While the ponies were being looked over, His Lordship, coming to Sugarbag and noting the pale-faced, grey-eyed, fair-haired boy on her back, exclaimed, ‘But you’re not a blackboy!’
Jeremy, who was at the little mare’s head, on the other side, perhaps deliberately keeping out of sight, looked over, saying shortly, ‘According to the law of the land he’s just as much a blackfellow as any of ’em.’
Vaisey looked at him: ‘Ah . . . it’s you, Mr Delacy! What’s that you’re saying?’
‘I was just remarking, in case you’re thinking of debarring the boy on account of the lightness of his colour, that he enjoys exactly the same lack of rights and privileges as if he were coal-black . . . something you ought to be conversant with, seeing you’re by far the biggest employer of Aboriginal labour in the land.’
‘Am I, begad!’
His Lordship was looking somewhat ruddier, but in no less control of himself: ‘I’ll confess I’ve left it to my managers, Mr Delacy . . . but I’ll look into it.’ He turned back to Prindy, patted the bare brown knee, saying, ‘Go in and win, laddie, and I’ll give you a special prize . . . I’ll give you a fiver. No, let’s make it properly sporting . . . guineas, eh what?’
Prindy was silent. Jeremy said dryly, ‘He hardly understands a word you’re saying.’
Vaisey looked at Jeremy again: ‘You mean he doesn’t speak English?’
‘I mean he’s never been taught anything but the crudest kind of it. School’s not for the like of him . . . unless it’s on a Mission or a Government Settlement . . . which wouldn’t make him much better off.’
‘Rilly!’ Lord Alfred blinked a little before Jeremy’s hard stare. Then he looked back at the boy, stared a moment, then again at Jeremy. Cause of his sudden change of expression was obvious.
In the same dry tone Jeremy said, ‘In your circles you’d call it bar sinister, I guess.’
His Lordship blinked rapidly, cleared his throat, gave horse and rider another pat, then moved on. Martin at his heels looked very red. Lady Lydia beside Martin was all blue-eyed interest.
The Pony Race was the last event. Prindy and Sugerbag won it easily. The listed prize was half a dozen bottles of Lolly-water and a can of boiled sweets. As Martin presented it, seeming not to see his son even while shaking hands with him, Vaisey said, ‘My five guineas, don’t forget.’ He pulled out his wallet.
Jeremy was lurking. He said, ‘Notes are meaningless to these people. It’ll have to be in silver . . . that’s all they get in wages . . . if any at all.’
Even without blinking His Lordship said, ‘Silver, eh? Silver it shall be. I’ll get it from Finnucane as soon as we get back. A hundred and five bob . . . why, we’ll have to get you a bag to carry it away!’ He rumpled the fair hair, adding: ‘Handsome young feller-me-lad you are, too.’ He turned away.
Jeremy, alone now, found Lady Lydia beside him. He had stiffly greeted her earlier on. Now he was silent. She asked, ‘Is that lovely boy your son?’
He answered shortly, ‘No.’
‘You did mention the bar sinister.’
‘He could be anybody’s bastard . . . it’s not done to acknowledge relations with mothers like his.’
‘With that hair and those eyes . . .!’
‘People don’t talk about those things here.’
‘People have been talking to me.’
‘Then why ask?’
‘I’d like to know the truth.’
‘About the paternity of one poor little creamy boy?’
‘No . . . about you. It’s you I’ve been hearing about.’
‘Then it’s a wonder you talk to me at all . . . seeing who your informants must be.’
‘Don’t be so difficult! You sound like the only person in the country worth talking to.’
‘Thanks . . . but it might mean I’m only the best of a very bad job.’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘Go right ahead . . . but I’ll have to go and see to my people and my horses.’
‘I mean alone.’
He looked at her. She added: ‘I’d like to see your station . . . I hear it’s a wonderful place.’
He scratched his jaw: ‘Sorry . . . no Vaiseys admitted . . . no alien creatures of any kind. It has what’s called in these parts a Pest Fence round it.’
