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a slippery slide to doom awaits ... but interesting lol
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my bank manager when on holiadays once.....boy did the sh!t hit the fan.....
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and pocketed the deposit slip and the five hundred pounds.
No one observed me. If anyone had seen Page in the bank, I had the proof that he had banked in his firm’s account. He had been in the habit of getting a statement of his own private account less often than the firm’s account, no more than once a month at the most. He had ample funds in his private account, never allowing it to fall below two thousand pounds in credit. I could meet my commitments with little or no risk of detection for at least a month! Now, I must ring Pittson. At lunch time I left the bank alone and went to the phone box on the corner. With trembling finger I dialled the number of his wife’s shop and his familiar voice answered. After strained preliminaries, I asked: “Have you banked that cheque. I’d prefer to pay you in cash – today.” After a pause, his voice taking on a sugary tone: “As a matter of fact, I haven’t, Paul. I’ve been busy. I was going to the bank this afternoon.” “Well,” I replied with an air which bordered on the triumphant “if you come down to the Caulfield pub now I’ll pay you in cash – and bring that cheque with you.” “All right, bruvver,” he replied. “I can’t come but I’ll send John Mills down. He’ll be there in ten minutes.” I walked briskly to the hotel and ordered a beer. There were only a few drinkers in the bar. Jim Roberts was not present. He did not drink before late afternoon except on Saturdays. He played two-up occasionally on week-days and spent much of his time at the Melbourne City Baths where he swam all year round. Nor did I observe anyone else known to me. Soon Mills arrived and came to my side with a manner that was apologetically affable, apparently regretting his attitude towards me in recent days. Surreptitiously, I handed him three hundred pounds. “There,” I said firmly. “Three hundred quid. A hundred and seventy-five to cover the cheque and a hundred and twenty-five I lost on Saturday. Is that right?” “Correct weight, Mr. Whittaker,” he replied. “You’ve been having a bad trot but your luck will change.” “My turn will come,” I said. He offered to buy a drink but I refused, endeavouring to reassert my dignity, and to remind him that I viewed him as a social inferior. “I’m very busy today,” I said and took my leave. Walking back to the bank I found myself treading airily, gripped by elation, the gambling urge again warming my spirit. I’d paid in full and had two hundred pounds in cash left over. I would turn that back into five hundred again and replace Page’s credit. And I’d win hundreds more for myself! I was getting the hang of the racing game! * The men playing two-up behind the boiler shop. Stakes of money, butter and tobacco. The urge to gamble sneaking up on me again. Standing on the outskirts of the ring of men, telling myself: “Have a game. You’ve accumulated plenty of tobacco currency. Have a spin!” Walking furtively to my cell. Returning with several packets of tobacco. The urge to gamble remains strong even after all I have experienced and written. Could I have rejected it that day if my lack of knowledge of two-up had not made me shy? Back in the cell, I remonstrated with myself for my weakness. Yet next day, I found myself requesting repairs to the radio head-phones in my cell. I wanted to listen to the races again. Each cell is equipped with earphone radio connected with a master set somewhere in the jail. The headphones are not unlike those used by Tom Roberts so long ago, still in use here in this age of high fidelity and television. When I first arrived, I found my earphones out of order. I left them so, fearing the remorse and sorrow that connection with the outside world would bring. Now my headphones are working again. And today I listened to race broadcasts for the first time since my imprisonment nearly fifteen months ago. Joe Brown’s familiar voice from Moonee Valley…. 27 Arriving home that Monday evening I felt light-hearted with relief and wanted to share my good spirits with Julia. So I said to her: “I had a good win on Saturday. Two hundred pounds. Here’s a hundred pounds; you bank it. I’ll use the rest to bet with. I’ll win the money, and you can go banker.” She accepted the money, gazing at me searchingly, seemed on the verge of protesting, but said nothing. My behaviour during this period seems incredible now: I who had been upright and honest in all my dealings with Julia, my employers and in all things, had become deceitful and dishonest, as if I had developed a split personality. On the following Saturday, I went to the races with Jim and his friends. I was in high spirits; my financial predicament was forgotten amid the friendliness and the gambler’s excitement. When time for the last race approached, we hadn’t backed a winner. Everything went wrong. Horses we backed straight out ran second – beaten by a short half head in a photo-finish, in one case. Horses we backed each way ran fourth. I had only twenty pounds left to bet on the last race. Jim had a tip for a horse called Rio Janeiro. We got ten to one and I invested my all – on the nose. Everyone of us backed Rio Janeiro, even Gerald Roberts and his wife, who were present although the races were not at Flemington, Gerald having had a small win the week before. Gerald invested a pound, his wife five shillings for the place, Harry Walton five pounds, Tom Sparks twenty-five and Jim Roberts a hundred. Eric Johnson was not present as the races were at Caulfield and we did not require his taxi; without our fares to bet with he had stayed at work. Heavy rain began to fall as we climbed the stand to watch the race. Tom Sparks said: “Rio Janeiro, you little budy. Hoo! Hoo! It’ll be a massacre. |
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Tom Sparks said: “Rio Janeiro, you little budy. Hoo! Hoo! It’ll be a massacre.
