At sound of movement in the house, more tea and toast was made and a tray set up. Millie went inside with the tray. Soon Major Dowdy came out, white-haired, red-faced, moustachioed, who bawled, ‘Good morning girls!’ and pinched Venus’s bottom as he passed her to go out by the back door.
Somewhat later there was a thudding and thumping within that made the wooden house shake. ‘Here she come!’ hissed Venus.
Into the kitchen doorway came the bulky figure of her called Dotty, consisting of two or three bundles, it seemed, so was she trussed up in bathgown and with a towel about her large head.
There was no greeting this time, just a blue-eyed glare from one to another. It lit on Nell, who was making porridge. ‘You!’ wheezed Dotty. ‘Let me look at you.’
Nell came drooping. Dotty looked her over as one would an animal, but without touching her. ‘Are you clean? Can you make beds and sweep floors, and scrub and polish . . .’ Dotty ran out of breath. Nell nodded to each question. Dotty got her breath back: ‘Well, come in and do my room . . . while I bath.’ She led the way into her cluttered scent-reeking bedroom.
When Dotty returned, now scent-reeking herself, she looked over everything with an eye ready to pounce on anything not done properly, and found a dozen things wrong and nagged about them, then said, ‘Do my hair,’ and sat before her dressing-table mirror, a heaving, blubbery mass of flesh, staring unhappily at the same thing looking back at her. She wheezed, ‘Tell me about yourself . . . and don’t tell lies . . . because I know all about you.’
Part of that early conversation in the cell last night had been about Dotty’s passion for hearing of the sexual experiences of her coloured domestic staff, with the advice to tell her, tell her anything, but tell her, because she could have you put back into the jail to clean goona buckets and mend the male prisoners’ dirty clothes, or out in the garden, where you were likely to be raped by the black bastards who worked there too. Still Nell had to have it dragged out of her: ‘Who been puggim you first-time . . . blackman, whiteman? . . . Come on, you tell me!’
So hungry was Dotty for the details that the heavy steps of the Major were clomping through from the back before the young ringer, whose name Nell said she didn’t know, had properly got started, and Dotty had to interrupt, saying, ‘It’s breakfast.’ By the look of her, food meant even more than sex. She added, ‘You can be my housemaid, and tell me while you work.’
Thus Nelyerri, probably for the first time in all the years of her obsession with it, told of her love for Martin Delacy, had to be in jail to tell it, to one virtually her jailer. The dragging out process didn’t last long. Soon it was outpouring, with tears that fell on the things she swept, scrubbed, polished, dusted, folded, set out in neat rows — not bitter tears, the way the lips curled in smiling reminiscence that brought forth the flow most copiously and the tongue took them from the lips and swallowed them as part of the sweetness of it all — and the way Dotty’s painted and powdered old wreck of a phiz would rumple up in sympathy and she would have a sniff and blink and use her own lacy hanky to mop up those falling attar drops. Yes, admitted Nell, without much pressing, it was Martin, and without having Dotty say, as most whitewomen would: These bloody whitemen . . . and him with a white wife and young baby, too! Instead, Dotty said, ‘It doesn’t matter who or what the man is you love . . . so long as you love.’ She would say, after the interruptions forced on them, ‘Tell me more.’ Sometimes she was saying it with dear . . . ‘Tell me more about it, dear . . . how you killed the babies, because he wanted you to . . . with a pointed piece of rush, you say. I wish I had a baby . . . oh, I have wished and wished! . . . But I would kill my baby for my lover. Tell me more, dear . . . I’ll never tell a soul, I swear. You are blessed among women because you love. It’s given to so few of us. It comes from above. It’s like your Old People say . . . “the magic of Igulgul, the Moon” . . .’
