Lantana Lane (9 page)

Down the Lane she goes, and stops at the Achesons'. Herbie's gate is almost opposite, so he again offers to do the delivering, and swears that he will not fail to tell Biddy about the C.W.A. meeting. This enables Gwinny to go straight on to the Griffiths'; here Aunt Isabelle comes running out to collect everything, and astounds Gwinny by fervently pressing her French air-mail letter to her lips. Gwinny decides to ring Sue this evening about C.W.A., because Aunt Isabelle does not seem to be in a state to remember messages; she waves farewell, and drives on to the Kennedys', where she finds Marge grubbing about in her garden, so everything is quickly disposed of, though Bruce comes hurrying up at the last moment with a pile of sacks which he would like her to dump at Ken Mulliner's if she wouldn't mind.

Gwinny wouldn't mind at all, and continues along the Lane, waving to EElaine as she passes their own packing shed. The Dawsons have gone down to Rothwell for the day, so she enters their house by the kitchen door, rearranges the things in the fridge to make room for the meat, puts the mail on the table with the reel of cotton on top of it, finds Myra's grocery list, and scribbles : “C.W.A. Tues. fortnight” on the bottom of it. She then proceeds upon her way, feeling that luck is really with her when she finds Dick Arnold waiting for her at his gate; she has got through it all in quite good time, and there is no one left now except Ken. He is nowhere to be seen, which is a pity, because she doesn't think she can manage his meat, his mail, his papers, his rotary-hoe blade, his bag of potatoes and his pile of sacks in one journey to the verandah. However, she manages them in two, starts up the ute again, turns in the narrow road with one dazzling sweep, and makes for home.

Gaining her own kitchen at last, she deposits her burdens on the table, and hastens to open the oven door. Had she been late, EElaine, of course, would have rescued the joint, but this has been unnecessary, and all is well. Thanks to Herbie, and her other bits of luck, she has reached home with a good ten minutes to spare before she need call the family in. So she ties an apron over her frock, and begins to set the table. She thinks she might even get a few rows of knitting done before it is time to dish up.

Faith is rewarded, for no less than three conclusions punctually present themselves.

The first is that human beings reveal their more amiable aspects, retain their good humour, and keep their affairs coasting along not too badly when engaged with others in a loose, flexible, slapdash and not particularly efficient system of their own devising; but immediately begin to betray extreme prickliness, asperity, mistrust and jealously of their rights—to say nothing of a really distressing solemnity—upon finding themselves strait-jacketed in a tight, unyielding Organisation. Should some well-meaning, but grievously misguided Authority ever set up a Lantana Lane Meat Transport Committee, with a Constitution embodying Rules contained in Clauses and sub-Clauses, and providing penalties for Neglect or Evasion of The Same, we shudder to think of the arguments, the stallings and the recriminations which would ensue.

The second is that Gwinny is wasted in the Lane. For in the outer world Organisation is firmly entrenched, and we must make the best of it. There are literally millions who, given a pencil and a bit of paper, could (and do) whip up blueprints of quite infallible Systems capable of dealing with every conceivable problem in human affairs, except humans. Consider the multifarious enterprises which, with the passing years, grow bigger and bigger, better and better, more and more perfectly organised until no one can cope with them any more. How they need a Gwinny! Consider that we are moving steadily from the many mickles to the muckle which they proverbially form—the little businesses being swallowed by the big businesses, the suburbs being swallowed by the cities, the little nations crouching beneath the wings of the big nations from whose benevolent shelter they never will emerge; consider all this, and then reflect that some day one solitary human being will be called upon to administer the ultimate Muckle. . . . Heaven shield us if it should be anyone but Gwinny!

Therefore, the proposition that she should prepare herself for this high destiny by seeking, somewhere outside the Lane, a sphere where her remarkable gifts might be more fully exercised, is the essence of our second conclusion.

And our third is that we hope she won't.

T
HE SMALL
, elderly lady whom you may often see hastening along the Lane—usually accompanied by a large, gambolling Boxer—is Aunt Isabelle. We should perhaps introduce her more formally as Mme. Dufour, but she made it clear from the beginning that she was not only Sue Griffith's aunt, but the aunt of the whole Lane, so we all address her accordingly.

The dog is Jake, who also lives at the Griffiths'. This seems the most diplomatic way of putting it, for the question of who actually owns him is in constant dispute. Sue and Henry emphatically declare that he belongs to Aunt Isabelle; Aunt Isabelle vehemently insists that she gave him to Tony; and Tony (who is a generous little boy, and means it quite kindly) refers to him as “ours.” No doubt Jake finds this confusing, but, it cannot altogether explain his permanently puzzled expression, for wrinkles of bewilderment were already deeply graven on his puppy brow when he first arrived with Aunt Isabelle. (Of this arrival we hope to speak later, for it created no small sensation.)

