3
Aid for Spain
I could barely wait for the foreman to ring the knock-off bell at midday, so I could slam my Dad’s old Gladstone bag shut and get the hell out of this rotten place.
The factory had been like an oven all week and even the old-timers were dragging their sorry faces around like they’d never been through a hot spell before.
“Lucky it’s Saturday,” the leading hand’s off-sider, Lenny, yelled out several times in the morning, driving everyone up the wall with his endless chatter.
I don’t know what happened to him, no-one does, but just when you think he hasn’t got a clue, he comes up with some real cracking ideas. He’s probably the best mate I have here.
At smoko I made the mistake of telling Lenny that instead of going back to my digs after work, which would be like a furnace until the cool change came in later in the evening, I was going to look for a place somewhere outside the city that might be interesting to take my sister to, after she arrives on Tuesday.
“Leave it up to me, young fella,” Lenny bragged while wiping his forehead with a grotty oil-covered handkerchief. “Before the foreman rings the bell. I’ll think of somewhere really grand for you to take your sister.”
Gees! Anything could happen here. Lenny’s mind doesn’t work like other people, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I wouldn’t even hazard a guess where he’d want to send us.
The heat and never wanting to see the foreman again, weren’t the only reasons I didn’t want to head back to my tiny room after work. I had been thinking about what Aunty May had told me was in the letter from my folks. They wanted Lettie to ‘broaden her horizons’ down here, which was great but after six months in the city my horizons were still as flat as the Wimmera plains.
I needed a future that didn’t involve sheepskins.
Six months ago, I was given the best lesson in how to prepare for the future. Make your own plans before someone else does it for you. My new life arrived one afternoon while I was working at home on the farm, in the form of a telegram from Aunty May.
‘SEND SEB NOW STOP WORK STOP.’
That’s all it took for me to be given an encouraging pat on the back from my family and a shove onto the next train heading towards the big smoke, without a clue as to what I’d be doing, who I’d be doing it for, or whether I’d ever make a zack out of it or not.
Aunty May had been talking to my foreman after work one evening, when he mentioned that he had to sack an old timer called Blacky. Apparently, he’d been knocking off some of the blokes’ money from their kits in the change room while pretending to go to the toilet. The foreman and the leading hand forced him to own up by threatening to send him for a spin in the Leidgen Drum if he didn’t.
I would have owned up too!
Aunty May talked her new boarder and erstwhile friend Barry into leaving the position open for a few days until I made it down. She said I would work the first two days for free, as a trial. My foreman likes cheap labour.
I was brought back from my thoughts by Lenny, true to his word, turning up a minute before the knock-off bell.
“I know just the place for you, young Seb,” yapped Lenny like an excited pup.
“Emerald Hill in South Melbourne is where you should take your sister. She’ll love it. What they have there is what women want. Do you know what that is, Master Seb?”
“No, I don’t know, Len,” I replied, wondering how he could possibly know so much about women.
“Shopping, Seb. Not the snooty shopping like you see in Collins Street, where everything costs a year’s wages. No, they want shops where they can buy the raw materials to make the fancy stuff for themselves. Drapers, haberdashers and grocers, that’s the type of shopping women want. They like beautiful houses and gardens, too,” Lenny exclaimed.
“I have also heard of gatherings that happen there from time to time, where assorted cranks get up on an old crate, sprouting their plans to save the world. I’m told it’s the funniest thing you’ll ever see in your life. And, you know what? It won’t cost you a penny. What do you reckon of that, young Seb?”
“I like it, Lenny,” I replied genuinely, “I really do.” I had heard the South Melbourne area was a nice place to go to. Though, I’m not sure I would mention the fact that Lenny and I had similar ideas.
“Righto, Lenny. I’m off then,” I shouted when the foreman finally rang the knock-off bell.
I knew Lenny was planning on being my guide for the day, and I should ask him, but I couldn’t do it.
“Thanks for givin’ me the good oil, Lenny. See ya Monday mornin’.”
I felt bad when I turned around to see Lenny still waving at me as he closed the factory gate, but some people you need to have a break from.
