Beneath the Southern Cross (38 page)

Amongst those who listened to Susan regularly was Kathleen O'Shea. Even before the war Kathleen had been impressed by the forceful advocate for women's rights who spoke regularly from her platform near the old Garden Palace grounds. A bulky woman, a little ill-kempt in her dress, her hair unruly, she had, however, a fine voice and a handsome face, and Kathleen could tell she was a woman of breeding.

Her arguments were well informed and intelligent and Kathleen had learned a lot as she'd listened, often thinking that she could have done with a little such knowledge in her youth. These days as she listened, however, Kathleen found herself confused. How
was she to reconcile herself to the notion that her son had gone off to fight a war that was ‘senseless', a war that ‘should never have been fought by Australians'?

‘Never should we have been called upon to make such a sacrifice!'

The woman's voice rang out across the crowd, clearly audible above the heckling and the booing of the many dissenters gathered about her.

‘Never should our women have been called upon to give up their husbands and their sons! Never should our fine Australian men have been called upon to give up their very lives!' There was a frenzied reaction from the crowd.

‘She should be locked up,' Aggie said loudly, which was exactly what the majority of the crowd was saying. Here and there a member of the Women's Peace Army, wearing the symbolic purple peace button with the white dove insignia, voiced approval but was quickly howled down.

‘There'll be a riot any minute, let's gohome,' Aggiesaid. And when Kathleen took no notice, she whinged, ‘I'm not feeling well, I want to go home.'

‘I told you not to come in the first place,' Kathleen replied a little snappily. Aggie invariably found something to complain about. Now more than ever, her pregnancy being the perfect excuse.

‘Well, I thought the walk would do me good, didn't I?' Aggie looked sulky. ‘I didn't know you were going to stand around for so long. It's not good for me, getting jostled about in a crowd like this, not in my condition.'

Kathleen wanted to stay, but the more Aggie's pregnancy had blossomed, the more she had demanded constant attention, forever blackmailing Kathleen with the precious burden of her grandson.

‘Otto's at church, I'll be all on my own,' she'd said that morning when Kathleen had announced she was going to the Domain.

‘So?'

‘I don't want to be on my own.'

‘You want to walk up the hill, do you? “In your condition”?' Kathleen couldn't resist the barb, but it didn't register with Aggie.

‘Yes. The walk'll do me good.'

Kathleen looked about the Domain. The crowds gathered around those speakers calling men to arms were loudly voicing
their approval. Union Jacks were being waved, a mob was singing ‘Rule Britannia'. Patriotism, jubilation and a fervent belief in the war abounded. But here, gathered around the woman's platform, men were shaking their fists and women were yelling, ‘Shame! Shame on you!' Aggie was not wrong, she thought, there might well be a riot any minute.

‘All right,' she said with reluctance. ‘All right, we'll go.' She glanced back at the woman as they walked away. Kathleen might not agree with her views, but she couldn't help but admire her courage in voicing them.

They walked slowly. Although it was April, the day was warm, more like summer than autumn, and Aggie was seven months pregnant and feeling the heat. Her ankles hurt, she said, and her back was sore.

Kathleen paid little regard to the girl's litany of complaint. There were certainly no grounds for concern, Aggie was as healthy as a horse. Kathleen kept Robbie well informed of the fact every time she wrote, never sure how much Aggie might have dramatised her condition in her letters to him.

Robbie O'Shea had been elated when he'd heard of his impending child. ‘Look after my girl, Mum,' he'd written, ‘and look after my baby when it comes. The two of them couldn't be in better hands, I know it, and that's such a good, safe feeling.'

Kathleen's initial reaction had not been as joyful as her son's. ‘You're pregnant?' she'd queried abruptly when Aggie had told her the news in the privacy of the kitchen, Otto safely away at Mass. Aggie knew that he wouldn't approve. ‘How far gone?'

‘Between three and four months the doctor says.'

‘Damn.' The girl should have been more careful, Kathleen thought. A young man fighting a war did not need the added distraction of an unborn baby and the worry over the safety of both mother and child. A young man fighting a war needed to concentrate on his own survival. Damn the girl.

Her face must have mirrored her thoughts, for Aggie looked suddenly distressed.

‘I didn't mean for this to happen, Kathleen,' she begged. ‘Truly I didn't. Please don't send me away.'

The severity of Kathleen's expression frightened Aggie. Disapproval was the last thing she had expected. Kathleen so doted on
her son that Aggie had been certain the prospect of a grandchild would delight her. In fact that had been Aggie's guarantee, or so she'd thought.

Suspicious that her future mother-in-law did not particularly like her, Aggie had planned the conception. Should Robbie die in battle, it was quite possible that Kathleen would want nothing more to do with her. She'd be back on the streets in no time. But Kathleen O'Shea, Aggie was sure, would not abandon the mother of her grandchild. In the tragic event of her fiancé's death, Aggie and her baby would be assured of a comfortable life within the O'Shea household.