Our communal aunt is an active, vivacious and extremely voluble lady of sixty-eight. Unlike Jake, she is neat in her movements, and, far from being puzzled by life, is prepared to explain to anyone at a moment's notice anything from politics to pig raising, or from religion to relativity. Nor does she stop at explanation. She is always ready to act—sometimes with results which, however disastrous, are dazedly conceded to be interesting and original, and sometimes with embarrassing success. Her theory that the mixing of timber for crates and cases would produce a pleasing variety of shapes and sizes proved, in practice, entirely correct, particularly when she ingeniously worked in a few bits of old three-ply which were lying around; and in the ensuing altercation with Henry, he certainly came off second-best—for how may dreary standardisation and shocking waste be logically defended?

For a time it was her custom, when packing pines, to enclose chatty little notes drawing attention to the fact that the fruit grown by my-nephew-Mr.-Griffith was of unparalleled excellence; or pointing out that the trifling bruise on the pineapple in the middle of the top row was caused when the dog of my-nephew-Mr.-Griffith knocked it off the bench, and was of no consequence at all; or sternly protesting that the cheque received by my-nephew-Mr.-Griffith for his last consignment was entirely inadequate, and she would expect more liberal ones in future. The only result of this, however, was a chilly reply, scribbled on the foot of the agent's statement, that correspondence could not be entered into.

But Aunt Isabelle is a firm believer in correspondence, and enters into a great deal of it, so she was soon writing, instead, to the Prime Minister, describing the trials of those engaged in agriculture, and bidding him instantly reduce by half the cost of tanks, fertilisers, fence-posts, case timber, nails, wire netting, wood-wool and all farm machinery; this was felt by everyone to be a gallant gesture, though it produced no result at all.

She has explained to us her reasons for deciding to emigrate, and it seems that they were these:

Firstly: Tony is a little cabbage, from whom she could not bear to be permanently separated.

Secondly: If she had been present at her sister's deathbed which unfortunately was impossible, since her husband had chosen to die at the same time, and
les convenances
had demanded her attendance at his side, though to say that she mourned his demise would be to tamper with the truth, for he was not only unfaithful (“. . . which one must expect, is it not?”) but also dull, which is unendurable and inexcusable, her sister would certainly have exacted from her a promise to watch over Sue; for Henri, though a man of energy and intellect, is, like all Englishmen, a little mad, and lacking in that realism which is the predominant characteristic of the French.

Thirdly : Although her family had for several generations been accustomed to city life—and in Paris, too, where culture and sophistication are admitted to have reached a peak unattained elsewhere—she did not forget that her remoter forebears had been peasants such as those depicted by the immortal Millet, and therefore it was clearly her duty to join Henri and Suzanne in their new life, so that they might have the advantage of drawing upon the knowledge of agricultural matters which she had doubtless inherited.

Fourthly: She likes pineapples very much.

Fifthly: She possesses the spirit adventurous, and is not yet so old as to be incapable of sustaining the little hardships of life in
les backblocks,
nor so far into her dotage that she may not hope to contribute something to a young country which could with benefit add to its native vitality a measure of the serene and mature wisdom of the older civilisations.

These are powerful arguments, and we received them with respect, though the conclusion of her fifthly raised a few eyebrows, and Aub Dawson was moved to remark that he hadn't noticed Europe being so serene during the last forty years.

But whatever her reasons for throwing in her lot with us, we are delighted to have Aunt Isabelle, and she does add an exotic note to our scene. We could wish that she appreciated our climate a little more, but the fact is that she does not approve of air at all, unless it is strictly controlled within four walls. Not that she hesitates to spend much time out of doors, for, as she constantly declares, she came here prepared to share all discomforts, and brave all perils. But it grieves us to see her step out into one of our glowing mornings attired in long, woollen trousers, two sweaters, a cardigan and a balaclava.

On the whole, however, she has undergone the ordeal of assimilation with remarkable ease and rapidity. She plays her part in all our community affairs, being on no less than five committees, whose proceedings she greatly enlivens. She is to be found presiding over a stall at every fete, for she is without peer as a saleswoman. (However, it is always unobtrusively arranged that Gwinny shall share this duty with her, to prevent financial chaos.) She volunteered, upon one occasion, to address the Junior Farmers on the subject of Successful Pineapple Growing, and although—as Bill Hawkins remarked—the recommendations of the Ag. and Stock (for thus do we always refer to the Department of Agriculture and Stock) are sometimes difficult to remember, no one will ever forget the rules laid down by Aunt Isabelle. She is also in great demand as a baby-sitter, and when Jeremy Acheson lisped a few words of a French song with which she had regaled him and his little sister, everyone was entranced except Sue and Henry, who exchanged rather uneasy glances.

She confesses that she was never a keen follower of
le sport
in France, but she now regards it as her duty to share the enthusiasms of her adopted country, and never fails, during a Test Match, to enquire how many goals have been scored on either side. She authoritatively analyses the techniques by which Hoad and Rosewall have so successfully defended the Melbourne Cup; and since Aub Dawson is known to be keen on racing, she has a long standing argument with him about whether Don Bradman was, or was not, the greatest jockey of all time.

