Alfie, meeting the blue eyes blazing down the verandah, whispered, ‘Better go. Come and see us.’
‘Shertnly will . . . bu’ gi’ me a kiss before I go. You don’ min’ if I kiss your lovely lovely wife, Frank, ol’ man?’
Frank smiled: ‘It’s entirely up to her.’
‘What a lovely ’usban’ you got, too, Alfie. Tha’s what the lousy bastards been sayin’ . . . Franks’s easy. Yeah . . . he might be, I said . . . but Alfie ain’t. Kiss me, Alfie.’
She leaned towards him, with lips protruded. He drank of them greedily, gripping the table for support. When she withdrew, he sighed in her face: ‘That I’ll never forget!’ Then he wheeled about, went marching unsteadily to his spouse, who looked as if she never would forget it, either. She grabbed his arm.
As they vanished into the hall, Alfie murmured, ‘Lousy bastards is right, isn’t it!’
Frank smiled the easy smile: ‘People are like that everywhere. They mostly don’t really mean what they say.’
‘Well let’s get out of here, anyway. Let’s go down to the Terminus, and talk to some lying old drovers or miners or fettlers or someone we can trust.’
6
I
On the Sunday night following Alfie Candlemas’s dismissal from His Majesty’s Service, she and her husband were sitting listening to a radio play about the famous Beau Brummel and his association with King George IV, which rather showed how unmajestic one called Sovereign Lord could be — when there was loud knocking at the door. Frank toned the set down and went to see. It was Fay McFee again, declaring in her brassy contralto that she supposed she ought to throw her hat in first, but didn’t have one. ‘Hats don’t suit me,’ she said, ‘Except the tweedy sort . . . and I just hate to be taken for the tweedy sort, although I suppose I am. May I come in? I’ve brought a peace-offering that I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’
What would have stopped her, short of a gang of strong-arm men?
She marched in, showing a carton, from which she drew a bottle of very high-class whisky. ‘Smuggled,’ she said, ‘And all the better for being so.’ When they only stared at her, she demanded, ‘Well, do something . . . kick me out, or ask me to sit down.’
Frank looked at Alfie, then said, ‘Sit down, by all means.’
Fay handed him the whisky, sank into a chair with a gusty sigh: ‘Just dropped by to congratulate you . . . and ask what’re your plans now?’
Frank said, ‘I’m still with the enemy.’ He got glasses.
‘I know that. Scared I’ll get you in bad with ’em?’
‘Not a bit . . . now I know that you too get your whisky through the Chows.’
Fay guffawed, and raised the glass he’d poured for her: ‘Well . . . congratulations. It was a famous victory.’
‘Thanks,’ said Alfie, taking a sip. ‘But it did me out of a job I loved . . . and half the town’s not speaking to me.’
‘You should worry about that lousy half. How about sinking the rotten ship of state completely by giving me the story in full?’
Again they stared at her. She went on: ‘I know all about it, of course. Turkney spilled the beans first that night. Then Fergus Ferris and I paid that promised visit to the Compound this morning. We had the great good misfortune to have a forced landing on the beach there, with what you might call engine trouble. Nice beach to land on, that, at low tide. Fergus had taken me on a flight round the harbour, supposed to be taking photographs for the Garrison people. We even had a couple of officers aboard, friends of Fergus’s. It was they we sent up to tell Tubby Turkney and call a mechanic from the aerodrome . . . while we did a bit more photography on the ground, as well as a bit of what you might call scientific survey work with my dictaphone. Poor old Tubby was too hung-over and generally confused with militarism and aeronautical bullshit from Fergus to suspect anything. The only thing he didn’t like was the sight of me talking to Queeny Peg-leg . . . and he told me either to get off the Reserve, under his escort, or back to the aeroplane, or he’d call the police. I said first that I’d go under escort, to give Fergus time to get the cameras and dicto back into his plane. Then up at the gate I used what they call a woman privilege and changed my mind, which gave Fergus still more time while Tubby argued with me. Anyway, we have the photos we want of the dirty old dump they thought they were going to destroy without evidence of its existence, plus viva voce interviews with people who thought Alfie the most wonderful person who’d ever worked for them, and who also saw Dr Cobbity come down to the beach and bully her till she cried . . . two days before he sacked her. But before that we did an aerial survey of the town, to show the comparison with the hovels of the Compound . . . especially Cobbity’s big house, and the Delacy places, and Vic Shane’s. We were lucky to find Shane out in his schooner with the mob . . . including Cobbity. We buzzed ’em. They thought it fun. We got beaut pictures. All I want now, to sink this stinking ship, as I said, with all hands, is Alfie’s story. How about it?’
