Tiger Men

by Judy Nunn

  Reginald and Nigel had an excellent business arrangement. They were chairmen of their respective companies and each sat on the board of the other. Far from being rivals, they were collaborators who surrounded themselves with carefully handpicked supporters. Clever lawyers and accountants ensured that transactions were within the boundaries of the law, and the board members of both companies were ‘yes men’ who were easily manipulated by minds as astute as Reginald’s and Nigel’s. Silas’s position as a director of Stanford Colonial was titular only. He was invited to attend board meetings on a quarterly basis, more as a measure of respect than anything, and keeping him unaware of certain company investments was not particularly difficult.

  Reginald watched as his father, still agitated, sipped his tea in an effort to calm down. Silas Stanford’s deception was a source of great satisfaction to Reginald.

  ‘I shall pay a visit to the property next week, Father,’ he said. He didn’t really want to, the countryside bored him, but it would placate the old man if he did so. ‘I’ve been remiss of late, I know, and I shall enjoy seeing Amy and Donald and Edwin.’

  Mathilda flashed a look of gratitude to her son. A visit to Pontville would surely please Silas, who was forever complaining that Reginald showed no interest.

  But Silas merely scowled. ‘It won’t do you any good, you know. They won’t listen.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Amy and Donald and Edwin. They’re committed to Merino production: you won’t be able to talk them around.’

  ‘Oh good heavens above, Father, that was not my intention.’ Reginald gave a laugh of sheer delight. ‘As if I would do anything behind your back,’ God, how he did enjoy the game. ‘I must go now, Mama.’ He crossed to the sofa and retrieved his straw boater. ‘No, no,’ he said as his mother rose from her chair, ‘don’t see me to the door. I know my way out.’ He kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Take care, Reggie.’

  ‘I shall. Goodbye, Father. I enjoyed our chat as always.’

  Silas responded with a grunt. Why did the boy so get on his nerves! Then he caught his wife’s glance. ‘Good news that Evelyn’s in fine health,’ he said, trying his best to sound gracious. ‘Give her my best wishes when you get home.’

  ‘Of course.’

  But Reginald didn’t go home to Stanford House. At least not for some time. It hadn’t been his intention from the start. He had no desire for Evelyn’s company.

  Instead of walking the one block down to Davey Street, he turned right along Macquarie, and then right again into Molle Street. He needed nurturing of the kind his heavily pregnant wife could not offer. But then even in the early days of their marriage, Evelyn had never excited him the way Shauna could. In fact Reginald doubted there was a woman on earth able to match the talents of his mistress.

  He passed the T-junction of Collins, crossed over Liverool Street and stopped at the stone cottage on the corner.

  He gave his special knock and the door opened, only a foot or so, just wide enough for the shaft of sunlight to hit the fiery red mane of her hair.

  ‘Hello, Reginald,’ she said, fox eyes gleaming.

  Four whole years and still just the look of Shauna O’Callaghan excited him.

  ‘Come in,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Of the five O’Callaghans, Shauna was the only one to have inherited her mother’s colouring. Her two older sisters and her two younger brothers had the dark-haired, olive-skinned gypsy looks of their father. But there was no denying, the O’Callaghans were striking, every single one them. Heads turned when an O’Callaghan walked down the street.

  ‘It’s in the blood,’ Mara the eldest would say with a toss of her raven black hair. The comment could be taken as arrogant, but it wasn’t really. The O’Callaghans had inherited not only their looks from their parents, but also their boldness. They did not shy away from speaking their mind, or in Mara’s case, simply making a statement.

  Their father, Mick, had weathered time exceptionally well. At least it would appear so: in truth he was plagued by a stomach ulcer that gave him hell. But he was still slim and blessed with a fine head of hair and a bounce in his step – there remained a boyishness about Mick O’Callaghan. The grey at his temples and the crinkles about his eyes, particularly when he smiled, only added to the roguish quality that had always been there and, although now in his sixties, he looked a good twenty years younger. Indeed, Mick O’Callaghan seemed ageless.

