Best Australian Short Stories (16 page)

But he didn’t like the way Pietro looked at him, so he decided to hide the cross-cut saw).

On Sunday Esmond’s Italians came to visit Pietro, and told him all about what was going on at their place. On Monday morning Pietro wanted to know why Henry was not preparing his soil for his crops like Mr Esmond. Henry looked a bit guilty, then tried to explain that he used different methods from Esmond. Pietro was not satisfied.

“Mr Esmond good
resultati
? No good
resultati?
”

Henry had to admit that Esmond’s results were good. He also had to confess that his results were often bad.

“
Provare
similar Mr Esmond,” Pietro suggested enthusiastically.

“
Possibile
very good oat, very good weet.”

“Tractor broken,” said Henry. He was always overwhelmed by a feeling of hopeless apathy in the autumn and he couldn’t face the strain of all the preparations necessary for his worn-out plant.

“Me look ?” asked Pietro, and was off before Henry could say anything.

Pietro had a thorough look over the tractor and scarifier. He made a list of all the new parts needed, which he laboriously translated into English with the help of his little dictionary. He explained that he was not a mechanic, but he had had a lot of experience with military vehicles.

He suggested that Henry go to town and buy the necessary parts, and Henry went, glad to escape from the responsibility of Pietro for an afternoon. While Henry was away Pietro “polished” the toolshed and the farmyard.

When Henry came home, rather late in the evening and somewhat the worse for wine, he thought he had come to the wrong farm until Pietro emerged and carried his parcels for him. He was in an exalted mood and gave Pietro an orange for his services.

But Pietro spoiled the effect by telling him several things he had forgotten to bring.

At the table that night Pietro objected to Mrs Holden giving the baby honey to stop it crying.

“No good ’oni, no good,” he said.

She continued to exercise the lawful rights of a mother. Suddenly the baby vomited. Pietro made an angry noise, jumped up, and put the honey-pot away in the cupboard.

“No good, no good,” he said so emphatically that she was startled and impressed.

Henry found that he couldn’t tell Pietro much about overhauling farm machines. He stood by to explain where tools, parts, and materials were kept, but frequently found it easier to fetch them than to explain; sometimes when Pietro was held up he became so impatient that Henry found himself running just like one of Esmond’s Italians, until he remembered his dignity as a
padrone
.

They had an auspicious rain when everything was ready, and Henry’s land was never worked into better condition.

The tractor ran very well. Pietro assumed a jealous control of it, and appeared to be perfectly happy on it no matter how long he worked. The arrangement suited Henry excellently.

He felt free for the first time since his prisoner arrived. He had plenty of time to turn over all the vague plans forming in his head.

When Pietro finished working the land he suggested again that they cut some fence-posts. But Henry was ready with his own plan. Pietro was to paint the house. Pietro agreed heartily; the house certainly needed painting. They went to have a good look at it. Not only had the pint peeled off, but much of the plaster was cracked and loose.

“No good paint,” said Pietro. “
Prima
plaster.”

The thought of all the work and expense involved in plastering horrified Henry.

He said, authoritatively, “Paint sufficient”, and took a trowel and demonstrated how the rough plaster could be smoothed off.

He handed the trowel to Pietro, who made what appeared to be a similar movement. But the result was vastly different, at least a wheelbarrow-load of plaster fell off the wall.

“Plenty similar,” Pietro said, and knocked off another square yard. Henry gave in.

Henry was kept very busy mixing and carrying plaster to Pietro. It had to be mixed in small lots and applied immediately, Pietro said, otherwise it would fall off just like the previous plaster.

When the job was finished Henry brought out the paint. Pietro was very interested in the “
colore
”. When he discovered that it was to be a drab, uniform stone-colour all his eagerness vanished.

“No good, no good,” he said. “Similar mud.”

He wouldn’t take the brush when Henry offered it to him. “Brush no good,” he said. “
Troppo
old.”

Henry tried the brush and had to admit it was worn out. He decided to go to town and buy a new one. Pietro wanted to go, too, to have his hair cut. Henry left him at the Control Centre and went to do his shopping.

When he walked into the general store where he did most of his business he had an uneasy feeling that he was being followed. He turned and saw Pietro carrying the two big cans of stone-coloured paint. He had that brown-bear look about him which Henry hadn’t liked the first time he saw him.

The manager of the hardware store came up to them. He saw by the expression in Henry’s eye that he wasn’t sure of himself, so he turned to Pietro, who appeared to know exactly what he wanted. Pietro held up the tins.

“
Colore
no good,” he said.

The manager remembered having advised Henry against a uniform drab colour, and immediately set out to help Pietro. He quite ignored Henry’s somewhat indistinct, “No, it’s all right. I’ll keep it.”

He showed Pietro a colour-card, from which he selected a very light cream, bright blue, and a black.

“One big creama, one little blue, one little little
nero
,” he said. The manager was, as he would have said, intrigued. He tried to discover what design Pietro had in mind, and Pietro demonstrated as best he could, attracting a lot of attention from other shoppers, who began to gather round.

Henry became most uncomfortable. “I won’t have it at any price,” he protested. “Everyone who goes past will die laughing.” “Ah, garn!” said a big voice from the back. “Let him have a go. It couldn’t look any worse than it’s looked for the last twenty years.”

Then a couple of ladies joined in.

“How interesting!” said one. “The Italians are so artistic, aren’t they?”

The other one said, “I remember seeing the adorable Italian cottages painted just like that. You must let us come and see it, Mr Holden.” She happened to be the wife of Henry’s long-suffering mortgagee, and her word carried some weight with him. Quite a number of others voiced favourable opinions before Henry and Pietro carried out the cream, blue, and black paint.

