Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) Page 15
After reading the article and drinking several cups of tea in silence Robert starts a fresh page in his notebook. He calculates the strength of the New Zealand Army based on the exact numbers of Class I, II and III recruits. He says with this information it should be possible to capture the war as an equation. Except there is a lot of supposing about the strength and intelligence of the Axis and even about the Allies. Can we assume a Frenchman, Brit or an Aussie will have the same brains as a New Zealander? It all seems irrelevant to me. Each of them will have the same capacity for death. But as he sits hunched over his calculations I am relieved that he’s doing something, that he’s been released for a while from the frozen state. No agriculture is underway on the farm – neither scientific nor plain everyday. The fences are falling into disrepair. Since the last baking test Robert has divided his time between the caravan and the house. Some days he heads off on the tractor with the caravan hitched behind, others he slouches around from room to room, returning eventually to the kitchen.
I walk to the river each morning. I like the quiet of the farm without the machines at work. The crop has started to push through of its own accord. Wheat seed that has lain dormant from the past is threaded with the native wallaby grass Robert so derided on the train. I wonder how many of the tiny heads I would need to collect to bake a loaf? And what it would taste of, the true bread of ancient Australia? If I am walking barefoot I pick out the silvery stems to stand on – they are much softer than the sharp wheat stems, like lengths of strong cotton. When I retrace my steps on my way back the crushed stems have already risen again, as if I had never been through.
Sometimes when I return to the house Robert has done some work that was rightly mine – swept the floors or washed the tea towels and hung them in precise formation on the line. I feel as if I am returning to a ship with her flags flying the alert.
On 14 May we go into town to see the train. Most of the district goes – but of course we have a special interest. It is the same engine, K109, rescued from the rust yards at Essendon. Still a dusty burnt orange. The sign on the engine’s nose has been painted over but the faint shadow of ‘Better Farming Train’ can still be seen behind the new lettering. The One-In, All-In Train is shorter – only three carriages and a wagon.
We stand back for a minute, taking the scene in, when a door in the middle carriage opens and Mr Plattfuss lowers himself down. His moustache has faded and he’s put on a bit of weight but it is unmistakably him. He wears the familiar white dustcoat over his shirtsleeves and an army tie. He reaches back into the carriage, drags out several rolls of canvas and hoists them onto his shoulder. Robert squeezes my arm and walks over to help him. I watch Mr Plattfuss turn as Robert says his name, and the look of surprise and recognition on his face. They shake hands warmly then Robert helps him tie three canvas banners along the length of the train.
False teeth or defective teeth are no bar to enlisting in the AIF.
The Army will look after your teeth.
By the way, how’s your chest measurement? If it is 32 inches or more, put an AIF tunic around it.
You are wanted urgently!
Army recruits invariably put on weight.
Join the AIF and carry more weight for your country!
Mr Plattfuss hoists himself back into the train and Robert follows. I expect Mr Plattfuss will ask Robert about Folly and I wonder what he will say: that the experiment was a failure; that science can’t tame the Mallee; that we couldn’t even keep the old scrub cow alive?
I walk down to my carriage. The women’s carriage. The stationmaster’s collie lies in the sun by the door. I bend down and rub his ears and drag my fingers through some of the matted fur around his neck. He blinks and swallows in appreciation. If Mary were here she would have been sneaking treats to him. The door opens behind me and I hear the steps being lowered.
‘We’re open now. Feel free to come in for a look.’ The familiar voice of Sister Crock. I stand up and turn around. She looks so bright and round framed in the carriage doorway. Her starched white dress is tight across the hips. Her red felt midi cape sits askew on her ample shoulders. She squints out at me then her fingers fly to her lips in surprise.
‘Miss Finnegan! Sorry – Mrs Pettergree, rather! Well, I didn’t expect to see you here. We thought you’d long gone from the Mallee. Come and have some tea, dear, and tell me all your news.’
