Illywhacker_ A Novel Part 14

But when I followed the electric lights down Belmont Hill and found no flares at the Common, all my anger was directed at Jack. There was no moon and the Barwon River was a slick of black beneath the lights of the bridge. I couldn't even find the hangar on the Common.

I banked and brought the craft on a northerly course, flying low over Geelong itself. The squatters, emboldened by brandy, thankful to be alive, were all agog at this display of lights and life. The bl.u.s.tering wind (which had made them huddle into rugs and clutch at the bench seat) no longer troubled them. They leaned out, tapped me on the back, and shouted. They had no idea what I had in store for them.

I took the Morris Farman out over the bay, above the s.h.i.+ps at Corio Quay, turned, and began my descent. Western Avenue, bright as day, loomed large before the squatters' eyes. I dropped the craft (none too gently) across the power lines where Western Avenue turns before the park, and skimmed in under the next lot at the Gleason Street corner. I pa.s.sed beside a Dodge Series 6 whose pale-faced driver swung his wheel, caught in a culvert, bounced out and veered across the road behind the aircraft where Mrs Kentwell saw it lock wheels with a horse and jinker. The jinker's wheel shattered and the Dodge came to a halt at the top of the steep gra.s.sy bank above Corio Bay.

I taxied to the McGraths' front door. When the engine was turned off the sound of the terrified horse dragging the crippled jinker made a perfect accompaniment to the old squatter's face.

I was all politeness. I helped the gentlemen from the aeroplane.

46.

Madame Ovlisky, Clairvoyant of Little Mallop Street, Geelong, sat before her smudged charts and confidently predicted a resurgence of influenza. There would be deaths in North Geelong, she said, and the dance halls would be empty. She could not see the canaries her customer had lost, although she was provided with the address (Melbourne Road, North Geelong) from which they had been stolen. She saw murder, she said, that very night, and if her customer was uninterested by this news, Madame Ovlisky did not notice it. As she spoke lightning flickered above the distant You Yangs and she was not dissatisfied.

Certainly there was an irritability, a temper, in the air, and Madame Ovlisky was not the only one who felt herself tugged by the sour wind that swept Geelong. It was a mournful, depressing wind, coming from across two hundred miles of denuded landscape to Corio Bay where the sh.e.l.ls of cuttlefish lay abandoned in the sandy dark and where Sergeant Hieronymus House stood guard around the flimsy aeroplane that threatened to tip sideways before the stronger gusts. Hieronymus, known as Harry to all except the Clerk of Records, did not need to explain his temper by anything as questionable as the wind. He had been called to duty from the arms of a ready wife, a wife not always ready, not always happy, dragged back from bliss by a boy with a message from the station who had knocked loudly, persistently, at the moment when he had taken the superior position and she had closed, at last, her staring eyes. He had left her bad-tempered and blotchy to sit and watch the fire in a smoky parlour.

And for what? To guard the property of a man who had caused a nuisance in a public place, been responsible for the death of a horse, and damage to a brand new auto. Sergeant House would have locked the b.a.s.t.a.r.d up in the cells at Johnston Street without a s.h.i.+t bucket. But the grovelling, forelock-tugging a.r.s.e-licking police commissioner was closing the street and posting a guard.

Behind the lighted windows of Number 87 Western Avenue there were rich squatters. Their laughter made him feel sour and he did not wish to speak to anyone.

He did not like any of the people who lived in these grand houses in Western Avenue. He would have arrested them all, not the poor b.l.o.o.d.y swagman with the bag full of frogs they had sent him out to arrest last week. He had been doing nothing but sitting on the edge of a quiet footpath. He had two pounds five s.h.i.+llings and sixpence in his pocket and he said he was off to be a cook in Commaida. But the magistrate gave him three months because "three months might do you some good".

Sergeant House watched Mrs Kentwell walk down the lighted steps of her house and come towards him. He turned his back. He did not wish to speak to her. She had a bad case of "officer's back," i.e., an appearance of a broomstick inserted in the a.n.u.s with the aim of providing greater rect.i.tude.

"I wish to lodge an official complaint," the woman said. Her hair was done in a braid and she held a shawl tight across her shoulders. Her false teeth were slightly loose, a condition the Sergeant sympathized with, and his countenance softened before the whistling sibilants. He sucked in his ruddy cheeks and settled his own uncomfortable dentures into place.

"Yes, madam," he said.

"This is not an isolated incident. The girl, the flapper, ran down my brother in a similar manner a fortnight ago."

"In an aeroplane?" His hostility evaporated in the face of this unreported crime.

