She calls to her husband,
‘Is the grill ready yet, Ernie?’
I raise my hat and keep walking to the corner,
past Paley’s Emporium,
with the staff already busy
sweeping and dusting
because Paley doesn’t employ cleaners.
He gets the staff to do everything.
Mr Carter
I’ve had some front-page stories,
let me tell you.
Our boys marching to war in crisp uniforms,
eyes forward,
the click of heels down Main Street.
The day our football team won the Shield
for the first time in a generation, by Jove.
They mounted the trophy in the window at Paley’s
and the young children stood admiring it till sunset.
The collapse of number two shaft
at the end of the day shift.
A pall of dust settled over the town
while we waited for the bodies to be brought up.
The following Sunday the church was full
for the first time in years.
A week later, Mayor Paley unveiled the memorial
for two family men lost.
In the paper the next day
was a photo of the grieving miners,
arm-in-arm at the ceremony.
I gave a paragraph to Paley’s speech.
The rest of the page was devoted
to the brave souls lost
and the Union Appeal for their families
with an anonymous one hundred pound donation
to get things moving.
Never you mind who it was.
I’m careful with what I put on the front page.
No rubbish or gossip.
I don’t print what people think,
only what they say.
If they say it, I quote them.
I’ve studied awhile on who to believe in town,
and how to check on those I don’t.
I run a newspaper,
not the town diary.
And those who don’t like it,
well,
they can listen to the gossips
at Paley’s Store.
Mayor Paley
Dr Barnes said it was ‘fluid on the knee’
and he wrote a letter to the Army
dismissing my chances of serving.
I wanted to enlist.
I craved to go with the rest of the men.
But, my knee.
It was cruel to watch them leave.
I made a rousing speech at the farewell parade
and decided to serve at home.
I ran for mayor to improve my town.
Not for myself.
Lord.
Didn’t I already have enough to do with my store?
But we all must make sacrifices,
and so I put my name forward
and won.
In a landslide.
It’s the fluid that makes me limp
but I don’t complain,
even when a youngster from school,
some little tyke, asks me,
‘Did you get that in the war?’
Bloody cheeky kid.
No respect for my efforts.
I do it all for this town.
Mayor Paley
I didn’t approve of what Carter wrote
when I was elected mayor.
He didn’t have to print ‘unopposed’
as the headline,
implying that there was no one else to vote for.
I was elected because of what I stood for,
what I had to offer,
because the whole town,
all the women
and the men not at war,
everyone believed in me.
I call that a landslide.
A lesser man would have cancelled
all advertisements from the paper,
in protest.
But I like to think of myself as a big man,
a trifle overweight,
but big in spirit and generosity.
I don’t have much time for the likes of Carter.
My father always said
to remember your enemies
as well as your friends,
and don’t trust either of them.
Mr Carter
Mr Butcher walks by each day
with a shallow ‘Good morning’.
That’s all.
He thinks I’m looking for a front page.
Tell me,
how can a man employed as a teacher
be so clueless?
What I am doing is watching the kids
wandering ragtag to school,
and even though I dare not,
I’m writing their stories.
The freckle-faced boys,
future miners.
as they come coughing up Main Street.
A few will leave town to work in the city,
in an office,
with clean clothes
and a determination to forget
where they came from.
The rest will bide their time on farms,
or in the shops in town.
Some of the girls will fall pregnant,
choosing their life
by what goes on down by the river
one Saturday night.
Except Sally Holmes
and Colleen O’Connor.
Those two,
they’ll make their way.
They won’t let Butcher’s pedestrian teaching
ruin their chances.
So I answer Mr Butcher with a firm nod
and I keep vigil on those two girls
because I know
there’s always hope.
Sally
This morning I see Eddie
taking the short cut to school,
along the riverbank.
He swings his bag from side to side,
hand to hand,
playing some intricate game only he knows.
I wolf-whistle as loud as I dare
and quickly duck behind a bush.
Eddie stops and looks around,
the hint of a smile on his face.
