Hunger Town

by Wendy Scarfe

  She smiled lovingly at him and took his hand. He clutched it. ‘It’s all right, Niels. I’ll be home very soon. The doctor says I’ll need a little rest but will make a complete recovery.’

  He looked at her doubtfully. Irritated I thought that he should be the one reassuring her.

  ‘I’m not trying to deceive you, Niels,’ she insisted. ‘You know I’d never do that. I really will recover.’

  His mood lightened slightly and he sank into a chair beside her. I left them to have some time to themselves and wandered outside. There was a seat in a small garden and I sat in the sun and watched a bee bury his nose in the bosom of a flower while he worked his back legs in a sort of ecstasy. Maybe the nectar was particularly delicious. Maybe he was excited at his new discovery or maybe he was just rejoicing to be alive on such a lovely morning.

  It was a relief to see my mother so improved and without pain. I wondered where Harry was. I couldn’t tell him how ill she’d been. With no forwarding address I was unable to reply to his letters. He’d be sorry to hear about my mother. She’d always been so kind to him. He loved her, I knew that. In some ways her motherliness was more real to him than his own mother’s. Mrs Grenville seemed so emotionally absent most of the time. Once he had said to me in sad resignation, ‘For a long time it’s been hard to make any real contact with her. Sometimes I wonder if skating on the surface with her has crippled my ability to have deeper relationships. I’ve failed so often to reach her that I’ve given up. No matter how I try she just flits away from me into a set of fantasies.’

  ‘Darling Harry,’ I had consoled him, ‘you’re certainly not some kind of cripple. A man more quickly involved in other people’s suffering I’ve never met. You’re warm and lovely.’

  ‘Dear Jude,’ he had replied, ‘when skies are blue whatever would I do without you?’

  ‘What’ll you do?’ I had laughed. ‘You’ll cuddle me.’

  ‘Mm,’ he said, ‘that’s a very good idea.’ And he did just that.

  Although Harry’s letters had come at reasonably regular intervals, I wasn’t overly worried to not receive one for several weeks. My mother needed help and I spent much of my time on the hulk.

  His last letter had told me that the Communist Party in England was organising their trip through France and in to Spain. They would take the ferry from Dover to Calais where they would be met. There would be plenty of contacts to help them. Nathan, he wrote, was confident and pleased but in many ways, ‘I just tag along’.

  ‘It may be difficult to post letters, Jude, but I’ll do my best. I have been learning from my French phrase book to ask: Where is the post office? How much is a stamp to Australia? Tell Miss Marie I could really do with her help. Once again, all my love, Jude. This is the really important part of the trip and it’s a relief to know that it’s coming up because it helps me to see the end of our journey and with the end I can again think of coming home to you.’

  Little by little Jock fell into the habit of looking after me. At first it was just the occasional job but now he sometimes dropped in to drink a cup of tea with me, ask for news about Harry, discuss happenings in the Communist Party, or comment on my latest cartoons. It was a comfortable friendship. I was grateful for it and always pleased to open the door to him. I knew he was a lonely man and sometimes cooked him an evening meal. He ate his meat and vegetables with the serious concentration of a child, saying very little. But he lingered over his sweets, eventually resting his spoon in the empty plate, and remarking with wistfulness, ‘I always enjoy little delicacies like stewed fruit.’ So I always cooked some apples or pears for him just to watch his eyes light up.

  Sometimes he had bursts of rage at the latest political event but at other times he reminisced about his early days in Glasgow: the gangs he joined as a young man and the street battles; his father putting him on the mat one day and ordering him to find work or leave home; his early days as a unionist in the shipyards and eventual rise to union organiser. ‘I learned to be a hard man, Judith, a varry tough negotiator, an ultimatum man. Then of course I joined the Communist Party.’

  I asked him why.

  He shrugged. ‘They were organised. I liked their ideas and they didn’t compromise. Suited me. I’m not a shilly-shallying man. If you don’t have one road to travel, because you’re always wondering about the other tracks and where they might lead, you won’t get anywhere.’

  One evening as we finished our meal I asked, ‘And why did you leave all this, Jock, and emigrate?’

