Chapter 18
It was down a lonely wooded avenue that the final vehicle wandered in search of the house named ‘H’. Amid the trees and ornamental jungle of opulent Killara, a mansion nestled far from roads and noise. Covered with gardens and style it rested comfortably out of view.
The vehicle slowed to a crawl. As it came upon the pseudo-medieval brass plaque a hint of sunlight shone upon the single letter. The car turned and drove under a stone archway. Disappearing into the greenery beyond the driver followed the poplars along the winding track of colour and gardens.
The low thatched manor eased away from the kerbside, where liveried servants stood as ancient chessman in the sun. A tall male broke ranks and strode forward and opened the rear door of the vehicle. An elderly white-haired man put his hands upon his knees and helped his legs to the ground. With the aid of a black oak walking stick he cranked his painfully thin frame from the vehicle. He leaned into the stick as he crackled his way to the waiting assemblage in the library. His eighty-year eyes, rheumy in the space behind the thick spectacles, adjusted to the shadows of the long entrance hall. The tall servant halted to allow the old man to catch up.
To a man the committee rose as their patriarch appeared in the doorway. The library became still as the walking stick thumped weakly over the carpet. Nine pairs of eyes gazed in awe as the white bony hands forced the walking stick toward the head of the banquet table.
Gold candelabra along the oval ceiling dipped soft haloes into the smoke-filled room. Leather-bound books of law decorated the walls like ornaments from a past imperial epoch. The finger-dip woollen carpet swayed with the shuffle of feet as nine finely chiselled goblets rose in obeisance to the patriarch.
‘Your Honour!’
The old eyes peered down the table, blinking recognition of the men he had recruited over the years. ‘Thank you, gentlemen.’ croaked the patriarch through a throat full of phlegm. He pressed a skeletal hand over his heart and, with measured movement, gathered a white handkerchief from his breast pocket. The other hand opened the handkerchief. Nine faces averted as he drained his throat into it. Then with his mouth agape the old man blew his nose. He carefully folded the handkerchief and deposited the soggy cloth in the receptacle at his feet. ‘I must congratulate my colleague,’ he said between sniffles, ‘in choosing, what I think, must be the most inconspicuous retreat in Sydney.’
A cheery chorus of agreement warbled diffidently around the table. The tall servant retreated and closed the door. The patriarch leant on the table and slowly bent his knees. By leaning forward onto the table he was able to ease himself back into his chair. When he was safely in place the door opened and a servant deftly furnished the patriarch with his cover. Then the tall servant led his retinue in. The door closed again.
Steaming roasts were carved on an enamelled bain-marie. Servants silently guided lunch to the committee then abruptly left, their departure as unobtrusive as their arrival. The door swung shut again.
The meal was eaten without chatter. When all was done the door opened and the servants filed in. The table was cleared and the bain-marie wheeled out. Servants replaced ashtrays and decanters. Within minutes the door finally closed. Smoke from cigars again rose into the candelabra and a gentle conversation was allowed to tranquillise the atmosphere.
‘Gentlemen!’
Basil Horgan tapped the table.
‘I believe we can begin. Your Honour?’
The patriarch nodded from the far end. His large forehead shone like a full moon above the crystal lenses of his spectacles. The mouth had shrunk to expose discoloured false teeth. Red veins and parched skin gave his throat the appearance of a rooster’s claw.
‘Yes, Basil. Please continue.’ The old man’s teeth clacked against each other like a castanet accompaniment to his gurgling voice. ‘Thank you, for your patience. My driver did his best with the traffic, but ... you know, come to think of it, the state of the roads parallels the state of our nation.’
There was a gentle patter of hear-hear. Feet stirred as bodies adopted more comfortable poses. Cigars were puffed and an air of contentment pervaded all. A white handkerchief appeared in that bony hand and cleared froth from a withered mouth.
‘Gentlemen,’ the patriarch continued slowly, ‘it is indeed heartening to see all of you here today, especially when your affairs beckon so urgently.’
The murmur of assent came awkwardly, like shy recognition of love. Heads tilted back as cigar smoke wafted upward.
‘But then,’ the patriarch intoned, forcing his enfeebled underwater voice down along the table, ‘I would never expect less from our kind.’
Applause suddenly burst into the room. The committee rose to its feet and the old man opened his mouth in a geriatric smile. Basil Horgan was the first. He formed a fist and rapped the table. Others took up the cue and soon the banquet table thundered to the beat of knuckles. The patriarch raised his hand and all fell quiet.
