Elianne

by Nunn, Judy

  She nodded a ‘yes’ with her mouth full of food and he started on his own ham and salad roll after which they lapsed into a companionable silence, chomping away together.

  ‘What an irony,’ he said after a while, ‘that Vesteys should prove your champion. I mean you of all people.’

  ‘Why me of all people?’

  ‘Your commitment to the cause,’ he said, taking a sip of his coffee, ‘you and Vesteys are pretty strange bedfellows, you have to agree.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Oh,’ he could see she was puzzled, ‘sorry, I presumed you knew.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘About Vesteys and the Gurindji Strike . . .’ She looked at him blankly and he went on to explain. ‘In 1966 two hundred Gurindji stockmen and house servants together with their families walked off the Wave Hill Cattle Station, one of Vesteys’ properties in the Northern Territory. They settled at a sacred site near Wattie Creek not far away and they’ve been there ever since, over two and half years now. You haven’t heard of this?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘no I haven’t.’

  ‘The strike was originally presumed to be about conditions,’ he continued. ‘Vesteys are notorious for denying their Aboriginal labour even the most basic of human rights, but the campaign is really far bigger than that. The Gurindji are after the return of their land, or at least part of it, and rightly so. Vesteys, like most of the big northern pastoralists, have deprived the local people of their hunting grounds and traditional way of life, leaving them no alternative but to accept work on the cattle stations, where they serve as cheap labour. The Gurindji have a particularly strong case in this instance. They petitioned the Governor General in 1967 and their claim was rejected, but they don’t intend to give up. And nor should they.’

  ‘How terrible,’ Kate said. She felt shockingly guilty. ‘I’m appalled that I didn’t know about all this.’

  ‘Don’t be. Most of Australia doesn’t. Besides, your work’s been based principally here. The Northern Territory’s a long way away.’

  ‘That’s no excuse, I should have known. And I certainly can’t accept funding from Vesteys now that I do.’

  ‘You most certainly can,’ he said emphatically, ‘in fact that’s exactly what you must do.’ She was about to protest, but he continued. ‘For goodness’ sake Kate, take their money and put it to good purpose. Get everything you can out of Vesteys – you’d be mad not to.’

  She looked so troubled that it was Frank’s turn to feel guilty. ‘Kate, please,’ he insisted, ‘if I’d known this was going to upset you I wouldn’t have said anything. I presumed that you knew, and I was only making conversation to take your mind off your worries anyway. Refusing funding from Vesteys would have no impact on the situation whatsoever. Please, please, don’t make any foolish decisions that could jeopardise your future. If you do, I’ll end up suffering guilt for the rest of my life.’

  She gave a wan smile. ‘Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?’

  ‘You promise me?’

  ‘I promise,’ she nodded, ‘principles out the window as of now.’

  Frank thought how forlorn she looked, how insecure and vulnerable, quite unlike the Kate Durham he knew, always so forthright and strong. He wanted to protect her, to gather her in his arms and kiss her and tell her that everything would be all right.

  ‘Do you need to talk, Kate?’ he said instead. ‘Do you need a shoulder?’

  ‘Nope.’ She took a swig of her coffee, which was by now cold and decidedly unpleasant. ‘No, really, I’m fine.’ How could she tell him about the emptiness of Christmas at Elianne without Neil? How could she tell him about her mother’s cupboard drinking and her father’s hideous moods and her younger brother, who’d been banished from the family home? Things were getting to Kate, but they were not things she could talk about.

  ‘Have you seen Planet of the Apes?’ he asked.

  The non sequitur surprised her. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Good, neither have I. Let’s go tonight. It’s on at the State,’ he added, knowing that he was offering an added incentive. Of all the cinemas in Sydney the gloriously ornate State Theatre was Kate’s favourite.

  ‘All right.’

  They sat in the first row of the dress circle, eating chocolate-coated ice creams and loving every minute of the Hollywood epic.

