“The times were bad in those faraway days,
And the Irish were split in twain.
The ill-born bastards served the Queen,
The gintlemen Kellys never drew rein.”
Men cheered and women clapped, delaying the next verse.
“Ned’s old mother they flung into gaol,
They couldn’t catch Ned, so took her instead.
With never a trial nor beg pardon to her,
They kept her in gaol till Ned lost his head.
“And now my friends all the tale is told,
Of the Fight for Justice in the days of old.
They took poor Ned and dropped him deep,
And all dinkum Irish will his memory keep.”
Probably in relief from Mike Conway’s theology and Red Kelly’s harangue, the audience was vociferous in its applauding of Bony’s poetry. Bony would have enjoyed his reward had not Red, in joyous mood, clapped him on the back and winded him. Then Gaffer was being introduced as the oldest inhabitant, and he began to speak, with his top hat still mounted. He was terse, merely saying he was honoured to open the Ned Kelly Festival.
Immediately orderly attention gave place to seeming chaos. Men and women left the room. Others rearranged the chairs. Others erected trestle tables. Children looked expectant. They were marched to the stage by Rosalie, and there sang grace in the sudden hush. The silence of the throng continued after the voices ceased, and everyone was still and waiting.
This was outside Bony’s experience. The people were solemn: the setting almost drab with the daylight entering through the three tall windows. Old Gaffer leaned on his stick and gazed on the children. His absurd coat made him look like a kind of beetle, and the top hat was like a chimney pot bashed by a gale. Mike Conway’s brother reclined amidst his pillows and cushions, and standing beside his cot was Jack the Smuggler. There was Grandma Conway in her high-back chair, wearing a green silk gown and lace cap, and with her were several ancient women, like ladies-in-waiting to the Matriarch of Cork Valley.
From beyond the rear doorway came the roll of a drum, quickening in tempo and ending abruptly. The low wailing of the warpipes became loud and louder when the piper entered the great room playing the ‘Wearing o’ the Green’. He headed a procession of white-garbed cooks bearing huge platters and dishes laden with turkeys, broiled pigs’ heads, huge hams, piles of vegetables, whole cheeses, thick rich cream and fruit pies. The piper led the cooks about the room and between the tables and the people seemed lifted up by the spiritual force which captured Bony, of the Australian inland. The strings of lights he and Joe had arranged flashed on, and all was colour and sudden laughter. The Ned Kelly Festival had begun.
Bony suddenly felt a little isolated, a stranger in this hundred per cent Irish gathering. Neither by right of birth nor national sympathies could he ever be one with these sparkling people of the mountains. He failed to wipe from his mind the purpose of his presence here, or expunge from his consciousness the feeling of guilt. It needed effort to remember his assignment, to remember who he was and what he was. A hand was placed on his arm, and a voice said:
“So it’s you who crush the ribs and half strangle innocent maidens on a mountain shelf in the dark of night. I see now what a fool I was to try and hit you for being fresh. Why, Nat, you’re the loveliest man. Please take me to dinner.”
“Why! ’Tis Bessie O’Grady! You remember me?”
“What girl wouldn’t after what you did in the dark of night?”
She was wearing a flared skirt of bright green, a silk jacket of dark orange, and through her hair was laced a ribbon the colour of the skirt. Her eyes were big and shining and they banished the weather-ruined complexion. In them was mental strength and behind the smile a resolute character. The grip of her hand was powerful.
Urged forward, Bony escorted her to one of the serving tables where the cook said:
“Now for a nice slice of turkey flanked by a slice of Cork Valley ham?”
Arrayed in white coat and apron, and wearing a chef’s hat, he wasn’t instantly recognised as Mike Conway, and Bony excused himself on the ground of the unusual circumstances. He followed Bessie O’Grady, his platter heavy in his hands, and sat with her at the vacant end of a table. He became aware that she had piloted him there in order to talk of matters not associated with Cabbages and Kings.
“I posted the letter,” she said.
“Did you!”
“Rosalie’s breaking her heart.”
“Oh! Why?”
