‘Go easy on what?’ demanded Alfie. ‘What have I done? I didn’t write the damn thing!’
Frank shrugged: ‘As I said at the time of the Bundy business . . . Public Service. Petty power.’
‘But we can’t go creeping round in fear of offending their sense of their own importance. We’re dedicated to better things. If we’re going to let these Little Hitlers . . .’
He came to her and put his arm about her. ‘Sweetheart . . . I told you before. You’re in. While you’re in there’s the chance to do the better things when the time comes . . . the New Settlement. Just take it easy till then. Come on, now . . . let’s have dinner.’
For a moment she stared at him as if doubting him. But he met her gaze steadily, gave that easy smile again, and bent and kissed her. She sighed: ‘All right,’ and let him help her up, take her in his arms and kiss her again.
The couple had not long finished dinner and were listening to the radio, to the BBC and an argument between a group of Intellectuals over the Spanish Civil War. It seemed that Italy was sending troops into Spain to fight against the Republicans with the insurgent General Franco, while the British Government, under Prime Minister Baldwin, was preventing even the passage of volunteers to go to help the legitimate Spanish Government against what was being called hotly ‘Fascist Aggression’ as opposed to the other side of the argument’s cold ‘Bolshevik Interference’. A loud knocking at the door. Frank and Alfie exchanged glances. Then Frank rose and went to the door. It was Fay McFee. Her penetrating contralto rose above the radio. ‘Those bloody Fascists . . . may I come in?’ Frank looked troubled. But Fay was already leaning in and shouting to Alfie, ‘Hullo, there! Thought I’d drop in with a peace-offering.’ She held up a bottle of whisky. ‘I suppose you’re mad at me? Heard that the Brass has been kicking up a row.’ She was in, and in a moment with her big behind jammed in a cane chair, talking Spanish Civil War, while Frank turned down the talked-down BBC and got glasses and ginger ale.
Suddenly Fay asked, ‘Well, how’d you like the Pen Portrait?’
The popping grey eyes stared down their embarrassment with evident growing indignation as the silence lengthened. Alfie broke it, panting slightly, rosy of cheeks. ‘You promised to wait a while . . .’
‘Promised nothing!’ Fay snapped. ‘I never make promises in my work . . .’
Frank cut in: ‘I distinctly heard you say you’d agree to wait a while.’
‘And haven’t I . . . about three months?’
Alfie snapped now, ‘I expected you to consult me first.’
Frank was hesitating with the bottle. Fay assumed a sort of leer, saying, ‘I like mine straight, thanks,’ then added, ‘That sounds like Dr Cobbity.’ When Alfie didn’t answer, Fay went on, ‘If I’d’ve consulted you, you’d then have had to consult him, eh . . . is that it?’
Frank handed her the drink, and proceeded to pour the others with ginger ale, saying, ‘We’re trying to be careful till the right time comes.’
Fay leered again: ‘Till the sweet by’n’by, like . . . cheers!’
The others drank, but in silence.
The grey eyes challenged them again. Frank said, ‘If Alfie’s to do any good for the Aborigines the best way will be from inside the Department . . .’
‘Taking orders from Cobbity and Co.!’ Fay finished her drink, shoved her glass out for another. As he poured it, she added, ‘Looks like she’s got to take orders from her old man, too.’ She bared her teeth in a grin at him.
Going red, he said, ‘Indeed, she doesn’t.’
Fay took a swig, then demanded, ‘Then why the hell’re you doing all the talking?’ The challenging glare turned on Alfie. ‘I thought you had a mind of your own. You seemed to in court the other day. D’you have to get away from him to use it?’ She jerked her fairish frizz contemptuously towards Frank.
Quite red now, and with black eyes ablaze, Alfie panted, ‘Really!’
Fay said to her, ‘Looks like Rollo Ramstones, my editor, was right about you . . . you’re just a pretty kid playing a game.’
Frank said stiffly, ‘If you don’t mind, Madam . . .’
