Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  Then Angie’s heart skipped a beat. She heard someone shout, ‘There he is!’

  She watched in disbelief as Freddie walked slowly towards the mob and stood before them, silhouetted against the fire. There was a moment of unnerving silence except for the crackling of the flames and the ghostly music of the dying piano. Then the voices began again: ‘Spy!’ ‘Saboteur!’ ‘Your girl killed Master Robbie!’ ‘You’ve been poisoning the spring water!’

  ‘Shame on you!’ she heard her father bellow at them, his voice loud in the crisp night air. The mob fell silent again. Freddie continued: ‘We are not your enemies! We are your neighbours. We have lived and worked with you for years. How can you say these lies?’

  Angie heard small stones flying through the air. Someone must have scooped up a handful of gravel from the driveway. Her father’s back was still turned to her but she saw him flinch as the stones struck him on the temple. She wanted to cry out ‘Stop!’ and run to his aid, but her limbs had melted like candle wax and her throat clamped shut. She was in the grip of pure icy terror, her whole body convulsed with the shock of it, her heart enormous in her chest.

  Another voice called out, one she recognised. It was Benedict, chubby Benedict who had chased balloons across the lawn on Robbie’s birthday.

  ‘Your Hun friends have killed Jacko. Did you know that? Jacko’s dead!’

  Angie saw Freddie stagger under this blow. His shoulders slumped and she heard a sound unlike anything she had heard before, a high, keening wail, escape her father’s lips. Jacko had been the youngest of his ‘boys’, and his favourite.

  Freddie stood, head hanging down, arms lifeless. More stones came pinging through the air and cut Freddie’s face but he barely moved. The crowd began to advance, fists raised, some clutching kerosene lamps and torches, angry voices chanting: ‘Murderer! Hun-lover! You killed Jacko!’

  Without warning, the stillness of the night sky was split by the thunderclap of a rifle blast. The mob startled and froze, its chant dying away. A new voice rang out, an unmistakeable voice of authority. ‘STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!’

  Angie saw a figure on the terrace walking briskly towards the crowd. It was carrying a gun which still smoked from the discharge. The figure walked into the firelight and she knew at once it was Mr Fox.

  ‘How dare you! How dare you!’ Fox raged at the astonished crowd. He came a step closer but did not lower the gun. ‘This is a disgrace! Look at yourselves! What have you become? A kangaroo court? A rabble? Believe me, I share your grief and anger at this war, which is why I agreed to sacrifice this piano, donated by an armaments manufacturer whose guns now rain down death on our boys. But I will not stand by and watch a gross act of cowardice. I will not!’ His voice was steady and clear. ‘Any of my employees still on this lawn in the next five minutes will be dismissed instantly. The rest of you can answer to this.’ He levelled the rifle at the crowd. ‘Now get off my property!’

  The mob dispersed quickly. Fox waited until they had all gone before approaching Freddie and saying in a calm but commanding voice, ‘Go home, Freddie. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  And with that, he turned and walked back to his hotel.

  The following morning, there was a knock on the cottage door. Freddie opened it to find Mr Fox, immaculate in a silk necktie and dove-grey suit, standing with his walking stick in his right hand. ‘I hope I am not too early. For a Saturday.’

  Freddie and Mr Fox sat and had tea in the kitchen. Angie had been sent to her room but listened at the keyhole to the lowered voices. She heard her father express his thanks to Mr Fox for intervening the previous night. ‘I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t arrived,’ Freddie said. ‘I feared for Angie and for the cottage.’

  ‘This war has changed people and not for the better.’ Fox sighed. There was a long pause. ‘Please listen to me, Freddie. I have something very difficult to say. You are one of my longest-serving, most loyal members of staff. I hired you myself. But, under the circumstances, I have to let you go. I’m sorry but my hands are tied.’

  The storeman said nothing.

  ‘The fact is most of the staff of the Palace have threatened to go on strike if I keep any Germans on my payroll,’ Mr Fox explained. ‘Wells and Hawthorne came to see me with their demands a week ago. I said I would consider my position.’

