by David Vernon
Our Dad had been a long distance runner, lean and muscular, but not very tall. He was the source of all knowledge. He knew about fish and boats and birds and remembered times and dates and when stuff happened. He showed us how to walk the mud banks in the bay looking for clusters of worm holes. We carried an old jam tin, open at one end. Finding the tiny holes we would place the tin open end down and stamp on the top shoving it into the sandy mud. The air inside the tin injected into the sand with a whoosh that sent the worms shooting into the air. Dad reckoned bream couldn’t resist these worms as bait. There was no Fisheries Department ‘bag limit’ in those days. We simply stopped fishing when we had caught enough for dinner.
Mum had frizzy black hair. She was a quite well known artist who had sacrificed a career to marry my father. She was taller than him, so that when talking to him she would scrunch her shoulders and bow her head slightly. We never discussed how she would bend to talk to Dad which always told us that her love for Dad bore no conditions, although for many years we felt that deep down Mum didn’t really look forward to holidays at Wagstaff, and only endured it for her family.
Our mother conducted a war on mosquitoes. She told us many times, mosquitoes carried the deadly polio disease; if we were bitten we could end up in an iron lung. “Filthy buggers,” she called them after a Waggy local told her that mosquitoes urinate first on the spot they bite you!
The local Aussie brand mozzie coils were not favoured by her. She claimed that the Chinese ‘Tiger’ brand, only available from Moran and Cato in Sydney killed them fastest.
We lived on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, but Wagstaff, only forty-five miles away was a full day’s journey in 1947. Three, or perhaps four, times a year we travelled by bus, ferry, tram, steam train and, finally another ferry, to get there.
At holiday time, already packed, we’d be out of bed at five for a hurried breakfast of Crispies, margarine toast and Billy tea.
We would then walk to the bus stop near the school. Dad and Mum’s bag was a big brown leather cabin trunk; we had our Globite school cases and also ex-army disposal gas mask bags over our shoulders, stuffed with groceries not stocked by the shop at Waggy.
Our bus stop was a fair walk on normal days even without luggage, but at holiday time Dad carted our things in the garden wheelbarrow. He had arranged with Mr Howe, the local shopkeeper, to park the barrow in his backyard ready for our return.
The bus to Manly Wharf started at Narrabeen and by the time it got to our stop, there was standing room only. Passengers already on the bus, seeing our pile of gear, frowned in silent impatience while we stacked everything onto the back platform.
The conductor, purse-lipped and scowling, made no comment, offered no assistance and cleverly ignored Dad’s very caustic, “thanks for your help mate.” He just yanked his peaked cap closer to the top of his nose, blew a terse single note on his whistle and we were away.
Buses in the mid-forties were the famous Albion Bulldog double deckers, many still camouflage painted following the war.
As they did back then, a man sitting offered Mum his seat. She accepted graciously, sat, took my little brother onto her lap and middle brother made to stand between her knees holding the back of the seat in front. Meanwhile I stood proudly in the isle with my Dad, feeling very grown. At Manly Wharf the seven o’clock ferry, Barragoola presented more problems. Without the wheelbarrow our luggage needed two trips from the bus terminal to the ferry.
If the bus into Manly was even a few minutes late (which it often was) Dad would have to race back for a second load, while Mum, arms folded defiantly, stood blocking the end of the gang-way so the deckhands couldn’t cast off until Dad got back with the rest of our possessions. We had to board by a sloping wooden gangplank to the bottom deck. Once there, we could stand at the engine room rail and look down at the steam engine crank-ends thumping away as they turned the propeller.
Musicians on the ferry entertained passengers with fiddle music and a plonky old Paling piano. After we passed Bradley’s Head the musicians would walk among the passengers shaking a collection box. My Dad, in holiday mood, always popped in a deaner. This must have been generous because the bloke would come back later and ask Mum if she had a request. She always asked them to play Clair de Lune, which ended with Mum having wet eyes and passengers applauding politely.
