Give the Devil His Due

by Sulari Gentill

  Officials with megaphones instructed the crowds to stay back. But they allowed Wilfred Sinclair through. Clyde and Joan were already bent over the crumpled body. Wilfred dropped to his knees beside his brother trying to ignore the resurgent familiarity that threatened to engulf him. The Great War was over and Rowland was not Aubrey, however much they looked alike… bloodied and so very still. This grief had its own ache, this loss its own abyss.

  When Clyde declared that Rowland Sinclair was not dead, they thought that it was the grief which spoke and they tried to calm him, to comfort him.

  “No!” Clyde turned to Wilfred for help. “I can feel a pulse, I’m sure it’s a pulse.”

  Wilfred had no hope when he took Rowland’s wrist from Clyde. Silently, he removed his glasses and placed the lens on Rowland’s lips. Mist.

  He roared for a doctor, for the ambulance, for help.

  Public Health Department, Perth (W.A.) CONVALESCENCE

  It is important that a cheerful attitude be maintained, as convalescent patients are apt to feel very depressed, and this feeling reacts against them. This, however, does not mean that the sickroom should be noisy, with a large number of friends and relatives. On the contrary, friends should be admitted with caution, and should never be allowed to stay longer than from 15 to 20 minutes, and only two friends at the most on one day, because it cannot be stressed too strongly that a person recovering from an illness has but feeble strength, and noise and excitement as well as depression steal it away. Everything surrounding the patient should be restful, happy, and cheerful. All worries and irritations should be kept away, and the room made attractive with bright flowers—sunny and fresh-looking— not overburdened with furniture and knick knacks.

  The Australasian, 1934

  ____________________________________

  Rowland Sinclair did not regain consciousness for two days. In that time it was widely reported that he had died. Certainly it did not seem possible that he could survive so terrible an accident. In their haste to secure the scoop, perhaps the reporters had not bothered to check the ultimate accuracy of their stories on the latest speedway tragedy. Whatever the case, Rowland was quite movingly eulogised as a talented, if sometimes controversial artist, cut down in his prime.

  Strangely, however, while Rowland’s injuries were not trivial, they were not catastrophic. A dislocated shoulder, some fractured ribs, a collapsed lung and severe grazing. Painful, certainly, but considering what had happened, he had escaped lightly. He should have been dead. The newspapers all said he was, and his doctors were at a loss to explain why he wasn’t. They speculated that the sand dune had cushioned the impact after he was thrown from the motorcar. It seemed the only explanation.

  After regaining consciousness it was another day before Rowland could clearly comprehend what his brother and friends were able to tell him. After an initial panicked agitation, Clyde had reassured him that no one else had been injured or killed despite the fact that the Mercedes had flown off the edge into the crowd. Later they would tell him that the race was continued once he’d been taken to hospital. Indeed, Joan Richmond’s team had won in a result that was popular with the crowds and disastrous for bookmakers.

  Edna hadn’t said a great deal in those first days though he was aware of her presence. Her rose perfume had been the first familiar thing to penetrate the fog, and then, the pressure of her hand in his. And when pain swamped his senses, her hand had still been there.

  Wilfred Sinclair had made arrangements with the hospital to allow the sculptress to stay with his brother, irrespective of visiting hours. It was irregular and highly improper, but in this instance Wilfred was willing to sacrifice propriety. While Rowland was in danger, Edna rarely left his bedside.

  In the time before Rowland revived, Milton Isaacs was arrested for the murder of Crispin White. At Wilfred’s insistence that fact was kept from Rowland until the poet’s release on bail had been secured. Even so, the news, as Wilfred had anticipated, was not conducive to Rowland’s state of mind, nor to the bed rest which had been prescribed.

  “Rowly! What on earth are you doing out of bed?” Edna demanded as she came into the hospital room. Rowland was on his feet though he leaned heavily on the iron foot of the cot. Milton stood beside him, Clyde by the door.

  The poet shook his head. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him, Ed.”

