‘How much money is in the account?’
‘A little over fifteen hundred pounds.’
The banker’s eyes widened. ‘A very substantial sum, Miss McKenna.’ Wilkins’ mood became more accommodating. ‘Perhaps we might be able to work something out. You would, of course, have to use the account as security for any loan advances.’
‘I’m not prepared to do that, Mr Wilkins. Are you sure there is no other way?’
Wilkins stared thoughtfully into space. ‘I would have to speak to the main branch to verify what you’ve told me, Miss McKenna,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Perhaps if you contacted me tomorrow…’
‘Very well,’ Emma stood up to leave. As soon as she left the room, Wilkins picked up the telephone and asked the operator to connect him with the main branch..
‘New South Wales Imperial Bank, Pitt Street.’
‘Yes, it’s Wilkins, manager at Redfern. May I speak with the accountant?’
‘One moment.’
Wilkins waited for several minutes before a voice came on the line.
‘Branch accountant speaking, Mr Wilkins. May I help you?’
‘Yes. I’d like some information on an account you hold in the name of Emma McKenna.
‘Just a moment, please.’
Wilkins settled down for another long wait but the accountant came back on the line almost immediately. ‘What name was that again, Mr Wilkins?’
‘Emma Mckenna.’
‘I have to refer this call to Mr Hopwood, the state manager. Please hold the line.’
Wilkins sat bolt upright at the mention of the state manager’s name and unnecessarily adjusted his necktie.
‘Hopwood speaking. What do you want to know about Emma McKenna, Wilkins?’
‘She was just here discussing a loan, Sir. I just wanted to verify her main branch account. I’m so sorry to disturb you, sir, I had no idea that you …’
‘Never mind that, Wilkins. How much money does she want?’
Around two thousand pounds for factory equipment, sir.’
‘Then lend it to her.’
‘What about security, sir.’
‘Just have her sign a promissory note.’
‘But, sir, is that all? This really is most unusual. I…’
Wilkins looked alarmed when the state manager’s voice suddenly boomed loudly in his ear. ‘Don’t try and tell me how things are done, you bloody fool. Just give Miss McKenna the money.’
Emma was delighted when Wilkins unexpectedly arrived at Sydney Styles the next morning to personally deliver the good news. Installation of the new equipment started immediately and within three weeks production was back to normal. By running an extra shift, deliveries were soon back on schedule.
When Neale the Nib’s plaster cast was finally removed from his leg, the only reminder of the fascisti raid on the factory was the extra night watchmen Emma had engaged to make sure it could never happen again.
*
It had been weeks since Stephen’s workload had allowed him to take a day off. Although the partners at chambers were encouraged to take time off to avoid becoming stale at their jobs, Fenton Fairchild preferred his solicitors to spend the time relaxing and socializing at their gentlemen’s clubs where it was likely new business could be generated. But for Stephen, any free time meant only one thing—flying time.
Stephen came downstairs in his dressing gown to take breakfast on the terrace overlooking the harbor. It was a glorious March morning and the first cooler days of autumn had finally arrived. He found Eleanor already at the table, dressed in tennis whites and taking tea and marmalade toast. When Stephen sat down opposite her, she rang a bell on the table and the maid appeared with fresh toast and the morning paper.
Stephen picked up the paper and glanced over the headlines as the maid poured tea.
Eleanor cradled her teacup in both hands, eyeing Stephen over the rim. ‘You’re not dressed. Aren’t you going to chambers this morning?’
‘No. I’m going to the plane later. It’s having it’s regular hundred-hour service today.’
‘Do you need to be there?’
Stephen put the newspaper down. ‘No, Eleanor. But I want to be.’
‘Seems like a waste of a lovely day. Why don’t you come to the club and play tennis with me, or at least join the crowd there for luncheon?’
Stephen shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. As soon as the plane is serviced, I want to take her up for spin.’
