The Mysterious Alexandra Tarasova-Yusupov

by Carl Douglass

  Their differences in background, in religion, in gender, in life’s experience, and in what their marriage meant to each of them had not been of any significance to them before the hard reality of the industrial strife in Melbourne raised its ugly visage. Now, it appeared; ideology was everything. Alexandra had been told long ago that the three reasons for couples to divorce centered around sex, religion, and money, in that order. Now, the ideological issues were becoming so intense that partisan politics and the attendant ideologies were factoring in an increasing number of failed engagements—the parents could not accept a fiancé who was not in agreement with their brand of politics—and of divorces with each party to the divorce choosing family politics over the union of the spouses.

  Despite the delightful rapprochement they achieved during their recent mini-honeymoon in Buklahdelah, the maelstrom that they encountered in Melbourne’s city streets and in the parlors, pubs, libraries, and party gatherings led to implacable arguments and irreconcilable differences. In a matter of days, it became nearly impossible for the couple to have a conversation about the price of bread or the beauty of a flower without the discussion becoming politicized and emotionally charged with negative electricity. By the third day, Alexandra and Kyle found excuses not to sit down to meals together because that was where their conversations usually took place. By the end of the week, they arranged to sleep in separate bedrooms by nonverbal mutual agreement.

  They were entering into a “Y” in their lives, with the directions of their interests, enthusiasms, and activities diverging steadily away from each other; something neither of them would have wanted or even imagined a fortnight ago was now the definition of their relationship and their now separate existences.

  A day after the Bradshaws separated from each other to sleep in separate bed rooms, a strike breaker was killed by men who had been out on strike for three months outside the Sunshine Harvester Works. Melbourne riot police came in force and bludgeoned their way from the back of the throng of battling strikers and scabs. Fifteen men and women ended up in hospital; the strike leaders and several of the most violent strikers and an equal number of scabs were part of the hospitalized enemies.

  Alexandra saddled her bay mare, Waltzing Matilda, and rode as fast as she could to the Harvester Works in time to see the last of the violence by man on man and man on property. Like every Melbourner, Alexandra knew that the Sunshine Harvester Works’ problems with labor started as long ago as 1907 when workers started a protracted industrial dispute with legal battles and intermittent strikes. H.V. McKay–the owner and manager–locked horns with the several unions which represented the workers at the Sunshine factories. The unions based their complaints on claims for higher wages and better working conditions. McKay–on the other hand–took a different tack. He argued that he should continue to receive import protection.

  Eventually the case was heard before Judge H. B. Higgins at the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Melbourne. Judge Higgins heard evidence from employees and their wives regarding conditions at the factory and costs for supporting their families and sympathized with them. In what came to be known as the Harvester Judgment, he required McKay to pay his employees a wage that guaranteed them a standard of living which was reasonable for “a human being in a civilized community”, regardless of his—Hugh McKay’s–capacity to pay. McKay successfully appealed that judgment.

  McKay continued to pay pauper’s wages, and the cries and complaints of the workers and their families fell on deaf ears. Alexandra knew all this; but she was appalled by what she saw, even though the wounded and one dead man had been taken away before she arrived. The level of carnage inflicted on the factory buildings and a few small homes owned by managers tore at her heart strings and eclipsed all the cries from the poverty-stricken workers. She knew Hugh Victor McKay and his wife, Sarah Irene, and knew that they had slaved their entire lives to build his fine buildings, to make excellent agriculture machinery, and to provide secure employment for over three thousand men and women. She looked over wreckage: smoldering framework of the factory, mangled reapers and binders, Albion mowers, Globe hayrakes, Climax ensilage cutters, pneumatic silo fillers, McKay’s grain pickling machine, Braybrook strippers, Sun grain and fertilizer drills, and hundreds more strewn about as if a giant child had destroyed the farm implements—his toys—in a moment of childish rage.

  She rushed to the McKay’s home to offer help. Sarah was weeping as if she had lost a child. Alexandra threw her arms around the distraught woman and attempted to comfort her.

  “There, there, Dear,” she cooed, “no worries; she’ll be all right.”

  “She’ll never be all right! We’ve lost everything…everything…to those ingrates, those heathen curs.”

  “I’m telling you, Sarah, there’ll be a better day. Just you wait. You and Hugh will build it all up again.”

  “I don’t see how. We’ll be in the poor house before the year’s out, Alexandra.”

  Alexandra held Sarah’s head on her lap until she fell asleep, then she gently lifted her Sarah’s head, placed a pillow under it and left her to a much-needed sleep.

  Hugh stepped quietly behind Alexandra and tapped her gently on the shoulder.

  “That was very kind of you, my dear,” he said. “And I am gladdened to know that I have at least one friend. It was above and beyond for you to travel all this way just to see us in our time of calamity.”

  “I could not have stayed away, Hugh. I am angry and deeply saddened over your loss. It is so monstrous.”

