Jeremy’s original intention had been to make a show of final departure from Beatrice a day or two after New Year, only to have Fergus drop him off just outside the township. He would then make his way across country to the billabongs, pick up the horses, and head for Catfish Gorge. Now that there were Rifkah and Prindy to sneak away, too, they must elaborate. He suggested that, during Christmas, Prindy work some of the horses always to be found about the Racecourse, down river to the old Russian Settlement. Then, after the departure of the others, the pair could make their way down there unobtrusively and await his coming, and they would make the trip to the billabongs on horseback. Given her way, Rifkah would have avoided going in to Beatrice. However, Jeremy insisted that she go and help Nan out as hostess, and to attract attention, make even a show of it. He said, ‘If this is to be the last of squattocractic noblesse oblige in these parts, I want Nan to have the honour of it. Her Ladyship is sure to hear and be sour about it.’
The sitting ended with Rifkah’s nodding off to sleep. Nan took her up to bed. Fergus took himself off. Jeremy yawned deeply, but sat waiting for Nanago, who had not said Goodnight. Soon she was back, to seat herself on the arm of his chair. Pouring her a little brandy, he said, ‘You should get a bit of sleep. It’s going to be a bit strenuous during the next few days and nights. Like me to give you something?’
She nodded as she took the glass, slipping her free hand round the back of his neck, to smooth his grey hair. After sipping, she said, ‘I can sleep only wit’ you.’
‘What’s that mean . . . you want me to sleep with you?’
‘No-more . . . only if you close-up. Tek me to annexe?’
“Don’t you want to sleep the last night in your own house?’
She shook her head. ‘I have no own house.’
He took the hand from his hair, pulled to round his neck, fondled it. ‘This house is yours as long as it stands. They can commandeer it, order you out, while this business is on . . . but they can’t deny your ownership or compensation for damage. Keep that in mind always. Unless the Japs take the country, which I very much doubt, whatever might happen in the meantime, it’s yours to come back to as mistress.’
She sipped. ‘I am not mistress . . . I am servant.’
He looked at her shocked. ‘Eh . . . what’s this?’
She removed her hand, to resume stroking his hair, looking at him with the great calm of broad, sweet, dark countenance that was usual when she spoke seriously. ‘Always you have been my master . . . I your servant.’ The patois was dropped.
He burst out: ‘But this silly! I made you my wife. You have been full mistress here ever since I brought you to the place.’
‘For all other people I am mistress. For you I am servant.’
‘You mean that’s all I wanted you to be?’
‘No . . . all I want to be for you. I tell you before like this. You don’t listen.’
‘I told you that you’re my wife in every way.’
‘What is wife . . . to man like you? You have one before. You don’t like it.’
He stared at her, after a moment urged: ‘Go on.’
‘What for?’
‘I want to hear the truth about your feeling for me.’
‘You know my feeling.’
‘How can I . . . when after all this time you’ve been my wife, you tell me you’re only my servant?’
She finished her glass and set it down, put her arm round his shoulders, looked away to say, ‘You bring me from blacks’ camp . . . because you are kind.’
‘Because you are my dead brother’s responsibility, as I told you long ago, when you talked about going away again.’
‘All-same.’
‘It isn’t. I loved my brother. I loved what belonged to him. Also, as I’ve told you before, if you hadn’t been Jack’s sweetheart, you would have been mine. Didn’t you believe that?’
She looked at him, nodded.
‘Then what’s this servant thing? Does it mean you could only be Jack’s wife?’
She took his weather-and-age-beaten hand and pressed it to her smooth chocolate cheek. ‘You know I love you. But I am Aboriginal woman. I am servant to man I love. Whitewoman who is boss don’t love her husband. Only partner.’ She kissed the hand, nuzzled it, murmuring, ‘Always I am servant of Jeremy Delacy. Time I can’t be his servant, I don’t want to live.’
He pulled her somewhat roughly into his lap. ‘Now listen . . . we’ve had all this out. You promised to go away and look after the others.’
