Once a Pommie Swagman

by Thomas, Nick Arden

  Despite most of the people around us being rampant Aussie supporters they objected to the man’s attitude as much as we did, and told him to shut up and told us not to take any notice of him. We tried not to, but it was difficult and the rest of the day’s play we watched more or less in silence, Shirtless glaring at us from time to time. As it happened England went on to win that test, so I suppose it was fortunate that we didn’t go any more days.

  “Why did that man hate you so much, Daddy?” I asked, going home on the train.

  “Oh, I expect he had his reasons,” my father sighed gently, giving me a reassuring smile. “It isn’t me he hates. A lot of terrible things happen in wars, and some people find it hard to ever forgive and forget.”

  I may not have fully understood what he meant, but it was the first awareness I had of what I would come to learn my father was: a man of great humility, compassion and understanding.

  * * *

  “What’s the matter?” Glen’s concerned enquiry brought me back to the moment and quickly I looked away, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “Nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.”

  “Well it bloody is, alright! Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  “I didn’t want to come in the first place, remember?”

  “Get stuffed.”

  “No. You get stuffed! Getting all shitty, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Oh, put another record on, will you!”

  We didn’t talk again until we got to the road that ran across the Story Bridge. It was early evening, with rush hour traffic filing by and the streetlights had come on. Rucksacks would have to wait until morning. It was also beginning to drizzle, so we needed to find somewhere to stay for the night. We stopped on the corner for a moment to get our bearings, and could see the Story Bridge in the distance to our right. Then from an alley beside some shops to our left a scruffy looking man emerged and came shuffling down the footpath towards us, other pedestrians giving him a wide birth.

  He was wearing a pair of battered check slippers, a woollen beanie riddled with holes and an old army greatcoat, covered in grime and stains. The collar of his shirt and the bottoms of his trousers were frayed, tattered and filthy dirty, and as he got nearer the smell got stronger; close up, it was overpowering.

  “Gidday, boys. ‘Ow youse goin’?” He wheezed. “Where youse from? Not from round ’ere are ya, eh?” He answered himself. “No. Not from round ’ere, I’ll bet ya.” And he grinned, exposing about five rotting teeth through his straggly beard. Every now and then his left shoulder twitched and his head gave a little involuntary sideways jerk, as if he’d been given a mild electric shock or something. His hands, when not tugging anxiously at the lapels of his coat, trembled uncontrollably and his fingers and moustache were stained nicotine brown. “Travellin’, are yer, travellin’. Thought so, yeah, thought so.” He answered himself again. “I can tell, see. Wouldn’t have a cigarette, would ya. Just one, or a couple would be good, yeah, yeah, a couple would be fine.”

  It happens naturally with all relationships, I suppose, but without any discussion or planning Glen and I had each assumed certain roles and responsibilities in our day-to-day living. I was more or less in charge of communication, dealing with the public, police etc. while Glen, being a bit more circumspect and careful, was the treasurer and guardian of the goodies. I was therefore a little surprised when he put his kit bag down, took out Mr Molinari’s little canvas bag and gave the man a whole packet. “You can have them,” he said. The man was so surprised at such a windfall he hardly knew what to say.

  “Well! Thanks boys, thanks, thanks! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got matches, I got matches,” he said hurriedly, as if embarrassed by such generosity, and he dug about in his coat pockets with frenzied urgency until he found them. Hands trembling, he ripped open the packet and lit a cigarette, sucking in the smoke like a drowning man suddenly able to breathe again. “You’re good boys, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that. Got somewhere to go tonight, have youse? Got somewhere dry? Gonna’ be a wet one. Gonna’ be a wet one.”

  “Well … not exactly, we were going to go over the bridge and find the Salvos …”

  “Salvation Army!” he hissed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Youse don’t wanna go there! Nah, get robbed there, ya will. I knows a good place, good place. Nice and dry. Warm, too, got a fire. It’s just down there, just down there,” and he pointed towards the bridge and made to set off as if leading us there.