They were off. The course announcer was having difficulty in picking out the colours in the driving rain, but Jim Roberts, who always carried a powerful pair of field-glasses and knew by rote the colours of every horse, was able to say emphatically: “Rio Janeiro is lying fifth on the fence and going well.” As the horses turned for home, Jim said: “He’s leaving the fence to make his run. He’ll shake the life out of it.” Rio Janeiro and another horse broke clear of the field and raced head and head towards the post in front of us. I became desperately excited and began to shout: “Rio Janeiro! Rio Janeiro!” This habit of mine sometimes embarrassed Jim, who remained apparently calm when watching even in the tightest finish. But this time Gerald’s wife was as excited and vocal as I. Rio Janeiro won by a clear head in a desperate finish. I leapt on Tom Sparks’ back. He shook me clear and remonstrated “Hey. Break it down. Paul! No need to get the whip out. Reggie Heather got it home without you. You’ll end up with heart disease, the way you go on. Hoo! Hoo! It’ll be a massacre.” But he was smiling all the time. “There’s a photo,” Harry Walton said. “No risk,” Jim replied. “He won it by a clear head. But they bumped; he hung in a bit.” “We’ll have a drink on the strength of it,” Tom Sparks said. The course amplifiers blared: “Hello! Hello! There’s a protest!” While we went to the bar, Jim dashed into the betting ring. Later he joined us. “I don’t like the look of it. They’re betting only six to four the other thing. I’ve laid off.” Tom Sparks and Harry Walton laid off too, by backing the other horse in the protest. I said I’d stand the risk. I couldn’t lay off; I hadn’t the money. “They only uphold about one protest in twenty, but it’d be just my luck for them to uphold this one,” Harry Walton declared. And it was! The protest was upheld! We left the course in silence and walked to the hotel. Jim sang: Horses don’t bet on people, Horses have too much sense, Horses have no remorses, They pull wagons without recompense… Gerald Roberts and his wife took their leave. “I’m going to the trots,” Jim announced. When things went badly at the gallops, Jim often sought a recovery at the trots, the baccarat or the two-up. Tom Sparks and Harry Walton asked Jim for a loan and he gave them ten pounds each. “We’ll all go to the trots. Hoo! Hoo! It’ll be a massacre!” Tom Sparks said. “What about you Paul? Going to get off the old ball and chain?” I hesitated. Jim said doubtfully: “You can have a tenner, if you want it, Paul. But what about Julia?” “I’ll ring her,” I said and I did. She put on a tantrum and hung up in my ear. I liked the trots. The weather cleared and, there in the warm night with the half light of the betting rings, the floodlit tracks and the horses so close all the way around, I was happy. We all won. Jim turned a hundred pounds into three hundred: I won forty and paid Jim back what I had borrowed. In the taxi returning to the city, Tom Sparks exclaimed; “I feel lucky. What about the old baccarat?” They decided to go to the baccarat and, for a complex of reasons, not the least that I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts and Julia, I decided to join them. “Turn it up, Paul,” Jim said. The baccarat’s no place for you.” But I was determined: “Just feel like a night out. Julia has gone to her mother’s for the week-end.” I was at the same time attracted and repulsed by the atmosphere of the baccarat school. The air was tense with desperation, for here only the most confirmed addicts gambled. The sudden results on the turn of the card; the hard-faced women and grim-faced men; the forced jollity; the hangers-on seeking crumbs from the table; the thugs hovering round to prevent trouble; the flavour of reprehensibility. We followed Jim, who seemed to bet on some kind of system, but luck was not with us. “I seem to bring you bad luck,” I said to Jim. “Don’t be silly,” he replied. “I can get that on my own.” Dawn was breaking when we left. We were tired and glum – and broke. Another scene with Julia ensued. Page came to the bank during the week. I spoke to him in the manner of an old friend, as I believed this would present him from asking for a statement of his private account. Anyway, he didn’t ask for it. The next Saturday, I bet on the phone. I stayed at the hotel all the afternoon without even ringing Julia – and bet on the phone. Mills, not Pittson, answered each time and treated me with due respect, obviously Impressed that I had paid the debt. Under the influence of liquor, I bet even more rashly than my desperate financial alone would have led me to do – and I lost one hundred and ninety pounds. I went home to Julia drunk and distraught. Even now, looking back over the months which seem to have grown into years, I cannot quite fathom my state of mind. I was happy in a perverted way, in a desperate haunted way. I was living in another world.. I managed to evade paying Pittson and bet again the next Saturday. I lost five hundred pounds! My largest bet became my smallest bet; I raised my stakes until I put one hundred on the favourite in the last which got left at the post and took no part in the race. |
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the absolute misery of miseries ... the rusty blade is paul's best friend now methinks ... hang on - he;s writing this from gaol lol
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the last which got left at the post and took no part in the race.
