Death and Mr. Pickwick (118 page)

‘We must find somewhere for tonight, Mary,' said Whitehead. ‘It will have to do.'

*   *   *

The rutted road to Melbourne did not, at first, inspire. A common sight was discarded bottles glinting in the sun; once, with a starving dog licking at a bottle's rim. They also passed a bushily bearded man, who carried a pickaxe on one shoulder, a dusty sack on the other, and a knife and pistol in his belt. Many other exercises in the unkempt followed. But as they entered the city itself, there was a change. They could see everywhere indications of civic pride – streets that could accommodate several wagons abreast, shops that would have put the stores of London to shame, well-made pavements and well-dressed families, fine churches, a theatre, hotels and architecturally impressive banks. However, as the wagon rolled on through the streets, Whitehead also heard men utter crude and terrible oaths, and women laughing in response. He saw more unruly beards, often below battered straw hats, as well as a profusion of carts, horses, and many more stray dogs. It was true that, often, people were better dressed than in England; but dress, Whitehead soon realised, worked on different principles in Australia. This was exemplified when the waggoner nodded to a man with a shovel on his shoulder – a man in the grubbiest of clothes, that should have been thrown away – and then remarked to Whitehead: ‘He's one of the richest men in Melbourne.'

Standing under porches, or against walls, or lying on pavements, were men in various stages of drunkenness. After a hundred-day drought, it did not take Whitehead long to seek the pleasures of personal irrigation.

*   *   *

‘Here's our friend the poet!' said a shiny, thickset man with an open shirt and a hearty laugh, a week later, as Whitehead entered the public house. Nearby, two men struck a bargain over the contents of a sack. A group at a table played a dice game. Others leant far back in their chairs, with outstretched legs which they would not move for anyone.

‘Last time,' said the laughing man, ‘you started to talk about your life in England.'

‘Did I?' said Whitehead. ‘I'm afraid I don't recall.'

‘You must do. You said you had one big regret in your life, and we almost got it out of you what it was.'

Whitehead went to the farthest part of the bar.

‘Now don't be like that. Give him fucking rum, landlord. We like to hear people's stories. See him?' He pointed towards a shabbily dressed man sitting astride a chair. ‘In England, he was the son of a gentleman. Here he carries bricks in a hod.'

‘I'll have a quiet drink tonight,' said Whitehead.

‘Suit yourself. Well, if you won't entertain us, c'mon, let's have it out, landlord.' He tapped the bar. ‘Let's have the
Pickwick
.'

Whitehead looked up so sharply that it could not fail to be observed by the others.

From underneath the bar, the landlord produced the most degraded copy of
Pickwick
that Whitehead had ever seen. One might encounter in an English public house a well-thumbed local directory, or a county history lacking its front cover – but
never
had Whitehead beheld a volume in this condition. He could see that originally it must have been bound with green boards, but now just the green spine remained, and that was hanging down like a partly peeled fruit. As the hearty man turned the pages, it could be observed that they were filthy if they were not torn, and torn if they were not filthy, with tobacco ash between, and dog-ears present as a hunting pack.

‘Is that – the house copy?' said Whitehead.

‘It was a digger's,' said the hearty man, ‘who took it out with him at night. He read it on the goldfields to keep away the loneliness. He swatted flies with it – threw it at snakes – hit a robber with it once – even used it to keep the rain off his head.'

‘Probably wiped his arse with it,' said a man in the dice game, leading to general laughter among the drinkers, with the exception of Whitehead.

‘And he wasn't the first to own it. It's been passed around, and it'll probably be passed around some more until it crumbles into dust. The digger came in one night, asked us to look after it for him, saying he would come back for it, but we never saw him again. We think he knew he was in his last days on this earth, and wanted to pass it on. We get to thinking we might buy a new copy, but we're kind of matey with this one. We even
like
making it dirtier.' He took the bottom of his glass and made a ring-stain of beer on a page, laughed, and then pushed the volume over to Whitehead. ‘We
think
all the pages are there,' he said, ‘but, if they ain't, well, it's
Pickwick
. Don't matter where you start, or where you finish, eh?'

