The True Story of Spit MacPhee (20 page)

Now that she knew about J.C. Strapp, Grace was worried about Mr Quayle. In the weeks of waiting and now, only five days before the court hearing which she had been ordered to attend, he seemed to have done nothing except send his son Tom to talk to Spit and then take him down to the ashes of the boiler house. She had asked Spit afterwards what they had been doing there, and Spit had said, ‘He was looking for any kind of papers my grandfather left, a tin box or something like that, only we couldn’t find anything. He found one of my grandfather’s badges, that’s all.’

‘What sort of badge?’

‘Tom said it was a soldier’s badge, but I don’t know. I never saw it before. It was all green.’

‘Is that all he did?’

‘He asked me a lot of questions.’

‘What sort of questions?’

‘He wanted to know where my grandfather came from, and if he had any bank books, and all sorts of things like that.’

‘Is that all?’ Grace said.

Spit seemed reluctant. ‘Well, he kept asking me questions, and then he said he was going up to the hospital to see Doctor Stevens.’

Grace knew that Spit disliked being questioned about himself or his grandfather, and she had not persisted. But she was disappointed that Tom Quayle had not returned to question her, although she wasn’t sure what sort of help she could have given him anyway.

But finally, on the day before the court hearing, Edward Quayle did telephone her and asked her to come to his office. ‘As soon as you can,’ he said.

Grace put on her print frock and hurried up the slope into town. When she walked into Mr Quayle’s office Tom was not in the little ante-room, but Mr Quayle called out, ‘Is that you, Mrs Tree?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Then come in,’ Mr Quayle said, and without looking up from the papers he was reading he half stood up in a polite gesture and pointed to the hard chair near his desk. ‘Sit down please,’ he said, and then he looked at her and said, ‘I suppose you have received notification of the hearing tomorrow.’

‘Yes, I got it last week.’

For a moment Edward Quayle seemed to hold his breath, and then he went on, ‘Mr Strapp, who will represent Mrs Arbuckle, has approached the court and suggested that the hearing be held not in a court room but in the chamber where sometimes the court sits for hearings in camera. The point is that it does away with any atmosphere of a court or of a legal dispute. Do you object to that?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Quayle. What do you think?’

‘I think it’s a good idea, so if you have no objection I will agree.’

‘All right,’ Grace said.

‘Unfortunately there’s one thing I must make clear,’ Mr Quayle said, holding up a blue covered document. ‘This is the 1928 Adoption of Children Act of the State of Victoria. It’s a new Act. Only a few years old. It is the first this State has ever had governing the conditions of adoption, and I’m sorry to say that under this Act, and what seems already to be the interpretation of it, you don’t have very much hope of adopting the boy.’

Grace told herself that she had always expected this. She had always known that everything would be against her if it had to be judged by a court of law or by someone else.

‘But why?’ she said angrily. ‘What makes you so sure, Mr Quayle?’

‘I’m never one hundred per cent sure of anything in law,’ Mr Quayle told her. ‘But as far as the interpretation of this Act is concerned, and its application so far, the problem of what they call
matching
makes your application almost dead before it is alive. I half warned you about that. Remember?’

‘What do you mean – matching?’ Grace asked.

‘In all previous cases, without exception, and in the wider interpretation of this law, the religion of the child has had to match the religion of the adoptive parents, regardless of any circumstances that might favour adoption. In other words, it doesn’t matter how good your case is, religion is a decisive factor. I told you I thought this might be the case and now I am sure of it in law.’

‘I don’t care what the law says,’ Grace told him. ‘It’s not right.’

‘Nonetheless, I did warn you that the law is the law,’ Mr Quayle said.

‘Yes, I know you did. But I thought you were going to do something about it.’

‘I have been looking into it, Mrs Tree, and all I can say is that all precedents and judgements are against you. The point is that if I know the position in law so will Judge Laker who will decide this case. And I doubt very much if he will want to set a contrary precedent in your case, knowing that it would cause a lot of religious controversy and would probably be overturned by a higher court anyway.’

‘You are not just saying all this, Mr Quayle, because you don’t want to take it up.’

