my story become strong and clear.
There was, for instance, the snake, about which I had made certain claims. I did not intend to shirk my obligation to care for the snake, although if I could have seen what this would lead to (all this industry on behalf of a casual lie) I would have shipped it off to Mr Chin on the first train.
I strolled along the beach in the direction of that wide-verandaed weatherboard building which in those days housed the Corio Bay Sailing Club. In front of the Sailing Club there was an old man shovelling shell-grit into a hessian bag. I did not need to be told why he was doing it: the shell-grit from Corio Bay was, and still is, particularly beneficial to hens – it gives an eggshell substance.
I wasn't normally one for idle chat, but I liked all the world on that morning, and I stopped for a yarn.
'Grit for the chooks?' I said.
'That's right.'
'Laying well, are they?'
'Not bad.'
The old man did not seem inclined to talk, but I wasn't offended. It was peaceful standing there with my hands in my pockets watching him work.
'Would you happen to know', I asked after a while, 'a good spot for frogs?' The frogs, of course, were for the snake.
He was a little man, dried up like a walnut. His freckled skin hung on his arms, like the skin on a roast chicken wing.
'Yes,' he said, 'I know a good place for frogs.'
'Where's that?'
He was an old man used to being granted his due of respect and patience. He drove his spade into the sand with a grunt.
'France,' he said.
I could imagine the old bugger sitting at the head of a table and calling his fifty-year-old son 'the boy'. He was far too content with himself for my liking.
'You should be on the wireless,' I said, 'telling jokes like that.'
'You reckon, do you?' he said, and he made a slow study of me. He did not rush over any of the details. He observed, as I had not, that the trousers of the new suit were an inch too short and the jacket was a fraction too tight. 'That's what you reckon, do you?'
'Yes, I reckon,' I said. 'I reckon you're a bit of a wit.'
He wasn't frightened. He knew he was too old to be hit. 'What do you want the frogs for?'
'I'll pay sixpence a frog. I'll be wanting two frogs every day.' This scheme was not what I'd intended, but now I wanted to force him to do something for me.
'You don't say,' he said without a sign of interest. He went back to his spade and shell-grit.
'That's a shilling a day, seven shillings a week. It's good money.'
'Who'd pay money for a frog?' His eyes were half clouded with cataracts but his scorn glowed through them.
'Do you want the seven bloody shillings or not?' I said.
'No,' the old man said with great satisfaction. 'I don't.' He picked up the sack of shell-grit and hoisted it on to his shoulder. I watched him trudge down the beach – a sack-carrying burglar who had stolen my sense of well- being.
I was always up and down in my moods and now I looked around the bay with a jaundiced eye. I saw a broken lemonade bottle in the sand. I began to suspect that Geelong might have the capacity to let me down, to be one more malicious, small-minded provincial city with no vision, no drive, no desire to do anything but send young men off to fight for the British and buy T Model Fords. However, the rest of that December Monday restored my faith in the city which, although it was not quite as grand as my vision of the morning, was still more than receptive to Herbert Badgery, Aviator.
I have had a long and wearing relationship with Henry Ford and it was only weakness that brought me back to him. The first thing I did in Geelong was introduce myself to McGregor, the Ford agent. I showed him my newspaper clippings and he was happy enough to engage me as a commission agent at five pounds a car. So when I arrived at theGeelong Advertiser I was able to park outside their window in a brand-new T model. I put my book of newspaper clippings under my arm and went to see the editor.
The suit I was wearing had previously belonged to Mr Harold Oster, and the Osters being the Osters I made no secret of the fact. So although Harold Oster's arse was built too close to the footpath and although his arms were an inch too short, I made no secret of the fact. I even ventured, as few in Geelong would have done, a few jokes at Mr Oster's expense. My familiarity with the Osters served as a better introduction to Geelong than any suit I could have had tailor-made in Little Collins Street.
My clothes, I told the editor, were at present in transit to Ballarat where I had been on my way to investigate the establishment of a new aircraft factory. Now, forced to spend the time in Geelong while the craft underwent repairs, I was keen to conduct discussions with local business men. I had already, I was pleased to inform the editor, found a degree of intelligence and enthusiasm in regard to the idea which was quite extraordinary. I would not let myself be drawn on the possibility of switching the site from Ballarat to Geelong but the editor foundhimself bold enough to run the following headline which my host, bright red with pleasure, read to me at breakfast: 'aviator's MISHAP MAY BRING NEW INDUSTRY TO GEELONG.'
Jack McGrath was not only flattered to find himself described as intelligent but also gratified to learn that his new friend had flown the first air mail in South Australia. He read also that I had served in the Air Corps, was a 'noted zoologist' and a 'motoring enthusiast whose Hispano Suiza is currently on loan to a distinguished Ballarat family'.
Photographs, supplied by yours truly, were also used by the Advertiser (this, mind you, at a time when photographs in the newspaper were a rarity). The most notable of these showed the Morris Farman 'in three positions of flight in a storm above Digger's Rest Racecourse'. Quite a lot of this information was correct.
A week later I was able to mail a postal order for twenty pounds to the publican in Darnham.
14
It was nine o'clock at night but the temperature was still above 90 degrees. There was no air in the room. There was not enough air anywhere. From the bathroom window in Villamente Street you could see the red glow in the sky: fires covered the Brisbane ranges at Anakie and Steiglitz.
The front room crawled with insects with long brown abdomens. They fell into the jug of sweet lemon squash and died there. Phoebe had placed a thin book of Swinburne's poetry on top of the jug, but the insects still managed to enter through the pouring lip.
Annette was limp and soaked with perspiration. Her grey dress was too heavy for the climate. It clung to the back of her knees and got stuck beneath her arms. Phoebe, on the other hand, did not seem at all affected. This irritated Annette. Phoebe was so wrapped up in her own feelings that she was insensitive to everything else, even the stinking heat. Phoebe also wore grey: a soft silky grey with a slightly paler grey scarf.
'For God's sake,' Annette said, brushing insects away from Swinburne, 'aren't you hot?'
'A little,' Phoebe said, 'but not much.'
'It doesn't make sense.' Annette knew how pasty she looked. Her hair was plastered against her forehead, a pimple was emerging from her chin, her top lip shone. 'I don't think he's a herpetologist at all. A man of science, surely, does not keep his charges in a jute bag in his bedroom.'
'Annette,' Phoebe said, 'where else would he keep it? We really have no proper facilities for boarding snakes.'
'And yet,' Annette said, 'there you are with two of them.'
(She is already defeated, before it has begun, while Phoebe is no more than a creamy shape in my dirty dreams.)
'You should be going back to school,' Annette said.
