Tiger Men (54 page)

Mathilda sat and started to pour. ‘I was hoping you’d bring Evelyn and the boys around for morning tea, dear,’ she said. He often did these days.

‘I wanted to, Mother, but Hugh has the croup and Evelyn decided to stay home with him rather than leave him in Nanny’s care.’

‘Oh, what a pity.’

Reginald placed his father’s chicken sandwich on the table beside him, wishing the old man would choke on it.

‘You should have brought Rupert,’ Silas said accusingly.

‘I would have, Father,’ Reginald replied with a tight smile, ‘but you know Rupert: he won’t go anywhere without Hugh.’

Reginald would never have dreamt of bringing Rupert along on his own. He avoided at all costs being alone in the boy’s company; if it had been possible he would have avoided the child altogether.

‘It’s charming, isn’t it,’ Mathilda said, handing Reginald his father’s cup of tea, ‘the way the boys are so close at such a tender age.’

At seven and six, the brothers were inseparable, a fact which infuriated Reginald. Adorable as everyone appeared to find Rupert, surely the company of a simpleton could not benefit a normal, healthy child. He worried for Hugh.

‘Yes, Mother, the boys’ affection for each other is a delight to us all.’ The greatest dissembling feat of Reginald’s life was living the lie that he felt any fondness for his eldest son. His wife sensed his discomfort, certainly, but even Evelyn was not aware of the extent of his loathing.

Reginald handed his father his cup of tea.

‘You should have brought Rupert,’ the old man said again, and Reginald wanted to kill him.

‘I will next time, Father, I promise. I’ll bring both the boys next time. They always love to see you.’

Strangely enough, the boys didn’t seem to find the old man obscene at all. They’d quite happily climb up onto his lap and play with his beard; they didn’t even seem to notice his rancid breath. Indeed, Silas and seven-year-old Rupert had developed a particularly fond relationship. They found each other funny. Silas’s galah-like cackle when the child pulled his beard would set Rupert off and he’d give his donkey-like bray in return. Then everyone would join in: Evelyn, Mathilda and young Hugh, they’d all laugh. The women appeared to find it charming and Hugh obviously thought it was hilarious. Reginald didn’t. The sight of the cadaverous old man and the vacuous boy with the donkey laugh disgusted him, and he would find a pretext to look away.

It surprised Reginald that many, upon first meeting Rupert, failed to register the child was retarded, for he was a good-looking boy. The laugh gave him away, of course, and very quickly because Rupert laughed a lot, but to Reginald just one glance was enough. The wide-eyed vacancy, the broad dimwitted smile, the constant need to be tactile, running his hands over things and people: this was not a normal child.

Reginald had hoped to ignore Rupert, but as the years passed it became more and more difficult. Everything about the boy rankled.

‘Well I’ll leave you two to chat,’ Mathilda said twenty minutes later when she’d poured the men their second cup of tea. ‘I must hang out the washing in order to catch the afternoon sun. If there is to
be
any sun of course,’ she added as she stood. ‘With winter coming on one is really reliant upon the breeze.’

‘Let me help you, Mother.’ Reginald rose from his chair. The fact that they didn’t employ a washerwoman annoyed him: that would be his father’s meanness, of course.

‘No, no, Reggie, stay and amuse your father, I insist – he sees all too little of you these days. And Silas, dear, do eat your sandwich,’ she instructed, ‘you need to keep your strength up.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Silas reached for his side plate. He’d forgotten the sandwich was there, and he very much enjoyed his chicken sandwiches.

‘I shall have to be going soon, Mother,’ Reginald said. He hated being left alone with his father when the old man was eating. The sight revolted him.

‘Finish your tea first, dear. And don’t forget your own chicken sandwich. You haven’t touched it.’

‘Of course.’ Reginald obediently sipped his tea, but he didn’t touch the sandwich. He couldn’t possibly while his father was eating.

‘Come and say goodbye before you go,’ his mother called over her shoulder as she left the room.

‘Of course,’ he called after her. He rose and crossed to the window, peering through the drawn curtains, pretending to check on the weather; anything to avoid the old man and his sandwich. ‘It’s getting a bit nippy, isn’t it?’

‘You should have brought Rupert,’ Silas muttered petulantly through a mouthful of chicken.

