The Everlasting Secret Family Page 6

  The chairman said, “Those against?” and then recorded it in the minutes.

  In General Business McDowell suggested the club investigate the cost of a film projector which could be hired to the public with scientific and geographical films. “Opposed,” said Irving.

  The meeting stirred back into life out of its reverie of London and its private calculations and cogitations.

  “It is in the interests of scientific self-improvement that I make the suggestion,” McDowell said. “We must not, Mr Bow, think always of profit.”

  “I do and you do, McDowell.”

  “Not true. Civics comes first with me.”

  “Not true.”

  “True.”

  “Gentlemen, please!”

  Irving ignored the chairman. “I agreed not to put in a soda fountain at the cinema so you could sell your soft drinks,” he said to McDowell, leaning back his chair on two legs, “instead of offering both.”

  “You did that because you knew the soda fountain business was finished.”

  “Gentlemen!”

  “The relative cost per glass and the margin of profit would have been far better in sodas,” Irving said. “I did it as a quid pro quo favour of trade.”

  The Doctor moved that the matter of hiring projectors be deferred. Meaning forgotten.

  “Next month,” the chairman said, talking quickly to move the club away from McDowell and Irving, “Doctor Trenbow will speak on ether.”

  “You didn’t cost in the washing up after sodas,” McDowell said, slipping into a pause in the chairman’s words, “or the breaking of glasses.”

  The Fellows were already on their feet and going home. “I may very well go back to sodas,” Irving said.

  “Who brought the calf?” the secretary called suddenly, perplexed. “It has to be removed.”

  “Someone left it here this afternoon.”

  “Leave it for the Horticultural Society,” Irving said. “That wouldn’t be decent,” said the secretary.

  The Fellows standing near the doorway agreed that wouldn’t be decent.

  “No, leave it,” Irving said again. “They left dead blooms.”

  “You live the closest, Irving, you take it,” McDowell said.

  “Not on your life,” Irving said.

  “Oh, I’ll take it,” McDowell said, going over and taking it by the tail.

  The Fellows put on their scarves and moved off into the night. The Doctor and Irving walked back towards the cinema for a night-cap of whisky. They looked back at the School of Arts and saw, as the lights went out, McDowell leaving with the two-headed calf held, gingerly, by the tail. They laughed.

  They walked through the ill-lit town to Irving’s brilliantly lit cinema with its own electric generator, deep in the underground plant, filling the night with light. The cinema shone out like an electric castle.

  “Let’s walk the block—by McDowell’s place,” Irving said. “I have an idea.”

  They walked by McDowell’s soft drink factory where McDowell lived in a room out the back. Irving crept in the side gate while the Doctor stood at the fence, pipe in mouth. Irving opened the lid of the garbage can and took out the two-headed calf. He held it by the tail with two fingers.

  “What have you got in mind?” the Doctor asked chuckling, coughing on his pipe.

  Irving put a finger to his nose which said “wait and see”.

  They completed the walk around the block, Irving holding the two-headed calf by the tail with two fingers, which brought them back to the School of Arts. Irving took the key from the ledge above the side door, opened the building and threw the two-headed calf into the meeting room.

  The Doctor looked over the top of his glasses, gave a sportive snort and said, “You’re a grim one, Irving.”

  Irving locked the door and together they walked back to the cinema.

  “Next month I am going to vote we not accept the report of the Institute of Patentees,” Irving said, recalling that McDowell had got them into it at an affiliation fee of two guineas.

  The Doctor chuckled. “London will be rocked, Irving.”

  To be continued

  THE DUTCH

  LETTERS

  THE HIDDEN-AWAY LETTERS (1)

  Most students leave college during mid-year vacations, although some stay on because the distance home is too great. The colleges during the vacations are often used to accommodate conference-goers. Those students who leave are supposed to clear their rooms of personal possessions but, either through laziness or inconvenience, some of them leave things stored in the rooms, put away in a drawer or locker.

