A Kindness Cup (12 page)

‘Dear old friends,' he begins (and that's a smasher), ‘for I know I can call all of you that, on looking around this hall I am amazed and touched—yes, touched—by the number of people who have responded to my invitation to come home. For this is home for many of us still and was home once for those of you who have gone away to make your lives elsewhere. But even to them I say this is
still
home, the place in which you took first steps to manhood, uttered your first meaningful words, made your first plans, indulged your first dreams.'

He pauses, having gauged the response to a nicety, as the applause breaks out.

‘For many of you, rather I think for each and every one of you'—‘Two,' Dorahy murmurs to himself, counting clichés—‘those dreams were fulfilled. The point is that the memories and experiences you formulated here twenty years ago are still part of you and what you have become—part of this town. And the people who were in it when you were in it have become part of your blood.'

‘Hear hear!' shouts derisive Dorahy who is losing control.

People turn to stare and smile. But it doesn't rattle Sweetman.

‘Now this is a good thing,' he continues, not stalling for a moment, ‘for the town owes all of you something and all of you are indebted to the town. It is a marriage of place and person that cannot be ignored.'

Strategy pause. The people watching him are subdued. This is not a moment for clapping. It is a tender moment made for silence, for seriousness. They all ache for his next words.

‘Before I go further I have on stage with me someone who
needs no introduction'—‘Three,' counts Dorahy—‘to any of you. I refer of course to our own Miss Gracie Tilburn who has come all the way back from the south to be with us on this happy occasion.' (‘Four,' he counts.) ‘She has graciously consented to sing for us once more, and those of you who remember her singing from twenty years back will know that is something for which we are indebted. It is moving to think that at the height of her fame and the peak of her career'—‘Oh, my God!' says Dorahy, who has lost count—‘she chooses to return here, to her birth-place, to sing for us. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Miss Gracie Tilburn.'

The racket of applause. Gracie stands modestly during it, and now moves over to the piano where the pianist is shuffling sheets of music. The opening notes of ‘Home, Sweet Home' are played and then Gracie, with ever so little trace of a throb, begins to sing. Her voice is richer, fuller, darker than in youth. The audience is emotionally stilled within its own darkness; but Dorahy whispers, ‘Say, eleven', so audibly his neighbours frown and shush him.

With an effort he constrains himself from leaping up and roaring, ‘It's nonsense! All nonsense!'

The applause is enormous at the end of the song. Hands are pulped. A huge and garish bouquet is rushed forward and Sweetman who is on his feet has taken the singer's hand. Smiles fly through the air like rockets.

Sweetman finally raises an arm for silence.

‘Dear friends,' he says again, ‘that response speaks for itself more than anything I can say. Thank you indeed, and thank you, Gracie—I may call you that?—for a wonderful opening of welcome. Those simple and unaffected words mean so much to us all. And now I'm going to call on James Buckmaster to say a few words. Ladies and gentlemen, James Buckmaster.'

Tim Jenner has been affected. He is sixteen and gulping
in great gobbets of Gracie's voice. He is down by the creek watching hat shadows alter the planes of her face. He is bashed outside the stock-and-station agent's. And he remembers the purity of his adolescent love with an ache that will not leave him free to hear Buckmaster's opening remarks. He only comes to during ‘… what we have done for this town is to build and strengthen it, to shape its future by the efforts of all who lived and worked here, some of us in small ways, perhaps; others in bigger ways—but all to the one purpose.'

He pauses. Tim Jenner glances along the row at Dorahy, who is wrestling with an inner devil.

‘This town has been built on sacrifice—self-sacrifice if you like—which is something that must take precedent when struggle and effort are required.'

Suddenly Dorahy is on his feet shouting, ‘That's the word—sacrifice. How many? How many, eh, did you sacrifice?'

The hall is shocked. There are angry rumbles and two men come from the rear of the hall to seize the maniac by the arms. As they drag him out, he is still shouting, and when the porch is reached one of the bouncers whacks him hard across the side of the head.

‘The world of men,' he murmurs, looking up at his guards.

Boyd has forced his own way out to the porch. ‘Leave him,' he says to the bouncers. ‘I'll get him home. He's not well. Come on, old chap,' he says.

But Dorahy, dazed from this second blow, flaps like a bird, unable to stand. He argues pitifully, ‘I'm perfectly well. Get back in there. Get back in and show those sycophants!'

