William began to yearn for a child, as he said, ‘of his own’. He encouraged Russel, who was just beginning to comment that all his friends had brothers and sisters, and between them they put a great deal of pressure on me. I wondered why I had not become pregnant and went to the hospital to find out if there was a physical reason for my apparent sterility. There I met a young doctor, Alan Saltau, who, with his wife Jan, were to become part of our growing circle of new friends.
Alan recommended a procedure wherein, under a general anaesthetic, a light gas is blown through the fallopian tubes to remove any blockages. This operation is not difficult, but it is painful for a week or so. However, it seemed a small sacrifice to make in order for us to become a thoroughly blood-related family.
The operation was successful and soon I had conceived. Unlike my earlier pregnancies, this was a time of joy for me, despite morning sickness, afternoon and evening sickness, and nausea from the smell of just about everything throughout the entire period. Jan Saltau came by the house frequently and gorged herself on mangoes from our trees. She, too, was pregnant and craved this fruit.
Around this time I became concerned about William’s relationship with Cedric. Feeling nauseated, I often stayed in bed as late as possible before taking Russel to school. Each morning I could hear William call to Cedric, letting him know that he was about to leave and if Cedric wanted a lift, he was to come now. William’s tone of voice, over time, began to sound very nasty. There was a bullying, bossy element in it that either I had not noticed before or which was entirely new.
One night I cautioned William about his tone of voice, but he pooh-poohed me. The next evening he told me that he had asked Cedric if he found his manner offensive, and Cedric had said no. But a few days later, William came home from work with his head bandaged. At first he refused to tell me what had happened. Then he said he had given Cedric an order at work, and that Cedric had hit him with a piece of timber. We were not to discuss it further, he said, but I noticed that he was not giving Cedric a lift any more, and I heard that Cedric had been moved off William’s road-marking gang.
I began to worry, not just about William and Cedric’s relationship, but about a pattern of behaviour of white workers towards their black co-workers that had always deeply concerned me. Racism has many faces. William’s unconsciously offensive manner towards Cedric was one of them.
William was also often short with other Murri friends who came to visit me, and with children from another branch of the large Geia clan who lived two doors away on the corner of Hale and Stanley streets.
One day, early on in our marriage, I had been turning the mattress over when I found a letter hidden there. It was in William’s mother’s handwriting and the envelope was open. From time to time, William had shared his mother’s letters with me, so I had no qualms about reading it. The letter contained only ordinary family news, which made me wonder why William had concealed it, until I came to a paragraph in which his mother wrote that he was lucky not to be in England now as the country was changing for the worse. ‘Blackies,’ she wrote, were even working in stores in her area and the whole place was going to pot.
When William came home I asked him if he had told his mother that I was coloured. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘she wouldn’t understand.’
‘What will you do when our baby arrives?’ I asked.
‘I’ll worry about that when the time comes,’ he told me.
I was concerned and hurt that William continued to conceal from his relations the true nature of our interracial marriage. He hadn’t sent wedding photos to his mother or his sister, and although he had informed them that we were expecting a child, and they subsequently sent parcels of wonderful baby clothes, I somehow felt that we were living a lie.
By this time I had many friends around Townsville. Some were new to the town, others, usually older than me, had known me as a child but now welcomed me as an adult. Mrs Lucy Mitchell was one such person; she lived three doors away from us. Mrs Mitchell was active in theatre productions, and she sought me out and tried to involve me. We discussed the absence of Murris on television and, with her encouragement, I wrote to Crawford Productions in Melbourne and put to them some blunt questions about why this was so. I received a letter which explained that they accepted applications from anyone, and if I or my friends wanted to apply, we were to fill out forms (enclosed) and send voice tapes and photographs of ourselves. I hastily rounded up a small group of young Blacks, and we filled in the forms. Mrs Mitchell coached us and assisted us to prepare the voice tapes.
Despite the effort and expense we went to in order to fulfil Crawford Production’s requirements, we heard nothing more and, with time, became very disappointed. This was in 1963 and we didn’t realise then that we were more than thirty years too early. Even at the time of writing this book, the appearance of Blacks in ordinary support roles, such as a waitress or taxi-driver, in Australian films is still in the future. Black actors have occasional cameo roles but are not seen as part of the everyday fabric of Australian society in movies or television productions.
I became friends with Henry and Margaret Reynolds, who were comparatively new to the town. Margaret, a specialist teacher for the deaf, and Henry, a historian, had come up from Tasmania. Although they had had little or no opportunity to meet and interact with Black people previously, they were unpleasantly surprised by the blatant discrimination against Blacks which they now observed.
A handful of Blacks in Townsville were already active in pushing for change, amongst them Evelyn Scott and my old friend Eddie (Koiki) Mabo. Evelyn was involved with the Federal Council for the Advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), but she made time, despite also raising her large family, to attend meetings of the One People of Australia League (OPAL). Both these organisations were based in the south, but local meetings were enthusiastic and spirited.