  ‘Now that’s what I call a movie,’ Frank said as they walked through the main atrium and out into the street. ‘You’ve got to admit, the Yanks know how to make them.’

  They strolled to the car, which was parked half a block away. ‘We’re off to the Cross now,’ he said, ‘we’re going to have supper at the B & B – all right by you?’

  ‘Sure, sounds fine.’ Kate allowed herself to be swept along by his plans, aware Frank was going out of his way to distract her from her worries. And it was working.

  ‘You seem a lot happier,’ he said as they sat by the windows at the Bourbon and Beefsteak, sipping wine and gazing out at the throngs revelling in the heady nightlife of Kings Cross on a Saturday.

  ‘Well I must admit I found it rather difficult to stay dismal,’ she said, ‘eating a chocolate ice cream and watching Planet of the Apes.’ She smiled gratefully and raised her glass to him. ‘Thank you, Frank.’

  ‘My pleasure.’

  After supper he drove her home.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee?’ she asked when he walked her to the front door.

  ‘No thanks.’ He would love to have come in for a coffee, but he wasn’t sure what it might lead to; he had a feeling it could be dangerous. ‘Think I’ll call it a night.’

  ‘Right you are. Thanks again, Frank, I had a lovely evening and I really am grateful.’ He was a tall man and Kate, although not short herself, was forced to stand on tiptoe in order to kiss his cheek. ‘You’re a very good friend,’ she said.

  It would have been impossible for him not to kiss her. As their lips met he guarded against any overt show of passion, but the desire was there – they both knew it – along with the tenderness.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said as they parted. ‘I’m really sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Yes, it should.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t be scared, Frank – I’m not. Good night.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Alan had opened his workshop in mid-April and by the start of the crushing season barely two months later word had spread that this young man knew his business. Now six months down the track the enterprise was proving an unmitigated success, particularly as Toft Brothers had become a regular client. Alan supplied spare parts and adaptations as required to Tofts, specialising in steel sprockets made to order for cane harvesters.

  His property in East Bundaberg appeared a bit of a shambles at first sight. It sat just across the Kennedy Bridge, which forded a small tributary of the Burnett River, and constituted a rather messy front yard, always littered with machinery, beyond which was an extensive workshop with modest living quarters above. The sign on the wire gates of the yard said in letters big and bold, DURHAM ENGINEERING and beneath in smaller letters Mechanical Harvesting Specialists. Alan had opted for the plural in the belief that it sounded more impressive and in the hope that the business would burgeon, as indeed it had. With orders pouring in it wouldn’t be long before he’d need to employ assistant fitters and turners, although for the moment he was enjoying working on his own.

  Stan the Man detested the fact that his son had chosen to use the family name. How dare the boy so presume! The sight aroused his anger whenever he was in town and drove past the place, but he never confronted Alan. He refused to speak to his son, even disappearing from the house on Sunday afternoons when Alan visited his mother.

  ‘It’s so surly and childish of him,’ Hilda would complain as she and Alan sat in the small drawing room taking afternoon tea, ‘but don’t worry, dear, he’ll get over it eventually.’

  Alan would nod as if he agreed, but he did not share hi
s mother’s confidence.

  Hilda had developed a strength of late, which had come about through the only true confrontation she had had with her husband during their twenty-six years of married life.

  ‘I have lost one son, Stanley,’ she had said defiantly when he’d tried to forbid Alan’s visits to Elianne, ‘I am not prepared to lose another. If you attempt to force this separation upon me I will leave you.’ Her boldness had shocked them both, particularly Hilda, and from that day on their relationship had undergone a subtle but distinct change. Stan had realised that, despite the fact he’d taken his wife for granted throughout their entire marriage, he did not dare lose her. And Hilda, in recognising her husband’s fear, had become empowered, just a little, sometimes even enough to risk annoying him.

  ‘Barbara told me at the bridge club the other day that Alan’s business is doing remarkably well,’ she said one morning. ‘You should be proud of him, Stanley.’

