Illywhacker_ A Novel Part 21

When the doctor had contented himself that the patient's stomach was quite empty, he administered a draught of Galls solution to stop the spasms and gave her a strong sedative.

In the kitchen he found atheistic Horace kneeling at the kitchen table beside the mother whose bosom, whether from religious pa.s.sion or anger, was heaving in a manner that was impossible to ignore.

I leaned against the kitchen sink too weary and worried to counterfeit devotion.

It was Horace (looking up from pragmatic prayers) who asked the question about the patient.

The doctor was pleased to announce that both mother and child would survive the ordeal. He helped Molly up from the floor.

"Just the same," he said to me, "you should be indebted to your lawyer mate. You'd never have got me here if not for him."

Molly gave the poet and the doctor a look of utter disgust.

"If not for him?" him?" she said, sitting with a grunt. she said, sitting with a grunt.

Horace stared at Molly with his mouth open, but when she did not continue, he shut it again.

"What lawyer?" I said. Relief had made my face go as soft and foolish as a flummery.

"He's just a Rawleigh's man," said Molly.

"Is he now?" said the doctor, chewing his moustache and raising his eyebrows at the poet in question.

"For Man or Beast," said Molly. "Door to door. Horse and cart."

"Then he makes a prettier threat than any barrister I ever heard. You should have heard him," he told me. "He would have had me drawn and quartered, locked in gaol and left to rot. He had judges and juries and clerks of court ready to grab me and tie me up. So if he is a Rawleigh's man, I'll wager a quid he will end up a rich one, and he deserves it too."

Thus Ernest Henderson brought all his power to save the skin of a man in love.

"You should thank this man," he told me, "and the dear lady who drove so well. It was a performance few men would be capable of."

Molly and I exchanged glances. Somewhere in the air, half-way between us, incredulity met a star-bright beam of triumph.

"She can't drive," I said. "I know it."

"She can," the doctor said. "Like a dream."

Molly blushed deep red with pleasure.

"Granted," the doctor said, "it is a fine motor car, but she raced it like a gentleman."

But Molly could not be appeased quite so easily. She folded her arms across her bosom, as if to ward off further flattery, and demanded to be told the cause of her daughter's problem. The doctor said that he had no doubt it was caused by a gastric attack similar to many he had seen that day, that it was, if anything, milder than normal; there was no risk to the child.

It was I who raised the question of poison. I raised it meekly, pointed to it, as though it were a household mouse I wished a stronger soul to kill.

Ernest Henderson, if you want my opinion, was not normally an inventive or practised liar. But that night the muse was with him and he constructed such a dazzling thread of pure invention and looped it back and forth so many times that I could not work out where anything started or stopped; he b.u.t.toned it neatly with Latin words (like bright-coloured pills with shiny coatings) and, although Molly did not trouble herself to believe a word he said, Horace and I, for different reasons, looked at the fabric he wove with appreciation and relief.

Well, tell me then, what was my choice? To believe my wife deceitful? A liar? A cheat? A collaborator with other cheats? Of course not. I took the lies and held them gratefully. I wrapped them round me and felt the soft comfort a child feels inside a woollen rug. And this, of course, is what anyone means when they say a lie is creditable; they do not mean that it is a perfect piece of engineering, but that it is comfortable. It is why we believed the British when they told us we were British too, and why we believed the Americans when they said they would protect us. In all these cases, of course, there is a part of us that knows the thing is not true, and we hold it closer to ourselves because of it, refusing to hold it out at arm's length or examine it against the light.

So I embraced Horace as a friend. I promised the child would bear his name (a promise I later made to several others and all of which I honoured).

We opened beer. I strutted around the kitchen. I found gla.s.ses to drink from and a few stale Thin Captain biscuits to eat. I fancy I was like a c.o.c.ky rooster, with chest and b.u.m thrust out before and after. I erased all memory of bile and tears.

"To wife and child." I raised my gla.s.s of warm frothing beer. "To aviation, to Australia."