“She’s in love, Nat. That’s why. Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes. It’s always worrying at first.”
“I haven’t, so I don’t know about it. Say something funny. Grandma’s watching us.”
“Have you told Brian that he’s going to marry you?”
“Not yet, Nat,” replied Bessie, and managed to laugh. “I’m getting worried over Rosalie. I slept with her last night, and she showed me the letter he wrote, in the book, and told me what she had written to him. She asked him to send her a letter to the Bowral Post Office, and he never did. If ever I come up against him, I’ll kick his face in.”
“Now, Bessie,” he said reprovingly. “That wouldn’t be lady-like.”
“Lady-like!” she said, keeping her face tilted down to her platter. “I’m no bloody lady, Nat. Go on, crown me with your dinner. Do something to stop me crying.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Crumbs of Information
THE AFTERNOON was given up to the children and their parents, the older people drifting into groups and many volunteering to deal with the dishwashing and the catering. When Bony offered to help with these chores he was reminded that he was a member of the orchestra.
Not all the children, of course, were Rosalie’s pupils. Many had come from outside, and one group, led by a stooped, white-haired ascetic, gave several one-act plays. As actors they were quite good, and someone told Bony that the plays had been presented for years.
Before backstage drops, incidents in the lives of the Kelly gang were enacted on the temporary stage. Two girls played Mrs Kelly and her daughter Kate busy at home tasks, and several boys were ‘policemen’, uniformed in the style of that era. They invaded the cottage and submitted the women to abuse and bullying. Another scene portrayed the arrival of the gang at Jerilderie and the locking up of the policeman, while Ned Kelly took the policeman’s wife to church while the local bank was being stripped of cash. Yet another scene showed young Ned being bashed by policemen for stealing a horse he swore he knew nothing about. Then an old plough was placed on the stage and the Kellys held a conference on how to use the shares to make suits of body armour to deflect the bullets fired at them by the police. Finally, to every boy and girl, Conway’s invalid brother presented a costly present.
Following the children’s session everyone did whatever they wished. On the line of tables against one wall meats and sweets and drinks awaited the hungry and thirsty. As night blacked out the windows, the orchestra started up, and Bony, with his gum-leaf ‘music’, was blacked out by the massed accordions and fiddles. For a couple of hours the dancing was non-stop, and the first break was given over to a singer with a magnificent tenor voice, and a solo by Bony who played ‘Danny Boy’.
About eleven o’clock that night, Grandma Conway retired with her ladies-in-waiting, and many of the women also departed. The younger women stayed, dancing and flirting with fellows of their own age group.
By this hour Bony was beginning to feel slightly the worse for wear despite rigid economy on Mountain Dew. He found it impossible to refuse a noggin with Gaffer, and it wasn’t possible to decline to join Red Kelly in a drink or two over supper. Red was uproarious. He danced with all the girls with an élan equal to that of his son Brian. Then he sat on the floor with his back to a wall and slept for an hour, awoke, and began all over again.
Nothing that evening seemed to affect Bessie O’Grady. She demanded a dance with Bony, and although
he found the dances difficult, she helped assiduously and then insisted on sitting out, bringing up again the subject of Rosalie’s love affair.
“I think I’ll kid Dad to let me go up to Sydney,” she said. “He will if I work him right, and I’ll chase that Eric Hillier and see if I can get any sense out of him. I can’t just stay and watch poor Rosalie breaking her heart like she’s doing.”
“You think a lot of her, don’t you?” Bony told her, deciding to test a line of action he had been thinking over. He was sure that Bessie’s inordinate affection was based on an admiration of one so opposite and it was a trifle unbalanced. The girl swiftly nodded agreement, and her expression was one of almost fanatic adoration. He said: “Supposing Eric Hillier never received her letter?”
“But he did. I posted it myself in Kiama.”
“Posting it doesn’t mean that he received it. He might not have gone back to Sydney.”
“But he must’ve,” argued Bessie. “He lives at No. 10 Evian Street.”
“Rosalie said that when he wrote to Mike Conway his address was some other place. Didn’t she tell you that?”
