Tiger Men (57 page)

It was the St Joseph’s College supporters’ turn to go wild, and they did. They’d been waiting for this to happen. It appeared that, just like the Hutchins School, they had their own football hero.

The game didn’t continue as cleanly as it had started – there was fumbling and messy play on both sides – but the principal focus remained on two players, Wes Balfour and the St Joseph’s College centre man. Their all-round skills were so superior to those of their fellow team members that it seemed to become a personal contest between them.

Shortly before quarter time, two girls arrived and settled themselves on the sidelines not far from Hugh and Rupert. They spread a rug out on the grass and sat down to watch the game. They were wearing St Mary’s College uniforms and clearly barracking for the team from St Joseph’s. Hugh barely noticed them, but Rupert did.

Rupert lost all interest in the game once his eyes fixed on the girl to his left, not five feet away. She was seated a little further down the slope, slightly in front of them, and her face was only visible in an occasional profile as she followed the action of the ball, but he wasn’t watching her face anyway. He was transfixed by her hair. She was hatless and the thick tresses, which reached below shoulder length and were tied back by a ribbon at the base of her neck, were a fiery chestnut-red. Rupert had never seen hair that colour before.

A huge cheer went up from the Hutchins School supporters as another goal was scored, but Rupert didn’t notice. He had eyes only for the hair.

Hugh glanced at his brother: how come Rupert wasn’t jumping up and down? But Rupert appeared to have gone off into one of his other worlds, as he often did, although rarely at football matches, so Hugh returned his attention to the game.

Rupert needed to touch the hair. It was so alive where it hung there. The girl’s slightest action set it moving with a life of its own, like the wild chestnut mane of an untamed horse. He was compelled to feel its texture. He shuffled sideways until he was right behind the girl. Then edging himself forwards he reached out his hand and with the very tips of his fingers he stroked the gleaming tresses.

His touch was so soft the girl didn’t feel it.

Just like a wild horse, he thought, a wild horse that I’m taming through my fingers, the ripples of its mane responding to my magic. Rupert was mesmerised by his own power.

Then, in following the action of the game, the friend of the red-haired girl turned and saw him. She let out a startled scream, and Rupert scuttled away a yard or so on his bottom, people nearby turning to investigate the commotion.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said over and over; he was even more startled than the girls.

Hugh leapt to the rescue. ‘What have you been up to, Rupert?’ he said, crouching by his brother’s side.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Rupert flapped his hands and jiggled up and down on the spot as he always did when he was distressed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Hugh said and very firmly he took hold of his brother’s hands, ‘it doesn’t matter, calm down now. Calm down.’

Rupert’s panic quickly subsided, although he kept muttering ‘I’m sorry’ to himself.

‘He never means any harm,’ Hugh said apologetically to the girls. ‘What was he doing anyway?’

‘He was stroking Caitie’s hair,’ one of them said.

‘That was a bit rude – wasn’t it, Rupert?’ Hugh scolded in the gentle manner Rupert always responded to.

‘Yes, yes.’ Rupert nodded furiously. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

‘That’s all right.’ The red-haired girl smiled. She’s extraordinarily pretty, Hugh thought. More than pretty in fact, she was beautiful. ‘You’re Hugh Stanford, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Your father owns the silver Rolls Royce.’

‘That’s right.’ His father’s Rolls Royce had made him famous at the Hutchins School, but Hugh hadn’t realised how widely his fame had spread.

‘I’m Caitie O’Callaghan and this is Mary Reilly. I’ve seen you driving around in your father’s car, very flash. I’ve seen you too,’ she said to Rupert.

She’s certainly bold, Hugh thought: he wasn’t accustomed to meeting girls as forthright as Caitie O’Callaghan. ‘How do you do?’ He nodded to both girls. ‘This is my brother, Rupert Stanford,’ he said. He always introduced Rupert in a formal fashion.

‘Hello, Rupert Stanford.’ Caitie smiled warmly at the childlike boy, who she’d recognised as simple.

Rupert, realising all was forgiven, gave a quick happy guffaw and his eyes once again fixated upon the hair. Everything else was forgotten. All he could see was the hair.

Then Caitie O’Callaghan did a wonderful thing. At least Hugh thought it was wonderful. Her friend Mary Reilly was clearly appalled.