  He didn’t answer for a few minutes and his eyes had a distant sad expression. I waited, concerned that I had clumsily intruded into something painful in his life.

  At last he said quietly, ‘I had a wife, Judith, a poor wee lassie. She was never strong.’

  I remained silent, sensing that he needed no response from me.

  He went on, ‘She died. Consumption. It’s the scourge of the poor in Glasgow. Very few families escaped it. Many lived with it but eventually …’ He stopped, then added, ‘In Glasgow in the winter the sun only shines, if at all, for maybe two hours a day and then it is darkness. The streetlights come on at four in the afternoon. And the cold, Judith, it eats into your bones. Poor Jean. We would sit together in front of a few bars of the gas fire and she would talk of the sun. “Imagine, Jock,” she would say, “of having a whole day, a whole working day from eight o’clock in the morning to six at night, of sun. What an indulgence that would be. What a luxury.”’

  I knew my eyes had filled with tears, imagining the young woman dreaming so piteously and uselessly of the sun, the sun that is free to everyone if they can find a place where it shines.

  Jock continued, ‘So when she died I packed up and came to Australia. The blokes in the union reproached me for leaving them. I told them to get fucked. I’d had enough of the bloody country.’

  I jumped up to take his empty cup to the sink. There I dabbed my eyes. It wouldn’t do to let Jock see my tears, which were not only for poor Jean who died in the cold but also for Harry somewhere in Spain. Neither Jock nor I wanted to succumb to our loneliness.

  When he visited during the weekend he was keen to help me in the garden. Often he was disappointed in the small plot of earth he and Frank had dug over. ‘This is no good, Jude,’ he said, ‘I think we need to buy better soil to get plants to grow. It’d be nice to have a wee bit of garden.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps when Harry …’

  He looked at me quickly. ‘Of course, lassie, I’ve no mind to intrude.’

  ‘You haven’t.’

  He kicked a bit of the soil and dust rose in a cloud. ‘Dry and useless,’ he said.

  ‘Well, if you like, Jock, a wee bit of garden would be nice and Harry isn’t much of a gardener.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he growled. ‘He can play the piano. I canna do that.’

  ‘Like you canna swim, Jock?’

  He laughed at me. ‘Many things I canna do or canna abide, Jude.’

  It was Jock who brought me the news that Nathan had returned home. He arrived at the front door flustered and stricken with anxiety. The only other time I had seen him in such a state of perturbation was the day the police raided communist headquarters and the homes of comrades. Recalling my panic on that occasion, I once again felt ill. Something terrible must have happened.

  ‘What is it, Jock?’ And my unsteady voice squeaked with apprehension.

  He blurted out his news, his face a deep guilty crimson as if what he had to tell me was his fault. ‘I must tell you this, Judith. You will hear it from others. Before you ask, I havna spoken with Nathan. I didna know what to do. I didna want to frighten you, but you should know.’

  All of this was said in a rush and I could not make head nor tail of it. ‘What are you telling me, Jock?’

  He looked blank. ‘I’m telling you, lassie, that Nathan’s come home.’

  Bemused, I stared at him. ‘Nathan’s home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But wh
ere is Harry?’

  He looked distressed. ‘I canna say, Judith.’

  I didn’t seem able to take it in. ‘Harry hasn’t come with him?’ I stopped. ‘No, of course he can’t have. I’d be the first to know.’

  I was still trying to understand, to take in the suddenness of it all.

  Jock’s self-control worried me more than if he raged. The tension in his body made me feel that at any moment he might explode. That he was holding himself in so tightly so as not to scare me made me even more terrified. Something dreadful had happened and he was keeping his rage over it to himself.

  ‘Where is Harry?’ I repeated. My brain didn’t seem to be able to ask anything more complicated.

  He didn’t reply.

  I put my hand on his arm and shook it. ‘Jock, where is Harry?’

  ‘I dinna know.’

  ‘But Nathan is here? In Port Adelaide?’

  ‘Yes,’ he snarled.

  ‘And what does he say?’

  ‘I havna seen him. I couldna. I was frightened I would kill him. I couldna speak with the fucken bastard.’