  Eileen had not fared as well. She was still striking, but the fire of her beauty had faded and she looked her age. The fierce red of her hair was now a gingery grey and her body had thickened with the birth of five children. But there remained something arresting about Eileen, something that people at times found confronting. It was her demeanour, the way she carried herself with such pride, and the way those animal eyes seemed to see into the minds of others. Eileen O’Callaghan was a strong woman, with a tough streak that could appear ruthless to some.

  Mick and Eileen still lived in the cottage in Hampden Road, indeed the very same cottage where they’d brought up their five children. Things had not worked out quite as Mick had intended. He hadn’t become the rich man he’d presumed he would, and the Hunter’s Rest hadn’t proved the automatic road to success he’d imagined he could make it. All of which was his own fault. He’d taken the easy way out right from the start, appointing a manager to do the hard work while he posed as the publican and gambled away much of the profits. The manager he’d chosen had proved slack, the pub had gone downhill, and Eileen, after bearing the situation for a full five years, had issued her ultimatum.

  ‘Your daughters will need an education, Mick,’ she’d said, ‘and that takes money. If you don’t mend your ways I’ll leave you, and I’ll take the girls with me, I swear I will.’

  Whether or not her threat was an empty one, the mere thought of life without Eileen and his three little girls had been incentive enough for Mick. He’d cut his gambling back to a minimum, sacked the manager and worked hard to bring the pub back to the glory days it had known under Ma Tebbutt’s reign. He’d also introduced a lucrative sideline that Ma had not been involved in: the sale of contraband liquor. French cognacs, Scottish whiskies and fine Spanish sherries were among the many commodities smuggled into Hobart to avoid import tax. They fetched an excellent price on the black market. The Hunter’s Rest had proved an ideal storage venue and sales outlet and Mick had proved the perfect middleman between the smugglers and the wealthy drinkers, who wanted ready access to the best alcohol money could buy at the best price it could be bought. Paying off the police and the customs officers who occasionally visited the premises had been simple. Every official who covered the Wapping area could be bought.

  Through Mick’s endeavours, the family’s fortunes had improved immeasurably, but he and Eileen had not sought to enhance their own lives. They lived comfortably enough anyway and they liked their cottage. Instead, every penny had been put aside to provide the all-important education Eileen demanded for their daughters.

  ‘They will have the opportunities I was denied,’ she had insisted. ‘Never mind that they’re girls, they’ll receive a proper education.’

  Eileen had actually felt guilty when her first three children had all proved to be girls. First Mara, then Kathleen, then Shauna – couldn’t one of them have been a son? she’d thought.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mick,’ she’d said as she’d laid back wearily against the pillows, her new baby, also weary from the effort of being born, now sleeping peacefully in her arms.

  ‘What for?’ he’d replied with his irrepressible grin. ‘Look at her, will you? Just look at that hair.’ Shauna had been born with a downy flame-red skull-cap. ‘How could you not love a thing like that now?’

  ‘But you wanted a son, I know you did.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ he’d said dismissively. Of course he’d wanted a son – Mick had ached for a son – but it would not stop him loving his daughters. ‘What good ar
e boys, I ask you? Wastrels every one of them. There’s much more money in girls.’

  ‘No, I won’t have that,’ she’d said firmly. ‘Our daughters are not going into the business. I will not allow it.’

  ‘Of course they’re not, are you daft?’ He’d been surprised and even a little shocked that she’d presumed he meant such a thing, particularly as he’d only been trying to comfort her. But then that was Eileen. There were times when even Mick could not fathom his wife. ‘We’ll marry them off to wealthy men is what I meant. There’s money to be had in marriage.’

  ‘There certainly is,’ she’d agreed, ‘and if not marriage, a benefactor. Wealthy men abound in Hobart.’

  A benefactor, Mick thought. Isn’t that rather like going into the business? But then he supposed marrying for money was too, wasn’t it? Either way, his girls would make wealthy matches, of that there was no doubt.

  ‘Just look at her, Eileen,’ he’d said, running the tip of his little finger over the child’s perfect mouth, ‘between us we’ve bred beauties, that’s for sure.’

