Tom , livre ebook

Tom
Greg Bunbury
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-10-30
Tom About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright © Greg Bunbury (2019) Prelude The Aunt Part One Return Journey Part Two The Tenement Part Three The Orphanage Part Four Boarding Houses Part Five The World
About the Author
Greg Bunbury was born in Sydney in 1930. He had a hard start in life, being raised in an orphanage in the west. He never let anything get him down. He had a distinguished career in the public service where he was ultimately appointed as President and Chief Executive of the NSW State Superannuation Board. Greg was awarded the Order of Australia in 1982 for services to Superannuation. He was also a writer, having various plays published on stage and television. Greg was married to his beloved wife, June, and they had three children. Jude, Sara and Luke. Jude was tragically killed in a car accident in 1984.
Greg died suddenly in August 2017, shortly after Austin Macauley agreed to publish ‘Tom’. Sara and Luke wanted ‘Tom’ to be published posthumously in his memory.
About the Book
Tom  tells the story of growing up in Sydney from the depression of the 1930s to the 1950s. The story follows Tom Donnelly from around eight years of age, living in a Redfern tenement in the 1930s, through years in an orphanage, then boarding houses, finally a bed-sitter in an old house in Darlinghurst, by which time he is about 22 and ready to tackle an uncertain future.
Over the years, Tom struggles to find himself and, serially, to forget where he has been, what has happened to him, closing it all out until unexpectedly he is thrust back into it and he at last emerges from the small dark room of his mind and memory into sunshine, free of the past he has faced, even with some humour and with love.
Dedication
Sara and Luke would like to dedicate ‘Tom’ to the memory of their wonderful father.
Copyright Information ©
Greg Bunbury (2019)
The right of Greg Bunbury to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528954877 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Prelude
The Aunt
She did not notice she was the only person to alight from the train at the small station on the outskirts of Sydney, but walking up the hill to the orphanage, she was conscious of being entirely alone in the warm sunshine, unseasonal spring in the depth of winter. When she woke this morning, the light coming into the room was grey, without sunlight, and she had dressed for a colder day, black tailored costume, a cream, silk blouse tied at the neck with a full soft bow, court shoes. The wide brim of a black Garbo hat fell to the left side of her face. Apart from eye shadow, red lipstick, she wore no cosmetic. The seams of her stockings were perfectly straight; she dressed with care automatically, not for effect, but because she loathed slovenliness. She wore brown kid gloves and her small brown handbag was tucked high under her arm.
She had sent Tom a card for his birthday, enclosing a postal note for two shillings and saying she would take him into town on Saturday. Tom was twelve. In a few years, he would be in the army if the war didn’t end and it didn’t look as if it would end soon. Darwin had been bombed. Soldiers and sailors were everywhere in the city, occasionally airmen. She did not read the newspapers, but the news on the radio kept her vaguely in touch with what was going on.
She had no interest in what was going on; it was in your face day in day out, and she was not interested, barely noticing how much everything had changed. Yesterday, she was off work to attend the clinic and afterwards, she went into town, wandering past windows of department stores all boarded up, remembering models wearing gorgeous clothes that she and Kit could never afford. She had lunch at the cafeteria in Coles, crowded with servicemen and their girls, noisy with conversation intruding the silence in which she sat drinking tea, in no hurry to go back to her room above the bicycle shop to rest sleepless, read the novel she did not remember until she opened it at the page clipped with a bobby pin, switch on the radio, switch off the radio, read again, finally dusk and she would go out for a walk, unwise in the cold evening air perhaps, but by that time she knew, she would have to get out of the room. The cafeteria was cheerful, busy and she had lingered.
Day followed day, eventless. The factory through the week, at the weekend a film, she sometimes sat through twice, a trip to Manly if the day was nice or she might take a run out to Watson’s Bay on the tram. And in her room, the radio smothering the comings and goings at all hours in the bicycle shop downstairs. At the sanatorium, routine had taken care of the days: meals, rests, clinic, walks in the country, the company of other women, not whom you chose, chosen for you by the vagaries of random infection. Now that was going to start again. Doctor Meikles said quite soon. The last x-ray had not been good.
