One time, not so long back, me, Antman and Fleabag was visitin me mum’s mother, Nanna June. It was Nanna’s eightieth birthday and we all went over for a big party. We had the deadliest time catchin up with all Ma’s people.
Anyway, the next night we was all sittin round outside yarnin when Cousin Chookie turns up. She’s Ma’s first cousin. Her dad and Ma’s dad were brothers. Ma and Chookie are more like sisters than cousins and spent the whole night of the party laughin over all the stuff they used to git up too when they was young fullas. Anyway, Chookie was real excited cos, as she put it, she had somethin real special to show everyone. She handed Nanna an old shoebox. Nanna opened it and pulled out a couple of rows of medals. They was Grandfather’s war medals and he’d thrown em in the rubbish many years ago.
Nanna looked at the medals for a long while, turnin em over and over in her hands and then she started cryin. The tears was just rollin down her face. I aint ever seen Nanna cry before. Ma reckoned she used to cry a lot when Grandfather was alive.
Grandfather died when I was real little, so I only remembered the fun Nanna, not the one Ma was always talking about. That Nanna was quiet and always workin, keepin the house like a new pin and makin sure supper was on the table at exactly the same time every night. The Nanna I knew played the squeezebox and mouth organ and loved to dance and go fishin. She was always givin cheek and cuddled ya just about every time ya walked past.
She finally dried her eyes and said to Chookie, ‘Where did you git these, baby girl?’
‘Mummy’s had them all the time. When Uncle Georgie chucked em in the rubbish, she went and got em out and put em away. She reckoned one day you might want to have em back. She was gunna bring em round to you herself, but she thought that even if you were cranky at her for savin em all these years, you wouldn’t yell at me. Ya won’t, Aunt, will ya?’
Nanna looked up at her, the tears still runnin down her beautiful, old brown face. ‘Of course I won’t, Chookie.’ Ma took a good long look at the two rows of medals. Service medals, medals for bravery. All from Grandfather’s service in World War Two, from when he had served in New Guinea and was a prisoner of the Japanese for two years.
Ma wasn’t born when Grandfather went to war. That happened a year after he got back. She’d never heard anyone talk about his time in the war, about bein a POW. She never knew he’d won medals. Grandfather never went to any ANZAC marches and always seemed to be a cold and distant man. Everyone was just a little bit scared of him, even though he never raised his voice or hit anyone. There was just this feelin that if he went off he wouldn’t know how to stop.
Ma was real shocked that her dad had all those war medals and asked Nanna how come he’d thrown em away. How come no one ever talked about the fact he’d fought in the war, she wanted to know. And what happened to Grandfather when he was there?
Nanna cried for a while longer, then dried her eyes and started to tell us how the medals came to be thrown in the garbage.
‘First thing, daught. It aint what happened to ya father when he was in the war. Not even bein a prisoner of war. It was what happened when he come home.
‘Your father was one of the handsomest fullas you ever saw. A hard worker and real clever. He invented a little irrigation system so I wouldn’t have ta cart water fom the river and he built us the best house out on the common with separate bedrooms and a nice bathroom outside. He played the guitar and accordion and sang all the time. We used ta sing and play together.
‘We was real happy. Then the war come and even though blackfullas didn’t have ta go, a lot of em from round here went. They reckoned it was their country, they had to keep it safe. Some of the fullas had to stay behind to look after the women and kids, cos we wasn’t safe from a lot of the whitefullas. They used to like sneakin round our camp at night. If there wasn’t some of our men there, I dunno what woulda happened. Gawd, I wish Georgie had been one of the ones to stay behind.
‘When they came and told me he was in a prisoner of war camp, I nearly went mad with worry. I didn’t think I’d ever see Georgie again. Ya know, in a way I never did. Not the one I knew anyway.
‘When he come back he was as skinny as a rake and real quiet. Couldn’t git boo outta im. Just sat inside all day starin at the wall. Didn’t laugh anymore and didn’t play his guitar anymore. That was ok cos I thought I could fatten him up again. And I reckoned if I give him enough time, maybe he would come round to bein the old Georgie again. I thought for sure when I got pregnant he would come round and for a while he did. But then things happened one after the other that just knocked the life and the love clean outta him.
‘First he wants to go to the pub to celebrate and catch up with old mates he fought in the war with. He gits down the pub and they tell him he has ta go drink round the back, he can’t go into the public bar. He went off his head. They reckon he started yellin bout fightin for this country, bout spendin two stinkin years as a prisoner of the Japanese and now he can’t git a drink in a bloody pub in the town he wuz born in!
‘When he come home I thought to gawd he’d take a gun and go and blow everyone’s head off down there. I thought he’d take it and shoot himself. But the saddest thing is, he just sat down in the corner and put his head in his hands and bawled his eyes out. I didn’t know whut to do for him. I didn’t know or understand whut he was goin through and he wuz cut off from the only fullas who did understand, cos of the colour of his skin.’
Nanna started cryin again and we told her she didn’t have ta go on if she didn’t want to. But she said she’d been carryin all this grief round for too long and it was time to bring it out in the open. She dried her eyes and went on.
‘Next thing that happened wuz he needed to go and git a job to support me and the kids but there wuz no work in town so he decided to go shearin. Only trouble is he had to go and git a piece of paper to say he was good enough to go and git a job. We used to call em dog tags. That was the end for him. He reckoned they never asked him to produce a paper sayin he was fit ta die for his country. Anyway, we needed to eat so he went and applied for the paper and the day it arrived, he took his medals and chucked em in the bin.
‘He never went on any ANZAC marches and he never talked about the war. He would turn off the television whenever there was a war picture on. He thought when he got back that he and his family would be treated as good as the whitefullas. He couldn’t understand that we had to sit in special roped-off areas at the pictures. He hated that I couldn’t try on dresses in the store. And it sure did break his heart that his mates never stuck up for him bout goin into pubs. I tried to say that maybe they was scared for themselves and their own families, but he wouldn’t have it.’
Nanna looked at Ma and said, ‘Your father died a broken man, daught.’
Ma was cryin now so I went over and put my arms around her. Dad was just sittin there lookin at the floor. He didn’t know what to say. Chookie was upset cos she thought Nanna would be happy to have the medals back.
Finally Nanna said she was glad. She reckoned she went to rescue em later but they was gone. She was glad that they had been kept safe in the family all these years and told Chookie to tell her mother ta come round and have a yarn with her.
The next day we all got dressed up and went down to the park where there was a big plaque with the names of all the men who had served in World War Two. Grandfather’s name was there, engraved in gold. Ma had walked past that plaque all her life and never knew her father’s name was on it. Nanna placed her sad old hand on it as tears fell down her beautiful, soft brown face. She whispered something and stepped away, and one by one we all went up and said our silent peace to Grandfather’s troubled soul.
When Ma stepped away she just said, ‘I wish I’d known what he went through. Maybe I could have been a better daughter to him and maybe I could have taught you kids how to be better grandkids to him.’
Nanna gave the medals to Ma. Reckoned they were her legacy, so she took them home and polished em up and put them in pride of place on the mantlepiece. My brother says he wants to wear them in the local ANZAC march next year. Ma reckons she’ll have to think real hard bout that.