The True Story of Spit MacPhee (23 page)

Edward Quayle shrugged a little, waited a full minute again for the air to change, and then sighed and went on. ‘What I was saying before these interruptions is that Spit MacPhee is already well established in the Tree household. He is happy there, and is now treated like a son and a brother. And the difference is this, your honour: Mrs Arbuckle in her faith and passion has already had Spit at her home and he ran away because he was frightened of her and unhappy with her. Why? Because she put heavy boots on his winged feet, confined him to quarters, forbade him the Australian life he knew best – the river – and tried to make a good Christian of him with the apostolic convention that he must above all be saved.’

‘Is there anything wrong with that, Mr Quayle?’ Betty Arbuckle cried out. ‘Considering his condition and his wild behaviour. Is there anything wrong with trying to save him?’

‘Nothing wrong with it at all, Mrs Arbuckle,’ Edward Quayle said calmly, ‘for thee and thine, so to speak. But your methods may not be good for everybody, and they were certainly not good for Spit MacPhee. What he wanted, a boy utterly alone at the age of eleven, was a home that asked nothing of him to begin with except his toleration. What he got in the household of Mrs Tree was not a religious or evangelical instruction in papism, which Mrs Arbuckle is so afraid of, but the understanding of a woman who realised what sort of a boy he is. A free spirit perhaps, but also a natural boy in a natural landscape; a boy living on a marvellous river; a boy with many unique talents; an Australian boy who asked absolutely nothing of anyone because he expected others to ask nothing of him. That was how he had been brought up by his grandfather.’

‘But it’s wrong, Mr Quayle,’ Betty Arbuckle cried out again. ‘It’s not good for a boy to be like that.’

‘Well, dear lady, you may be right. It’s not the way I would bring up my own sons,’ Edward Quayle said. ‘But that is what he was. Not your son and not mine but Spit MacPhee, standing on his own two feet. And that is the boy Mr and Mrs Tree are willing to take up.’

‘Oh, this is all nonsense, your honour,’ Mr Strapp said angrily, wearily, half standing up and then sitting down again. ‘We know for a fact that Mr Jack Tree wanted nothing to do with the adoption of the boy; that he was always reluctant. And far from being the united and happy household Mr Quayle portrays, it became a divided one because of the boy.’

The judge tapped his pencil once or twice on the table, to make sure that Edward Quayle was silenced before he could begin.

‘Is that true, Mr Quayle? Is Mr Tree reluctant in this?’

‘Why not ask him yourself your honour,’ Edward Quayle said. ‘He is right here.’

Grace got a grip on Jack’s arm as she felt him stiffen with resentment. She knew his responses; she knew what was going to happen.

‘Well, Mr Tree? Is what Mr Strapp says true?’

‘Yes, sir, I was always reluctant.’

‘Oh? Why?’

‘I don’t know. I thought he was a wild young devil in need of a good home, but not necessarily ours.’

‘Didn’t you like the boy?’

‘I didn’t like or dislike him, your honour. He seemed suddenly to come into my family, and I didn’t want a stranger in it.’

‘Oh, Jack,’ Grace Tree said miserably. ‘You’ve spoiled everything now.’

‘I have to tell the truth, Grace,’ Jack Tree said. ‘I don’t dislike the boy, your honour. He’s got a lot of spunk and gumption. I agree with a lot that Mr Quayle says about him, and I always felt sorry for him.’

‘But not sorry enough to want him. Isn’t that right?’ Mr Strapp said.

Both Jack Tree and Grace Tree looked at Edward Quayle for help, but he was deliberately, obstinately silent.

‘I’ll tell you this, your honour,’ Jack said. ‘I didn’t know about old Fyfe until now when I heard Mr Quayle’s story. I didn’t know he had been a soldier, and that it was his wounds that had made him a bit crazy. I never thought of the old man and the boy in that way. But I can say this, sir. Spit MacPhee is certainly no angel, but my wife and my daughter have become very attached to him. And, if it comes to that, I will have the boy and do my best with him. He will certainly be much better off with us than he would be with Mrs Arbuckle; and a damned sight better off with us than he would be in a Boys Home in Bendigo. If he stays with us he will be given a good home, and he and I will have to learn to get on together, which, sitting here listening to all this, I can guarantee a good try on my part. Allowing for all the usual faults of boys of his age, I’m on his side in this.’

‘Thank you, Mr Tree, for that very honest account of your feelings,’ Judge Laker said. ‘Well, Mr Quayle, you have been rather silent all this time.’

