Solomon's Song (26 page)

HAWK AND DAVID - A FIGHT TO THE DEATH

Melbourne 1914

Hawk leaves the hospice in the early hours of the morning of Hinetitama’s death. He has had some weeks to reconcile himself to its inevitability and his tears are now turned inward. Even as a poor wretch, ravaged by years of abuse, Hinetitama remained an innocent, with a heart that never seemed to have hardened to a world of grog and the life of a derro. Hawk tries to console himself with the knowledge that she died aware there was someone who loved and cared about her. After placing his large hand on her brow, Hawk rises wearily from her bedside, his heart heavy, his bones aching. ‘Tommo, I let you down, I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry, mate,’ he whispers. For the first time in his life he feels old. ‘Why,’ he thinks to himself, ‘must I live to see everyone I love die before me?’

He startles the night sister almost out of her wits by handing her a cheque with the words, ‘There is more than sufficient in this to install an electric light system, Sister Brigid.’ The Irish nun glances down at the piece of paper in her hands, it is for a larger sum than she’s ever seen, larger even than the amounts whispered in the most ardent prayers Mother Superior has urged them to address to the Lord to supply their needs.

‘Oh my goodness!’ she gasps, holding the cheque to her rapidly palpitating heart. ‘Mercy be, to be sure, I shall faint.’

Hawk reaches into his purse and takes out a five pound note. ‘I would be most obliged if you would see that my niece is dressed in a new cotton nightgown.’ He pauses, then adds a little sheepishly, ‘Her hair is still beautiful, will you see that it is washed and brushed? I should like it to hang over her shoulders, over the front, like?’

The nun nods her head, still holding the cheque clasped to her bosom. ‘I’m . . . I’m sure that will be a pleasure, s-sir,’ she stammers. ‘To be sure, I shall see to it meself.’

Hawk places the money on the desk beside the nun. ‘Thank you, Sister, I shall make arrangements for the casket.’

Sister Brigid, now somewhat recovered, says, ‘You’ll be wanting to see Mother Superior before you’re to be going now. I shall call her if you’ll wait a moment?’

‘No, no, Sister, it is just past dawn, you’re not to wake her.’

The Irish nun looks surprised. ‘Wake her? She’ll be up having said her rosary and scrubbed her cell. She’ll not be lying abed, you can be sure of that now.’

‘No, really, Sister. I crave your indulgence. It’s been a long night. I shall visit at another time to pay my respects to Sister Angelene and to Father Crosby. In the meantime would you thank her for the loving care you have shown.’ Hawk bows his head slightly. ‘I am most grateful to you all.’

The nun, still clutching Hawk’s cheque, afraid to place it down, smiles and stoops to look through the slot in her cubicle, which looks into the ward just beginning to be tinged with the light of a new day. ‘Electric lights? What a grand thing that will be.’

*

Hawk decides to walk home to Caulfield, a journey on foot of nearly an hour. He has a great deal to think about and sets off at a brisk pace. The sun rises soon after his departure and he removes his jacket, but it is not long before the sweat runs down his neck and he can feel his starched collar grow damp. It is a small enough risk that anyone who may know him will see him, or even be up and about at such an early hour and so he removes his weskit as well and loosens his tie. Comfortable in his linen shirt and braces, he strides onwards.

In the weeks preceding Hinetitama’s death, Hawk has done a great deal of thinking about what he should do about Solomon & Teekleman now that he once again controls a majority of its shares. He has kept the knowledge of Hinetitama’s reappearance from both Ben and Victoria at Hinetitama’s request, but Victoria will want to know how he managed to regain control of the shares. He decides he must tell her and risk her anger at not being allowed to see Hinetitama before she died. More importantly, he is not sure how he will explain the situation in which they now find themselves.

Victoria has never been told of his aspirations for her to succeed him and, increasingly, she is being drawn to the Labor Party and sees her ultimate career in the law as a means to help the poor and the working classes. Hawk is not convinced that she will happily take to the proposition of one day running a huge organisation dedicated to making money for the already vastly wealthy.

