A House Divided

by Sulari Gentill

  “We’ve dodged that bullet.” Milton was unusually reflective. “I don’t know if the Great War was the war to end all wars—it probably wasn’t—but there won’t be another one in our lifetimes.”

  Clyde snorted. “What about Campbell’s revolution?”

  That had crossed all their minds.

  “So, Rowly, have you finally started Campbell’s painting?” Edna intervened before the mood became too sombre.

  “Tomorrow,” Rowland replied. “Really.”

  “How are you going to paint him?”

  “I’m tempted to paint him pruning his roses…or sitting in the sun with a big fluffy cat in his lap.” Rowland laughed. “But I won’t… I’ll paint him as King Campbell surrounded by his Fascist legions.”

  “Just paint slowly,” Milton warned. “The way you usually work, you’ll be finished in two days and you’ll have no reason to hang around.”

  “You have a point,” Rowland sighed. “But I’ll have to show them something soon.”

  “Do some large preliminary sketches.” Clyde flicked through Rowland’s notebook. “It’ll make him think you’re working and allow you to waste a bit of time.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Rowland closed the empty tin. “I’ll take some in for our next sitting date… Now, shouldn’t you be learning to dance?”

  Clyde cursed and complained, but allowed himself to be dragged back to the makeshift floor by Edna. Within minutes, Milton had resumed laughing. Rowland watched more politely, but even he had to struggle not to smile. Frustrated, Edna bid Clyde to watch and grabbed Milton to demonstrate. A very accomplished dancer, now with an audience, Milton incorporated the flamboyant moves of a skilled exhibitionist. He dipped and twirled and flourished with aplomb. Clyde laughed and made some quite unnecessary aspersions about the poet’s masculinity. In the end, Edna used Rowland to show Clyde how normal people danced.

  * * *

  A few evenings later, Rowland stood at his easel working on a series of drawings to present to Campbell as drafts for his portrait. It was late, but the quiet in the house allowed him to concentrate. Until the front door burst open, and Clyde charged in.

  “Where’s the fire?” Rowland didn’t look up.

  “Bankstown. We’ve got a problem, Rowly… Milt’s been arrested.”

  Rowland put down his pencil and grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch. “What for?”

  “Riotous behaviour.”

  “In Bankstown?” said Rowland, as if the location was more surprising than the charge.

  They walked briskly toward the stables. “What was Milt doing in Bankstown?”

  “We were both there,” Clyde replied. “At a Party meeting. The New Guard arrived to break it up.”

  “I see.”

  The New Guard had been making it their business to break up left-wing meetings.

  “I’d better drive.” Clyde slipped in behind the Mercedes steering wheel. “That way, you can duck if we happen across any Guardsmen…which we might.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The Fascists turned up—about twenty carloads. They fronted the meeting and started singing ‘God Save the King’ at the top of their lungs. Of course the Party faithful hit back with ‘The Red Flag.’” Clyde shook his head. “It was kind of ridiculous.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around.”

  “Well, after a while, the singing—if you can call it that—turned into a general rabble… People only ever remember the first verse anyway, and anything after that is mumbling guesswork. So we’re all standing there, tunefully abusing each other, when things start to get a bit interesting. Someone clocked a Guardsman with a garden stake, and then it was on…and you know Milt, he made sure he was in the thick of it.”

  “Is that when the police…?”

  “No. The Labor Party was holding some big do across the street, in aid of the unemployed, so they raced over and joined in, and all of a sudden, there was brawling in the streets. The Guardsmen got back into their cars and drove around in circles, shouting threats.”

  “But how did Milt get arrested?”

  “The police did finally turn up and they arrested a few people—Communists, of course, not Guardsmen. And Milt, the bloody fool, just couldn’t keep his mouth shut, accusing the police of being in league with the Fascists. He’s lucky they didn’t shoot him.”

  Rowland sighed. “I guess it’s part of his charm.”

  “Listen, my cousin lives near the police station,” Clyde said as they got close to Bankstown. “We’ll park at his place; posh cars aren’t too popular out here right now.”

  Rowland nodded, giving the dash a comforting pat.

  Bankstown was one of the suburbs on which the Depression had settled. Many of the businesses down the main street had been shuttered for months, the weatherboard cottages had not seen paint in far too long, and fences were dilapidated. Windows were broken and boarded up, and the remnants of barbed wire flagged those houses that had been the subject of eviction sieges. Vacant blocks were piled high with the trash, and though the recent public works schemes had seen sewerage extended to the area, the air was tainted since sanitation mostly still relied on poorly maintained outhouses. Bankstown had more than its share of unemployed, and it had become a stage for riots and unrest as political extremes collided.

  Clyde pulled into a large block and drove the Mercedes right down the back. The motorcar’s headlamps caught the glow of startled eyes as several rabbits hopped out of its path.

  “Bankstown roast,” Clyde pointed to the hopping rodents. He hadn’t eaten rabbit since he moved to Woodlands House.

  Lights came on in the cottage and the tenant emerged shortly thereafter, still in his nightshirt, but ready for a fight. “Put the cricket bat down, Mick,” Clyde shouted by way of greeting.

