Riverslake Read online

  “Good,” Randolph said. He sat down on a second deep cane lounge, stretching his long legs out in front of him with a grunt of content. “Extra. And you?”

  “Happy as a sand-boy.” Spain spread his hands and dropped them on his knees. “Nice day.”

  “Lovely. The gardens are beginning to look really something. I walked over from Riverslake, and everybody’s out digging and scratching and mowing.”

  “Soon be summer—that’s when I start,” Spain said with a grin. “Yeah.”

  An uncomfortable silence crept in between them, and Randolph looked out into the deserted street, slumbering in the embrace of its soft green trees. The book, the weather, our health, the gardens—what the hell next?

  Although he had visited the house often enough for it to have become almost routine, Randolph could never easily bridge the first few minutes of conversation with Spain, even when others were present. He knew the reason, and could even grin wryly to himself every time he thought of it, but it didn’t help him at all. He knew, but Spain did not, that he had never taken advantage of any of the opportunities Linda Spain had thrown in his way for cuckoldry. But, apart from saying casually, “Look, I really haven’t touched your wife, yet!” there was little he could do about it.

  They both knew that as long as Randolph continued to visit the house, and to go to dances and parties where he knew that he would meet Spain’s wife, something must crack sooner or later. The unresolved suspicion created a tenseness between them, naturally enough, which was the only barrier to what might by now have become a firm friendship.

  Guilty until proved innocent! Randolph thought, almost with amusement, his eyes on the street. I might as well be in it if everybody’s so damned sure that I am. Wish to God he’d say something!

  The dog relieved the tension for the two men. When Randolph sat down she had disappeared off the veranda and bounced down the side of the house; barking excitedly, she returned as suddenly as she had left and dropped a tattered tennis ball at Spain’s feet. She stood back, barked and waved her rag of a tail, then crouched expectantly with her bullet head between her forepaws and her rear end elevated. Spain leaned forward on the lounge, smiled fondly, and snatching the ball, hurled it out on the lawn. The dog was in instant, yapping pursuit.

  Both men watched her for a moment, and then Spain said, “How’s things at the camp?”

  “Things? You mean the Balts?”

  “Unless you want to tell me how the bacon-cutter’s working!”

  Randolph grinned. This was the common ground on which they could meet, and he was thankful for it. Spain was deeply interested in what was happening to the New Australians, but although he saw Randolph fairly often they never seemed to make enough time to discuss fully what lay so close to both their hearts. Spain saw much of the actual administration of the migration policy; he was well acquainted with matters of Parliamentary and Government policy, but Randolph was his only contact with the people in their everyday lives.

  “We had a bit of trouble during the week,” Randolph said. “Not much, but enough to make you think.”

  “What was it over?”

  “Oh, one of the blokes in the kitchen got the sack. A big log called Vodavitch. He speaks about half a dozen languages, including pretty good English, so they’ve been using him as an interpreter. He got the bullet—look, your mate’s back.”

  Spain looked down. The dog was back at his feet with her ball. He kicked it down the steps and it rolled along the path, the dog after it.

  “Stay outside and play, Tossle!” he ordered.

  Randolph grinned. Linda and her husband spoke to the dog as if she understood every word they said. Spain looked round and caught the tail-end of Randolph’s grin. He shrugged and grinned, too.

  “Little beggar!” he said. “What was the row about?”

  “Well, it all started some time ago, actually. Hell, how time flies! It was the first day I started at Riverslake. Carmichael had a shot at a Balt—you know Carmichael, the manager?”

  “Oh him, only by name—the one they call the Bastard?”

  “Uh-huh—he’s a hard nut. Anyway, this Balt said something and Carmichael got Vodavitch to translate. He said that the Balt said that Carmichael’s mother was on the barter—it’s a favourite insult with them. Carmichael threw him out of the mess, and the next day, out of the camp.”

  “Bit severe, wasn’t it?”

  Randolph shrugged. “You don’t know the Bastard. The Balt was lucky to get off with that!”