We were at Circular Quay by twenty to eight. Then there was more unloading and carrying, across Alfred Street, past Customs House to the Loftus Street tram terminus. With so much luggage, we couldn’t take older ‘Toast Rack’ trams and had to look for the newer ‘Corridor’ models with a destination sign reading ‘Central Station via Eddy Avenue’, which went right onto the station concourse, saving us another long carry.
The tram stopped beside a line of men known as ‘Trollty Porters.’ For two shillings these blokes would grab your bags off the tram and heap them onto two wheel platform trolleys, known as ‘Barra’s’, and cart your things to the train.
Central Station was wonderland for us boys — nineteen covered platforms, the air thick with soot, steam clouds and noise. It was the most exciting place on earth. Right from waking that morning we would be endlessly discussing the possibility that a C/38 Class loco would be pulling our train.
Dad would always get us to Central with time find our carriage, settle Mum down, who, by now being a little stressed, was pleased to sit quietly and read the Weekly. This done, Dad would take us along the platform to the engine where we were hoping to find the huge green and black 38 Class loco or perhaps at the very least a Garrett Class panting clouds of steam and boiler valve clank.
A friend of our father’s was a train driver and standing on the platform beside the engine Dad would start a conversation with our train driver.
“Hello mate,” he’d say, “You wouldn’t know Ernie Butler would you? He’s a mate of mine that drives goodsies out of Everleigh Yards into the Central West.”
It didn’t matter to Dad if they knew Ernie or not. The conversation was only about getting the driver to let us climb up onto the footplate of the engine. Dad must have been pretty engaging because the conversation invariably ended with us climbing up. Once my little brother Locky asked the driver if he could blow the whistle. The driver clicked his open pocket watch and, seeing it was twelve minutes to departure said, “Hang on a minute, little mate. You can give ‘er one long pull when it’s ten minutes to go — lets the passengers know we’ll be leaving on time at 10.30.”
Dad lifted him up, and hanging by the whistle chain, gave it a full ten-second blast. The public ignore boarding instructions and have even less respect for published departure times. The whistle blast clears the station and fills the carriages allowing an on-time departure
At exactly 10.30 we pulled out: it was a C/38, twelve passenger carriages and four mixed freight. We stoped at Hornsby and Brooklyn and an hour and a half later, Woy Woy where we left the train and it goes on to Brisbane. The Woy Woy Channel wharves are across the road from the station where Murphy’s ferry Victorious is waiting. The final part of our wonderful journey is the one hour trip around the Brisbane Water bays to Wagstaff.
Te Whare is a five-bedroom fibro and corrugated iron cottage built on piles. The back half is on land and the front, where the bedrooms are, over the water. Tide causes the water to gurgle as it flows around the posts. This is the music of Wagstaff holidays, music that sees us off to sleep and gently wakes us in the morning.
We have two boats, one a sixteen-foot half cabin launch with a Blaxland Chapman engine and one, a ten-foot rowing skiff. We fish the bays in the skiff but if the weather and tides are right we take the launch around Half Tide Rocks and fish the ocean.
When the tide is low the mud banks in the middle of the bay are clear of water. A combination of this, a hot day and no breeze brings the mozzies and our Mum becomes a fervently murderous killer.
We remember Mum as a woman of uncommon class and style. She would put up with the odd fly, but spotting a mozzie w
rought a radical change in how she saw the world and Waggy in particular. One technique was to take a tea towel and flapping it in the air, herd them into room corners where she would hit them with the old Mortein pump sprayer.
Mum was never known to use coarse language but when chasing and killing mosquitoes we’d hear her softly saying things like, “Piss off you little bastards; this’ll stop you,” or “bloody little mongrels.”
We were quite proud that our mother knew some swear words. And we once caught some mosquitoes in a peanut butter jar and let them out in the kitchen, shouting, “Mum, here’s one,” just so we could hear her swearing. Sometimes we would whisper “piss off little bastards” to each other for no reason other than to spend the next hour laughing.
The Tiger mosquito coils Mum preferred came in square green and yellow boxes. They were ring pressed, partly joined into each other. Separating without breaking them was difficult but she had it down to an art form. She could separate the coils slipping them onto the little tin holder things with one hand whilst striking a Federal match to light the coil with the other.
