Solomon's Song

by Bryce Courtenay

  Abraham’s career as a Freemason was much more to David’s taste. While he himself did not join, he liked the idea of a secret society of men who ‘scratched each other’s backs’ and who covertly agreed not to witness against each other in a court of law. He quickly realised how this might be to his advantage, happily accepting that the price of Abraham’s elevation was the unspoken promise to employ only Freemasons within the family’s vast enterprises. This meant well over two thousand jobs went to the secret brotherhood, which excluded Catholics from its membership. This suited David, too, for he loathed the Irish papists with a fierce and abiding hate. His mother’s de facto husband, George Madden, was an Irish Catholic who had treated David and his three siblings, Ann, Sarah and Mark, with a singular disdain and often enough had beaten them or, as a punishment for some imagined misdemeanour, made them go without food for three days. ‘You English made the Irish starve, boy, now you can do the same,’ he’d say. David had never forgiven the man, blaming his race and religion for their childhood suffering.

  Abraham is aware that his father sees him as a far from adequate replacement at the helm of the giant brewing, timber, pastoral and business empire. He knows that he is, at best, the temporary standard-bearer while Joshua is being groomed for the job of ultimately running Solomon & Teekleman Holdings.

  Far from resenting his caretaker role, he looks forward to the time when he can hand over to his son and he can get on with his life free from the restraints of business. The only office he cherishes is that of President of the Pigeon Racing Association of Victoria. Furthermore, he blames his wife Elizabeth’s drinking on himself and anticipates a time when he will be able to give her sufficient attention.

  With his heart still pounding from witnessing the contretemps between David and the Major General, Abraham folds his arms tightly across his chest in an attempt to crush the anxiety he feels in his gut.

  The band is almost upon them with the brass and drums crashing about his ears. Abraham prepares to alert his father that the 4th Australian Light Horse follows. The clopping of 546 horses on the macadam surface of the street and the jangle of their brasses as the mounted troopers move up to take the salute now almost completely drowns out the departing band. Joshua will be the officer riding ahead of the third squadron.

  ‘Is he here yet?’ the near blind David cries, grabbing his son’s arm. In the din and the cheering of the excited crowd it is impossible to hear him and, besides, Abraham has previously agreed he will tap his father on the shoulder when Joshua’s troop appears. David’s bony fingers are surprisingly strong as they dig deep into the flesh of his son’s upper arm. Abraham sees that the old man’s mouth is spit-flecked with anxiety at the thought of not being ready when his grandson passes by.

  Joshua’s troop rides into sight and Abraham taps David on the shoulder, whereupon the old man brings his hand up to his forehead in a salute intended to be rigid, though his hand trembles so that the tips of his fingers set his ear to vibrating. Abraham sees that the old man is crying and he reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief to hand to him when Joshua’s squadron has passed by.

  Directly across the street from where the general is taking the salute, black as the devil himself and towering head and shoulders above the crowd, is the magnificent

  Hawk. He is unseen by David Solomon, but his presence with Victoria is quietly noted by Abraham. During a lifetime of malice and greed, most of it in the name of sound business practice, David has acquired a legion of enemies who would happily slit his throat if they thought they could get away with it. These men, with perhaps one or two exceptions, do not cause David to lose a moment’s sleep. On the other hand, David’s personal hatred for the giant black man is beyond the sum of all of the others. Abraham decides his father has caused sufficient trouble for one day.

  Somewhat stooped, at seventy-three Hawk still stands near seven feet tall with a snow-white crop of woolly hair and the Maori moko markings on his proud and handsome face. He provides a natural curiosity for the crowd who try not to stare too blatantly, but occasionally steal furtive glances in his direction. The smaller children have no such reservations and they gawk unashamedly, clutching the hems of their mothers’ dresses until they are pulled away and turned about-face to witness the ongoing parade.