*
I headed south along King Street, a hot northerly wind at my back, past Flagstaff Gardens which was packed with every man and his dog searching for relief from the oppressive heat. Families had laid out picnic rugs under shady trees, despite the best efforts of their kids and a gusting wind to up-end them. Groups of office workers shared patches of shade. Ties were loosened on their white Pelaco shirts, as they celebrated the end of the working week by knocking down well-earned but probably warm bottles of beer.
People became scarcer the further I went down King Street on my way towards Emerald Hill with the notable exception of every pub along the route, where large groups of men were crowded shoulder to shoulder at the bar, licensees doing a ripper trade on such a stinker of a day.
Before I moved down to the city my folks warned me to give the pubs a big miss. In a couple of months I would turn twenty-one, old enough to drink at a bar. I didn’t need too much convincing to refrain from developing the habit, after seeing the results of a six o’clock swill. It was a real eye-opener to watch blokes fighting like animals to get to the bar as the ‘last-drinks’ bell rang, stepping over drunks passed out on the floor in a filthy pool of beer, and other vile liquids, so they could order another five or six beers.
I enjoy a beer as much as the next, when I can get my hands on one, but the sight of paralytic men pouring out of pubs at six o’clock had put me off ever wanting to join them.
Back on the farm when we were young tackers, Dad sometimes used to let us have a sip out of his glass of beer in the evening. It didn’t happen very often, but when he let us, we thought he was the greatest dad ever. A couple of years later, Lettie and I snuck a bottle of his beer from the safe, left it to cool in the river overnight, and then went back the next day to knock it down. Thinking back now, he must have known it was us.
I still think it’s funny that Lettie is the only girl I know who likes the taste of beer.
One of the favourite things that Lettie liked to do when we came down to the city as kids was to go up front with Aunty May on the dummy of the cable tram. To fly past the huge crowds and tall buildings in the city, and then to hang on for dear life around the bends was a dream for us country kids.
On one trip, when the grip-man released the cable too early, the tram was left stranded half-way around the bend at Parliament House. All the passengers had to get out and push the tram into Bourke Street, but few of them thought it was as funny as Lettie and I did.
Going for a ride on a cable tram, will be the first thing Lettie will want to do on Tuesday night.
I felt almost overwhelmed by the stifling heat as I crossed over Flinders Street, happy to see the Yarra River only a short distance ahead. I found myself a shady spot on the dock of the ship turning basin, hidden away between the Spencer Street Bridge and an old wreck of a barge, hoping that one of the quietest parts of the city could provide me with the perfect refuge to ponder my biggest dilemma. How could I possibly help Lettie find work down here?
Lettie walked away from a part-time job in a drapers back home; she may regret that. Down here she would have to become a real grafter, jumping on every opportunity that popped its head up, if she wanted to get to the front of the long queues beside every ‘positions vacant’ sign.
As the wind slowly changed direction, it was too hot to think about work or anything else, except hopping into the round of sandwiches I had made in the morning, and drinking some of the lukewarm water that I thankfully remembered to put in a spare Cottee’s bottle before I left the factory. As I relaxed into my own private picnic, my thoughts drifted back to my family in the country, wondering what turmoil the letter from my folks was hiding.
A couple of cars and motorbikes crossing over the bridge were the only things moving at any pace at the moment. If they had any sense, they would either head east towards the cool of the Dandenong hills or south towards a sandy beach on the bay.
*
After lunch, I reluctantly left my shady spot by the river walking up onto Spencer Street Bridge which was baking under the blazing afternoon sun. From the middle of the bridge, I couldn’t miss the signs of the cool change to come. A long, dark line of cloud spread across the horizon to the west, pushing heavy humid air in front of it. I couldn’t wait for it to get here.
I stopped briefly in the shadow of a huge storage facility; the words ‘Tea House’ were blazoned in large lettering across the top storey of the imposing building.
It made me think about what my friend Arty told me a few days before I moved down to Melbourne, in a poor effort to make me change my mind. “You know the buildings in the city block out the sun, Seb. That’s why city folk always look so pale and sickly.”
Arty really doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s only been to Melbourne once.
I stayed in the shadows of as many buildings as I could while heading up the slope towards the main shopping strip of Clarendon Street.