When he starts walking away
I try to whistle again
but nothing comes except laughter.
He’s seen me!
I grab my bag and run to meet him.
He’s carrying a sprig of mountain wattle
and he offers it to me.
I push the stalk into my top buttonhole.
‘Thanks, Eddie.’
He smiles back
and I’m pretty sure
we’re both thinking of what happened by the river,
even though neither of us is going to say
a word about it,
today,
or the day after.
Colleen
Larry scares me with his wandering eyes
and greasy hair.
I know he’s looking at me,
sitting across the desk every morning
in the library.
I wish there was somewhere else to sit
but I need a desk to finish my homework
and the library is the only room open before bell.
So I focus really hard on what I’m doing
and I only say ‘morning’ to Larry
and go straight back to work.
Why doesn’t he go out to the verandah
where all the other girls are,
chatting, flirting, laughing,
and leave me to study.
I don’t give him time to start anything.
I’m not stupid.
I’ve learnt enough about boys
to know you give them an inch,
well, they’ll take more than a mile.
And Larry, he’s the type who’d enjoy
telling the whole town all about it.
That’s not happening to me.
Mum says I’m too good for Burruga.
I take one quick look at Larry
and think she may be right.
Eddie
I hate Monday mornings.
Mr Butcher is staring out the window
and the whole class keeps quiet,
trying not to disturb him.
But there’s no way I can do this algebra
without help,
so I risk it.
I raise my hand,
swollen
from his cane an hour ago,
and wait,
hoping he’ll see,
but he’s paying no attention to us.
So I cough, too loudly.
He rises from his chair and smirks.
‘Don’t grunt, Holding.
Speak up if you need help.’
Some of the class giggle
and Mr Butcher looks pleased with himself,
so I forget algebra and say,
‘No need for help, Sir.
I just want to go to the toilet.’
The class snigger again,
only this time Butcher’s not sure
if they’re laughing with him,
or at him.
He looks at me for a long time,
adjusting his glasses,
‘When it comes to algebra, Holding,
you have the intellectual capacity of a newt.’
I clench my fists under the desk.
‘Even newts need to go to the dunny, Sir.’
Everyone laughs.
Butcher’s eyes flash.
That means I can go.
I walk slowly,
smiling,
knowing he’ll be looking for payback
sometime today.
Eddie
After the river kiss
Sally and me seem closer.
No, I’m not imagining it.
We sit together at lunch
and she tells me where she’s planning to go
when she leaves school
in exactly five months
and fifteen days.
That makes me sad.
I try not to show it
but if Sally leaves Burruga
then I know I’ll be alone.
Better to let the mine swallow me
than stay in school without her.
I decide to make the most of the time we got left
before she gets too big for this small town.
But I know she’s already stepping on that train
and I’m waving from the platform,
cursing under my breath . . .
the necklace still in my pocket.
Albert Holding
Every Friday
I stump work early
so as to get to the pub
with a few hours of drinking time left.
The wife complains when I stagger home.
Reckons I’m roaring drunk.
So what?
A bloke needs some relief after
a week of feeding chooks,
mucking-out pigs
and running errands for Mrs Laycock,
who’s too crook to move from the veranda.
She spends her day watching me work,
waiting for her husband
to come home from ploughing the far paddock.
So I have a drink after work
with some buddies from town
and listen to their stories of the mine.
The stink of coaldust clings to their clothes,
their skin and hair.
The only job worse than Laycock’s
is the one underground.
We all get merry together
and tell lies about the war
and lewd stories about women
we dreamed of meeting,
fighting far from Burruga.
Frank O’Connor offers the shout
and we all accept
because Frank spent time in Burma
and whatever he saw
he keeps close to his chest.
So we all tell jokes,
as rude as possible,
to help him forget,
to help us all forget,
even those of us with bugger all to remember.
Albert Holding
I’m standing at the bar,
bending my elbow,
listening to Donald Cheetham tell his lies,
when Fatty Paley comes in,
taking up way too much space
with his back-slapping
and his toady voice.