It was into this environment and circle of friends that I gave birth to my daughter, Naomi. Margaret Reynolds loaned me an English pram and a few other items of baby furniture. I had had very little for Russel when he was born, he’d grown up in my arms because I could not afford a pram, so I was very pleased to have the relief of not always carrying the baby. Margaret and Henry’s own children were young too, and we swapped items between us as needs arose or as our children grew out of them.
Margaret had an aura of sophistication about her which I found very attractive. She spoke her mind on any issue and let the chips fall wherever. She wasn’t just talk, either. The movement for sexual desegregation of hotel bars had reached Townsville, with women going into bars and chaining themselves to barrails when they weren’t served. Until then, women had been restricted to meeting and drinking in small back rooms, known as ladies’ lounges. If husbands and wives went out together, they could both sit in the ladies’ lounge, although few men chose to do so, probably for fear of ridicule from their drinking mates. Women, however, were forbidden to enter men’s bars, and women who worked in these bars were often regarded quite negatively. Margaret had been active in this movement and seemed to me to be extremely well versed in women’s liberation philosophy. Her friendship stirred my thoughts and she made me feel that it was alright to voice my concerns and ideas.
Russel was delighted to have a sister, and delighted, in this instance, is very much an understatement. He really regarded Naomi as his own, and assumed a fair measure of responsibility for her. Naomi was a highly excitable child, so much so that it caused many problems. She would start chuckling to herself and bring up her food. As I began to wean her, I found I had to prepare twice the amount of vegetable puree each time in order to have the second serve on hand for after she’d brought up the first one. I fed her in a darkened room to minimise the possibility of distraction. One day a beautiful butterfly alighted on the window pane while Naomi was eating. She immediately noticed it and worked her tiny self up into a frenzy, rocking backwards and forwards in her high-chair until, of course, she brought up her w
hole meal. Doctors told me to keep her sedated, but I opposed the idea of a quick fix involving medication.
Russel took Naomi out almost daily, walking her around the neighbourhood in a stroller. He’d call to neighbours to come and look at her. ‘Hasn’t she grown since yesterday?’ he often asked them. He hovered about her constantly, casting over her an enduring mantle of love and protection.
William left the council to try his hand at setting up his own painting contracting business. It was hard at first; most home and business-owners in Townsville were ‘old blood’ with established ways of getting things done. They traded contracts for work amongst themselves and generally knew each by first name. William was very much ‘a newcomer’.
Mum, although she did move in the social circles of the ‘old blood’, had been in the town for decades and had built up a reputation as reliable, hard working and trustworthy. She owned property and had used the services of the same bank ever since I was a child. She spoke to the manager of this bank, telling him that William had married her daughter. Consequently, William’s first significant contract was to paint the bank, which was located in the middle of the main street. Shopkeepers and other bank customers saw him at work, and his business built up from the exposure.
However, in the slow days as he was trying to get established, money was very tight for us. He suggested I look for work, which surprised me as he had made such a fuss about this in Sydney.
Lowth’s Hotel, on the corner of Stanley and Flinders streets, was undergoing a major refurbishment. In its previous life, it had been very dowdy. Mum’s old friend Nellie had worked there as cook. As children, we’d peer through the small window almost at kerb level into the dark kitchen where she plied her skills, and when she saw us she would come out and give us treats. The refurbishment included the erection of a tower of rooms and a very swish foyer, which soon became the talk of the town.
One morning I read an advertisement in the Townsville Daily Bulletin, calling for staff for the Lowth’s dining room and cocktail bar. Although I had worked in salubrious surroundings in Sydney, they had been, I thought, exotic-specific, and I was not sure whether Townsville was ready to see a Black woman working in a similar role. Many hotels around town didn’t serve or admit Blacks, and the referendum that would begin to change this was still some years away.
Response to the advertisement may have been slow because when I rang from a nearby public phone after midday, the woman who answered sounded desperate.
‘I’m ringing about the positions advertised in this morning’s paper. Do you hire coloured people?’ I was quick to ask, wishing to save myself embarrassment. I had chosen to phone instead of going into the hotel, even though we lived only three blocks from it, so that, if the answer was no, the person on the other end of the phone would never have the satisfaction of knowing who she had refused. I also didn’t want to waste her time or my own by discussing details only to find at the end of the conversation that the position wasn’t open to me.
‘I hire anyone who can work! Can you work?’
‘I’ll be in to see you in thirty minutes,’ I replied.
Mrs Kendricks, the manager, was frazzled when I arrived but sat down and concentrated on talking with me. I explained that I was interested in the cocktail bar position and that I had learned to make cocktails at the American National Club. She was impressed, but she explained that the cocktail bar wouldn’t be finished for two weeks. In the meantime, she asked if I would like to work the liquor outlet in the main dining room.
I had pictured myself finely dressed in a black skirt and lacy white blouse, shaking frothy drinks into sugarrimmed glasses, but I agreed to take the other position until the cocktail bar opened. I was to start immediately in the Peacock Room, even though there was minor work still to be completed in that section too. The hotel management wanted to open for business as quickly as possible to recoup some of the enormous outlay spent on the redevelopment.