The Candlemases exchanged quick glances. Alfie looked back to ask, ‘What story?’
‘The whole of your experience with them.’
‘With whom?’
‘Cobbity and Co., of course . . . and all the rest of ’em.’
‘Actually they treated me very well . . . especially Dr Cobbity.’
Fay bared her teeth: ‘Come off it! What about the court case? What about the Oath business? What about how he treated you over, first, Lucy Snowball, and then Jumbo Delacy? It’s because you dared ask him to act with compassion to poor helpless people that he set you . . . and sacked you. He’s an arrogant dog.”
Alfie, with cheeks flushing, said, ‘He introduced the only reforms there’ve ever been made. He’s got himself hated by everybody.’
Fay sneered: ‘Don’t tell me you had a crush on him, too, like he had on you . . .’
Frank cut in: ‘If you want to stay, Miss McFee . . . you’ll have to behave.’
She swung on him: ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know what the mob’s been saying about why Cobbity took her on.’
Alfie answered sharply, ‘We know . . . and it isn’t true. He was nice to me . . . just like everybody else. He made no advances to me . . .’
Fay bared her teeth: ‘He only kicked you out because you dared to do your job properly, eh?’
‘Well . . . that’s Government Service, isn’t it? I had no right to try to make bargains with someone who was my superior officer.’
Fay downed a full glass of whisky, then yelled, ‘Good Christ . . . what’s got into you? I repeat that you uncovered several instances of callous bureaucratic treatment of poor simple people and made an approach to the man on their behalf . . . and what happened?’
Flushed and shiny-eyed though Alfie was, she looked more scary-angry than genuinely irate. She said somewhat breathlessly, ‘When I asked for the improvement in the matter of the food he did it readily enough . . .’
‘Because he couldn’t have done otherwise. The food would have been officially condemned . . . and him with it. There was no one to gainsay him in the matter of Lucy Snowball or Jumbo Delacy . . . so what did he do?’
Alfie blinked. Fay answered for her: ‘He started off by telling you to mind your own bloody business . . . and when you wouldn’t, he sacked you. That’s the plain truth of it. Listen . . .’ Fay leaned forward with finger outstretched: ‘You gave me to understand that you were going to fight these people. You gave Lucy Snowball the promise that you’d fight to get her to her husband . . . yes, I know that Fate intervened there . . . but you also promised Possum Delacy to fight to the last ditch to get Jumbo released . . . don’t deny it, because she told me. And what are you doing?’
Frank spoke up again: ‘Now, Miss McFee.’
Without looking at him, she waved him away, saying, ‘Fay’s the name to you, brother . . . and this girl can look after herself.’ She raised her big finger again to Alfie: ‘You’re in this, sister. You started it. I’m running the story with you as the centre of it. Y
ou’re in it at least up to the middle . . . so you might as well be in it up to the neck.’
Alfie panted, ‘There’s such a thing as libel.’
‘As if I didn’t know . . . and learnt to beat it every time.’
Frank cut in: ‘The greater the truth, the greater the libel, don’t they say?’
Still without looking at him, Fay answered, ‘The first consideration in law is truth uttered for the public good. If this isn’t telling the truth for the public good . . . tell me what is?’ She swung on Frank now.
He shrugged. She demanded, ‘Are you afraid of losing your job by being mixed up with me?’
‘No.’
‘You have no need to be. We’ll get you another job.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Trades and Labour . . . the Progressive . . . unless, of course,’ she bared her teeth, ‘you wouldn’t like working with the likes of us!’
He only smiled that easy smile.
She swung back to Alfie: ‘I’ve got a job for you whenever you want it?’
‘What?’ asked Alfie.
‘We’re losing a proof-reader off the paper. Soon teach you the job if you don’t know it. Want it?’
