Matthew Flinders' Cat (58 page)

Trim, in his increasingly frequent adventures outside the garden prison, was not simply indulging himself but was learning the lie of the land. If Matthew Flinders refused to soften his stance towards the French governor, Trim, a far more practical thinker, decided he should take the matter into his own hands. It took him several weeks to find the governor’s residence and then a great many more to ingratiate himself with the servants in the slave quarters. From there, over many weeks, he made his way through the kitchen, the first requirement if ever he was to make it deeper into the governor’s mansion. He’d won the admiration of the African cook, Eloise du Preez, a large and fearsome black lady, by emerging from the pantry on four consecutive days with a large rat in his mouth and depositing it at her feet. Needless to say, he’d caught the rats in the grain store situated in the expansive grounds and brought them into the house, emerging with great dignity from the pantry at precisely the right moment, his eyes blazing with the sincerity of a duty well done.

Trim did not consider this reprehensible, his master was at war with a foreign nation and he saw himself as a spy behind the front lines. His ultimate aim was to win the affection of Governor de Caen’s staff and family with his tricks and his charm so that he would become a favourite with the household and eventually be brought to the attention of the governor himself. Trim was not yet sure how he would bring about the reconciliation between his master and the governor, but his rough plan was to attend the governor’s residence at certain hours and ingratiate himself to such an extent that he would provoke a curiosity as to where he went when not present. Eventually, or so Trim’s speculation went, they would send a slave to follow him, whereupon he would lead him back to his master in the Maison Despeaux. With the two men bitterly opposed to each other, but having a cat they loved common to each, it was Trim’s earnest hope that he might bring the two together. It was a ploy he had engineered often on board ship between two men who, angry with each other over some small incident, had been brought to agreement by Trim’s showing spontaneous affection for them both. Trim had yet to find a human being who, once they knew him, did not feel immediate affection for him. He was confident that Governor de Caen could be made to feel the same way.

It must be remembered that Trim was a ship’s cat brought up in the inherent nature of the British seaman, simple and straightforward, a stranger to the ways of duplicity or cunning. In his world, men lived in close proximity and had few secrets to share. Life on board ship was a simple business and the sailors’ problems were usually of a similar nature. Therefore Trim had no knowledge of the outside world and, in particular, of a man who possessed grand ambition and illusions of greatness in the era of the all-conquering Napoleon Bonaparte, yet found himself in charge of a small and insignificant island in the Indian Ocean. A dollop of earth that in the affairs of La Belle France had less purpose than a wash of foam on its distant and forgotten shore.

Trim knew that his master was also an ambitious man who longed to be possessed of sufficient means to live a gentleman’s life. But Matthew Flinders was prepared to work for the honours that might be bestowed upon him and expected to earn the rewards due to him by venturing further and daring more than any other man had done before him. Governor de Caen was not such a man, but rather one of great self-importance, who felt that greatness was his entitlement. The two men had nothing but ambition in common.

And so Trim made the greatest mistake of his life when, after several months, he managed to find himself alone in the library with de Caen. Trim was quite unaware that he was already a well-known cat among the island’s better families. The fact that the famous English prisoner possessed a great affection for a cat was the subject of dinner conversation whenever the matter of the stubborn Englishman was brought up. Trim had been oft seen and described, a large black cat with a white star blaze on his chest and a similar dab of snow to his chin, with gloves to match on all four paws. The slaves at the governor’s residence also knew of the Englishman’s cat and he became affectionately known as La Treem. No other cat on the island possessed similar markings, most being of the tabby variety, so that even the governor was well aware of the existence of Trim Flinders.

On the particular night that Trim appeared, as if an apparition, licking a snowy paw and seated on the Afghan carpet not five feet from where the governor sat alone, the Frenchman was very drunk. He had consumed two bottles of wine at dinner and was now on his fourth cognac of the night and was feeling maudlin and sorry for himself, slumped in his armchair, in appearance half asleep.

Trim had often observed his master in a vacant and pensive mood and knew that he preferred nothing better than his leaping quietly on to his master’s lap so that he might feel the comfort of his presence without disruption of his quietude. Seeing the governor in what seemed a very similar mood, Trim thought to act in the same manner. With great dignity he had ceased cleaning his paws and with a soft meow walked three steps towards the governor before he leapt into his lap, landing so softly that it was as if a feather had fallen from the ceiling.

