Oscar and Lucinda bw-1988

by Peter Carey

  He had looked at Mr Jeffris's face at that moment, on the barge, when he was asked if these orders were acceptable. He had been unable to hold the eyes. His soul had shrivelled like a leech in salt.

  At the first night's camp, Mr Jeffris had made a speech around the camphre. He had told the party: "You can be raging boys

  Oscar and Lucinda

  at night, but, by God, you will be soldiers in the day." And they were. Now on the second night, at Wiseman's Ferry, the men were shouting raving drunk and Mr Smith half-expected one of them to shoot or hack or slash his way into the lighted tent where the leader worked upon his journals. That they did not was as much due to the type of men Mr Jeffris had selected as the force of his character. They were men who, no matter how they might glower or curse, enjoyed being "soldiers." And Mr Jeffris's leadership was such that you could believe this former clerk would murder a man for disobedience. His hand was never far from pistol and sword, and, indeed, he had drawn the latter at a creek crossing that day-a leafy little place with clear water running six inches deep across a sandy bed-and had sworn he would cut the hand off the carpenter and feed it to the dogs, and this merely because the carpenter had expressed the view that the cargo was "safe enough." Mr Jeffris did not show a different character from the one he had revealed when wearing striped trousers in Mr d'Abbs office. He merely brought himself into keener focus. He drew his antique sword and called the man-he was a boy, really, with sandy hair and a newly sunburnt nose-"a frigging colonial frigging dog, a frigging lemonsucking incompetent." He would cut his hand off. By God he would. You watch him. He would feed it to him for his dinner. Etc.

  Now Mr Smith sat on a log next to the young clergyman and stared into the hre. He had been on several journeys of exploration, and this always was a time of day he enjoyed. There was no shortage of water here, and so he had washed his day's clothes and hung them on a line he had rigged along the wagon where he and Oscar were carried as passengers. This was already dubbed by the overseer the "Ladies' cornpartment," on account of the canvas awning provided them. Mr Smith now wore clean clothes. They were cool against the skin and still smelt of his wife's ironing board.

  His companion had neither washed nor changed his clothes. He had been too shy to bathe naked in front of the other men and must now, surely, be in a state of some discomfort. So much did Mr Smith enjoy the feeling of clean linen against his skin, that he was made vicariously uncomfortable at that thought of Oscar Hopkins's sweat-sticky garments. It had been hot travelling. The country was still very dry, and where ploughed, dusty. They had travelled half a day along a series of ridges still smouldering from bushhre. Tree roots were still alight and, twice, burning branches crashed dangerously close

  Mr Smith

  to the party. He and Mr Hopkins had travelled with wet handkerchiefs on their faces but their skin, of course, was filthy from the smoke and ash. Percy Smith could not bear for his companion to sit in his filth.

  "It is a pleasant time for bathing," he said. "The moon up over the water. I think there is nothing so pleasant. In fact I have a mind to bathe again. Old mother night," he said, "throws a modest curtain on us."

  Oscar said nothing.

  Two Scots were singing somewhere by the boat carriage: '

  "I woe tae ye a tale o' angel-named Beggs, Came down ta earth, silk purse 'tween ha legs." Percy Smith was embarrassed on the clergyman's account. He sipped his rum and water and stared at the fire. •;•'

  "Does your throat still pain you?"

  "Oh, it is not so bad."

  "I have been thinking," Percy Smith said, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch, "that if I were to coat the funnel with wax it might not be so painful. But then I fear your fit will make you bite it, and a loose piece of wax could easily choke."

  "I had no fit."

  "But you have a phobia about the water."

  "All my life. Yet when I mounted the barge I had no phobia. I was merely sad to leave one I loved so dearly."

  "Mr Hopkins," said Mr Smith, sending great plumes of blue smoke into the night, "Mr Hopkins, has the laudanum removed all memory from you?" And he laughed to show he did not mean it unkindly. "You forget."

  "And what do I forget, Mr Smith?" The voice was cool and unfriendly. Mr Smith thought: He will not easily forgive me for what I must do to him. Yet he, too, is in the maniac's power. We are both in the same boat. He must forgive me. It is intolerable he should not.

