Tom Murphy Chapter 20

Cut my nails, said Maria.

I took her little scissors and her hand. My clumsy fingers hacked into her soft pink flesh.

Ouch! squealed Maria.

She withdrew her hand and sucked a splinter of blood off her little finger.

I apologised copiously. My bloody intrusion now filled me with nausea. We were sitting together on a log on the bank of the lake. As we had walked and talked together on the bank, dusk had settled into night. The rippling waters of the lake turned from turquoise into black. A shshshsh of the lapping waters seemed to flow and echo with our beating hearts.

Since our last visit, the town's water reservoir had been shifted to a more copious source to overcome the much grizzled about Summer shortages. All water experts had been lavish in their praise of the city engineer for his sudden brain wave to complete the new water dam in the neighbouring hills. That had solved a problem that had been bothering the city fathers for longer than my lifetime. Half the town were the water experts, the other half had no thoughts about it at all. I alone followed the water issue, but did not praise the city engineer. I knew he had taken Gustav's water plan.

Gustav's blueprint on his paper slip still supplies all Petrie's water, and expert opinion presumes it will do so for another fifty years.

The people of the city were enthusiastically transforming the old reservoir into a lake reserve. The old bush was being burnt and torn out by relief workers. Tree saplings and bushes from every country now thronged the churned yellow earth in splashes of rainbow colours. As we had walked around the banks, Maria had named most of the new trees and plants with oohs of delight.

I got up and walked on the log. Her dimpled face and eyes looked up quizzically at me.

What job are you going to take up when we leave the town? she asked.

I'll take up crime, I said curtly.

My new muscles and hoarseness made me feel as bold as the two new stone lions that flanked the entrance gates. I flexed my shoulders and coolly imagined myself as a Chicago gangster.

Tears glistened in her almond eyes.

There is no future in that, only an early death or prison, she reprimanded me.

I shrugged my shoulders and made my face look as if I didn't care. I sinkingly knew she was right. But what else could I have said to show her I was master of my fate?

She turned her face from me and looked upwards into the pink and red sky.

Do you believe in God? she asked.

That question shook me. I had always been told about God and never asked. I too looked up at the sky, and it filled me with wonder as if seeing it for the first time.

There must be a God who created this sky and earth, I said haltingly.

I put my hands in my pockets. My answer taxed my head and I felt dizzy.

But what sort of God? insisted Maria. People all over the earth worship different Gods and they all think theirs is the only one.

I plunged my hands into my pockets again, and my voice became even more husky.

Maybe everyone thinks they own God.

Then Maria looked at the old Maori canoe on the bank.

What happened to the people who used to sail that canoe? she asked.

That question threw me more than the one about God. At least I had been told about God. These people of the lake I had never before been asked or told about.

I suppose they just sort of melted away, I suggested at last.

But people don't just melt away, insisted Maria. They must disappear from a place for some reason. Why did these lake people leave or die out in such a bountiful place?

I admitted that I didn't know.

Just like us Jews in Dresden, said Maria. We lived in a rich and beautiful city. The most fairy tale city in the world. We thought we would live there forever. But one day we found out the rules had changed. We were unwelcome, and if we stayed, we would die. Other people took over our places, and one day everyone will forget we ever lived there.

That's not true, I said angrily. Cities are not like lakes. The people and buildings in them don't just vanish one day. A hundred years ago, people lived at the lake but they were just savages. A hundred years from today, the same buildings and the descendants of the same people will still be living in Dresden.

As I walked about on the log, I felt Maria's eyes scrutinising my new growing body. She suddenly said,

Let's take off our clothes and sit together under those willow saplings.

I was astonished at her frankness and boldness. Then I nodded. She gently took my hand and steered us away towards a clump of high new willows. In the shadows of the arbour, with our eyes glancing aside, we solemnly took off our clothes. I now seized the opportunity to drink in her body. It was bathed in moving lights and shadows. I was startled that so petite a body contained such womanly curves. She was a woman and I was still a man-boy. She took hold of my arms and we fell back into the long prickly grass. With my fingers, I stroked over her soft dimpled face and chin. Then neither of us knew what to do next.

I think I should be taking you home now, I said hoarsely.

Not yet, she said dreamily.

She gripped her arms over my shoulders and we rubbed together.

That makes me feel warm and cozy, she said.

