Intro: These are the first two sections of a verse novella. Told by an English journalist it charts his 60 year friendship with an Australian ‘bluestocking’ and her family, whom he meets on a tour he takes of the British Empire’s Dominions in 1913-14. The work also charts Anglo-Australian relations in the context of the Empire’s decline.
In Our Four Dominions
for Louise Byrne
Pride
‘Proud? Most certainly we’re proud!’
In
this land we’ve a first of everything!’
And
Mayor Moriarty, seed merchant,
escorted
me up, through, down and around
his
suburb’s first town hall.
And
if, as I were to find, his womenfolk
checked
him just one side of humbug,
still
this silly man seemed to prefer them
schooled
and daunting.
Jean surely was.
‘We’ve
a surprise,’ the Mayor seemed pleased.
‘My
most brilliant girl has volunteered
to
enlighten you on what our younger set believes,
and
if our younger set means Jean,
and
Jean believes what Jean believes,
I’m
sure you will be charmed and thus adjust.’
I
had to. For outside his mayoral chambers,
with
a pixie-slight demeanour I sensed would prove
disarmingly
robust, there she was.
And
chaperoned by their municipal chauffer
we
headed to the Boat House where in its Palm Court,
to
an overlay of tea dance numbers
flirtatious
chat commenced.
‘Though
I’ve been introduced as Jean,
you
may refer to me as Minx, father does:
His
Worship being something out of Mr Arnold Bennett,
I’m
something out of Mr H G Wells.
Welcome
to that kind of place where women
in
case you weren’t aware
possess
the vote and our last PM before the last
was
“Affable Alf”.
That kind of place
and
these
kind of women, with Jean forever to remain
this
small and bustling girl with eyebrows raised
and
quizzing sidelong glances.
Attempting
one better to top her catalogue
seemed
my only option.
‘Recall the attribution,’
she
was asked, ‘from our Colonial
Correspondent?
Well
Miss Moriarty, I am he!’
‘Colonial…’
and
the sidelong glance returned, ‘elsewhere may think themselves
in
such a fashion, Australians though are a Commonwealth now,
up-to-date
as can be allowed and when we aren’t…
let’s
make it up!’
Little
‘side’ then in this most pragmatic
of
Dominions, merely an insisting cheek that I,
this
visiting London journalist Should try us
out!
The
very reason I was there.
Dominions
My
uncle, an outward-looking man,
also was my editor. And believing I
wasn’t yet a drab,
and trusting I wrote both wittily and
well
made this proposal.
‘On balance then,’ he stated
(since he loved to state) ‘what quarter
of our globe
seems better blest than where we
British truly reign
yet fairly rule? Reasonable?’ he asked..
‘Very,’
I replied as he arose and pointed
to his map.
‘India,’ he
announced, ‘our jewel…
Africa, our mission…whilst for a spread
of sheer diversity:
Middle and Far East, the South Seas and
the Caribbean. But…’
he paused (since he also loved to pause)
‘what of those partners-in-empire, our
Dominions?
Having learnt so well from us (and
aren’t they us?)
what indeed might we learn from them?’
Knowing
who they were,
he and Britain wished to know who and
what
they truly were. And such would be my brief:
(with backing from certain chaps of
clout
and six months touring our Dominions)to
discover
who indeed and what indeed they were.
Somewhere
my uncle had his list:
those he knew, those he’d met and those
his correspondents:
very chaps of clout in Cape Town and
Melbourne,
Sydney and Auckland, Vancouver and Toronto.
And
though he planned I’d meet them Uncle warned:
‘In ten or twenty years they may or
will
be heading fogey. So as an extra brief
seek out
those men of your age, chaps of the
future,
for both articles and an eventual
book.’
‘And
such if you like Miss Moriarty,’
(how
we enjoyed such fake formalities!)
‘are
the reasons I am here.’
‘Chaps
of clout?’ quizzed and answered Jean.
‘Chaps
of the future? Seed merchant mayors or
seed
merchant mayors-in-training?’
This Sunday
evening though,
might
I be free to visit the Moriartys at their Bella
Vista?
Moriartys
If
Father may have seemed the Minister,
Mother it was who ran the Ministry.
