FOX'd

 

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Chapter One

 


The story takes place in the 1960s
A boy spots a fox down by the river and there is statewide panic. Why such alarm? Because this is island Tasmania, the only state in Australia never to have had a fox stalk its soil ... 
as far as we know.


KIM TUTTLE was out of breath by the time he’d run from the river bank near the bridge to the police station in the centre of town. 
He ran up the two steps from street to station doorway, which was open as usual, and in to the counter, which was high enough to hide all of him except his head.
‘Sergeant Lance, I saw ... I saw a  - a fox, like the one in our book at school.’
Lance Townsend was fond of the kids of the town and rather liked the fact that they called him Sergeant Lance instead of Townsend. He gave talks to them at school from time to time on why we had laws and how important it was to obey them. But he was pretty easy on them when he caught them out of order.
He looked over the counter, eyebrows raised, smiling: ‘A fox? We don’t have foxes in Tasmania. Tell me what it looked like.’
‘It had a long, thick tail. It was this long,’ Kim said holding his arms full width. ‘And it was sort of reddish ginger coloured. And it had big ears that sat right up.’
‘Well, now, we’ll have to look into this young fella.’ He decided outright denial would crush little Kim’s confidence. ‘You take me down to where you saw it and we’ll investigate.  Terry,’ he called over his shoulder to the Constable Squires at the desk, ‘won’t be long.’
Sergeant Townsend walked alongside detective Kim to where the Elizabeth River flowed under the sandstone bridge on its way from Lake Leake. Kim led him along the river bank to the water hole where the children of the town swam in summer.
‘There, it was there. Over there, the other side of the river.’ He whispered loudly as though he might disturb his fox.
‘Hmm. I suppose he’s run off to a burrow somewhere,’ Sergeant Lance said. ‘I don’t suppose anyone else saw him, would you know?’
‘He was too quick. But those funny people living in Daisy Dingle’s hut might have. One of them was walking up from the river when I was here.’
‘Let’s go and ask them then.’ Sergeant Townsend and the boy walked along the riverbank for a few yards and then up to a hut near the back of Daisy Dingle’s. One of the hippies, as Lance called them, was sitting on a log near the door, smoking a roll-yer-own, ghastly weedy smelling stuff, the policeman noticed.
‘Sergeant Townsend of Campbell Town Police Station,’ he said, in tone and mode of the law enforcer. ‘Did you by chance see an animal that you might describe as looking like a fox in this vicinity within the last half hour?’
‘A fox? Not sure if it was a fox, but it did have a beautiful long ginger coloured tail. It looked sweet and harmless. All animals are harmless if you treat them the right way.’
‘Well that’s a matter of opinion and experience I suppose. I might, as it happens, require a statement of your witness of said animal at a later stage. Might I therefore have your name and ...’  he decided to forego address  ‘well, I know how to get hold of you if I need you.’ He took a notebook and pencil from his top pocket and wrote as the man gave his name. ‘Denzil, is that with an s or a z? OK z, Denzil Ward. Thank you, well good afternoon.’

