The Last of the Bonegilla Girls Read online

  ‘That’s where the pyramids are,’ Frances noted.

  ‘On the boat to Australia, we stopped there. A man … he wants to give money to my father for me,’ Elizabeta told them, her expression serious.

  Frances was flabbergasted. She leaned across the table. ‘You mean like … a slave?’

  ‘For his wife.’ Elizabeta answered. ‘My father said no.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that. Wife,’ Frances said. ‘In German that is Frau?’

  Elizabeta nodded. ‘Sehr gut.’

  Iliana leaned in. ‘La moglie.’

  Vasiliki added, ‘Gynaika.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a wife,’ Elizabeta said quietly.

  ‘I not marry Nikolas Longinidis,’ Vasiliki declared. ‘My mother says I marry him.’

  Iliana didn’t lift her eyes from the atlas.

  For the past month, the girls had met and practised their English every day after Frances got home on the bus from school in Albury. Frances was very pleased at their progress. Elizabeta, of course, had started with a distinct advantage, already knowing more English than Iliana and Vasiliki; she quickly picked up new phrases and her vocabulary grew. Iliana and Vasiliki proved to be fast learners as well, although Vasiliki struggled with reading in a strange new alphabet.

  The friends took turns turning the pages and finding their countries. Iliana showed them where in Italy she had come from—at the top of the heel of the shoe—and Vasiliki found her Greek island. Frances had been surprised when Elizabeta had shown her two countries—Hungary and Germany.

  As the girls turned the pages, Frances’s mind wandered. Wife. Frau. La moglie. Gynaika. The words repeated over and over in her head. Could it be true that Vasiliki’s mother was trying to marry her off to a man called Nikolas something or other? How could that be? She was only sixteen? Is that what was done in Greece? Frances didn’t know what the future would hold for her. Would she finish school and be a wife and mother, just like her own mother had done? How could she possibly see the rest of the world if that was her future, to be married with children? Not that she wanted to get married but she supposed that’s what girls did and if she had to, perhaps if she was very lucky she would find a husband with a similarly adventurous spirit, someone who would be willing to jump on a ship and see the world with her.

  There was so much to do before she settled down with a family. There was school, of course, and then Frances would need some kind of job to save up money for her world adventures. Perhaps she could be a teacher? She liked teaching her friends, had felt so rewarded when they learned something and put it into practice. Teaching was a good job for a woman, she knew, except that she would have to give it up when she got married. If she married. Perhaps she could apply herself more diligently to the typing and shorthand classes at school and take up in a job in a government department? Her father was an important person in the government. He must know somebody who might need a secretary.

  Her brother Tom was studying at university to be a lawyer. He’d always been the smartest of all the Burley siblings, at least that’s what her parents said. He was the one who’d sparred with his father over dinner, talking about politics and trade and the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or anything else he’d read in the newspaper. Frances always sat quietly during those conversations, trying to learn as much as she could. Everyone basked in Tom’s glory in the Burley family. It was a measure of pride for them all that Tom was so clever. Their older brother, Donald, hadn’t had such ambition. He worked as a clerk in a shipping office at Port Melbourne. He had a steady girl, Betty, who lived in Fitzroy, and worked on the switchboard at the same company. They were lovely together, the kind of people who were happy with their lot, who didn’t want too much more out of life than a decent job, a good meal on the table of an evening, and going to the Brunswick Street Oval on Saturday afternoons to watch their beloved Roys play. Donald loved her so much he’d even switched allegiance from Collingwood. They hadn’t talked of marriage yet but Frances expected it would happen soon. She quite liked the idea of being Aunt Frances one day.

  Logically, that seemed like the life she would also have, but it wasn’t the life Frances wanted for herself. She was doing well at school—very well actually—except for shorthand and typing. Perhaps she could study at university like Tom. Or she could learn foreign languages—like French or Spanish—and become an ambassador or a diplomat.

  Perhaps she could learn Italian. It seemed such a passionate and romantic language.

