‘Are you going to shoot me, junior?’
The boy shook his head, and gulped.
‘No, I didn’t think so.’
She waited at the camp for the workers to return from the felling site. The men with rifles waited with her. As the men returned in couples and mobs, they appeared appalled at the men with rifles. One stepped forward, a tall man with long hair and a bandana, and told them in English to get the hell out of here. He waved his hands as if chasing chickens away, and she watched the armed men slowly retreat.
Beth stepped up onto her stump and called to the workers to gather around. She had gained recognition as a serious political figure, someone the men were willing to listen to. She told the men that John Li had refused to attend to their safety concerns, and had refused to increase their pay to the union standard. ‘We have to strike.’ The men whose English was up to it translated for those who couldn’t quite understand. ‘It should take two weeks. John Li won’t allow you to stay in the camp while you’re on strike. We will find you places to stay in the towns around here. And we will feed you. You have plenty of well-wishers in the towns, particularly in Almond Tree. This is a fight we can win.’ She had already won approval and offers to help from forty families, and would apply for money from the union to pay for food.
A letter came in the mail, addressed to Beth. She opened it and read two words written in red pencil on the single sheet of paper: ‘comunist cunt’. Responding more to the bad spelling than to the epithet, she showed it to Wes and asked him if he thought John Li had sent it. ‘No, not John. He wouldn’t use language like that.’
On her next visit to John’s office, she told him that ninety-two of his employees would go on strike beginning on Monday. ‘To avoid it, you know what to do.’
He rose up from his desk in a rage, fists clenched. ‘My father’s mother and father in Guangdong were murdered by communists. By Mao Tse-tung, murdered. By his soldiers. I do not feel sorry for communists. They were only in Guangdong for a visit. They had no politics. Murdered. You want me to give money from my pocket to communist murderers? No! Go on strike. You will get nothing from it.’
Wes organised a convoy of trucks, utes, Land Rovers and cars to pick up the strikers from the camp and take them to the many places where they would be accommodated. Wes also had to borrow tents from all his mates and fellow workers on the channel and on the rebuilding of Chinese Town. The workers slept on floors, on sofas, in sleeping bags on back verandas, in tents in backyards. Often the workers cooked for themselves with ingredients purchased and distributed by Beth, but just as often their hosts cooked for them, cheerfully. Beth’s incompetence as a shopper was evident to everyone. One family was expected to make a meal for eleven men out of Brussels sprouts and lettuce. After three days of Beth’s shopping, she was told, politely, to simply hand over the money and leave the shopping to the hosts.
A good forty of the workers were put up by Quaker families with borrowed blankets and sleeping bags. It was a squeeze, but at least the houses all had two bathrooms and two toilets, one downstairs and one upstairs to serve the two guest rooms. The Quakers of Almond Tree had a native sympathy for unions, being themselves, in a certain way, a union, but even more sympathy for Beth and Wes’s cause. The twenty-seven workers at Beth’s place had more liberty than at any other Quaker household, it would be fair to say. They were all Italians and must have come from a region of Naples where singing was as common as conversation because they sang all day, Italian folk songs, opera, even an Italian version of Elvis’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Wes was asked for a song, and he sang the only two he knew in Italian, ‘Ave Maria’ and ‘O Solo Mio’. The workers sitting around the living room were spellbound. After ‘Ave Maria’, tears flowed. One by one, the Italians came up to him and embraced him. And again after ‘O Solo Mio’.
‘Better than Caruso.’
‘My friend, I love you with my heart.’
Beth went with three carloads of workers each day to picket the entrance to the site. The scabs came in dribs and drabs from New South Wales, driven down by a friend of John’s in Sydney. But the friend didn’t want any scuffles, and turned around with shouts of ‘Scabs!’ in an Italian accent following him. He’d return the next day with the same men, and sometimes a second truck behind him. The workers surrounded the trucks and threatened the scabs on board with everything from a broken neck to murder. The scabs in the trucks looked daunted. They clearly hadn’t been told much. After a certain amount of shouting and abuse, Beth would raise her arms, asking for quiet. Then she would explain to the daunted men in the trucks that this was a union worksite and the workers were simply protecting their jobs, were being paid twenty per cent below the union rate and that all safety regulations were being ignored. Then the shouting and abuse began again and the truck drivers, fearing as much as anything damage to their vehicles, would back into the turntable and head down the road. The workers responded as if they’d enjoyed a mighty victory and embraced Beth, kissed her cheeks.