Reginald turned from the window. ‘Actually, Father, I’m thinking of having Rupert committed.’ He didn’t know exactly what made him say it. He’d been thinking of no such thing, but the desire to shock was overwhelming.

Silas stared at his son in slack-jawed amazement, the forgotten mouthful of chicken sandwich unattractively evident. Rupert committed? Surely he had heard incorrectly.

‘Yes,’ Reginald continued. He found the old man’s reaction intensely gratifying. ‘I’ve been giving it quite a bit of thought lately. Rupert will soon be of school age, and he naturally can’t be enrolled in any normal educational facility. I really do believe the lunatic asylum might be the place for him.’ Bent purely on shock though he was, Reginald suddenly found the idea appealing. Why had it not occurred to him before? But of course his wife and his mother would never allow it. What a pity, he thought.

Silas was outraged beyond belief. A lunatic asylum? Little Rupert? How could Reginald contemplate such a thing? He hastily swallowed his sandwich in order to protest.
Are you mad, boy?
he was about to roar,
he’s your son! He’s a Stanford! Stanfords do not commit their sons to lunatic asylums!
But he didn’t get a word out. A lump of chicken lodged in his windpipe and he gagged instead.

‘I haven’t made any firm decision as yet,’ Reginald said, very much enjoying the apoplectic rage he could see in his father’s eyes. The old man was so angry he couldn’t even speak. ‘It’s early days, of course, but I do find the impediment Rupert threatens to Hugh’s future development rather worrying at times, and the lunatic asylum would appear to be one solution to the problem.’

Silas couldn’t breathe. He pummelled his chest with his fist and gestured for Reginald to thump him on the back as he fought to dislodge the food stuck in his throat.

Good heavens above, Reginald thought as he registered what was happening. How often had he secretly prayed for this? Every single time he’d given the old man his chicken sandwich he’d wished that he’d choke on it, and now he actually was.

‘You’re getting a little overexcited, Father,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t, you know. As Mother keeps telling you it’s not good for your health.’ He smiled benignly. ‘Besides, I was only joking, I wouldn’t really put Rupert in an asylum, you know that.’ Not long to go now, surely, the old man was starting to turn blue.

Silas struggled for breath, his hands clawing at the arm rests. The boy could see he was choking, why didn’t he do something? He stared up at his son in disbelief. His son could see he was choking and his son was doing nothing.

His son continued to do nothing.

Reginald watched his father die, and his father, right up until the end, watched him watching.

When it was over, Reginald waited for a further moment or so. Then he went out to the rear of the house where his mother was hanging up the washing on the back verandah.

‘I insist you let me help,’ he said. ‘Father’s in a cantankerous mood so I’ve left him with his chicken sandwich.’

‘You two are utterly incorrigible,’ Mathilda said, handing him a pillowslip.

Ten minutes later they went back inside, where they discovered to their mutual horror that Silas had choked on his chicken sandwich.

E
ileen O’Callaghan knew her son was using her. It had been apparent right from the start that Col had brought his children home for her to look after. But to his credit he hadn’t dumped them with her and left; and as the years had passed she wouldn’t have minded if he had anyway. Now, a decade on, young Oscar and Caitlin had become her very life. They were rascally and personable, both of them, reminding her strongly of her own brood as children. At eleven Caitie, destined to be a beauty with her flame-red hair and emerald eyes, could have been Shauna all over again, and thirteen-year-old Oscar was a beefier version of Col as a boy, cheeky and fearless. The children gave meaning to Eileen’s existence; it was for their sake she must stay healthy, and now well into her seventies she had never felt better.

Col was still something of a child himself, parenthood appearing to have little effect on him. He loved his children, but he was a terrible disciplinarian. No rules were laid down. He’d spoil little Oscar and Caitie with lollies and he’d show off to make them laugh, his idea of fatherhood being to give his children a good time. It certainly endeared him to his children, but not to his mother. ‘You can’t let them run wild,’ Eileen would complain time and again, but it would make no difference. Like his father, Col was a loveable rogue with no sense of responsibility. He was, also like his father, a wastrel with money and Eileen had been compelled to exercise a degree of control over his life, just as she had over her husband’s.

