Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  There was a stir of expectancy when at last the principal witness was called upon to testify. He may not have heard, so stonily did he sit with red eyes fixed on the last of the five-miles-long backbone of the Shade of the only master he recognised. Mr Bundy called on him thrice, then asked Mr McCusky had he anything to say for his protégé. McCusky rose, saying, ‘Nothing, Your Worship,’ and sat down.

  Mr Bundy had timed it so nicely that it was all over and done with before lunch. He declared he found that Willy Ah Loy had met his death as the result of violence feloniously done upon him by Cock-Eye Bob, otherwise known as Bobwirridirridi, with some degree of compliance from the other six held with him in custody. He then stacked his papers into a neat pile, but instead of rising and so causing the rest to rise because he was the representative there of The Most Gracious One whose medallion hung upon the wall, leaned over to say in a low voice to Mr Doscas, ‘Might as well get the committal over now, Dickey, eh? We haven’t got anything else this week. Be able to catch up on some back work.’ Dickey nodded, but heaved himself up and rolled back to confer for a moment with Mr McCusky and the police. He turned to the Bench to nod that all were in agreement.

  Mr Bundy then assumed his regular role of Police Magistrate, and without ado committed Cock-Eye Bob for trial, on a charge of wilful murder and his accomplices on that of being accessories before and after the fact, at the next Quarter Sessions. Then he rose, bowed, was bowed to, and was gone, out through the door under the Royal Insignia, as if through the navel of a colossus into its guts.

  Prindy, known as Prendegast, although being shoved by him who had so altered his identity, lingered looking over his left shoulder at the filing out of the prisoners, down from the dock to the door on that side, shepherded by their khaki keepers, last of them, loping along on crutches, with a coal-red glance and a slit of a grin for him in disappearing. Mr McCusky, talking over his own right shoulder to the Anthropologists, Dr Cootes and Mr Ferris, about meeting for lunch at the pub, did not notice. Indeed, so rapt in conversation with the two scholars was Mr McCusky that he let go Prindy as they got free of the seats, so that the boy went out to the verandah alone, where promptly he was pounced on by no less than three females, all gabbling to him at once — his mother, Miss Kitty Wyndeyer, and Miss Fay McFee. His mother wrested physical possession of him from the others, taking advantage of the evident mutual animosity of the other two which caused them to be diverted from the object of their primary attention to glare at one another. Both had been trying to make dates with him, Fay to talk to him, she said, Kitty to play him some more musics. Mr McCusky pounced upon the lot of them, demanding, ‘Hey, what’s all this . . . what’re you up to, Fay?’

  For answer Miss McFee bared her teeth at him and stalked away. But Miss Kitty gushed to him about the boy’s interest in music that day at the beach, and couldn’t she have him at least to Sunday School at the Compound school? McCusky said, ‘Wait till the school opens. He’ll be going there till we send him away.’

  ‘Send him away . . . where to?’

  ‘A new school for boys we’re opening down the Centre.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a long way off, isn’t it!’ Miss Kitty sounded relieved.

  McCusky snapped, ‘What d’you mean’s a long way off, the new school or the Centre? We start the new school with the Financial Year.’

  ‘Then he’ll be quite a time yet at the Compound school.’ Miss Kitty ruffled the fair hair, smiling happily. ‘School starts week after next . . . after Australia Day . . . why, and of course we’ll be having another picnic on Australia Day . . . at the Oval, with sports and things . . . if it’s fine, of course. Will you be coming to that P-er-Prendegast?’

  McCusky answered, somewhat gruffly, ‘Yes . . . he’ll be there. Now come on, you two, I want to take you home. I have to get back to town to lunch.’

  As he ushered mother and son out to his car, Miss Wyndeyer stood watching, and smiled and waved as they drove away, and sighed and looked sad and lonely as she went back into the deserted Courtroom, to her typewriter and the pile of depositions.

