Season of Hate (8 page)

By the time our ninth birthday on the 27th September arrived, buds were beginning to appear on the jacaranda. A football and a set of miniature golf clubs for Doug, a junior encyclopaedia and a toy doctor's kit for me, were our gifts from Dad. Nan gave us clothes and underwear. Mr and Mrs Symonds had us all over for birthday cake and Miss Bridget and Miss Kitty gave us Airfix plastic plane kits to assemble.

Our watering and the chook poo had done the trick for by late October our jacaranda tree was covered in clusters of purple flowers. Doug and I would lean on our bedroom windowsill on uneventful days and watch as they fell like snowflakes from the branches above. The roof and gutters were thick with fallen petals. Each day the crush of them underfoot was like walking on purple snow. Our tree now also had a rope swing attached to one of its higher branches thanks to Dad.

Down the street the mulberries were ripening slowly. We must have driven Mr Elliott crazy inspecting it every other day and asking when the fruit would be ready. It was always the same answer. 'A few more days.'

Our lives at Kilkenny in general settled down to regular routines as we got more familiar with our surrounds and our neighbours, although Miss Kitty remained a mystery.

Dad was able to get himself a receptionist, who was also a qualified nurse. Single and in her mid thirties, she was Susan McKenzie, a niece of Mrs Symonds. She lived in Sydney, but wanted to move out of the city. She not only booked appointments and assisted with patients but helped Dad with the accounts and ordering of stock. Staying with the Symonds until she got herself established, Dad would drive her to work and unless he had a callout, home as well. She took a lot of the burden of running the practice from Dad, allowing him to get on with just being a doctor.

He also surprised us with his carpentry and handyman skills, taking over Poppie's shed and tools. We'd sneak a peek through the window on those weekends he'd spend many feverish hours working away. These were usually the times he told us that the 'Black Dog' had come to visit and that he was best left alone.

'Battle fatigue' or 'gross stress reaction' were the terms used to describe a range of symptoms including depression and aggression experienced by troops returning from WWII. Now in the 1980's after the Vietnam War, there is much discussion in medical journals on what is being labelled 'post traumatic stress disorder' and its treatment. Whatever name you give it, it overcame Dad for hours. His working hard physically seemed to be his therapy to deal with it until the 'Black Dog' had left.

During these periods he made and replaced flyscreens for windows, restored awnings and sanded back and painted the house. He even made new chairs for the kitchen using the lathe to turn out the legs and their supports. As he had learnt from Poppie, he promised when we got older and could handle the tools carefully, he'd teach us as well.

The best thing he built as far as Doug and I was concerned, was the wooden platform high in the jacaranda tree where two branches ran parallel to each other. It was only five feet by six feet of timber flooring, but to us it was our jungle treehouse, our flying carpet, our fort, our Sherwood Forest, our ship's deck, our castle. He even attached a long rope ladder to a branch above the platform that dangled to the ground, for us to use. Suddenly we were Errol Flynn and John Wayne. One day we were outlaws robbing the rich and giving to the poor, another, cowboys or pirates – all fighting the baddies and winning.

Although Doug found schoolwork a struggle, Dad never let him give in and become lazy. After the completion of our homework, Dad would check how we both went, and more often than not, sit with Doug and try to work through his mistakes. However, Doug didn't have his assistance in class or in exams.

While my occupations for when I grew up changed from a fireman, to a priest, to a teacher, Doug's went from a cricketer, to a farmer, to a policeman. Dad accepted our differences and limitations and praised our individual skills. Doug was never going to be a priest or a teacher and I could never be a cricketer or a farmer. Twins, but different and both equally loved by Dad.

The old Reserve now only held about a dozen or so Aborigines. Eventually it would be abandoned by them altogether and the land sold off. But for now these remaining ones just didn't know where to go. For them the Reserve had been their home and the proposed three houses set aside by the Aboriginal Welfare Board could not accommodate everyone. The men would go off and search for food, only to return to the Reserve every few days. Dad still visited, now with Susan and sometimes Mrs Symonds, bringing food, clean drinking water and medical assistance. Occasionally Doug and I would go as well.

We weren't scared anymore. We even brought some of our toys we'd outgrown and left them for the kids to play with, along with fresh eggs and vegies from our garden that Doug and I had picked ourselves. Several times we saw Father Prittenden assisted by Sister Mary Placid saying Mass in the shed with the wooden cross and giving Holy Communion as we arrived. Other times they were distributing used clothing and shoes or conducting school lessons using a portable blackboard. All of us really, I suppose, in complete disregard of directives given to Sergeant Farrar to abandon the Reserve and its inhabitants altogether.