  If she could speak Italian, she might be able to talk to Massimo. What if she were to marry him and have lots of beautiful half-Italian babies? Her pulse spiked at the thought. She hadn’t forgotten his words of comfort, his arms around her, his strength as he’d carried her to the camp’s hospital. She was being ridiculous. Marry an Italian? And a Catholic? She knew right off the bat what her grandparents would think. Their only granddaughter having Catholic babies? It was unthinkable. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t dreamt about him.

  Frances’s cheeks burnt and she pressed her fingers to her face to cool them. There was no good to come from thinking about him that way. He was Iliana’s brother, for goodness sake. And anyway, Iliana and her family would leave Bonegilla soon for who knew where.

  She pulled herself back to reality, to the Bonegilla mess and her friends. The girls had stopped chatting and were looking at Frances. She’d completely forgotten what they had been talking about.

  ‘Bread with jam?’ Iliana passed a plate to Frances, on which were slices of fresh white bread with butter and thick strawberry jam.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said to Iliana, before devouring a piece with a huge bite.

  ‘You are welcome,’ Iliana replied slowly which earned her a round of applause from her friends. She beamed.

  Frances tried to concentrate once again on the lessons she was supposed to be giving. ‘Why don’t we try this one tonight?’ She reached for the booklet she had brought with her. It was something new, something to stretch the girls. I Can Read English had been prepared by the Commonwealth Office of Education for the Department of Immigration. It sounded very important and Frances was nervous about her ability to teach what was inside it. But she would try as they were definitely ready to move on from Enid Blyton.

  ‘Here girls. Let’s have a look at this.’ She opened the front page of the little booklet. There were lots of chapters about the goings on of the Miller family.

  She began. ‘“In the kitchen, Mrs Miller says, Now dinner is finished, help me wash the dishes would you please, George? Mr Miller says, Look, Mary! I work in the mill all day and I work very hard.”’

  When she looked up from the page there were three blank faces staring at her. ‘Oh, that’s not much use, is it? Wait a moment. I’ll find another page.’ She flipped to Chapter 17: ‘Mr Miller Reads the Paper’. This was better. It would be much more useful for the girls to be able to read the paper, to help their parents find jobs in the classifieds section, to find a house to rent or to see which pictures were screening at the cinema.

  ‘Ah, here we go.’ Frances began to read slowly. ‘“After dinner at night Mr Miller sits down. He asks Katherine: Where is the newspaper? Katherine goes to her mother, who is washing the dishes. Where is the newspaper, Mum? she asks. It’s in the living room on the chair. Katherine goes to the living room and gets the paper. She gives it to her father, who is sitting in an armchair.”’

  ‘What is armchair?’ Iliana asked.

  ‘It’s a chair with big arms,’ Frances replied before realising how ridiculous that sounded. She laughed at herself. ‘It is a chair with a big space for arms to rest on.’ She mimed the armrests, flattening her palms and holding them horizontal on either side of her body.

  Vasiliki looked confused. ‘Newspaper is important in a family?’

  Frances nodded. ‘It’s where work is. Houses to live in. Films. Sales in shops.’

  Elizabeta said something to Iliana and Vasiliki in German and
they nodded in recognition and delight.

  Frances closed I Can Read English. She decided that Mr Miller and his newspaper adventures were not going to teach the girls anything useful. She had a better idea.

  ‘I think we should have an outing,’ she announced. ‘Girls like shopping, don’t they?’

  ‘We go shopping?’ Elizabeta asked. ‘On the bus? To Albury?’ Frances was pleased to see some happiness in Elizabeta’s eyes.

  The enthusiasm was bright in Iliana’s and Vasiliki’s faces and they nodded in delight.

  Frances clapped her hands together. ‘And I know just the place to take you!’

