Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Ikey would have given it to us, shared it if he’d lived,’ Mary says petulantly.

  ‘Ikey never shared anything in his life, Mama. Ikey accumulated, he added and subtracted, but he never divided.’

  Mary, despite herself, smiles at Hawk’s concise summary of Ikey’s character.

  ‘Anyhow,’ Hawk continues, ‘even if he had intended to share with us, only half of it was his to share, the other half belonged to his wife, to Hannah.’ He pauses for emphasis, ‘And we stole the lot!’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Mary now says, patently growing tired of Hawk’s persistence. ‘Hannah and David kidnapped you and Tommo, they sodding well deserved what they got in return. After what they done to us, to me two precious ones, they ain’t entitled to a brass razoo!’

  ‘Mama, we can’t prove they did it! That it was them that took Tommo and me from the mountain.’

  ‘And they can’t prove we took the money from the safe, can they now?’ Mary says triumphantly. She clears her throat. ‘Let me tell you something f’nothing, Hawk Solomon, I know in me heart and soul that they did it, took the two of you, my precious mites, my two beautiful boys, and ruined Tommo’s life.’ She stabs a crooked finger at Hawk’s neck, pointing to the band of silvered scar tissue formed from the wild man’s rope burns about it. ‘And near bleedin’ killed you!’ Then Mary leans into her chair, arching her back and looking at Hawk with illdisguised scorn. ‘Nothing will convince me otherwise, you hear? Them two bastards are guilty as sin! They done it, I’d stake me life on it!’

  ‘Ah, but Hannah and David also know in their hearts and souls that we took their money and nothing will convince them otherwise. I daresay they’d stake their lives on it as well,’ Hawk says, then adds, ‘And they’d be damned right to.’

  Mary says nothing, looking down over Hobart to the

  Derwent River, the last moments of the sunset now turning it to gold. There is a lovely calm about the little city at this hour when the lights begin to shine from the windows of houses and cottages on the hill behind the waterfront and from the single row of street lamps that trace the line of the harbour. ‘That money were wrongly come by in the first place,’ she says finally. ‘It weren’t gained on the straight, them two never did deserve it, it were stolen goods, fenced off the poor for a pittance, or gained elseways in an evil manner in Hannah’s vile brothel.’

  Hawk remembers how his heart began to beat faster and he suddenly found it necessary to take a deep breath before speaking. He has waited years for this moment and now when it has arrived the roof of his mouth is suddenly dry. ‘Mama, we must give it back,’ he says at last.

  Mary can scarcely believe her ears. ‘Give it back? Are you stark, starin’ mad, Hawk Solomon? Give it back! Give what back? Ikey’s money? Do me a favour! Over me dead body!’

  ‘Mama, you have used it to make a fortune ten, fifty times as big as the one we stole. Think now, if you don’t give it back, then Tommo is right, we must be counted among the mongrels, among the greedy and the avaricious. Mama, don’t you see? If we do not make amends we ourselves are sufficient reason why his daughter Hinetitama must stay with her mother’s people.’

  Mary leans forward and glares shrewdly at Hawk. ‘And if I give it back, only Hannah’s half, mind, will you bring Tommo’s daughter to me now?’

  ‘No, Mama, that I cannot do. I have promised my twin and I must honour my word.’

  She pulls back and gives him a short, disparaging laugh. ‘Thought so! Yes, well then them two can go to buggery, they’re getting sod-all from me!’ she shouts, banging her mittened fist against the arm of her chair. ‘They get bugger all, you hear me?’

  Despite Hawk bringing up the subject of restitution to Hannah and David several times over the years, Mary won’t budge an inch and the enmity and the hate between the two families continues to grow.

  But now, at last, Hawk is bringing Hinetitama to Hobart to meet the formidable seventy-eight-year-old Mary Abacus, who still runs her brewing and business empire with a grip of steel so that those who work for her dub her Iron Mary.

  Mary has had the extreme satisfaction of seeing Hannah Solomon pass away the previous year. She was pleased as punch when David, respecting his mother’s dying wishes, buries her in the Hobart cemetery next to Ikey.

