Poor Fellow My Country

by Xavier Herbert

  She turned wide angry eyes on him, ‘Asking for what?’

  He smiled, shrugged again, ‘You’d know that better than I, sweetheart.’ Then he planted a kiss fair on her cherry lips, hung there for a moment, then withdrew and waved her on. With face burning she started up, slipped into gear, and with a glance and a little wave, drove off. His face became quite sad as he looked after her. Then sighing, he went slouching back to the hotel.

  VI

  At Lily Lagoons, the winged watchers gave early warning of the approach of the big black car. Everybody was peeping when it reached the white gates. Identification was easy, of course, and not whispered through the place on indrawn breath as sometimes happened, but called quite gaily by most: ‘Mitchis Elfie!’ Only one of the household regarded the visit as intrusion, at least to judge by his tight expression and his shortness in speaking of it, and that the master himself, at the moment attending to Golden Bobby’s feet in the veterinary hospital attached to the annexe. He dropped what he was doing to go to the telephone in the so-called den, and ringing the Big House, grumpily told Nan that he was not to be disturbed, that he would not see the visitor until he came over to dinner at six-thirty. It was then around four.

  Nan came out smiling to greet the smiling Alfie as she drew up before the front of the house. Alighting, Alfie took the extended brown hand, kissed the plump brown cheek, said she hoped she wasn’t intruding, bursting in on them when they’d only just got home, but she had something terribly important to tell Jeremy. Saying nothing about intrusion, only asking how she had found the trip out, Nanago led her into the lounge-room and seated her, then asked if she would like a cup of tea. Alfie said she’d love one. Then Nan went through to the kitchen, but to return within a minute or two, to seat herself and ask about how the party had been going and after Mist’ Frank. Alfie, by her darting glances, seemed to be wanting to ask about Jeremy, but got no chance before there was the maid Cocky with a laden tray, dainty sandwiches and tea.

  ‘What lovely bread!’ said Alfie, nibbling.

  ‘We been bake in camp-oven early morning.’

  ‘I’d love to learn how to make bread.’

  ‘I learn you. You stop tomorrow, eh?’

  ‘I’d love to stop here for ever. But I came to see Jeremy about something very special.’

  ‘He very busy now with horse. He come over for supper.’

  When Alfie looked like expostulating about that business, Nan said, ‘I get you room ready. I get girl bring in you swag. You like to read something?’

  Alfie soon saw that there was no arguing against the rules of this household. When it was announced that her room was ready, she went up to it with Nan, set about bathing and otherwise putting herself to rights.

  Jeremy arrived in the lounge, along with Nan, at exactly six-thirty, approaching the suddenly glowing Alfie with the outstretched hand and smile of the formally receiving host, as if they’d not met in a year and more, let alone parted only at midday this day with kisses and tears. He even said, ‘Nice to see you.’ Then when, burning with confusion she babbled that she’d come because she had something Terribly Important to tell him, he said, ‘So Nan tells me. But you’re staying at least a couple of days aren’t you? Let’s have a drink. Like one of my patent pharmaceutical cocktails . . . or a glass of my very famous beer?’ They had cocktails, the three of them. When Alfie tried to broach the subject, he interrupted her again: ‘We make it a rule here never to be serious while eating or drinking . . . especially drinking. Drinking should be done for the sheer fun of it . . . The Subtle Alchemist, you know.’ He asked about the Christenin’ party after he had left, and expressed disappointment when she replied that she hadn’t seen any more of it than he: ‘What a pity! It’s sure to end up in a Donnybrook. Bridie and Colleen would probably start it . . . they’re ancient enemies . . . and Colleen’s longest knife was the fact that Bridie had no babies. I could see the light of battle in Bridie’s eye even while I mumbled the mumbo-jumbo at the font. Then the two boys’ll get into it . . . then it’ll be a free-for-all, with McDodds rushing in at last to shout of Eerish cloodhoopers disturrbin’ the sabbath peace o’ decent Protestant people . . . and getting a sock in the eye off Finnucane. Old Andy’s always got to get out the Barley Bree when Old Shame-on-us gets out the Tullamore Dew. I’ll have to tell you a few yarns about the private fun and games of the people of Beatrice River for your book.’