  Giving him the cigarettes had obviously been some sort of declaration of love on our part, and it was even more obvious we were not going to get rid of him easily. On the other side of the road the neon lights of a cafe winked at us, and on the spur of the moment I nodded at it, saying, “We’re going to have something to eat first, mate.”

  “Oh yeah, yeah, young boys, need yer tucker, need yer tucker,” and he followed us across the road and right up to the door of the cafe, so close that it was almost impossible to go in without at least offering to buy him something to eat.

  “No boys, no. Don’t want nuthin’ to eat, nuthin’ to eat. Just give us a couple of bob and I’ll go down there, down there,” and he pointed to a hotel further down the road. Before I could say anything, Glen delved into his pocket and gave the man two shillings. This time I wasn’t too sure who was the most amazed, the old bum or me.

  “Bit generous, aren’t you!” I said, as we ordered steak and chips.

  “My mum says, ‘when someone’s kind to you, you be kind to someone else’.” Glen shrugged. “That’s how the world goes around, and besides the poor bastard needs it more than we do.” I couldn’t really argue with that.

  This encounter was not a new experience for me, as I suspect it was for Glen. In Sydney, winos and homeless vagrants were common in many of the parks, and some nights in Green Park dozens of them might congregate until they became a nuisance and the police moved them on or arrested them. Some Saturday afternoons, if there was nothing to do, I used to go into town and play chess with them. There was a huge chess board in Hyde Park made out of black and white, two-foot square paving stones; the balsa wood pawns were two feet tall, and having made a move, the player would stand to one side while his opponent stalked around the board, contemplating his response. Often games drew quite large audiences, with people bringing their own chairs and ringing the board. My father had taught me to play when I was quite young, and by the age of fourteen I was a reasonably good player, but there were two or three of those drunken old vagrants I could never beat. The first time I went I was only twelve and the kings and queens were almost as tall as I was, but I suppose because I took it seriously they put up with me. If it taught me anything, it was never to judge their ability, or their intelligence, by their scruffy appearance.

  To our relief, when we emerged from the cafe, Jerky Joe, as Glen had christened him, was nowhere to be seen and we set off towards the Story Bridge, only to hear a voice call out behind us.

  “Wait up, boys, wait up, wait up!”

  Shit!

  There was nothing for it but to follow our new friend. Besides, it was beginning to rain quite heavily now and he had said his place was dry. We followed him for what seemed ages down a series of dingy, seedy-looking lanes, and at one stage he ducked into a dark alley and a little hesitantly we followed. About fifty yards down the alley he stopped beside a pile covered in an old piece of tarp. Lifting the tarp, he revealed a dozen or more six-foot-long hardwood fencing posts, and he gruntingly urged us to pick up three or four each while he wrapped the remainder in the tarp. “Good boys, good boys,” he wheezed. “This’ll keep us goin’ all night.” We set off again, and eventually came out in the park under the bridge at the end of Kangaroo Point; that narrow thumb of land clamped on three sides by the sweeping bend in the Brisbane River. A grassed area sloped down to the banks, but the dominant features were the two huge pylons supporting the bridge, one near where we’d emerged, the other about
sixty yards down the slope, nearer the river. There were no streetlights or anything, but the lighting from the bridge itself — towering a hundred feet above us — combined with the lights of the city on the opposite bank, lit the area up sufficiently to see quite well. Each pylon was in the shape of a large archway, a bit like the Arc de Triomphe, and under the nearer one five men were gathered round a brazier, flames licking from the top of it. All of the men turned and stared at us when we appeared. “It’s okay,” said Jerky, seeing us hesitate. “Youse have got wood, you’ll be okay,” and he led us over to the fire.

  “These boys is okay,“ he addressed one man in particular as we approached. “Got some wood, see.” To varying degrees they were all as unkempt and dirty as Jerky, and although they didn’t look all that happy to see us, none of them said anything; nor were there any introductions, no names exchanged.

