Lantana Lane (11 page)

But this is a labour-saving age, and chipping is now almost obsolete. The reason is, of course, that Science has come to the rescue with a spray. The immediate and visible effect of this upon the weeds is devastating, though what its ultimate, and less conspicuous effects upon all sort of other things may prove to be, we must leave to learned research workers of the future. For the moment we echo the prevailing cry that Science is wonderful. It has provided sprays for killing weeds, sprays for killing insects, sprays for speeding up growth, sprays for delaying it, sprays for making leaves fall off, sprays for making fruit stay on, selective sprays, pre-emergent sprays, and many others, all with very long names which we cannot spell, nor could you pronounce them if we did. Whether Dame Nature is properly grateful for so much expert assistance we do not know, but we rather doubt it, because she used to be considered wonderful herself, and no female likes to see the homage she once inspired transferred to a younger, upstart hussy.

Nowadays the axioms of our fathers are falling around us like ninepins, but that one still stands—and anything still standing in this iconoclastic age commands startled and respectful attention. Possibly we should do well not to rile this ancient lady. Possibly Hell hath no fury such as that which is even now consuming her, and if so, we had better beware, for she still has a few trumps in her hand. She can still insist, for example, that we must breathe, and though much of the spray which has freed us from chipping does undoubtedly descend on the weeds, and knock them cold, it may be that a residue rises to sport with the playful wind, which perhaps is already sporting with the residue of all the other sprays, and all the other by-products of our scientific genius, including atomic fall-out. Such an hypothesis tempts us to suspect that the old girl is sardonically waiting for us to discover that deep draughts of beautiful country air may no longer be confidently recommended, and that breathing is not what it was in the days when she had sole charge of it. True, we could (thanks again to Science) defy her even here with pig-like masks; but though we might learn to eat and sleep in them, they would surely not be satisfactory for kissing—and there she has us again. There, in fact, is probably her ace of trumps. Deep as is our debt to Science, we should not thank it for building into our snouts a mechanical osculator, however ingenious.

And Science will, no doubt, add the last, the crowning contrast to those we have already noted between pineapples and lantana. Having received from it a spray for protecting the former, surely we shall soon be vouchsafed a spray for abolishing the latter? Or perhaps an insect will be provided to prey upon it, and then a spray for abolishing the insect? There is no knowing what measures Science may see fit to adopt, but we can be sure that it will presently elbow the fearful angels aside, and rush in brandishing a tube of something or other. We can also be sure that some churlish curses will be mingled with the blessings which farmers then call down upon its head, for not only they, but their wives, would confront certain problems if lantana vanished from the landscape.

It is not for nothing that a simpleton is often called a natural, for between him and nature there exists a strong bond of sympathy. And so long as the lantana still makes large areas inaccessible to the hustling, high-pressure system by which Science peps up the soil's productiveness, Nature may continue to build upon them, undisturbed and at leisure, a rich topsoil of rotted leaves, according to her own slow, old-fashioned methods. Moreover, she receives from her simpleton-child much sturdy co-operation in keeping the steeper hillsides from being washed down into the creeks, and thence out to sea—a thing which annoys her very much when it occurs, as it upsets both her marine and terrestrial arrangements. Formerly she kept the slopes at home by clothing them with dense scrub, but since the axes got busy she has had no hesitation in calling to her aid anything and everything that roots, including groundsel, blady-grass, couch, Stinking Roger, and, notably, lantana. But if lantana, too, be snatched from her, she will jump right in with something else—probably groundsel—and sit back in slyly malicious triumph to see how we like
that.
For she makes no distinction between Plants and Weeds. They are all Goodies to her, so long as they keep the soil where it belongs. It is a sobering thought that, in her eyes, we alone, out of all creation, may be Baddies.

It must be conceded, too, that the stiff, tough, soldierly pineapples owe much to the feckless and slovenly lantana—for it is practically cow-proof. In gaining access to pines, a cow—despite its low I.Q.—is capable of great ingenuity and perseverance, and since one crunch, one slobber and one gulp suffice it for the devouring of each succulent fruit, the rape of a whole row may be accomplished with horrifying speed. Therefore the same superabundant vitality which makes lantana a pestiferous nuisance elsewhere, endows it with a certain value in those places where there lie, deeply buried beneath it, the rotting posts and the rusting wires of fences which would cost a pretty penny to repair. Small wonder, then, that the farmers are not unwilling to see it take over their road boundaries, and supply, at no cost to themselves, an impenetrable barrier to the poking and pushing of even the most pertinacious cow. And if you ask what cows are doing in the road, we can only reply that although no one, naturally, would dream of allowing his cattle to infest the Long Paddock, some are always there. As a result of this, the farmer who blesses the lantana from inside his property, curses it when he drives out into the Lane. We cannot fairly blame him for this apparent inconsistency, for the Lane, as we have already seen, is both narrow and curly; so the sudden appearance of half a dozen cows—or even one cow—standing, with placid, incurious eyes and steadily moving jaws, slap-bang in front of his bumper-bar, is enough to shake his nerves and try his temper. Thus the same high wall which earns his gratitude by keeping his own cows in, and stray cows out, becomes the target of his choicest maledictions when it confines to the dead centre of the public road those mysterious animals about whose ownership the less said the better.

