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CHAPTER IV
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Preparations raged at Nanda, Ashville, one of Sydney's inland suburbs, where Dick Mazere was awaited. He was the only member of the family who had left Australia, and his homecoming after so long was a big event. The step-family, Laleen and Moffat, had never even seen him. He had said good-bye to Blanche, Sylvia, Allan, Philippa, and Aubrey. Sylvia and Allan had died young, and to Philippa and Aubrey he was a distant memory.
It was the faithful Blanche who never allowed contact with him to break, and whose due it now was to take the lead and enjoy attention as the poet's sister--his adored sister to whom he wrote regularly, though rarely to other members of the family. Blanche wore that like a crown. In her twenties, following the death of her mother (née Isabel Labosseer of Coolooluk), she had refused to evacuate for the stepmother. This had worked, because Mrs Mazere was tolerant, and could: fill her days with other concerns while Blanche ran the house.
Only the first family would have met Dick at the ship if Blanche could have had her way, but Mrs Mazere never allowed herself to be effaced. Laleen also contested Blanche's propriety in Dick. Blanche might paw around him, but she, Laleen, would understand him, and he would champion her. She had decided upon a literary career, which she considered gave her rights in congeniality, but which Blanche suspected as an excuse to evade house duty. Any relegation of domestic concerns to second place in favour of meditation or study was to Blanche a shunting of one's share. If housework ran out more had to be manufactured to feed her ideal of unselfishness, womanliness, industry, and virtue. Dick's case would be different, with two printed books to his credit, and, as Laleen said, he was a man.
Preparations were complete at last. Even Dad had climbed from a bath into a perfect shirt and new suit with but little protest, a matter for relief. Richard Mazere was approaching that senility wherein old men frowsily resist such offices, but he was unusually stimulated by the prospect of seeing Dick again.
It was the most pregnant day Laleen had so far known. She was bubbling with excitement when they set out at dawn to meet the Ballyphule. They hurried to Walsh's Bay to learn that arrival was delayed from 8 till 10 a.m. They toiled up the formidable steps and looked at the convict staples and food-holes in Argyle Cut, and returned to find the hour put forward to eleven because of gun practice outside the Heads. They were joined by Uncles Erik and Sylvester Labosseer, and all went up town and had morning tea and tried to think of things to do. Inquiry at the shipping office elicited that the ship would be at the wharf any minute. They hurried down again and stood till they ached in the brilliant morning watching wharf labourers playing cards on the kerb. Garrulous exchanges of confidences with others waiting. Grumblings.
At long last the hull could be seen nosing into the wharf. Hopes were coming down from it, rat collars being put on the ropes. Nothing had ever been so romantic to Laleen as that big black hull. This was her first personal contact with a ship, though it was her abiding dream to sail and sail away beyond the Leeuwin to fame and glory. She made up her mind to go back with Dick.
The latticed gates were withdrawing again. This time the people were not held back to make way for a lorry! The Mazeres pressed forward in the throng, friction evaporated, weariness forgotten.
They picked Dick out among the crowd of migrants on the taffrail. He was recognizing them with a sinking around the heart. His father was so snowy white. Blanche, so good, so self-sacrificing, was old. And could that small, handsome, ageing woman be Philippa? He had been thinking of her as a chubby little girl in a wealth of long ringlets, but alas, she must be almost forty! Mrs Mazere, placid and with dignity in her bulk, had changed least. As she welcomed him, he was astonished to recall his youthful intransigence towards her--partly conventional prejudice imbibed from the air, plus the revulsion of the younger generation if fastidious, when elders, who should be embalmed in the decency of middle-age, are seized anew with sex distempers.
"Welcome home, Dick, old man!"
"Glad to see you again. I expect Sydney looks a big place after the little villages scattered about the world." Drawling humorous greetings from his uncles.
And there was Laleen...as though Sylvia had remained young to welcome him!
