed, Jock snarled, ‘Well you can tell the fuckin' Party we're not going to be martyrs. I'm not putting myself out in front at some street meeting so that Harry and Judith here can drag my body out of the river. I wouldn't expect you to be around when there's real trouble. You need guns to fight fascist bastards. Right, Bernie?'

Bernie smiled secretly and his knife flashed as he continued to whittle.

‘He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day,' I murmured sententiously.

Nathan looked daggers at me. Offended and defeated he sulked. Finally he said, ‘Will you all compromise with another house meeting tonight? There may be a few brave lads there who are willing to carry on when we leave.'

Jock snorted. ‘OK. If that's all you have in mind.'

Andy had heard us out. ‘I'll look after your wife,' he said quietly to Harry. ‘She can stay here with me.'

‘No,' I said, ‘I'm going.'

But Harry was adamant and belligerent. ‘I'm staying here with you.'

That night after dark the three left in Pat's car. We heard them jolting down the track and then the quietness of the bush fell around us. Occasionally a restless bird settling for the night reawakened and cried out. There were gentle rustles. Now I was certain I could hear the river pushing and pulsing towards the sea. The day had begun with an early greyness and although I had bathed, the water, with no sun to penetrate it, had looked and smelt dank and threatening. Its appearance had compounded my mood of dark unhappy thoughts.

Now that Jock had also defied Nathan I felt happier. Harry had his support and the weight of opposition to Nathan didn't rest solely on my shoulders.

After Nathan, Jock and Bernie had left we sat on in the firelight. Andy brought out his guitar and strummed happily. He and Harry talked about music. Harry tried to play Andy's guitar and laughed at his own ineptness on a new instrument. At about ten o'clock we decided to turn in but it was hard to sleep. We both wondered and worried about what was happening at the meeting in town.

It was close to midnight when we heard Pat's car tearing along the track. It slewed to a stop, skidding on the grass between the shacks. Nathan, Jock and Bernie piled out.

‘They're coming,' they panted. ‘Pursued us out of town. Quick, into the huts.'

Awakened by their shouting, Andy loped out, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He looked back along the track, saw the advancing headlights, retreated into his shack, and re-appeared with a rifle. ‘Get inside,' he ordered sharply. ‘I'll deal with this lot.'

We hesitated to leave him alone.

‘Do as I say.'

We ran back to our huts. Harry put the bolt across the door and would have closed the shutters but I stopped him. ‘I can't. It'd be like a cage. I must see.'