  Hannah’s son, having inherited his business interests from his mother’s de facto husband George Madden, has expanded them hugely. David now lives in Melbourne and is a man of considerable wealth. Mary sends an extravagant wreath to the funeral of her mortal enemy with the message attached:

  Say hello to Ikey from me

  when you arrive in hell!

  Mary Abacus.

  The day after the funeral Mary purchases the grave lot beside Hannah’s. ‘So I can keep an eye on the bitch when I’m dead,’ she tells Hawk with satisfaction. ‘Mark my words, you can’t trust them lot, dead or alive!’

  Mary, Hawk knows, will be delighted with Hinetitama’s unexpected arrival. She will want Hinetitama married as soon as possible and he expects the clash of temperament between the two women in this regard alone to be considerable.

  But, in the meantime, he can almost hear Mary saying upon his arrival in Hobart, ‘Oh, my precious Hawk, I shall go to my grave a happy woman, I shall have my great-grandchildren to carry on!’

  He doesn’t quite know how he will tell Mary about her granddaughter’s drinking problem. He is doubtful that Hinetitama’s taking the pledge will work, she is too high-spirited, too wild to be constrained, and the dullness and pretension of the better folk in Hobart and her stubborn nature do not bode well for the future. Hinetitama, he thinks, will be more than a match for Iron Mary and Hawk does not expect a calm relationship to develop between them.

  But he is wrong. From the outset Tommo’s daughter and Mary hit it off splendidly. Hinetitama is a Maori in her manners and upbringing where respect for one’s elders is a primary consideration. Mary, on her best behaviour for once, seems to like her granddaughter’s feisty demeanour. Hinetitama, though always polite, will not be bullied or told what to do and Mary is forced to seek her co-operation in the plans she has for her.

  There is, of course, no initial talk of marriage, Mary being much too cunning to shy the filly before the stallion arrives. She merely asks her granddaughter to embrace the conventions of Hobart society. This includes learning how to dress and behave in polite company, the latest dance steps and, of course, the intricacies and mysteries of acceptable table manners. Her rough manner of speaking is put into the hands of Miss Brodie, a teacher of elocution and correct pronunciation favoured by the true merinos. Her pupil’s pronunciation is subject to the closest scrutiny, with her vowel sounds given the most attention. Hinetitama takes all this instruction in good humour, she has a marvellous ear and can mimic Miss Brodie perfectly and, if she wishes, she can pronounce her vowel sounds to perfection.

  Mary laughs as Hinetitama afterwards takes her through every lesson. Mary has selected one teacher for dress, another for deportment, a third for manners and conversation. These are invariably women with big bosoms and hair drawn back into rigid grey buns, who wear brown or black bombazine gowns and stern bonnets and almost always turn out to be middle-aged spinsters of impeccable character, genteel poverty and in precious possession of an over-pronounced and meticulous English vocabulary.

  Hinetitama not only repeats a particular lesson in a voice redolent of her teachers’ but she proves to be a clever actress, who takes on their mannerisms as well, often stuffing her own bosom with a small cushion and drawing back her beautiful dark hair into a bun. She will sometimes affect Mary’s reading glasses to perfect a likeness.

  Her master of dancing is the ancient Monsieur Gilbert, pronounced ‘Gill-bear’ who dubs himself Professor de Dance and has become a living institution in Hobart. To be tutored by this ageing and doubtfully French dancing master is a prime requisite among the crinolined society and Mary knows she cannot complete her granddaughter’s admittedly crammed social education w
ithout a knowledge of all the steps in the latest dances practised in the salons of London and Paris.

  Although Hinetitama is forbidden to sway her hips in the seductive style of the Maori, she sometimes includes a bit of a swish, a sway and a naughty thrust of the hips into the rigid and pompous dance steps taught to her, rendering them into an altogether different permutation. ‘Oh, Grandmother, must I learn this funny pakeha dance,’ she laughs. ‘It has no joy in it, how can it catch a man or ready him for the joy of a woman?’

  Mary delights in these impersonations which usually take place on the balcony of the big house where Mary always waits at sunset to see the parakeets, her talismanic rosellas, fly over on their way to roost in the trees higher up the mountain. Hawk, in all the time he has known her, has never heard her laugh as much. He can see she is greatly enamoured of her beautiful granddaughter and is even beginning to dote on her. Hinetitama, for her part, tries to co-operate with Mary’s wish for her education, but she has won the battle of the dress. While she will accept the dictates of fashion, she simply refuses the dark shades and plain bonnets insisted upon by its arbiters in Hobart. She elects to have her gowns and bonnets made in the brightest of silks and satins and even the cotton dresses she wears during the day are of the strongest colours.