  Mr Smith said: "You forget I found you in a fit. Your teeth were clenched. Your face was red as butcher's meat. Your eyes had rolled and your veins were like worms lying on your brow."

  "You found me thus, on account of that 'person' whom we stupidly engaged to deliver this cargo," Oscar hissed. "It was he who assaulted

  Oscar and Lucinda

  me and pushed me down and forced this 'medicine' upon me."

  "He has a great responsibility," said Percy Smith. "He fears you will throw yourself into the water."

  "He fears he will lose his bonus. But he will not lose me. I will not allow myself to be lost. I have much to live for."

  "Do you forget it was I who introduced her to our table?"

  "I am sorry…"

  "Your 'much-to-live-for.' Do you remember who it was who arranged her invitation to Mr Borrodaile's table?"

  "Oh, yes," said Oscar, and Mr Smith was pleased to hear the voice, at last, lighten.

  "You have that to thank me for."

  "Indeed."

  A moment later, Oscar said: "I have never seen men behave like this." Percy Smith was not sure exactly what he referred to, whether he meant Mr Jeffris himself or the men who wrestled with each other by the edge of the fire or those dancing a drunken jig around the overseer's grey tent. There was also, of course-and this was quite normalmuch profanity in the night.

  "I fear I am not suited to this life," the clergyman said. "There is a cruel feel to it. Indeed, it is extraordinary that one can go through life and know so little of it. I suppose much of it is like this."

  "Oh, aye," said Percy Smith, and sighed. "Oh, aye."

  "You need give me no medicine tomorrow. It does not agree with me." Percy Smith said nothing.

  "Strictly speaking," Oscar said, "Mr Jeffris is in my employ." He stood up. For a moment it seemed that he would walk to Mr Jeffris's tent. Indeed he took a step in the direction of that tent, which glowed with the light of three lanterns. But then he stopped and Percy Smith stood to see what it was had halted him: it was the carpenter, he who had been threatened with amputation. He was kneeling in the outer circle of firelight and thus, with his fair hair touching the ground, was allowing himself to be penetrated by the overseer.

  "May God save you," said Oscar Hopkins. He said it in a high clear voice. It cut across the campsite with that clean slice you hear in whipbirds in dense bush.

  In a moment there would be a general eruption of laughter, an ugly noise which could contain, within its chaos, noises like doors slamming, donkeys braying. But for a moment, everything was very quiet. *

  I

  95

  Arrival of Wardley-Fish (1)

  Four weeks out from Home, Ian Wardley-Fish had looked into his silver-backed mirror and seen, above the unblemished white of his clerical collar, a gross and thick-lipped man with weak and watery bloodshot eyes, a buffoon who-even whilst standing in the dock before his Better Selftried to grin and joke his way to acceptance; but it would not do. Wardley-Fish placed his mirror upon the washstand and, having wedged his bulk between washstand and bed, kneeled upon his cabin floor. He vowed to God that he would henceforth forswear not only cards and alcohol and smutty talk, but also that he would acquit himself with dignity, that he would eschew the company of Messrs Clarkson and Maguire, those two "gentlemen" with whom he had, not three hours previously, been pleased to recite sixteen verses of "Eskimo Nell." His head hurt terribly. He had drunk a thing which Clarkson, an agent of some type in Sydney, called Squatter's Punch. It was made with grenadine, champagne and a partic
ularly foul colonial rum, which Clarkson, who was addicted to the stuff, had carried with him to London. Maguire, being from Belfast, claimed he could drink anything, but had been defeated by the Squatter's Punch. WardleyFish was playing the "Modern Man of God." He had outdone himself last night. He had also, again, said unflattering things about his ex-fiancée's knees. He had said these things before. He had said it was the image of these knees-glimpsed accidentally in a moment on the Serpentinethat had made the marriage impossible to him. This was not true. But in his cups he had enjoyed drawing gross pictures for Maguire and Clarkson. They thought him exceedingly modern. But he would do this no more, and with his stomach rebelling against the smell of his own chamber-pot, he promised God he would henceforth behave as both a Christian and a gentleman.

