CHAPTER SUMMARIES CHAPTER ONE: KIP
Monday 7th August, 1939
The novel’s opening chapter, ‘Kip’ provides an initial glimpse into the lives of the members of the Westaway family, with many later details hinted at and foreshadowed. Kip narrates unfolding events as a fifteen-year-old living in 1939, allowing the authenticity of his character to transport the reader into the lanes, roads, streets and parades of the working-class innercity suburb of Richmond, Victoria, as the inevitability of World War II ominously looms. It is mid-winter and Kip is working as a ‘stable boy in charge of horse excrement and shovel scrubbing’ (page 9) for his next-door-neighbours, the Husting family. Kip looks after their horse, Charlie—a job which involves many early-morning starts. Mr Husting is kind to Kip. He gives Kip a ‘secret’ (page 8) shilling. This shilling plays a central role throughout the novel, helping the reader to connect characters and order key events. Kip has given up his scholarship at the Catholic secondary boys’ school, St Kevin’s College, to become a ‘working man’ (page 4). The reason for this is not made clear. What is made apparent though, is that this was not an easy decision—Mac mocks him for ‘[crying] when he left school’ (page 23). There is, however, a sense that this decision weighs heavily on his reputation, given his declaration that he is ‘known as chief layabout and squanderer of opportunities’ (page 9). In contrast, his brother, Francis 'Frank', is still a student at St Kevin’s and plenty of sibling rivalry exists between the two. Francis clearly has more status in the family and receives more favourable treatment. It is obvious that Kip is very bright, evidenced by his rich and energetic imagination and the fact that he won the ‘prize for English composition and art’ (page 18) at St Kevin’s. This magnifies the pity that he has had to give up his scholarship. Kip lives with his mother, his older sister Connie and his brother Francis. The Westaways are not an affluent family and this manifests itself in small, descriptive details. For example, Kip shares a room with his ‘Ma’ and Frank, and Connie sleeps on a ‘camp bed in the laundry’. Images like this serve to emphasise how small their house is. A boarder, Mrs Keith, also lives with the family. Kip’s father’s absence is hinted at via his description of the ‘old clothes pulled out of drawers’ (page 2) in the bedroom, but this absence is not explained until later in the chapter. This chapter also tells the tale of Jack Husting, the son of Mr and Mrs Husting, who is returning home from somewhere he’s been for ‘eighteen months’. Class tension definitely exists with the Hustings—Ma refers to Mrs Husting as ‘her ladyship’ (page 14) and Mrs Husting laments the fact that her family has to ‘suffer to have the likes of [Kip] hanging around morning and night and pay for the privilege’ (page 7). Memories of World War I haunt Ma. She wants her boys to be ‘safe in school, not running around waiting for the call-up’ (page 13). Kip’s trip to the butcher for Connie introduces Annabel Crouch as a possible love interest for Kip, whereas his interactions with the local gang on the return journey allow Kip to lay bare Catholic and Protestant rivalry and the prejudice experienced by Irish Catholics. The gang, comprised of Mac, Cray, Jim Pike and Manson, deride Kip for leaving school and callously mock his father’s death, as well as the financial peril the family now faces (page 24). Even though Kip is kicked and spat on, he manages to escape the gang’s clutches by harnessing the speed of ‘Jack Titus’, the legendary Richmond footballer of the time. The chapter concludes with Kip’s fertile imagination leading to the loss of the boarder, Mrs Keith, who is far from amused when he imagines her underpants are ‘American parachutists coming for Mrs Husting’ (page 30) but opens the door for Connie’s emancipation when she realises that without a ‘boarder there’s no need for [her] to stay at home’ (page 35) and she can get a job at the newspaper, the Argus (page 36).