Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda

He was homesick, disorientated. He had enemies all around him and he could, you might imagine, if he had his heart set on playing rummy with Miss Leplastrier, at least have the brains to close the curtains. He was not so gormless that he didn't know he had these enemies, and yet he thought it wrong for him to know such a thing. So although he was not innocent of this knowledge, he felt it somehow, magically important to act as if he were. He left the curtains open. "Oh," he chimed, all knees and elbows, from the sofa, "this is nice." Lucinda Leplastrier did not think herself a snob, but she had inherited, from her mother, a strong objection to the word "nice" being used in this way. It struck an odd note. It did not match his educated vowels. She compared him, she could not help it, with Dennis Hasset and this had the effect of making everything Oscar did seem to be immature and frivolous.

And yet when you saw the way he dealt the cards you could not help but feel the whole thing might be a pose. Nothing fitted.

He was not vulgar, but the furnishings in his vicarage were vulgar in the extreme and she could not believe he could move amongst all

Oscar and Lucinda

this and be insensitive to it. The carpet had a stiff set pattern large enough to feel you might be tripped on it. It was a rich and gaudy green. The marble mantelpiece had the appearance of being carved by craftsmen more accustomed to sarcophagi, and the mirror above it was covered with a green gauze netting, placed there to stop flies spotting the glass. There was an excess of chairs, nine of them without counting the sofa on which she sat and the gent's armchair in which he seemed to squat, leaning forward so eagerly she felt herself pushed back. The thing with the chairs was colour. The brightest hues were in evidence: a blue not unworthy of a kingfisher, and whilst handsome, no doubt, on the bird, not something that sat comfortably with the carpet. No one had thought, whilst they spent so extravagantly, that the brilliant settee might have to sit upon the brilliant carpet.

She could not marry him.

Of course he had not asked her to, but she had sometimes, in remembering their meeting, been regretful that she had not acknowledged his final smile. She need only look at the ugly and illmatched assortment of little tables-oak, maple, cedar-to know that she need have no misgivings. There were paintings on the wall, though they were not paintings at all, but "chromos." The only thing she had in common with him was a serious weakness of which she was not proud. And, lonely or no, had it not been for the following incident, it is unlikely she would have sought out his company again.

The Messiah

The housekeeper at Randwick was a certain Mrs Judd who, had she not had reasons of her own for wishing to scrub the floors and black the stove and swat the flies that trapped themselves behind the orange and lilac panes of glass in the big sitting room, could have stayed

The Messiah

at home and eaten chocolates. The Judds were wealthy members of the congregation. Mr Judd's father may or may not have been transported, but Mr Judd was the successful proprietor of a hauling business, had teams of all sorts travelling throughout the colony, owned a ship which plied the coastal trade, and a splendid mansion in Randwick itself. He was a burly man and although his hip was injured-a defect which served to tip his broad body a little to the starboard and give him the appearance of someone with an invisible chaff bag on his broad back-he still worked as hard as the men he employed. He had only had his wife in control of the vicarage of St John's, but he liked to inspect it himself from time to time. He had a possessive feeling about the building, as well he might-his donation had paid for the greater part of it and it was his taste (or his upholsterer's) which dominated its interior. If there was a slate loose or missing from the roof, it was Mr Judd who would repair it, not by calling a tradesman, but by getting up on the roof and attending to the matter personally. He was a rough man, but a great one for the Church. And at the very centre of the maze of his tender feelings towards this institution there lay this single thing-he had a fine baritone voice, and he was

proud of it.

Each year at Randwick there Were all sorts of services in which great works of sacred music, the Messiah for instance, would be performed and then this rough and brawling man would feel himself transmuted into something very fine-spun gold from Mr Handel's pen. For this reason he loved the Church and habitually made himself humble around that being who provided these great moments in his life -

the vicar.

No one had, as yet, discussed the Messiah with Oscar. There had been a St Matthew's Passion just before he had arrived. There had been a fuss in settling in this new man and no one had mentioned the Messiah. Mr Judd could not bring this up himself. It would appear vain. And yet he sensed the performance was in doubt. He had heard that Bishop Dancer did not care for Handel, but then again he had heard the opposite. He was a direct man in most matters. He did not go in for this tangential shilly-shallying which was the hallmark of the ruling classes. But in this particular matter his emotions were too much involved. He could not ask the vicar the simple question that so occupied his mind. Instead he made himself humble. He chopped wood and brought it to the wood-box personally. Likewise he scraped clean the wooden shutters and stripped them back to the bare wood and then repainted them. While the rest of his fellow vestrymen held

TV)

Oscar and Lucinda

themselves aloof, and tight-lipped, Mr Judd was forward and friendly, attempting to engage the stork-legged new chum in talk of music.

But Oscar happily confessed he was tone deaf and could no more talk about music than he could about the breeding possibilities of merino sheep, if that was a subject at all. He wanted to talk about the blacks. Mr Judd did not; he sandpapered the louvres in silence. He soon became so anxious on the subject that he had-vanity or no-to sound out the more musical members of the congregation on their opinion of the new chap's attitude. The betting, he discovered with dismay, was against Handel. This was Bishop Dancer's man. Look at his vestments. There would be no Handel this year, Matty, good heavens no.

Mr Judd came and clipped the hedge and he returned, with his wife, at six o'clock on a Friday morning, in order to sweep up the clippings. He was deeply unhappy. He was also-it came in fits and starts, was sent away and invited back again-angry.

He was surprised to see the lights on and the window unshuttered. He bade his wife stay on the path while he climbed-very quietly-on to the veranda, and peered in. Well, you know what he saw.

There was also money on the table. He saw this, too. He saw a woman, cards moving, money. It was then that he started hammering on the panel

Unless you have the most particular reading habits it is unlikely you will be acquainted with the so-called "Wednesday Murders." People of my grandmother's generation still spoke of them, but they are forgotten nowadays. The most distinctive feature of these murders was not suggested by their name, which merely celebrated a coincidence-260

Serious Damage

that the first two murders occurred on Wednesday nights of succesI sive weeks. But the murderer would not let himself be so easily pigeon[holed and thereafter took lives on a Tuesday (the third victim) and i Sunday (the fourth). In spite of this-and let this be a lesson to anylone dealing with the press-the name stuck.