Lantana Lane (5 page)

The telephone lines were down, of course, so they could not ring for the doctor, who lived twelve miles away. He could not have reached them in any case, because half an acre of Jim Greenfield's bananas had slipped down the hill, and were now obstructing the main road. So they patched Joe up as best they could, and Uncle Cuth retired, after a hearty meal, to Bill's bed, where Bill later joined him—but only for a few minutes; he finished the night on a sofa in the living-room because, he said, the air was better there.

The cyclone passed in due course, the telephone lines were repaired, the bananas were heaved off the road into the scrub on the downward side (where, by the way, they are still growing and flourishing) and the doctor arrived. He was plastered with mud, and swearing wickedly, having been bogged three times on the way; but he tidied Joe up, rang the ambulance, rang Bruce Kennedy and told him to go and meet it in his Land Rover and pull it out when it got bogged too, and thus finally got Joe away to hospital. Before leaving he informed Jack and Amy that Joe should not survive, but probably would, because damn fools always did. Uncle Cuth truculently enquired what was to become of an old man of ninety-two now that his only relation had deserted him, and young Bill, looking him in the eye, replied that he didn't know, and couldn't care less.

That was all very well, but in the Lane we have an unwritten law which ordains that when anyone suffers misfortune or disaster caused by an act of God, the neighbours rally round. Bill's aunt and uncle therefore bade him shush, and convened a meeting in their house to which everyone came except Herbie Bassett (who was also in hospital, having succumbed to appendicitis on the very eve of the cyclone), and Sue Griffith's Aunt Isabelle (who was left baby-sitting for the Achesons.)

After due discussion Jack Hawkins and Tim Acheson were entrusted with the task of taking up a house-to-house collection for Joe in Dillillibill and its district; it was also resolved that approaches be made to the Football Club, the Cricket Club, the Tennis Club, the Bowling Club, the Ladies' Aid Society, the Parents and Citizens, the C.W.A., the Rotarians, the Junior Farmers, the various Church organisations, the School of Arts and the Orchid Society, with a request that they bestir themselves to arrange functions to swell the fund. The men agreed that between them they could keep Joe's pines pretty clean if they worked out a roster for a couple of afternoons each week; Ken Mulliner volunteered to rebuild his fowlhouse; Amy Hawkins made herself responsible for his fowls; and Bill announced that he would look after Butch. Then there was a pregnant pause. An unuttered question hung in the air.

Who would look after Uncle Cuth?

No one spoke.

We are not affluent people in the Lane. As primary producers we are, of course, frequently described by our legislators as The Backbone of the Nation, but we do not feel that this title, honourable as it is, really helps us much. We get by, but with nothing to spare—and we never know from one week to the next what is going to happen to The Market. Moreover, it must be understood that Dillillibill is not a large community, despite an impression to the contrary which may have been gained from the imposing number of social, sporting and cultural bodies just listed. Most of us belong to several of them, and in some families their members belong, between them, to all. There are only five members of the Orchid Society, for instance, and every one of them belongs to at least four other things, and their wives to two or three more. So the handing over of a contribution to the house-to-house collection would by no means be the end of any family's duty in the matter; indeed, so far as the ladies were concerned, it would be but a bagatelle. They, as members of the Tennis Club, would make cakes for a Social, and then, as members of the C.W.A., make more for a Euchre Party, and again, as members of the Ladies' Aid, still more for a Concert; next, as the mothers of Junior Farmers, they would provide supper for a dance, and as the wives of Rotarians do the catering for a Monster Fair on the sports ground; after this they would apply themselves to the making of jam, tea-cosys, aprons, coconut-ice, felt rabbits and other useful articles to furnish stalls at fetes under the auspices of the various Churches. Finally they would attend all these functions, surrender an entrance fee at the door, take tickets in a number of raffles, pay sixpence to guess how many-beans there were in a bottle, and, as the proceedings drew to a close, buy up such flotsam and jetsam as might still remain on the tables, including, very probably, a coat hanger they had spent last evening covering, or half a chocolate cake baked that very morning in their own kitchen.

All this they were more than willing to do for Joe who—despite his taciturnity and his somewhat unsociable habits—had always been where he should be when any of his neighbours found themselves in a predicament.

But Uncle Cuth———?

The women kept their eyes on their knitting. Tim Acheson lit the wrong end of a cigarette. Bill Hawkins stared moodily at the floor. Jack rose, and with great care moved the clock on the shelf two inches to the left. Ken Mulliner cleared his throat, and said:

“Seems the police have been making a few enquiries about Joe's relations. . . .”

