The Missing Heir

by Kylie Tennant

  ‘This church is then a womb, thoughtful of its darkness, careful of its concealment,

  Its months the stations of the Cross advancing to death, or is it birth?

  And here the ancient carvings, brown as old combs on the walls of a beehive,

  Shadows that let down great brown dugs of pity from which creation drinks;

  Drowses the muted organ pumping abdominal in its intestinal comfort.

  ‘Blast! Out through the broken window! Up, through the splintered matrix,

  I, the queen bee sound for the flight and all the stars shall follow! Ascend in song, O Morning of the Day!

  O son, ascendant son; rise where my white veil of clouds whirls up, Away!’

  What is it that goes up the sky? The sheer of a rose-pink wall, a song, a cry?

  The sound of a silver trumpet?

  ‘If I might make a suggestion, my dear Lucina,’

  Tentative in the East window of his diaconate,

  St Laurence drags a brazier of coals much like a sack of potatoes to market.

  Not of much account in his time, a scruffy and pimply underpriestling,

  Always student, shabby, deprecatory of dandruff,

  The blunder of martyrdom, ill-timed truth-teller.

  (These are the jewels of the church,’ said Laurence nervously,

  Indicating a set of inconsequent human starvelings

  In search of bread, when the jut-toothed soldiery

  Savagely questioned him for precious stones:

  —The jacinth of the walls of heaven built, the sapphires blue-sky-set in sunset gold—

  Their earthly Kingdom of the Goths on pillage founding,

  These are the jewels of heaven, their misery

  Foundation stones on which Eternity is firmly set.’)

  Seized for atrocity’s prey, protesting without dignity,

  Fried over coals, beastlike, in seared and blistering flesh,

  A writhing gizzard and blackened bones, a set of stenches and vertebrae;

  But nicely painted into a war memorial window,

  Commemoratively decent, observant in affection

  Of tiny mice, the funny hats groping, the tiny mice in pews,

  The bald-domed organist in loft, the one white light of the sanctuary, steady and still.

  ‘In the beginning, Lucina, and when you translate into sound, alas,

  Or into words, there is the moment of choice, always the wrong choice.

  Alas, my dear Lucina, a mistake to explain, for the word is formal,

  And forms, clothed, limited, enclosed, are hapless, the beginning and the end.

  How restless the human bottom for the anthem, how restless heaven for your trumpet,

  For the cry, the flight, the coming.

  ‘And then? It begins again. The doom is to begin.

  I do not make myself clear? Unfortunate; the word is always unfortunate.

  Ask any mutterer Goth if jest or anger stampedes the word.

  Quiet, the quiet beyond forms where all forms cease, behind the veil, behind stained glass, spilt blood,

  The formless, the clear void, the dwelling of the Is, no longer denial,

  Insistence on the word of forms, the bright brick wall of longing, intention,

  Pulse upon pulse of flesh, million bright atoms quiring circling song.

  And only may their form become because there is the formless, the endless beginning,

  Ever complete.’

  ‘The call,’ the angel said, ‘the crash of the moment, the clock that strikes

  Once and for all to shatter the wall down, break the division

  Between dimensions. Shall I blow? Time, the thin tympanum move

  A breath between decisions?’

  ‘Ah, a breath to flutter the white heart of truth, topple the sanctuary, the high cobwebs.

  Truly, Lucina, presider of births, defiant bringer-forth,

  I deprecate departure by one mouse-dirt, one porch-sweeping of the usual.

  For I shall be that son, my cry his cry, my flesh his flesh, my window broken …

  Little impatient angel with the silver trumpet, the blue coif of sky and robe of cloud,

  You deliver me again to life, my torturer. Remorselessly your minute

  Swells to my birth cry of your trumpet blast, the breaking of the perineum.’

  Chorus of angels cry from the altar windows: the angel with the guitar, the zither,

  The rose-crowned angel with the sistrum: ‘Perineum — Crown Him — Descending — Down the Dark.’

