Golden Hope (66 page)

‘Ah yes, like Ben Viljoen, De Wet and those other brave Boer leaders. No problem, Finch. I'll write you a fresh reference in your given name – you can decide at a later date which one you want to live with.'

Ever alert for signs of fatigue in the employer who was now his proven friend, Finch was not surprised when Sonny rejected his offer to help him clear away the mine's final paperwork.

‘The day is too beautiful to waste indoors. I want you to deliver Max to Clytie for the afternoon, so that the little chap can become familiar with his future surroundings. And now, if you'll excuse me, time for my nap . . .'

Finch found that Max was all geared up for adventure and his nursemaid Gertie had a picnic basket already packed and containing his favourite toys.

Strapped into the buggy beside Finch, Max sang his own lusty accompaniment to the children's songs that Finch sang to him in three different languages. The horse picked up their rhythm and gaily trotted along the road to the priest's house.

He found Clytie enveloped in an apron, her cheek still streaked with flour from baking, when they surprised her in the garden with Long Sam, planting seedlings.

That woman would look seductive attired in hessian bags.

‘Don't get too excited, Max is only on loan for the afternoon,' Finch said, transferring the boy to her open arms. ‘He comes like a little Greek bearing gifts – a photograph album, food, a host of toys
and a tin drum to entertain you. Sonny felt it was high time for Max to become familiar with his mother's world.'

Clytie was so moved she could hardly speak, so she carried the boy on her back, racing him around the garden in mock pursuit of Long Sam, who was pulling faces to make Max laugh. Finch watched them with mixed feelings, reminded that these were among the last memories he would have of them.

Their picnic on the lawn was peppered by Clytie's questions to Finch about the end of the war. Why hadn't they heard any church bells celebrating peace?

‘I don't know much more than I've told you. It seems the newspapers are surprisingly reserved. No fiery editorials, no jubilation, no cries of victory. Evidently the Commonwealth offices were immediately closed, but from what I can gather the Federal Government has not announced a national commemoration apart from one. Next Sunday, thanksgiving services will be held in churches throughout the nation.'

‘Is that all the thanks our lads get?' Clytie demanded sharply. ‘Quite a contrast with the send-off they were given when they marched off to war. Patriotic speeches from politicians, parades through the streets with flag-waving crowds and girls kissing them. Now they're coming home, the sick and wounded. No fanfare. No public thanks. To be met with a shortage of jobs and people who are tired of the war.'

Finch couldn't argue with that or the underlying bitter implication that Rom was not among them.

After Max had been shown over the tiny house and explored the garden, Finch suggested that Clytie take him for a walk down to the creek.

‘I'll come back later to return him to Sonny. Max has been handled with kid gloves for too long. He's strong and healthy – needs to be allowed to splash in the creek and get his hands dirty. Muck around the way all boys were born to do.'

Clytie was automatically on guard. ‘But what will Noni say?'

‘From now on, it's what his
mother
says that counts.'

Finch was annoyed to feel the lump in his throat as he watched her piggy-back Max down the road towards the creek, stopping to point out some bush animal or bird for Max to crow over in delight.

•  •  •

Wandering down Main Street towards the Mechanics Institute, Finch could not fail to notice the contrast of people's reaction to him – today, following war's end. He had never felt more alien than he did right now.

Mrs Mintner passed him with unseeing eyes, her mourning weeds now muddied around the hem from constant use. An old fossicker spat in the street at sight of him. To others, he was invisible or else given a reluctant smile.

The new Australian flag fluttered in the breeze on the town's flagpole and a few of the shop windows featured a photograph of a family soldier – some of them edged in black crepe. Kitchener's photograph was noticeably absent. Overall the town appeared to be strangely subdued, as if the long awaited peace had come too late, or tinged with an edge of shame.

Inside the Post Office, Finch handed across the letter he had written to the Melbourne publishing house to order two advance copies of
My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War.
Written by General Ben Viljoen, still a prisoner-of-war on St Helena, the manuscript had been smuggled off the island by a sympathetic British officer, Theodore Brinckman, to be published in London.