  “I’m going home,” Rowland said, smiling determinedly.

  “Rowly, the doctor said you were to stay in bed.”

  “I can do that at Woodlands.” Milton grabbed him as he released the bed.

  “I’ll call Johnston to bring the car,” he gasped. A cold sweat was beaded on his forehead and it was only Milton who kept him upright.

  “We’ll talk to your doctors.” Edna slipped under his arm and gave him her shoulder for support. “But you can’t just walk out of here in your pyjamas.”

  “I was going to get dressed first.” Rowland inhaled sharply, trying not to lean too heavily on Edna.

  “Into what?” she asked. “We haven’t brought you in any clothes, so unless you were planning to steal a nurse’s uniform…”

  Milton grinned. “Now that would be worth seeing.”

  With help, Rowland made it back into the bed. “I forgot about that,” he admitted, wincing. God, how could a few steps be so exhausting?

  Edna pulled up the bedclothes and adjusted the pillows. Clyde poured him a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table. “How do you feel, mate?”

  “Like a motorcar fell on me.” He glanced at Clyde. “I don’t suppose…” he began hopefully. He’d been avoiding asking about the state of the Mercedes because he feared the answer. And nobody had raised the subject to date.

  His friends glanced at one another and said nothing.

  He groaned. “How bad is it?”

  “I’m sorry, mate,” Clyde said. “I don’t think even the good Lord himself could fix her now. The fact that you survived is miracle enough.”

  “Are you sure we couldn’t—”

  “Not a chance, Rowly. She’s gone, I’m afraid.” Clyde delivered this blow honestly but with compassion. “I’m sorry, mate. I know she meant a lot to you.”

  “Oh.” Rowland took the glass of water Clyde had poured, as the fact settled. “Damn.” He drank a silent toast to his automobile, chastising himself even as he did so for feeling the loss so acutely when there were more important things to worry about. But he did feel it. “Hartley is not going to be looking for anybody else now that he’s arrested Milt,” he said forcing his thoughts away. “If he ever did.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that now, Rowly,” Milton said firmly. “We’re still getting used to the fact that you’re not dead.”

  Rowland shook his head, slowly, because sudden movements hurt. “I remembered something just now… before the accident…” His memory from the day of the accident was fragmented and so he hesitated. “I think Stuart Jones said Lesley Bocquet was a bookmaker.”

  Clyde nodded. “You’re right. He did say something to you about a chap called Bocquet. Who is he?”

  “Bocquet claims to be the rightful owner of White’s horseshoe tiepin.” Rowland rubbed his shoulder. The bones had been put back into place while he was still unconscious, but the traumatised joint ached like the blazes. “He and his wife have a place in Lindfield. They both deny knowing Crispin White.”

  “But you don’t believe them?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “So he’s a bookie, living respectably?” Clyde asked.

  “Well, appearing to do so anyway.”

  “And you think he might have killed White?”

  “Stuart Jones called him a street rat. A razor’s probably his weapon of choice,” Rowland replied.

  “But how would he have got into Magdalene’s and lured White there?”

  “Perhaps we should try to talk to Mrs. Bocquet—on her own.” Milton suggested. “There was something about the way she reacted when we aske
d about Crispin White. Perhaps he’d been up to his old tricks again. And it’s possible that she borrowed her husband’s razor.”

  “Frances,” Rowland said suddenly. “The maid. If they knew she didn’t steal the tiepin, why did they sack her? Perhaps she knows something.”

  “You’re right,” Milton said thoughtfully. “But how are we going to find her? What did Delaney say her name was?”

  “Frances Webb, I believe.”

  “Well, that’s a start.” Edna adjusted the pillows on the bed. “We’ll find Frances. You need to rest, Rowly.” She placed her hand on his forehead. “You’re a little warm, my darling.”

  “If I just discharge myself, I could—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Edna’s tone was firm, her lips soft as she kissed his brow. “We do miss you, Rowly. But we’ve all made deals with the devil for your life. Let’s not tempt him to renege.”