‘Book
us into your calendar,’
he might say.
‘Now,’
she’d fine-tune, since someone
must employ that side of the initiative,
‘let’s arrange those dates…’
She
allowed him though
his MC role: ‘May we present, starting
with our eldest,
Heléna, Jean (you’ve met) Edward (Ted)
Stella and Vera our own Gemini.'
Yes,
let’s meet
the Moriartys: first up their medium
pacer,
middle order, all-rounder of a son who,
beyond even that, was a wag confessing:
‘Surrounded by such girls-and-girls
they’ll say
he’s spoilt, spoilt with all a
lightweight’s faults,
excepting you can trust him:
for if and when a stoush arrives he’ll be
there,
he’ll have to be.’
And
doubtless believing
After saying things like that, one does
things like this
Ted stroked his trim moustache.
‘And
how did you find us Moriartys?’
Mother asked.
I
had an uncle taking pride
in just how many men he knew throughout
the Empire, her husband being a friend of
one of these.
‘I
think we can agree,’
Ted offered, ‘that’s how our Empire’s run.
One sends a cable knowing it’ll be read,
correct?’
And
more than opinions
he seemed to offer his very self as a
small, yet necessary
anchor of Empire: you commenced with Ted,
then his father, his father’s friend, my
uncle and next to him
the Colonial Office, the India Office, the
Foreign Office and
who-knew-what beyond.
‘We’re
so glad to know, ‘ Jean humoured him,
‘your place in the
great-Imperial-chain-of-being.’
‘Do
you play charades?’ a Gemini enquired.
I
had been known to.
‘Then
please return,
return and play!’ her twin kept urging.
‘And
this is Heléna,’ Father intervened,
‘with an accent on her second e, now don’t
forget,
the Empire’s only one. She invented that
when she
was twelve.’ (For he was a man well proud
of all he was connected to.)
‘And
may I book you in?’ Heléna asked.
‘I’ve heaps to be informed upon.’
The
twins re-intervened:
might we make a picnic and watch Teddy
play?
And did I play?
(Always
out first ball, alas.)
We
embarked for dinner, we disembarked
from dinner. Soon, I was told, the
chauffer
would arrive, taking me to the Windsor.
‘See
our guest out will you Jean?’
See
me out? Oh yes Jean would!
Was
her mother thinking that somehow
I might be a man to give an extra meaning
to
this daughter’s life?
Though
what ‘extra meaning’
might she need if the family supplied
enough?
‘I
love my little brother,’ Jean confessed,
‘I always have. But then: ‘So he’s in
college?
So he’s attending university and wishes to
become
Sir Edward Moriarty KC, so?’ And then:
‘I think all snobs are sad and that Heléna
is
the saddest snob of all with not the
remotest brain.
She never went
to varsity whilst I did.
I studied French and wish one day to use
it.
I only read French nowadays, I’ve very few
to speak it with…might you?
‘Alas,’
I let her know,
‘my languages being purely classical, I’ve
missed out
on all this modern stuff!’
With
her look announcing
I can and will both understand and even
enjoy this man
yes Jean liked that!
And
yet
enough of that! She’d to make it known
what kind of friend I would be getting.
‘History,’
(was this some lecture?) ‘still informs me,
although I’m well beyond mere Whig.
You sir see a Roundhead. But what can I,
what will I do about it? Don’t suggest
school mistress,
the very thought of being one and what I
was
at school makes me right glad for all
those girls
I’ll never teach. And never please suggest
the wife
of any famous man. Throughout the
municipality
His Worship’s constantly famous for being
His Worship, and what does that get
mother?
An avalanche of mere good works
with all their attendant tut-tut-tut.
Just give me works; but what?’
The
chauffer had arrived, I too had ‘works’:
seeking out those with their clout who’d
tell me where
we British stood, this corner of the
Empire;
to meet their sons, the future, those I’d
recommend to be
the kind of chaps Britain might rely upon;
and finally to interview four of the men
who ran
this Commonwealth of theirs: the affable
Mr Deakin,
the combative Mr Hughes, the gentlemanly
Mr Fisher,
the rather plodding Mr Cook; nor could I
forgo the luncheons,
dinners and smoke nights, though I sensed
where I’d be
welcomed most, those weeks in Melbourne.
