Once a Pommie Swagman

by Thomas, Nick Arden

  Much to our delight, the first car that came along a few minutes later stopped and the driver leaned across and opened the passenger window. “I can take you to Gladstone, will that do?”

  Gladstone! Wow! That would be the best lift we’d had for days. Would it do? We almost ripped the doors off!

  “One in the front, one in the back, please.” The driver held his hand up, seeing we were both about to pile into the front bench seat with him. “And don’t slam the doors!“

  The car was a Triumph Mayflower, the poor man’s Rolls some called them, although we called them butterboxes because of their peculiar square shape.

  Inside it was immaculately clean and tidy; the mahogany dash positively glowing under the interior lights, and the leather seats smelled and looked like they too had only just been polished. Turning the radio down so you could only just hear it, the driver offered me his hand as I got in. “I’m Mr Willard,” and he turned and nodded a greeting to Glen. “Can you put your bags on the floor, please.” When he was happy things were organised just how he wanted them, he engaged the gears with great care and slowly set off, gripping the wheel with both hands, shoulders hunched.

  As everybody over twenty-three looked old to me, I had no idea what age Mr Willard was, but reckoned he must have been at least fifty. He had grey hair, glasses and was wearing a woollen cardigan; in fact he looked just like someone would who owned an immaculate Triumph Mayflower and drove it with pedantic caution. All he lacked was a hat. Whenever a vehicle travelling in the other direction came into sight he would slow down. On one corner he almost came to a complete standstill. Then he suddenly turned the radio up. “Oh! I quite like this one.”

  “I looked into the muddy water and what could I see? I saw a lonely, lonely face lookin’ back at me. Tears in his eyes and a prayer on his lips; and the glove of his lost love at his fingertips. Moody river …”

  Back at Theo’s milk bar, if a boy put a Pat Boon record on the jukebox he got stuff chucked at him. If a girl played him, we all pretended to vomit. I glanced back at Glen with an open-eyed grimace, only to find him hiding behind the driver’s seat, crossing his eyes and pulling a grotesque face; it was all I could do to stop myself bursting into laughter. But the dulcet tones of Pat seemed to calm Mr Willard and gradually he began to relax, as if the further he went the more confident he became. He didn’t say much himself, but Glen and I … well, mostly me, relieved and excited to at last be getting somewhere, regaled him with our story. Other than the fact he was going to Gladstone, we learned nothing more about him. Then Glen yawned and lay down on the seat, causing Mr Willard to look back quickly, and for a moment I thought he was going to tell him off, but he just smiled and asked “Tired?”

  “Yeah.” Glen yawned again. “Been a long day.” We drove on for a bit in silence, and I began to feel myself nodding off.

  “Tell you what,” Mr Willard’s voice broke through the fuzz, I wasn’t sure how long later. “How does a mixed grill and a night in a comfy bed sound? I’ll pay.”

  “What?”

  “A proper bed for the night and a good meal,” he repeated. “I was going to try and get to Maryborough tonight, but I’m getting a bit tired myself.”

  “Gee, that sounds great!” Glen piped up from the back. “I’m starving!”

  “Fine,” said Mr Willard. “There’s a motel with a diner in Nambour. We’ll pull in there.” And then he put his hand on my leg and gently squeezed my upper thigh. “We might even have some ice cream, how about that!” he smiled, his hand giving my leg a final little squeeze before returning to the wheel.

  I may not have yet discovered the mysterious delights girls had at the tops of their legs, but I had discovered the goings on at the tops of my legs whenever I imagined the tops of Denise Phillips’ legs. So I suppose I knew I wasn’t a poofter, although I wasn’t entirely sure what poofters did or were, other than they liked other poofters. Barry Wiley, on the other hand, was very knowledgeable about them and it was from him we learned that Mr Reynolds, our school science teacher, was one, as was Mr Watson in the paper shop. How he knew this, he didn’t explain, but he was adamant that all poofters were arseholes and if one ever came near him he would kick his head in. As everybody else agreed and seemed to know all about poofters as well, I didn’t say anything in case they thought me naive and unworldly. That was a situation to be avoided at all costs as being thought of as naive and unworldly in Theo’s milk bar was the ultimate humiliation.