She suddenly rolled over and pulled herself loose. She sat herself up. I sat myself up beside her. We could hear the panting of our chests and the thumping of our hearts. Then we lay down side by side under the brilliant sky. A flood of golden light suddenly bathed our heads. We silently watched the new moonlight travel down our bodies and dispel the mosaics of lights and gloom.

Oh you are beautiful, I whispered to the maiden breathing and smelling of dank earth and grass beside me.

She looked down and pointed at my John Thomas.

What is its English name? she asked and plainly was admiring its erect manly condition

I told her it was my cock. She told me the German name. She pointed down at her hers.

What is its name in English? she asked.

I told her it was her cunt. She told me the German name.

Does mine look like you thought it would look? she asked.

I glanced down at it. I admitted from what I could see it was not a hole. It looked instead hidden away in sort of tongues of hairy flesh. She nodded.

That's what boys think because they only see pictures of naked women. Yours, because it is on the outside, looks just as I thought. But now you have made it a lot bigger than I thought it was.

I didn't admit I had no power over that.

When I put my finger inside mine, she slipped an index finger inside herself
I can only get the tip through it. I don't know how yours would get through, let alone a baby.

I said nothing and we were both silent. Then she said.

There is a game I used to play with my girlfriends in Dresden. We called it… and she gave a German name. Put your hands over my bosoms.

I cupped my hands and placed them over her. I felt her beating heart. I rubbed my hands to the rhythm over her breasts. She began to breathe deeply and strangely and wriggle. Then I was astonished and alarmed when she seized my cock and began to rummage it like she was exploring a strange but enchanting little furry animal.

I suddenly pissed over her hand. She screamed and gripped, then she thrust her hand away. I screamed too in pain and fear. I was overcome with shame and remorse. Then I was astonished to see my spilt liquid was milky. She stared perplexed at her hand, and then smelt it.

Suddenly she seemed to be all knowing, and she gave little joyful screams and she trembled like a fern in the wind. She said:

You have given to me the seed of life.

I at last understood, and I glowed with the triumph and pleasure of it. I wanted her to do it to me again.

But she calmed and said:

We had better get home before the aged ones start fussing.

She discreetly wiped away my seed over the long prickly grass.

As we dressed, I became aware that the sweet odour of the grass and trees had replaced a pungent sour smell of her naked body. I breathed in the sweet earthy odours, and found out I desperately missed her smelly naked body. But now it was too late.

We, avoiding each other's eyes, furtively fled from the lake and hurried back into town. As we ran together, I brought up a matter that had been bothering me.

Gustav says that there are wars because the arms manufacturers trick the politicians to start them so they can become rich.

Maria snorted at her brother's idealism.

The little man is just as guilty. Everywhere in the world, people have the urge to kill and murder and destroy. Until everyone changes, everything that has been built up and grown will one day be destroyed by war like everything else before. We have to begin all over again every time.

I saw her off at the big house and hurried home. Dad was angrily waiting at the door.

It's eight o'clock, what were you two doing out there?

Just looking up at the stars, I replied, and could not suppress a dreamy smile.

Dad studied closely my face. He sighed deeply. Then he went into his bedroom. He came out and thrust a package into my hand.

These are old faithfuls, he said gruffly.
Thank God those Rosenblum trouble-makers are leaving for good tomorrow. At last the peace of the grave. I'll just warn you one thing, boy. If I find out the Rosenblum girl is pregnant, I'll cut them off with the meat knife.

Dad too suppressed a knowing, I could almost say admiring, smile, and disappeared into his bedroom.

Then it sunk home to me that the Rosenblums would disappear from my life from tomorrow morning. I went into the kitchen and saw on Dad's chair, Truth.

Yesterday Mr McLean had been sentenced. Like our cat sniffing up to a kitchen morsel it both fears and craves, I sneaked to the paper. A bold headline on the chair shouted back at me all my self-reproach and fears.

MAYOR MCLEAN: MALEFACTOR FEARING EXPOSURE OF PUTRID PRACTICES SHOOTS GERMAN YOUTH ROSENBLUM
Sensational Statement by the Victim
MCLEAN PLEADS GUILTY: SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS

I emboldened myself to continue to read down the columns. My eyes reached a portrait of IAIN CHARLES MCLEAN (in the dock). He was clutching his hands, his head and shoulders were stooped, and he looked very frightened. I continued to read.

A big crowd of citizens waited a long time outside the court for the doors to open and fought and struggled for vantage points to hear the proceedings. A large number were perforce shut out as the building could not hold A THIRD OF THE CROWD.

