1
The Magenta Push
The second after I had turned a sharp left into Lygon Street I knew it was a huge mistake.
Bugger! I was already late and now these blokes.
Two members of the Push from the Magenta Club were standing in the middle of the footpath at the entrance to Magenta Lane.
The boys from the Push were real hard nuts. Luckily for everyone in this part of Carlton they usually stayed at the bottom of their lane like a pack of faithful guard dogs, casting a wary eye over the regular procession of men looking for the female favours that their establishment provided.
The local male population mustn’t have had too many itches to scratch this night for two of the Push to be out on Lygon Street.
These blokes — one big, the other little — strutted about like prize peacocks while they knocked around some poor drunken sod who nearly lost his precious bottle, before they helped him on his way with a solid shove in the back.
Once they’d seen me, I knew I was in for it.
I thought for a second about making a dash across the road, until I remembered what my dad told me not long before I moved down to the city six months ago.
If you walk away once, they’ll always have you pegged as a chicken. Do you want that?
Great advice, however, I could never recall my dad testing his theory by going for a walk around Carlton after dark. When he did come to the city for a rare visit to his sister, my Aunty May, he only ever walked from her boarding house to the pub on the corner.
Even though I’d stayed with my aunt several times during school holidays when I was younger, it wasn’t until I’d moved down to board with her that I realised how much of a fish out of water I really was, floundering about for several months before I began to cotton on to how things were done around here. Whether they were Irish, Jewish or Italian, every community had a survival plan, which included looking after their own. I learned quickly not to trifle with the locals.
I didn’t have much of a plan for these Magenta blokes though, trifle or otherwise. I kept walking straight ahead, feigning a wave to a non-existent friend on the other side of Lygon Street in a poor attempt to bluff my way through. I knew it wasn’t going to work.
“Hey you, boyo,” squeaked an Irish voice from the smaller of the two. “I wanna’ talk to you.”
I tried to sidestep him, but he was wide awake to that and shot out a heavy black boot just in time to catch me clean on the left ankle.
“Jesus!” I screamed out, hopping around on one foot, my ankle in searing pain. “What the bloody hell are ya doin’?”
The little Irishman stepped up close to my face. “Now, boyo, I don’t wanna hear you goin’ around, using the Lord’s name in vain, or else, I’ll box your bloody ears in. Got it?”
His massive mate stepped behind me to put me in a full headlock, which was standard practice for mugs like these. I struggled but there was no way I could break free of this big galoot. He was as strong as an ox and almost lifted me off the ground.
“Oh, my Lord,” the big man choked out, in a strong cockney accent. “He stinks like a thousand sheep, Ryan.”
“Here, you take him,” the big Englishman whined, pushing me back towards his little ‘Mick’ mate.
“I don’t want the stinkin’ eejit,” yelled back the Irishman, pushing me in-between them again, both men having a good chuckle over their silly game.
“You’d be from Gennons then, wouldn’t ya?” the big Pommy git asked in a friendlier tone.
I didn’t answer him back, firstly because I was too shit scared, and also because my thoughts kept racing back to how late I was going to be for a special dinner at my aunt’s.
“Listen, and listen careful, boyo,” demanded the Irishman poking me in the chest. “Some of the girls on Queensberry reckon they’ve been accosted lately by a young turd that stinks like a sheep … and you fit the bill perfectly.”
“All right, before you start sayin’ there’s a dozen tanneries off Queensberry, I’m bettin’ you’re the one who would take a free piece of pie if you could get away with it. So, I’m suggesting you keep giving it to your mummy and leave our girls alone.”
Now, they had my attention the smart bastards. They could’ve just given me a clip under the ear, and then sent me on my way. But no, they had to bring my mum into it, which was the wrong thing to do.
“Yeah, I think I know the fella you’re talkin’ about. He works at Gennons as a puller, down the other end of the shop. Always talkin’ about tryin’ to pick up sheilas on Queensberry, giving ’em plenty of lip, that sort of shit. I can’t remember his name off-hand … hang on a sec. I’ve got it!”
The little ‘Mick’ leant forward to hear what I had to say …
Bang!
I copped him, smack on his left ear with a huge hay-making right.