Eleanor sighed. ‘I do hope you’ll grow out of your little toy soon, Stephen. When the New Guard lost interest in its pretend army and air force, I did hope you’d sell the damn thing and become a little more responsible’
Stephen ignored the remark and picked up the newspaper again.
The main headline again demanded that Prime Minister Lyons set up a Royal Commission into the Australian banking system with a view to making financial institutions more accountable. A smaller news item stated that the Polish activist Jo Wojek and Bill Travis, an official of the Anti-Fascist Movement, were to be sentenced that morning on immigration charges.
Stephen was about to turn the page when the maid brought a tray with the morning mail. Eleanor thumbed through the letters and passed one to Stephen. It had European airmail markings. Stephen grinned. He always looked forward to Enrico Conti’s letters from Rome but he was surprised to notice the envelope was postmarked, Berlin. When he’d read the letter he let out a whistle.
Eleanor looked up from her mail. ’What is it, Stephen?’
‘Enrico’s in Germany. He’s training with a volunteer air force squadron there.’
Eleanor laughed out loud. ‘That’s ridiculous. I can’t see Enrico accepting the discipline, even less air force pay.’
‘Oh, I don’t think it’s the regular air force. It seems more like a squadron of highly paid adventurers. He says when the training’s over they could be going anywhere. It must be all very hush-hush. Enrico can’t name the squadron or its location, and its only address is a private box number in Berlin in the name of a Max Winkler.’
‘It sounds very juvenile to me, Stephen. Just like the air unit of the New Guard. A place where grown men can behave like schoolboys and pretend to be heroes.’ Eleanor got up from the table. ‘Like the New Guard, you can be sure Enrico’s playboy squadron won’t last long.’
‘But it is attached to the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe.’
Eleanor got up from the table. ‘New Guard, Luftwaffe. What’s the difference. Really, Stephen, its about time people like you and Enrico grew up.’
Eleanor’s superior attitude had always aggravated Stephen. After years of marriage it had become unbearable. He watched her walk across the terrace to the house, immaculately groomed as always, her tennis whites carefully designed to bring out the best of her tall, full figure. It was times like this, when she belittled him that he hated her the most and despised the circumstances that kept him a prisoner in an empty, meaningless marriage.
He couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love and he didn’t care. As he watched her swaying hips disappear into the house, he wondered if she slept with any of the well-off, gin-sipping loafers at the tennis club. He shrugged. If she did, good luck to her. He didn’t care about that either.
*
Emma sat in the back row of the courthouse in Macquarie Street. Most of the other seats were taken by newspaper reporters, Anti-Fascist League supporters, or their right-wing adversaries. At an earlier hearing Bill and Wojek had pleaded guilty to the charges laid against them. Now all that remained was for the magistrate to pronounce sentence.
They were led into the dock from a small anteroom immediately after the magistrate entered the courtroom. Bill’s eyes roamed the room searching for Emma. He grinned bravely when he saw her. She smiled reassuringly.
The magistrate read the sentences without even looking at the men in the dock.
‘Joseph Wojek. I hereby sentence you to the time you have already served
in custody at Long Bay Jail, to which you are to be returned pending arrangements for your immediate deportation to Poland. William Martin Travis you are sentenced to six months imprisonment in addition to the time already spent in custody.’ The magistrate rose to his feet. ‘This court is dismissed.’
When the anteroom door closed Emma hurried from the courtroom. It was only a few minutes walk to the Bowes-Scott department store on Castlereagh street where she had planned to make a regular call. As she passed Hyde Park she noticed there was a large crowd around the usual soapbox orators.
One of voices was loud enough to carry above all the others and even above the noise of the passing traffic. It was rich, eloquent and impassioned. There was something about it that demanded attention. Emma joined the attentive crowd which was hanging onto the orator’s every word.
‘Oh, let me tell you, my friends. Germany’s invasion of the Rhineland today means that we are looking down the barrel of a another war with that belligerent nation.’ Emma squirmed through the crowd trying to get a closer look at the speaker. ‘Adolf Hitler has thumbed his nose at Britain and the rest of world by breaking the conditions of the Versailles treaty. It must be seen by all Australians as a clear signal that English speaking people everywhere must once again prepare for the inevitability of war against the Hun.’