Grace saw Edward Quayle’s brick red face turn a deeper rouge, and he slapped his hand so fiercely on the table that she jumped. ‘Mrs Tree …’ he said. ‘Mrs Tree, I shall forgive you that uncalled-for remark,’ and she felt the anger and contempt in what he was saying, ‘because you are obviously under some strain about this boy. On the other hand if you don’t want me to go on with your application we can end it now.’

‘No. No. I’m sorry, Mr Quayle, I just meant that you’re a Protestant, and perhaps you don’t want to represent a Catholic if that’s what is causing all the trouble.’

‘Religion is the issue of your application, Mrs Tree,’ Edward Quayle said coldly. ‘It is not an issue in my professional support for your application. If I am to represent you, then I represent you regardless. Is that understood?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you wish me to go on?’

‘Yes, Mr Quayle. I’m so confused.’

‘I appreciate that.’

‘But what can you do if the law says I can’t adopt him anyway?’

‘We can always argue, Mrs Tree. Or we can give it up. It’s a simple enough choice.’

‘But there’s not much hope is there?’

‘No. I have to tell you that. Even your own case is far from perfect. For instance you don’t have the support of your husband in this, do you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I spoke to him, Mrs Tree. He is the formal applicant, not you, so I had to know his feelings about it.’

‘What did he say to you, Mr Quayle?’

‘That it was all your idea and yours alone, and that he only agreed to sign the form because your daughter asked him to.’

Grace was now able to discipline herself, and she said grimly, ‘I suppose that will count against me too, won’t it?’

‘Naturally, if the other side makes a point of it.’

‘So it seems to be quite hopeless. Everything …’

Edward Quayle sat back in his chair and rubbed his greying chin with his short square fingers. ‘The only strength you have for your case, Mrs Tree, is your conviction and faith in the boy. You, and I gather your daughter, really want to keep him, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know what I would do if they took him away now,’ Grace said, ‘and my daughter Sadie would be heartbroken.’

‘You want to have the boy under any circumstances? Is that right?’

‘Of course. Just so long as they don’t take him away.’

‘Do you trust me in this, Mrs Tree? Have you recovered yourself?’

‘Of course I trust you, Mr Quayle.’

‘I must be absolutely sure that I have your full confidence so that you will understand that what I am doing is best, even when you may not like it or understand it.’

Grace was already ashamed of her doubts about this man, and she didn’t hesitate now to say, ‘Yes I’m sure you’ll do your best, Mr Quayle. It’s all right.’

‘Even more than that, Mrs Tree, I want you to understand that what I can do is probably all that can be done. Will you accept that and leave it to me?’

‘Yes, if you say so.’

‘Very well. Make sure that the boy is properly dressed when you come to court. And with his shoes on.’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘Are you willing to let your daughter Sadie speak up for the boy?’

‘If that will help.’

‘Then that’s all, Mrs Tree. Be at the court chamber at ten o’clock on Wednesday. On time please because this judge doesn’t like anyone to be late. And make sure a note has gone to the school explaining the boy’s absence in case the judge asks about that.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then good day, Mrs Tree.’ Edward Quayle stood up and sat down again.

‘Goodbye, Mr Quayle,’ Grace said, and emerging into the street she realised that Edward Quayle’s persuasiveness seemed to be so strange that she wondered what he really meant when he said, ‘Leave it to me.’

At five to ten Tom Quayle was waiting at the door of the court chamber and Grace found herself in a little room that was almost bare, with three tables shaped into a U at one end and a long solid bench at the other. At one of the tables Betty Arbuckle, her husband Frank, Mr J.C. Strapp and another man (Strapp’s assistant, Jock Stone) were already seated.

‘You’ll have to sit here, you two,’ Tom said to Spit and Sadie. And leaving them on the bench where Ben Arbuckle was already in place, he took Grace to the table on the other side of the U facing Betty Arbuckle.

‘I thought it would be just a lot of questions,’ Grace whispered to him. ‘I mean – not in front of Betty Arbuckle.’

‘The whole thing is a bit odd, Mrs Tree. But don’t worry.’

‘Where is your father?’ she asked him.

‘He’ll be along. Don’t worry,’ Tom said.

But when Judge Laker came into the chamber from a back door, with Henry Fennel at his elbow, and they sat down at the head of the U near Mrs Price the stenographer, Grace was worried, particularly when Judge Laker said, ‘Where is Mr Quayle?’

‘He’ll be along in a minute, your honour,’ Tom said.

