A Stolen Life

by Antonio Buti

  Joe is a good worker. During the downtimes on the Dollard farm, he does a number of other jobs to provide for his family. He fishes with heavy nets and assists other fishermen with their nets. He lays traps for rabbits, which provide meat for his family and income from those rabbits he sells. Today Joe is working at Dollard’s, which is southwest and within walking distance of One Mile Camp. Joe helps with fencing, burning off paddocks and other jobs on the farm.

  He will be home soon. Hilda has done her homework. George doesn’t have any and Tom has not yet started school. Thora has read a story to the boys. Mum and Dad are strict with homework. It has to be done, with Thora often assisting with the reading and writing. She also teaches Hilda how to sew and cook. Thora is a keen and good cook of any produce Joe brings home. She is also creative and resourceful. Even when the cupboards are low, she is still able to use what food is available to cook up a stew, and her damper is a reliable staple for the family.

  Thora picks up Bruce and cuddles him as she feeds him a bottle of milk she has warmed up over the wood stove in the corner of the room. The shack has no electricity. Kerosene in old Salvital tins with wicks and candles supply the only light. Thora tenderly strokes Bruce’s hair as he sucks on the bottle of milk. She looks into his eyes, talking softly and lovingly, ‘Hi darling Brucey.’ She bends over, gently kissing his forehead. ‘Drink, drink sweetie. Help you grow.’

  Thora loves this time, mother and baby together. Now approaching thirty years of age, at least twenty years younger than Joe, Thora has only a basic education but she knows, with a mother’s instinct, how important this bonding time with Bruce is. She has done this before.

  She moves him to shift his body weight onto her other arm. He takes a rest from sucking on the bottle and smiles at her. Wrapped in the warmth of his mother’s love, baby Bruce is conscious only of now. He does not know that, over the next few weeks, his life will change forever.

  Nor does Thora or Joe.

  Chapter 2

  A DISRUPTIVE CHRISTMAS PRESENCE

  ‘Are you my dad?’

  The question lobs into the Trevorrow shack at One Mile Camp on this otherwise unremarkable mid-December day, as explosive as it is unexpected. One look at Joe’s face shows that this verbal missile, hurled by an unheralded stranger, does not bring good tidings. Thora can see that the stranger is no blessing for the Trevorrow family.

  The stranger reveals himself as James Clarke, better known as Jimmy, and says he has travelled from Victoria searching for his father. One look at his face and then at Joe’s is enough for Thora to confirm the answer to his question.

  Into the stunned silence that follows, Jimmy demands, ‘Well, are you?’

  Nine-year-old Hilda knows the answer. Joe stands there, mute.

  ‘Who the hell is this?’ Thora screams at Joe.

  With nowhere to hide, Joe surrenders. ‘It was a brief relationship,’ he pleads.

  ‘How brief? Thirty minutes? Less?’ Thora asks sarcastically. She is not in a conciliatory frame of mind.

  Joe does not attempt to defend himself. ‘She was from Dimboola,’ is as much as he will concede. As if to mitigate a rare lapse of judgement, he assures Thora that Jimmy preceded his other children from another relationship: the one Thora knows about.

  Joe fathered three children to his former wife, Annie Hason. Joseph, Rita and Alice have at various times stayed with Thora and Joe at One Mile Camp, but as youngsters they had mainly lived with their mother. That they sometimes stay with them is fine with Thora, although those kids have been a handful.

  Joseph, or Joe Junior, who his family sometimes calls Chum, is now twenty years old. He lives and works in Bordertown for the Highways Department, but he has not always been a model citizen. He drinks heavily, has run afoul of the law and recently spent eight weeks in the Adelaide Gaol.

  The girls from Joe’s earlier relationship have also had their share of troubles. Rita is three years younger than Joe Junior. The Aborigines Department had placed her with a family in Woomera as a domestic servant, but earlier in the year she’d had a nervous breakdown and overdosed on pills, and had spent some time at Tailem Bend Hospital and then at Royal Adelaide Hospital. Then there is Alice, who is now in Vaughan House, an institution for girls who have been in minor trouble with the law or charged with antisocial behaviour. The Department sent Alice there after she absconded with an older girl from her workplace in Meningie.

