The Pencil Case

by Lorraine Cobcroft

  Listening to her, I remembered how unattractive the civilised lifestyle had seemed after living feral and free in the bush. The memory of poverty and rough living no longer overwhelmed me. I began to again think and feel as I had as a child, before brainwashing and indoctrination tempted me to believe a life of rigid discipline, cruelty presented as training and existence in sterile dormitories and austere eating and recreation halls, was healthier than living as I believed nature had intended.

  Hawkers weren’t permitted into the army camp, but a wizened old Chinese woman came into the camp each Wednesday peddling children’s clothing. I wondered how this woman gained admission. A neighbour was taking lessons in Chinese and, one Wednesday morning, she brought her tutor to translate for her so she could quiz the woman.

  “They’ve given her a lifetime pass to peddle her wares to soldiers,” the translator said, “as a thank you for her service to Australian and British soldiers imprisoned here during the war. She was a servant in the prison camp, employed by the Japanese apparently. She used to smuggle mail in and out, and bring in medicines for sick prisoners.”

  The woman became agitated then, rattling on in her own tongue for an extended time. The translator listened intently. Finally, she paused.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said. She seemed to understand his exclamation, and she muttered some instruction and pointed at our little group. The translator began his tale.

  “Seems a prisoner came in with shrapnel wounds in both legs, all infected. Showed no sign of healing. She brought a little box of maggots and introduced them to the wound to eat away at the infection. Later, when he began to mend, she helped him escape to the beach to bathe his legs in the healing saltwater. She took him food and water every evening, but after several days of hiding on the beach, he walked back into the prison and turned himself in. It was an island. There was no place else to go.” Footnote8

  I studied the hawker for a moment, remembering my mother talking of Dad’s awful war experiences. Then I pulled out my wallet and extracted a $50 bill. The hawker’s eyes popped and her face split into a huge gummy smile. I chose some pretty little dresses and cute little baby boy suits from her basket and pressed the bill into her hand.

