The Bride of Almond Tree

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by Robert Hillman


  It rained heavily that night and the fire barely touched Galilee. Funerals were held for the next four days. The smoke was still in the air. Wes made sure he attended as many as he could, and Beth came, too. The grief of violent death at the hands of nature is not the same as death by heart failure or cancer. Something has intervened, some malice in nature that can’t be assuaged by the bowing of the head and a handkerchief applied to the eyes. The mourners stand puzzled that out of nowhere a catastrophic wall of flame scorched the life from a husband, a wife, a friend. In New Guinea, comrades shot by the Japanese earned the Japanese undying hatred. Here—what? Who should you hate, or what?

  On the last Sunday of Beth’s stay, Wes asked Beth to come to the Quaker meeting at the Farebrother house. She acceded, with reluctance. ‘I won’t be praying.’

  It was a week after the Chinese Town bushfire. The Friends gathered on an assortment of Quaker-made chairs in the broad living room of the Farebrother house. Madelaine Cunningham, Wes’s eldest sister, led the prayer, a brief few words. ‘We have lost twelve of our visitors,’ she said in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. ‘We mourn each of them with our love.’ The gathering fell silent.

  Beth whispered to Wes: ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Mourning. Sending love to the souls of those who died. They were all Chinese. Visitors. Christians, but not Friends.’

  The silence went on for what seemed an age to Beth. Then Wes left her side and stood before the gathering, and began to sing. He sang three Quaker hymns. Beth was astonished at the beauty of his voice. She had no idea. Then he announced that he was now about to sing a special hymn for one of their visitors, Beth Hardy. He sang: ‘The people’s flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead…’ Beth had roared out with great mobs of socialists the words of ‘The Red Flag’, but never had she heard the song given such poignancy. Tears came to her eyes.

  In the afternoon, she agreed to take a walk with Wes. He showed her the stables, and the house he was building with the help of his fellow Quakers. She nodded. But she said: ‘Wes, you know what’s happening in the Soviet Union right now? Starvation, plague, typhoid. I have to dedicate myself to raising money for the people. And I’ll be working part time next year for the United Metalworkers Union. As an organiser.’

  ∼

  Wes went with her to the station the next day with Bob and Lillian. Gus and Maud were in the middle of one of their epic arguments and didn’t bother. Neither did Franny. When the train pulled out, Bob Hardy put his hand on Wes’s shoulder. ‘You’ve still got feelings for my Beth, haven’t you?’

  ‘Friendship, Bob.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, friendship.’

  Wes went straight back to work at the stables, of course with Franny hovering around. She asked him if he ever thought about sex.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You’d have as much fun with her as a sack of turnips.’

  ‘I like turnips.’

  ‘Take me to bed. You’ll love it. I promise.’

  ‘No, Franny. But you can pass me the spirit level.’

  ‘I’ll become a Quaker. Will that satisfy you?’

  ‘Don’t be crazy. You’re not going to become a Quaker. Hand me the spirit level.’

  Nothing daunted, Franny came each day. Sometimes she brought a rabbit and chatted about their various ways. She also told Wes something Beth hadn’t mentioned to him. That Beth was going to London in the middle of the year for a few days. Why London?

  Chapter 10

  TO LONDON at first, then to Cambridge. She had a parcel to deliver to a certain Peter Corning, a reader in History at Jesus College. The parcel and instructions had been given to her by a friend of Bob Beaumont, the Deputy Secretary of the United Metalworkers Union, who was more red than Lenin. The friend did not give his name, and had the fugitive look of a man who would always keep his name to himself. Nor did he explain what was in the manila envelope nor why it was unaddressed. ‘Comrade, the more important question is why you should wish to know?’

  Beth would be staying in England for three days, and no more. She would be given a parcel to bring back. Bob Beaumont said she’d been chosen because of her ‘exceptional reliability’. She couldn’t help but ask if the mail wouldn’t be just as reliable. Bob shook his head. ‘No, no, I don’t think so.’ The ordeal of the flight would be a nightmare, and for a mere three days? She didn’t say a word in complaint. It was an honour to have been chosen.

