Now remember Susy, don’t tell them your real name’ Jane said as we assumed the traditional hitchhikers pose outside the hospital’ ‘OK’ I said. ‘But you just remember, you’re Teresa Green and I’m Rosy Bush. Last week we both ended up being Rosy’. ‘Didn’t matter anyway,’ Jane said. ‘They were happy to give us a ride into town and that was all we wanted.’
Hitching rides must have been safer in the early sixties. It was a popular and trouble-free way of escaping from the sweltering western suburbs to the northern Sydney beaches. Harboard and Manly were an easy drive but almost inaccessible by public transport. Our days off were often mid-week and the beaches were not at all crowded. Jane and I many happy days alternating between body surfing in the clear cold water and cooking ourselves in the blazing sun, our bodies anointed with coconut oil. Of an evening, we usually didn’t have to wait long for a lift into the city or Kings Cross and tonight was no exception.
We were thrilled when a huge pale green Dodge convertible slid to a stop. The two men in the ‘yank tank’ were older than the usual drivers who pulled over for us. ‘Don and Chuck’ they drawled in broad American accents as we settled in the spacious leather seats.
‘Theresa Green and Rosy Bush’ we responded. We believed we had a right to the duplicity and naively expected others to be exactly who and what they claimed to be. We were about to learn a lesson in misplaced trust and keeping secrets.
Chuck was solidly built with dark wavy hair while Don was slighter of stature with a neat beard. We assessed them to be in their mid-thirties and old compared to Jane and I, eighteen and in our second year of nursing. We were a whole two years away from home and making the most of our freedom away from parental control.
‘We’re pretty new to this town’ Don drawled and Chuck added, ‘You young ladies tell us where we can hear some good music and we’ll take you there.’ We chose our favourite jazz club in Kings Cross. Importantly for us cash strapped nurses Don and Chuck were more than happy to buy the drinks. And they sure were happy to talk.
Jane and I listened spell bound as they described their role as nuclear physicists, working at the Maralinga test site. ‘All very hush hush’ Don said and Chuck added ‘Really a British show but we’re here on loan as consultants. You young ladies really shouldn’t talk about it.’
Not much we wouldn’t. ‘Going out with the nuclear physicists tonight’ we would boast. ‘They are just on loan from the Yanks’ we would add. And we loved that car and the trill of speeding along the winding coastal roads with the hood down and our hair blowing in the wind.
‘No fear about breaking the speed limit’ Chuck had said with a laugh. ‘We have a certain amount of pull with the embassy’.
Don and Chuck would be away for a few weeks. ‘Another test at Maralinga this week’ we would say with boring frequency to anyone who would listen. ‘But we really shouldn’t talk about it’ we would add.
But then Jane made an embarrassing discovery. One that we made a pact to keep secret. One we vowed to never disclose.
Heading for a lunch date down China Town she spied Don hurrying into a gun shop. Why wasn’t he at the test site she wondered. There was going to be a major launch he had told us.
‘I wanted to confront Don as he came out of the shop.’ Jane said ‘but I got tired of waiting and anyway I was running late for my lunch. I peered in through the dusty window and you won’t believe what I saw Susy. They were both behind the counter showing a rifle to a customer. Nuclear physics my foot. They clearly worked in that grotty old gun shop.’
‘I can’t believe they lied to us.’ I said, ‘How could they do that?’
‘We’ll just say they were called back to the States urgently.’ I said. ‘We won’t tell anyone we were fooled’.
And we haven’t – until now. Forty years later, older and wiser we still remember the months we believed we were part of something special. The success of keeping our secret agenda and the kudos of being part a controversial period of Australian history.
As Jane often remarked. ‘They can’t take that away from us.’
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