The Pencil Case

by Lorraine Cobcroft

  I waited for a shocked exclamation or a sharp rebuke, but instead Ede reached across and closed a hand gently over mine.

  “And why would you want to destroy your lovely family and your good life by doing something like that?” she asked mildly.

  “Because he deserves to pay for what he did. He wrecked families.”

  “Not knowingly or intentionally, Paul.” She gazed into my eyes and I was a young boy again, eating chocolate cake and listening to her gently explain why I couldn’t go home to see my dad.

  “Paul,” she said thoughtfully, “Geoffrey Simms was a pathetic, ignorant little man doing a job the way he was instructed to do it. A bureaucrat following instructions, that’s all. He didn’t mean to harm anyone.”

  “How can you make excuses for him?” My tone was harsh, but it elicited no reaction.

  “I don’t excuse what he did. It was terribly wrong. It was cruel and it caused children pain that no child should suffer. It tore out mothers’ hearts. It is hard to conceive a more dreadful crime, but it wasn’t his crime, Paul. It was faceless men in back rooms making decisions they were not qualified to make and giving instructions they weren’t qualified to give. Men who write policies to cater to the interests of self–serving power groups. Simms was nothing more than a vehicle --- a man doing his job, the only way he knew how.”

  She let me think for a while before continuing.

  “Paul,” she said softly, “you have suffered terribly --- suffering that would destroy many strong men --- but you have come through it. You have made a life for yourself. You have a family who love you, a nice home, a job. You have won the respect of good people, and now you have two choices. You can try to forgive those who caused you so much hurt, or you can invite pain and suffering back into your life and the lives of your wife and children. You can let the desire for revenge destroy you.” She stared meaningfully into my blazing eyes, willing me to unset my jaw and relax my gripped fists.

  “Geoffrey Simms was a misguided little man following instructions,” she continued, lecturing me now. “Those who instructed him were blind and ignorant, and far too powerful for their own good and that of the society that empowered them. And you… you are a good, intelligent, strong man who has survived against the odds. You’ve shown the world those nuns who branded you were wrong, and Geoffrey Simms and the judge in that Children’s Court were wrong. The faceless men were wrong. There are better ways to manage situations like the one Geoffrey Simms sought to manage, but that poor, ignorant man could not conceive a better solution.”

  For a moment, I felt my shoulders slump a little, and my fists opened. Perhaps I had been carrying this dead weight for too long.

  “Guess I’ll stop looking for Simms. The bastard’s probably dead by now anyway.”

  A little breath of air escaped her lips and a relieved smile lit her eyes, deepening her dimples. I let her enjoy her little win. She was a good woman and I didn’t want her carrying my burdens, but a dark, murderous anger still boiled my blood. If the bastard was dead, I would blow up the Department he worked for, and murder all his heartless, self–righteous colleagues.