It is impossible not to smile at her. Or to resist her bustling me over to sit on the front pew while she makes tea at the baby-weighing table with a new electric kettle. Mary’s oven still stands in the corner along with my blackboard, the same white paint peeling from the frame. My dressmaking mannequins are kitted out in AIF winter greens with slouch hats pushed low on their blunt necks. The shelves where we displayed the jams and bottled fruits are now fronted with placards. Be proud of him in this, one says, referring to the uniform below.
Girlfriends, mothers, sisters and wives, imagine how proud you’ll feel of him in uniform! You’ll be able to say with a lifted chin, ‘My Boy’s with the AIF’. Encourage him to join up today and get the finest job a man can have.
Sister Crock taps the aluminium teapot with a spoon to settle the tea-leaves.
‘We thought you’d up and gone, dear. There’s not many still left out here.’
‘We’re hanging on. My husband doesn’t give in easily. Or perhaps it’s more that he’s not sure what to do next.’
‘Yes I remember that about your husband. A certain determined nature. Now I suppose you’ve heard all about Mary’s brood but what about you? Any children?’
I look at the floor. ‘No. I lost a baby last year. It was difficult, with the drought . . .’
Sister Crock smiles at me sympathetically and takes a sip from her tea. ‘It isn’t easy on women. Mr Plattfuss says it is the same for horses. When it’s too dry they can’t carry all of the way. Drought foals, he calls them.’
There is a long pause. I pick up a pamphlet from the table. The words are blurry. It is addressed to women. Women like me.
Women of Australia – What you can do to help
Promote a defence conscience in the home.
Organise and attend lectures on patriotic subjects.
Instil love of Country and Empire in your children.
Sister Crock places her teacup on the table. ‘Don’t let me forget, I have some letters for you.’
‘For me?’
‘Yes. From Mr Ohno. When the train disbanded he went to work at a big poultry factory in Drouin. Then last year I heard he’d been taken away to a prison camp for aliens. It’s at Tatura, some awful place they put all the men from the wrong countries to stop them from spying. It’s a loss to chicken-sexing but I suppose the government knows best. He sent the letters to Wycheproof but they were all returned – “not at this address”. Isn’t that funny? He hadn’t put the camp’s address on the outside of the envelope – Japanese pride I suppose, but there was a sketch of the Better Farming Train on the back of one of them so the post office sent them to me. I opened a few – just a few – to see if there was anything I could assist with. Very odd. He seems to think you may have died. “Out there in the red sand,” he says, “you may have died.” ’
She pours me a second cup of tea and tells me to have a look around while she fetches the letters from her sleeping compartment.
Robert invites Mr Plattfuss home for tea. I have nothing to give him except crackers and jam but he’s polite about it. Says he’s sick of heavy food and he’s heading for a counter tea afterwards at the Commercial where he is giving a recruiting talk about the AIF and showing some lantern slides on the wall. Then he’s to put three pounds on the bar to get the drinking and talking started.
‘Oiling the camaraderie,’ he calls it. Robert offers to drive him in and help him set up the equipment.
Mr Plattfuss says he misses the old days on the farming train. He especially misses his cows. As he stands to leave he crushes me to him in a hug and says, ‘I’m s
o sorry, my dear, I’m so very sorry.’
I’m not sure if he’s talking about Folly, or if Sister Crock has told him about the baby, or if it’s just about Robert and me and the farm.
I wave them goodbye from the step, Mr Plattfuss stroking his moustache and doing some vocal exercises to prepare himself for public speaking, Robert purposeful at the steering wheel, happy to be caught up in something again.
— 25 —
MR OHNO’S LETTERS
Mr Ohno’s letters are tiny. They fit perfectly into their miniature envelopes of folded paper with no gum or glue. ‘Not At This Address’ is scrawled on the front of each envelope in Robert’s handwriting.
I open the first envelope, releasing the hand-pressed notches and tabs. I half expect one of Mr Ohno’s paper cranes to unbend itself from flatness and fly out, or perhaps another erotic postcard, but in each envelope there is just one small letter. The writing starts in English but then moves into Japanese script. Some of the letters and envelopes have a tiny drawing: a cup, a shoe, a tree with long weeping leaves.
