Jimmy nodded, grinning. ‘I’m learnin’ good, Brother Fish.’ He tapped his chest. ‘I am improving ex-po-nentially,’ he said smugly.
I shook my head slowly. ‘Watch out – she’s got you by the knackers, mate.’
As far as the editorial not being the most effective way to go, I was quite wrong. By the morning following the printing of the Gazette there was a long queue outside the newspaper office.
People continued turning up to sign the petition for the next week, until we had 1600 of a potential 1800 signatures. Only the old and infirm hadn’t made a showing.
The Reverend Daintree had even penned a sermon about Noah anchoring his ark on Mount Ararat and promptly planting vines. When the first crop of grapes was picked, pressed and made into wine, Noah became drunk and fell asleep in his tent, uncovered. His son Ham saw his father’s nakedness, and reported what he saw to his two brothers. When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what Ham had done, he cursed Ham’s son Canaan, condemning him to be ‘a slave of slaves’ forever.
Jimmy nudged me. ‘Dat me, Brother Fish.’
The dotty old Anglican minister had then pointed out to the congregation that as far as he knew there had only been one Mrs Noah, and that the laborious study of the Old Testament he’d conducted throughout the past week had shown no evidence of Noah being a bigamist or taking a second wife. This could only mean, according to the good reverend’s logic, that Ham was a half-caste and that all of Noah’s sons must also be half-caste and that Mrs Noah must obviously have been a black woman. If this was the case then it automatically cancelled out the curse placed exclusively on the children of Ham, as we all came from exactly the same beginning. It was ipso facto entirely appropriate that Jimmy Oldcorn should remain among us. But after that the reverend lost the plot and complained that when the bitterly cold south-westerlies blew in over the island it was impossible to get anyone to hew wood for the manse, but that he had sufficient water in the rain tank at the back, thank you very much. He neatly concluded his sermon by thanking Charlie Champion for the half-leg of ham he’d brought over at Christmas, saying it was pink and not black and simply delicious and that on Christmas day he’d enjoyed it with a glass of Madeira wine.
We were just about ready to go with all the stuff we needed when a letter from Mrs Zara Holt arrived. It was short and to the point and seemed to have the right ring to it. Or that’s what we told each other, even though it had been written on a typewriter, which I noticed caused Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan to wince. A slightly worried frown crossed her face when she unfolded the letter – she’d waited, not opening it until she’d sent a message for Jimmy and me to come to the newspaper office.
Miss Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan
Queen Island Weekly Gazette
Livingston
Queen Island
16th March, 1954
Dear Miss Lenoir-Jourdan,
I received the letter from Louise Cross written on your behalf and by way of introduction. She has become a dear friend since we met when we both attended the queen’s coronation in London.
The very fact that she has been prepared to lend her support to you in the matter she mentioned in her letter means I too will try to be supportive.
Having said this, you will, I feel sure, accept that I must be allowed to make final judgement for myself and in order to do so, I urge you to send me the particulars.
Yours sincerely,
Zara Holt
Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan held the letter to her lips and seemed to be thinking. ‘Hmm, she’ll take him to the top,’ she said, after a few moments.
I looked at Jimmy, and he shrugged. ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.
‘She’s the right wife – circumspect, clever and conscious of her husband’s position without being arrogant. She’ll take him a long way.’
‘But what do you think about her letter? Is it okay?’
‘Reading between the lines, I’d say it was encouraging.’
‘Well then, what next?’
Jimmy interrupted before she could reply. ‘Nicole ma’am, Brother Fish he done write about da POW camps, him an’ me. He say I da hero,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘He don’t write nothin’ ’bout da harmonica and how it save our ass more den one time. I ain’t com-fort-able ’bout dat.’
Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan smiled. ‘I’ve read the account by Jack and I must say I think it strikes the correct note. I know how difficult all this must be for you, James, but you must trust our judgement. The people on the island have given you their overwhelming support and that’s encouraging, but we’re a long way off winning this thing and I’d rather gild the lily somewhat than say too little. I’m sure, if it were necessary, witnesses could be found to substantiate what’s been said.’