Standing in the hotel, only one thought came to me; Jim mustn’t know! I dialled Pittson’s bookmaking phone number again. Mills answered. “Listen John,” I said. “I’ll settle on Friday. But remember, the whole matter is confidential, you must tell nobody.” I could smell his contempt in the telephone’s mouthpiece: “That’s all right, Paul, we understand.” I lived the next days in a dream. On the Wednesday afternoon I saw Page in the queue. When his turn came he banked for his firm, then said: “You’d better give me a statement of both accounts, Mr. Whittaker.” My heart stopped beating, but my mind had found some heightened alertness: “Well, yes, but we’re rather busy. Could I put the statement in the mail?” “Sure, sure,” he replied. When he had gone, a renewed desperation came to me. I began to visualize the report of my arrest and trial in the newspapers. “The accused admitted he had lost the money gambling on horses…” When Thursday dawned, I told myself: “I must get the money. I must steal from the bank again, from silly old Trembath!” Next afternoon, Mrs. Amanda Lawrence, the wealthy widow, entered the bank. She had once told Trembath: “Mr. Whittaker is such a nice man, such a Christian gentleman.” She wanted to lodge two thousand pounds worth of one pound bonds. My mind wandered to a conversation I had with Trembath about precautions against theft in banks. “There are only two ways in which an employee can defraud the bank,” Trembath had said. “By suppressing a credit and suppressing a bond receipt.” Well, Mr. Trembath, I thought, how right you are: I’ve suppressed a credit and now I’m going to suppress a bond receipt. I issued a receipt for Mrs. Lawrence and found myself secretly mocking her. You old coupon-clipping parasite, I am going to steal your bonds! I was not nervous or afraid, I was positively arrogant. I fawned on her with exaggerated politeness, mocking her genteel manners. Mr. Whittaker is a Christian gentleman? Mr. Whittaker is a thief! I put the butt of her receipt and bonds into my pocket with a complacent certainty that I had not been observed. Next day at lunch-time, I visited a city broker and asked him to cash the bonds. He seemed unsuspicious. I approached him with absolute confidence that I was a kind of superman who could not be exposed. But he shook me when he said: “You understand, Mr. Whittaker, I’ll have to check. Just the usual routine. I’ll post you a cheque.” My confidence was momentarily shaken and I found myself saying: “Well, I rather need the money today. A chance of a good investment…” “I’m sorry, Mr. Whittaker, but if you will call tomorrow morning…” I agreed to do so. That afternoon I rang Pittson and told him to see me at the hotel at 12.30 on Saturday (I knew Jim would have left by then). He agreed, but his doubts were clearly rising. I lay awake all that night: was the broker suspicious, had he perhaps bought the bonds for Mrs. Lawrence and recognized the numbers? No, I reassured myself, he is just going to check the banks’ lists of stolen bonds. These bonds are not stolen – not yet, I said to myself, as Julia stirred beside me… At ten o’clock next morning, I complained to Trembath of being ill and got away. At the broker’s office, my cheque was waiting – but it was a closed cheque. I requested an open cheque. “I must pay for my new investments,” I said. They gave me an open cheque. I rushed to the appropriate bank and cashed it. Back at the hotel, I settled with Mills – in cash. I went straight home and, during lunch, handed Julia a roll of notes: “Here darling, another hundred for your bank account.” She accepted it. She was a bewildered woman, as if she had suddenly found herself with a different husband. That day, I bet on the phone with Julia’s tacit agreement. I bet like a man possessed, striving to restore solvency and avoid exposure. Again I lost five hundred pounds. On the Monday, I paid in Page’s five hundred pounds and altered the date on his original deposit butt. I rang Pittson and paid him five hundred. I had four hundred pounds left and felt I was safe from exposure, barring accidents, provided I paid the interest on the bonds into Mrs. Lawrence’s account every six months. * After listening to the first race that day on the cell headphones, I felt a strong compulsion to have a bet. Oh Yes, there is an SP bookmaker in the jail. He bets straight-out and doubles, and runs a football pool as well. He has never approached me to bet, probably because it is known that gambling was my downfall. I strolled around, seeking the bookmaker, telling myself I would bet only to refresh my mind in the atmosphere of gambling – for the book.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCc-RWIp7XU&feature=related |
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Are you still forcing a person from the third world to type all this out for you Spoon??