She went to see John each day.
‘I give you nothing.’
‘You’re going to lose a lot of money, John. More than the twenty per cent you owe these men.’
The offensive letters came each day, always with ‘communist’ misspelt. She screwed them up and tossed them into the rubbish bin. Letters came, too, for Wes from Anna in Moscow, sent and addressed by a neighbour because all Anna’s letters had to be approved by the police and the police did not approve any of them. The letters had been more frequent in the past, brief and full of Moscow chit-chat. One revealed the news that the East Germans intended to build a wall across Berlin months before it became public.
But the latest letter, which came in the midst of the strike, began with the news that her son had died of pneumonia in the prison hospital.
They didn’t give him any antibiotics, nothing, no achromycin, no penicillin, they just let him die. They didn’t let me see him until he was dead. They told me he was sick and in the hospital, and I begged them to give him medication. They said they had no medicine to spare for anti-Soviet prisoners. Wes, the grief was horrible, and it still is. I had his body sent to Israel for burial, to some family members. I couldn’t bear the thought of his body buried in the soil of this country that treats its people like vermin. As soon as I can arrange it, I am going to Israel to live.
One night after dinner, the men danced to folk tunes played on a fiddle by Franco, who regarded his fiddle as his most precious possession. Beth joined in, although her dancing was awful—like a baby giraffe learning to run. And then, just when the merriment was at its peak, three shots were fired from outside and shattered the upper panes of two windows that faced the street. Most of the men knew what gunfire was from the war, and flattened themselves on the carpet as Wes and Leonardo raced for the door and ran outside.
A red Holden ute was speeding away, but the driver misjudged a bend and smashed into the granite wall Wes had built along the front of the property. Leonardo reached the ute first and hauled the driver out. He pushed him along with a hand around his neck until he reached Wes.
‘James? What the hell?’
It was James Li, John’s son—widely regarded in Almond Tree as a fool of a boy, indulged by his father—home from Scotch College. He drove around town in the red ute his father had bought him, too young to have a licence, and he drove badly. He was a skinny kid with hair that grew down over his eyes. At the moment he looked terrified, with twenty men threatening to knock his teeth out. Wes called Ernie Connell. Not at the police station, where he never was after three in the afternoon, but at home, where he always was after three in the afternoon.
‘James Li? What’s he done now? This is union stuff is it? Please don’t tell me you rung me at nine at night because James pissed on your front door.’
‘He fired three shots through our front windows, Ernie. Then crashed his car. We have him here.’
‘Jesus Holy Christ! What, he’s gone from being an idiot to
mass murderer. Anyone hit?’
‘No. But you need to get yourself over here to my place, Ernie. I’m going to ring John Li and get him here, too.’
Beth retrieved the most recent of the vile notes from the rubbish bin, flattened it out and showed it to James. ‘What do you know about this?’
James averted his eyes.
‘Did it come from you? All of them? They did, didn’t they?’
James nodded.
Ernie, in all his corpulence, arrived first, being closer to the house. But John wasn’t far behind. Wes showed Ernie the shattered windows, then the crashed car. Ernie picked up the rifle from the car by the barrel tip to preserve the fingerprints and brought it inside. John appeared profoundly ashamed.
‘Is this his rifle?’ Ernie asked.
John nodded. As soon as he got close enough to his son through the men hemming him in, he slapped him again and again, until Ernie restrained him.
‘Here, here. If there’s any rough stuff to be administered, it’ll be from me.’ And to demonstrate, he whacked the boy across the chops, just a single blow, but expertly dealt. The boy was howling now.
‘Sorry, I made a mistake. Sorry.’
