Because of the glosso-epiglottic quality of the language, the writing of it in ordinary Roman alphabet had presented difficulties in the beginning that had worried Darcy into inventing new letters, which had been used, much to the contemptuous mirth of those critics of the school who had seen the writing: ‘What the hell’s the good o’ that, when only a few bloody boongs can understand it?’ — until Jeremy discovered that there was, in fact, an International Phonetic Alphabet. But even with the introduction of that there were howls of derision: ‘Only bloody Anthropologists’ll be able to understand it!’ At the back of it was the idea that those of the pupils who had a mind for it could go on to learn to write English in the almost idiotic way that much of the language has to be written, to pass the test of literacy. None had so far.
Reading and Writing was confined to Aboriginal matters. Darcy had collected many Old Yarns, as they were called, laboriously printed them in the new alphabet, and made them into little books with the aid of a Roneo machine. Jeremy promised to get him a typewriter with the alphabet whenever one became available in Australia. The children wrote their own stories, of small expeditions and walkabouts, which were passed round for others to read aloud. Sometimes one would tell on the blackboard, of some adventure and even be the cause of putting an end to classes for the day with his descriptive powers of, say, a sweet sugar-bag he’d had a hand in finding, or the proliferacy of yabbies discovered in a certain creek. There would be a yell of dirralk gurruk! — and the class would be gone, leaving Darcy sighing his resignation and turning to some other task.
There was no difficulty with arithmetic. It was only a matter of teaching the Tables, limited to ten — Ten-tens-undred! as they would conclude their sing-song recitation of it. It dealt with measurement and numbering as would be used in dealing with stock, simple money transactions, and the calculation of time. No Lily Lagoons kid had to ask how many weeks it was to the Races, how many days to Christmas; even if they still preferred to name the hour of the day at which something would take or had taken place by pointing with lips to the sky.
So simple a school could have no problem pupils; nor had it any until the attempt was made to include in it one who would be considered by many the most problematic of all children in the land, he known officially as Prendegast Alroy, but here as plain Prindy. First problem concerning him was what he should be taught. As Jeremy said to Darcy, for certain they would be having an official visit from the school’s foremost and most powerful critic, Mick Cusky, as soon as the road from Beatrice was trafficable again for motor vehicles. Luckily he was a mungus horseman; or they would have him along any time. As it was, they might expect some three months’ grace. The great man wouldn’t want to interfere with the school as it had been run till now, because he had nothing to replace it with as yet, and by the time he did, conditions in respect to Aboriginal welfare may well have improved enough to make him feel it better to leave it alone. He had seen it before and sneered, calling it a Play School and a Menagerie for Visiting Anthropologists. But what about Prindy? Was it likely that he would be permitted to stay on as one of the Performing Animals? Hardly. Surely the only way they would be able to keep the boy at Lily Lagoons was by proving that in every respect, and particularly that of schooling, he would be markedly better off there than where McCusky would want to take him; and the schooling must be of the kind Eddy and his mates in high places approved of, which is to say would equip him as a Useful Member of the General Community.
Jeremy discussed the matter not only with Darcy, but with Nanago, Tom Toohey and his wife, and even with Alfie Candlemas in a letter written to congratulate her on the publication of her book, Australia Felix. He asked Alfie as a schoolteacher for advice and books on the latest in elementary education, the books to be sent to Port Palmeston by air-mail, then brought on charter flight by Fergus Ferris and dropped, since he would be unable to land. In explaining the urgency to Alfie he had to tell her what probably he would rather have kept from her, although frank enough in confessing it to the others, namely, that failure to keep Prindy as a member of his household would be tantamount to failure of what he had given his life to. He had built Lily Lagoons as it was to stand as an example to the Nation of how honesty and wisdom could correct the hitherto accepted ravaging of the land and savaging of its owners. If McCusky could walk in with his hat over his eye and remove Prindy with the blessing of constituted authority, then he, Jeremy, must accept his enemies’ evaluation of the place as nothing but a hide-out for misfits and outlaws, run by a misanthrope they called the Scrub Bull.