‘I simply wanted you to have an honest reply from an honest man, your honour. There was no deception in our case, only honesty. Our case is not perfect. There are many imperfections in the boy to be overcome, and in the family situation. But Mr and Mrs Tree are God-fearing, generous people, not narrow-minded bigots with salvation on their minds.’

‘That’s quite enough, Mr Quayle.’

‘Your honour,’ Edward Quayle almost snarled. ‘What we need in this courtroom is some human discernment, not religious prejudice. Discernment has to count, sir, because Spit MacPhee’s future depends on it – more than religion, and more than a pair of good black boots.’

‘Is that the end, Mr Quayle?’

‘Yes. I’ve got nothing more to say on the matter.’

Edward Quayle threw his glasses on the table as if he was finally finished with the whole business, and Judge Laker said to him, almost disappointed, ‘Are you sure that is it, Mr Quayle? Nothing more?’

‘Yes, your honour. That’s it. Except that I suggest you ask Mrs Arbuckle why, after being so intent on sending Spit MacPhee to a Boys Home in Bendigo, she suddenly changed her mind and decided to adopt him instead.’

‘Hmmm,’ Judge Laker said, licking his pencil and writing something in a little notebook he kept in his waistcoat pocket. ‘Well, Mrs Arbuckle? What do you have to say to that?’

‘I always wanted him,’ Betty said passionately.

‘That’s not true,’ Grace cried out. ‘It was only when I wanted to adopt him that Betty made an application herself.’

‘Is that right, Mrs Arbuckle?’ Judge Laker asked her again.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Betty said, ‘because at first I thought he should be given a home with other boys his own age.’

‘What sort of a home would that have been?’ Grace said indignantly.

‘Steady … steady,’ Edward Quayle told her.

‘Yes, Mrs Tree. Do be quiet. What changed your mind, Mrs Arbuckle? Why are you here now asking to adopt him?’

‘When he came to live with us I tried to treat him like my own son,’ Betty Arbuckle said, her delicate skin already pink and lovely with a faint flush, her eyes glistening and her innocence so obvious that Grace knew why nobody could or should doubt her.

Edward Quayle put his spectacles on again. ‘Your honour,’ he said drily, ‘what really changed her mind was her determination not to let the boy go to a Catholic family. Isn’t that so, Mrs Arbuckle?’

‘Yes, Mr Quayle,’ she said and turned to the judge. ‘I thought the best way to help save the boy, in his own faith, would be to adopt him for ourselves.’

‘So what are your plans for him, Mrs Arbuckle?’ the judge said. ‘You want to make him a good, Protestant Christian? Is that right?’

‘Yes,’ Betty said.

‘How?’

‘He has to be saved,’ Betty said in her quiet, determined way. ‘Salvation to us is always a witness to the suffering of Jesus Christ, so that thereafter we can always serve him by word and deed; by day and by night.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Judge Laker said, ‘but how does this apply to the boy?’

‘But your honour,’ Betty protested, ‘you can see for yourself. He is like a little African heathen in need of guidance and help and prayer. That is how we bring up our own son and daughter, and how we would bring up Spit MacPhee. He would be one of us in the eyes of the Lord.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Arbuckle,’ Judge Laker said. ‘You can sit down now.’

In her evocation, Betty had been standing up with her hands knotted tightly in front of her. She looked around her for a moment like a confused child and then said, ‘All right. I’ll sit down.’

‘And Mrs Tree?’ the judge said, ‘What do you have to say about the boy’s religion?’

‘I’m not sure, your honour,’ Grace said, troubled by the question. ‘I don’t know anything about salvation, if that’s what you mean.’

‘That isn’t what I mean at all,’ the judge said. ‘Although as a Catholic you do believe in salvation, don’t you?’

‘I suppose I do, but only in the eyes of the church, and in accordance with the sacraments or the intercessions of the Holy Mother. That’s all I know about it.’

‘You would like the boy to be a Catholic, Mrs Tree?’

Grace looked at Edward Quayle who was leaning back staring at the ceiling as if he were miles away, generations away. ‘Yes, your honour,’ Grace said slowly. ‘I have to admit I would like him to be a Catholic if he is to be my son. But he isn’t a Catholic, is he?’

‘But if he becomes your son, your son absolute so to speak, to do with him what you like? What then?’

‘I would like him to be a Catholic. But if he isn’t, then he isn’t.’

‘Is that possible? Is it possible for you to have a son who is a Protestant? Do you think your Church would tolerate that?’

‘I don’t know, your honour.’