  Carrying her humble little suitcase, she found her way in Cambridge to Peter Corning at Jesus. He swung open the door of his rooms for her with a flourish, kissed both of her cheeks and showed her to his desk. His rooms were packed with bookshelves, and a series of mediaeval prints, which he invited her to admire. He was a tall man, good-looking, no more than forty with dark hair worn long, dressed in this summer weather in a white linen suit, loosely worn and an incongruous black waistcoat. His right cheek was scarred from the corner of his eye to his cheekbone, a thin scar but immediately the feature that dominated Beth’s interest. ‘A duelling scar,’ Peter explained touching the faint line with his fingertips. ‘Cocktail glasses at close quarters. Didn’t leave a mark on Reggie.’

  Beth said, ‘You might have lost an eye.’

  ‘Might have, but didn’t. One of the many things in life that didn’t happen.’

  He spoke with an upper-class accent and a rapid cadence.

  ‘You have lovely rooms.’

  ‘Do you think so? I can’t stand them. Makes me feel like E. M. Forster, full of the wonder of literature. I hate literature, except for the Greeks. And old Leo, of course. I understand you speak Russian?’

  ‘To a degree.’

  ‘You’re staying with us at Grantchester. You know, the church clock and all that. You must be exhausted. I’ll take you there now in the Riley.’

  ‘I have the parcel.’

  ‘Oh, the parcel. That’s for Benny Edwards. You’ll see him tonight. We’re giving you a little party after you have a sleep. You’re very pretty for a commie, I must say. The women are usually dowdy. I’m not a communist myself. I just help out. But Benny is—do you say in Australia? “Fair dinkum”?’

  The parcel remained in the suitcase. Beth’s room in Peter Corning’s Grantchester house was tiny. If the little bed hadn’t been so narrow, it would have been impossible to move about. There was an upstairs and a downstairs and each of the rooms was as cramped as the bedroom. No children, apparently. One attractive feature was the view of the orchard that all the rooms provided. Beth was shown the bathroom in which there was no bath but a shower with three devices that regulated the flow of water, each of which (when she tried them before lying down) seemed to cancel out the other. She stuck to the cold water. While she showered, Peter stood outside the door and read Rupert Brooke’s ‘Grantchester’ aloud in a singing tone.

  ‘Do you like this, Miss Hardy, or if I may call you Beth, so I will. I happen to know that you are commonly called Beth. It’s utter rubbish, isn’t it? Silly old Rupert, forever taking his trousers down for the Cambridge ladies. Maybe I just envy him.’

  ‘Yes! I like it!’

  ‘There are clean towels in a pile in the corner. Fairly clean, at least. Shall I leave you alone now?’

  Six people including Peter and his wife, Heather, were at the dinner gathering. Heather was dressed in loose, flowing garments without the least coordination, with a red scarf woven through her mass of blonde curls. Then two young men who appeared to be students, both looking awkward outside of a meeting hall. The most important guest was evidently Benny Edwards, judging by the deference shown him, but there was nothing commanding about his appearance. He was tall and stooped, skinny, with pouches of flesh hanging below his grey eyes, as if he’d lost weight and turned haggard over a short period. Before any food was served, Beth was asked to stand before a semi-circle of the seated guests and talk about the people’s struggle in Australia. She said that the people of Australia were being misled about the mission
of communism just as the Americans were. The so-called socialist Australian Labor Party harboured the worst anti-communists of any political party in the country among its Catholic MPs—men who would rather go to the stake than listen to the true Marxist program. The only hope for a communist Australia was to infiltrate the ALP and convert more and more MPs—not the Catholic die-hards—to the people’s program. Which was what she, Beth, was attempting to achieve in her work for the United Metalworkers.

  She was applauded heartily. Then Benny Edwards stood and shouted about the need to embrace violence in the workplace. ‘If we see rivers of blood in the factories of Britain, we must accept that as the price of justice. Those who shrink from violence, from force, are shrinking from justice.’ He unbuttoned his ragged brown cardigan, then his shirt and showed a chest of grey hair. ‘This is what my heart says. Justice will require blood, here and in this young woman’s Australia.’ When he sat, he was applauded, more temperately than Beth.

