Abnormal Reactions
“AH GOOD DAY-EE, Mr Rawlings, sir! exclaimedMr Penwarden when, on the following day, Bony entered the workshop.“Manner of speaking, though, manner of speaking. Not so good a day to some poor folk. Glad ’e called, though. Telegram came about them bloodwoods.”
“So! My friend evidently lost no time.”
The coffin maker sat on a case and began to load his pipe. Bony lifted himself to sit on the end of the bench.
“Come from Mildura, that telegram. Just said: ‘Logs despatched today to Geelong. Give regards to Bony. Sil Bennet’. That your moniker, Bony?”
Bony winced beneath the failure to notify his friend of his temporary name, and instantly explained that it was a schoolboy nickname. The old man chuckled.
“When Iwere a young feller the world was remembering another Bony. You don’t look like the Frenchy, not by the picture I seen of him.”
“No, I was never handsome,” calmly Bony claimed. “When a boy, I was exceptionally thin, and my bones stood out. Hence the appellation. I suppose the railway people will inform you when the logs have reached Geelong?”
“They will so, and I’ll send young Moss Way for them. Thank ’e kindly, Mr Rawlings. That young feller’s at a loose end just now. Heweretalkin ’ to me yesterday, saying how he missed Dick Lake. Neither thoughtnothing of that trip over Sweet Fairy Ann. You could all have stopped over there a long time… with a mountain of mullock atop of you and the truck. You been away again?”
“For a couple of days. To Melbourne, you know, to see about my wool. Prices still going up.”
“So I read in the paper. Pity you missed the funeral.”
“I would rather not have gone.” Bony lit a cigarette and carefully bestowed the spent match in the box. “Quite a large number of people attended, I’m told.”
“Everyone was there, Mr Rawlings. Everyone but Fred Ayling and young Alfie Lake who’s gone to tell him about Dick. It was a sad day, Iassure’e. Know’d him since he were a baby. I put him in the coffin I wasmakin ’ for you, being sure you wouldn’t mind. I’ll make you another right away. In fact, this board on the bench is to begin her with. Yes, I put him to bunk in the best wood the country has. Glad Iwere that he wasn’t injured about the face. When I’d shaved him and set him to rights, he looked good and comfortable, and couldof been sleeping… which, of course, he were.”
“His parents were able to attend, of course?”
“Yes. They’re blessed with a large family to help ’emtake the shock. Little Dick going that way has made me remembermore’n usual when him and the other two would race past here and shout out to me, and I’d wave and tell ’emto learn all they could at school. Eli and his old woman were very good to them young rips. Looked after ’em, seen ’emoff to school, seen they was fed right to make good bones. Shewere telling me you went along to have a pitch with Eli. He’d like that.”
“It was a pleasant afternoon,” Bony said. “Mr Wessex claimed my sympathy. To suffer his ailment must be a great trial. Never said outright, you know, but gave me the impression he was bitter about his son not returning home before going off to America. Do you think that young Eldred Wessex really did go to America?”
“Course,”came the reply, sharply.“Wouldn’t have stayed away all this time, if he hadn’t gone toAmerikee. You seem to doubt it, Mr Rawlings.”
Bony was stubbing his cigarette, and he looked up to meet the clear eyes beneath the mop of white hair.
“Perhaps the thought is father to the wish,” he said. “It’s a little odd for a young man not to have returned home after those years on active service, but then the younger generation hasn’t the consideration for their elders that our generation had. My sympathy has been aroused for both Eli Wessex and his wife, and I find myself a little resentful towards their inconsiderate son.”
Penwarden placed his hot pipe on a wall shelf and took up his plane, and, with some show of sighting the red-gum board, grumbled agreement with his visitor.
“Eldred was always like that. Wilful, obstinate, selfish. Not the righttrainin ’, Mr Rawlings, sir. Eldred was the only son. Old Eli was always soft with boys. Not that that is against him, mind you. But he didn’t treat his son with balance, and a balancedtrainin ’ is what any boy must have to make a real man of him. Softness should come from the mother: understanding and justice from the father. I often felt soft with my boys, but I never let ’emknow it. Eldred would have been worse than he was if it hadn’t been for young Ayling.”