  Chorus of Doctors washing their hands: ‘You must wait for us.

  It is not etiquette — crown him — without the forceps — the frontlet of white linen,

  Our phylacteries and marking of authority.’

  Run and ring Doctor Pilate, Sister Lucina. Don’t let that baby be born yet, honey.

  Anaesthetic, hold back, bear down. The doctor isn’t here yet.

  The doctor is still washing his hands.

  ‘I find no fault in him.’

  Washing his hands so that the future may be born not out of season.

  ‘Consider, Lucina,’ Laurence in words, ‘I build my walls of flesh, the high red walls;

  Between those walls springs the bright tree of blood, and in the branches,

  Nerve on nerve, numbered each, the jewelled bird,

  The phoenix of life whom men would tear,

  Save those securing walls shield his bright tree.

  And in that nest of nerves the secret bird

  That burns in his own fire and lays an egg,

  The complete circle of Eternity,

  From which it springs again to fire and pain, pluming the bright tree of the blood with song,

  And pain and fire and jewelled plumes again.’

  Chorus of angels swell the urgency of traffic noises from the streets:

  ‘Blow, blow, blow over Jordan! Roll on that trumpet now!’

  Chorus of doctors washing hands in Jordan: ‘Don’ let that baby be born!

  Every minute now, over all the world,

  Black and pink and yellow and a high bright brown,

  The walls of heaven rising.

  A million million childern of the mawnin!

  Don’ let that baby be born.’

  Chorus of angels throbbing fortissimo: ‘Crown him! Crown him!

  Sweep upward heaven high, hanging on the wall, the upward slope of a melon-pink wall,

  hanging, hanging on the wall!’

  ‘Consider again, Lucina,’ mildly St Laurence. ‘When you blind me in the nets of sunlight for my foes,

  The hornet solitaries of knowledge have marked down the phoenix.

  The fruit, the egg, the ripeness lines their paper nests.

  They burrow.

  The dung-eaters are there, devouring beetle turds of printed pages,

  Rustling the dry leaves, sucking the sweet juice and kindness of my mystery.

  One moment, and that moment shall extend through time to timelessness, hesitate,

  Like my poor people at the church’s door, or the deliberate pollen on alternate tides

  Of lifted air above the flower.

  ‘Forever from my maculated window I see the beetle-brows,

  The horny men who fry me for their sport, leave my poor flesh

  On wires for tatters, let me fall drip by drip, my bone-marrow into their platters;

  Coin me into metal or greedy jewels that were my spirit. This their hell

  That they may not melt. They are the stuttered words that idiot cruelty mouths;

  But they too are my poor. My coming is their coming, and again,

  Is this their hell that at my fire they laugh?

  Shall I doom them again to see me die?

  Shall I not free them by my absence? Bid

  Them sign their own release from their vitality?

  Or am I lost and fallen into life? consider then, Lucina.’

  ‘Out!’ cries the angel. ‘Out! Swarm the bright
atom angels spiral out.

  Dazzle of daylight take the dust. I blow!’

  What is it that goes up the sky? A song, a cry?

  The sound of a silver trumpet?

  8. The Glugs of Gosh

  While the children were growing up and we were living in Hunters Hill I was employed as a reader by an eminent firm of English publishers. This meant that I found books which might suit my firm; I sometimes supervised their publication; and I sent manuscripts on for approval or edited a book into shape. I was the Great Australian Bottleneck. Any book that went past me proceeded to England for final approval. The firm had an office in Sydney over which Elizabeth Harrower presided, sending out review copies and coping efficiently with mail. The main office was in Melbourne.

  When I was invited to become a member of the board of the Commonwealth Literary Fund I pointed out that, working for a publisher, I might discover a conflict of interest. Harold White (he was not Sir Harold then) riposted, when he came out to see me before the appointment was made, that Douglas Stewart was reader and dogsbody, as I was, for an Australian firm and this had always worked well enough. The board, when I joined it, consisted of Douglas Stewart and Ken Slessor, two of our most eminent poets; Tom Inglis Moore, poet and professor of Australian literature, with a background in journalism; and Archibald Grenfell Price, the South Australian historian. There was also Valda Leahy, our very competent secretary from Canberra, and her boss, Bill Cummings, a civil servant with a watching brief to see we did not go astray, a genial man with a useful knowledge of parliamentary and departmental protocol. There had never been a woman on the board — and I was the only novelist.