The other girls thought it a rare joke at first, and taunted Nell with what they called ‘Play lick-lick’ with Dotty in the bedroom. But the change in Dotty was so great that they began to wonder, began to whisper, ‘Wha’ nam’ . . . you been sing him dat one?’ For Dotty went off her food, comparatively, and off her customary bullying of them, but wonder of wonders, was being nice to her old man, instead of grow-growl-growl at him every time he came into the house. Nell had nothing to say about it, having fallen back into her dream of love, so that the girls whispered behind her back that she looked as if she were gully-gully, love-bewitched. Their own love affairs had been so different. Venus had killed her old master for denying her right of possession of another whiteman, a young one. Millie’s story was that she had been the slave of a whiteman, a trepang fisher, from puberty to the early aging that had come upon her through his infecting her with what she called the Pox, which had caused her several babies to be born dead. Then he had taken a young black girl into his bunk, leaving the mere slavery to Millie. She said she didn’t mind the work, but objected to their constantly deriding her with the worst of insults, puggin’ before her eyes. So one day while they were at it and she at the cooking stove on deck, she took the tommyhawk and finished them . . . eeeeeeeee!
Not only did Dotty train Nell to serve tea in the correct manner for her At Homes, but told her that the first one would be for guests who were coming to see her, Nell, rather than herself. Dot would say no more, except that they would be there tomorrow, and for the occasion she might wear her own dress, nicely laundered.
‘Why didn’t you kill that first baby?’ she asked.
‘Martin not tell me.’
‘S’pose he told you . . . would you have?’
‘I don’ know dat-one. Dat-one differen’. Martin find dat-one . . . gi’me for present. Spone I lose him Martin . . . I got dat-one, belong ’o him.’
‘But the others were his babies too . . . or don’t you know about where the babies really come from . . . like the blacks?’
‘I been hear dat whiteman way.’
‘Don’t you believe it?’
‘I don’ know!’
‘It’s a beautiful belief, really . . . the blackfellow one . . . like we all believed as children. Tell me . . . did that Chinaman ever give you a baby?’
‘Nutching.’
‘You used to let him puggim you, though?’
‘No-more. He on’y look out for me. He got black lubra in camp for properly wife.’
‘He was a good man . . . a kind man . . . I heard.’
‘Yas.’
‘You’ve never had another man . . . only Martin?’
‘Two t’ree . . . whiteman and halfcaste been gitchim me sometime I can’t get away . . . Race Time . . . I drink too much, might-be. Dat time Tarjen Cahoon, I been tell him ’bout.’
‘Yes . . . poor old Dinny. I think he loves you. He rang up Major on telephone, to ask him to look out for you good. Are you sure that boy doesn’t belong to him? Lots of people say he does . . . and that Dinny says so, too, when he’s drunk.’
‘Belong to Martin . . . I know.’
Dotty had undertaken to inquire daily after Prindy for Nell.
Friday was Dotty’s At Home day that caused all the mirth in her kitchen and in the cells where her housemaids slept, with their mimicry of her airs and graces. Venus was chief mimic. She would pretend to ring the little bell: ‘Ting-ting-ting . . . where dat maid . . . where dat gal? Rilly, Mitchis Cobbity, dese gals dey a try! But have ’nother coop o’ tay. Tray one dese cake. My cook, Millie, she mek ’em wid Arsenic . . . dey rilly good . . . Ah, dere you are, gal . . .’bout time, too! Bring some more Arsenic cake. Mitchis Bundy like ’em too much . . . ting-ting-ting!’ The ladylike way of holding a teacup was a source of great amusement, too. But not to Nell, lost in gully-gully.
It was Friday afternoon. There was the old Rolls Royce drawing up at Dotty’s front gate, with the sea blazing jade and silver behind it. Dotty opened the latticed door and stood smiling in her silly way, while up the stairs, hand in hand, came Alfie Candlemas and he now
know officially (unless Mr McCusky had been intimidated to change it by Mr Bundy) as Prendegast Alroy.
Dotty gave Alfie the high how’d’y’do handshake proper for At Homes, then put a fat red hand on Prindy’s golden head and smiled into the calm-staring grey eyes, saying, ‘We’ve met before, young man, haven’t we . . . remember the day you came round with the fish.’ Then aside to Alfie: ‘I must take him to his mother. Won’t you sit down. I always take tea out heah . . . the view is, I always say, the grandest in the world . . . with imagination you can see the Island of Bali, and those lovely girls dancing naked to the waist . . . eeeee!’
Dotty duly delivered Prindy into his mother’s snatching arms, leaving him staring just as calmly at the smirking Venus and Millie, to return to her ladylike duties. She said to Alfie, ‘He’s a beautiful child, isn’t he . . . despite the Abo features.’