Emma worked her way through to the front of the crowd. Now she could see the speaker clearly. He was in his mid-forties with a handsome, reddish blotchy face. Emma recognized him at once. He had gained weight since she saw him last and he was wearing civilian clothes. But the speaker was the same Lieutenant Charles Snakeoil Parsons she had seen the day of the sale at Yallambee.
After a few more minutes of Snakeoil’s fiery anti-fascist rhetoric, a group of young men pushed through the crowd and told him to move on. At first he refused, but when one of the fascisti threatened him with a baton, Snakeoil decided that compliance was preferable to a beating and he disappeared swiftly into the crowds of pedestrians on Elizabeth Street.
Emma hurried after him. Snakeoil moved quickly and had travelled half a block before she caught up with him. She touched his arm.
‘Mr Parsons? Excuse me, Mr Parsons.’
Snakeoil stopped and turned to Emma. ‘Do I know you, miss?’
‘I’m Emma McKenna. I saw you at Yallambee after the death of my father, Captain McKenna.’
Snakeoil’s eyes widened. ‘My dear, Miss McKenna.’ He suddenly frowned. ‘I’m afraid an apology for my behavior that day is long overdue. Words cannot say how…’
‘Please,’ Emma said, ‘There’s no need. I’m just so pleased to see an old friend of my father. Perhaps we could talk over some tea? There’s a nice little cafe beside the Bowes-Scott store on Castlereagh Street.’
Snakeoil took Emma by the arm and led her under a shop awning, out of the stream of pedestrians on the pavement. ‘Miss McKenna,’ he said gravely, ‘when did you see your brother Bruce last?’
‘It’s been almost five years since I’ve seen my brothers,’ Emma said softly.
‘I saw Harmony just a little over a year ago,’ Snakeoil said cautiously. He drew a deep breath. ‘Perhaps, we should go to this cafe of yours and have a chat.’
*
Molly and Kathleen were having tea and a light lunch when Emma came home. The moment she walked into the kitchen they could see she was distressed. Kathleen promptly gave Christopher the permission he had been seeking all morning to go and play with the children next door.
Over a fresh pot of tea Emma told them what had happened at the courthouse, of her chance meeting with Lieutenant Parsons, and his bitter-sweet news of the twins. For a long time the three women sat in silence. Molly’s heart went out to Emma and Kathleen. She looked on in dismay as tears rolled freely down Kathleen’s cheeks. Emma didn’t cry. She had already shed her tears in the cafe and on the tram coming home.
At last, Emma broke the silence. ‘I shall leave for Goondiwindi tomorrow and bring Bruce home where he belongs, Mother,’
‘It’s been five years, my darling,’ Kathleen said gently. ‘That’s a large part of his life. Don’t expect to find the same boy we left in Queensland. He’s a young man now, and a bushman by the sound of it. He might only want to come to Sydney to visit us, then return to Queensland to live with Harmony Jones. He owes that man a large debt of gratitude. And so do we.’
*
A light aircraft traced lazy circles in the clear blue sky above the airfield at Mascot. The Tiger Moth was so high in the sky that the drone of its engine was barely audible on the ground. After making a few circuits, the Moth would go into a steep dive and perform a series of aerobatics before climbing again and repeating the exercise. Stephen stood outside a hangar shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun as he watched the little plane.
When he saw the aircraft start it’s descent in to land, Stephen walked back inside the hanger. At the far end of the building he saw the government-licensed mechanic was still working on his biplane’s mandatory hundred-hour service. He glanced at his watch and knew it was unlikely the work would be completed in time for him to take the plane up that afternoon. But he decided to hang around the airfield just a little longer and wandered over to the canteen in the hangar.
