Nostalgia—And A Marook

Unwilling Sydneyites Enjoy a Hate Session

By Judy Tudor

r THIS is a then-and-now story; or an “it all-depends-on-the-viewpoint” story. It is dedicated to evacuees in general.

Time was when Sydney was the Terri torian’s Mecca; the focal point of nebu lous dreams; the fount from whence all blessings (you could take your pick) flowed.

To-day, the dream is no longer nebu lous —it has been deflated or de-dreamed!

Sydney is a cold, actual fact —perpetrated in brick, stone and ferrous concrete. It is a desert of blasted hopes and dull routine; a wilderness of work and worry; a region of arctic temperatures; a place to drive strong men to tears. In short — a hole.

SYDNEY was once glorious. But, even in the good old days, more glorious in anticipation than in reality.

Cases have been known where men, dreaming of its joys for months or years from the safe distance of a mining camp or isolated plantation, having sampled the pleasures of Usher’s, been smiled upon by Ethel, lost money at Randwick, found it dull and unprofitable after the first few days.

Distance, too, lent enchantment to the view. In Rabaul. for examnle, “South” was not such a dire necessity as it was farther out.

The Territorian was a tough guy with a sub-stratum of sentiment. He had an ego as big as a bus. but was dependable in a crisis. His chief antipathies were round-trippers, any other variety of “boys” than those in his own labour-line, the “Bie Firmsand sundry other Island institutions. His money he made the hard way, and usually went South to spend it.

Here, all good fortune was put down to pure luck and he became a lamb for the fleecing. After some weeks of whoo pee, friend Territorian was usually more than willing to return to his own chunk of South Seas paradise, there to partake of solitude, mosquitoes, fever, bush mokas, canned food and taro, and, in the full cvcle of such things, soon to be dreaming once again of the of Sydnev town, cold beer and civilisation.

In these back-waters, hemmed in by coconuts or by mountains, time was elas tic. accommodating and kind. Days melted miraculously away, and shipping time-tables superseded calendars. But “South” never completely waned from one’s thoughts, as witness this story of our partner in crime. 10 years a Terri torian, but hitherto from coastal areas.

Fhis first year in the Big Bush he col lected a marook for the Sydney zoo: he came from Sydney, and this was considered fitting. The small marook chicken was turned loose round the homestead until such time as transport could be arranged for it. But, while it waited, Fate intervened, and the marook catastrophically departed this life.

Almost a year went by before a suc cessor could be found. A marook. when grown, represents a considerable asset to a kanaka (apologies to J. Nixon West wood. in September “PIM”) and those kanakas who could be found comnlete with marook would not nart with them.

But ambition burned brightly in our pal’s breast. Moreover, he had informed the Zoo of what was in store for them, and thev had replied enthusiastically, everv mail-day. from that date. He felt that his honour was at stake: there had to be

a Marook ll—and by perseverance, there was. We’ll call him “Two.”

Unfortunately, at the same time as Two’s advent, I was scheduled for a holiday South. The whole matter of transport for the bird was thereby sim plified: I should take it with me, and, with an adequate supply of paw-paws and bananas, supply it with sustenance en route.

When we were formally introduced, we

took an instant dislike to each other.

Two eyed me with distrust; and the per sonal habits of marooks are not such that they endear themselves to anyone with an acute sense of smell.

Sydney loomed close, and filled my thoughts. The clothes I had left in Boram were no doubt covered with blue mould and eaten by cockroaches; for a year my hair had grown mad, except where I had lopped it with the help of a pair of trade-scissors and a 6-by-6-inch trade-mirror; I was already equipped with an assortment of ten-foot spears and some bows and arrows (another obligation).

I felt that already I was circus enough, and I added a marook to my retinue

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reluctantly. But Two was put in a copra-sack, and carried out to Boram.

There, he was transferred to a meat case, while we waited for the ship.

A DAY or so later one of the boys appeared and said, “More better picaninny belong marook go walk about. Suppose he sit down along bokis three week more leg belong ’im ’e buggerup finis.”

I agreed. Being cooped up in a meat case could be no joke, and there was little sense in presenting the Zoo with a bird with buggered-up legs. So we took it out and tied a ball of string to one leg and let it loose under the house—a grave tactical error on our part.

Two’s feet started to run before he hit the ground, and then he lit out for free dom with everything he had. Round and round the piles he went, describing loops and figure eights, and when the string would stretch no further he rolled over on his side and gasped like a gaffed fish.

Up to that point, the cook-boy, the monkey and I had enjoyed the spectacle immensely. While the cook unravelled string for dear life, so that Two could get a better run for his money, we sat down on our heels to get a better view and yelled with delight. Remember, we were just down from the bush, and eager for amusement.