  Only the single dish for dinner—a vegetable stew, since the meat ration had been used up. No dessert, but some drop scones made without sugar. Folk songs around the piano, nothing in the singing to compare to Wes’s gorgeous voice. Beth was allowed to head off to bed early, since she’d enjoyed only three hours sleep in the last thirty-six. The students said their farewells as Beth headed upstairs; only Benny Edwards was left behind, drunk and mumbling. She took the parcel down to him—this was the third time she’d offered it to him and had been told to hold on to it for the time being. She was again told to hold on to it. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Benny’s sleeping on the sofa,’ said Heather. ‘Give it to him at breakfast.’

  Beth slept deeply until awakened by a scratching at her door, and a voice.

  ‘Benny?’

  ‘Open the door, something to tell you.’

  She did as she was told, still groggy with sleep, and found Benny, visible in the dim light at the top of the stairs. She stood baffled for a few moments, but when he tried to reach for her she pushed him away and called for Peter and Heather. She picked up one of her shoes and showed that she was prepared to use it as a weapon. Benny whined meantime, ‘I meant no harm, no harm at all…’

  Heather came from a doorway further down the corridor, then Peter. Benny stood trembling. Peter said, mildly, ‘Really, Benny. Get downstairs.’

  ‘Forgive him, Beth,’ said Heather. ‘It’s not the first time. Too much to drink.’

  ‘If he’s staying in the house, I’m leaving.’

  ‘No, no, no. Peter will drive him back to his digs. Go back to bed, Beth.’

  She didn’t close her eyes until she heard Peter’s Riley drive off. Sleep came in fragments. After showering in the morning, she came down with the parcel.

  ‘What am I to do with this?’

  ‘Give it to Peter.’

  Peter reached across the toast and tea, held the parcel for ten seconds, then handed it back.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Now,’ said Peter, ‘you put it in your suitcase and take it back to Australia.’

  ‘Take it back? The same parcel? I don’t understand.’

  Peter nodded, then sipped his tea. ‘Beth, my dear, it was a trial. Were you under surveillance by your security people? It appears not. There’s nothing in the parcel other than twenty pages of algebraic equations, and also a few poems, Jabberwocky, I think, and some Browning.’

  Beth was left exasperated. ‘Seventy-two hours of flying for a joke? Do you have any idea of the pain you get in your legs and back on one of those BOAC things? For nothing?’

  ‘For something, Beth,’ said Heather. ‘We want you to come back next time with real intelligence. A pain in the legs is a very small price to pay for the mission.’

  ‘You want me to become a spy?’

  Peter said with an equivocal gesture of his spread hands, ‘Beth, “spy” is an ugly word. We do not employ spies. We gather information such as may put us at an advantage.’

  Beth paused before saying what she had come to believe to be true. ‘Peter, you told me you just help out here and there. But I think you’re in charge. Please tell me the truth.’

  ‘Beth my love, it’s not something we talk about.’

  ‘Peter, do you know that spying for a foreign power is punishable by death in Australia?’

  ‘You’re not a spy. You’re simply a girl helping out.’

  ‘I’m not a girl. I’m a woman, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m twenty-three.’

  ‘Oh, he’s noticed,’ said Heather. ‘Believe me.’

  He took her for a walk around Grantchester, ending at the café in the orchard under the clock tower. Tea and scones. Without anyone in earshot, he nevertheless spoke quietly. ‘Beth, I don’t think you quite grasp what’s happening in the wide world. You think of transition to communism in Australia, and no doubt elsewhere. There is going to be a war, Beth. The Soviet Union now controls the whole of Eastern Europe. Within two years there is bound to be a communist government elected in Italy and France. The Americans won’t accede. They will bring on a war before the Soviet Union has developed its own atomic weapons. Not alone. Aided and abetted by Britain. The Americans already have nuclear weapons stationed in Britain. But they don’t want to go it alone. They want Britain as an ally. It looks better if you intend to murder ten or twenty million Russians if you have the mother of parliaments supporting you. Do you follow?’