She turned on him with teeth really bared now: ‘You keep out of this! I wrote that thing out of admiration of your wife . . . for her guts in standing up to tyranny. Leave her alone. Let her do what she was born to do . . . which is to work to make a better world, not crawl to a bloody boss.’ She swung back to Alfie: ‘Because that’s what you’re doing . . . at the instigation of this . . . this silvertail!’ She stressed the term with the utmost contempt and a glance at Frank to show she meant it. ‘If you’re going to give in to these petty bosses, you’ll never be anything but one of them. I asked you a question when I came in . . . How did you like my Pen Portrait of you? . . . I want your answer.’
Alfie’s little bosom was heaving as she met glare with glare. She drew a deep breath, let it out with a rush: ‘I like it very much . . . but I don’t like you!’ Tears sprang to drown the glare. She turned and rushed out to the kitchen.
From watching her go, Frank swung on Fay and said coldly, ‘And now, Madam . . . if you’ll excuse us . . .’
Bouncing up out of the chair, Fay snapped, ‘I’ll excuse you nothing. Give me my whisky. You can get plenty as cumshaw off the Chows.’
He flamed, but answered evenly, ‘Be careful what you say.’
She showed all her teeth at him: ‘I always am careful what I say . . . and that’s how I get away with it. But I do say it, Mr Silvertail . . . so just you be careful what you do. Goodbye . . . and bugger you!’
Fay marched out. Frank stood gaping after her till he heard her car start up, then turned and went hurrying to the kitchen, to stop and gape again, on finding Alfie leaning against the sink, helpless with silent laughter. For a moment he stared, then grinned. Then they fell into each other’s arms laughing.
‘Oh, that last bit!’ cried Alfie. ‘Oh, oh, ha, ha, ha!’
‘There’s no doubt about her . . . ha, ha, ha, ho, ho!’
But when they’d got over it, Alfie, sniffling back the tears it had brought, said, ‘She’s right, though. If we keep on giving in to them, we’ll get to be like them. We have to fight them.’
‘Not yet, my dear . . . not yet.’
When she looked at him with big eyes, he asked, ‘Don’t you trust me? There’s only one thing I want . . . my darling’s happiness. You know that.’
She dropped her head to his breast, sighing: ‘Yes, darling . . . I know. Yes, I trust you.’
‘Then play it safe till the time’s right.’
She raised her head suddenly: ‘But there’s one thing I’m not going to do, and that’s go on that cruise with all those damn snobs and prigs, with their OBE’s and Knighthoods. I couldn’t stand it. I’ll take the kids for a picnic instead.’
‘Aren’t they supposed to be at the public shivoo at the Oval . . . to get flags and medals and lollies and things?’
‘Let the white kids and the black kids get ’em. What reason have my yeller kids got for celebrating the crowning of a half-wit on the other side of the world? I’d rather they never heard about it.’
‘Thank God you didn’t say that in front of old Fay!’
‘At least it’d’ve shown her I don’t have to ask your permission to say things.’
They laughed and embraced again. Then he said, ‘But you’ll have to go to the Levee, you know.’
‘Who says?’
‘It’s a command . . . a Royal Command. Didn’t you read the invitations?’
They went back into the lounge-room, where he took from the sideboard the cards sent from the Residency, headed, You Are Commanded To Attend . . .
‘Well, blow me down!’ she exploded. ‘The cheek of it . . .’
‘The Old Man’s assumed the Royal Prerogative . . . whether rightly or not I don’t know. But if we don’t go, we’re looking for trouble, I guess.’
‘That settles it . . . It’s mediaeval tyranny! I’m not going. You can.’
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He sighed: ‘My little fire-eater, as our immediate master said! It might be fun, you know, to see the snobs. What chance’ll you ever get again to go to a Vice-regal Levee?’
‘None that I’d take, any more than I’ll take this one. I’ll do my job. I’ll shut my mouth. But I won’t go on the command of a puffed-up little tin-god like the Old Man, as you call him. No, I won’t!’
He sighed again, taking her in his arms: ‘Okay. That settles it. I won’t go, either. They’ll probably not notice us, anyway. I’ll be glad to keep out of the other thing . . . Shane’s schooner party. Can I come to your picnic?’
‘Of course. I tell you what we’ll do . . . we’ll have a cruise, too. King George . . . for God’s sake . . . I mean that old blackfellow, the fisherman, at the Compound . . . he was telling me the turtles are laying their eggs now over on the beaches, just outside the harbour. What say we hire a launch . . . and go and gather turtle eggs?’