  Chapter Ten

  Abikhair’s Emporium sat grandly on the corner of Olive and Swift Streets and it was Frances’s favourite place in all of Albury. The building was two storeys tall with a veranda all around to shield customers from the harsh sun and winter rains. There were columns on the top, like parapets, that reached into the sky, and Frances had always imagined the building to be a little like a castle. An Australian-style castle, at least. There were three different entrances—a main one, and separate doors for men and women. The last thing women shopping for girdles wanted to see was a man wandering through looking for the menswear section to buy some new farm boots, her mother said. A trip to Abikhair’s with her mother was always such a special morning for her, and she hoped some of the magic would rub off on Vasiliki, Iliana and Elizabeta. She had decided to make an excursion of it. That’s the way it always was with her mother, even if they were simply shopping for new socks, or some wool that Mavis would transform into a new cardigan for winter.

  The girls had caught the bus from Bonegilla and hopped off on Hume Street. A short walk later, they stepped across the mosaic-tiled steps from the footpath through the women’s entrance and Frances savoured her friends’ reactions as they looked around, taking in every detail of the extravaganza. Dark wooden counters and floor-to-ceiling shelves covered the walls, densely packed with cardboard boxes. There were exhibits on every surface and advertising posters and racks created colourful and mysterious displays.

  ‘Oh,’ said Vasiliki. Elizabeta and Iliana held hands and gasped.

  There was everything from delicate white gloves to sturdy black rubber boots for farmers; sun hats to pull-me-in girdles. There were tins of tooth powder and spotted swimming costumes and hair pins, and long johns for men to endure the winter. In the haberdashery section, bolts of cloth were stacked in piles, and ribbons and lace dangled from huge spools, in every colour of the rainbow. They giggled at the mannequins wearing girdles and garter belts.

  Frances led them from counter to counter, getting them to repeat the names of the items. Gloves. Hat. Stockings. Bra. Shoes. Socks. Trousers. Lingerie. Wool. Apron. Handkerchief. Pyjamas.

  Each word sounded more and more ridiculous as the girls repeated them and laughed quietly behind their hands. Frances had been tasked with purchasing a bottle of Californian Poppy for her father, so the girls made their way through the store to the mens’ section and she quickly made her purchases. Iliana had bought a linen handkerchief, Vasiliki a new hairbrush and Elizabeta a scarf for her mother.

  Afterwards, they passed by the Riverina Cafe for a chocolate malt milkshake and sauntered back to the bus stop, happy, laughing, excited.

  ‘Did you like the shop?’ Frances asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vasiliki. ‘Very good. Girdles.’ She posed as one of the shop mannequins, sucking in her cheeks, creating a vacant, cross-eyed stare. They all burst into laughter.

  ‘My mother?’ Iliana said. ‘No girdle.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Frances added. ‘Honestly, they look so uncomfortable. I don’t know how you’re expected to breath or ride a bike or run or anything wearing one of those.’

  When she frowned, the others seemed to understand. Elizabeta began speaking German to Iliana and Vasiliki and Frances didn’t mind. She liked the way Elizabeta went slowly with them, having patience with the fact they were trying to keep up in one of the two new languages they were learning. Frances enjoyed their chatter and looked ahead to the bus stop, wondering if they’d have to wait long.

  Something caught her eye. Three young men, perhaps Tom’s age, had crossed the street and were approaching. As they got closer, Frances recognised them from Albury High School, from the grade above her. She wondered if they were going to warn her the bus was running late. But no. With a second glance, she could see by the lope of their stride, by the set of their shoulders, that they had some intent. Caution prickled the hair on her arms.

  ‘Oy,’ one called, his expression harsh. ‘You girls from Bonegilla?’

  Her friends were suddenly quiet. Frances glanced up and down the street but there were only a few people about and they were minding their own business. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She clutched her brown paper package of Californian Poppy to her chest. The girls slipped in behind her.

  The young men circled her and her friends, who had pulled into a tight little circle, looking inward.

  ‘Check out the reffos, Dave.’ The tallest one, his face sweet as an angel’s, looked Frances up and down, scowling, making a point to linger on her breasts.

  ‘They’re not reffos,’ Dave answered. ‘They’re dagoes, Billy. Look at this one.’ His mate, shorter, stockier, with a barrel chest, reached across and tugged on one of Vasiliki’s pigtails. ‘Where’d the frizzy hair come from, love? Africa? And what about this Ginger Mick, hey?’