Boy and man walked back ... wondering.
As they walked into the station, Sergeant Townsend said, ‘Constable Squires, we’d better record this sighting. Let’s see what time did you come in Kim ... half past three was it?   All right Constable, 3.30 p.m. Kim Tuttle, age ...’
‘Twelve sir,’ Kim said with importance.
‘ ... age twelve, of Campbell Town, called at Police Station to report sighting of one fox, vicinity of Elizabeth River, downstream of bridge. Description of animal aligned with general details of the fox, until now unknown on the island of Tasmania. Following report, Sergeant Townsend went in company of Kim Tuttle to the spot in question and found no sign of said fox.  However, a possible witness to the event, temporarily residing in a nearby hut, was questioned and said person, Denzil Ward, corroborated the evidence of Kim Tuttle, inasmuch as the said Denzil Ward saw an animal of similar description in the vicinity. The matter will be further investigated and a report sent to headquarters at the earliest possible.’
Constable Terry had his head down concentrating on getting it all down.
‘Now young Kim, I wouldn’t say anything about this just yet. Let’s keep it between the two - well’ looking at Constable Squires ‘the three of us ...’
‘The four of us ... there’s that Denzil in the hut,’ piped Kim.
‘Right, well the four of us. That Denzil fellow has probably smoked it out of his memory by now. I’d like to think you could keep this quiet. Bit like a detective. OK?’
Kim Tuttle walked tall and silent out of the station. He wouldn’t even tell his mum or dad.
‘You know Terry, this could be pretty serious if it’s true. I mean, this State has never, and I mean never, had a fox on its soil. If they’re here, they could cause enormous problems; they breed faster than rabbits, they kill off other animals, ruin the land, kill the sheep - gawd, imagine the farmers! They’d go berserk.  No, for now we’d better keep low about it. No point in causing a panic. It might not have been a fox, just something that looked like a fox. I’d better have a word to Arthur Dryden about it anyway. He said he wants to see me, so I’ll pay him a visit at The Hall.’
With instructions to lock up properly, Lance Townsend walked home, hardly noticing the townsfolk who nodded and waved and said hello ... his mind was on fluffy ginger tails and large peaked ears.
He could smell Irish stew from the front gate and quickened his step. Inside, he tiptoed to the kitchen and stood behind Reen at the sink and put his arms around her waist and hugged. She screamed in fright.
‘Lance! You frightened the life out of me. Don’t do that. Come up behind me when I’m not expecting it. Give me a heart attack and then who’d cook your tea I’d like to know.’
‘Now darl, calm down, I was only wanting to show how much I missed you, away all day. Mmm. That Irish stew smells good.’
‘You can smell like a rabbit Lance Townsend. All you think about is your stomach.’
‘Not only, not only. I think of other things. A man thinks of other things, like ...’
‘Now don’t you go on about things that don’t want to be talked about in the kitchen. It’s not ... not hygienic.’
‘Don’t be so sure that’s what I was going to say.  As a matter of fact, I was thinking about foxes.’
‘Foxes! They’re just in fairytales. I read about them when I was a little kiddy. Haven’t never seen one in my life.’
‘Well, you might be about to see one. Perhaps a lot of them, because young Kim Tuttle came to the station and reported seeing one down by the river.’
‘Go on. He never saw one of them foxes ...’
‘Those ...’
‘... one of those foxes here I bet he didn’t. It was something that looked like one but not a real one.  Now wash your hands, tea’s ready. The kids have had theirs and are watching that television set, they get glued to it I tell you.’
Lance went to the bathroom to wash. He was startled to find carpet on the floor.
‘Reen. What’s this carpet in the bathroom? What was wrong with the lino?’
‘Never you mind Lance Townsend. I decided to take it up and put carpet down. Nice and warm on the feet. Why not carpet?’
‘Because no one has carpet in a bathroom. Never seen it before, not even up at Dryden Hall.’
‘Well, we’re different aren’t we? Only a small space, didn’t cost much so don’t worry yourself about it. Now sit down and have your tea.’
She’d put two chops and four pieces of potato from the stew on his plate and a heap of steamed cabbage; Lance was too engaged in eating to talk, but he felt he had a lot stored in him that he wanted to say. 
‘Do you think I could have another chop .. ?’
‘Lance you’ll get too fat for that uniform if you keep eating so much. Well, all right, just one. This is my mum’s recipe, rest her soul. We  was lucky to get half a chop each I can tell you, and it was mutton not lamb and had to be stewed a long time.’
Leaning back in his chair and patting his tummy Lance burped and sat upright.
‘I’m not kidding about this fox business. If it’s true, it’s the first time  we’ve ever had a fox in Tasmania.  And  they’re never in ones, always litters and breeding more.  I think I better get that report in to headquarters first thing in the morning. Even if I emphasise that it’s only a reported sighting and not a definite one.’

Sergeant Townsend arrived early at the station next morning after a restless night thinking about foxes. When he did go to sleep he dreamt of a fox hunt; he was in a team armed with rifles and telescopic sights, it was dark and he got ahead of the group and turned around and his eyes caught the light of a torch and one of the fellows mistook his eyes for fox eyes and fired. He woke up in a sweat.
He unlocked the station door and pushed it wide open as usual. It smelt like a classroom, floorboards and ink and papers. Not that they had inkwells these days with ballpoint pens, but the smell was the same.  The counter ran right across the room, with a panel you lifted to walk through. The counter came from an old bank that closed, down the road, and a bit posh for a police station with its carved front to the floor and bevelled counter top, all in rich, polished blackwood.  Under the street window was a long timber seat and the walls had  posters reminding those waiting of various laws and rules and offences.
Lance went behind the counter and checked for messages on the telex machine. Nothing from headquarters, nothing from anywhere.  He typed into the telex machine the statement Constable Squires had recorded in the book yesterday, and added at the end: ‘Further investigation will be undertaken by Campbell Town Constabulary and all information thus gathered will be reported to headquarters immediately’ and sent the message on its way. 
Marvellous things, these machines. Think, only recently we’d have to repeat it all over the phone or post the report. What would they think of next?
What Sergeant Townsend didn’t know, was that a similar report was on its way from Ross Police Station, where a fisherman coming in from Lake Leake, about twenty miles east, had reported seeing a fox.
The fox had hit the fan so to speak.
Within two hours, the news was out, reporters were typing out reports for the next edition and radio stations were broadcasting.
 
This is Radio Tasmania. Reports have just come in of several sightings of foxes in Tasmania. One fox was sighted on the outskirts of Campbell Town, where two witnesses described the animal as similar to a red fox. Another fox was sighted by a fisherman at Lake Leake, twenty miles east of the township of Ross. Police headquarters are therefore of the view that there will already be families of foxes breeding within our state.
Government sources advise that the Premier has called an emergency meeting and will be seeking advice and support from his cabinet and all sides of politics, from independent bodies such as the wildlife, animal welfare and forestry, the farming lobby, pest control authorities. Police have asked anyone sighting a fox to note location and report at once to the nearest police station.


