Tiger Men

by Judy Nunn

  Reginald knew something was wrong. He felt a tingling in his right hand, but when he lowered it and made to grasp it with his other hand he discovered his left arm would not respond. He opened his mouth to scream further invective at his ingrate of a son, but the words that came out were no more than a drunken slur, and for some strange reason he seemed to be losing his balance.

  Hugh caught his father as he fell.

  The massive stroke Reginald Stanford had suffered had not killed him. It had, however, left him totally incapacitated, with no expectation of recovery. Following his treatment at the hospital, the doctor recommended he be transferred to a hospice where he could receive the constant attention a case like his required until the event of his death, but Hugh would not have it. Hugh insisted his father be brought home to Stanford House. He would employ a full-time male carer and a live-in nurse, he told the doctor.

  ‘Who knows, perhaps there is a vestige of consciousness remaining. Perhaps he may recognise he is in his own home, which would be of some comfort,’ Hugh said, looking down at the motionless form of his father.

  ‘I very much doubt that would be the case,’ the doctor replied. ‘He’s showing no such signs, and the stroke was extremely severe. Indeed, it’s amazing he survived at all. But he appears to have a very strong cardiovascular system. In fact I must warn you, Mr Stanford, providing your father does not suffer another stroke, he might well live on for years in this semi-vegetative state. At fifty-nine he’s still a comparatively young man and, according to his medical history, longevity runs in your family.’

  ‘Yes, indeed it does. My grandfather lived well into his nineties.’

  ‘Well, there you are then, certainly something to bear in mind if you’re contemplating home care.’

  Reginald heard every single word they uttered.

  Reginald Stanford’s mind was intact. He knew precisely what was going on. He also knew what he looked like. He saw himself in the mirror every humiliating time they carried him into the bathroom and placed him on the toilet, and then afterwards when they lifted him off and washed his backside. He was abhorrent, his body gnarled, his arms bent, his hands claw-like. His eyes stared vacantly at nothing, his mouth hung open slackly and when they fed him food dribbled down his chin. He drooled even when he wasn’t being fed. He was far more grotesque than his father had ever been.

  They took him back to Stanford House several days later.

  The male carer, a giant of a man called Simon, made a daily habit of carrying him downstairs and seating him by the bay windows of the larger drawing room where the sun flooded in.

  It was here that Hugh, having been granted power of attorney, conducted his initial meeting with the chief executives of Stanford Colonial. Hugh considered it only right that the meeting should be conducted in the presence of his father.

  Reginald listened as they talked about him, Nigel Lyttleton and his son Walter and the others, saying what a terrible thing his stroke was, glancing occasionally in his direction then quickly averting their eyes. They talked about other things too, and he learnt it was rumoured that Henry Jones was to be knighted for his services to the British war effort.

  Henry Jones was to be knighted? Reginald’s mind screamed at the idea. Sir Henry Jones? That vulgar little man? What about me? I donated an aeroplane too! And he heard them say also that Henry intended to build a fleet of ships.

  ‘They’re already referring to it as “the jam fleet”,’ Nigel said, and the others laughed.

  Henry Jones was to have his own fleet of ships? But that was my dream, the voice in Reginald’s brain screamed, my dream, mine!

  As they left, they once again looked in his direction pretending sympathy. ‘Poor old Reginald,’ Nigel said, but it was clear they found the sight of him repulsive.

  The only one who was not repelled by his appearance was Rupert. Rupert often sat beside him, wiping away the drool with the bib that the nurse had placed around his neck.

  ‘Poor Father,’ he would say, stroking Reginald’s withered hand, ‘poor, poor Father.’

  EPILOGUE

  PONTVILLE, 1926

  ‘There you go, Evy, tiger food.’ Caitie handed her daughter the parcel of meat scraps. ‘There’re some nice juicy bits in there – she’ll like that.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Six-year-old Evelyn took the parcel from her mother then turned and raced full bore out of the kitchen, only to collide with her father, who’d just come in the back door.

  ‘Hello, Evy.’ Hugh picked his daughter up in his arms and kissed her. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’

  ‘To feed my tiger,’ the little girl said, waving the parcel under his nose.