(‘Liberty
’all young man!’ the Mayor,
her father offered, putting forth ‘side’,
if his special, unaffected brand of
‘side’.)
When
I was younger, though hardly that much younger,
night after night entranced by some light
opera soubrette,
I would return to gaze on her alone, and
mouth
milady’s lines.
Unlike
the stage though,
each Moriarty evening was a premiere,
and I’d make my return just to re-discover
what Jean (and even I) might be saying
next.
Name
a soubrette who could announce:
‘From hereafter, year-upon-year,
you men will need us more and yet still
more,
need us and our vote. In those countries
where we’ve
got the vote!’
And
later:
‘You’ll notice if you haven’t yet,
how my older sister acts like she’s some
maharani?’
(Aspects were noted if hardly that
descriptive.)
‘And you think I’m unmarried…’
(Well I hadn’t.)
‘Poor woman’s set on forgetting just how
old she is
and will become. But can’t. She knows
she’s twenty six
and still hasn’t seen England her England.
That’s why His Worship’s set she’ll go,
and go they will
in ’15, ’16 or ’17, to find herself this
England
or a husband. For me your country may as
well
be Mars.’
Though
at times we talked
of little else.
‘Even
if,’ she proposed, ‘we’re British,
as many think we are and this is a British
world,
it’s far more yours than ours, yours to
accept,
interpret and amend, in particular amend.
Yet this is a world which cannot last,
you’ve doubtless heard
On dune and headland sinks the fire,
and stuck on its less-than-certain edges
we’re the dunes and we’re the headlands.
Aren’t I correct?’
That
currently was part of what
I’d set myself to find.
Here
though was the start
of my credentials: those interviews
arranged and held
with Messrs Deakin, Hughes, Fisher and
Cook.
Smiling I lounged back just a touch and
watched.
‘Well
done,’ she cheered, ‘well done!
An Englishman who understands there’s
something
far beyond mere England in its tepid,
three week
summer!’
Why
spoil this game reminding Jean
she’d no more been there than Heléna had?
It simply underscored all I enjoyed about
her,
as the Colonial Correspondent returned
(most late afternoons now) seeking to
discover
what this Australian bluestocking truly
thought.
‘Since,’
I asked, ‘women in this country vote,
what do you suppose they might want next?’
And
fearing he had made himself her foil,
Jean’s latest innocent mug, their dinner
table paused.
‘Why
birth control!’
‘And
that’s our Minx!’
With embarrassed pride her father beamed,
spluttered,
then continued beaming, egging on Jean
so that she might rise and further rising
rile her mother.
Part
comic, part preposterous,
was this some kind of game certain
Dominion
families played? Well the Moriartys did
and an idea bloomed, oh how it bloomed
Jean’s saying what her father wishes he
could say
except his wife won’t let him…
as yes the wife was riled, riled and
recoiling
‘Oh must you Jean!’
And
being twenty four yes
yes Jean must she must.
As
being twenty six Heléna mustn’t
so she squirmed.
Seeming
as tall as Jean was tiny,
Heléna had those kinds of hands on those
kinds of arms
made for sweeping, know-it-all dismissals;
though she lacked her sister’s sense to
check,
bemused, who or what was right before her.
‘One
really tries,’
Jean had to explain, ‘not to
consider
one’s parent’s conjugal relations.
But with the sheer variety of the
Maharani, me,
Teddy and our twins, something somehow
must’ve happened. And she’s known,
Heléna’s known
since birth, that if an impression’s to be
made
she will be the first to make it.’
Which
Jean didn’t?
Well not with all that throaty bombast
gushing
from her older sister.
‘Shall
we pity her?’ I’d ask myself.
‘Though why? How often does Heléna get her
chance
to seize on any British accent, matching
it with her own
re-fined attempts?’
Yes
pity would’ve been considered,
except Heléna hardly understood her
prattling,
nor would she ever.
‘Yours is a land,’
I tried, ‘that uses space so well:
its broad streets and roads are near to
boulevards.
How old is your city? Less than eighty
years,
so even better everything is new!’