He was still doing a full pirouette, while holding his ear and swearing his lungs out by the time I made it halfway to Argyle Square. At the corner I took a peek behind, only to see the big Pom hammering after me. I bolted, flat out, diagonally across the Square, almost cleaning up a young couple pushing a large Landau pram. I didn’t need to turn around again, because I knew he would keep coming.
Hell! I might have smashed that poor Irish sod’s ear-drum.
I flew through the barely ajar wrought iron gates at the entrance to the Women’s Hospital, running almost blindly between the old and new buildings, until I reached a car park in the grounds at the far end of Faraday Street. Luckily, there was a thick hedge on the outside, large enough for me to slip in the middle of, giving me a reprieve to catch my breath. From there, lit up like Christmas, I could see the whole area clearly from Melbourne University to the end of Faraday Street.
It had to be well after nine o’clock by now and I knew my aunt would be having kittens waiting up for me. She was on the edge at the best of times.
After ten minutes, I thought I might have seen the Pom stalking around somewhere in the vicinity, frustrated that he couldn’t find the little turd that gave his mate an earful. I guess even these Magenta mugs would eventually twig that I didn’t work at Gennons but that didn’t mean they’d give up looking for me in every tannery, until they found me at Cooks.
Twenty minutes later I hadn’t seen anyone on the streets, except a couple of university students walking up towards their college. So I thought it might be worth a shot to head north towards the cemetery and then back-track all the way down Rathdowne Street, where I would be as good as home.
I stayed on the opposite side of the road to the university, trying to keep out of as much streetlight as possible. I walked backwards for a while, making sure my new Pommy mate didn’t sneak up on me from behind. As I turned around, I saw a large figure coming out of a side-street a hundred yards ahead where the road started to curve. It appeared to be a man, but I couldn’t be sure, beginning to doubt myself as my eyes started to play tricks.
As the figure neared a streetlight, I could see it was lifting its feet to pick up speed. It was the Pom and he was running straight at me.
I ran out onto Swanston Street, without even looking to see if there were any cars coming or not. I just wanted to get as far away from this big bastard as possible. Even though I was panicking, I knew I couldn’t run back down Swanston Street as it was too well lit, and I didn’t know if any of his half-baked mates would be there waiting for me. I reached the outer wall of the university, trying to figure out where to go to next. I saw a driveway leading into the college grounds, on the bend, only fifty yards away.
So could he!
I got there only ten yards in front of the Pom. He was swearing at me from behind, but I was concentrating on getting through the almost total darkness cast by a large canopy of trees lining each side of the drive. Up ahead there was a light on the side of a building to the right that helped get my bearings and make it through this black hole.
I knew he was getting close when I could see the loose gravel he kicked up fly in front of me. This mad bugger was too big to stop and take on. He probably beats up young blokes like me every other day of the week.
As the drive came to an end, it opened onto a roundabout which was well lit by the light from the building. I hit the roundabout and turned sharply to the right before my feet slipped out from under me, my boots having lost their tread years ago.
A moment later the Pom laid his boots into me, kicking me once in the back of my right leg and then straight for my head. I curled up like a baby, covering my face with my arms, uselessly trying to protect myself. He kept kicking until he opened up a cut under my chin; blood flowing freely.
It felt like there was metal cutting into me. I desperately had to do something to stop him. He screamed like a madman that he was ‘gonna friggin kill me’.
I grabbed one of his legs, just to get a reprieve from his boots. Suddenly the Pom was violently jerked backwards by a force powerful enough to lift him off his feet. His dungaree-clad assailant, who had appeared out of nowhere, released the flailing body of the Englishman in mid-air, leaving him to fall helplessly, the back of his head hitting the ground hard, then the rest of his large body followed, flattening out under its weight.
Thank God! But who was this bloke?
I caught a glimpse of the assailant’s face beneath a peaked cap as he looked around to see if anyone was witnessing this little tiff, before he leant down to hit the dog hard, five or six times to the face; blood poured from the Pom’s mouth.
“You men … you men there,” a man’s voice cried out, “that’s enough … that’s more than enough!”
Squinting through a wall of light, I could make out the silhouette of a man in a second floor window. Behind him other figures were approaching the glass.
“Are you animals? … Well are you?” shouted the man in the window, obviously missing the matinée show. “Can’t you see this man is unconscious?” His cultured voice rose to a high pitch, “He needs medical attention.” He paused for a moment, turning to say something to the figures milling around him.