Besides all this, we really do not care to imagine the plight of the farm wife bereft of the lantana, for it is without peer as a receptacle for otherwise non-disposable rubbish. When you are at your wits' end to get rid of something, it is the local custom, hallowed by long usage, to Throw it Down in the Lantanna; for the Lane is no suburban street, and Wednesday evening sees no housewives placing garbage-tins beside the back gate. Instead, the chook-bucket receives the scraps from meals, the burnable things are burnt, and for the rest . . .

Well, we put it to you squarely. What would
you
do with tins and dead marines? What would
you
do with the old iron bed-stead, the rust-consumed tank, the roll of useless wire netting, the ancient pram, the buckled bicycle wheel, the kettles, saucepans, egg-beaters and frying-pans which have earned an honourable discharge? What would
you
do with the broken vases, medicine bottles, crockery and looking-glasses; the half-used bag of cement, now set like a rock; the worn-out gumboots, and the mouldering remains of your late grandmother's buggy? True, an incredible amount of junk will go under the house, but there comes a time when space there is exhausted—and then how thankfully we turn to the lantana I With a soft crash, and a sound of splitting twigs, discarded objects of all kinds, shapes and sizes fall through the green leaves, and discreetly vanish into the twilit world below. If Science some day passes sentence of death upon our simpleton, many strange and embarrassing sights will lie revealed.

Perhaps at this very moment some deadly brew is being compounded in laboratories by people to whom a noxious weed is merely noxious; who have no cows, and drop their rubbish in garbage tins; who have never lived with the fool of the family, cursing it to-day, and blessing it to-morrow; who will some day hand it the poisoned cup, and, with scientific detachment, watch it die.

When that happens, you may go looking for Lantana Lane—but you will find only Black Creek Road.

T
ONY
G
RIFFITH
is just eleven. He is one of those lean, light little boys whose movements are nostalgically observed by persons of middle age and increasing weight. Was there ever a time, they ask themselves wonderingly, when I had so small a burden of flesh to carry about with me, and carried it like that? . . .

For Tony hardly ever walks, and when he comes running, skipping or hopping down the Lane, or proceeds with a kind of dancing step—as if he were trying to keep his feet in order, and not succeeding very well—he has an air of being only temporarily and accidentally in contact with the earth, like a head of dandelion seed blowing along the ground.

It was probably the sight of some such little boy which first brought to a poet's mind the words : “
There was a time
. . .”; words to which, as we all know, he added many others about celestial light, bounding lambs, and trailing clouds of glory. He cannot have been ignorant of the fact that little boys are devils, and that lean, light little boys are the most diabolical of all, since a minimum of their horrifying energy is required for the business of moving them from spot to spot, and a maximum thus remains for the conception and execution of various devilish-nesses. But he evidently decided (and we believe quite rightly) that their fiendish habits are abundantly redeemed by the intimations of immortality which they evoke in the minds of those about whom shades of the prison house have closed; and no little boy ever more poignantly evoked them than Tony Griffith.

His face is as brown as a dead leaf, but as smooth and blooming as a peach. His nose is endearingly snubby and babyish, but the angle at which he holds it proclaims self-confidence, goodwill and indefatigable enquiry. His eyes—light-grey, and clear as water—stare at the world with an expression so genially and candidly searching that the world, if it had any shame left, might well blush and shuffle its feet. But the most noticeable thing about him is that he is never, never, never tired.