Jack Blade, ‘Razor’, behind his back (he cut you off, cut your copy, cut your balls off), had been Editor of The Gazette newspaper for ten years. He’d lasted that long because he sucked up to the establishment, not because he was a good editor.  And perhaps because his mother’s uncle was chairman of the board. That, at any rate, was the not-surprising opinion of editorial staff, since journos are characteristically lefty and agin the bosses. Except of course the few favoured journalists, who preferred to call themselves ‘writers’;  they wrote the editorial pages and special feature columns and were allowed opinions - that is, within acceptable boundaries set down by the editor.
Step outside and you could be sent right back to the general pool.
Like the first time Derek Fawcett, just elevated to social columnist, covered a society wedding and wrote something of a farce about the wedding speech of the groom who used the wrong name for his bride - the bride blushed and the guests giggled and stupid Derek wrote it. Somehow it got through unedited and Razor slashed Fawcett with a stroke. Out on his arse even if his wife’s sister was married to the Premier’s cousin, which was why Fawcett got the job in the first place.  Should have known the bride in the story was a niece of one of the most influ-ential men in town. Blade kept on the right side of the right side of town.  
When Razor was on the warpath headed for the journos’ room, someone would start singing Sachmo style ‘Jack the knife’ as a warning. Just as they were doing, on the day the editor came dashing into the big room with its clattering typewriters and journos talking loudly on phones.
‘Where’s that ... whatsisname ... that new fellow from  the  mainland who fancies  himself the next Ernest Hemingway. Yes, you, Connelly. See you in my office right away,’ he bellowed, pointing at Tim Connelly.
Connelly was quick to grab a pad and pen and make for the ed’s office. Maybe he could land a scoop.
‘Now Connelly, sit down, sit down,’ Blade said, twirling his first finger around in circles in the direction of the chair the other side of his desk. ‘You’re new here but no reason why you shouldn’t get around the state. You’ve been putting in some quite ... er ... readable pieces and you seem pretty good at follow up, sniffing out the story.  So, I’m going to give this one to you. It could be nothing. It could be big.
‘You may not be aware that the state of Tasmania has never had a fox on its soil.’ He paused to see if Connelly was impressed. No. He was waiting for more.
‘Well, it seems that a fox, a red fox, Vulpes vulpes, has been sighted. In Campbell Town.  Near the river at the edge of Campbell Town to be more accurate. 
‘I need hardly say that this is startling news. Shocking news.’
‘Shocking, sir?’ said Connelly.
‘Disastrous. You know what foxes do? They wipe out wildlife as quick as a bush fire, and heaven knows we know what they can be like in this state throughout our history.  Not only that, they kill the sheep and ruin the forests. In no time they turn a flourishing land into a desert.
‘But ... but, we don’t know for certain that the sighting was of an actual or imagined fox. Some kid saw it. What I want you to do, is go up to Campbell Town and spend a few days snouting things out. I don’t want imagination. I want facts.
‘If this blows up it could be a damned state of war in the State. You’d have the bushies and animal-lovers and sheep farmers forming a force to knock the government out. They’d blame the government first, then the logging companies - they’d say they’re as bad as foxes, all that sort of rubbish and so on.’
He laughed in his brittle way. ‘Y’know, those animal-lover people will probably take the side of the foxes if we try to shoot the pests - that’s if, if, there are foxes in the State.   And that’s your assignment. Find out.  Usual expenses, etc. etc., see my secretary. If you need a photographer you’ll have to phone up. Can’t send one to hang around. Leave first thing tomorrow, or better still, get a lift with the Launceston paper-run late tonight. I’ll expect a short report the following day, atmosphere in the town, talk to a few locals, that sort of thing, get it rolling.’
After collecting expenses in advance and saying cheerio to his fellow journos, Connelly walked the half mile to the boarding house in Argyle Street where he had a room. He packed a bag with a pair of jeans, woollen jumper, extra shirt,  thick  socks, underwear and pyjamas, toothbrush and paste, Brylcream, comb, and the book he was reading Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. He’d travel in his working suit, collar and tie, wear that for interviews with change of shirt, and wear jeans and jumper most of the time in the small town.
He left a note for his landlady, who worked in a milk bar during the day, saying he’d be in Campbell Town for a few days, and, with bag hitched on shoulders, walked back to town to get something to eat. Down by the wharves there was a pub that served a fairly hearty meal for seven shillings and sixpence, so he ordered shepherd’s pie and peas and a small glass of beer, and settled down at the window table to read his book, feeling pretty pleased to be given an assignment that could blow up to a big story, or  - in his face, maybe.

 

 

 

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Chapter Two

 

 

Let’s step back a year or so before we go any farther into this mystery, and take a look at convict-built Campbell Town, an overnight stop in stage coach times, today a pee and beer stop.


SERGEANT LANCE TOWNSEND walked  along the main street of the Midlands town of Campbell Town.  He waved in shop windows, raised a hand to an old codger crossing from the pub, stopped and helped Daisy Dingle up the gutter on to the path with her shopping basket.  ‘It’s me arthur-ritis,’ she moaned. ‘Gets in m’knees. Thanks Sergeant.’

He was a good natured fellow with a permanent smile on his face even when he was serious;  clear blue eyes and thick blond hair, trimmed back and sides and short on top because it was a bit wiry and got out of hand if it grew longer.  At thirty-eight and over six feet, strong and upright, he gave the locals confidence in their law-and-order man who could hold a bully with one hand. 
 Campbell Town, more than half way from Hobart in the south and Launceston in the north, was something of a half way measure of many things in the competitive island State. Beer, for one thing.  Hobart was the home of Cascade, Launceston boasted its Boag’s.  You were a Cascade man or a Boag’s man.  Campbell Town pub served both and put up with the arguments and fights that arose about quality and taste.  Lance Townsend drank both.  Same with the other great division, the Catholics and the Protestants. He kept a foot in both. You had to when your job was to keep the peace, and there was nothing like beer and religion to raise a fight. 

