Solomon's Song (15 page)

‘No, sir, it weren’t in a public ‘ouse,’ the cook’s eyes grow suddenly large and her voice comes down to almost a whisper. ‘It were a gaming den!’

‘What, playing at cards?’

‘I dunno, Mr Hawk, a gaming den, that’s all what the lad said.’ Hawk can see from Mrs Briggs’ wide-eyed explanation that the two words ‘gaming den’ conjure a depravity in her mind almost beyond anything she can comprehend. A place of dark corners, scurrying rats, toothless old drunkards, filthy, scabrous harlots with their bodices ripped down and murderous villains and cutthroats, the detestable dregs of the seven seas.

James Benson, Mrs Briggs’ informer, is one of Mary’s numerous rescues from the orphanage. A young bloke, street-wise like all of his kind, he is responsible for stabling and grooming Hawk’s thoroughbred and taking care of his sulky, bringing it around to the house each morning. During the day he acts as personal messenger at the brewery and, when he’s not busy with Hawk’s needs, he is expected to do odd jobs around the house. He has only recently replaced Old McDougall, a long-term family retainer who passed away a fortnight before Mary. Benson is considered by Mrs Briggs to be a bit too cheeky and forward for his own good and has not yet earned her trust, which Hawk knows is likely to take him several more years, if ever. It is because of this that she offers Benson’s information to Hawk somewhat tentatively.

‘Wapping?’ Hawk repeats.

‘Aye, that’s where ‘e said it were, sir.’

If Young Benson’s information is true then Slabbert Teekleman has reverted to being his old self. Hawk hopes that it is only an aberration, done on the spur of the moment or as a gesture of bravado when he is drunk and no longer possessed of a natural sense of caution.

While Hawk hasn’t yet thought out the consequences of the Dutchman’s actions, a husband’s right to beat his wife, or even to get totally drunk occasionally, is not a heinous crime in Hobart society. Or in any prevailing society for that matter, provided always such an incident may be brushed under the carpet and doesn’t get out into the public domain except as an occasional whisper at a ladies’ tea party. The shame of having beaten your wife does not lie in the beating itself, but in the fact that it is something the common people do and is therefore altogether too plebeian. Or as the French might say, it is simply de trop, a black mark against one’s good standing in the social register.

Hawk well knows that Hinetitama is quite capable of having instigated the fight when her husband proved to be drunk beyond his normal fairly benign state of inebriation and, provided she is not badly hurt, which doesn’t seem to be the case, it may be difficult for him to interfere.

The gambling in Wapping concerns him the most. Hawk has a morbid fear of gambling and its consequences. With the sad life of Tommo always in his mind, he knows that gambling and ardent spirits do not sit well together and the results of combining brandy and cards are almost always disastrous. He can only hope, when he speaks to Teekleman, that it has occurred on this single occasion, the result of a flight of fancy by the Dutchman, and not a deliberate intention, arrived at in a state of sobriety.

Despite Mary’s instructions, the ever fair-minded Hawk has not opened the envelope with the black seal left in her office safe. Teekleman has behaved commendably in the past five years and Hinetitama seems happy to remain with him, her wild nature somewhat becalmed by the advent of the children and her temperate surroundings. She has latterly been given the responsibility of overseeing the running of the new maternity hospital, a task Hawk feels sure will utilise her talents as a nurse while keeping her happily occupied.

The Dutchman, for his part, has sired two healthy children and kept his side of whatever bargain he and Mary made. As a result he has sent her contented to her grave, the future of the Potato Factory assured. Whatever it is that Mary held against the Dutchman has either proved to be highly successful in containing his baser instincts, or Teekleman has decided to reform of his own accord. Hawk sees no point in meddling with the past while the present seems nicely intact. Perhaps the only alarming thing about the Dutchman is his stomach, which continues to enlarge to the point where he looks like a perambulating fermentation cask.

Teekleman’s rapidly expanding girth seems of no concern to Tommo’s daughter. It is, after all, a traditional sign of prosperity among the Maori and an indication that a man is being well cared for by his wife. Hawk tells himself what he doesn’t know about the man cannot influence his future judgment, which, as for every other brewery worker, ought to be made on Teekleman’s performance and not on his past misdemeanours.