  They went into dinner, where he kept up an amiable host’s conversation. Then they came back to the lounge, for brandy and his special coffee and to listen to the news commentaries. When she tried chiding him for his interest in International Affairs when he had expressed indifference for the lunatic world at large only yesterday, he replied, ‘I’m worried about Australia’s involvement. Remember I told you that if we enter another war, as bankrupts, culturally and financially, we’ll be sold up . . . and it looks frightfully as if we’re going to be so involved.’

  Well over an hour passed, while Alfie sat with dark brows rumpled, eyes troubled. Then, switching the radio over to soft music, he asked abruptly, ‘Well, what’s this urgent business?’

  Alfie started, looked at Nan, said after a moment, ‘I promised not to tell anyone but you.’

  He gave a bit of a snort: ‘If you mean you can’t tell me in front of Nan it’s silly . . . because I’d tell her, whatever it was.’

  ‘But I swore.’

  He quoted: ‘“Was I sober when I swore?” . . . You certainly were in the party mood when I last saw you.’

  The dark eyes swam, the lolly lips trembled. She muttered, ‘Oh, Jeremy!’

  He sighed, looked at Nan, who rose. He called to her as she headed for the middle stairway, ‘Don’t go to bed yet, dear. We won’t be long. We all need an early night. Alfie’ll probably want to be coming up to bed soon herself.’

  The dark head drooped. He waited. At last she looked up, blinked at him, murmured, ‘Why are you being cruel to me, Jeremy?’

  He had to blink on that. He said slowly, ‘I’m sorry . . . but I did tell you very definitely, you know, that I didn’t want you to come out till I had gone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have come, either . . . only for this.’

  ‘No?’ The question was dry.

  ‘It’s not just an excuse, Jeremy . . . it’s . . . it’s terribly important, as I’ve said.’

  He sighed. ‘Well, tell me.’

  ‘I’ve seen your grandson.’

  They stared at each other for a moment. He said in the same dry tone, ‘I have two grandsons . . . I think. One isn’t accounted for . . . by law . . .’

  She blazed at him: ‘Are you going to keep on repudiating that poor little boy?’

  ‘I have never repudiated him. If in fact he’s my grandson, it was his father who did the repudiation . . .’

  ‘Well, you’ve never accepted him as grandson?’

  ‘How could I when there’s no proof that he is?’

  ‘You know very well he is.’

  ‘I don’t. He could easily be Dinny Cahoon’s son, as some believe. But that wouldn’t make any difference to me whose son he was . . .’

  ‘You still won’t accept him!’

  ‘Not till he accepts me.’

  She was redder than ever and her eyes never so large. ‘What a proud and stiff-necked man you are deep down! You don’t accept anybody, do you?’

  ‘On the contrary . . . I accept all who truly need me.’

  ‘Well, this child needs you now.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘For godsake, girl . . . what game are you playing?’

  ‘I’m not playing any games. I’m trying to make you come down off your Olympus and do something practical. I consider it the test of your life to fight for the custody of this little boy. If you fail it then . . . then . . .’

  ‘Then what?’ The dark eyes welled, the curly head drooped. He said sharply, ‘If you start crying, I’ll get my wife down to deal wi
th you.’

  The head jerked up and anger flashed through the tears. ‘Deal with me?’

  ‘Sorry . . . badly put. I meant take care of you. Only a woman knows how to deal with a crying woman . . . the same as with crying children. Women and children cry for many things . . . it can even be from temper or artfulness. Men don’t know. They can only guess.’

  She sniffed and dabbed. When she had control he said, ‘Now, without any histrionics, without any salvoes, tell me what you’ve learnt about the boy. I won’t listen if you start your silly moralising again. You know nothing about this boy, or me . . . or anything much at all, it sometimes seems to me. Now . . . please . . . the facts, and nothing but the facts.’