Like all the towns on the main highway between the  two main cities, Campbell Town began as a stage coach station, with an inn and stables; then a blacksmith. Huts were erected  for the convicts who were free labour building roads, small cottages were built for the overseers, a bakery opened, a general store to serve the farmers who began to settle. And so a town grew.
Each town along the highway was like a transplanted English village with no aspect adjustment for its position on the underside of the globe. Small-paned windows faced south, instead of north for the sun. Convicts shaped the local sandstone into blocks to build cottages suited for snowy winters. 
The first, and still the largest building in the town, was the stage coach inn, with its stone pillars holding a wooden verandah abutting the first floor bedrooms, where one might get a good view of any-one entering the town.   It had been built by convict slaves and one of the more talented of them had carved, in stone, COACH AND HORSES INN, which remains today, like a birthmark, above the verandah, although the inn had gone through several changes of name, hung in turn on a board below the verandah.  In early days the coaches drove along the side of the building and pulled up in the yard behind, allowing the passengers to alight with their luggage at the back entrance, before driving across the yard to the stables, where horses were fed and watered and changed over if necessary.
Next to the inn, on the main street, St Ignatius Church was built, for there were many Roman Catholics amongst the Irish immigrants and convicts who had served their time. The position proved convenient for the priests, who could walk to the pub across the yard from their back door without exciting comment from town folk. And since it was the habit of his flock to gather in the pub, the priest could feel a duty in being amongst them.
Immediately opposite the Catholic Church, St Peter’s Anglican Church built its house of worship on raised foundations, setting it back from the street far enough to allow three steps and a wide landing where the minister could welcome his brethren at a level well above the Catholics, who had no set-back, forcing the priest to greet from the street path. The two churches were thus geographically locked in immortal combat like facing boxers in a ring, 
The Catholics did have the advantage, though, of their school: a solid building of sandstone like most in the town, with a central entrance and two class-rooms either side with small paned windows and a sign in the small yard at the front reading: St Igna-tius School for Catholic Children, thus making it clear that only Catholic children were welcome. The nuns who ran the school lived in a building just be-yond the school playground at the back, where the priest also had private quarters and shared the services of a lady who cooked and cleaned.
The Anglican Church’s neighbour on its north side was the police station, a cream weather-boarded building with brown trims and an elaborately carved barge board. On the south side, the Masons had built their Masonic Hall, giving the impression of joining forces with the law and the church considered the lesser of two evils.
Two newspapers reigned: The Examiner in Launceston and The Gazette in Hobart, which was more powerful, coming from the capital city with its head offices and State parliament. Cars stacked with papers drove, hot from the Hobart presses, to Launceston for morning delivery, stopping briefly for a pee and a beer at Campbell Town.
Lance Townsend was happy in this rural town surrounded by sheep and cattle country that went as far as the central mountains in the west and the ocean in the east and reminded himself, as he often did, what a good posting this was, how much better than the last one in Launceston amongst a big team of coppers. He liked the power of law and he liked being somebody in a small town. He wasn’t averse to a bit of harmless nod and wink dealing and that was much easier when you’re top cop in a small town.
And the house, too, that was a bonus.  It didn’t matter to him so much, it was Reen who liked the cottage and if she was happy, he was happy. He chuckled as he thought of her, couldn’t wait to get home, what might be for tea.  He opened the gate and walked up the gravel path with the snapdragons along the edges like soldiers standing to attention. It was the first thing she’d done when they moved in - planted those snapdragons and in half a year they were so showy people stopped in the street to admire them. He picked a red one and pressed the neck to open the flower, like a dog’s mouth, and popped his little finger in, just as he’d done as a kid.
   
He whistled a tune as he opened the door.  ‘Hi darl, home. What’s for tea?’ He made straight  for the kitchen and came up behind Reen at the sink and snuggled his face into the nape of her neck.  ‘Give us a kiss love, go on.’
‘Get away Lance, stop fooling about.  Got your favourite tonight in fact. Seasoned rabbit.’
‘Mmm.  A nice cool beer first then.  Uncle Ernie’s rabbit, fresh from the trap.  Or did he shoot it?’
‘I didn’t ask him. By the way Lance, that Arthur Dryden phoned up for you. Said he tried the station and you weren’t in. What would he want with you?’
‘Something’s going on, bit of a hush hush. Think he’s looking for a nod and a wink on something.‘
‘Now Lance, don’t you go doing nothing that’s -’
Anything, darl, anything.’
‘Well anything that’s going to get you in trouble. I don’t trust that Dryden. Up to no good, mark my words. Him with his big house and now a Knighthood.  I know all about his past. I don’t know what the Queen’s coming to giving a  Knighthood to someone like him.’
‘Doesn’t mean what it seems.  They buy ‘em you know. Suck up to politicians, chat ‘em up, pay money.  Gawd they’re all crooked you know.’
‘Well you’re supposed to see that they aren’t. So keep an eye on them.’