  Over breakfast the next morning, without a word of explanation and in a tone that defied her to question me, I told Fran, “I’ve made a decision. When we go back to Australia, I want to find my family. I want to go home”.

  ~~~~

  28: BLOKES LIKE ME

  WAGGA WAGGA, JUNE 2010

  “How things change,” Paul mused, slowing the Roller as he approached the “Welcome to Wagga Wagga” sign with its caution about driving speeds in city streets printed neatly below. “We arrived and left here in a reconstructed Morris 1100, bought from a wrecking yard for a few hundred bucks, and so loaded its chassis almost scraped the ground. Nearly 40 years now, Ern, and we’ve never been back. Driven all over New South Wales, but always bypassed.”

  “Were you particularly unhappy here?” Ern asked. His creased brow suggested his memory bank was shuffling snippets, searching for references to events in Paul’s life that might have happened in this town.

  Paul shrugged. “Not particularly. It was just another miserable chapter. The last months of my incarceration.” A hesitant half–smile played at the corners of his lips, but didn’t reach his eyes. They remained glazed and cold.

  Paul and Ern focused on road signs for a time. When Paul next spoke, it seemed more to himself than his companion. “Professional musician to labourer, on a third the pay,” he mused. “The price of freedom!”

  They turned into the airport parking lot just as the plane from Sydney dipped, bounced and taxied. Paul strode across to the arrival gate, hands in his pockets, expression bland. But when he saw Fran --- dressed in fitted linen slacks and a tailored Fletcher Jones woollen blazer and smiling radiantly --- his eyes lit and his cheeks dimpled. He kissed her cheek, took her bag, and slipped an arm casually around her waist to guide her to the parking lot.

  “Have you been told today?” he asked. She laughed in reply --- a high, tinkling, self–conscious little giggle.

  “Our mission today, darling,” Paul said, “is to tell Ern about the months we spent here and the beginning of my life as a free man.”

  She frowned. “You still think of it that way, don’t you? It was the army, Paul, not prison. You had a lot of fun.”

  “Andy Dufresne had fun at times during his incarceration too,” he replied flippantly. “But he was a hell of a lot happier when he got out.”

  In response to her puzzled look, he added Shawshank Redemption. Ern remarked that the analogy was rather extreme.

  “Being in jail means having food, shelter and leisure time provided for you,” Paul said, now very serious. “Therefore, it appears to be a desirable state. The difference between being in jail and being a king in a castle is that the king is causative --- his thinking affects others. The prisoner is the subject of someone else’s causativeness --- the thinking of others controls him. To me, the army was jail, because I continued to be the effect of the thinking of others. I had no control over my life.”

  “And when you got out, I remember you being in a state of absolute exhilaration for a day or two, and then crashing so badly it terrified me,” Fran said, her face contorting with the pain of recollection.

  Paul’s face paled to the shade of old parchment. He looked dazed and hurt. “I realised I was still imprisoned. Sterile cubicles, barked orders and rigid routine were my world for so long, I didn’t know how to function outside that environment. Ultimately, I guess my own thinking imprisoned me --- my inability, due to training, to believe in my ability to be causative in my own world.”

  WAGGA WAGGA, JUNE 1973

  “It was my bloody stripe, Fran. Bastards! I was transferred back to this shit–hole instead of the city because there was a promotion waiting for me here. Col told me that before we left. He set it up.”

  I waited for the noise of a passing train to stop. We had been back from Singapore two months now. I was posted to Wagga Wagga and after shuffling us from one temporary residence to another, claiming a housing shortage, the army had eventually moved us into a tiny cottage right next to the rail line. Every time a train went past, the whole house shook.

  “They gave me a fucking consolation prize,” I said. “They’re introducing French horns into the band, and they let me transfer from cornet and play horn for a change. In different circumstances, I’d be rapt. I love the horn, but it’s pretty crappy compensation.”

  Fran put her hand on my shoulder, but I pushed it away.

  “You didn’t help! The dickhead couldn’t pass a simple maths test, but he drives the band sergeant to work every day. And with you helping him pass the exam, well, that’s it, isn’t it? He gets my promotion and I get a fucking French horn.”

  She ignored the accusation and went back to peeling vegetables. We both knew I had asked her to help Joe with his maths. She didn’t know it would affect my chances of promotion.

  “Don’t know what I expected. Not as if it’s a first.”

  She spun around then, and stared at me. I never talked to her about my past.

  “Second year at Balcombe, they put me in charge of a minor work operation. All except one of the team worked willingly. I asked the slacker politely to help, but he ignored me. I said, ‘Mate, I don’t have any stripes, but I was put in charge of this operation. Everyone else is doing their bit. Come on. Have a go. Do your bit’. He sneered and said, ‘Get fucked!’