Pietro took endless pains over the painting, and all the time he was at it Henry felt resentful, despite the fact that many people came and admired it. He comforted himself by compiling a long list of heavy jobs Pietro would have to do when he was finished. He had the interpreter prepare a translation and when at length the house was finished he gave Pietro a week’s programme, consisting mainly of firewood-carting and post-hole digging.

But that day it rained, a splendid soaking rain, and during the night it cleared.

Henry was awakened early in the morning by the roar of the tractor starting. He was puzzled and rather annoyed; Pietro was up to something. Then he realized that Pietro had made the all-important decision of the year, to start sowing the wheat.

Henry thought, with some indignation, of the programme he had given Pietro, but he also realized that it was much more important to have the wheat sown while the soil was moist. He lay thinking for a long time of ways in which he could reassert himself, and all the time he heard the noises of Pietro’s preparations. He stayed there because he always hated the worry of working out the proportions of wheat and fertilizer and adjusting the machines accordingly, and all the other important details necessary for a successful sowing season.

When at last he went out Pietro hurried up to him, his face aglow with enthusiasm.

“Oh, rain very nice!” he said. “
Possible
very good weet this year, similar Mr Esmond.”

He pointed to the tractor hitched to the sowing combine and the farm cart loaded with supplies of seed, fertilizer, and tractor fuel.

“After brekfus I take tractor and weet machine. You bring
carro
.
Allora
we commence before Giuseppe and Leonardo on farm Mr Esmond.”

“Yes, Pietro,” said Henry

JACOB often sighed and reflected that fifty years is a long time. He often prayed that Elizabeth’s temper might improve. But there was no appreciable improvement in her temper as far as he could see, so he prayed harder still that he might attain to a comfortable resignation to it. Also he made a complete study of the
Lives of the Saints
, but he was disappointed at finding no case similar to his own. Whatever guidance the big volume could give him in many matters, it certainly showed no workable method of dealing with Elizabeth.

So he sighed over the fifty long years.

Today, however, he felt that there were limits to resignation. Elizabeth might take possession, of his farm, and all there was on it! she might appropriate the whole family and exclude him from any management of it—though that didn’t matter so much now since the family was grown up and mostly scattered; she might decide what boots he bought and what clothes he wore on Sundays; she might…But to be humiliated before the pig-buyer was too much!

Walker, the pig-buyer, had called that afternoon, and Jacob had sold, on his own responsibility, four baconers at three-fifteen. Fair enough price as things went. The deal was complete—almost. Certainly, he had been reckless in his daring—but, blast it all!— the pigs were
his.
In a manner of speaking, that is. Then Elizabeth appeared and called the deal off —unless the buyer was willing to go to four-five.

The buyer wasn’t willing.

Jacob protested. “But I just sold them!”

You
might have,” said Elizabeth, but
I
haven’t.”

The buyer grinned—rather too amiably. “All right, all right!” He said. “No harm done. I don’t think I really want them pigs so bad as all that.”

He grinned again. A nasty fellow, that Walker. Jacob had never liked him. If he had only argued or got angry over the thwarted deal it wouldn’t have been so bad. But to grin! There was too much understanding in that grin. Jacob dimly felt that murders, suicides, and other spectacular crimes grow out of grins like that.

With a pitiful show of strength and dignity, Jacob walked off. Even then Elizabeth rubbed in the defeat still further. She ordered Jacob to wheel the single plough down to the shed. Jacob wheeled the plough.

Then Jacob went to the house. Elizabeth’s poodle, who had always treated Jacob with the contempt poodles have for underlings, was at the door. He ignored Jacob. A long unused rage came over Jacob; he kicked the poodle right across the room. The poodle yelped and whinged, and had a most satisfactory dint in its side. Exultation was only momentary— Jacob was all repentance, but the poodle didn’t believe it, and whimpered under the sofa.

Jacob went to his room, a very small room at the end of the veranda, and sat on his bed. The incident of the poodle shook him badly. It made him feel small, and he couldn’t quite blame Elizabeth for it, either. But the rest of the afternoon it burned within him. That grin on the pig-buyer seemed to sum up his hopeless situation. It was too much, and it couldn’t go on. Then the remedy came like a flash—he would run away. He would assert his manhood—the daring of it made him tremble. He would be free!

After tea—agony of a meal in the fear that Elizabeth might read his purpose—he went to his room to put his resolve into practice. Yes, he was going to clear out just as three of his boys had done. Should have gone with them, he reckoned. But where to go to now? What to do? Those things would have to wait. Only one thing mattered—clear out.

He started to pack and found there was really very little to pack. His best clothes were in her room, in the big cedar wardrobe, with camphor cakes all over them. He felt in any case that it would be stealing to take those best clothes. Likewise, he could take no money. He wasn’t sure that there was any great amount in the house, nor where it was kept if it were there at all. He and Elizabeth had everything in a joint account in the bank—which meant that Elizabeth controlled the lot.

He put on his second bests, and even with these he could not smother a feeling of guilt. Then he folded up a few singlets, pairs of socks, shirts, and handkerchiefs, razor, soap, and brush. All fitted very neatly into an old knapsack one of the boys had left behind him. Overcoat he could wear—it was a chilly night. But he couldn’t fit in an extra pair of boots. Anyway, he must travel light—there was less danger of capture.

All this took hours, for indecisions consumed the time. The house was all darkness now, and a big moon was rising over the Cookabundy Ranges into the clear winter sky. He set out and sneaked blunderingly through the orchard. Sailor, the blue cattle dog, came down to inspect him. Sailor sniffed noncommittally, and then went back to his corn-sack at the kitchen door. At least it could be said of Sailor that he treated Jacob tolerantly—almost as an equal.