  Angie listened in disbelief.

  ‘I could sack them all of course but I think that would destroy the hotel.’ Mr Fox coughed apologetically, perhaps aware that this might not be Freddie’s main concern right now. ‘But I have another problem. The military intelligence officers have identified you and your family as a public threat, especially after Freya’s confrontation with Mrs Wells. The local branch of the Anti-German League wrote to the federal member, the mayor and the district commander. It’s ridiculous I know but . . .’

  Mr Fox sighed again then continued, ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Freddie. I’m letting Muntz go as well, but I’m going to try to keep Dr Liebermeister. Without the doctor, I will be forced to close the clinic. I may not succeed in keeping him but I have to show I am willing to cooperate with the authorities. I tell you these things because I believe you deserve the truth. But the fact is your future is now out of my hands. I have been informed that the military are going to arrest you as soon as they have a warrant. I’m deeply sorry, Freddie. But, to be honest, I think you’ll be safer in an internment camp until this has all blown over. I hear the camps are well-run and properly guarded. And I promise there will be a job for you here when this war ends and everyone comes to their senses. Sooner rather than later, I hope.’

  There was another silence.

  Mr Fox finally went on, ‘In the meantime I want you to persuade Freya to rent a house near the camp so she can visit you regularly. The government will pay her an allowance for food and other necessities while you are interned but I will help her with the rent. I think last night proved it is no longer safe here for her or your daughter. I will make sure no harm comes to this cottage in your absence.’

  Angie heard her father clear his throat. His voice was hoarse as he said, ‘Thank you, sir. You have always been kind to our family.’

  Mr Fox and Freddie spoke for a while longer, mostly about practical matters, such as where Mr Fox would find another storeman, before Angie heard the flyscreen door of the cottage close behind them as the two men left for the hotel. She came out from her room. The smell of Adam Fox’s hair oil lingered in the air. Angie stood at the front door of the cottage for what seemed an eternity, watching the parrots clowning about in the trees.

  The following morning, two soldiers arrived early with a warrant to arrest Freddie Wood as ‘a dangerous person of hostile origin and association’. They carried rifles with fixed bayonets and behaved as if Freddie might attack them at any minute. Freddie explained that his wife was returning by train from Sydney that evening and he wished to say goodbye to her. Also, who would look after his daughter until then? The lieutenant leered at Angie. ‘She looks old enough to look after herself to me.’ He refused to come back later and the two officers stood guard outside Freddie’s bedroom to keep an eye on him as he packed a few belongings in a canvas bag and wrote a short note.

  ‘You won’t need much,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Holsworthy has all the modern luxuries a prisoner-of-war needs.’

  Angie thought her heart would break as she hugged her father goodbye. Freddie held on to her tightly until the lieutenant gave him a nudge with his rifle butt.

  ‘Come on, grandad, we have a train to catch.’

  Freddie kissed his daughter one last time. ‘Promise me you’ll be brave. And look after your mother. I’ll write to you every day and see you soon.’

  The second officer picked up Freddie’s bag and slung it over his shoulder while the lieutenant took out a set of handcuffs and ordered Freddie to put his hands behind his back.

  ‘Why is this necessary?’ Freddie protested.

  ‘It’s military procedure, g
randad. Get used to it,’ the lieutenant said as he clicked on the bracelets.

  Angie tried not to cry when they marched Freddie out the front gate and bundled him into a waiting truck. She recognised a familiar face in the dark interior where several men sat in despair and shock. It was Chef Muntz, his chin unshaved, his eyes glazed; she had never seen this proud, fastidious man in such a state. He did not look in her direction; his attention was focused far away.

  Angie stood on the roadside and watched her father’s pale face as it receded into the distance. She turned to go back into the garden and saw a figure standing in the portico of the hotel, dressed all in white.

  It was Adelina Fox.

