Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  Wendy was her usual bright self and Mrs Kalbfell formally polite, with her old man contributing very little – an occasional grunt or ‘pass the salt’, so that Wendy glanced at me several times, one eyebrow slightly raised.

  ‘Tell us about your latest visit to Government House, Jacko. When you had morning tea with Lady Cross,’ she asked mischievously.

  Once again she’d saved my life. This was something I could stretch out and tell in a light-hearted way that would get my part of the conversation over with, and at the same time reduce the tension I felt. Moreover, it balanced things up a bit. If I was good enough to be invited to have tea with the governor’s wife . . .

  With Wendy promoting me and urging me on, the good doctor grunting and Mrs Kalbfell asking pouty-mouthed questions, unable to restrain her curiosity, we managed to get through lunch passably well.

  Directly after lunch Wendy grabbed a small canvas bag with her things. We got the bikes out of the garage and hit the road. It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at the shack.

  Because of the busy weekday traffic forcing us to ride single file, we hadn’t been able to talk on the way. Now Wendy wanted to know exactly what had happened in her father’s study. I was determined not to exaggerate or get overexcited, but to give it to her blow by blow as it had transpired. That way I wouldn’t be putting my own agenda forward. I remember we were sitting on an old leather couch, Wendy leaning against me with my arm around her shoulders so I couldn’t really see her face. In a strange way this was good. Through the shack window I could see a wide stretch of the river with a small brush fire on the far shore sending up a steady twist of smoke into the pewter-coloured mid-afternoon sky. I could concentrate on the smoke and on what I was saying without having to react to her expressions. When I got to the bribe she gasped, and grabbed my hand. ‘Oh, Jacko!’ was all she said, but for poor Wendy it was downhill all the way from there. When I got to Bluey Walsh and the napalm she could contain her emotions no longer, and began to howl. I pulled her towards me and held her while she had a good cry. ‘I’m sorry, Wendy, perhaps I should have left that part out.’

  ‘No, Jacko – you mustn’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I must know . . . everything.’ She was a bit of a mess by the time I’d related the entire conversation with her father, and I simply held her in my arms and rocked her. We had a fair bit to sort out between us and there was still a good part of the afternoon left, as it was only just past mid-summer and the sun didn’t set until much later. ‘C’mon, let’s take the dinghy and see if we can catch supper. You make a thermos of tea and I’ll go dig for river worms.’ I knew she’d want a little time on her own to regain her composure. Wendy wasn’t one to cry at the drop of a hat, and she was feeling pretty miserable.

  We fished for a while and although I didn’t even get so much as a nibble she caught a couple of small salmon just the right size for our dinner. ‘What about us, Jacko?’ Wendy asked at last.

  ‘That’s the question I haven’t been game to ask, Wend,’ I said, trying to smile.

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Wendy, you know I do, more than I can say. I can’t bear the idea of you not being with me. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Well, your dad’s right. I have nothing to offer you – I don’t even have a job yet!’

  ‘I can feel the little house with the white picket fence and two nice kids coming on,’ she said, grinning. ‘Jacko, can’t you see – it’s you I want. Romantically silly as that sounds, we’ll work out the rest.’

  I looked at this most beautiful creature sitting alongside me in the dinghy. Even though her eyes were still a bit puffed-up from crying, she was exquisite. She had a river worm in one hand and a hook in the other and her wonderful green eyes looked at me in a way that, had I been standing, would have made me weak at the knees. Thirty-odd years later she still has the same effect on me. ‘Wendy, will you marry me?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask, Jack McKenzie,’ she said, suddenly laughing. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  She said yes. Overjoyed, I dropped what was in my hands and threw my arms around her and held her tight. Not wanting the moment to end, eventually the question had to be asked. ‘What about your parents?’

  Wendy gave a sigh of despair then a tiny shrug. ‘Daddy’s an alcoholic and Mummy’s a dreadful snob – both conditions are very difficult to cure. I wish she’d leave him, but she won’t. You see, she came from a very poor family and being a doctor’s wife is important.’

  ‘You mean my kind of family?’

