‘If I’d put it to proper use, such as sold the mine to a big company, they’d have just said I was a smart bastard. But I’ve wasted it. I’ve given what it earns to people they consider utterly useless . . . because they can’t use them . . . not as if, in fact, they haven’t used the poor devils almost to destruction. But they wanted positive use out of them. They wanted them to become smart workers who’d make them rich . . . but hanging about like the lost souls they are is too much for them. There are people who, when they’ve knocked a man down just can’t help but put the boot in. It’s useless . . . but it’s got to be done, because he’s down and can’t, or won’t get up. The Knowleses are typical Australians. They are actually liked by everybody . . . Never had any luck, the poor bloody Knowleses, they say . . . and the devil of their ill-luck is me, Delacy, the Scrub Bull, the Dead Nark, the Bastard. They’re all the same in their attitude to me. The only difference with the Knowleses is that hating me has become their justification for existence. Negative people that they are, they have to have something to fill the void . . . it’s Delacy, the Dead Nark. The majority know it was fatal to sell out to Vaisey. Deep down they hate him . . . but dare not admit it . . . and so they hate me openly instead. It’s the same with the RSL, the whole war business. They hated the dirty war . . . but it was all they had to brag about as achievement, having gone to it. Behind were the warmongers who profit by it, to cheer them, to call them heroes. They didn’t dare say: “We’re bloody fools.” So they take it out on me. What do I do . . . call truce with them, the way I did with Finnucane to please his daughter, whom I happen to like . . . ?’
‘She more than likes you.’
He shot her a wide grey glance at the sudden interruption. She added boldly: ‘She loves you.’
He dyed red to the grey hair, turning back to the road, muttering, ‘For godsake!’
She went on: ‘Everybody says so. They say she was in love with you as a young girl . . . after you left your wife.’
‘I didn’t leave my wife, as you call her . . . she left me.’
‘Sorry . . . will you tell me about that?’
He glanced at her: ‘For the book?’
‘Of course not. So’s I can understand you.’
‘How’ll that help?’
‘They say it’s on account of the break with her you’re like you are . . .’
His eyes were angry as he turned this time: ‘They say?’
‘Now, don’t get mad with me. You haven’t told me about yourself . . . so where could I get my information?’
‘If it’s not for the book, why do you want information about me?’
‘Because you’re the greatest force in the land. Because you’re a wonderful man. Because I admire you so much. Because you inspire me. Because . . .’
‘Oh!’ he grunted.
She touched his arm: ‘Tell me about it, Jeremy. They say that first you never got over your brother’s being killed . . .’
‘Why the hell should I . . . the way he was killed!’
‘Then they say that when you came home, bitter, hating the British and all that, and found your wife not only had sold you out to a British lord, but had a man who’d been a British officer lording it over your home . . .’ She paused.
He said, ‘Go on.’
‘Is it true?’
‘So far. Keep going.’
‘Well . . . you offended her by throwing the Englishman out, so that she went, taking the children. Then you both got the sulks. She wouldn’t come back to you . . . you wouldn’t ask her. Then you took into your house one of her halfcaste maids, just to . . . well, nark her, was the word . . . and she was hurt enough to start a divorce, and you pigheaded enough to let her . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m still right?’
‘Lots of small things wrong with it . . . but it’d be a fair interpretation of it for these people you call They. Any more?’
‘Well . . . that the trouble with you is that you’re a disappointed man. You won’t compromise . . . so you lost your wife and family. That meant your purpose in life. That you then turned to doing what you have ever since, anything to annoy people . . . like putting the land back the way it was and giving it back to the blacks, and . . . and, well, I suppose, generally being the Dead Nark . . . but, and they say it quite kindly, really, that it’s all because you’re disappointed . . . disappointed in love.’
He swallowed, muttered, ‘Christ!’ He was very red.
‘Well?’
He glanced at her: ‘Well what?’
‘Are you disappointed?’
‘Yes.’
She swallowed, took a moment to ask, and then in a somewhat strained voice, ‘In love?’
‘What would you mean by love?’
She said a little sharply, ‘Oh, please don’t hedge, Jeremy!’
