Free Hunger Town by Wendy Scarfe Page A

finished with a soulful rendition of ‘We’ll build a dear little, cute little love nest’.
    â€˜Oh, Harry, that was beautiful,’ my mother breathed. ‘You and the piano talk to each other.’
    â€˜Yes,’ my father grunted, ‘very nice, most enjoyable.’
    But now Harry had eyes only for my mother and they smiled at each other like two pieces of chocolate that melt together. My father was forgotten. I pitied him. With Harry my father’s strident tones had quietened. He had been gentle, almost tender. I had watched this transformation puzzled and a little suspicious. Even at seventeen I sensed an emotional simplicity about my father that left him vulnerable to the more sophisticated.
    Harry was a natural sophisticate. A charmer. Maybe a manipulator. Did he genuinely respect my father or was it only a game, played by someone who thrived on being liked?
    Work continued at the Chew It and Spew It from eight in the morning until six at night. When I wasn’t waitressing I cut up vegetables, washed dishes, mopped floors, washed cleaning cloths and tea towels. I complained to my father that I hadn’t been hired for this extra work and ought to be paid for it.
    He said, ‘Thank your lucky stars you’ve got a job. A bit of extra work won’t hurt you. It’s only a bit of domestic labour.’
    My mother stiffened and looked daggers at him. ‘Only domestic labour,’ she said in her tone that meant ‘don’t say anything more’. He mumbled.
    When he had gone she said to me quietly, ‘You don’t want to lose your job, Judith. You’ll just have to grin and bear it. Maybe,’ she added as a sop to my anger, ‘we could find some way to help you get training at night school, perhaps in shorthand and typing at the Adelaide School of Mines. Office work is nice for a girl. We wouldn’t want you to end up in a factory, working on a conveyor belt.’
    Harry fell into the habit of visiting us on Sunday afternoons. At first he had come with Winnie but then he began to drop in on his own to chat with my father, charm my mother and beg an invitation to play our piano. He confided to me childhood memories of Winnie and often mentioned Nathan, who still lectured the foundry workers. I got the impression that Winnie had convinced him Nathan and I were friends and that my denials were some sort of maidenly reticence.
    I was irritated and disabused him sharply. He looked so hurt that I hastily reassured him that, although I didn’t care for Nathan personally, I was interested in his ideas. This pleased Harry and he began to talk enthusiastically about communism. Occasionally I caught my mother glance from his eager face to mine and she would smile indulgently as if she had some secret knowledge.
    Some weeks later Harry came on board for his usual Sunday afternoon tea,. He was still full of his usual enthusiasm and mad keen for me to accompany him to a Communist Party meeting.
    â€˜I don’t know, Harry,’ my mother demurred.
    Challenged by her doubtfulness over a political matter, my father instantly asserted that I should go, that it would be educational for me.
    My mother continued to object. It wasn’t that she was directly influenced by the anti-Bolshevik sentiment around us but indirectly it made her suspicious and careful. Besides, she hated being pushed by my father.
    Harry wheedled, ‘I’ll look after her, Mrs L. You know that with me she’s in the greatest care. I’ll be like a father to her.’
    This preposterous statement and Harry’s mock solemnity made her laugh and once she laughed at Harry she was defeated. My father, aware that Harry’s persuasive tricks were better than his, kept quiet.
    The meeting hall we entered was cold and characterless. It was a space and nothing more. It had been a mild day but the evening closed in with a sharp wind off the sea and the dank smell of impending