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  Angie

  Meadow Springs, September–October 1916

  Angie waited on the cottage steps all day. There was still the smell of burning wood from where the Bechstein had been immolated and the memories of that night played in her mind like some lurid silent movie. Again and again, she saw Fox step into the firelight just in time to stop the mob. To stop it doing what? Killing her father? Burning down the cottage? Was any of this possible?

  She looked at the tranquil garden. The white bell-like tubes of beard-heath perfumed the air with their light scent. The underbrush was speckled with bright yellow ‘bacon and egg’ pea flowers and pale pink orchids. Sunlight flickered through curtains of she-oak needles as they stirred in the breeze. Following their ragged aerial ballet, butterflies coupled on sunny rocks. The bush rustled with the swift dashes of copper skinks chasing each other through the grass.

  Angie lost all sense of time. Hours seemed to pass as she watched a handsome satin bowerbird in his glossy midnight blue-black plumage do his courtly dance for the green female he had lured into his bower of twigs and reeds. He hopped back and forth, flicking his wings and using his bill to pick up and flaunt the finest items from his collection of blue treasures: glass beads, a shirt button, flower petals, a pencil stub, even specks of cobalt pigment he had purloined from her mother’s studio. But all his efforts came to nothing. Unimpressed by his display, the female left the bower and took wing.

  Angie would turn thirteen in a few weeks, the same age as Robbie when he died. She wondered if she would ever find someone to love and cherish her. Her quiet protector at school, Simon, was sweet and chivalrous and she was grateful for his reassuring presence, but she couldn’t reward his devotion to her in the way he would have probably liked. She had squeezed his hand a couple of times and bestowed a single chaste kiss on his cheek when he beat up Micky Shales, but he was a simple farm boy from Hartley and Angie still yearned for a gallant knight in a well-cut suit and necktie. She wanted a gentleman of quality and standing to swear an oath of love to her and make her his rich wife. Like Adelina Fox. That childish fantasy seemed more remote than ever, given the way her life was about be ripped apart. She might have to settle for a kindly protector like Simon. Much as Angie loved her father, Freddie, she could see that her clever and cosmopolitan mother had made a similar hard choice.

  She ate a light lunch, leaving two eggs, three rashers of bacon and the heel of a loaf of bread for a simple supper with her mother. As dusk descended and the garden grew dark and chilly, she felt intensely lonely. Listening to the melancholy music of the currawongs – their throaty gargled notes swooping through the gum branches overhead as the shadows lengthened – Angie was struck with a sudden dizzying fear that she might never see this beautiful garden ever again. She had promised her father she would be brave – for his and her mother’s sake – but she was still in shock at how quickly her familiar world had been snatched away.

  The moment that Angie dreaded would soon be upon her. How would her mother bear the cruelty of Freddie’s sudden absence, the lost opportunity to say goodbye?

  Freya arrived from the railway station as the moon rose, bright and full, over the valley. Angie was curled up on the wicker chair on the veranda, wrapped in a woollen shawl, half dozing. The night’s vast silence was interrupted only by the cackle of tree frogs and violin-saw of crickets in the distance

  ‘They’ve taken him already, haven’t they?’ Freya was dry-eyed, her voice dull and hard.

  Angie woke from her half-slumber and ran to her mother. Freya took her in her arms and hugged her, stiffly and reluctantly at first but then with a fierceness that Angie had never felt before. They both wept, great sobs racking their chests, clutching at each other like two survivors of a shipwreck washed up on a deserted shore.

  They spoke little that night and the following day, too deep in shock to say much more than small words of reassurance, love and comfort. The following night, as Freya prepared supper, Angie asked her mother what she planned to do. ‘I heard Mr Fox tell Papa that he would help us rent a house near the camp.’

  Freya dismissed the idea with a laugh. ‘I’m not falling for that.’ This was the same man, she reminded her daughter, who had persuaded the New South Wales government to change the name of the town and managed to sell foul-tasting imported water as an expensive curative elixir. He had sponsored a national Olympics hero, donated magnanimously to local charities and council works, supported the campaigns of councillors and MPs and pledged large sums towards war loans. He had powerful and influential friends in Melbourne and Sydney.