  “Clyde! What the hell…?”

  Clyde calmed him and introduced Rowland.

  “We need to get someone out of gaol, but we don’t want to risk the car.”

  Mick seemed somewhat confused. He scratched the thinning hair on his head as he gazed at the immaculate yellow tourer. “Yeah, all right, I’ll keep an eye on ’er.”

  “Thank you.” Rowland offered Mick his hand.

  Mick shook it, still a little vague. He had, after all, been woken in the middle of the night. “Do yer mind if I bring the young fella out to have a look at it? He’ll be living the life of Riley.”

  “Certainly,” Rowland replied. “We’ll drop by and take him for a ride one day, when things have calmed down. Hopefully, we won’t be too long tonight.”

  “Yeah, if they haven’t already hanged him,” Clyde added.

  Having ensured the Mercedes was defended, they made their way to the Bankstown Police Station. It was well after midnight, and though the station was active, calm had returned to the streets. As they walked in, they could hear a rowdy chorus of “The Red Flag” being sung from behind the door that led to the cells.

  “…Then raise the scarlet standard high, Within its shade we’ll live and die…”

  Rowland approached the desk sergeant and informed him that he wished to secure the release of a man who had been arrested earlier for “riotous behavior.”

  The officer’s thick moustache bristled. “Would that be one of the Messrs. Eric Campbells, or one of the Messrs. Francis De Groots?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nine men were arrested at the, ah, events.” The sergeant checked the numbers off his charge sheet. “Five have given their names as Eric Campbell, the other four as Francis De Groot. For which of these men do you wish to pay the fine, sir?”

  Rowland heard Clyde laugh behind him.

  “How about I just pay all the fines?” Rowland pulled out his chequebook.

  “Then I would thank you… Damn infernal noise!”


  “The Red Flag” rang through the station yet again. “…Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We’ll keep the red flag flying here…”

  And so, Rowland Sinclair secured the release of nine men who had been arrested, rightly or wrongly, for riotous behaviour during what the newspapers would later report as the “Battle of Bankstown.”

  Milton was in extraordinary spirits for a man who had spent the last several hours incarcerated, as were all the men who emerged from the cells. Rowland and Clyde politely declined invitations to celebrate the mass release and returned to the car with a slightly reluctant Milton. The poet was exhilarated by his own minor martyrdom, and he subjected his friends to solo renditions of the Communist anthem on the walk back.

  They found Mick sitting in the Mercedes, with a cricket bat in his lap, while his young son sat awestruck behind the wheel. They thanked him, threatened to assault Milton if he didn’t stop singing, and returned to Woodlands House. It was still a few hours before dawn.

  Rowland flung his jacket at the coat stand, loosened his tie, fell into the couch, and looked at Clyde and Milton, who had taken to the armchairs in a similar fashion. He started to laugh. He had maintained his composure as he bailed the multiple Eric Campbells and Francis De Groots and ushered the same improbably named group out of the station as they triumphantly sang “The Red Flag.” But now, he laughed.

  Milton grinned, relieved. They had driven back with the top down, making conversation impossible. He had been a little unsure of how Rowland felt about personally signing for the release of nine Communists accused of riotous behaviour. As he watched him laugh, he was reminded of what an uncommon man Rowland Sinclair was.

  “Thank you, Rowly.” The poet was sincerely grateful. “I didn’t expect you to bail the entire party.”

  Rowland sat up. He wiped his eyes. “God, it was worth it!”

  Milton stood and poured drinks, and as was often the case when he had a glass to hand, he was moved to poetry. “Thou who art victory and law, when empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free, and calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!”

  “Wordsworth,” groaned Rowland. “And very tenuously relevant.”

  “I’ll give you bloody frail humanity,” Clyde muttered.

  “We’d better toast the freedom of Eric Campbell then.” Milton was undeterred. “To Eric Campbell—any one of them!”

  “To Rowland Sinclair,” corrected Clyde, “who, it appears, has released the Red Army from the Bankstown watch house.”

  Rowland laughed again and shook his head. “The whole state’s gone mad… We’re all following lunatics into revolution.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CLASH WITH COMMUNISTS

  NEW GUARD IN SYDNEY

  POLICE RESTORE ORDER

  SYDNEY, Friday

  There were wild scenes in Thompson Park, Bankstown, tonight when a detachment of the 200 New Guard in 37 vehicles clashed with Communists holding a rally.

  Earlier in the night members of the New Guard broke up a meeting of the Unemployed Workers Movement at Newtown, at which revolutionary statements were alleged to have been made.

  Large detachments of police were hurried to Bankstown, and after a number of arrests, order was restored.

  —The Argus, February 28, 1932

  * * *

  They had all slept late the next morning, and so it was over luncheon that they exchanged the various morning papers which reported the violence from the night before. Edna was the last to emerge and came in to find Mary Brown’s elegant meal buried under the open broadsheets.

  “What time did you get in last night?” Milton remembered her absence.

  “I didn’t.” She poured lemonade from a large jug.

  “Oh, that’s all right then.”