  Standing beside Hawk, her small white hand in his great black fist, is Victoria, Tommo’s granddaughter who now lives with him in Melbourne. He brought her over from New Norfolk at the age of eighteen to further her education. She is a handsome young woman of twenty-five who has served her articles and passed the solicitor’s examination, but who does not possess, or even wish to embrace, the restrained manners expected of a girl of her social class and wealth. Victoria jumps up and down in excitement, showing her slim ankles and, every once in a while, a daring glimpse of calf as the mounted troopers finally pass and the companies of foot soldiers hove into view, their band playing the popular ‘Skipper’ Francis anthem, ‘Australia Will Be There’. Among them, in the third platoon from the front, is her brother Ben whom she adores with all the considerable love she can pack into a naturally generous heart.

  She has observed Joshua riding by, sitting tall in the saddle and ramrod straight and as dashing as can be, with blue eyes and blond hair, the latter inherited from his mother, Elizabeth. Victoria thinks of him as a cousin, though, of course, he is not a relation, and her heart skips a beat at how very handsome he is in his jodhpurs and trim tunic with the polished leather of his Sam Browne belt. She is aware of the enmity between the two Solomon clans, but as Hawk has never dwelt on it, nor fully explained its reasons, it has not assumed any importance in her mind and she feels free to admire the young officer on the big chestnut stallion.

  For an instant Victoria regrets that Ben, a magnificent horseman, hasn’t joined the Australian Light Horse but has chosen instead to become a foot soldier so that he can be with all his mates. She can see Ben in Joshua’s place, every bit as handsome, though darker where his Maori blood comes through, a little shorter and bigger around the shoulders and altogether stronger looking. Whereas Joshua looks like an illustration of a British officer in Boys’ Own Annual, Ben has a physical hardness about him that comes from working with his hands on the land where he has spent the last eight years of his life, latterly in charge of the company’s hop and barley farms and pastoral properties.

  Although a uniform sits well enough on his strong frame, it somehow looks temporary. Ben is his own man and no institution is likely to transform him into anonymous cannon fodder. While Joshua will gain his authority from his status as an officer, the twenty-six-year-old Ben needs no rank to make men defer to him. He has been appointed a sergeant not because he marches any better or shoots straighter, or has, for that matter, any more experience at the business of waging war. Ben is their sergeant because they want to go to war with him at their side. Though he has enlisted in Tasmania and will rejoin his regiment before it leaves Australian shores, he has come to Broadmeadows, the Victorian military camp, to attend a special weapons training course and so is today acting as the sergeant of a Victorian infantry platoon. It is a most fortuitous situation as Hawk and Victoria would otherwise have been forced to take the overnight boat to Hobart to farewell him.

  The clatter of horses’ hooves begins to fade as the Australian Light Horse passes and the infantry brigade are now upon them, the men marching proudly, their chins slightly raised, boots striking the surface of the road setting up a sharp rhythmic cadence, the bayonets fixed to their rifles gleaming against a leaden sky and their heads turned to the eyes-right position to salute the Governor-General.

  Hawk is consumed by pride as Ben’s platoon approaches them, though, at the same time, silent tears run down his great cheeks. He has no romantic illusions about the war Tommo’s grandson is marching off to fight. He has seen men kill men before in the Maori wars and has learned that there is no glory to be found in the slaughter of humans. His heart is filled with trepidation for the lad he thin
ks of as his own grandson and loves with all his heart.

  Victoria also weeps, but rather more from excitement, for she has no sense of Ben’s being in danger. Her brother has held her hand since she was a baby and no matter what childish disaster they faced, she always knew he would bring them through it with a self-deprecating grin and a pat on the head. Now, after showing the Germans who is the boss, he’ll return to her unscathed and with that same crooked big smile on his silly gob. They’ll all be together again, Grandpa Hawk, Ben and herself, all that is left of the disparate little family Mary Abacus gathered around her during her long life.

  Hawk hasn’t told Victoria that earlier this very morning he has come away from the Sisters of Charity Hospice for Women in St Kilda where for several weeks he has been watching over a dying Hinetitama.

  In the inside pocket of his white linen jacket he holds her will, in which she, of sound mind, and in front of a justice of the peace, the Mother Superior, Sister Angelene, and the parish priest, Father Anthony Crosby, has given her proxy to Hawk, making him the trustee for the ten per cent share Ben and Victoria will now own in the giant Solomon & Teekleman Company.

