Danny dropped to his haunches and drew Brenda in to his chest. ‘Mum . . . Mum! I’m so sorry. I should have spared you this. I shouldn’t have come!’
Brenda pulled away and forced herself to look directly at Danny, then reached out and lightly touched his face, first his eye socket, then his sunken cheekbone, and finally the tips of her fingers ran down the bumpy tissue that passed for his nose. Then, placing her hand behind his neck, she pulled his face down towards her and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Welcome home, my darling,’ she said quietly in her soft, lilting voice. The strong Brenda was back.
She released him and Danny sat for a moment, too emotionally overcome to move, hot tears running down his cheeks. He became aware for the first time that the tear duct in the ruined eye still worked. ‘Sorry, Mum, Dad,’ he sniffed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve come back a bit of a freak!’
Half Dunn reached down to put a comforting hand on Brenda’s shoulder, taking his son’s hand and raising him to his feet. Looking directly at Danny he said, ‘Welcome home, son. I’m afraid the freak rights in this pub have long since been claimed by me.’ He smiled. ‘And I’m not giving them up.’
Danny reached down and lifted Brenda to her feet. His back hurt like hell but he ignored the pain and hugged her briefly, the warmth and softness of her body threatening to bring him undone again. ‘I’m starving,’ he said hurriedly. ‘What does a man have to do for a cuppa tea and a corned-beef sandwich with hot English mustard?’ he asked, then in case she’d forgotten, ‘No milk, no sugar.’
Brenda arranged for one of her off-duty barmen to come in to work so that she and Half Dunn could spend the afternoon in the upstairs kitchen with their son. While Danny had been able to construct an almost impersonal narrative for Dr Woon in Rangoon, he found it near impossible to tell his parents the story of his three and a half years in captivity under the Japanese. He had already begun the lifelong task of finding a compartment in his mind where he could begin packing away those memories he didn’t want to revisit, memories that had no purpose other than to haunt him. Now he heard himself recounting a series of the less horrifying incidents, but even these seemed a bit too much for them to absorb. He saw silent tears running down Brenda’s cheeks as he described how they had treated tropical ulcers by scraping out the pus and rotting flesh with a sharpened spoon.
When Half Dunn asked about the Japanese, Danny found himself telling his father about the punishment they meted out for any assumed disobedience to a Japanese officer. ‘They put you into The Cage,’ he began, ‘a box made of wood and chicken wire only big enough to sit in with your knees pulled up to your chest, then they left you in the hot sun for three days. The rest of us were forbidden to bring the poor sod any water on pain of being placed in The Cage ourselves. The bloke would often be dead or raving mad when the time came to take him out.’ The three of them sat for a time in silence.
Danny knew he would have to tell them the details of his beating by the kempeitai officer, and when he did, his mother actually covered her eyes, then her entire body, racked with grief, started to shake uncontrollably and she whimpered, unable to restrain herself. Danny forced himself to complete the story, knowing that the telling would stop there, that he would not need to continue. It was apparent that they were incapable of understanding what he and his mates had been through. How could they possibly grasp the world he had until recently inhabited? Toes that rotted on your feet; tropical ulcers that suppurated and ate down to the bone; malaria; cholera that could kill in twenty-four hours, or, if you survived, leave you a shrunken husk; recurring dysentery that sapped what little strength you retained; beri-beri that bloated your body and ruined your heart. Your body, and those of all around you, mere skeletons with a thin layer of skin stretched over them. The only robust aspects of a man were his beard, hair and nails – ironically the parts of the body already ‘dead’.
They couldn’t possibly understand and he realised that he belonged to a fraternity of men who, in their minds, played host to the ghosts of the past, the unclean, beaten, forsaken, disgusting – the detritus of human life – images and emotions they couldn’t share with anyone, which they must carry with them to the grave.
Above all, Danny didn’t want his parents, or anyone else, to pity him. Already the look that had come into the eyes of the few civilians who had seen him since he’d left the ship had made him realise that people would never again accept him for his own sake. That his face would always trigger questions and underpin the way he was regarded in the future. That the public anonymity he had enjoyed, the sense of living in one’s own private world, was gone forever. He had a face that led to bizarre speculation. He was public property, a walking story that triggered every stranger’s curiosity. Long before Danny had completed what he hoped would be the first and last telling of his story he had ached to end it. It made him feel worthless, whereas he knew that Brenda and Half Dunn were trying to reconstruct him as the conquering hero returned, someone in whom they could take justifiable pride and accommodate within their own uncomplicated world.
Danny, finally exhausted, asked to retire to his room after supper (Brenda had somehow managed to prepare a roast dinner – the works, roast lamb, roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, fresh green peas, all smothered in thick brown gravy), where he spent until near midnight lying on his back staring at the ceiling desperately trying to reacquaint himself with the simple ways of his former life. But the high bed and the yielding mattress made him feel as if he was suspended and slowly being smothered by a soft sponge. Three and a half years of sleeping on a bare bamboo shelf had conditioned him to a hard surface. Even in the hospital, after the nine o’clock inspection and distribution of pills and medicine, many of them had abandoned their beds and slept on the floor beneath them. Now, stretched out on the hard wooden surface of his bedroom floor, he fell into a fitful sleep.
