Roundabout at Bangalow Page 7

  I got in the train at Brisbane at 10 to 3 yesterday and stopped there until half past 2 today. I couldnt afford a sleeper so I put in the night sitting up in a seat & I never felt anything so cold in my life as it was. I think this is the worst looking country I have ever seen in my life. I suppose we went 300 miles and never saw a hill, all level country and in places you strike perhaps 50 miles with nothing but a thick bank of prickly pear on both sides of the line as far back as you can see. Then again you will go for miles upon miles and never see a blade of grass. The whole country is under a very severe drought out this way and everybody reckons that I have struck it at the worst possible time. It is very lonely up here not knowing a soul. I am stopping at the Tattersalls Hotel. It is a little low one-storied place and when you are having your meals the cats and dogs are fighting under the table. When I went into my room and struck a match about 500 of those great big cockroaches raced for the cracks in the wall.

  In a letter a few days later he describes Charleville as the queerest place you ever struck, and writes out for her a rude rhyme he’s found on an outhouse door and committed to memory, confident of their shared sense of humour:

  On Sunday afternoons half of the town goes to the football matches and the more religious ones go to the two-up school. They play two-up just at the back of the town on the river bank and hundreds of pounds change hands every Sunday … people never talk about how many acres of land they have, they measure it here by the square mile. One bloke told me he was working on a station, he said it was only a little place about 200 square miles and it is nothing to see a mob of 20,000 sheep travelling at once. I saw a good piece on a shit house door about the squatters and I will tell it to you as near as I can remember.

  The Western squatters queer birds they are

  They catch their sheep and brand them with tar

  They work the niggers with all their might

  And ride the gins while young and tight.

  They ought to have, God strike them dead

  The skin of their arse pulled over their head.

  The only water we get here comes from artesian bores 1,000 feet below the surface and it is nearly boiling. You can get a hot bath here any time of the day … A bloke here told me today that I am not a bushman until I can eat a frill lizard between two pieces of bark for a sandwich and I told him I would never be a bloody bushman at that rate.

  Within days of his arrival he talks his way into one of the local football teams, scores two spectacular tries and is picked in the team to play Cunnamulla, 120 miles to the west, a fortnight later. The next week his team wins again, 36–13, and he is an instant celebrity. They will do anything to keep him in Charleville, at least until the big match — a bloke came up and gave me £2. He said it was to pay a weeks board with and in the meantime they are going to get me a good job.

  The team and most of the population of Charleville go to Cunnamulla on a special excursion train. Matches like this, often grudge matches, engender high excitement. It’s easy to imagine the drunken and riotous behaviour on the return trip, but he’s careful to reassure her about his own sober habits.

  [The train] was packed that way that you could hardly get a seat. We left here early in the morning and all along the line it was nothing to see 8 or 10 kangaroos going for their lives across the plains and there were emus going all roads when they heard the train coming. When a mob of roos would start across the plain everybody would lean out the window and start to barrack the same as if it was a football match. I think for every man in the train there were about 2 bottles of whiskey so you can imagine what it was like coming home, but I kept strictly sober all through the piece.

  Charleville is badly beaten (23–8) but he scores one of the tries, so is still in favour. How much is obvious in an incident later in the year when a police constable back home sends a tip-off that the police there are looking for him (probably for debt). He takes his problem to a Charleville policeman who is also on the football team, and is instantly reassured: if anything came through to them he would let me know in time to get away. Meanwhile the Christian Brothers pay his board while he is out of work — and so they should because we won the Charity Shield yesterday by 11 to 6 and I scored 2 of the tries for the Brothers — and when he does finally get fencing work out in the bush, they send a car to bring him in each weekend (so you see I am of some importance out here).