“Is that so?” encouraged Bony.
“ ’Tisso, indeed,” said the old man, employing the plane. “Fred was a year or two older than Eldred, and Eldred was older than Dick. Always took little Dick’s part, always saw to it that Dick had his rightful share of what was going.”
“He was, then, the leader?”
“Aye, thathe was. Eldred took more notice of him than he did of his father.” A deep chuckle came from the full and pink-complexioned face above the halted plane.“Usetafight sometimes, the three of ’emamongtheirselves, and all together if another lot interfered with ’em.”
“I’ll warrant this workshop was a magnet for them, Mr Penwarden.”
“You say right, Mr Rawlings, sir. I mind one day they came in here, and Eldred, he took up my best finishing plane and tried her on a board with a nail in it. I wouldn’t have ’emin for a long time after that. And then, whatd’youthink? Why, after Eldred left school, he came here to learn my trade. But no good.”
“Wouldn’t stick at it?”
“Wouldn’t stick at nothing. Be here getting in my way one day, home helping his father the next day, up in Geelong andworkin ’ at Ford’s next week. Gotdrinkin ’ too much, and gambling his money away. Went from Ford’s to some other place, then back home, then away to Melbourne. And when we tried to talk him into being sensible, he’d only laugh.”
“Hopeless, eh?”
“No, not hopeless,” asserted the old man. “No young feller’s hopeless, rightly handled. Young Eldred was just silly… and artful at the same time. He learned too early and too easy how to put it across his mother. Old Eli saw the way he was going, and he tried to put on the brake, but his wife wouldn’t see the way Eldred wastakin ’. Say anything against Eldred! Eldred could do no wrong. Eldred was the sun of her life, the sun that shone so bright she was blinded. She was harder on Mary. Eldred was always in the right. When he came back that dark night, and…”
The plane thudded upon the board, and Bony, who was making a cigarette, glanced up to observe the old man turned from him and visually measuring a sheet of three-ply leaning against the wall. On Penwarden beginning to turn back to the bench, Bony’s gaze was directed downwards to his fingers.
“When he came back from Ford’s and told his mother he would never work else but on the farm, she believed him.”
“Well, well,” Bony said, lighting the cigarette. “Most women are soft with their sons.” There was a tell-tale flush on the old man’s face, and a mask before the bright blue eyes, and not to permit suspicion that the slip had been noted, Bony went on: “Like many another wild young man, no doubt Eldred will settled down some time. Better to sow the wild oats in the twenties than the forties.”
“You say true, Mr Rawlings, sir, you say true,” and Bony detected a note of relief. The switch of subjects seemed to confirm it. “This here board is for your coffin. I hadt’others all put together time the news about Dick came. So I chose this ’un, and a few more to build yours. Ought to be ready for a fitting in a couple of days.”
“It’s very good of you, Mr Penwarden.”
“Good for good, Mr Rawlings. Them bloodwoods have been in my mind as much as a fine dress in the mind of a young gal to be married. You know, wood’s wood. I mind me many a year ago I were down on the beach and found a tough plank the like of which I’d never seen. I made the mantel in our sitting room out of her. Daffodil yellow shebe, and no one can tell me the name of the tree. Musta come a long way in the sea. A university man looked at her and he said she never come from an Australian tree. Yes, wood’s wood. This here casket of yours will have the best red-gum, and very extrapolishin ’. You’re going to remember old Ed Penwarden every time you look at her.”
“I’m sure to.”
The plane was taken up and the blade was scrutinized and reset. Dropping the implement on the board was not normal to this craftsman to whom tools were extremely precious. The plane was again put to work, and a moment later a step sounded just beyond the wide door.
Bony turned to see Fred Ayling enter. Old Penwarden put down his plane. Ayling came forward, striding over the shaving-littered floor as though on a mission of dramatic import.
