The Grand Hotel

by Gregory Day

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, missus, I am a bit hard of hearing. What was that you said?’ asked another one of the men, in a sincere and humble tone.

  ‘You tell Ding, Bait Belcher. He’s genuine. You tell him I’ll have no more dirty talk in my hotel. I’m not used to it and I don’t like it. And if he doesn’t believe me, he can try wrestling with Tom.’

  ‘Good evening, you fellas,’ cried Tom String cheerily across the bar. ‘And g’day to you too, Ding Dong,’ he called out with extra relish.

  ‘Tom String,’ they all replied at once, with the man called Ding Dong’s voice louder and reedier than the rest.

  ‘Now you’re just in time for tea, boys,’ said Joan Sweeney matter-of-factly. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d order now so we can get this show on the road.’

  With no further discussion the four men each ordered underground mutton but for Ding Dong, who ordered a serving of the hedgehog, perhaps on account of not hearing the menu properly. They then ordered their drinks as well, their Native Companion Ales, which was the beer Tom String brewed in his upstream camp. As they took their first long draughts and smacked their lips with satisfaction, I found myself hankering to know what a Native Companion tasted like, and more particularly to know how it compared with our Dancing Brolgas.

  The Grand Hotel goats now seemed to have settled again with the girls by the hearth and for the time being, at least, the men and women kept to separate areas of the bar. Tom String was pouring the drinks and Joan Sweeney had taken a stool next to Mr Arvo, where together they were chatting pleasantly as they enjoyed their meals. Beside me now Maria had opened her eyes and was grinning from ear to ear from the fun of it all.

  ‘Yes, they had threatened to send a sergeant from Ballaarat. By all accounts he’d made his name as a young man cleaning up the diggings back in the early sixties,’ Joan Sweeney was saying to Mr Arvo between mouthfuls of a rather chewy boiled echidna. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? Unfortunately the old fella couldn’t make the ride. He’s well over sixty by all accounts. But yes, perhaps that was due also in part to my letter.’

  ‘And what, may I ask, Mrs Sweeney, would you have done if the sergeant had made the ride?’ said Mr Arvo.

  ‘Well to be perfectly frank, Mr Arvo, I’m not sure. My scouts on the route would’ve given me notice. But you see, that is not the issue here. The issue is that Victoria as defined by the borders is a large colony – you know yourself it’s as big as England – and the great majority of it is unknown to the powers back in Melbourne where I grew up. They have no idea of the requirements of a hotel in a small outpost such as ours and no experience of the way we are living. And yet they tuttut and stroke their beards, while we are carrying on with the business. But really, the aspersions they were casting on The Grand were factually incorrect and, practically speaking, quite irrelevant. I wrote the letter not to avert the sergeant’s visit but to educate the administrator!’

  ‘Well I must admit it has been an education for myself lodging here.’

  ‘Indeed. You obviously approve, Mr Arvo?’

  ‘Oh yes, yes. That’s why I came back. Not only for the peace in the valley but also for the, how shall I say ... civilisation of your hotel, Mrs Sweeney. Even in Australia now, the difference between man and beast is growing.’

  ‘I don’t follow you, Mr Arvo.’

  ‘Well you see, Mrs Sweeney, I believe not in the lion lying down with the lamb, which of course is an impossibility, but rather that mankind and the animals are in fact kindred, rather than enemies. That they are not so different, you see.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes, and here we are chatting pleasantly, sharing your hotel bar with goats.’

  ‘And prostitutes,’ laughed Joan Sweeney.

  ‘Indeed. And prostitutes. And also, I may add, beautiful flowers.’

  ‘Aah yes, my flowers.’

  ‘I counted eight vases.’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Arvo. All collected and cut by myself in the hereabouts. Very kind of you to count the vases.’

  ‘Yes, but that of course doesn’t include those in the parlour, or the upstairs hallway and rooms. There are three in my room alone, Mrs Sweeney.’

  ‘And also three in my own, Mr Arvo. But now you’ve mentioned it, the flowers are a case in point.’

  ‘How so, Mrs Sweeney?’

  ‘Well then, do you see many roses among my vases, or Calla lilies, carnations, lupins or marigolds?’

  ‘No, no, hardly at all. There is a rose in each of my bedroom vases, obviously from your beds down by the well, but surrounded by so much other colour. And no lupins, or marigolds or lilies, no.’