In any farming community the manifestations of fatigue are, of course, too obvious to be overlooked, and Tony is accustomed to the sight of his parents, his great-aunt Isabelle and his neighbours slumping into chairs at the end of the day, and exhibiting every symptom of exhaustion; but he is quite unable to comprehend what can be the matter with them. The opening of his eyes at five o'clock every morning brings into instant operation a powerful dynamo, incredibly concealed somewhere in his slip of a body, and this continues throughout the day to drive him at a furious and unfaltering pace. If he comes upon anything climbable, he immediately climbs it; if he chances upon anything that can be thrown, he immediately throws it; if a log, a wheelbarrow or a packing-case lies in his path, he not only jumps it, but returns several times to jump it again before proceeding on his way. He passes a great deal of time in hitting things—sometimes (as when he smites tennis or cricket balls with racquet or bat, or nails with a hammer, or tobacco-weed with a brush-hook) for some definite purpose; but sometimes (as when he puts in half an hour swiping at tufts of blady-grass with a stick, or belting stones along the Lane with a bit of board), merely because he feels like it. In either case, the vigour and impetuosity of his hitting are attributable to the fact that his dynamo produces so much surplus power that he must expend it rapidly, lest it burst his slender frame to smithereens.

This power is not only supplied to his muscles; it also floods his mind, sending forth, like a stream of crackling sparks, questions, comments, protests, petitions and conjectures. He says: “How?”, “Why?”, “What?”, “When?” and “Where?”; he says : “Look!” and “Watch!”; he says : “Can I?”(and, when corrected, “May I?”); this last frequently leads him to “Why not?”, and thence to a last ditch where he can always be depended upon to make a heroic stand, firing the word: “but,”
“but,” “BUT,”
into the ranks of inimical adulthood until he goes down at last, with his colours still flying.

He does not lack companionship in the Lane. The Bell twins are his constant associates (though some might prefer the word accomplices), and there is also Daphne Arnold, who is twelve. She is unfortunate in that the Lane yields her no playmate of her own age and sex, so it is natural enough that she should turn to Tony; but for a long time no one could understand why Tony welcomed her with such consistent cordiality, for not only did she always have her five-year-old sister, Joy, at her heels, but she is herself a very polite, ladylike and motherly little girl who is apt—like mothers—to be easily shocked. She almost invariably disapproves of everything Tony proposes to do, and reprimands him at length when he does it all the same. So it seemed rather a bewildering friendship, and even Sue Griffith took a long time to realise that it was not really Daphne whom Tony liked to have around, but Joy. This may appear stranger still until you know Joy; but when you do know her, you cannot fail to see that she and Tony, out of all the children in the Lane, come nearest to being soul-mates.

Joy does not share Tony's physical characteristics, for she is a plump little person, and though she is untiringly active, she creates no illusion that her feet are winged; on the contrary, one might imagine them to be equipped, like those of flies, with some kind of suction-grip, so firmly does she keep them on the ground. Her pastimes and Tony's are, of course, the poles apart, but the manner in which they pursue them is also subtly different. Tony is volatile; Joy is constant. Tony is energetic; Joy is busy. The activity of Tony's body frequently has nothing to do with the activity of his mind; but Joy's doing is always strictly directed and controlled by a fertile imagination, and her life is, consequently, one long, rich and coherent drama. Its theme (which is that of a lady burdened by many cares) never changes, though she improvises endless variations upon it. The more cares and responsibilities she can conceive for herself, the busier she can become, and her experience of life seems to have persuaded her that the most fruitful sources of care are maternity, illness and shops.

Tony is aware of himself only as we might suppose a plant or an animal to be, and if it is difficult for others to remain unaware of him, this is simply because any tremendous natural force is apt to be conspicuous. When he is present, the throb and pulse of his dynamo are almost audible, and the very ground seems to vibrate; but he does not court attention. Joy, on the other hand, is, in her own view, the absorbing and always vividly apprehended centre of the universe, and she finds it intolerable that the phenomenon of her existence should ever be, for one instant, disregarded by anyone.

From these traits arises, perhaps, the further difference that while she is extremely sensitive to criticism, Tony couldn't care less. If his mother, in a moment of desperation, tells him that he is, without exception, the most maddening and abominable child it has ever been her misfortune to meet, he merely gives her a blank stare from his limpid, grey eyes, and remains perfectly unruffled. But a hint of reproof, or even the shadow of a censorious expression, will cause Joy's rosebud mouth to droop, and her round eyes to fill with tears as she demands piteously : “Am I a
good
girl?”

This is obviously a point of vital importance—for what would become of us all if the centre of the universe were less than perfect? Cracks in its virtue are unthinkable, and therefore, upon learning that her perfection is, for the moment, slightly impaired, but that it may be speedily restored if she will do such and such, Joy hastens off to set things right, and returns for reassurance.

“Am I a good girl
now
?”

“Oh yes, you're a good girl
now.”

“Am I a Wery, good girl?”

“Very, very.”

“Am I a werry,
werry
good good?”

“Very, very.”

“Am I a werry, werry
indeed
good girl?”

“You're the best girl in the world.”

