Oscar and Lucinda

by Peter Carey

  Wardley-Fish had on his white waistcoat and dresscoat. He had spent a lot of time on the waxed ends of his moustache. He stepped down from the hansom, a little late admittedly, and found his friend standing placidly in the splendid doorway whilst the porter glowered behind him. The Odd Bod had made no effort with his dress at all. It was he who had suggested this rendezvous. He knew what sort of place it was. Yet he made no effort. His coat was threadbare. His red hair was more alarming than usual, having developed a corkscrewing forelock to equal the flyaway sides. The porter did not understand that his appearance was a symbol of his incorruptibility. He had, therefore, refused him admittance.

  The Odd Bod stood gazing across through the park, his white hands clasped upon his breast, a bemused smile on his face, waiting patiently for Wardley-Fish to set it right for him.

  The thieving cabby wanted half a crown and Wardley-Fish was too irritated to argue. This stance of Oscar’s looked so like a pose. He could not believe it was not, at least partly, a pose. And yet he could not doubt the Odd Bod’s integrity, or not for long. For he had seen him, on more than one occasion, discard that portion of his racecourse winnings he regarded as surplus to his needs, shove blue five-pound notes into some parish poor-box because he had enough for himself for the present. His jerky charity did not stop there, for there was a red-nosed clergyman from his own village who was also a recipient of bulging registered envelopes of currency which, from all that Wardley-Fish could judge, produced many emotions in the donee, but none of them having much resemblance to gratitude.

  Oscar’s holy profligacy infuriated Wardley-Fish, and yet it was exactly these acts of charity that he most treasured in his friend, and he could never make his mind be still about the question, which was like one of those trick drawings in Punch which have the contradiction built in so that what seems to be a spire one moment is a deep shaft the next.

  He took his friend by his shiny, threadbare elbow and propelled him before him, past the porter, into Cremorne Gardens. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, an hour at which the tide, so to speak, was already turning, and the clientele, having been for the most part respectable during the day, now seemed to transmogrify—the guard changed within the space of thirty minutes—into something more glamorous and dangerous.

  Oscar allowed himself to be propelled. He was pleased to have no choice. He felt luxury engulf him and the sensation was at once soothing and abrasive. A table loomed. He unhooked his umbrella from his arm and put it on the back of the chair. He removed the rolled-up parcel from his breast pocket and placed it underneath the table. He did all this without hurry, and when he sat down it would not have been apparent to a stranger that he was agitated. He had come here to make a very frightening decision. He smiled brightly at Wardley-Fish. He raked his hair with his fingers, pulled in his seat, placed his evangelical elbows square on the table. He gave all the appearance of being, dress apart, like a tourist come to Cremorne Gardens to have a look, but not a taste. He admired the room, the globed gas brackets, the pendant lustres, the high mirrored panels with ornate mouldings, the couples without wedding rings to explain their obvious intimacy.

  “What a splendid place,” he said.

  But Wardley-Fish could feel the Odd Bod’s agitated feet tapping beneath the table. It was not just feet. It was also fingers, drumming on the chair. The surface of the table assumed a nervous kind of energy. You could experience anxiety merely by touching it.

  Wardley-Fish ordered champagne. He could not afford it, but neither could he bear the nerves beneath the marble. He would need the one to cure the other.

  “How enticing it is,” said Oscar.

  Wardley-Fish thought none of this straightforward. The Odd Bod was in his “holy” pose and talking at a tangent. He was admiring in order to criticize, being dazzled so that he might thereby lacerate himself for being there.

  “You do remember,” Wardley-Fish said, “whose idea it was we meet here?”

  “Mine!” said the Odd Bod, watching the champagne being poured. You could feel his quivering energy in the floor and table. It felt like a trout feels on the end of a line—all the energy of a life forcing its patterns on to inert matter.

  Wardley-Fish had been looking forward to Cremorne Gardens. It had existed as a soft, unfocused promise on the edge of his consciousness. He had not intended to “do” anything, but he had already seen the most delightful creature enter. She was an “actress.” She had creamy skin and a tangled artifice of golden hair. She wore ten yards of watered taffeta. He gulped his first glass of champagne and watched it filled immediately. The table had stopped vibrating.