Deer Mrs Jean,
Each rising sun I think you. Mrs Jean face like litl nut. I think you when galas walk on the rowd. I can nevr stopping. I for always you. Sad for you, sad for snow. Help me. Mrs Jean in the sand.
Ples send dodoes and bells.
Ohno san
Deer Mrs Jean,
I make hats for army men. My fingrs are short now. No good for chikens. I think about you in the sand. Why you get of in the sand? Mrs Jean with hairs so sof. Are you died in the sand? Help me Mrs Jean. I am not dangerows to this cuntry. I for always you Mrs Jean. Ples send dodoes and bells.
Ohno san
Deer Mrs Jean,
You nevr make writing with me? I am so sad. I have now man who makes sounds. Mr Glebber from Austria a singing teacher. Like you Mrs Jean? He make for me a shamisen from fruit box. I ask him to make writing for me. Ples send dodoes and bells.
Ohno san
Then a longer letter in an ordinary, cheap grey envelope.
Internment Camp 1
Tatura, Victoria
The South East of Australia
Dear Mrs Jean,
Mr Ohno, a fellow prisoner and Asiatic, has asked me to write to you. He is friendless here (excepting myself). He speaks English quite passably (he is saying he is a professor of chickens) but his composition is poor. Mr Ohno is convinced that you are able to assist him in some way. He tells me that you met on a train? and asks you make a composition to the government to request his release. He says he is only here because of the chickens and that he has no interest in politics or war. I play chess with him every day and we make hats for the soldiers. On the weekends we play golf with the Italians.
Mr Ohno asked me to send you this drawing. He says it is a blessing for Hari-Kuyo – an Asiatic concert for broken needles. The monks sing a special mass for all of the needles broken during the year. The unfortunate needles are placed in a cake of Tovu (I think he means icing?) so they have a safe place to rest. This will soothe them after their days of hard service. Mr Ohno wishes me to say that the needle must be taken care of. In the hands of a skilled dressmaker a needle can fly. He says you are a needle of great strength and harmony.
I hope this is not offensive and that it makes sense to you. Finally, Mr Ohno asks you to please send photographs and news.
I am saying a little of my situation as well, which is dire. I am the Conductor of the world famous Vienna Mozart Boys’ Choir, which due to world events, has been caught on this enemy island. My boys are in good care in Melbourne but I am stuck in this wasteland. It is an appalling venue. Frozen cold in winter and even more terrible in summer – droughts, dust storms, brain boiling heat and swarms of poisonous black bumblebees. There is no coffee and I am having to wear ill-cut clothes. I have set up a choir amongst the men. The Italian prisoners can harmonise, but the guards are of poor type.
I request you to send the following:
1. Three large books of musical notation paper (5 line stave).
2. A winding phonograph with all Mozart recordings available to you.
3. Any mass or sacred music by Gluck, Salieri, Haydn or Schubert set for a men’s choir.
4. A necktie.
5. Marzipan.
With Appreciation,
Herr Georg Glebber
Conductor-in-Exile
I read and re-read the letters through the night. Always listening for the car, always ready to put them away, but Robert doesn’t come home. At dawn I fold them in a scrap of satin from one of Doris’s dresses and put them in a drawer of the sewing machine and try to sleep.
— 26 —
AT THE COMMERCIAL
Lola Sprake makes Robert a rum and cloves. He was never big on liquor, has hardly been into the bar these past years. A man without much value, in Lola’s opinion – neither a drinker nor busy with his pockets. Mr Plattfuss offers Lola a Ladies’ Beer for helping him to remove the dartboard but she doesn’t drink while working, except for a cordial to wet the lips.
All the usual suspects are in, as well as a few just for the talk. Some older men – veterans, in their Sunday suits – pull a couple of tables together and sit in their own private cloud of smoke and talk near the door. Stan Hercules is propped at the bar with his camera and notebook laid out in front of him. This is the closest a small-town newspaperman will ever get to being a war correspondent and he’s relishing it. Mr Plattfuss takes his position by the projector. Hercules taps his glass with a pencil: ‘Quieten up there, men, the show’s about to start.’