Lance took a glass and bottle opener from the dresser and a Cascade out of the fridge and lifted the cap.  As he poured the amber he kicked back the chair at the kitchen table and sat down, spreading his legs as he leaned back in the chair.
‘I wish you wouldn’t drag the chairs back Lance. I polished the lino today and look at the scratch. Lift them, lift them.’ She tch’d tch’d and shook her head.
As he savoured the cool, sprightly beer, he looked at his wife as she peeled potatoes over the sink. He was a one woman man, not a lady’s man. He was too ... what was it? ... decent ... for that.  Not really sexy, but he liked it, sex, with his wife, when she’d let him.  They had two children and Reen was damned sure there wouldn’t be any more.  No thanks, she’d say. My mother had nine kids, she was always pregnant and died in childbirth. Poor thing. What a life. 
‘Kathy and Jeff are at the Marshall’s.  Be back by six I told them  ... or else. I don’t want none of this —’
‘Any—’
‘All right, all right ... any.’ She snapped at him
‘Only doing it for your own good Reen.’
‘And that’s why I’m determined - determined Lance Townsend - that my kids ...’
‘Our kids.’
‘My kids are going to have a good education. With nine children we didn’t have a hope. I was straight out of primary school and into domestic work by the time I was thirteen.’
She was peeling potatoes with ferocity, her mouth set in a straight lipless line.  His heart felt for her. He wanted to get up and put his arms around her;  to stand close behind her and cup her breasts in his hands and squeeze her to him. But he knew she’d push him away. It was part of the way she was. He knew she loved him, but fear of what her mother went through made her resist sexual advances.
Instead he burped lightly and took another swig.
‘Saw Daisy Dingle on the way. They reckon she’s let a couple of those hippies live in her woodshed down by the creek.  Fairies at the bottom of the garden they said in the pub. Well, one of them’s a bit of a fairy.’
‘All this free love business.  Hippies. I don’t like it, mark my words, they’ll bring trouble to this town Lance and you’ll be the one who’ll have to clean it up. I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’ She put the potatoes on to boil and added a good pinch of salt.
‘And another thing, I’ve ordered my new electric stove. Sick to death of putting wood in this old thing.  Can’t wait.’ 
‘I’ll miss standing with my back to the old stove though,’ he said. ‘In winter I mean. It’s kind of homely. Still, I suppose you’re the one who cooks, so if it makes life easier, well, that’s good. You’ll have to get Micky O’Reilly over to wire it up.’
‘I will not. He’s Catholic and I do business with C of E.’
‘Come on Reen - Micky’s our only electrician. You’d have to get that fellow in Oatlands to come all the way—’
‘I don’t care.  I’ll get him.  After what my mother put up with because the priest made her keep having babies—’
‘He didn’t make her have babies ... your father did. I hope.’
‘She was Catholic and if the priest said it was wrong to stop babies coming, then she obeyed the priest. The priest tried to make all us kids Catholics, said we’d be illegitimate, but Dad wouldn’t have a bar of it.’ 
Lance smiled and didn’t argue. Besides, there was seasoned rabbit for dinner with mashed potatoes and runner beans from the garden. And, oh, the stuffing, with bread and onion and chopped bacon and thyme.  Why argue about religion.
‘And we was farmed out to relatives most of the time because Mum just couldn’t manage us all.’
Was, were ... Lance let it pass.

Lance hung up his police issue trousers on the hanger and undid the buttons on his blue shirt.
‘Now Lance Townsend, that’s not good enough, Give me those trousers. Look, folded any old how. After all my work pressing knife edges on them. They have to go on the hanger folded properly.  And throw that shirt in the wash. You should have a clean one every day. What’s the town going to  think of me if you go in there with a dirty shirt.’
Laureen was already in her pink nighty, full length, and had the blankets folded back at the top of  their double bed, which had a lace frill to the floor.
At the dressing table, set with diamond-cut crystal tray and powder bowl with lid, she moved the side mirrors and brushed her wavy dark hair; she rubbed in Pond’s face cream and watched her husband take several plunges with foot in pyjama leg before making it. 
In bed he plumped his pillow and leaned across for a goodnight kiss.
‘How about a cuddle Reen,’ he chuckled.
‘Oh well, only a cuddle mind you.’
He was happy to settle for that. The cosy contact, knowing he was important to her, would protect her.
‘Love you darl,’ he whispered.
He fell asleep with that smile on his face.  Content. 

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Chapter Three

We should take a look at this scheming Dryden fellow. They say he started out stealing bricks on the job and sold them on the side; went on to become the wealthiest man in the state. Owns most of the major companies and runs the government and the media.
Fancies himself, passion for horses and women.