Alfie smiled weakly: ‘This a kind of bargain?’
‘We don’t make bargains in our turn-out.’
Alfie flamed: ‘Is that a crack at me for trying to bargain with Dr Cobbity?’
‘Not a bit of it. You did the only thing you could do . . . for a humane purpose. It was wonderful of you. That’s why I want your story as told by yourself. You won’t even have to write it. You can talk it onto the dicto. Start off saying: “One day Dr Cobbity came to me . . . or sent for me . . . and asked me would I take over the teaching at the Compound School. I went there and found that what the children needed before the ABC was food. What they were eating was hogwash . . . et cetera” . . . right through to where you offered to forego your principles to save an unfortunate man who you believed was being put into a lunatic asylum to save the faces of snobs . . .’
‘That’d land her for libel for a certainty,’ said Frank. ‘I told you I have the recorded evidence of a witness . . . Queeny Peg-leg. She heard it all . . . and is a pretty smart piece. Besides, this would all go through the expert hands of Truth’s legal advisers first . . .’
‘Truth?’ cried Alfie.
‘Making a national issue of it . . . and Truth’s the national paper. Truth’s fought and won that many libels that only those who have an exhibitionist complex dare take ’em to court any more.’
‘It hasn’t got a very savoury reputation,’ Frank remarked.
‘But it has a vast circulation,’ said Fay, ‘and with all the sex and the rest of it, has effected more reform in this country than any other institution that’s ever been in it. Speaking of savoury reputations, I don’t have one either . . . in the opinion of your Government Service mates. But I don’t stink in their nostrils one half as much as they do in mine . . . and as they will in the noses of the whole nation, when this gets out.’ Fay swung on Alfie: ‘Well, girl . . . are you for us or agin us?’
Alfie swallowed. Fay added, ‘Because you’re in with us . . . whether you like it or not.’
Alfie looked at Frank, who caressed her with his eyes and smiled. Then she said to Fay, ‘I’d rather do it myself.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’
‘As a matter of fact I hadn’t given up . . . about Jumbo, I mean. I was going to have another go at Dr Cobbity . . .’
‘If he wouldn’t listen to you the first time and went and sacked you after it, what chance’d you have again?’
‘I’ve got another shot in my locker.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I happen to know something else that might make him change his mind.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m not going to tell you that.’
‘Why . . . did you have a love affair with him after all, then?’
Alfie flamed: ‘No . . . I didn’t!’
Undaunted, Fay said, ‘I’m glad of that, because that would be libel. Why can’t you tell me?’
‘Because I’m thinking of Jumbo first. That’s my job . . . what I promised . . . to get Jumbo released.’
‘And you reckon you’ve got something up your sleeve that’ll make him?’
‘Yes,’ said Alfie. Now Frank was looking at Alfie wide-eyed.
‘Then why haven’t you done it?’ demanded Fay.
‘I’ve been thinking about it.’
‘You’ll have to think quick, sister. I’m getting this off for next Sunday’s Truth. Jumbo’ll be a national martyr this time next week.’
Alfie went very red, took a big swig of her whisky and ginger ale, with which she had been going very easy. She said, ‘I’ll tell Dr Cobbity what you’re doing.’
Fay stared at her. Then she bared her teeth in a sneer: ‘Won’t make the slightest bit of difference . . . only make him shit himself for a week waiting for it.’
Still red, and breathless again, Alfie said, ‘If he agrees to what I ask, I’ll repudiate all you say about me.’
Now Fay flamed. But she had control of herself, and soon bared the teeth again: ‘You can’t. What I’ll be saying will be known facts about you.’
‘I’ll stick up for him. I’ll tell the other papers that I think he’s tried hard to do a good job, but has been prevented.’
‘Like he tried hard to let Lucy Snowball go to her husband . . . and she went to the sharks instead!’
Alfie was silent, flushed, blinking, a tremor on her lovely lips.
Fay regarded her for a moment, then said, ‘You must have something pretty good to chuck at him. Still, it won’t do you any good . . . even if you score a bull’s-eye . . . because I’ve got enough on him to sink him.’
‘Why do you want to sink him? He’s tried.’