  “You can scarce imagine, Alessandra. I have an old photo in my chest of the original Sunshine harvester standing outside our blacksmith building—hut, really—in Drummartin. That was by the family home at the time. Sarah and me were young and just getting started then. I invented and got a patent for the first stripper harvester, and I hired a few lads to help me put it together. It was clear back in 1884. We worked ourselves half to death to build our company, to employ workers and to feed and house them. And this is how they repay me.”

  “It is unfathomable, Hugh. Those ingrates apparently don’t remember the black nineties when anyone could consider himself lucky to have any job or a roof or his family’s heads or enough food to keep body and soul together. You saved their ungrateful skins, man. You don’t deserve any of this.”

  Hugh looked as if he might begin to cry; so, Alexandra looked away to spare him. It broke her heart.

  “Think I’ll catch a few winks. I’m tuckered. I hate to think about having to get up tomorrow morning and going to the works to see what, if anything, can be salvaged. God bless you dear. Take a little time this afternoon to go visit Howard and Matilda Smith, Huddart and Elizabeth Parker, and Mcllwraith and Mary Margaret McEacharn. They’re hurting almost as much as we are, lass. Do ‘em good to see you on their side.”

  Alexandra’s dander was up, and her sympathies were aroused to near fever pitch. She spent the rest of the day visiting and consoling the shipping magnates of Melbourne.

  The beginning of the strife between the dock workers and the owners was an action against the Associated Northern Collieries [coal mining establishments], launched by the Attorney-General of Victoria against all of the colliery members of Associated Northern Collieries and the shipping companies–Adelaide Steamship, Howard Smith, Huddart Parker and McIlwraith McEacharn and the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, the Melbourne Steamship Company, and James Patterson and Company–in 1910. The prosecution lasted almost eighty days until mid-December 1911. The corporate and individual defendants challenged every aspect of the prosecution, including denials of membership of the Coal Vend—their working organization–despite making and receiving payments. Judge Isaacs found that each of the defendants separately and all collectively were engaged in a combination with intent to restrain inter-state trade and commerce in Newcastle coal to the detriment of the public, which was the primary issue in the court’s mind.

  The defendants appealed to the
High Court, primarily on the basis that the Australian Industries Preservation Act required proof of intent not just to increase prices, but to cause detriment to the public. The High Court—composed of Crown Justice Griffith, and Justices Barton and O’Connor in September, 1912 said that the intent of the original and legal agreement between the ship owners and the colliery owners—one and the same–was to prevent unlimited and ruinous competition and to fix the “hewing rate” paid to miners. The public was not just the consumers of coal, but so were the mining companies and the workers alike. Raising the price paid for coal as the companies wanted was determined to benefit the general public of Newcastle. It followed that the intent of members of the Coal Vend was to protect the prosperity of the Newcastle and Maitland Districts. There was no proof that the public suffered a detriment; there was no evidence of intent to cause any such a detriment. The Attorney-General unsuccessfully appealed to the Privy Council.

  The stevedores, other dock workers, ships’ hands, and coal miners, were infuriated at what they considered a manifestly unfair decision and proof that the “big-end” of town would always win in the crooked courts. They saw their only recourse to be violence, and a strike broke out more or less spontaneously which devolved into riots, destruction of property, massive financial costs, and bitterness that persisted as long as any of them lived and as long as there were unions in Australia.

  Alexandra studied the court cases; and to her, it was as plain as the nose on her face that the rule of law came down on the side of the owners; and that was that. Her sympathies–as in the Harvester case–were strongly on the side of the hard-pressed owners. She first visited Howard and Matilda Smith, owners of Adelaide Steamship who had befriended her during the “smelbourne” era when she was afraid she might go under.

  She knocked on the door of the Smith mansion and was admitted by the butler whom she knew well from previous visits. She asked to see Matilda.

  When she saw the ashen faced middle-aged woman, it seemed that Matilda’s hair had grown grey just in the past year.

  “Oh, my dear, how dreadful it must be for you. Our whole class of people are under attack, and you and Howard are bearing the brunt for us all.”

  She hugged the slight lady who began to cry.

  “You are too kind, Alexandra. You have come in our time of need. Thank you. I don’t know what we will do. This dreadful strike is likely to go on forever, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, Matilda, nothing is forever. This will pass. In fact, I think the judgments of the high court make it perfectly reasonable for you and the rest of the colliers and ship owners to hire non-union workers with the blessing and protection of the constabulary.”

  “Do you really, Alexandra? That would be such a ray of hope. The cause of right and of the law on our side. I hardly dare hope. You are so smart. I am sure you are right in the long run. I must cling to that thought. Thank you, Dear, for coming.”

  By tea time, Alexandra had conveyed her positive message individually to the Parkers, and the McEaharns. By the time she talked to Mcllwraith McEacharn, she had formulated a plan for a way for her to help the struggling owners.

  “I want to do more that just talk the good hope to you and the rest of the owners—my people—Mcllwraith. For the remainder of the strike and the terrible financial losses you are suffering, I will contribute $50,000 a month towards your needs against the rabble.”