  He looked up to find the Odd Bod’s pale green eyes waiting for him.

  “Fish,” said the Odd Bod.

  Wardley-Fish felt depressed.

  “Fish, I have spent a good deal of the afternoon with the Church Missionary Society.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they will have me if I wish.”

  “What for?”

  “I enquired about New South Wales.”

  Wardley-Fish put down his glass of champagne. He did not look at the Odd Bod. He reflected that there was no natural sympathy between glass and marble.

  “Do you hear me?”

  “Do not drum the table. It is very irritating.”

  Wardley-Fish slid his glass three inches to the right, then back again. Oscar folded his red-knuckled hands around each other as if they were a puzzle he could not properly resolve.

  When Wardley-Fish spoke, it was very quietly and softly. “There is no need,” he said, “for you to frighten yourself with such ideas.”

  But Oscar, when he replied, had his voice in that tight and scratchy register. “I must,” said the Odd Bod. It was like fingernails across a blackboard.

  “So why have we come here?” asked Wardley-Fish, leaning back and folding his arms across his white waistcoat. “Are you to drive the money-changers from the temple, the pretty whores across into the park?”

  “It is a lovely place, Fish. I am very comfortable here.”

  “Then relax, dear Odd Bod, and do not drum and squeak and fidget. You will be back in college tonight and it will not be nearly so much fun.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Wardley-Fish fussed around with his cigar as he tried to nip its end with a new patented device that did not seem to work as promised. Oscar watched him, with his palms flat on the table.

  “But I have changed,” Oscar said when Wardley-Fish had his smoke alight, “look at me. Look at what I have become.”

  “Oh, strike me,” roared Wardley-Fish. He pushed his chair back. He did not care that he made a bellow in such a quiet place. “You have not become this,” and he waved his hands around to indicate the sort of trappings that did not exemplify Oscar’s personality. “You are tire-some. Odd Bod. You have only one conversation, and it makes no sense. You belong no more here than you belong anywhere. Odd Bod, you must realize, you do not fit.”

  “Speak quietly.”

  “You do not fit. You are wonderful. You are perfectly unique. Do you feel you ‘fit’ in Oriel?”

  Oscar looked down into his glass. “I have my friends.”

  “Who?”

  “Pennington, Ramsay.”

  “Pennington is a drunk and a Puseyite. Ramsay fawns on anyone who looks at him. And do you have friends in Hennacombe? Do you fit there?”

  Oscar’s eyes looked hurt and troubled.

  “Neither do you fit here. You are not corrupted. It is an impertinence to suggest that you are. You do not have to travel to New South Wales for a penance.”

  “And you?”

  “And me? Oh, I ‘fit.’ I daresay I ‘fit’ all too well.” Wardley-Fish leaned across and took the Odd Bod’s hand. He shackled the wrist. “But you showed me that I might be saved.” His smile was fixed. Oscar could feel the big hand trembling. “So do not,” he whispered, “start pretending you must cross the world to save your soul, because I tell you it is not true. You must no
t leave. And anyway,” he took back his hand and relit his cigar, “you cannot.”

  Oscar was enfolded in blue smoke. He blinked and waved his hand while a slow smile budded on his lips.

  “And why can I not leave?”

  “Because you cannot bear a little agua. You could not sail as far as Calais.”

  Oscar leaned down and picked up a little wrapped cylinder from amongst his papers on the floor. This he unwrapped slowly, smiling all the time at his friend. What he then held up was a flexible material which was transparent, but not so clear as glass. On this material were drawn those lines which my mother imagined represented latitude and longitude.

  “What is this, Oscar?”

  Wardley-Fish rarely called him Oscar. There was a sibilant sadness in the name which now made its owner pause before answering.

  “It is known as celluloid, and is pretty much what it appears to be. But you see I can make these marks on it, and I can carry it around. It is very light and handy.”

  “This will cure your phobia?”

  Oscar then explained his plan for viewing water through the celluloid. He could view it one square at a time, thus containing it. What was terrifying in a vast expanse would become “quite manageable.”