  Thora does not want any disruption to her life. She has four children of her own. Hilda, George and Tom are boisterous but well-behaved kids. Brucey, although not yet as healthy as she would like, is just Brucey. Adorable. This stranger is a bolt out of the blue. She feels betrayed. Why has Joe kept this secret from her? He has told her about the others and she knows them. But now? This stranger? It is just too much for her.

  Thora quickly packs a few belongings for herself and Bruce and then she is gone from One Mile Camp. She drops Bruce off with her brother, Steven Lampard, and his wife, Mary, at Three Mile Camp. He will be all right there for a while. She needs to get away. Needs to think. She knows she can stay with her good friend Katherine Gollan at Tailem Bend. There is no way to let Kathy know that she is coming but she is a friend, she will understand. She will let Thora stay for as long as she needs to.

  Bruce does not stay with the Lampards for long. When Sergeant Liebing visits the Trevorrow shack about a week before Christmas, he sees Bruce and one of his siblings lying on the unmade double bed. He doesn’t notice anything to suggest that Bruce is sick or that his family is not properly caring for him. Life seems normal and Joe does not say anything to the Sergeant about Bruce’s health. He does not see Thora’s stranger—Jimmy, Joe’s son—at the shack, nor does Joe mention him.

  Thora does not return for Christmas Day. Christmas has no special meaning for the Trevorrow family; it is a tradition from another culture. Early that morning, Bruce is crying. He has been crying for the past few days, more intensely and for longer periods with each passing day. Today Joe is more worried. Little Bruce is arching his back as he cries, clenching his fists and bending his arms and legs into his belly. Joe knows as a father that Bruce needs help beyond what he can give. He needs a doctor; he needs to go to the hospital. But Joe has no way of getting there.

  By lunchtime, Bruce is crying in agony. Joe is in despair. He knows he must get help now. So, wrapping Bruce in a blanket and cradling him in his arms, he sets off on the one-mile walk to Meningie. It is not a long walk. But it is the middle of the day, and it is hot. Joe realises Bruce does not need a blanket. He has a fever. He is dehydrated. Joe tries to rearrange the blanket as a shield to keep the midday sun off Bruce. Fortunately, he has a bottle with water in it. He gives silent thanks to Hilda. Such was his concern at home he had started to leave without the water bottle but Hilda reminded him. She is a good kid and she loves Brucey. She will be worried but she will be all right. And she will take care of her brothers until Joe gets back.

  Joe stops under the shade of a tree to give Bruce some water. He does not want to take it; he is crying. Joe wets Bruce’s lips with a little water from the bottle and starts walking again. He picks up his pace and none too soon, as he rounds a bend, there is Meningie just down the road, shimmering in the midday sun. Joe goes straight to the police station. Liebing is there. His house is attached to the police station so he is never off duty, even on Christmas Day.

  Joe is agitated. He demands that Liebing contact the Point McLeay Mission Station to have them send an ambulance to take Bruce to the Tailem Bend Hospital. Liebing understands but he also thinks Joe harbours resentment towards him because he arrested Joe Junior that time he ended up in jail. He wonders whether Joe is trying to make trouble for him by demanding an ambulance on this particular day. Yet he can see that Bruce is not well, and he is not a vengeful man. He can tell that Joe is genuinely distressed. He telephones Point McLeay but can’t get through because the Narrung exchange has closed for Christmas.

  Joe can’t understand thi
s. What is so important about this day that the telephone exchange has to close? He shouts at Liebing, ‘I need an ambulance. Why can’t you get me an ambulance? You’re not trying. My boy is sick. Do something.’

  Liebing remains calm. Joe is still yelling, ‘Don’t you understand? This is an emergency. I have to get Bruce to hospital. It’s urgent.’

  Liebing suggests that Joe contact either of the two garages in Meningie. He is sure one of them will drive Bruce and Joe to the hospital. But Joe is not listening. He doesn’t trust the Sergeant’s advice. Instead, he walks to the home of Myrtle and Richard Evans. Bruce is listless and lies inert in his arms, too tired and sick even to cry any more.