Ken has a brother-in-law who is a policeman at Rothwell, so he spoke with authority, and his neighbours hung upon his words. After all, they had been saying in their hearts, old Grizzleguts
has
got a wife somewhere, hasn't he? . . . And a home? . . . And a pension? . . . Why should
we
 . . .? Now hope revived.

“It was when they thought Joe might conk out, see?” Ken explained. “Got to know who to notify—next-of-kin, and all that. . . .” A murmur, faint but fervent, acknowledged the correctness of this. “But they couldn't find none,” continued Ken, “only Uncle and his wife, and it seems she's sold up her house and gone to live with a friend in New Zealand.” He added morosely : “So that's no good.” And though not a word about the disposal of Uncle Cuth had yet been spoken, his hearers understood him perfectly.

They went on knitting or smoking, and avoided each other's eyes. They were not resisting the inevitable, but merely backing away from it. However, it continued to bear down upon them as the inevitable will, and at last Alf Bell, the Lane's uncompromising authority upon ethical behaviour, made some deep, rumbling noises in his throat, and everyone turned to his wife for a translation. Gwinny put her knitting down on her capacious lap, and interpreted:

“Alf reckons it wouldn't be right to leave the old chap stranded, like. What with eight of us in the house we're a bit crowded, but Tristy's going off on his National Service next week, so we'll have a spare bed then. I s'pose we could take Uncle. . ..” She met Amy's eye, which was signalling a warning, and added rather hastily : “Mind you, I wouldn't say we'd keep him on indefinite, seeing the doctor says it might be months before Joe's out of hospital—and even then it isn't as if he's got a house to come back to. . . .”

There was another painful pause. Jack and Amy were exchanging glances, and at last Amy succumbed.

“Well, as he's here he might as well stay on a bit. . . . Say a fortnight, Gwinny, and then he could go on to you.” They looked at each other for a moment, and then applied themselves with intense concentration to their knitting; neither of them even glanced at the others who, nevertheless, wretchedly realised that an example had been set. Marge Kennedy sighed briefly, and reached across the table for her husband's cigarettes—an action which everyone recognised as symbolic of the general desperation, for she had given up smoking three months ago.

“If someone'll lend me a stretcher,” she said, “we could fix up that glassed-in corner of the verandah for him. For a fortnight.” She lit her cigarette, and inhaled recklessly.

Biddy Acheson spoke up in some agitation:

“Look . . . I don't know, I'd like to help, but with a baby in the house . . . it's not only the work I mean, it's . . . well, hygiene, and all that, because you know he's
really
 . . .”

Again there was a pause. No doubt Biddy's words had sharpened certain misgivings, and everyone was thinking, in agonised agreement, that Uncle Cuth
was
really. . . . But all communities are blessed with at least one invaluable person who calls spades spades, and stinks stinks; who voices the thoughts which others are too scared, too bashful or too wary to express, and who with bracing ruthlessness, illumines the fogs of reticence with glaring truths. Such a person is Myra Dawson.

“Oh, well,” she declared heatedly, “it seems we're the mugs. He's got us all flumdoodled. I'll take the old bludger for a fortnight. . . . But . . .”—the eyes turned upon her widened expectantly—” if he comes to me he's darned well got to wash sometimes; I'm not living with that pong around me all the time! And he's got to work sometimes. I've got my hands full as it is—haven't we all?” Heads nodded. “And we've all got our own families and our own bills to think of.” They nodded harder. “So what I say, girls and boys, is I'll take him on for a fortnight, but I don't see why he shouldn't earn, say, about a quarter of his keep. Do you, Gwinny?”

Gwinny is not without her flights of fancy, but in everyday matters she is an invincible realist; she spread her knitting out, looked down at it over her majestic bosom, and replied with deliberation : “I don't see why he shouldn't, but I don't know if he would.”

Rebellion is catching, however, and now others were aflame.

“Nothing heavy, of course,” said Amy, “because after all, he
is
an old man. But there are plenty of little jobs. . . .”

Everyone began to speak at once. “Branding cases . . .” “Weeding the vegs . . .” “Feeding the fowls . . .” “Sewing up bags . . .” “Packin' a crate or two . . .” “Clipping the hedge . . .” “Burning the rubbish . . .” Dick Arnold, whose idea of Heaven is to lie late in bed, dreamily suggested : “He could milk one morning a week. . . .” Sue Griffith cried hopefully : “He could chop some kindling for my copper. . . .” Biddy said : “He could collect the eggs. . . .” To this last, Aub Dawson rejoined promptly : “Not
my
eggs, he couldn't.”

