‘Not Peggy, surely,’ Joe said.
‘No, not Peggy. She’s solid.’
If Magill had any further qualms about Tom Mackenzie, he chose not to express them, but told him that he was welcome to stay at Candlebark Hill.
They began to walk into Daylesford, whose main street was dominated by a lavish, gold-funded town hall, the Rex cinema, and two hotels. There were several horses tied up outside them, and there was enough dung on the road to suggest that horses and carts were at least as common there as motor vehicles. A few of these, their lines disfigured by large charcoal-burners on the back, were parked in the street. Joe wasn’t paying particular attention to his surroundings because Tom had brazenly asked Magill what he’d meant when he’d said that those friends of his lacked commitment. There was no lightness in his voice, and no hint of nervousness. He sounded severe and humourless, as if Magill somehow owed him an explanation.
‘I’m not here just to run around in the nuddy, Magill. Joe told me about that. If the commitment you’re talking about is just to this naturist bullshit, tell me now, and I’ll save myself a walk.’
Joe could tell that Magill was yet again taken aback by this stranger’s gall.
‘Naturism is not just about the body,’ he said carefully and calmly. ‘It’s about the mind too, and the Earth. It’s …’
‘Fuck the mind, mate, if it’s not about the Japs and the Jews I’m not dropping my strides. Joe reckoned you were the man to see about Australia First. Is that right, or not? A straight answer would be helpful at this point, mate.’
Magill had probably never been spoken to like this in his life, and he was so surprised he confirmed that he was indeed the man to see about Australia First.
‘Except we’re now called Australian Patriots.’
Joe was flabbergasted by the success of Tom’s gambit.
‘There aren’t many of us left,’ Magill said. ‘At least, officially. Being a patriot is frowned upon these days. They’d rather lock you up than give you a pat on the back.’
Tom did just that. In a display of masculine bonhomie, he slapped Magill on the back and said, ‘Good man.’
‘And you needn’t worry about dropping your strides, to use your expression. The mood at Candlebark Hill isn’t right to celebrate the body. You’re welcome to shed your textiles, of course, and I assure you no one will bat an eyelid, but you’ll be the only one to do so, and you might not be comfortable with that.’
Both Joe and Tom heaved a silent sigh of relief, and Joe wondered what could have happened to take the shine off
licht land
— an expression he’d learned from the title of one of the magazines found in John Quinn’s bedroom.
As they walked out of Daylesford through cleared gullies towards Candlebark Hill, Tom continued to flesh out the character he’d created. Joe even heard him make snide little asides about what he considered to be Joe’s half-hearted, if genuine, commitment to the politics of Australia First.
‘Pardon me,’ Tom said, ‘Australian Patriots. Joe’s with us, Mitch — don’t get me wrong. But just between you and me, it’s more of a hobby with him — know what I mean?’
Magill nodded and said that he knew exactly what he meant, but that the party needed everyone it could get.
‘You’re right about that,’ Tom said. ‘I just wish he was a bit tougher about the cause.’
‘The cause?’
‘That’s what I call it. It’s my cause anyway. One flag, one people, one government — that was Australia First’s motto, and it’s mine, too. This government’s doing nothing to stop the communists and Jews from eating away at this country from within. Look at the number of reffos coming here. The way I see it, it’s time someone did something about that.’
Joe was walking behind Mitchell and Tom, so he couldn’t see the expression on Mitchell’s face. He noticed, though, that Tom’s rant had put a spring in Magill’s step.
The walk to Candlebark Hill wasn’t too demanding, despite the increasing heat. After thirty minutes they turned off a gravel road onto a track that was sign-posted as Coate’s Road. Magill led them up it to a small house, built close to the track and bordered by cleared paddocks. A majestic manna gum, a remnant of the forest that these now empty, hungry paddocks must once have supported, grew close to the gate. They passed through it and followed an avenue of young eucalypts to where the land fell gently away towards another house with three modest outbuildings nearby — structures that were invisible from the road. They sat on the edge of a copse of trees that extended for some distance to the left and right, and crept up the incline on the far side of a small, dry creek. Magill waved his hand over the scene.