She has, of course, some years previously asked him why her surname is included in the company name. He replied that he thought Solomon & Teekleman was a name which constantly reminded everyone of the enmity between the two families, that one day she and Ben would own a large shareholding in the company and it seemed appropriate that their surname be included in it. Victoria had accepted this explanation at the time but she has on more than one occasion suggested that Hawk, at the annual meeting of shareholders, propose that the name be dropped and they sell their shares to Abraham and Joshua.

‘Grandpa, I am ashamed of it! People look at me when I’m introduced and say “The Teekleman?”, some because they are impressed and others because they despise what the name stands for. Either way I am ashamed to be associated with it, to be a shareholder!’

Hawk has always resisted both requests, putting it down to youthful idealism that will modify as Victoria grows older and becomes involved with the company. But he also knows how stubborn she can be. Now that he is potentially back in control of Solomon & Teekleman he may not be able to effectively manage it. He realises that his eventual ambitions for Victoria may be impossible to accomplish and that he, or rather circumstances, have conspired to leave his run too late.

Sir Abraham Solomon and his stewardship, though not spectacular, have been steady and he has done nothing to harm the profitability of the two giant companies under the Solomon & Teekleman banner. The times have been prosperous and both have simply continued to grow, finding opportunities to expand without having to seek them out and at very little financial or decision-taking risk.

Hawk is well versed in the affairs of Solomon 8c Teekleman, but only as a shareholder. He has been absent from the helm for more than two decades and is sufficiently astute to realise that he knows little of the internal workings of the two companies and may no longer be the right man for chairman. Or even if he is, Abraham Solomon would almost certainly retire if he attempted to take over, leaving him alone to organise the affairs of the conglomerate.

Tom Pickles, who is the managing director of the Potato Factory, has requested early retirement. Pickles, a veteran of the Boer War, was wounded at Spion Kop and now has only one lung working effectively, a condition which is exacerbated by the inclement and unpredictable Hobart weather and a childhood spent in an orphanage where, like most of the children, he showed a propensity for bronchial ailments.

Pickles started his working life as one of Mary’s orphans and soon proved to be a cut above the usual lad or lass brought into an apprenticeship at the brewery so that Mary picked him early for better things and trained him to accountancy. He had risen to assistant manager of the accounts department when he enlisted for the Boer War, where he was mentioned in dispatches. He returned to the Potato Factory a war hero and resumed his previous job. With Mary dead and Hawk replaced by Abraham, he soon again showed his original promise and was appointed as the manager of the accounts department. When David retired, Abraham elevated Pickles to the position of managing director so that he himself could assume the title of chairman of Solomon & Teekleman.

Pickles has served the company well but, increasingly, is plagued by chronic bronchitis. The doctor has advised him to move to a more equable climate and has suggested Queensland. It is proposed that Wilfred Harrington, the managing director of Solomon & Co., take his place in Hobart and that Joshua, having completed a year of learning the ropes, be given the same position at Solomon & Co. A neat enough arrangement had it not been for the outbreak of war.

Hawk now thinks that it may be possible to broker a compromise. He will agree to leave Abraham as chairman and, upon his return from the war, allow Joshua to take up his position as M.D. of Solomon & Co., in return for the vacant position of managing director of the Potato Factory and a position for Victoria as a trainee under Hawk’s direction.

This is not altogether wishful thinking. Hawk has some reason to believe it might be acceptable. Abraham doesn’t share David’s pathological hate for Hawk, and has hinted that he would be willing for him to return as the managing director of the Potato Factory under his chairmanship, but only after David has passed on. Hawk has never pursued this idea, thinking it prudent to wait until David is dead.

However, they badly underestimated David’s tenacity and physical toughness. He did not retire for lack of strength or the will to continue, but for the singular purpose of training the fifteen-year-old Joshua to take control of Solomon & Teekleman. Obsessed with this mission he has managed to live through his grandson’s puberty and into his adulthood. David at ninety-four is still a force to be reckoned with, though recently he has spoken of seeing Joshua take up his rightful role in the company and, then, in his own words, ‘Carking it, being rid of you miserable bloody lot once and for all!’