  ‘The next one will be a boy,’ she’d promised, and she vowed to herself that if it wasn’t, then she’d keep having girls until she produced a son. And not just for Mick. Eileen wanted a beautiful boy of her own.

  Two years later, in the winter of 1862, Colin O’Callaghan was born, a perfectly formed baby, as beautiful as his sisters.

  Mick was ecstatic, a son and heir. As the child grew, he even proved himself a very replica of his da: audacious and cheeky, with winning ways. Mick recalled his father’s proud boast about himself when he was a boy. He could charm the wings off a butterfly that one, Patrick Kelly would say, and the butterfly would walk away flightless and happy. The boy has the true gift, there’s no doubt about it. Mick spoiled his son shamelessly, rarely disciplining young Col even when he knew the child was telling a tissue of lies. ‘The gift’ after all, if put to good use, could prove a valuable tool in life. By the age of six, Col O’Callaghan had his father under his spell.

  Eileen was true to her promise regarding the girls’ education. When they were little, she had them privately tutored by Madame Elodie Beauchesne, widow of a French merchant and proprietress of the Beauchesne Preparatory School for Young Ladies in Boothman’s Terrace, Battery Point. Then in 1869, when they were thirteen, eleven and nine, she transferred them to Mount St Mary’s College, the new girls’ school that had been established just the previous year in the grounds of St Mary’s Cathedral in Harrington Street.

  Mount St Mary’s offered exclusive and expensive education for the daughters of Hobart’s wealthier Catholics and Eileen wasted no time having her girls enrolled. But she also insisted they keep their regular Saturday morning attendance at Madame Beauchesne’s in order to continue their French lessons. She knew the value of fluent French among the upper classes. It was the stamp by which all young ladies were judged.

  Following Colin’s birth Eileen had decided there would be no more children. She had fulfilled her duty in providing a son and four was quite enough. But even her well-practised methods of contraception were not infallible and when Colin was eight she gave birth to his younger brother, Bernard.

  Bernard, like his siblings, was a physically beautiful child, but growing up in the shadow of a brother who was so well-established as his father’s favourite, young Bernie developed problems at an early age. He desperately competed for his father’s affection and approval, but invariably he failed. It wasn’t because Mick disliked him. Mick simply didn’t notice Bernie very much. Bernie didn’t have Col’s charisma. And as Col grew towards manhood his charisma grew with him. Just like his father, he could charm the wings off a butterfly, and just like Patrick Kelly, Mick’s pride knew no bounds. Bernie spent his childhood more or less invisible to his father and, sadly, to a certain extent also his mother. Eileen was not immune to Col’s charm either.

  Fortunately for Bernie, he had his sisters. The girls adored their baby brother, particularly Shauna, who always came to his defence when Col accused little Bernie of being a sissy. Shauna, who worked as a part-time governess and tutor teaching French to the offspring of the rich, was sensitive to the feelings of children, particularly those of her little brother. ‘You’re full of shite, Col,’ she would say, and the others would take up the chant. The girls weren’t fooled by Col for a second, and why would they be? Colin O’Callaghan didn’t bother wasting his charms on his sisters.

  ‘If the lad grows up spineless it’ll be your fault, Shauna,’ he’d say. The battle was always on between Col and Shauna. ‘You’re turning him into a sissy, the lot of you.’

  To give Col his due, he was actually trying to help his little brother. He’d grown up with three older sisters himself and he knew just how overwhelming the experience could be. Teasing Bernie about being a sissy was his way of issuing a warning. Sometimes he even gave the boy a lecture. ‘Don’t let yourself be mollycoddled, Bernie,’ he’d say. ‘You mustn’t allow yourself to be governed by women.’ Then he’d proffer that devilish grin of his. ‘At least not women who’re your sisters.’ Just turned eighteen, Col O’Callaghan’s only problem with girls was how to stop those he bedded falling hopelessly in love with him.

