Illywhacker

"How do you think?" I said so lewdly that Phoebe and Molly, for different reasons, grew bright red, and only Oswald-Smith, a man who enjoyed the picturesque, permitted himself a quick smile before his sense of diplomacy encouraged him to change the subject.

"I think", he said, "it's time we moved on to business."

"My word," cried Jack, and pushed back his chair loudly.

There was much fussing around as the women tried to clear the table and Molly became entangled in her wire and knocked over the stand of the electric kettle. She was close to tears as Phoebe untangled her but she wished us all luck before she left the room.

"Wireless," she whispered to her daughter. "I'll sit by the wireless."

Bridget removed the tablecloth and Jack stamped around distributing writing pads to his visitors. He was so agitated that even Cocky Abbot Senior realized that the aeroplane factory was more than a casual venture for him.

There seemed to be nothing to prevent a successful meeting. There appeared to be a positive excess of goodwill on the part of the investors. When Cocky Abbot Senior resumed his seat at the table he sat opposite Jack McGrath and winked at him like a conspirator.

I spread out the plans on the table. Bradfield's B3 was a beautiful craft and I had no trouble speaking enthusiastically about its function. I could feel some resistance from the older Cocky Abbot. I pushed against it with my enthusiasm. I discussed the purchase of steel from BHP and the method of bringing in timber from the bush. The young Cocky Abbot caught my eye and nodded. Oswald-Smith made notes on his writing pad. But the older farmer folded his arms against his chest and looked at me impassively.

The wind howled around the house and pushed its fingers under doors, through cracks in the floor, lifted rugs in the long passage so they rode the timber in ghostly waves. The women felt the wind and did not like it, but all I felt was this stubborn wall from Cocky Abbot Senior. I talked and talked, but I could not talk him down. I knew, before I sat down, that I had not made the sale.

"I knew your father," said Cocky Abbot Senior, unfolding his arms at last. "He was a practical man, so I suppose you are too. Now what I want to know, Badgery – and I mentioned this to Jack down at 'Bulgaroo' – why wouldn't we set ourselves up as agents and import the best the world has to offer? I don't doubt you when you say there's a future in the aircraft, but why should we risk all this capital to manufacture something when we can import the best the British Empire can produce?"

"What did Jack say?"

"He said you were a practical fellow."

I looked at Jack. He grinned at me fondly. I sucked in my breath and studied the wallpaper behind his shoulder. I tried to remind myself that the whole thing was only a lie except it was not a lie any more. It was an inch from being the shining thing I had described so lyrically.

"Mr Abbot," I said, "I've sold two hundred T Model Fords and it has made me a lot of dough, but it never made me happy."

The table was quiet. They heard the tremor in my voice and they knew how I felt, but they had no idea why I felt it or what I was saying.

"Happy!" snorted Cocky Abbot Junior.

"Does it make you happy", I asked him, "to be a child all your life? That's what an agent is, a child serving a parent. If you want to serve the interests of the English, you go and be an agent for their aircraft, and you'll stay a damn child all your life."

The younger Cocky Abbot sought his AIF badge on his lapel and, having found it, squinted at it down his long nose. Everybody waited for him. "And yet", he said, "you served the Empire."

"I never served," I said. "I had no intention of dying like a silly goat for the British."

Jack, who had loved every war service story I told him, recognized the voice of truth. His great face folded in misery.

"You're lucky you don't live in Colac," said young Cocky Abbot.

"Lucky indeed. I saw it from the air. It looks like a cow of a place."

"We tar and feather micks for saying things like that. Our mates died for England."

"My point," I shouted. "My point exactly."

"We tarred and feathered a bloke two weeks ago, a Sinn Feiner from Warrnambool. It was written up in all the papers. He wrote a poem you might approve of, in 1915."

"You are fools," I said, and said it so quietly, with such passion, that Cocky Abbot Junior, whose large red fist had been placed very prominently on his expensively trousered knee, dismantled it quietly, and put the pieces in his pocket.

For a trembling instant I had them all.

I had a full five seconds in which to say something, anything, to begin a sentence that might, with its passion and precision, convert them to my view.

I did not even get my lips to open.

"I am here to make a quid," said Cocky Abbot Senior, ignoring me and addressing unhappy Jack. "I would not have come for anything else. I would not have risked my life in that machine for amusement or politics. It was only to make a quid."