Chapter 20
‘He does have a point, you know, Charles.’
The union representative always tried to alter his accent to conform to the tone of the meeting. He wore expensive conservative suits and dressed his hair with pomade. A delicate bunch of hair was meant to be a moustache but it always appeared as if he were trying on a joke.
‘I know that, Sylvester,’ retorted the newspaper proprietor, ‘that’s not at issue, is it!’
‘What exactly is at issue then?’ demanded Basil Horgan quietly.
The meeting had become a crossfire of emotional bickering. The patriarch, since the beginning of the Chapter, had tried to merge his racial philosophy with the constitution, but had failed. His legacy remained in the adamant minds of the faithful few.
‘What is at issue, gentlemen, is the very point His Honour was elucidating.’ Sylvester Meggs, the unionist with a cherry face and pinkish blue eyes, tugged at his lapels as he spoke. He was in his mid-thirties and he kept his glass of wine in his hand.
‘Meaning?’ Basil Horgan inclined an eyebrow.
‘We are all aware that the legislators in Canberra are continuing on their idiotic and suicidal course. The One Worlders are pandering to Beijing’s demands for an Asianised Australia.’
A titter of scorn ran up the table. The unionist felt uncomfortable. The eyes that faced him were as vacant as the eyes of a mask.
‘Come now, Sylvester.’ McIlray, the banker, chided.
‘Come now nothing!’ Meggs thumped his fist dramatically and glared pugnaciously at his colleagues. ‘The government is responding by encouraging the headhunters from South East Asia to communalise our cities. Not only are these peasants wrecking the job market for us but we, as a nation, sit back while the Orientals eat our dogs in their backyards and we, as a society, whimper hopelessly as Asian heroin floods the veins of our youth. I ask you, gentlemen, how will tomorrow fare if we delude ourselves into thinking we have contained the Asian germ?’
‘Yes, I agree.’ The industrialist, Shepparton, wore an earring.
‘Oh, what utter garbage, Ernest.’ Charles Fitzroy, the newspaperman, turned his back on the unionist and directed a sneer at the industrialist. ‘You and Sylvester need a good weekend together in Bangkok.’
‘It’s not garbage, Charles.’ Meggs replied piously with a touch of peevishness. ‘No use turning your back on the subject. You of all people should know what’s going on out there in reality land. Only the other day I read of their paganism with that ritual disembowelment of the young Asian girl on the peninsular. Thank God for my Christian ethics, otherwise, I might be gloating over the loss of one of them.’
‘You don’t go to church, Meggs!’ laughed McIlray, the banker. ‘The cardinal banned you years ago!’
‘That may be so, but I still retain a soul and I am not without my fear of God.’ said Meggs righteously. ‘Somehow, though, I cannot shrug off the feeling that next time it will be one of ours.’
‘Can’t we get away from the melodrama, gentlemen?’ Basil Horgan asked coldly. The jurist had returned with a tumbler of Glenlivet. He sat and reached for the cigars. ‘Our agenda does stipulate some discussion on the War on Terrorism.’
‘Where is the melodrama?’ Meggs asked in a wounded tone. ‘You lot want to meddle? That’s your prerogative. But don’t you think you’re being a mite hypocritical?’
‘Hypocritical?’ flared Charles Fitzroy with a startled look. ‘Look! They are here and they are here to stay. Neither you nor I nor anyone is going to change that. Besides, what’s so wrong with that? Your Irish ancestors weren’t so removed from the swamp; the bog, as you wish. You can’t talk! You’re worried about their intelligence, aren’t you? You’re reacting to the situation in much the fashion of the Malays with their minority Chinese population. And, by the way, why don’t you familiarise yourself with the constitution of this Chapter?’
‘I’m not Irish!’ declared Meggs who appeared to be deeply offended.
‘Oh, whatever you are then!’ Fitzroy clapped the lid on the digression. ‘We are not about to engage in a self-defeating exercise such as shunting Asian immigrants into the ocean. That would be tantamount to flapping your arms to the moon. No! We are, or we are to be seeking the means of containment, of utilising the status quo to our advantage. And that, gentlemen, means the nation’s advantage. We seek the national interest, of course. After all, that is the purpose, the rationale for our existence as a Chapter.’
‘Gentlemen!’
Basil Horgan opened his hands, placating, and moved his eyes sternly around the table. ‘There is a gradualism in the seeping racial tap. But it is a tap that leaks universally. Australia is not unique, gentlemen. Australia faces similar ideological impulses as its neighbours. It is in the interpretation that we as neighbours differ. And that is the crux of the dilemma. Interpretation.’
All acquiesced to his authority and moved from scattered and isolated positions to a central point of congruity. The Chapter’s constitution lay beyond reach, beyond the whim of individuals, beyond, it seemed, the morality of race.