  I needed revenge, and someday I would have it.

  ~~~~

  37: ANOTHER LIFE ENDS

  SEPTEMBER, 1984

  “Where are you going to mail it from,” Fran asked, folding a letter carefully and pushing it into an envelope with gloved hands. She fixed a typed label to the front. No return address. It was unsigned.

  “Maybe Ebor,” I replied. “It’s real pretty down there this time of year. We could pack lunch, make a picnic and return the typewriter on the way.”

  “Does subversive activity put you in the mood for a picnic?” She seemed alarmed by the thought.

  “Subversive? Is that what you call it? I’m trying to save lives here.”

  “By writing anonymous letters on a borrowed typewriter and handling everything with gloved hands so no–one detects where it came from? Why all the secrecy? It’s not as if you are doing anything wrong. This is what Workplace Health and Safety Boards were created for. They can’t function if people don’t speak out when an employer breaks the rules.”

  “I told you. The union rep said he’d make sure I was fired if I rocked the boat on this.”

  “Good for him. What a hero! His life isn’t in danger.”

  She pressed the envelope closed and laid it carefully on the table, then removed her gloves.

  “I don’t think I ever told you about the conversation at the Christmas party last year,” she said. “A group of us were discussing that death in Inverell and saying how worrying it was to have our husbands working in such dangerous conditions. Bruin was eavesdropping. Comes over and declares he doesn’t know what we are complaining about. The council pays a fortune to keep you all well insured.”

  “Bastard. But about what I’d expect from that mongrel. He’ll get his.”

  My mates and I were climbing 40–foot poles in freezing weather and blazing heat. Some of the poles were old and quite unstable. A large number of them were marked for replacement, but a bright young engineer, eager for advancement and keen to demonstrate his skills at reducing expenditure, designed a prop to hold them and claimed it made them quite secure. What was more disturbing, though, was that he adapted another piece of equipment, called a ‘red devil’, to back–stay the poles while we were climbing them. Red devils were hollow metal tubes pegged to the surface of the ground. He had them used as a substitute for heavy, well–anchored buried logs.

  The red devils were intended as a temporary stay only. I verified with the manufacturer that no–one should ever climb a pole with a red devil used as a back–stay, but my employer insisted it was safe and necessary. I battled with the union rep to recognise the danger and take action. He didn’t climb.

  “I’m on a good wicket here,” he said when I asked for assistance. “I’d really prefer not to rock the boat, and I’ll see you fired if you make any more waves about this.”

  “Your fucking union forced us to strike over changes to the medical benefits scheme,” I replied in a voice thin with fury, “and we struck for a pay rise so insignificant that it would take three years to recover the pay we lost by striking.

  “Your union boss mates failed to oppose a judge’s declaration that our job wasn’t dangerous. No danger money should be payable, despite several serious accidents and a couple of deaths in recent years across a relatively small number of linesmen employed in the State. But you guys agreed with the employer that because workers’ compensation premiums were high for ‘such a dangerous job’, the employer could deduct the premiums from our superannuation contributions. I was promised my contributions would be matched dollar for dollar, but what have I got in my super account? Sweet fuck all. Don’t you rock the fucking boat, mate. You just stand by and watch your mates die.”

  The union rep held firm, and the dangerous work practices continued.

  Apart from the danger, I found the work boring and my workmates incapable of stimulating conversation. When, occasionally, one of them came up with a bright idea to improve efficiency, it was dismissed with contempt, then adopted and credited to a boss who claimed it as his own. One worker did manage to force acknowledgement of his innovation. He was paid the grand sum of $50 for designing a device that ultimately saved millions. The result, of course, was that morale on the job was poor and most of the workers suffered through the day thinking only of the beer, sex and home comforts their pay packet afforded them at the end of it. The only upsides to the job were that we often worked in the bush, and on wet days we sat in the shed playing cards for hours while the rain pounded on the roof. We secretly prayed it would last for days.

  I posted the letter, reporting the illegal use of red devils to Workplace Health and Safety, at a post box in Ebor. Afterward, I took the family for a drive out to the gorge and we ate a packed lunch by the roaring waterfall, then sat listening to the birdsong and replying to their calls. I enjoyed mimicking them
and watching their reaction. I was good at it too. Fran was sure they thought they’d found themselves a mate.

  “Listen,” I joked. “That’s a Dr Arthur bird. Hear him? He’s singing out ‘Dr Arthur, Dr Arthur’,” and when the crow called I told her it was singing out “Get faaaarked,” and I called to him not to be so vulgar.

  “Storm birds are singing,” I remarked. “Some substantial stormy weather looming. Most people think their singing means rain coming, but actually their singing indicates a period of heavy storms. Did you know that? Look, the tree bark is tinged with red. The drought is about to break.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” Nicki asked.