  .-<(

  1

  Oscar and Lucinda

  Even as he made the vow he feared he had not the strength to keep it, and yet he did, well past the time when he had the queasiness of his stomach to assist him.

  His earlier "shenanigans" had attracted a great deal of attention, and his period of reform was therefore quite luminous in its effect. Indeed, by the time the Sobraon heeled over for its last long straight tack into Sydney Harbour, the Powells and Halfsmiths and even Miss Masterson were all beginning to bid him good day and smile in that special fond way one reserves for those who have regained the fold.

  And yet you would be surprised at the damage a man can do in the distance between the high wild cliffs that guard the entrance to Sydney harbour and the placid waters at Semi-Circular Quay. The distance is three nautical miles, no more.

  The problem was that Wardley-Fish liked to be liked. It was a weakness, he knew, but having cut Clarkson and Maguire without explanation, and having ignored them completely for so many weeks, he wished to make his peace with them.

  He could not hope to achieve this reconciliation and then refuse Clarkson's offer of a glass of rum. This rum was a very personal matter with Clarkson. It was not something he would entrust to a steward. It must be dispensed from a silver flask and have a dash of cloves cordial added with an eyedropper. Now Wardley-Fish was a big man and built-with his powerful haunches and hefty backside-not unlike a sturdy pottery jug. In normal circumstances he held his liquor well and yet on this occasion, drinking rum at the rails of the Sobraon, it took only two noggins to make his speech quite slurry. Perhaps it was excitement, to be at last in Sydney Harbour on this glorious blueskied day, or relief, that Clarkson (who had a prim red nose and a small censorious mouth) seemed so ready to accept him, once again, as a friend. But when he remarked that he would soon be dining at the Randwick vicarage, he said "vicarrish."

  "You are drunk," said Clarkson, not pleased. "Blow me, I cannot see the point for the life of me. You cut us cold when there is fun to be had, and now you go on a bender when, who knows, maybe your bishop is waiting at the quay."

  "I have no bishop."

  "You have no Randwick vicarage either," said Clarkson, consulting his gold watch as he always did when he wished to give authority to himself. "The Randwick vicarage is burnt to the ground."

  "No," said Wardley-Fish, his mouth wide open.

  Arrival of Wardley-Fish (1)

  "We sailed right past it." ' sr

  "You tease." " r!;/-v <

  "No, I swear," said Clarkson who was already enjoying the power of the Pure Merino over the New Chum. "Surely you saw it." And he pointed back towards Watson's Bay which is a good six miles from Rand wick.

  "Look at your face," said Maguire.

  "Look at your own, you rascal," said Wardley-Fish. "I know when my leg is being pulled." And he accepted more rum-held his glass steady while the little drops of cloves cordial were addedand could not understand why this lie should make his heart beat so wildly. He thought: I wonder will I see the dear Odd Bod tonight. He will be all settled in his manse with some old Mrs Williams giving him orders and telling him to sit up straight at table before she serves him. It is Saturday today. I will wait till the morrow. I will wait. I will go to his church and listen to his sermon. He will look down into the faces and see me sitting there. Yes, yes, that is what I will do.

  There was plenty of wind in the harbour, but they had half the canvas bound and buttoned and were proceeding slowly. Wardley-Fish was suddenly overcome with impatience. He wished to be ashore. He wished to be asleep. He wished to wake and find it the morrow and be seated in the Rand wick congregation. He accepted a fourth glass. The cloves improved the flavour, there was no doubt of that. He looked down over the side and saw the pilot who had joined their ship outside The Heads was leaving before he reached the quay. The pilot boat nuzzled alongside to receive him. As the wiry grey-bearded man landed on his own deck again, Wardley-Fish looked up and saw, not twenty yards beyond the pilot boat, a whole series of barges being towed off the wharf. It was set up for an expedition-horses, carts, men dressed up like soldiers, a little Gilbert and Sullivan chappie with a huge dress sword strapped to his belt. And by his side Wardley-Fish saw this horrid puzzle, this vision, of the person he was waiting so impatiently to see — the Odd Bod — his chicken neck sticking out of a horrible red shirt, his narrow chest criss-crossed by silly braces.