At our week-end tennis she is one of the most regular and interested spectators. This close and constant association with the game has made her a connoisseur of its finer points, and no one can tread on a line anywhere, even during the fastest rally, without being sharply reprimanded for foot-faulting. Nor will she condone Henry's practice of executing subtle little drop-shots from half-volleys, for she says this is not hitting the ball, but merely allowing it to bounce from the racquet, which is not sporting at all.

Occasionally she declares her intention of taking her turn as an umpire, and, assisted by everyone, ascends the high stand. Upon such occasions the four players realise that some little time will elapse before the game gets under way, so they assemble at the net for a gossip while they wait. Aunt Isabelle, meanwhile, despatches someone to fetch her a cushion from one of the cars, drapes several cardigans over her knees, and calls Tony to bring her dark glasses, which may be in her bag, or perhaps on the seat of the ute, or possibly on the table in the shed, though it is conceivable that she left them at home. She next demands paper and a pencil (“. . . for the accuracy in scoring is essential “), and, when all is arranged to her satisfaction, looks with astonished displeasure upon the group at the net, and cries severely : “Tcht! tcht! Have we all day to waste?
Commençons!”
She then becomes so busy applauding successful shots, lamenting unsuccessful ones, scolding the men for hitting hard at the women, and encouraging the women to hit hard at the men, that she forgets all about scoring for a while, and, when she remembers it again, says reassuringly: “No matter! We shall call it the deuce, for that is just to everyone.”

Indeed, there is no aspect of our life in which she does not share, and some of our habits she has not merely adopted, but ardently embraced. For instance, few of us can now match, and none can surpass, her addiction to tea. It is this which sends her bustling along the Lane so often, for she has unerringly grasped the true significance of tea-drinking, which is—at any rate, in rural areas—that it provides an excuse to down tools and have a little gossip. So when the craving for tea overtakes her, it comes accompanied by a craving for conversation, and, adding a fur coat and a couple of extra scarves to her toilette (for the air in the Lane, it appears, is even more treacherous than that on the other side of the lantana), she trots off to visit someone. Similarly, should any of us drop in at the Griffiths' for a moment, she will cry gladly: “
Eh bien,
we shall have a nice cupper, isn't it?” This sometimes plays havoc with our quota of work, but always makes us feel that we are having a very jolly day.

When Ken Mulliner's sister comes to stay with him, Aunt Isabelle is in her element. She has a particular affection for Ken (the reason for which will become plain when we tell you about her arrival), so she dearly loves a long, cosy chat with Mrs. Jackson about his past matrimonial troubles, and the future matrimonial felicity which they are both determined he shall experience some day.

There is little else they can agree about, but this in no way diminishes the pleasure they take in each other's company, for they enjoy a squabble. Mrs. Jackson squabbles very politely, making much use of such phrases as : “Of course you
may
be right, but the way
I
look at it . . .”, and : “Now
there,
Madam, I really can't agree with you.” (She does not care for the casual familiarity with which we treat each other in the Lane, so she always addresses Aunt Isabelle thus, and the rest of us as Mr. This, and Mrs. That.) Aunt Isabelle squabbles in a more vehement, and less ladylike manner, but Mrs. Jackson puts this down to her being a foreigner, and makes allowances.

They are in accord, up to a point, about the state in which Ken keeps—or rather leaves—his house. This, consisting of a living-room, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a long verandah is much too large for a solitary male—especially one who, like Ken, puts down the shallowest of roots. So he bunks out on the verandah, and eats in the kitchen, and the other rooms remain unused and untended except when his sister visits him. Then, however, the whole place undergoes such a sweeping and scrubbing of floors, such a shaking of mats, such a polishing of windows, such a washing of blankets and scouring of pots and pans, that Ken finds it uninhabitable, and gets more work done on the farm in a few days than during weeks when he is alone. Aunt Isabelle concedes the necessity for this periodical orgy of cleaning, but having done so, she considers the subject exhausted, and would prefer to pass on to something with more meat in it. Mrs. Jackson's stroke-by-stroke description of how she swept out the living-room, fills her with indescribable
ennui,
and she hastens to turn the coversation towards Ken's habits and conduct, which she knows will afford them material for stimulating argument.

Mrs. Jackson considers her brother's philosophy of life to be deserving of the strongest censure, for it is strictly hedonistic, and she is all for Responsibility, Perseverance, Thrift, Self-denial and Christian Principles; of these she speaks in a reverent tone, with capital letters. Aunt Isabelle views hedonism with an indulgent shrug, and remarks that while the pursuit of enjoyment may not appear a very lofty aim, it does not as readily lend itself to hypocrisy, censoriousness, long faces, and being the busy-body and how-do-you-say the wowser, as does the pursuit of things with capital letters. All the same, she is compelled to admit that there is no excuse for getting car grease all over a good pair of trousers, and burning holes in blankets with cigarettes.

Mrs. Jackson says, with a sigh, that trousers and blankets are mere material possessions, which are profoundly unimportant compared with spiritual grace; it is this which she fears poor Ken so sadly lacks. Aunt Isabelle waves spiritual grace aside, and declares that Ken may be a nottee fellow, but he is a good boy.