  ‘Yes, of course you are, silly me.’ Hugh exchanged a smile with Caitie as he set the child down. ‘Off you go then.’ Evy, coppery curls bouncing, headed purposefully out the back door.

  They’d been humouring her for over a month now, ever since the announcement that had followed their visit to the museum where Evie had seen a stuffed thylacine. Her mother had explained that the animal was known as a Tasmanian tiger. ‘They’re very, very rare,’ Caitie had said. ‘No-one sees tigers any more.’

  The announcement had come less than one week later.

  ‘I have made friends with a tiger,’ Evy had said. It had been a very solemn announcement, which her parents knew must be taken seriously.

  ‘Really,’ Caitie said, ‘a tiger – goodness me.’

  ‘Yes. She lives in a little cave among the rocks up on the hill, and she has babies. I talk to her and she understands me. She’s my friend.’

  ‘A tiger for a friend,’ Hugh said, impressed. ‘You’re a very lucky girl.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Evy nodded. ‘That’s why we have to keep her a secret. You mustn’t tell anyone about her, particularly Uncle Rupert, because he gets too excited. Uncle Rupert would scare her and she would run away.’

  ‘We won’t tell Uncle Rupert,’ Hugh promised. ‘We’ll keep it our secret.’

  Evy reflected for a moment. ‘You can tell Uncle Harry, though.’

  ‘Really,’ Caitie asked. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Uncle Harry will protect her.’ Evy trusted her Uncle Harry implicitly. ‘If Uncle Harry knows my tiger is there, then he’ll keep people from going near her cave. She’s very frightened; she told me so. I’m her only friend. And even I don’t go too close. She’s warned me not to, or she’ll run away.’

  ‘Very well,’ Caitie said. ‘I promise we’ll tell no-one except Uncle Harry about your tiger. It will be our very special secret. And we’ll keep away from the rocks up on the hill.’

  Evy had nodded, she’d been happy with that.

  Following his Aunt Amy’s death at the ripe age of eighty-six, Hugh had moved his wife and newborn daughter, together with his brother, Rupert, out of the city and into the old farmhouse at Pontville, driving into town every second week for several days of business meetings on behalf of Stanford Colonial. His cousin Harry, who worked the property and chose to live alone in the nearby foreman’s cottage, had quickly become a part of the family, he and Evy developing a special relationship over the years.

  Hugh and Caitie had presumed the tiger fantasy that had been born of Evy’s visit to the zoo would soon fade, but it didn’t. As time passed, Evy’s newfound friend began to play a more and more dominant part in her life.

  ‘I told my tiger I would bring her some food,’ she said one day. ‘I told her I would leave it outside her cave, and it was a promise, Mummy, so I can’t let her down. She said she would like that very much and she was very grateful, but I forgot to ask her what she eats.’

  ‘I’ll get you some meat scraps, darling,’ Caitie had said, and that had been the start of the tiger-feeding ritual.

  Evy would visit the cave in the late afternoon. She would sit and chat for a while before leaving the meat.

  ‘My tiger loves her dinner,’ she told her parents. ‘She eats it at night. I know, because it’s always go
ne the next morning.’

  ‘There are lots of animals who might eat the meat during the night, Evy,’ Hugh said with care. He was starting to wonder whether things were perhaps getting a little out of hand.

  ‘No, no,’ Evy protested, ‘my tiger eats her dinner. She tells me so, and she thanks me for bringing it. She’s very polite.’

  Hugh voiced his concern to Caitie. ‘Do you think we’re wrong to indulge her like this? It’s not altogether normal, surely.’

  ‘Of course it is, darling. Lots of children invent imaginary friends. Evy’s been an only child for quite some time now; she’s probably been lonely. She’ll forget all about her tiger when David’s bigger and they can play together.’

  After five years, Hugh and Caitie’s long-awaited second child had finally arrived. Baby David was just eight months old.

  Hugh stopped worrying. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’ Caitie knew best. Caitie was a born mother.

  The animal senses no threat from the child who visits her daily. But where there is a child there are men, and at dusk when she hunts she can see the house in the valley below. She is forever wary. As soon as her cubs are old enough she will leave this place.