‘So what have we got here,’ said Ernie, scratching the back of his neck. ‘Driving without a licence, driving underage, and attempted murder. Mate, you’re up shit creek. Come on, we’re going down to the station. That’s me and the master criminal here, and you Wes, and Beth, you might want to come, too. And John.’
Ernie had to unlock the station and turn on the lights. He found chairs here and there and sat everyone in a circle, himself presiding.
‘Okay, idiot, what’s the story?’
James, sniffling, murmured that he was trying to help his father against the communists.
John jumped up and gave his son another whack across the face. ‘Did I tell you to shoot them, fool?’
James had to agree that his father had not sanctioned murder. ‘Sorry, a bad mistake, sorry.’ Then: ‘I wanted to scare them, that’s all.’
Ernie said: ‘Two ways this can go. If Wes and Beth press charges, John, your fool of a son is on trial in the juvenile court for attempted murder. If they don’t, we put him in front of a magistrate in Shepparton for reckless use of a firearm. Attempted murder, he’d be in juvenile detention and then Pentridge for five years. Reckless use of a firearm, maybe a fine, a big one. I’m going to put the kid in the clink out the back and leave you to discuss it. Might make an arrangement, who knows? You might have something to offer, John. What do you think?’
Ernie took the sniffling boy out the back door. Alone with Wes and Beth, John said, tears in his eyes, ‘Don’t put my boy in prison, I beg you.’ He got down on his knees to further dramatise his plea. ‘I beg you with my whole heart.’
Beth said: ‘There were more than twenty people in that room. James could have easily killed one of them, two of them.’
‘Forgive him, please. He is a stupid, stupid boy. But his mother loves him so, so much. It would kill her if he went to prison.’
Beth looked at Wes. It was a questioning look. Wes grasped the question, and after a minute, conceded.
Beth said: ‘An immediate twenty per cent raise for all the workers, even those not in the union. Every safety issue on my list addressed, once again, immediately.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, John said, ‘Yes, I agree. I will do it.’
They told Ernie that they would not press charges if John signed a document that Beth would write up.
‘Any objections if I let the kid go home with John? He’s going to wet his pants in there.’
‘No objections.’
In the car on the way home, Wes said, ‘It’s a bit like blackmail, Beth. Not all that comfortable.’
‘It’s not blackmail. John wanted something we had, we had something he wanted. It was a swap.’
‘Still, maybe we should have let justice run its course.’
‘You wanted to see that wretched boy in prison?’
‘No, only…’
‘Wes, justice can’t always be pretty.’
‘Okay. It leaves me a bit uneasy, is all.’
‘Not me.’
Beth the next day typed up an agreement on behalf of the union. It took hours of negotiating all the contingencies in legalese. She took it to John’s office late in the afternoon. She had made a carbon copy, and John, deeply unhappy, followed one copy while Beth read the whole document aloud. John grunted after each clause. When Beth was finished, John belted himself on the head with his hand.
‘Okay! That foolish, foolish boy. I should let him go to prison. Now you.’
He pushed a document across his desk for Beth to read. It was brief. It was an undertaking never to prefer charges against James Li, neither she nor Wes, nor any of the men in the room when James fired his rifle through the windows. Beth had sent Wes to let all the men know of the deal she was about to make, and none had complained. She felt confident in signing both agreements. Marge witnessed them.
Chapter 34
IN FEBRUARY, 1962, Patty made plans to come home to Almond Tree for what was to be the last time. She had been feeling unwell for months, and two doctors at her hospital diagnosed heart disease of a sort common among those who had survived the bomb. It was nearly always fatal. She was thought to have no more than three months to live.
Before she left to fly back to Australia, she made a journey to see the master, just in case he had better news for her. But the master had died and was buried beside the beloved horse, Hero, as he had wished. It was unusual for a Buddhist to be buried rather than cremated, but the master had been an unusual man. A second wooden monument had been erected beside Hero’s. The master had carved it himself. It read: With my friend. Patty kissed the monument, then sat weeping for an hour. A monk brought her tea.