"To wife and child," they drank.

Ah, they all must have thought I was a mug in their different ways, but their wisdom did not stop them from dying in the end, and my foolishness has not killed me yet.

We had several bottles of that soapy-tasting beer. I became garrulous and told stories about flying. Molly recited Lawson at my request. Horace, unused to alcohol, declaimed two sonnets which confused us mightily.

When the doctor judged his work quite done, he rose to go. I took him by his arm and walked him to the door. There was another matter I wished to discuss with him in private.

I left Horace alone with Molly. The poet was nervous and recited Lawson (whom he loathed) with the same enthusiasm with which he had earlier knelt to pray.

Molly watched him as one might watch a spider that may or may not be venomous.

75.

I would not let the doctor go, and yet I could not bring myself to examine the tender matter which so much occupied my mind. The poor fellow found himself stumbling at my side through the tussocked darkness, wandering into flower beds and stepping into horse s.h.i.t while I thanked him for his trouble and followed a line of conversation that echoed our odd perambulations through the mist-streaked dark.

Ernest Henderson must have thought I had something contagious to admit: syphilis or TB or both.

But it was legs that were on my mind, and nothing else. What I wanted to know was how it was that one characteristic was pa.s.sed on to a child and how one was not. I gave not a a d.a.m.n for the shape of a head, or the colour of an eye, or even (as yet unaware of the stubbornness of my unborn son) such things as character and temperament. I wanted to be set at ease about the question of legs, and wondered out loud whether bowed legs (I could never bring myself to say "bandy") were the result, as I had heard, of a poor diet or whether they were inherited from father or mother and, if it was inheritance, then whether the male or female would be the most important in the choice of legs, and if this was something that could be guarded against. I did not put it quite so neatly for, although my thoughts were clear enough, shyness hindered their expression. I had words to say about the Chinese, observing that bow-legs were a common condition, particularly amongst the old. I had seen it in members of Goon Tse Ying's family, seen it before I realized I shared the same condition. Yet I was not quick to come to the point and I confused the matter by discussing the anti-Chinese riots at Lambing Flat where Goon Tse Ying's father and uncle were killed and where he learned to stand in such a manner as to be invisible.

"Should, for instance," I asked the doctor as we turned back for the fifth time towards the dank direction of the Maribyrnong, "I feed her up on vegetables?"

Now Dr Henderson, you will say, had had no time to notice my legs, and I must have been puzzling the fellow to distraction, wasting his time, wearing him out when he should have been home in his bed. But if that is the case, he did not show it. He answered me as best he could, saying that the shape of legs could indeed be determined by a bad diet but he had also observed them to be as hereditary as Habsburg ears and as to whether the male or the female would triumph in the selection of legs for the child, it was a toss-up.

I received this comfortless news in silence. The doctor peered at the luminous face of his watch.

"So it's vegetables," I said, "or nothing."

"There is no harm in vegetables."

I saw him to his car, shook his hand, and waited for him to turn it. As he reversed he caught me in the full glare of his lights. I had no idea whether he was looking forwards or back, but I turned my left foot sideways and stood with my hand on my hip, in such a manner that my deformity, looked at from the doctor's point of view, to all intents and purposes, disappeared.

76.

I have made no great study of epilepsy, so I have no accurate idea as to why Horace chose the moment of the doctor's departure to have a fit. It may have been the strain of reciting Lawson's poetry, the excitements of the day, the introduction of alcohol to his overwrought system, or just plain relief that no one was going to put him on a charge. Whatever caused it, the moment the headlights of the doctor's car washed across his bulging eyes all his systems went suddenly haywire. He was a ball of elastic unravelling. He was a full balloon suddenly unstoppered. He tossed and crashed on to the floor, thrashing his arms and banging his big head. His eyes rolled dreadfully. He made shocking noises, gurgling up from the back of his throat.

Molly screamed. He heard her. He heard every sound. Every word. He heard my footsteps as I ran inside, and every syllable that followed.

"He's choking."