‘I’m not hedging. There seem to be so many interpretations of Love. Give me yours.’
‘Well . . . two people come into each other’s lives who have a special meaning to each other . . .’
‘A male and a female, I presume?’
‘Of course!’
‘It doesn’t follow. Human relationships are based on need. Some men marry women, but never cease to love their mother first . . . or their mates . . .’
‘I said a special meaning.’
‘You mean sexual attraction?’
‘I mean everything between a man and a woman . . . that’s love. Each fulfils the other.’ When he didn’t answer, she asked, ‘Well?’
He shot her a glance: ‘Excuse me . . . but it sounds rather vague to me.’ Back to the road, he said, ‘Love means something a lot different to men and women. It means something a lot different to men and women at different ages. It means something a lot different to individual men and women.’
‘You make it sound very complex.’
‘It is.’ He added dryly: ‘If I were you I’d leave writing about it till you’ve had a lot more experience with it . . .’ He blushed: ‘I mean . . . after you’ve been around a lot longer . . . er . . .’
She giggled at his being flustered, saying, ‘I’m not ready to write of love yet.’
‘Well that’s a good thing. Stick to facts.’
‘But I want to know about what happened with your wife . . . not to write about, but to know the truth. I want you to tell me about your brother, too . . . the war . . . everything.’
He sighed: ‘It’s a long and dismal story.’
‘Tell it please.’
‘Right . . . let’s start with that filthy war. People are forgetting about it and getting ready for another. The next one will be the end of us. Write this, for godsake!’
‘Why don’t you write it?’
‘I haven’t the flair.’
‘Of course you have! The way you talk . . . it’s only talking onto paper.’
‘I’m a disappointed man, don’t forget. My expression would be only negative.’
‘You said you weren’t disappointed.’
‘I don’t recall it. I inferred that love had nothing to do with my disappointment, that’s all . . . loss of wife and family, I think you said. You’ve met my wife and sons, of course. Can you see any cause why I should be disappointed in the loss of them?’
‘I think the boot’s on the other foot . . . they’re disappointed in the loss of you.’
‘That’s their business. They left me.’ He sighed, adding: ‘I feel ever so glad about it too, every time I meet them.’
She laughed and caught his arm again. He went on: ‘What I’m disappointed in is my country, my Nation. That’s a terrible thing. Man may not be by nature a communal animal; but his very intelligence compels him to be so. Individuality is a thing to be fostered to bring out the fresh things, the new things, the advances, of the generations . . . but the purpose must not be selfish . . . or it cancels out. Every man must, in his maturity, dedicate himself to his species, his community, his Nation . . . but ultimately to his species. The beast crea
ture does it blindly, in the rutting battle. Man must do it consciously . . .’ He broke off to look at her.
Her eyes were great and shiny as she regarded him, her cherry lips open with delight: ‘Go on!’
‘With what?’
‘Your story of achievement.’
‘It isn’t a story of achievement, but of utter failure. My Nation, for which my brother gave his life in ignorance of the realities and I might have done the same but for waking up to them, is bankrupt of anything but what you have seen in miniature at this race meeting . . . stupidity, greed, guile, pettiness, cruelty. We, who could be the example to the world in intelligence, freedom, happiness, are bankrupt. Next war we’ll be sold up, to become what we started as, Cockney and Dublin and Cardiff and Glasgow guttersnipes and hucksters . . . in Chains!’ Another great sigh. Then: ‘But, I’ll start at the beginning . . . while there was still hope, while I and a few other fools like me could still dream of Australia Felix . . .’
Yet again did Jeremy tell his bitter tale to a female, who by her expression, was listening as much to the deep male music of his voice as to his words. Thus did he show her those odd things to which he had given the energy, ingenuity, love even, of the maturity that he had preached should first be dedication to his community, his Nation, his Species . . . the crippled animals, the fossil humans, the land bursting with the wherewithal for busy modern man to meet the complex needs of progress, progress, laboriously remade pristine. He took her out for a peep at the billabongs, a glimpse at distance of the painted galleries. Then back at the homestead, while leaving her to look over the elaborate apparatus he had built up to keep the negation functioning to the limit of efficiency, the instruments, the books, he got out his animal ambulance and hooked it to the utility; and he collected the other things he needed to save a pony a bit of pain that could not matter much in the scheme of things, he who would, with a rapier word deliberately chosen out of the armoury of his intelligence, pinion a fellow man and leave him with pride for ever bleeding.