  “What happened to bring it up again this week?”

  “I was coming to that—it appears that the Balt didn’t say anything of the sort. He was apologizing really, but Vodavitch put him in. Some of the mess orderlies overheard the whole thing—some of the Poles. They’ve been stewing over the thing and a couple of days ago made a hell of a rukus about it. They demanded that Vodavitch be sacked, or they’d all go out on strike. They soon cotton on, don’t they!”

  “And he was sacked?”

  “Yes—once they found out one instance, they found out a dozen. He’s been running a little Gestapo all on his own, the ratbag.”

  “He must be a nice sort of an animal, at that,” Spain said, frowning. “Putting in one of his own mob—you’d think they’d stick together, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s where everybody’s wrong.” Randolph took out his tobacco, offered it to Spain and then rolled himself a cigarette. “They’re not all one mob, and God only knows when they are likely to be—not in our lifetimes, I’ll bet. Because they’re all Balts here, you get the idea that they come from a common source. Vodavitch is a Yugoslav, and the Balt he put in was a Pole—miles apart. They hate each other’s guts, the Poles and the Czechs and the Slavs and the real Balts, and they all hate the dagoes. Nice set-up. Vodavitch saw the chance to put the boot in, and put it in. It goes on all the time.”

  “What did Carmichael do?”

  “Do? What could he do? I thought he was going to knuckle the big log there in the kitchen, but he didn’t. He called Vodavitch for every thing he could lay his tongue to, and believe me, it was plenty. The Slav just looked at him with the no-savvy look—he reckoned he didn’t understand properly what the Pole had said. But he did, the big swine. Anyway, he’s gone now, and the kitchen’s a damn sight better place for it. But I can’t help remembering something one of the blokes told me—Kerry, it was.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Randolph shrugged. “He’s gone now, and it’s all over.”

  “Good type!” Spain commented crisply. “Where’s he going to fit in—with the blasted Commos, somewhere?”

  “God knows.” Randolph shrugged. “There’s enough of those bastards have come in, too. The Balts reckon that they’ve got them all taped, but nobody’ll take any notice of the Balts. Anyway, we’d be fools to expect them to fit in, just like that. They’re too old, for one thing—they can’t forget the lives they left behind them. Would you, if you went to Lithuania, or Poland, or somewhere? Like hell, you would. For a couple of years you wouldn’t know whether you were punched or bored!”

  “No, I don’t suppose I would.” Spain was still staring at the dog on the lawn. She picked up the ball, looked at the men on the veranda and wagged her tail. Then she dropped the ball and went through the whole performance again. Spain got up and walked out on the lawn, the dog prancing round him, pretending not to notice the ball. He picked it up and hurled it down the side of the house. With a wild yelp, she was after it, tail and ears flapping.

  “She loves a game,” Spain explained, almost apologetically, returning to the veranda. He sat down. “Ever since a pup.”

  “They all do.”

  “Yes. What were you saying, Bob, about the Balts? Sure, we can’t expect them to settle in as easily as we’d like them to, perhaps, but at least we needn’t go out
of our way to hinder them. Keep up the old treatment they’ve run away from. Because that’s what’s happening, you know. In a minor way.”

  “We should’ve got kids,” Randolph suggested moodily. “God knows there were enough of the poor little beggars left without people or homes. If we’d taken a few hundred thousand of them, they’d have grown up Australian, and we would have been saved all the trouble of re-educating them.”

  “Kids can’t dig trenches or plant trees,” Spain said dryly. “Or serve in hostels. It was a business deal as far as we were concerned, and not sweet charity, as they’d have you believe. You should hear old Silver on it.”

  “Hanrahan? That’s why there’s such a damned mess—silly old dodderers like him having a play at statesmen!”

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with it. He just repeats what he hears everyone else saying, as we all do.” Spain grinned. “It’s not easy, you know, when you’re moving big mobs of people round. Someone’s usually got to go to the wall, and in this case it’s the Balts—or some of them. Not many, but enough to leave a dirty taste in your mouth when you know about it. And you do.’