  Bernie’s life was complicated. His sisters’ affection had become a double-edged sword. Much as he welcomed their love and much as he loved them in return, he did not want to be perceived as under their influence. He tried to distance himself from them and assert his own personality. He wanted to be like his brother. No, more than that, much more than that. He wanted to be his brother. He wanted his mother to laugh at his stories the way she laughed when Col told one of his tales; and above all he wanted his father to admire him the way he admired Col. But try as he might, when Col was around, Bernie remained somehow invisible.

  Then, at twenty years of age, Col decided to leave home. He was not the first of the O’Callaghan offspring to fly the nest. Kathleen had two years previously married a man she’d met at the wedding of one of her old school friends, with whom she’d maintained close ties. Mick and Eileen had been thrilled, for Kevin was a banker and very well-to-do. They had not been thrilled, however, to discover that Kevin was based in Launceston. It wasn’t right, Eileen had said – what was the point of having a wealthy daughter who lived more than a hundred miles away? O’Callaghans stuck together.

  ‘I’m going to Sydney,’ Col announced to the family as they sat around the dinner table. The kitchen being too small, the living room had long served as both the dining area and the place where they generally gathered. The house, although crowded, was comfortable enough: the girls shared the second bedroom, and the boys the extra room that Mick had built out the back.

  ‘Sydney?’ Mick looked up from his lamb and potatoes. ‘You’re going to Sydney?’

  ‘To start with – after that, who knows?’ Col gave an expansive wave of his hand. ‘The world, Da. I intend to see the whole, wide world.’

  ‘That’s a fairly big place.’ Mick felt his heart sink. He knew already there was nothing he could say to dissuade the lad, and why should he? Col was only doing what he’d done himself, except he was doing it four years later in life. Mick had left home to see the world at the age of sixteen.

  ‘When do you intend to leave?’ Eileen, practical as always, got straight to the point.

  ‘I haven’t made my plans yet. I’ll enquire around the docks tomorrow and see what openings there might be. I intend to work my passage.’ Upon completing school, Col had not decided on any particular path in life and had become quite an accomplished jack-of-all-trades. ‘There’ll be no problem getting work,’ he said confidently.

  ‘You surely wouldn’t dream of leaving before your sister’s wedding?’ Eileen’s eyes dared him to even think of such a thing.

  ‘Not for a minute, Ma,’ Col smiled his reassurance. ‘As if I would let Mara down on her big day.’

  ‘Don’t go doing me any favours,’ Mara said with a shrug of indifference. ‘My heart won’t break if
you’re not there.’

  ‘Of course it will.’ Col winked cheekily at his sister. ‘You know full well it won’t be the same without me.’

  ‘You’re full of shite, Col,’ Shauna said, but the response was automatic. There was no real enmity and, even as twelve-year-old Bernie darted nervous looks from one to another, expecting a fight to ensue, his three older siblings shared a smile. Bernie didn’t understand their volatile relationship. Perhaps he was simply too young; perhaps he would develop their strength as he grew. Or perhaps he really was the runt of the litter.

  The event of Mara’s wedding was without doubt the most important date on the family’s calendar. Mara had done her parents proud in scoring as her husband-to-be none other than Archibald Dimbleby. She’d done so simply by shopping at Dimbleby’s Emporium in Murray Street, where she’d caught the eye of the eldest son and heir. Archibald had become instantly smitten and the courtship had been swift, for Mara, like all the O’Callaghan girls, was not only strikingly beautiful; she was clever. Well-educated and intelligent, she had acquired skills that had not been available to her mother; in addition she had the skills that only Eileen and not education could impart. Mara, like her sisters, knew how to snare a man. She knew how to tease and to fascinate, how to be innocent yet provocative and, although still a virgin, she knew, as Archibald Dimbleby was soon to discover, how to sexually excite beyond all expectations. She had also learnt, as had her sisters, how to avoid pregnancy, although in Mara’s case this would not be necessary as Archie was eager to produce an heir of his own in order to secure the next generation’s inheritance.

  Despite the fact that the couple had not met through the customary social channels, Mara’s beauty and education had afforded her acceptance into the Dimbleby family, her fluent command of the French language having apparently sealed the bargain.