The house was owned by my grandfather William and he, Grandma Ada and our Aunty Dollie would often be there with us during holidays, which was why there were five bedrooms, one for Grandma and Grandpa, one for Mum and Dad and one for Aunty Dolly. The other two, the largest rooms in the house, had six beds in one and four in the other and that was where we slept.
Grandpa said that our Mum was “Mozzie bloody mad!” He explained that they spread dengue fever, not polio as she would have us believe, a fact our mother ignored for the rest of her life.
Countless tides have flowed around Te Whare house piles since those cherished holidays. Grandpa, Grandma, Dad, Mum and Aunty Dolly have all gone now, leaving only much treasured memories.
There’s still a couple of packets of Tiger Mosquito Coils in our garage and sometimes in the warmth of a summer evening with a glass wine I light one and let the smell of the softly coiling smoke carry me back to Waggy.
A rugby/surfing tragic from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Grahame Maclean, became a radio presenter copy writer, eventually being overlooked for a job on Australia’s first T.V. station, that unfairly gave the gig to Bruce Gyngell. Marriage and a need for security found him working for Ampol Petroleum. Several management courses later and a career in corporate, success allowed Grahame to live on Sydney’s Pittwater where he races his yacht, Hello Again. Married twice, with six kids all now useful adults, he is retired and fishes away the hours at Stockton, Newcastle. He is the founder of The Stockton Quill Society writers’ group.
Yellow Pearl
— Sophie Constable
Kimiko didn’t hear that the pearling lugger had docked early; the bathhouse sat apart from the chatter of the house. Pearls of water dripped from her leg like the notes of the shamisen, echoing from the iron walls.
Davidson dressed in the candlelight. Kimiko sank deeper into the bath water, watching. Mud-stained moleskins slid up hewn calves. Suspenders snapped over silent, wiry shoulders. She could watch him all night.
Davidson took her head in gentle rough hands and kissed her. “See you in a month, Ningyo.”
A month. She ducked beneath the waterline, resisting holding onto him: Missus’d be out in a minute. The bathwater soothed her lips and cooled the threatening tears. A month wasn’t long, really. Not when you knew he was coming back. Fossickers had to travel, but when he found those gems, he’d be back for good. For her.
He caressed the top of her head one last time.
The door opened: his quiet presence washed away by the clatter of men talking, girls giggling, glasses clinking. Closing her eyes, she could see Eiko dancing on the mat, Nats pouring sake, the men lounging around, wide-eyed, eager, polite. A busy night — Missus would be wanting her. With a small sigh she pinned her hair up with a chopstick and reached for a towel.
Through the doorway came glimpses of the town below. A yellow pearl of a moon that Kimiko fiercely ignored. Luggers cramming Broome’s salt-cured docks, unloading pearl-shell, loading stores, the planks alive with men. Mud streets winding between corrugated huts, a reef fostering a spicy brew of rum-sellers and brothels. Opium edged the hot, salty night breeze.
The House stood above all that, the trickle of plucked notes leaking out from a different world.
Then the shamisen fell silent, and the other sounds tightened. Feet patter-running. Sharp whispers. Voices edged in argument. Drunken singing ascended the hill to the House. Trouble.
Kimiko threw on a bathing-robe and hurried into the House’s radiance just as the shouting started.
Cards, fans and shawls sprawled across the sitting-room floor. Men stalked towards the entrance.
“Get Missus’s purse!” Eiko ordered, arms full of tea-cups.
Kimiko scanned the rumpled sitting-room. “Where … ?”
“Kim, the Diane docked early!” Nancy jostled past, darting upstairs.
“And hide the sake!” Eiko hissed.
Kimiko spun. “Nancy … ?”
Then Jiro was before her. His face red with drink, still with surprise, taut with anger. Kim’s hand froze pulling her bathing-robe over her bare shoulder. Horror gripped her gut.
If Kimiko had known the lugger had docked early, she would’ve wiped off the lipstick, swapped her kimono for a cotton blouse and sensible skirt and hurried home to meet her brother.