Stephen bought a mug of tea and a bar of chocolate and sat down at a table strewn with old magazines and newspapers. He was rummaging around looking for something to read when his heart skipped a beat. There on the table, from an old tea-stained copy of the Sydney Chronicle, he saw Emma’s face staring up at him.
He snatched the newspaper from the table and quickly scanned the article below the photograph. It gave an account of the raid on Sydney Styles’ Redfern factory and the indifference of the police in investigating the incident. The moment he’d finished the article, Stephen hurried out of the canteen with the newspaper in his hand. As soon as he was outside the door he broke into a run and he kept running until he reached his Aston Martin in the car park. He leapt behind the wheel in a single bound.
It was less than four miles to Sydney Styles. Neale the Nib said Miss McKenna had telephoned earlier to say she would be away for a few days. When Stephen told him that he was an old friend of the family, the old bookkeeper was skeptical, but eventually told Stephen that he could probably find Emma at home.
When Stephen reached the house in Waterloo, he was checking the number on the door with the address Neale the Nib had scribbled down, when a young boy about four or five years old scrambled over the garden fence from the property next door.
Any doubt Stephen might have had about being at the wrong house vanished the moment the boy looked up at him. But for the passage of time, the boy’s face might well have been his own.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Emma was upstairs packing when Molly tapped softly on the bedroom door.
‘There’s a gentleman downstairs asking to see you, Emma.’
‘Who is it, Molly?’ Emma sighed and laid another blouse in the open suitcase on the bed. ‘I really don’t want to talk to anyone today.’
‘He says his name is Stephen Fairchild.’
Emma caught her breath. For a long time she stood perfectly still. When, at last, she went to the door and opened it, Molly was standing patiently on the landing.
‘What shall I tell him, Emma?’
‘Show him into the lounge room please, Molly. Tell him I’ll be down shortly. And would you make sure that Mr Fairchild and I are not disturbed.’
‘It’s all right, Christopher is with your mother in the garden.’ For a moment there was an awkward silence. Over the years Emma had entrusted every innermost secret to Molly, except one. Molly took Emma’s hand in hers and squeezed it. ‘It’s all right, I know,’ she said gently. ‘There’s no need to say anything. The young man is the image of Christopher.’
Emma slipped into the lounge room and closed the door gently behind her. Stephen stood in the centre of the room with his back toward her. He turned around quickly when he heard the door latch.
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Their eyes appraised each other.
Emma had often wondered how it would be if they were ever to meet again. She had always imagined a confident encounter in pleasant surroundings with an easy exchange of conversation. Now, the reality was she was tired and drained after a long emotional day, and Stephen looked ill-at-ease and absurdly out of place in shirtsleeves, jodhpurs and flying boots. For a moment, neither of them could think of a single thing to say.
Stephen held up the newspaper and broke the silence. ‘I saw your photograph in the paper. I had to come.’
‘Why come now, Stephen?’ Emma was determined to keep her voice steady. ‘You’re a married man? Why didn’t you come to Armidale when you were single?’
‘I’ll explain everything, if you’ll give me the chance.’
‘There’s nothing to explain,’ Emma said indifferently. ‘What happened five years ago is history. We went our separate ways. Now, you have your life and I have mine.’
‘I still love you, Emma.’ He moved to within an arm’s length. ‘I’ve always loved you.’
Emma wanted him to hold her. She was sure if she moved an inch towards him he would.
‘I’ve searched for you ever since that day on the harbor bridge. Will you let me explain?’
Emma felt her defenses crumbling. She summoned all her strength. ‘There’s no need to explain anything, Stephen. We’re two different people now. We can’t go back in time as if nothing has happened. There’s nothing between us anymore.’
‘But there is. There’s Christopher.’ Stephen reached out and took Emma in his arms. She made no attempt to draw away. ‘He told me his name. I thought he must be mine that day on the bridge. When I saw him today on the porch outside, I knew for certain.’
Suddenly they were clinging to each other, holding each other as tightly as they could and kissing. Eventually, Emma drew away and she took his hand in hers and led him to the sofa. They sat down hand in hand.
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