  Three days later, Rowland’s doctors came to the conclusion that he was out of any danger and strong enough to recuperate perfectly well at home. The decision may or may not have been encouraged by the patient’s campaign to that end, and the fact that he had taken to sketching nurses in a manner that the matron feared would turn their heads.

  While the enforced bed rest, imposed by the hospital, had tested Rowland’s patience, it had done much to restore his strength. When he walked out to the waiting Rolls Royce, he moved a little more slowly than usual, but without assistance.

  On a whim, Clyde had Johnston drive them out to the Maroubra Speedway before returning to Woodlands. “You might take doctor’s orders more seriously if you see what happened,” he said. They took him to the sand dune first, and the light pole upon which the Mercedes had met her end. The remains of Rowland’s motorcar had been removed, of course, and signs warned that the light pole was no longer safe.

  Rowland stared at the shattered fragments of windscreen at the base of the pole, yellow paint embedded in the damage inflicted yards above the ground. There were flowers laid at the spot where he’d been found, and someone had even made a rough cross out of driftwood to which they’d attached a mangled Mercedes mascot. Rowland removed the mascot and slipped it into his pocket. He could remember nothing about the actual accident, and seeing this, it seemed inconceivable, even to him, that he’d survived.

  Edna took his hand. “Are you all right, Rowly? Do you need to rest?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m glad you brought me. I don’t remember much of the race.” He looked back at the buckled pole. “God, the poor old girl. She deserved better.”

  Edna pressed Rowland’s hand sympathetically as she searched for the appropriate words. “She had a wonderfully adventurous life for a motorcar, Rowly, and we’ll always remember her.”

  “She was a beautiful machine, comrade,” Milton said squinting up at the point where the Mercedes had met the pole. “But for a while there, we thought she’d taken you with her.” He considered the distance between the pole and where Rowland had been found. “You must have been thrown out before impact… you couldn’t have survived otherwise.”

  They drove into the bowl next. The speedway was empty and eerily quiet though the concrete bowl seemed to hold a faint echo of the ripping scream of supercharged engines. The odd newspaper blew across the deserted infield and seagulls picked over stale food scraps. Johnston took them to the pit they’d used. Clyde checked with Milton and Edna. “It hasn’t rained since the race, has it?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Good, it might still be there. Come on, Rowly, I want to show you something.”

  He took Rowland to the bay in which the Mercedes had been parked awaiting the race’s start. “Do you remember the shifty bloke Joan saw under your car?”

  Rowland nodded. “We were concerned he’d sabotaged the engine.”

  Clyde pointed to the cement.

  The word “Eternity” in blue and white chalk… a little scuffed but still plainly visible.

  “I only saw it when you pulled out,” Clyde said, grinning. “I reckon it must have been Stace under the car writing his damn word. He’s even spelled it correctly.”

  “What was he doing here?” Edna asked.

  “He probably came to the races, saw Rowly and decided to bless his motorcar with the correct spelling this time.” Clyde squatted down to touch the epigraph in a manner that was quite reverent. “To be honest, when you went over the top I thought he might have hexed you with his flaming word, but perhaps it was just the opposite.”

  Rowland smiled. “It seems that way.”

  Milton groaned. “For pity’s sake, it’s 1934. Rowly was not saved by some magician with a stick of chalk!”

  Clyde called Milton a godless Communist who believed in nothing, and Milton began a speech on science over superstition. But Rowland wasn’t so sure.

  There was a familial reception committee gathered at Woodlands when Rowland finally got home. Ewan, who’d not been allowed to go to the hospital, greeted his uncle with all the boisterous exuberance of childish joy.

  Wilfred took his middle son from Rowland’s arms. “Your uncle Rowly is not really up to being bounced on just yet, sport.” He shook his brother’s hand. “Welcome home, Rowly. Are you sure you’re—”

  “Quite well, Wil. I could even go another round with Ewan, here.”