‘So I’ve heard. But I don’t happen to be a Vaisey.’
‘All those connected with . . .’
‘Your bête noire . . . I know. But I’m not at the moment. The engagement’s broken off.’
He stared: ‘Since when?’
‘Since you let the cat out of the bag yesterday.’
‘What cat? I don’t have any dealings with cats. They’re destructive animals in these parts. I’m a mad conservationist, you know.’
‘Will you please answer my question . . . will you let me see your place . . . the lagoons, the Painted Caves, the things you’ve bred?’
‘Well . . . if you come out alone?’
‘I want you to take me.’
‘You can come along with the crowd. We’ll be going home on Monday.’
‘I won’t be heah on Monday.’
‘Too bad . . . another time then.’
‘I’d like you to run me out tomorrow . . . it’s only forty miles, isn’t it?’
He grinned: ‘Your Ladyship is so used to giving orders . . .’
Her thin face looked strained. ‘I’m not giving orders. I’m asking a great favour. I’m desperate!’
He stared: ‘For what?’
‘For a spell of relief from these people here . . . from Alfred . . . particularly from Alfred at the moment.’ As he continued to stare, she asked, with something like desperation in her voice now, ‘Won’t you take me . . . please?’
He drew a deep breath, exhaled it: ‘All right.’
She pressed his arm quickly: ‘Thank you.’ Her face was glowing now.
Still he eyed her searchingly. He said, ‘You’ll need a chaperon.’
Her eyes blazed: ‘Rubbish!’
‘Not rubbish at all. I’m a married man. I’d insist on my wife’s accompanying us, only I know she wouldn’t want to . . . wants to run her camp and see to breaking it up and getting it back home. It’s a ritual with her. She’s very proud of her household and efficient in the control of it. I’m not just having her humiliated to suit the whim of a spoilt child of a system of society I have only contempt for.’
Lydia had become very red and the blaze in the blue eyes increased. But if she had been made angry she swallowed it, and even smiled slightly in saying, ‘All right . . . a chaperon.’
He swallowed, too, evidently momentarily at a loss through her aplomb. He said, ‘None of your ladies-in-waiting.’
‘I told you I wanted to get away from them. What about the little boy . . . your bastard son.’
‘He’s not my son.’
‘Well grandson.’
‘All right. But we’ll probably have to take his mother too. It’s only forty miles to the homestead . . . but past there the going’s rough and slow. We’ll have to leave at daybreak. Can you get to my camp by then?’
‘Can’t you pick me up?’
‘No . . . I never go near the Beatrice homestead. I’ve never been near it. I never will go near it while it’s Vaiseys.’
Staring at him, she said, ‘You’re a bugger of a man . . . but I’ll be there.’
‘Right . . . I’ll be seeing you.’ Jeremy swung away.
Saturday night, and the party at the Dance Hall with which the festival would be wound up. It began respectably enough, although without any sort of formality. Both McCusky and Hannaford acted as MCs. As the jollity increased with the consumption of booze the more respectable withdrew. The squattocracy was well represented — and more, the British aristocracy. The Delacy boys were there, with Lady Lydia. Clancy made bold to dance with his doxy, pretty Selina Ah Loy, who was pure Chinese. Martin wasn’t anything so brave, although his eyes often followed Nelyerri as she dan
ced with others — and hers scarcely left him. They did not speak. Clancy disappeared with Selina; and Martin soon took Her Ladyship home.
Tonight was the great occasion for adding to the famous heap of bottles. It was said that the heap had its beginnings away back when the Overland Telegraph was being built and a party of teamsters, after a mighty struggle with Christmas stores across the flooded river, had decided they deserved some of the cheer they carried for the linesmen down inland, and one sip had led to another until they had broached the lot. Then the diggers of the Knowles Creek Tin Rush at the turn of the Century had, in accordance with the pioneering tradition of the land, raised it as a monument. Most bottles emptied locally in a spirit of conviviality had gone to augment it ever since; however, the contribution made on the last night of the Races was not so much a mere disposal as a ritual, like Edinburgh Scots’ smashing their emptied whisky bottles on the steps of the Tron Kirk to mark the end of the bawdy foulness of Hogmanay and the beginning of a dour New Year.
