Beneath the Southern Cross (35 page)

It was a bleak July night and the wind was whipping up. It would be a rough crossing to Manly, Susan thought. She hugged her heavy winter coat about her and hoped there would be a seat inside.

There wasn't, so she stood on the port side and looked out at Dawes Point as the ferry slid away from Circular Quay. It had been announced in the newspaper sometime ago that the Public
Works Committee had accepted a proposal for an electric railway system, including a trafficbridge, to be built across the harbour from Dawes Point to Milsons Point. Of course they'd been talking about a bridge for years, but they would have to build one some day, the harbour was choked with ferries. The only alternative route from the city to the rapidly expanding northern suburbs was the five bridges road, a detour of ten miles or more around the head of the harbour, crossing bridges at Pyrmont, Glebe Island, Iron Cove, Gladesville and Fig Tree. And, having travelled the detour, to then continue all the way to Manly was unthinkable. Manly residents were totally reliant upon the ferries. Which was probably why she so loved Manly, Susan thought. Away from the influence of the city, the place had a character all its own. Ah well, if the war came, the government would probably put paid to the idea of a bridge.

It was inevitable, wasn't it, the war. Any moment now, they said. She wondered what it would mean, and she thought of the glib conversation over dinner. The Streathams with their complacency and she with her desire to shock, just like her father. She knew he thought they were two of a kind. They were not, and they never would be. Strong as she was, Susan was not cruel like her father, she was not vindictive.

She had always been strong. Well, she supposed she had. But she had not always been cynical; as a girl she had not been suspicious of people's motives as she was now. She remembered a time when life had been simple. Her wedding to Frederick for instance. A wealthy Melbourne lawyer and aspiring politician, the family had approved of Frederick Napier. ‘A pillar of society,' her father had called him. She'd been in love too, or so she'd thought. And her wedding day could not have been a more glamorous affair, befitting the spoilt daughter of a wealthy man and his frivolous wife. She remembered Amy's fussing over the bridal gown, the length of the veil, the size of the bouquet. Susan, who had not wanted a grand wedding in the first place, had delighted in her mother's pleasure, and had never been closer to Amy than she had been then. So what had gone wrong? Everything. Her mother had died a tragic death. Fifteen years ago now. A distracted woman ever since the death of Paddy O'Shea, she was reliant upon drugs to keep her madness at bay. And Susan and her marriage? Equally
tragic. The pillar of society had proved to possess an ugly side, never displayed to his business associates nor to his political colleagues, but reserved solely for his wife.

Frederick Napier was a man who would brook neither argument nor disagreement, nor even a differing opinion. Not when it came to running a household and raising a family. Life with such a husband was difficult for a spirited girl like Susan, but she learned to govern her tongue, and she dutifully bore him two children in two years, hoping that perhaps fatherhood might mellow him. It didn't.

The first time he struck her she remembered feeling strangely glad. Perhaps this would be the turning point. Perhaps the remorse he would suffer would form a bond between them and they would talk about their marriage. But he did not suffer remorse and they did not talk, and the bouts of violence became regular. Always in the privacy of their bedroom. Never in front of the children. It was only his wife who suffered, and she invented excuses as to how she had come by the bruises on her face and arms. Until one day, five years into their marriage, she decided she had had enough.

He was shocked when she said she was leaving him, he had never expected that she would.

‘Go if you wish,' he said, ‘but you must be aware that by deserting your husband and your children you will bring great shame upon yourself.'

‘I am not deserting my children, Frederick. Lionel and Prudence will be coming with me.'

‘Oh, no they will not. The children will remain with their father. As in the eyes of the law they must.'

He was not violent towards her that night. He was cold and clinical as he informed her of the truth. ‘In law, my dear,' he said, ‘the child of the married woman has only one parent, and that is the father. Unless you can prove in a court of law that I am an incompetent parent,' and his tone defied her to do so, ‘no judge will allow you to run off with your children.'