‘Are there no other books?' said Whitehead.

‘We ain't got the taste for 'em at the end of a hard day. Now
that'
s not a page we often look at.'

Whitehead stood at the bar, stooped over the publisher's preface. It was dated 1838. There was no apparent connection with Chapman and Hall, which suggested the book was pirated.

‘It is confidently believed,' the preface ran, ‘that the present reprint of
The Pickwick Papers
is the largest publication which has issued from either the New South Wales or the Tasmanian press.' There was mention of the trouble and expense of publication, and the excellence of the typography. ‘It was thought,' continued the preface, ‘that if any publication would repay the cost of its production, it would be the far-famed
Pickwick Papers
.' A few lines later, Whitehead read: ‘No writer perhaps ever enjoyed a popularity so universal as that obtained by Mr Dickens for his
Pickwick
.'

There were pictures, too, by some imitator of Seymour and Browne, who signed himself ‘Tiz'. Whitehead took a close interest in Tiz's imitation of Seymour's
Mr Jingle and the Sagacious Dog
, which appeared a very close copy of the picture he knew, although it bore greasy fingerprints.

‘Ah, Mr Jingle pulling the wool over Mr Pickwick's eyes,' said the hearty man.

‘Poor credulous Mr Pickwick,' said Whitehead. ‘It is not surprising to me that Mr Pickwick becomes determined to expose Jingle's lies. In my experience, when over-credulous people discover someone's been pulling the longbow, it is
astonishing
what sceptics they can become. If I had written
The Pickwick Papers
, Mr Pickwick would have finished the book as the most cynical man in the world.'

‘Well, we'd all like to have written
Pickwick
, wouldn't we?' He looked towards Whitehead and noted his sudden change of expression. ‘Are you all right, mate?' said the man.

 

*

‘IT MAY HAVE OCCURRED TO
Charles Whitehead,' said Mr Inbelicate, ‘that if he wrote down his thoughts, they would accumulate and evolve into a book on his life in the new land. But if we examine these writings, they are little more than a few introspective scribbles – no doubt written in various Melbourne public houses, over a period of time.'

He passed over a small black notebook, of which some extracts follow.

 

*

GIVE THIS COUNTRY TIME, AND
literary men will be in demand; I am a generation too soon. What do the people here
now
want from books? A murder. Titillation. Sensation. I cannot write what they want. What good are poems to them? The only verses needed are in rollicking or sentimental songs.

*   *   *

I go into a public house, and I see laughing, muscled, sunburnt men, who have a self-confidence I shall never have. What must they think of me? Thin, pale, melancholy, stooping when I enter, settling in a corner on my own. I sit with a pencil and notebook, and read a work by Addison; while at the next table are men with stock whips, pickaxes and guns. I feel no more at ease on the streets. This is a country with one eye on the twentieth century; I have one eye on the eighteenth.

*   *   *

Wherever I look, I see indications of prosperity: large gold watches hanging from fobs, rings on women's fingers by the handful, lace-trimmed bonnets, shoes that are new – and if a man is not well dressed, that in itself is often an indication of his extreme wealth. While here am I, in my dull, scholar's garb, going threadbare at the elbows and knees, the soles of my shoes flapping as I walk.

*   *   *

I dreamt last night that I had submitted some pages of the
Pickwick
manuscript, and Hicks the foreman praised me for my handwriting. ‘You are the one author who is always neat and always punctual,' he said.

If I had had just one more drink the day I was offered
Pickwick –
just another glass of rum in the Grotto, in the evening, the extra stimulus would have made me settled, and determined – the next morning I would have gone straight into Chapman and Hall's and said: ‘I shall do it.'