“Yes.” Bessie drank her ‘wine’, frowned, and was silent for several minutes. Then: “I don’t like it, Nat. I’ve got to go to Sydney to find him and have it all out.”
“Rosalie didn’t see him leave Cork Valley, did she?”
Another period of silence followed the question.
“No, Rosalie didn’t see him leave.”
“Then why not find out who he went with? You could find that out, surely. Better start here in Cork Valley than rush about in Sydney.”
They were sitting side by side at a table, and in a swift frenzy, the girl turned and gripped Bony by both arms, forcing him to confront her blazing eyes.
“What are you saying, Nat? Tell me. Go on, tell.”
“You know as much as I do. I know very little, so you could know a great deal more. Supposing … I say supposing, Brian Kelly has been after Rosalie. Supposing he knew Rosalie had fallen for Eric Hillier, and supposing he had been told to take Eric Hillier out to Wollongong and the rail station there. How does that fit?”
Bessie relaxed her grip on his arms and snatched up her glass. He said:
“Don’t drink any more. You want to serve Rosalie. So do, I. We must keep our heads clear. We must find out who took Eric from Cork Valley—if he went at all. Now think hard. Supposing Hillier found out a secret of Cork Valley, or supposing he was reckoned as a rival and … well, you know. It comes to this, Bessie. We have to find out if Eric is alive or dead. If he’s dead, we can’t go on letting Rosalie think he’s alive.”
The girl was silent for several minutes, and Bony employed his fingers rolling cigarettes for her and himself. He had sown the seed and wondered what the plant would be, and he was to be kept wondering when Steve came to ask Bessie for a dance. He was not left alone. Mike Conway set a bottle on the table, and occupied Bessie’s place.
“You seem to be having a good time, Nat. I hope you are.” He was carrying his liquor well, and the hand which manipulated the bottle over their glasses was firm. “That Bessie O’Grady should have been a man. Has she been working on you?”
“Yes, I believe she has.” Bony raised his glass and paused to offer a toast. “Here’s to the Festival,” he said. “You know, Mike, I could be older than you, but you’ll probably agree that old as we are we can count the ifs and imagine ourselves very different had we made wiser decisions in our early years. I’m game to bet that the man Bessie marries will find out she wants more than money. She’ll want him to be Lord High Justice, or something, because what she makes him she’ll make herself. Perhaps she thinks, without knowing it, of course, that I am the type of man she needs.”
“To express herself in and through, you mean?”
“Yes. You know I did a lot of reading once. Found that almost all the great men in history were made great by their women. You read much?”
“Once, yes.” Conway smiled although his eyes were speculative.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Bony said. “I’m a puzzle you can’t solve. I’ll solve it for you. I went to high school and to the Brisbane University. Then I went bush and became a horse-breaker and stockman. I held all the ace cards of life and played every one wrong. I am true to type. Just as you are. Your parents and their parents fashioned you. Mine have fashioned me. Tell me, why you aren’t drunk, and I’ll tell you why I am trying to keep sober.”
“You ring a bell, Nat.” Conway stared at Bony’s glass from which he had taken merely a sip. “I’ll think about the puzzle: perhaps give you the answer of the last puzzle, why we aren’t as drunk as Red and many of the others. It could be that in our different ways we are both seekers after perfection.”
“You might have gone further in the search than you think,” Bony mused. “Here are all these people, your people. It’s two o’clock in the morning. Most of them are drunk. Yet I haven’t heard one obscene word, and never a hint that any woman might be offended. It isn’t a result of the Mountain Dew.”
“No, Nat, it is the result of training and disciplining a wholesome community. Those who can’t be amendable to our standards are disgorged, cast out beyond the pale. There have been very few, but still a few.” Again there was speculation in Mike’s dark eyes. “This community was first established and has been maintained on the axiom of ‘One for All and All for One’. Religion has been a powerful amalgam, but the ideal of truth and justice and simplicity of heart created in, not by, the Kelly gang has been a greater power of cohesion; thus this festival.”