Then I heard: “You owe me, Sunshine.”
I looked back down on hearing this voice but my very welcome guest had gone, taking the opportunity to disappear like I should have.
The man in the window continued in a high pitched voice. “Don’t you go anywhere, I’m coming down.”
There was no doubt this bloke was a professor by the way he spoke, but I had no intention of waiting around with him until the coppers came to pick me up. The ones around here have a bad habit of giving everyone they round up a good belting, just for the fun of it.
I had to move quickly, as the professor wouldn’t take long to get downstairs. Though, what worried me now was my Pommy mate. He had begun to cough up blood, and hadn’t moved his arms or legs since he was hit more times than necessary by my rescuer. I’m sure a tough bugger like him could take a punch, but rightly or wrongly, I was getting out of here.
The first thing I had to do was get out of the light, so I ran directly under a blanket of shadow covering the building that housed the professor and his friends. Looking upwards I could make out several heads peering over the second floor ledge searching for me as I stayed tight against the wall below. They gave up shortly afterwards unable to make anything out in the pitch blackness.
I moved quickly in the direction of where I thought Swanston Street might be, sneaking over to an even larger building, in line with the first, before stopping in the shadows of a buttress, two hundred yards further on. From the buttress, I could see people moving as shadows in the vicinity of the roundabout, a torch light flashing occasionally in my direction.
Why did I hit that bloody Irishman? Now, the Pom’s in real trouble.
My right thigh muscle was cramping now at the spot where I had been kicked, and felt as tight as a drum. I couldn’t raise a slow jog, even if the whole damn Magenta Push were on my tail.
There was a building opposite my hideaway, much smaller than any of the college buildings I had seen so far. It was surrounded by a thick, shoulder-high hedge and a good covering of shrubs. It would offer more protection than the buttress, and the driveway was probably on the other side of it.
I’m sure the police wouldn’t be too far away, either. So, my plan was simple — as soon as the coppers arrive, shoot through.
Whoever had the torch must have decided to move their search to another section of the grounds, as all of a sudden darkness came over my immediate surrounds. I took the opportunity to drag myself towards the smaller building, bending down low behind a row of shrubs. Through the foliage, I could make out a group of four or five people looking out from the roundabout and then inwards again, before pointing in all directions. No-one was bending down, so perhaps the Pom had been taken to an infirmary inside the college building.
I was starting to get the lie of the land from my new position; this building was a good distance from the main college buildings, which to my mind made it a good spot to skip out of this trap. One at a time, the group at the roundabout began to disperse. One person headed my way, towards the smaller building which was only ten yards to the left of me. Of course someone lived there. I took a peek over the top of the shrubs to get a better look. It was only when the person stepped clear of a shadow that I realised it was a woman. She was pulling a dressing gown tight around her, probably warding off the sudden chill that had crept in.
I was surprised that a woman would be walking on her own, considering what had just happened; after all dangerous ‘animals’ were in the grounds. Before she reached the building, she stopped and then turned around slowly to look towards the roundabout. She turned back again, staring in my direction. This seemed to go on for minutes, before she walked to within a couple of yards of me.
“You’re one of the young men in the fight, aren’t you?” the woman asked.
I didn’t say a word and crouched lower behind the shrubs, not wanting to accept the mess I was in, wishing this woman would just go away.
“I saw most of the fight, you know. Your mate didn’t have to hit that man when he was down.” The woman continued in a proper voice, “It was uncalled for … he was unconscious.”
I looked up through the shrubs again as she had turned back towards the roundabout. I wanted to call out to her, but I couldn’t make myself. I was totally deflated by my own stupidity. I expected her to scream out for help any second.
“You’re lucky your opponent got up before. He wiped his face with a wet towel, trying to stop the bleeding. He kept repeating that he was going to get you — and your friend. He was adamant about that. The professor said he should wait for an ambulance and the police to arrive, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with that. Nothing we said would stop him from leaving.”
I was relieved to hear that he was gone, but I didn’t need a lecture. It wasn’t her head that was getting kicked in.
“When the police arrive they will put in a concerted effort to find you both,” the woman said without emotion. “What do you think about that?” She stopped for a second, waiting for me to respond before continuing, “I’ve seen the Englishman before on Lygon Street. I know he’s a thug. So you must have done something pretty stupid for him to chase you this far?”