‘But he’s late,’ Grace whispered, remembering how Edward Quayle had told her that this judge didn’t like anyone to be late.

‘If my father’s late,’ Tom whispered back, ‘then he’s deliberately late. Anyway, here he is.’

As Edward Quayle walked on his short legs into the chamber to join them at the table he was saying, ‘I’m sorry for my tardiness, your honour, but there were some difficulties.’

‘All right, Mr Quayle,’ the judge said, ‘at least you are here, for which we must be thankful.’ He picked up what looked to Grace like her application. ‘You are representing Mr John Edward Tree, are you not?’

‘That is correct, your honour.’

‘I don’t see him, so where is he?’

‘That was one of my problems, your honour. Mr Tree is our local pastoral and livestock inspector, and very urgent work keeps him away for the moment. But I hope to have him present later on. In the meantime Mrs Tree is here beside me and she will be able to answer any questions the court wants to put to her.’

‘You haven’t made a very good start, have you, Mr Quayle?’

‘No, sir. I haven’t, I’m afraid.’

‘Very well, let us begin. You, Mr Strapp, are representing …’ he picked up the other application form, ‘Mr and Mrs Frank Arbuckle.’

‘Yes your honour, they are both here.’

‘Then there is nothing more to delay us. But before we begin I must make some serious observations for all those present here.’ He looked around him like a schoolmaster addressing a wayward class. ‘This is not a trial,’ he said, ‘it is a court hearing. But because of a unique situation in which we have two applicants applying to adopt the same boy, I have decided that they will both be present to hear the other’s case. I have never heard of a situation quite like this. There is no precedent, and because I need to put their qualifications to the test, I think the mutual presence of both applicants here will help that. Are you listening, Mr Quayle?’

Grace had been watching Mr Quayle sorting out his documents as the judge spoke, and he looked up now and said, ‘Of course, your honour. I ask your pardon, but I am still trying to organise myself.’

‘Then I suggest that you stop organising yourself for a moment and pay attention to what I am saying, because this will have some bearing on your applicant, if you are interested in hearing it.’

‘Of course I am, your honour.’

‘Very well. What I am saying is that in this case we have a boy who is not represented here in his own right. So it seems to me that what we have is a situation in which both sides will need a better qualification than their own claims to be the chosen one. That is why I have brought you all face to face so to speak. But I warn everybody present that this is a court, even though I have not had it formally constituted as a court. There will be no comment of any kind from anyone unless it is asked for by me or Mr Strapp or Mr Quayle. Any departure from this ruling or any attempt to comment without being asked will be dealt with by expulsion from the court. Have counsel warned their … their candidates of this?’

‘Yes, your honour,’ Mr Strapp said. ‘It has been done.’

‘Well, Mr Quayle?’

‘In fact I didn’t do so,’ Edward Quayle said to the judge, ‘because I thought it would be far more effective coming from you.’

‘Thank you, Mr Quayle,’ the judge said drily. ‘Now this hearing will be informal. Statements can be asked for and the procedure will be relaxed. If I feel that someone has to be heard under oath, then I shall call for the oath to be administered. In other words if I don’t believe you I shall have you swear to what you are saying.’

Taking a stub of pencil out of his waistcoat pocket Judge Laker pointed it first at Mr Quayle and then at Mr Strapp. ‘Now, gentlemen, I know your capacity for rivalry as adversaries, nevertheless I am sure you will not treat this as a gladiatorial combat but as a means to giving this unfortunate orphan a decent home and a decent future.’

Grace, watching the judge, didn’t like his way of showing them that he had absolute power over the life and limb of everybody in the chamber. In fact it seemed to Grace that he was relishing the idea of a struggle between Mr Strapp and Mr Quayle. ‘A unique case,’ he was saying again, and Grace was sure now that he had deliberately arranged it to be an adversarial contest.

‘Your honour,’ Edward Quayle said the moment the judge had finished his remarks. ‘May I suggest, in view of the unhappy problems I have had in my preparation, that you hear the application of my honoured friend first …’

‘Oh no …’ Strapp didn’t wait for Edward Quayle to finish. ‘I think, your honour, that first or last in this case should be decided by some other reasoning. If I am to open the proceedings it will put me in the role of prosecutor, with Mr Quayle the defender, which is not the role I want in this.’