  ‘Don’t push me, woman,’ he growled before stomping away to his study. Stan was sick of being told he should be proud of his son. He’d heard the same thing again just the night before at the Burnett Club.

  ‘You must be proud of young Alan, Stan,’ Garnet Buss had said as they’d shared a couple of rounds at the bar. ‘What a clever young businessman he’s turned out to be.’

  Everyone offered the same hearty congratulations, Rob Black, Stewart Pettigrew, Carl Nielson and those others of Bundy’s elite business set who met at the Burnett Club. ‘I’ll bet you’re proud of your boy, Stan,’ they’d say. He knew why, of course. They’d commiserated with him over Neil for months, every one of them, and they were now trying to give him a boost. Well, it didn’t work. Alan’s success was no compensation for the loss of Neil. Alan’s success and above all his use of the Durham name for his business venture was a mockery to Neil’s memory.

  Nearly one year after the death of his eldest son, Stan was still blinded by grief, his pain as raw as ever.

  Despite working long hours, often from dawn until dusk, Alan led an active social life. He didn’t frequent the Burnett Club, respecting it as his father’s domain and wishing to avoid any possible unpleasantness, but the Burnett Club was hardly necessary in any event. The younger male set with whom he mingled, sons of prominent businessmen for the most part, were members of Apex.

  Apex was a club for young men aged eighteen to forty, its principal function being to raise funds for charity and perform good works for the community and the disadvantaged, none of which prevented its members from having a good time. They would meet once a fortnight in the upstairs dining room at Lewis Brothers Palais where, while discussing the club’s latest project, they would demolish enormous steaks. As no alcohol was permitted at an Apex meeting, they would liquor up beforehand at the Commercial Hotel, then after the meeting and the steaks they’d adjourn to ‘The Met’ just up the road, where they’d scoff back more beers. The Apex boys knew how to enjoy themselves.

  The highlight of Alan’s social existence, however, was Saturday night, which was always reserved exclusively for Paola. He saw her regularly during the week, in fact nearly every day. She worked as a filing clerk in the office of Wyper Brothers main emporium in Bourbong Street and during her one-hour lunch break she’d bring sandwiches to his workshop. She’d make them a pot of tea in the upstairs kitchen and sit chattering away happily while she watched him work – he never took more than a fifteen-minute break himself – and they would discuss what they’d do the following Saturday. Saturday nights were precious to them both. Occasionally they’d go out for an early dinner and then on to the pictures, but as a rule they preferred to go dancing, sometimes as far afield as the Bargara Surf Club, although more often than not it would be the Lewis Brothers Palais, which was closer to home.

  The Lewis Brothers Palais was above Harry Lewis’s Milk Bar in Bourbong Street. A set of stairs led up from the milk bar, at the top of which to the left was the dining room, famous for its steaks, where the Apex Club met each fortnight, and to the right was the Palais, which came alive every Saturday.

  A circular bandstand sat in the centre of the dance floor, a local band pumping out old favourites and popular songs of the day while dancers whirled all about them, graceful or frenzied dependent upon the choice of music. Doors led to a balcony overlooking the street where exhausted couples could take a breather now and then before returning to the fray. The Lewis Brothers Palais was a buzzy place for Bundy’s younger set on a Saturday night.

  After the dance, Alan would drive Paola home to Elianne and they’d share a final good-night kiss outside the Fiorellis’ cottage, Alan fighting to control his own passion and also hers, which threatened to further enflame him. Then he would return to town and his little flat in East Bundaberg.

  At first it had seemed strange not to stay at The Big House, odd indeed to feel like a visitor on the property that had been his childhood home. But he’d quickly grown to enjoy his independence. He loved the poky little flat above the workshop and the fact that the life he led was one totally of his own choosing, unaffected by the dictates of his father. It was a strangely double life too: only Paola knew the true contradictory nature of his existence. His friends from the Apex Club, Anglicans to a man, had no idea of his secret and the members of his family were most certainly unaware.