Meantime the Problem Child presented a second problem, the insoluble one enunciated by the adage that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. So rapidly did Prindy recover, perhaps thanks as much to his own insistence on the use of pipe-clay and honey in treatment of his wounds, as Jeremy’s care (as Jeremy freely admitted) that, riding in a wheel-chair, he was fit to attend school within a fortnight of entry into the household. Because he had some conventional rudiments of the Three R’s and it was considered that this was the stuff he would have to pass the McCusky test in, Darcy got to work on him at once to improve him. Now, while he might not look it, Prindy was no less a blackfellow than any other member of the school, and the rule of the school was that there were to be no rules, and pupils attended only when they had nothing better to do. At the time the school was working at full vigour, because it was raining like mad. But Prindy, the music man, always had something better to do. He was the only pupil in the history of the place ever to be compelled to attend. He went docilely enough when so ordered; but only to go to sleep; and sometimes in his sleep to sing.
Jeremy also talked to the boy about McCusky’s practically certain interference, and got him to admit that he wished to stay there. But Prindy was quite unconcerned, no doubt having in mind his own method of dealing with Mick Cusky. As Jeremy said to his friends in discussing his difficulties with the boy: ‘He’ll simply bolt again . . . even if he’s got only one functioning leg to bolt on. But there must be no more bolting . . . if possible. Next time will make him an outlaw. I’ve tried to tell him that . . . that there’s one thing in being free, and another in refusing all restraint except what’s imposed with chains and bars. He’s won his freedom . . . of spirit, I mean. No one can ever take that from him. But he has to learn now that there are other ways of being free than with animal cunning and savage’s magic. For godsake . . . what have I landed myself with? I remember when I first heard him singing that song of his, My Rown Road, at Catfish, year before last, before the trouble began . . . I thought of how remarkable he was, in originality, intelligence . . . he with his background, intuitively seeking a way of life of his own. Now when I hear him playing it on his flute, I know it’s in rebellion against what we’re trying to do with him. You can teach him anything. That’s evident enough in the way he speaks since he’s been with Barbu and Billy Brew . . . Indian Mythology, Greek Mythology, Astronomy . . . and the words he comes out with! Yet all he’s doing at Lily Lagoons is waiting for old Bobwirridirridi to turn up. He hasn’t said so . . . but I know. I’ve tried to convey to him that the old fellow might be a long while in coming, might not even be able to come. He’s just looked at me . . . as if to say I don’t know what I’m talking about. It was the same with the clay. If I hadn’t got it for him and let him slap it on and eat chunks of it, he’d’ve crawled away into the Limestone and got it for himself. He doesn’t give me any credit for having cured him . . . even for finding him that day and bringing him home. Whether he knows what happened to him or not I haven’t a clue. When I asked, he just said, “Been lose him head.” Could be true, being sucked miles underground and half killed in the process. But he believes it was the Pookarakka got him through, brought me to him, sent me home with him . . . and, God help us, the same master-mind will deal with Mick Cusky for him. What do I do? As I’ve said, if I fail with him, I fail with everything. It isn’t the relationship. Truly, that means no more to me than it
does to him . . . or perhaps that’s going too far . . . I mean to compare my petty indifference to his . . . God, was anybody ever so aloof, and so smilingly so . . . “Yes Mullaka, no Grandfather” . . . so amiably obedient in everything that doesn’t matter. He’s learnt table manners, hygiene, so that he gets about the Big House like a true-born squatter’s son. Yet you can see that every time the lightning flashes and the thunder rolls he’s thinking of his true friends, Old Tchamala on Top, and the Pookarakka just biding his time to knock Blue Mud Bay Jail down and fly down to join him . . .’