I wondered how the hell we’d go about that or if many of the white American blokes who’d benefited from Jimmy’s courage and leadership as prisoners would come forward to give him a rap.
With very few modifications Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan’s original letter was sent along with an impressive package that contained the petition, the fifteen pages I’d written, the official press photographs that had appeared in the Hobart Mercury showing Jimmy and me standing with the governor and Robert Cosgrove, the Premier of Tasmania, who, by the way, we were later to discover was an ardent supporter of the White Australia Policy, so the photograph may not have been the greatest idea. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had written on the back of it ‘For interest only, this appeared in the Hobart Mercury’. She said at the time that she didn’t want the minister to think we were exerting undue pressure or taking advantage of a situation where the governor and the premier had acted in a strictly official capacity. But she also included the official photograph of me receiving my gong. ‘It puts a face to the piece you’ve written, Jack,’ she claimed.
We were just about ready to go when Jimmy produced two written pages and handed them to Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, whereupon he more or less insisted they be included. ‘May I read this?’ she asked.
‘Sure, Nicole ma’am, but yoh cain’t change nothin’, ma’am. Dat da con-dish-un.’ Jimmy said it quietly but in an unmistakable tone of voice I’d heard before and which I knew meant business. It made Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan look up in surprise, not having hitherto seen this side of Jimmy.
She started to read and after a while I saw a tear roll down her cheek, and then another. After she finished reading she dabbed her eyes, sniffed and blew her nose real hard. ‘Oh dear, yes of course,’ she said finally.
‘And da “Fish Song”, where you done wrote da music an’ translate dem chink words, an’ Gloria ma’am, her cray-stew recipe – dat gotta go in.’
The good thing was that Jimmy now had a say in the submission to Zara Holt. He wasn’t sitting like a shag on a rock while others went to work on his behalf. He had a lot of pride. Lately he’d been going for long walks on his own and I reckon I knew what he had been thinking – that he’d like to crawl into a hole somewhere, disappear and save us all a lot of trouble. I guess he’d been a loner all his life. While I feel sure he knew we loved him, that I was his mate, come what may, love is something you’ve got to become accustomed to. If you don’t get it early in life then it’s bloody difficult not to secretly think of yourself as a bit worthless.
Take me, for instance. I didn’t lack love as a child. I mean Gloria hadn’t dished it out in great big dollops, and Alf hadn’t exactly been Australian Father of the Year. But he hadn’t been cruel or mean-spirited, and we’d known that Gloria loved us. Moreover, unlike a lot of island men, Alf hadn’t taken his Saturday-night drinking out on us. If Gloria hadn’t exactly smothered us with affection she’d nevertheless been fiercely protective of her children. She still got teary about having been forced to take me out of school at fourteen. There’d always been food on the table, and I’d had a happy enough childhood. Yet with all this going for me I’d still been pretty sure I didn’t amount to a pinch of the proverbial. The Korean War had helped to make me feel more w
orthwhile and Jimmy had had a whole heap to do with that – much more than the medal, which could have gone to any bloke in our platoon.
Until now, Jimmy had never had anyone in his life to stick up for him or to love and fight for him – except perhaps for Frau Kraus, who had definitely loved him in her own loopy, gobbling-spider sort of way, and I think he’d understood that. But before her it had been the orphanage and afterwards the streets of the Bronx, the reformatory and then the army. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of love to share around in that lot. He had a big swag to carry made up of the past, and I’m sure he felt he was being an unnecessary burden to us. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. But I’m buggered if I know how you tell a bloke you love him without making it sound like there’s something else going on.
After we sent the package off it was only a question of waiting, which, of course, is always the worst part. We had one big problem – Jimmy’s visitor’s visa ran out in three weeks and the chance of anything happening in so short a time was pretty forlorn. Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan had pointed this out to Zara Holt in her slightly revised letter, which, by the way, had been written on the same notepaper as the draft, but with the embossed bit guillotined off. We’d applied for an extension, but of course if Canberra was going to give us the run-around, they weren’t going to extend his visitor’s visa for another three months.