Boyd's hands and manner are firm. Somehow he steers him down the steps and across the road to where the buggy is hitched. The air is smelling of rain. ‘One blessing,' thinks Boyd. Renewed hosannahs from the hall reach
their ears and Dorahy frets again against Boyd's arms. ‘It's no use, Tom,' Boyd says. ‘No use at all.'

The hotel is like a shell cast up by the sea. Its only sound is the breathy echo of waves clamped against the listening ear. Boyd stumbles with him up the stairs and to his room, where Dorahy lies flopped on his bed and looks up vaguely.

‘God!' is all he can say. ‘Oh, my God!'

Boyd uncaps a whisky flask. ‘Try this,' he says. But it only strengthens Dorahy's tongue which lashes again and again, coiling like a whip round the same topic.

‘I'll have to return soon,' Boyd says at last. ‘Don't worry about Lunt. We'll put him up. Try to get some sleep.'

Boyd is not a big man, but, rising, finds himself towering over this rinsed-out fellow. Dorahy's cheek has swollen. The eye is already darkening.

L
UNT
is not interested in retribution. He is a simple man and curious, with the inquisitiveness of the newly hatched. Yet there is no mischief in him.

After Dorahy has been hustled from the hall he continues sitting, stolidly listening to another three speeches, all kindred, and a final bracket of nostalgic songs from Gracie Tilburn. Ultimately the audience, an unintelligent monster, shoves its grotesque way to a room at the back of the hall where trestle tables support a sandwich supper. In the middle of this turmoil of recognition and reminiscence, the wave forming, breaking and petering out, the Jenners, Lucy Boyd and Lunt form a hard little knot which many of those present attempt to untie.

Sweetman pushes through the room to this boil lest it erupt. He cannot believe in the tolerance of others.

‘Sorry we had to do that,' He is referring to Dorahy. Old Jenner permits himself a smile while his son looks grave. ‘It could have been much worse. We have to think of the guests, the visitors. It's not pleasant to have someone going on like that at a reunion that should be friendly and warm. Not pleasant at all. We owe the others something.'

Young Jenner says quietly, ‘A lot is owed to many people in this place.'

‘True. But we must live and let live.'

‘Especially with the elections coming up next month.'

Sweetman replies with a poise that earns respect. ‘Right again.
I won't pretend with you. When have I ever pretended? I feel I contribute something to the welfare of this place and I intend to go on contributing.'

He is speaking more softly. All round them mouths are gobbling and gabbling. His back is slapped as he is hailed by wolfish passers and his smile of unutterable sweetness comes again and again between trivia utterances that for him have the utmost seriousness. He wears his geniality like a coat that he slips on and off with ease.

Tim Jenner is amused by such public-man antics and is still smiling at his own thoughts as Gracie Tilburn pushes to his side in the crush and slips an arm through his.

‘Hullo,' she carols. There is a faint whiff about her of lost summer days. Her face has plumped out and strengthened. ‘Remember?'

Too well, he thinks, twitching with the beginnings of a small pain that recaptures her voice and her throat, the sun-warmed hands of her by the creek. These subtleties are almost lost now as life has hardened the externals. He could weep for innocence, but says instead, ‘Of course. Your voice is still wonderful. Better, if anything.'

‘Tim,' she says. ‘Oh, Tim.' And she remembers one special day when she sang for him and Freddie Buckmaster in a summer-filled living-room and the voice, as if no longer part of her, made patterns like tapestry that she wove at exquisite will. Sad it is, thinks young middle-aged Jenner now, to hear that wistfulness from this stouter woman with a carapace of assurance. Losing as one grows. And the longing growing greater as one lives.

‘I suppose you're married now?' she asks.

‘Yes,' he replies simply. ‘And you?'

‘Was,' she says. ‘Twice.' And giggles like a girl. ‘The last is over now. Five years. A mistake.'

Stagily she makes tiny mouths. Turns down the corners
bravado style. Raises them. She is tempted to ask him if he is happy but senses his answer; and the heaviness of Sweetman's presence, and that of the father, the quiet confidence of Lucy Boyd—all oppress her. Deciding on gaiety, she tralas a little, asks after Fred Buckmaster and has him pointed out to her across the room. Her waves attract him.

