A House Divided

by Sulari Gentill

  Wilfred eventually came back from the war, but he was changed. He, too, retreated to Oaklea, and Mary Brown became keeper of an empty house.

  Sent to school in England soon after the war ended, Rowland remained there for over eight years. Through all that time, there were no Sinclairs in Woodlands House, though Mary Brown ensured it was ready for the family to walk back in at any time.

  “Will you be dining in tonight, Master Rowly?” She addressed him as she had since he was a child.

  “I think so, Mary.” Rowland glanced at Edna. “But we should probably wait for Milton and Clyde. Ed, do you know where they are?”

  “I think they went to the pub,” she said. “Clyde’s been struggling with his commission, and Milton…well he just likes to drink.”

  Rowland smiled. “It might be a while, Mary.”

  She nodded and left the room, her face set and unreadable. Mr. Sinclair would not have approved of his son’s friends; of that, she was sure. He certainly would not have been happy that his home had become a shelter for all manner of shiftless artists and Communists. To Mary Brown, the terms were synonymous. Still, she had known Rowland since he was a baby. He had been a quiet, sensitive child, but she had thought him a good boy. She hoped he would see the error of his ways. In any case, it was not her place to say.

  “What are you doing tomorrow, Rowly?” Edna asked suddenly.

  “Lunch with my uncle, at his club,” he replied, wondering what else she had in mind.

  “Sounds frightful.”

  Rowland grinned. Edna objected to gentlemen’s clubs on principle. “Uncle Rowland likes it. It’s not that bad.”

  His Uncle Rowland, his namesake, was his father’s younger brother. He had never married and had spent much of his life travelling. An unrepentant and flamboyant hedonist, the elder Rowland Sinclair worked diligently at indulging in all the pleasures of life, with hardly a thought for anything else. It was not that he was unkind or intentionally indifferent. He just seemed to assume everyone had the same resources as he.

  “He’s rather taken with you,” Rowland said, cringing a little as he remembered how outrageously his uncle had flirted with Edna on the few occasions they’d met. She could easily have been offended, but the sculptress had taken it in her stride, telling the elderly rogue that if she ever did decide to take up with a Sinclair, it would indeed be an old one.

  “He’s a character,” Edna’s eyes twinkled. “You know, he doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered about us all.” She could not imagine any of Rowland’s other relatives being so at ease with the manner in which he had turned their grand home into a luxurious artists’ commune.

  “I think he’s rather tickled that there’s someone else disgracing the family name,” Rowland replied.

  “You’ll be finished by three, won’t you?” Edna ventured. “Even your uncle can’t eat for more than three hours…” She had become resigned to the fact that Rowland occasionally had to return to the world to which he was born.

  “I can be finished by three,” he said. “What do you need me for?”

  “There’s a meeting tomorrow afternoon. At the Domain. We should go.”

  Rowland knew she meant a meeting of the Communist Party. He was not a Communist, neither was Edna, at least not officially. “Why?”

  “Morris is speaking,” she replied. “He’s very nervous—I’m sure he’d appreciate it if we were there.”

  Rowland had now met many Communists, Morris among them. The returned serviceman was sincere in his conviction and committed to his ideology, but he was no orator. The crowds at the Domain had grown during the harsh Depression years. The exchanges between the rousing speakers and the equally fervent hecklers were often so entertaining, that those who could no longer afford shows flocked there for amusement, if not enlightenment. As far as Rowland could tell, the local Communist Party had nothing to fill its agenda except for the impassioned speeches by its members. To date, Morris had avoided the duty, but with the Depression dragging on and more people turning out, every Party member was required to do his bit to rally the masses.

  “Come on, Rowly,” Edna pleaded, as she poured him a drink. “We can clap and cheer at the right times, and hopefully he won’t have to stand up for very long.”

  “Yes, why not?” Rowland replied as he put down his pencil and took the glass of sherry.