  Ernest Sinclair did not greet his uncle with the same high spirits. Indeed, he said nothing, simply taking Rowland’s hand and holding on. Rowland made no attempt to escape the boy’s grasp. Elisabeth Sinclair wept and, though she still called him Aubrey, Rowland was moved by his mother’s rare show of emotion. They had simple luncheon in the breakfast room with the children—finger sandwiches, sausage rolls and jam tarts, and for Rowland, stout, prescribed as a restorative of some sort.

  “Do you remember what happened, Uncle Rowly?” Ernest whispered.

  “I’m afraid not, Ernie.”

  “I saw it. You drove off the racing track and hit a pole.”

  “I see. That’d explain what happened to the car, I suppose.”

  “Nobody could wake you up.”

  Rowland glanced briefly at the Lucky Devil II which, at Joan Richmond’s insistence, graced his mantel with all its dubious glory. “I’m awake now.”

  “I don’t like motor racing.”

  “I’m not so keen on it myself anymore.”

  “Do you miss your motorcar, Uncle Rowly?”

  “Yes, I do rather.”

  “She was a capital vehicle.”

  “I always thought so.”

  “Will you get another one?”

  “Another car?” Rowland faltered. “I expect I will, eventually.” The idea seemed indecent.

  Ernest appeared to understand. He selected a tart with the hand that was not firmly in his uncle’s.

  After lunch Wilfred took his young family home insisting as he left that Rowland should rest. “Maguire will call by at about five o’clock.”

  Rowland didn’t protest, though he thought the house call unnecessary, accustomed to the fact that Wilfred expressed concern through the attendance of Maguire.

  Edna waited till they were just themselves before she told Rowland that she had found Frances Webb.

  “Really? How?”

  “I asked the maid at the house next door. I thought they might be friends. I mentioned I was looking to hire, and that Mrs. Bocquet had told me she needed to let Frances go.” Edna’s smile was triumphant. “She’s living with her mother in Woolloomooloo.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to her,” Rowland said, pushing himself up from the chair.

  “Tomorrow,” Milton said. “You look done in, comrade.”

  “I’m—”

  “Going to listen to the doctors, just for today,” Edna finished for him. “Tomorrow we’ll regroup.”

  Domestic Servants’ Wages

  Sir,—

  May I say a word in defence of Australian domestic servants? Like “Common Sense,” I have lived in other co
untries and other States, and can say, from my own experience, that the average Australian domestic worker is a very fine type of girl, hard-working, capable, trust-worthy, and obliging. Of course, there are exceptions. I have seldom found that any training or enlightenment is received with scornful resentment by the maid. As a rule she is eager to learn and is grateful to a mistress who can instruct her. Any young girl likes amusements and dancing. If she works an honest eight hours a day, has she not a right to so many hours of liberty every day, as well as her six halfdays and one full day a month? Let mistresses treat these fine young Australians as we would like our own young daughters to be treated, and there will be less of this dissatisfaction with domestics and with domestic service.

  Yours, &c,

  FRANCIA The Argus, 1936

  ____________________________________

  Frances Webb was more than willing to talk about her time in the employ of Les and Beryl Bocquet. She had been sacked unfairly, she believed, with no notice and barely a week’s pay. The strength of her resentment was such that she did not even ask why the posh gentlemen and his friends wanted to know.

  “They thought they was so good, they did, living in Lindfield like Lord and Lady Muck. But that Beryl Bocquet was no lady. I knew there was something going on… that Dr. Something Jones calling, and their nibs suddenly giving me the afternoon off.”

  “Do you mean Dr. Stuart Jones?” Edna asked.

  “Yes. And I know why people call him too, and it ain’t for a cold.”

  “And they sacked you after that?” Milton asked.

  “They knew that I knew and that I weren’t of a mind to approve. It were murder, plain and simple, and Mrs. Bocquet will be answering to the good Lord for it!”

  “What about the tiepin?” Clyde asked, flinching as he heard his own position come so harshly out of Frances Webb’s mouth. “The one they accused you of stealing.”