Caitie O’Callaghan reached behind her head and undid the ribbon at the nape of her neck. She shook her head and tilted it to one side so that her hair hung free like a thick red blanket. ‘There you are, Rupert,’ she said. ‘Go for your life.’

Rupert’s eyes widened and his mouth opened into a great silent O. He was utterly speechless. He shuffled over beside her and with his open hand he carefully lifted up the mane of hair, letting it rest there on his palm, examining it closely, admiring its colour. Then very gently with the fingers of his other hand he started to stroke it. Lost in the richness and the texture he could quite happily have gone on stroking it for an hour, as his brother well knew.

‘All right, Rupert, that’s enough now,’ Hugh said.

Rupert immediately obeyed as he always did. ‘That’s enough now, Rupert,’ he told himself, and letting the hair fall gently back into place, he moved a respectful distance away.

‘He likes to feel the texture of things,’ Hugh explained unnecessarily, aware that Mary Reilly had found the episode embarrassing and was staring out at the match even though the whistle had sounded for quarter time and the players were walking off the field.

‘That’s fairly obvious.’ Caitie laughed as she tied her hair back in place.

‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘it was very nice of you.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ she replied and they shared a smile.

‘What’s happened to the game?’ Rupert asked looking out at the oval. His curiosity satisfied, the hair was now forgotten. ‘Oh hello, Harry.’ He beamed as Harry Balfour joined them.

‘I kept a place for you,’ Harry said, squatting beside them, ‘why didn’t you come and –’ Then he noticed the pretty russet-haired girl who’d been chatting to Hugh. ‘Oh.’

‘The game was just about to start. I didn’t want to disrupt things.’ Hugh hastily made the introductions. ‘We’ve only just met,’ he added, self-consciously, aware that Harry thought he had a secret girlfriend.

They chatted politely for a moment or so before Harry rose to his feet, impatient to leave.

‘Come on, let’s get back to the others before the second quarter starts,’ he urged.

Hugh stood and they farewelled the girls, Rupert waving madly to Caitie.

‘It’s a darn good match,’ Harry said as they turned to go. ‘Who the heck is that centre man for St Joseph’s?’

‘He’s my brother,’ Caitie called over her shoulder with an unmistakeable ring of pride, ‘my brother, Oscar O’Callaghan.’

Oscar O’Callaghan’s name was on everyone’s lips at the end of the game, as was Wes Balfour’s. The two had been the undisputed stars of the match.

The older, seasoned members of the Hutchins School team knew Oscar O’Callaghan. He’d played for St Joseph’s the previous year. Just like Wes, he’d been the youngest player on the field at the time.

‘You’ve got to admit, he’s not bad for a Mick,’ big Gordie Powell said with a grin as, having shaken hands with their opponents, the victorious Hutchins School players left the field to join their supporters on the sidelines.

Wes Balfour and David Powell exchanged a wry smile. Gordie’s comment was something of an understatement. Their team may have won the match, and so it should, they’d been the decidedly stronger side, but they’d won by just seven points. It could have been anybody’s game, and purely because of Oscar O’Callaghan.

The players, especially Wes, were greeted enthusiastically by their schoolmates, Harry joining in with the others thumping his brother on the back. They all knew that without Wes they would have lost the match.

‘Good on you, Wes.’ Hugh shook his cousin’s hand enthusiastically while Rupert jumped up and down on the spot, braying and waving his scarf at each and every member of the team. The whole school had by now come to know Rupert, particularly at football matches where he was accepted as their most avid supporter.

In typically perverse fashion, clouds had gathered and the day had turned chill, and it wasn’t long before people started to disperse. Families packed up picnic rugs and hampers, and the Hutchins School students headed for home or, in the case of the boarders, back to school.

‘We’re not going back to school,’ Wes Balfour explained to the Powell boys as a group of them prepared to set off for the tram. ‘Harry and I are going back to Hugh’s place, we’re staying there the weekend.’

‘Why don’t you come home and have some pasties?’ Hugh suggested to Gordie and David. ‘Our cook makes the best pasties in the world, I can guarantee it.’ The Powell boys being older, Hugh didn’t know them particularly well, but he was eager to entertain two members of the footie team and they were obviously good mates with Wes.