I stayed silent.
“Look, you’re probably a good kid and feeling bad about what’s happened. I can show you a path that will take you out of the grounds, it’s just nearby …”
The woman hesitated. “But, I think it would be better if you cleaned yourself up first and then moved on. You won’t attract as much attention on your way home.”
I should say something to her. I need to stop acting like a child.
“You need to make a choice,” she said firmly before turning around to walk to the smaller building, going inside and shutting the door behind her.
My Aunty May thinks she can read people. I wasn’t too sure about that. She’s always telling me to be wary of people, especially overly friendly ones. “They’re probably trying to fleece you out of everything you’ve got.” She should know, she’d had a few smarmy types fleece her before. I can’t be like Aunty May.
I snuck over to the building and knocked quietly on the door. There was no other sound except the door slowly opening. A middle-aged woman stepped into the frame of the doorway, one hand on her hip the other holding her well-worn dressing gown tight. Her features were pale, almost non-existent outside of her dark-brown eyes securely fixed on me; fine hair floated across her forehead in the gentle breeze. She looked me up and down as if I was something that the cat had just left on the mat, making me wait on the porch so that anyone, including the people still looking for me, could see the poor unfortunate that was in need of her help.
“I’m not who you think I am,” I said close to tears. “I only made one mistake tonight.”
“You are a young man, too small to take on the Englishman,” the woman stated, opening the door fully. “In one way you did well.”
She stepped back for me to walk into her lounge room. A blanket thrown over an old leather couch was the only seating in the room, a small bookshelf and a low table, the only other furniture. She walked down an unlit passage without saying a word. I followed cautiously and then joined her in a room with a table and chairs in the middle. I presumed it was the kitchen, but with only a small amount of reflected light from the lounge, it was difficult to tell.
She told me to sit down, while she fumbled about in a drawer, finally lighting a candle, before sitting next to me at the table.
“Do you work at Gennons?” she asked. “You definitely have a sheep smell about you?”
Strewth! Does everyone know what I do for a quid?
“No, I work at a fellmongers in North Melbourne. They’re only small.”
“You don’t have to tell me the name of the company if you don’t want.” Her tone softened.
“They’re called Cooks,” I replied, starting to feel a little more at ease with this woman. “We push through a lot of skins each week.”
“Put your head back,” the woman said suddenly. “You have something hanging from under your chin.”
I felt immediately under my chin, surprised to find a good-sized piece of skin hanging free, although I could barely feel it. Before I could say no, the woman had pulled a pair of scissors out from a drawer and told me to hold still. I felt only the slightest sting as she cut away the offending skin and my eyes started to water.
“Sorry, I should have said something outside,” I mumbled to myself. “I just froze. My name is Sebastian. I live with my aunt in Carlton. The rest of the family are in the country.”
“Your aunt will be worried then.”
I could make out her face now, as the candlelight flickered over it. She had quite a pretty face for an older woman. I watched her loose, mousey hair fly in all directions as she moved, strands floating in front of her face as she pulled out a towel from a nearby cupboard and handed it to me.
“Head out the back, Sebastian. You can wash yourself in the gully trap.”
I didn’t like the idea of going outside yet and it must have shown on my face.
“Don’t worry, you won’t be seen from the grounds unless you’re silly enough to stand on top of the trap. Give me your shirt. I’ll sponge some of the blood out of it. I’m sure it gets messy most days at work, but not as much as this.”
I had hesitated for a second before the woman jumped in.
“I have three younger brothers,” she snapped, holding out her hand.
I undid my braces, pulling the shirt over my head in a slow painful movement. She snatched my shirt, before leading me out a door at the far end of the kitchen. Outside, she pointed me in the direction of the gully trap, and gently closed the screen door behind her as she went back inside. I started cleaning the sticky layer of blood and muck from my face, neck and arms, the cold water bringing me back to the here and now, and also soothing a well and truly bruised and battered body.
When I returned to the kitchen, the woman was sitting in front of a stove. She had made a pot of tea, placed a cup and saucer in front of the chair where I had been seated, and was now slicing into a small chocolate cake. She told me that if I wanted to eat, I had to sit down first.