Those school-books from Alfie, along with a letter and a special edition of the magazine, Australia Free, arrived on the last day of January. The arrival was most spectacular, and could be taken as most auspicious, as Jeremy remarked, seeing that Fergus came flying under a perfect rainbow. Fergus made several circuits of the homestead, at such low level and steep bank that his split-lip grin could be plainly seen at his almost horizontal cockpit window, then dropped the package almost beside the wheel-chair, to shoot off again under the rainbow and disappear into a patch of blue. The Auspiciousness was suggested by Jeremy while they were unpacking the parcel in the lounge, and handing the bright primers to Prindy. He said, ‘Looks like Old Tchamala let that aeroplane bring you these . . . so you’d better learn what they’ll teach you, eh, or that Old One going to growl you properly with lightning and thunder?’
It was said with a smile, to which Prindy responded in a way that plainly showed he took it as a joke, even if it weren’t exactly meant as one.
Alfie’s letter was brief and hardly helpful, preoccupied as she was with the sudden tremendous success of her book, which had been awarded the highest prize in the Sesquicentenary Literary Competition and was receiving plaudits far beyond expectation when it largely insulted the nation. It was that she wrote of mostly. Concerning the problem Jeremy had confessed to her, she had only this to say:
Silly old darling — didn’t I tell you you’d have to take a positive attitude to things! But Lily Lagoons is only a tiny piece of your responsibility. You’ve got no problem with the boy. All you have to do is charter Fergus to fly both of you down here. We’ll take care of him — the Movement. We have the money. We have the power. Who are McCuskys and other little creatures you’re afraid of? I had dinner with the Prime Minister and his wife last night, and told them about their arrogant little men in far places. Not that I had to, because they’d read it in my book. So you see, you have no problem — except maybe little me, who am determined that you’ll take your place in this nation you were born to. Give the books to your nephew Darcy. You aren’t a teacher. You’re a National Leader. I’m waiting for you, Jeremy darling. Don’t keep me waiting too long. Things are moving too swiftly for delay. My true love to you — your wildly happy but grimly purposeful Alfie.
The special edition of the magazine was to commemorate Alfie’s award. Much of it was given over to reviews of her book, most of which were highly laudatory, the rest being dealt with by the Editor himself in comments that should shut them up for good, such being his verbal virulence in defence of the Darling of the Movement, as very evidently Alfie had become. There was also a large picture of the darling receiving her award from the Prime Minister.
When Jeremy showed Prindy the picture and asked if he remembered the lady, Prindy answered promptly, ‘That Missus Alfie. She was teacher Compound School. She take we plenty picnic.’
Evidently seizing on what looked like another means to solving the pressing problem, Jeremy said, ‘These books are present to you from Missus Alfie.’
Prindy’s eyes opened wide. Jeremy went on, tapping the letter: ‘She write in this letter that she want you to come down South soon . . . and she show you round.’
The grey eyes blinked. ‘Eh, look out!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Jeremy asked. ‘You frightened to go in aeroplane . . . to see big, big city?’
The eyes became hooded. Prindy murmured, ‘Missus Alfie been tell Coon-Coon that time I sit down Barbu Ram place.’
‘Eh? Now, you’re wrong there. She didn’t. Coon-Coon found you himself.’
Swinging the wheel-chair away towards the radio, Prindy said shortly, ‘Barbu Ram say Missus Alfie.’ He reached to switch on.
Jeremy, looking at Nanago, said, ‘Better I send a letter-stick to the Pookarakka tell this young man what is right thing.’
Prindy turned his fair head quickly, looked hard at his grandfather for a moment, then asked, ‘How you send letter-stick to old-man?’
Jeremy assumed a knowing expression. ‘I know plenty people I can trust.’ He turned again to Nan: ‘I think I’ll do that.’
For a moment more Prindy regarded the pair, then turned away again, tuned, sank back in the chair with a sigh as the music came rolling in: The Entrance of the Little Fawns.
It looked as if Alfie’s School-books were to be ignored on principle, not only by pupil, but by teacher, who when told the sender, looked so troubled that Jeremy asked what was the matter. Darcy only shook his head. Of all the household, the head of it would be the only one who didn’t know that Missus Alfie had concluded her last visit here by slapping her hostess’s face. Nanago herself, hearing of Alfie’s offer regarding Prindy, asked Jeremy would he do anything about it. He replied, ‘Alfie’s only interested in herself . . . particularly just now.’ Lord knows who she’d fob him off on. Besides, he wouldn’t go. And even if he would, it’d mean much the same as his bolting. ‘I’m afraid our only hope is through Tchineke Bijnitch . . . and damn me if I can see how that can be worked.’
