It was probably lucky I made that decision when I did, because I would have been terribly hurt by their coolness later. My date saw me back to Aunty Glad’s house and opened the gate to see me inside the yard. He said pleasantly enough, ‘I’ll see you again.’ But as he walked back down the street, I knew that we both understood that our first date was also our last.
I kept my pains to myself, not sharing them with Aunty Glad or my cousins, or even with my best friend, Josie, who I’d met at Golden Circle.
Josie was an intuitive soul, a dark girl like myself and about my own age, who also loved to dance. She had introduced me to the Railway Institute, a wooden dance hall in the centre of town, where the entry fee was well within our means. Live bands played all the music, and the only thing on everybody’s mind was to dance themselves to exhaustion before the place closed at eleven-thirty.
Josie lived at Chermside, which was much closer to Golden Circle than where I had to travel from, in a house shared by an Aboriginal family who informally took in some women lodgers. I’d been by her place a few times after work and when she said they would all welcome me if I wanted to move in with them, I jumped at the chance.
To say Aunty Glad was displeased is an understatement. She thought moving into a Black household was tantamount to treachery and a snub to all the things Mum had tried to make me become over the years, that is, white. But she was also aware that we could walk from Chermside to the Golden Circle cannery in the same time it took me to get the tram into the city before even beginning the train journey to the factory.
Living in the Chermside household was a good experience, everyone maintained their autonomy, yet there was a lot of cooperation. We all put in money for the rent and those who could, carried the price of the food. The family kept us all supplied with staples, such as breakfast foods, bread, sugar and milk. Outside of that, anyone was welcome to cook for everybody else. Somehow, it all worked well, even though there was no such thing as a formal roster.
Work at the factory became irregular. We sometimes went there early to stand in the crowd of hopefuls, and were turned away, Josie and I began to worry about our money. We heard that the Brisbane Exhibition was hiring people to work in booths during the show, so we went in and put our names down. However, only I was taken on.
My employers ran a big show of variety entertainment, with a band, knife thrower, acrobat and clowns. We were all required to live-in for the length of the exhibition, so I borrowed a small bag and packed the few clothes I thought I’d need. My job was to do anything I could: run errands, help the artists prepare, stand by to pass them any items they required from behind stage. The owners had two long caravans, one that they lived in, the other was for some of the more permanent employees. A camping tent with folding beds, sleeping bags and blankets, provided shelter for the casual female employees. The four or five young men and boys who were working with us as casuals, wrapped themselves up in canvas off-cuts for warmth and slept in a corner of the big top. The lifestyle wasn’t very flash.
The atmosphere generated an air of excitement, and each morning I scurried around the exhibition-ground, buying milk and sandwiches for the casual staff. The place was rife with dogs, but they were chained up close to the doors of the caravans they were kept to guard. As long as I stayed on main paths, and didn’t try to take shortcuts by passing between tents and kiosks, I was safe from them.
By about ten-thirty or eleven each morning, the performers were all painted, costumed and ready to go. A man would climb up on the ledge high above the front opening to the big top and beat on his drum. During the day he was sometimes joined by other musicians, who’d give the crowd a small taste of what they would experience if they paid their money to walk through the door. A girl or woman in heavy makeup and fish-net stockings would also make an appearance, seeming to promise titillation as part of the show.
The hours were long, from eleven to eleven each day (although on slow weekday evenings we often didn’t work so late), and the pay was good, even though we were docked for food. Most of the casuals had been travelling with the show and were fairly friendly with each other, sometimes going off to have a drink together after work. I didn’t accompany them as I was still under age.