He had to turn away for the Customs. A repellent old tout was shepherding him for a tip. Restricted hours of labour and high wages in a new country had not eliminated this nuisance. Dick had nothing dutiable, but the parasite was hardy. To be rid of him Dick handed half a crown. Evidently not enough. The man dropped his cordiality and offensively tested the coin between his teeth.
They were free from the wharf at last and on the way to the station. The uncles went to a show organized to bring money to Sydney, and would reappear later.
Hyde Park! Could that dump be Hyde Park? It resembled the Western Front. The trees! Oh, where were the trees!
"That's for the Underground Railway," explained Blanche.
"Couldn't they have made their beastly burrows without ruining everything?"
"We're going to have a better park than ever."
"But the trees," mourned Dick. "It will take a generation to grow trees for this climate--the great Port Jackson and Moreton Bay figs with their marvellous roots, that made Sydney different."
"We couldn't allow a few old trees to get in the way of progress," said Blanche.
Spiritual progress must be endangered where a great heritage of trees was slaughtered and a dump tolerated in its place, thought Dick.
"A marvellous development in Sydney," observed Mr. Mazere.
They were in the suburban train now.
"We have a train service better than any in the world," said Dad. Best this and biggest that, the delusion of the untravelled everywhere, frequently remains undisturbed by travel.
"Haven't you any trees?" inquired Dick like a hurt child as they traversed the wilderness of suburbs that cling to the railway lines radiating from Central like half a wheel.
The August sunshine blazed upon miles of bungalows like rabbit hutches separated by wide dusty roads. As the outer suburbs were reached each hutch had a royal plot of ground. The desirability of space had been impressed upon even potato brains by old-world over-crowding. The open channels showed the long Australian ridges in noble terraces stretching to a wide horizon. What splendid vistas to line with trees, and with shrubs and flowers on the sidewalks! Dust swept past in clouds. What would the dust and glare be at the height of summer!
Not a tree! Not an open space reserved for a park! Where were the tea-tree, the blackthorn, the banksias, grevilleas, angophora, and a hundred other species wondrous and unmatched, which had covered all this land, the certificate of original glory remaining in the name Botany Bay?
Everywhere the evidence of the herd cutting from a whole continent of new cloth the same coat in which it stank, shivered, and starved in older lands. It all depended, Dick was musing, on the herd being moulded and led by an extraordinary mind or two. God Himself was dependent on the superordinary.
"Even since we came to town," said Philippa, "Sydney has progressed so that you would scarcely recognize it. All the people will be in Sydney soon."
They were so infernally proud of the mess.
Ashville, covered with blossoming shrubs when Dick had gone away, was now a populous and execrably ugly city of well-to-do working people, retired or active. If only they would all fester in Sydney in heaps and leave the country unspoiled, Dick was irrationally thinking, it would at least preserve Coolooluk.
The family had retired to Ashville during the war. The death of grandparents in conjunction with the war boom in wool being the enabling causes.
"Which do you think you'll like best, London or Sydney?" chirruped Philippa.
"There is no reasonableness of comparison."
"You must give Dick time to readjust himself," observed Mrs Mazere.
"Perhaps Dick has a headache," suggested Blanche solicitously, "and would rather not talk."
"I don't believe in the reality of such a thing," Dick smiled gently. "I like being silent."
"An aspirin is a wonderful thing for a headache. Often when you are feeling a bit off, and as if you didn't want to speak, it's a good thing to force yourself to talk about something. It makes you forget your troubles."
"I haven't any troubles, thank you, Philippa, only delight in seeing you all again."
"When I feel terrible, if I rouse myself to take an interest in something I can throw it off."
"But I don't intend to feel terrible," laughed Dick.
"I'll be able to feed you up and give you a nice rest," said Blanche. "There's no place like home. However nice strangers may be, there are none to compare with your very own."