I wanted to ask her name, but I thought it might be wiser not to. After all, she was hiding someone in the grounds that staff from her own college were looking for. If I didn’t know her name, how could I possibly dob her in.
She had made me so comfortable that I momentarily forgot that the police, and perhaps some of the boys from the Magenta Push may still be outside looking for me.
I hoed into the tea and cake, not believing food could taste so good.
“I thought you might be famished,” the woman said kindly as she sat down next to me.
“You’re not the first person to come into the college grounds in a spot of trouble. The Depression has been going on for quite a while now,” she explained, looking at me with tiredness in her eyes. “A lot of people camp rough in Princes Park. Sometimes their disputes spill over onto our campus.”
“That’s not me, and the bloke that hit the Pom is no mate of mine,” I jumped in, defensively. “He’s probably an ‘obo from Princes Park, but I’m bloody glad he came along when he did. I’m just a fellmonger, which is nothing, but I didn’t come down from the country to be a burden on anyone, and I won’t be.”
I shivered, before remembering I didn’t have my shirt on. It was hanging over the metal handle of the oven. The woman felt the collar before handing it to me, without saying a word.
It was hard to tell what this woman was thinking, her face didn’t give away a thing, and that included whether she believed a word I was saying.
Our little tea party came to an abrupt end with the sound of knocking on the front door.
“Get out to the trap,” she said sharply, pointing me towards the rear door of the kitchen, and then quickly snuffed out the candle.
As I sat on the wet gully trap, I suddenly felt waves of exhaustion come over me, relieved at being well sheltered from prying eyes; on my left, a solid wooden screen blocked the main college buildings, two yards in front of me a thick hedge. But, the longer I stayed outside, the less concerned I became if I was sprung or not. It was the middle of the night and I was freezing.
I was also busting for a wee, right here, right now. So, I snuck around the hedge and found a tree large enough for me to hide behind, while praying that the woman didn’t come outside, not quite yet.
As luck would have it the woman stuck her head out the screen door whispering, “Sebastian, you’d better go now, the police will be back in a half an hour to do a full sweep of the grounds. Go right away. Take the path on the left, don’t mind if it becomes overgrown, just keep going.”
Before I could say anything to this woman who had done so much to help an injured stray, she was gone, closing the door quietly behind her, leaving me in the stony silence of the college grounds.
I wanted to go home badly and I knew my aunt would be beyond herself with worry that I didn’t turn up for her special dinner, but the route home was too close to Magenta Lane. To stay as far away from its notorious Push was the most important thing I could do tonight. I would make my way back to Cooks and then wait for my workmates to turn up in the morning. I could suffer any consequences, later.
Fortunately, the only soul on the streets of Parkville at the moment was the milko doing his rounds. I kept my head down as I waved to him while I crossed over Royal Parade, before heading down Gatehouse, over Flemington Road and then worked my way through the back streets of North Melbourne until I reached the industrial area.
Once I reached Cooks, I collapsed against a light pole in front of the factory, not even aware when I fell asleep.
*
“Carmichael!”
I woke with a jolt and the sight of my foreman sneering down at me.
“Do you know the state your aunt is in?”
“What …?” I managed to mumble “What’s happened?” I couldn’t focus or think clearly. I tried to stand, but my right leg didn’t want to do what I told it.
“Are you drunk?” the foreman yelled. “Is this the gratitude you give your aunt?”
“I’m not drunk. I haven’t had anything to drink,” I said finally managing to stand myself up.
“I couldn’t make it home last night, that’s all. I had to come back here to sleep.” I wished more than anything that this mean bastard hadn’t taken a room at my aunt’s boarding house. He thinks he owns the bloody place.
“Bullshit!” the foreman snarled “You’ll pay a pretty penny when you get home tonight … you little shit,” he said throwing me a brown paper bag, which I hoped to hell had sandwiches in it.
“Your aunt thinks way too much of you, Carmichael,” the foreman scoffed, before pushing open the corrugated iron factory gate to let the workers in.
I followed grudgingly, shoving my right hand deep into my pocket, surprised to find at the bottom, an unusual object; too large and light to be a penny. I pulled it out quickly, knowing it wasn’t mine. On closer examination, it turned out to be a large brown button, on the outer side it read ‘Food for Spain’.