  “Yes, I do.” The dog had returned and stood panting on the steps, the ball between her stumpy legs. Randolph stared at her unseeingly. “I do, but what can you do, except wait for time to pass? That, and concentrate on their kids!”

  “There’s plenty you can do!” Spain exclaimed with sudden savagery. “You can try to teach Australians that whatever else they think, or whatever else they’ve been told, they’re not the salt of the blasted earth. There are other people and other cultures and better things than booze and racing and dogs! These people can teach us plenty, if we take time off to learn.”

  “H’m!” Randolph coughed slightly and grinned. Spain certainly had some ideas about his countrymen and their shortcomings.

  “You can h’m until you’re blue in the face,” Spain said hotly, “but you know who’s right! Try to teach them that—hammer it into their heads at school if you can’t get it across to the grown-ups. But start—for God’s sake start, or another generation will find us with a minority problem on our hands. That’s if Australia still means anything in another generation. The way things are going, even that’s open to question. You said, forget about the Balts and concentrate on their kids; all right, make it go double. Concentrate on our kids, too. Make something better of the next generation of Australians, too, and you might get somewhere. You certainly won’t if they grow up like the mob we’ve got now.”

  “We’re in it,” Randolph suggested, still with half a grin. “You and me—we’re part of this lot.”

  “Yes, God help us, we’re in it,” Spain said soberly. At the feeling in his voice, the grin faded from Randolph’s face. “I know it’s none of my business, Bob, but why don’t you give up all this and get back to what you should be doing?”

  “And what’s that?” Randolph asked guardedly.

  “Oh, don’t stall! Teaching!”

  “Who told you I was a teacher?”

  “Kerry.”

  “Well, Kerry should keep his mouth shut.”

  “Is it something to be ashamed of?” Spain demanded. “I know that the current mode is to be ashamed of being a success, but I’m damned if I can see why a man with your qualifications should be slinging hash in a joint like Riverslake!”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Randolph’s tone was mildly sarcastic. “You want to take a turn at it some time, and get a bit of chalk into your blood-stream, and battle with ratbag kids and their mad mothers. See how happy you’d be.”

  “Happy?” Spain demanded, with suppressed violence. “My God, d’you think I’m happy, here? I could run away …”

  He stopped speaking, and stared at the hands clenched on his knees. When he went on, it was as though another man were speaking.

  “I’m sorry, Bob. Forget that. It’s just that I feel you’re wasting your time slinging hash here while somebody else is doing your job.”

  “So what?” Randolph carefully ignored Spain’s outburst. “Whoever it is, he’ll do it just as well as I would.”

  “No, he won’t. I don’t think you’re looking for compliments, so I’ll tell you why. You’ve got a conscience, for one thing, and you think, for another. And for another, you love your country, and care what happens to it.” The words that might have been maudlin were not. Spain’s voice was coolly impersonal, his grey eyes fixed steadily on Randolph’s. “Any poor dope can teach normal kids that two and two make four, but one in a thousand has what it takes to make good citizens out of them. You’ve got it—I know, because I had a teacher who had it, too. Not that I’m one of his signal successes.”

  “I’ll never go back,” Randolph said deliberately, to Spain and to himself.

  “I hope you’re wrong. I hope something will happen to make you change your mind.” Spain dismissed the whole subject with a smack on his knee. He smiled. “You haven’t asked where Linda is.”

  “Should I have?”

  “Why not? You come over to see her, don’t you? Don’t tell me you come over to see me—or Tossle, perhaps? She’s gone out to afternoon tea at one of the legations—she’ll be home for tea.”

  “She told me she’d be out when she asked me over,” Randolph said. He could not stop the red from flooding into his face, though there was nothing offensive in Spain’s manner. It was as if they were discussing something as remote as the Himalayas, and not the curious situation that existed between his wife and Randolph.