The best part of this job, though, was that they carried a seven-foot carpet snake, Satan, as part of the repertoire. Anyone who wasn’t afraid of him would drape him across their shoulders or wind him around their waist to walk with him in the pre-show parade. He didn’t play a formal part in the program but added a feeling of adventure and mystique to the line-up. Otherwise, Satan lived in a sack, at least until I arrived. Then he moved in with me and would happily coil himself around me while I slept, in an effort to keep himself warm. Snakes like warmth but they have no innate heating ability, which is why they’re regarded as being cold-blooded. I found they’re only cold if they’re left out in the cold. It was comforting, too, to know he was by me when I occasionally heard footsteps stumbling around near the tent late at night when I was there alone.
During the show week I celebrated my seventeenth birthday. Celebrated is hardly the appropriate word. I told my employer and his wife gave me a couple of hours off during the slow part of the afternoon, so I tore over to Aunty Glad’s and we had a cup of tea and slices of a cake she had bought for me. However, she wasted no time on good wishes but launched straight into a lecture on how I should be careful and look after myself. She also gave me the letters Mum had sent down for me, including one with a ten shilling note in it to buy a birthday present for myself. Oddly, these letters contained much the same advice as Aunty Glad’s lecture, some parts were actually word for word. I figured Mum had written the same letters to Aunty Glad, so that she could tell me what to do, just in case I wasn’t taking her written words on board. That evening, some of the staff took me to a nearby milk bar, which was also a hangout for many of the local deaf and dumb youths from the area. They loved to play the jukebox and could dance to the vibrations if not the sound. We all had Cokes and sundaes to toast my coming of age. Seventeen was the age of consent, though not, at that time, the eligible age to vote or to enter a hotel, even if the person was white.
I took stock of myself on my birthday. I’d been earning my own living for more than three years. I hadn’t starved but I had not saved much either. My goal to be a surgeon was as far away as ever. Still, I was enjoying life and, particularly, my freedom to dance. The band playing at the big top had let me sit in as drummer a few times, which was extremely exciting. I hadn’t grown all that much, being about five foot two or three tall, and constantly struggling to reach six stone in weight. But I felt healthy and energetic, and thought that I wasn’t doing too badly for someone with the barriers and limitations I’d faced.
When the Exhibition was over, I went back to Chermside. Josie and I scooted into town on Friday night and tore up the dance floor at the Institute. A few times we had considered going to Cloudland, but the expense and our lack of what we regarded as suitable clothes prevented us.
I’ve never been much of a singer, but in Townsville I’d put together a few songs I could have a go with; ones which didn’t require a range of notes. I could pull out a note and sit on it, whether it be soprano or alto, but found it impossible to guide my voice from one note to another. Consequently, my repertoire consisted of one-note songs such as ‘Johnny Be Good’ and ‘Bony Marony’, which needed a good memory rather than vocal skills.
Josie and I were very excited when the Institute dance organisers announced a talent quest, with prizes of tickets to appear in some capacity on Brian Henderson’s ‘Bandstand’. We rehearsed so much I’m sure the other people in the house got tired of us, but not one of them said so. Instead, they’d sing along and clap, and watch us preening and selecting postures and gestures with which to win the competition.
On the big night, the hall was filled with strange men in suits, beautifully groomed, and a whole host of people, would-be performers who, we thought, had never set foot i
nside the Institute before. Musical instruments and several sets of drum kits blocked off a fair bit of the dance floor, and the casual and fun atmosphere we were used to had been replaced with an air of severe competition and judgement.
We were wearing our best dance clothes, which we had spent an agonising week selecting. I had on a pair of black trousers with a silver thread through the fabric, loose for movement but pegged in at the ankle, a pure white, long-sleeve poloneck sweater, which I thought made me appear ‘elfin'—even though it was far too hot to wear comfortably under stage lights, flat, black patent-leather shoes, all the better to dance in, and fluorescent socks which were all the rage, and the better to be noticed in. Josie was similarly attired in her own version of the very latest ‘look’.
We were almost put off by the change in the feeling of the place, and if I’d been alone, I doubt very much that I’d have mustered the nerve to go ahead with the registration, Josie, however, said she’d register us both, so I stood against the wall watching musicians and technical people rush around the stage completing their preparations. When she returned, she passed me a ticket with a number on it and said I’d be first.