Before she left, she sold the hospital to the Japanese government for a hefty sum that reflected the great reputation of the place. And a ceremony was held in the reception area, attended by the Minister for Health and Welfare who presented her with a medal to be worn around the neck on a red ribbon. On one side of the medal was inscribed, in English, Beloved of the Japanese People, and the same inscription in Japanese on the other.
Patty had sent a letter ahead asking Wes (as the single most competent member of the family) to arrange a special gathering of Quakers for the evening following her midday arrival. It was so arranged, and held at the Cunningham house. Patty revealed nothing before the meeting, but unwelcome news was anticipated. The only previous special gathering had concerned a member who was threatening to hang himself after blowing up the Farebrother house. He was placated, but had to be placed in a mental hospital, where he still resided.
At the meeting, Patty stood before the gathering and told those assembled of her illness. She was home to die, she said, among Quakers and family. Her message was followed by five minutes of total silence, respectful silence. The Friends formed a queue and each in turn shook Patty’s hand. The family members hugged her. Beth was holding Esther, and Patty took her from Beth’s arms and held her while the hand-shaking and hugging continued. All the other children in the gathering kissed Patty’s hand. No words were spoken, and all the members of the gathering left.
She met with her family in the Cunningham living room after the honouring. Patty’s mother and father had been caring for Francis and Esther during Patty’s regular month away, but it was evident that they were too old, too frail to keep it up. She asked Beth and Wes whether she and the children could live with them for these final three months. Beth said, ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Also,’ said Patty, ‘I want you to care for the kids after I’m gone.’
Beth said, ‘Yes, we will, gladly.’
It was do-able. Wes had persuaded his mother to allow Francis to attend Almond Tree Primary for the sake of giving the boy more kids around him. Also, Wes’s mother’s teaching hadn’t altered in sixty years: simply too much of God’s goodness and to
o little of the way the world really went about its business. Esther, meanwhile, went to Nanny Hall’s kinder with ten other children of three and four. Nanny Hall’s kinder wasn’t registered, but she did such a good job that no one bothered. It was all singing and dancing and crayons and plasticine and building blocks, God left out in the backyard alone. Of course, you had to accept that Nanny smoked like a chimney, Capstans, but the children were loved and cared for.
Patty, Esther and Francis moved into the two spare rooms on the second floor. The children came to her bed each morning and said, ‘Don’t die, Mum.’
Quakers don’t place any emphasis on an afterlife. Patty might have said, ‘I will be with God,’ but it would have been false. She didn’t believe she would be with God. She didn’t believe anyone could be with God. She was candid about death. She told the children she had to die. ‘But you will be with Uncle Wes and Aunty Beth. They love you.’
Still, the kids said each day, ‘Don’t die, Mum.’ That death was involuntary, when it came to their mother, was impossible to grasp.
Wes had finished work on Chinese Town, or Feenix, and the channel was long past completion, but he had another project to occupy him—the sealing of the many open mine shafts off the spur road, one of which had recently claimed the life of a bushwalker. And Beth was busy each weekday, too. She was now regional secretary of the union and had ten sites to visit each month. It was Franny who took on the task of caring for Patty each day. She came with her two children (Ricky’s two kids from his previous marriage were at school) and was endlessly cheerful and attentive. While she chatted with Patty—Patty was propped up on three pillows—the children played with toys and colouring books.
She asked Patty to tell her about Hiroshima. Patty said that when she first saw Hiroshima, there was no Hiroshima to see, just a huge black and orange scar with a few badly damaged buildings tottering on their foundations. ‘But some grass had begun to grow, or weeds. If you picked one of them and put it to your nose, it smelt like chemicals.’ She said that the survivors of the atomic bombs, known as hibakusha, were reluctant to get themselves to the hospitals outside Hiroshima for treatment. ‘Something had come out of the sky and scorched the life out of thousands and thousands. The survivors were traumatised. Many lived with terrible burns for months before going to one of the remaining hospitals. When they did finally come, we saved hundreds and lost thousands. Hiroshima was America’s Auschwitz.’
The Bride of Almond Tree Page 23