Did
she flinch?
Heléna didn’t need it new, whilst
any praise for
this Dominion proved, like her father’s
pride
(Jean’s too) in how they were forging
their traditions,
foreign and perverse.
‘Ah
yes,’ Heléna itemised,
‘traditions: heat, dust, flies and boors:
mutton breeding,
mutton digesting, mutton-chop whiskered
boors…’
which hardly equated with those I’d met,
the trim-bearded ‘Affable Alf’ Deakin for
one,
who could have strolled straight into the
Asquith Ministry.
‘Out
of date by forty years, Heléna!’
Jean seeing an opening had pounced.
‘Those squatters are either shaved and
civilised by now,
or dead.’
Thinking
I’d understand what she understood
Heléna in reply was tragic:
‘My sister and her most Australian twang,
I know you’ve heard it, I do every day.
What man will respect her if she talks
like that?’
I
wouldn’t bite the bait.
Some men might enjoy this ‘twang’ if
indeed
there was one; some other men, I include
myself,
would near-love her ‘twang’ or no.
I
was so pleased
I’d met a world that wasn’t an unending
reproduction
of certain men with whom I had attended
school,
or their sisters. Rather it seemed I had
been bred
to tour the Four Dominions and even more
befriend
Jean Moriarty.
If
not Heléna.
For now we were to talk on what she really
knew.
How about my club, wasn’t I the member of
a club?
(Once it had been proposed I be proposed.)
Did I by chance know a duke, an earl?
A marquis, baron, baronet?
I never got a chance to answer since
I must have.
For
now her catalogue commenced:
highwaymen and their saucy wenches,
Hearts of Oak and Drake’s Drum,
the honest toil of simple folk and what
The Bard
had given the world, yes yes she admitted,
almost all ephemera but but surely it
wasn’t about
mere knowing one’s place for no no it was
about order,
an order seeing to it all
flourished, was she not correct?
Then,
as we caught Jean’s eye-rolling and finger-drumming
Heléna pursed a smile’s preliminaries,
pleased she might show a certain toleration
towards a younger sister.
‘So
might you,’
I was asked, ‘have one of these?’
as a hand was lightly flapped in Jean’s
direction.
Did
she mean (she did) that I had sisters?
‘Well
I have two...’
Though
none like Jean,
ushering me down the steps into Bella
Vista’s garden,
who bemused yet seething asked:
‘You see the Maharani, hunkered there on
our veranda,
taking up the white woman’s burden,
staring down the hordes amassing at the
gate?
Of course she’s tried Theosophy, says it
calms her,
but other than ghosts there’s very little
prospects.
Teddy will marry, Stella shall and Vera,
whilst I am certain to remain bluestocking
me.
But Heléna? She’s betrothed you know,
beyond betrothed
to Old Father Thames and Mother England.
I’d call it comic but the comedy’s too
tragic,
call it tragic but the tragedy’s too
comic.
Though be the outcome sobs or giggles
I’m sure we’ll need each other, one day!’
Bluestocking
Oh
no Jean didn’t!
Already seeing herself as some middle-aged
companion to
that vapid sister, what sort of
bluestocking was this?
To rescue her from such a future the
Colonial Correspondent
would fix that!
And
very soon,
one hot afternoon, striding back to the
Boat House
she’s hearing this unedited tumble of
words concluding:
‘Haven’t you potential, Jean? Why stymie
that potential?
Come with me and see the Dominions, the
Dominions
and beyond…’ for more than any Colonial
Correspondent,
Jean this is your suitor announcing:
‘After we wed let’s head to the nearest
liner!’
Not exactly the silliest thing he’d ever
said,
though he’d never be as young as when he
was
proposing that,
‘Liner?’
he hears. ‘Ocean liner?
Ah no we won’t.’ Since she will never
marry.
‘I don’t know why and even more don’t
think
I’ll ever know although…what a scandal,
what a superb scandal we would make.’
No sidelong glancing now, Jean raising her
head
looks her straightest at him:
‘I like you more than any man I’ve met…’
which seems the sort of phrase needing to
end in
but except Jean
(who’s sensing diplomacy’s time
is now) knows any qualifying but
would hurt,
and never adds it. That’s how much she
likes him.
