The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ beautiful day,’ Miss Stafford said to Nina and went out of the bedroom.

      ‘Now what’s all this? You know your father is always downtown by this time. He’s in his office at eight every morning.’

      ‘Did he say if he was going down to the stockyards?’

      ‘He and I never discuss his business.’ But she patted the newspaper that lay on the bed beside her breakfast tray. It was yesterday’s Star; it was one of her idiosyncrasies that she always waited till the news was at least a day old before she read it. That way, she said, she got a better perspective on whether the doom-sayers of yesterday had been proved correct today. It also buttressed her optimism because the doom-sayers were usually wrong. ‘You’re worried about the strike? I think you can leave it safely with your father to deal with. He’s a reasonable man in business, they tell me.’

      ‘Mother, how would you know? You said you never discuss business with him. This strike is serious. And Daddy is being pigheaded about it. I’m worried, Mother. Tim has gone to work this morning – there’s going to be trouble – ’

      ‘Darling – ’ Edith put her tray aside, patted the bed. ‘Sit down here. I can’t remember when I last saw you so upset. You’ll have to trust Tim. That’s what wives must do – ’

      ‘Oh Jesus!’ Edith said nothing, but her face stiffened and a deep frown appeared between her eyes. Nina flopped on the bed, hugged her mother. ‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to swear. But you don’t know what could happen down there this morning. It’s not just a question of trusting Tim – ’

      ‘Darling, I know we both live a sheltered life. Me more than you. But I don’t think that even out there – ’ She waved a hand vaguely towards the windows, towards the green thrones of trees, the pikestaffs of the iron fence, the outer world beyond the moat of wealth. ‘Even out there I don’t think women interfere in their husbands’ affairs. We just have to trust that they know what they are doing, that they are doing the right thing – ’

      ‘One of them will have to be wrong this morning, Tim or Daddy. They can’t both be right, not about this strike. And I think Daddy is the one who’s wrong this time.’

      Edith looked at the newspaper headline covering the strike story: perhaps the doom-sayers were going to be right after all. She was not foolish, she did not believe she lived in the best of all possible worlds, only in a tiny corner of it; but she had not been bred to go looking for what was wrong with the world, her plea for perspective was only play-acting and she knew it. Her equanimity was only cowardice genteelly disguised.

      ‘I’ll talk to him tonight – ’

      ‘It may be too late then.’ Nina kissed her mother, slid off the bed. ‘Whatever happens down at the stockyards today, there’s going to be a hell of a scene here tonight. I’m going to tell Daddy a few truths.’

      She left her mother, ran downstairs, out of the house and back towards the stables where all the cars were garaged. She drove her MG out into the cobbled yard and almost ran down George Biff as he stepped in front of her.

      ‘Where you going, Miz Nina?’

      ‘None of your business! Out of the way – please, George!’

      He came round, slipped into the passenger’s seat beside her. ‘You rushing off down to the yards, right? You damn foolish. You ain’t gonna solve nothing like that.’

      ‘I’m not trying to solve anything – all I want is to bring Mister Tim home before the trouble starts.’

      George looked at his watch. ‘It gonna start, it already started. I talked to Mister Tim this morning when he come to get his car. He told me about them scabs coming in. You gonna drive or you want me to?’

      She argued no further. It took them twenty-five minutes to get to the stockyards, caught as they were in the morning peak-hour traffic. One or two of Nina’s friends saw them, waved cheerfully; they had no problems, none of them had a husband on his way to do battle, scabs, scabs. The morning was already hot, the eye-scalding sunlight an omen in itself. As they drove down towards the yards the smell of livestock hit them suddenly, as if they had driven through an invisible gate into another atmosphere. Police cars blocked the roadway up ahead and beyond the cars they could see trucks and a crowd of men. Nina parked the car, switched off the engine and at once they heard the shouts and booing of the men above the bellowing of the cattle in the yards.

      George Biff put a hand on Nina’s arm as she started to get out of the car, but she took his hand by the wrist and dropped it back on his knee. ‘I’m going up there, George, so don’t try and stop me. I want to know what’s happening.’

      ‘I can find out – ’

      She relented. ‘We’ll find out together. Come on.’

      As they got to the line of police cars a sergeant blocked their way. ‘Okay, you two, this is no place for you. You with the lady, boy?’

      ‘He’s with me, yes,’ said Nina, squarely facing the thickset, overweight officer. He had a Southern accent and she resented his calling George ‘boy’. She wondered what his attitude was towards the strikers. ‘My name is Davoren – my father owns the Beaufort Cattle Company, where all the trouble is.’

      ‘You can say that again, there’s trouble, all right.’ The sergeant’s tone hadn’t altered. He knew who she was, even if he hadn’t seen her before; but he wasn’t impressed by rich girls who took niggers driving with them in imported sports cars. ‘That’s why you better turn round and go back home. We’ll take care of the trouble if it gets any worse.’

      A young policeman came running down from the trucks, looking hot, angry and as if wishing he were somewhere else. ‘Sarge, you better come on up there. Those pickets, they’re not gonna let the trucks through. It’s getting rough.’

      ‘You buzz off, you understand?’ the sergeant said to Nina, then he lumbered up the road after the young officer.

      ‘We better do what he says,’ said George, sweat beginning to glisten on his dark face. ‘Looks like it gonna get pretty bad in a minute.’

      The yelling had increased and the horns of the trucks had begun to blare; strident echoes rang in Nina’s ears, Frankfurt and Kansas City merged, she was suddenly as afraid of the past as of the present. She started to run towards the disturbance, but George grabbed her arm, held her back. Utterly distraught now, as if the yelling and the truck horns blaring were an omen, she struggled against his grip. The cattle in the yards on either side of them began to mill, bellowing loudly, raising dust that blew up and floated across the road like the smoke of an explosion. Down here on the flats beside the river the sun bounced back from the roadway, splintered itself on the windshields of the police cars. The stockyards became a cauldron of heat and dust and panic and anger.

      ‘Stay here! Don’t come any closer – you hear me? Stay here!’

      George pushed her back towards the MG, then turned and ran up towards the trucks and the yelling crowd.

      In the front line of the crowd Tim was struggling to edge towards the side. He had no desire to be a ring-leader in what was going to be an ugly encounter. He had been standing talking to Bumper Cassidy, both of them watching the blocked trucks carrying the scab labour, when suddenly the situation had got out of hand. СКАЧАТЬ