Tamarisk Row

by Gerald Murnane

  Augustine backs Sternie in a Mallee handicap

  Sternie, the horse named after a Melbourne Jew who has never seen the northern country where the big chestnut was finally sent after years of failure around the city, runs his first two races just as Augustine has planned. In a weak maiden race at Peechunga, a town on the Murray, Sternie finishes fourth out of six, and Harold Moy reports that the horse was anxious to go much faster in the straight. In a stronger field at Wensleydale, where many Melbourne horses race, Sternie runs nearly last, but Harold is pleased with him again because at the turn he was going strongly just behind the main bunch. That night Augustine whispers to his wife that the time has come for him to have a go with Sternie. The race that he chooses is a novice handicap of seven furlongs at a place named Jerram more than a hundred miles north-west of Bassett on the edge of the Mallee. Sternie is eligible to run in maiden races, but most maidens are run over five or six furlongs, and Augustine believes that the horse needs a longer distance. He knows too that the bookmakers will give a better price about Sternie in a novice than in a maiden. Augustine visits Stan Riordan, but without taking Clement. He persuades Stan to risk thirty pounds as a bet on Sternie at Jerram. When Stan has handed over the money to Augustine he offers to do what Augustine has not dared to ask him – to forget all about the couple of hundred that Augustine owes him if Sternie wins and the bet comes off. Stan then asks Augustine has he got enough cash himself for a decent bet on Sternie. Augustine is so grateful for the chance to wipe out all his debts to Riordan that he insists he has all the money he needs to back the horse. That night Augustine telephones Len Goodchild and tells him that the horse named after a mysterious friend of theirs in Melbourne is ready to win and that a very smart bookmaker in Bassett is sending a good-sized bet to the course. He urges Goodchild to send a money order to Leslie Street so that he (Augustine) can get him the best odds on the course and pay him back for some of the many good turns he has done him in the past. Goodchild says that he’ll see about sending something. Each afternoon of the last week before the race Augustine takes Sternie for long walks among the least-travelled streets and the rough grassy lanes through scrub where old pensioners sitting at the doors of their humpies wave briefly and stare gravely after him. On the Friday before the race, Goodchild’s money has still not arrived. Augustine does not like to bother Goodchild by phoning him again, and decides that the Master is probably so busy with all his Melbourne business that Sternie and the race at Jerram have slipped his mind. Augustine tells his wife that he is entitled to a cut from Stan Riordan’s winnings, that supposing he has Stan’s thirty pounds on at seven to one he would only be expected to give Stan odds of six to one according to an unwritten gentleman’s agreement of racing. He does not tell her how much of his own money he intends to put on, but she agrees to give him four pounds from a store of two-shilling pieces that she keeps somewhere in her dressing-table. He leaves early on Saturday morning, riding his bike, with Sternie trotting slowly behind him, towards the stables of a man who has offered Augustine and his horse a place in his truck. The Jerram races are not broadcast on Station 3BT Bassett, but at six o’clock in the evening Clement’s mother switches on the sporting results program and stands waiting with her rosary beads entwined in her fingers. Towards the end of the program the announcer reads in a cheerful voice the results of the meeting at Jerram. Each time that he names a race he pauses before announcing the winner’s name as if to tease the women waiting for news of their husbands’ horses. He says – the Novice Handicap of seven furlongs, pretends to be peering hard at the list of names in front of him, then blurts out as happily as if he himself had backed the winner – this was won by Docile J. O’Mullane starting at five to two – second placing went to My Heliotrope K. Bennett starting at seven to one and third money went to Sternie H. Moy starting at four to one. Mrs Killeaton turns off the wireless at once. She tells Clement not to mention a word about racing again as long as he lives and warns him that if she ever catches him looking at a Sporting Globe or the back pages of a newspaper or trying to listen to a race on the wireless she will take to him with his father’s razor strap until he has to stay in bed for a month. Clement lies awake in the dark until he hears a truck pulling up at the front gate. He listens at the open window while his father backs Sternie out of the truck and says – goodnight and thanks again for everything, to the driver. While Augustine is putting Sternie into his loose-box and giving him his feed and water for the night, Clement creeps out of bed and stands near the door of his room. He hears his father tell his mother that if he wasn’t so badly in debt he would be feeling quite pleased with Sternie’s run because he made up half a dozen lengths on the leaders in the straight and was going as well as the winner when they passed the post. He hears that Sternie was beaten by less than two lengths and that if only there was a mile maiden somewhere in the next few weeks Sternie would be a certainty in it. Jean Killeaton says – I would have thought you’d be trying to think of a place where we could all go and get away from all your cursed damn bookmakers and debts and there wouldn’t be a racecourse for hundreds of miles around – somewhere like the Western District you’re always skiting about. Augustine says cheerfully – don’t worry I’ve been thinking the same thing myself a few times lately – of course there’s plenty of racecourses in the Western District too – but there’s nothing wrong with racing if only a man would only bet what he could afford to lose. She asks him how much he lost at Jerram, but he says he can’t think about it now and asks whether she or Clement remembered to feed the chooks and bring in the eggs.