But, when Two lay there, still moving his thin legs in slow-motion, and giving every indication that he would pass right out in a fit of fury or apoplexy, we became alarmed, and began to think furiously of the donor thereof, who was determined that Sydney should have a marook collected from the elemental jungle with his own fair hands.

We shoved the marook back in the box, gave it two bananas as a peace offering, covered it with a sack and hoped for the best. Two survived. rpO-DAY, at Taronga Park, a couple of X full-sized marooks stalk majestically round the pen marked “New Guinea Cassowary.” They are magnificent-look ing birds, with shining black feathers and bright blue wattles. Maybe one of them is Two. On occasions, I have visited there with friends and remarked modestly, when we came to the marooks: “I brought one of those down from the Sepik district.” If one of them is Two, he is now almost as tall as I am. So they say “Oh!” doubtfully, with a glazed, calculating look in their eye.

No doubt they get a mental picture of me bounding over New Guinea’s hills and dales, a 12-bore shotgun in my hand, a “tiger-shooter” on the back of my head, wresting life-size marooks from infuriated head - hunters. Bring -’em - back - alive Tudor! ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ rOSE were the days! Then, the people who keep flats down Macleay Street, Pott’s Point, acted as though they liked prospective tenants. To-day, if you can first track them to their lair— in itself a feat of perseverance—they bellow, before you have a chance to open your mouth: “We haven’t any flats, and. what’s more, we won’t be having any!

We have 339 people on a waiting list already.” That disposes of the flat question.

Then, too, in those dear days beyond recall, it was possible to park a car in a nrohibited area, or next a fire hydrant with verve and abandon. If caught, and bawled out, you could always disarm the con. “I hadn’t an idea I shouldn’t do it!

I live in New Guinea—just been down a week.”

“Well, now,” he’d say, putting his note

book away and parking his foot on the running-board, “that’s very interesting.

What’s it like up there?” In half an hour you would escape with his blessing.

To-day, few Territorians have cars to park in prohibited areas; those who have, have got no petrol. Neither are cops or the general public interested in your, ver sion of New Guinea any —they have read all about it in the papers: it’s the land where the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Angels grow. Some have a glimmering that there were pre-blitz Europeans in those parts, but now they look upon them with suspicion. After all, did they not wax fat at the native’s expense?

“How?” you ask.

“Well, they must have,” you are told.

“Otherwise, why are missionaries, politi cians and kind people from Canberra to Washington resolving that ‘the native shall not be exploited after the war’?”

NO— Sydney is not the place it was. It is a town of women: many of them suddenly platinum blonde; many more with a badly-grafted American accent; all of them chain-smokers. If I were a man I should give up smoking cigarettes—and let the women have a really open slather. It’s effeminate, any way.

The shops have no stocks; but they are thronged by thousands of fat, middle aged women who, somehow provided with more money than they had in life before, are vomited from trams, trains, busses and ferries each day to make life hell for those whose misfortune it is to do business in the city. Marked with the indelible stamp of dull suburbia, they are the kind of women who are quarried, not hatched; the kind who spend their hus

band’s clothing coupons before their own.

As a uniform, they wear permanent waves and the darndest, nuttiest little

?went^?L^ g L t n haV T e hpfl C^ te H?^ iWciixy years Triey dra§ tired kids about and string-bags full of oddments, and make life in Sydney’s abominable tram-cars more of a nightmare than it need be.

There are, of course, still men in this town, young and old, in uniform and out.

But somehow they go unnoticed amongst the hordes of war-maddened females,

femmes;' TSe

retail trades, and have assumed’unlimited licence to snarl, “No razor blades” “No matches,” “No bacon,” “Don’t you’ know there’s a war on,” and all the other overworked missiles of the home-front every time anyone has the temerity to try to buy necessary commodities. One needs a front of brass, a steel core and a strong character to approach a shop assistant these days. , Of course, we know that we don’t know

how lucky we are. But who appreciates q “nipp ssfp nipop” until nru* ic in o n i no

Unsafe one? P

fTKDR me —gimme a desert; or a coral

r wuhw°lcTflroclu?SbakTfew

wogs a couole of mUllon « mountain or two Sid a dSsI of flVe? duckedinfor goodmeasure* or even a * from^hi^ 1 had th . ol s’ fro “ ™ ls dlstan ce, they seem infinitely Preferable to the jungles of Pitt Street and the wildernesses of King’s Cross, where the only rule is “Get in and get it—or go without.” m , , . , In the of . the . d yed-m-wool Ter ntonan who blew m here the other day, after Jap-dodging for over a year in New Guinea’s back-of-beyond: “If this is Sydney—l’ve had it ”