  “Good.” Edna smiled, satisfied. “We’ll meet you there at about quarter past.”

  “We? Who else have you drafted?”

  “Just Milt and Clyde. Morris will be very grateful,” she added earnestly.

  “He needn’t be.” Rowland picked up his pencil once again.

  Chapter Two

  SYDNEY DAY-BY-DAY

  (By A Special Correspondent)

  SYDNEY, Sunday

  The new Masonic Club building is in accord with the recent progress of the city. It rises to 150ft yet seems even taller. A view of North Head and the Pacific beyond may be obtained from the roof.

  The building was made possible by activity in the real estate market. The former premises were disposed of at a surprising profit. The club purchased a block of land running from Castlereagh Street to Pitt Street between Market and Park Streets, and it soon sold the Pitt Street half at a price which gave it a site free with a large sum of money to go toward the cost of the building. The present value of the property is about £180,000.

  —The Argus, December 7, 1931

  * * *

  The grand dining room of the Masonic Club, an establishment of reputation and elegance, was thoroughly removed from the bleak hardship of those walking the streets in search of work outside its thick cedar doors. The murmur of polite voices was deep, for the patrons were exclusively male. The club was a dominion of impeccably dressed and well-connected men. They dined with each other under elaborate chandeliers that hung from high ornate ceilings, trimmed with intricate cornices and plaster roses. Rowland had become a member at his brother’s insistence, but he generally used the club only on his uncle’s invitation.

  The elder Rowland Sinclair was already seated at the table. He was a large man whose body and features spoke of years of indulgence. His hair was thick, swept back from his face. It had once been as dark as his nephew’s—now it was white. His eyes had, with age, become a little weak, but they were still the distinct blue that marked all the Sinclair men.

  “Rowly, my boy!” he said as he stood in welcome, moving his substantial girth with some difficulty and catching the table.

  “Hello, Uncle. Have you been waiting long?” Rowland lunged to save the nearly empty bottle of wine which wobbled precariously on the table’s edge.

  “Not that long—there may still be a drop left for you.” He resumed his seat and, taking the bottle from Rowland, drained its remnants into a glass. Rowland sat down.

  “So how are you, my boy? I haven’t heard much of you for a while. I had hoped I could rely on you for at least the odd minor scandal…but there has been nothing! When I was your age I would not have allowed myself to become so respectable! It’s tremendously uninteresting.”

  Rowland smiled in the face of the old man’s barrage. “I’m well.”

  “And how is your painting going? I can’t tell you how many people have commented on that lovely piece you gave me last summer…your brother, particularly.”

  “Wilfred was here?” Rowland was surprised. He had not seen his brother in months.

  “Just a few weeks ago. Some sort of business… Now tell me about your work. I expect you will be submitting something to the Archibald Prize?”

  “Not this year, Uncle. Maybe next.”

  They paused their conversation as the waiter took their orders.

  “I don’t blame you,” the elder Sinclair went on, as he knifed a thick layer of pale butter onto his dinner roll. He lowered his voice. “The competition is r
igged—the trustees seem think one has to reside in bloody Victoria to be able to paint!”

  Rowland laughed. Much to the ire of the Sydney art community, Victorians had dominated the prize since its inception, but he was reasonably sure it was not a conspiracy of any sort.

  The meal continued in effortless company. Rowland’s uncle carried the conversation, but that was not unusual. Intermittently, his acquaintances would stop by to speak with him. Rowland observed that a certain indulgence was extended to age under the auspices of eccentricity. It was obvious, however, that he would not be afforded the same tolerance. Most responded warily to any introduction. Although Wilfred Sinclair was a gentleman of reputation, his youngest brother was known for avoiding the company of men of standing. The esteemed members of the Masonic Club declined any extended conversation with the younger Rowland. It seemed that Woodlands House and its current residents had not escaped the notice of Sydney society, and, regardless of what his uncle thought, Rowland was not quite respectable.