  Augustine confides in a bookmaker

  Augustine waits for a few days after Sternie’s third placing in the novice at Jerram, then telephones Goodchild in Melbourne. Neither man mentions the money that Goodchild was supposed to have sent to Augustine before the race. Goodchild reminds Augustine that Sternie is not the kind of horse that you try to win money on, that he nearly broke his previous owner’s heart by always running a promising race but never winning, and that he (Goodchild) explained to Augustine when he handed the horse over to him that he was only supposed to race Sternie at northern meetings purely as a hobby. He laughs as he tells Augustine not to forget that a certain Hebrew gentleman once put a curse on the horse. Augustine says that his wife has been wondering a few times lately whether they wouldn’t be better off going onto a farm somewhere in the Western District because they just can’t seem to make ends meet on his wages and he has a few troublesome debts that are starting to bother him. Goodchild says – break it down now Gus – things can’t surely be as bad as all that – anyway if you can wait a few more weeks all your worries will be over because our men are planning something that will earn us all enough to retire on. Goodchild cannot reveal any more for the time being, but he urges Augustine to keep in touch with him and get a big bank ready because the Master and all his faithful followers are going to get their reward at last. Augustine takes Clement up the hill once more to Riordans’ place. He leaves the boy to play in the garden and goes into Stan’s office. He tells the story of Sternie’s run at Jerram and apologises several times to Riordan for causing him to lose thirty pounds on Sternie. The bookmaker says – think nothing of it Gus – but what’s more important are you going to give Sternie away now? Augustine says – I suppose I’ll have to Stan – but there’s something else I want to tell you – before I tell you I want to say that it’s something I’ve never done before in all the years I’ve been connected with the racing game so you’ll realise how desperate I am at the moment – and what’s more I’m telling you because I know I can trust you as a Catholic gentleman and the best friend I’ve made in Bassett. Stan Riordan looks out of the window. Augustine says – Stan the smartest men in racing – the bunch of men I’ve cultivated and kept in touch with for years are getting ready to have a really big lash at something in town soon – I never dreamed I’d be telling a bookmaker this sort of thing but as I said before I’ve come to think of you as a friend I
can trust more than a bookmaker – well Stan to cut a long story short I can’t tell you the name of this horse yet because I don’t even know it myself – well when the big day comes and I get the word from them they’ll be wanting me to have a fair bit of money on for them with the biggest bookmakers in Bassett – I know I’m telling you nothing new when I say that I’ve just about exhausted my credit with all the decent-sized men in this town – what I’m suggesting is that you’ll do the betting for me – you can ring up Horrie Attrill or Eric Hooper a few minutes before the race and have on all the Melbourne money plus as much as you want for yourself – if you leave the bet until the last few minutes before the race Horrie or Eric or whoever you bet with won’t have time to ring any of the big bookmakers in Melbourne and lay the bet off – that’s something my men are always afraid of as you’d know – the worst thing that can happen is for one of the big smart Melbourne S.P. bookmakers to phone money to the course and ruin the horse’s price – well if we guard against that happening none of my men in Melbourne will be any the wiser. Stan Riordan sits thinking. Augustine says – as you can see it’s a desperate thing I’m doing – risking the confidence of some of the toughest men in the game – chaps who’ve been very good to me over the years – but still there’s nothing really dishonest in what I’m suggesting – they’ll get their money just the same and you’ll win enough to cover the money I still owe you – as far as I’m concerned I don’t want any more than that – if I can clear up what I owe you it’s as good as having a big win. Stan Riordan says – I understand exactly the position you’re in Gus and I don’t think any the worse of you for trying to work something like this – the only thing that bothers me is whether your friends