ARTHUR DRYDEN, Sir Arthur Dryden, always felt a skip in his heart as the Mercedes rose over the slight hill on the midlands road approaching Campbell Town. This point gave him the first glimpse of Dryden Hall, set back half a mile to the east from the main road. It was his. His Hall. His domain. His work. His power. 
His Merc, his driver. Fred was driver, protector, confidant. A good listener who could be trusted not to blab. Not just listening either. You could say that where Dryden went, Fred went too. Driving, waiting, picking up, covering up. A man like Dryden needed a man like Fred.
Fred, in grey uniform and peaked cap with gold braid, slowed up, as usual, when the car reached the town, driving at a stately pace, in case any locals were out to catch the royal wave from the master. A turn to the right and through the gate, slowing over the cattle ramp, and all the land as far as you could see was Dryden’s. The drive from main road to Hall was laid with sandy-coloured gravel and lined with sixty-year-old poplars, planted by the owner of the original farm house, which still stood amongst trees a hundred yards north of the stables.
Honey-gold grass moved only slightly in the midsummer heat. Black Herefords hung about under groups of gums for the meagre shade they gave. Ahead, Dryden Hall, a handsome sandstone building with three pillars each side of the huge glass panelled front doors. Fred followed the circular drive to the wide stone-paved terrace, hopped out and opened the back door for Dryden, who grabbed his briefcase and nudged himself out, with less than his usual vigour.
Although only forty and in good shape, he was a little unsteady as he took the three steps to the terrace. It had been a boozy lunch at the club and he’d lingered over brandy and cigars. Still, he’d stitched up a good deal, it had been worth it. He smiled as he thought about it and took his handkerchief out and wiped the sweat from his brow. 
In the cool of the entrance hall he felt at odds. He always did. It was large, with skylights and glass domed ceiling two storeys high. It didn’t ever feel like his place, more like a public building. Not cosy. Not homey. On the other hand, it was impressive. Very impressive. He could hardly complain when he’d designed the bloody thing himself, badgered the architects, sacked three of the blighters before he found one who’d do his bidding. Sixteen bedrooms upstairs might seem a bit much for most people on this little island, but not for Arthur Dryden. He was a big time man in the prime of life.
He crossed the hall and walked through the library on the way to his den. The library had two entire walls of books on polished cedar shelves, one wall of windows and a six feet high fireplace on the other wall. He liked the look of the books but hadn’t read many. He’d be surprised if any of the books were lifted from the shelves by anybody in this house.
In his den he tossed his briefcase on a chaise longue, which he liked the look of but thought a most uncomfortable piece of furniture. He poured a whisky from his cabinet, added a dash of water, and fell back into a big, feather-cushioned chair covered in ruby red damask, and closed his eyes.
‘Is that you Arty?’ His wife called from the hall and made her way to the door of his den.
He winced. ‘No, it’s me, Arthur, Sir Arthur. I’ve told you not to call me Arty. Sir Arty Dryden, how  the hell does that sound? Arty Farty that’s what.’
‘Perhaps you should call me Lady Cecelia, then.’
‘It’s not an inherited title. You’ll have to put up with Lady Dryden.’
‘MacFarlanes are coming to dinner, I hope you remembered. They’ll be here at seven. We’re dressing of course.’
‘All right, all right. I’ve just had a heavy day in Hobart and I need a bit of a break.’
’Heavy. Hmm. Was she?’
‘Cut that out. I’ve been in important negotiations - at the club. No women. OK’
‘Oh dear, have you? Well dinner is important negotiations for me. I think Sybil MacFarlane is going to invite me to join the Country Bridge Club and I don’t want you to behave like a boor.’
Cessy Dryden turned and stalked out.

Socially she was streaks ahead of Arthur. Her father was a surgeon, like his father and his grandfather, and the family had been very comfortably off, nice big home in the elite suburb of  Sandy Bay in Hobart, good schools, lavish coming out party, presented to the Governor, travel with Mummy to Britain and Europe on ocean liner, presented to the Queen at the Garden Party - all that sort of thing. And to the dismay and disapproval of family and friends, she’d married the roguish, upstart, nobody, Arthur Dryden.  Married down, they said.
Well, he’d show them. And he did.

Arty Dryden grew up on the downside of Hobart, in Moonah, right on the railway line opposite the station. His father had been a wheeler-dealer, hardly ever had a real job, a  bloke who spent a lot of time in pubs. His mother had done dressmaking to survive. Arty made his own world under the big mulberry tree at the bottom of the garden.  Enclosed by its large green leaves that hung almost to the ground he would imagine himself in a castle where he was king and the big fat juicy mulberries were gold coins which kept growing as fast as you picked them. 
He would help his mother pick the mulberries for the jam she’d make to sell. It was a stringy sort of life for a kid and he determined to fight his way above. His father was a crook but Arty planned to be a better one, a smarter one.  There were always sussy characters calling around looking for his dad, sometimes cops.  Then one day his dad, a small man who wore a high felt hat to give him height, walked out to the end of a wharf and jumped in and drowned.  They reckon he was drunk, so they never knew whether he meant to do it. His hat was found floating around the fishing boats.

Half-way through his grade six year at primary, the headmaster Mr Wilson (Shiny Wilson for his shiny red nose) came to visit Arthur’s mother. She was nervous about it and, anxious to please, she’d got out her precious bone china tea set in the front room and made scones to go with the tea, since he would be coming right after the last lesson.
‘Mrs Dryden it’s about your boy Arthur,’ he said, putting the dainty china cup on the table. Catching her alarmed expression he said, ‘Nothing wrong I assure. It’s about Arthur’s future. I don’t know whether you realise it or not, but he’s an exceptional boy. Brilliant at arithmetic, loves history, a natural grasp of grammar. And an outstanding memory. He should be going on to high school and then univer-sity.’
‘Have another scone Mr Wilson. That’s my mulberry jam from our own tree.’ She was pleased and surprised but said she didn’t have the money to keep Arthur at school. ‘It would mean years without him earning anything,’ she said.
Arty was listening, crouched on the verandah below the front room window. Fancy that! Shiny Wilson speaking so well of him. Shiny, who would give him six of the best outside his office every time Arthur broke the rules. And he knew how to swing the willow cane to bring red marks on your hand that lasted until lunch time. Getting ‘the strap’ was a thing to boast of at school.
‘Moonah Central rarely gets a pupil of this calibre,’ Max Wilson said. ‘I’d put him up for a scholarship and give him special tutoring myself - no charge of course.’ 