“And what's more,” announced Myra with vehemence, “I'll find a change of clothes for him, and we'll all see that the ones he isn't wearing go in the copper! And at least twice a week he'll have a bath, if I have to put him into it myself!”

This was greeted with squeals of appreciative endorsement, and there were even a few male guffaws, though the men now had a slightly guilty air, as if they were basely handing over one of their sex for torture at the hands of the eternal enemy. Those among the enemy who had so far refrained from committing themselves, now did so, not only with alacrity, but even with a certain relish; and when Amy had dispensed cups of tea, everyone went home, satisfied that Joe's disordered affairs were under control, and leaving the Hawkins' to acquaint Uncle Cuth with the arrangements which had been made for his comfort.

As it turned out, he sampled all his hosts in turn, but remained with none for the full fortnight. Amy Hawkins, in some agitation, rang Gwinny Bell.

“Gwinny, I've just got to warn you—he's on his way down to your place . . . yes, I know, but it's no good, he won't stay. I've done my best—three eggs and five slices of toast for his breakfast, hot dinner with pudding and all, meat or eggs for his tea—and talk about smokos . . . I Six scones and four slices of cake's nothing to him! Why, when it comes to eating, he makes even Bill look like a pecker! What's that? . . . No, love, I
can't
stop him—I tell you he's on his way. I've been arguing with him this last hour, and all I get is he's not going to stay where he's being exploited. . . . What? . . . Well, two mornings he took the chook-bucket down to the fowl-run, and when he brings it back he says he's that worn out he's got to have a lay down, and that's the last we see of him till dinner-time. And once Jack asked him to knock up a couple of cases, but he only got the ends done, and then he says he's sprained his wrist. Without the word of a lie, Gwinny, he hasn't done another hand's turn, and what set him off this morning was I asked him to get me some kindling—not chop it, mind you, just bring it up from the stack—and then he starts to create, and give me this exploiting stuff. . . . Well, I'm real sorry, Gwin, I'd have kept him if I could, but short of tying him down . . . What? . . . Bath? . . . Look, love, don't be funny. You try, that's all I say!
You
try—and good luck to you!”

She replaced the receiver, returned to the kitchen, filled a bucket with hot water, laced it liberally with disinfectant, and reached for her scrubbing brush.

Thenceforward Uncle Cuth's career as a guest followed a pattern which varied only in minor details. He began by expressing to each new host and hostess in turn his opinion of those from whose home he had just been brutally driven out by starvation, persecution, harsh treatment and shameless exploitation. He declared that he might be a friendless and helpless old man, but he had sperrit, and he wasn't going to be exploited by nobody; he had therefore transferred himself to the hospitality of his hearers in the hope that he would, under their roof, be treated with the respect and consideration due to one who was practically a centenarian. So if Mrs. Bell—or Mrs. Kennedy—or Mrs. Acheson—was just making a pottertea he wouldn't mind a cup, and if there was a bitterterbacca lying around he'd just fill his pipe, and then he wouldn't be no more trouble to nobody because he was fair wore out with workin' for them other slave-drivers, and only wanted to have a good lay down, and a bit of a nap before dinner.

Things would go well enough for the first few days. His plate was generously heaped, the packet of tobacco was passed to him when he desired it, and only the most tentative hints were dropped about small tasks waiting to be done. But by degrees the hints became requests, and the requests more peremptory in tone, so that at last he was compelled to point out that he could not clip the hedge since privet always gave him hay fever, and had since he was a boy; that owing to rheumatics in his right shoulder, he was unable to make cases, chop wood, or even lift anything heavier than a tea-cup; and that a pain in his legs which had, for twenty years, baffled the entire medical profession, was apt to catch him suddenly with such violence that he could not walk, nor even stand. He also suffered from a complaint called carbuscles; the Lane spent much time in speculating whether these were, like corpuscles, situated internally or, like carbuncles, worn outside, but nothing was ever discovered about them except that they utterly precluded any activity whatever. It was usually at the stage when he began to speak of his carbuscles that a note of acrimony developed in his intercourse with his host and hostess; but not until he discerned in them a disposition to lay hands upon his clothes—and even upon his person—for the purpose of immersing them in water, did he make up his mind to move on. He might have stayed the course at Ken Mulliner's if Ken's sister had not turned up for a few days. As a policeman's wife, she is strongly prejudiced against people who do not conform to the accepted pattern for respectable householders, but she is also firmly convinced that anyone can be made respectable by continued exhortation. Uncle Cuth stood her for two days, and then arrived at the Dawsons', gasping out: “Clacketty-clack! Clacketty-clack I Strike me handsome, I never thought I'd fall so low as feelin' sorry for a copper, but I dunno 'ow 'er 'usband can take it!”