In truth, it distresses me to think of John Beck as Reverend James in fresh incarnation, with a Mrs James left behind in Albany, and a Mrs Lee lingering in ’Frisco. It conveys the impression that he was some kind of Lothario, yet I cannot believe that of him. It is simply a striking coincidence that both men were formerly ministers of the Methodist church.
The Ungraspable Phantom of Life
It was not unusual for the rigours of whaling to inspire in new chums a sudden and fervent interest in the hereafter, and for a time I hoped that John Beck’s newfound absorption in the Bible, and his readiness with only the slightest provocation to vouchsafe a psalm or lead the whale men in prayer, might simply be another manifestation of this condition. However, it seems that the meteorological coincidence of the crepuscular beam breaking through the clouds in apparent heavenly response to his prayer that grim morning had had the effect of inducing in John Beck a violent reawakening of his faith. This, in turn, induced in me a sense of creeping disappointment. I found I much preferred the old John Beck; the John Beck with the interest in my black silk stockings, the John Beck of the flexing arm muscles; the John Beck with the twinkling eyes and the pleasingly lascivious grin. Most of all, I missed the John Beck who wanted to kiss me, even if it meant risking my father’s ire.
I had the distinct sense now that this new John Beck was uncomfortable in my presence. At mealtimes, I gazed at him imploringly as I doled his portion onto his plate, but he kept his eyes firmly downcast, murmured his thanks and moved on. Offering an extended prayer before each meal had become his regular custom now, often taking the opportunity to expound upon theological themes and draw analogies with some small event that had happened during the course of the day. One day, he pontificated for twenty minutes on the fact that just as there were twelve disciples, there were indeed twelve whale men. Needless to say, this sort of talk made the whalers uneasy. Nor did they ever wait for John Beck to finish saying grace before they commenced eating, but I suppose they could scarcely be blamed for that. Thus his invocations were offered to the noisy accompaniment of derisory comments and spoons scraping upon tin plates.
All this was most distressing for me. Was this a repeat of the Burrows episode? I wondered. An ardent pursuit followed by a period of distinct coolness? If so, it seemed very unfair. After all, it was John Beck who had insisted he kiss me; yet now it seemed that I was an unpleasant reminder of a side of his nature that he wished to suppress. At least I was able to examine my own behaviour and truthfully state that, in this instance, I had not thrown myself at him. Certainly, I had acquiesced willingly, but was that the same thing? Did my compliance in allowing myself to be kissed amount to ‘throwing myself at him’? If so, I was beginning to grow very tired of the whole thing.
One day some repair work had to be done on the second whaleboat, and the crew of that boat stayed behind whilst repairs were effected. As it happened, that very morning I had come across my mother’s flute and decided I would make a renewed attempt to teach myself to play it. I had attempted several times over the years, and had got to the stage of mastering the ‘embouchure’ and extracting some not unpleasant sounds. Now, with aid of my mother’s music book, I intended to work on my fingering. Encouraged by Louisa to move as far away from the house as possible, I took my flute down to the beach below, and there I espied John Beck, sitting alone on a rock some distance away. At first, my impulse was to veer away without him seeing me, but then some contrary spirit within urged me to proceed as I had originally intended. Bonnie, who had elected to accompany me, led the way.
‘Oh. Hello there,’ I said as we approached.
‘Hello, Mary,’ he said.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Well, I am studying my Bible.’
I nodded bitterly. Of course he was. Uncertain as to what to do next but anxious not to end the exchange immediately, I picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the surface of the water. Then I picked up a much larger rock and, with some effort, hurled it into the water. It created a great splash – some droplets even landed on the open pages of his Bible. He glanced up at me briefly, but made no comment.
‘Would it be all right if I practised my flute over there?’ I asked, pointing to a cluster of rocks a small distance away.
‘Yes, that would be all right,’ he said.
‘I won’t disturb your study?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Will you let me know if it does disturb you? Because of course I would stop right away.’
‘Thank you. I think it should be all right.’
I gazed at him unhappily. How handsome he was. I had never noticed it before, but his neck was particularly appealing; strong and well formed, masculine without being bullish. A clerical collar would have set it off to perfection. However, there was little to be achieved by standing there and staring at his neck, so, with heavy heart, I moved off to the rocks with my flute.
I soon discovered that, in the months since I had last practised, my mastery of the embouchure had lapsed, and my attempts at producing any decent sound from the wretched thing were thwarted. I pursed my lips and blew in a variety of different ways through and at and over the mouthpiece, but only the most dismal squeaks emerged. What an infernal instrument this was. How did anyone ever learn to play it? Why must my attempts at self-improvement be continually frustrated?
‘May I join you?’
I looked up in surprise. John Beck was standing beside me on the rocks.