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I'll take "the Fifth" on that one DA. Hate to spawn another poltical issue thread
to refresh my mind in the atmosphere of gambling – for the book. On my way, I thought of the book – and of Jim. I returned to my cell and flung the headphones against the stone wall, smashing them to smithereens. 28 On the following Friday morning, Mrs. Lawrence appeared in front of me at the counter, as if she had risen from beneath the floor. She wanted to cash her bonds; she had a grand opportunity to invest the money in oil shares – “really marvellous inside information.” Casting a hurried glance around me I said: “Certainly, Mrs. Lawrence. Could you possibly come back on Monday? There are certain formalities….” She demurred – rather noisily, I thought. I walked round the counter and led her to the door with a gentle hand and honeyed words. When she had gone, Trembath asked: “What’s the trouble, Paul?” “Oh, nothing, you know what she is…” Saturday dawned to find me desperate. I must turn my four hundred pounds into at least two thousand or I was doomed! Again I went to the races, this time to Moonee Valley, with Jim and his friends. I knew that Jim’s bad trot was continuing. Indeed he had drawn the last four hundred out of his own account that very morning. He was rather apologetic about it; at the hotel, he said aside to me: “Well, Paul, today I must win or it’s back to the drawing- board.” Little did he know with what unprecedented urgency I needed to win, and win well… Bad luck dogged Jim and me right up to the second last race, Jim excused himself to the others: he had to get away early. I knew why but the others didn’t; Jim Roberts was broke, stony broke. I, too, excused myself. Tom Sparks said: “Do you want a few quid, Jim? I can let you have a tenner.” “No thanks, Tommy boy,” Jim replied and we left. As we walked disconsolately away, Jim said: “No use borrowing a tenner. I’ve got a quiet tip for an outsider in the last. And I’ve got to label it with Pittson. I owe him two hundred from the dogs last night but my credit’s good and so it bloody well ought to be. You’d better go with me. Wayside, the country horse. A small commission SP is all that’s going on it. Could start at fifty to one; be no less than twenty-fives.” Jim halted the cab and entered a phone box. I followed him. He dialled Pittson’s number. “Jim Roberts here. Listen I want thirty by twenty Wayside. Eh? Yeh, thirty quid by twenty! How long since I put thirty bob on a horse… Of course, it’s a long pop… No, I haven’t got a tip – but unload it. This’ll be a sweet price and I want to get paid.” I nudged Jim. “Oh, just a minute, Paul wants to back it. How much, Paul?” “Thirty by twenty; same as you,” I said. Jim frowned and put his hand over the receiver. “Hey, just a minute! That’s a big bet. Are you fair dinkum?” “Yes, Jim. I’ve been winning,” I lied, “and I’ve got a hunch.” He shrugged and put my bet on. Apparently, Pittson or Mills whichever it was, complained. Jim took on a commanding tone: “Listen, that’s the bet: thirty by twenty each – and I’ll guarantee it. Righto? Good, and take a mug’s advice and unload it.” “Bookmakers,” he said to me after he had hung up. “What a mob of bastards.” I dared not even hope that the horse would win – and even if it did, the price must be at least sixty-six to one, I calculated. “Is there any price limit?” I found myself asking as we stepped back into the taxi. “No,” Jim replied with a grin. “No limit. You’re a bloody optimist, you are. This is as rough as bags.” The race was due before we reached the city. The taxi had a car radio. We listened. No miracle will save you, I told myself. To my utter amazement, Wayside led all the way and won. Outside the Caulfield Hotel we sat in the cab and listened to the prices. Wayside started at sixty-six to one. I was saved and my confidence returned. “Come and have a drink, Jim,” I said. “Listen, mate, I haven’t got the price of the cab,” Jim replied. He went into to the bar and returned with a five pound note, paid the driver and divided the change equally between us. In the bar, he told me all about the noble animal, Wayside, and about how he contrived to get the tip. His confidence in the racing game and his ability as a punter was restored and he talked animatedly. My own reaction was a pleasant calmness. I reverted to type. I felt like a man who was suddenly cured of a serious disease. I could live safely and never risk infection again. I would never bet heavily again; just an occasional small bet for an interest. On the way home I made an estimate: I had won well over two thousand pounds, I could replace Mrs. Lawrence’s bonds and have a little bit over. Least I could do was give Julia another hundred pounds when I got the money. Then the terrifying realization came: Mrs. Lawrence would call at the bank on Monday, and Pittson didn’t settle until Friday! Over the week-end, I lived in a state of dreadful trepidation. On the Monday morning, I left home half an hour early and called at Jim’s hotel. He came downstairs in pyjamas and dressing-gown. “When does Pittson settle?” I asked. “Friday, as usual, Paul. Why? What’s the hurry?” “I just wondered,” I said lamely. ... we head up the straight...I can almost see the finish line...  |