I reached the first canopy of the shopping strip, a little reluctant to wade into the tangled mass of shoppers, who milled in front of shop windows and jammed up doors, as far as the eye could see. After weaving my way through the crowd to one display, it became clear what the fuss was all about.
Bargains!
Almost every shop had a ‘Sale’ sign in the window and every other shop a ‘Prices Reduced’ sign. Several had spruikers out front making outrageous claims about the quality of their goods. One shop, which was doing rather well, was a kitchenware store that had a large array of shiny new pots and pans, at ‘unbelievable’ prices. Lettie won’t go past this shop I could guarantee it.
I couldn’t believe so many people, with so little money, could hand over so much of it. Lenny had hit the nail on the head when he said this was the place for people that loved shopping.
There was a longish queue in front of a grocery store called Carruthers. On the outside, it looked like any other grocers, but after looking past the crowd to the inside, things appeared decidedly different.
In the middle of each aisle, large tins of virtually every foodstuff known to man were stacked precariously high, assistants in pristine white uniforms fussing over each shopper’s smallest request. Personally, I prefer not to be bothered when I shop, which is a rarity in itself, but the customers here didn’t seem to mind the pushy approach because they were buying, and buying a lot. After ten minutes, an elderly male assistant pulled me aside from the crush, telling me I ought to buy something fairly soon or I could get out, and that he would be watching me the whole time I stayed in there. Their friendliness was for paying customers only.
As a ‘Reduced by Half’ sign was placed on a large stack of tins nearby, I was shoved aside by almost rabid shoppers, trying in a mad rush to get their hands on the huge cans of whole beetroots, the stack reduced to half within seconds. This shop has found a way of beating our rotten economy by selling food cheap enough to fill hungry stomachs.
There were a few funny smells coming from the sweaty customers pushing me back and forth, so I thought I would give the old bugger still watching me his wish and leave the premises, as soon as I could push and shove my way out.
A little further down from Carruthers in the busiest section so far of Clarendon Street, I noticed three young people standing behind a small trestle table, perched close to the gutter. A banner behind them, tied between two verandah poles, was sign-written in large red, black and gold lettering, ‘Aid for Spain’. The mention of Spain caught my attention.
Underneath the banner was a poster with ‘MADRID’ written in large black letters. There were other words at the bottom, too small to read from where I stood and an unusual picture in the centre. At first glance, this picture seemed to portray a swarm of mosquitoes flying past a doll with numbers on its dress. It didn’t make sense to me, but due to the fact that their banner had the word ‘Aid’ as part of it, they were probably chasing money.
Recent newspapers had small articles about the rebellion in Spain, but they gave few details, and any news took so long to reach us from Europe, so it was difficult to tell if the war was even still going. I thought about lining up to ask one of the two young women or the young bloke about their cause, and their merchandise, but a few people were already waiting in line and I still had more to see in Emerald Hill, so I decided to keep moving. Up ahead, I noticed a greengrocer’s where I might get a bite to eat for later in the afternoon.
I started to push my way back into the crowd, when a female voice called out to me from behind. “Excuse me … young man?”
I turned around to see if the owner of this voice was calling me, which was unlikely, or someone else near me in the crowd.
“Yes you, young man.”
A pretty, brunette girl, one of the helpers behind the Aid for Spain stand was calling and waving at me to come back to the trestle table.
I hesitated for a second, as a few shoppers stopped, waiting to see if I would go back to her stand or not. I did want to find out more about the poster, and how they could possibly do much good for Spain from so far away, although I was a little annoyed at being singled out in front of a street full of nosey shoppers. Surely by the look of me, this girl must know I wouldn’t make much of a dent in their coffers. As I began to walk back towards the girl, a tiny smile appeared on her face.
“Thanks for coming back. I’m sorry for yelling at you like that, but I noticed you were looking at our ‘Madrid’ poster. I thought you might have had some questions about it.”
I couldn’t think of what to say for a second, pleasantly surprised at being spoken to like an adult for a change, and not merely as a worker or a kid.
“No, that’s all right. I was curious about the poster.”
“My name is Elaine. I’m a volunteer for the Spanish Aid Committee. We are highlighting the plight of the Spanish people, and trying to raise funds for the civilian victims of the rebel aggression. What would you like to know about the poster?” the pretty assistant asked, stepping to the side, so I had the full view.