Bony smiled directly into Conway’s probing eyes. Lifting his glass, he said:
“Let’s drink to it, properly.”
Mike laughed, raised his glass and touched, saying:
“Now continue easy, Nat. The night’s still a child and all.”
The night’s age was doubtful. On the platform was left but one fiddler. He was accompanying the tenor. The singer was weaving. His eyes were shut and no sound came from his working mouth. When the fiddler stopped playing and rose to accept the acclaim of an indifferent audience, the singer maintained his mouth action as he pitched forward off the platform and was caught by Jack who lowered him to the floor and left him to join in a small private singing party. Above the hubbub Red Kelly roared:
“Hey, Mac, get outsoid and do a bit of barring. The fire’s nigh dead on us.”
Red was terrific. He towered over the young woman clinging to his arm, and she was no delicacy. Her hair was disarrayed and in colour matched his. His whiskers flamed like the rays of a sun, and he was eating from a whole ham from which little had previously been carved. Brian was leading a choir seated on the floor, and beside him was Bessie with one arm about his neck and her mouth close to his right ear.
“Better start to break it up,” Mike said and stood.
Bony weaved through small groups and stepped over bodies, to arrive before the huge fireplace and be fascinated by the tree creeping in through the hole beside the hearth. The man outside wanted to know ‘how she was a-coming’, and presently Bony decided ‘she’ had come far enough. With a long-handled shovel he scooped the glowing embers about the end of the log, and was then entranced by an extraordinary scene.
Mike Conway was going from woman to woman. To each he smiled, saying something Bony couldn’t catch, and without demur they smiled in return and left the room. The man’s influence was notable. On pausing before Red’s companion, the giant shouted that it was time enough yet for the women to retire, but the woman laughed up at him, withdrew her arm from his, smiled at Mike, and obediently left. Red started to shout at Mike, but Conway merely turned from him and approached Bessie. Bessie waved gaily to those still on their feet and ran after the red-haired woman.
The departure of the women was merely an incident. Some of the musicians assembled on the platform and began to play. Men came with wicker clothes-baskets and gathered empty bottles and discarded glasses. E
very bottle bore the label of a well-known brand of whisky, but it was far in the past when they contained anything so wishy-washy as whisky. Bony remarked on this to a gangling tough in his Sunday-go-Meeting clothes, and was told that refreshment was always poured from legitimate whisky bottles in case of a raid.
“Had one five-six years back,” the ruffian said, smiling and revealing the residue of front teeth. “Police walked in on us. They looked at the bottles, held ’em to the light, left ’em. Nothing illegal entertaining guests on whisky.”
He possessed the rare distinction of having one eye brown and the other blue. He was as drunk as a fiddler’s bitch, but could still see straight.
“That was a fine poem you gave us, Nat. Will ye be doing it again on the morrow?”
“Yes, if I’m asked. What’s your name, by the way? I’ve seen you before.”
“Me! Oh, I’m Tim O’Halloran. I’m on this side of the wall, Nat. Anything to say agin it?”
“I will if the wall should stop us drinking together,” laughed Bony, and they ‘walked’ to a table where they opened a bottle of the best Scotch … in name. “Well, here’s to a thick ear before morning, Tim. You know, you defeat me. Wait a moment, though. I remember. You were the fellow who found that Hillier man mooching about over by the fall.”
“Yes, that’s me, Nat, that’s me. Said he was a geologist. Said he was hoping to find a trace of gold. Never believed it.”
“Course not,” Bony agreed. As Tim was not as yet ready to lie down on the verge of a black-out, Bony airily switched from the subject to one less dangerous. “I’m going to cut myself a snack. Coming?”
O’Halloran chose to nurse the bottle, and broke into song. Bony cut himself a sandwich of pickled pork and smeared it heavily with mustard. An abstemious man, he was fighting against the Dew, and marvelled at himself for still being upright. Carrying the sandwich, which looked like a paving-stone, he weaved out through the rear door and to the kitchen where he discovered an enormous woman standing at a vast cooking range.
Bony - 25 - Bony and The Kelly Gang Page 17