Slabbert Teekleman has risen to be a distribution manager of the brewery. The common name for such a job is a ‘cheersman’. A curious job, it entitles him to start at the brewery in the late afternoon where, upon his arrival, he will examine the weekly beer orders made by the various public houses owned by the Potato Factory around Hobart in preparation for his nightly peregrinations.

Over the years, Iron Mary was forced by the rival brewers to build or buy her own public houses as they wouldn’t sell her beer in their pubs and successfully bribed or intimidated most of the independents. There was a limit to the number of public houses she could build and, if the company was to prosper, she had to ensure that each of her outlets sold near to its total capacity.

A cheersman therefore has a twofold task, he must be both a bully and a bon vivant. It is a task for which the Dutchman is ideally suited, for this ambivalence exists within him. He can be bellicose in the extreme or, if he chooses, he can soon win the approbation of the crowd with the magic of his fiddle playing. As Teekleman increases in size both these negative and positive attributes appear to be enhanced. He is, at once, a bully to be greatly feared and in another guise he seemingly becomes the merriest of company. It is a sweet and sour, hot and cold, merry and monstrous dichotomy seldom found living so conspicuously in one person.

Part of Mary’s genius was that she understood this duality in him and cast him in the role of a cheersman. If one of her pubs was not selling the amount of beer expected of it then Teekleman would drop in for a visit. Those publicans unfortunate enough to witness this side of the Dutchman did not easily forget the experience. On the other hand, if a pub succeeded to her expectations, then the publican greatly treasured his visit.

It should be pointed out, in fairness to Iron Mary, that every publican was allowed fifteen per cent of his profits as a means of eventually purchasing forty-nine per cent of his business, a task which should take him about ten years to achieve. Thus it was to his ultimate benefit to increase his sales in what Mary saw as a partnership of mutual profit.

This having been said, she would not tolerate a publican partner who did not give her his very best efforts and a visit by Teekleman in his guise as standover man was the first sign of her displeasure and a warning to the publican to pull up his socks. Eight weeks of poor trading would see him paid out and on the street. The Potato Factory was alone among the breweries in this arrangement, the other brewers using it as yet another example of Iron Mary’s stupidity and inability to understand the correct principles of profitable commerce.

Despite the fact that the Wesleyan Women’s Temperance League constantly rails against the company for selling more liquor per Potato Factory outlet than any of the other public houses, Hawk continues the arrangement after her death on the basis that the good it does for a publican and his family far outweighs the bad.

Slabbert Teekleman plays a very fine tune on the fiddle and wherever he goes in his second capacity, a good deal of merriment is sure to follow. He seems to know every jig, shanty and folk song to be sung by the light of the silvery moon and if a new one is presented to him, a few bars sung, even if it should be off-key, he will pick up the tune and present it to the crowd as though it was learned on his grandmother’s knee. His fiddle seems to have a magical quality of discovery, constantly surprising with its invention and its ability to make his audience happy. It is as though the bellicose bully is himself, while his fiddle is a happiness of its own, a person quite different in nature to the morose bully who clasps it to the curve of his shoulder.

The Dutchman’s entertaining presence in a pub of an evening will guarantee to increase the takings fivefold, while his magic fiddle seems to have the capacity to cause sworn enemies to promise everlasting friendship and send the inebriated patrons home bellowing songs to the moon.

Teekleman the cheersman is always accompanied by Isaac Blundstone, who remains within the crowd buying customers an occasional drink on the house so that a sense of good cheer prevails. He is an expert at picking those among the crowd who might not have the means to hang about, but are potentially among the most roisterous. A drink placed gratuitously in such a person’s hands will, he knows, be rewarded by the increased approbation of the crowd and in the greatly improved ambience of the pub.

By closing time, the ex-pug is all sails to the wind and must generally be supported to the coach that comes to pick up Teekleman. It is the last laugh of the night as the Dutchman carries his mate under his arm like a sack of potatoes and unceremoniously dumps him into the coach.