He awoke at 4 a.m., a habit he’d acquired in the camp where he was up half an hour before the other prisoners, needing to organise the day ahead, sort things out, go through the work roster, so that the men who were sick could be rested and those who’d been given time off to recover could take their place in the work gangs. He dressed slowly, deciding on his army trousers because the ones in his bedroom were too big for him around the waist, and an old shirt, also too large for his emaciated frame, but less noticeably so with the sleeves rolled up. At least an old pair of sandshoes fitted, his feet the only part of him that hadn’t shrunk.
He left his room, being careful to tread softly down the hallway. It was unlikely that Brenda would be up quite this early, but she was a notoriously light sleeper. To his surprise, her door, which was usually left ajar, was closed, and just as he was passing, he heard her start to sing, her voice carrying to him quite clearly. He recalled how she would sing to him as a child – those lovely old Irish tunes – although at the time he hadn’t realised that she carried a tune very well, with a light agreeable voice that was better than most. He was about to tiptoe towards the stairs when he heard his name and at the same time realised the tune was familiar – an old tune he remembered from his childhood, when Brenda would sometimes sing him to sleep. Guiltily aware that he was intruding, he nevertheless felt compelled to listen.
Here I sit on Buttermilk Hill,
With salty eyes I cry my fill,
And ev’ry tear would turn a mill,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
Shule shule shule aroo,
Shule shule shule aroo.
And every tear would turn a mill,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
With pipes and drums he marched away,
He would not heed the words I’d say,
He’ll not come back for many a day,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
Shule shule shule aroo,
Shule shule shule aroo.
He’ll not come back for many a day,
Danny’s gon
e for a soldier.
Me, oh my, I loved him so,
It broke my heart to see him go,
And time will never heal my woe,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
Shule shule shule aroo,
Shule shule shule aroo.
And time will never heal my woe,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
I’ll take my needle, take my reel,
And try my broken heart to heal,
I’ll sew my quilt and wish him weal,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
Shule shule shule aroo,
Shule shule shule aroo.
I’ll sew my quilt and wish him weal,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
I’ll dye my dress, I’ll dye it red,
The colour of the blood he’s shed,
For the lad I knew has from me fled,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
Shule shule shule aroo,
Shule shule shule aroo.
For the lad I knew has from me fled,
Danny’s gone for a soldier.
The song had barely come to an end when he heard Brenda sobbing. Danny’s heart was thumping and he knew he was on the edge of panic, paralysed and unable to think what to do next. Brenda began to wail, deep despairing cries muffled by the bedroom door. The song was unmistakeably about him – she’d substituted his name for Johnny in the lyrics – and she was lamenting her boy who had returned a freak. Should he tap lightly on the door and attempt to comfort her? But how could he? It was just after four in the morning, a time she’d chosen to grieve so that nobody would catch her at it. Brenda was a proud woman; if she knew she’d been discovered it would be mortifying. It was his fault, all of it; if he’d heeded her desire for him to complete his degree, none of this would have happened. He would summon all his courage and go in and apologise. But how could that possibly help? Wouldn’t that make things worse? She’d forever after feel compelled to make a show of her love for him to assuage her guilt, all because he had overheard her grieving for the way he’d returned to her.
Dr Woon had advised him to complete his degree, but he hadn’t yet decided whether he would take the doctor’s advice. Now he knew it was the very least he could do for his mother. Too little too late, but at least something could be salvaged from this tragic mess. Danny continued towards the stairs, placing each foot cautiously, grateful that he was wearing sandshoes and not army boots. With luck the loud snoring coming from Half Dunn’s bedroom would drown out the odd creaking floorboard.
As he stepped into Darling Street, a three-quarter moon hung over the harbour, turning the water to soft pewter in the pre-dawn light. For the next two hours he wandered through the streets of Balmain trying to marshal his thoughts and to plan for the day to come. He was conscious that, for all he’d gained by being liberated from slavery, he’d lost the ability to simply be himself. While it hadn’t been much of a self when he was a prisoner of war, it was the truth; what you saw was what you got. Wounded, sick and starving, there had been nothing to hide, no artifice, no special agenda. But now he was forced to do everything in his power to conceal who he was, and camouflage his sense of inadequacy and shame, his frustration and amorphous anger, the detritus of his particular war. He was an alien who was learning to emulate the habits of being in a society to which he could never again truly belong.