‘So
this,’ I’m hearing,
‘I’ll respond like this: you remain here.
With Melbourne always needing chaps of
clout
we’ll get you introduced; and if our
ladies rarely
seem viragos, still I foresee that kind of
girl
you may require. Who isn’t me. Stay and I
will be the one
reporting on our four Dominions.
We
knew that wasn’t viable.
For it was safe, still safe Chez Moriarty,
where you were cultivated as a very clever
girl,
the family Roundhead. It would take much
more than
this suitor-in-transit to make her what
she wanted to become
(which then neither of us knew).
Though
Jean had commenced understanding something:
‘I’m just starting out. Even if he didn’t
wish to
any man would stifle me. Better this way
isn’t it,
Colonial Correspondent. We may never
agree,
but I believe you understand me. Correct?’
Very
correct.
Though after laying such a temperate siege
to Jean,
Milady of Clout, Milady of the Future,
any girl I might require in this modern
adequate city
would seem passé.
would seem passé.
Scared
I hardly felt inclined to woo
their faux Home Counties Maharani,
and wouldn’t wait around for either of the Gemini.
Teddy at least may have become a younger friend
(if ever he arrived in London)
but for all the spins in his motor, not quite.
He hadn’t decided ‘What I’ll actually do…
Law of course…’ whilst what occupied him seemed to be
‘Some filly-over-the-river.’
Who needed any ‘girl’ if you had one of them?
In their Buck up old sportmode
Jean, Teddy and the Mayor farewelled me,
for with its branches of both clout and future,
plus certain Moriarty cousins, I’d Sydney to inspect,
thence to my third and fourth Dominions,
home in time for a kind of paramount summer
made for hours of writing in the garden.
Six days I’d labour (though it wasn’t labour)
whilst on the seventh friends would motor down
for a lazy Sunday at my family’s cottage.
War was declared,
In Our Four Dominionspaused; war continued,
my book ceased; I joined the war.
Then with the too hideous speed of it I was on leave,
Teddy was on leave. We met.
And if possessing that kind of commission
young lawyers usually obtain, this officer
still seemed a boy, though no more scared than I
or any fighting man in Europe,
so he was scared.
From her Commonwealth
Jean never would upbraid me,
though I was to understand this: the more the war,
the more women, women such as her demanded peace.
So she wrote: I’m doing what I can notto support the war.
I’ve joined these other women, not mere viragos let me add…
ButI was warned, they’reopening our mail by now.
It’s obvious I’m no fan of the Bosch,
but my country’s scared, scared of what women like us
are thinking.
Once liberal comfort itself was life
for a seed merchant’s daughter.
Now with Roundhead turning Jacobin
(and who turns better than a favourite?)
His Worship, rallying for war bonds,
was quietly infuriated, even if he always knew
that’s how Jean was.
Bluestockings against bloodshed?
Yes she supposedthat’s a way to put it.
Though the women the diversity of women!
she had met at meetings became that education
varsity never could have given me.
We wouldn’t have met but for what unites us:
trying to stop this useless war.
And sensing I might understand It’s down to dunes
and headlands now,the Empire’s going bung,
and if I’m one of that ten per cent agin it,
I’ve never felt less alone.
Heléna was doing nothing much about the war
except to follow it. When we meet,
which we both try to avoid, one of us
finishes in tears. It may be big but Bella Vista’s
never been that big. Why won’t she just get married?
Then to remind me Jean remained a Moriarty
One day when it’s over I’ll be needed.
‘How did you live through that?’
it seemed like the World would ask the rest of our lives,
if you lived, which Teddy didn’t
Though Captain Edward Moriarty wasn’t merely killed,
we had to understand his body like so many bodies
had evaporated, along with his promise, the promise any future
civic leader may have had.
For Jean it wasn’t merely sad, this act of death
was hateful.
If he wasn’t sent to France even to merely die
then what? It’s worse than murder, this uncomprehending,
mythic waste. Except for its slaughter
there’s little ‘great’ in that Great War:
just chaps of clout needing to sacrifice their
chaps of the future.