"It's a fit."

"Pull out his tongue."

A pause.

"Quick, Mother," helpless Horace heard me say, "get a hatpin."

77.

It is unendurable, Phoebe wrote to Annette, and she has become quite mad. She is no longer dotty, which she always was, but mad. You would find it hard to imagine, if you can only think of her as the dear happy soul she was in Western Avenue. She has small unblinking eyes like a currawong, turning its head on one side and staring malevolently, as if she thinks I'll pull the needle from the wool and drive it between my legs into the baby's heart. I cannot talk to her. I have tried. Of course we both know what the matter is: she thinks poor Horace is my lover, G.o.d help me. Even Horace has the grace to laugh about it.

Annette, I am big and heavy like a fat bloated slug and I am so bored. The aeroplane sits where I can see it from the window. It is the only thing that keeps me sane.

No, I am not not disenchanted with H. He works hard and loves me, but I am bored. You would not recognize me. I sit for hours staring out the window. I cannot even clean the house or cook. Only Horace amuses me, and how can we discuss poetry or life or disenchanted with H. He works hard and loves me, but I am bored. You would not recognize me. I sit for hours staring out the window. I cannot even clean the house or cook. Only Horace amuses me, and how can we discuss poetry or life or anything anything while while she she sits there with her hands folded on her lap as if we will, at any moment, leap on to the table and start performing adulterous acts. sits there with her hands folded on her lap as if we will, at any moment, leap on to the table and start performing adulterous acts.

I was so ignorant ignorant. I did not even think to do anything to stop getting in this condition. I a.s.sumed it was something he he would do. What a child I was. Now I feel fifty years old and sad and wizened and I look at my mother and listen to her talk about buying a would do. What a child I was. Now I feel fifty years old and sad and wizened and I look at my mother and listen to her talk about buying a taxi taxi business and you would not believe how sad it makes me. I enclose my latest poems. business and you would not believe how sad it makes me. I enclose my latest poems. Please Please criticize them. Tear them to shreds. Tell me. I have only Horace to show them to and he is so sweet. If I listened to him I would start to imagine myself a genius. criticize them. Tear them to shreds. Tell me. I have only Horace to show them to and he is so sweet. If I listened to him I would start to imagine myself a genius. ARE THEY ANY GOOD? ARE THEY ANY GOOD? Am I deluding myself? Should I stop all this useless dreaming and be content with what I have? For he does love me, Annette, and I know I can make him so happy yet I did not, even for a moment, guess that what he wanted was so Am I deluding myself? Should I stop all this useless dreaming and be content with what I have? For he does love me, Annette, and I know I can make him so happy yet I did not, even for a moment, guess that what he wanted was so ordinary: ordinary: a fat wife with a dozen children and cabbage and stew every night. a fat wife with a dozen children and cabbage and stew every night.

I do not go into town. I do not go to the theatre. I sit on the back step sh.e.l.ling peas and trying to love the child kicking at me. I know you are busy but I beg you to visit. Please write as soon as you get this letter. There is nothing else in my life that brings the prospect of so much pleasure.

With much love, Phoebe

78.

It was not the ghost that made me fearful. I was already fearful before it came. It was the counterweight to my contentment and the greater my contentment grew the greater was my fear of losing it. The eucalypts I had planted now thrust out tender pink shoots that glowed in the spring sunshine like blood-filled skin. My wife's belly pushed against her dress. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled. Everywhere life seemed tender and exposed and I did not need a whistling ghost to make me consider the risks of both life and death.

I could not bear to hear my wife discuss aviation. This subject, which had, so short a time before, contained the juices of happiness itself, was poison in the air we breathed. My mind was filled with visions of ruptured organs and broken struts and I wished to encourage her in gentler safer pursuits. This was one of the reasons I invited Horace to stay. I built a room for him. And while Molly clucked her tongue in censure I cut new timber with my saw and inhaled the sweet sour smell of blackb.u.t.t. This was a real room, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with shelves for books and a proper desk for poetry.