  III

  It turned out that bad weather caused cancellation of the Australia Day Sports that would have meant a picnic at the Oval for the Compound kids and made impossible all other sorts of outdoor fun and games. It was what you had to expect in these parts, considering the time of year. The Sports were listed as an annual event simply to be in line with the rest of the Nation, most of which, considering it as populace and not as earth, being in what is called the Temperate Zone, could expect fine weather. A Nation of Sports, Australia, predominantly and pre-eminently, without much nationality. Hence Australia Day should be primarily a sports day. What to do with the day if sports were impossible? Well, this was not the Temperate Zone, and Temperance was here considered a virtue only by a few. There were always the pubs, for the men, at any rate. For women with children there was the chance to make extra-last-minute preparations for getting the kids off to school next day, first day of the school year. For the kids it could be an extra day of grubby liberty. White kids, that is. Certainly the spoiling of the day for outdoors activities wouldn’t mean something more in the way of a contribution to Australian Nationalism on this Australia’s National Day. Indeed, it would mean less contribution than there would have been, because had there been the Sports, the Town Band would have been there and included in its repertoire such stirring renderings of Australian patriotism as Advance Australia Fair, Australia Will Be There, and The Road To Gundagai, of course along with God Save The King. Anyway, what did it really mean, this National Day? Until recently it had been called Foundation Day, because primarily it celebrated the founding of the Penal Settlement of New South Wales, perpetuated that day on which the First Fleet sailed into Port Jackson, and gentry with muskets and cat-o’-nine-tails, after having stood guard over their several hundred fellow-countrymen who’d spent the voyage of half a year coming halfway round the world chained in the ships’ holds, stepped ashore to receive what remained of the chained ones and to add balls to their chains in case they might be thinking that here was a Land of Liberty. Cause for patriotic fervor, this reminder of what the Nation had sprung from? Perhaps there was some unconscious subtle irony about the choice of the anniversary as National Day for such a Nation.

  But however the white folks and the black folks and the yellow folks of Port Palmeston spent that Australia Day of roaring rain, what of the particoloured Compound kids to whom any sort of day out of their cage was one of delirious flight?

  Only Miss Kitty Wyndeyer asked the question. She asked it of several people who should have been primarily interested, beginning with the Reverend Mr Tasker, who said, ‘Yes, I suppose the poor kids will be disappointed. But what can you do to entertain them on a day like this? We can’t even feed them. All arrangements for refreshments were cancelled.’

  ‘There’s the ginger beer,’ she said.

  Mr Tasker looked as if he didn’t like that bit. Mr Tootle, the soft-drink maker, had already prepared and presented the keg of that precious stuff. Perhaps Mr Tasker thought it better that he drink it himself than let it go to waste. Miss Kitty added that she could have a whip-round amongst friends and get a few cakes and things. ‘But what’ll you do with the children? It’s such a wretched place to do anything when it’s raining and blowing like this . . . even pray.’

  ‘I’ll take the harmonium . . . and we’ll have a sing-song and tell stories.’

  ‘All day!’

  ‘I just can’t disappoint them, Reverend.’

  ‘All right, then. But you can’t expect anyone else to go with you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t . . . only David, to bring the harmonium.’

  ‘And you’d better let him come back . . . and call for you later. And you’ll have to ring the Turkneys and see if it’s all right with them.’

  It was not all right with the Turkneys. Mr Turkney said that they’d had to feed the children in the schoolroom that morning. When Miss Kitty said tha
t that’s where they’d have their picnic, he said he’d have to put Mrs T on. Mrs T was quite a while in coming, and only to say flatly No. The schoolroom was all ready for school tomorrow, and she couldn’t have it upset. It was bad enough having to feed the children their meals in there — but a picnic! Impossible. Miss Kitty said she’d see that the place was left exactly as she found it. Impossible, repeated Mrs Turkney, adding, ‘You don’t know what a mess these children make. Also, you don’t know what a fuss-pot that teacher, Miss Lilyponds is. Slightest thing wrong and she’s reporting to her head teacher, and he to Dr Cobbity. Sorry, but definitely no.’

  ‘But they’ll be so disappointed.’

  ‘Not as much as you think. Anyway, it isn’t your fault . . . it’s nobody’s fault . . . only the weather.’