  The job was honorary but it had its ‘perks’ such as being ferried about by Commonwealth cars and free plane travel when the board met in Canberra — which it had to do once a year to front the leaders of the Government, the Opposition and the Country Party. This meeting had to agree to the money we were giving out in grants. Also, because of the evident inter-city jealousies and the frequent complaints that the board met most frequently in Sydney, we became a travelling circus, showing the flag in Adelaide at the Festival of Arts, proceeding to Melbourne for some other junket, less frequently descending on Perth for their festival or to give lectures on Australian literature. ‘You don’t have to worry about it, Kylie,’ Tom Inglis Moore soothed. ‘I went all round Tasmania on “How MacDougall Topped The Score”.’ My first tour of lectures on Australian literature was in Tasmania and I did enough research for those lectures to have made a sizeable book if I had ever had the time to publish it. This was work in which Roddy could be interested now that he had retired from teaching. I also wrote book reviews which I discovered was more lucrative than writing novels.

  When I went down to Canberra I sometimes stayed with Tom Inglis Moore and his wife Peace. I more often put up at a motel because my expenses were paid. The work of the board, which had originally been set up to pay out pensions to needy authors, who seemed to have a knack of becoming very impoverished in their old age, was now only a small part of the board’s work. ‘Once an author has a literary pension,’ Archie Grenfell Price declared, ‘he’ll live forever.’ When anybody died and vacated the list Archie showed an unfeeling glee.

  There was an ever-expanding list of authors applying for a grant while they wrote a book and, later, applications from publishers for support in publishing some worthy work which was deemed uneconomic and unlikely to make a profit for the sponsoring firm. The grants were considered with feverish and intense concentration at our meetings, because we never had enough money to cover all of the promising books clamouring for support. Around a long table in some Commonwealth office in Sydney, borrowed by Bill and Valda, our capable mentors, the board would assemble and scribble out lists, vote on them, cut them down, squeeze in another deserving applicant, argue about how much over our estimate we might be able to woo out of the politicians in Canberra. ‘But we’re over the estimates now,’ Bill would moan. Another scanning of lists and slashing out. Doug and Ken would give me an indignant glare when I complained there were too many poets. ‘How can a man know he is any good unless he gets his work into print?’ one of them would argue. Then there were the magazines of literary bent demanding funds. We only had enough allotted to support a scant number. After an exhausting morning of argument we would adjourn for lunch and return in the afternoon to do some more whittling of lists. Then we girded our respective loins to go down to Canberra and chisel as much money as we could out of the politicos. If it was a matter of pleading for more funds I was usually landed with the job. ‘They don’t like refusing a woman,’ Archie pointed out. Any sticky proposition, I spoke to it. ‘We’ll give that to Miss Tennant,’ Archie purred. He was chairman and allotted the task of speaking, to each member, on each particular submission. He was very deft, adroit and charming.

  Once we had dealt with Canberra we would set out, next meeting, as a travelling circus for Melbourne, Adelaide or, later, Perth. I didn’t ever lecture in Queensland, but I ‘did’ Albury, Tasmania, Adelaide and Melbourne, over the years. We were experts in putting our finger on worthy authors and manuscripts, and the lecture tours on Aust. Lit. became so popular that we were able to shovel them off on deserving authors as lucrative pin-money.

  Having joined this distinguished gang — the board — I now automatically became eminent. The Establishment gloss was expected to rub off on me. We were entertained wherever we went, invited to Guvmint Oss, dined with universities. It was the Menzies era and Sir Robert Menzies and I had one of those guarded and cynical communions of mutual non-aggression. On one occasion he invited the board to lunch and I was chatting gaily to some civil personage when I found he was becoming not only uneasy but panic-stricken. Sir Robert was speaking to a group of persons and I should have been listening in deferential silence. I called him ‘sir’ and he called me ‘ma’am’. Honours even.