  Thus it was, as we entered Nambour, that I was still fairly ignorant about sexual matters, and despite his hand on my leg, it didn’t enter my head that Mr Willard might have plans for us in that way. Such thoughts and fears are the preserve of the experienced and the knowledgeable; nevertheless, I knew there was something about him that made me feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t scared or particularly worried, in fact if anything I found myself getting annoyed because Glen was fast asleep in the back and not sharing my discomfort.

  Even after we’d stopped outside the motel Glen continued to sleep, so I jumped out and shook him awake. “Get up!” I hissed. “This bloke’s a weirdo!” That was all I could say, however, for Mr Willard opened the other back door and started organising us.

  “Leave your bags in the car,” he told us. “We’ll go and get something to eat first, and then I’ll check us in.”

  Suddenly my imagination went berserk and I convinced myself that Mr Willard didn’t want Glen and I to be alone together for some reason, even, I was sure, positioning himself between us as we walked across to the diner. Now I was beginning to worry, but throughout the meal it was impossible to say anything, or get Glen’s attention as he was so busy devouring his food; besides, Mr Willard had seen to it that he was sitting opposite me and could watch my every move.

  For a while, relieving my hunger pains made me forget the situation and I too tucked into the meal. Then Mr Willard got up to get another cup of coffee. “He’s weird!” I hissed. “I’m not staying here with him.”

  “Why not? He’s okay, he bought us this, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t care! I’m not staying. When I say go, we run for it, okay?”

  ”But our bags are in the car.”

  Shit!

  We could say no more. Mr Willard had returned.

  “We’ll just get the one room,” he told us, finishing his coffee and preparing to get up. “It’s got three beds and it’s cheaper like that. I’ll just go and pay for this first.”

  As soon as he turned his back I nodded at Glen and, trusting he would follow, leapt up and darted out of the restaurant; as I did, I snatched Mr Willard’s cigarettes and lighter, stuffing them into my pocket as I ran. I’d worked out that we should have enough time to get to the car, grab our bags and be away before he would know what was going on. And so it turned out; he didn’t even get to the door of the restaurant before we had reclaimed our bags and were running back out onto the road. “Oi!” he yelled. “Come back here!”

  We ran down the highway towards the town centre as fast as we could, desperately looking for somewhere to hide. Two or three hundred yards from the motel a large semi-trailer was parked off the side of the road in semi-darkness, and chucking our kit bags up on top of the canvas load we clambered up and lay as flat as we could. Moments later we saw Mr Willard’s car come out of the motel and drive slowly towards us. “See, I told you he’d come after us,” I hissed.

  “He wouldn’t have if you hadn’t pinched his bloody cigarettes!”

  “Bullshit, the bloke’s a weirdo, he grabbed my leg! Quick! Get down!”

  Three times Mr Willard went slowly back and forth up the street, and we could see him peering out looking for us. We dared not move, and it was well over two hours after his last pass before we plucked up the courage to come down. By then I had managed to convince Glen that we had been in some sort of danger, although I still didn’t really understand what sort. Had it just been my uncontrolled imagination? I didn’t know, but deep down I really didn’t b
elieve so; that’s why I’d stolen his cigarettes, to teach him a lesson. We climbed down, every headlight causing us to duck and dive for cover. It was obvious we had to get off the highway and out of the town centre. Mr Willard might come back at any time.

  With no sort of plan other than to get away from the highway, we jogged and ran, weaving our way through the back streets of Nambour for twenty minutes, eventually coming to a bridge. For a moment we rested, leaning over the handrail to catch our breath and there, only six feet or so below us, were the wagons of a goods train. Forty or fifty yards away we could see the engine stopped at a red signal, letting off the steady and subdued chuffs that steam locomotives do when they are stationary. We didn’t need a discussion about it, a look was enough. Bye, bye Mr Willard.