Ganan and most of his mob now lived on the outskirts of the town in small camps as Mr Green and Mr Wood had predicted that Cracker Night. They lived off the land as best they could. The men would occasionally pick up seasonal labouring or farming jobs and the women domestic duties on wheat stations to supplement their living conditions.

Allowed to move about freely by day was one thing, but shopkeepers had the discretion whether to serve Aborigines or not. By enforcing a strict night curfew on them entering and leaving the town proper, Sergeant Farrar managed to give some amount of protection to them while pacifying those worried white townspeople. These measures managed to keep a lid on any simmering tensions between a growing gang of anti-Aborigine white men in town and the Aborigines themselves, especially some young men, tired and growing resentful of their treatment by the whites and the white authorities.

These were harsh measures placed upon the Aborigines but as I found out later, when I began to see more of Australia, our town at the time was in actual fact more moderate in its treatment of them than the wider white population – a sad indictment of the times.

These small groups on the edge of town were often joined by others that drifted through the area. Now more regularly of a Saturday, fuelled by a day at the pub, some of the men from the white gang would go 'huntin' for boongs' as Gwen Grady once put it at one of Nan's CWA afternoons. They'd find out where a mob of them were camped, and then using a truck, drive through their camp firing shots into the air to scatter them so they'd get the message they weren't welcome and run off. One night while we were in bed, Doug and I even heard shots coming from as close as the creek, followed by a lot of whoopin' and hollerin' then more shots, then quiet.

"I've got me suspicions some of our men, full of grog after closin' time, are bloody, you know, foolin' 'round with them black gins. Pardon my French," Mrs Grady also suggested once. Nan told her she didn't approve of that kind of name calling or swearing in her house, especially in front of us kids.

"Huh!" Mrs Grady exclaimed as she left in a huff. Once she'd stormed out, screen door banging, down the front steps and out of sight, the other ladies of the CWA congratulated Nan.

"The old bitch had it coming," declared Nan. The whole lounge room erupted with laughter. "I meant
witch,
Lord, truly," she added quickly with a trace of a smile, before joining in the laughter herself. "Well she is. And we all know it. Sour old cow. Got a smile onna like a bleedin' eclipse. Ya only see it every once in a while." There was more laughter all around. Nan always had a funny slant on most things. Her motto was: 'If ya can laugh at life, it won't get ya down.'

One Tuesday after lunch, Sister Mary Placid instructed me to go outside and mix up the powdered ink for the afternoon's writing lesson. I was in the wash shed when through the wooden wall slats, I saw this gangly barefooted Aboriginal boy about thirteen or fourteen years of age, crawl out from under one of the buildings. He started ravenously picking through one of the garbage bins. I hadn't seen him at the Reserve, or near the creek, or anywhere else in town before. His clothes were worn and two sizes too big for him. At first he didn't see me, being more intent on picking through the lunch scraps. He dragged out and devoured half an eaten apple and the discarded crusts of someone's sandwich. I stepped out from the wash shed with the full bottle of made-up ink.

"Hi," I began, putting my hand on his shoulder. It startled him so much, he dropped the garbage lid with a loud clang as he span around to see who it was.

"I'm Pat." He just stood there saying nothing. He had sun-bleached straight brown hair, big brown eyes and a button nose. "Cat got ya tongue?" He looked scared and panicky. Sister came out onto the verandah.

"Patrick McNally, what
are
you doing out there?" she boomed. He ducked out of Sister's sight, around the side of the wash shed.

"I accidentally knocked the lid off the garbage, Sister."

"Well stop mucking about. We're waiting on that ink."

"Yes Sister." Once she'd turned her back, I looked around. "All clear." He wasn't going to take my word for it and checked for himself before edging his way along the walls of the separate classrooms, then bolting out of the school yard once he reached open space. I quickly returned to class before I copped another tongue lashing from Sister.

And that was the first I saw of him. I told them all at home, but no one else. I didn't want to get him into any trouble for being on school property without a reason. Every day afterwards, I'd look out the classroom window about the same time, and more often than not he would be there, going through the bins for lunchtime scraps. Shortly after that I asked Nan if I could have an extra sandwich for lunch.

"If it'd make ya put on some weight, ya could have the whole bleedin' loaf! Look at ya, all skin and bone."

At the end of lunch, when no one was watching, I'd put the extra sandwich on the top of the rubbish in the exact bin so that he could get it. I kept my routine a secret, not even telling Doug, which was a first. I'd sneakily watch out of the corner of my eye from inside class as right on time everyday, he'd come into the school grounds and retrieve it.

I'm sure he knew it was me, because one day I saw him through the window smiling and waving at me as he helped himself to lunch. I remember wondering how he fed himself when school was closed over the weekends and holidays, before being brought back to reality by Sister, squeezing on my earlobe and telling me to pay attention.