  When she had told him what she knew, he sighed: ‘Poor kid . . . so happy there with simple old Barbu, playing a game of being a little rajah . . . playing his flute. I heard him a couple of times . . . and you bloody harpies come along and drive him back into the bush!’ He almost shouted the last, so that she stared at him, shocked.

  He sighed again. ‘Sorry. But I’ve talked about this to you before. If and when that boy needs me, he’ll come to me. He might be coming now . . . running away from people like you, who’re interfering with his life.’ When her head drooped again, he said sharply, ‘No tears . . . or the discussion’s over.’

  She asked weakly, ‘If he comes to you, will you fight to have legal custody of him?’

  ‘If he asked me to.’

  ‘How could a little boy ask you that!’

  ‘Madam . . . is it your intention to insult me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jeremy,’ she almost whispered.

  ‘Now, let’s have a last drink and go to bed. Tomorrow I should be able to find time to take you for a trip to the Painted Caves . . .’

  ‘Will you, Jeremy?’ She was like an excited little girl.

  He spoke to her as one: ‘If you’re good.’ He raised his voice: ‘Nan, dear . . . come and have a nightcap.’

  Nan came smiling, in nightdress and dressing-gown. They had their drink, a special concoction. Then Jeremy pecked the cheek of each in turn, ‘Goodnight,’ and departed. Nan and Alfie went upstairs slowly, without a word round the moon-luminescent louvred verandah, to Alfie’s room on the West side, at the fly-wire door of which they stopped, as if not sure what to do — till suddenly Alfie seized Nan, hugged her, kissed her, then fled into the half-darkness of her room. Nan went padding softly on bare feet round to her own room on the other side. It was a long while before either of them fell asleep. Likewise Jeremy, who sat reading in his den till midnight.

  When Jeremy came across for breakfast next morning and found Alfie done up as a stockrider, he suggested that she spend the morning learning to ride, with Darcy as her riding master. She was delighted with the idea, and added her own, which was that they might then ride out to the Painted Caves together. Jeremy chuckled, saying that part of the process of acquiring equestrianship was wearing in the stern, so that not only would she be requiring an additional cushion for the truck ride out to the Caves, but a pot of ointment that was one of his famous concoctions. He delivered her to Darcy, but left abruptly to attend to his own business. He was almost as abrupt when, somewhere about eleven, she came to him walking stiffly and smiling ruefully and patting that wobbly bum of hers, asked for the ointment, but in such a way as might suggest to a man less circumspect that he might deal with the lovely thing himself. He sent her off to the big house, saying he would see her at lunch.

  Immediately after lunch they set out for the Caves, by way of the little Vaisey stockyard beside the waterhole called Langunun, and up into the non-sacred galleries on the eastern side of that wide bay in the sandstone escarpment, to reach their object just as it was being presented to full advantage by the westerning Sun — as for how many suns in Time only the Sun herself, the Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun, would know. Jeremy went through the same procedure, as perhaps with all he took to see the show, namely that of sitting for a while in shade to accommodate vision to best advantage. But there was no such drastic effect on this lady visitor as the last. With hands in belly pockets, tossing curly head from side to side, pivoting for better angles of view on sharp-toed high-heel riding boots, her comments were mainly those of any knowledgeable art-gallery walker: ‘Hmm . . . striking, isn’t it . . . primitive, but striking . . . the colours of the earth itself. I like that one. What would it represent? A Dreaming Road? What’s that? Oh! Looks like a Catherine wheel spinning and shooting out sparks, doesn’t it . . . eeeeeeee! Colourful, though . . . complete mastery with the abstract.’

  When they’d seen enough he showed her Terra Australis; or as he called it with a dryness of tone that was surely expressive of irony, The View. Her comment was: ‘All those miles and miles of trees . . . a huge country, isn’t it, our Australia . . .’

  ‘Ours?’ When she looked, he said, ‘Lord Vaiseys, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes . . . the bastard!’

  ‘Not poor old Alf who’s the bastard . . . us.’

  She nodded, ‘Yes . . . us.’ She caught his arm, drew close to him. He started moving.

  As they were climbing down he asked, ‘Well, how did it truly affect you?’