Small wonder that while, as the Sun set, they sat in the lounge, eating a hastily prepared supper, she confessed that she couldn’t understand him: ‘You have so much intelligence, so much understanding, so much feeling . . . and yet it seems wasted.’
He replied, ‘Take what you want of it and use it. You’re young and not disillusioned. You might make something worthwhile out of it . . .’
‘Don’t talk to me as if I were a little girl and you a hoary old man!’
‘That’s how I see it, my dear.’
‘Well, I don’t! You’re a man in your full vigour . . . in your prime . . .’
‘Come on . . . it’s time to go. I can’t make much speed with that float behind.’
Away into the moonlight. She had told him about her visit to the Rainbow Pool last night, to his evident annoyance at the time. As they passed the turnoff again, she made bold to say that she would like to go and take another dip. He sounded quite angry in refusing, adding: ‘You spoke of your first going there as a dedication . . . to what you didn’t say. Now you speak of having a dip there, like one of those louts who come and foul the lovely place up with their litter. I think the significance of the pool that I tried to convey to you has completely eluded you.’
They were so silent thereafter that, like her female counterpart on the similar journey back last year, she fell asleep, and because of the swinging of the vehicle on the curves, more pronounced by reason of the other in tow, or perhaps from subtler causes, needing more stability in posture, she leaned towards him, on him, was soon snuggled against him, looking very young and elfin in the half-light. He gently nudged her awake as they came into sight of the lights of Beatrice Station homestead and the glow beyond it of the township in finale to the festival. She came awake smiling, stretching, yawning, saying she’d had a lovely sleep, looking and sounding very much like a little girl. Then suddenly her dark brows rumpled in a frown, and she said, ‘But it’s nearly over . . . all of it!’
‘All good things must end, they say.’
Then like a little girl again, she cried, ‘But I don’t want it to end!’
He seemed to be ignoring her. She sat staring ahead as if in blank dismay. Thus till they were through the Racecourse and he was gearing down to make the descent to the river crossing, when she caught his arm again, saying urgently, ‘Please, Jeremy . . . will you take me away on your bender?’
He swung on her: ‘Eh?’
‘I want to break the tension too . . .’
‘Don’t be silly, girl!’
‘I’m not being silly. I’m being wise. It’s what we both want . . . need . . . Please!’
‘I’m not going away this time. I have to take that colt back . . . and attend to it.’
‘After that?’
Reaching the causeway, he accelerated violently, shot across, to pull in towards his camp, but not to go right up to it or to stop the engine. Darcy and his wife and Nan and others were sitting under the light. Jerry called, ‘Darcy . . . come and unhook the trailer, will you, boy . . . I want to run the lady up to the pub.’
Darcy came running. Alfie said, ‘I’d like to talk to Nan first.’
Jeremy said shortly, ‘Plenty of time to do it tomorrow. We have to stay for this idiotic godfather business.’
Darcy called. Jerry slipped into gear, drove up the hill, over the railway tracks. Drunks seemed to be crawling everywhere. Jerry growled, ‘Homo Australiensis Novis . . . at the peak of his cultural achievement.’
‘Jeremy,’ she said urgently.
‘The answer is No . . .’
‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’
‘The answer’s still No. I see your husband on the verandah. He’s the boy to relieve you of your tensions.’
‘Oh . . . Jeremy!’ The great eyes were swimming. But the car was at the verandah, and Frank stepping up to open the off-side door. ‘See you tomorrow,’ said Jeremy shortly, the moment the door was opened. She had to get out, with Frank’s hand on her arm. And as the door closed, waving, he drove away.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Frank.
She drew a shuddering sigh, muttered, ‘He . . . he’s inhuman . . .’
‘Didn’t I tell you that?’
She swung on him, wet eyes now blazing, voice snapping, ‘He’s more than human . . . that’s what I meant!’