  ‘There, you see. Half the flowers I use in this hotel I don’t even know the names of myself! But at the same time I know these flowers as well as the contents of my bulk spirits order. I gather them in the valley or up on the ridge or along the dunes where another pair of eyes might not even notice them. The orchids, the hues of the heath, the “tassel flowers” – well, that’s what I call them – that grow among the wiregrasses where the stock have never browsed. But an important personage from Melbourne wouldn’t know the half of it, wouldn’t even know that some of these flowers that fill my vases exist! It’s a different country out here, Mr Arvo. And this is the point. There are different colours in the hotel vases, different shapes too, and it’s the same with the clientele. Take little Ding Dong over there. He’ll take Rosie tonight. You’ll hear him crying out from the stables, even with your window shut. And if there weren’t a Rosie, he’d be crying out a different tune. A man’s heart needs the occasional shelter. And out here it’s my duty to supply it – otherwise the men are in drought, no matter the rain. Yet the powers that be feel quite within their rights to tell me how to run my hotel. Pah. It’s a different country.’

  There was a brief silence after this speech of Joan Sweeney’s. Then through the tranny Mr Arvo asked the very question I’d been thinking myself. ‘What about the girls though, Mrs Sweeney? How are they benefiting, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘Not at all, Mr Arvo,’ came the publican’s reply. ‘I may love to pick flowers but I also run a profitable business which is at the same time a community service. Look at it like this. A man’s lust is as old as the world itself. And wherever there is desire, there is also money. So by rights this earth we’re holed up in is just one almighty Grand Hotel. There you have it. But contrary to the information the inspectors in Melbourne received, these girls are not harpies from the Bass Strait Islands. All three of them are from Ballaarat, the same as the doddering sergeant who couldn’t make the ride. Cumquat May there is half Chinese and third generation in the trade. Rose is the illegitimate child of a prominent politician from New South Wales, no names mentioned, and as such cannot stake her claim for fear of a tragic accident involving the broken axle of a jinker. And Jadey, the shy one, was saved from pure destitution by Cumquat May only last week, and is trialling a new path. This way she at least can hear the rain on the roof rather than standing out in it catching her death. So that’s how I see it, Mr Arvo. And if, as you say, there is a fine line between man and beast, then who am I to deny it?’

  ‘Mmm, quite right. Mind you, if I myself had a daughter and I found...’

  ‘Mr Arvo, if I may interrupt. To have a daughter is not a notion, not a hypothesis or idea, but a firm reality for those who are so destined. But often, in the case of sons as well, that reality is too great to bear. Some daughters are farmed out to nuns, some are left with a rug and a prayer of hope on an Emerald Hill porch, others quite simply perish; some sons are lucky enough to be billeted out with relatives in further regions for farm work. I could go on but you take my point. These girls here are no worse off in many ways than the men over there who are right now deciding which ones they fancy. Do you think those coves wouldn’t like a well-mannered slip to come home to at night? Of course they would. But in my experience, Mr Arvo, if I may be brutally honest with you, were it not for Cumquat May, Jadey and
Rose being here tonight, Bait and Jimmy, Ding Dong and Ted over there would be eyeing off the goats. Quite seriously.’

  The Blonde Maria swung my way on the wicker chair, with a wide-eyed expression as if to say, ‘Did you hear what she just said?’ Her movement in the room after a long period of captivated stillness must have registered upon Kooka, because suddenly he groaned and chapped his lips together before rolling over to lie flat on his back. We were on tenterhooks, hoping that he wouldn’t wake up, and thankfully he didn’t. The tranny gave out only a brief glitch as he readjusted himself under the heavy bedclothes and then delivered us safely back into the hospitable arms of Joan Sweeney’s hotel.

  It seemed that Joan and Mr Arvo had polished off their meals by now, as the sound of their plates and cutlery being cleared away by Tom String could be heard.

  ‘And how was that hedgehog, missus?’ the all-rounder asked, only to be told by his boss that it could’ve done with more pigface.

  ‘Bit fatty was it?’ he replied. ‘Still, killing it meant we could get the coal home on the cart.’

  ‘That’s true, Tom,’ Joan Sweeney replied. ‘But the fact remains we should have stopped for more pigface.’

  ‘Maybe, missus. But Mr Arvo distracted us, didn’t he, with his chat at the riverbend?’