  Wardley-Fish did not trouble himself with the theory. His friend was talking too much, too fast, in too high a register. It would not work. Only desperation would make a man believe it would.

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” he said when Oscar had finished and was rolling away his celluloid, “that what you call your ‘phobia’ is really the Almighty speaking to you?”

  “Don’t mock me. Fish.”

  “As a matter of fact I am very serious.”

  “ ‘Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death’—no. Fish, if my soul were clear, I would have no fear-‘Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.’ ”

  “But has it occurred to you that what you call a phobia may be God telling you that you must not go near the water?”

  “Very clever, Fish.”

  Wardley-Fish shrugged. The extraordinary woman had found herself a companion. The Odd Bod was pushing a florin across the table to him. He picked it up, then put it down. “You wish me to flip this?”

  “Thank you. Fish.”

  “You know I only flip my own coins.” He pushed the florin back across the table and searched in his own pocket. His handsome face was suddenly weary, pouchy around the eyes.

  He found, at last, a penny. He flipped the coin, lethargically, as if he had not guessed that he was tossing for his friend’s destiny. It was a dull and dirty penny he sent spinning through the air.

  “Call,” he said.

  The Odd Bod had gone pale and waxy. He had his hands clenched tight together on his breast. He was moving the fingers in the trap of the hands. He looked like a praying mantis.

  “Call,” said Wardley-Fish, but loudly so that blonde-haired women turned to stare. The penny slapped against his palm.

  “I cannot, Fish. You know it.”

  Wardley-Fish turned the penny on to the back of the wrist. He kept it covered with his right hand. “Why not?” he asked.

  “I am frightened,” hissed Oscar. “You know I am frightened.”

  “Then why do you do such things to yourself,” smiled Wardley-Fish. “Come, dear Odd Bod, and—”

  “Heads,” said Oscar.

  Wardley-Fish sighed. He lifted his hand to reveal the head of Queen Victoria.

  The Odd Bod’s face was ghastly, a mask carved out of white soap, and you did not need to be a mind reader to know that God was sending him to New South Wales.

  This happened on 22 April 1863. My great-grandfather was twenty-two years old.

  43

  Leviathan

  My father, I think I said before, was a swaggering little fellow, a cunning spin bowler, a smoker of matchstick-thin cigarettes, a practical joker. He was small, but he was proud that he stood straight with his shoulders back. I saw him fight Hector Thompson, a man twice his size, on the deserted forecourt of Carl Foster’s service station. He had him down, crumbled, winded, with a bleeding lip, before anyone in the pub across the road had a chance to realize what was happening.

  But when it came to celluloid, my father was a coward.

  The celluloid was most definitely the property of my mother. It was the same piece Oscar had brought to Australia in 1864, and was certainly the first sample of that substance introduced to the ancient continent. Perhaps it was the first synthetic long-chain hydrocarbon in the southern hemisphere. This was something my father, being a chemist by training, pondered over, but only once out loud. My mother would not hear him speak of it, and not because she was silly, but because she understood as women often do more easily than men, that the declared meaning of a spoken sentence is only its overcoat, and the real meaning lies underneath its scarves and buttons.

  When my father spoke of the scientific history of celluloid (which, having a diploma in industrial chemistry, he was entitled to do) she felt that he was contesting her ownership of its original use, its meaning, its history.

  And she was right. When my father said “long-chain hydrocarbon,” he was saying: “I am right. This one’s mine.”

  But my mother would not let him have it. The celluloid was hers. The meaning of it was hers. The lines ruled on it were—I was brought up on this—lines of latitude and longitude. She would lay the yellowed, scratched material across a Shell road map and explain to us how it would have worked.

  She became emotional, as she often did, when discussing the past, and because she wished Oscar to be a “missionary” and a “pioneer Anglican,” we gew up imagining Oscar travelling out on steerage, on a clipper ship, crowded in amongst poor immigrants. We imagined our great-grandfather with his map and celluloid, his Bible, his Book of Common Prayer. We saw him—even while we squirmed in embarrassment before my mother’s holy-toned recitation—conducting sad funeral services for babies lost, a toothless sailmaker stitching up a sad little parcel in canvas, and young Oscar, his hair flaming red, his milk-white skin burnt raw, squinting into the antipodean sun with the ultramarine sea swelling up above him.