“I was just too far back to see it clearly, that’s all,” I explained, now realising it wasn’t a doll at all, but a young girl with dozens of warplanes passing diagonally over her head, the words on the poster calling this ‘The Military practice of the Rebels’.
“What happened to this girl?” I asked, now finding the poster hard to look at.
“This girl is one of the victims of the fascist planes bombing Madrid. The rebels are being aided by German aviators in their attempt to terrorise the population of the capital. This girl was one of thirty-six children killed during an air raid. An Italian-manufactured bomb made a direct hit on her school.” The young woman’s eyes were beginning to well up with tears.
I felt sorry for this child as well, and all the other victims, and if I had money to burn I would give it to them, but at the moment I was nearly skint.
“I thought it was a doll.” The words were already out of my mouth before I realised how cold they sounded.
The young man with messy black hair to the left of Elaine, turned from the couple he was talking to and leaned across the trestle table towards me; he had anger in his eyes, the likes of which I had seen only a few days ago during my run-in with the Pom in the grounds of the university.
“Doll!” he yelled. “That doll is someone’s child, murdered by a fascist army, hell-bent on sending Spain back into the Dark Ages. Think before you speak!”
Once he had finished his tirade, he turned to face the street, away from the gaze of the people in earshot of the stand.
Elaine grabbed the young man by the arm and led him off to the side, his arms flailing about in the air, no doubt in an attempt to explain his over-reaction to my remark. I knew I had said the wrong thing, but his response didn’t match my innocent slip of the tongue. I thought about waiting for him to come back, but unless I wanted to prove some silly point, the best thing I could do would be to move quietly along.
Elaine returned quickly to the stand, leaving her fellow assistant to cool off on his own. One positive outcome from our minor confrontation was that it attracted a small crowd to the trestle table, who were now keenly flicking through pamphlets, wanting to know more about the Spanish conflict.
“Sorry. I’d better go before I upset anybody else,” I said, apologetically to Elaine while slowly stepping away.
“There is one way you could help if you like before you go. We have items for sale to raise money specifically for food to go to an Australian-run orphanage in Spain and to purchase an ambulance for use by an Australian team of nurses already on the frontline. We have stamps, buttons, pamphlets and lots of other merchandise, but clearly this is a donation to help innocent people in need.”
“Did you say buttons?” I asked, louder than I should have, turning my head sharply to look at the young man who had yelled at me.
Was it him? Was he the same bloke that helped me at the University?
“Do you mind if I have a look at the buttons?”
“Of course you can,” the young brunette said, glancing at me sideways for the briefest second.
“We also have several pamphlets that have just arrived from Spain. They contain the latest developments.”
I acknowledged the young lady with a small nod, picking up a pamphlet called ‘From the battlefields of Spain’, which claimed progress by the Republican Government, but it was the buttons I was interested in. In a small tray there were only two types of buttons and one was the same as I had in my pocket.
Looking over at him, I was certain now that he was the same man that had helped me at the uni.
But why would he leave a button in my pocket?
“I know a lot of workers wear those buttons with pride, and hardly any of them lose their breeches,” the pretty brunette joked with a cheeky grin on her face.
“Righto, you’ve won me,” I returned, smiling back at her. “I’ll get somethin’.”
I bought the pamphlet and a block of stamps, just two small things to show that I wasn’t as insensitive as I sounded. Elaine nodded her thanks, as I handed over my sixpence contribution to their cause.
I looked again at the still agitated young man who I was sure saved me on Wednesday night, now facing toward the stand with his hands on his hips. I owed him a lot more than a ‘thanks’ for what he did at the university, but after his snarling performance at the trestle table it was probably best to call things quits.
After I had moved back into the crowd along Clarendon Street, I turned around briefly to look back at the Aid for Spain stand and its young volunteers, especially my fiery wild-haired friend who had returned to the fold. He was pointing out some feature of the ‘Madrid’ poster to a young couple, when Elaine came up beside him and put her arm around his shoulder.
At least, they could never be accused of not believing in their cause, the young people behind the Aid for Spain stand.