But her plan had clearly backfired, Aggie thought with a sudden rush of anxiety. ‘Please, Kathleen, don't send me away.' Aggie could feel the advent of frightened tears, and she didn't try to stem them, tears were useful. ‘I didn't mean it to happen.'

‘Why on earth would I send you away?' Kathleen said, sitting beside Aggie and putting her arm around the girl's heaving shoulders whilst her whole body racked with sobs. ‘What could make you say such a thing?'

Kathleen dug into the pocket of her apron and produced a handkerchief which the girl took, her sobs subsiding a little. ‘Come along now, stop crying, you're Robbie's fiancée, you're the mother of my future grandchild.' Kathleen smiled comfortingly. ‘How could I ever send you away?'

Aggie smiled wanly as she gulped back the last sob.

‘You will move into the house,' Kathleen continued, ‘into Robbie's old room. He'd like that.'

Aggie lifted her head from Kathleen's breast. ‘What will Otto say?' She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. ‘He won't approve.'

‘Otto will do as I ask him. And we will tell everyone that you and Robbie married before he left for the war,' she said. ‘From now on you are Aggie O'Shea.'

Aggie smiled through the remnants of her tears, genuinely relieved and grateful. ‘Thank you, Kathleen.' She hugged the older woman. ‘Thank you, thank you.'

As Aggie's belly grew, so did her confidence. She was Aggie O'Shea, proud mother-to-be, and Robbie's letters, assuring her of Kathleen's devotion to her and the baby, gave her unlimited licence to demand special attention.

Robbie's were not the only letters to arrive from the training camp in Egypt. Johann too wrote regularly and from the outset his letters were boyishly enthusiastic.

‘What isthis “souvies”?' Otto pointed the word out to Kathleen.

‘Souvenirs?' she said after a moment's thought.

‘Ah. Yes.'

‘He swears too much,' Otto said.

‘He's just being one of the boys,' Kathleen assured him as she peered over his shoulder.

Otto grunted and read on.

Robbie's letter to Kathleen a month later made it clear why Johann's letter had been so vague about their destination.

The horrifying news of the bloodbath at Gallipoli plunged Australia into a state of shock. Official numbers were not yet known, but the endless casualty lists published in the black-bordered newspapers were hideous proof of the extent of the slaughter.

Like countless others all over the country, Kathleen and Otto queued up every day to buy the newspaper, or joined the dozens clustered around the lists displayed at railway stations and various other public buildings.

Together they would scan the names, praying that they would not see their own. No De Haans or O'Sheas today, thank God, and they would go home to comfort Aggie who sat frozen at the kitchen table, holding her huge belly, waiting for the news.

In Surry Hills, Benjamin and Norah Kendall were doing the same thing. As were Nellie and Jack Putman, who lived a block away now. The Putmans and the Kendalls were no longer neighbours. Wexford Street, along with whole blocks of Surry Hills, had been destroyed to make way for the broad new Wentworth Avenue where the rents were so high that the area was effectively killed off as a residential neighbourhood.

Each morning Spotty Putman would fetch the paper, bringing it home to his parents so that the three of them could search the lists together. They never looked at the paper until Lizzie was safely off to school.

The first week went by and they were safe. Then, early in the second week, Nellie's finger froze on the spot as she was tracing her way down the list.

“‘Putman, Geoffrey,”' she read. And, directly beneath, “‘Putman, Michael.”'

‘Both of them,' she whispered. ‘Oh sweet Jesus, no. Not both of them.' She turned to her husband. Her eyes, like raisins in the dough of her fleshy face, were brimming with tears of shock and disbelief. ‘Not both of them, Jack. Not both of them. Not both of them.'

Jack Putman held his wife's huge body to him as she cried. Not loudly. For once Nellie was not loud. Her sobs were more gulps, deep, despairing gulps for air. Silent tears coursed down Jack's cheeks as he looked over his wife's shoulder at his son.

Spotty was not crying. Spotty was shaking his head at the newspaper as he read and reread his brothers' names.

‘They were bound to cop it together,' he said. ‘Geoff promised he'd look after Mick, d'you remember, Dad? He said, “Don't you worry about Mick, I'll stick right by his side every minute of the day”, d'you remember?'

Jack pulled a seat out for Nellie at the kitchen table and sat beside her as she mopped her face and blew her nose on her apron.

Spotty was talking to himself now, but it didn't matter, he just went on. “‘They get one Putman, they'll have to get us both,” that's what he said. He reckoned it wouldn't happen, he reckoned the law of averages was on his side. Silly bugger, the law of averages doesn't count over there!' Spotty was getting angry. ‘And his bloody brother's thirty-one years old, he doesn't need his hand held!' He sniffed and wiped his runny nose with the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Silly buggers,' he said, ‘they were bound to cop it together.'

Spotty left his parents to their grief and went out to get drunk.

Two months later a letter arrived from the front. It was addressed to Nellie and it was from Billy Kendall.