  “My dad was a bushman. I remember him telling me these things when I was barely old enough to walk and talk.”

  Fran smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes. “You missed out on a lot, being separated from him for so long, didn’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I guess there were some compensations, but I missed him terribly. I never forgot the things he taught me, or the way I felt when he took me out with him and explained the secrets of nature.”

  As expected, the letter sparked an investigation, and quite a furore at work. The bosses had us all lined up one morning while they ranted on about the trouble the letter caused and how misguided it was --- because they would never allow unsafe practices. They assured us they would find out who did it and whoever it was would pay. I struggled to fake dismay and disapproval.

  Three weeks later, the rains hadn’t yet come. The late spring days dawned crisp and fresh and ended with a refreshing chill that invited Fran and I to light a fire behind the garage to grill chops or sausages. We huddled around the fire with the children watching the last of the sunset and the rising of the moon. The days were warm.

  At work, we were replacing poles on a line in the bush some 40 miles from town, out near a gorge. I was enjoying the bird serenades, sucking in the clean scent of new growth, and taking morning tea and lunch around a campfire, toasting my sandwiches and boiling billy tea. Nearly two miles of wires terminated on a pole located near the edge of a cliff that dropped into a deep ravine. The pole was anchored with wires to a red devil pegged on to the ground as a back–stay. I was up there working one day when I felt it leaning. That wasn’t uncommon, but this was different. Disquiet graduated to alarm and a dull thudding in my head crescendoed to incessant hammering. My limbs tensed and I was suddenly ice cold.

  There was no time to think about demounting. The red devil had let go and the pole was gliding smoothly, almost gracefully, towards the edge of the cliff. I was strapped firmly to the high side of it.

  Time stopped. The ground rose and the world tilted. The pole pressed through the air. I felt like I was on one of those thrill rides at a fair, only there was no safety stop.

  The air whistled as the pole pushed through. Somewhere in the distance I heard a bloodcurdling howl. The ground was rising, rising. Suddenly, there was a slowing, and then the movement stopped. The heel of the pole had caught in the ground and was fighting against it, pushing at the soil, demanding freedom. I was a few feet above the ground now. Strangely, I felt no fear --- just a cold certainty that my life was about to end. I had a vision of my mangled self, splintered and minced, torn face death–grey.

  Then the ground moved and the heel of the pole broke free. With a thunderous crack, the pole crashed hard against the earth. My heart leapt into my throat and its wild pulsing choked me. My lungs screamed for air. I crouched on the pole a while, incredulous.

  Am I alive?

  A confused stew of voices; hands reaching out to touch my head. I unbuckled my belt. The world spun. Voices rattled commiserations, cursed and blasphemed. Contorted faces peered down at me, at the pole. Someone wandered over to inspect the red devil, tugging at the dislodged wires.

  I climbed slowly off the pole slowly, shaking violently. I stood for a moment, testing my legs. I waved my arms, leant forward, swung back, turned from side to side and felt my face. A trembling hand pressed at my temples, pleading with my head to stop throbbing. At last, convinced I was still whole and in the world of the living --- not wherever we go when we cross over --- I jumped into the boss’s truck, drove back to the depot, and scratched my resignation on the bottom of my time sheet.

  When I arrived home that afternoon, Fran had elderly aunts visiting. When I told her I had quit my job, their look of horror might have challenged that of a spinster discovering Napolean’s severed penis.

  “And what will you do now?” one asked in a disapproving tone. “Jobs aren’t easy to get. I should think you would be grateful to have one.”

  “Sell up, move to the coast and go on the dole,” I replied without thinking. I was more concerned with demonstrating my contempt for her and her lofty expectations than for indicating any genuine intentions, but after I said it I decided it actually sounded like a pretty good idea. I’d put in 20 years paying taxes for the privilege of slogging my guts out in jobs I detested, while beach bums bludged on the system and went surfing every day. And all up I had very little more income to live on than they did, despite putting my life in danger every working day.

  Enjoying their shocked reaction, I added, “Become a bludger and a beach bum. I reckon that’s something I’d be good at.”

  Fran was devastated at having to leave her home, but we sold it for more than twice what it cost us. Two months later we moved to Ballina. It was a place I remembered fondly as the scene of a wonderful childhood holiday, and close and similar to Pottsville --- a little paradise where I had spent some of the happiest days of my teenage years.

  I didn’t think much about employment opportunities before making a choice for relocation. The cold climate had been messing with my health, so my doctor suggested we look for a place where the temperatures were less extreme. The other determining factor was a somewhat misguided notion that returning to a place where I’d once been blissfully happy could fix all my woes.