‘Wherever you see trees, that’s my land. This used to belong to my father. He planted all this back in the 1920s.’
‘Big effort,’ Tom said.
‘The people round here thought he was nuts. Waste of good paddocks, they said.’
As they walked towards the house, three figures emerged and came towards Magill and his two companions. One of them, blond and lean, was shirtless. The other two were in shirtsleeves, with dark sweat-stains in their armpits.
‘This is Arthur’, Magill said as they met. Arthur shook their hands. The remaining two stood away from him, as if not wanting to be associated with his flabby, sweaty lack of condition.
‘This is Ptolemy,’ Magill said. Jones inclined his head to indicate that he was the Ptolemy in question, but made no move to shake hands.
There’s
a body that
any self-respecting fascist thug would be proud to own
, Joe thought. His name was strange, as Tom undiplomatically made clear.
‘Ptolemy? Is that your real name, mate?’
‘Ptolemy is the name my parents gave me.’
His accent had had the working-class edge taken off it, but wasn’t the product of the schools that had produced Mitchell and Arthur. Joe was instinctively wary of him. Taken separately, his features were regular, but in combination they somehow conspired to make him plain — a fact not helped by the static ugliness of his expression. It was impossible to miss the words ‘Arguement 7’ tattooed in an arc under his navel. The misspelling made the tattoo ridiculous, and the phrase itself was meaningless to Joe and Tom. Ptolemy, Joe thought, looked like a man who’d last smiled at the drowning of a kitten.
‘And this is Fred,’ Magill said. The third man nodded at the sound of his name. He was dark — Ptolemy was the blond one — about the same age as Ptolemy, and, like him, he carried no excess weight. His face was clouded by a dark beard-shadow.
There is nothing happy about this little group
, Joe thought. The air was tense. Magill pointed to one of the outbuildings.
‘You can leave your things in there, and join us in the house for a cup of tea.’
Magill and the three men headed towards the house, and Joe and Tom entered the outbuilding. It wasn’t large, but it had been divided into three rooms, with bunk beds in each room. There was no evidence that anybody else was staying there, so both Joe and Tom assumed that the trouble Magill had mentioned must have led to quite an exodus.
‘I’d say,’ said Tom, ‘that whatever happened here had something to do with that Ptolemy character and his furry friend. I don’t like the look of them one bit. What the hell does “Argument 7” mean, and who doesn’t check the spelling on a fucking tattoo, for Christ’s sake? He’s like a Nazi from Central Casting.’
‘You should think about acting as a career, Tom. You’re bloody convincing.’
‘This isn’t fun anymore, is it? I’m suddenly very nervous about what I’ve got myself into. The two skinny ones probably don’t have great senses of humour.’
‘This retreat has turned pretty sour, obviously, and that Ptolemy bloke would scare off anyone who was here for a quiet weekend of frolicking. Let’s go in.’
Tom and Joe let themselves into the house. It was well furnished — not at all the rustic retreat they’d been expecting. Arthur’s wife, Margaret, and Magill’s friend, Peggy Montford, were introduced to Tom, and Margaret was introduced to Joe. Joe thought that seeing her clothed was far superior to the prospect of seeing her naked. They sat in comfortable chairs in the living room, except for Magill, who stood proprietorially by the fireplace, his arm resting on the mantelpiece. Several chairs — four single-seaters and a three-seater — were arranged around a low, circular table, and hugged the fireplace quite closely. On the wall above the mantelpiece was a large triptych of four naked women.
‘Very nice,’ Tom said. ‘Nice-looking sheilas.’
His gracelessness was rewarded by a delighted laugh from Peggy.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ Magill said. He took a postcard from the mantel and passed it to Tom, who looked at it and passed it on to Joe. The image was of a living room in Germany, which Magill had approximated with the paintings and their furnishings, and their placement in his own room at Candlebark Hill.