The next night, however, he was violent, and the next, assuming he'd worn her down and that she had no option but to stay. A week after their initial confrontation, Susan sought advice from a legal firm and was informed that Frederick was correct in his points of law. Furthermore, it was pointed out, her husband was
a prominent and successful man and she could present no proof of his violent behaviour. Two days later, Susan Napier left her husband and her children and returned to Sydney.

Divorce proceedings ensued and Frederick, possibly fearful that she might divulge the reason for their marriage break-up, which could prove embarrassing, allowed her unlimited access to the children. However, as the years progressed, so strongly were Lionel and Prudence under the influence of their father that Susan's relationship with them changed. Try as she might, she felt like a stranger. The more love she displayed, the more politely remote they became, as if she were a distant relative to be tolerated. But she too had changed, and she knew it. She was not the mother they had known. She was harder, tougher, more outspoken. Furthermore, she had reverted to her maiden name, a fact her children found incomprehensible.

Incensed by the ultimate injustice of the law, Susan had become an ardent social reformer and a staunch campaigner for women's rights.

Surprisingly enough, in the early days following her return to Sydney, her father had not been averse to her devotion to the suffragette movement, for through the meetings of the Womanhood Suffrage League Susan became closely acquainted with Lady Mary Windeyer, a leader in the fight for women's rights.

Charles Kendle had always boasted of his family's connections with the Windeyers, one of Sydney's most prominent families. His son had attended Sydney University with the Windeyer boys, and indeed Stephen still socialised with Richard, both keen yachting enthusiasts and members of the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. When, to Charles's delight, his daughter struck up a friendship with none other than Lady Mary herself, the Windeyer boys'm other, his views on the suffragette movement underwent a radical change. Previously loud in his insistence that women be denied the vote—‘preposterous notion, women do not have the brains to vote intelligently'—Charles suddenly became most sympathetic to the cause. In fact, he even offered to put Kendle Lodge at the League's disposal.

Fully aware of her father's ulterior motives, Susan did not accept his offer, though she did suggest he support her in a more practical manner by assisting her to set up a business of her own. Susan
desperately needed to get out of the family home. Life at Kendle Lodge was claustrophobic and depressing, and at times she felt she was being suffocated by the unhappiness which surrounded her.

She had not realised that her mother was so far gone. Floating on laudanum throughout the day, heavily sedated at night in order to escape the nightmares which plagued her, Amy Kendle was a creature in torment, and it broke Susan's heart to see her once pretty, flirtatious mother reduced to such a state.

And Stephen. Poor defeated Stephen.

His wife had died giving birth prematurely to their second child, and the doctors had been unable to save the baby, a girl. Stephen had been a broken man at the funeral, which was hardly surprising, but Susan had hoped that time might heal his wounds. He had a beautiful little son, barely three years old. He was not yet thirty, he was a successful businessman with his life ahead of him. But, always prone to give in to adversity even as a child, Stephen had now given up altogether. Life had defeated him and any shred of self-esteem that had survived had been systematically hounded out of him by his tyrant of a father.

Susan grew to hate their father as, each night, she looked at him across the dining table of Kendle Lodge amidst the ruinof his family. She defended Stephen whenever she could, and she prayed that hislittle boy would grow up strong enough to withstand the influence of his grandfather. It would be only a matter of time before the old man would try to get his hooks into the child and take over his life.

She had to get out, away from the misery of Kendle Lodge, and her father's money was the only way. ‘A loan, Father,' she insisted. ‘I shall pay you back when the business is established.'

Howard Streatham proved immensely helpful. His contacts were invaluable, and within only twelve months Susan's gallery and handicrafts shop had slowly and steadily become established.

‘But in Manly!' Her father had been scathing, of course. ‘Why Manly of all places? It's a backwater.'

‘You're quite wrong, Father,' she had emphatically replied, ‘Manly is a thriving community. Local enterprise is far more supported in the Village than it is in the inner suburbs. Besides,'
she added, ‘artists and craftspeople have moved to the Village for the sheer beauty of the place. It is high time they had a shop and a gallery in which to display their works.'