She kissed him, with passion, then relaxed, saying, ‘I do dat, because you tell me . . . and I am your servant.’ She pushed her face against his shoulder.
He was silent for some time, holding her close. Then he said, ‘You’re rather heavy. Let’s go over, eh? We’ll both take a Barbitone, and have a good sleep.’
They crossed the dark yard, arms about each other. They sat in the den to take the tablet and another brandy, sitting as before, she on his lap.
He talked of what he wanted her to do to maintain the pride of race that had been taught here as religion to crossbreds ever since it had been made a refuge for them, that now was the time when degeneracy could set in through her like having the opportunity to identify themselves with whites and being tempted to seize it, only to become as low as the lowest whites: how he wanted her to fill in her empty time with showing herself in her pride to those who would be sympathetic towards her and learn from her the problems of being Euro-australoid — to distinguished people to whom Fergus would introduce her; how he relied on her to teach the difference between yellow-fellow and blackfellow and stop the destruction, moral or otherwise, of those the country really belonged to, before it was too late and they became part of the community of riff-raff the Australian Nation was doomed to become unless this fundamental evil of the Dispossession was honestly dealt with. If she were his beloved servant, here was her service.
She fell asleep listenting to his droning. When he realised she was asleep, he rose with her, and with a good deal of puffing, carried her to his room, laid her on his narow bed. Still sleeping, she groped to pull him down with her. When he sat beside her, she groped for his hand and drew it up under her skirt and into her drawers. He played with her till by her breathing he knew she was sleeping deeply. Then he rose, went to the press, got out bedding, made up a bed on the floor beside her. Soon he was sleeping, too.
Despite Nan’s disavowal of mistress-ship and her apparent cheerfulness, next day with the last of the packing and locking away of such of the household effects as it would be a sacrilege to leave to the tender mercies of the usurpers, she surveyed and handled a lot of things in a manner surely betraying secret bereavement. The big truck, starting out soon after breakfast and loaded the first time as for a Race Meeting, made two trips to Beatrice in the morning. The third and last trip was made in mid-afternoon, with the personal belongings of those who would be going beyond Beatrice. With this went Rifkah, Prindy, Fergus, originally supposed to follow with Nan and Jeremy in the utility. Rifkah insisted at the last minute that Nan and Jeremy must leave the house last and alone. Both women wept a little in each other’s arms at the front door, not saying simply Goodbye, since they would be reunited within an hour or two, but Goodbye to some sweet thing they had shared, which was gone herewith for ever.
Jeremy and Nanago stood together in the lounge, at the foot of the bright polished stairway, arms about each other, taking a last look. Only the most fragile and precious things had been locked away. As Jeremy had said, there would be more respect given to a house that looked as if it still belonged to someone. Then they embraced cloosely, kissed Goodbye to it. As they parted, she would have headed for the door, only he checked her, asking if she wouldn’t like to take just a last look alone. She blinked, nodded. As she mounted the stairs he went out.
She was smiling when at last she came to him waiting by the utility, much as if nothing untoward was happening. However, he took her in his arms, kissed her eyes fir
st, and then her mouth. She said she would walk to the gate, to pat the cripples gathered about the grid, as usual during the Race Time exodus. He drove through. She closed the gate, leaning on it for a moment to stare at the house. Then quite briskly she got into the car, sighed, and still with matter-of-factness, said, ‘All finish. Now we go.’
But it was not all finished. They had passed the turn-off to the Rainbow Pool, had swung in towards the river, the shimmer of which, reflecting the last of the Sun to be able to reach it through the river timber, struck through the windscreen. Thereabouts was the first big hole. She said quickly, ‘We swim.’ He glanced at her. A strange glitter in her eyes. He slowed down, geared down, turned off the road towards the hole.