For many months and into years
she later wrote we’ve walked out of one room, into a next
and onto another, to end at the first. All fine thoughts,
all decent ambitions that here, our country
would be somehow different, finished right when
Teddy finished. I’m much more Bolshie than they think,
and so I sit about reading, knowing I want it altered,
all unbelievably altered and know it never will be.
Post War
Then though came an alteration.
You wouldn’t know this, but Teddy left a child.
Where, I wondered, when? Melbourne whilst in college,
France or London whilst on leave? But who?
The filly-over-the-river, or any filly over
any river? (‘Might take you to meet her,’ offered Teddy,
though he never would.)
It was a son.
His Worship told me and, since mother or my sisters
needn’t know, he thought I’d be the one best to appreciate
what lawyers and their clients kept murmuring
behind closed doors. At one level much had been negotiated,
but at another a women’s touch seemed paramount.
I’m still the person my father wished to be,
but being a man, a merchant and a mayor
he wasn’t. So would I visit her?
Part mousey, part flinty,
Doreen lived in some suburb Jean had never known.
And though they hardly warmed to one another,
and any crying they’d both shared on Teddy
had been spent, Jean believed the girl,
arranging that from such Moriarty millionsthis Doreen,
her boy and mother weren’t to be ignored.
It wasshe wrote,
another part but more than just another part
of what war is: throughout the world
a host of missing Teddys and their children.
Alterations continued:
Jean moving to an apartment heading chic
from which she would emerge each weekday as
Miss Moriarty, Ladies College mistress;
and if I were to find her inconsistent now,
she knew she was, but living with her parents
was turning her right placid…
and not so inconsistent that I’d not find her
still hopefully a real red ragger,
well I would be if I had the time.
These then are my adventures
(Heléna sits at home and sews.)
And yours?
Mine?
When you were through with flappers
nearing half your age, you got engaged to Ida,
our new proprietor’s great niece,
that’s what you did.
And as with the War,
the Empire and indeed the world, my uncle tried
to understand. ‘Ours was a universal effort:
Papists, Non-conformists, Jews, your friends
the Australians…and as to this matter of Ida,
it mightn’t be quite what your parents had in mind,
but if falling for a Jew lass works…’
and uncle, who tried so hard yet loved to veer,
veered. ‘I once knew this amusing sodomite
who told me straight It may be unnatural to you
but it sure feels natural to meand do you know
I laughed and near believed him.’
After the Great War,
after the still born In Our Four Dominions
I’d neither be a chap of clout, nor one of the future.
Rather I hoped one of sense, sense on my terms mind:
who could marry my Ida for love;
who kept on corresponding with my friend,
the Australian bluestocking; whose six books, I hoped
were witty useful books, continuing where my late uncle left:
how are we meant to appraise the world,
judge what this world was becoming,
when in a time of flags, a time of hunger,
very quickly a word might turn completely unacceptable,
appeasementfor one.
Some way past forty (now with a chance
to finally reconcile their Englands)
Minx and Maharani would visit us,
two well off Melbourne spinsters who had both
at one time Taken well let’s call that chosen
suitors, lovers if you must Jean seeming happy
to enjoy the sheer idea of it
almost to see what they were like. Then No.
And in her true virago style she qualified
Less chosen more rejected.
Though right now they’d come to see
what all the Empire fought for, and not so strange
it didn’t seem Australia or Australian to Jean.
Her sister’s vision headed somewhere else,
and if Ida’s brother’s in-law’s country seat
was hardly Cliveden, for Heléna it had
overwhelmed enough: ‘Truly have I ventured home!’
Which was, as she confided, news yet hardly news
to Jean.
From a terrace I saw my lean, tall wife in slacks
and tiny beside her Miss Jean Moriarty,
wandering through the house party, scattered about
the grounds.
‘After His Worship died,’ Ida was told,
‘she won’t journey anywhere without me.’
And, ‘Hang the Kaiser one minute, appeasement the next,
that’s Heléna.’ And again,
‘I’d dump her here of course except…
like you in your country we are stuck in ours now,
always will be. And it’s not that she’s too old
(over-ripe brigadiers might rate her passions highly)
it’s just she bungs on things oh so very wrong.