  It’s not clear whether he is pursuing the pleasures of a young man, a sporting hero living as a bachelor in this free and easy frontier town, or whether he is, as he maintains, doggedly looking for work. At one stage his arm is almost broken by a back-firing truck that he is trying to start with a crank-handle — Bugger me if the old thing didnt backfire when I was cranking it up and nearly broke my arm. I went to the ambulance and got it bandaged up but it is still very sore. I played football again today. He says he can’t work, therefore there is no money, but he still plays football, scores the winning try and sends the newspaper cuttings to his mother. Meanwhile every letter looks forward to a job and the big money, but by the following letter he’s chasing a different dream:

  There is a big job of bridge-building starting in about six weeks time at a little place called Yulo [Eulo]. It is about 180 miles west of here and I have got my name on the list to start on it … The wages run out at about £5.10 a week and they pay £1.1 a week extra for camping allowance.

  There is 12,000 head of bullocks leaving Charters Towers and going right down over the border to Bourke and there is a good chance of me being with them. I came out here intending to get a cheque and I will get one if I have to rob the bank for it …

  Things are bloody bad here and a man cant buy a job at any price. But it is raining here now and there should be plenty of work soon.

  I am not working and havent done more than a weeks work since I came here. It is no good me telling you this because I know you wont believe it.

  He sends her money in dribs and drabs, with promises which often don’t eventuate.

  If I only send a pound I know it will be acceptable until I get some more … perhaps I will be able to send you a few quid next weekend … I am sending you a pound today and may be able to do some more by next mail.

  When I am born on 2 July 1927, he is obviously pleased and doesn’t mention the fact that he would have preferred a boy. As well as his two older brothers his mother is now urging his return and she wields great influence. He’s on the defensive:

  I would love to see you and the kiddy but I hate coming back again broke and this is the place to make money fast if you can only get into the shearing sheds. The reason why I never wrote before was because I had no idea where you were and another thing I didn’t know whether they would give you a letter. However all is well that ends well and with regards to the babys name I dont care what you call her so long as it suits you because you had all the trouble of bringing her to light. There are some great people here and if ever I get enough cash I am going to fetch you out here to live. There is no bloody backbiting bastards out here like there is down there. The idea of coming back there broke seems silly because the best a man can get down there is £5 a week whereas out here hundreds of men are getting up to £30 a week shearing and fencing. Anyhow I am going to have a crack at it before I come home. I dont think there is any need for you to start walking up to Charleville with a revolver yet …

  Buoyed up by their apparent reconciliation and his new status as the father of two he at last gets a job fencing. It is forty-two miles out in the bush and, perhaps on purpose, far removed from the temptations of the town. While he is there he has his twenty-first birthday but doesn’t consider it worth mentioning:

  Well old girl I am going to the bush today and I am going to make some money for you. I am going fencing by contract so that the harder I work the more money I will get … In this work a man is likely to knock up a cheque of 40 or 50 pounds a month so I think it is better to stop a while longer instead of coming home to work on wages and always
be in debt … We are camped 6 miles off the road and 36 miles from town. The night we went out we carried our swags that 6 miles through the bush in the dark but when we got to the camp they had a big pot of Kangaroo tail soup so we had a crack at that and it wasn’t too bad either … dont lose any sleep about me as I am camped out in the bush with 5 other blokes and the only other faces we see is bloody kangaroos and dingoes.

  A month later he at last gets a job as a shearer at Minnie Downs, about 150 miles from Charleville. He promises to be home in about six weeks and, full of optimism, has ordered new clothes to be ready so that he can leave as soon as the shed is cut out (the arse is out of my good trousers and my coat is falling to pieces).

  … at last I have got what I came here for and as soon as the shed cuts out I am coming home for sure. It will be at least six weeks maybe a little longer but if you still want me to come home you can look forward to seeing me soon. There are 43,000 sheep there for 8 shearers at £2.5 per 100 so make that up and you will have an idea what sort of a cheque I will fetch home with me … the good shearers here do 200 a day so you can imagine the money they make.

