Roundabout at Bangalow by Shirley Walker

ring another car and give him the 30/- to come out and get the bloke then I went back in with him and got a bloke in a motor lorry to go out and tow my car in and when we got there we couldnt pull it in. That cost me 30/- and I got it in yesterday with another lorry for 25/-. At present I am waiting for my car to get fixed and I have in wealth exactly 2 1 / 2 d and no chance of making any until the car is right. It has been raining like hell here since Monday and if my bloody car was right it is just the weather to make money because people cant walk about in it. I inquired about furnished rooms and I can get them in a couple of different places but the prices are right out of the question and it seems silly to think that you cant wait for another week or two and then we will be able to get fixed up cheap. Dont think that I dont want you up here because I do but I havent the money to fetch you up yet and you cant put it on the slate here the same as in Mullum …
    As there are no more letters in this series, she obviously joins him at Coolangatta, but they remain together only until late April, by which time she is nearly seven months pregnant. She attributes my weak constitution as a child to the fact that she was starved at this time; there was never enough to eat, and the evening’s food couldn’t be bought until he returned home with the day’s takings. Things are bad for everyone at this time and there are whispered stories of my father using his hire car to help shopkeepers shift their stock in the middle of the night so that they can burn their premises for the insurance.
    Letters from Charleville
    They have been married almost two years when he leaves for Charleville, looking for the big money in the shearing sheds. She’s convinced that he’s on the run, trying to get away from her. When he gets to Charleville, almost broke, work is hard to find, particularly for an outsider. He tries truck driving, fencing and shearing but, just as he seems to be about to earn the big money, he contracts a virulent ’flu, is dropped from the shearing team and is barely able to earn his fare home.
    Because of his experiences at Charleville and later at The Chan-non, he is one of the few members of his family to belong to the Labor Party, and is a dedicated unionist all his life. Meanwhile during his absence she is left with one child who is almost two years old and she is expecting another, dependent on the hospitality of his family (the many different addresses on the envelopes belong to his mother and brothers). There is evidence from the letters that two of his older brothers at different times demand his return. They are apparently outraged by his absence and neglect of his family, as shown by a cryptic comment in his letter of 13 July — I didn’t know whether they would give you a letter. It’s also apparent that she doesn’t always believe his hard luck stories, and has continually accused him of being a bloody liar. These letters are interesting for my father’s impressions of Charleville, and for his struggle to get work, but the question for me is whether he really did desert my mother before I was born, and I read them carefully, alert to their tone as well as the actual words. It certainly appears from the first letter, dated 26 April 1927, about nine weeks before I’m born, that they part amiably, so I don’t know what to think about her story that he tried to kill us both .
    I got in the train at Brisbane at 10 to 3 yesterday and stopped there until half past 2 today. I couldnt afford a sleeper so I put in the night sitting up in a seat & I never felt anything so cold in my life as it was. I think this is the worst looking country I have ever seen in my life. I suppose we went 300 miles and never saw a hill, all level country and in places you strike perhaps 50 miles with nothing but a thick bank of prickly pear on both sides of the line as far back as you can see.