‘Great idea!’ he cried. ‘Willie Pak Poy’s got a big launch. I might get him to take us for nothing by forgetting about his dirty dunny!’
Alfie’s revolt went according to plan — except that afterwards Alfie admitted regretting not having attended the Levee, on hearing that Jumbo Delacy had done so without the Royal Command and caused a diversion of which she had to say, ‘I’d have loved to have seen it!’ It seemed that Jumbo had leapt from the watching crowd of commoners outside Government House, just as his white-side nephew, Martin, on the spotlit dais on the front lawn, was having the ribbon and medallion of the Order of the British Empire hung about his neck by that stand-in for Him just then having the Crown placed upon his holy head some ten thousand miles away, Colonel Close, and shouted something like: ‘The bastard got quarter-caste kid in Compound!’ Nobody who spoke of it later either could, or would, describe it clearly. They said it had happened so swiftly. Almost as soon as Jumbo had shown himself amongst his betters and got that bit out, the King’s Men in khaki, who should have been more alert than to have let it happen at all, pounced, and stifling anything else Jumbo had to say, dragged him away. The wonder was that His Honour had not then withheld the MBE he had for Police Superintendent Bullco and the Police Medal for Sergeant Cahoon, granted, as the Royal Citation had it, For Devotion to Duty. When Alfie made that remark of hers, Frank’s reply to it was to the effect that thank God she hadn’t been there, else she might have piped up with something about the Shell Oil Company. She said, ‘I might have, too, seeing who the gongs were being handed out to!’ She would mean Captain Shane, who got an OBE, For Service to the Pearling Industry, and Dr Cobbity, who got the same Order, For Services to Tropical Medicine.
As anticipated, other recipients were Major O’Dowdy, MBE, For Devotion to Duty, and Clement John Eaton, KCMG, which might have been cited as for the same purpose, seeing that it was with something like devotion that he did his duty by his master, Lord Vaisey, but instead repeated the citation that went with his stepson’s OBE. So at last Rhoda was truly Her Ladyship. Alfie couldn’t mock at that, not yet having had the honour of meeting the lady or enough knowledge of her to be interested. She also didn’t mock at the O’Dowdy thing, but instead, early next morning rang Dotty and congratulated her, then came out with her real purpose, which was to ask if Nelly Ah Loy would be free to join in her picnic. Dotty said she hadn’t anything official, for one reason that Robert was not yet awake, but rest assured that Nelly would be waiting for them on the beach below the Jail.
There was plenty of room in Willie Pak Poy’s launch Maskee for several other mothers also. Alfie took them without the permission she should have had, because Mr Turkney, also, could not be roused from the slumber he was rapt in through having taken part in a party Dr Cobbity had thrown after the Levee, and Mrs Turkney ignored Alfie’s attempt to get her advice in the matter. So Alfie said, ‘Maskee!’ having just learnt that the name of the boat was Malay for What’s it Matter! In that mood she also included Queeny Peg-leg when that one, seeing and hearing what was going on, asked if she might be in it. The tide was at neap, which made embarkation easy from the Compound beach and the picking up some twenty minutes later of Nell. Alfie kissed her as she came aboard, much to Nell’s surprise, but only for a moment, since she had real interest obviously only in her but slightly interested son. Prindy had fishing line out, ready for spinning, under the direction of King George, and in no time after they got under way again had a kingfish so big that George had to help him in with it. Other kids wanted to use the spinner; but Prindy, his grey eyes shining with excitement, would not hand it over.
Thus out through the harbour’s mouth and into the ocean, turquoise today, and along the western shore to Turtle Bay — a lovely spot, with a creek in the middle for anchoring the launch, and pandanus, casuarina, and tea-tree growing to the very edge of the ledge that marked spring-tide high-water. George had already shown them the tracks of turtles on the long white heach. They lost no time in getting ashore and sharpening sticks as George directed; and then, the bigger ones swinging the kerosene-can buckets they were to bring it home in, went racing to the buried treasure — Alfie well out in front and very conspicuous in a one-piece crimson bathing suit. Only grey-haired Willie Pak Poy with Peg-leg stayed behind, Willie to look after the boat, he said, and she because she was no salt-water woman and found it hard going in sand. George, taking it easy with Frank, gave it as his opinion that the pair were going to have a bit of Play-about. He added: ‘Dat bloody woman no goot!’ He and Queeny had kept as far apart as possible during the voyage, and not simply because they were tribal brother and sister. They were well known as enemies from a long way back.