  Then it occurred to Miss Wyndeyer to have the children down to their own Mission Hall — all the room in the world and the harmonium and the picnic things already there! Mr Tasker frowned over it slightly, beginning by saying, ‘Really, Miss Wyndeyer!’ But he agreed, adding: ‘Ring up Turkneys again, though, first. They’ll tell you they’ll have to have McCusky’s permission, and that may well not be forthcoming. You know how their Department is about us, always thinking we’re trying to steal a march on them.’ To that Mr Tasker added something more, and bitter-sounding. ‘But I wonder would our Mr McCusky be as suspicious of the designs of his own Church on his charges . . . what he’d say if Father Gorgon or Mother Mary Joseph asked instead?’

  Mr Tasker was right about it all. ‘Very definitely No,’ said Mr McCusky. ‘You know our policy with our own charges. We don’t interfere with yours.’

  Sounding rather desperate, Miss Kitty asked McCusky, ‘Well, might I have just the little boy, Prendegast . . .’

  ‘He’s not at the Compound yet. He’s at Jumbo Delacy’s.’

  ‘I know. I would have picked him up. It was really on account of him that I didn’t want to disappoint them. He’s musical, you know . . . and I promised to play for him.’

  ‘No . . . sorry, Miss Wyndeyer . . . but it would be creating a precedent by giving you permission to take certain children from the Compound.’

  ‘But he doesn’t belong to the Compound . . . you said yourself . . .’

  ‘He’ll start belonging to the Compound when he starts school there tomorrow. Sorry, Miss Wyndeyer. Goodbye!’

  Mr Tasker shrugged over Miss Kitty’s obvious dejection. ‘I warned you my dear. Now, off you go and forget about it. I’ve a lot of writing to do . . . and I’m sure you’ll be able to fill the day with good works of some sort.’

  But what seems good works to some may be judged sheer evil by others. The corollary perhaps is that there is neither good nor evil. The trouble is that corollaries are the deductions of minds, which is to say, in most if not all cases, prejudice.

  Certainly Miss Kitty Wyndeyer would not have filled the day with the wickedness that her works thereof were subsequently called had it not been for the extraordinary temptation to which she was exposed. But perhaps the greater the temptation the greater the sin of yielding, since little ones might sneak up on you and naughty you before you know it. Without doubt, clad in her rain clothes, she was going to get her bike from where it stood in the bicycle rack on the Mission Hall verandah, when she found waiting there with the truck David, the Mission Centre’s factotum, the halfcaste Japanese, if that was what he was. David had been standing by when Kitty asked Mr Tasker about having the picnic at the Compound, and on hearing him agree, evidently as eager for the excursion as she, had gone off to get the truck. He told her now that everything was ready. Harmonium and ginger beer keg were in the back of the truck covered with tarpaulin. She hesitated just one moment — was lost, and let him help her into the cabin of the truck. No one else was aboard.

  She was flushed, silent, obviously very guilty. But David appeared to be preoccupied with business of his own, kept his slant eyes on the streaming road, made only a few remarks about the weather. It wasn’t until they were coming to the turn-off of the Compound that she spoke, saying they weren’t going there, but to Jumbo Delacy’s place. David was surprised, and concerned, so much that he stopped the truck. Avoiding the slant eyes she told him a little of what had taken place, making it sound as if Mr Tasker had agreed to their at least having a picnic with Jumbo’s family. He shook his head: ‘That Jumbo Delacy no goot man, Missus. I bet he drinkin’ dere. All-lot halfcaste gone mad drinkin’ now dey got permit. Jumbo don’t get permit. But dat other lot go dere makin’ party.’ She said no matter, they were going there. He was sulky now as he drove her.

  That David was more conversant with the wicked ways of the town than to be expected in a Missionary Man was soon revealed, beginning with their arrival at Jumbo’s to find things just as he had predicted. Half a dozen halfcaste men were there, making enough noise for half a hundred, celebrating Australia Day for the first time as true Australians, at least all except Jumbo, who by law was considered not competent to bend his elbow with enough propriety, as indeed he showed when he saw who the visitors were, and from roaring: ‘Home, home on de range, where de deer an’ de buffalo roam . . .’ suddenly changed his tune to: ‘Wha’ you puggin Bible-bashers wan’ comin’ my place, eh? I don’ wan’ no bloody puggin’ Jesus bijnitch ’ere. Get’ell out o’ it!’