When they stopped at the top of the steep bank she slipped out like a kid in her eagerness, fished under the canvas at the back and got out a basket from which she took a towel. Then without waiting for him, she went scampering down. Again he reached the bottom, she had her bare chocolate bottom presented as she stood on a bit of couch grass beside the pool. She looked shapely, despite a bit of padding above the broad hips. If her bottom came from the white side, the slenderness of back and shoulders and the grace of arms with one hand tucked into its axilla, the other grasping its shoulder, was from the other side of her inheritance, as was the stance. As he shed his own clothes on top of hers, he stared, revealing his interest when he dropped his trousers. She looked back then, saw the elongated darra, smiled, then turned away again, dived. In a moment he was in with her.
They played for a while like boy and girl lovers, he displaying a full erection as he rolled over, although his breathing was hardly that of a lover. Then suddenly she struck back to shore, climbed up to the grass, to swing towards him, dashing water from her eyes, her breasts, laughing like a lubra, showing white teeth and rosy inner-lip. He came after her, presented himself rampant, grabbed her. A moment of slippery embrace. Then she drew away, staring down at his darra, which had collapsed. She reached for it. But he caught the slim dark hand, and as she raised wide velvet-dark eyes to his, breathed, ‘No darling . . . only in gladness, never in sadness.’ The brown eyes blinked, then fell. The curly wet head drooped, fell against his grey-haired breast.
He got the towel. She blinked and sniffed away her tears as lovingly he towelled her, even giggled a little as, drying her loins, he tickled her kumara, kissed it. She appeared her cheerful self again as, dressed, they climbed back up to the truck, hand in hand.
As they went on their way he talked chiefly business with her, banking and the law. He also talked of the war as of not so great concern generally as he saw it personally. He said the issue must be decided within six months, as all wars were, that seeming to be as long as any nation could delude itself as being invincible. The Japs would have to take Australia, now the bastion of the Americans’ war against them. It seemed hardly feasible, when the Americans had so many more men than the Japs, to say nothing of Australians and others they could throw in, and technology for any purpose that was unsurpassable. Hence it was very likely that by the middle of the year the Japs would be fighting as desperately to hold their illusion as the Germans were. But if they weren’t here by then they never would be, and perhaps those who were now being hunted out of the country might be allowed back again. It sounded quite cheery. However, Jeremy didn’t look at her while he talked thus, but kept eyes on the winding road. Nor did she look at him, staring ahead as if thinking her own thoughts, despite her ready responses.
He also talked of Bridie Cullity, who happened to be in Beatrice, as they knew from a note she had sent Jeremy with the returning truck. He said he would be able to tell Bridie things that he hadn’t dared in the letter he’d written her. With her kindness and shrewdness, Bridie would be a great help.
Actually it was Bridie asking for help at the moment. She had written to say that the Finnucane Clan had planned to have Christmas together at her place, but that her father had jacked up at the last minute and now was raging in drink. Her mother and sister had sent for her as the only one the old man would listen to. She had failed utterly. Could Jeremy do something?
So to Beatrice. The camp was already up. Nanago, with Rifkah’s help, at once set to the task abandoned by her social betters. Jeremy went on to the Police Station.
Sergeant Stunke was stiffish in the old attitude towards the Scrub Bull, despite that amiable note about the Blackfellows’ Christmas. By his tight expression he looked as if he was expecting defiance of the order to evacuate.
Jeremy acted the Scrub Bull. What sort of country was it, he demanded, when civilians could be pushed around by their own army as if they were conquered enemy, and their paid civil protectors just sat around and watched? He said he wanted to submit an inventory of the property he was being dispossessed of to Stunke. The sergeant said he could do nothing, that liaison between civil and military authorities could be effected only through an officer called Town Major, an appointment not yet made for the Beatrice district. Jeremy said he would hang on till the officer was appointed. Stunke replied to that grimly, ‘The order is for you to be out of the place by January the First. If you’re not, and you’re in strife with the military authorities, don’t come to me.’ Jeremy left him as if in truculence, but stopped at the gate and came back and asked amiably if Stunke would care to drop in for Christmas dinner tomorrow, seeing his family was gone. Stunke swallowed on it, answered — Well, he’d drop in for a drink, anyway.
