Four Fires Read Free

turns to be on the council.
    Next came the orchardists at Stanley, the Andersons (cherries) and the McNuttys (apples). Then the small land-holders (sheep or cattle) who were mostly soldier settlers and only sometimes managed a representative. They were resented by the other farmers because they only paid three-quarters of one per cent on their government loans, which meant they just scraped onto the bottom end of the acceptable list whether they were Protestants or not.
    Most of these leading citizens undoubtedly belonged to the Masonic Lodge, a single-storey red-brick building next door to the Mechanics Institute hall. The window panes of the lodge were painted in white, and had bars across them, while the double doors were always chained and locked. What went on in there was a mystery, but if you were a Catholic you couldn't belong because, Nancy told us, whatever it was they did, it was the devil's work. They also had a secret handshake nobody knew except themselves and they used to scratch each other's back, she said.
    In the town proper Philip Templeton (note one T in Philip), the Holden dealer, then either Tim McRobertson or James Hayley from McRobertson-Hayley Solicitors and Conveyancing, and Hamish Middleton, the town's jeweller, 'where everyone buys their wedding gifts', were also members of the council. The town chemist, Bluey Porter, was once a member and although he was a Protestant and even sometimes played organ in church, he was an inebriate, because only Catholics were drunks, so the rest of the council eventually put the kybosh on him being a member.
    The owner of the local rag didn't make it either. The Owens & Murray Gazette was owned by Toby Forbes who, Nancy said, was rough as guts. 'After him, Tommy's almost a gentleman,' she'd say, while scoffing at something he'd written in the Gazette. There must have been something that went on between the two of them once, because
    there were lots that were worse than Toby Forbes in town and he didn't seem such a bad bloke. Sometimes, when he had a special edition coming out, he'd pass by the house and see if we wanted to do a paper run with the garbage in the morning, and he always paid cash on the knocker.
    Vera Forbes, Toby's wife, had social pretensions and wrote a Page 9

    weekly column in her husband's paper called 'Yacking On', which was a feeble enough play on the town's name. She also acted as a reporter and was able and willing to dish the dirt on everyone who wasn't on the Anglican Women's Guild. She was often referred to by those of us at the bottom end of town as 'Big Mouth Saggy Tits'. She'd wear these dresses in the summer without a brassiere and you could see her tits through the material, they hung nearly to her waist without sticking out much either. Mike called them razor strops.
    Then there was Stipendiary Magistrate Oliver Withers, known to one and all as 'Oliver Twist'. This nickname came about because a magistrate can only impose sentences for petty theft, which is a maximum of two years. Oliver Withers, who hated this restriction on his power, would as often as not ask for a 'second helping', in other words, additional time for the prisoner, by referring a case to the district court judge.
    Naturally, he was our family's mortal enemy and was also a lay preacher in the Congregational Church and, although high up in the law, was nevertheless a government worker. Nancy calls him a jumped up clerk. Because of his government job and his holy-roller religion, he'd never have made the shire council in a month of fire-and
    brimstone Sundays.
    But, to be totally fair, our side held a couple of much-needed aces as well. The sergeant of police, Big Jack Donovan, and the governor of the prison, Mr John Sullivan, both belonged to the Catholics. The shire council would rather have disbanded than have those two come on board. Nevertheless, they were men with power hard-earned and they knew their way around town and who was up whom.
    In our particular