But Jeremy, not being a Tchineke Man, did not know the power of the Old One.
It was just a week after that coming of Fergus’s through the rainbow that had made things look as if Old Tchamala had finished his blasting and flooding for the season and the milder conditions ordained by Koonapippi prevailing, when a violent thunderstorm hit Lily Lagoons, doing some damage that included putting the Big House radio out of action. Prindy had just got onto crutches. Jeremy watched with interest his excited hopping about the place during the storm, showing none of the cowering fear of the rest of the household. Then, observing the boy’s dismay later in not being able to listen to his musical programs, he remarked to him, showing him a fused coil, that since it was lightning had done it, Old Tchamala must be displeased with his listening to whitefeller rubbitch, so he wouldn’t bother to fix it for him. Jeremy had his own smaller set in his quarters, which he used only for listening to news and such things. Prindy wouldn’t expect to use that. Anyway, now that he could walk upstairs, he was living exclusively in the Big House. Although the boy said nothing in reply to Jeremy’s remark, the effect on him was obvious. Jeremy told Nan about it, and suggested that something might come out of it.
For two days Prindy had only his flute to console him; and dismal did it always sound. Then while at dinner on the second evening, Jeremy, Nan, and Prindy dining as they always did in squatter style, Nanago, following a wink from Jeremy, asked him was he not going to fix the radio. He answered that Prindy didn’t want him to, because Old Tchamala had busted it so as to stop him from listening to whitefeller music. Prindy at once protested, ‘No-more!’
‘But that Old One hit the place, all right. You saw him and heard him do it.’
After a moment’s worried hesitation, Prindy said, ‘I reckon he hit wrong place.’
Jeremy looked interested. ‘Do you, now? I didn’t think he could make mistakes.’
Prindy was silent.
Jeremy asked, ‘Do you think he’d let you listen to music if it was fixed?’
Prindy blinked. ‘That’s all right, I reckon.’
‘Well, if you think it is, you’ll have to give me a hand to fix it. I’m busy with other things. Have to strip the old coil and rewind it. Slow job. But there isn’t much to it. Got to measure the wire, of course . . . certain thickness, certain length. Reckon you could do that, with me alongside you?’
‘Oh, yes, Grandfather!’ No doubt a
bout the meaningfulness of this affirmative.
‘All right . . . we’ll do it in the morning.’
Jeremy had tried to interest the boy in several of his own pursuits in the hope that it might lead him to realise the need for basic instruction; but in vain. Microscopy, chemistry, botany, zoology, revealed to him in simple examples, had held his attention only momentarily; then when permitted, he had gone off to play his flute or listen to the radio or look in Webster’s for some obscure word that he would not try to spell properly. Jeremy had shown him the electric power-plant and given him some slight idea of how it worked, and explained the rudiments of the functioning of radio. But Jeremy himself was not much interested in electricity, beyond maintaining the running of the household equipment of that kind. The results had been the same. However, that Jeremy felt there was something very different in the present circumstances was evident in the elaborate preparations he made for that simple job of rewinding a small transformer.
When Prindy went over to the Mullaka’s quarters after breakfast next morning, amongst a lot of electrical gear he found set up for him on the bench in the special workshop, was a large spark-coil of the type used in early radio telegraphy. Jeremy explained that, for that winding job, it was necessary to have some idea of the nature of electromotive force running through a coil. Take this spark-coil, switch on, adjust the poles — and there it is! That flashing and crackling between the poles is lightning in miniature. Look that word Miniature up. Means Small Scale, means a Big Thing Made Little. Yes, lightning, exactly the same as Old Tchamala makes in a big, big way. Touch it — Whoops!
Poor Fellow My Country Page 109