The Bugles of England –and how could I stay?
How couldn’t she except she can’t!
Then I’m informing Teddy was destroyed by England
or else I’m going out to find myself some Modern Art.
which leaves her miffed and sobbing half a day.’
Though Ida was entertained, and understood
why I remained the Colonial Correspondent,
this tirade had bewildered her.
‘Might this be,’
she asked, ‘the way Dominions are?’
‘No,’ I assured, ‘only the Moriartys.’
And had their Roundhead-Jacobin-Bolshevik daughter
become more cruel? If your sister was an appeaser, maybe.
Was this then an only way Jean knew to protect herself?
Yes, but unintentionally cruel, entertainingly cruel.
And I thought of that eucalyptus-tart, ‘true–brickfielder’
of a day when, chancing myself I told her what I had already
told two other gels: how I’d marry ’em;
though none like her and none in such a place:
walking to the Boat House, smothered in one of Melbourne’s
ruthless Northerlies.
‘Oh,’ she sighed,
part flattered, part annoyed, in need of diversions,
any diversions now, and ‘oh,’ she asked,
‘that would spoil things, so why spoil things?
Please never spoil things my Colonial Correspondent.’
Empire
The family had believed in Teddy and his promise,
the world believed in all its Teddys all their promise.
Doreen and the son? Jean once asked herself
on my behalf. It hasn’t worked.
Then there was no need ever to describe
that afternoon on leave when I saw, heard and grasped
the amount of guileless swagger her brother
had been shedding (the more of a boy he became,
the more of a man he doubtless was).
Stella and Vera married young.
Much too youngJean told me as if their brother’s death
urged them to seize upon two of our town’s more eligible
chaps who’ve survived, whose future had arrived.
With a former mayor and civil benefactor
for a father-in-law, there’ll always be money in seeds…
or a seeds’ estate.
That though had been two decades back:
by now the only child at home would be Heléna
(minding, tending if hardly nursing their mother)
still wanting to see the Kaiser hanged, still trusting that
appeasement worked and when it didn’t
still lecturing her sisters on how we all should
hammer the Hun.
‘I’m Ed, ‘ a young man phoned,
‘Ed Russel, Stella’s son, here in the RAF…’
and another young man, fresh from the Dominions
(guileless still if hardly swaggering)
would meet that-chap-you-must-look-up
Aunt Jean’s friend.
We talked of Heléna who,
with incensed bafflement that Russia was our ally now,
had collapsed, a briefest prelude to her stroke.
If not Heléna the current Edward would survive,
we and all the Dominions would survive,
though to survive, commencing with appeasement,
concluding after Suez, and trusting that our world survived,
more than enough stupidity was courted,
enough at least for me to discover
Plenty of these men may be my men, but plenty of these men
are fools!
WhatJean asked me,
soon after that even Greater War, what gives you most pride?
It was one of those small important things
with which you make your life. And if it cost me certain friends,
it offered me many more: trying to make appeasers unacceptable.
The Kangaroo Route
Yes, let’s see this widower, some sixty-six year old
manner ’o fool, clamber up and into a BOAC Constellation Starbird,
manner ’o fool, clamber up and into a BOAC Constellation Starbird,
observing how he’s losing count of how many days and nights
it will take until arriving in an Australian winter,
he re-discovers what a strange woman Jean Moriarty is
and how, after adjusting, he knows she never can be ‘strange’.
‘Come a-courting have you?’
And if he thinks a-courting might remain an option,
he’s second guessed: ‘At your age no, nor mine.
Not whilst each year I’m set to do my school and I
yet another Melba. Back at the Windsor, are we?’
And if after near four decades little had altered
at the Windsor, elsewhere, Young Ed, wife and child
were proud to show us. There were certain changes:
here Bella Vistaconjured into a nursing home,
there the Municipal Chambers’ Moriarty Room.
‘We’ve Seed Emporiums throughout Victoria now…’
and this pleased Ed.
‘Meanwhile, if tea-dancing’s finished
at the Boat House,’ Jean expanded,
‘at the Town Hall every Saturday night, the foxtrot alternates
with jitterbugging. Would you like to try?’
with jitterbugging. Would you like to try?’