  Alan had embarked upon his conversion some months previously and was shortly to be accepted into the Catholic Church. He’d attended the requisite series of initiation classes with the priest at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church, he’d read his bible and catechism as instructed and had even attended Sunday-morning Mass on a number of occasions, although he’d been required to leave before Holy Communion as he couldn’t receive the Eucharist until he’d been officially welcomed into the fold.

  During the Mass he would sit alongside the Fiorelli clan, of which he was already considered a member. The families would drive into town and meet up outside the huge towering white stone edifice on the corner of Woongarra and Barolin Streets, its grand entrance marked by six stately Greek columns; and when they had all congregated, the brothers, their wives and their children would march into church together, the sheer force of their numbers a statement of their faith. Sunday Mass was of great importance to the Fiorellis.

  Alan often wondered, as they milled about outside the church in clear view of those gathering at Christ Church just down the road, whether one or more of his friends from Apex might spy him in the crowd. He wondered also whether reports had got back to his family. The idea did not in the least bother him for his family and friends were all destined to know at some stage, but he kept awaiting comment from one quarter or another. As yet, however, there had been none. Perhaps people don’t see what they don’t expect to see, he thought. And with his dark hair he probably looked like one of the extended Fiorelli family anyway, a notion that he found immensely pleasing.

  The conversion exercise itself had had little effect upon Alan. He remained a non-believer at heart, which made him feel something of a fraud, but the importance of the Fiorelli connection could not be underestimated. He loved Paola as deeply as it was possible to love and he also loved her family. If being accepted into the church and following its practises made him one of them, then so be it.

  Paola knew her fiancé had not embraced the faith and from time to time she teased him about it. ‘You’re a terrible phoney, Alan,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘I am.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she added in all seriousness.

  ‘I want to,’ he said, ‘I want to do everything that pleases your family. If they were Buddhists I’d become a monk.’

  She laughed. ‘That’d make our marriage interesting,’ she said. Then she gave a mock frown. ‘You’d better watch the blasphemy though: you’re about to face baptism and Communion, which is a pretty daunting prospect.’ Paola’s teasing was nothing more than a cover. She couldn’t find the right words to express how touched she was that he should go to such le
ngths for her and her family.

  ‘I’ll manage,’ he replied with an easy shrug. ‘And just think, by the time we get married I’ll have been a good practising Catholic for a whole year. That’ll impress your dad no end.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied a little distractedly, ‘it will.’

  Paola was shortly to turn twenty and they planned to marry the following year after her twenty-first birthday. But Paola didn’t want to wait another whole twelve months. In fact Paola wasn’t sure if she could. Already she was wondering how she might go about changing the course of events. No one was receptive to her suggestions that perhaps they could speed up the process. Everyone including Alan himself seemed prepared to wait until she was twenty-one. ‘I promised your father,’ Alan would say, albeit reluctantly, and she would spend hours lying in her sleepless bed staring into the black hole of night, pondering a course of action. She must be bold, she knew that much.

  She decided to carry out her plan on the Saturday following his baptism and Communion, which marked his official acceptance into the Catholic Church. The timing seemed right, although she wasn’t quite sure why.

  ‘Let’s go to Bargara this Saturday afternoon,’ she said lingering over the second half of her curried egg sandwich (he’d already scoffed his down and was back at his workbench). ‘I could make us up a picnic lunch.’

  ‘Sure, if that’s what you’d like – sounds good to me.’

  ‘Don’t come and collect me though,’ she said, ‘I’ll get the bus into town. It’ll save time.’ Paola had Saturdays off, but Alan always worked through until at least midday.

  ‘Rightio, but don’t bother packing picnic stuff, we’ll grab some fish and chips, easier that way.’

  She arrived carrying a shoulder bag stuffed with swimming togs, hat, beach towel, after-swim robe and a miscellany of other items that from the size of the bag appeared quite unnecessary.

  ‘Crikey, you’ve come prepared,’ he said. Alan had his togs on under his shorts and a towel slung over his shoulder.