While Blundstone is not in the employ of the Potato Factory, the company willingly accepts the cost of his largesse chalked on the publican’s blackboard. The Dutchman himself consumes large volumes of beer as a source of encouragement to others to do the same and, as a further part of the entertainment, he will challenge any man to a chug-a-lug, where, it is claimed, he has never been beaten. The presence of both men can substantially increase the takings for the night and is as happy an arrangement as the two of them can imagine while, at the same time, maintaining goodwill and bonhomie with the delighted publican.

Perhaps, after all, Mary was right, some people need only to be offered a second chance to grab the nettle and make good. Hawk hears her voice plainly in his mind, ‘We can all reform if we are fortunate enough to get a second chance.’ He wishes only that her faith in the capacity of humans to turn over a new leaf might have proved as true for his precious twin, Tommo.

‘Have Mrs Hawkins or the other servants noticed any change in Mr Teekleman’s habits?’ Hawk now asks Mrs Briggs.

‘Abits, sir?’

‘You know, his routine, his comings and goings from the house?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. He comes ‘ome, takes his dinner with Miss Heenie and then goes out, returning very late, it’s what he’s always done.’

Hawk, of course, knows this to be true. It is said by some that the Dutchman’s work brings him a great deal of pleasure in both its aspects, as enforcer and clown, but with the former giving him the greater satisfaction. Though nobody can deny his almost inhuman capacity for ale, and while he may get merry enough when he has imbibed a skinful sufficient to sink six men in a jabbering heap to their knees, he is never said to be out of control or dispossessed of his wits.

‘So what was the difference in his disposition on his return home late on Monday night? I mean, apart from the beating?’ Hawk asks the cook.

‘Don’t know nothing about his dispo… dispo… whatever, sir. Mrs Hawkins says they was all asleep like and were woke up because o’ the shouting and blasphemy and then the screams and sobbing from Miss Heenie.’

‘And that was the same night Benson saw him in Wapping?’

‘I can’t rightly say, sir, he didn’t mention what night it were.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Briggs, I am truly grateful to you for coming to see me.’

Mrs Briggs rises from the leather armchair. ‘Thank you, sir, shall I leave the pot? I’ll bring you a fresh cup.’

‘No, no, take it,’ Hawk says absently, then sees that he has allowed the cup resting on the small table beside his chair to grow cold. The cook is on her way back downstairs when Hawk calls out to her. He hears her ponderous tread as she turns and climbs the three or four steps she has already descended, then her head pops around the door.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Tomorrow morning when Young Benson arrives with the sulky, be so kind as to ask him to come up and see me.’

Hawk sits for some time after the cook has left. His first instinct is to take a cab to Sandy Bay and call on Hinetitama. But it is already well after eight o’clock and his commonsense tells him there is little he can do until the morning. He knows sufficient of Tommo’s daughter to decide that discretion is the better part of valour, to go around and make a fuss will most probably create an even bigger one. Hawk thinks she is more likely to take her husband’s side than his. Despite Tommo’s daughter having mellowed somewhat, scratch her skin and underneath is the tiger she ever was. He’ll have to approach things somewhat delicately or she’ll be likely to send him away with a flea in his ear.

The following morning when Young Benson comes up to his study Hawk questions him closely. ‘On how many occasions have you er… seen Mr Teekleman in Wapping at night, Benson?’

Benson, cap in one hand, scratches his scalp, thinking a moment. ‘Can’t rightly say, Mr Hawk, sir.’

‘Once… twice maybe?’

‘Oh no, it be more than that, they’s regulars.’

‘They? You mean Isaac Blundstone?’

‘Aye. But it’s late, see, and Blundstone slumps in the corner too pissed to even fart. It’s the Dutchman what plays alone.’

‘Plays what, Benson?’

‘Poker, sir, and euchre.’

‘A game between friends maybe, nothing serious, eh?’

Benson grins. ‘Not on your bleedin’ nelly, sir! It’s Benny the Mill what runs it. I wouldn’t say it were what you’d call a friendly game.’

‘Benny the Mill?’

‘Ben Mildrake, sir, a proper villain.’

‘Mildrake? But he’s in prison, isn’t he?’

‘Aye, don’t make much difference, school’s his, he’s still the boss cocky on his patch, the dockside half o’ Wapping, Andy Handshake runs the top half.’

‘Andy Handshake?’

‘Another proper villain, sir, Andrew Hindsheek, but they calls him Andy Handshake.’