  This is all observed with a tight-lipped disapproval from her social milieu, who regard her as cheap, and her manner of dressing vulgar and ostentatious, although Hinetitama does not seem to notice, or otherwise care for what the young matrons of Hobart may think of her. As for her various tutors, they gossip endlessly among the older society women. While they may privately accuse Hinetitama of constantly drawing attention to herself with her garish finery and her over-bright smile and lack of dignity in front of her tutors, no one is prepared to point this out to Mary for fear of losing their sinecure. They know that the redoubtable Mary Abacus will accept no criticism of her granddaughter beyond the various problems she has given them to correct.

  Mary tactfully dismisses Miss Mawson, the spinster in charge of Hinetitama’s wardrobe, paying her overgenerously and, without mentioning the matter of fabrics and colour, she compliments the cut and style of the garments the old lady has chosen for her granddaughter. She is secretly pleased that Hinetitama refuses to accept the dull colours of the prevailing fashion. Though Hinetitama is now twenty-five years old she is still a rose in young bud and with her light step, skin colour and raven-dark hair the bright colours suit her very well indeed and Mary thinks will greatly attract the male of the species.

  She has also fallen in love with her granddaughter’s voice. When her little Maori princess sings to her of a night she often enough causes the tears to run down her grandmother’s cheeks for the sheer joy of her song.

  Mary gradually begins to introduce males into Hinetitama’s life. These are, for the most part, men in their early forties, widowers and bachelors with some breeding or social standing in Tasmanian society. However, Mary has not precluded male members from the more prosperous but coarser business community, who are also invited for sherry and a light supper. With very few exceptions, the men are prematurely bald with stomachs which spill precipitously over their waistlines maintained thus on a bachelor’s diet of ale and stodgy food.

  Hobart is not a large place and most of the suitors involved share the same clubs or meet at the Wednesday and Saturday races so that the ‘Wild Wahine’, as one of these hopeful suitors has dubbed Hinetitama, is freely discussed between them. All see her as a filly to be happily mounted and the source of a large and continuing accreditation to their bank accounts. Her dark good looks testify to her tempestuous nature and they roll their eyes in supposed anticipation while speculating on the stamina required to keep up with her primitive savage desires.

  But secretly they conclude they are engaged in a simple transaction, no different to a stud bull. In return for their seed well planted, they will have no further obligations and be free to enjoy the fruits of their labour, the abundant dowry that comes with a successful coupling. Hinetitama’s half-breed status, they tell themselves, precludes any future considerations or obligations they might be expected to show her as a husband.

  Nor is Mary under any illusions. She observes their greedy eyes and reads their sycophantic gestures towards her and the sloppy compliments directed at her granddaughter for what they are and she knows that the only reason the men have accepted her invitation is because of her money.

  Despite Mary’s extreme wealth her granddaughter is still a half-caste and as Ikey might say, ‘Not quite kosher, my dear.’ While she hopes for a marriage based on mutual respect she knows this to be highly unlikely. Mary, though anxious that her granddaughter not marry beneath her status, is not looking for perfection. She admits to herself that the potency of the pistol the successful suitor carries between his legs is more important than his looks or even his brains, given her observation that most men seem to be more or less of equal stupidity. She has been told that the Maori blood breeds out and so, if anything, she shows a distinct preference for men of a fair complexion.

  But she has not reckoned on Hinetitama’s stubbornness. Her granddaughter, while co-operating in most things, refuses to accept any of the suitors Mary introduces. No amount of cajoling or persuasion will convince her and she seems quite impervious to Mary’s temper.

  ‘They are all fuddy-duddies and complete ninnies and speak only of commerce, farming, hunting, horses, racing and football. Of commerce I know nothing and of the others I’ve heard enough after two minutes. They cannot sing or dance and they have no laughter in their bellies like a Maori man. I’d be ashamed to carry their baby in my stomach!’