might have some other agent besides yourself in a place as big as Bassett – because if they do and I ring up my bet at the last minute it’s more than likely the chap I ring will be so loaded already with money for the good thing that I won’t get set – what with your friends’ money and the money I’d need to put on to wipe your slate clean it might amount to a decent sort of bet I’d be wanting to get on – and we’d look lovely wouldn’t we holding all that money ourselves when the barrier went down. Augustine says – I see what you mean and I want to make things as easy as possible for you Stan – I can only say that the man in charge has told me repeatedly that I’m his Bassett agent but I’ll make doubly sure of where I stand before we go any further in this business – suppose we say nothing more just for the moment and I promise to have another chat with you well before the big day. While the men are inside the house, Clement finds Therese Riordan and her friend the girl Mendoza waiting in the shade of a grapevine whose leaves have long since hidden from sight the trellis supporting them, so that they hang like the abundant folds of some carelessly draped green tent. The girl Mendoza tells him that they are waiting for her father to come in his car and take them to the baths because it is so hot. She tells Therese Riordan that she gave Clem three wishes at her place the other day and there are still a couple left that she owes him. Anything to do with wishes and secrets appeals to Therese, and for the first time in months she looks at Clement with interest. She says – ooh tell us what they were Pat. Clement says – ha ha you’ve just granted one of them right now hasn’t she Pat? While Therese looks at the girl and then at him for an explanation, he decides that at last Therese Riordan, who is prettier than even Barbara Keenan who after all has never allowed him to explore her garden or watch her playing with treasures like the Foxy Glen, is about to relent towards him and even perhaps to confide to him the kinds of secrets that the plain-faced Pat Mendoza has already confided because she knows that he can be trusted and means no harm but only wants to have with them such an understanding that he could sit with them in shady places in hot weather and stretch out his legs for coolness on mossy flagstones so that one of his balls might be clearly visible lying limp and sweating just inside the leg of his shorts and each girl would see it but would not laugh or scream or tease him about it but would simply stretch her own legs further out along the comfortable stones and not care how much of her pants he saw or even how much of her white skin was showing under the edges of the pants as she loosened them to cool herself, and talk of his most secret games and treasures with no fear that they might smile at their strangeness. Out of gratitude to Pat Mendoza for all that she has done for him, and to show Therese Riordan that he and she need not have any more secrets between them, he makes a slight noise and clutches himself between the legs. He walks a few paces away from them and stands facing a bed of ferns. His back is to the girls. He hears Pat Mendoza saying – well one of the wishes was he wanted to see me without my pants on and I wouldn’t let him of course but now that we’ve got our bathers on under our dresses we could pull our dresses up a little way for him couldn’t we? He takes out his cock and aims it at the ferns but cannot make any water come. Therese says – that’s silly Pat and I don’t want to talk about it. The other girl says yes we could – well I will anyway there’s nothing wrong with it look at me Killeaton I’ve got no pants on under my dress – go on Therese it might teach the little kid a lesson. Clement shakes his cock vigorously up and down as he has seen his father shaking the last drops of water out. He tries to turn around to face the girls with the thing still in his hands, but at the last moment he falters and pushes it into his trousers for fear of Therese Riordan. As he turns towards them his fly is still undone and he is fumbling with the buttons. Therese almost screams – look what he’s been doing in our ferns the dirty little bugger – it’s your fault Pat for talking like that – I’m never going to speak to you again Clement Killeaton you filthy little sneak. Clement dares not look at her. He goes home convinced that neither of the girls will ever speak to him again.