  ‘He could have done more to protect your father, but he chose not to,’ she told Angie as she served up their supper. ‘He had to show off his patriotism to fanatics like Mrs Wells to keep the staff and the local community on side. At least he was honest about the fact he traded Freddie and Chef Muntz to keep the doctor. Don’t you see, Angie? He sacrificed your father to save his hotel. That’s what he saved!’

  Freya was working herself into a rage. The last two years had stamped deeper worry lines on her mother’s face and added silver strands to her hairline but she still had the fiery energy of a much younger woman; Angie wished Freddie was here to mollify Freya as only he knew how. It was exhausting – and, at a time like this, frightening – to see her mother’s anger consume her so utterly.

  ‘You don’t know him like I do!’ cried Freya, her eyes ablaze. ‘Men like Adam Fox are not knights in shining armour. They are cold and calculating men of business. They only ever do something if it benefits them!’

  Angie had had enough. ‘Of course I don’t know anything. How could I? All my life, you’ve made sure I never knew what was going on!’ She retreated to her bedroom and slammed the door.

  ‘Only to protect you. Don’t you understand?’ shouted Freya.

  ‘And hasn’t that turned out well!’ Angie shot back.

  ‘Come here and eat your supper!’ Freya grabbed the door handle and was about to wrench it open, when, as if on cue, they both heard the crashing of glass.

  Angie screamed as shards and splinters rained onto her bed and bookcase. She saw a rock about the size of her fist on the floor. It had a sheet of paper wrapped around it, tied with string. It was a miracle it had not hit her.

  Angie flung the bedroom door open and fell into her mother’s arms, weeping.

  ‘Oh my God! Why do they hate us so much? I’m so scared.’

  There was a second explosion of glass in the parlour followed by a third in her parents’ bedroom at the back of the cottage. Now both Angie and Freya screamed in terror.

  Mother and daughter huddled under the table where Freya had just laid supper, their hands covering their faces in case more glass came flying into the room.

  In the dark outside they could hear voices calling to each other, laughing and yelling, and the sound of boots on the road, growing more distant. There were at least two, maybe three or more, young men, guessed Angie. Was it Micky Shales and the boys from school? Or was it someone else entirely?

  She knew better than to ask her mother to call the police. It was people like Senior Constable Robertson who had helped get their father locked up in the first place.

  They brought the three projectiles into the parlour and laid the
m on the table gingerly as if they were live shells. All three – two rocks and a half-brick – were wrapped in paper, secured with string. Freya reluctantly spread out the notes and read them. ‘YOU HUNS MURDERED ROBBIE FOX AND ALL OUR YOUNG MEN.’ ‘GO BACK TO GERMANY AND YOUR BELOVED KAISER.’ ‘THIS IS A WARNING – GET OUT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.’

  The two women did not sleep a wink that night.

  Adam Fox appeared in the garden the following afternoon.

  Freya was in the parlour, going over some bills. Angie had just got home from school and was in her bedroom doing homework. She told her mother how Simon punched Micky Shales in the nose for tormenting her about Freddie being locked up ‘as a dirty Hun spy’. It was obvious that the entire village knew their shameful secret.

  Fox saw the broken windows, patched with old tarpaulins, as he approached the cottage. ‘I see you’ve had some visitors,’ he said as Freya came out onto the veranda.

  ‘A couple of local louts showing off,’ said Freya breezily. ‘Nothing we can’t handle.’

  ‘Can I come in for a cup of tea?’ Fox leaned on his walking stick. ‘I have something I want to discuss.’

  Except for the visit following the night of the burning piano, Adam Fox had not set foot on the cottage side of the hedge since the day of Robbie’s death. It was as if the cottage and Freya and her daughter no longer existed, banished from his mind as phantasms of a sweeter, more innocent past that had transmogrified into a source of unending pain. Fox’s world now finished at the high hedge; everything beyond it was veiled in shadow. This was the mental barrier Fox had managed to erect for his own sanity and it took an effort of will to keep it intact.