  The voting rights on this ten per cent, which have been unavailable to Hawk for the twenty-one years Hinetitama has been away, are the difference between his side controlling a majority shareholding in Solomon & Teekleman or David and his son doing so.

  Hawk promised Tommo on his deathbed that he would always care for his daughter but when he took the boat back to Hobart in response to Ann’s telegram he arrived to find that Hinetitama had absconded.

  In a state of shock he listened while Ann told him the story of how Hinetitama had taken up singing with Teekleman and was nightly to be seen drunk in one or another of the pubs around the waterfront until she was the laughing stock of the town. She told how Teekleman, in the middle of one of his famous ‘skols’, that is the drinking down of a pint of ale in a bout with another drinker, a competition in which he had never been beaten, suddenly dropped the tankard of ale and clasped his hands to his chest, collapsing to his knees. He was dead from a sudden and massive heart attack before his forehead struck the wooden floor. Without the giant Dutchman to take her home when she looked like making a fool of herself and despite Ann’s efforts to dissuade her, Hinetitama had been on a continual binge almost from the moment Teekleman had died. Like all alcoholics, the single glass of gin placed in her hands by the nefarious Isaac Blundstone had been the beginning of her undoing.

  Told in a moment of sobriety by Ann that Hawk was returning to Hobart, she’d that very night packed a few things into a canvas bag and disappeared. Hawk arrived in Hobart on the overnight steamer to discover that she was last seen in the drunken company of Captain Ben ‘Blackbird’ Smithers of the windjammer The Fair Wind, one of the sailing ships still plying between the island and the mainland.

  Smithers, a former captain of a whaling ship, was notorious as a blackbirder, plundering the islands in the seventies and early eighties, kidnapping Kanakas and bringing them to Queensland to work in the cane fields. He was never apprehended and, like Teekleman, is a drunk and a thorough scoundrel.

  From that moment, Hawk searched Australia and New Zealand, even sending detectives to Canada, the new Dominion of South Africa and the United States of America but to no avail. Somehow Hinetitama managed to evade him.

  Just before her disappearance Hawk had concluded the deal with David and Abraham Solomon which relied on her shares and proxy in the new conglomerate for him to be chairman. Unable to utilise her ten per cent shareholding he lost his voting majority in Solomon & Teekleman, giving David and Abraham control of the giant enterprise. When David became chairman he immediately removed Hawk from the Potato Factory and Hawk was reduced to being no more than a large shareholder.

  Despite his untimely demise, Hawk never sought to find Hinetitama simply to regain her proxy, but because he was guilt-stricken, forced by her absence to break what he considered his sacred word to his twin Tommo. That is, until he received a note from the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Charity Hospice in St Kilda.

  The Sisters of Charity Hospice for Women, St Kilda

  14th August 1914

  Dear Mr Solomon,

  Sir, it is with some hesitation that I write to you.

  However, after prayer, I am convinced that I have no choice in the matter and so I crave your indulgence.

  In recent weeks there has come into our hospice a half-caste woman suffering from delirium tremens, malnutrition and cirrhosis of the liver, in all, an advanced state of alcoholism from which the doctor does not believe she will recover.

  She answers to the name of Mary Gibbons, but says that her true identity is Hinetitama Solomon.

  I hasten to add that information obtained from alcoholics is usually not to be relied upon. Except, in the case of Mary Gibbons, at such times when her mind is clear, she persists in asking that we contact you as a matter of urgency. It is not usual for someone in her condition to retain such a persistent and consistent obsession and so I am forced to conclude that it may have some validity.

  Sir, we do not believe that God will grant Mary much longer on this earth. If this poor demented soul has had any connection with you in the past, then I can only hope and pray that you will see it in your heart to grant her final wish some priority.

  I remain yours, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

  Angelene Denmeade,

  Mother Superior – Sisters of Charity.