‘The gang's all here,' Tim Jenner says. ‘God Almighty!' And Sweetman frowns at this and allows himself to be caught by another prodigal and drawn away.

Lunt is still chuckling as Freddie Buckmaster heaves his sweating bully-boy way towards them, stopping briefly every yard to pummel or shake other bully-boy paws.

‘Well?' he asks, arriving on the tail-end of the chuckle and observing this limping stranger with an almost knowledge. ‘What's the joke, eh? Good night, isn't it? Wonderful night!' His enthusiasm is fake-right at this moment as he glares into Lunt's marvellously open eye. He shakes the firm hand of old Jenner, catches Gracie (‘Gracie, I'd know you after a thousand years!') by the shoulders and gives her a smacking kiss on the cheek, says let bygones be bygones to young Jenner, and salutes his introduction to Lunt with the briefest nod. He is a practical man, and what cannot help him he refuses to acknowledge.

‘How are you feeling, Mr Lunt?' he finally asks, driven by curiosity. ‘I heard you and Mr Dorahy had a spot of trouble earlier tonight.'

‘I'm getting too old for rough-house,' Lunt says. ‘Does my presence alone incite?' He doesn't want an answer.

‘We're a peaceable lot,' Buckmaster says ambiguously. ‘We're not after trouble.'

‘Nor am I.'

‘It's not you. It's your mate. Why can't he keep his mouth shut, eh? What's he got to start stirring things up for?'

‘We
all have a destiny,' Lunt says. He is feeling old and giddy and the stump of his leg throbs.

‘Twaddle!' the ex-lieutenant says. ‘Where's Snoggers?'

‘He's taken Mr Dorahy back to his hotel.'

‘Well, now, has he? What was the trouble? Too much grog?'

‘Too much honesty,' Lunt replies.

This sharp one goes home. A surly red shows on Fred Buckmaster's cheeks, exceeding the rouging that liquor and climate have given his skin. He says slowly, ‘I don't know about that.'

On cue Boyd returns and sticks his head into the circle, one arm lightly slung about his wife's shoulders. He has a need to touch which no one has ever guessed at.

He says, ‘Know all about what?'

‘Forget it!' Buckmaster says.

‘You're not talking about old Tom Dorahy, are you? I've put him safely to bed feeling very frail.' And continues thinking, ‘He's not the stuff of martyrs but of fanatics.'

‘I don't understand any of this,' Gracie complains. Her coyness is being undermined by their intensity which she suspects but fails to digest. ‘Enough of this oblique talk! We're here to enjoy ourselves. Freddie, tell me all, I insist, all that's happened to you.'

His confidences will liberate hers which are choking her in their urgency to be freed. Yet she plays the game and waits. Lucy Boyd has gone back for more tea. Someone is offering limp biscuits and sandwiches.

Freddie Buckmaster proffers the sort of information that he hopes will give him absolution. He tells her he has two boys. He tells her of the pub on the Palmer. And finally he swings on Lunt and asks him what he is doing back in the old place after all this time. Lunt regards him speculatively. Buckmaster is not a wise man, Lunt knows, and
there is a brutality about him still that makes the older man cautious.

‘Affection,' he admits finally. ‘I liked the old place. I'm hoping for something. I don't know what. Now I'm getting on and feel gentler about things it seemed right to return. Just to see.'

Freddie Buckmaster lets out a great guffaw, understanding nothing of what the old man has just said, but discovering some elusive effeminacy in the remarks.

‘You must tell my old man that,' he says between splutters. ‘You must tell my old man.'

‘He knows.'

Young Buckmaster fails to understand this. He is obsessed with hard facts.

‘But you only live thirty or so miles away. You could have come back before this. For affection!'

‘No,' Lunt says. ‘I was waiting to be asked. You see, I was driven out.'

Right across the township people are yawning and dragging from beds. In the Sea Rip Hotel Freddie Buckmaster gives one final look at Gracie Tilburn, who is too bloody fat for his taste anyway, and heaves his own porky body into daytime.

As he dresses he marvels how he happened to get here. It was after the reception, he groggily recalls, and after the country women's supper, and after that his sulky to drive her home, a bit of spooning along the water-front—and then this. Well, he'd achieved it anyway after all these years. Beaten Tim Jenner to first base at last.