Then Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan received a phone call from Lady Cross, who told her that Zara Holt had called and thought it best not to write to acknowledge receiving the package but that she had read it with great interest and felt she might be able to set things in motion.
‘What does that mean?’ I asked, thinking it sounded like something you did on the dunny.
‘It’s newspeak for “roger, out”,’ Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan answered, surprising both of us by knowing a radio operator’s term for ‘message received and understood’.
I don’t know why I was surprised. I mean, I’d known her all my life, only to discover in the last couple of weeks that she’d been born in China, spoke Cantonese, German and French and was a countess – well, probably a countess, she still hadn’t told me she definitely was. In fact, she hadn’t brought up the subject and I hadn’t been game to ask again. If I now suddenly discovered she’d been a secret agent during World War II, sending radio messages to the British about enemy submarines off the coast of China, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised. Although, I reminded myself, she’d been on Queen Island during the war.
‘Mrs Holt is nothing if not careful, which, if she decides to get involved, is a good thing.’ I sensed Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan was a little disappointed at Zara Holt’s response. The fact that she hadn’t acknowledged our submission in writing, but instead elected to convey a message on the telephone via the governor’s wife, was worrying. It meant she was covering her tracks so there could be no evidence of her involvement if her husband didn’t take the bait.
I suspected that half the fun in this women’s game of ‘emotional exceptions’ was the interplay in the correspondence passing between them. In those days everyone wrote letters to each other – apart from the back fence it was the major source of gossip in the world. Instead, the exclusive women’s club was at work, with Zara Holt and Louise Cross playing the game while Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan, not yet a club member, sat on the sidelines. I wondered if they’d feel the same if they knew she was a countess, which I was beginning to assume she must be more and more.
Then a good thing from a bad source happened. Jimmy received a letter from Mr Cuffe telling him that Canberra had approved a three-month extension of his visitor’s visa. He was to go to the Immigration Office in Hobart with his passport so he could complete the formalities.
The time set for his appointment was mid-afternoon, so he’d have to stay in Hobart overnight. I was due to be demobbed in Launceston, so I decided to stay there while Jimmy did the two-day round trip back to Launceston. Wendy was taking time off and we were going to spend a couple of days at the Walsh family fishing shack.
We took the first plane out in the morning. My discharge from the army was not much more than a question of handing in my uniform and signing a few papers at the personnel depot. A bit of a let-down, really, although it’s hard to imagine the army thanking you for being in the service – let alone thanking you for something as trivial as putting your life on the line. Wendy and I hoped to be cycling our way to the shack well before lunch. But when I got into the city and called her, she said there’d been a slight change of plan and that her mum and dad wanted to have lunch with us. Would I pick her up at the chemist, as she was doing a half-day because the temporary girl couldn’t make it until the afternoon.
This was pretty unusual, as Dr Kalbfell always had his surgery open until after lunch so that people who wanted to see him could come during their lunch hour. He didn’t close until three, and had his lunch then before his hospital round.
‘What’s up?’ I asked Wendy after I’d kissed her, and we were walking to the Kalbfell home up the hill. ‘What about the surgery?’
‘Dad’s cancelled his lunchtime appointments to have lunch with us,’ Wendy said.
‘How come?’ I asked suspiciously.
Wendy stopped and turned to me, and with her head tilted towards her shoulder, squinting slightly into the sun, she said, ‘It’s not him. It’s Mum. Well no, it is him and Mum.’
‘What about?’
‘Us.’
‘Us? What does that mean?
‘The fishing shack.’
‘What, she doesn’t want us to go?’
‘No – what it means.’
‘What it means? It means we’re sleeping together. What does your mum think – we go down for the fishing?’
‘Don’t be a smart-arse, Jacko! Sure, they know that. It’s just . . .’
‘It’s just what, Wendy?’ I said, suddenly angry.
‘Jacko, I love you!’ Wendy said, distressed.
‘But they don’t think I’m good enough? Is that it? Well, they’re damn right – I’m not.’