That was at the beginning of the trial two weeks ago. That morning, I sneaked out of the cottage to join the court crowd. As I was now unemployed, there was no other show in town. I disappeared into the milling throng at the court doors. There were young unemployed men with their girl friends. They laughed and joked among themselves. They seemed to treat it all as a happy picnic.

Everyone else buzzed and darted like angry hornets. In the heart of the crowd, men of senior years in dark suits gesticulated and muttered with furious red faces. They scared me. I could feel but not understand their anger and hatred. Something unfathomably deep and malevolent had crept into the town. It was snapping at their heels and crawling up their distinguished trousers. My anxieties and guilt mounted every moment in this crowd.

I overheard two old codgers tell an eager audience that Wormwood, disguised as Lola-Lola, had whipped the Mayor with a bull-whip. He had whipped him on the couch in the mayoral office. Everybody knew someone else who had overheard the Mayor's pleas for mercy. I saw my brother Mickey among the audience of that story. I had never seen him so elated.

Now reading the Truth columns, I knew my innocence at the start of the court day already belonged to a lost time.

The crowd grew and grew until it spilled down to the end of the street. Every grown-up sort was there except for the distinguished ladies. With a slam, the court doors had opened. With a long-practised wriggling and ducking, I scrambled to the doors. Curses and screaming sounded all around me. The crowd had become wedged tight inside the doors. I shot through a distinguished gentleman's legs and was through.

I crouched myself down beneath a court pillar and prepared to enjoy myself. I should have been a court witness but Dad had stopped my name from going into the police records.
He had said to me:

Trouble can't stop coming to you but the Murphy name needn't be dragged through the mire if you haven't been caught law breaking.

I was grateful to Dad again. The crowd did not know but I knew from Dad that Inspector Treadwell had taken a statement from Gustav. Then he had shown it to Mr McLean in prison. After a discussion with his lawyer, Mr McLean had agreed to the statement. Now he could do nothing but plead guilty to attempted murder.

McLean's misfortune is he is left handed like you, Dad had said grimly.
He meant to shoot Gustav in the heart but shot him on his right side. He thought Gustav was done for after he shot him, and put the pistol in the boys' hand. If the court had believed him, that Gustav had accidentally shot himself, he would of got off scot-free. If the court had not, he would of been put out of his misery at the end of a rope.

Dad had chortled at the latter thought.

I had never noticed the Mayor's cack-handedness and was startled. I had always thought the cack-handed were the wretched on earth. But then I had wondered if my prejudice was right after all.

I completed with a heavy heart the Truth columns. I could understand most of it. However there was one bit at the beginning that confounded me.

Iain McLean, in his public business life was a popular and successful man, but there was another side to his nature – a Jekyll as well as a Hyde to his character – and Rosenblum, a German emigrant youth unmasked the debonair Mayor and discovered him to be another Oscar Wilde, morally unclean a pursuer of PERVERTED AND PUTRID PLEASURES

As I had been told by Dad that Mr Wilde was an Irish gentleman done in by the English, I had assumed he was one of his Irish heroes.
I had seen the movie, Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I thought the newspaper got it right about the Mayor being like Doctor Jekyll. But I thought Mr Hyde was like the Mayor's men-friends I guided at night to the mayoral office.

One bit in Truth overthrew my confidence in the truth of newspapers. I read in astonishment.

Rosenblum, being a wholesome‑minded youth, on making his discovery, determined to to force McLean to resign from the Mayoralty.

As I was leaving the court after the sentencing, an elderly decrepit man accosted me.

You were the Mayor's boy and are a friend of Gustav, he said quietly to me.

I shook with fear. I had at last been found out.

I am the police court reporter from Truth newspaper. Come with me and we'll talk in the tea room.

I was too scared to defy him. The prospect of tea and cakes drowned out any other thoughts. The reporter bought tea and cream cakes. As I greedily devoured them, he took out a notebook and pencil.

I read here Gustav's police statement.
‘While McLean and I were alone at the art gallery, I discovered a certain disgusting feature of McLean's character. I purposely encouraged him to display his qualities in his nature which I expected. On making that discovery I told him that I had led him on purpose to make sure of his dirty intentions.’

The reporter looked slyly at me.

Gustav's statement said that he persuaded McLean to write a letter of resignation. He said, McLean put it in an envelope in his pocket. Then McLean shot him. Your father swore in court that he made a careful search for that envelope in McLean's office but could not find it. If it exists, it would most likely have been in McLean's pocket. Gustav's immoral soliciting and the missing envelope were not mentioned again in court. I am a veteran of public scandals. I'll give you a quid if you tell me that Gustav was blackmailing McLean for money.