‘I know some of our colleagues here are sympathetic to the Fundamentalists. I also know that some hold ideas of race that pale into insignificance the strictures of apartheid. Be that as it may, gentlemen, the accord by which all of us here are duly bound is dictated by our own constitution.
‘Let us fortify ourselves with a reconsideration of why we convened. As we all are aware, everything we do is designed for the eventuality of the Superstate, a world government presiding over the economic cooperation of Earth’s differing regions. Our banks and multi-nationals have been planning for a future that is far beyond the existing political concepts of the so-called Nation States. It is an axiom that no nation can fulfil the needs and aspirations of its own people from within its own borders, or from its own resources alone. We all know that the Nation State, standing alone in the world, is as anachronistic, or threatens to be as anachronistic as the Greek City States finally became in ancient times. I stress to the dissident minds within our midst that our principal aim is to abolish the narrow dictates of national interests and create a New World Order.’
A furore of protest erupted from the segregationists. The unionist, Sylvester Meggs, stood and delivered a vociferous objection. ‘I think I speak for the silent majority when I say that talk of a New World Order is futile without the backbone of a truly homogeneous society. We may find that a new world order already exists within the boundaries of this continent. A congregation of Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Slavic, and – even – even the Slavs have sectioned themselves in terms of their differing ethnic and religious heritage, and, of course, our South Pacific cousins, the New Zealanders; gentlemen, all these disparate enclaves are technically Australian yet they hold no allegiance toward each other. There is no adherence to a commonality among all these camps.
‘Really, gentlemen, I implore you to reason. Let’s solve Australia’s problems before we go naked into the world, sorting out the predicaments of other countries.’
Basil Horgan drew on his cigar. He had heard it all before, the same tirade from the same dull minds.
‘Does the United States have a homogeneous population, Sylvester?’ he asked directly. ‘How is it that during the past decade our fraternity headed every key agency in mapping United States policy toward the rest of the world? Is it not feasible to infer that our organisation impacted upon the world’s political alignment?
‘Does not the endorsement of the incumbent Republican President illustrate our strategic potential in international policy?’
‘That was the Yank chapter, Basil.’ Meggs tartly reminded the jurist.
‘Yes, Sylvester, you have made the distinction. However, these were men and women with no more imagination and courage than that possessed by us.’ Basil Horgan turned from the unionist to engage his other colleagues around the table. ‘Look, gentlemen, either we adhere to our constitution or we dissemble. What is it to be?’
‘Brinkmanship, my dear Basil, will get you everything you want. Of course there is to be no questioning of our quest. Is there, gentlemen?’ It was the banker, McIlray, who swept away the doubt from the doubtful.
‘Well spoken, Ivor.’ Basil Horgan acknowledged with a knowing smile. ‘Now, for our hapless pariahs in Iraq – ’
*
The sky was clear of the choking pollution that hung so gravely over the southern horizon. The sun at its summer zenith was oppressive. No breeze flowed to cool the flowers that withered in the heat. No movement disturbed the quiescence of the bush domain. The cliffs stood immobile.
They flung open the doors of the van that had become a veritable sauna in the dust of the track. As they reached the verandah, they were met by flies.
‘Shit!’ Max hurried with the sliding lounge door.
After the kettle boiled the two families gathered near the unlit fireplace. Rane and Juno stared at each other then they stared at Lamont. He stared at no one. Marit recalled some past life on the veld. Max had tried to draw his guests into convivial talk of Dali, but the effervescent Marit skipped over the tracks onto a different line and the conversation got nowhere. Eventually, Frank drew his wife aside and whispered hoarsely, ‘Sweetheart, give it a break, will you!’ Her eyes moistened and she returned to her chair and sat numbly through the remainder of the wake.
While Max was talking Frank noticed how fidgety Lamont had become. Dali’s brutal murder obviously had perforated the boy’s sense of fair play; there was nothing he could do to alleviate the anguish of his son’s nightmare. Lamont would, in the short term, be troubled by an ostensible loss of balance as he sought a sense of equilibrium in his life.
Juno, on the other hand, seemed to have grown stronger with her resolve to spread her mantle of protection over her younger brother. Her growing relationship with Rane was having an exponential affect upon her maturity and upon her sense of responsibility. She was structuring her life before his eyes.
Strangely relieved by this lightening of his emotional load, Frank began to withdraw to his own fortress where he metaphorically engaged in heroics with an Ivanhoeic pursuit, a last stanza at Bataan, a lyrical swish of the blade against hypocrisy and corruption. He was satisfied he had taken those steps at Vaucluse. For the first time since his return from Africa he felt alive!
