There seemed to be nothing to prevent a successful meeting. There appeared to be a positive excess of goodwill on the part of the investors. When Cocky Abbot Senior resumed his seat at the table he sat opposite Jack McGrath and winked at him like a conspirator.
I spread out the plans on the table. Bradfield's B3 was a beautiful craft and I had no trouble speaking enthusiastically about its function. I could feel some resistance from the older Cocky Abbot. I pushed against it with my enthusiasm. I discussed the purchase of steel from BHP and the method of bringing in timber from the bush. The young Cocky Abbot caught my eye and nodded. Oswald-Smith made notes on his writing pad. But the older farmer folded his arms against his chest and looked at me impassively.
The wind howled around the house and pushed its fingers under doors, through cracks in the floor, lifted rugs in the long passage so they rode the timber in ghostly waves. The women felt the wind and did not like it, but all I felt was this stubborn wall from Cocky Abbot Senior. I talked and talked, but I could not talk him down. I knew, before I sat down, that I had not made the sale.
'I knew your father,' said Cocky Abbot Senior, unfolding his arms at last. 'He was a practical man, so I suppose you are too. Now what I want to know, Badgery – and I mentioned this to Jack down at 'Bulgaroo' – why wouldn't we set ourselves up as agents and import the best the world has to offer? I don't doubt you when you say there's a future in the aircraft, but why should we risk all this capital to manufacture something when we can import the best the British Empire can produce?'
'What did Jack say?'
'He said you were a practical fellow.'
I looked at Jack. He grinned at me fondly. I sucked in my breath and studied the wallpaper behind his shoulder. I tried to remind myself that the whole thing was only a lie except it was not a lie any more. It was an inch from being the shining thing I had described so lyrically.
'Mr Abbot,' I said, 'I've sold two hundred T Model Fords and it has made me a lot of dough, but it never made me happy.'
The table was quiet. They heard the tremor in my voice and they knew how I felt, but they had no idea why I felt it or what I was saying.
'Happy!' snorted Cocky Abbot Junior.
'Does it make you happy', I asked him, 'to be a child all your life? That's what an agent is, a child serving a parent. If you want to serve the interests of the English, you go and be an agent for their aircraft, and you'll stay a damn child all your life.'
The younger Cocky Abbot sought his AIF badge on his lapel and, having found it, squinted at it down his long nose. Everybody waited for him. 'And yet', he said, 'you served the Empire.'
'I never served,' I said. 'I had no intention of dying like a silly goat for the British.'
Jack, who had loved every war service story I told him, recognized the voice of truth. His great face folded in misery.
'You're lucky you don't live in Colac,' said young Cocky Abbot.
'Lucky indeed. I saw it from the air. It looks like a cow of a place.'
'We tar and feather micks for saying things like that. Our mates died for England.'
'My point,' I shouted. 'My point exactly.'
'We tarred and feathered a bloke two weeks ago, a Sinn Feiner from Warrnambool. It was written up in all the papers. He wrote a poem you might approve of, in 1915.'
'You are fools,' I said, and said it so quietly, with such passion, that Cocky Abbot Junior, whose large red fist had been placed very prominently on his expensively trousered knee, dismantled it quietly, and put the pieces in his pocket.
For a trembling instant I had them all.
I had a full five seconds in which to say something, anything, to begin a sentence that might, with its passion and precision, convert them to my view.
I did not even get my lips to open.
'I am here to make a quid,' said Cocky Abbot Senior, ignoring me and addressing unhappy Jack. 'I would not have come for anything else. I would not have risked my life in that machine for amusement or politics. It was only to make a quid.'
'But you can make a quid, Mr Abbot,' I said. 'There is a good quid to be made by us selling aircraft to Australians. That is the point. This is the country for the aeroplane, Mr Abbot, not Europe.'
'I must say', Oswald-Smith said sternly, 'that I had no intention of investing my money in a political party.'
'This is not a political party.' My voice rose in frustration. 'I could not give a fig for politics.' And as far as I understood politics, I was right. It was an understanding I shared with the shivering sergeant in the street outside, a man who had killed an officer and would not join a union.
'It sounds like politics to me,' said Oswald-Smith. 'Why do you have this chip on your shoulder about the English? Dear God, you are English. You talk English. You look English. You have an English name.'
'Not a chip on my shoulder,' I said, relieved that Oswald-Smith would at least look at me. 'Common sense. Anyone can see that the English are as big a pest as the rabbit. No offence, but they're identical. They come here, eat everything, burrow under, tunnel out -look at Ballarat or Bendigo – and when the country is rooted…' I faltered, 'it'll be rooted.'
'Watch your language,' said Cocky Abbot Junior, retrieving his fist.
But Oswald-Smith was a more complete Imaginary Englishman than Cocky Abbot Junior and felt relaxed enough to be amused by this analogy. In fact he was now amused by the whole turn of events and was pleased, more than ever, that he had come. 'It makes no sense to the rabbit, surely,' he said, 'for when the country is,' he paused and smiled, 'rooted, there will be nothing left for it.'
'Then they'll get on boats and go home and leave their tunnels and heaps behind.'
'Rabbits? On boats?' Oswald-Smith smiled at the fancy.
'Oh, for God's sake, man, this isn't an argument about rabbits. It's about aeroplanes.'
'If you two would shut up for a moment,' said the older Cocky Abbot, as much irritated with Oswald-Smith as he was with me, 'I'd like to say something. The first is I couldn't care if you was a German from Jeparit and I don't mind what you vote about. You can stand on your soap box till the cows come home. The second is I don't think you know a thing about rabbits. And the third thing is I'd like to listen to Jack McGrath, our host, who has had to put up with all this bulldust about rabbits. I'd like to hear Jack tell us how all this is going to make us a quid. And fourth, son,' he told me, 'I'd like you to shut up and listen.'
I pointed a straight finger at him. 'I'll be right back,' I said.
I strode from the room.
'Come on, Jack,' Cocky Abbot said. 'What's it to be?'
But Jack felt ill and his deep depression, normally kept at bay by the company of other men, pushed its way into the room and claimed him in public.
'Come on, Jack,' said old Cocky Abbot kindly, 'let's have a look at what you want.'
But Jack could be persuaded to say nothing, and Oswald-Smith, who had been entranced by the scene he had chanced upon, now wondered where Molly had hung his overcoat.
49
Whilst dining on goose Phoebe had seen Mrs Kentwell attack the Morris Farman with her umbrella. It had done no more damage than a knife in water. The craft was a figment, a moth attracted by the electric light of the house. It was Mrs Kentwell's natural enemy and the old hag had recognized it, gone to battle, and discredited herself.
Mrs Kentwell, Phoebe thought, would have no allies in this house. She had attacked the dream and proclaimed herself mad.
Phoebe retired to a chair in the music room and wrote, triumphantly, in her erratic left hand: 'Nor shall the bosom proud, / Be hid with shame.'
