21
Winter came very early that year. It was not even June and there was snow lying on the ground for three days at Ballan. It was on the wireless and the Melbourne papers took photographs and put them on the front page. One Sunday afternoon they saw cars with yellow headlights and snowmen on their roofs. The cars crawled in procession down Stanford Hill, along the main street of the dusk-grey town, in the direction of Melbourne. Neither of them had seen snow before, but not having the AJS they could not go.
The day after the snowmen drove through the town, there were falls in Bacchus Marsh itself, but although you could catch the flakes in your outstretched hands they melted there, just as quickly as they did when they hit the ground. Emma went to Halbut's to buy Charles a pair of long Johns. Marjorie Halbut, who had sat behind her in sixth grade, served her. At first she was condescending, but when she learned that Emma was to be married her manner changed. "My," she said when Emma made her bring out the biggest pair, "he must be a footballer."
Marjorie's father said she could sign for it, but Emma said that they were going to live in Sydney so there was no need for an account.
The long johns were a little too big, but Charles did not think to complain. The little white loops showed on his braces and he was very touched by the present.
They went for long walks together, up towards the Lederderg Gorge, or down through Durham's Orchards, or out along Grant Street to the park at Maddingley. They kicked through the deep dead leaves on the footpaths and talked. Really it was Charles who talked. Emma was surprised, and pleased, that he had so many ideas – although it was not the ideas that struck her but the kindness she recognized behind them all, even if he did, sometimes, express himself badly.
"You should go into politics," she said once, walking back from Saturday's mud-caked football match.
"Nah," he said. "Not me." And he was quiet then. They walked hand in hand past fields of cabbages, split-rail fences, then the big new houses with their stucco walls and arched porches. They walked for half a mile with the rest of the rustling crowd who kicked at the leaves or walked hunched, hands deep in pockets, hiding their faces from the fine drizzle that was now falling.
"You know what I like best?" he said.
By then they were standing in Main Street in front of Hallowell's milk bar. His eyes were suddenly full of emotion and Emma, quite consciously, treasured the moment, just as she might "treasure" a wild flower picked on a honeymoon. Her father, she thought, had once been like this. All men, she thought, are once like this, and then life begins. So she remembered the little shining brown tiles outside Hallowell's and the drawn holland blind in the window and the family walking past with woollen beanies in the yellow and black Bacchus Marsh colours, and how he held both her hands and she thought he was going to kiss her there and then in the Main Street with the victorious Dustin family (Darley supporters) tooting their horn as they made a left-hand turn at the Court House Hotel and headed back home to their market gardens at Darley.
"What do you like best?"
"Sitting in the kitchen," he said.
He never explained it. She could see the pressure of his emotions pressing against the back of his eyes, and she did not like to ask him what it was he meant.
He could talk at length about the injustices of the world. He knew he was poorly informed and badly educated, and he would never pretend to know more than he did, and this gave to his feelings the extra strength of his natural honesty. But he could, at least, in his own way, talk about poverty, hardship, unfairness, even the subject of being Australian – these were emotional subjects, but not nearly so loaded as what it meant for him to sit in the Underhills' kitchen – the steam, flour-dusted hands, women's laughter, hairbrushing, the short hiss of a damp finger on a hot black iron, aprons with pockets full of wooden pegs, shining peeled potatoes, spitting fat, hot jam on steamed puddings in the middle of the day – these were things too precious to be spoken of.
Only Henry Underhill could spoil the kitchen; introducing his harsh opinions, his barked orders, his acrid tobacco odours, and it was only then, after work, or during weekends, that Charles felt such a desire to take walks, or to visit the dunny down the back.
The wind whipped down into the town from the cold stone churches on the Pentland Hills and when you left the kitchen to go to the dunny the dogs threw themselves, yellow-eyed and broken-toothed, against their chains. It was cold out there and a draught as thin as a knife blade blew through the trapdoor at the back of the can and froze your bum and shrivelled your balls. You wiped yourself in the gloom with old government forms, all torn neatly and hung on a nail. The paper was cold and hard and the hair-trigger dogs barked every time you ripped off a sheet; a well-informed stranger, walking along the street, could look down across the top of the link chain fence and see the closed dunny door and the dogs straining towards it and imagine, exactly, what it was you were doing.
Charles did not like Underbill's dunny, but when Henry Underhill was home he stayed there for long periods, luxuriating in the remembered kitchen.
Among the things he pondered, with his trousers pulled around his goose-pimpled thighs, was why his father-in-law had singled out Emma to say that she was like a horse. For Emma's mother and her two sisters were just like her. They were broad and strong with comfortable backsides and nicely shaped big-calved legs. They all wore skirts with lots of fine pleats and twin-sets which they washed carefully – each of them following an identical procedure – rolling them dry with several bathroom towels before leaving them to lie flat on a little table near the kitchen stove and thus contributing a sweet clean odour of soap and wool to all the other feminine perfumes that Charles found so comforting and kindly. And as for being flighty – there were no signs of flightiness at all. If anything they seemed the opposite -they had soft placid brown eyes, round untroubled faces, black fringes, and small even white teeth. They all had the endearing habit of murmuring as if they were reluctant to commit themselves to an exact opinion, and Charles did not feel critical of this – how could he? – this soft wash of sound.
Charles liked these women as much as he detested the man. It did not occur to him that one might be the product of the other, that their way of talking might be the consequence of Henry Underhill's intolerance for opinions other than his own. The mistake is understandable because they did not carry themselves like meek women – they walked confidently with their heads up and their shoulders back – and yet when little Henry Underhill came into the kitchen, there was nothing they would not do for him and the whole mood of the place was ruined. They polished his brass and blancoed his military webbing, not reluctantly, but eagerly. If he complained about his tea, they brewed a new pot, and looked happy to do it. They laundered his whites for boundary umpiring. They stood in Lederderg Street at night without overcoats, their arms folded beneath their breasts, watching while he drilled the surly militia up and down. They, alone in all Bacchus Marsh, could not see what a fool he looked.
Charles did not confess his true feelings about his future father-in-law. When Henry Underhill was in residence Charles took the lowliest seat, near the doorway, and drank the dark black tea the man of the house required. While Emma cleaned her father's boots, filled his cup, or warmed his newspaper, Charles watched silently. When she laughed at some joke against the Best Pet Shop in the World, Charles smiled.
He was having his own quiet revenge and he was conducting the whole affair with a nicety that would surprise those who thought him clumsy. It was not in his nature but (if you take my meaning) well within his ability, and he tortured Henry Underhill without the victim realizing that it was intentional. He did it very simply. He refused to discuss the bond. Hints on the subject he ignored. Even the most direct questions seemed to produce a malfunction in his hearing aid. So while the two appeared to be great friends, there was really a war in progress. Underhill insulted Charles's business ambitions. Charles refused to discuss the bond while, at the same time, he conducted his secret negotiations with the Education Department from a post office box in the main street. And this was the real reason he went back to Jeparit – because Henry Underhill discovered he had been sneaking down to the post office, cutting through the sale-yards and the side lane in the Lifeguard Milk Factory. Charles did not have the nerve to lie to a direct question and that was why he and Emma returned to Chaffey's. Their excuse was the AJS but the real reason was to avoid questions about the bond which Charles had by then, formally, committed himself to paying off, at the rate of five pounds five shillings and sixpence a week for three years.