Hunger Town (5 page)

He hesitated, looked anxiously at me, and, as I didn't respond, mumbled, ‘I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. Very sorry. I thought they'd listen to you. I'm not very good at making people listen.'

‘No,' I said, ‘you're not. Good day.'

He hovered a minute, perhaps waiting for me to add something but I turned away.

Winnie reproached me, ‘That poor young man. You crucified him. He tried to apologise.'

I was tart. Her reproach hit home but I wasn't going to admit it.

‘If you can't succeed in something by your own efforts then you shouldn't drag someone else in to help you. He's hopeless and had better stick to reading his books.'

I recalled him lifting his head from his reading to peer at me. How well did he see I wondered with those frightful thick lenses? Maybe he was almost blind. Had I been cruel?

‘I wonder what happened to his box while he was following us. Someone must help him carry it. He wouldn't be strong enough to lift that crate on his own. Why are there so many hungry-looking people about, Winnie?'

She was surprised. ‘Are there? I hadn't noticed.'

‘You hadn't noticed?' I stopped abruptly in the middle of the path so that a woman ran a stroller into the back of my legs. She apologised profusely while I said it was my fault. We both laughed and she passed on with her baby.

‘How do you mean you hadn't noticed, Winnie? You saw the man snatch up the cigarette butt. There have been dozens of people looking as if they haven't a penny to their name. Even Nathan, Mr Ramsay, looks as if he needs a decent meal.'

Winnie had a soft heart. ‘I think he's what they call a Bolshevik,' she said kindly. ‘They're all down at heel. I suppose that's why they're always talking about helping the poor. You would need to be poor to understand what it's like. It's hard for someone like me, although I can see what you mean. He definitely looks hungry. He has a sort of hopeful, expectant look, like my brothers have when they come home from boarding school and they expect to be fed. I don't know whether he's hopeful in that way at all.'

Winnie's observations made some sense but I didn't think it was necessary to be poor to understand. Some of the things I had read in books suggested to me that one could learn about what it was like to be poor. It wasn't necessary to experience it. But I wasn't certain that Winnie would understand my reflections so I squeezed her arm and told her she was doubtless right and that from what I knew about Bolsheviks they did want to help the poor.

She looked at me anxiously. ‘In the right way? I'd like to think well of him. He did look hungry.'

‘How should I know, Winnie? I wouldn't know if it were a right way or a wrong way but listening to Mr Ramsay I would say that there might be a useful way or a useless one.'

She giggled. ‘I suppose, poor man, that he hoped to be inspiring.'

We reached the garden entrance but were arrested by a bellowing shout. ‘Weepy. Wait!'

Winnie looked back, startled, and then a wide grin transfigured her face. Dropping my arm she sped across the grass to greet the tall young man bounding towards her. She threw herself into his arms and he lifted her, swung her round, and put her down.

‘How are you, Weepy? It's ages since I saw you.'

She straightened her clothes and beamed at him. ‘You, Harry, what are you doing here?' She glanced about. ‘No girl?'

He put on a mournful face. ‘They don't love me any more. Not like you do, Weepy.'

‘Oh, Harry! You! Don't call me that. You know I hate it. You only do it to tease. This is my friend …' She had forgotten me and now looked about, relieved to find that I had followed her and stood nearby. I wondered who Harry was.

‘This is my friend, Judith.' She pulled me forward. ‘And this is my cousin Harry, my favourite cousin. He's a scamp, the family scamp.'

Harry grinned at me. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Judith.'

I smiled back. From his shock of wild copper hair, freckled snub nose and humorous upturned mouth, to the jaunty carriage of his head and loose eager stance, he was joyousness. I was certain it would be impossible for him to ever stand still.

‘Where are you off to?' he asked, including me in his bright glance.

‘Judith and I are going to have afternoon tea. Want to come?'

‘I'll shout you both,' he said, and walking between us tucked an arm through mine and Winnie's. ‘Where to?'

‘Rundle's, and you can't pay for us, you never have any money. No job, no money.'

‘You sound just like your father, Winnie.' He deepened his voice, stuck out his chest and pontificated, ‘Young man, you'll never get on in life if you don't work. No work, no money, my young man, no work, no money.'