At the mention of ‘our cook’ Gordie and David shared a glance. Young Hugh Stanford seemed nice enough, and Wes certainly liked him, but everyone knew his father was as rich as Croesus. Indeed their own fathers considered Reginald Stanford a man who abused his position of wealth and power. The boys didn’t know why and they didn’t particularly care, but Hugh Stanford was bound to be a spoilt brat.

‘Can Max come too?’ David asked, indicating their friend Max Müller. Thirteen-year-old Max had arrived from the Huon just the previous year to be enrolled as a boarder at the Hutchins School, and of course the Powell cousins had taken him under their wing. The Powells and the Müllers remained family at all times.

‘Of course,’ Hugh agreed, ‘the more the merrier.’

‘Will you give us a look at your father’s Rolls Royce?’ It was a cheeky request, once again from David. David, like his father Thomas, tended to push boundaries. He’d seen the Rolls Royce in the streets on occasions, they all had, and Wes Balfour had told him that he and Harry had ridden in it. God, how he’d envied them.

‘Yep,’ Hugh said expansively. ‘I’ll even let you sit in the driver’s seat if you like.’ The invitation was a bold one. Much as he was encouraged to bring his school friends home, Hugh wasn’t sure whether such an offer would meet with his father’s approval, but he very much wanted to impress the older boys. And besides, his father wouldn’t be home, his father was off at a business meeting.

‘Right you are,’ David said and, after reporting their movements to the teachers in charge, they set off, all seven of them, the Stanfords, the Balfours, the Powells and young Max Müller, for the tram that would take them to the city.

Reginald Stanford was deriving a great deal of pleasure from Henry Jones’s ongoing predicament. For several years now he’d been enjoying the fact that there was one major element missing from Henry’s ‘house that Jack built’. The man had the fruit, the processing factories, the tin mines, the timber mills – indeed all that was necessary for the production and packaging of products that sold to a world-wide market – with the exception of one vital ingredient: sugar.

‘I’m at a loss, Reginald,’ Henry said as he paced his office floor, ‘it’s been going on for far too long. I’ve been thwarted in every direction. What in God’s name am I to do?’

Apart from fruit, the major constituent of jam and preserves was sugar, which made it an essential commodity to Henry Jones. The Australian production of refined sugar, however, was controlled by the Bundaberg-based Colonial Sugar Refinery Ltd, which, with the apparent approval of the Commonwealth Government, had a monopoly on the industry. The factories of Henry Jones Co-operative Ltd, the public company which had succeeded H. Jones & Co., had long been given discount prices and preferred shipping dates by CSR, but this had not satisfied Henry, who had been continuously frustrated by the fact that he did not have total control. Just two years previously, in an effort to break the monopoly, he’d imported refined sugar from Jamaica, incurring the wrath of CSR, who had made it abundantly clear that should he try such a ruse again, Australian sugar would be withheld from his factories. Furthermore, he’d been told, pressure would be brought to bear on the federal government to reassess the import duty on Jamaican sugar. It had seemed Henry’s hands were well and truly tied.

‘You could try pushing the government again on the sugar beet issue,’ Reginald suggested. He sipped at the cup of tea the secretary had brought him and watched the portly little figure pacing about the office. It amused him that Henry Jones had finally come up against a monopolistic industry that he could not bend to his wishes.

‘Yes, sugar beet would certainly solve the issue, you’re right,’ Henry said. ‘If only the wretched government would agree.’

The Tasmanian climate was ideal for the growth of sugar beet crops, which would have provided an alternative source of sugar to that derived from the Queensland-grown cane. Henry had tried several times to establish a sugar beet industry, but he’d been thwarted by the Commonwealth Government’s consistent refusal to extend the bounties to sugar beet that it extended to sugar cane. Without the government bounties in place, the planting of sugar beet was an uneconomic proposition. Henry’s hands were still tied.

‘It might well be worth another try, old chap,’ Reginald said encouragingly. ‘You really shouldn’t give up.’ Sugar beet wouldn’t be worth another try at all, he thought. No political party would risk antagonising the powerful Queensland growers and refiners. Henry’s idea of sugar beet as a viable option, brilliant though it was, had been unrealistic from the outset. The sugar barons of Queensland had their own state government and the Commonwealth government safely in their collective pocket. ‘Of course,’ he added thoughtfully as if the idea had just occurred, ‘there is one other possibility.’