"Not in an aeroplane. Of course not. She ran him down."

"In a jinker?" the Sergeant suggested. He took out his notebook and flicked briskly through the pages of careful copperplate.

"Not in a jinker, or cart, not a dray or an auto. Ran him down here," she tapped her umbrella emphatically on the footpath, "on the street, pretending to break her arm."

"And why should she wish to do such a thing?"

"Because she had fallen off the roof in a naked state," whistled Mrs Kentwell, "and broke her arm then."

"So now she ran down your brother, to break it a second time."

"No, no, no. In order to pretend pretend to break it." to break it."

If he had not observed, through the slightly open curtain, a pretty young flapper with her arm in a sling, he would have thought the woman ready for the asylum. His pencil hovered over his notebook uncertainly.

"I will, of course, wish to speak to your superiors. Perhaps you could have a man call on me."

I am a man, thought Sergeant House, and the police force is not a draper's shop engaged in home deliveries. False teeth or no, he was on the brink of pointing this out when Mrs Kentwell tapped her umbrella for attention.

"My father was a Colonel McInlay," she told the sergeant who had successfully conspired to shoot a major in Ypres. "We have lived in this house for one hundred years, before, well well before this bullock driver and his flappers came and did this." before this bullock driver and his flappers came and did this."

And to add weight to her claim and to underline the detestable nature of the aeroplane which rocked frailly before her, she gave it a good poke with her umbrella.

The umbrella speared the fuselage and stuck there.

Mrs Kentwell stared at it with astonishment. Her teeth clacked inside her mouth.

"My brother is very ill," she said defiantly. She withdrew her weapon, leaving a perfect round hole in the fuselage. She looked up at Sergeant House who thought she was going to smile. But she turned on her heel and retreated to the house.

The sergeant regarded the hole in the fuselage, his pencil hovering over the notebook. Then he closed the book and put it away.

47.

The other potential investor was Ian Oswald-Smith. He was tall, well built, olive-skinned and his red-lipped long-lashed face was saved from prettiness by the blue cast of his beard. He was also a squatter and an Imaginary Englishman, but he was a different animal to the c.o.c.ky Abbots-irony was his great amus.e.m.e.nt and if it was not detected, so much the better.

He had never seen, in all his travels, such enthusiastic use of electricity. He had already quietly amused himself by drawing Molly on this very subject. He had prevailed upon her to speak of the virtues of all the electrical devices, beginning with the four-globe radiator of which she said: "To ignore the radiator, Mr Oswald-Smith, is to refuse to take advantage of the investment one has already made by installing electricity in the first place." It seemed she was going to say more but was prevented by shortness of breath. She took her daughter's hand, then sipped a gla.s.s of water.

The hostess, the aviator, the flapper, the bullocky and the two c.o.c.ky Abbots attacked their big unappetizing plates of goose and roast vegetables while he teased his hostess about the bills such a contrivance might acc.u.mulate. His teasing was as gentle as a caress and in spite of her simplicity, or because of it, he liked her. They managed to discuss the lighting, His Master's Voice, the wireless, and the kettle on the ornate stand that she used to make tea at the table. And all the while his dark attractive eyes roamed the walls and floors where the hostess's enthusiasm for the electric connection had crossed and recrossed the brown Victorian wallpaper, draped the high picture rails and fallen from the ceiling like crepe-paper decorations for a progressive Christmas.

For a man with such potential for sarcasm, with such skill at a.s.serting the superiority of his cla.s.s, he spared his hosts and himself any scorn, drank the strong tea he was offered and did not mind that he was given four spoons of sugar without his tastes being inquired after. The McGraths seemed to him perfectly simple and honest people and he was memorizing them and memorizing the room so that in future he could entertain his friends with stories about their characters.

Whatever winds blew from the western coast affected his equanimity not at all. He studied their daughter, the flapper with the broken wing, and let his dark eyes and long lashes caress her in a discreet enough way. The whole room, their whole coming together, was a symbol of the modern age and when he noticed that the street lights were throwing the shadow of the aircraft on to the curtain, he drew this small wonder to the company's attention and was surprised to find it was the host, the ex-bullocky, who appreciated the poetry of it the most, not, he supposed, that one would have expected much from such dour Presbyterians as the c.o.c.ky Abbots who sat on their seats with the same dry, sly looks they would have brought to the sale-yards. The only thing he had in common with these two was that they were wealthy farmers from the same area. He did not give a lot of weight to the younger c.o.c.ky Abbot's moustache or his old school tie. Whatever education he had enjoyed he had remained a barbarian and not even the cloaked vowels could hide it. The c.o.c.ky Abbots would not have the poetry to drape their homestead in electricity, if the electricity had been available to them. Any man who'd worked at "Bulgaroo" would tell you stories about the owner's meanness. It was legend in the Western District. It was said that they wrote their correspondence on the back of used envelopes and that they would not so much as spare a candle, let alone a bar of soap, for the men. He was surprised to see them here to discuss anything as fanciful as an aeroplane but, watching the way the elder c.o.c.ky Abbot listened to Jack McGrath, he saw that he was accorded respect and the respect, he guessed, was based on the fact that Jack had made a lot of money. The old c.o.c.ky thought Jack McGrath was shrewd.

