Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  Asked on what basis the rejections had been made, Mr Newington said that it had been a simple matter of taking their matriculation results in Maths, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. The seven students with the lowest aggregate in these subjects had been eliminated from the list.

  Though this proves to be the case with the six male students, Mr Newington hasn’t bothered to check Sarah’s matriculation results, simply assuming that a girl from the bush with her working-class background would barely have scraped up sufficient marks to get her accepted at the bottom end of the admission list.

  Well, let me tell you, the proverbial bowel fodder hits the rotating blades in a huge way! It is a simple matter to look up the matriculation results of every student accepted into Medicine for the 1956 intake and that’s exactly what the newspapers do, showing that Sarah topped the results for the marks required for acceptance, coming second in the entire state. The bloke who came first got a scholarship to Oxford to study Law and so isn’t even at Melbourne University.

  Sarah’s results, first-class honours in every subject, are published in all the newspapers and are read out on the wireless. So now the ordinary people in the street think even more highly of her and even less of the university. She’s become a working-class heroine who is showing the world that a little country girl from a state school, with difficult family circumstances and a working-class background, can still cut the mustard.

  If Melbourne University now denies that Sarah’s pregnancy was the cause for her rejection and if her marks are the highest among the first-year students, then they can only be discriminating against her for being a woman and, in addition, from a working-class background. If anything, the fact that the university is making a distinction of class, as well as gender, gets them even deeper in the poo. So they are forced to go onto the wireless and say that Mr Newington was wrong about Sarah and that in the eyes of the doctors on the review committee a young woman in her advanced stage of pregnancy would be disadvantaged in her first year at the university and that they had advised her that she should apply again for the 1957 intake. At last the university has admitted in so many words that they have discriminated against Sarah for being a woman.

  Perhaps we’ll never know who finally brought the issue to a head. The media suggests it was the premier, Mr Bolte, who is potentially facing enormous embarrassment if the issue were brought up for all the world to see just before the Olympic Games. Then, of course, there is the question of the women’s vote in the next election. Anyway, the chan cellor of the university, the Hon. Mr Justice Dean, announces that the vice-chancellor has agreed to review the case immediately with a committee composed of the deans of every faculty, with the exception of the Dean of Medicine.

  Morrie says that this is fair, but also a big mistake, the medical men will not be happy not being represented.

  But Big Jack Donovan disagrees. ‘I’ll bet you London to a brick that Professor Block eliminated himself. Just think about it. If he voted “Yes”, then people were going to say why hadn’t he done so in the first place. But if he voted “No”, everyone would see him for a woman-hater. Best keep his nose clean, eh?’

  Morrie then says Big Jack’s right, politics as usual. The review committee is to be convened in the Professorial Board meeting room near the Law School at 11 a.m. on the fifth of April, but by nine o’clock there is an enormous crowd in the quadrangle nearby, with people streaming through the Grattan Street entrance.

  The crowd of several thousand is made up from every element in society, though there are a great many more women than men and many carry homemade placards which say things like ‘Fair go!’, ‘Justice for Sarah!’, ‘Brains don’t get pregnant!’ One wag even carries a placard which asks, ‘If the baby is a boy, then is it all right?’ A lot of the placards say, ‘Women’s rights NOW!’ and seem to be a coordinated campaign by female university students.

  The crowd is good-humoured but it is also clear they’ve come to see that justice is done and that very few among them are on the side of the university. There are a few yobbos who try to disrupt things but some of the blokes from the striking Beaurepaire Sports Centre building site soon calm them down.

  After less than two hours’ debate, a secret ballot is taken by the new review committee and the vast majority, though not all of the faculty deans, vote that pregnancy alone is not a reason for denying a student enrolment in any academic course conducted by Melbourne University.

  Pandemonium breaks loose when the vice-chancellor makes an official announcement. Professor Paton announces that as it is already two weeks over the time Sarah would normally have been accepted as a student, the university is granting her special permission to enrol in Medicine for 1956. There is renewed cheering at this and people begin to chant, ‘Sarah! Sarah! Sarah! We want Sarah!’