  She answered at once, ‘It was wonderful.’

  ‘For what?’ When she looked quickly, he added: ‘I ask everybody that. It’s interesting to hear the different views.’

  ‘How does it affect you?’

  ‘I’m in a very different position. I’ve seen it countless times. I’ve developed an attitude to it.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not helping you out in the matter, lady.’

  Somewhat snappishly she answered, ‘I don’t need you to. I answered you by saying it was marvellous . . . that . . . that . . .’ She boggled.

  Not looking at her, he asked, ‘Did it strike you as childish?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘But you could hardly say it was sophisticated art.’

  ‘It’s abstract art.’

  ‘Could you enlighten me on that term? I’ve read a lot about art . . . that stuff has made me, in trying to understand it . . . but the term Abstract as applied to it beats me.’

  ‘It means expressing your individual self . . . not being concerned with any convention in the matter . . . you do what you feel expresses you.’

  ‘Isn’t that what children do with a box of paints or crayons?’

  ‘Perhaps . . . but this is different. Children do the best they can without understanding what they’re doing. This was done with real purpose . . . the Dreaming Road, for instance . . . or the Cloud Spirits . . . just the painter’s own conception of it.’

  ‘That’s abstract art?’

  ‘I should say the acme of abstract art.’

  ‘Which is individual expression essentially, you said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How come there are literally hundreds of almost exactly similar paintings throughout this region . . . the convention . . . I suppose I use that word wrongly in my ignorance . . . changes only with what Anthropologists would call the Cultural Pattern?’

  Again she looked at him, and more sharply than ever, and this time said, ‘You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?’

  He went red, murmured, ‘Dear lady!’

  Reddening herself, she said, ‘You wouldn’t, would you!’

  ‘Truly . . . I only wanted to hear what you had to say to learn from it, if possible.’

  ‘And you’ve learnt nothing!’

  ‘On the contrary . . .’

  ‘You mean you’ve learnt something about me?’ She was angry again.

  ‘I’m learning something about you all the time.’

  ‘And I about you!’ He avoided looking at the wide hot dark eyes. She broke the little silence: ‘How did it affect your Lady Godiva?’

  ‘You mean Lydia Lindbrooke-Esk?’

  ‘I’m not familiar with the names of the British aristocracy.’ He smiled slightly. She urged: ‘Well?’

/>   ‘As a matter of fact she bolted.’

  ‘What d’you mean bolted?’

  ‘Literally . . . like a frightened filly . . . she took to her heels in fright.’

  ‘From those pictures?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘She said she felt somehow rejected by them, by the country . . .’ He stopped.

  Alfie said after a moment, ‘Well, she was a Pommy, wasn’t she . . . she was an alien in the land . . . the strangeness frightened her.’

  ‘You don’t consider yourself an alien?’

  ‘Why should I . . . when I’m second generation Australian?’

  ‘You beat me. I’m only half a generation . . .’

  ‘You are making fun of me, Jeremy . . . why?’

  He reached for her hand to help her down a slab of rock, but kept it afterwards, saying, ‘You’re going to write this book, you know . . . and you need all the knowledge of the land you can. Any fool can write a book . . . too many fools are writing books. I want your book to be really worthwhile.’

  She came close to him, to say suddenly and urgently, ‘Help me with it, Jeremy!’

  ‘Then it wouldn’t be your book.’

  ‘No . . . but it would be ours . . . which would please me more.’

  ‘No, darling . . . I was never one for double harness.’

  She cried, ‘That’s where you become negative . . . as soon as something positive’s put to you . . .’

  ‘This is where we came in, as they say. Remember our first meeting and first row, in Port Palmeston? And this is where we came in literally, too . . . see, there’s the stockyard and the ute . . . our journey’s end, you might say.’

  Her eyes were swimming as she got into the utility. He remarked, ‘Don’t tell me I’ve been to all this last trouble to assist you on your way, only to bring you to tears!’

  She bit her lip, blinked back the tears, muttered, ‘No . . . Jeremy, . . I’m always a fool to cry.’