48.

Jack McGrath sc.r.a.ped the last of the bread-and-b.u.t.ter pudding from his plate and gulped his scalding tea down his throat. He was in no mood for small talk, but a meal was a meal and hospitality must be offered. He thumped his big foot beneath the table and folded his crumpled napkin several times. He did not notice my mood. He was too concerned to get the subject started, to flick off the rubber band, and bring the talk around to factories and their construction. He was ready to explain how he would buy himself a team and bring the timbers out of the bush, who would mill it, who would season it. He wished to be practical. But Oswald-Smith wanted to discuss rabbits, so rabbits it would have to be, and all Jack could do was thump his foot and scald himself with steam from the electric kettle, the flex of which his anxious wife had wound around her wrist.

While Phoebe squeezed her mother's perspiring hand, Oswald-Smith chose to argue in favour of the rabbit. He was one of those men who like a talk so much he will take a contrary position just to get things started.

Jack, whose teams had ripped many an acre of land riddled with rabbit burrows, burying them, cutting them, suffocating them, was shocked to hear a successful farmer speak of rabbits in such terms.

I knew what Oswald-Smith was doing. He was getting me to talk and he laid his argument before me like a fisherman will drop a mud eye, ever so gently, and let it float downstream where a brown trout, old enough and smart enough to refuse such blatant tricks, takes the d.a.m.n thing anyway.

"I'd have to say, Mr Smith," I said, uncoiling my long bowed legs and stretching back in my chair, "that you are talking rot."

Jack tried to flatten his creased napkin with the edge of his fist, back and forth like a widowed ironing woman.

"The rabbit has no place in this country," I said. "The things that will ruin this country are things like the rabbit."

The things that I had in mind were the Oswald-Smiths and the c.o.c.ky Abbots.

"Yes," said Oswald-Smith pleasantly. "Please go on."

"That's it. Nothing else to say. The rabbit is a mongrel of a thing."

I had said nothing new but they were all, except Jack who continued to iron his napkin, ridiculously pleased with me for having said it. It wasn't so much that the subject was rabbits, but that I was addressing myself to it in a definite manner. I could see that the c.o.c.ky Abbots were pleased that I was speaking their thoughts.

Right in the middle of my irritation and confusion with everything I smelt a whiff of that interest that comes in every sale, like a wooden case cracking open to spill out honey: a heady, intoxicating aroma.

I tried to use this moment to cross the bridge from rabbits to aeroplanes, but the gap was wide and I misjudged the distance. "We're going to have our own animals," I said. I found myself in mid-air, not knowing exactly what I meant.

There was a silence as everybody tried to imagine what it was that I was trying to say.

"How do you mean?" asked c.o.c.ky Abbot Junior helpfully.

"Breed them," I said recklessly.

"How?" asked Oswald-Smith.

"How do you think?" I said so lewdly that Phoebe and Molly, for different reasons, grew bright red, and only Oswald-Smith, a man who enjoyed the picturesque, permitted himself a quick smile before his sense of diplomacy encouraged him to change the subject.

"I think," he said, "it's time we moved on to business."

"My word," cried Jack, and pushed back his chair loudly.

There was much fussing around as the women tried to clear the table and Molly became entangled in her wire and knocked over the stand of the electric kettle. She was close to tears as Phoebe untangled her but she wished us all luck before she left the room.

"Wireless," she whispered to her daughter. "I'll sit by the wireless."

Bridget removed the tablecloth and Jack stamped around distributing writing pads to his visitors. He was so agitated that even c.o.c.ky Abbot Senior realized that the aeroplane factory was more than a casual venture for him.

There seemed to be nothing to prevent a successful meeting. There appeared to be a positive excess of goodwill on the part of the investors. When c.o.c.ky Abbot Senior resumed his seat at the table he sat opposite Jack McGrath and winked at him like a conspirator.