  ‘So no one has asked him where Harry is?’

  ‘No.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Might he be dead, Jock?’

  He flinched. ‘No, Judith, no, I’m sure not. Even Nathan wouldn’t have concealed that.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘It must be a Party matter, Judith. Some bloody Party matter.’

  ‘But Harry’s not home, and Nathan is.’ I didn’t know why I kept stupidly repeating this. He understood my confusion but had no more to add. As calmly as I could I said, ‘Then I must go to see Nathan. He’s the only one who knows what all this is about. Will you come with me, Jock?’

  He shook his head. ‘I canna, Judith. You know my hot temper. I canna be responsible for what I might do to him.’

  His large calloused hands worked nervously. They were powerful and so were the muscles in his arms. He was a short man but had probably been a pugilist in his youth.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, understanding and amazed at my own self-control and apparent detachment. ‘Better if you don’t come then, Jock. We don’t know what the news might be. Nathan may not be to blame.’

  He snorted contemptuously. ‘He has no personal loyalties, Judith. I found that out a long time ago. He’s just a fucken bastard and that’s all there is to it. But I could walk with you some of the way.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’ll ride my bike. It’ll be quicker. But thank you.’

  I gave him a light kiss on the cheek. ‘It’s not your fault, Jock, that you have always been the bearer of bad news to me.’ Imitating his Scots accent I added, ‘Ya canna help it.’

  He returned my smile gratefully.

  I made myself concentrate on my bike riding. It would not help my missing Harry if I got injured on the road. It seemed to be a particularly busy morning on Commercial Road. The traffic congestion was more bothersome, the clanging train bells more strident, the shouts of horse and cart drivers more aggressive, the actions of pedestrians leaping in to the traffic more reckless. Everything about me seemed exaggerated and, like my feelings, blown up to an hysterical dimension. But I managed to reach Nathan’s small cottage at the far end of Nile Street in half an hour.

  Shaking with apprehension, I knocked on the door. Miss Adelaide opened it. She looked surprised. ‘Why, Mrs Grenville, this is …’ She halted. Something in my face warned her. ‘What do you want?’ She barred my way. An aggressive little hen, devoid of feathers but bristling nonetheless.

  I kept my temper. ‘I need to see Nathan.’

  ‘I don’t think …’ She paused. Was she going to lie that he wasn’t home? I could see his hat lying on the hall table. She knew I had seen it. Nathan never went out without his hat.

  ‘He’s busy,’ she said flatly.

  I stood my ground.

  She moved to shut the door. I placed my hand firmly on it. ‘Miss Adelaide, I need to see your brother urgently. He went to Spain with my husband and has now returned without him. Do you really think it unreasonable of me to want to know where my husband is?’

  She flushed, hesitated, and finally held the door open for me. I followed her down the short passage to a small sitting room. At the door she stood to one side to let me enter. Nathan, as always, sat at a table, a book in front of him. He didn’t look up when I entered, although I knew, by a nervous tick in his cheek, he was aware of me.

  Miss Adelaide hovered silently in the doorway. She had not introduced me. I crossed the room and stood in front of him. His eyes remained fixed on what he was reading—or pretending to read.

  Suddenly I was sixteen years old again and he was the strange young man at the Chew It who had refused to look at me. The eight years since then flashed through my memory, like a set of cinematic images which, although brilliantly clear, never linger. And although so real, these images were neither orderly nor sequential, because each one was a precious recollection of Harry.

  ‘Where’s my husband, Nathan?’ My voice was tightly controlled.

  He ignored me.

  ‘Look at me, Nathan. Where’s Harry?’ I demanded, my voice rising.

  He glanced up but it was a mere flash of his glasses and his eyes didn’t focus on me before he resumed his reading.

  ‘Look at me, Nathan,’ I shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you? Where’s my husband? Where’s Harry? Is he dead?’

  I heard Miss Adelaide gasp and now he did look at me.

  ‘No,’ he mumbled, ‘of course he’s not dead. Well, I don’t think so.’