Bottles were now being emptied for the sheer creative joy of the augmentation — Crash! Crash! Crash! — nor emptied on the ground to be sure. Those who hadn’t gullets wide enough to do the job quickly enough to suit the yelling mob were relieved of their contributions. Black and brown hands did as much snatching as white. Nelyerri Ah Loy and Pat Hannaford consumed a quart of Square gin in mutual snatching. When Pat gave up in the interests of his duties of the morrow, the Knowles brothers took Nellie over from him. Knobby, very drunk, tried to do more than drink with her. Lots of whitemen were doing similarly with coloured female partners, but with more discretion. Knobby looked like having her on the heap of broken glass. His brother hauled him off. Willy Ah Loy, with good Chinese sense, whisked his spouse away, even while she dealt with him as violently as she had been dealing with Knobby. Meanwhile the Knowles brothers fought it out, till they fell into each other’s arms weeping their love.
Down at the Lily Lagoons camp, when Willy arrived with the now weeping Nelyerri, Jeremy suggested that he take her home and leave sleeping Prindy with him and so save him having to come for him in the morning, adding that it would be good for the boy to go with him alone.
V
It was still so dark when Lady Lydia arrived at the Lily Lagoons camp on Sunday morning that the car that brought her had its headlights on. Jeremy was waiting, sitting with Prindy drinking coffee. It was Clancy who was Her Ladyship’s driver, as seen when he alighted and came running through the headlight beams to open the door for her. She herself, in the light of the camp, was seen to be wearing black jodhpurs with a yellow silk blouse and a black wide-awake and elastic sides. ‘Well, here I am!’ she cried. ‘Top o’ the mornin’!’
Jeremy murmured a response. Neither he nor Clancy exchanged greetings. In fact Jeremy did not appear to see the boy, who stood by the car staring.
Jeremy asked Lydia, ‘Like some coffee? Bit early for breakfast. We’ll have that out on the road.’
‘Rah-ther! Do I smell café royal?’
‘Yes . . . I’ve royalled mine up a bit. Like yours the same?’
‘Love it.’
Nanago was there in a moment with more cups. The two women exchanged smiles. Nan looked at Clancy, then at Jeremy pouring only one extra cup. Jeremy said he preferred his sweetened with honey and asked Lydia if she’d like hers that way, she said yes, but absently, glancing at Clancy, evidently having become aware of the situation. At her glance Clancy gave her a slight wave and turned to get back into the car. She half-rose, calling to him, ‘Thank you, deah boy!’ She watched the car swing away, then looked at Jeremy, who was concentrating on his coffee cup. He looked up and met her gaze steadily. She sipped her coffee.
Jeremy asked, ‘To your liking?’
‘Divine!’ she cried, ‘Simply divine . . . first time I’ve tried it with honey.’
Nanago came from the kitchen tent lugging a fair-sized metal box with handles. Jeremy took it from her, at the same time kissing her dusky cheek, and loaded it into the back of the utility. He said to Prindy, already there, ‘Going to be dusty . . . better get in the front.’ But the boy ignored him. Settling into the front with Lydia, Jeremy remarked, ‘Probably never ridden anywhere but in the back before. It’s hard to get ’em in front.’
They set off without lights. As they crossed the causeway the river lay like mother-o’-pearl to either side. Lydia said, ‘How lovely!’
A little further on was another sight, a man and a woman sprawled in the dusty grass beside the road, the man with pale behind bare because his pants were down around his knees, the woman scarcely visible because of her blackness. As Jeremy revved up to start the climb up the bank he said, ‘Not so lovely!’