  ‘I wonder why it is,’ he said genially, in the course of the luncheon, ‘that at all these art shows they serve cheap, sweet, sherry?’

  From down the table came the incorrigible voice of the only female member of the board: ‘I like cheap sweet sherry.’ Someone with more tact introduced another topic and smoothed over my lapse.

  In all the men on the board were very kind to me. They forgave me much. I think they felt affectionate but impatient. I would come up with what I thought was a good proposal. It would be turned down flat. At the next meeting I would argue for it again and be listened to tolerantly. At the third meeting one of the male members of the board, seized by what everyone recognised was an inspiration, would put up my original proposal which was cordially accepted. I learnt. Instead of hammering them I would take aside some malleable member and say: ‘What do you think of the idea that we do such-and-such?’ Having consulted him I would then work on him to suggest it at the next meeting. Typical feminine strategy.

  Valda Leahy, who became one of my warmest supporters, would often work with me, holding a wavering and timorous board to some daring proposal which they felt might not be accepted in Canberra. Year by year we boosted the money at our disposal. Menzies would be grand and toss us a few thousand; the leader of the Country Party would be friendly; Whitlam would come in with agreement. ‘Of course,’ he would say warmly, ‘I support that.’

  From an insignificant moiety we grew. Artists and musicians began to demand that they too be given grants. I was later elected to the Aboriginal Arts Board but quit because I had too much else to do. When Roddy fell ill I was on the board of the Aboriginals Co-operatives. I resigned because the board members were expected to guarantee a mortgage and, remembering my grandfather, I would never guarantee a debt no matter how often it was argued that the assets of the co-ops were far greater than the loan they were raising. But the co-op board were a wonderful bunch to work with. We met at the Blood Bank and Frank Coledrake, then, I think, a bishop and one of the founder Christian Socialists, would put everyone off their lunch in the canteen by murmuring mischeviously:
‘Well, they have it down as tomato soup, but can you be sure?’

  As the only woman on the co-op board I was told off (unanimously) to represent them on a women’s auxiliary that was raising money. Never again. On a men’s board you could propose a motion, someone seconded it, it was discussed voted on and passed. The women of this auxiliary were equally competent but had no use for the rules of debate. ‘Oh, I think we’ll let Elsa do that.’ ‘Well, I’ll do it if Jessie will take over all this other stuff.’ I was in awe of them. They got things done but they did it their own way.

  Roddy, while I was struggling with public life and at the same time running my job and a house, became a literary Grey Eminence. His sound, logical judgement, his capacity to judge and edit manuscripts — not for my firm (I did all that) but for a rival firm of publishers — won him respect and admiration. It was Roddy to whom authors and publishers turned for advice and counsel. He was working full time — with one hand and an electric typewriter — at the work he had always done well. He did not have one author — me — but a string of them. He was able, as far as his health permitted, to devote himself full time to a literary career. He also became an even better cook than before; he had always been impatient of my cooking. I am a good cook if I have enough time. Bim always appreciated my cooking which was simple but hearty. He would stamp in from football demanding: ‘What’s for dinner, Mom?’

  Towards the end of my stint I spent three years gathering and typing material for Evatt: Politics and Justice. I had decided that my eminent firm could do with a biography of Evatt and I tried hard to find some eminent person to write it. But Menzies reigned in Canberra and Evatt had been Sir Robert’s opponent. Historians and biographers I interviewed would not touch the proposal. They had a streak of yellow; their careers were to dear to them. Finally Mary Alice Evatt, Bert Evatt’s wife, solved it by her suggestion: ‘Why don’t you write it yourself, dear? Bert always liked your books.’ Bert was dead; but he had been one of those men who had a lasting influence. I had never met him but I knew something of his career.