  ‘She should have been so lucky. Both her parents were alcoholics, and her father interfered with her.’

  ‘She told you all this?’ I was surprised. People like us didn’t talk about things like that, particularly if we’d managed to escape as Wendy’s mum obviously had.

  ‘No, of course not. I found out from her sister who lives in Burnie. I was on a publicity tour there as Miss Tasmania. She came to see me at my hotel.’

  ‘And she told you about your mum?’

  ‘No, not at first. She’d simply come to congratulate me – something good happening in the family, she said. I remember we were together for an hour or so and Agnes smoked twelve cigarettes. I counted them in the ashtray after she’d left.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Quite nice – very nervous.’

  ‘Did you recognise her? She look like your family?’

  ‘Certainly. She was younger than Mum, but looked older – very thin and worn out. I still write to her, and I’ve seen her several times. Her husband Cec is an alcoholic, and both her kids have been in trouble with the police.’

  ‘What’s he do?’

  She laughed. ‘He’s a fisherman.’

  ‘His surname isn’t Kelly, is it?’

  ‘No, Drummond. So you see, the swanky Kalbfells are not entirely what they seem.’

  ‘What I can see very clearly is why your mum is panicking over having someone like me in the family.’ Wendy didn’t reply, deep in thought. She had completed baiting her hook. ‘C’mon that’s enough,’ I laughed. ‘Let’s go back to the hut and make passionate love, after that I’ll cook your hard-earned fish for supper, sir . . . er, madam!’

  ‘No, Jacko. I want to tell you about Harry.’ She put down her rod and reached for the thermos.

  ‘Wendy, you don’t have to. I don’t believe what your father said was true about me being the backlash because of Harry.’

  Wendy gave me a grateful look, and handed me the mug of still-steaming tea. ‘It was Harry’s idea to join K Force. It wasn’t the other way around – us having a row, me ditching him and him going off to fight in Korea. I just wanted you to know it was over between Harry and me before he left.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t just run away without telling anyone?’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s just Daddy’s version.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me, darling.’ I was having trouble with the word ‘darling’ – not that I didn’t like it. I did, a lot – it was just that, well . . . it sounded pluralistic, like I wasn’t alone any longer.

  At last a bite, and moments later I landed a cod much too small for the pan. ‘C’mon, stupid, let’s go before I’m tempted to throw you back as well,’ Wendy said, grabbing the oars and laughing. I unhooked the little fish and placed it carefully back into the river, where it floated motionless for a moment, then, with a flick of its tail, disappeared in a flash of silver.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Look Where the Sun Don’t Shine

  Australia Will Continue to Keep Door Shut

  COLOURED PEOPLES NOT WANTED

  (From Our Correspondent)

  canberra, mar 26

  IMMIGRAT ION Minister Harold Holt is convinced that Asian people understand Australia’s restrictive immigration policy.

  He said in Melbourne yesterday that Government would continue to ‘Keep the door shut’ to coloured peoples.

  Mr Holt was answering Lord Hardwi
cke, who said the Sydney Government could stop the drift from farms to the cities by permitting the controlled entry of coloured farm and domestic workers.

  He added that the ‘White Australia Policy’ was an affront to all coloured nations.

  SUPPORTED BY ALL

  ‘Australia’s policy of restricted immigration,’ said Mr Holt, is supported by all political parties and classes of the country. The policy laid down was in the interests of Australia and no government found any reason to alter it. ‘Realistic people understand its importance to Australia’s economic and social needs.’ Mr Holt added that Australia’s birthrate was climbing steadily. Half a million were born in the last three years. A record number of British migrants were arriving and immigration from non-British countries was at a high level.

  Lord Hardwicke, who is visiting Australia in connection with a commercial flotation, emphasised that he was expressing his own views, which did not represent the attitude of the British Government.