But Arty was too keen to leap into the adult world to spend years learning from books. He’d learn from life. And his mother didn’t fancy spending the next eight years or so surviving on the little she earned. 
So when he left school at the end of that year Arty got a job with a bricklayer and it wasn’t long before he was pinching bricks and selling them.  Not enough to notice, so he got away with it.
About that time he found something he was good at.  Really good at, thanks to memory and arithmetic.  Poker. He started making money at small games at pubs, then moved on to private games, then into big games. He was cleaning up, moving up, dressing up. 
At twenty he was cutting a sharp figure around town.  He’d be at the Friday and Saturday night dances, catching the eyes of the debs with his olive skin and thick dark hair. He studied Clark Gable, grew a moustache, copied the Gable look, deepened his voice, perfected the faint sardonic smile, trained one eyebrow to lift.  He could dance and he had money.  All the girls wanted to dance with him, especially Cessy Mountford. She set her mind on marrying him but Arty played it cool, like poker.  He wasn’t ready yet but he knew she was a girl who liked to get her way. So she waited.

At poker he was making it big time. Played a week of games with Jack Davison and ended up owning Jack’s pub, which was next door to a big old building about to be developed; the owner wanted the pub to extend and made the offer too good to refuse and Arty was cashed up.  Then he won a packet of shares in the local timber mill from Samuel Deakes, who inherited them from his father. Deakes was a tall skinny bloke with a big Adam’s apple and long prominent upper teeth, which made him look the dill he was.  Arty almost felt mean taking the shares, but - cards is cards.  In six months the shares had soared and he sold at the peak. At  twenty-five he had his first two million.  Like the mulberries, the gold coins kept growing. 

He married Cessy Mountford and they moved into the six bedroom home in Sandy Bay that he’d bought for a sum that made headlines in The Gazette. He had the money and she had the contacts. He wanted to be buddies with the people with power and influence, politicians, judges, company directors, wealthy landowners, lawyers and doctors who were making a name. 
He was keen to show an interest in The Arts; when opera, ballet, orchestras and theatre productions came to Hobart, he was there, in his box. He’d be seen at official receptions and put on private parties for visiting companies. And his money supported most cultural events.
It wasn’t all pretence on his part. He loved the magic and passion of opera, the costumes and sets, the soaring notes that reached into his soul. And ballet. The muscular bodies of the men reminded him of his horses. 
Indeed, Arthur Dryden had a taste for refinement and, for him, it was all things British. He modelled Dryden Hall on a manor he’d seen in The Tatler, which came airmail each month from London. Furniture, carpets, curtains, the six feet high fireplaces, the skylights, windows, the curved mahogany staircase, all inspired by ‘the old country’.  He even ran the household in the manner of the land so far away. Servants’ quarters on the ground floor beyond the stairs.  And dressed in black with white starched aprons and frilled headcap. He, and everything his, were all style with money-substance.

The relatively small capital of Hobart had a cosy fraternity of the privileged and although old money was preferred, times were changing and new money was reluctantly accepted as the natural cycle. Arthur Dryden picked up the manner of the in-set and carved his niche. He was accepted as a member of the Hobart Club and the Athenaeum.

Cessy was spoiled, like Scarlett O’Hara to his Rhett Butler he thought. But they managed to have easier sex than the fictional couple.  Their son was born two years after the wedding and Arthur named him — Clark.  Scarlett was out of the question as a name for their daughter, born eighteen months later; Cessy  wanted  Claire,  so  it  was  Claire Dryden, Christened at St John’s Church.
Clark was booked into Hutchins School, and Claire would go to Fahan.

He felt pleasantly drowsy after his Scotch and in a half conscious state, he saw time slide back, like a film of his life running backwards, unattached images of himself at earlier stages. Ah, he could see Florrie Bainbridge and he stopped the film to relive a passage.

 Arthur had ridden the three miles across the paddocks to the Bainbridge farm to see Florrie. He had a proposition for her and went over it in his mind as he rode.
Everyone knew Lou Bainbridge had married Florence for her money. Her aunt left her the farm when she died, along with a small fortune in investments and properties the old girl had tucked away over the years.  The Bainbridges were a long established rural family that had expanded too far for all of them to share the wealth. Lou and four brothers and half a dozen cousins were at  the shirtsleeves stage with only their names to sell. Florrie fancied the name and liked Lou well enough to marry. But Lou had gone through her money inside ten years, unwise investments, gambling, didn’t have a clue about money and he’d never worked.  Drank and ate heavily, died of a heart attack at fifty.
Florrie was no shirker. Over the past five years  she set up kennels on the farm and bred dogs that people paid a lot of money for.
 