Blanche thought of all she had so unselfishly done for Dick, and all she was going to do to make him strong. Laleen thought he looked most distinguished, and dreamed of their adventurous companionship. Philippa summoned her smile, thought of her new hat, and of deliciously chatty little things to promote amiability, from which Dick was saved by his absent air and the rattle of the train. Mrs Mazere thought Dick alarmingly frail, and wondered what he thought of them all, herself included. Dad thought it was a damned cold da and wriggled for an excuse for a forbidden nip at the pub He thought of asking Dick to celebrate, but no. He and Dick had dissented on this point long ago, and it was to be see that Dick had continued against "nipping". Old Dad sighed. Other men had less ascetic sons, robust fellows who could cavort with their fathers without shame.
Dick could not wrest his gaze from the beehive-like erections without the escape of an upper storey, the glare of the sun unobstructed by so much as a hoopoe. He wanted to creep under something for shelter from that glare, as when machine-gun patter used to fill him with the desire to crawl under a bag or umbrella.
He was willing to overlook failure to evolve an architectural style adapted to the climate, with verandas and windows to catch sun in winter or sea breeze in summer, if only, only there had been trees! Houses could go up in a matter of weeks. Trees took a lifetime.
This was error. He must scotch it. Laleen was smiling at him with radiance and beauty. Dear lovely child! And "Nanda", so named from the grandparent home up the country, had a tree. Snapshots had testified.
They were in the home street now, where sidewalks, that would have admitted of lawn verges, were rank with Parramatta grass or rough weeds. The older cottages were of weatherboard of bull-run design, but with verandas. The newer erections, mostly of brick, had this amenity curtailed. Blanche suddenly turned in at a gate where there stood a dead tree.
"Oh, the tree! Did the poor thing die?" gasped Dick.
"I had it destroyed. A tree is an untidy thing. So many leaves always to be swept up. Welcome to Nanda!"
She led to a room that was to be the haven where for the first time in his life he could be at peace and write or think. The appointments represented generous manipulation of household funds, and Blanche's affection. The place was choked with runners and curtains and photographs dear to two generations past. It was impossible to move without knocking against a superfluous article or catching in some frilly thing. There was no provision for books nor any screen on the window. Flies were in evidence though it was winter.
"You'll have plenty of room there," said Dad with satisfaction. "Things have changed since my day." Good old Dad had lived alone for years in a hut on a selection on the back of the run bare of such luxuries.
Dick suddenly realized that while he had been abroad using the world's up-to-date appliances and absorbing its current fashions in ideas, his family were almost where he had left them, spiritually and intellectually. The person whose support he craved in that hour was Miss Timson, the young woman who had companioned him on the ship, and he did not know where to find her. He turned from material considerations to the affection of which this clutter was a symbol. The symbol of Australian neighbourliness supplemented it in the arrival of numerous bouquets, bottles of jam, and other dainties.
II
Dick went out on the veranda, where his father was smoking and awaiting him. He was only seventy-four, but he looked so desperately old, and was slightly deaf, which made private communion with him impossible in a wooden cottage.
The poor dead tree! Dick recalled that his mother had hated a thicket. Gardens had to be tidy. He was inclined to confuse Blanche, now nearing fifty, with his mother. Whimsical, nervous, affectionate little Allan had not reached maturity. Sylvia, beautiful as a fairy and kind as an angel, upon the advent of her first baby one glorious spring day when all the birds were singing and the world was a sea of wattle gold, had left a fair prospect of life and a devoted young husband. It was a melancholy hour to Dick. His absence had been too long. He had now little in common with his family but blood, and that rarely ensures congeniality.
He found his stepmother rather a personage. Laleen was fair and tallish, with the Mazere cast of features. She had Sylvia's youth and loveliness and qualities in addition which promised companionship. At the earliest moment she confided her great adventure. With Dick's sympathetic eyes to hold her, she ran on and on.
"The Bulletin takes lots of paragraphs about the bush, and I've had three articles in the Sydney Mail."
"That's the way to keep on."
"But I've had heaps sent back, and I have always to be worrying to think of something. I want to write a whole book like Ignez Milford did."
"Ignez Milford," he repeated dreamily.