  After a dignified passage of time, lunch was complete. Rowland glanced at his watch as his host smoked and recounted some tales of his most recent visit to London. It was nearly three o’clock. He could walk to the Domain from the club in about ten minutes. He finished the last of his wine in a single gulp.

  “I must be off,” he said, standing before his uncle could order yet another round of port.

  “I’m glad to hear it, son. A young man like you should have better things to do than dine with old relatives. Go now. Do something interesting!”

  “We shall do this again, soon.” Rowland shook his uncle’s hand.

  “Of course, of course…”

  Rowland retrieved his coat and hat. The Masonic Club was in the heart of the city, only a short walk from the parklands of the Domain. The day was dull and although it was December, the breeze was brisk.

  There were many men walking in the same direction. Some, like Rowland, walked with a sense of destination. Others seemed bent with unseen burdens, tired men who were walking that way because they had nowhere else to go. Honest men, criminals, and those who resorted to theft and menace because they saw no other option. Later, once darkness had emptied the Domain, they would find refuge in the rock shelters of Mrs. Macquarie’s Point.

  Occasionally, he was stopped by beggars and men bearing pamphlets decrying some ill or promoting some cause. He always carried coins for the former and politely declined the latter.

  Rowland placed a hand on his hat as he ducked through the congestion of motorcars and horse vans near the grand iron gates at the Domain’s entrance. He made his way toward Speakers’ Corner, where the Communists met on Sunday afternoons to exercise their right to free speech in the open air, and to rally support for their cause. When he reached the outer Domain, a large crowd was gathering, and he could already hear the rabble of fiery speeches. Eventually, he spotted Edna talking earnestly with a man whose arm was bandaged in a sling about his neck. Milton and Clyde stood beside them.

  “Ed!” Rowland hailed them all with her name. Edna waved.

  “What on earth are you wearing?” Milton asked as soon as Rowland was in earshot.

  “He’s been lunching with the ruling classes,” Edna explained.

  Rowland laughed. There was really no point denying it. The dress regulations of the Masonic Club, and the expectations of its members, were strict and particular. Still, it was not as if he was wearing tails. In fact, he was dressed pretty much as he always was, though he had taken special care to find a jacket and a shirt that were not streaked with paint.

  “Just trying to keep pace with Milt,” he replied.

  Milton’s attire was not expensive, but it was distinctive, much like Milton himself. He had a preference for unusual colours and extravagant cravats. He wore his hair well below his ears in the style of the old aesthetes. On a lesser individual it may have been peculiar, but on Milton it rarely raised mention. A childhood friend of Edna’s, he had moved into Woodlands House the previous year, and he and Rowland had formed a close and unexpected friendship. Though his formal education was minimal, Milton was a product of various Literary and Mechanics’ Institutes, organisations which promoted personal improvement and often provided the only libraries to which working men had access. Essentially self-educated, he called himself a poet, but though Milton was extremely well read, Rowland was yet to see an original verse, sonnet, or even a couplet penned by his friend.

  “What happened to you, Morris?” Rowland asked the man with the injured arm. Now he was closer he could see the ex-serviceman also sported a black eye.

  “Bit of trouble in Redfern, mate,” Morris replied as he rolled a cigarette with his uninjured hand. “Fell foul of a couple of bailiffs.”

  “Repossession,” Edna added.

  Rowland understood. The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union often organised resistance to help those about to lose their homes. Returned soldiers like Morris used what they had learned in the battlefields of Europe to barricade homes against the bailiffs. It was trench warfare in the suburbs, not quite as bloody, but often just as desperate.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “Are you ready?”

  Morris sighed. “I’m up next,” he said balefully as he glanced at the makeshift podium, a stepladder, from where a squat man addressed the masses in a faintly Irish accent.