Marj Hornery glanced at the publisher's name on the envelope and gave Finch a tight smile. ‘Offering to sell your account of the war, are you?
That
should make interesting reading.'

Knowing Marj's reputation for steaming open personal mail, he answered with steely politeness.

‘No. It's an order for the memoir of a brave Boer General that has been praised by a British Colonel as one of the most honest accounts of the war he has ever read.'

‘Really!' the word was loaded with sarcasm.

‘Yes, really! And when it arrives, if it hasn't already been opened, I'll donate a copy to the Mechanics Institute Library – to be read by anyone in Hoffnung who has an open mind!'

He slapped the money for the stamp on the counter and stalked off, hands in his pockets as he whistled
Sarie Marais.

Virtually alone in the library, he came across a recent copy of
The Daily Telegraph
republishing an English article that identified the executed men of the Bushveldt Carbineers as Lieutenants Harry
‘The Breaker' Morant and Peter Joseph Handcock, found guilty of murdering their prisoner, a German Lutheran missionary. Knowledge of this trial and execution of Australian soldiers by British officers had been withheld for months from the Australian government and the public.

Finch mumbled under his breath, convinced that this whole episode had greatly increased the country's disenchantment with the war.

‘I wish I could talk about this stuff with Rom. It's ironic – he's the only one who really understands what I'm feeling.'

‘Did you say something, lad?' asked the sole remaining reader, the one-legged ex-miner known as Captain Kid, who raised his head from a Work Available column.

Finch mumbled an apology. ‘Just thinking out loud, Sir.'

‘It'll be good to get our lads home again. No doubt they'll be given preference in government jobs. Fair enough, I say. Not much call for one-legged blokes at the best of times.'

Finch respected his lack of self-pity. ‘It's a shame our governments have flatly refused to follow the Ontario government's example. Canadians are granting 160 acres to each of their returned soldiers.'

‘Good on them. Our pollies are too stingy by half,' Captain Kid said darkly as he took up his crutch and descended the stairs.

Finch was pleased to read that
The Brisbane Courier
was full of praise for ‘a conquered and brave enemy'. He read that five members of Australian contingents had won the Victoria Cross, the highest Imperial honour, by rescuing de-horsed or wounded comrades from the field.

They deserved it. The irony is, I did the same thing for Viljoen's wounded burgers – and I'm considered a traitor.

He flinched at the memory of the burning farmhouse where he had collapsed, every trace of his memory and identity erased. The thought of Rom's role in rescuing him revived the question that nagged at him.

What really happened to Rom in South Africa – at the end
 . . .?

The Cricket Ground was deserted, except for a wallaby nibbling at the edge of the oval. Summer had burned the field of its scraggy carpet of grass. A light breeze eddied down the pitch, playing with the jagged imprints of past players' running feet.

Rom paused at the entrance turnstile where he had stood the night of Wildebrand Circus's first performance, boasting to the ticket-seller that he was Boss Gourlay's guest-of-honour for inviting the circus to Hoffnung.

Was that only two years ago? Jesus, it seems like another lifetime.

In his mind's eye he saw superimposed on the scene The Big Top, the booths, the surrounding circus wagons and animals; he felt the bustling, nervous excitement of the count-down to the circus performance. Swaggering inside he had taken his seat, aware he had drawn the eyes of the audience; the same faces who had looked down on him as a fly-by-night now looked up at him as a man of some account.

He felt an echo of the excitement of that night, his first ever visit to a circus, an experience only ever dreamt of in the Boys' Home. Even more than that, he remembered his elation at the knowledge he would see Little Clytie the equestrienne, whose carelessly blown kiss to him during the entrance parade down Main Street had caused Rom to bet on himself that he would take her before the circus left town.

What a callow youth I was. I met my match in Clytie.

Now he was waiting again. Alone. For what? He willed Clytie to come to him.

Seated in the miniature grandstand nervously smoking his last cigar, he counted the minutes as if time was fast running out.