‘And who the hell's going to buy them?' Charles had growled.

‘Visitors. Tourists. Fellow artists. I advertise, you know, and the shop has gained quite a reputation already.'

The lights of Manly loomed ahead. Susan clung to the railings as the ferry pitched and rolled, finally pulling into calmer waters as it approached the wharf. The gangplank crashed into place and Susan was first off the ferry, striding ahead of the stream of disembarking passengers. It was late and she needed to be up early. She always spoke at the Domain on Sundays. In fact, of all the speakers who spruiked their causes at Sydney's open-air centre of free speech, Susan Kendle's following was invariably one of the largest. And so it should be, she contended. The women of New South Wales may have won the right to vote a full twelve years ago, but that was only the beginning, there was a long road ahead. They had yet to win the right to be elected to parliament, and in the meantime, the daily struggle went on. Women needed to be told of their rights, not only in the political arena, but in the home and workplace.

Such a lot of work to be done, Susan thought as she strode up Sydney Street through the wintry Saturday night.

 

At nine on the morning of 17 August, crowds of men gathered on the weather-worn asphalt of the Victoria Barracks parade ground, laughing and jostling each other and talking excitedly like children about to go on a picnic. Men of all shapes and sizes—tall, short, fat and thin. Men of all ages—youngsters fresh from school, those in their prime and those showing signs of age. Men of every type and from every walk of life, but they had one thing in common. The spirit of adventure did not discriminate, and each man's eyes shared with the next the eager light of anticipation.

Here and there, standing to attention, was a professional soldier inuniform, his taut military bearing only serving to highlight the disorderliness of the motley crowd. It would be his duty to train this unruly horde of excited volunteers who were to become the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Infantry Brigade.

The men were sorted into untidy queues, lists were made, and each man was eventually presented, along with the medical fitness certificate he had received on his previous examination, to the second-in-command who barked out a few short queries before assigning him to the regimental officers.

‘I feel like a bit of a dill,' Tim Kendall said loudly to Robbie O'Shea as they shuffled forward in their queue, ‘signing up with my uncle.'

‘I'll bet you do,' Robbie agreed. Tim's uncle Billy stood right behind them. ‘Don't know how he passed the medical, a bloke as old as him.'

Billy Kendall cuffed Robbie over the back of the head. ‘Watch it, you cheeky bugger, I'm in the prime of life I am. I'd take you on any day, one hand tied behind my back.' It was no lie. Billy, in his early thirties, was a fit man, hardy and ready for action. He would be leaving a wife and two small children behind but he had no qualms. The army paid well, and when he returned home to Marge and the boys, after seeing the world and fighting the Hun, Wunderlichs had promised that his job would be waiting for him. His family would want for nothing.

Young Robbie, too, looked a force to be reckoned with. He was a solid, broad-shouldered young man, with a purposeful demeanour which belied his nineteen years, but then Robbie O'Shea had always been old for his age.

It was young Tim ‘Tiny Tot' Kendall who was the odd man out. His body had finally obeyed the laws of nature and he'd grown into a man but, to his annoyance, his face had remained the same—boyish and hairless. It was bloody unfair, he thought. Here he was, twenty-one and going off to fight for King and Country, and he didn't even shave yet. He regularly applied a razor to his face—they said that if you did, it made the hair grow quicker—but it didn't seem to work for him.

When he'd confided in Robbie, his best mate hadn't been able to see the problem. ‘Hell, shaving's no fun,' he'd said, ‘and the girls are shook on you anyway, so what are you worrying about?' But it continued to annoy Tim, and his sunny disposition turned quite belligerent, when people assumed he was no more than seventeen years old.

It was true, however, that, like his father Benjamin, Tim Kendall
was irresistibly attractive to the opposite sex, but as yet no girl had particularly interested him. Which was just as well when a bloke was going off to war, he thought; he wouldn't want to be in Robbie's position.

‘I'm gonna marry her when I get home from the war,' Robbie had said.