  Dirk Hansen was one of those who had locked his secrets in one of the lockers using a feeble Taiwanese lock and a thumb latch. Shortly after I had arrived at the conference and begun to occupy his room, I had decided to look into Dirk Hansen’s secrets and, coming back from a session boozed one night, I broke into the locker by removing the screws. The opportunity to look at these little deposits of the absent student made me very aware of my absent student and uncontrollably curious about him.

  Inside the locker, to my pleasure, I found a nineteenth century writing slope, the sort that folds into a box but, when opened out, forms a slope for writing paper with a pen holder and various slots and compartments for paper clips and so on. It was a nice piece of carpentry. I also knew that writing slopes inevitably had spring-loaded catches which gave access to “secret” compartments.

  I played around with it and tried to recall the methods used by carpenters who designed these secret compartments. And yes, by pressing down on one of the dividing walls of the pen section I released a spring and there was a compartment. There were letters in the compartment.

  In another compartment (not secret) there were bullets. A .38 bullet with Japanese characters on it, and a .50 aircraft machine-gun bullet—both I guessed were from the Second World War.

  At first I found the presence of the WW2 souvenirs unsurprising because I’d had souvenirs from the war when I was an adolescent, but then I realised that I was making a time slide. The student in the college now would not be of my generation, would not be a child of WW2. The souvenirs must then have belonged to the childhood of his father.

  The letters were dated from WW2 and looking through them I saw they referred to “Dirk”, who I assumed was the father of “Dirk” who occupied this college room. The letters were probably written by his grandfather.

  They were to and from Pieter (Dirk’s grandfather?) and Marijke (his grandmother?), and from and to a friend named Rudy.

  I settled down to read some of them, thinking as I did that the letters were as old as I was—that they were nearly forty years old. That what I was reading happened when I was a very young child during WW2.

  12-7-1941

  . . . So Marijke, today is good news. I will start on my own this week which means that our income from now, and onwards, will be three times as much, if not four times as much and I have worked out a way of driving which will save on petrol on long runs if my calculations prove correct. Also I suck two cubes of sugar for energy instead of lunch. Now we have to hope that this blasted war doesn’t disrupt plans.

  Don Frater is a blighter though, because he knew in the last fortnight that I could do the work alone and yet he stayed with me because he said he found my psychology of salesmanship worth studying, especially my technique of never asking a question of the client which requires a “no” answer.

  We opened up a big territory and that means I shan’t be home again this week but just calculate the money. I have asked Don Frater to pay me by the week in cash so that I have it in my hand. I divide it into Domicile, Offspring, Health and Future. Each is a separate envelope (the large brown manila envelopes) and so I can see the money accumulate apart from what I send for living.

  You remember how I was very absent-minded the last days before I left. That was because I had overheard a remark at Fraters’ made by an office worker that he could not understand Frank Frater
engaging a foreigner to represent the firm.

  Mr Don afterwards admitted that he had learned of his brother’s decision with great misgivings and did not think I had a whisker of a chance despite my excellent English and that I matriculated in Holland.

  Well, I smelt danger and I knew I had to fight. Hence my absent-mindedness at the railway, remember, I couldn’t remember Dirk’s name, and I forgot to put the top back on my fountain pen properly? Well, my absent-mindedness meant that my mind was engaged on a planning operation. I worked out a plan which succeeded completely within five days. The plan was this. I never refused a task because it was beneath me and they were always at first asking me to sweep (I did not mention this to you at the time), never said “in Holland we did it this way”, and was always the last to leave at night but never the first to be there in the morning (for why? Australians do not like you to appear to be conscientious, I had fathomed that), yet never the last to arrive either, having ascertained by observation the arrival habits of other employees which I listed and checked for the first two weeks. So my plan was how to be hard working but not appear to be on my stomach to the Fraters and also not to show it to the Australians. Also, this may make you laugh, never going to the lavatory in the firm’s time, always making myself go before I got to work, even taking laxatives the night before. This was all good psychology.