‘Adolf Ziegler did the original of this picture. I think I’ve done it justice.’
‘You painted that?’ Tom asked.
‘Mitchell painted all of the pictures in this house,’ Peggy said. ‘He’s handy with a brush.’
‘It’s bloody brilliant,’ Tom said. ‘Hey, the one in the centre — that’s you, isn’t it?’
Peggy Montford moved her head to resemble the pose.
‘Yes, that’s me. All of me.’
‘It’s called
The Four Elements
,’ Magill said, ‘and Herr Hitler has a copy of it in his house in Munich.’
Joe noticed that Ptolemy looked at the painting when Magill said this, but the expression on his face was one of distaste, and perhaps incomprehension. The aesthetics of National Socialism were of no interest to him — probably, Joe thought, because he wasn’t intelligent enough to engage with them, even though they were bland, sexless, and embarrassingly shallow. The other man, Fred, didn’t look at the painting. He was watching Tom Mackenzie, his face expressionless.
‘Are you interested in art, Tom?’ Magill took back the postcard and replaced it on the mantel.
‘I am if the subject matter is like that.’
Joe began to worry that Tom was shifting his character into caricature. Magill didn’t seem to notice.
‘The human body should never excite shame,’ he said.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ Peggy said, and Margaret was quick to join her. Magill began to warm to his theme, and his tone suggested that his remarks were pointed criticisms of Ptolemy and Fred.
‘
Freikörperkultur
, free physical culture. This was the corner-stone of the movement in Germany. Sadly, the National Socialists have lost their way in this area — largely, literally, because Herr Goering is fat. He issued an edict banning naturism, absurdly claiming that nudity was one of the greatest threats to German culture and morality. A cultural error, he called it. He’s a fat fool, of course. The only error is the amount of food he sticks in his mouth. The Fuhrer’s taste in art certainly suggests he disagrees with him. German art celebrates the purity and glory of the body.’
‘But they’re not realistic, are they, those bodies?’ Tom said. ‘I mean, who actually looks like that?’ He indicated the three other nudes that hung in the room.
‘Who really looks like that?’ Magill repeated. ‘That’s an unimaginative, ill-informed question, Tom, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘I like them,’ Joe said. ‘Realism is lazy, I think. It hits you between the eyes, but doesn’t linger in the mind. It’s visceral and pointless. These seem to express something moral, permanent. These are proud women; look at them. Priestesses, vital.’ He paused. ‘Fertile.’
Magill was impressed.
‘You’ve given this some thought,’ he said.
‘Are you familiar with Breker’s and Thorak’s sculptures, Mitchell?’
‘Of course I am. Magnificent.’
Ptolemy stood up, irritated by the conversation. He stretched, and a whiff of soap reached Joe’s nose. He thought it rude that this surly creature hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, especially in someone else’s living room. Given, though, that under normal circumstances nobody would have been wearing anything, he didn’t suppose that Magill took offence.
Peggy and Margaret returned, and the five men joined them at the dining-room table. Arthur, who’d said very little, asked Tom what had brought him and Joe to Candlebark Hill.
‘The same as you, mate.’
‘Really, and what brought me here?’
His vaguely nasty literalism was a reminder that it was a mistake to imagine that any of these people were benign. Tom returned fire.
‘I’m assuming you’re here because you have certain political beliefs that are currently, and disastrously, unpopular. If I’m wrong, and you’re here to stare at women’s tits, then perhaps Joe and I should leave you to it.’
Arthur nodded.
‘I didn’t mean to offend you, Tom.’
Tom, having put him on the back foot, wasn’t prepared to rebalance him.
‘Whether you meant it or not, you managed it, mate.’
With this exchange, Tom wiped away any sense in the others that he could be dismissed lightly. Magill moved to ease the tension, even though the presence of Ptolemy and Fred ensured that a constant level of it remained.
‘I must say, Joe, it’s a pleasant relief to talk to someone about painting. I’d like to show you something after we’ve had tea. I think you’ll enjoy it.’