‘He’s an arrogant bureaucrat. He’s definitely not the man to be in charge of the new deal that had to be handed out to the Aborigines. He’s a doctor. He’s thinking in terms of medicine. He wants the old Compound site first for a new hospital for whites. Next he wants a place where he can practise medical eugenics on the blacks. He’s a scientist, if you like. But what is wanted for this job before all else is a humanitarian, someone who’ll weep over these people in their dreadful state, someone who won’t be able to sleep at night till he’s seen this wicked destruction of a race of people stopped. That man of yours isn’t even human. Blacks and halfcastes bolt when they see him. I have it in the simple words of Queeny and that old King George what happened when he came down to you on the beach that day. And that’s the man you’d have to be the Big Boss of what the likes of myself have fought to get for him, while he’s hated us . . . what he couldn’t get for himself because he wanted mostly to be boss.’
Alfie drooped her head.
Fay waited a while, then demanded, ‘Well?’
Alfie looked up: ‘I want to do it my own way. I don’t want to be charged with being treacherous, or vindictive. I promised first for Jumbo. I’ll ring him up . . . and tell him what I have to say . . . and what you’re going to do. I’ll try to make another bargain with him.’
‘When are you going to ring him?’
‘I’ll ring him first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Will you ring me to tell me the result?’
Alfie hesitated, looked at Frank, who only looked back intently. Then she answered, ‘Yes.’
‘Okay,’ said Fay, proceeding to heave herself up. ‘I guess I’m hardly wanted now. So, till tomorrow. No, Frank . . . keep the whisky. Give her a good slug of it to drown that bloomin’ conscience she’s got about someone who never had any. Goodnight!’
Fay got into her tinny little car and drove into the centre of town and round the back of the Hotel Queen Victoria, which was closed. She went in through the yard, headed for a lighted parlour, where men were laughing loudly. She stopped in the doorway for a moment before being seen. Fergus Ferris was tel
ling some yarn that had half a dozen men sitting with drinks about him very tickled. Then someone saw her and shut up. They all looked and were silent, some scowling. She bared her teeth at them, saying, ‘Sorry to intrude, gentlemen!’ There was no doubting the contempt in the stressed appellative. She looked at Fergus: ‘Urgent business.’ When he rumpled his brows with annoyance, she snapped, ‘Are you working with me . . . or aren’t you?’
He bit the fair harelip, then answered briskly, ‘Yessir.’ He rose, and excused himself to the others, adding, ‘Duty and beauty calls!’ The response was a general snigger.
She got her revenge as he joined her, saying to him loudly, ‘Clowning for drinks, eh? Sparrin’, they call it, don’t they . . . what broken-down boxers do. But you’ll find this mob of louts are as broke as you when it comes to paying the bill.’
The lip cocked in a grin: ‘You win, Boss.’
Fergus was now on his own, his master, Fabian Cootes, having returned to the South and the cloisters where he pontificated about primitive man amongst ten thousand artifacts and scores of grinning skulls stolen from their sacred places. Jeremy was back at Lily Lagoons. Fergus was battling for a living with his borrowed German aeroplane, and evidently doing a bit of espionage on the side for Fay. Without showing any more respect for him than for a dog at heel, she led him to her car, got into it, started up, and driving off, said to him, ‘I couldn’t get her to come in. She wants to talk to Cobbity first . . . try him again on the Jumbo business . . . another bargain.’
‘Throwing herself in this time, too, eh?’
‘Don’t be funny. She isn’t like that.’
‘How do you know? You said you reckoned she had a bit of a crush on him.’
‘I know women better than you . . . and don’t try and be funny about that, or you can get to hell.’
‘Yessir. What d’you want me to do . . . work on her?’
‘I don’t know. From what she said, she’s got something on him . . . and it’s not sexual. She knows something. We’ve got to find out what it is. I tried bluffing her by saying we could run the story without her co-operation. She appeared to believe it. We could, of course . . . but it wouldn’t be worth two bob. Besides . . . I doubt if Truth would be in it without her. They’d reckon she could bring action. Her appointment, discoveries and reforms, and then dismissal, is what makes it. She has to be the centre of it. She sort of agreed to come in if he refused her next bit of bargaining. But I doubt it. Besides, he’s sure to bluff her, whatever it is.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 60