  “Where youse from,” the man Jerky had spoken to demanded after we’d put the wood down beside the fire, as we’d seen Jerky do. He was older than the others, yet somehow he looked more alert, his eyes not quite so vacant.

  “Sydney.”

  “Humph,” he said, taking a swig from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. “What are you doin’ ’ere?”

  “Just passing through. We’re heading for Magnetic Island.”

  “Humph!” he grunted again, and then totally ignored us, as did the other men, and for what seemed ages nobody said anything; it was just becoming uncomfortable when Jerky pulled a bottle out of his coat pocket and offered it to us. “Have a drink, boys, have a drink.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “You don’t drink, you don’t stay here,” said the older man, and he glared at me, his eyes hard and uncompromising.

  “Best youse have a sip, boys,” Jerky encouraged, nodding his head knowingly, and again he offered us the bottle. “It’s pretty good stuff, pretty good stuff.”

  Now the other four men were also watching us, as if daring us to defy the older man. By now it was teeming down, the wind blowing the rain in under the bridge from time to time. The fire was nice and warm, and under the arch it was bone dry; it was obvious we could have a reasonably comfortable night here, there didn’t seem much choice in the matter, so I took the bottle and gingerly had a sip.

  To my surprise Jerky was right, it was ‘pretty good stuff’ — sweet, smooth and warm in the stomach. We discovered later that it was port, and although drinking it didn’t instantly make us all the best of mates, the hostile atmosphere eased a little.

  “Go get the cardboard,” the older man said to nobody in particular a few moments later. Without a murmur, Jerky and another man went around behind the pylon and emerged carrying several, six foot by two foot lengths of thick cardboard. These they gave to the old man, who sat on one and handed one each to the other men, who sat down on them to form a ring around the fire. “You two sit over there,” he commanded, pointing to an area a few yards just outside their ring.

  “Why?”

  “Because I told you to go over there. You don’t like it, you don’t have to stay,” and he took another swig from his bottle and looked away, expecting his orders to be obeyed. Again Jerky Joe sort of came to our rescue, shuffling across. “Here’s a good spot boys, good spot,” he enthused, scraping the ground near the sides of the pylon with his slipper. “Youse can sleep here, no worries.” So we spread out the ground sheets we got from ‘Uncle’ Alf when we first set out and we sat down. It seemed the sensible thing to do. A few minutes later another scruffy, unkempt figure emerged from the direction we’d come from and stood looking at the group.

  “Couldn’t find no wood,” he said, clasping his coat.

  “Too bad,” the old man snapped. “You know the rules — fuck off!”

  For about an hour we sat there, smoking and sipping port, not daring to do otherwise really. Glen and I were getting very little benefit from the fire ten yards away, and eventually, courage no doubt emboldened by the port, we picked up our ground sheets and moved them closer. “We did bring some wood!” I countered the old man’s glare, and to my relief he didn’t say anything and Jerky winked as he handed us the bottle again. There wasn’t a great deal of conversation, more like occasional mutterings, and at one stage two of the men exchanged sharp words about something but it didn’t last long after the old man glared at them. He dictated just about everything that went on around the brazier; only he stoked the fire, and he made sure everybody was stoked with port, bottles of which appeared as if magically from various coat pockets; firewood and port were obviously the keys of entry to this club. Then one of the men began to sing quietly.

  “My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea …”

  None of the others joined in, and for what seemed like ages he sang the song, over and over again in a surprisingly melodic, soporific deep voice. Warm fire, port and a lilting lullaby, we were nodding off to sleep. Then the singer was interrupted by the sound of loud voices coming from down near the waterfront. Getting louder and louder, a group of about eight Aborigines appeared under the pylon below us. They were all drunk and engaged in a monumental argument which raged for about ten minutes before, one at a time, they slumped to the ground and sat in a bad-tempered circle, shouting and yelling at each other even as they passed bottles of beer about.