  “I glared at him for a minute. He raised his fists. I hesitated for a sec, then answered with one swift punch to his upper chest. He reeled a bit and his thick–rimmed glasses began to slip.”

  I paused for a swig of beer.

  “I was focused on the damn glasses, watching them slide --- like in slow motion. I let my eyes follow them, praying they wouldn’t break. The hook came as I watched, totally distracted. Slacker’s fist came down on my to
p lip and a moment later blood was streaming down my chin. I groped for my handkerchief, pressed it to the wound, staggered backwards, and slumped to the ground. Slacker just shrugged and went back to sit under his tree, leaning back on its trunk. He stuck another cigarette in his gob, flicked the lighter and inhaled. He just sat there puffing and looking smug.”

  “An hour later, a Corp doctor was examining the holes my teeth had made in my top lip. I said I tripped and fell against a tree trunk, but of course he knew better. I had five stitches. I had to continue playing my instrument normally all the time that wound was healing. The pain was excruciating. It taught me two lessons. I never lost concentration in a fight again, and I gave up any fantasies about rising through the ranks. I obviously wasn’t cut out for a position of authority.”

  “That’s hardly a fair assessment, Paul. You were a kid and a bully took advantage of a situation.”

  I shrugged. “That’s what Gordon McLaren said when he tried to get me promoted. He turned up in Pucka as band sergeant when I was 21. Says to me one night, ‘How come you don’t have hooks, Paul. You’re good at your job. You should have been promoted before now. I’m going to make sure you get the next promotion’. A month later this arsehole comes back from Vietnam and says to the boss ‘I want to be a corporal’ and guess what? They promote him over me. Bum licker, of course. Always running around making a big show of asking what he can do to help. That’s what you have to be to get pro- moted in the army --- a bum licker!”

  “And you, Paul, are definitely not that,” Fran said quietly.

  “Won’t become one either. They make me sick.”

  “But you could be a little less antagonistic, couldn’t you?”

  “I stand up for myself, that’s all. I don’t take shit.”

  “You go around whistling ‘Waterloo’ every time you pass a warrant officer who rubs you the wrong way. You don’t think that gets up his nose?” “I like the tune, and I like whistling.”

  “That’s what you say to anyone who objects to your behaviour, but I know better and so do they. And what about taping a sergeant’s ranting and playing it back to a group of mates and their wives?”

  “You rolled around the floor laughing. He carried on like a loony. It was bloody funny! Anyway, I said it was a Bill Cosby tape we were laughing at and no–one said different except a sergeant who was eavesdropping and imagined he heard something he didn’t.”

  I stood up to drop an empty beer can in the bin and pull another from the fridge. I pulled at the tab angrily and took a deep swig. “That stuff happened in Singapore. Nobody here knows about it.”

  “But maybe they see signs of that rebellious attitude.”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” I was snapping at her now, annoyed by her seeming disloyalty. But she was right, and I knew it. I undermined myself when it came to career advancement. Perhaps I didn’t want to advance. I wanted freedom, and deep down in my subconscious, I knew advancement would only get in the way.

  “I’m on your side, Paul,” she replied emphatically. “I feel for you. It’s deeply disappointing, for both of us, and it’s unfair. I just think you could give yourself a better chance for next time.”

  “Next time. Yeah. Right. There’s always a bloody next time. That’s what they said. And next time there will be another arse–licking jerk sucking up to the boss. Don’t know what I was thinking anyway. Blokes like me don’t get promotions.”

  Blokes like me. Fran had been married to me for over two years now, and recently delivered our second child, yet she didn’t know me. She had no idea who I was before we met. It was as if my life began when we got together. I knew it bothered her that I seemed to have no past.

  I told her I had done some scuba diving before we met and loved it, but all my gear was stolen. Having had one terrifying encounter with a shark, I’d lost interest in the sport. She knew I joined the army at 15 and she knew I hated it. I’d never told her why I joined. My life was strictly compartmentalised. I’d sworn to keep my early years a secret, and I’d honoured that promise to myself.

  She knew I’d spent time in an orphanage. I’d gone to school with her cousins in those early years. She knew I called my aunt and uncle’s house ‘home’. Beyond that, there was nothing. No photographs of me as a boy or youth, nor of family, friends or special places. There were no school report cards, award certificates, sporting trophies or personal mementos, nor books with inscriptions inside exposing them as Sunday School prizes, school awards or gifts from a loved one on some special occasion. I claimed no friends, just workmates and past acquaintances in whom, regardless of their past role in my life, I had little interest except as drinking partners, and for whom I held no affection.