‘I'm never sure why I'm “my young man” as I don't really belong to him.'

Winnie said severely, ‘Your father's dead and your mother's a widow. She needs help and you just fritter your life away being funny. After all, my father's money does help you.'

He looked chastened, but merrily so. ‘Well, you can now rest, Judge Winnie. I have a job.'

‘Oh, yes?' Winnie sounded sceptical. ‘And who'd give you a job?'

‘Oh, yes,' he mimicked her, ‘you'd be surprised. And it's a man's job.'

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘What do you mean a man's job? What prank are you up to now, Harry?'

‘No prank. Am I always to be misunderstood?' He faked an injured look. ‘Your father has found me an apprenticeship.'

‘Where? What in?'

‘I‘ll be a turner and fitter in a foundry.'

‘A foundry?'

‘Yes, a foundry. Why do you have to be told things twice, Winnie?'

‘Won't that be a lot of hard work?'

‘Probably.'

‘Will you enjoy it?'

‘I always enjoy what I do.'

‘Is it suitable, Harry?'

He looked at her quizzically. ‘Darling, Winnie, it's very suitable for a poor widow's lad,' and this time his laugh had a sharp edge to it. ‘And what do you think of my good fortune, Miss Judith?'

I hesitated. I had once peeped in the doors of a local foundry. It had been hot and noisy, the floor was of dirt and it was full of huge machines driven by great belts that surged up to revolving wheels in the roof. It all looked very dangerous. While I watched a young lad grabbed one of the belts and hung on while it took him a ride to the roof. He yahooed triumphantly but I held my breath in terror for him. Just before the belt rolled over the wheel he let go and plummeted to the ground.

A foreman shouted, rushed across the shed, and swiped him a backhander. ‘You fucken stupid cretin. Do you want to kill yerself? We've had one death already this week. You wanna be a second?'

Then he saw me. ‘And whatdya want?'

‘Just looking,' I said.

‘Well, Just Lookin', look somewhere else. We can do without visitors lookin'. You may think this is a three-ring circus with fucken trapeze artists but it's only a foundry with Tom Fool boys I try to keep alive.'

I told my father.

‘Bloody machines,' he said, ‘no guards. A boy in that foundry had his head crushed in that machinery. They carried him out on a stretcher and flung a couple of hessian bags over him. Then they sent for his mother to identify him. Bloody disgrace and the government tells us we don't need unions.'

All this I remembered as Harry waited for my reply.

‘They're dangerous,' I replied. ‘You must be careful.'

‘Careful,' Winnie mocked, ‘careful. You're asking Harry to be careful? Not likely.'

She hadn't seen or heard what I had. Her ignorance annoyed me. He preened himself, living up to his reputation of being wild, I thought.

‘Boys get killed in foundries,' I said soberly.

‘Not me, Miss Judith,' he boasted. ‘I'm immortal.'

It was useless to do other than play along with his mood. Already I had sounded like some middle-aged know-all.

‘We've been to The Stump,' Winnie laughed, changing the subject. ‘Judith knows one of the Bolshies there.'

‘No I don't, Winnie.'

‘Yes, you do,' she carolled, ‘you do, do, do. She does, Harry. And he's so earnest. He made her speak from his box and the box had South Australian tomatoes written on it. I nearly died laughing.' She was embellishing the story. The tomato box had belonged to the religious fanatic. I felt hurt. She was enticing Harry into joking at my expense. But surprisingly he didn't laugh.

‘Shut up, Weepie, you're embarrassing your friend and the Bolshies are not all stupid. Sometimes I listen to them, too, and they talk some sense. I think one day I might become a Bolshie, too.' The moment of seriousness abandoned, he was laughing again.

His mercurial changes were tiring. It would be hard to know when he was sincere.

‘And join a union?' Winnie was aghast. ‘What would my father say?'

‘I can hear him now,' he said. ‘I give that young ne'er-do-well a chance in life and what does he do? He throws it away to become a Bolshie.'

He gave me an I'm-a-naughty-boy-but-you-love-me look. It worked and I smiled at him, but my thoughts about him and the foundry were not happy ones.