Wendy grabbed me and put her head on my chest. ‘Jacko, don’t say that!’ She looked up at me. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’
I pushed her away. ‘Oh Jesus, Wendy, how can you even ask?’
She looked at me. ‘Jacko, my dad’s going to ask you if you’re serious about me.’
It was such a ridiculous understatement about how I felt that I was forced to laugh. ‘Serious? You mean so I’d give my life for you? Indubitably, my dear,’ I said, using a Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan phrase, grinning.
Wendy laughed, her mood changing instantly. ‘Then I can have your medal?’
‘All of them – and the one I’m still gunna win rescuing you from the dragon.’
‘Jacko! My mum is not a dragon!’
I laughed. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
She was suddenly serious again. ‘My dad’s going to sound pretty pompous.’
‘Wendy, your dad is pompous. Most doctors are.’
‘So my mother is a dragon and my dad is pompous. What does that make me?’
‘A vessel full of fire and passion but with an added tincture of rectitude.’
‘Jacko, that doesn’t sound like you,’ she said, though I could see she was pleased by the compliment.
‘It’s the other me, the Jack McKenzie Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan swept from the library floor at the age of eight.’
‘Yes, I’ve glimpsed him from time to time. Not a bad sort of chap – quite bright, really,’ Wendy said, putting on a posh voice and sending me up.
All the same, I was pretty nervous as we approached the house. I’m not sure ‘pompous’ was the right word to describe Dr Kalbfell. He was a doctor, and in those days doctors sat at the right hand of God.
Mrs Kalbfell met us at the door even though Wendy obviously had her own key. The door probably wasn’t locked anyway, but she must have been keeping an eye out for us because the front door swung open as we came up the gard
en path. You could see where Wendy got her looks – the doctor’s wife was still a good-looking lady. She smiled a little nervously as we approached. ‘Hello, Jacko,’ she said, before turning to Wendy. ‘Hello, darling. I’m so glad you could both come to lunch.’ She extended her hand to me. We hadn’t quite reached the peck-on-the-cheek stage in our relationship.
‘Hello, Mrs Kalbfell, thank you for inviting me,’ I replied, taking her hand and shaking it lightly.
Wendy kissed her mum, and Mrs Kalbfell then said, ‘Daddy is in his study. Perhaps you’d like to show Jacko through, darling.’ It was all very civilised, but I sensed it wasn’t all sweetness and light in the Kalbfell home.
Wendy gave me a sympathetic look, took my hand and led me down the hall, stopping at a door at the very end. ‘Hello, Daddy. I’ve brought Jacko,’ she called out, opening the study door about eight inches.
‘Come in!’ Dr Kalbfell called. ‘I’ll see you at lunch, Wendy.’ He sounded friendly enough.
Wendy gave me another quick look, then kissed me on the cheek and whispered, ‘Good luck.’ I entered the study – a reasonable-sized room with a door that led into the surgery that had been built as an extension onto the back of the house. The door to the surgery was open and the two rooms seemed to have spilled over into each other so that the desk in the study and the one in the surgery were both covered in the usual doctor’s paraphernalia. There were two leather armchairs in the study and an identical third one in front of his desk in the surgery. The big differences between the two rooms were the basin, the screen that I imagined concealed the doctor’s couch in the surgery, and the pictures on the wall. Scottish hunting scenes graced the walls of the study – a perfectly rendered painting of a male or cock pheasant, another of three stags on a hill, one of a gillie knee-deep in grey-green gorse holding up a brace of what were presumably grouse, and lastly a print of a grey hare at full stretch. Hanging in the surgery were two long medical charts showing a male and a female body, the skin missing so you could see all the details – veins and arteries, muscles, heart and intestines. They created the effect of a cold, comfortless and impersonal room. On the wall behind the desk were the two small framed certificates doctors always display to show they’re legit. Oh yes, and the carpet on the polished wooden floor in the study was sort of Persian-looking, though at the time I wouldn’t have known if it was the real thing, while the surgery floor was covered in blocks of dark-green Feltex.
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