  Beth gave him a dubious look.

  ‘The Russians will test their atomic bombs in Kazakhstan. The Americans have the South Pacific. We in Britain, where do we go? North Yorkshire? We go to your homeland, Beth. And we happen to know that sites have already been chosen. In South Australia. This is what we want you to do. Photograph the sites. Come back to me with the pictures. We can show the world where Britain intends to explode atomic bombs before they are even detonated. We can whip up a frenzy of protest. Your Aborigines are living on those sites. Do you think they will be warned to clear off before the tests? Not likely. They are probably planning three years of testing. But let’s start now. Let’s get you and some colleagues over there with cameras.’

  ‘If they catch me, they’ll hang me.’

  ‘Hmm. Unlikely. They’d probably barter a deal with the Americans and Soviets and MI5 and swap you for a Soviet agent. Of course, you’d be required to live in Russia for the rest of your life. Not the worst possible fate. Not the best, either. People are starving over there.’

  She thought of Wes. That would certainly put an end to his hopes of courtship. The thought produced a pang. She had urged him to marry Franny with her bombshell figure and her looks and her hunger for sex, but the idea of Franny with her arms around Wes distressed her, for the first time. She had only ever conceived of loyalty as a loyalty to the people, to the program. But she had to concede that loyalty could also be loyalty to an individual person. Wes was loyal to her. Wasn’t this worth something?

  She said she would do it. Where were the cameras? Who would provide them?

  ‘Di Porter.’

  Transport? Also, when did Peter expect this to be done?

  ‘Oh, the testing won’t be for a couple of years. But we need the photographs taken as soon as possible after you get back.’

  ‘But there’s my speech to the Arts Faculty…well, that’s okay. I won’t mind missing that.’

  ‘No? I understand you covered yourself in glory.’

  ‘I’m not dressing up just to please a whole lot of self-important egotists.’

  ‘There’s a certain amount of egotism in refusing to, don’t you think?’

  Peter drove her to Heathrow in the Riley.

  Chapter 11

  HIROSHIMA WAS built originally on the delta plains of seven rivers, with dwellings and factories packed closely together on the compacted silt. All but a few buildings were timber and they burned as if soaked in petrol when the firestorms, which instantly followed the bomb’s detonation above the city, spread north, south, east and west.

&n
bsp; Patty dealt predominately with horrendous burns in her first six months in the hospitals of Hiroshima. Most of those she and the doctors tended died, often while being treated—more than three thousand. She worked in the Occupation hospital and also in thirty of the small, one-doctor Japanese hospitals, without permission from the Australian contingent of the BCOF officers and senior nurses. She wouldn’t take leave, even when threatened with discharge. Her friend the major protected her from the menace of the more senior nurses, who couldn’t abide her free and easy manner, but that wouldn’t last forever. She also worked in the VD clinics and the official supervised brothels for the Australian troops. But every second house that was built on the delta plains by the surviving Japanese, using any debris that hadn’t been incinerated in the blast, mere shacks, became a brothel if the household included daughters over the age of twelve. It was one of few ways of earning money. The Australians were forbidden to fraternise with the Japanese, but the rule was universally ignored. Australian troops could arrive in the morning and become infected with VD by the afternoon. ‘Had the mother and the daughter one after the other,’ the patients would boast to Patty.

  ‘Well, aren’t you a lucky boy. And now you have a painful reminder of your adventure to explain to your girlfriend. This goes on your record.’

  She should have left but couldn’t. It was years since she’d been home to Almond Tree. It had been George Fox Farebrother’s belief that a certain trial is set for each person in life, just one, and that person knows that the trial is there and cannot evade it without harming his soul, her soul. All of the Quakers of Almond Tree accepted this belief of George’s.

  For Patty, it was Hiroshima. She couldn’t leave. But nor could she stay, if the BCOF authorities had their way. She was forced to resign. She appealed to the Americans, who had the final say in everything in Japan; to an American colonel who had been a pal of the major. He organised for her to stay for a further year; 1949. He was one of the rare Americans who admired the huge strides the Japanese had taken to rebuild their city.

 

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