  Morrie had already decided that Sarah mustn’t be present outside as the excitement might bring on her baby. Sarah says she doesn’t think she could stand to be there anyway, so Mrs Barrington-Stone arranges with Mrs Billings for her to be in the registrar’s office next door. This way she can hear the crowd and get the decision moments after it is made but not be seen by anyone.

  As it turned out, Sarah wouldn’t find herself hopelessly behind in the lectures. What with the student strike, she had only missed ten days of lectures and not really even that many, because five of those days had been taken up by Orientation Week.

  The Grand Plan had worked, though not without a great many doubts, private tears of despair and misgivings on everyone’s part. It was the best example ever of taking the spoon out of the sink and then giving it your best shot while never giving up.

  Poor old Sarah is emotionally exhausted from it all and everyone says they wouldn’t be surprised if all the excite ment made the baby come early. It’s then that Mrs Rika Ray, which is now what Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri had taken to calling herself, appears on the doorstep of the Carlton terrace. She knocks loudly and when the door is opened she is seen to be carrying a large bottle of nastytasting herbal mixture in a string shopping bag. She bustles past Sophie with only the minimum of greeting and proceeds down the narrow hallway. ‘Where is that child? Child, where are you? This is Mrs Rika Ray, I am making a tonic for not sliding out!’

  Sarah comes to the door of her bedroom. ‘Hello, Mrs Karpurika Raychaudhuri, how nice to see you.’

  ‘Nice, we are not coming for nice. You must go into the kitchen at once, a spoon we are having.’ In the kitchen she measures a tablespoon of dark-brown liquid from the large bottle. ‘This is the very, very best for the nerves and babies not sliding out when it is not jolly well time. You must take three times a day, no questions asked.’

  ‘Mrs Rika Ray, it tastes awful!’ Sarah protests, pulling a face and resisting the urge to throw up.

  ‘You are wanting I am putting in sugar and spice and all things nice and not snails and puppy dogs’ tails? This I cannot do, or I am diluting the potency and you are not getting so very, very healthy that your beautiful baby pops out the right time like wet pumpkin pip between the finger and thumb!’

  So that’s Sarah settled down, except for her baby, of course, which is still safe in her tummy, thanks to Mrs Rika Ray’s magic not-sliding-out tonic.

  We still cannot entirely believe that Sarah’s made it. The first Maloney in history, or the known history of our family anyway, to complete high school and now the first to go to university. Not bad, eh?

  But, of course, as you will have gathered Maloneys don’t do things easy. Now Sarah’s known among the faculty as a troublemaker and doesn’t have too many friends among the teaching fraternity. Nancy sighs and says she’s a Maloney and trouble sticks to a Maloney like a bindi to a woollen sock. But then Sarah finds she has a surprising and unexpected friend. She’s discovered who wrote the letter giving her the names of the review committee and I have to admit I had a bit of a hand in this.

  Sarah brings home the
anonymous letter when Mrs Barrington-Stone flies her to Yankalillee for the weekend to give her a rest from all the publicity. Sarah shows the letter to us. People say that I’m observant and Tommy does as well and he’s pretty good at seeing things in the bush, so if he says so, I guess I must be. I take one look at the handwriting and say ‘It’s the same bloke wrote the P.S. on that first letter that come from the university.’ Nancy goes and fetches the famous letter and there it is, the P.S.: It can get cold in Melbourne around this time and you are advised to bring warm clothing with you. It’s a perfect handwriting match, no doubtski aboutski as Morrie would say. The guy who gave her the names of the review committee is Mr Tompkins, the assistant registrar!