  I shan’t say much about how hard we work on this trip. Sometimes it is 14 hours and I am thankful that I have been through hard times before. Mr Don has Animal Energy so it was only by using my study of human psychology that I was able to win. I made it a rule never to suggest stopping or going to bed and always let him say it first.

  In my hotel room I have a set way of arranging things. First your photograph, then Dirk and Ina, then my Bible, then the piece of planet which I found one night in the yard, and then the diary of psychological gambits which I’m too tired to even open these days.

  Do you know who I met in the street the other day? Barry Culver who is now the minister up here. I started an argument about the need for the Christian spirit to prevail in Germany to stop the war. He thought too the churches would call a halt to the war. However, I remembered the calls I had to make before midday and the argument was broken off unfinished.

  I’m sorry that Dirk is not changed and is so verkouden. I don’t think boarding school would be the answer. My feeling now is that discipline and punishment is not working. We must find the correct psychological method to bend him.

  The thing that annoys me is that Mr Don keeps talking of the “trial period” when it was over a fortnight ago. But he showed me a letter to head office saying I was a good man . . .

  7-1-1942

  Hotel Alexander, Spencer Street (opposite the railway station) Melbourne—200 rooms, 200 baths

  . . . by now telling you that I have been accepted and am wearing a beautiful (bjue) uniform and belong to the Dutch Airforce ground staff as a sergeant, but the RAAF will be paying us. I will be on £600 and there will be extras. Given my age and that I have a family I will not be sent to the war zone and should be able to save money. Anyhow selling was no longer possible with the shortages so that was that.

  I am at the embarkation depot at Ascot Vale. It looks as if Rudy will be rejected from the forces but may start a school for refugee Dutch children down here.

  Could you send down my extra underpants as they are short on issue and in the services one has no privacy and would feel better in new underpants, those in the second drawer. Also take the batteries out of the torch because they could leak and corrode the torch which is in the same drawer.

  My aim is this: to stay out of the firing line, to see the Australians give me voorschot regularly, and to develop schemes for the future.

  As for Dirk, until we can find a doctor prepared to give him the proper treatment by operating on his brain you will have to keep hitting him when he is like that. I will try to devise a psychological way of handling him . . .

  15-4-1942

  [The letterhead was that of the Australian Comforts Fund “with which is affiliatedRSLt WAR SERVICES FUND, Salvation Army, and YMCA It was from the RAAF Station at Canberra.]

  . . . not much of a letter because I am in the middle of cooking dinner and have only a methylated spirits affair upon which to cook. Rudy is with me and licking lips at the thought of Roode Kool. How do you cook Roode Kool when you do it? I mixed two big apples, put a little water in the pan, brought it to the boil, added vinegar, sugar, and some salt and am letting it simmer.

  At this officers’ course most of those attending are junior officers already and because Rudy and I are only sergeants we cannot mix with the others and have to eat apart. Rather humiliating and can’t help feeling it has something to do with us being Dutch which they think of as being close to German. Rudy and I put on a song night of Dutch drinking songs and such and a talk on Holland but only two came, the padre and one other. The mess procedures are important and I accept that because those in authority have to be able to relax out of sight of inferiors.

  You know, I was thinking back on Don Frater and how hard we worked and I think he was setting an unreal example of hard work to get me working at a harder pace than he would ever do normally.

  Have you seen the doctor recommended in Macquarie Street about Dirk? I dismiss all talk of incipient insanity . . .

  13-9-1942

  [This letter was also on Australian Comforts Fund letterhead and sent from the RAAF Station, Canberra. It contained five pages of nature description.]

  . . . unexpectedly Spring. Every day I am feasting on gorgeous displays of blossom mostly of all shades of white and pink and purple. Green colours from the lightest of tender greens, yellow, to dark green almost black. Ochre brown roads wind past alabaster white of the government buildings. I am thankful to mother earth . . . [and so on with descriptions of the season and vegetation] I am now Vaandrig (officially Lt in the RAAF). This means increased pay and allowances and it means more respect.