If Jiro’d given her the yellow pearl he’d smuggled back to shore, rather than to his precious fiancée, Kimiko wouldn’t have been short. She wouldn’t have started working at the House at all.
Now there was no time for all that.
Cornered by her brother’s fury, Kim’s blood drained dry.
“Imo-uto,” Jiro hissed, slurring only a little. “My little sister!”
His fist held tight. Like a rock. She knew what rocks felt like. The Han boys had shanghai’ed her once, shouting, “Riben guizi! Riben gou!” But she wasn’t a devil or a dog. No matter what Japan was doing to China, she was just Kimiko. The Kimberley had borne her in its womb: its sapphire waters, white sand and blood-red rocks had mothered her where her own mother had slipped beyond memory. Japan’s wars felt very far away.
Suddenly Broome didn’t feel safe. Not when her brother was staring at her like a stranger.
He grabbed her wrist. His fingers unforgiving as handcuffs, he dragged her through the melee and into the night.
Kimiko tripped after him, struggling to lift his fingers from her arm. Her mouth bone-dry.
He didn’t once look at her. Just kept dragging, his free hand clenched into a fist. Jiro, who never drank, who never visited brothels.
“Jiro,” she pleaded, her words wobbly with tears, “Oniisan, please!” She pulled up the shoulder of her robe; it slipped down again. Jiro jerked her faster. “Jiro, you’re hurting me!”
Then a smack, a grunt. Jiro on the ground, another man pushing him into the dust.
“Don’t you dare touch her!”
Davidson.
Kimiko forgot to breathe.
Davison’s silhouette against the night sky blurred: two men leapt onto him. They forced his arms behind his back. Pinned him down. Held him still.
Jiro got up, touching his lip. He picked up a lantern. Studied him. Glanced at Kim. “Who is he?”
The others — his lugger crew-mates — searched Davidson’s pockets. Held out a wallet, notebook, papers.
Jiro read.
His glare snapped up.
His fist lashed out. Davidson staggered.
“Jiro!” Kimiko cried.
He held the notebook out. “Intelligence officer,” he hissed. Her breath caught. “Alien Surveillance.”
“A spy!” The crewmen’s grip loosened. But Jiro’s glare remained fixed.
“What do you want with my sister?” Jiro’s voice crawled towards him, dangerously soft.
Davidson grimaced. “Nothing, I …”
“What do you want with her?” Jiro’s words echoed i
nto the night.
“Jiro-san, sh,” the smaller crewmate breathed.
The ribbons of Jiro’s jaw muscle tightened. “You’re right, Toku. Not here.” He grabbed Kim’s arm. “Take him to the ship.”
“Let me go.” The whites of Davidson’s eyes glowed in the moonlight. “I was only worried for the girl. Kim–”
Jiro’s backhand stole his words.
Kimiko sagged. Davidson knew her name. Her real name. She had been under investigation, a menace to Australian security. The enemy.
Jiro took her hand. Shivering, Kimiko let herself be guided through the streets ‘til Jiro led her into their hut and latched the door.
His chest heaving, the rhythm of his anger slowing.
Kimiko collapsed into a chair. Her hands flitted over the robe’s hem. “You shouldn’t have hit him.”
Sweat leaked down Jiro’s temple. “He attacked me.”
“He was defending me!”
He stared. Her eyes dropped.
“Don’t believe them, imo-uto. They tell nothing but lies.”
His bitterness stung. This is not my brother, Kimiko thought, smelling the rum in his sweat. Her gaze rose half-way: his fist, still crisp.
“What has happened, Ani?” she whispered. She reached for his bloodied hand, caressing it with a corner of her robe. Still it held tight. Trembling. Her fingers unfurled his.
In the shell of his palm: the yellow pearl, like he’d plucked the moon from the sky.
“Oh, Jiro.”
Tears streaked her brother’s cheeks.
“She said… She said she couldn’t marry me.” A shaky breath. “The law says she wouldn’t be Australian anymore. She’d have to register.” Register as an alien, he meant, but pain closed his lips.