‘But I do,’ Mr Strapp interrupted. ‘I have already consulted Father O’Connel on that very point. I asked him what the church would expect of Mrs Tree if she adopted the boy, and he told me, unequivocally, that it would be absolutely incumbent on her as a Catholic to bring the boy up in the Catholic faith.’

‘Do you accept that, Mrs Tree?’ Judge Laker asked. ‘Can you give me a simple answer to that question?’

Grace knew that she was now at her weakest, and she was already exhausted. She knew that her faith and her affection for Spit were now in opposition, and an answer now was beyond her. ‘I don’t know, your honour. I just don’t know. But if I could, I would just leave him alone.’

‘If you could …’ Mr Strapp repeated menacingly. ‘But can you, Mrs Tree? That is the question.’

‘I don’t know,’ Grace said miserably.

The judge looked at Edward Quayle with a quizzical, amused expression. ‘What have you to say to all this, Mr Quayle,’ he said, ‘since the question of religion is very important to the decision I must make.’

‘Nothing at all,’ Edward Quayle said. ‘When it comes to the responsibilities and convictions of Mrs Tree and her faith I am not going to speak for her, or even advise her. She speaks well enough for herself. What we should count on here, your honour, is the boy himself, who, even in this situation, would be perfectly able to look after himself.’

‘All right, let us ask the boy,’ Judge Laker said. ‘Stand up, Spit MacPhee, and see if you can help us solve some of this.’

‘Do I have to stand up?’ Spit demanded.

‘Yes,’ the judge told him.

‘Well, all right,’ Spit said and stood up.

‘Thank you,’ the judge said. ‘Now: what religion are you?’

‘Presbyterian,’ Spit said.

‘You don’t have to shout,’ the judge told him. ‘Just answer quietly. Do you think if you were adopted by Mrs Tree that you would be willing to become a Roman Catholic?’

‘I’m a Presbyterian,’ Spit said stubbornly.

‘But if, as your mother, she insists. What then?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s like.’

‘May I interrupt, your honour,’ Edward Quayle said.

‘You usually do, Mr Quayle, but for heaven’s sake keep it to the issue in hand. Our time is running out.’

‘Let me ask you, Spit,’ Edward Quayle said. ‘If you were to be adopted by Mrs Betty Arbuckle, what would you do?’

‘Run away,’ Spit said loudly. ‘They’re not going to get me.’

‘Oh dear,’ Judge Laker said. ‘This is all becoming a little too emotional, Mr Quayle.’ He looked over his glasses at Ben Arbuckle and said, ‘Who are you, young man?’

Ben stood up. ‘Ben Arbuckle.’

‘Well, you seem to be the only one here who hasn’t had his say, so it’s your turn. Do you want Spit MacPhee to be your brother?’

‘Yessir,’ Ben said in his new loud voice. ‘He’s the best friend I’ve got.’

‘Then that’s about it,’ Judge Laker said and made a point of closing his little notebook. ‘All right Mr Quayle, one last word from you, brief and to the point please.’

‘I think the situation speaks for itself, your honour. Let me measure it
summum bonum –
by the highest good. We assign to men, or try to, the capacity for mental and physical enjoyment of their lives, and we must in all decency, adjust some of these privileges to our children. In this case there is a boy who has to be given the best we can offer him in an atmosphere of a family and a countryside that will give him what every child in this country needs. It is not a question of religion, it is a matter of common humanity. He is already living with a very fine family where he can be taught the simplest commandments of honesty and respect for others. What more can we ask of Mr and Mrs Tree than that, your honour?’

‘Is that all, Mr Quayle?’ Judge Laker said, obviously disappointed that he was not going to hear something a little more unreasonable.

‘That’s all,’ Edward Quayle said.

‘All right, Mr Strapp. But please keep it as brief as Mr Quayle.’

‘Well, your honour, it must come back to the question of religion, no matter which way you look at it. How can we ignore it? Every man and woman in this country is born with a faith which is securely their own – historically as well as in daily life. It is strong, it is real, it is inescapable. The boy is a Protestant and should be brought up as a Protestant, even vigorously so in the evangelical way if necessary. The importance of religious matching is clear in the 1928 Adoption of Children Act. There has never been an exception to it. Any precedent here would create a situation that would go far beyond this courtroom. As for the decency and humanity of Mr and Mrs Arbuckle: here is their own son, a perfectly normal and happy boy who would welcome Spit as a brother. So, given the equal character and fitness of both families, given this equal respectability and decency, the weight of the decision must lie with a religious conjunction. At first it may be difficult for the boy to live with Mr and Mrs Arbuckle, but in the long run he would be as happy and contained and as bright as this boy here, Ben Arbuckle.’