  ‘Right you are,’ exclaimed Joan Sweeney, quickly turning Tom’s criticism into a lighthearted moment. ‘The fatty hedgehog was all Mr Arvo’s fault. I’d like to know how you’re going to make it up to me, sir, aside from distracting me with subjects I am passionate about, to take my mind off the food you’ve spoiled.’

  Mr Arvo chuckled happily without quite having the wit to continue the joke. ‘Well all I can say is that the pork was the best ever. Absolutely first class,’ he said.

  ‘Peachy, you might say,’ called Tom String dryly over his shoulder, as he rattled through what sounded like swinging saloon doors, presumably ferrying the dirty dishes back through the bar to the kitchen.

  Now it seemed a conversation was beginning between the boys at the bar and the three girls from Ballarat who sat by the fire with the goats. This was initiated by Bait Belcher, who was now finding the goats to come in handy. Venturing away from the bar towards the girls, his rough twang was quiet and conciliatory as he spoke. ‘So youse’re keen on goats are ya, ladies?’

  ‘Not really,’ Cumquat May shot back with authority. ‘Well, not as keen as some,’ and then she cackled, and Jadey and Rose giggled beside her.

  Bait Belcher, however, seemed to take no offence – either because he didn’t twig as to what Cumquat May was referring to, or because he was in no way ashamed of his apparently near-famous history with goats. ‘Poor dumb creatures,’ was all he said, and it wasn’t entirely clear whether he was referring to the goats or Cumquat May, Jadey and Rose. Nevertheless the ice had been broken. ‘If you let us pull up a pew or two, me and the other coves here could tell you a thing or two about goats. Very entertainin’ stories too.’

  ‘Please yourself, Bait Belcher,’ Cumquat May said, with the unmistakable tone of someone who had undertaken this exact process before, and with the very same gentlemen.

  Bait Belcher called back to his mates at the bar. ‘Here, Jimmy, Ted, pull up a pew and be kind to the girls. They’re sick of yarnin’ to the willow-munchers. And get Ding to bring over some jugs. Mrs Sweeney! Three jugs of the Native Companion Ale if you will. Ding’ll bring ’em over to the mantle.’

  ‘Certainly, Bait Belcher,’ Mrs Sweeney replied and, excusing herself from Mr Arvo, got up to pour the drinks.

  Tom String re-emerged from the kitchen right then and told Joan Sweeney how well the coal was burning in the stove. ‘If anythin’, it’s glowin’ too fast. Just as well we got that load on the cart today.’

  ‘Yes,’ Joan Sweeney replied, ‘I could tell by the rag over the new girl’s nose that it was putting out. She’s never been here before, Tom. Make her welcome would you, and help Ding take over these drinks?’

  ‘Too right, missus.’

  By the sound of it Tom String and Ding arranged the jugs and the glasses between them and carried them across the room to the mantle, where they could be heard setting them down. ‘You’re first up, lassie,’ Tom String said to Jadey, the Grand Hotel virgin. ‘Will ya look at the head on that one, eh? No one can say Tom String doesn’t know how to pour his own ale. Got a line on it straight as the blue horizon. And it’s got your name on it too, lassie!’

  ‘Thank Tom for the beer, Jadey,’ Cumquat May instructed.

  The girl’s voice was muffled, obviously by the rag over her nose, but a faint ‘Thank you, Tom’ was heard over the rain that was still falling, ever so lightly, on the Sewing Room roof.

  ‘I’m sorry for the stink of the coal there, lassie,’ Tom String said then. ‘Thing is, we don’t even notice anymore. And you won’t after a couple of my beers, will she, Cumquat May?’

  ‘I dare say not,’ Cumquat May agreed.

  ‘Nah, and you’ll have no rag up your nose when we get you out to the stables,’ said the man called Ted, in a Scottish brogue. ‘But you’ll have somethin’ else up ya out there. Too bloody right ya will, yer fresh’n.’

  There was a sudden commotion after this remark; the goats’ hooves could be heard clicking again on the stones. And then the fella called Ted was bleating like a goat himself. ‘Aw, Tom,’ he winced. ‘Aw, bugger off. Blimey, I meant nothin’ by it. Och! Let go o’ me would ya, ya big black oaf? I was only havin’ a bit of a lark with the whores!’

  Tom String however was firm. ‘Nup, Ted. You’re barred. Out you go into the wet, ya jummy you. Mrs Sweeney’s set her rules for the seasonal entertainment. You knew that. She’ll look after us all, but only to a point. Now get out o’ here and go swim with the river rats!’