Jeremy went on to Finnucane’s, the hullabaloo from which could be heard from afar. The place was shut in front, not as normally out of trading hours, but with windows and glass doors boarded up; a face shut for ever against the world it had once so eagerly welcomed. He went round the back, came up through the courtyard. At his steps, three female faces looked out of the kitchen: old Biddy’s, sour-spinster Peggy’s, Bridie’s. Out rushed Bridie, to fling herself into his arms; while the others watched narrow-eyed. The din, the bull-roaring and banging and crashing, was coming from the direction of old Shame-on-us’s office.
Tearfully, Bridie told how the old man had now been standing siege so long that bluebottles were popping in and out under the door of his den — and the stink! She hadn’t seen him, or been able to talk rationally with him. If he took notice of her at all it was to talk to her as he had when she was a child and sing Eileen Alannah. The voices of the other two only made him rave. Forceful entry could only mean that someone must get badly hurt. Already he was waging what sounded like a war to the death with a figment of his delirium he had created out of hatred of Winston Churchill. Bridie explained that recently he had been much upset by something he had read in an Irish paper about Churchill’s having been trying all along to wheedle and bully De Valéra into joining Britain in the war, with promises of total independence for Ireland later or vows of never, never — It’s Now or Never! — and now filling Ulster with American troops ostensibly to prevent invasion by Eire, but in fact to invade her. On top of this had come the order to evacuate. If only they could do something without having to call in Stunke.
It took a while for Jeremy to get a response to his calling and hammering at the door. Shamus was in the midst of a bout with his Figment, using various weapons by the sound of it, probably the remains of the fine furnishings he’d been so proud of: ‘Now or niver, is it, ye crocodile-bellied bastard . . . ye Protestant Church on a hill in Hell . . . got ye . . . got ye . . . got ye . . . och, the slippery spalpeen’s got away agin!’
When at last he heard, Shamus shouted, ‘Ah, Pat Delacy, me dear ould friend . . . and so ye’ve come back to me . . . as I knew ye would . . . or is it meself is come to ye? Come in, Paddy, man-dear . . . and have a drap o’ the crayter.’
When Jeremy asked him to open up, he said he daren’t: ‘’Tis the Churchill thing, Pat. ’Twill git out on me . . . and then, musha God help us! Kill it I must, to save ould Oireland and the wurruld.’ He began to sing in hoarse snatches as he banged about: ‘There came to the beach . . . a poor exoile av E
rin . . . he sang the bould anthem av Erin Go Bragh . . . oh, Erin, my country . . . oh, Erin, Go Bragh . . .’
Jeremy got tools, and proceeded to cut a hole in the heavy door to get at the lock. Then there was the job of getting at the lock with a mahogany chair-leg striking at his hand as an appendage of the Churchillian reptile with which Shamus continued to do battle: ‘Snaykin’ out be the keyhole would ye be at . . . take that, Sassenach!’ All in vain. The door was not only locked, but bolted.
A group had gathered: railwaymen, some travellers camped for the night, Stunke. Jeremy kept them back. But now he had another idea, in which they could lend a hand. There was another means of entry: the small trap-door communication with the private bar. It was bolted tight, but should give way easily to assault with an axe and without the danger certain to accompany smashing in the big door and might well be means to raising the siege bloodlessly, if the besieged one could be kept preoccupied at the big door. Jeremy conferred with Tom Toohey and Sergeant Stunke. Their job was to attack the big door with an axe and a crow-bar, while he tackled the trap, backed by other men, both efforts to be timed so that one or other assault took Finnucane off his guard.
It worked. They had the door off its hinges with old Shame-on-us holding it up with the strength of a bull, when Jeremy, shoving through the trap a long legged-bar-stool as shield, took him in the rear. They let the door fall out. Poor old Shamus, mother-naked, his hairy flabby mass fouled with his own filth, fell face down on it. They pounced on him, pinioned him. Jeremy raced to the kitchen for what he had ready there, came back with it: a hypodermic in a covered bowl. He cleaned a bit of Shamus’s hairy behind, gave him the needle hard. Shamus bellowed, ‘The bastard’s bit me . . . help, help . . . I’m pysened be a voiper!’
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