"There's a wonderful chance. The Bulletin is going to give prizes for real Australian novels. Oh, Dick, do you think I'd be foolish to try?"
"Certainly not, child. I think it an adventure."
"Oh, Dick! I knew you would! Will you help me?"
"If I can. This is great."
"Blanche doesn't think so."
"Blanche helped me with her all to get away long ago."
"You, but not me. She wants me to be a nurse or a beastly teacher. I'd almost rather get married than teach a lot of filthy kids, or mess about with disgusting sick people. Blanche thinks writing an excuse to get out of work."
"There surely can't be much work in a little place like this with three women besides your mother, and a charwoman to come in."
"If I didn't want time to write I could do the whole bally lot, but if I did everything twice over Blanche would still rage around. She can't bear anyone to be at peace. Dad says it's her time of life. Mother had the same time of life a few years ago, but she wasn't like that."
Blanche here opened the door. She never conceded to any family member the right to a knock before entering. "Don't let Laleen tire you, Dick, or monopolize you. Young people nowadays have no consideration for others."
"We'll be out by and by, sis. I have something to say t Laleen, if you will excuse us for a while." Blanche had to retire. Laleen looked at Dick with a smile.
"Love is the way out," he said gently, "and understanding. Before you were born, in a terrible drought, when no one had the money you have today, Blanche sold the butcher her pet sheep--the one fat animal on the place--and put the money in my hand. It was a miracle to me. For the first time in my life I bought books of poems. That's how I knew what to do with my own. In a way, they are the result of Blanche's self-sacrifice...Laleen, you and I must read together every day. We'll start now. Dear Blanche will be a mother to that book you want to write."
Laleen was all attention and response for some time, then remarked, "I wish you'd make it act on Blanche and Philippa."
"You help me to help them, to help each other."
"Is it the same as being religious? Because Blanche and Philippa are both religious, and it makes me want to be a damn' atheist." She was puzzled that Dick should talk like a Salvationist. It was disappointing. If serious, he would lose caste.
"I expect it is different from what you mean by being religious."
Blanche came again. "Come, Dick, Laleen cannot be allowed to take all your first evening with us. See what the papers have to say!"
The family crowded around with exclamations. "Both papers Dave his picture. One has a whole column." Dad seized the papers, and Dick said he would see them later. They were naively delighted with their vicarious jet of limelight, and Dick was pleased for their sakes. He had no medals nor titles t bring them.
"Major-General Sir Oswald Mazere-Poole has come home too. He's our cousin, isn't he?" said Laleen, peeping over Dad's shoulder.
"Yes--Dad's and my mother's first cousin. He used to write to me, but I suppose he's got too big now."
"But they haven't given him as much of a yarn as Dick!" Dick felt more puffed down than up about it. Sydney, despite its metropolitan pretensions, must be disconcertingly provincial if he could be news.
A strange sound, familiar though unexpected, had the momentary effect of dreaming upon him. Merry, loud, sustained, enrapturingly real, peal after peal. Dick laughed too, the papers forgotten. "That is worth travelling all the way to hear."
"That's old Jock that Les Olliver brought Laleen from Oswald's Ridges, and a couple of visitors."
"One of our own! Let's go and join them."
The gathering was on the dead tree, the birds clear against the sunset. Jock fell silent when his friends flew away. Dick was resuffused with poetic delight in his native land. Again he felt receptive of the music of mind as that evening on shipboard when he saw the Cross again as a promise in the heavens. Coolooluk was not a day's journey distant, and there the waters sang and the birds called all day long. Ashville and its like might be a blunder, but the Cross was twinkling southwards, and away to the west, where a glorious glow lingered in air brittle with drought and winter, was Australia still unlimited.
III
He was waked at dawn by that magic laughter again and by his brother Aubrey dumping his gear on the back veranda. Aubrey, and the half-brother Moffat, had bought the old place at Oswald's Ridges, Goulburn. To pay for it, Aubrey, during the wool season, was an employee of the Australian Stations and Mortgaging Company. He came now from the Paroo, where he had been in charge of the shearing of all that could stand up of ninety thousand sheep. Greetings past, Aubrey talked of his immediate experiences as they awaited Philippa's early tea.