  My father surely knew what kind of ship it was Oscar sailed on. He knew its name, and if he knew its name he probably “looked it up.” In any case, he said nothing about the Leviathan which was no more a clipper than the celluloid was a grid of latitude and longitude.

  The Leviathan was 690 feet long, 83 feet wide and 58 feet deep. The Ark (if one allows the cubit as 20.62 inches) was 512 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet deep. This coincidence was not lost on Oscar who “discovered” the Leviathan two weeks after his fateful evening at Cremorne Gardens.

  At this stage Ishmael Kingdom Legare’s controversial liner was undergoing one of its crises in the Tyneside shipyards and it was thought the company would go bankrupt. These uncertainties were nothing to Oscar. He ignored them. He saw only that this was the ship he must travel on. It was unsinkable. Punch wrote that a man might travel from Southampton to Sydney and—so vast were the dimensions, so multitudinous the passages, alleyways, gangways, etc.-that the poor chap—although he might dance till he had no shoe leather, and dine till his buttons burst—might go all that way and never find his way to that most simple essential of an ocean voyage—a porthole with a view of the sea.

  This was just the sort of ship that Oscar required. It had twin hulls (in case of icebergs), a cellular deck, and the capacity to carry its own coal for the journey.

  Oscar Hopkins travelled to Australia not as my mother imagined but in the greatest luxury. And while he appeared, to those around him, to be so unworldly as to take no notice of this aspect of his journey, to be insensitive to the pleasures of “portières of carmine silk,” one should remember that Oscar chose Leviathan just as he chose Cremorne Gardens. Someone who had grown up in the limestone austerity of Theophilus’s house could not be oblivious to either.

  The Church Missionary Society, of course, woul
d not pay his fare on anything so grand. That he should have the nerve to suggest they should produced a certain degree of ill-feeling which he did not notice.

  He would pay his own fare. Only God could provide so large an amount.

  He bet on dogs and horses.

  In his heart of hearts he did not know if he was good or bad, holy or corrupt. He bathed in cold water when there was hot available. He went without coal when he could afford to buy it. He met with Wardley-Fish on Friday afternoon and drank pink champagne.

  44

  A Bishop’s son-in-law

  Wardley-Fish would have dearly loved a little flutter. But he had a curacy in Hammersmith, a fiancée, an impending wedding, and this combination of circumstances had meant that he had not only been forced to abandon his apparently “questionable” address near Drury Lane—no one seemed to think there was anything “questionable” about him coming here to live in the same house as his future wife—he had also given up the sporting life. There were good reasons to give up, but he would have liked to have had just an hour at the Holborn Casino, say, or even better, at Epsom. And he would have liked to do it with his hooting, embarrassing friend. However, they were grown up now, and he was a handsome fellow engaged to a bishop’s daughter.

  His fiancée. Miss Melody Clutterbuck, did not know that Wardley-Fish would, in a moment, use the Bishop’s coach to pay a visit to the loathsome person he always made such fun of. She understood this friendship to be almost finished. She had put the prickly subject from her mind, or almost, for there was always the anxiety that the ship the chicken—necked madman had chosen to go to Australia—that this ship might somehow (The Times said it quite likely) never get built. She could not hear the Leviathan discussed (as it lurched from stasis to crisis in the City) without seeing my great-grandfather’s praying-mantis head and his ridiculous long white wrists extruding from his grime-polished sleeves. Not being privy to the history of the unlikely friendship, she imagined the Reverend Mr Hopkins to be a bad influence, and although this misunderstanding made her fiancé most uncomfortable he lacked the courage to set her right. She had no sympathy for the Odd Bod and to learn, for instance, that he sat beside an empty coal skuttle because it would be wicked to spend his winnings on his own comfort—it was this which was presently agitating Wardley-Fish—would merely have confirmed what she knew already: that the silly little Evangelical was as mad as May-butter.