Horace was cosy and comfortable and domestic. He was as fearful as a guinea pig and his nervousness soothed me and made me feel safer. It was comforting to have him in the house, like a pet who can be relied upon to give affection. Also: he could read. I had it in mind that I would learn the knack from him so that when my ink-stained wife offered me her poetry I might have some idea what it was, that I would no longer stare dumbly at the dancing hieroglyphics, my skin p.r.i.c.kling with suspicion while I counterfeited understanding and enthusiasm. In the meantime I could have him read the work aloud, pretending that I liked his feathery voice.

Horace was a nice man, but far too gentle. He was no match for Phoebe's will, and when she wished the subject to be aviation he could not and would not swerve her from it. When Phoebe demanded to have her knowledge of Sidwell tested it was Horace who held the tattered volume in his warty hand while I, watching from my place at the head of the uncleared table, did not know whether to be jealous that my position was usurped, pleased that my illiteracy had not yet been uncovered or delighted that I had, at last, a home, a family, a domestic hearth.

"Should the engine stop suddenly?"

"The cause will be failure of the ignition or fuel supply," said my wife, her brow untroubled by the thought of such a calamity.

"To cure it?" Horace turned the page with the same leisurely sweep of hand he brought to his prized edition of Rossetti.

"To cure it, test the magneto and switch off the petrol supply."

"If the engine is misfiring?"

"Ah," said Molly, replacing her fluffy pink knitting in its paper bag and standing. "You should be reading recipe books, my girl."

"If the engine is misfiring on one cylinder," Phoebe smiled at her mother, "it is a faulty plug."

"Or ironing your husband's shirts," said Molly, putting the big kettle back on the stove.

"Herbert doesn't mind. If the misfiring is accompanied by loud banging or rattling it is probably a broken valve. Anyway, Horace irons the shirts."

"If irregular or infrequent firing occurs?" asked Horace, colouring at this public mention of his housekeeping. He looked up at Molly then looked away quickly when she caught his eye.

"You spoil her," she said to me. "I'll never know why you signed that silly paper. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

The paper she spoke of was a legal doc.u.ment that I had signed to honour my promise to her about the aeroplane.

"It will be because the rocker arm on the magneto contact-breaker sticks occasionally," said Phoebe smiling at me. "It's only sensible," she said to Molly. "He's a liar."

"Phoebe!"

"I love him, Mother."

"Oh dearie me," said Molly, clattering with teacups at the sink. "Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned."

"No doubt about it, Mother. Or," she told Horace, "because there is oil or dirt on the distributor or the platinum points require timing."

The doc.u.ment in question is probably worth including here. I only signed it to demonstrate my kindness to the ghost.

THIS INDENTURE made the twentieth day of September 1921 made the twentieth day of September 1921 BETWEEN HERBERT PETER BADGERY BETWEEN HERBERT PETER BADGERY of Dudley's Flat West Melbourne in the State of Victoria (hereinafter called the Grantor) of the one part of Dudley's Flat West Melbourne in the State of Victoria (hereinafter called the Grantor) of the one part AND PHOEBE MATILDA BADGERY AND PHOEBE MATILDA BADGERY his wife of the other part. his wife of the other part.

WHEREAS the Donee is possessed of a desire to pilot an aircraft the Donee is possessed of a desire to pilot an aircraft AND WHEREAS AND WHEREAS in the course of their marriage the Donee has become and is currently with child to the Grantor in the course of their marriage the Donee has become and is currently with child to the Grantor AND WHEREAS AND WHEREAS the aforesaid pregnancy has greatly frustrated the Donee in her aforesaid desire to pursue her career as an aviator the aforesaid pregnancy has greatly frustrated the Donee in her aforesaid desire to pursue her career as an aviator AND WHEREAS AND WHEREAS the Grantor is the owner of an aircraft, to wit one Morris Farman Shorthorn (hereinafter called the Aeroplane). the Grantor is the owner of an aircraft, to wit one Morris Farman Shorthorn (hereinafter called the Aeroplane).