Though I also know the appeal of laziness. The bliss of sitting in a chair, or lying on a bed. Whenever I received money from the Literary Fund, it was a magical coin, earned by doing nothing. This must be compared to the unpleasantness of hard work. When I considered the prospect of working on
Pickwick
, month in, month out, on a subject set by someone else – the lazy part of me could not bear the thought.

I invented a character once – a poet – a great poetical genius called Mope. Coincidentally, this was in a piece of mine called ‘The Whimsey Papers'. But still, ignoring that – Mope was always about to start some great poem – and yet he never got round to writing it. He was encouraged in his procrastination by his wife, who said that men of genius could not work upon system, they were made of finer materials than ordinary men.

*   *   *

It is the fortune of some to reach the heights of fame; and of others to be ground down by life, until they are as worthless and inconsequential as dust. With enough drink in me, I do not accept the dust; and then I realise that the same drink condemns me to it.

*   *   *

There is a person I have become friendly with. I have found employment, writing occasional pieces for a publication called
My Note Book.
The theatre critic is a gentleman called Dr James Neild, a striking red-haired man from Doncaster, with long side whiskers and green eyes, who dresses in the latest fashions. He is also very short – what a strange pair we must make! I, in my shabby black garments, stooping over his head, and he small, smart and up to date.

Dr Neild travelled to Australia as a ship's surgeon and it was a chance remark of mine that started our friendship. In the office of
My Note Book
, the editor asked me whether I would be happy to write book reviews, and I commented, ‘Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body,' and Dr Neild, who happened to be leaning at another desk on some business or other, caught me before I left and said: ‘Are you an admirer of Steele?' Our association began.

We strolled together yesterday along the river walk by the botanical gardens. Dr Neild said it is the place in Australia which most reminds him of England – there is something in the array of the leaves and the grass and the river and the sunshine. ‘One day,' he said, ‘a play of yours will be performed to great acclaim in Melbourne, and I shall write a review, and do not think you shall be spared my harshest words if it is not a worthy piece, Charles!'

*   *   *

Mary and I have an invitation to Dr Neild's house on Sunday afternoon, when he is playing host to a party of actors and dramatists. I am concerned about Mary's attendance, however. She is becoming ever more sullen. In our lodging she cries for no reason, and nothing will make her stop.

*   *   *

It is November, and there are hot winds. They stimulate my thirst. It is impossible to write anything of merit with all the heat and dust.

*   *   *

A banal irony occurred to me the other day. Everyone knows that the trial of Mr Pickwick was partly based on that of Lord Melbourne. And here I am in a city of the same name.

*   *   *

I often feel that the desire for novelty and the force of habit fight for a man's soul. I have always had a strong attachment to things as they are, so long as I can endure them, and anything fanciful or speculative would not do for me. Yet – I went to Australia. That was because England was no longer endurable. My concern is that Australia may become the same.

*   *   *

The landlord says he cannot take Mary's ravings any longer. What can I do? She will not stay still, she will not stay on the bed, she hurls herself against the walls. Why has this happened to her?

*   *   *

I cannot leave Mary alone. I have tried restraining her on the bed with belts, but her strength is immense, and she screams against the buckles. Given the threats of the landlord, I had no alternative – I had to gag my own wife.

*   *   *

I sit in the room now, and she has calmed a little. There is nothing to eat. There is nobody to sit with her but me, and I cannot go out to buy food. I can feel my own stomach shrinking. There is precious little fresh water, and the little I have I use to cool her brow.

*   *   *

I note it down here for there is no one to tell. 21 August 1860. The day consumption took my beloved Mary.

*   *   *

I left the asylum at Yarra Bend an hour after she died and went to the inn. It was the afternoon. There was a tabby cat on the porch. Mary loved cats. I had a few pennies which I could spare, and there was a butcher nearby, and I bought a little piece of meat, and I sat on the boards and watched the cat chew, and I stroked its back, and gave it a kiss on the top of the head.

Then I entered the inn and there was a burst of gaiety. It seemed that every face either had a laugh, or was listening to some story that would lead to one. For a while I sat, staring at the glass.