  Mary admits to herself privately that she agrees with her granddaughter, they are a poor lot, men mostly left over in the first place because of their lack of prospects or character. She thinks of taking her granddaughter to the mainland, to Sydney or Melbourne, where the pickings can be expected to be rather better, especially among the burgeoning middle classes. But first Hinetitama must have a veneer of culture applied sufficiently thickly not to arouse the suspicions of a would-be mother-in-law, that is, until it is too late and the nuptials are concluded. Whereupon the family can happily console themselves with the dowry her granddaughter brings to the marriage.

  As the battle of wills rages between the two women Hawk’s respect grows for his niece, but he knows the fight is one-sided and Mary will not give up under any circumstances. Even though she is plainly enchanted with Hinetitama she will attempt to achieve her ambition for great-grandchildren at any cost.

  Hawk realises that Mary is at deadly serious play with Tommo’s daughter. She watches her every lesson and makes her practise what she has learned. Although Mary is conscious of her own lack of grammar and syntax, she has always been a great reader and she is quick to correct a grammatical slip or a mispronunciation if Hinetitama should revert for a moment to her accustomed pattern of speech.

  ‘If you know what’s correct grammar, Grandmother, then why do you talk differently?’ Hinetitama asks her one evening after Mary has corrected her half a dozen times. It is at the time an innocent enough question but is to begin a conversation which will affect Hinetitama’s entire life.

  ‘Too old, my dear, can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Never had no time for all that malarky, talkin’ posh when you ain’t. Folks can take me for who I am, common as dirt, or not at all.’

  ‘Why then must I learn all this stuff?’ Hinetitama protests, ‘I’m common as dirt.’

  ‘Well my dear, no point in beating about the bush. When you’re beautiful and rich, rising out of a cloud of dust up into the clean air on nob hill ain’t too difficult. All it takes is a few manners and customs learned and a voice that don’t sound like a cockatoo. But I must be frank my dear, at twenty-five you’re well past the marrying age even though you’re a beautiful and desirable woman.’

  ‘But a half-caste, eh?’ Hinetitama interjects.

  ‘Yes, no point in denying that. So, if w
e’re going to find you an ’usband of the right breedin’ stock, with the right pedigree, it’s going to take a fair bit of money and manners. I’ve got the money but you have to learn the manners. Though, Gawd knows, I’ve searched the length and breadth of this accursed island and what’s available and respectable we’ve already had to tea and you’ve rejected the bleedin’ lot. The whole bunch o’ would-bes if they could-bes! Whatever am I to do with you? Maybe the mainland, what say you?’

  ‘But, Grandmother, if you should find me one, what if I don’t love him?’

  ‘Love? Tush! T’ain’t necessary. Love’s for shopgirls,’ Mary says dismissively. Then she becomes aware of the distress in Hinetitama’s eyes. ‘What do you know about love, eh? You ain’t gunna miss what you ain’t never had, my dear.’

  ‘But I have! I have loved,’ Hinetitama protests.

  Mary sniffs dismissively. ‘That’s news to me. Hawk didn’t say nothin’ about you being in love.’

  Hinetitama looks defiantly at Mary. ‘Hawk don’t know every thing about me!’

  ‘Doesn’t know,’ Mary corrects. ‘Who’ve you loved then?’

  ‘Never mind, it doesn’t matter!’ Hinetitama sulks.

  ‘Yes, it bleedin’ does! Tell me, my girl.’

  ‘Why? You wouldn’t like him?’

  ‘Like him? What’s my liking got to do with it?’ Mary sighs. ‘I’m an old woman wot’s filthy rich, Hawk won’t marry and you’re twenty-five years old and ain’t got a man yet, let alone children!’

  Hinetitama looks confused and hurt. ‘I don’t understand?’

  Mary shows her impatience and decides in her frustration to come clean. ‘Who’s it all gunna go to, eh? Who is gunna carry on with it, with everything I’ve worked for, built? I daresay Hawk can go on another few years, but what then, leave it to the bleedin’ Salvation Army? You, my dear, have no idea of business and don’t show the slightest interest in bookkeeping.’ She looks beseechingly at Hinetitama. ‘I simply must have great-grandchildren prepared and ready to take over when Hawk dies.’