  ELBOURNEDAILY NEWS, 26 March 1954

  You can imagine how distressed we all felt. Here was Harold Holt spelling things out loud and clear, and his meaning was unmistakable – his government, and the Labor opposition for that matter, wasn’t going to budge an inch. If a bigwig like Lord Hardwicke could be rebuked in such a blatant manner, then what hope had we? We still hadn’t heard anything from Zara Holt after her initial telephone call to Lady Cross. The fact that Jimmy’s visitor’s visa had been renewed had raised our hopes tremendously, but now they were dashed again.

  And then, out of the blue, a telegram arrived for Jimmy – and for once Busta Gut was prompt with the delivery.

  SUGGEST WE MEET APRIL 5 AT ARMY PERSONNEL DEPOT LAUNCESTON RE YOUR REQUEST DEPT IMMIGRATION STOP SPONSORS MAY ATTEND STOP PLEASE CONFIRM TEL. MELBOURNE MXY 440 OR BY TELEGRAM STOP COL MARK STONE STOP ARMY HEADQUARTERS VICTORIA BARRACKS MELBOURNE

  Jimmy made a trunk call to Army Headquarters and a time for eleven forty-five a.m. was agreed. We – that is, Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, myself and of course Jimmy – caught the Douglas DC3 to Launceston and arrived with an hour to spare. We took the bus into town and picked up Wendy, whom Mr Walsh had permitted to come along. ‘The presence of a pretty woman can’t do any harm,’ he remarked.

  When I suggested to Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan that Wendy wanted to come she thought it a good idea. ‘Older women like me can be seen as viragos in a situation such as this one; Wendy will ameliorate my presence.’ Of course, she was incapable of simply saying, ‘Yeah, that would be good’, so there was Wendy ameliorating her presence.

  Wendy and I had become engaged, not secretly but in a very low-key fashion – no ring or anything, that would have to wait. We made the news public when we returned from the fishing shack, just before her parents were due to go on on their cruise to New Zealand. It was news they definitely didn’t want to hear, and they postponed their trip. Wendy wasn’t the kind of person who went around defying her parents, so they knew she meant business. Dr Kalbfell threatened to throw her out and Wendy’s mum stayed in her bedroom for days refusing to come out. It was an awkward time, with Gloria and our family over the moon and hers sulking and recalcitrant.

  In the end Wendy had packed her suitcase and gone to stay with the Walsh family, which made her mum and dad change their attitude in a hurry. Wendy, it turned out, had always been the peacemaker in the family, negotiating the way through her father’s drinking and her mother’s moods, which Wendy described as becoming much worse as she got older so you never knew what state she’d be in when you got home. ‘Sometimes she’ll just burst into tears and weep hysterically, and at other times she’ll stay in a huff for days,’ she explained. Dr Kalbfell put her on sedatives but she complained that they made her woozy. She told Wendy that she believed he was prescribing sedatives so she wouldn’t go on about his drinking.

  The Walsh family loved having Wendy staying with them, although I know she felt guilty about being away from home. When her parents ate humble pie and visited her at the chemist shop to ask her to return, she made a deal with them: she’d come home if they’d stay away from the subject of her engagement. It was a compromise but not a solution, and it can’t have been pleasant. Even avoiding the issue resulted in a lot of tension. Years later she would tell me how her father would get drunk and come to her locked bedroom door late at night, all worked up, and bang his fists against the door and shout, ‘I demand you get rid of that cretinous little albino bastard!’

  When she told me she made it sound funny. I said, ‘Well, I’ve been an albino when I was also an Aborigine – but I’m definitely not a bastard, and have a birth certificate to prove it.’

  Typically, she hadn’t told me any of this at the time it was happening – how her father would eventually stop raving and grow morbid and start to weep, sitting with his back against her door sniffing and mumbling drunkenly, drinking straight from a bottle of Johnnie Walker until he passed out. At one o’clock in the morning she’d open the door and, taking him by the legs, pull him along the hallway to her parents’ bedroom, where she would roll him onto the bedside carpet, place a pillow under his head and throw a quilt over him. Meanwhile her mum was oblivious to all this, zonked out on the sleeping pills he’d prescribed for her.

