Thomas was only thirty-eight when the country changed forever.
It was a Tuesday afternoon in late 1975, and although he enjoyed the opportunity to speak to customers in the shop these days – a welcome break from the telephone that seemed welded to his ear and the desk chair welded to his rear – when yet another customer came into the store and remained unattended for several minutes, wandering like a lost sheep through the rows of refrigerators, Thomas grew irritated. Where was Hank or Murray?
‘Excuse me,’ Thomas said to his customer, an older lady looking for a toaster. ‘I must get someone to help serve.’ Leaving the lady to browse, he quickly assured the other two waiting customers that he would find someone to assist them, and strode out the back of the shop.
He expected to find Hank and Murray hidden behind the warehouse door, smoking, but the smoking spot was empty. In fact the entire warehouse, as he hurried through it, looked completely abandoned. A trolley with a cargo of boxes was stalled in the middle of the aisle; an opened toolbox, spanners strewn across the concrete floor, was abandoned by the rear door.
‘Where the bloody hell is everyone?’
Then Thomas heard a noise. A shouted curse; raised voices. It was coming from the lunch room.
‘What the –?’ He stormed into the room. ‘I’ve got three customers out there waiting . . .’
All six of his staff – his salesmen Hank and Murray, his senior travelling salesman Peter Van DerVerg, Don from accounts, Jake the young bloke and general dogsbody, even Martha the secretary – were crowded around the wireless. The volume was turned up loud and a cacophony of irate voices was streaming out.
‘What’s going on?’
Rather furiously, Martha shushed him. Thomas didn’t have enough time to register his shock that Martha – mild, studious and polite Martha, who had worked for him for three years and never so much as sneezed out of turn – was scowling and hissing at him, because Hank piped up excitedly, ‘They’ve sacked him.’
‘Who?’
‘Whitlam. They sacked Whitlam.’
Thomas said, ‘The prime minister?’ and was met with more fevered silencing. He pushed in closer to the wireless and listened.
A man was speaking rapidly, official-sounding and determined. Shouts of ‘hear, hear’ punctuated the background.
‘Is this parliament?’ Thomas asked.
‘Yeah,’ Hank said, grinning. ‘Live broadcast. Interrupted the program and everything.’
‘So we’re listening to Canberra? Right now?’
‘Yep.’
‘Whack-o.’
As Thomas listened to the broadcast he gleaned that sure enough, Whitlam had been sacked, his job yanked right out from under him. The governor-general had slipped in and commissioned the leader of the opposition as prime minister instead.
‘It won’t pass,’ Peter was saying. ‘They’ll have to dissolve both houses. We’ll be back to an election in no time.’
‘Christ.’ Thomas whistled.
‘Bit bloody harsh though, unseating an elected PM,’ Hank said. ‘Doesn’t seem right.’
‘What choice did he have?’ Murray broke in. ‘The senate’s been blocked up like a bung dunny for months.’
‘That’s not Whitlam’s problem though, is it?’ Thomas argued. ‘That’s the opposition being stubborn bastards.’
Despite Martha’s best attempts to remain focussed on the radio broadcast, the lunch room erupted into debate. Don thought it was about time – Whitlam had been racking up debt left, right and centre. Thomas and Hank argued that regardless, the people elected a prime minister, not the governor-general. Jake, the young bloke, said his dad’s mates had long hated Whitlam – making it easier for wives to piss off on their husbands and giving land away to blacks. Murray grew red in the face as he pointed out it was Whitlam who brought the troops home and freed the draft resisters who’d been jailed simply for refusing to die in someone else’s war. And besides, Murray finished, Aborigines were here first.
Thomas knew that Murray was right. It was because of Whitlam that his brother David had been brought home from Vietnam. David hadn’t been drafted – seemingly unable to keep a girl, he’d joined up voluntarily. Spent eighteen months with the Army up there in the stinking hot jungle. Thomas thought of David as he used to be – easygoing, bold, affable – then he thought of David now and knew his brother was different. Like a fundamental part of him had changed, something in his personality. Shellshock, they started to call it after World War I. But it was different after Vietnam. Quieter, creeping-like and insidious.
The mood in the lunch room had become fervid. That such a thing could happen and the way it was brought straight to them, instant by instant as it unfolded, had shattered the routine of a workday. A few years of progressive governmental reform had stirred the country to its foundations. One minute a man could be running the country, the next he was just a slighted bloke in a fancy suit. Suddenly Thomas realised he hadn’t been grateful enough for all of his luck. He had taken everything – all of this – for granted.
Because how could a man ever know when it all might get pulled out from under him?
‘Boss,’ Murray broke into Thomas’s thoughts. ‘Surely you’re a Labor man.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You just seem it.’
‘I’m blue collar, you reckon?’ Thomas said. ‘A union fellow?’ He shook his head. ‘Not that I reckon it’s any man’s business but his own, but I’m a swinging voter.’
Murray laughed. ‘A swinger, eh? Having your cake and eating it too.’
Unease prickled along Thomas’s spine. ‘What’s that now?’
‘Bloody swingers can never make up their mind.’ He grinned.
Thomas watched himself snap as though he had floated out of his own body. ‘Don’t be a dickhead,’ he said.
Murray’s eyes widened. ‘I was only –’
‘You were only standing around, slacking and mouthing off. I should make you turn that damn radio off and get back to work.’
Hank cleared his throat; Murray, red-faced, was now fascinated by the toe of his shoe. Jake, Peter, Don from accounts and Martha all stared straight at Thomas, dumbfounded.
‘Sorry, boss.’ Murray’s voice shook with humiliation. ‘I was just being a larrikin.’
What the hell had just happened? What had he done? His staff stood rigid with shock, his outburst clashing with the outraged voices on the radio. Five faces paled, one flamed. Thomas bristled with his own secrets, his own insecurity. Shame dug itself a hole in his guts and took up residence.
Thomas clapped a hand on Murray’s shoulder. The salesman looked startled until Thomas smiled at him.
‘You’re a card, mate,’ Thomas said, giving him a gentle shake. ‘Sorry to scare you, lad. I was joking, too.’
By the time Thomas returned to the showroom, the customers were long gone. Outside the street was deserted. Thomas, nursing his mortification, sent everyone home early. He closed the shop and went home to his children and his two women.