  Myrtle, Thora’s first cousin, works at the Meningie pub, and Richard, a white man, is enjoying his retirement, having previously worked in the building trade. Myrtle meets Joe at the door and ushers him in, taking Bruce from him. She can see that Bruce needs medical care. The atmosphere is tense. Myrtle, a strict disciplinarian, had taken in Rita for a few years before her overdose. The Evanses had also had Hilda stay for a few months in early 1957 after Thora and Joe had an argument, before Hilda went running back home. Myrtle was annoyed then and criticised Thora for how she was raising her children. She thinks Thora and Joe give the children too much latitude to run around and that the shack they live in is not a good place for bringing up children. Definitely not as good as the Evans home in Meningie.

  But that is unimportant now. This poor little boy is desperately unwell. Joe is beside himself with worry. Myrtle and Richard agree without hesitation to drive Bruce to the hospital. But not to Tailem Bend—he needs to go to Adelaide. Joe can’t go with them; it is too far from home and from his other children. They need him, too. It is a two-hour drive from Meningie to Adelaide, so Myrtle and Richard waste no time. They may not like the way Thora and Joe raise their kids, but Joe knows he can trust them. They will do what is best for Bruce.

  By the time they arrive at Adelaide Children’s Hospital, the sun is setting on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, back at One Mile Camp, Joe, tending to the needs of his other children, does not have any idea that the sun is also setting on his family life as he now knows it.

  It is unusually quiet in the hospital reception area. Only a skeleton staff is on duty, which is the way it is on Christmas Day. The duty nurse asks Myrtle the routine admittance questions. ‘Baby’s name?’ ‘Are you his parents?’ Myrtle answers, ‘No.’ She gives Thora’s and Joe’s names as parents. ‘What’s wrong with the baby?’ Myrtle describes the symptoms. Had she stopped at that point, the admittance procedure might well have been routine. But she does not stop.

  She does not like the way Thora and Joe are raising their children. They need a good talking to. This is her chance to tell somebody in authority, though not the police, not welfare—she doesn’t want to do that—someone such as a doctor, that the children are neglected. Perhaps, if someone like that talks to Thora and Joe, they will realise that they must find a better home, and better conditions, for their kids.

  Myrtle and Richard leave the hospital knowing that Bruce is in good hands. The staff have assured them that he should be able to go home in a few days. They will let Myrtle know when. She is content. Bruce is safe and she has taken steps to improve his home life. As they drive home, she is thinking, ‘Did I say he is neglected? Perhaps that is too strong. He is not unloved, he is not abandoned. He just does not have the disciplined, routine life I have given my children—none of Thora and Joe’s children does. They should have it. No, they are not neglected. But the hospital will know what I mean.’

  She sighs tranquilly as she relaxes into the car seat alongside Richard. Bruce will be home in a few days.

  Chapter 3

  A NEW BABY, NO QUESTIONS ASKED

  ‘My baby! In hospital? In Adelaide?’ Thora is angry. Confused. Crying. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? My baby!’

  She last saw Bruce a few days before Christmas when, still hurting and in shock, she had returned to One Mile Camp to spend a little time with her children. It has now been two days since the Evanses left Bruce at the hospital. Numbed by the realisation that her baby is not at home as she had expected him to be, Thora’s mind is a roiling mass of memories.

  In her guilt, Thora casts her mind back to February. Sister McKenzie, a welfare officer from the Aborigines Department, is on a field trip to the Coorong region, her last before she retires. She has called into One Mile Camp. When she learns that Thora is about to enter hospital for a procedure, Sister McKenzie tries to persuade her to allow other capable people in Meningie to care for her four children, including four-month-old Bruce. It will only be for a few days, only for the time Thora is in hospital.