‘First! I’m first?’ My stomach did a full loop in dread.
‘No, silly. First out of you ‘n’ me.’ My relief was tangible.
We didn’t want to get our gear soiled by perspiration before our turn on stage, so we picked a good spot just to watch. As the night wore on, Josie and I kept each other’s nerves steady and our enthusiasm high by giggling and earnestly, though dismissively, discussing everyone else’s performance. In the breaks we stepped outside to escape the heat which built up under all those lights.
Suddenly, we heard my number being called. I pranced up on stage, shoved onto it with a good-luck push from Josie. One of the regular back-up groups had already agreed that they would play for me, so it took no time at all for me to be up there behind the microphone. Nervous? I would have been if I’d actually looked at anyone in the audience. Instead, I pinned my gaze on some spot at the back of the hall in the ‘true Hollywood’ style we’d rehearsed, and belted out ‘Johnny Be Good’. At the first short vocal break which was filled by the musicians, I even remembered to shake my legs, stamp around and shimmy a bit to encourage the audience into the mood of the piece.
It was all over in a flash. I took my bow to enthusiastic applause, and was surprised on my way to the steps to be called back to do another number. I grinned out at Josie who was waving her arms in the air with joy. We’d rehearsed for just such an event and I slid quickly into ‘Bony Marony’.
I was back in Josie’s arms—she was hugging me so tight—and the next act was on stage, before I realised that it was supposed to be Josie’s turn. The minute I realised, she knew it, and placing her hands on my shoulders she admitted that she hadn’t put her own name in at all. But her elation at how well I had been received swept away any pangs of disappointment almost before I had time to feel them.
It was late now as the more professional acts had played earlier in the evening. The air was charged with tension while we waited to learn the results of the competition. Some of the guys in suits from the television station had already departed, leaving their instructions with the minions who had to wait until the end.
Josie and I were over the moon when my name was amongst those called to the stage to collect Participant Tickets to ‘Bandstand’. I was handed two large, crisp white cardboard tickets, and I quickly shoved one at Josie. With such a coup, we knew we were too excited just to get on a tram and go quietly home to sleep, so I was more than agreeable when Josie suggested we go to a midnight movie at a city theatre.
When we arrived, it was a bit disappointing because there was only a thin crowd. I’d expected midnight shows in Brisbane to attract the same large crowds as the very occasional midnight screenings did in Townsville. Josie, at least, knew by sight a couple of the other patrons and she gave them a wave as we made our way towards the front of the theatre. I noticed everyone else in the theatre was white, but this had no great significance because almost every theatre around the country drew white or predominantly white audiences.
The film was engrossing, and I was transported into the essence of the story until my concentration was interrupted by a young man, who came to sit beside Josie and spoke to her in urgent, hushed tones. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I was concentrating on the film when Josie shook my arm and asked me to give her all the cash I had on me. Her boyfriend had been arrested and had sent his friend out to scout up bail. This was all a bit of a mystery to me, as Josie hadn’t mentioned having a steady boyfriend in all the weeks I’d known her. As I passed her my money she told me she was going to bail him out and that she’d be back before the film was over so that the four of us, including the man who was with her now, would go back to Chermside as he had offered us a lift.
I was unhappy about being left alone in the theatre. Glancing around nervously, I noticed that, as she left, Josie stopped at the group of people to whom she had waved earlier. They seemed to be contributing to the bail fund. I watched the film but without the intent concentration of before as I kept feeling the minutes tick by without Josie reappearing. I thought this was a letdown when we were supposed to be celebrating.
When the lights came up at the film’s end, I looked about anxiously to see if Josie had returned, but this was wishful thinking.