  The Irishman roused the crowd with volume and passion. Rowland sketched him mentally—hawkish nose, jutting chin, eyes almost hidden beneath a craggy brow, and a cigarette balanced precariously on his lower lip like an exclamation mark to his words. He danced as he spoke, like a boxer.

  “Who’s that?” Rowland hadn’t seen this man before.

  “Patrick Ryan,” replied Morris.

  “Struth, he’s getting them worked up,” Clyde pulled at his braces as he looked out at the crowd. He was only a little older than Rowland and Milton, but the years had settled early on his face. Like Rowland, he saw pictures in the scene. They were painters; it was what they did.

  Ryan was railing about the inequities of the Depression. The capitalist classes, he claimed, had created the disaster, but it was the working man who’d lost his job, who’d lost his home. It was the working man who suffered.

  Rowland listened. Despite coming from the class that Ryan was casting in villainy, he was not affronted. He was who he was, but he was not unsympathetic. Somehow in the years since he had returned to Sydney, since he had started moving in Edna’s circles, he had fallen into a sort of gap between the social classes, observing them both from a distance.

  Rowland’s eyes moved around the crowd. It was mostly male. Troubled faces wearied by hardship nodding at the stirring rhetoric, and murmuring assent.

  And then, a lone cry of dissent. “Get a job, you Red mongrel!”

  Rowland’s gaze shifted immediately toward the voice. The heckler was not far away—among a group of men whose crisp suits didn’t show any signs of wear. There was a certain militaristic uniformity in their posture and stance, their arms folded rigidly across their double-breasted chests.

  Ryan responded to the derision by escalating his own fervour. The response from the crowd increased, both for and against him. When Ryan called for revolution, the jostling began, and within minutes a scuffle broke out near the group that had started the heckling. Several men were now attempting to drag Ryan from his podium, and Morris ran forward to help his comrade. Despite the numbers they’d attracted, the Communists were grossly outnumbered, especially when reinforcements emerged to support the men who took exception to the words of rebellion.

  Milton took exception to the imbalance. “Come on!” he motioned to Rowland and Clyde, a split second before he leapt into the fray after Morris. Rowland glanced quickly at Edna and did likewise.

  The skirmish was now in earnest. Rowland and Clyde fell in behind Milton
, who was already in the thick of things. Rowland had boxed at Oxford, but Clyde, who had spent those same years on the wallaby, in search of work, really knew how to fight. He seemed to move very little, but men staggered all around him. From within the mêlée, a defiant voice belted out the first bars of “The Internationale,” and soon the Communist anthem rang out. To Rowland, it was a bit surreal.

  He ducked a fist and tried to pull Milton back, but the poet would have none of it. Clyde called out to him, but too late, and Rowland caught a blow to the jaw. He recovered quickly and turned toward his assailant, finding himself face-to-face with a blond man disfigured by a jagged scar that ran from his ear to his chin. Rowland remembered the scar.

  “What the…?” the man started, his eyes widening in shock. For a moment he seemed confused and then realisation dawned.

  A hand grabbed Rowland’s and jerked him away. It was Edna.

  “Ed! Watch out!” Rowland pulled her into him as a plank swung wildly. It missed her and glanced off his shoulder. He cursed and looked for a way out through the incensed factions.

  “Hey! Back off!” The scarred man who had punched him just a moment earlier intervened to block the blow of a pick-axe handle.

  “Rowly, Ed!” Clyde beckoned for them frantically. They followed him, and after considerable weaving and dodging, and some belligerence, he managed to lead them out of the worst of it. Policemen were now a presence, separating the throng with force and batons.

  “Where’s Milton?” Edna looked back anxiously.

  “Morris dragged him out a little while ago,” Clyde assured her. “He’s fine.”

  “That was getting nasty,” Rowland murmured, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Morris got out of speaking.” Clyde replaced his hat over tousled sandy hair. “He’ll be stoked.”

  “Come on, let’s go.” Edna adjusted her own hat, which had been knocked awry in the brawl. “Milt will turn up.”