  * * *

  Jumping from the bridge, we landed in a clump of lantana growing on the bank beside the tracks. Ever been in a clump of lantana? Bloody stuff! Luckily we had our duffle coats on which protected us a bit, but our faces and the backs of our hands got badly scratched.Then we stumbled along in the dark beside the train for twenty minutes trying to find somewhere even half comfortable to ride. The wagons were either empty coal tenders or flatbeds carrying a variety of heavy material and equipment. Eventually we found one with two, thirty-foot long, four-foot diameter concrete pipes strapped to it, and climbed inside one of them. It was pitch black and we sat there for what seemed ages before the train finally jerked into movement. It wasn’t long before the repetitive clickety-clack and gentle sway of the wagon had us fast asleep, lying head to foot along the pipe.

  It was the quiet and stillness as much as anything else that woke us, and scrambling up the pipe we stuck our heads out. All the wagons of the train had been left on a side track and the engine, hissing and huffing, was pulled up next to a brightly-lit station a hundred yards away. Our wagon was stopped next to an old signal box and we dug out Francesca’s map and lit a match.

  “Shit! Bloody Gympie! That’s only an inch!”

  At the pictures on Saturday afternoons, whenever a cowboy or hobo jumped a freight train, they always seemed to find an empty box car, usually with a comfortable straw bale in the corner, then they’d spend four or five days travelling across America before they got hungry, had to go to the toilet or reload their 45s. We’d been on this bloody thing all night, crammed inside a concrete pipe, and only gone an inch, and every time we licked our lips we got a mouthful of grit. We sat at the entrance of the pipe for a moment, pondering what to do; the eastern skyline was just getting light and we were both getting restless.

  “I need a shit.”

  “Yeah, so do I.”

  Using the station toilets was out of the question as there were several men standing about next to the engine, talking and smoking. Of course we could have gone in the bush like we usually did, but hanging your arse over a log and wiping it with leaves isn’t the most comfortable thing to do and if we could find a proper toilet it was preferable. So, clambering up a bank and over a fence, we followed our noses into town and down the deserted main street, looking in vain for a toilet. It was still quite dark and our need was just becoming dire when we passed the main entrance of a hotel and I suddenly remembered our conversation with Ralph, the hitchhiking soldier in Beaudesert.

  “In country towns I go into pubs for a shit.”

  “We’re too young, we’re not allowed in.”

  “No, not in the bar; upstairs, in the guest’s toilets; especially early in the morning, there’s never anybody about.”

  Of course! I pushed the door; it was open, and I was in and up the stairs before Glen could complain. I waited for him at the top, silencing his objections with an urgent wave and pointing to the sign ‘Ladies & Gents Bathrooms’ with an arrow pointing down the dark corridor.

  “What if someone comes?” Glen hissed, looking round anxiously.

  “We’re only going to the bloody toilet!” Even so, I too whispered and we tiptoed down the corridor, creeping past bedroom doors like real criminals. The floorboards creaked loudly, and by the time we got to the bathroom our hearts were in our mouths, making our need even more desperate and we each charged into a booth. Amazing how having a shit can be such a wonderful experience sometimes.

  When we came out it was the first time since the diner in Nambour that we’d been able to see each other properly, and immediately we burst into suppressed giggles, hissing and exhorting each other to keep quiet. Glen looked like something out of the Black and White Minstrels who’d been in a fight with a cat. The scratches on our cheeks and hands were far worse than we’d realised, and our faces, hair and clothes were covered in grit and soot. There were three or four shower booths next to the toilets, and using them just seemed the natural thing to do.

  While we were at it we washed our clothes as we washed ourselves, the shower soon awash with black grit, and I was just beginning to wring out my trousers when I heard someone come into the bathroom. I froze, but Glen in the booth next to me kept whistling quietly to himself, his water still running. I held my breath, silently screaming at him to shut up, but whoever it was went into a toilet and clicked the latch.

  “Gee, that was good!” enthused Glen cheerily as his water stopped. Instantly I hefted myself up so I could see over the partition.

  “Shut up!” I mouthed, and pointed frantically to the toilets. The silence that followed was probably more incriminating than any noise we might have made, but to our relief when the man came out of the toilet he just washed his hands and left the bathroom. Wrapping our wet clothes in our towels, we got dressed as fast as we could and tiptoed back up the corridor and out into the street, unseen.