  Upon receiving the letter Hawk makes the messenger boy wait and immediately pens a letter to the Mother Superior thanking her for the information and urging her to give her patient all the medical attention she needs without regard to the costs involved. He adds that she is to be given a private room if such exists and asks Sister Angelene to assure Mary Gibbons that he will visit the hospice that very afternoon. With a penny in his pocket for his trouble and the letter placed under his greasy cap for safekeeping, the lad runs off.

  Hawk arrives to discover that Mary Gibbons is once again in a state of delirium. He is to wait almost two days before she recovers sufficiently to see him. He takes lodgings at a bug-ridden boarding house across the road, leaving instructions with the sisters at the hospice that he is to be called at any time during the day or night when she comes out of her delirium.

  Close to midnight two days later, Hawk is finally summoned to the bedside of Mary Gibbons. A nun carrying a hurricane lantern leads him through the darkened ward to her bedside. She hangs the lamp on a hook suspended from the ceiling and, without a further word, leaves him alone with Tommo’s daughter.

  The lantern throws a circle of yellow light over the bed and Hawk sees immediately that the emaciated old hag lying in the bed bears no resemblance whatsoever to the beautiful woman who forsook her two children all those years ago.

  But he knows almost at once that it is Hinetitama in the bed. On her face she carries the distinctive moko markings of her Ngati Haua tribe and attached to a cheap metal chain about her scrawny neck and resting on the coarse material of her cotton nightgown is Tommo’s greenstone Tiki.

  Hinetitama is by now fifty-four, though she appears to be at least twenty years older. She has always been small, taking her size from Tommo rather than her Maori ancestors. But now she seems diminutive, a tiny wreck of a woman, her unkempt hair white and her face deeply wrinkled. Her dark eyes are sunk into her skull, though Hawk sees at once that they are clear and follow him closely as he bends over to look into her face. She is toothless and repeatedly smacks her gums together, her once elegant Maori nose and the point of her chin almost touching to give her the appearance of an old crone.

  Hinetitama lifts her right hand slightly to acknowledge his approach but it trembles beyond her control and falls back to her side. ‘Hello, Uncle Hawk,’ she cackles.

  ‘Oh, my dear, what has become of you?’ Hawk cries, at once overcome. Tears appear instantly and he reaches for his handkerchief to brush them away. ‘Hinetitama, what
have I done to you!’ he cries again in anguish.

  ‘Nuthin’, Uncle. I done it all meself. I could never learn t’behave meself. I were always a bad ’un.’

  Hawk takes her tiny claw in his hand. Her nails are chipped and broken and while the nuns have scrubbed them clean the brown tobacco stains remain on the first and middle finger of her right hand. ‘I searched so hard to find you, how ever did you escape me?’

  ‘Yeah, I know’d that well enough. Always some bugger sniffin’ about, askin’ questions. Promising rewards.’ Her eyes light up and she raises her head from her pillow. Hawk sees there is still a spark of defiance in them. ‘But youse didn’t get me, did yiz?’ She falls back exhausted. ‘Nah, it wouldn’t’a worked out. It were best I left the young ’uns to you, Uncle. I was never gunna be a good mother t’thum.’

  ‘But, my dear girl, you left everything behind, the most fortunate life. You had so much to live for. Mary’s shares made you a wealthy woman. Why did you not come back to claim them?’

  Hinetitama sighs. ‘Them shares? They’s for the brats, had’ta be somethin’ good comin’ t’them two little ’uns.’ She closes her eyes, too exhausted to continue, then in a voice not much above a whisper asks, ‘Ow’d they turn out them two?’

  Hawk tells her about Ben and Victoria though there is no sign that she is listening or even still conscious. Finally, at the insistence of the nun on night duty, he leaves in the early hours of the morning, with instructions that he is to be called the moment Hinetitama is again lucid.

  Over the next week he returns home to dinner each night and leaves soon after, giving Victoria the excuse that he has business which must be conducted at night and continues until too late to return home, which in a sense is the truth. Apart from the occasions when they are allowed to visit Ben, he remains at the boarding house and whenever his niece has an hour or so of clarity he visits her.