Then, rising above the gurgling sound of the creek, he heard the chortle of a small child. It drew closer and caused a fluttering sensation where his heart must once have been.

And there they were. Clytie strolled on to the Cricket Ground, wearing a rainbow-striped shirt and black skirt, her long waves of
dark hair held back by a large bow at the nape of her neck. On her hip she carried the boy known as Maximilian Jantzen.

Mine. No two ways about it. He's a dead ringer for me. The kid I planted in Clytie's body – but never knew I had done the trick.

A faint echo of shame washed over him as he remembered how he had stalled in answering her letter, yet later determined to come back here and do right by her.

What the hell. That's past history. Like I always do, I made it all turn out right in the end – for her. But what about me? Don't I count for something?

The little boy wasn't dressed in the standard white dress and leggings worn by both girls and boys of his age. He wore scarlet leggings and a little jacket made from scraps of patterned materials in bright, circus colours. Rom watched Clytie lower Maxie on to the sun-bleached grass, holding his hands to steady him. Like a miniature drunken seaman he took several rolling steps towards her. Rom beamed in pride as his lad quickened his unsteady barefooted steps.

‘Do you want to have a go on your own, sweetheart?' Clytie asked in that same soft honeyed tone that Rom remembered excited him whenever he lay with her.

Unobserved, he drew closer to them, irresistibly drawn by the sound of their laughter, enchanted by the sunlight playing on their faces, wrinkling their eyes, burnishing their hair.

As if aware of a wider audience than his mother, Maxie pulled free from her hands and took his first steps unaided. Increasing the pace, then halting to wave his open fists about his head like a newly crowned champion in the ring.

‘Good boy!' Clytie cried, clapping her hands together.

‘Bravo, my son!' Rom whispered close enough to be heard.

As if in response Maxie waved to him. And cried out soft sounds in his own private baby language.

He can see me! He knows who I am!

Clytie turned her head, frowning into the face of the sun, as if expecting to see someone. She smiled vaguely in Rom's direction. Rom took two steps towards her and raised his voice as if speaking to the deaf.

‘I kept my promise, Clytie. I came back to you. I know I left you
in the lurch. But I did put things right, didn't I! The trouble is I never got to say what was in my heart – I didn't want to face it. Listen to me, girl! I
love you
!'

He caught his breath as Clytie's eyes widened as she pointed directly at him.

‘Look, Max, a big bird!'

Rom turned to see the large black and white Magpie pecking at the grass behind him.

She's looking straight through me at that damned bird.

His anger drained as Clytie held Max's hand to wave at the bird as it took flight.

‘Say bye-bye to the birdie.'

Max echoed her. ‘Bye-bye.'

Clytie smiled and pointed to the giant pine trees at the edge of the oval.

‘This is a very magic place for me, sweetheart. Under that tree over there, your Dadda gave me my very first kiss.'

She bent and kissed the crown of Max's head. Then hoisted him back up onto her hip and left the oval and Rom behind them.

Rom stood watching them, feeling suddenly cold despite the sun.

He heard Clytie's voice as she crossed the bridge, chanting the
Humpty Dumpty
nursery rhyme.

‘. . . all the King's horses and all the King's men,

Couldn't put Humpty together again.'

That first Sunday after the war ended all the churches in Hoffnung were filled, but by mutual consent all had also agreed to join together in prayer – in public. The magnet was the newly completed war memorial that had been erected on the highest point of the hill that overlooked the cemetery.

Finch had not attended any service. As a known Boer stretcher-bearer, he felt his presence would be a painful reminder to those families who had lost a son, husband or lover on ‘the other side'. He stood alone on the outskirts of the green sward that had been carefully made around the memorial. At the centre of the wide green circle stood the forever-youthful stone soldier. Outlined against the aqua blue sky, he stood with bowed head on top of the memorial plinth, one hand resting on the rifle that stood upturned at his feet – the symbol that it must never be fired again. The upturned brim of his slouch hat, his youthful, unlined face, suggested to Finch he might well have been on either side.