  I could hardly believe what he was saying. He didn’t know whether Harry were dead or not. The world around me darkened to a murky fuzz. God, I thought, I’m going to faint. I took a deep breath and clutched the edge of the table.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t think so? You either know or you don’t know, you rotten coward. Have you left him in some sort of trouble? Run out on him? That would be your style, wouldn’t it?’

  He was defensive. ‘No, of course I didn’t run out on him. He ran out on me. Harry’s not steadfast. He’s not a good Communist. We argued and he mated up with some anarchist and they went off together. He was supposed to come back to Madrid but he didn’t keep the arrangement. So I came home. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘That’s all there is to it?’ I screamed at him. ‘You came home without inquiring about where he was?’

  ‘Harry’s a man, not a child. And don’t yell at me, Judith. I wasn’t his keeper.’

  I tried to be calm. ‘No,’ I said savagely, ‘just his friend. Where do you think he went with the anarchist bloke?’

  He was casual. ‘Probably to the Asturias. He was talking about it. I told him not to.’

  ‘The Asturias?’ I shrieked. ‘The Asturias, where the big mine strike ended in thousands being shot?’

  He dared to shrug. ‘Harry was always reckless. Too easily involved. Too addicted to drama.’

  ‘You loathsome bloody bastard.’ I was breathless. ‘You left him without even discovering if he were alive or dead or in need of help.’

  ‘Harry made his own choices.’ His voice was flat and dismissive.

  Terror overcame me. The reports of the miners’ attempt to set up a commune in Asturia and their bitter strike, which ended in tragic disaster, had filtered through to even our mainstream press. Of the 8000 striking miners 3000 had been shot. The army had even dragged the wounded out of hospital, asked no questions about who they were or what side they were on, and shot them. Franco was dubbed ‘Butcher of Asturias’. What if Harry had been wounded and shot, no questions asked?

  A violent nausea racked my body. Only by vomiting up the entire contents of my stomach could I rid myself of the excruciating pain that gripped me. I threw up all over myself, Nathan’s table, Nathan’s book and Nathan. Shaking and sweating, I continued to convulse.

  Through a sick miasma I felt Miss Adelaide’s arm about me. ‘Sit down, Mrs Grenville,’ she was urging. ‘S
it down, my dear. Really, Nathan, I warned you before about being so tactless. You’ve worried Mrs Grenville. Now stop being so useless and bring me some towels and warm water.’

  If I hadn’t felt so ill I would have laughed at her idiocy. She was reproaching Nathan for being tactless but not for abandoning Harry.

  I suppose he must have done as she ordered because I felt her wipe my face and do her best to clean my clothes. I wept hysterically.

  ‘Do stop, Mrs Grenville. You’ll make yourself ill. I’m sure your husband is all right. We would have heard. The Spanish authorities would have notified someone—the Australian or perhaps the British Ambassador. We’re not at war with Spain. Calm yourself. An Australian couldn’t be shot and no one know. Please calm yourself.’

  She held some water to my lips and I sipped thirstily.

  Half an hour later I was still weak and distressed but able to step into the taxi she called for me and paid for. ‘We’ll arrange to send your bicycle home for you tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Now, please don’t worry, Mrs Grenville. And please don’t come again. Nathan has told you all he knows.’

  I knew that this was not so and only had contempt for her fatuousness. But I was too sick to argue. Maybe Jock or Miss Marie might be able to delve deeper into the labyrinth that Nathan called his mind.

  When I reached home I was too exhausted to do anything but drop my soiled clothes on the floor of the bathroom, drag a dressing gown about myself and curl up in the sitting-room chair. I was cold and I shivered. I saw myself cringing there, cowed and waiting for some further blow to strike me. Soon I must have a bath but lighting the chip heater was too much of an effort.

  I had sat like this in this same chair, similarly despairing and afraid, when Harry failed to come home after the police raids. At that time I had vented my fury on him for his careless neglect in not letting me know where he was. But now I had no strength for rage. Despair drained my spirits and left only the terrible dregs of helplessness. My past worry over the police raids seemed laughable. If Harry had been mislaid then, how easy it would have been to find him or to discover news of his whereabouts.

  But Spain! Thousands of miles away! What could I do about a lost husband in Spain?