I hesitated and wondered what was my real market price. Then I recalled that the Rosenblums had been my only friends since boyhood.

I said, No and ran out of the tearoom.

The Petrie Chronicle had an entirely different reaction to the scandal from Truth. The first working day after the shooting, I looked through its pages. There was nothing at all about it. On the next day, there was a small column that the Mayor had tendered his resignation, and an acting Mayor was appointed. After that, its columns were a stony silence.

I went to bed and Maria's warm body and bright laughter filled up every corner of the bedroom. I tested again my new manhood and it spilt over my bed sheet. I then fell asleep and had an enchanting dream.

I was in the ballroom of the big drapery store in the main street. That was the town's favourite dance hall for young people. In my boyhood, I had frequented there once or twice. I had chatted desultorily with other boys while the young grown-ups had danced. On a small stage, a lady on a large piano and a gentleman on a violin had played waltzes. It had all been very stiff and awkward.

In this dream, I was startled to hear jazz music. Its free flowing raggedly sounds made my heart and feet want to leap with joy. Then a female vocalist sang a familiar radio song as if all happiness, sorrow, pain in the world was compressed in her single smoky tone. I looked up at the stage and recognised Duke Ellington on the piano and his band. They wore tuxedos and silky raiment and were as immaculate and cool as angels in a cathedral.

I seemed to be sitting alone in a waiting chair at the side of the hall. Then suddenly through the hall door, a crowd of young people came in laughing and smiling. They wore the stiff and elegant clothes of the Rosenblum children when I had first met them. Their faces had the same vivacity and dreaminess. Their black irises shone out with the same radiant but sombre intelligence.

My heart ached to know the history of each of these young people. The boys took the girls. They danced hands on waists to the rhythms as if their lithe bodies were butterflies dancing in a breeze. I sat stupefied until my eyes cast upon the dancing Rosenblum children. They also saw me and came to me. I took Maria into my arms. I too could dance as well and felt myself floating to the wild rhythms.

I felt exhilarated and liberated. Even the waltzes of the Petrie young people aroused fierce criticism in the town as immoral. These jazz dances would be judged as primitive lewd Negro dancing.

Then I returned with Maria and took Gustav to the dance floor. We danced together and no one seemed offended. The Negress vocalist was singing and the band was playing endless variations of ‘It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing’. The band members were answering her, Do-wah, Do -wah, Do-wah. When the band stopped playing, Gustav gently kissed me on my cheek.

Then I remembered I had to see the Mayor in his office to do one of his night errands. I slipped away. I hurried down the stairs into the shop. I past by the shop goods covered up in dust sheets like shrouds. I hurried down the dark deserted streets.

I mysteriously found myself in the Gaiety picture theatre. I ran through its foyer and empty auditorium. I ran through a dark corridor, and finally reached the mayoral office. I hurried inside. In the gloom, I saw on the couch two cadavers and grinning skulls. I woke up in fright to the ringing of the old alarm clock. Wormwood's words were ringing in my ears.

It's all a dance of death.

I got up in darkness to see off the Rosenblums. A week ago, Maria had told me that relatives from New York had sent money so they could join them. It was arranged that Mrs Rosenblum would marry the American uncle of an old school friend so they could live in America. My heart had sunk but I was glad for them.

On the day after the shooting, Dad had made an unexpected visit to the Rosenblums. I was present and was secretly mortified that his heavy presence brought the town into their magic place.

Dad took a cup of tea and then said portentously.

I remember the Great War when I was a constable. Life out there was feverish. I catch the same mood now in the town. Anyone with a foreign name or habits not approved in scripture is now fair game. Avoid going out, don't stay out late at night, keep away from crowds, keep your doors locked, and stay away from your windows.

Mrs Rosenblum and Maria had nodded thoughtfully as if Dad was warning about changes in the weather.

I never found out whether relations had truly sent them money, or the towns' big-wigs had paid them to get out of town.

I walked through the city to the railway station. The city in darkness was deserted. My heart jumped when I saw the Rosenblums drinking tea in the little waiting room. As we greeted each other, Gustav smiled wanly at me. The hospital had only released him the day before. The doctors had found the bullet behind his lung. They had told the Rosenblums that it would be more dangerous to cut it out than to leave it in. Mrs Rosenblum joked that the bullet was their only souvenir from the town. Gustav smiled wanly again.