  Augustine sees the city of bookmakers and graziers

  Whenever Augustine comes away from Riordans’ place he remembers the profusion of things in their house – the massive walnut-varnished wireless set and radiogram, the stainless-steel-and-glass revolving ash trays, the gilt-framed pictures of kingfishers swooping over a lonely bay of a misty lake and of ‘Evening Light in the Gippsland Forest’, the electric fire with its replica of a heap of glowing coals, the slender-legged wooden pedestals holding brass jardiniers filled with crimson-leaved coleus plants, the statues of birds and animals on every window-ledge and mantelpiece, the fragile, painted-glass tulips drooping from their bowl in the centre of the wide, dark, mirror-like dining table, the towering china cabinet with diamond-shaped glass panes in its doors, and inside on every shelf an array of crystal-ware set close together like the domes and turrets of an intricate narrow-laned glass city – and can hardly believe that all these have been bought with money left after the Riordans have paid for their imposing house, their Buick car, their wardrobes full of clothes, the meals that they eat and the whisky that Stan likes to sip after tea, and the money that Stan gives without a murmur to St Boniface’s parish, the nuns at the convent, the brothers at the College, St Roch’s Orphanage, the St Vincent de Paul Society, and half a dozen other Catholic charities. Augustine has always owned one expensive suit, one soft grey hat with carefully composed dents and creases and a fiery-green peacock feather in its band, and one pair of shoes with gleaming uppers, so that in the crush of the betting ring or in the open spaces of the mounting yard he appears the equal of any Goodchild or Riordan. He has never bet with anything smaller than a pound note on a racecourse or five pounds in a credit bet by telephone. He has travelled long distances in taxis rather than admit to some of his racing acquaintances that he has no car. And whenever a group of his friends stand fumbling in their pockets for the price of a racebook or entry to the saddling paddock, it is nearly always Gus Killeaton who pulls out a ten-shilling note and pays for everyone and waves away the coins that they find at last and hold out to him. Because he sometimes talks vaguely about his family’s property in the Western District, some of the men that he mixes with on Melbourne racecourses believe that he comes from a wealthy family of g
raziers, and those who have noticed that he is sometimes able to go to midweek meetings suspect that he does not work for wages but lives on the income from his share of the family estate, but when he swings open the rusted iron gate in Leslie Street and picks his way along the vague track through the gravel and weeds to the back door and walks into the tiny kitchen and sees the wooden table covered with blue linoleum frayed at the edges, the four unsteady wooden chairs bound around their legs with fencing wire, the pea-green wooden ice-chest with its legs resting in jar-lids full of water to keep out the ants, and the cupboard of varnished plywood where his wife keeps the remains of the only dinner-set that they have ever owned and the assortment of odd cups and saucers and plates that she buys at Coles as replacements, Augustine wonders at the boldness that has enabled him for so many years to pass himself off as a prosperous racing man. His wife has a savings account which never amounts to more than a few pounds but he himself has rarely been inside a bank. When he has a good win, which happens every three or four months, he keeps the roll of notes in his fob pocket by day and under his pillow by night. He peels off two or three ten-pound notes and gives them to his wife to buy some clothes for herself and Clement and something for the house. He uses most of the remaining money to pay the most pressing of his accounts with the starting-price bookmakers of Bassett. The money still remaining becomes his bank for the next few weeks. When he is desperate for cash, he sometimes borrows from some wealthy Catholic bookmaker or racehorse-owner and usually manages at last to pay the man back. None of his racing friends, not even Stan Riordan, has ever seen inside his house. They welcome him as an equal into their homes because they know from his dress and the way that he carries himself with his shoulders squared and the fluency of his speech that by rights he ought to have been born the owner of a thousand acres of Victoria. Augustine has never even considered whether he ought to live from just his wages as assistant farm manager at the Bassett Mental Asylum. He has never thought of renting a little shop and gradually amassing capital as Mr Wallace does. He believes that there is only one place where a man with little money behind him but with more than average brains and cunning can hope to win for himself his rightful share of the wealth that he sees every day in the possession of men much less able that himself. For nearly twenty years on racecourses all over Victoria, Augustine Killeaton, with only his native shrewdness and his neatly pressed suit to help him, has gone on trying to wrest from graziers and factory-owners and bookmakers just a little of the wealth that allows them to sit in cool houses and watch the late afternoon in their Gippsland forests or the bewildering twilight among their crystal palaces.