The Correspondents
I’d phone my sons most weeks,
most days see some friends, or simply tell myself
Nasser’s holding all the trumps,
the Americans won’t play banker, vale clout,
any future’s set to become a different future.
And as if she’d planned it
(with Nasser or with Eden planned it)
Jean arrived in time for Suez.
‘C’est moi!’ I knew that voice.
‘We’ve been in Paris. And trying our Antipodean French
upon the French Vera and I have been deported.
But very apolitical Vera is (and this weekend
what could be less political than a bus tour
of cathedrals?) which is why with something set
for Sunday in Trafalgar Square, I want you with me.
Come on,’ she urged, ‘come on. The worst can only be
that you’ll get spotted.’
Exactly and I was:
by someone I loved to argue with,
someone not quite red but red enough,
who stared, adjusted his stare and smiled:
‘You’re hardly the kind of chap to attend an event like this…
well are you?’
And I would have replied
Curiosity old sport, curiositybut as I knew my Ida would appreciate
the old saw I haven’t changed but circumstances have
I stalled, simply stalled for Jean to reply
‘He’s escorting me, since I’m his Anti-colonial Correspondent.’
Then arrived the bolt upon bolt upon bolt
of Mr Bevan’s oratory, thundering at its climax
‘Get out. Get out. Get out.’
And an Empire it seemed was over.
As if twenty four again Jean was entranced:
‘Now here’s a Britain I can understand and sad Heléna
never could. Alas I know she was my sister,
but please accept: there’s too many Helénas
in Australia or anywhere, getting it all so wrong.’
Dream
Sometime in those years before she died Jean wrote:
Crankier, I am getting crankier,
not with you although I’d hardly wish anyone to hear me,
some days, days I hardly wish to hear or understand myself…
you though are remaining famous:
Great Aunt Jean’s Englishman-beau, who visited briefly,
twice, who sends her and us Christmas cards and birthday cards…
was it thatromantic thatvery strange?
These youngsters think we gave each other up for war
some Great War. Not quite. Though they can’t be told
we never had each other to give up…
‘Then how did he…’ they’re searching for a word and ask
‘accommodate your views?’ By showing he understood
I was correct (or thought I was or thought I thought I was).
He is, I tell them, that kind of Englishman who looks out,
sees beyond, tries understanding. Any other sort of Englishman,
of anyone, must be avoided. So thanks for understanding
when you did. But though you might excel in understanding,
what dear man whom I’ve liked more than you know the rest,
whatever were you thinking?
Dear Jean I wished to write
I hardly recall what I was thinking and how it was said,
except that by this Boat House our elopement was proposed
(recall the liner?) and how this offer rightly was refused.
I near-thought you would. Plus detachment helped me
as it always has.
Jean was deserving of better,
and for the only time I phoned her, phoned to tell
‘Yes, call-it-detachment is bred into me.’
‘Like me and whoever I am? Yes,’
she responded, ‘one may call that breeding,
Heléna would. The rest of us Australians rarely fall
for breeding. Remember how my big and silly sister
tried to impress you with her bunged on ardour,
all her chat of ‘home’? And you were hardly touring
the Four Dominions for that.’
Dear Best-of-Menfolk
near to a post script her final letter was a postcard.
was there any need for me to be that scared?
Truly I was timid and as we know the timid often show
the most bravado. So with her better intentions
young Jean got in first, she with her bluestocking motto
Virago ever harpy never.
Really how could I, how could you, Colonial Correspondent
regret that you knew that?
And I couldn’t.
The night after she died,
after the telegram, after a phone call, this dream arrived.
And finally we were on that liner, strolling the deck,
in opposite directions so that we met each other
Port and Starboard on such perambulations.
If the dream had more, that more has not remained.
But as I awoke I was recalling what my uncle
told me: ‘This Moriarty mightn’t be quite our chap of clout,
though he is some kind of suburban Mayor
with four daughters and a rather clever son…’ and then,
how an hour or so before I met Jean
I phoned her father His Worship a seed merchant,
who asked:’ At the Windsor are we?
Hold fire, I’ll send the chauffer round.’
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