I followed the small crowd outside and by the time I reached the footpath most of them had disappeared into the night. I stood around for a short while, despairing of Josie’s promised return, sorting through my options. Without cash, I couldn’t jump into a taxi, and even if I’d still had the few pounds I’d so trustingly given away, they wouldn’t have been enough for a cab-fare all the way to Chermside. It was so late that there were no trams running and the early morning trams wouldn’t begin for hours. The idea of sitting alone on a tramstop during the wee hours was frightening. And the thought of walking through the city, across the bridge and over to Aunty Glad’s house was also scary, not to mention having to rouse her when she wasn’t even expecting me. And Josie—I didn’t have a clue which police station she’d gone to or what her boyfriend’s name was, and I wasn’t keen to wander around the streets from one station to another looking for her. The truth was—I was stuck.
I was grateful to see that a few of the people Josie had spoken to were still hanging about, perhaps also hoping that she’d return to make some arrangement about returning the money they’d put up for bail. They looked reasonably well-dressed and quiet, so I saw no good reason to be afraid when one of them walked over and spoke to me.
‘She didn’t come back, eh? D’you know where she went?’ His voice was polite, friendly, and he didn’t come across as if he was trying to chat me up or anything.
‘Sort of, but I don’t know if she’s still there. She’s been gone a very long time.’
‘These things take time, they can keep you hanging around for hours. D’you want a lift home?’
I was concerned about accepting a lift from a stranger, but there were girls standing with the group, so I supposed there would be at least two cars, or maybe we were all to go in a couple of taxis.
‘Which way are you going?’ I asked.
‘There’s a few of us, so we’ll have to go all over. We’ll drop you wherever you have to go.’
‘Well, thanks very much. I was beginning to wonder how I was going to get home.’
A car drew up slowly on the other side of the street and as it did so, the man said, ‘There’s our car now. Let’s go.’ He was smiling, and his face looked pleasant.
As we crossed the street, some of the other people in the group peeled off and walked towards the next corner. When we reached the car I noticed that there was a man behind the wheel, and the man who’d offered me the lift opened the back kerbside door for me to get in. He got in the back as well, and then two other men broke away from the few people who remained on the footpath. One sat in th
e front seat and the other in the back alongside the man who was sitting next to me. The car started up immediately without a word being said, and for a moment I was filled with panic and apprehension.
‘Where to, ma’am?’ came a voice from the front.
‘Chermside. I’m going to Chermside.’ We were approaching the first corner on the main street through Brisbane, so I added, ‘We turn to the right here.’
The car quickly turned to the left and I looked through the back window, stunned. ‘We’re going the wrong way. Oh, please put me down here. We’re going the wrong way.’
No one seemed to take any notice, they acted as if they were deaf or I hadn’t spoken at all. I was glad to be sitting on the kerbside door, and even though the car was gathering speed, I grabbed the handle to jump out.
I saw the shoulder of the dark-haired man sitting in the front passenger seat swivel, and the next thing I knew, his closed fist flew through the air and landed on the side of my face. My brain rocked in my head and I tried to shake it to clear the fuzziness. As my eyes began to regain focus I could see his fist coming again but it was travelling too fast. I saw what was coming but was unable to move out of its path.
When I came to, I was slumped in the seat and the car was speeding through the night. No one spoke. I lay still for a moment while I collected my thoughts, my eyes barely open so that no one would notice my consciousness. A very occasional street light shone briefly into the car, so I figured we were somewhere on the outskirts of the city, but where, I had no idea. It seemed to me it was now or never, even though the car was moving quickly, so I snaked out my hand to the door, yanked the handle up and slid myself across the seat all in one movement.
The man who had offered me the lift grabbed at me, stopping my movement, and the one in the front turned and thumped my head once more.
My next recall was of the car travelling more slowly, moving across very bumpy ground, and hitting potholes along the way. My mind was awake at last, but I couldn’t get my body to respond, to make any movement at all. Then headlights from a car behind us played across the inside roof of the car, and I hoped beyond hope that it was the police, that they’d noticed this car and were following it. Still no one spoke.
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