Read Online Hunger Town by Wendy Scarfe - Free Book Online Page B

hairs.’ She put out her hand and ruffled searchingly in his mane of blond hair. ‘Here’s one,’ she laughed, plucking it out.
    He shrugged her off. ‘I haven’t any grey hairs. My hair’s always been blond. It’s the sun here. It bleaches everything. I get tired of the endless bloody sun. I could do with a northern winter and the cleanness of cold snow.’
    â€˜The coldness of cold snow you mean,’ she sighed. ‘People go crazy in places where the sun shines feebly for only half a year. What are you talking about?—all that nostalgia nonsense.’ Then she sighed again as she always did when my father dug up memories of his youth.
    However, when Winnie had stepped on to the deck he had been full of gallantry and courtesy like a king receiving some foreign empress to his court, I thought, with a mixture of jealousy and resentment.
    â€˜Just in case,’ he said, ‘you stumble over a rope. Ships are unpredictable places, but then they are adventurers on the high seas and they ride the wild winds.’
    She opened her eyes wide at this burst of poetic language that amazed me.
    She thanked him sweetly and clung to the support of his arm a fraction too long. My mother appeared, broke the spell, and took charge.
    He was less gallant and more wary with Harry. I could see he was struggling to categorise him. Harry did not look the typical foundry worker. His body carried little heavy muscle, yet he was not puny. An athlete, I thought. Harry is a runner, he has the lithe fluid movements of a greyhound or a dancer. Brawn wouldn’t get Harry out of trouble but speed and flexibility might.
    Harry held out his hand to my father with a frank engaging smile. ‘How do you do, sir?’
    My mother slipped her hand over her mouth to hide a smile and my father, startled, had a moment of suspicion, but Harry’s openness convinced him that no mockery was intended. Relieved, he shook Harry’s hand, and soon they were deep in conversation about the foundry.
    Mostly occupied by Winnie’s chatter, but deeply curious, I garnered only slivers of their conversation. My father mentioned the machines and Harry nodded. In fact, he nodded a lot, as my father did most of the talking.
    â€˜Poorly paid … no compensation.’ Harry looked sober.
    â€˜Came to the foundry begging for help?’
    They were speaking about the mother of the boy who had been killed. Harry’s voice was quiet: ‘Four other children.’
    â€˜Bloody disgrace.’ My father’s voice was loud and strident, as it always was when he was angry. ‘Bosses for you. Did she get anything?’
    Harry shook his head. ‘The boss reminded her she was only entitled to the award.’
    My father snarled. ‘The award. A starvation award. You watch yourself in that place, Harry.’ He placed a protective hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘You watch yourself, my boy.’
    In the space of a few moments Harry had wheedled himself into my father’s affection. Yet I had seen other instances of my father’s kindness to young workers.
    â€˜We took up a collection for her,’ Harry said, ‘me and the other boys. It’s too late to bury him but it might help.’
    My father snorted: ‘And those Holier-Than-Thous doubtless prayed over him and swindled his mother that there would be joy for him in the After Life. Religion,’ he snorted again and spat into the sea, as if relieving himself of a nasty taste. ‘A big lie to stop the working man from complaining.
    â€˜Complaining!’ he was caustic. ‘That’s their word for what we want. We don’t complain, we fight the bastards. Has anyone told you about the waterside strike in Perth in 1919? A wake-up call to us all. The ship-owners tried to bring in scab labour to work the Dimboola . The lumpers showed them. They threw the scabs into the Swan River. Mounted police charged the