  And with that the Scotsman Ted was thrown out into the night and the door was slammed behind him.

  ‘By jingo!’ cried Ding. ‘I never seen a shirt collar used like a jug handle before! Hey, Tom String, you pouredhim out into the night.’

  ‘Too bloody right I did, Ding. And I’ll do the same to you if you act up. Now let’s get on with this spree, hey, and you fellas make these inlanders welcome. Especially young Jadey there. Drink up, lassie. And don’t mind Ted. There’s a reason he lives in a hut made of old kero tins. He’s a deadset river rat.’

  Once again the goats could be heard resettling in front of the crackling mountain-ash logs of the fire. The rest of the first jug of Native Companion Ale was poured, and before long the room had well and truly tempered and was full of quiet conversation.

  ‘He’s an invaluable asset that Tom String,’ Mr Arvo was saying to Joan Sweeney, who had joined him again at the end of the bar.

  ‘Particularly on a night such as this,’ the publican replied. ‘We only do it once a season – it’s too long a trip for the girls and all – but there’s always bound to be some trouble. Often enough it’s with Ted. Or some blow-in who can’t believe his luck.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine. I suppose if a working man stumbled in here off a boat or a wagon and struck such potential comfort, he’d become quite excitable.’

  Joan Sweeney laughed. ‘You’re not wrong there, Mr Arvo. Tom’s an asset right then and there, make no mistake.’

  The gang-gangish sound of squeaking cork was heard again and Joan Sweeney offered Mr Arvo another port, this time on the house.

  ‘That’s very kind,’ said Mr Arvo. ‘Now, Mrs Sweeney, about your flowers. I was wondering if I may be able to help you with them.’

  ‘With the flowers?’ replied Joan Sweeney. ‘Oh never mind that, Mr Arvo. I enjoy collecting them. It’s that and swimming which keeps me sane around here.’

  ‘No, no, Mrs Sweeney, I didn’t mean you’d need help with the collecting. More with the naming.’

  ‘The naming?’

  ‘Yes. You were saying just before that you don’t know half the names of the flowers you pick for your vases.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘W
ell, you see, it’s there where I might be able to help.’

  ‘How so, Mr Arvo?’

  ‘It’s a long story, Mrs Sweeney, but in essence, before I left Finland, I had trained for a time as a botanist. As a very young man, you understand.’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Joan Sweeney.

  ‘Yes, well I never did complete my studies – my true vocation was to travel the wide world and it’s that which I pursued. But, after spending four or five unsuccessful years in the dregs of the diggings, on Bendigo, Ballaarat and Blackwood, a man told me one day that the Baron von Mueller was in need of botanical fieldworkers in Melbourne – to assist with the collection at the Botanical Gardens there, you understand.’

  ‘I do, Mr Arvo, I do.’

  ‘So you see, Mrs Sweeney, I found employment with von Mueller and thankfully got off the parsimonious diggings. As it turns out, the very week that I left I received news that my father had died back in Finland. Being an only child, I had inherited the whole of his estate. I was no longer in need of an income. But my interest was now aroused by the opportunity to work alongside the baron, so I went to enquire about the post. I met von Mueller in his cottage and we got on well, for he too had an interest in travel as well as plants. In short, Mrs Sweeney, I was appointed as his assistant-in-the-field and spent the next four years neglecting the duties of my inheritance back in Finland and ranging across Victoria instead, predominantly in the mountainous areas, collecting and classifying native species on his and the governor’s behalf. As such there was for a brief time even a small herb named in my honour by the baron, for I had collected this hitherto undiscovered plant in quite precipitous circumstances on the upper reaches of the Yarra near Warburton.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Arvo, I had no idea. We knew you were a man of music, and like my late husband you always have your nose in a book, but really, a botanist. And working with von Mueller! Tell me, what was the name of the herb in your honour?’

  ‘It is a native wild mint, Mrs Sweeney. Von Mueller named it Mentha Longifolia variation Nuortila, or in English simply the Nuortila mint, after me, Arvo Nuortila. I must say, to have such an honour even for so brief a time was the final persuasion I needed to settle permanently here. Of course I had to return to Finland to tie up my affairs, but as soon as I could I returned to Victoria, where I am destined now to stay. After all there are no fir trees back in Finland named after me. My family have all passed on. And I was never made so welcome in America. So here I am.’