Winnie and I paid for the tea and cakes, sharing the cost of Harry's, as he said with mock apology that he wasn't in the money just yet. He parted with a cheerful kiss on the cheek for Winnie and a friendly handshake for me.

‘I'm sure,' he said, with a twinkle, ‘that you'll be very good for me, Miss Judith.' He strode off whistling ‘If you knew Susie like I know Susie Oh. Oh, Oh what a girl'. I didn't know whether to be flattered or annoyed but had experienced that first telltale rush of affection that Harry would always be able to inspire.

Winnie walked with me to the railway station so I could catch a train to the Port. She lived on the other side of the city. Even suburbs divide us, I thought, envisaging her pink stone house set in a thriving garden and comparing it with our hulk and my small cabin.

Winnie squeezed my hand. ‘I can't come next week. A family get-together. Are you free the week after?'

‘OK, one o'clock at the entrance.'

‘Yes, and maybe we'll go to see the Bolshie again.'

‘No, Winnie, please.'

She teased, ‘Perhaps he'll come to the Chew It and read his books.'

‘Maybe.' I was uncertain about whether I wanted to see him.

‘These Bolshies are unpredictable,' she pronounced. ‘Do you think that Harry means what he said?'

‘About his job?'

‘No, silly, about being a Bolshie. My father … Heavens, you can't imagine what my father would say.'

‘Then you'd better not tell him.'

‘As if I would. I never tell him anything about Harry. But, you know, Harry's a real risk-taker.' She shook her head. ‘Even as a child he had to climb the highest tree to the highest branch. He used to tell me how he would dare himself to do things and then make himself do them.'

I remembered my terrified longing to have the courage to swing the bosun's chair over the sea and understood Harry. ‘Yes,' I said, ‘safe can be boring and boring is usually safe.'

She looked anxious. ‘Do you think he'll be safe in the foundry? You seemed uncertain. Do you know what they're like? Do they have very big machines?'

‘Yes.'

‘Dangerous machines?'

‘Yes.'

‘What sort of machines?'

‘I don't really know. My father says they are lathes and slotting machines and presses and there is a boiler and a coal-burning donkey engine and they all need guards around them.'

She looked terrified. ‘Presses, lathes, slot-machines—they all sound remorseless. If they need guards, surely they'll have them, Judith, won't they?'

‘I don't know. I suppose it depends on the owner.'

‘Aren't owners made to do it?'

I shrugged. ‘Not according to my father.'

‘So Harry might …,' she choked, ‘Harry might get caught in one of those dreadful machines and killed? Or his hands might get crushed.' She burst into tears. ‘Oh, Judith, he only wants to become a pianist. He can play anything. Just has to hear a tune and he plays it. Has been doing this since he was a little boy.'

I was perplexed. ‘Why the foundry? Surely with that skill …'

She blew her nose. ‘There's not much money in it. Just an occasional job at the Blood House, playing for dances. He doesn't mind the fights there. He can look after himself. He's good at boxing. Sometimes he plays in the dance halls at the Semaphore but it's not regular work.'

‘And he has a piano?' I asked.

‘No, of course not. How could his mother afford a piano?'

‘Then how has he learned to play?'

She began to snivel again. ‘By begging anywhere there is a piano. Sometimes at our house when my father's at work, sometimes at the local hotels. They're pleased enough to let him play and entertain but they don't pay him anything. They say it's their fee for lending him the piano for a couple of hours. Sometimes music shops give him a go to advertise their wares. People come in to listen when they hear him playing.

‘And he dances, too, Judith. Quite divinely. I've heard some of the girls call him “Twinkle Toes”. He's just got rhythm in his bones. His father wasn't much of a provider and my mother says that Harry's a lot like him. But it's no job no money and I'm sure he'll be killed in the foundry.'

She started to cry again. Passers-by paused to stare, their looks hesitant and doubtful. Quelled by my frown, they moved on. As they glanced back with concern I begged her to stop. ‘Crying will do no good, Winnie. He'll just have to be careful at the foundry—and sensible.'

‘Careful?' she wailed. ‘Sensible? You don't know him.'

It seemed that Harry was good at everything except earning a living. His choices seemed no more unpleasant than the Chew It and Spew It was for me. I thought sourly that maybe a foundry would be good for him.