‘You about, Florrie,’ he called as he dismounted and tied the reins over the verandah railing near the barrel of water for visiting horses. 
‘Arthur. Come in. I’ve just opened a bottle of wine. Have a glass.’
She was a  tiny, energetic woman with thick curly hair that made her head look out of proportion.  Her nose was too large and sharp for Arthur’s taste but she had a neat figure and he’d often admired her shapely legs. She moved quickly, spoke crisply, laughed readily. A smoker’s raspy laugh.
‘Hope this is all right for you. It’s a humbler vintage than you’re used to.’ She poured a glass and slid it across the table as he sat down. ‘Cheers.’ They reached across to touch glasses and drank.
‘Not bad. What is it? Oh Bortolli’s. From Victoria. They’re catching a lot of the market with their modest wines.’
She lit a cigarette, drew strongly and held the breath in her lungs before puffing it out. She noticed his disapproving look.
‘You should give up smoking.’
‘You should give up sex,’ she said.
‘It’s an addiction that can’t be good for you Florrie.’
‘My addiction is easier to satisfy.’
‘Mine is more fun.’
They laughed and took another sip of wine.
‘Florrie, I’ve got a proposal.’
‘You’re married already.’
‘Not that kind of proposal. I’m going to finance you in a venture - we could make it a partnership, fifty-fifty.  You breed hunting hounds. I’ll set up the kennels, pay staff, advertising - all that side of it.’
‘Hunting hounds. There’s not a big enough mar-ket for them.’
‘There will be.  I have plans. Fox hunting is going to put Tasmania on the map and I’m going to do it.’
‘Fox hunting, cripes Arthur. There are no foxes.’
‘Wait and see. I don’t want you to say a word about this to anyone. Anyone. Do I have your word?’
‘I’m mystified. But sure, you have my word.’

Arthur rose from his chair and took Florrie’s hand, pulling her up to him.
‘Let’s seal it with a kiss then.’ He meant it in a friendly way.
She whispered in his ear ‘Why don’t we seal it with a fuck?’
He didn’t use the word for swearing, he associated it with sex; it was erotic and turned him on like a light switch.
‘Ooh Arthur. I’m hungry for what you have there pressing right where it ought to be.’
She led him to her bedroom and they made love. It was fervent and satisfying and neither felt any guilt.  Uncomplicated. No commitments. Like sharing a meal.
‘That was good. Must do it again soon,’ she said. 

And they had ... done it again ... and again.

Until he met Grace. He drifted back five years. Arthur Dryden had established the Tasmanian Hunt Club with headquarters at Dryden Hall in 1960 and two years later, he’d engaged Australia’s Olympic Champion Show Rider, Malcolm Hayward as his stable master and a Joint Master of Fox Hounds.  He’d seen  Hayward riding at the Hobart Show, admired his seat and determined he’d learn to look like that in the saddle.
He invited the forty-five-year-old Hayward to Dryden Hall for a weekend, to look over the stables and his horses.
‘How would you like to take charge of all this,’ he said to Hayward.
‘I’d love it Mr Dryden, but I’m regularly competing, travelling, training for the next Olympics.’
‘You need money to do that. Who sponsors you?’
‘Sponsors are hard to find I must admit —’
‘Well, how about this?  I’ll pay you a full time salary, with leave to attend competitions, Olympics and so on, if you’ll spend the rest of your time here. You can live in the original farm house the other side of the stables, rent free.‘
‘What’s the catch? It’s too generous.’ Malcolm Hayward knew Dryden to be a tough negotiator and he was cautious.
‘When I want something, I can be generous,’ said Dryden.  ‘And what you’ve got, I want.  You know horses, I need a trainer with an eye for a good horse. You can ride - that’s an understatement. And I want you to teach me to ride the way you do, well, somewhere near that. Come into the house and we’ll have a Scotch.’

In his den, Dryden poured a Scotch for himself and Hayward—‘Soda or water?’ 
‘Soda thanks.’
They were both standing, looking out the window over the stables and the acres beyond.  Puffball clouds with smudges of grey were racing across the sky.
‘It’s going to rain.  Well, we need it in the midlands.  Pretty dry a lot of the time. Now what do you think of my offer Hayward?’
‘Uh ... well, it’s sudden, but on the other hand it’s too good to refuse. When do I start?’
‘Good. Taken like a champion jumper.  Start whenever you like. The farm house is empty, furnished though, comfortable. I rather like it. Big verandah all round, catches the sun.  Er ... mind if I call you Malcolm?’
‘My friends call me Mal, if you prefer.’
‘Call me Arthur. Let’s shake on it Mal.’
Then two years ago Mal Hayward went to Spain to compete in international events, won all his rides and came home with medals ... and Grace. She was English; they fell in love and married before returning.

Dryden knew on first sight they would become lovers, one day. He could feel waves of passion thrusting over to him. But he could wait. All marriages eventually become domestic affairs and a woman like Grace wanted more than that.

Meantime Arthur Dryden put his passion into riding. He found it erotic to be astride a horse, feel its flesh between his knees, the exaltation as it leapt a fence, the rush of wind as it raced across the fields. Horses and women had a similar affect on him.
Let’s face it, when he was riding a horse the horse was more important, when he was riding a woman, she was more important.
Hayward was just under six feet, slim athletic build, sandy hair and green eyes. He could have been a ballet dancer, he moved like a race horse. Took good care of himself.  So it surprised them all when he found, at forty-seven, he had cancer. Prostate, treatable. They got it in time. 
But, as the feisty theatre sister at the hospital said, ‘They’re never any good in bed after it. That’s the pity. Can’t get it up.’
Dryden had mixed feelings about it. He could sympathise with any man who couldn’t get an erection.  On the other hand ... on the other hand, Grace Hayward would be feeling pretty randy. 
He could be a heel.  

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Chapter Four

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Chapter Five

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Chapter Six

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Chapter Seven

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Chapter Eight

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Chapter Nine

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Chapter Ten

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Chapter Eleven

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Chapter Twelve

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Chapter Thirteen

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Chapter Fourteen

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Chapter Fifteen

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Chapter Sixteen

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Chapter Seventeen

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Chapter Eighteen

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Chapter Nineteen

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Chapter Twenty

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~

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