‘If you wish,’ I replied.
He sat down beside me on the rock, his Bible on his knee. I glanced at it resentfully.
‘I do hope you have not come to recite psalms at me,’ I said curtly.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not if you do not wish me to.’
I said nothing, but instead pulled my flute apart and proceeded to shake it angrily. I was hoping to convey the impression that there was something the matter with it which prevented me from producing the lilting airs that one normally associates with the instrument.
‘Mary,’ said John Beck, ‘I think you might be annoyed with me. Perhaps if you would allow me to explain myself.’
‘I assure you, I am not annoyed with you,’ I responded crisply. ‘I just find you extremely changeable, much like the weather we have been having lately.’
‘Yes. I realise I must seem that way. But you see, something happened out at sea the other day, and I suppose I am trying to make sense of it.’
I said nothing, but put my flute back together. Then I rested it on my knee. I had no wish to embark upon more blowing and squeaking in front of him.
‘Up until now, you see, Mary,’ he continued, ‘I have not always been . . . entirely straightforward in the way I have represented myself.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Sometimes I find in life we are all too ready to judge a person’s worth on what we perceive of their demeanour or appearance or indeed their past history –'
‘I’m sorry, you have lost me altogether.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘I hope this is not an indication of what your sermons were like.’
‘Not at all,’ said John Beck, somewhat tetchily. ‘In fact, my sermons were on the whole well regarded. It’s just that I am trying to express something rather difficult –'
‘Oh, then do forgive my interrupting, simply because I have no clue what you are talking about.’
‘Well, to speak more plainly, perhaps you have formed an idea about me –'
‘I assure you, I have formed no ideas whatsoever.’
‘I mean, based on the fact that I was once a Methodist minister.’
‘You are very pleased with the fact that you were once a Methodist minister.’
‘But that’s my point, you see. Perhaps I have no right to be pleased about it.’
‘Then why do you go on about it so?’
‘You wonder why I seem changeable,’ said John Beck after a moment. ‘It’s because I have always been troubled by a kind of restlessness. I have always been in search of something.’
‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘What have you been in search of?’
‘I don’t know, you see. That’s the problem.’ He gazed down at his Bible for a moment. ‘Perhaps I am searching for “the ungraspable phantom of life”.’
He turned to me then, and when I look back at this moment, it seems to me that his face wore a hopeful expression, as if anticipating from me a sympathetic response. A wise nod, perhaps; a gentle smile; a thoughtful word or two murmured in a low voice.
‘The ungraspable phantom of life?’ I repeated. My voice had now assumed an unpleasantly sardonic tone. ‘Do you expect you will find it whaling, amidst the blubber?’
He said nothing. Reaching down into a small rock pool near his feet, he prodded a lowly sea cucumber that resided there. It hunkered down and spat out a murky substance in protest. Then he rose to his feet and walked away (by which I mean John Beck walked away, not the sea cucumber).
I sat on my rock meanwhile, stewing in my own juices. ‘Restlessness,’ I muttered to myself scornfully. Was the humble sea cucumber troubled by thoughts of its restlessness? I very much doubted it. More likely, it found contentment within the confines of its rock pool. Had that mutton-bird Bonnie just rolled in been tormented by restlessness also? Actually – I hesitated here – perhaps it had. Perhaps it was restlessness that compelled the bird to fly many hundreds of miles on its annual migration, only to drop dead out of the sky from sheer exhaustion. These hapless whales, driven by an unknown force to travel up the coast each year – perhaps they, too, were plagued by this cursed restlessness, and much good it did them, with the Killer whales waiting to pounce. Such was the confusion of thoughts that darted about in my mind like sheep taking fright in a paddock.
I had failed to recognise, you see, the phrase that John Beck had held out to me. Certainly, I had made several attempts with Moby Dick, and in fact I had read that first chapter through on several occasions. But it was only years later, in another of my efforts at improving myself, that I decided once again to make a renewed attempt. And there, in the first few pages, I stumbled across it:
‘Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.’
That night, in the darkness of our bedroom, I confided in Louisa that I had feelings for one of our whale men.
‘Which one?’ She propped herself up on an elbow to look at me, her interest roused. ‘Which one do you fancy?’
Immediately I wished that I had not said anything, for she began poking at me with her bony forefinger.
‘Well, John Beck, if you must know,’ I finally admitted. It felt thrilling, somehow, to give voice to my feelings, as if in doing so, they might actually amount to something.
‘Oh, him.’ Louisa flopped down against her pillow. ‘But yes, I suppose I can see how he would appeal to you.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, he’s such an old nanny goat,’ she said.
‘Hardly!’ I cried hotly. ‘He is by far the handsomest of all of them.’
‘Even if that were true, Mary, it would not be saying much.’