When I arrived for work that evening, Mrs Kendricks took me aside. I feared she may have had a change of mind, and I was ready to bolt when she spoke.
She had had trouble finding trained waitresses, she told me, and wanted to know whether I knew how to wait on tables and if I had silver service experience. A look of relief came over her face when I said yes, but I saw the much lighter job of opening and serving wines going down the drain. Would I, as a big favour to her, help her in the dining room that night, she asked. One of the men from the downstairs bar could handle the wines, but the dining room couldn’t function with the few untrained staff she had so far assembled.
Mrs Kendricks and one other woman and I served the dining room that night. I was surprised to see Mrs Kendricks running backwards and forwards with orders and plates, darting up to the check-out desk as people departed, and running up and down the stairs to other sections of the hotel to try to keep the whole place operating. Her workload was so great that I felt sorry for her.
She, however, was very impressed with my work. I had demonstrated my ability to step in behind her and take over during her absences, keeping orders and meals flowing and ensuring customers were not uncomfortably aware of the staff shortage. The chefs were top workers too, and very cooperative once they saw that I knew what I was doing. The dining room had been well patronised that night as the townsfolk were curious to see the flash new interior and be amongst the first to be able to talk about the quality of the place.
When the night’s work was over, Mrs Kendricks voiced her appreciation and asked if I would take over training dining-room staff. She had received applicants, she said, who were keen but didn’t have a clue about the work, hadn’t even heard of silver service. She also said she wanted the dining-room staff to wear distinctive uniforms, not just black skirts and white shirts, and would value my input into this. That night I went home tired but happy with my acceptance.
The uniform, when it was designed, consisted of slacks and a long sleeveless vest which came down well over the top of the pants and buttoned right up to the neck. We chose an orange cotton print, which was very flattering on me and stood out well against the more sombre colours of the dining-room walls and furniture. Much later, variations in the uniform’s colours were introduced as it became obvious that the first choice, although very smart, didn’t suit everybody.
William was pleased with the boost in our income and agreed to look after the children at night. He would arrive home at around five in the evening, and I’d feed the children, prepare his meal, then leave for work. As I was also responsible for the children during the day, getting Russel to and from school and taking care of the shopping and housework, and my work at the hotel often didn’t finish until well after midnight, it was a long day. It was fortunate that I worked so close to where we lived.
Once William’s business picked up, however, he began to nag me to leave the hotel. Responsibility for the children had always fallen on me, and when it was necessary for him to care for them for a few hours, he did so not as a parent but as a favour to me. Now he begrudged looking after the children five nights a week and felt this impinged on his freedom. He sought to recruit Mum to plead his case for him. Mum came by and told me confidentially that she didn’t agree with him, that she was aware he had welcomed the injection of money into his business when he needed it, and that his reasons for wanting me to stop working were selfish. She said she thought he resented me getting dressed up in my smart uniform every night and going off without him. If I had a job where I worked in a dowdy dress and with a bucket and mop, he would probably be quite happy. He was just using the children as an excuse.
‘Eventually you’ll have to make a choice,’ she said, ‘because he isn’t going to let up. It will come down in the end to your marriage or your job. You have to think about that, about which one you want most.’
When I told Mrs Kendricks that I would have to leave, she pleaded with me to stay on in some capacity. Would I take over service in the function room? The work was irregular, on
ly when there were bookings for wedding parties and the like, which wouldn’t create the same strain at home.
I agreed. I welcomed the opportunity to mix with people outside the house, people I wouldn’t ordinarily have met in my role as housewife and mother. I was also very good at my job, able to walk into the dining room and spot a salt shaker missing on a table, a spoon not quite straight, a serviette not properly folded. I knew which foods were served on which plates, what cutlery was required for any course, indeed everything there was to know about the smooth operation of a large-scale, first-class hotel dining facility. At functions it was my job to allocate service areas to staff, oversee the efficient delivery of meals and the removal of plates and tablepieces afterwards, and my personal task was to wait on the head table, which was always where bridal parties were seated. The job brought me a respect that I didn’t receive very much elsewhere, as shop assistants often left me waiting until they had served all the white customers, for example.
William was not happy even with this more limited involvement in the hotel. He said if I was going to continue to work, it had to be for the benefit of the family, not for my personal satisfaction. In that case, I had to carry all the expenses of the house and he would use his income to expand the painting business. As I was a partner in the business, he said, this would be to my own advantage in the long term. I didn’t think this was very fair, though, because I never seemed to have a cent to spend on anything I wanted. My money went on food and the domestic bills.
Over time, William found a great deal to criticise about me. He complained that I was ‘fanatical’ about anything I took up, that everything had to be perfect to please me. When my activities benefited him, such as when I sewed almost all our clothes, including his work clothes, he said he appreciated all the money we saved. When I pursued educational ends, however, he raised objections. He particularly resented the time I spent reading, even when I was reading child psychology books about how best to bring up our children.
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