  “Don’t feel too badly about it,” Spain said, his gaze, half amused, half quizzical, still on the blushing Randolph. “You aren’t the first, by a long chalk. And don’t kid yourself that you’ll be the last.” The light banter went out of his voice with the last few words, and a hopeless note crept in. When he finished speaking, he sat with his hands clasped between his knees, staring at the wall behind Randolph. “I suppose you wonder—most people do, sooner or later—what goes on between Linda and myself?”

  “Well …” Randolph could find no words to answer his query.

  “You bet you have,” Spain said. “It’s quite a set-up, really, and I think I’ll tell you. I think you’d understand.”

  “Hell, no!” Randolph felt that to sit there and look on at a major operation on this quiet man’s personal tragedy was more than he could stand. “I———”

  A sleek black limousine swung into the street a few houses away, honked discordantly and came to a noiseless halt.

  “Thank God!” Randolph muttered fervently beneath his breath.

  “Hanrahan!” Spain said, with flat irritation. “Whatever did she want to bring that damned oaf home for?”

  Linda Spain’s voice came to them from beneath the trees on the footpath; she emerged from the car, a dainty figure in a bright, summery frock, and waved to them across the low hedge.

  “Darby and Joan!” she called gaily. “Sit by the fire and spin!”

  Randolph, watching Spain, saw a shadow flicker across his eyes. As his wife turned again to speak to someone in the car, he got up and walked quietly down the path to the gate.

  Old Hanrahan clambered out of the car just in front of another man, a stranger to Randolph. With Linda Spain between them, they met Spain at the gate and walked back to the veranda. Behind them, quiet and saturnine, came the dark man, Blackie, who always drove Hanrahan. He was out of uniform and wore grey slacks and a white shirt, open at the neck. But he still retained his peaked driver’s cap.

  Linda Spain stopped at the foot of the steps and looked up at Randolph. She pretended delighted surprise, but her heart was in her eyes.

  “Why Mr Randolph! Fancy seeing me here!”

  “It’s not fancy, it’s grim reality!” he said, grinning at her. “And don’t look so surprised—you asked me. To tea, too. Remember?

  “Goodness, yes—tea! How are you, Ran?”
/>   She pattered up the steps. Her face was flushed and her dark eyes shining, and her white teeth flashed as she smiled at him. Half stung! he thought.

  She wore her dark hair long and simply dressed, and it glistened with health; as she whisked past him, she displaced a warm current of scented air that had a whiff of spirits in it. She stopped at the door and looked back at the four men, fending off the dog that danced round her legs.

  “Tossle! My nylons! Oh, darling, call her off!”

  “Tossle!” Spain thundered, and the dog lay down at her feet.

  “Darling!” Linda Spain said, and kissed the air at him. “I must see about the tea—introduce Roddy, will you, and then be an angel and pour out some drinks.”

  The four men were silent for a moment after she went, watching the doorway that had framed her. Spain moved first. He turned to Randolph.

  “Meet one of our friends, Bob,” he said. “Roddy Fildes. Bob Randolph, Roddy.”

  They muttered commonplaces and Spain excused himself to bring out the drinks.

  “God, what an afternoon!” Hanrahan subsided irritably into one of the chairs. He was dressed exquisitely, as usual, in a light-grey suit. He carefully adjusted the creases of his trousers over his knees as he settled in. He sniffed the carnation in his buttonhole and snapped open a thin silver cigarette-case. “Gibble, gabble, gobble! Bloody old women—how are you, Randolph?”

  “Good, thanks, Silver.” Randolph smiled slightly. The old shyster always adopted the elder statesman approach with him. Always called him Randolph—never Bob, or Randy, or, as Linda Spain called him, Ran. “Hello, Blackie.”

  “Hello, Mr Randolph,” the dark man said evenly. “How are you making out?”

  “Good,” Randolph said. There was always a reserve between them, the driver making it plain that he thought Randolph should be somewhere else, and Randolph making it equally plain that he thought the driver should mind his own business. “Having a day off, Blackie?”