  Frances flung an arm out to her side. She couldn’t feel scared. Her heart began to beat hard and fast and the anger swelled in her head, creating a buzzing in her ears. She could not let her friends be spoken to in this way. She was showing them all about life in Australia after all, and the Australia she knew was kind.

  ‘Stop.’ One word, it was all she could manage to splutter.

  ‘Ooh,’ the one called Dave said, with a high-pitched retort intended to mock her.

  Behind her, she heard Elizabeta whispering to Iliana and Vasiliki.

  Dave and Billy and the other one, who was staring Iliana directly in the face, his mouth pulled tight, his face inches from hers, bum fluff under his chin, stood up to their full heights, emboldened by intimidating four young women simply standing at a bus stop on a cool May Saturday in Albury.

  Billy lunged to the side. Frances startled. ‘Speak bloody English, will ya? You’re in Australia now.’ They began to circle the girls, looking them over from their shoes to the tops of their heads.

  ‘Or better still, hop back on the Fairsea and go back to where you came from.’

  Billy piped up. ‘And while you’re at it, tell your dads and your brothers to stop taking all the jobs that belong to real Australians.’

  Frances’s anger was red hot now, so much so that she was barely aware that she’d flicked a foot out in front of her, just in time for the ringleader Dave to trip and stumble and then sprawl on to the footpath. She could hear his swearing and the guttural growls of his two henchmen rising in their throats. In that instant, she was glad she’d grown up with two older brothers.

  She stepped out in front of Elizabeta, Iliana and Vasiliki, holding her arms out to keep them behind her, to protect them.

  ‘Get lost,’ she shouted. ‘Yes, we’re all from Bonegilla. What do you say to that?’

  ‘You speak English?’ Billy screwed up his face and stared at her.

  ‘Yes, I bloody well do. And I know that you are Dorothy Smith’s older brother and if you don’t leave us alone I’m going to make sure your mother and father know about this, you hear?’ Then she turned to Dave, who was still half prostrate on the ground, cupping the back of his head, shocked to find there was blood in his fingers.

  ‘You’ll bloody well pay for this,’ he spat.

  Frances took a step towards him, her hands on her hips, and then stood over him. ‘Oh, will I? I think your father might be interested in what I’ve got to say. I see his trucks at Bonegilla three times every week. Who on earth would
eat all those potatoes and eggs if everyone from Bonegilla went “back to where they came from”, huh?’

  Dave slowly got to his feet. Behind her, Elizabeta, Iliana and Vasiliki hadn’t said a word. But Frances could feel their strength. There was a strong hand on her left shoulder. Another on her right. And a hand splayed on her back.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Dave muttered as he backed away slowly, stumbling. ‘You slag.’

  ‘Why don’t you rack off?’ Frances shouted. ‘And take these two drongos with you.’

  Billy sneered and spat on the footpath at her feet. They then turned to lope off down the street, their backs straighter, their sneers still set in their faces.

  ‘Wogs.’

  ‘Dagoes.’

  ‘Reffos.’

  Their taunts echoed long after they had turned a corner and disappeared.

  The hands on her shoulders and her back became a hug. Frances turned into the embrace of her friends and tried to catch her breath.

  ‘Thank you,’ they said in turn. She could feel them shaking, scared, quivering.

  ‘What is a drongo?’ Elizabeta asked.

  They hadn’t noticed the bus had arrived at the stop until the driver blasted its horn.

  Chapter Eleven

  It had been Tom’s idea that he and Frances should go to the Saturday-night dance for the camp residents at Tudor Hall. He’d returned the day before from Melbourne to stay for a week with his family at Bonegilla. When he’d suggested it, Frances had been quite taken aback by the idea, puzzled as to why he was suddenly being so charitable towards the new Australians. And as to why he would include her in his plans.

  Over their Friday-night staple of shepherd’s pie with peas and extra mashed potatoes, Tom broached the topic in front of their father, who had returned from Canberra just that day.

  ‘I think it would be a grand idea, don’t you, Dad? I think Frances is old enough now to go to a dance.’

  Frances caught his eye. He winked, out of sight of both their parents.