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the bookies going to take the knock, i can feel it in my bones
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20 Aug 10 17:45 Joined: Date Joined: 14 May 09 | Topic/replies: 518 | Blogger: THERE....IS....NO....SPOOOOON's blog
Kye Joined: 17 Nov 04 Replies: 3922 20 Aug 10 06:08 'Four-legged lottery' great book. Essential reading for all compulsive gamblers Yes Kye, read it years ago, loved it. Thought it deserved an audience rather than sitting, out of print, in a drawer. Think I found it amongst my heavenly-bound grandads bits and pieces. Paperback, text extremely small, pages yellow...... make that brown, falling from cover in sections.Cover is the old "Dick Tracey style graphics" and a guy in a hat suckin the life out of a lungbuster , with a printed price on the cover of "3/9". Character plus!! Tried to get a couple of young uns to read it but the slow start, regularly required rounding up of the pages, combined with the apparent "smell of old people" apparently made it all too hard. Where should I look that I may find some of those "compulsives" you speak of? and as I prepare to strike the final blow in recounting "the story", I think of my dear Granda. A proud Scotsman who fought for his country ( captured by the Germans on April Fools Day, "hands in the air..... April Fool!!" ) , who loved to share a drink, a laugh and his money, would "sneak" me a dollar note whenever I dropped round. God bless  Hope you have enjoyed the read.... phewwwwww it's been a journey!! THERE...IS...NO...SPOOOOON |
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“I just wondered,” I said lamely.
“Well, if you’re in a hurry, so am I. I’ll ring the sniffling bastard – with pleasure.” He went upstairs again and returned a few minutes later. He seemed to be leaning on the banisters as he came down the stairs, as if some great shock had smitten him. “What’s the matter?” I found myself asking. “He’s taken the knock! The dirty bastard has welched on us.” I walked to the bank in a daze. This was the end. A comfortable mood of resignation came over me. It was all over. There was nothing left for me to do, but tell Trembath. In a trance of cultivated deliberateness, I waited for Trembath to arrive. When at last he did, I joined him in his office, sat down opposite him and said: “There is something I want to tell you.” “Yes, Paul.” His speech was that of the alcoholic, slurred yet clipped. “’Yes, Paul’,” I repeated under my breath, “You contemptible drunk. ‘Yes, Paul’…” “I’ve stolen two thousand pounds from the bank,” I said aloud and brutally. Such was my mental state that I felt no shame or humiliation. To record all the details of our conversation would be a waste of paper, expensive paper that costs me three ounces of tobacco per ream… Trembath, once he recovered from the shock, became worried, not about me, not about the bank’s money, but about his job. He was on his way down in the bank. This was the last straw! A large theft in a small bank under his control… The rest of my disgrace doesn’t matter. Trembath wanted to avoid publicity: if I could replace the money, he’d forget the incident. Replace the money? I could sell the car but we hadn’t much equity in that. I could sell the house but we hadn’t much equity in that either. Julia couldn’t make good the discrepancy; her mother could, perhaps, if she sold her property, but that was unthinkable. I was overcome by a masochistic desire for punishment. Before nightfall; I was in the yard of the Melbourne City Watchhouse, charged with theft. Bail was fixed at two hundred and fifty pounds but I didn’t even bother to ring Julia to try to raise it. I only had one worry: what would Jim Roberts think? I hadn’t long to wait before I knew: at eight o’clock that night he came to the Watchhouse. I confronted him across the corridor through the bars. He stood in the interview cubicle ten yards away, his handsome face besmirched with sorrow, sympathy and bewilderment. “What’s happened to you, Paul? I saw it in the paper. It can’t be true.” At the end, he offered to raise the bail, but I refused. He persisted, but he seemed to realize that I had no fight left in me. My life was ended; I had no wish to defend myself; I had no wish for freedom. “Why did you do it, Paul? You should never have gambled. I’m to blame.” “No, Jim. I’ve been happy.” “If you get the money from Pittson, you can still get out of your trouble. I’ll get it, if I have to take it out of his hide.” Soon the warder came and Jim was gone. * Yesterday morning a warder announced a visitor. A visitor for me? Who could it be? Julia? The thought struck me as a stinging open-hand blow in the face. In a few seconds, I felt beads of sweat on my forehead and my hands became clammy. Julia,no? But who else? I followed the warder into an interview cubicle. Julia? She must have returned to Australia. I entered the cubicle, I imagined I saw Jim Roberts. Or the ghost of Jim Roberts? No, not a ghost? Surely that was him sitting in the cubicle opposite, smiling as of old? I began to tremble from head to foot. “Jim,” I muttered in a half whisper. My thoughts swam from me in a