As dawn broadened into daylight Danny walked down a set of stone steps that led onto a landing stage constructed of Sydney sandstone. Waves slapped against the wall, an incoming tide lifting the water to less than a foot from the top of the platform. Danny removed his sandshoes, rolled up his trousers to above his knees, and sat on the edge of the wall, submerging his legs almost to the knees in the salt water. The skin over his ankles and shins, stretched tight over bone, was pitted with ulcer scars, some barely healed, still tender to the touch. At one of the camps along the railway there had been a small river where the prisoners had learned to immerse their legs to allow the tiny tropical fish to feed on the decaying flesh of their leg ulcers. It had worked a treat; the ulcers had healed in almost half the time, allowing the men to avoid a trip to the medical hut and the painful procedure with the sharpened spoon. If only, he thought, he could find a similar cure for his mental wounds. Then, on a sudden impulse, he dipped his hands into the water and scooped it over his head, dousing himself over and over again, bawling like a baby, as if he could purge the horrors from his mind with the sting of salt water. Finally, when he could no longer raise his arms, his sobbing ceased and he sat quietly, drenched to the skin. Curiously, he felt as though something had indeed been purged during this baptism in the harbour, and he found he could think just a tad more clearly.
Danny sensed it would not be easy to fit into a post-war society that was anxious to forget the war and get on with the peace. How simple it is to forget the past when there isn’t a great deal to remember, when the load you carry doesn’t force you to your knees each morning. He accepted that he had to develop a way of coping that would allow him to appear to live a normal life, or at least one acceptable to the people around him. He knew he must make a desperate effort to fight the depression and hopelessness he was already feeling, the sudden irrational rages he tried so hard, though not always successfully, to repress, like the incident with the bloke at Circular Quay, his unreasonable fury when the kid had first offered to carry his duffle bag. People must think that what they saw on the surface was the real McCoy. They must never discover that, beneath the conventional exterior, he was an emotional mess.
His mother’s words came back to him and he realised that they might contain a clue to a place where he could hide. He would become ‘a somebody’, keeping people at arm’s length, so they saw only the outside and never what lay within. One thing was certain: he must remain single – a loner. Nobody must be harmed by his neuroses, his seemingly baseless anger or his depression, his anxieties or obsessions. Nobody must see the damage.
Danny now brought to mind his first emotional hurdle: Helen. Just thinking of her when he was in the camp had often given him the strength to go on. By pure force of will he hadn’t allowed himself to think of the consequences for their relationship of the brutality he’d experienced, the damage he’d sustained to body, spirit and mind. Once he’d been liberated and was safe in the hospital in Rangoon, he was forced to face reality. He’d needed her as his anchor and he’d hung on for dear life, but now he was adrift, convinced that the storm he’d experienced had broken his mooring and that he’d been washed onto the rocks.
Danny had never stopped loving Helen, not for one moment, but in the unlikely event that some high-ranking officer hadn’t already swept her up and married her, he knew she’d take one look at his face and run for her life. She was ambitious, and the last thing she needed was a one-eyed, broken-nosed freak at her side.
He’d expected her to be long gone, expected to find the ‘Dear John’ letter waiting for him. So when Brenda told him Helen wasn’t hitched and was, on the contrary, anxious to see him, he’d panicked. He wasn’t ready. It was as if she’d been resurrected from the graveyard in his mind, where he’d already grieved for the loss of her. It wasn’t fair, he thought childishly, that he should be put through the agony of seeing her, knowing the inevitable outcome. For her sake, as well as his own, he’d have to avoid a meeting between them – perhaps write a letter telling her he no longer loved her nor wished to see her again. That would spare her embarrassment and be the kindest thing he could possibly do. Best to do it right away, this morning; get it over with.
The kid! Danny suddenly remembered that he’d promised to help – what was his name? – Lachlan, Lachlan Brannan, find a job. Jesus! He’d be at the pub just after opening. Why had he opened his big mouth? He wasn’t ready to help anyone find a job. He could barely help himself.
Danny waited for the sudden panic to subside,
the old familiar feeling he’d so often experienced in the camp – let it subside so the Japs don’t see it. After all, it was only some snotty-nosed kid. He’d send him to the newsagent to buy the Sydney Morning Herald, show him how to work the classifieds, let him use the phone. Maybe that was enough. If the kid lucked in, fine; if he failed, well, Danny would have kept his promise. He’d be rid of him by lunchtime, then he could get on with the more important task of ensuring Helen Brown understood that, for them, there could be no possible future.
Even so, he longed to see her just once. Helen was a seeker after truth, and with her incisive mind and strong character, she would be the kind of friend he needed to stiffen his battered spine, to give him the fortitude to start again in this new and alien environment. On the other hand, how could he bear having her only as a friend, knowing she pitied him, was perhaps repulsed by him, but was tough enough to understand and stubborn enough to endure? The trouble was, Danny wasn’t at all sure that he could endure. He felt like an old jalopy stalled on a railway crossing, with Helen an express train coming full pelt down the track towards him. Helen was strong-minded, even obdurate, never a quitter and not one to run away from a problem. She never had, never would, take any shit from him. Theirs, he finally decided, was a collision he must at all costs avoid.
He climbed the hill from the harbour, turning his head away as the eight o’clock tram carrying city office workers to the ferry passed him by. The passengers didn’t need to see his scars first thing in the morning. That was another thing he’d have to learn: to look directly at someone without wondering, or assuming, what they were thinking.
Brenda was in her office when he returned, and he tapped on the half-open door. ‘Morning, Mum,’ he called.
The Story of Danny Dunn Page 15