  The sun was beginning to come up and we found a park and spread our wet clothes out on some benches. On the way we passed both the police station, with a sign outside informing us that it opened at 9am, and the grocers, where we could cash in our voucher, thoughts of which only reminded us how hungry we were. Even so, comforted by the knowledge we would soon have the vouchers, we spent the last of our money on a packet of cigarettes. We got to the police station just on opening time, to find a beefy-faced police constable standing in the doorway, tucking his crisply ironed shirt into his equally crisp trousers, grimacing slightly as he tightened his belt around his substantial beer belly.

  “Mornin’, boys! Had a bit of a disagreement, have we?”

  “What? Oh!” I put my hand to my cheek. “Lantana, we ended up in some last night.”

  “As yer do,” he chuckled. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re hitchhiking from Sydney to Magnetic Island, and we want some food vouchers.”

  “Sorry,” he shook his head. “Don’t do them any more,” and he turned to go back into the station, Glen and I following, alarm bells clanging.

  “What do you mean, you don’t do them any more?”

  “I mean we don’t do them any more,” and he went around behind the desk and began busying himself with papers, getting ready for the day’s work.

  “But that’s impossible! We haven’t got any food, we’re starving. Where do we get the vouchers from?”

  “You don’t,” he said flatly. “Food vouchers were phased out last year in Queensland.”

  “But what are we supposed to do? How do we get food?”

  “Like everybody else, I guess, son. You get a job.”

  “But we’re hitchhiking, we’re bona-fide travellers, we’re unemployed…”

  Laconic benevolence fading slightly, he interrupted me. “It doesn’t matter how bona-fide you are, son, food vouchers are finished. If you’re unemployed you have to go and register to claim benefits. Rockhampton is the nearest office on your route, so I suggest you get yourselves up there and register.”

  This was a disaster neither of us had been prepared for, and for a moment we could only stare incredulously at the policeman.

  “Look,” he said, seeing our dismay. “I can probably help you out with a couple of bob from petty cash to get yourselves enough tucke
r to get to Rocky. Other than that …” and he held his hands out sympathetically. We left the station almost in a state of shock. True to his word he gave us two and sixpence each from his petty cash, but it was only enough to buy a few tins of food and we still had hundreds of miles to go to get to Magnetic Island. We went back to the park and sat, dejected, hungry and squabbling furiously.

  “I said we shouldn’t have spent our last money on those bloody cigarettes!”

  “Get stuffed! You wanted them too!”

  We spent the following two hours sitting apart in the park, ignoring each other while tempers cooled and clothes dried, but we eventually got together again, as we both knew we had to; unity was our strength.

  I didn’t discuss it with Glen, because I didn’t really plan it as such, it just sort of happened and before I realised what I was doing, I’d done it. No doubt I had an idea of what I was going to do subconsciously, because I made sure our water bottles were full and our clothes were dry before we set off; I didn’t want to have to come back for them. The money the policeman had given us was enough to buy the basics — tea, sugar, flour, a few tins of baked beans and maybe some broken biscuits — barely enough for one meal, never mind getting us to Rockhampton; so, kit bags packed with clean, dry clothes, we headed for the shop.

  In many country towns the general store was also the local produce store and sold various grains in bulk, along with flour, tea, sugar, salt, cooking oil and other staples that were weighed or measured out from sacks, tins and drums, often directly into customers’ own containers. Like the majority of stores, the Gympie shop had these larger items stored on racks in a large room out the back, and as soon as we entered and I saw there were no other customers and only one lady behind the counter I knew what I was going to do. Motioning for Glen to go and buy the items we’d decided we could afford, I sort of hovered in the background behind the two rows of grocery shelves that ran down the middle of the store, and when the shopkeeper turned her back to go and weigh out our flour and sugar I ran along the aisle stuffing as many tins, bottles and packets of things into my kit bag as I could. When I got to the other end the lady still hadn’t returned, so I grabbed a couple more things without looking and by the time she came back I was standing nonchalantly in the shop doorway, my now bulging kit bag tied up between my legs. It couldn’t have been easier, even Glen had no idea what I’d done.