Alfie said boldly, black eyes fixed on the watery blue, ‘Perhaps it’s because of them. I’ve seen some very handsome Aborigines.’
Dotty blinked. It wouldn’t be the kind of talk she was used to. But her responses had changed mightily during these past three or four days. She replied mildly, ‘Well, yes . . . I suppose there are. It’s only that we’re used to our own type of face . . . yes, the mother’s really quite pretty.’
‘Beautiful, I think.’
‘Yes . . . beautiful . . . with a beautiful heart, too. But tell me about yourself. I’ve heard so much about you. That brush with old Bundy you had the other day. He is an old pig at times. But, oh dear, it was taking an awful risk, wasn’t it?’
Evidently in these few days Alfie had learnt much in dealing with Government people. She laughed, saying, ‘It was all a mistake, really.’
Dotty looked relieved. And so the little bell went ting-ting-ting in reality, and Nell came with the tray, with the tay and Millie’s Arsenic Cakes, and smiled dutifully when Alfie smiled at her; and the two ladies sat and sipped their tay with fingers stuck out and stared at imaginary Bali rising like ivory out of the jade. Dotty had said she wanted to hear about Alfie, but apparently wasn’t so interested now she found her as just another little Junior Officer’s wife, when she herself was a Senior Officer’s.
She did most of the talking herself, about what was the all-absorbing social topic of the period, Coronation Day, and all that would be happening. There would be the Levee at Government House on the Night of the Day, beginning at eight, so as to coincide with the actual crowning of the King at eleven in the morning of the same day on the other side of the world. Even Dotty said it sounded mad: ‘But . . . how could the Honours be conferred unless His Majesty was actually crowned? That’d make a complete farce of it. I’ll let you in on a secret . . . but not a word to anyone, mind . . . I can trust you? Robert . . . that’s the Major, my husband . . . will be getting the MBE. It’s all supposed to be secret, you know . . . only those who’re to get Honours know. But of course everybody knows that that old braggart Vic Shane’s getting something. He hasn’t really said anything . . . but quite enough. That’s what the schooner party’s for, of course. He’ll have to have us this time . . . because he’s said it’s for all those who get Honours . . . and others, too, of course. The old thing! What would he be entitled to Royal Honours for . . . sleeping with Japanese and Chinese women he brings back from his trips, the dirty old man! It’s his money, of course. We’ve never been friends with him. He was rude to me at one of his boozy parties years ago . . . and Robert never forgave him. But, of course, it would be like lèse-majesté not to go on the cruise. We’ll have one Knight and one Lady . . . the Eatons. Everybody’s known that, since Edward the Eighth. Clem Eaton entertained Edward when he was here as Prince of Wales. It’ll make a difference to the tone of the country having a Knight and a Lady, don’t you think?’
Alfie murmured, ‘I suppose so.’
So it went on for an hour or so, till Alfie said she must be getting back to feed her children. Dotty said, ‘I believe you’re having real fun with them . . . that you’re like a real mother to them. Tell me, my dear . . . can’t you have children yourself?’
Alfie reddened. ‘As far as I know . . . yes. But Frank and I decided against it till . . . well, till we’d done something to make the world a place more fit to bring children into.’
‘So you use contraceptives?’
Redder, and sounding somewhat aggressive, perhaps in anticipation of a rebuke, Alfie answered, ‘Yes.’
But Dotty only sighed, and said, ‘I wish I could have had a child. I would have been so happy. It seems that those who want them can’t have them, and those who can won’t, or have too many. That poor girl told me that she did away with several . . . Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it! I promised not to. Please don’t repeat it.’
Dotty looked quite earnest in her request.
Alfie relaxed, smiled in a kindly way, saying, ‘Of course I won’t. I feel too bad about her myself.’
‘Bad?’
‘For getting her that long sentence with my foolishness.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. She’ll soon be out.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes . . . there’ll be another Royal Amnesty. I’ve already made up my mind that Robert shall recommend her release. Judge Bickering, who makes the decisions, is sure to agree to it, just to annoy Bundy. Rest assured of that.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you, dear Mrs O’Dowdy . . . I’ve not had a proper night’s sleep since it happened.’
Ting-ting-ting!