  It was illegal to supply Aboriginals with alcohol; they weren’t allowed into pubs, and only a few years before the famous artist Albert Namatjira had been sent to prison for giving alcohol to his own family, so where they’d got their beer from was anyone’s guess. They took no notice of our group sitting by the fire sixty yards away. It was as if we weren’t there at all, and other than looking down every so often when their voices were raised, we totally ignored them. It was surreal; sitting under an enormous structure, a group of black drunks arguing and squabbling, totally ignoring a group of silent, dishevelled white drunks sixty yards away, the fire flickering in their bedraggled, gaunt faces. “Oh bring back, bring back, bring back my Bonnie to me, to me. Bring back, bring …”

  Suddenly the old man turned to us and demanded, “You blokes ever had a fuck before?” For several moments nobody said a thing, least of all Glen and myself. We were so stunned we could only stare stupidly at him, the strains of Bonnie fading away.

  “Didn’t think so,” he said, nodding to himself. “Hey, Alice!” he shouted down to the Aborigines, a smile now playing round his lips. “Couple of young virgins up ’ere, never done it before, got a bottle of port, yours if you want to show ’em a good time!” The silence that followed this was excruciating, to put it mildly, and both Glen and I were struck dumb with embarrassment.

  “Guess they’re not interested, Alice!” the old man shouted again, and the others all chuckled and chortled at our discomfort, including Jerky, although he was a little more sympathetic and came over, offering us the bottle again.

  “Wot’s the matta, white boy!” a shrill voice rent the night. “Think black sheilas is no good, eh!”

  Looking down, we could see an Aboriginal woman had detached herself from the group and come about a quarter of the way up the slope towards us. Suddenly she lifted up her dress, not that we could see anything as she was blacker than the night.

  “See!” she shouted. “We ain’t no different to no white sheila,” and she let her dress fall down and turned back to the group, all of whom were now chuckling. Then Alice shrieked out, “We’s all pink inside, white boy! We’s all pink inside!”

  At this, everybody under the bridge except Glen and I fell about with laughter, with Alice’s shrill cackle reverberating around the metal girders of the bridge. Never had a bottle of port been so comforting.

  Half an hour later, both groups had settled down and were once again studiously ignoring each other. Glen and I were just beginning to doze off when the lights of a vehicle splashed onto the grass and a paddy wagon, followed by a police car, came speeding down the track, past us and straight across the grass to the Aborigines, many of whom had
by now flaked out and were asleep in the dirt.

  “Don’t worry,” Jerky held out his hand, motioning for us not to move. “They ain’t come for us.” One or two Aborigines were awake, including Alice, and she ran from the scene shouting obscenities as the police vehicles skidded to a halt. Alerted by her, the others began to stagger to their feet but were too slow and no match for the four or five policemen who leapt from the vehicles, batons raining down indiscriminately. It was all over in minutes and half a dozen Aboriginals, yelping as they were hit and prodded with batons, were bundled unceremoniously into the back of the wagon. The little convoy left far more sedately than they’d arrived, driving slowly back up the hill and seemingly not the slightest bit interested in us. They passed by only yards from our fire and both Glen and I detected just the slightest nod from the sergeant in the passenger’s seat, the old man acknowledging him with an even slighter flick of his finger. “Same every night, same every night,” said Jerky, handing us the bottle again. “Them black fellas never learn.”

  It was the traffic noise that woke us, and we sat up gingerly, holding our heads. “Jesus, I feel awful!” Glen moaned. After the police left we’d had a few more swigs of port and neither of us could actually remember much after that, although I did recall getting up in the night and vomiting copiously into the bushes behind the pylon. The sun was shining brightly and the roar of morning traffic filled the air but the place was deserted, even the brazier and the sheets of cardboard were nowhere to be seen. Spotting a tap down by one of the park benches, I went stumbling down to it; I’d just put my head under when I heard Glen let out a cry of anguish, and looking up could see him flinging stuff out of his kit bag.