spiral and I had a feeling of sinking into the earth. The ghost spoke to me? “Hello, Paul.” A **** mixture of relief and disappointment restored my normality. “Hello, Gerald.” “How are you, Paul.” “Oh, all right. Good.” “I am sorry I took so long to come and to see you.” “Why should you come to see me? It doesn’t matter.” “It does matter. You are a friend. We Communists become so busy helping the people that we sometimes forget individual people.” “Some people are better forgotten,” I said. “No, Paul… I’ve come to ask when you are coming out.” “Coming out?” The very idea had long ago left my mind. “Yes, coming out. That’s right, I’ll come out. I’ve been more than sixteen months, I think. With remission, I’ll be out within five months.” “We must find you a job. A job as an accountant and auditor, perhaps in a union office.” “Me an accountant? Paul Whittaker, the thief?” Gerald Roberts did not reply immediately but, at last, he said: “Anyway, the wife and I had a talk about you. We want to help you get a job and re-establish yourself…” I found myself saying: “But I murdered your brother.” “You must never think such a thing! Jim told me himself.. He thought of you as a dear friend, right to the end…. We fell silent amid the muted voices of the other couples. “Did he tell you about the book?” I found myself asking, forgetting the need for caution. “Yes, he told me. Did you write it?” “It’s nearly finished… Jim wanted it written… I’ve done my best… “ “You’ve been fair to him?” “Yes.” “He was a good lad. Everyone loved him. He was good to his mother and father, to his brother and his sister, loyal to his friends… Yet none of us could save him… Society destroyed him… I tried to begin a campaign for his reprieve but he told the Government he wanted to die…” Gerald seemed to ponder for a while, then he said (and the word seems incongruous): “I have never backed a horse since…” “Neither have I,” I replied foolishly. Gerald seemed embarrassed and fell back upon dogma, as I had noticed him do often before in the old days. “Not horse-racing but capitalism destroyed him…” “Yes.” The intensity of our conversation now left us exhausted and we each fell awkwardly silent. Time was up before we spoke again. Gerald said: “I’ll come again before your release. Then I’ll meet you at the gate…” “Thanks, Gerald.” As I left the cubicle, Gerald Roberts turned and called after me : “Jim saw you as his mate, right to the end…” His mate! Right to the end! |
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His mate! Right to the end!
29 After Jim left me, I expected Julia might call, but she didn’t. The preliminary hearing of my case took place next morning. I looked round the court for Julia but she was not there. The hearing was short. I pleaded guilty and was remanded for trial. When the magistrate asked if I wanted legal assistance, I replied: “Not at this stage.” That same afternoon I was taken in a prison van from the Watchhouse to the Metropolitan Section of Pentridge jail. The shock of finding myself amongst criminals first at the Watchhouse and then here, seemed to shake the apathy out of me and shame came to replace it. A great loneliness followed the shame, until Jim Roberts joined me in the remand yard forty-eight hours later. I have reconstructed what happened from press reports of Jim’s trial and from what he himself told me. In all truth, he told me little about these last incidents, not, I think, because he wished to hide anything but because he had only a vague memory of them. When Jim left me at the Watchhouse, he went by taxi to Pittson’s house. Mrs. Pittson answered his knock. She was a handsome woman, but her figure was bulging with middle age and her face was besmirched with greed and ambition. She was disappointed in her husband and his dubious profession: the only interest she had in his bookmaking was the money forthcoming. Certainly, Jim told me afterwards, she did not know at that stage that her husband had welshed. Jack would be home at about half-past ten, she told Jim. Jim determined to return even at that late hour. I have been trying to capture Jim’s state of mind. Probably, his thoughts were complex. He was much distressed by my predicament, felt that he must get the money from Pittson and so extricate me from jail and from trial. As well, he himself was out of money and in debt. Pittson, who had often hounded him for money, now owed him more than two thousand pounds. Deep- buried hatred of Pittson welled up in him like an atomic cloud. Pittson had hounded the poor of Richmond, including Jim’s father. Now it was Pittson’s turn to be hounded and humiliated. Pittson who had once forced Jim to pay by instalments, now Pittson would pay by instalments: or, better still, he would force the Pittson’s to sell their shop. Leaving Mrs. Pittson, Jim went to his hotel. He gathered some cronies around him, including Harry Walton, and they went to his room to drink beer. Jim related the story in detail. “Pittson will pay if I have to take it out of his hide,” he told them. Over the years, Jim had developed a swaggering manner as a compensation for his earlier shyness and timidity. He was fond, in the years I knew him, of showing physical fearlessness, of talking