We sat down together and had more cups of tea.

Why is your father here? said Gustav irritably

We all started and looked around. It was indeed Dad riding up on his bicycle.

He is just checking up that you will leave safely, I said soothingly.

I knew that Dad was just making sure the number one trouble of the town did leave for good. He got off his bicycle. He stood, arms folded, an awful presence, at the waiting room door. The Rosenblums put down their cups, and all looked sourly at me. That was one of the occasions that I hated Dad. The train was late.

We sat silently together alone in the waiting room and avoided each other's eyes. Then Maria pulled out of her bag an exercise book. She opened it up. Scrawled across the lines was hand writing in Maria's style that properly belonged to an infant class. We others hid our dismay.

When I went to bed last night, I couldn't sleep at all, sleepily said Maria.
Thoughts like beautiful dreams kept flooding my head.

I reddened, and glanced at Mrs Rosenblum and Gustav. My boy-man body was telling me that I was a clumsy oaf who had last night laid indecent hands on their exquisite child. But in the Rosenblum magic circle, I was suddenly invisible once again.

Mrs Rosenblum was reading with difficulty Maria's handwriting.

Wonderbar, you have written a story. You must read it to us.

I panted with joy like a grateful hound.

Maria gave a little cough. She pulled up her shoulders, and started to read aloud as if she was reading out an assignment in school. What I remember is a boy and a girl living alone at the lake when our land was still savage. There was a marriage, a young girl's pain, a boy and girl's love, a birth and a death.

When she had finished, Maria smiled and looked up for applause. There were tears in Mrs Rosenblum's eyes.

Quite good, condescendingly said Gustav.
But the story is very old fashioned. These days, story tellers should teach how societies can be better. What sort of example does ‘Whiowhio’ set for young women? If you had written that story a hundred years ago, some European composer might have turned it into an opera.

The train puffed in in a cloud of black smoke and lamp light. The Rosenblums grabbed their bags and hurried away. Dad pretended not to notice us. I shook hands with Mrs Rosenblum and Gustav. I pecked Maria on the cheek. She suddenly handed to me the exercise book. Gustav promised to write from New York. They brushed past a guard and entered their carriage. The guard slammed the door shut. The train whistled and puffed out of the station. I was left with ashes in my mouth, standing desolate on the platform. When I looked around, Dad had disappeared.

I walked back into town. The sun had now alighted the city. It was now choked with people. Rattling old buses and huge dray wagons loaded with goods and drawn by teams of frisky powerful horses trundled past. Trams packed with workers slid smoothly along the street rails. Along every vacant space, workmen on bicycles and on foot were sullenly journeying to work. Through this army of workers, the motor cars slipped through with the boldness and sleekness of sharks.

I sauntered along in my cap and muffler, feeling carefree, and my heart overflowing. I was an unemployed youth living on Dad's pocket money, a natural recipient of the charity of old ladies and the surliness of policemen. I didn't care. I rolled a cigarette. I lit it and stuck it into my mouth. I jauntily tossed my head. It was a working morning, and I may have been the only person in the entire town completely happy.

At street vantage-points, newspaper boys were shrilly crying out–
‘Sydney aviators found! Petrie Chronicle!’
A few people were purchasing and reading the newspaper lead article. Everyone else was wearing a mask of stony indifference. I wondered whether the story of Gustav and the Mayor had also been a stony indifferent business to the world outside the town. Now would the town forget? I pondered.

A curiosity suddenly gripped me. I left the main street and sauntered to McLean street. That was a new street which had been named in the Mayor's honour. Wormwood flourished there. In the distance, I saw and heard a crowd of unemployed young men cussing around the door of his flat. When I arrived, Mickey was hammering at the door.

Get out you queer fairy and face the music! Mickey was gleefully shouting through the key hole.

The other young men were grinning and laughing. Some were gripping stones and bricks as if poised to destroy a troublesome insect nest at a picnic. I felt sick inside. Pebbles were thrown at the window. I looked up. There was no sign of life.

Voices shouted. We know you're there! Wormwood! Or is it Lola-Lola!?

Then laughter. Then a brick crashed through the window. Two constables rode up on bicycles. The crowd remained noisy but the throwing stopped. The constables shouldered through and banged on the door.

Come out, Wood, it's the police.

The door instantly opened. To a roar of jeers, Wormwood came out. His smile at last had disappeared. In its place, a timid face hid itself behind a suitcase. He walked crouchingly to a smart little sports car on the side of the road. He returned to the car several times with luggage, and loaded the boot and passenger side. Then he slipped into the car. With a roar and dust, and never a sideways or backward look, Wormwood and the car vanished.