“Good day, Ed!” And to Bony: “Day!”
“Same to you, Fred!” chirped the old man. “Glad to belookin ’ at you.”
“An’ me you, Ed.” Ayling stood firmly balanced on his feet. His heavy brows were low to the dark eyes, and the eyes were small. “Thanks for doing a good job with Dick’s box. His old man was telling me about it. What’s it going to cost? I want to pay for it.”
“Iain’t worked her out yet, Fred. By and by, perhaps. You have much trouble getting across the Slide?”
“You could work out the cost now, couldn’t you?” persisted the axeman. “Dick andme were cobbers. You know that. I want to do something for Dick.”
Penwarden took down his pipe and fingered it. He appeared to ponder, and Ayling gave him half a minute.
“You work out the cost right now, and I’ll square the account.
“Well, I don’t know about that, Fred. You see, I wasthinkin ’ of making her a kind of present to poor Dick, havin ’know’d him since he were a baby, and smacked his bottom and boxed his earsmore’n once forcheekin ’ me.”
Ayling was insistent. His face was grim, and it seemed that the paramount emotion ruling him was anger, not grief.
“I want to pay, and I’m going to pay,” he announced slowly. “He was my cobber, not yours, Ed. You tot it up right now. How much?”
“Ha, well! I suppose if you want to you want to.” The old man returned the pipe to the shelf and put on a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. From a wall nail he lifted down a child’s school slate, cleaned it with spit and rag, and proceeded to draw figures. Ayling remained motionless, keeping his gaze directed to the coffin maker. The silence was oppressive.
“Here shebe, Fred,” came the old man’s soft voice. “Material and labour brings her up to twenty-five pound and ten shillings.”
Ayling produced a wallet, and counted the money in notes upon the bench, and it was so quiet that Bony heard the rustle of the paper.
“Send us a receipt sometime, Ed,” Ayling said, stepping backwards from the bench until Penwarden and Bony were to his front. His eyes were again small, and his voice clipped when he spoke to Bony.
“Funny thing you happened to be down at the beach that morning to find Dick dead and all broken up.”
“Chance,” Bony said. “The sea was raging that morning and I wanted to look at it. What is peculiar about my being there?”
“That all you found… the body?”
“Should I have found anything beside the body?”
“Don’t know. You wouldn’t be putting anything over?”
“I don’t understand you,” Bony countered.
“And I don’t understand you, Mister Rawlings. I may… one day. One day I may get to know why you’re nosing around down here… walking the roads after dark, asking questions about things and people what don’t concern any visitor. There’s some…”
“That’ll be enough from you, Fred, my boy,” interposed the old man. “You clear off and think things over, and give yourself a chance to calm down. Poor Dick’sdeath don’t only affect you, you know. He was your cobber, as you say. And he was my friend, same as you and Mr Rawlings. I’ll have no ill words said in my workshop.”
Without countering that firmly-spoken declaration, Fred Ayling strode to the door and passed from sight, and again the old man took down his pipe and stood merely fingering it. It became obvious that he waited for Ayling to withdraw from earshot.
“That’s Fred,” presently he said. “That’s Fred as he allus was. Goodfeller, and straight. Hot-tempered, generous, patient, true. Him and Dick were allus good cobbers. Don’t be put out, Mr Rawlings, sir. Fred’ll be good again tomorrow.”
“Without doubt,” agreed Bony. “Naturally he’s very upset, and probably made more so having been unable to be at the funeral. It was good of you to concede him the privilege of paying for the casket.”
“ ’Tain’tnuthin’.” The old man struck a match and lit his pipe to his satisfaction before adding: “When yougets old you learns wisdom how to deal with others.” A smile crept into the bright blue eyes. “I’ve learned when to give away, and how much. Don’t you saynuthin ’ to no one, Mr Rawlings, sir, but that coffin Dick Lake’ssleepin ’ in is worth a hundred pounds of anyone’s money.”