  “Ordinarily, I would not consider accepting such a gift, but rather, consider it a loan. Times have deteriorated to such a degree that I am forced to accept your generosity, Alexandra. My fellow owners and our wives will be forever grateful to you. We will overcome this trial and will get back on our feet again. We will then be in a position to be of benefit to you should the need ever arise.”

  Alexandra could not visit the officials of Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, the Melbourne Steamship Company, and James Patterson and Company, because they were located outside Australia, but Mcllwraith assured her that he would let them know of her generosity.

  They shook hands solemnly. Alexandra returned home tired but satisfied that she was on the side of the angels and had made a genuine contribution to her class.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  INTRANSIGENT POSITIONS OF ALEXANDRA AND KYLE AND THE CONSEQUENCES

  “We love being mentally strong, but we hate situations that allow us to put our mental strength to good use.”

  —Mokokoma Mokhonoana

  …she felt an irresistible longing to begin life with him over again so that they could say what they had left unsaid and do everything right that they had done badly in the past. But she had to give in to the intransigence of death.

  —Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

  Melba Hall, University of Melbourne, Victoria State, Melbourne, Commonwealth of Australia, November 12, 1912

  It was Alexandra’s nature and practice to keep her business and personal life private, and she seldom confided in anyone about them. The nearest she came to candor was with her husbands, Boris and Kyle. Now, Boris was nowhere to be found; and Kyle was at best her opponent; and, at worst, her enemy. Certainly, he no longer had access to her innermost thoughts, feelings, and plans. So, with that in mind, she arranged a meeting with her three children at the University—a place where prying eyes and ears would not be privy to their conversations.

  Music studies at the University of Melbourne began in 1891 just before the great recession; and by 1912, it was recognized that the university had to have proper facilities. Victoria lacked funds and interest in spending its sparse treasury on frivolities such as a center for art, despite the fact that building of a concert hall was part of the initial plans. Dame Nellie Melba found this neglect unacceptable and took matters into her own capable hands. She presented a concert to raise funds in a memorable and amazingly successful evening. The program Dame Melba presented, featured herself as the principle soloist, the Victorian Professional Orchestra, and the Melbourne Repertory Theatre Company. The concert raised the princely sum of £1000. The new hall was—of course–appropriately named “Melba Hall”. The beautiful and highly useful building provided for classes on a wide-range of subjects: music aesthetics, music history, performance, style and interpretation, and provided the university and the city and province an acoustically well-designed venue for orchestral rehearsals, recitals, performances, and examinations.

  Alexandra’s interest in coming to Melba Hall was not for any of those reasons. She needed a relatively quick, convenient, and private place to talk business with her three children. None of them would be known or recognized because Alexandra had only toured the campus one time several years ago, and the three children were still in boarding prep schools.

  “We’re so happy to see you, Mother. This is a special occasion for all of us. You and Father have been so busy with all your business ventures and politicking, and we have been so absorbed in our school work that we haven’t been able to have a decent conversation for months,” said Irina, the eldest at twelve, as she gave Alexandra an emotional bear hug.

  Of the children, she was the only one who looked like her mother while the other two favored their father.

  “As you asked, we have just the place for our talk,” said Kyle. “My music teacher, Professor Stiglitz, arranged for us to use study room 111A from noon until one.”

  Kyle was two years younger than Irina and was the family prodigy. He would probably start university the same year as Irina if he continued to progress at the same rate. Margaret had just turned eleven and was so excited to see Alexandra that she could not talk. Instead she cried and poured out her homesickness and longing in a fervent and prolonged embrace.

  The family sat around a round discussion table in room 111A. The wife and daughter of the Melba Hall director brought in a platter of small cakes and pies, as she did every day for the students with whom she had bonded almost as if the young people were family members.

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Adams
. These look delicious.”

  “Really taint nothin’,” she responded. “More like a tschoske, and I’m just an old cooko,” she said and blushed.

  “Nothing of the sort. They are genuinely beautiful and delicious—nothing that’s not genuine or schlocky. You are permitted to be proud of your work and to be able to take a ‘thanks’ or two.”

  “Yes, M’am, and I thankee. I consider it a privlige to see these beautiful and talented young sheilas and blokes doin’ such hard yakka ta get ahead. I like to do a little fer ‘em.”

  When they were again alone, the four Bradshaw family members reminisced and laughed, told jokes, shared gossip, and gave their opinions about current affairs. When there were only ten minutes left before they had to vacate the room, Alexandra turned serious and got down to her business.

  “I have an important purpose for coming here to see you three today. What I am about to tell you has to stay among just the four of us until I am not available to give explanations, agreed?”

  “Not even Father?”

  “Not even him. In case something should happen to me…”

  “What? Is something wrong. Are you sick? Are you in some sort of danger? We’re still your tackies; we deserve to know,” said Irina.

  “Nothing like that and nothing to worry about. Just being prudent. Now, back to where I was going. You know that your mother is a very wealthy woman—not something I want noised around, right?”