He bowls up to the bar and trumpets,
‘A round on me for everyone.
For my mates.’
I force a smile,
take his beer,
swear under my breath
and scull it in one gulp,
glad to be done with it.
Fatty stands next to Frank
and offers him another.
Oily bastard.
Frank’s had enough to cope with.
The jungle,
the Japs,
and now Fatty.
Colleen
When I’m walking down Main Street after school
I see the miners coming towards me
in their coal-dirt overalls.
Their teeth shine through smeared faces.
They’re laughing and joking around
and someone always shouts,
‘How ya goin’, Blondie?’
I can feel their eyes on me.
The Johnston boys look quite handsome,
even in dusty overalls.
My dad walks with them and nods at me.
He tells me they’re good blokes,
just having a laugh.
And Mum says they look at me
because I’m pretty.
I suppose I am.
She says
that their eyes
and their stares
are the price I pay.
I’ve just got to keep my head high
and my eyes forward.
Easier said than done.
But when Les Johnston winks at me,
I smile back,
careful not to let Dad see.
Les is six foot tall
and his hair is dark and wavy
and a girl wouldn’t mind
running her fingers through it,
given half a chance.
One day.
Larry
Yeah, I nicked the beer
from behind the Railway Hotel
and I sit in Memorial Park knocking back a few.
Eddie walks by
looking like he’s got somewhere to go.
‘Hey, brother. Come here.’
He turns and waves,
checking both ways before walking across the grass.
‘No one will see, Eddie.
Here, have a drink.’
He steps back as if I’ve got some disease.
‘Geez, it’s beer, not cyanide.’
He’s not going to take it.
Be blowed if he’s not!
‘Eddie. Catch!’
He doesn’t spill a drop,
grabbing it in both hands,
wondering what to do next.
He has a quick sip
before handing it back.
‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
He sits beside me
and shakes his head.
‘You’re a talkative bastard, Eddie.’
He grins slowly and says,
‘Just like our father.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ I say.
‘The grumpy bugger’s always on my case.’
Eddie reaches for the beer
and takes a long swig.
‘He wasn’t always like that, Larry.’
He wipes the mo
uth of the bottle
before handing it back.
‘Yeah, yeah. I know.
The bloody war.
Except the old bastard didn’t go anywhere.
Just chased his tail around the desert.
He’s hardly a hero.’
Eddie nods and says,
‘I gotta go, Larry.
Don’t let Sergeant Grainger catch you.’
He walks off down the street,
his hands deep in his pockets.
Mayor Paley
It’s just a little treat
for the men of my town.
They deserve a beer.
Even lazy beggars
like Albert Holding
who won’t work in the mine.
He wastes his days
gathering eggs and feeding cows
like some novice farm boy.
Hell,
I don’t care
as long as they vote for me
next election.
I down a few pots myself,
to show I’m one of them,
even if I’m better educated
and wear tailored clothes
and own a few places around town.
I don’t ever mention that.
It’s not good form.
That Holding fellow
didn’t even thank me for his beer.
Ungrateful boor.
I force a laugh
and slap him on the back
to show I’m the bigger man.
Sally
Dad meets me at netball.
He’s there, regular as clockwork,
a few minutes before we finish,
as the sun fades behind Jaspers Hill.
He hates Friday evenings.
‘The drunk night’ he calls it.
And even though it’s only
a few blocks to our house,
he won’t let me walk it alone.
He always invites Jean Bennett
to come with us
because she lives on the way
and he’s not letting her walk home alone either.
The men are still at the pub,
getting the last few drinks in before closing.
My dad won’t take no for an answer,
and every Friday I see him
looking at the girls strolling home
in the opposite direction
and I know he hates that.
He doesn’t say much on the walk.
He’s thinking of the other girls
and their fathers jostling each other at the pub,
trying to get one last shout
before the publican calls time
and they all stagger out,
wondering which way is home.
Larry
I stand the empty bottle below the plaque
dedicated to the soldiers from the Great War.