Mr Plattfuss takes a swig from his Ballarat Bitter and clears his throat. He switches on the projector and a wedge of yellow light shines on the side wall. He takes a piece of paper from his pocket and starts to read: ‘This nation of three million square miles contains approximately seven million people. There is no doubt that each of those seven million Australians love their country.’
‘Hear, hear,’ the bar responds in unison. A few men stamp their feet and whistle.
Mr Plattfuss continues: ‘If this country is good enough to have, it is good enough to hold. To hold it we need defence. But it is a weak excuse indeed for an eligible man to say he will stay here and defend us rather than sign up. One look at all the devastation and destruction in England will show the calamitous absurdity of such a thought.
‘Since Nazism first commenced its assault on civilisation Australia has devoted many millions of pounds to the building of war material and munitions. We hear the word sacrifice when people talk of this war. Is it a sacrifice or is it a privilege to share in the service of one’s country, a country in which personal freedom is given the greatest possible latitude?’
Mr Plattfuss takes a deep swig of his bitter. The men watch as he replaces the glass neatly on its beer mat and turns back to his notes.
‘I hear you ask, what will you get out of this war? Well, the modern soldier is a man of science. The days of hewing away with a sword or bayonet through the ranks of the enemy are gone. This war will be won by machines. By men who can match their pluck with their skill.
‘The army will give you expensive, valuable training for free. Each unit requires specialised knowledge which can only be obtained through a rigorous course of scientific study. Am I the right man for this skilful work? I hear you ask. Yes, is the reply. If you can drive a car you can manoeuvre a tank, if you can sail a boat you can command a battleship, if you can fly a kite you can bellyroll a bomber.’
The men cheer. Mr Plattfuss waits until the noise dies down before continuing.
‘The Forces will take you away from dull routine to life in the open air, association with clean-living, disciplined and fit young men in a fellowship of immortal comradeship. I ask all of the men here tonight, whatever your age and fitness, to visit the One-In, All-In Train tomorrow and think seriously about your future. Thank you and good evening.’
Mr Plattfuss downs the rest of his bitter during the applause and is quickly presented
with another. The men ask to see the slides again and he flicks backwards and forwards leaving the last slide – an aerial torpedo – shimmering on the wall of the pub.
Robert has three more rum and cloves and then some beer from the jug of a man he doesn’t know. He listens to Mr Plattfuss complain about the selling off of his prize cows and the difficulties of working with people rather than animals.
It’s getting late, the pub talk is getting louder. Men loosen or remove their ties, they slouch at the bar or sit back to front on chairs or lean on each other. There are hoots and cheers as bets and contests are won and lost. They challenge each other to scull a pot or roll a beer mat furthest along the floor. Mr Plattfuss is no longer around but Robert doesn’t remember him leaving. The man who keeps filling Robert’s glass looks familiar although Robert can’t quite place him. He is unused to so much beer – he is full up with liquid, sloshing about in himself.
‘Do I know you?’ he asks the plain looking man, and waits head cocked, mouth open, for the reply.
‘You could say so, Mr Pettergree. You could say you know me.’ The man looks tired, worn out before his time. He grimaces, seems to be deciding something.
‘I’m just another mug farmer, that’s me. You must know a truckload of ’em.’
Robert thinks about this for a minute. ‘Is it something to do with me? Have I misled you at some time?’ he asks, but he slurs his words and the ‘misled’ comes out as ‘missiled’ which makes him laugh.
The man’s anger rises suddenly. He spits at Robert, ‘Funny? You think it’s funny? You humiliate me in front of everyone, you cause me to lose my crop, my mortgage, my insurance, and you think it’s funny?’ The man rubs the knuckles on his right hand. ‘Strewth, who do you think you are, Pettergree, the bloody oracle?’