  Rumple-faced Possum apologised to Miss Kitty out in the rain, while the mob inside howled with laughter over the idea of Sunday School at Jumbo Delacy’s, a couple of them hooting things that would suggest to anyone listening cloosely that David wasn’t the Missionary Man he ought to be. David was listening all right, the way he cringed and looked to see if Miss Kitty heard. But she had her ears blocked with goody-goodiness against dirty words and suggestions, and besides by the look of her was preoccupied with disappointment in being led into sin only thus far and no further. Or so it seemed — until Possum suggested that she take Prindy back to the Mission Hall and play to him there. ‘Yes . . . yes, that’s a good idea!’ exclaimed Miss Kitty. And Prindy was got from the shed where, perhaps, he had taken refuge from the cacophony that had been going for music in the resonant iron house. When told what was afoot, he fairly flew to the truck.

  David looked particularly sour about going back to the Hall, but needn’t have, because as he soon learnt, they weren’t going there at all. How could they? For one thing it would be regarded with disapproval by all those who had the power to hand out that unpleasant thing, and must come to naught. For another, this was sin; and sin’s something to be done properly or not at all. They were going to Miss Kitty’s home. She looked at David, as if expecting disapproval first from him. Instead he even looked pleased. He looked even more pleased when she said Yes to his suggestion that he should take the ginger beer and deliver it at the Compound after setting her and Prindy down. She asked him to come back to pick them up somewhere about three in the afternoon. It was then around eleven. Right smartly David carried the harmonium into Kitty’s sitting-room, then vanished into the rain.

  You couldn’t hear the rain here nearly so much as in most places, because it was old-fashioned with a high peaked roof that the rain rather skidded off than crashed onto, and thickly ceiled and lined, a gentleman’s house of the old days, no doubt, and built by Chinamen. Now it was paintworn and in many ways dilapidated, surrounded by the little tin and cypress boxes of the working class. It was actually two houses, as Miss Kitty explained to Prendegast as she made tea and sandwiches for them because he’d said he was hungry when she asked him. See, those doors were nailed up. On the other side of them lived Miss Fay McFee. She sighed a little, saying, ‘We shared it together once. But we fell out. It’s a pity. Because we did get on so well. She’s awfully demanding . . . but I couldn’t do what she last demanded of me . . . even for the piano. The piano’s hers. I miss it. That’s why I joined the Mission people to be able to play the organ. But my love is the piano. I’m saving up to buy one. But they’re awfully dear here . . . twice the price they are down South, because of fr
eight . . . special freight, you see. And poor Fay can’t play so well, really. That’s why I left the Telephone Exchange to work as Court Reporter. The money’s so much better . . . although the work’s so terribly exacting, and I make mistakes, which are very worrying, because what you write may be vital to someone’s case. I like the Exchange. I like people’s voices. They sound better through a telephone, too. Have you ever talked on a telephone? Don’t you even know what a telephone is? My! I don’t suppose you even know half of what I’m saying to you. So I can tell you, what I’ve wanted to tell someone, but dare not. Fay’s a journalist, of course . . . quite dedicated, oh yes. But to betray my responsibility as a telephonist, even if the people were bad and wanted exposing, was too . . . too . . . well, I don’t know what to call it . . . but I couldn’t do it. And so we fell out. People say it’s because we were living like lesbians. You don’t know what that means, I’m sure. People have hinted at it. It isn’t a bit true. Fay isn’t like that. She just dislikes men. But I mustn’t go on chatting, when we have the Musics, as you call it, to play . . . the lovely musics. You’ve had enough to eat? All right, then, let’s to our Wurlitzer . . . heeeee! Poor little old thing, isn’t it . . . so tinny sounding. I wish I could play you the piano . . . Bach, Chopin . . .’

  ‘Do you know, dear,’ she added, as she sat down at the harmonium, ‘I had a dream of you as a great composer . . . while yet a child, like the great geniuses of music. You were on the stage in a great crowded theatre, a little boy in a velvet suit, sitting at a grand piano. I was there in front . . . and so proud of you!’ Her pale blue eyes swam with tears as she looked at him. She sniffed them back, turning hastily, saying, ‘Silly old thing, aren’t I!’ and pumped vigorously for a moment, then did a little scherzando. ‘What’ll we have first . . . the Melody in F, if I remember, was your favourite? Away we go then.’