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Cyclone

by Paul Bayetto
(Darwin)

It was Christmas Eve and my families restaurant was busy. Insults and instructions were flying across the kitchen in rapid staccato Italian. “Porca miseria Paulo! Tu idioto, rapido! Portare la lattuga!” Pop yelled at me as I turned steaks on the grill and looked at my brother in-law, Tony. “ He wants more lettuce Paul! Hurry up! We’re nearly through. Seven dockets to go kid,” he yelled over the din. I jumped. “Now Paul!” I ran into the cold room getting the lettuce and delivering it to Pop’s station as Tony took over mine. Doors swung, plates clattered, Greeks and Italians swore and darted instructions as waitresses ran and carried plates, bursting into calm smiles the minute they escaped the bustle of the kitchen to the calm of the restaurant floor.

I was fifteen, and in the first few months of my apprenticeship and had to learn quickly. The pressure never let up. It was always go! The busy Italian restaurant in Darwin’s main street was my last chance. I had been in trouble at school and lost two jobs early in my career, so I’d been employed by family. This was it! The Capri Restaurant in Knuckey Street , Darwin.

It was Christmas Eve, 1974.

The weather had built up while we dealt with the culinary cyclone inside. Heading home down Bagot Road to Ludmilla. The rain pelted the windscreen. It was10.30 p.m. and Cyclone Tracy was beginning to do her thing! The car radio bleated out another cyclone warning and my brother-in-law turned it up. “Shall we pick up Jim and go for a burn, Paulie?” I nodded agreement. Jim was Tony’s best mate. We often went for a wind down drive after work.The three of us piled into the ute said goodbyes, and headed for the wharf.

Stokes Hill Wharf was a frantic scene with fishermen and boaties trying desperately to get lines off the wharf and head out to sea to ride out the storm. The wind by now was gale force and the rain hit horizontally on the windscreen as we pulled up. “Let’s give these blokes a hand Jim!” declared Tony. Personally I was keen on the let’s stay in the car and head off home approach. Oh well! Jim agreed and we began helping boaties get ropes off. Half an hour or so of this nonsense saw us finally in the car and heading home battling the elements on Bagot Road. The changing expression on Tony and Jim’s faces told me the situation was serious.

Back at my families home, my sister, Jacky held baby Daniel and played Scrabble with Jim’s wife, Leslie and me. Meanwhile my brother in law, Tony and Jim listened to cyclone advice on ABC radio and drank tea. The first half of the cyclone had not been too frightening but that was about to change...

Suddenly there was nothing! No wind. “The eye,” said Jim.

Tony and Jim went outside, and dug a trench to help alleviate the flooding. They had been outside for a while when we heard it, off in the distance. Wahoom!! Wahoom!! “What the hell is that!?” my sister Jackie exclaimed. “It’s wind!” Tony replied as he and Jim scurried in the back door. The noise grew louder as the monster approached. The gust sounded like a jet engine warming up. Tony went into disaster prevention mode. As the louvres slammed shut from the vortex he shouted, “ quick guys grab the plywood from under my bed!”

Jackie was standing in the hall of the H- pattern house holding her baby son Daniel. Without warning Tony grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the hallway louvres. Seconds later they blew in smashing against the opposite wall and sending shards of glass everywhere . Tony yelled from the hallway, “Paul bring my shoes and get down here!!” I ran down the hall with shoes in hand and held a plywood board firmly against the hole in wall with Jim. We strained against the wind while Tony found anything to fasten the board . The electricity supply had been cut. Roof sheets were flapping at the end of the house. We waited nervously expecting the roof to go any moment. It didn’t!

It was 4 a.m. by the time we got some rest. We talked nervously and dozed as the storm subsided. At 6.30 a.m. we went outside to survey the damage. We had been lucky. Sheets of iron were strewn everywhere. We drove into town to check out the restaurant, a scene of total devastation struck us. People wandered numbly among the rubble, sifting through the wreckage of their lives. Rows of stilts replaced rows of houses.

The Restaurant had been severely flood damaged and windows had blown in. The fibro structure on the second floor was pretty much gone. I remember trying to save foodstuffs from spoiling by giving them away. I was left with a feeling of stunned vagueness, Various friends relations and strangers began arriving . Tony handed me a broom and winked saying, “Let’s get this cleaned up aye!”