While being quite careless about leaving tracks, turtles show great cunning in concealing their nests. Even those of the kids who’d come from salt-water tribes hadn’t located any eggs before George came up and did it for them. It was only a matter of shoving the pointed stick deep in the soft dry sand and if it came up with sand sticking to it, there was a nest. But where, oh where, in a waste of turtle-flipper-scored sand! George got one first pop. Then everybody dug, like terriers. Two and a half feet down; and there they were, like a mass of billiard balls, till you touched them, and their flexible shells rumpled. Fifty-seven in that first nest. They robbed another of exactly fifty, a third of nearly seventy. Alfie became concerned about wiping out the species. But George said there would be nests for miles, all round the coast, and out of each nest only a few piccaninny turtles survived, what with birds and sharks and things waiting on their birthday; even so, the seas hereabout teemed with full-grown turtles: ‘Some-feller proper old-man,’ he added. ‘Me only piccaninny long o’ him . . . eeeeeeee!’
But Alfie called a halt at three nests. Anyway, it was all they had cans enough to carry. Then they headed back to the launch, and near it, beside the creek, made a dinner camp under leafy trees, and using a huge frying pan from the Compound kitchen, after separating non-coagulable whites from yolks, made mighty omelettes, eaten with tomato sauce and bread and butter, and washed down with lemonade from Mr Tootle’s. While they were eating, they saw the schooner San Toy go gliding by, a lovely sight with all sails set and leaning to the gentle breeze, a fitting vessel for all those grand ones aboard her. But as Alfie said, ‘I’d rather be here eating tuttle, wouldn’t you?’ The answering cry was a general hearty ‘Yu-ai!’
As they were coming home in the evening San Toy passed them again just as they were entering the harbour, close enough to distinguish the faces of those aboard. There they all were, the accoladed ones, and their hangers-on. Dr Cobbity and Captain Shane and the O’Dowdys responded cheerily enough in response to the Maskee crew’s waving; but the rest were stiffish, if they deigned at all. She went on, the lovely thing, to pass the Rainbow Reef beacon and head in towards the Delacy place, where there was to be a grand finale to this wondrous day for colonial snobs and toadies.
Quite tired out, the Compound commoners landed, to trudge up to their respective quarters. Alfie kissed everybody in saying Goodnight
, even George, who cried, ‘Eh, look-out!’ The children fell into bed.
No one came out of the residence to greet Alfie and Frank. It had been another day of junketing, of course. So they got into the old Rolls and headed for home. Alfie leaned her head against Frank’s shoulder, murmuring sleepy-sounding as the kids, ‘I think it’s been about the happiest day of my life.’
He kissed her cheek, ‘Let’s hope they don’t do anything to spoil it for you.’
‘What can they do?’
‘You never know. We stood ’em up on the Levee. Notice the Old Man didn’t wave?’
‘That pompous old bastard . . . let him do what he likes . . . he can’t take this lovely lovely thing away from me . . . oooh!’ She curled up to him, fell asleep.
IX
It was just a week after the Crowning, Anointing, and otherwise rendering of that inoffensive, stuttering, inbred, German-Danish-anything-but-English, young Englishman, erstwhile called Albert, something entirely different from the common run of men born of common women, George VI, by the Grace of God, King of the Pommies, Defender of the Anglican Faith, Emperor of India, Sovereign Lord of His Dominions Beyond the Seas (which would be about the time it took for his subjects in that remote part of his Imperium called Port Palmeston to recover sufficiently from the booziness and general lunacy attendant upon the event to get back to their mean work-a-day) that Alfie Candlemas had an official visitor call on her at the Compound School, but in no way concerning the school. It was a policeman, as the kids announced with indrawn breaths the moment the yellow utility truck came into view. It was, in fact, more than a common policeman — no less an officer of the law than Sergeant Dennis Cahoon, Police Medal.
Poor Fellow My Country Page 57