But this was not how the Frenchman saw it. By nature a dangerously vindictive man, and now drunk, he observed Matthew Flinders, the hated Englishman who refused to bow to his authority, seated on the carpet not far from where he sat. He had taken the form of a cat and, in the nature of an Englishman, was calmly licking his paws before he attacked. He watched, mesmerised, as Matthew Flinders came towards him and, with a great leap that seemed to set fire to the air, landed on his lap. De Caen screamed, though the drink had muted his voice and nobody in the sleeping house heard him. He grabbed Matthew Flinders about the throat and squeezed as hard as he could, the brandy and the wine inuring him against the pain as he felt his waistcoat ripped apart and the linen of his shirt torn asunder as the devil Englishman tore at his very heart. But he was a big man and enormously strong and he held his grip on the great navigator’s neck until at last he felt the resistance gone.

In the morning, Eloise du Preez, the black cook, found him snoring, his chest splattered with blood and his hands still around her precious rat-bringing cat, La Treem, who lay silent as if asleep in her hated master’s lap, his snowy front paws stained red and touching as if in prayer.

Vale Trim Flinders.

Trim was buried by one of the slaves beside a small stream where the water bubbled over rock and where slave women went to wash their clothes. Slowly the story of La Treem, the Englishman’s cat who had decided to assassinate the hated Governor de Caen when England had been at war with France, became a part of the folklore among the blacks of the island. When the now famous Paul Etienne Laurent le Juge de Segrais, or Monsieur Seagrass, now a famous botanist, was tending his marvellous botanical garden, Le Jardin de Pamplemousse, he heard the story told by one of the black gardeners and asked to be taken to the grave of the redoubtable La Treem. Here he planted the grove of Flinders’ Palms, which die after flowering and throw seedlings that will flower again in a hundred years. This year, 2002, will be the second blossoming of the clump of palms originally planted over Trim’s grave. Vale La Treem.

2002

The Queenie, Marion Bentson, proprietor of Kings Cross Dressers Pty Ltd, a registered travel agency, and secretary and part-owner of The Boys’ Boutique, a men’s social club in Kings Cross, and Alf Petersen, public servant and owner of the Flag Hotel, joint owner with Bentson of the travel agency and social club, were charged with importing and exporting pornography, videotaping sexual acts between adults and children and, along with Mohammed Suleman, with supplying prohibited drugs to a juvenile. They were also charged on fifteen other counts, for which a jury found there was not sufficient evidence for a conviction.

Marion Bentson received four years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years, Petersen received six years for the same offences as Bentson but additionally for carnal knowledge of juveniles while in the employ of the Department of Community Services. Of the six men found on the premises of The Boys’ Boutique on the night of the raid, four were charged with aggravated indecent assault of a child on the evidence given by Mr John ‘Monkey’ Burns and supported with a videotape taken by Mr Burns on the premises, showing them indecently assaulting three under-age girls and one boy. They each received eighteen months. The other two were not charged. The six children found on the premises on the night of the raid were eventually placed in foster homes. As Marcus Eisenstein had once said to Billy, ‘That is why the law is an ass, we do not even have a legal definition for a paedophile.’

This year Ryan Sanfrancesco turned seventeen and entered the Sydney Conservatorium of Music on a scholarship. He also moved out of the home of Con and Maria Poleondakis where he had spent the past five years and nine months thoroughly indulged by the six women in Con’s entourage.

Billy and Dorothy Flanagan were married last year in a civil ceremony and Ryan chose of his own accord to move in with them. Billy is again practising as a barrister-at-law, specialising in sexual abuse cases and the defence of juvenile offenders. He is also chairman of the newly formed Committee on Children and Young People. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in six years, two months and six days and he’s given up gritting his teeth because the Indian mynah birds have won and the flying shit factories are even more prolific than ever.

In Monday’s paper, Billy’s eye caught a sevencentimetre column in the sports pages of the
Telegraph
:

Davo Davies wins Lightweight Title!

Last night, Davo ‘The Beamer Boy’ Davies won the New South Wales lightweight title from Trevor ‘Bulldog’ Wright in a fourth round knockout at the Bankstown RSL. Davies fights out of Team Fenech. Jeff Fenech claims his fighter is ready, and is the No. 1 contender, for the vacant national title to be fought in November.

The sun is setting over Sydney Harbour and Trevor Williams and his wife Bridgit are standing on the balcony of the O’Shannessy two-bedroom apartment in Elizabeth Bay with Ryan, Billy and Dorothy. From where they are, they can see Billy’s beloved Royal Botanic Gardens, and the first of the fruit bats taking to the air. They have just returned from Rookwood Cemetery after attending the burial service held for Kartanya Williams, who died of a heroin overdose three days ago. They are drinking to Caroline’s memory with Con’s special Greek grape juice.

It is a lovely early spring evening and, with the light just beginning to fade, Trevor takes his harmonica from his pocket and begins to play. Ryan, listening to the first few bars, starts to sing to his accompaniment in a beautiful light tenor voice:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant South,

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,

Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,

And the sudden smell of burning flesh!

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,

For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,

Here is a strange and bitter crop.