‘Sixteen years ago, gentlemen,’ the old man rasped as though drowning, ‘we were an embryo in search of a womb. We were formed to make manifest our own singular set of ideals. We wanted to decide our own destiny and our own shape. We had rejected the false notion of universality. But we were naive, so hopelessly naive. As artless as they come, gentlemen. You will not have forgotten our ineptitude.
‘I often wonder, gentlemen, if it were we who began this Chapter. Surely those of us who contrived to establish our structure are no more with us? Surely we who are in this very room are separate identities from the creatures who breathed life into our Chapter?
‘We are not little boys. We are not the little boys who banded together sixteen years ago to protect the interests of our nation. We have changed, gentlemen.
‘Today we extend throughout every financial institution in the land. Today we influence political direction. Our support overwhelms us when it is needed. Notwithstanding the closed nature of this Chapter we, by our positions of power and influence, extend our ideals into the alleyways of the cities where Australians are being hemmed in by the hordes of indecent foreigners who, gentlemen, by any right, should be packed off for their home countries to mend their own brittle and corroded fences.
‘Gentlemen, Australians are silently crying out for us to do something.’
‘Hear! Hear!’ a voice sounded through closed lips.
‘Alas!’ the old man sighed theatrically, ‘we do not yet have absolute control over the media. That day, however, is nigh. Meanwhile, the tide is turning and every whore of an editor floats with the tide. Mark my words, gentlemen, mark my very words.’
Basil Horgan led another spate of applause.
‘We can wait, gentlemen, we can wait. I’ve been waiting all of my life for the moment when the Australian people awaken to the dangers inherent in uncontrolled avalanches of migrating peasants smothering our established values. In time no amount of soft-pedalling by the romantics in parliament will deter real Australians from rising from their slumber and ridding our nation, for once and for all, of all foreign vermin.’
The patriarch paused to swallow water. His colourless mouth drained the glass while the back of his mind was searching for epithets of chauvinism: his dib dib dib for their dob dob dob!
The decanter passed from hand to hand and smoke clogged the pale lights above. Eyes searched wrists for the time. Fingers pulsed muffled messages of impatience.
‘The time is close at hand, gentlemen, when realism will not obfuscate reality and that the insidious and fantastical notion of a melting-pot will cease to be a cancerous stitch in the fabric of our homogeneity.’
‘Hear! Hear!’
‘Let us not equivocate!’ The old patriarch was straining with his delivery and beads of perspiration squeezed from his leather face. ‘We will prevail, gentlemen. Under no circumstances are we to waver from our ideals. It is our ideology. We have the commitment and the calibre to enter the arena and eliminate all opposition to our cause. Never forget, gentlemen, that the enemy is a cunning sewer rat which has forged a weapon of war, not from the heroic blade, but with the poison of deceit.’
The patriarch’s voice was failing and there was a noticeable leaning of heads toward him. A white handkerchief wiped his dribbling mouth.
‘How do we combat the enemy?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘We use his tactics against him. We brand him. Brand your enemy and his whole world swings out of kilter. Imagine pinning the racist tail on a political donkey. Immediately the link to that Germanic idiot Adolf Hitler is a tenet of fact! With that appurtenance the donkey cannot deliver his political wisdom, his manifesto, without the accursed Nazi tail swinging him off direction.
‘For untold generations it has been anathema to speak patriotically of our nation. Even the word chauvinism has been hoisted on the lance of feminism and rammed up every male backside until the sphincter of male-hood virtually has become a loose flabby piece of impotence.
‘Let me assure you gentlemen here: chauvinism has absolutely nothing to do with females and their sexual dilemma. It is patriotism and the expression of that patriotism. As I said, the tide is turning and very soon the waters of truth will expose the manner of the enemy’s deceit.’
Basil Horgan again took to his feet and waited until the wasted throat had cleared itself into the wet white handkerchief. He then led the Committee in a rousing hurrah! Three times they cheered the old man, a chorus-line of saluting fists!
The patriarch stared at his hands that had been pressed against the edge of the table as a support for when he swayed. He was now still, his eyes unmoving, his speech complete, his mind at rest.
‘Gentlemen! A break for ten minutes.’
A gavel sounded and during the break the old patriarch was assisted to his vehicle and driven away.
