know,” said Somers, “Probably nothing at all.”
Again William James was silent. He was a short, thick man, with a little felt hat that sat over his brow with a half humorous flap. He had his knees wide apart, and his hands clasped between them. And he looked for the most part down at the ground. When he did cock his eye at Somers, it was with a look of suspicion marked with humour and troubled with a certain desire. The man was restless, desirous, craving something — heaven knows what.
“You thinking of settling out here then, are you?” he asked.
“No,” said Somers. “But I don’t say I won’t. It depends.”
William James fidgeted, tapping his feet rapidly on the ground, though his body was silent. He was not like Jack. He too, was sensitive all over, though his body looked so thick it was silently alive, and his feet were still uneasy. He was young too, with a youth that troubled him. And his nature was secretive, maybe treacherous. It was evident Jack only half liked him.
“You’ve got the money, you can live where you like and go where you like,” said William James, looking up at Somers. “Well, I might do the same. If I cared to do it, I could live quietly on what I’ve got, whether here or in England.” Somers recognized the Cornishman in this.
“You could very easily have as much as I’ve got,” he said laughing.
“The thing is, what’s the good of a life of idleness?” said William James.
“What’s the good of a life of work?” laughed Somers.
Shrewdly, with quick grey eye, Trewhella looked at the other man to see if he were laughing at him.
“Yet I expect you’ve got some purpose in coming to Australia,” said William James, a trifle challenging.
“Maybe I had — or have — maybe it was just whim.”
Again the other man looked shrewdly, to see if it were the truth.
“You aren’t investing money out here, are you?”
“No, I’ve none to invest.”
“Because if you was, I’d advise you not to.” And he spat into the distance, and kept his hands clasped tight.
All this time Jack sat silent and as if unconcerned, but listening attentively.
“Australians have always been croakers,” he said now.
“What do you think of this Irish business?” asked William James.
“I? I really don’t think much at all. I don’t feel Ireland is my job, personally. If I had to say, offhand, what I’d do myself, why, if I could I’d just leave the Irish to themselves, as they want, and let them wipe each other out or kiss and make friends as they please. They bore me rather.”
“And what about the Empire?”
“That again isn’t my job. I’m only one man, and I know it. But personally, I’d say to India and Australia and all of them the same — if you want to stay in the Empire, stay; if you want to go out, go.”
“And suppose they went out?”
“That’s their affair.”
“Supposing Australia said she was coming out of the Empire and governing herself, and only keeping a sort of entente with Britain. What do you think she’d make of it?”
“By the looks of things, I think she’d make a howling mess of it. Yet it might do her good if she were thrown entirely on her own resources. You’ve got to have something to keep you steady. England has really kept the world steady so far — as steady as it’s been. That’s my opinion. Now she’s not keeping it very steady, and the world’s sick of being bossed, anyhow. Seems to me you may as well sink or swim on your own resources.”
“Perhaps we’re too likely to find ourselves sinking.”
“Then you’ll come to your senses, after you’ve sunk for the third time.”
“What, about England? Cling to England again, you mean?”
“No, I don’t. I mean you can’t put the brotherhood of man on a wage basis.”
“That’s what a good many people say here,” put in Jack.
“You don’t trust socialism then?” said Jaz, in a quiet voice.
“What sort of socialism? Trades unionism? Soviet?”
“Yes, any.”
“I really don’t care about politics. Politics is no more than your country’s housekeeping. If I had to swallow my whole life up in housekeeping, I wouldn’t keep house at all; I’d sleep under a hedge. Same with a country and politics. I’d rather have no country than be gulfed in politics and social stuff. I’d rather have the moon for a motherland.”
Jaz was silent for a time, contemplating his knuckles.
“And that,” he said, “is how the big majority of Australians feel, and that’s why they care nothing about Australia. It’s cruel to the country.”
“Anyhow, no sort of POLITICS will help the country,” said Somers.
“If it won’t, then nothing will,” retorted Jaz.
“So you’d advise us all to be like seven-tenths of us here, not care a blooming hang about anything except your dinner and which horse gets in?” asked Jack, not without sarcasm.
Now Richard was silent, driven into a corner.
“Why,” he said, “there’s just this difference. The bulk of Australians don’t care about Australia — that is, you say they don’t. And why don’t they? Because they care about nothing at all, neither in earth below or heaven above. They just blankly don’t care about anything, and they live in defiance, a sort of slovenly defiance of care of any sort, human or inhuman, good or bad. If they’ve got one belief left, now the war’s safely over, it’s a dull, rock-bottom belief in obstinately not caring, not caring about anything. It seems to me they think it manly, the only manliness, not to care, not to think, not to attend to life at all, but just to tramp blankly on from moment to moment, and over the edge of death without caring a straw. The final manliness.”
The other two men listened in silence, the distant colonial silence that hears the voice of the old country passionately speaking against them.
“But if they’re not to care about politics, what are they to care about?” asked Jaz, in his small, insinuating voice.
There was a moment’s pause. Then Jack added his question:
“Do you yourself really care about anything, Mr. Somers?”
Richard turned and looked him for a moment in the eyes. And then, knowing the two men were trying to corner him, he said coolly:
“Why, yes. I care supremely.”
“About what?” Jack’s question was soft as a drop of water falling into water, and Richard sat struggling with himself.
“That,” he answered, “you either know or don’t know. And if you don’t know, it would only be words my trying to tell.”
There was a silence of check-mate.
“I’m afraid, for myself, I don’t know,” said Jack.
But Somers did not answer, and the talk, rather lamely, was turned off to other things.
The two men went back to Murdoch Street rather silent, thinking their own thoughts. Jack only blurted once:
“What do you make of Jaz, then?”
“I like him. He lives by himself and keeps himself pretty dark — which is his nature.”
“He’s a cleverer man than you’d take him for — figures things out in a way that