The young men were now silent. I was startled to see they were staring at the car's exit with envy.

How did that queer own that sports car when we working men can't even afford proper shoes, they growled among themselves.

Even the constables looked surprised and envious. Then they waved their arms and marched forward as if they were shooing chooks.

Wood has left the town for good! So there is nothing for you to hang around here!

The crowd, like chooks, clucked and moved hurriedly away from the constables' boots. The constables recognised me and sourly shook their heads. I knew if I hadn't been Dad's son, they would have taken the excuse to manhandle me as a mysterious conduit of the town's mischief. I too slipped away.

But my curiosity stayed. I walked down the street to the street sign. McLean Street had gone. In its place was a new proud sign, Bledisloe Street. My curiosity did not diminish, it grew. I hurried over to the art gallery. On its foundation stone, there should be the name Mayor I.C. McLean above the names of all the other town dignitaries. I found his name had been chipped and ground out.

I felt desolate again. My former employer had been the hero of the moneyed half of the town. I took the road to Nobs hill. The ghost of Gustav was at my side as when together we had run up the hill to spy on Vicky McLean. I hung around the gate. The grass and bushes were overgrown. There was not a sign of life. A For Sale sign was perched on the front lawn.

The family McLean had accompanied its city inscriptions in disappearing into the air. My supposing of that was not entirely fanciful. I never again overheard the McLean name dropped out of the lips of anyone. For a year or two, people in the town would make cryptic references to ‘The Petrie incident’. Then that too stopped as if Mr McLean and his doings had never happened at all.

I never saw the former Mayor again. Once I sighted Mrs McLean and Vicky, a grown-up lady, looking ill at ease in a shop. The shop assistant called them Mrs and Miss and the unmarried name of Mrs McLean. As for Wormwood; his person, his luggage and recollections of him seemed to have disappeared in the same puff of exhaust smoke.

It was evening when I got home. As I prepared tea for Dad and our visitor, Uncle Bernard, I overheard them in the sitting room. I pictured Dad with his home-brew, cigarette and furious red faced gestures. One moment his heavy sarcastic mimicking of the toffs, the next his elephant trumpeting.

I pictured Uncle Bernard with a glass of his tonic medicine from his hip flask, laid back in his chair, with a wide condescending grin over his whiskery face. Dad was saying:

I had warned him weeks ago there were diggers had their sights on him ever since MacDonald pulled out of the mayoral election. You can't trample on old soldiers like you can trample on widows and orphans. That was why he was carrying around a revolver.

The daughter Vicky visited her father in prison and Gustav's bedside twice. The Macks and the Yids must of come to some deal. It's the Macks got the dirty end. It's the truth only a Yid can drive a harder bargain than a Mack. He confessed to attempted murder. He's a lawyer. He knows we would of had every queer in town in the dock. His reputation would of been ruined and the jury would of believed the Yid. He saved his family from further shame. The Yids got out of town and the country without being tarred and feathered, and with a Christian family's gratuity.

His counsel's plea was, for a number of years accused has been suffering from ho-mo sexual mono-man-ia. The accused could not control his passions. The accused had consulted doctors and meta-physicians. Counsel submitted to his Honour reports from these gentle-men. Bloody typical of a depraved toff. Shelters behind his school chums in the lea-rned professions. But it didn't help them this time.

The old Judge was the hanging school. Pity he was ham-strung by a wowser law. When I was a young man, the queers kept to themselves. If they so much as laid a finger on you, they got hard labour and a whipping.

Then these do gooders and wowsers said, ‘Oh that's too hard. We'll just keep them locked up to be bone idle and in a queer prison so they won't be beaten up.‘

The result is, they've crawled out of the old dens and are preying on decent folks everywhere. Do gooders and wowsers can kiss my bum.

Hear hear, said Uncle Bernard.

I wasn't sure whether Uncle Bernard meant it, or in his oily way was leading on Dad so he could get a soft touch later. Dad called out:

Tom, sit down and see your Uncle Bernard. Get yourself a glass of grog. He's learning to down it fast, my boy, proudly said Dad.

Dad's strictures on queers made me uneasy. I recalled Maria's words about the murderous police in Germany. In my boyhood, I had thought that courts and policemen were there to help and protect people. However I was glad about the home-brew and Dad's admission that I was learning fast.