  She watches from her small rocky lair as the child places the meat on the ground and sits some distance away. The child talks and the sound of her voice signals no danger, for the animal has become accustomed to it.

  The child leaves, and the animal waits, her sharp, black eyes trained on the meat. The meat will provide a tasty morsel for her cubs before she sets off on her hunt. But she will not leave her lair until dusk settles in.

  Read on for an extract of

  Elianne

  Available November 2013

  CHAPTER ONE

  1964

  Some people didn’t like the smell. Some people found it overly rich and cloying, some even used the term ‘sickly’. But they were strangers, visitors from the city.

  There had always been visitors to the mill. Overseas dignitaries, politicians, even the odd prime minister had enjoyed the lavish garden parties and general hospitality f on offer at Elianne. At times there might be dozens of them, strolling about the grounds of The Big House, or lolling in the wicker chairs on its broad verandahs and upper balconies, while the more active opted for tennis and bowls on the grass courts and greens.

  In earlier times, before dirt tracks became accessible roads, and before motor vehicles were the ready form of transport, guests would stay for days on end. The arduous trip by horse and carriage demanded its reward, and Elianne had much to offer – not least of which was the mandatory trip to the nearby mill. The intrepid would climb to the lofty heights of the lookout tower and drink in the panorama of cane fields, stretching like a vast green ocean to the horizon while those without a head for heights would be taken on a tour of the massive metal complex with its varying levels and intricate steel walkways, its giant vats and machines and eighty-foot-high ceiling, and they would marvel at the magnitude of its scope and industry.

  During the crushing season, from mid-year until December, the cacophony of heavy machinery was overwhelming as the mill’s giant rollers and presses smashed and mashed and ground the cane through every stage of its transition to raw sugar. Nothing was wasted. The fibre that was left from the crushing was burnt in the furnaces to generate steam power; the mud filtered from the cane through the presses was returned to the field as fertiliser; and after the painstakingly long crystallisation process, the molasses residue was mixed in with the stock feed or sent to the distillery for the making of rum. The whole exercise was highly efficient as men and machines went about their tasks with precise teamwork.

  The mill was a busy, buzzy place during the crushing season, like a beehive where each worker knew precisely the purpose he served. The men took pride in the fact they were Elianne workers. They thrived on the noise and the industry and the smell of the mill, the very smell that some of those from the city professed to find ‘sickly’.

  Kate and her brothers loved the smell of the sugar mill. They found the toffee-scented air heady and intoxicating. It was the smell they’d grown up with, all three of them. It was the smell of home.

  I’ve missed it, Kate thought, breathing in the richness as she wandered through the cathedral-like metal maze, where the giant mechanical monsters now sat eerily silent. Even during the slack season the smell is here, she thought, it’s always here. It’s been here for as long as I can remember.

  She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed the mill and the plantation over the past year. She’d been too distracted. Her life had undergone such a radical change. She remembered how she’d anticipated with relish every homecoming from boarding school in Brisbane. Every end-of-term holiday, every long weekend had seen her eagerly embrace the familiarity of her childhood. The cane fields shimmering in the heat; the smell of the mill and the easy friendship of the workers, so many of whom were like family; the horse races with her brothers along dusty dirt roads; swimming in the dam and the way, knees clutched to chests, they ‘bombed’ each other off the end of the jetty; tin canoes and excursions up and down the river; laden mango trees climbed to see who could shake down the most fruit; and on and on it went, the list was endless.

  But this homecoming was different. Something had changed. After a year at university, this homecoming had taken her by surprise. It was more intense, more meaningful. The past seemed more precious than ever, as if she were somehow threatened with its loss. Perhaps it’s because I’m different, she thought. Perhaps it is I who has changed, and things will never be the same again. The notion was disturbing, even a little sad, but also strangely exciting.

  Although the mill appeared deserted, Kate was aware she was not alone. The gentle clink of tinkering could be heard as here and there mechanics cleaned and serviced the machinery. But the delicacy of the sounds only served to highlight the stillness. At least it seemed so to Kate. She loved the mill most of all during the slack season when it lay dormant, quietly exhaling its treacly breath, biding its time before the next crushing frenzy.

