by M J Lee
‘Same old, same old. Still feeling tired, Jayne. Wish those bloody test results would come back.’
Vera put her hand on his arm. ‘He’s not eating, either. No appetite, he says.’
‘You try eating the food here. Wouldn’t feed it to the pigs…’
‘Shush, Robert, that’s not nice to say.’
‘You used to love the food here, Dad, it was one of the reasons why you chose the place. Remember the jam roly-poly?’
Her father smiled for the first time. ‘My favourite. I like a good thick custard with it, though.’
‘I’ll have a chat with Matron and see if they can do one soon. Might help you rediscover your appetite.’ Jayne sat down next to him, moving aside a half-finished Guardian crossword. She checked the clock on the wall. Two p.m. ‘Time to make the call.’
She had arranged to ring Duncan so he could tell them of his progress. ‘Ready, Vera?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’
She put her mobile on speakerphone and rang Duncan’s number. The phone was answered in two rings.
‘Hello, Duncan Morgan speaking.’
‘Hi there, it’s Jayne. I’ve got you on speaker with Vera and Dad listening in.’
‘Good evening all.’
‘It’s afternoon here,’ said her father grumpily.
‘So it is, g’day. Now I’ve got good news and bad news for you.’
‘Go on, Duncan.’
‘I went to Tuart Place earlier this week. The people there were lovely, only too happy to help. There was a bit of problem with the difference in names between your half-brother and you, Vera, but once I showed them the birth certificate and the family tree, they were happy to proceed.’
‘What does “proceed” mean, Duncan?’ asked Vera.
‘It means they will put a request into PHIND – it’s the database for all Catholic Child Migrants into Western Australia in the fifties. Harry’s documents should be stored there if he was at Bindoon. We should have an answer in a couple of weeks with a bit of luck.’
‘And if his documents aren’t there?’
‘Well, we’re buggered, to use the technical term. I’ll have to work out a different way of tackling this, but we’ll cross that kettle of fish when we come to it, if you know what I mean.’
‘Let’s hope they can find the documents,’ said Jayne. ‘What’s the bad news?’
There was a long sigh at the end of the phone. ‘I thought I would short-circuit the process by checking up on any Harry or Harold Brittons in the White Pages…’
‘And?’
‘Nobody with that name in Western Australia. In the other states, there’s one Harry Britton in Sydney but he’s three years old so I don’t think he’s our man.’
‘Not good is it, Duncan?’
‘No, it’s not. But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. We should wait until we see the documents before we do anything else.’
‘Why isn’t it good, Jayne?’ asked Vera.
‘Well, it means he may have left Australia and moved to another country. Or it could mean he’s not registered as part of a household. Even worse, it could mean he has already passed away.’
Vera bit down on her bottom lip again. ‘Please. I hope not.’
‘Listen, as I said, we can’t jump ahead of ourselves.’
‘You’re right, Duncan, let’s wait for the documents before worrying what to do next.’
‘I’ll email you when I receive them. Keep your heads up, folks, all genealogical research is a journey of discovery, we’ll get there in the end.’
‘Thanks for everything. Bye!’ Jayne switched off the phone.
Vera’s face was crestfallen. ‘I wish he hadn’t told me about the White Pages.’
‘Duncan is the best researcher I know. If anybody can find Harry, it will be him.’
‘Aye, don’t start worrying now, love. It’s just the beginning of the search in Australia.’
Vera frowned. ‘I wish it were the end. I hope we can find him. He’s been lost for so long. I don’t know why, but I keep feeling we haven’t much time.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
August 3, 1956
St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, Western Australia
Slimo was putting his things in his army kitbag. He didn’t have much; an old second-hand pair of boots given to him by some visitor, a faded jumper with patches on the elbows, a couple of shirts, two pairs of socks and a singlet with holes in it.
He held up a pair of grundies that appeared brand new. ‘Never worn these, don’t suppose I ever will.’ He folded them up neatly, slipping them into the side pocket of the kitbag.
There just remained his best bib and tucker; a white shirt, tie, grey shorts and brown shoes the monks had given him yesterday. ‘For when you go to Mass,’ they told him. He folded these as best he could, placing them on top of the other clothes, then pulling the string tight and knotting it.
‘That’s me done.’
‘When you going?’ asked Harry.
They were in the empty dormitory. All the other boys were in classes, in the woodwork room, finishing the chores on the farm, or adding the last touches to the new classroom block. Since the death of Brother Keaney, the mania for building had slowed down. Even the planned cathedral, with its elevated walkway to the main building, had been abandoned. For the moment, the boys just did basic maintenance on the buildings rather than constructing anything new.
Slimo played with the string closing the kitbag. ‘When the pig truck is ready. Brother Mitchell said I could hop on the back and get a lift to the town.’
‘Your mum coming?’
Slimo shook his head. ‘She’s too busy. Got another sprog with her new feller.’ He sat down on the bed to put on the sandals the brothers had given him. They used to be Brother Dominic’s, but he had a new pair now.
‘Where you going?’