Nell came. Dotty told her to bring Prindy. Dotty kissed Prindy on the brow in taking leave of him. Then Alfie kissed Dotty, whose pale eyes swam with tears. She and Nell stood in the door waving the Rolls out of sight.
Alfie reached home to find her Frank at the gate again, wearing that quizzical smile. She asked, ‘How have I sinned against the Holy Writ of Government Service now?’ He shrugged. She went on: ‘They wouldn’t let me visit her unless on business connected with the Aborigines Department, when you can visit white prisoners for no other reason than friendship, compassion. They wouldn’t give me permission. So I paid a social call on the Jailer’s wife . . . Old Dotty, as they call her . . . who’s got more kindliness in her little finger . . .’
‘It wasn’t your going out to the Jail,’ he said, putting an arm about her.
Her face was rosy, eyes flashing. He kissed her. She pulled away. ‘Then what?’
‘The silly papers,’ he said, and went to the ice-box for drinks.
Palmeston Times and The Palmeston Progressive, just off the press, were spread out on the cane table. Both announced the thing identically in their biggest type: SCENE IN POLICE COURT.
The Times’s sub-heading was: Magistrate Ejects Abo. Dept. Officer. The Progressive had it: Abo. Protector Calls Magistrate’s Finding Travesty of Justice.
How differently can the same tale be told with differing design! The Times gave twice the space to it to justify justice as done in this best of all possible systems. Progressive reported chiefly the bits that made the system stink. Alfie looked up from quick reading to say, ‘Everybody knew all that days ago. We laughed it off, didn’t we?’
He handed her a glass of sherry, then opened the Progressive. The second page was almost entirely filled with a special article by Fay McFee, what amounted to the Pen Portrait that Fay had been asked to leave for a more appropriate time. Alfie took a swig of wine, and read all about the fighting daughter of that grand old fighter for social justice, Silas Tripconny. It told how she, a woman of youth, beauty, charm, everything to put her in the forefront of the legion of female parasites of the Community who called themselves Socialites, had gone into the Compound, that impregnable fortress hitherto of those who would perpetuate slavery, and within hours had had the rubbish bought as food by a heartless and heedless administration for the virtually imprisoned inmates, condemned and destroyed and replaced with something fit for human beings — how out of a Concentration Camp for unwanted waifs, by working ten hours a day for seven days a
week for a pittance, she had made a happy home of laughing healthy children — how finally, she had stood in a Court of Law and done properly the job that every other officer of the Aborigines Department hitherto had squibbed, had exposed a glaring piece of injustice, and out of the goodness of her heart, when ordered from the precincts for having dared to do her duty, had wept in pity for the victim of it, and been officially dubbed Hysterical! At last, at long last, in the lovely and gracious form of Aelfrieda Tripconny Candlemas, there was hope for those most ill-used people on the face of the earth, the Australian Aborigines!
Alfie, flushed again, drank off the wine, looked at Frank watching her intently. She smiled: ‘Quite a wrap-up, isn’t it . . . only much more what I’d like to be like than what I am.’
He smiled back, that slow, easy smile: ‘I got put on the mat for it?’
‘What?’
He refilled her glass: ‘I’m supposed to put you on it, too.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
He sat her down and set about explaining. It seemed that when the weekly papers first came off the press the Administrator, or Old Man, as Frank called him, had the right, by reason of the fact that Government Pronouncements were printed by both, to exercise a covert censorship before they were put into circulation. Of course he had nothing to fear from the Times. It was the Progressive he was always after, and they had to make the concession as the price for their share of Government printing. When he saw something that enraged him particularly, he had the Crown Law Officer read it. There had been numerous suppressions of editions and court actions over the years, so many of the latter that had gone in favour of the Progressive, which with much experience had become very smart in outwitting him, that His Honour had been ordered by the distant Bigger Fleas who rode him to go easy. He’d had the Crown Law man study this Pen Portrait thing. Then he had had Dr Cobbity in on the mat to take out on him what, on advice, he couldn’t on Fay and her editor. His order to Cobbity was to the effect that if Mrs Candlemas got any more favourable publicity from The Palmeston Progressive her services were to be dispensed with. So Cobbity had had Frank in on his mat, and said, according to Frank, ‘Tell the little lady to go easy.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 56