  ‘Buongiorno, Kate. Welcome home.’

  The voice that jolted her from her reverie came from behind the massive filter press nearby; it belonged to Luigi Fiorelli. He rose to reveal himself, burly, grease stained and good natured as always.

  ‘Is good to see you,’ he said with a huge grin and a wave of the grimy rag he held in his hand.

  ‘Good to see you too, Luigi.’ She smiled and returned the salute.

  ‘How you like it down South, eh? You have good time down there?’ His tone was highly sceptical. During his eighteen years in the southern cane fields of Queensland, Luigi had travelled no farther than Bundaberg, on the other side of the river just fifteen miles from Elianne. He hadn’t even made the trip to Brisbane, which, although two hundred and forty road miles to the south, was easily accessible by both rail and road. He didn’t like big cities, he said, which was perhaps an odd remark from one who’d been brought up in the backstreets of Naples. But then his brothers, also Neapolitan by birth, were of exactly the same mind. The Fiorellis stuck to their farms and to Elianne, never travelling any further afield than Bundaberg. Why bother, they would say, and many felt the same way. Bundaberg, affectionately known to all as Bundy, had been successfully servicing the area for nigh on a hundred years.

  ‘Yes, I had a very good time down south, Luigi,’ Kate replied. ‘I like university very much.’

  ‘Si, si, sure, sure, university is fine, very good, but Sydney …’ Luigi was now openly scathing ‘… you don’ like Sydney! You can’ tell me you like Sydney, Kate.’

  The thought was clearly anathema to Luigi, but Kate made no reply, maintaining instead an enigmatic silence.

  Luigi Fiorelli had emigrated from Italy with his three older brothers in 1946, following the war. His brothers had become market gardeners, starting out with tomatoes and zucchinis, and also tobacco, or ‘tabac’ as they called it. Over time, and with application to
the all-powerful Colonial Sugar Refinery, they had converted their modest acreage to cane, but twenty-two-year-old Luigi had followed an altogether different path. A skilled mechanic, he had applied for a position at Elianne. He was forty now, and one of the estate’s senior overseers, responsible for the repairs and maintenance of all mill machinery. He preferred to do more than supervise, however, and was invariably to be found in his overalls working alongside those under his command. ‘How a mechanic is to be a mechanic without he get his hands dirty, eh?’ he would say. Luigi’s command of English had improved immeasurably over the years, but his accent and disregard for syntax hadn’t changed very much.

  The Fiorelli brothers and their families remained inextricably linked to Elianne. Luigi, his wife and two teenage children lived on the estate in one of the many comfortable cottages made available by the company to the mill’s most valued employees. The three older brothers, now independent growers and each also with a family, relied upon Elianne for the crushing of their cane, delivering it to the collection points each season, from where it would be taken by cane train to the mill.

  The mill was essential to the livelihood of the entire district. The estate itself was home to many, and for some, like Luigi, it was their whole world. Kate’s continued silence, which appeared a comment in itself, now plainly shocked him.

  ‘You don’ say to me I am wrong, Kate. A girl like you who is born right here at Elianne? Your ancestors who build this place,’ he stretched out his arms as if to embrace the mill and all it stood for, ‘how you can like Sydney? Is not possible.’

  Kate laughed. ‘I’m ashamed to admit, Luigi, that yes, I like Sydney very much.’ Her eyes, beguilingly green and mischievous at the best of times, held a cheeky challenge as she added boldly, ‘In fact I love Sydney.’ She clutched a dramatic hand to her heart. ‘I love everything about Sydney.’ She enjoyed teasing Luigi, whom she’d known as a colourfully avuncular figure all her life, but there was nevertheless a touch of defiance in her statement. Such a comment, even in jest, would annoy her father immeasurably, and indeed others of his ilk. Like many powerful businessmen, particularly those in the sugar trade, Stanley Durham did not see eye to eye with the politics of the South. Queenslanders were a breed apart, he believed, and needed a different set of rules to live by; they always had.