I deeply regretted telling her now, and was thankful that I had not gone into more detail. Although of course now, with the benefit of hindsight, I have come to realise which one of the whalers she personally considered more worthy of admiration.
A Visit From Mr Crowther
It was around about this time that we received an unwelcome visit from Mr Crowther. On top of his responsibilities as local agent for Singer sewing machines, Alfa Laval cream separators and Griffiths Brothers tea, he had lately taken on the Wunderlich ceiling account, and ‘wundered’ whether we did not feel our small homestead could benefit from such an improvement. His habit was to sing out ‘Hell-o-o thar!’ long in advance of his arrival, in the hopeful expectation that it would allow the lady of the house sufficient time to rustle up a cake, or at the very least a batch of scones. Mr Crowther was a hearty eater, and expected a decent spread; if he did not get one, he was inclined to let the neighbours know that a travelling man could go hungry at the Davidsons’, at least since Mrs Davidson had died. He was well known for timing his arrival around three in the afternoon, and then stringing out his stories to such an extent that evening would fall and he would consider it too late to depart. That is, he would gladly depart if it were not for his fear of bushrangers, who would view Mr Crowther’s sulky – loaded as it was with tea samples and miscellaneous sewing-machine parts – a welcome booty. Thus his hosts were obliged to offer him a bed for the night and full breakfast.
Upon hearing the first distant ‘Hello-o thar!’, Louisa and I looked at each other in fright. The men were all at Boyd Tower, and we wondered if we could not perhaps gather the children and try hiding in the store shed. He would sniff us out, though, we conceded, or the dogs would give us away (we had once tried hiding before, and the dogs, thinking it a game, had commenced barking shrilly in their excitement). Besides, if the house was left unattended, he was just as likely to help himself to whatever victuals he might find. He was known to be especially partial to apples; one family had arrived home unexpectedly to find him perched amidst the branches in the process of stripping their small orchard. Thus we found ourselves with little choice but to open the gate for him and greet him in as cheery a manner as we could muster. Our difficulty was this: not only did we not wish to share our dwindling rations, but also our repayments for the Singer were well overdue.
We fashioned an attempt at rock cakes using dripping instead of butter and the last of our currants; they turned out edible enough if partaken immediately and washed down with plenty of hot sweet tea. Indeed, Mr Crowther made no complaints but demolished half a dozen of them whilst allowing us to pore over the catalogue for his Wunderlich ceilings. Louisa expressed her admiration of a frieze representing the four seasons, to which Mr Crowther nodded his approval. ‘There is no doubt the Wunderlich ceiling would form the crowning feature of any decorative scheme,’ he said, casting a doubtful eye over our kitchen. The whitewash on the walls was in need of fresh application, and there were greasy marks where the menfolk leaned back in their chairs of an evening and rested their heads. ‘Further, you will find them durable and fire-resistant; nor will they crack, warp or fall on top of you.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ I said. Surely ‘not falling on top of you’ was the least one could hope for from a ceiling, and not a bonus feature deemed worthy of advertisement? ‘Unfortunately, it has not been a good season for whales, so we find ourselves unable to contemplate such improvements just at the moment.’
‘But it is only the first week of October,’ said Mr Crowther. ‘I am surprised at you for taking such a pessimistic view. Is this not the month when the whales become more plentiful?’
‘Ordinarily, yes,’ I said. ‘However, we suspect the Norwegians may have greatly depleted their numbers. They have factory steamers, you know, with explosive harpoons. They capture five whales a day without difficulty, but it is not fair on the rest of us.’
‘No,’ said Mr Crowther. ‘Nor very fair on the whales either. Tell me, how is the Singer running?’
‘It is running satisfactorily at present,’ said Louisa.
He nodded, eyeing her coolly. Then, briskly wiping the crumbs from his shirtfront, he stooped to pull from his bag his receipt book. Our hearts sank at the sight of it: clearly, all pleasantries were over. He had decided it was a waste of time to tempt us with ornamental ceilings and now, given the low standard of our comestibles, he thought he might just as well get down to the unpleasant business.
‘Treadle belt still holding firm?’ he enquired, frowning down at his book. He had had occasion to replace the belt once, and had never forgotten it: we had learned from our nearest neighbour that he considered Louisa to be ‘very rough on belts’.
‘Yes, I have had no trouble,’ said Louisa. I could see her cheeks beginning to flush, which was usually an ominous sign.
‘Purchased November 1899 at a sum of seven pounds, sixteen shillings and sixpence,’ he read from his receipt book. ‘To be repaid in quarterly instalments of fourteen shillings threepence. The last payment I have received was . . .' Here he paused, and flicked through the pages of his receipt book. ‘Can this be correct? A part-payment of six shillings only, March 1907?’
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