‘Shh, darling! Like a drink?’
‘I’d like a lot of drinks . . . I’d like to get drunk.’
‘Whoopee . . . here we go!’
It didn’t take long to get Alfie drunk, because she was tossing off brandy; but drunk as she was, the Bishoffs and others who tried to get her to tell of her experience with the Scrub Bull could get little out of her, except that he was a mighty man, if an odd one, and a hint that she had bathed in the nude with him in the Rainbow Pool. Then Frank led her to bed. Curiously, when he had undressed her, she wouldn’t let him put on her pyjamas, but falling naked on the bed, dragged him after her, hissing fiercely, ‘Love me, Frank . . . love me like you never have before.’ No doubt about it he tried, and she with him; but only to end up, she weeping into the pillow, and he sighing sadly over her rumpled hair.
V
The boozy mob had gone on their boozy way back to Town and to the Head of the Road, and much of the traces of their bacchanalia erased, at least the more obvious that might have offended the eye of Monsignor Maryzic over the route he would be taking in the course of his ecclesiastical activities in the locality. The Most Reverend gentleman arrived at Beatrice River, aboard Fergus Ferris’s aeroplane that Sunday morning. It took a lot of really hard and smart work on the part of the Faithful able to be aroused by the shouts and boots of those two most ardent of them, Shamus Finnucane and Dennis Aloisius Cahoon. It could never have been done in the little time available in the morning. Therefore Dinny, in his official capacity, had curtailed the final riot in the Dance Hall so as to get on with cleaning the place up last night. For that was to be the venue for the
Cullity Christenin’, which would be preceded, as all such events there and in similar places, with the Celebration of Mass and the accompanying practices concerned with the same according to the ritual of the Holy Church — Glory Be to God! as Old Shame-on-us himself would say.
A very different place the old hall looked with its mass of garish decoration down and replaced by the little permissible on the altar erected on that structure which served the several purposes of other events held here, the dais, for want of a proper word for the rough job it was. Not that there was anything rough and ready about the ecclesiastical adornment. Everything was of good quality and the proper order, kept for the purpose in a moth-and-rustproof chest at Finnucane’s, and so for many a year. Here had been celebrated many a Mass, concerned with birth, marriage, death, and just plain sacerdotal bullying of faithful with little faith, the latter events being those annual visitations called Missions. The place was properly consecrated, despite its profane use. The Confessional was the little kitchen at the back. When the Monsignor himself was down to do the job Confessions were rendered rather more public affairs than the confessing liked, by reason of His Reverence’s bull-roaring in reproof of sinners.
Most would prefer to forego the Sacrament in the circumstances, but had little chance against the power of his personality and the flexibility of his interpretation of religious procedure. Even the excuse that one had been drinking since last midnight, which properly precluded one from taking Communion and hence cancelled the need of Confession, would not work, because he would say something like: ‘Who’s talking about Communion? I vont to know vot you’ve be up to,’ or, ‘Did not the Blessed Saint Paul say, “Take a little vine for ze stomach’s sake,” mitout mention of midnight Saturday, and I take it you did drink for ze sake of your stomach, vot?’ or yet to make a play on the aeronautical twisting of the rule that one must not fly an aircraft within twelve hours of consuming alcohol, to one must not consume alcohol within twelve feet of an aircraft, as he did on this occasion, perhaps having been apprised of it by that funny man, Fergus. He told a couple of would-be excusants: ‘So long as you haf not drunk mitin twelf feed of ze altar.’ He even tried to get Jeremy to Confess, telling him that his office of godfather could not be ecclesiastically valid without prior submission to the disciplines of the Church. Jeremy, who appeared to be on quite good terms with the jolly old fellow, the way they greeted each other, countered by saying that he had already Confessed himself, directly to God. The old man, probably well knowing how far he could go with Jeremy, replied, ‘Direct dealinks mit Almighty God are not usual in our Faith, as you vell know, my son . . . but no doubt He vill make exception in ze case of vun so sufficient unto himself as Jeremy Delacy.’ The sting made Jeremy redden; but he laughed with the old priest.
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