‘Your children will need a proper education, Colin,’ she’d said sharply after having put up with the situation for a whole two years. She never called him Colin unless she really meant business. ‘And a proper education takes money.’ I might as well be speaking to Mick, she thought. ‘You will give me half your salary each week and I shall put it aside for Oscar and Caitie’s schooling. The rest you may gamble away or spend on your fancy clothes or do with as you wish, but those are the rules from now on – do you understand me?’

‘Yes, Ma.’ Col hadn’t dared argue back. Even in her advancing years, his mother remained a formidable woman. Besides, he was grateful to Eileen for having taken on the upbringing of his children: they were much better off under her control.

Col had found himself an excellent job. ‘You’re looking at Col the Cooper,’ he’d jokingly announced the day he’d got it, ‘Col the Cooper of Cascade Brewery, no less.’

Good coopers were highly valued employees and Cascade Brewery was known to look after its workers well. Col was happy with the job and the perks that it offered, particularly the free ale that was supplied during morning and afternoon tea breaks and also at lunchtime. It made for a convivial workplace, as the bosses well knew.

Each day he would catch the tram to and from the brewery; and at the end of each week he would return home with his pay packet, which he would hand directly to his mother, who would extract half the money. Col would buy toys and lollies for the children, but most of the other half went on the card tables and the brandy and cigars he shared with his like-minded friends or on the purchase of a snappy new item of clothing – he had inherited his father’s taste for the good life. Occasionally, when he’d had a win at cards, he would spend up handsomely wining and dining a woman he’d met, but only if he knew there’d be an exchange of favours at the end of the evening. Col, who was still highly popular with women, never needed to buy sex, but he believed in wooing his way into a woman’s bed: it was all part of the fun.

‘Don’t you dare bring one of your fancy tarts back here,’ Eileen would warn him when she saw him dressed up to the nines on a Saturday night. ‘I won’t have any of that hanky-panky going on in my house.’ Eileen had become very straitlaced in her old age. ‘I will not have the children exposed to women with loose morals,’ she’d say primly, although she was secretly glad that Col was playing the field rather than seeking a wife as he should. She didn’t want to share the children with another woman.

Col was smart enough to toe the line; he knew better than to abuse his mother’s trust. He was living the good life and all because of Eileen. He had two children who adored him and whom he adored in return and yet none of the responsibilities that went with them. Indeed, he was leading the life of a bachelor, and very much enjoying himself.

Eileen had enrolled Oscar and Caitie at St Joseph’s College and St Mary’s College respectively. They were the same Catholic schools to which she had sent her own children, although both were well-established now, and St Joseph’s had relocated since then. Both were now in Harrington Street, both had fine reputations and both were expensive. The cash that had been set aside from Col’s wages would not fully cover the ongoing costs, but Eileen had known it wouldn’t. She had quite a lot of money sitting in the bank earning interest and was happy to make up the difference herself, although she would not tell Col. Perhaps her son, in presuming that he had taken on the responsibility of his children’s education, might finally grow up himself, although she somehow doubted it.

‘Did you know that Mount Wellington used to be called
Kunanyi
?’ Caitie said.

‘By who?’ Oscar demanded.

‘The Aborigines. It’s an Aboriginal word, Sister Brigid says.’ Caitie adored school, and particularly Sister Brigid, who was her form mistress. ‘
Kunanyi
was what the Aborigines called the mountain thousands and thousands of years ago. Sister O’Donaghue says they had other names for it as well, but that one’s her favourite.’ Caitie nodded decisively. ‘It’s mine too,’ she said.

‘That’s very interesting, Caitie,’ Eileen remarked.

The family was gathered about the dining table for the evening meal. Eileen had just said grace, having re-introduced the ritual for the benefit of the children, who were now receiving religious instruction at school. ‘We must be seen to do the right thing, Col,’ she had said when he’d ribbed her good-naturedly.

‘That’s very interesting indeed, dear,’ she added as everyone tucked into their stew and potatoes and Brussels sprouts. The family dinner invariably opened with discussion about something learnt at school that day and Eileen strongly encouraged the practice.

Oscar didn’t find it in the least bit interesting. ‘I kicked four goals this arvo, Da,’ he said, ‘more than anyone else on our team.’