NOW THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH that the Grantor in consideration of his natural love and affection for the Donee and other good and sufficient consideration that the Grantor in consideration of his natural love and affection for the Donee and other good and sufficient consideration HEREBY COVENANTS HEREBY COVENANTS (subject to the final proviso set out below) that he will not again during the currency of this Indenture impregnate the Donee or make any advances such as may induce the Donee to desire union with the Grantor during such times as she is susceptible to becoming pregnant or otherwise have a second child (subject to the final proviso set out below) that he will not again during the currency of this Indenture impregnate the Donee or make any advances such as may induce the Donee to desire union with the Grantor during such times as she is susceptible to becoming pregnant or otherwise have a second child AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS that he will provide the Donee with all the means and support and will use his best endeavours to teach the Donee to fly and navigate the Aeroplane and that he not withhold either monies or information needed for the maintenance of the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition that he will provide the Donee with all the means and support and will use his best endeavours to teach the Donee to fly and navigate the Aeroplane and that he not withhold either monies or information needed for the maintenance of the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS that from such time as she is delivered of child he will do nothing to discourage the Donee from flying the Aeroplane at any time irrespective of the clemency of the weather or the time of day or night that from such time as she is delivered of child he will do nothing to discourage the Donee from flying the Aeroplane at any time irrespective of the clemency of the weather or the time of day or night AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS that he will provide the Donee at all times with sufficient funds to purchase her requirements of fuel, oil, mechanical a.s.sistance and ground support staff that he will provide the Donee at all times with sufficient funds to purchase her requirements of fuel, oil, mechanical a.s.sistance and ground support staff PROVIDED HOWEVER PROVIDED HOWEVER that the Donee will not fly more than eighty (80) miles from her matrimonial home except with the prior written approval of the Grantor which approval shall not be unreasonably withheld that the Donee will not fly more than eighty (80) miles from her matrimonial home except with the prior written approval of the Grantor which approval shall not be unreasonably withheld AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS and the parties hereby agree that in the event that the Donee does once again fall pregnant to the Grantor this Indenture shall operate as an a.s.signment of the Aeroplane to the Donee free and clear of all enc.u.mbrances and in such event the Grantor shall provide the Donee with sufficient funds to maintain herself and the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition and with sufficient funds to fuel and fly the Aeroplane without any limitation whatsoever in terms of distance or time and irrespective of whether the Donee continues to live as the wife of the Grantor or in the matrimonial home and the parties hereby agree that in the event that the Donee does once again fall pregnant to the Grantor this Indenture shall operate as an a.s.signment of the Aeroplane to the Donee free and clear of all enc.u.mbrances and in such event the Grantor shall provide the Donee with sufficient funds to maintain herself and the Aeroplane in an airworthy condition and with sufficient funds to fuel and fly the Aeroplane without any limitation whatsoever in terms of distance or time and irrespective of whether the Donee continues to live as the wife of the Grantor or in the matrimonial home AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS AND THE GRANTOR FURTHER COVENANTS that in the event that the Aeroplane is destroyed or otherwise becomes unairworthy and beyond repair he will replace it with another aeroplane of the same make and model or failing that with an aeroplane of equivalent performance and capacity that in the event that the Aeroplane is destroyed or otherwise becomes unairworthy and beyond repair he will replace it with another aeroplane of the same make and model or failing that with an aeroplane of equivalent performance and capacity PROVIDED HOWEVER PROVIDED HOWEVER that nothing in this Indenture shall detract from the liberty of the Grantor at all times to sustain the marriage by vera copula consisting of erectio and intromissio without ejaculatio. that nothing in this Indenture shall detract from the liberty of the Grantor at all times to sustain the marriage by vera copula consisting of erectio and intromissio without ejaculatio.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the Parties have hereunto affixed their hands and seals on the day and date first herein before written. the Parties have hereunto affixed their hands and seals on the day and date first herein before written.