  There was no talk of past dreams or future aspirations, except to get out of the army and win a fortune on racehorses, both of which I knew she considered unachievable. Well, perhaps I could get out of the army, but to do what? I signed on again because I had no other options. I was a single man then. Now I had a family to support.

  “He’s diligent and dedicated to practice to the point that the other men often ridicule and torment him,” a sergeant’s wife had told my surprised wife once. “He spends every spare minute at work practising.” But I never brought musical scores into the house and never played at home. My diligence at work was to compensate for having no natural talent. I was entirely unsuited for my profession. It was my job and I did it conscientiously during working hours.

  I knew Fran often wondered why I entered a profession for which I claimed to be so unsuited; why I signed on to a life I claimed to hate so much. When she asked, I replied simply that I’d had no choice and refused to explain.

  I drank heavily, rebelled against authority often, and was occasionally violent. But I was secretly fiercely proud of my good conduct record and my reputation for diligence at work. I was all bravado and bluster when faced with threat or warning or claiming to be planning evil deeds, but harsh treatment had taught me to fear punishment. It was the values my parents taught me in those early years, though, that kept me honest.

  Fran was the only woman I’d ever been with, and that astonished her. “Young musicians in uniform,” she had commented once, “I would think you would have girls everywhere swooning over you.”

  I shrugged. “Guess I was never very interested. I could get a date whenever I wanted one. Had a steady girlfriend for a while. Strictly platonic. Mostly I was more interested in dart and snooker competitions in the local pub… and boxing, ’til I got busted fighting in uniform.”

  “Oh?”

  “We were in Melbourne, playing at the show. After the diagram march, a group of us went for a drink. When we passed the Jimmy Sharman Boxing Stadium, I told another bloke I’d won a few quid against their troupe boxers when I was a teenager. Dave suggested we volunteer to accept a challenge. We were in ceremonials, so I resisted, but he said we could take our white coats off. He promptly offered to enter the ring.

  “He won his rounds, and then it was my turn. There was five quid on offer for surviving three rounds. I’d never been beaten in the Sharman tent --- and rarely outside of it. Besides, I wasn’t about to appear chicken after my mate walked off with a prize.

  “I stripped down to my trousers, but with an audience watching I could hardly fight in my underwear. Partway through the last round, I looked up to see the band sergeant scowling at me from the back of the crowd. Don’t know how I managed to win that round, with one nervous eye on the sergeant all through the last half. Thankfully, he wasn’t a bad bloke. I escaped with a severe but unofficial reprimand and a caution that if anyone else had caught me I’d have been skinned alive.” I laughed at the recollection.

  “But yeah,” I continued, “young soldiers usually have no trouble picking up willing bed-mates and most of them have no scruples when it comes to sleeping with any girl or woman --- married or otherwise. I never considered it worth the risks, emotional or physical. Anyway, I like to do it between sheets I know are
clean and with a woman I know is disease free. And now that I’m married… well... it’s a hell of a lot simpler to stay that way and avoid the unwelcome complications of being unfaithful, no matter how attractive some of the opportunities might be.”

  I often told her to leave me, but I knew she didn’t believe I would ever initiate a break–up. She never believed that I seriously wanted her to go. I merely wanted it understood that I didn’t need her. Needing or wanting anyone or anything invited enemies to hurt you by taking what you wanted away.

  I loved playing at concerts and I would come home on a high after and talk about how good it felt to be up there on show and how well the band had performed. Yet I constantly talked about yearning to do something useful with my life. I considered what I did a waste.

  “You practise for hours, then you go out there and make a magnificent sound and everyone claps, then it’s gone, Fran,” I said often. “It achieves nothing.”

  “It entertains people, Paul. It gives them pleasure. They go home feeling happy. That’s achieving something.”

  “Yeah. They listen and clap and for five minutes they feel good, then they go home and forget they even heard it. That perfect note you worked so hard for --- it just evaporates! Builders create houses for people to live in for decades. Clothes manufacturers make stuff people wear year after year. Even artists and writers create something real and lasting. Musicians? They create a vacuum. A nothing. Especially army musicians. Jesus! They put on ridiculous–looking clobber and they march around ovals banging drums and blowing horns with a clown out front waving a stick. The real stars of the show --- the new recruits graduating or the blokes going off to war or coming back --- march along behind waiting for their turn for a moment of glory. What a waste of effort! The whole damn show is a load of hypocritical bullshit.”