‘Up north. Got a job on a farm near Murchison. They’re going to pay me three pounds and ten shillings a week, plus me room and board. I’ll come back and visit if you want,’ Slimo said tentatively.
Harry just nodded.
They heard a loud beep from outside.
‘Sounds like Brother Mitchell, he’s always in a rush.’ Slimo stepped towards Harry with his hand out. ‘Look after yourself, Harry, don’t let the bastards grind you down.’
Harry stared at the hand. He wanted to rush forward and hug Slimo. Tell him how much he would miss him. Explain he would never have survived Bindoon without his help. Thank him for all he had done.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he shook his friend’s hand and said, ‘Bye, Slimo. Look after yourself, mate, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.’
‘I’ll come back to see you when I’ve made a bit of money and can get some time off.’ Slimo picked up his kitbag and walked to the door, turning back just before he left. ‘Keep your head down, Harry. Keep your head down.’
And then he was gone.
Harry stood there in the empty dormitory. Outside, he heard Brother Mitchell’s voice. ‘Get a bloody move on, Henderson. We don’t have all day.’
He rushed out on to the balcony.
Slimo was climbing into the back of the truck with the barrels of pig slops. He edged forward to grab hold of the bar above the cab and stared straight ahead as Brother Mitchell put the truck into gear and accelerated away in a cloud of red dust.
He didn’t look back as Harry raised his hand to wave goodbye.
Harry was still waving as the truck vanished out of sight around the bend, heading towards the main gate.
He was alone now.
All alone.
Chapter Forty-Nine
October 8, 1957
St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, Western Australia
Slimo never came back to Bindoon, of course. Not that Harry expected him to. Not many of the boys returned once they left. For the first couple of months, Harry missed him. But then he settled into the steady monoto
ny of Boys Town. Up early to work with the cattle. A quick lunch. Catechism classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Metalwork or carpentry on the other days. Afternoons spent in the orchard or keeping the buildings maintained and clean.
He still had difficulty with reading and writing. If he concentrated and went slowly, he could read his catechism, but writing was always a problem. The letter home he wrote each month took him a week to get right.
Harry remembered the help Miss Anstey had given him on the voyage to Australia. Correcting his letters and making them look right on the page. He still had the diary somewhere, but he didn’t look at it any more. It seemed like another person had written it a long time ago.
Nowadays, when he wrote something the words and the letters just jumbled up on the page. They were in his head but once he wrote them down on paper, they looked all wrong.
The brothers and the other kids picked on him.
‘You’ll never amount to much, Britton.’
‘Still can’t write properly at your age, you should be ashamed.’
‘Read the first line of the next page. Quicker, boy, it won’t bite you.’
‘He’s dumb, he is, Harry Britton.’
He did better with his sums. At least then the numbers came out clearly when he wrote them, but the brothers didn’t teach much about that stuff to him. Some of the boys received lessons, the favourites. Little Tom was one of those.
They met once on the steps in front of the new classrooms. Harry was just coming out to go and feed the chooks and Little Tom was going in for his afternoon lessons.
His friend from St Michael’s was still fairly small, but there was a sharpness, a cleverness in the eyes which Harry had never noticed before.
‘Wotcha, Harry.’
‘Hi, Tom.’
They stood in front of each other, wondering what to say. Harry noticed the boy’s clothing was clean and fairly new. His own was shabby, with tears in the shorts and stains on his shirt. He tried to keep it clean but there was no point any more. It would just be dirty again tomorrow.
‘You still working in the dairy?’
Harry nodded. ‘Haven’t seen you on the farm for a while.’
‘They’ve got me cleaning the brothers’ rooms.’
‘Cushy number.’
Little Tom seemed to think for a moment. ‘Listen, Harry, you still writing to England?’
Harry nodded. ‘Every month. No reply, though. Mum’s forgotten me.’
Tom peered down at his bare feet, as if examining whether he still had five toes. Then he looked back up. ‘Don’t bother, the brothers don’t like it.’
A frown creased Harry’s forehead. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They just don’t like it. They don’t like any of the boys writing home.’
Harry shook his head. ‘But I always write. Takes me ages, and I know it don’t look good, but—’
‘Don’t bother, Harry.’
Little Tom turned to walk up the stairs, but Harry grabbed his arm. ‘What do you mean?’
Tom thought for a moment. ‘Meet me later at five, outside the tower staircase.’ He shrugged off Harry’s arm and trotted up the stairs.
For the rest of the afternoon, Harry wondered what Tom meant. At the appointed time, he waited at the base of the staircase leading up to the brothers’ private rooms.
He waited for fifteen minutes and was just about to leave and go back to his dorm when Tom appeared by his side, as if out of nowhere.
‘Shush, quiet, we don’t want them to hear.’
Little Tom began to climb the steps to the upper floors.
‘We’re not supposed to be here.’
‘You want to know or not?’
‘Want to know what?’