  Sarah can hardly credit it, ‘But I always thought he was against me,’ she exclaims. ‘Fancy him, he’s always so stonyfaced.’ When Sarah finally enrols, she waits until he’s on his own and she thanks Mr Tompkins for his help. He turns out to be a dead shy sort of a bloke. ‘It’s all I could think to do at the time to help you, Miss Maloney,’ he stammers. His permanent stern-faced expression turns out to be a cover up, he’s a nice bloke underneath but what Sarah will later call ‘socially inadequate’ because he had a dominating mother and came from a poor background. He’s even too shy to call her Sarah until she insists and they become friends. He fills her in on the background to all the lecturers and professors and tells her what she can expect from each of them, which of them have the capacity to harm her university career and who will give her a fair go. He seems to know everything about everybody and has been at the university since he was a young clerk.

  Now here’s the nice part. Mrs Barrington-Stone invites Big Jack Donovan and his wife Terri, Sophie and Morrie and Mrs Billings up to her property for Saturday to go horse riding, have a barbecue and a swim in the creek then take a joy flight in the Piper Cub with Peter Barrington-Stone, the pilot. It’s to celebrate the success of the Grand Plan. Sarah asks her if Mr Tompkins can come and, of course, she agrees. She also asks us Maloneys.

  Morrie, Sophie and Mrs Billings are going to take the early train and then the six o’clock from Wangaratta back to Melbourne that night, but it turns out Mr Tompkins has an FX Holden and he offers them a lift. Sarah has already taken the train on the Friday night and is at home with us.

  We had a good time and could eat as much as we wanted, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Mr Tompkins has been at the university thirty years and Mrs Billings twenty years and, though they’ve met before, have never really known each other, firstly because for the first ten years Mrs Billings was at the university she was married and so that was that. Then I suppose Mr Tompkins sort of thought of her as a married woman even after her husband had died. It didn’t start in the car going up because Mrs Billings was in the back with Sophie but at the barbecue Mr Tompkins and Mrs Billings get to meet each other properly and by the end of the day they’re sometimes seen holding hands and walking through the garden, back and forth past the little stone boy that’s pissing in the pond. They must have walked the same path a hundred times, although Mr Tompkins keeps looking over his shoulder when Mrs Billings takes his hand in case someone’s looking and twice I’ve seen him go beetroot. He’s nearly as good as Sarah at going beetroot, though he doesn’t have her red hair but, instead, is bald on top, so he goes red there as well.

  On the way back to Melbourne, Morrie pretends he wants to sleep, which is half true because he’s swapped his shift at the Age with the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. lift driver. He only has Sunday nights off so he’s agreed to work Saturday nights as double-time overtime. Well, this means Celia Billings has to sit in the front of the FX and by the time they get back to Melbourne, Mr Tompkins, whose name turns out to be Bob, and Celia Billings are going steady.

  Like Nancy always tells us, we Maloneys don’t take without giving in return, no handouts, thank you very much, so now Sarah has paid Mr Tompkins back for his kindness. Sarah says she didn’t really plan it and shouldn’t get the credit, but I reckon she did, she just doesn’t want to be seen as a bossy boots. Though I don’t know what we can give back to Mrs Barrington-Stone because she’s already paid for her daughter’s layette and it would take about a hundred million layettes to thank her for what she’s done for Sarah.

  It’s not as though it’s been easy for her, she’s taken a fair amount of flak on the way, not just from the men who think she’s too big for her boots and should go back to the farm, but from her own kind as well. There are letters in Collect, the official magazine of the Country Women’s Association, which suggest that Mrs Barrington-Stone’s gone too far defending Sarah.

  One letter from an ex-national president said, ‘Our President is defending a young woman of doubtful morality who got pregnant when she should have been home doing her homework.’ There are other letters supporting this viewpoint and there is a definite movement under way, conducted by what Mrs Barrington-Stone calls ‘the old guard’ and ‘the deep Anglicans’, who have always been a powerful and conservative element in the CWA. Both want her censured and are privately calling for her resignation.

  She laughs and then tells us, ‘The first verse of the CWA prayer goes:

  Keep us, Oh Lord, from pettiness; let us be

  Large in thought, in word and deed.