  Nine o’clock and all lights out. Every shearer catch a rousabout. That is what they say in the sheds so I ought to be alright if that is the case …

  Five weeks later he explains with some indignation why he hasn’t yet sent any money home:

  The reason why I havent been sending you any money is that we are shearing by contract and I cant get my bloody cheque until we are finished what we are signed on for now. You will say that this is a B. lie but I will enclose my agreement for you to see for yourself. I will explain the situation as well as possible for you. This country is under a 3 years drought at present and the Minnie Downs sheep are all over the country on agistment. There are about 23,000 here at the homestead where we are shearing now and we expect to finish them next week. Then I will get paid for my share of that issue. You can expect a few pound in about a fortnight from now … After that we go to another place near Charleville for a week and then there are 5,000 more at another place near Augathella. After that goodbye to this drought stricken bloody Barstid of a country.

  Then there is a succession of mishaps:

  We were off work nearly all last week on account of dust storms. You cant imagine what it is like here in windy weather. Everything is full of dust including your mouth eyes nose and arse and you cant see more than 100 yards either way …

  We had to knock off shearing at Minnie for a week but we expect to go back tomorrow. It rained like hell for 2 days so that buggered things up for a week as there is no chance of shearing wet sheep … One team of shearers not far from here went on with the wet sheep and there is 5 out of 8 of them in the hospital now. They say it is the fumes of the wet wool that does it … I have had very bad eyes lately it is a kind of a blight that is going about, every body has it.

  In mid-October, two months after he goes to Minnie Downs and about the time he is supposed to send a few pound home, he writes that he has been seriously ill for a fortnight with an influenza which has killed seven in Charleville during the preceding four days. It is the same sickness as when the black flu was going around because everybody goes completely black when they die. The shearing team has gone on to another shed without him, he hasn’t his fare to go home, and says he is too weak to work:

  I always was lucky but since I came out here I have had an overdose of good luck. I know what you will say when you read this ‘Bloody Liar’ but I would like you to see me now. I havent had a shave for nearly a week and I weigh about 10 stone at the outside … I wont write any more now because my back and head is aching like buggery but I will let you know as soon as I get something … The Doctor told me not to get up for another week but I cant do that … I will have to have a go at whatever I can get until I get my fare home again

  The pressure on him from his wife, his mother and older brothers intensifies. He is bombarded with letters and the crucial telegram with the story that my sister is ill. He replies with a telegram — Cant come yet will write immediately — then another letter:

  I couldnt possibly come home until I am sure that it has left me because I would look nice if I carried the sickness down there and some of them got it and died … I am starting work to-morrow in the railway yard shovelling coal. I dont know how long I will last for I can hardly walk but I will try and stick it for a while.

  He returns home after six months’ absence. The next year the Christian Brothers try to get him back to Charleville, but he doesn’t return to what he calls that barstid of a place. I’m still no closer to knowing whether he deserted my mother (and me) but try to excuse him on the grounds of his extreme youth and resentment at being caged up too soon. Nevertheless I wonder whether his absence is the cause of my mother’s lifelong instability and fear of being abandoned. Or does it merely intensify what was already there?

  I think of this as I stand, more than seventy years later, on the Tuntable Creek bridge, below the butter factory at The Channon, and gaze down into the peaty rapids boiling over the rocks and hidden snags, or into the shadows under the she-oaks. The creek changes from moment to moment. Strange currents and eddies stir the spiralling weed, sediments shift and settle. The creek won’t give up its meaning, just as the traces of the past — the expression on a face in a fading sepia photograph, yellowing newspaper clippings, old letters, family stories — give only glimpses of the truth. My own memories are probably more accurate than any of these, so I’ll return now to my own story, re-entering it at the point where our family leaves The Channon for Wallangarra.