  ~~~~

  38: BUSINESSMAN PAUL

  BALLINA, MARCH 1986

  Fran snapped the lid on the esky and lay back on the picnic rug to soak up the glorious early autumn midday sun. Lulled by the music of children’s laughter, I suspected she might have drifted into a blissful daytime sleep if not for the sounds from the transistor I held to my ear. I was listening intently to race calls and I knew she considered the sound an irritating drone.

  “This promised to be such a great day out, Paul,” she said, clearly annoyed. “The kids have been looking forward to it all week. Why do you have to spoil it by spending most of the day with that infernal thing pressed to you ear, scratching on a bloody form guide?”

  I ignored her question, but lowered the volume slightly. She shrugged and laid back, appearing to doze.

  “Yes!” I shouted, jolting her from a state of half–sleep. “Twenty–to one, you little beauty. My bank just reached 40 grand.”

  “Your mythical bank” she corrected.

  “I’ve been working this on paper for a long time now and it never fails. One day soon I’m going to do it for real. Watch it make me very rich, but if you keep complaining and putting me down, you won’t be sharing it.”

  “I just wish you could put it aside on days like this, Paul. It’s a family day out. We don’t have many and the kids need your attention.”

  “The kids are fine. Listen to them. They’re having a ball. Young teens don’t want their father joining their games.”

  She sat up and hugged her legs, resting her chin on her knees. “Thankfully, they are having a great time, otherwise I might be tempted to pack up and go home.”

  I don’t know how long she sat there like that, but at least two more races were called and I lost on both. It didn’t faze me at all, but I switched the radio off after the second loss and declared there were no more system horses running in this meet.

  “Peace, at last,” Fran said, lying down again.

  “I want to take out a second mortgage, Fran,” I said su
ddenly. “I know it’s possible. The house is worth a fair bit now it’s renovated and we owe very little on it.”

  She drew a deep breath and I prepared for yet another violent argument. “It should be my decision. I did the work,” I said defensively, recalling exhausting months of sawing and hammering late into the evenings.

  “Yes, and you did a superb job too.”

  I had renovated the first little old cottage we bought, installing a smart, modern kitchen and replacing the rusted tub and cracked basin in the ugly, damp cell of a bathroom, then tiling walls to make it sleek and modern. I taught myself carpentry, painting, concreting, tiling, and even the basics of plumbing. I transformed a run–down old cottage to a lovely modern home.

  Then we’d sold it and I built a country homestead. My skill and dedication had astonished her, given my inexperience and the absence of any form of tuition or help. It broke her heart when I quit my job and we had to sell, but we’d made a healthy profit on it.

  When we arrived in Ballina, I wanted a big, old, loved house wrapped in worn timber and iron verandas and ivy creepers, built in the days when proud craftsmen carved their souls into elaborate picture rails and mantels. In the end, though, we bought a late–model brick and tile that had been dreadfully abused and neglected and I was forced to renovate again. I complained bitterly, but I enjoyed the work. It was a distraction, and the finished product gave me a feeling of achievement.

  The house nestled into the base of a hillside on half an acre on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by fruit trees and adjoining a koala habitat. The kids spent their weekends on one of Australia’s most beautiful beaches, still virtually undiscovered despite strong white–foamed breakers crashing on to clean golden sand. I bought them a kayak and they canoed up and down the river pretending to be pirates or explorers, reminding me of brief periods of happiness in a miserable childhood.