  Thora would not hear of it. With a bitter little smile, she remembers how adamant she was that she would not hand her children over to strangers, even neighbours from the nearby town. She remembers telling Sister McKenzie, ‘My children will be just fine with Joe, and with help from relatives and the women folk of One Mile and Three Mile camps.’ Sister McKenzie had written in her field file, ‘Thora would not be persuaded.’ That was when she trusted Joe, less than twelve months ago.

  In this post-Christmas reality, a frenzied review of events replaces Thora’s excited anticipation at seeing her children again. What had happened?

  When Thora had dropped Bruce off at her brother’s place, she was confident that Steven and Mary would properly care for him. But while they did not say so to an emotionally fragile Thora, the couple had concerns about caring for someone so young. But Thora was family so they felt they had no choice. The next day Steven took Bruce back to Joe at the shack. Steven wondered if his sister would be upset with him but he knew that Joe was a good father. He knew also that Joe would receive help from the women at the camps and from his sisters, Emily, Margaret and Isabel. Steven also felt sure Joe’s two older daughters, Rita and Alice, would assist with the cooking and other domestic duties, and that Hilda could look after her younger brothers, with maturity and responsibility beyond her years.

  Thora is especially angry with Joe who, again, she believes, has deceived her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? He was okay when I was last here. What happened?’

  Joe explains how Bruce had become sick and how he had sought help for his son. He tries to mollify Thora by adding that Myrtle said the hospital would contact her when Bruce was ready to come home. He quickly adds, ‘Should be any day now.’

  Thora is not ready to be appeased. ‘But why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone to Adelaide to visit him in hospital.’ Thora is becoming more distressed. ‘My little Brucey, all alone in hospital.’ She is in no mood to concede that he is ‘our’ little Brucey.

  Joe tries to recover some ground. ‘I was busy working and caring for the kids.’

  Thora knows all this is true. Though still angry, she is a little calmer now and sits down for Tom to climb onto her lap. This helps her relax. But what about her little Brucey? She is determined she will not leave him again. When he comes home, she will take him back with her to Katherine’s house in Tailem Bend. And, she hopes, the other children will join her, at least some of the time. Brucey, on the other hand, is so young, so vulnerable, he needs his mother all the time.

  On 6 January 1958, the Davies family walks into little Brucey’s life. Florence Martha Davies, known as Martha, and Frank Davies are immigrants from the United Kingdom, she English and he Welsh. They arrived in Melbourne by ship in 1945 with a three-year-old daughter named Carol, part of the post–World War II European migration wave to the ‘land of milk and honey’. ‘Ten-pound Poms’ migrated to Australia under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme, introduced by Chifley’s Labor government in 1945 to bolster the supply of workers to postwar Australia’s booming industries. They were so called because migrants under the scheme paid only ten pounds sterling for their fare, while children travelled free.

  Most immigrants at the time were seeking better economic opportunities far away from Europe, which was still to recove
r from the ravages of the war. The Davies family, however, came for health reasons. They hoped the warmer Australian weather would be more agreeable to Martha, who suffered from pleurisy and pneumonia. Taking the advice of their family doctor to move to a warmer climate, they initially thought of moving to South Africa, but Frank strongly opposed the apartheid regime and chose Australia as the alternative.

  Once in Melbourne, the Davies were temporarily settled at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp in northeast Victoria, at the site of a former army base, before boarding a train for Adelaide. After a short stay at the Rosewater Hostel, a converted woolshed, they accepted temporary housing at Islington. The asbestos house had no electricity or running water, nor bituminised roads. It was rudimentary, but better than the hostel. They made the best of their temporary home, cooking on a wood stove, using kerosene lamps for light, and with an icebox to keep the milk and other dairy products cool. They washed their clothes in a copper. That was no hardship for Martha, who had done the same back in England during the war only a few years before.

  Frank got a job at Brompton making bricks. In England he had worked in the terracotta industry but such work was not available in Adelaide in the 1940s. Martha found work at the Motram biscuit factory, later to become part of the Arnott’s biscuit conglomerate. A fringe benefit of working there was that the employees could help themselves to the broken biscuits, so the Davies household had a constant supply of fresh biscuits. They were soon able to move from their temporary housing to a public trust home in Campbelltown, about six kilometres from the city centre.