A River Town

The Close

AS THE AUSTRALIAN AUTUMN brought in temperate air, the Macleay newspapers let people know that Mr. Bandy Habash had bought the large Clarence River drapery store previously owned by Mr. F. O. Bentley. This gave Bandy instantly a place in New South Wales Northern Rivers society, and Mamie told Tim and Kitty that since Mr. F. O. Bentley was a member of the Grafton Jockey Club, he had been disposed to write Bandy a letter of introduction to the more junior Macleay Turf Club.

As a result, on a day in late April, the Shea family attended the running of the Macleay Autumn Cup. M. M. Chance’s four-year-old Dasher was beaten into second place by five lengths, finishing behind Mr. B. Habash’s roan, Strong Medicine, ridden by the owner. Later, a delighted Mr. Habash and his fiancée Miss Mamie Kenna were photographed with the Autumn Cup Bandy had garnered. Mrs. Kitty Shea, towards the end of her term, applauded the event from a camp stool set up on the tray of the delivery dray.

Coastal steamers, though still forced to moor at New Entrance, had brought in members of the racing fraternity from other parts of the North Coast. Burrawong had also brought in punters from Sydney, as well as a small number of regular passengers, Mrs. Molly Burke amongst them. She went through a restrained reunion with her husband and told him that under pressure from the Provincial of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Randwick, a cousin of Old Burke’s, young Ellen had at last uttered in tears the name of the father of the child she was carrying.

As Bandy Habash emerged out of the prize ring, smiling in jockey silks of green and blue, to be congratulated by Tim Shea, Mr. Burke of Pee Dee station, whom Tim had not known to be present at the race meeting, launched himself at Bandy and felled him with a furious blow. Restrained by a combination of constables and citizens, Mr. Burke would not state what his reason for this attack was. Mr. Habash for his part said he would not press charges.

Later that day, after a conversation with her sister Kitty to which Tim was not a party, Mamie Kenna broke off her engagement to Mr. Habash. To some people’s surprise, Mr. Habash—not yet departed for the Clarence River—consoled himself with the observances of the Catholic Church—first confession, then the Rosary, Benediction, and daily Mass. Habash also made a number of appeals for help to Tim Shea, but though more sympathetic than some saw as proper Tim told him that nothing could be said to the sisters.

The week before the Macleay River Bridge connecting West and Central to East was opened, the British garrison of Mafeking, besieged by the Boers for longer than Kempsey had been besieged by plague, was relieved by a British flying column. No British garrisons were hostage any more in the world. Things had been restored to their accustomed balance. A procession was held in Belgrave Street and down Smith. That was the end of the serious drum beating, and Tim Shea was pleased. It would be another year before Tim Shea would need to frown down upon reports in the Chronicle of General Kitchener’s sweeping clearance of the Boer population, of the burning of farms, of the crowding of Boer families into “camps of refuge,” or as the Spanish called them, “concentration camps.”

So, in the autumn of Bandy’s victory in the Macleay Cup and the British victory of Mafeking, a conviction of civilisation restored ran in the veins of all the citizens of the Shire of the Macleay. The white thwarts of the bridge stood as high as Lucy’s Angelus tower. Blackbutt planking was broad enough for any herd crossing to the markets in West, and the pathway had been fitted with bays to allow citizens to shelter as the herds came over.

The opening of the bridge was marked by a regatta to which Captain Reid of the Burrawong had been invited to contribute that now rarely seen vessel. Burrawong, however, despite its new rat-proof hawsers and its weekly fumigation at Darling Harbour, was not allowed to moor at Central wharf after honouring the bridge. It was required to retreat to its accustomed quarantine station inside the New Entrance. Captain Reid nonetheless ingratiated himself with the populace by carrying every flag in Burrawong’s lockers. The high colour could not be allowed to obscure the reality that plague still sought a landfall everywhere, and that cases were still occurring around the shores of Sydney Harbour.

The regatta and the opening of the bridge were observed from their own segment of river bank by Mr. and Mrs. Tim Shea, their children Johnny and Annie and the new-born infant, Maude. Mamie Kenna and Joe O’Neill were also in the group. They sat apart, although a friendliness was growing between them.

Some of the conversation at the bridge opening concerned the life sentence Mr. and Mrs. Mulroney received for the manslaughter of the young English actress Flo Meades. Amongst the notables, Ernie Malcolm made a brief reappearance. People were cheered to see him, though noticed that these days he stood back a bit.

But Bandy Habash was not at all visible in Kempsey for the civic event linking Central with East. Tim Shea knew he had already gone to Sydney to see Ellen Burke, and now lay low in town, wearing a scapular provided him by Mrs. Kitty Shea, who still secretly spoke to him.

He had left a letter for Mamie, which she read, retained, but did not reply to.

Many small craft speckled the river for the bridge opening, including one rowed by two ten-year-olds, Eddie and Ronald Sage. This rowboat, through too much shy-acking on the part of the children on board, capsized. The Sage boys’ younger sister Doris was thrown into the tide and gave Johnny Shea, who had already been playing in the shallows, wavering towards the depths but strangely obedient to his parents’ edict that he should not swim out amongst the boats, a pretext to go out into the depths to save her. Eventually, on the recommendation of Mr. Ernie Malcolm, Secretary of the Humane Society, Macleay branch, Johnny Shea was awarded the Silver Medal of the Society for saving the Sage child. It was acknowledged by his parents that this award was very good for the child.

From the day after the bridge opening, one of the busiest transitters was Tim Shea, transporting his household goods to the newly purchased store in East by dray. The signwriter did the place out in blue and gold, and the lettering said K. SHEA—GENERAL STORE. No one seemed to refer much to this change, or persecute Tim about it. For by then it was generally acknowledged that Tim Shea wasn’t the dangerous fellow some had earlier claimed him to be.