The mouth no longer droops, and the tears have vanished. The peril has been averted. Joy is once more at her station, and all's right with the world. It may safely begin to revolve again, and she forthwith sets it in motion.

“Now,” she says briskly, “we'll play shops, and you must be the lady, and I'll be the shop-lady, and these must be the money, and my Uncle Mont must be in hostable because he's werry sick, and you must ask me how he is.”

All this being accomplished, Joy assumes an expression of quite heartrending anxiety, and distractedly waves her hands as she describes the predicament in which she finds herself. For it now appears, as the plot thickens, that not only Uncle Mont, but Auntie Flo and another character (of whom we learn nothing save that her name is Mary) are also in hostable, all suffering from fever, and all getting to be nearly quite dead. Thus Joy has the shop to mind, the housework to do, a large family of children to scold, and a heavy programme of sick-bed visiting as well. Here, becoming momentarily confused as to her identity, she thinks she will buy something to take to poor Uncle Mont; but, observing her mistake, she deftly switches parts.

“
I
must be the lady, and
you
must be the shop-lady, but you mustn't have Uncle Mont and Auntie Flo, see, because I must have them.” She pauses, considers, and adds magnanimously: “But you can have Mary.”

With these alterations in the script duly understood, the drama is re-enacted, though by now Uncle Mont's condition has worsened, and the doctor has prescribed pills. In the confusion occasioned by hurriedly transforming the shop from a general store into a pharmacy, another switch of parts accidentally occurs; but the situation is so tense that this passes unnoticed. The pills having been wrapped up, and their cost fixed at one shilling and six pennies, this amount is handed over by the lady who receives, to her gratified astonishment, one shilling and eight pennies in change.

Now imbecilities of this kind are naturally beneath Tony's notice, and it must not be supposed that when Joy visited him he took any part in such nonsense. They were not playmates at all. What they recognised and valued in each other (until a regrettable occurrence which we shall presently recount put an end to their association) was the superb quality of their respective dynamos. They were like two great artists working in different media, who have no dealings with each other's arts, but still salute each other's genius. When the four older children played a game, Joy was neither invited nor forbidden to join in, but she was quite content to disport herself on its outskirts, turning it to her own purposes, and transforming it into something more her own. Nevertheless, she was, in a sense, more emphatically a participant than Daphne or the twins, for even her semi-detached gambollings at the periphery contributed to it a zest which was equalled only by Tony's. They were both very conscious of this. Like two royal personages in a crowd of commoners, or two millionaires in a suburban cottage, or two gangsters at a church social, they were always sharply aware of each other. But whereas Joy knew that Tony was aware of her, he did not know that she was aware of him; whereas he merely felt her gusto, and enjoyed it, she not only felt his and enjoyed it, but enjoyed even more the knowledge that he was feeling hers. And this was why, on the fateful evening which we are about to describe, she ran away and hid in the dumpty.

The subject of sanitation is not one which is commonly introduced into simple, family tales, but since it is germane to this one, it must be briefly discussed. There are few houses in our neighbourhood which boast septic tanks, and in the Lane we are all resigned to, if not content with, a less elaborate arrangement. This consists of a hole dug in the ground—a good, capacious hole, some four feet square and six deep—over which a suitable building is erected and furnished with the kind of seat appropriate to its function.

On the evening in question, Ding, Dong, Daphne and Joy were all at Tony's place, and Tony was practising on his fife. This had been given to him by Aunt Isabelle who—though not herself a performer on any instrument—comes of a musical family, and had often deplored the fact that Tony was prevented by his residence in this remote spot from developing the musical gifts which he must undoubtedly possess. She had accordingly presented him, on his birthday, with the fife, shrugging her shoulders the while, and protesting that—
faute de mieux
—it might serve to allay the hunger for melody from which the poor child was suffering.

Tony had no idea that he was suffering from anything, but he was delighted with the fife, and immediately began to experiment with it. After only a few hours he accidentally blew three notes in succession which formed part of a recognisable tune. After another hour he had thoroughly mastered these three notes, and could repeat them any time he liked; but more than this, he had identified them as belonging to the well-known hymn
Once in Royal David's City,
and was tirelessly in search of the fourth note to put after them. This he discovered in due course, and followed it with the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh; by this time he was so elated that only with the greatest difficulty could Sue persuade him to lay down his instrument for long enough to eat. She was clutching her head, and Henry was nearly frantic, but Aunt Isabelle was enraptured. Bless the little cabbage, she cried fondly, he executed the tune to a marvel, was it not? Within a fortnight he could play the whole thing from beginning to end; Aunt Isabelle, with proud tears in her eyes, said it was formidable, and Henry agreed that it damn well was.