  The Tableland

  The autumn of 1936 finds us in an old motor lorry, trundling with all our possessions up the gravel road from Lismore to Casino to Tenterfield and then Wallangarra. We are wild with excitement, not realising that our lives are about to change completely, for we are now flotsam on the dark tide of the Depression, as helpless as all the other human debris of the thirties. From this time until war breaks out in 1939 we are wanderers, settling for a time, going to new schools, then, as the Depression deepens and my father loses his job again, we are cast out, usually without warning, and must begin again in another town.

  During this period we live in four rented houses and a beach camp before we finally settle. Our first move, to Wallangarra, takes us from the most lush and beautiful scenery in Australia to a barren little town of rickety weatherboard houses leaning in against the wind. Its dusty lanes, which double as stock routes, are lined with pepperina trees. This is a different Australia, the gaunt, pared-down Australia of a Drysdale painting. We explore the countryside at once, wandering far over the paddocks but finding only eroded gullies littered with rusty tins, clumps of blackberries, and the yellow mullock heaps left by disappointed tin-miners. In place of friendly cows there are stupid-eyed sheep. Nothing else moves on the dry ground but a few scavenging goats and a thousand rabbits. Monotonous gum trees are draped with mistletoe and the wide skies stretch to the horizon. We dodge the rabbit burrows and old mine shafts, or sit in boredom by the railway line, watching the trains go toiling through the cutting. We buy a tin of sardines from the Chinese corner store and grease the rails with sardine oil hoping at the very least to derail the train. This fails. The driver waves merrily to what he sees as a group of innocent children, the train grinds on its way and the endless monotony closes in behind it.

  Wallangarra sits astride the border of New South Wales and Queensland, one foot in each state and divided in two by the border fence. This is a rabbit-proof fence, the first I’ve seen, with stiles up and over it for humans to cross interstate. The Queensland rabbits happily dig burrows under the wire and miscegenate freely with the New South Wales rabbits, just as if there were no difference. Not so the humans, for this place is fiercely tribal, its people belonging to one state or the other. There are two schools, one on either side of the border fence and each teaching a different curriculum, and two pubs, the watering holes for each tribe. There are a
lso two police stations with the Johns, as they’re called, in completely different uniforms and probably chasing different criminals. This country is haunted by the ghosts of cattle thieves and bushrangers like Thunderbolt, but at this time the major crimes seem to be drunkenness and the poisoning of neighbours’ dogs.

  We soon join the local children whose minds are saturated with the Western movies shown each Saturday afternoon at the local School of Arts. These are interspersed with episodes of Tarzan, or a similar African adventure where a gorilla swings down from the jungle canopy, scoops up a heroine clad in khaki jodhpurs and a pith helmet, and swings her away through the treetops to subject her to unimaginable horrors. She screams and the children scream and scream, but the next Saturday she is rescued unharmed and proceeds to other narrow escapes. As well as the Saturday matinees, we go interstate to the pictures two or three nights a week, seeing just about every film that comes out of Hollywood, learning every detail of the stars and their lives. We cross the border on our way home from the pictures, hunched up against the cold and huddled into our new overcoats. The air is thin and rare, moonlight bathes the land, the great hemisphere above us shivers in the wind and the stars are as sharp as splintered glass. We revel in a sense of space and freedom unknown to those hedged in, as we once were, with hills and mountains. These are the joys of small-town life — pictures in the School of Arts, and drinking and betting in the pubs for the men. Our father is either working, shooting rabbits for the dogs to eat, or drinking with the other meatworkers in the Jennings Hotel on the New South Wales side.

  The railway station and its platform also straddle the border and provide a startling example of colonial lunacy. New South Wales and Queensland railways have different gauges, and everything moving north or south — whether people, fruit, meat, wheat, wool, or even a parcel — has to be transhipped from one side of the platform to the other and reloaded. A New South Wales train pulls up with a burst of smoke and steam; all the passengers, with all their gear (suitcases in New South Wales become ports in Queensland) hurry across the platform and board the Queensland train. It’s like a silent movie, and just as absurd. The trains come often, for they are almost the only means of transport, but always they stop for the transhipment.