  If you had taken the batteries out when I first mentioned it they would have not leaked in the torch

  15-10-1942

  [This letter also on Australian Comforts Fund letterhead but sent from RAAF Post Office, Darwin. The other letters were to Marijke, Pieter’s wife, but this one is to Rudy, his friend who went through the officers’ training course with him.]

  . . . well you are safe down there at RAAF Station Nowra while I’m up here. Too close to the firing line. The Ops room is meticulous amounting almost to “sissiness”. Not too bad at all. I like the Adj.

  Funny that about teacher Anderson. To think that I should have thought so highly of his teaching ability and yet he got the idea that I was trying to sabotage his lectures. I was trying very hard and that he should think my questions were sabotage is funny indeed. I was even at one time going to see him and say “friend Anderson, thanks”, but came to the conclusion that this would be bad psychology and interpreted as efforts to improve his final report . . .

  25-11-1942

  [This letter from Pieter’s wife, Marijke.]

  . . . I am so glad you are coming home from Darwin on leave, darling, want ik heb de smaak te pakken. Je bent zoo’n verrukkelyke kerel.

  I don’t think I wrote letters between the days you quoted, I had headaches and Blankenzee was always coming around. When he is not here I think constantly of his clothes in the spare wardrobe and wish they were gone . . . two razor blades were all I could get and they are not the ones with the holes in them but the others with the strip along the edge, will they do?

  I am going to the dentist Monday to let him hack away at the tartar at the back of my front teeth. He says that, like you, and the children, I have an extra large deposit of lime. He said I would get pyorrhoea if I don’t get them scraped. We use Pyrex tooth powder for it. It is awfully good and as for toothpaste I have switched us all to Ipana. I hope you won’t go off the deep end when you come home and find we’ve changed but I think you’ll like it, and it’s s
upposed to cut away the lime deposits. I try to get the children to squeeze the end rather than the top and to roll the tube with a pencil the way you said.

  I won’t buy war bonds if you don’t wish it. I reasoned differently to you. You assumed that the war would be won and that the government would not pay. I took it that unless we buy war bonds for aeroplanes we might not win the war. But if you are fixed minded about it I won’t. Mr Kettlewell and Mr Stirling wish to be kindly remembered to you. I was in the Radio Library last week and met Mr Stirling and was able to tell him about C.E.M. Joad becoming a Christian. He gave me a whole list of people in England who are returning to religion. It is a new pouring out of the Holy Spirit. We agreed that it would mean a quick end to the war.

  I go to the Radio Library mainly to borrow books on psychology with Dirk in mind. It is becoming so difficult the bigger he gets. I don’t read during the day so don’t rouse. I don’t intend to become a person who lets the housework go and sinks into reading all day. A thousand thanks for the £25 but you yourself said months ago that the airforce would not pay me and that you had to do it yourself now that you are an officer. So don’t blame. I slept for the first time in weeks knowing that there was sufficient money. I bought a lounge for the room where you slept last time you came on leave. Ina and I are sleeping in the room with the mended ceiling. That saved me moving the big wardrobe. Thank you for being understanding about the sleeping arrangements for to have a child now would be too much for me. In the dining room we still have the big table to eat at and the sideboard, and I have managed to procure a two-way adaptor so that we can have the wireless and radiator on at the same time . . . many thanks for all the love lavished on such an unworthy wife . . .

  17-1-1943

  [Marijke to Pieter.]

  . . . that you have bad days and trouble with getting along with Australians but it was wise not to write to Queen Wilhelmena about it. As you say it might have been intercepted. I went to see the film Wake Island and it brought home to me how fast things are moving now in the war. We all gather around the wireless set avid for news from the NW Sector. Could you hear the raids on Darwin from where you were?