I spread out the plans on the table. Bradfield's B3 was a beautiful craft and I had no trouble speaking enthusiastically about its function. I could feel some resistance from the older c.o.c.ky Abbot. I pushed against it with my enthusiasm. I discussed the purchase of steel from BHP and the method of bringing in timber from the bush. The young c.o.c.ky Abbot caught my eye and nodded. Oswald-Smith made notes on his writing pad. But the older farmer folded his arms against his chest and looked at me impa.s.sively.

The wind howled around the house and pushed its fingers under doors, through cracks in the floor, lifted rugs in the long pa.s.sage so they rode the timber in ghostly waves. The women felt the wind and did not like it, but all I felt was this stubborn wall from c.o.c.ky Abbot Senior. I talked and talked, but I could not talk him down. I knew, before I sat down, that I had not made the sale.

"I knew your father," said c.o.c.ky Abbot Senior, unfolding his arms at last. "He was a practical man, so I suppose you are too. Now what I want to know, Badgery-and I mentioned this to Jack down at 'Bulgaroo'-why wouldn't we set ourselves up as agents and import the best the world has to offer? I don't doubt you when you say there's a future in the aircraft, but why should we risk all this capital to manufacture something when we can import the best the British Empire can produce?"

"What did Jack say?"

"He said you were a practical fellow."

I looked at Jack. He grinned at me fondly. I sucked in my breath and studied the wallpaper behind his shoulder. I tried to remind myself that the whole thing was only a lie except it was not a lie any more. It was an inch from being the s.h.i.+ning thing I had described so lyrically.

"Mr Abbot," I said, "I've sold two hundred T Model Fords and it has made me a lot of dough, but it never made me happy."

The table was quiet. They heard the tremor in my voice and they knew how I felt, but they had no idea why I felt it or what I was saying.

"Happy!" snorted c.o.c.ky Abbot Junior.

"Does it make you happy," I asked him, "to be a child all your life? That's what an agent is, a child serving a parent. If you want to serve the interests of the English, you go and be an agent for their aircraft, and you'll stay a d.a.m.n child all your life."

The younger c.o.c.ky Abbot sought his AIF badge on his lapel and, having found it, squinted at it down his long nose. Everybody waited for him. "And yet," he said, "you served the Empire."

"I never served," I said. "I had no intention of dying like a silly goat for the British."

Jack, who had loved every war service story I told him, recognized the voice of truth. His great face folded in misery.

"You're lucky you don't live in Colac," said young c.o.c.ky Abbot.

"Lucky indeed. I saw it from the air. It looks like a cow of a place."

"We tar and feather micks for saying things like that. Our mates died for England."

"My point," I shouted. "My point exactly."

"We tarred and feathered a bloke two weeks ago, a Sinn Feiner from Warrnambool. It was written up in all the papers. He wrote a poem you might approve of, in 1915."

"You are fools," I said, and said it so quietly, with such pa.s.sion, that c.o.c.ky Abbot Junior, whose large red fist had been placed very prominently on his expensively trousered knee, dismantled it quietly, and put the pieces in his pocket.

For a trembling instant I had them all.

I had a full five seconds in which to say something, anything, to begin a sentence that might, with its pa.s.sion and precision, convert them to my view.

I did not even get my lips to open.

"I am here to make a quid," said c.o.c.ky Abbot Senior, ignoring me and addressing unhappy Jack. "I would not have come for anything else. I would not have risked my life in that machine for amus.e.m.e.nt or politics. It was only to make a quid."

"But you can can make a quid, Mr Abbot," I said. "There is a good quid to be made by make a quid, Mr Abbot," I said. "There is a good quid to be made by us us selling aircraft to Australians. That is the point. selling aircraft to Australians. That is the point. This This is the country for the aeroplane, Mr Abbot, not Europe." is the country for the aeroplane, Mr Abbot, not Europe."

"I must say," Oswald-Smith said sternly, "that I had no intention of investing my money in a political party."

"This is not a political party." My voice rose in frustration. "I could not give a fig for politics." And as far as I understood politics, I was right. It was an understanding I shared with the s.h.i.+vering sergeant in the street outside, a man who had killed an officer and would not join a union.

"It sounds like politics to me," said Oswald-Smith. "Why do you have this chip on your shoulder about the English? Dear G.o.d, you are English. You talk English. You look English. You have an English name."

"Not a chip on my shoulder," I said, relieved that Oswald-Smith would at least look at me. "Common sense. Anyone can see that the English are as big a pest as the rabbit. No offence, but they're identical. They come here, eat everything, burrow under, tunnel out-look at Ballarat or Bendigo-and when the country is rooted ..." I faltered, "it'll be rooted."