Capricornia. Xavier Herbert

He saw no more than he could have expected to see in the face of a casual acquaintance. He was filled with bitterness; but he answered with a weak grin, “Yes—a bit.”

      “Getting right again?”

      “Close up.”

      Mark dropped his eyes. While Oscar was so calm and cool and handsome, he felt flustered and sweaty and uncouth.

      “Heard you were in the hospital,” said Oscar. “I’d’ve come out and had a look at you, only I’ve been pretty busy fixing up the new joint.”

      Mark felt relieved. So Oscar had not been shunning him deliberately! He cast about for something to say. At length he said lamely, “Heard from home lately?”

      “Yes, of course. Haven’t you?”

      “Not for months. Reckon they must be shot of me.”

      “Rot! If you don’t write to ’em regular, you must expect ’em to do the same to you.”

      Mark was of the opinion that his people were ignoring him because Oscar, who had shown strong disapproval of the trepang-fishing, had black-balled him when writing home.

      A pause, during which Oscar destroyed a hornet’s nest in the low roof of the verandah with his stick. Then Mark said suddenly, and with so much feeling that he almost gasped it, causing Oscar to look at him with raised brows, “They—they tell me you’re married.”

      Oscar’s brows fell. He smiled and answered, “What—you only just found out?”

      Mark choked. He was on the point of retorting passionately; but he merely said, “Y—es—since I came in.”

      “Been married four months,” said Oscar airily, whirling his stick.

      Mark mouthed another passionate retort. He swallowed it, said weakly, “How d’you like it?”

      Oscar grinned and shrugged. “We had a great trip round the East,” he said. “Going to have another soon—a run down home this time.”

      After a pause, during which Mark searched Oscar’s face for signs of what he felt, he asked huskily, “How’s your wife?”

      He meant it for a thrust. Oscar answered it with a chuckle, saying, “What about coming down and learning to call her by her name?”

      Mark flushed deeply and replied, “Sure I’m wanted?”

      Oscar’s face was expressionless. “Don’t be silly,” he said. After a pause he added, “We’ve got young Heather Poundamore staying with us just now—Jasmine’s sister. Nice kid. She’d like to meet you, she said. We live down by the Residency now——”

      “So I heard.”

      Oscar looked genuinely surprised. He asked, “Well why the blazes haven’t you been down?”

      Mark was bewildered. What could one make of the man? He was on the point of unburdening himself when Oscar said, “Well, I’ll have to be getting along, Mark. I’ve got a date with a feller inside. See you later.” He touched Mark lightly on the shoulder and added, “Don’t forget to come down.”

      Mark flushed and stammered, stepped awkwardly down to the gravelled footpath, and went off shuffling, with eyes cast down. Oscar looked after him as he entered the hotel. Mark did not see. He walked for many yards without seeing anything. He was insensible to everything but a keen sense of dismay in his heart. So the best of all men had come to treat him as a casual acquaintance!

      He wandered down to a street called The Esplanade which traversed the edge of the promontory on which the town stood. Directly below the point where he stopped lay the Spirit of the Land, careened on the beach of Larrapuna Bay. Chook Henn and a blackfellow were painting her hull. Mark merely glanced at that, then looked over the wind-swept harbour and over the miles of mangrove-swamps of the further shore and over the leagues of violet bush beyond to a blue range of hills that stood on the dust-reddened horizon. He stared at the hills as he often had when he lived in what he had called Slavery, but stared now with no such yearning for the wilderness as then, because at the moment the world was a wilderness in which he stood alone. For minutes he stared. Then suddenly he shrugged and swore.

      He looked down the road. An old Chinaman clad in the costume of his race was shuffling along under a yoke from which hung two tin cans of water. He disappeared into an iron shop, one of a group, above the verandas of which stood vertical, bright-coloured Chinese trading-signs. A waggon drawn by a pair of lazy buffaloes and driven by a dozing half-caste was slowly lumbering along. High in the blazing blue sky two kites were wheeling slowly, searching the town with microscopic eyes for scraps. Somewhere in the distance a mean volley of Chinese devil-crackers broke the stillness. Mark sighed. He was thinking that the charm of the town was its difference from the state it would have been in had it been peopled entirely by people like Oscar. Then the scent of whiskey came to his nostrils. He sniffed. He had merely remembered it. He swallowed. He was Low, he decided. He found himself glorying in the fact. He turned to the sea, looked at the ship, saw Chook pounce on the blackboy and cuff him. He grinned. After a moment he went to the steps that led to the beach and descended.

      “Hello Chook!” he shouted as he neared the lugger.

      Chook looked round, stared for a moment, then answered, “Gawdstrewth! Ow are ya?”

      “Fine. What—painting, eh? Where’d you get the paint? Aint got money, have you?”

      “Pinched it. There’s a ton of it in a shed down in the Yards near Fat Anna’s. But I’ve got a bit of cash too, if you want it.”

      “Yes? Where’d you get it?”

      “Won it in a two-up school yesterd’y. I’ve been hangin’ on to it to pay the debts. Want it?”

      “I could do with a drink.”

      “No!”

      “Dinkum.”

      “But what about your guts and things?”

      “Oh they’re all right now.”

      “Well——” said Chook, beaming, “that’s fine! I could do with a drink meself. Aint had one for two days.” Then he turned to the blackboy with a scowl and said, “Here boy—me-feller go walkabout. You go on paintim allsame—or by cripes I’ll break y’ neck.” He turned to Mark beaming, and said, “Good-o, son. Just wait’ll I get the paint off.”

      Although Mark’s digression did not last long it was thorough. He returned to the hospital just twenty-four hours after leaving it, not on foot and alone as when he left, but in Joe Crowe’s cab with Chook and a policeman. The nurses already knew that he was drunk. The police had sent word to the hospital by telephone. The sister in charge met him at the front steps and handed him his belongings in a parcel and told him to go to the devil. He was too drunk to understand and too ill to obey if he had understood. The policeman left him, saying that he would not take responsibility for the care of a man with a broken arm. He was left on the steps where he slept soundly with his head on the parcel till the drunken doctor came. The doctor pacified the sister and put him to bed himself.

      Mark woke to find the glory faded from his lowness and the ants returned to their maddeningly purposeless pursuits and the Trade Wind more annoying than before.

      Thus he lay for several days, renewing his avowals to the pillows.

      This time he recovered health and wilfulness in a week. But while the debauch had affected him thus slightly in person, it took more serious effect on him in another way. This he discovered when he sent for tobacco to a store from which he had dealt for many months, and received nothing but a note that stated in uncertain characters inscribed with a Chinese writing-brush: Carn do. More better first you pay up big money you owe.

      He sent for Chook, who, he learnt, was suffering a similar boycott. The next evidence of the displeasure with which the business people of the town regarded the debauch came in the form of a lawyer’s letter from