  Let us be done with fault-finding and leave

  Off self-seeking.’

  Mrs Barrington-Stone laughs again. ‘I sometimes think we women are our own worst enemies, given half a chance we spoil things for ourselves.’

  On another occasion she told us, ‘My dears, if my time as the president of the CWA achieves nothing other than Sarah’s entry to the university I will be satisfied. We struck a mighty blow for women which may well prove to be the clarion call, the small beginnings of a gender revolution in the next few years.’ She looks at Sarah, ‘A cause I hope Sarah will take on for her generation in the masculine world of Medicine. There are far too many timid mice in the CWA, women who are afraid of upsetting their men. God gave us teeth to bite and throats to snarl and we’ve turned ourselves into pussycats instead.

  ‘We’ve always done what has been asked of us and asked for nothing in return. And, my dears, that is a self fulfilling prophecy, when you ask for nothing you get nothing. If we don’t complain at injustice or prejudice or even the simple endless, daily business of being taken for granted, then men naturally assume everything is all right. I mean, why shouldn’t they?’

  She pauses and looks around, ‘But it jolly well isn’t all right! Women, all women, city and country, have to stand up to be counted.’ She looks over at us boys. ‘We can’t depend on men to grant us our freedom. Why should they? They have everything to lose, or so they think. We have to change from pussycats to snarling tigers and wrestle them to the ground with argument and action and take our emancipation for ourselves with intelligence and passion!’

  Nancy claps and says, ‘Ha! Too right! You’ve got your first tiger wrestler, Mrs Barrington-Stone.’

  All I can say listening to them two is it’s a bloody good thing Tommy isn’t around. He has fallen off the wagon again and is that ashamed he’s gone bush. If he’d been home, we might have seen Nancy taking him apart on behalf of womankind, both country and city.

  I can’t help wondering what all the fuss is about. In our family Nancy’s already done what Mrs Barrington-Stone wants other women to do, because she’s the boss and Tommy’s the drunk and, when she’s not telling us what to do, Sarah is.

  As a matter of fact, Mike is having a bit of a battle with Nancy at this very moment. He’s supposed to do his Intermediate Certificate at the end of the year but he wants to pack it in, not go to school any more. He wants to go to Melbourne and learn to be a dress designer. Every time he brings this up, Nancy’s jaw sets firm as a roadgrader’s blade. ‘No more ignorant Maloneys!’ she yells, ‘Stupid has been our second name too long!’

  ‘Mum, I’m not stupid! You know I’m not stupid,’ M
ike protests.

  ‘Not now you’re not, but you’ll grow stupid! You’ll stay fifteen-year-old smart and that’s not clever enough to get you through the rest of your life. Mike, you have to have a proper education and that’s that!’

  ‘Mum, dress designers don’t have to be rocket scientists, they just cut up bits of cloth and stitch them together so rich people will pay a lot of money for them.’ That’s not what Mike really thinks but he knows how Nancy is, anything she can do like sew or smock must mean it’s not hard.

  ‘Oh yeah? So if you think that young bloke Yves St Laurent, who’s in Paris, didn’t have a good education, you’re nuts. He has to mix with all them important people with good manners and lots of money. Think they’re going to be bothered talking to, much less buying their clothes from someone who didn’t even finish high school?’

  ‘Mum! Yves St Laurent started as an apprentice at Christian Dior when he was just a bit older than me. He started in a clothing factory on the Left Bank.’ ‘What’s the bank got to do with it?’

  ‘The Left Bank, that’s a part of Paris where the rag trade is mostly situated,’ Mike says.

  ‘Never you mind about Left Bank, my boy, what I’m concerned about is “left school!”’

  When Sarah’s home, Mike tries to get her to talk to Nancy. But Sarah says the timing’s lousy, to wait until the baby comes so that Nancy’s head is full of baby. ‘Nancy loves a baby more than anything else, that’s why she kept on having us,’ Sarah comforts Mike. ‘When the baby comes, her defences will be down, that’s the time to approach her.’