Tom was pleased to see her when Brother Austen brought him into the unused parlour, heavily furnished with polished mahogany, a pedestal table, antique dining chairs upholstered and buttoned in red velvet. Brother Austen was hearty, a big man who gave the impression he was fitting you into a busy schedule.
‘Well, Mrs Allen, Tom has been waiting for you since Mass, thought you might have forgotten him. Isn’t that right, Tom?’
He laughed at Tom’s needless anxiety. Tom did not laugh. He was embarrassed that his anxiety had been obvious and apparently was funny.
She was not amused. Tom was a timid boy, anxious, which his mother’s long illness would not have helped. She did not think there was any point sharing that insight with Brother Austen and she wondered suddenly whether, after all, the day in town would be enjoyable for Tom with the prospect of returning to the orphanage in the evening shadowing everything they were doing. For a moment, she was not sure she felt up to the day, able to summon the energy or was it the imagination, to keep Tom entertained, skirting the issue of how long more must he stay in the orphanage, when would it be over, which he would never ask, though she could sense him looking for clues in everything she said. The unpleasant fact was that there was no answer. It was rather as if there were no future just now, and she did not actually care. Of course, she would have liked everything to be different, prayers answered, life to go on, some sort of life. But you do not have the luxury of choosing. You accept, as you accept the young women at the sanatorium, incessantly chatting, laughing, planning tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, until you want to scream, shut up, fools.
She said, ‘Tom, would you get your sweater? It’s quite cold really, and I don’t want you to get a cough.’
‘Now, what do you want to say to me?’ Brother Austen asked perceptively when, after the slightest hesitation, Tom hurried from the room.
‘Tom has been here almost two years,’ she said, clearly displeased to be raising this again, trying not to sound harping. ‘He does not settle; he is not happy. Why is that? Surely, by now there must be something’
‘My dear Mrs Allen,’ Brother Austen cut in, ‘I have no idea what you are asking. He seems happy enough, considering the kind of boy he is. He is not robust. To put it bluntly, he’s not good at much, either in the classroom or out of it. As a matter of fact, out of it is pretty much where Tom is. He doesn’t have many friends; he does not try to make friends. There’s been a lot of sadness in your family, Mrs Allen. If that is what we are talking about, I don’t know that there is much we can do, except wait for time to heal, as it surely will. Time heals all wounds, don’t you think?’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I suppose I was asking whether someone here might try to find Tom where he is, help him through this. I have spoken before, I’m not sure of the Brother’s name, but I don’t think anything happened.’
‘Perhaps Brother may have talked to Tom, but would you not be the best one to do that?’
She did not reply. Brother Austen did not know what she was talking about and she was not at all sure of what she expected from him. The damage was done really; Tom had been too long in a house full of women and his grandfather, old and silent.
Brother Austen said, ‘There are two hundred boys here, Mrs Allen. We do the best we can, but I’m afraid we must let situations work themselves out, unless they are positively dangerous, and by and large, they are not. The boys take care of themselves, look after themselves. Tom is learning to do that. It’s a bit of a jungle, but he’ll survive.’ Tom suddenly jumped back into the room and Brother Austen smiled down at him. ‘Now Tom is going to have a lovely day with you. Isn’t that right, Tom?’

Walking down the hill to the station, she held Tom’s hand, small and soft, and she wondered how he would ever grow up, the hand grow strong, tough, able to grip her hand, which, perhaps, would no longer be there.
Tom said, ‘Where are we going, Aunt?’
‘When we get to town,’ she said, ‘I’ll take you to lunch at Cahill’s, then I thought we might go to the pictures. Would you like that?’ Tom nodded without looking up.
As the steam train racketed toward the city, Tom sat quietly, slowly eating jelly