The Climate of Courage. Jon Cleary
things, sees them in the wrong light. So we shan’t mention them, shall we?”
He had loved his father as he had never been able to love his mother. Big Pat had had boats going out of both Thursday Island and Broome, and had spent his time between both places, with four visits a year to Sydney. Then he would come down for a fortnight each time and be like a north-west storm, a Cocky Bob, blowing through the house. He had built a house on Thursday Island for them all, but Jack had been there only twice and his mother never at all. The house had never been a home, just an outpost where Big Pat slept and drank and (as his son learned later) pined in secret. The four visits a year to Sydney were like four Christmases to Big Pat’s son.
Then Big Pat had come down from Broome on one of his visits and had arrived a day earlier than expected. He had called for Jack at school, persuaded the master to let him go early, and they had caught a cab and gone home, both of them happy as schoolboys, flushed with the thought of the fortnight ahead.
“We’ll surprise your mother,” his father had said, and he had seen no danger in it because he knew both Mr. Garry and Mr. Phillips were out of town. “She’s probably in the middle of her afternoon beauty sleep. We’ll sneak in and scare the daylights out of her. Cripes!” He slapped Jack’s knee, almost breaking it. “You’ve got no idea how I like coming home to you two! One of these days you’ll find there’s no feeling like returning home.”
But his mother hadn’t been having her beauty sleep. She was in bed, all right, but there was a man with her, someone he had never seen before. His father had said nothing intelligible, just let out a roar of animal rage, and plunged into the room, slamming the door after him. Jack had stood for a moment, sick and frightened, then he had turned and walked slowly down the hall to his room.
From the window there a few minutes later he had seen the stranger staggering down the drive, his clothes hanging on him in shreds, his hands to his broken bloody face, never looking back, an adulterer who hadn’t known what had hit him. Five minutes later Big Pat had come into his son’s room.
“I was wrong, son,” he had said, and, unbloodied and unscathed, he had looked more broken than the man who had just gone stumbling down the drive. “You can’t win, after all.”
Then he had gone downstairs and locked himself in his study and begun to drink. Two hours later, when they heard the shot and Jack had burst the door in, he was dead. Big Pat lay among a litter of bottles and photographs and letters, and in a pool of blood that spread to touch the bottles and stain the photographs and letters. Jack would never forget that sight of the wreckage of his father’s life.
His mother had looked in the room past him and then, the only womanly decent thing she had ever done, she had fainted. He had closed the door quietly on his father, stepped over his mother with only a hateful glance at her and left her to the care of the gardener and his wife, and had walked out of the house and down the road to the home of the doctor who had brought him into the world. Old Dr. Cotterell, who had known what was going on, had opened the door and from the look on Jack’s face had guessed at tragedy. But his guess had been only half right. He had cried out in shock and grief when Jack told him Big Pat had killed himself and not his wife.
Jack had never gone back to his mother. At first, out of remorse, she had come pleading to him to return; then after a while her vanity had got the better of her again and she gave up chasing him. Big Pat had died in a hurry, without expecting to, probably without meaning to, if he hadn’t been so blind with anger or sorrow or drink or perhaps all three. When it came time to settle his affairs it was found he had over-expanded and in doing so had borrowed right and left. He had left little but goodwill and a fleet of half-paid-for luggers that added up only to a man’s dreams. In solid cash they meant very little.
Jack’s mother had married again, not Mr. Garry nor Mr. Phillips nor the bloody stranger but a French woolbroker, and had gone to live in Paris. Whether she was still there, he didn’t know nor care. Whatever the Germans did to her couldn’t be worse than what she had done to his father.
And so because of his mother and because he would always remember his father’s last words—you can’t win—he had spent his life running away from women. Well, not running away from them immediately, but only when he had begun to fear they were getting a hold on him.
Good night, Silver, and she had five more days in which to strengthen her hold on him. For she did have a hold on him, he admitted, even after only four hours and two kisses. And sitting on the ferry edging its way past the wartime boom defences in the outer harbour, going over to Manly where an understanding cousin had lent him his flat for the eight days of his leave, he further admitted that perhaps this time he wouldn’t be so keen to run away. The war, that had ruined so many futures, had begun to make him think of his.
This return to Sydney, to the welcome that wasn’t there for him, had made him realise for the first time just how lonely he was. His father had been right, there was no feeling like returning home. But one needed a welcome, if the feeling was to mean anything.
They had lunch the next day at Prince’s. They sat close to a table that was fast becoming famous as the command post of certain American war correspondents covering the New Guinea front, and behind a table that was already famous as the command post of a genteel lady who covered the Society front. Gay young things were being industriously gay, keeping one eye on each other and one eye on the door in case a photographer appeared. Matrons pecked at their food like elegant fowls, also eyeing each other and waiting the advent of a photographer. Two suburban ladies from Penshurst, having a day out in Society, sat toying with their food and wishing they had gone to Sargent’s, where they could have had a real bog-in for less than half the price. Aside from Jack and the American correspondents, there were only one or two other men in the place, and they looked as uncomfortable as if they had been caught lunching in an underwear salon. Australian men still hadn’t learned to be at ease when outnumbered by women.
Silver told Jack she had to go to a meeting that night. “It’s some sort of bond rally that my mother has organised for business girls. David Jones’ have lent their restaurant. Everyone has tea and sandwiches, then this war hero gets up and says something. After that, the idea is that the girls all rush up and buy war bonds.”
“I thought they’d rush up and lay themselves at the feet of the war hero. It has better possibilities, I mean as a spectacle.”
“Well, anyway, that cuts out dinner to-night,” she said. “Unless you want to wait until after the meeting.”
“I’ll come along and eat tea and sandwiches. Maybe afterwards, just to set the girls an example, I’ll rush up and throw myself at the war hero.”
That evening, shortly after the stores had closed, he met her outside David Jones’. They went into the big gleaming store and, in a lift crammed with chattering females who looked with an appreciative eye on Jack and a critical one on Silver, they went up to the restaurant floor.
As soon as they entered the large high-ceilinged restaurant Jack saw the war hero. “You mean he’s the one who’s supposed to inspire these girls to save their money for war bonds? He’s never saved a penny in his life! I’ve kept him in spending money ever since we joined the Army on the same day.”
“Who is he?” said Silver. “My mother’s a bit on the vague side. She couldn’t remember his name.”
But before Jack could tell her, the war hero had broken away from the group around him and come plunging towards them. “You old bastard, Savanna! What are you doing here?”
“After you speak, I get up and say a piece,” said Jack. “They want the girls to get both sides of the question. You, you bludger!” he said elegantly, and shook his head disgustedly. He turned to Silver. “This is Sergeant Morley, V.C. Miss Bendixter.”
He was glad to see that Silver remained cool and didn’t gush. “My, we are honoured to-night. A real live V.C. winner.”
“I’ll say this for him,” said Jack. “Most of them don’t stay alive.”
Greg Morley’s black eyes were bright