"The old folks have a lovely little home here, haven't they! By Jove, Sydney is a paradise after what the poor devils where I came from have to put up with. Enough to break a man's heart...But they have a mighty clever policy out there. They stock-up on old ewes and sell all the young stuff as soon as it is dropped, and in a drought they get as much of the wool off as they can and let 'em die...Gosh, I've had a time...the men striking...We all went down with flu for a start...in tents...and talk about dust! It's not sand, it's the whole earth moving. Can't see your hand in front of you. All the shearing done out on the runs...it's picking up the jumbucks all the way to the machines, and as soon as they're shorn they die and the earth covers them up. It was only the warmth of the bit of wool kept them alive. It would take six inches of rain to do any good out there...even the roots are eaten out of the ground. It beats me how a sheep can live so long. Some of 'em couldn't get up, we had to lift them, and then they staggered thirty-two miles to the shearing camp."
Dick shivered to envisage the peerless blankets in which he had lain, the Botany socks so soft to his feet, his guernsey, reefed from the little beasties dying of cold and starvation. "Was it cold?" he managed to murmur.
"Cold at night. I nearly froze there last week. If this drought keeps up, the city will soon suffer too. There's going to be unemployment everywhere. Can't help it when all the money goes out of the country to pay for moving pictures and motor cars."
More fumes. Dick felt that he should be expiating in some way if only with a hair shirt like an antiquated saint. And lie had contemplated withdrawal to dream dreams and write a poem! He was half-convicted of defection as he saw Aubrey's Bands, tanned like leather, his face cruelly wrinkled. Everything about him bespoke a rigorous physical life completely removed from the arts. And he, Dick, had been discontented because of graces lacking in this parasitic coastal paradise!
"It must be heartbreaking to see the sheep suffer."
"They're a smart firm that! That's a dashed good policy, to buy up old ewes and breed, and then let 'em die. If you begin feeding it runs into a pound or thirty shillings a head before you know where you are, and then have to let them die in the end. They're feeding them on rice where I'm going next."
Dick could see only those shivering little beasts with their eyeballs picked out by the crows lingering in agony after providing for mediocrities and worse, the dividends to find sunshine and luxury on the Riviera, or culture in London, or revelry in Melbourne and Sydney.
"There is one of those horrid Darling dust storms," exclaimed Philippa, "when we had the place so clean yesterday."
"Oh ho! Thank your luck that you don't know what it's like here!" The dawn was murky. Particles of the red heart of Australia had reached the pampered city, staining the arum lilies and irritating the housewives, drifting a thousand miles out to sea in the moistureless atmosphere.
Blanche brought in the morning papers. "Madame Austra had a civic reception yesterday afternoon, and she is to give her first concert on Saturday night."
"Oh, I do wish we could go!" exclaimed Laleen.
"All these things cost too much, and I have spent so much on getting the house ready for Dick." This was true. Laleen sighed, and determined to pursue her career in order to be able to go to everything and have people struggling to meet her.
"You're quite a geebung tool" said Aubrey.
"There's more about him than anyone, in the papers."
"He's in time for the election. Another month's wind-bagging, and these fellows feathering their nests. They ought to be given two or three years straight off beyond Bourke and Broken Hill. I don't know how the women and kids stick it."
Blanche put all the papers before Dick. Notwithstanding the notables on the Papeete, the papers had given him considerable attention. "Return of a good Australian." "An Australian Poet of Distinction." A charming editorial welcomed him as a native son who had been too long absent. Despite drought and political malfeasance which, as ever, were wrecking the country, the papers had the heart and grace to welcome him. He was personally revived. Who dare say in face of this that his native land had no mind above wool, or lionized only the athlete and the millionaire?
To feel that the making of a poem was shirking while there were people and beasts in the north-west suffering unspeakable hardship, was not to help them but to fail them.