  No one enquired further; they were none of them the sculptress’s keeper, and nor were they monks themselves. In any case, only Rowland really cared, and he kept that to himself.

  “The Herald has the Guardsmen victorious,” Rowland said, calmly moving the conversation back to the reports in the newspapers.

  “The Workers’ Weekly says the people taught the Fascists a lesson they’ll never forget,” said Clyde from behind that paper. “Apparently they thrashed the Guardsmen and then attacked their cars.”

  Rowland winced. Damaging cars was uncalled for.

  “They’re calling it the Battle of Bankstown.” Milton peered over Clyde’s shoulder, clearly pleased with the epic nature of the title. “Here… ‘Several rowdy men were arrested and fined for riotous behaviour’…that’d be me.”

  “You were arrested?” Edna looked up, alarmed.

  Milton told her what happened, with more embellishments than even The Workers’ Weekly, when it came to his own involvement.

  “Perhaps now you won’t have to look over your shoulder for Harcourt Garden’s mates.” Clyde was hopeful.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Milton warned. “Harry doesn’t let go of things that easily.”

  “I’d like to be a fly on Campbell’s wall right now.” Clyde searched under the newspaper for his plate. “Do you think he knows he was arrested last night—several times?”

  “I don’t think the New Guard is as friendly with the police as Campbell has the world believe.” Rowland stirred his coffee. “And that’s the only way he’d know.”

  Rowland spent the next few hours finishing his ‘statesman’ series of drawings—Campbell among the New Guard in salute, in the midst of a fiery address, and being backslapped by his minions. After rolling up the large sheets into a manageable parcel, Rowland left for Boongala, where he was due at four o’clock. The Colonel had a military obsession with punctuality.

  The Commander of the New Guard was pleased with the sketches. It seemed to him that Jones had benefited from his attendance at Belmore and the Town Hall. He did wish that he still had a full head of hair, but perhaps he could get Jones to paint him in a hat. De Groot would be satisfied anyway; he was sure of it.

  Rowland had expected to make arrangements for Campbell’s first formal sitting that day, but the Colonel was called away to talk to the papers about the “Battle of Bankstown.” He sent Herbert Poynton to deal with the artist who waited for him in the sitting room outside his study.

  “Afraid the Colonel’s not going to be finished for a while, Jonesy,” the bodyguard said, taking the armchair beside Rowland and placing two glasses of whisky on the side table between them. Rowland left the drink.

  “He’s very happy with your sketches…got us both thinking you’re the man to help us with a little job.”

  “Oh?” Rowland doubted very much that Campbell consulted with the bodyguard on such matters. It was more likely that he simply instructed Poynton to engage Rowland… Still, he was intrigued.

  “Yes, a man of your artistic talents is just what we need…” Poynton swirled the whisky then held the glass up to the light. “What do you say, Jonesy? Shall I pick you up tomorrow?”

  “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Well, I can’t really tell you more until I know you’re in.” Poynton tapped the side of his nose. “Let’s just say, you’ll need your pencil.”

  Rowland relaxed. For a minute, he thought he was going to be asked to do something illegal. They just wanted him to draw some other fist-waving Fascist; he wondered who it was.

  “Very well. I’ll do it…whatever it is.”

  “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine.” Poynton finally took a sip. “We’ll be away overnight, so bring what you need.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Need to know, Jonesy,” Poynton replied. “I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  Rowland wondered whether he should have been so quick to agree, but the time to back out gracefully had passed.

  * * *

  “I don’t know
, Rowly.” Clyde was clearly troubled. “It’s a bit stupid to go off with no idea what they’re expecting you to do. What if they want you to assassinate Lang?”

  “With a pencil? I’m not much of a shot even with a gun,” Rowland replied. “No, they’ll just be wanting me to paint someone.”

  “So why all the secrecy?”

  Rowland shrugged. “I gather Herb Poynton gets a bit carried away with his own importance.”

  “We’ll have to go with you,” Milton decided.

  “How do you plan to do that? Poynton’s picking me up.”

  “We’ll follow.”

  Rowland laughed. “In my car? I don’t think so, Milt—she’s not exactly discreet.”

  “He’s right.” Even so, Clyde was not happy.

  “It’ll be all right,” Rowland assured him, smiling. “Poynton’s not a bad chap really… He’s just fallen in with a bad crowd.”

  “I’m glad you find this amusing,” Clyde muttered.

  “What do we do if you…disappear?” Milton pulled a coin from his pocket and made it vanish.

  Impressed though he was by the poet’s sleight of hand, Rowland didn’t think that his own disappearance was likely. “Get in touch with Constable Delaney,” he said. “And phone Wil.”

  Edna, when she returned, was more intrigued than concerned. “I wonder where he could be taking you.”

  “I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “If you had a less ostentatious car, we could follow you.” The sculptress sighed.

  “Ostentatious!” Rowland was affronted. “I think you mean distinctive.”

  “Yes, of course, that’s what I meant.”

  They passed the evening in their usual fashion. Clyde departed early to attend the charity twilight dance for which he had been practising. Rowland offered him the Mercedes, but the painter declined.