  Of course, getting married in a hurry was out of the question. We were as poor as church mice, and until I had a steady income I had no way of supporting us. Wendy was perfectly willing to continue working, but there were very few, if any, suitable jobs for women on the island, so we wouldn’t even have the prospect of her salary. Life was complicated further by the plans Jimmy and I had made, now placed on the backburner while we waited to see what would happen to him.

  We were both working as casual deckhands on the boats, making ourselves available if regular crew were sick or, as was more often the case, drunk. But Jimmy had to watch out for the Fisheries inspectors because he wasn’t supposed to work with a visitor’s visa. Temporary labour paid poorly, and certainly what I earned as a deckhand wasn’t sufficient to support a wife.

  At best I was getting back into fishing after all these years, getting the rust out of my system, while Jimmy was learning the cray-fishing game from scratch. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to stay in Australia we would have to give up our immediate plans and go elsewhere. I’d spoken about New Guinea, where the colour of a man’s skin wasn’t a problem and the two of us could start something together. The prospect of our parting company was unthinkable. So this was yet another complication, one with which Wendy and I hadn’t really come to terms. Until we knew for sure what was going to happen to Jimmy we were in limbo, and naturally she was anxious to be a part of whatever was going to happen to the two of us.

  Colonel Stone looked to be in his mid-forties, his dark hair starting to go grey at the sides. He was a fit-looking bloke and greeted us cordially in what passed as a reception area at the depot. He’d ordered tea and a coffee for Jimmy and when I pointed to his Korea ribbon and asked him where he’d been, he immediately apologised. ‘Mr McKenzie, the closest I got to the big stoush was landing on Korean soil on two separate occasions to sort out a problem between the high command in Japan and one of the field commanders. I was posted to military headquarters in Japan as a staff officer and my frequent requests for a job in the field were ignored. That’s the problem with the permanent forces – you join up to be a fighting man and you end up pushing a pen.’

  But I could see he’d done his bit. In addition to a string of World War II campaign ribbons he had been awarded the Military Cross. ‘By the way, this is not the first time I’ve come across you, sir,’ he said to me, with a hint of a smile.

  ‘Me?’ I asked, surprised.

  He nodded. ‘It was when you and a few mates “escaped to the front” and joined the Americans at the beginning of the war, afraid it would all be over before you could fire a shot.’

  I groaned, making a face, then asked, ‘But how were you involved, sir?’

  ‘Well, the assistant provost m
arshal in Japan wanted to make an example of you lot. You will recall he sent a contingent of military police to fetch you and your mates and bring you back to Japan.’

  I nodded. ‘We were . . .’ I was going to say ‘shitting our pants’, but caught myself in time, ‘. . . bloody terrified we were going to be court-martialled.’

  ‘That was precisely what the assistant provost marshal had in mind. He had already prepared the charge sheets and wasn’t too pleased when Colonel Green, your battalion commander, took the matter into his own hands.’

  ‘What a great bloke Green was. And a great soldier. Why do the good blokes always have to die?’

  I’d told Wendy and Jimmy the story of our escape to the front, and Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had followed it in the newspaper. In fact, I was to learn that she had been the major source of most of Gloria’s clippings for her war journal, ordering the clippings of the war coverage from the Gazette’s cutting service on the mainland and handing them to Mum. But I’d only told Jimmy the story of the death of Colonel Green, so I briefly explained it to the others. ‘We were in reserve with battalion headquarters deployed in a spot safe from artillery fire in the lea of a ridge line when a freak shell bounced off the hilltop and spun into a tree. A piece of shrapnel from the exploding shell ripped through the tent where Colonel Green was taking an afternoon nap, slicing through his abdomen.’ Everyone, including Colonel Stone, winced at the thought of a sharp slice of red-hot metal going straight through your body.

  ‘Yes, well the assistant provost marshal wasn’t all that pleased with Colonel Green’s decision and complained to the commander-in-chief of Commonwealth forces. I was told to investigate and sort it out. In the end I persuaded the assistant provost marshal that because enthusiasm to fight rather than the reverse was the motivation for the offence, no lasting harm had been done to army discipline, so Charlie Green had done the right thing to deal with it himself.’