  "Oh, no," he said. "It is my friend," he said to Clarkson who nodded but did not seem to understand what was being said to him. "My friend," he said to little plump Maguire who rubbed his stomach as if he were being spoken to about a meal, or lack of a meal, but not this: that the man who should be dressed in a black cassock in a pulpit was here standing before them on a raft.

  Oscar and Lucinda

  "Hopkins," bellowed Wardley-Fish. He cupped his hands and called again: "Mr Oscar Hopkins."

  "What chaps are these?" Maguire said. He had a little brass telescope he always carried with him on to the deck. Now he raised it and pointed it at the barges.

  "It is my friend," said Wardley-Fish. "Mr Hopkins from the Randwick vicarage."

  "Then wave," said Clarkson, setting the example himself. "Yoo-hoo," he cried in a mocking imitation of a woman. "Yoo-hoo, Mr Rand wick." He turned to Wardley-Fish. "Wave," he said.

  "Your friend is leaving on an expedition to the inland. Wave, Fish, you will not see him for a year."

  Wardley-Fish looked at Clarkson and knew that Clarkson did not like him, had not forgiven him, would not forgive him.

  "Liar," said Wardley-Fish.

  "I beg your pardon, sir?"

  "Poppycock," revised Wardley-Fish who could not afford to waste time on this sort of petty discord but must find out, and rapidly at that, whether he was having his leg pulled or no.

  'Is it someone famous?" asked Maguire, taking off his spectacles and readjusting the little telescope.

  "Is it true?" asked Wardley-Fish, quietly, politely.

  Clarkson poured himself rum but offered none. "You see that wagon there," he said, pointing with his eyedropper, "with its two boats fitted one inside the other? See that? Then tell me, Fish, why someone has a wagon like that, if they are not setting off to go exploring. And criminee, man, just look at them. Did you ever see such a lot of tin soldiers?" The barges were being pulled out across the water by a little steamboat. Wardley-Fish removed his jacket and laid it loosely across the rail. He took off his clerical collar and placed this across the jacket. He slipped the studs in his pocket.

  No one took any notice of him, not even when he bellowed: "Mr Oscar Hopkins." Clarkson sipped his rum and cloves. Maguire leaned his belly against the rail and focused his telescope. Wardley-Fish clambered on to the rail and having first removed his shoes in full view of the Half smiths, Miss Masterson et ai, dived head first into Sydney Harbour. This was the "drowning man" who had a boathook driven into his breeches.

  96

  Arrival of Wardley-Fish (2)

  The man who was saved from drowning had a backside like a horse and a bulk — so claimed Alfred Spinks, the deckhand who had so neatly hooked him-enough to cause a bloke a hernia. The hook got in the breeches without the g
entleman's soft white bum getting so much as a scratch on it. The man was saved from drowning but did not want to bestow a reward. He was a New Chum of the lah-di-dah variety, a remittance man no doubt with nothing in his pockets and cheap rum on his breath.

  Alfred Spinks, his spot of rescuing now done, stood in the wheelhouse with his foot shoved hard to bring the wheel round to the starboard. They would circle now while wall-eyed Captain Simmons-it was the leathery shrunken pilot with the silver beard-did a spot of questioning. It would be a rare old show, for Captain Simmons liked a reward as well as the next chap and he had a great aversion to New Chums and an even greater aversion to taking orders, and he was already turning his wall-eye towards the rescued man and his winking eye towards the appreciative Alfred Spinks.

  The rescued man had a gold tooth and a mole on the edge of his fair beard which was easy to mistake for a shell-backed tick. "I will ask you one more time," the pommy said-you would think he was a frigging magistrate-"! will ask you one more time to deliver me to that place where the expedition barges are bound."

  He was so bloody proper and dignified. It was a shame you could see his titty through his shirt. It was shocking that he had to cough and spit up all that smelly water. Captain Simmons lowered himself companionably beside the dripping man. Above his head the funnel farted black soot into the sky. "I was not aware," the pilot said, "you had a rank."