But just when all seemed in place, with Joshua back from Oxford and having almost completed his mandatory year learning the practical aspects of running Solomon & Co., war is declared in Europe.

David is mortified, instantly flying into one of his infamous tantrums. Lacking the strength to break things with an axe, he demands to be wheeled into the kitchen and has the kitchen maid bring him every plate, cup and saucer in the house and stack them beside his wheelchair. Then, hammer in hand, he has Adams, the butler, read the underside of each plate or piece of crockery to determine its origin. Those pieces made in England, France or Germany he smashes. In the first hour after he has been told of the declaration of war David renders a small fortune in Royal Doulton, Wedgwood, Limoges and Rosenthal as well as a dozen manufacturers of lesser fame into a colourful sea of broken crockery that covers the entire surface of the kitchen floor. Exhausted, he is put to bed mumbling obscenities and the doctor is called. The doctor warns him that another such conniption could bring on a heart attack, to which David shouts, ‘Piss off, what would you know, you stupid old fart!’

David takes the declaration of war personally. He sees it as a part of the long-standing persecution he has received at the hands of Mother England. Just another part of the personal vendetta she has waged against him all his life. He tells himself that because of his advanced age she is taking this final opportunity to put the boot in. The first time she got her claws into him was when she’d transported his mother and their little family to the utmost ends of the earth. Now she would see him dead and buried before Joshua assumes his rightful inheritance, she would rob him of this one great ambition and see him die without achieving it. David knows from the moment war is declared that not even he will be able to dissuade Joshua from volunteering to fight for the old whore.

While at Oxford Joshua has trained in the OTC, the Oxford University Officer Training Corps, under the direction of the Royal Oxfordshire Regiment. Now he is raring to return to the grand sport offered by a proper war. He has often enough hinted to his grandfather that had he not been trained to commerce he would have liked the life of a professional soldier. It is a prospect totally abhorrent to his grandfather and one of the very few things that has come between the two of them. David’s intention in sending Joshua to Oxford was simply so that he might gain all the social contacts and background he would need as the head of an industrial empire. David knew that Joshua was unlikely to do anything of academic note and thought to sneak his grandson in and out of Oxford without Mother England realising he was there, a colonial son making so little impression that the old bitch hardly noticed his presence. But she’d known all along of his whereabouts and promptly set about corrupting his mind with military gung-ho and carry-on.

David has over the years made generous donations to causes serving the interests of both the conservative and the radical sides of local politics and, by sheer attrition and the ultimate size of the accumulated donations, gained a knighthood for Abraham. Like everything else about his son, in his father’s mind Abraham’s title is intended to bolster Joshua’s credentials, the gentile son of a Jew is a difficult concept to grasp but, in David’s mind, the son of a knight of the realm, who coincidently happens to be of the Jewish faith, is quite a different perception and will help to bolster his grandson’s credentials as a bona fide gentile.

Joshua, ever dutiful, has enhanced this claim to respectability whilst at Oxford by becoming a surrogate Englishman, a complete Anglophile, adopting the mannerisms and attitudes of the English upper class. While at university he has managed to perfect a set of rounded vowels to match his new-found affectations. The ultimate irony is that David’s grandson now considers it his patriotic duty to fight for the country for which his grandfather retains only the bitterest memories and feels the greatest antipathy.

Hawk thinks the miserable old bastard will somehow contrive to keep himself alive until Joshua returns from the war and is seen to fulfil his grandfather’s ambition. He knows also that Abraham is unlikely to agree to his conditions while David is alive and that it is the ninety-four-year-old whom he must convince, a task which he knows will be formidable.

The certain ascendancy of Joshua to chairman has also been a problem preoccupying Hawk for some years. He has never given up the idea of Victoria usurping him for the same position. Even before Hinetitama reappeared, under the terms of Mary’s will Ben and Victoria resume control of their ten per cent of the company shares when Victoria becomes thirty, by which time, unbeknownst to David and Abraham, Hawk’s side will again own the majority of shares.