Lydia responded easily: ‘Must have been quite a night in the old town. We saw several like that. Poor Clancy was quite embarrassed.’ She chuckled.
‘You find it amusing?’
‘Well . . . it’s pretty crude, I know . . . but, frankly, I didn’t think Australians had that much go in ’em. They’re awfully tame the ones I’ve met.’
‘I think you’ll find most of ’em the same. The credit for this you’d have to give to the blacks. They’re the true bacchanalians.’
They climbed to the top, swung along the Racecourse road, past the place, on to a narrow winding track that took them northwestward. At some distance the numerous white buildings of Beatrice Homestead could be seen ghostly in the silvery light. She broke a lengthy silence: ‘I was surprised that you didn’t ask your son to join us at coffee.’
‘Yes . . . so I noticed.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘Well . . . for a start he didn’t ask.’
‘Would he have to? You’re not that much out of friends with your family, are you? He spoke quite well of you to me . . . telling me about the wonderful things you do with breeding things . . . your research laboratory . . .’
‘He hasn’t seen it since he was a little boy . . . Do you know, that’s the first time he’s ever been near that Race Time camp of mine in all the years it’s been there?’
‘Is that so?’
‘And his only reason for coming was to bring you . . . a stranger, a guest of his mother’s, a titled lady. Why didn’t they send one of their staff to drive you?’
‘I asked Clancy especially.’
‘You see!’
‘You sound the bitter man I’ve heard you are.’
‘Where’d you hear that?’
She shrugged. Then she exclaimed, ‘Oh, look . . . a thing . . . a snake, isn’t it?
A snake-like head was peering at them over tall dry grass beside the road. They were now back near the river, to be seen in silver glimpses through the trees, far below.
‘It’s a bustard . . . generally called Plain Turkey round here. See, there’re several. Australians have a faculty for giving everything half a dozen names . . . ignoring the native ones . . . Beenook in this case.’ The birds rose on great wings.
‘What huge things!’
‘Yes . . . they can weigh up to twenty pounds dressed.’
‘They’re good to eat?’
‘Too good.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘They’re being wiped out. What with their tastiness and their fatal curiosity. The done thing would have been to slow down when we saw them looking from the grass, wait till they came up . . . and pot ’em.’
‘You don’t pot ’em.’
‘No.’
‘I see you have a gun, though.’ A rifle was slung above the windscreen.
‘Probably more for defence than offence.’
‘But no one’s likely to attack you, is there . . . blacks or anything?’
‘Least of all the poor beaten blacks. No . . . it’s a habit. We like to go armed. Most cars you’ll find carry a rifle in the bush. Every camp and homestead has a rifle handy . . . too handy, often. Shooting matches are quite common. There isn’t a station in all the wide North that hasn’t had its shooting match or two. Something go
es wrong . . . “Grab the gun,” as they say. The courts regard it less as murder than a sort of justifiable homicide. It’s supposed to be due to the loneliness.’
‘Why do you say Supposed to be?’
‘Well . . . how can you be lonely if you’ve got someone to shoot at? No . . . in my belief it’s something deeper . . . something to do with not truly belonging to the land. It’s a wide silent land . . . a brooding land . . . and full of spirit things, even if you don’t believe in them. Unless you can come to love it, you come to hate it . . . like either loving or hating a woman. Most Australians . . . bush Australians . . . the others aren’t really Australians at all, just transplanted Pommies or something equally alien . . . hate it. They live in it only because they have to. They get to town as often as possible. The shooting is hate . . . hate of your mate, hate of the boss, hate of the blacks . . . on the surface . . . but deep down, hate of the land, because it’s for ever strange to you, and you need it, as every creature needs earth of its own, and you’re left frustrated. Again it’s like a woman to you . . . like loving an unresponsive woman . . .’
‘Have you done that?’
He looked at her quickly, turned back to the road, was silent.
After a while she said, ‘When I told you yesterday they say you want to give the country back to the blacks, you didn’t answer me. Do you?’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 19