Little Tom rounded on him, the whites of his eyes shining in the shadows of the dark tower. ‘You’re a bloody fool, Harry. Want to know why? I’m going to show you.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Tom let out a sigh and then spoke slowly, as if lecturing a four-year-old. ‘Just… follow… me.’
Harry climbed the stairs behind Tom, keeping to the outside and looking upwards constantly to make sure none of the brothers were coming down. When they reached the third floor, where the brothers had their rooms, they crept along a tiled corridor past a row of doors.
‘Shhh… Some of them may be asleep.’ Little Tom stopped in front of a door near the end. He pulled out a silver key from his top pocket and showed it to Harry. ‘They don’t know I have this.’ He inserted it into the lock and turned.
There was a loud click and Harry jumped, glancing over his shoulder to check no brothers had come out of their room to investigate the strange noise.
Little Tom pushed open the door and ushered Harry inside, closing it behind him. The room was totally black, with only a faint grey light peering in through a small window in the corner of the far wall.
Gradually, Harry’s eyes adjusted to the dim light. He could see it was a small storeroom with wooden shelves lining the walls. Each shelf held a row of brown files, aligned with each other like books. At one end was a stack of boxes reaching up to the window and blocking out most of the light.
‘What is it?’
‘Look around you.’
‘It’s a storeroom.’
‘But what does it store, Harry? That is the question.’ Little Tom reached up and took one of the box files off the shelf. ‘I found it one day, after cleaning the brothers’ rooms. I was looking for some soap and I found these.’
He opened the box file. Inside was a stack of letters, each in their original envelopes, the addresses written in different handwriting.
Harry shuffled through them. The addresses were for a variety of places in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales or Australia. And then he picked up one of them from the pile. The address was for Oldham and he recognised the handwriting, each letter painfully and slowly inscribed on the cover of the envelope. But it was the name on the front that took his breath away: Mrs Freda Duckworth.
‘It’s my letter. I wrote it when I came here.’
‘Your letters and everybody else’s. Don’t you see, Harry? You never get a reply because they never send them. The brothers don’t like us to write home.’
And then Little Tom began laughing.
Harry grabbed the letter and rushed out of the storeroom, running down the stairs past Brother Mitchell and across to the main building.
He shoved open the door to Brother Quilligan’s room. The new head of Bindoon, who had replaced Brother Keaney, was sitting behind his desk, writing in the ledger in front of him. ‘What do you want, Britton?’
Harry couldn’t get the words out. He began to stammer. ‘The l-l-l-letters… You… you n-never sent them…’
The brother took off his pince-nez glasses and placed them on top of the ledger. ‘Letters from home often disturb the confidence of the boys at Bindoon, making it more difficult for them to settle in and slowing their adaptation to their new life in Australia.’
Harry held up the letter, his hand shaking. ‘B-b-but I’ve b-b-been writing f-f-for five years…’
‘And I hope you will continue to write. It will help you construct your sentences.’
‘B-but… b-but you…’ The words just wouldn’t come out.
‘But we never sent them?’ Brother Quilligan finished Harry’s sentence for him.
Harry nodded, shifting from one foot to another, his bare feet staining the rich red carpet.
‘No, we didn’t. It was the right thing to do.’ Brother Quilligan’s voice was calm and considered as he continued. ‘But now I am angry, Britton. You have managed to gain entry into a locked room in a forbidden area. And you have stolen from that room. This is an offence in this school and in the eyes of God, for which you will be punished. Bend over the table and pull your shorts down.’
Harry stood there, shaking. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming in short, sharp spurts.
‘Did you hear me, Britton?
You must submit to the punishment of God. Bend over the desk and pull your shorts down.’
Harry still stood there, unmoving.
‘I will ask you one more time. If you do not obey, I will call Brother Thomas and Brother Dominic to hold you over the desk and you will submit to your punishment. It will then be repeated again this evening after dinner in front of the whole school.’
Harry’s body went numb. The letter, written so long ago, fluttered from his fingers to land on the carpet. His arms came down by his sides and his breath stilled.
He strode over to Brother Quilligan’s desk and bent over, pulling his shorts down to reveal his bare buttocks.
‘This pains me far more than it will hurt you, Britton.’
The bamboo cane rose slowly up into the air before it came swishing down across the flesh of Harry’s behind, again and again and again.
He didn’t cry out.
Not once.
When the end of the month came, and it was time for him to write home, Harry took the blank paper and burned it in the flame of a candle.
He never wrote home again.
Chapter Fifty
May 5, 1958
St Joseph’s Farm and Trade School, Bindoon, Western Australia
He was alone now.
Of course, he still slept in a dormitory full of boys. He still ate with all the others. He still showered with them, the brothers watching from their place next to the hot-water geyser.
He went to the tech building most days when he had finished his work on the farm. There was a comfort in fiddling with an engine, or turning the lathe, or simply planing a plank of wood. He liked working with his hands, making something respond to his touch.
These engines, these bits of wood, these objects – they talked to him and they didn’t answer back. They just did what he wanted them to do.
The other boys thought he was strange, but he didn’t care. What was the use of talking with them?