Four Fires Read Free Page A

family's case we had more to contend with than simple religious prejudice. Tommy spent as much time inside the prison on the hill as on the outside. More probably. We also had twin aunties, Dot and Gwen, both in the loony bin a little further up the incline, referred to as 'up top'. All of which didn't help the Maloney public image a whole heap.
    Auntie Gwen, thin as a cinnamon stick, once escaped in the nuddy and went wandering off into the town proper, walking down the main drag, King Street, rosary beads in hand, shouting out her Hail Mary. 'Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of the) womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
    Someone got a hold of Mum, who went to fetch my auntie in the Diamond T and delivered her back to the asylum. Nobody ever forgot that - Mum bringing her mad sister back in a garbage truck. The town Page 10

    tongues were wagging overtime for weeks.
    Then of course there was politics, Protestants voted Country Party and Catholics were being asked by Father Crosby to vote for the brand new DLP (the Democratic Labor Party). He said it was our duty and an order from the Bishop. There were a few fanatics who voted Labor.
    They passed out leaflets at elections, smoked pipes and never answered a question first off, pretending to think while sucking on
    their pipe stems. They held poorly attended meetings in local pubs, and said anyone in the Country Party was as stupid as Brown's cows.
    Then there was the final Maloney putdown. To make things worse for our family, we were the town garbage collectors. 'Maloney & Sons Garbage' was what Tommy had painted on the side of the Diamond T
    and that just about summed it up for the folk from Yankalillee. Mike wanted to paint out the sign but Nancy said that Tommy always fancied himself as a bit of a signwriter and had done it himself and was dead proud of the paint job. We'd just have to live with it, sticks and stones etc.
    Tommy had won the contract from the shire council when he returned from the war and all went well for a while until his war wounds started him drinking. He had a crook shoulder and only one good eye and a caved-in cheekbone, his shoulder had been smashed with the butt of a Japanese rifle and he was left with only fifty per cent mobility and his eye was done in at the same time. There were those who said he shouldn't have got the garbage contract, him being what he was, but he could drive a truck and, despite his shoulder, he could work as hard as anyone lifting garbage cans. He had this amazing technique, he'd sling a can up over his right shoulder and jump up on the running board at the back of the Diamond T and sort of bend and empty the can into the back of the truck all in one movement. He was getting a part disability pension but didn't qualify for the full TPI when he came out of the repatriation hospital. Probably a good thing, as most of what he got from War Veterans went on grog. Then he started getting into trouble with the law. His first visit to His Majesty's boarding house up the hill was for petty larceny when he got six months and Nancy was forced to take over the business.
    When the contract came up for renewal, Tommy was still in the clink so the shire council put it up for tender. Nancy put in for it, and since nobody else did, the council let her have it. I think it was mostly because the town clerk was a Catholic and the final decision was left to him. Nancy probably became the only woman garbage collector in business in the whole of Australia. That is, if you could call emptying people's garbage cans a business. She would laugh and say, 'Well, equal pay for women has to start somewhere, I guess.' But I don't think the job paid very well because there never seemed to be quite enough to get us through the month and Nancy had to do her layette work to Page 11

    make ends meet.
    Naturally us kids were not that