fight, of taking the side of the weak if violence threatened. Now he was talking violence and working himself up to it. He returned to Pittson’s house at eleven o’clock and, even though he saw the lights in the bedroom, he rapped the door-knocker commandingly. After some whispering and shuffling from the bedroom, Pittson called out, his voice shrill like that of a nervous woman: “Who’s there?” “Jim Roberts! Open up!” Eventually the door opened and Jim saw Pittson in front of him, a frightened man in a tartan dressing-gown. The years had turned Pittson’s hair grey, his expression more predatory and sly. “I was in bed,” Pittson said and added, for no apparent reason, “The wife’s favver is sick.” “Not as sick as you’ll be if you don’t pay up,” Jim replied, stepping uninvited across the threshold and closing the door behind him. His manner was threatening and Pittson cowered away from him. “I’ll pay, Jim… so much a week.” “So much a week,” Jim mocked him. “What about your shop?” “It’s mortgaged, Jim. Not worf a zac. We lost ten thousand. A bad trot for six weeks. We paid all the little debts but all our money’s gone…” “What about your sleeping partner?” “He’s broke, too, Jim. Gods honour he is.” “God’s honour? There’s a joke!” Jim replied bitterly and grabbed Pittson by the lapels of his dressing gown. “Listen, there’s a good man in jail tonight because you’re a welsher…” “Whittaker was a fool, Jim,” Pittson whined. “He bet above his means, you know that.” Jim tightened his grip and shook Pittson. “Don’t hit me, Jim. I’ll pay! I’ll do my best…” At that moment, Mrs. Pittson rushed from the bedroom and grasped Jim by the shoulder. He shook her off violently. “Just what I’d expect from you. The Robertses were never any good,” she screamed. “Rushing into people’s houses in the middle of the night. I’ll ring the police.” She made to step past him into the lounge-room. He restrained her, firmly holding her shoulders in his hands. “You’ll ring no-one, Mrs. Pittson! You and your airs and graces. Your husband owes me and paul Whittaker two thousand each and he’s going to pay every penny, even if you have to sell your shop and the roof over your head. Do you hear me? She stared at him in unbelief for a moment, then replied: “you have no legal claim.” “No legal claim,” Jim said scornfully. “Did your husband have any legal claim on the poor people of Richmond when he hounded them for money? They paid and he’s going to pay.” Jim turned to Pittson, his manner more calm but scarcely less threatening. “Why didn’t you lay the bets off?” “We had used our credit with the lay-off man,” Pittson said. “Well, sell your car. You drive a Customline, sell it!” “I’ve sold it, Jim. It’s gone. As God’s me judge. I sold it.” Suddenly, Jim grabbed Pittson again. “Well, I don’t care where you get the money. You’re going to pay. And I want an instalment tonight!” Pittson looked at his wife, they were two terror-stricken people. Slowly, with a mixture of fear and reluctance, Pittson went to the bedroom and returned with a bundle of ten pound notes. “Here’s two hundred quid…all I’ve got in the world.” Jim took the money and said brutally: “This is only a deposit. You’ll pay me and Whittaker every penny if your wife has to take in washing.” With that he opened the door and faded into the night. When he had gone, Pittson locked the door and rang his assistant John Mills. Next morning, Jim Roberts went to Tom Sparks’ house. He found his friend in bed. “I want a loan of fifty quid, Tom, if you’ve got it.” Jim went on to relate how Pittson had paid two hundred pounds deposit. He wanted the fifty pounds to make up my bail money, he told Sparks. I think I can manage, Jim, if I can talk the missus round. As a matter of fact, I was coming to see you about pittson. I’ve been doing some detective work. Hoo! Hoo! It’ll be a massacre. Mills has been going round Pittson’s clients giving them a new phone number. Him and Pittson are going to set themselves up in business again – with your money and Paul’s!” They fell into earnest discussion. Finally, Jim said: “The little bastard knows we’ve got no legal claim. He won’t pay. I had to shake the two hundred quid out of him. What about his sleeping partner? I wonder can we find him. Maybe we can force him to pay.” They left the house together to do, as Tom Sparks described it, a Sherlock Holmes job. By late afternoon they had found pittson’s backer. He had given Pittson the money to pay everyone, including Roberts and Whittaker, he declared, and Jim believed he was telling the truth. Jim and Tom Sparks retired to a hotel bar and drank beer until six o’clock, Jim uttering threats about what he would do to Pittson. From there they went to the hotel dining-room to have a meal and drink more beer. At eight o’clock Jim told Tom that he intended to call again on Pittson to demand full payment. “I’ll come with you, if you like,” Tom Sparks said. “No, Pittson is my meat. I’ll call at your place in the morning to get that fifty quid, if Pittson doesn’t come clean.” Fearing that Pittson would not admit him to the house again, Jim went to the back door, found it unlocked and let himself in quietly. Seeing a light ahead, he went to it. In the lounge-room he found Pittson, his wife and the formidable John Mills, present as was revealed in court, as a bodyguard after Jim’s threatening manner of the night before. Mills and Mrs. Pittson described vividly the savage events that followed. Jim stood at the door, fists on hips, pushing back his opened sports coat. “A happy family gathering,” he sneered. “I’ve come about a small matter of four thousand quid. Your backer gave it to you to pay me and Whittaker, and I want it. I want it tonight, in full!” Mills arose and confronted him. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Jim. We haven’ got the money, so you can’t take blood from a stone. And tonight, if you want trouble pick someone your own size – like me, for instance.” “Mister Mills, the stand over man,” Jim answered contemptuously. “Yes,” Mills replied, “just the man to put you out!” He closed on Jim, towering over him. Like a flash, Jim’s left fist jabbed out and struck Mills on the jaw. As Mills staggered under the impact, Jim struck again, this time with his right hand to Mills’ stomach. Mills slumped and Jim hit him with the left on the jaw again. Mills fell heavily to the floor, striking his head on the hearth of the fireplace. He lay inert, like a dead man. Mrs. Pittson screamed and ran towards the telephone table. Jim intercepted, and rushed her violently across the passage into the bathroom, and locked the door behind her. When Jim returned to the lounge, Mills had regained his feet. Groggy but defiant he shaped up to fight. He was a helpless target and Jim hit him. Mills again fell to the floor. He rolled over on his back, the whites of his eyes shining in the electric light, hideous like those of a corpse. Jim turned to Pittson who cringed in a corner of the room quivering with pitiable fear. “Listen, Pittson, you’ve got the money and I want it!” “I haven’t got it at all, Jim, but I might get some of it tomorrow. Don’t hit me…’ “I want the lot. How much will you pay tomorrow?” “Five hundred, maybe. That’s all I can get, Jim.” “All you can get…” At that precise moment, something clicked in Jim’s mind and Pittson became a symbol of all the frustrations and disappointments of his life. Instead of an adversary weak and full of fear, he imagined himself confronted with a powerful evil enemy. He must destroy that enemy or be destroyed. “I’ll pay, Jim. Don’t hit me!” Mills lay still and Mrs. Pittson screamed in the bathroom. For Jim, they did not exist; only Pittson existed as a symbol of dreadful memories. Cissie and Tom Roberts quarrelled in Jim’s mind; Kathleen took a lover; he wanted to be an artist and could not; a woman lay on a dirty bed and Kathie wept; his dead son came to life and kissed him; hostile adults surrounded an adolescent boy and mocked his love and ambition; leering mouths shouted at him “you are unemployed, a susso!” A hostile society crowded in on him to frustrate his pursuit of happiness – and he struck out at it. He hit Pittson’s cheek savagely with the back of his right hand. Pittson shook violently with craven fear. “You’ve gone mad, Jim,” he whimpered. In Jim’s crazed mind, Pittson’s body grew to giant proportions and Pittson’s face mocked him. Jim crashed his left fist viciously into Pittson’s face and Pittson hurtled to the wall, fell and lay still. Jim rushed to his prostrate body, picked it up and again struck the face savagely. Pittson fell again. This time he did not move – because he was dead! Berserk now, Jim picked him up again and punched his head brutally. Pittson fell again and Jim kicked his face and head until blood and brain cells spattered the wall. Mrs. Pittson eventually realized that all was silent in the lounge-room. Frenzied, she broke the glass of the bathroom door with a hairbrush, opened the door and went to the violence-ridden lounge. At the door she stood petrified. Mills was inert. Her husband’s mutilated body lay in a pool of blood in the corner near the sofa. Jim Roberts sat on the sofa like a man in a dream, elbows on knees, chin on chest. Mrs. Pittson ran into the room and knelt by her husband’s side. When the police came, they found Jim Roberts still slumped on the sofa. He went with them silently and without a struggle. * For three evenings I have sat, pen in hand, gazing at a blank sheet, endeavouring to write the last chapter of this book. The details are clear, burned on my brain as with a soldering iron – yet I have not been able to put them into words. Tonight I will try to set down what happened in the remand yard and after, leading up to the last terrible event in the chapter. When they led Jim Roberts into the remand yard where the prisoners sit all day without shelter from sun or rain, I could scarce believe my eyes. He seemed to be in a trance, but eventually he told me what had happened. I was smitten with a savage, gnawing sense of guilt. The Metropolitan is a circular structure composed of several wedge-shaped yards; a yard for those prisoners on remand without bail waiting trial: a yard for prisoners who suffer from venereal disease known as the “pox” yard; a yard for prisoners on trial called the trial yard; a yard for juveniles and so on. Jim and I talked all day. And soon this book was the main topic. After my conviction, I was transferred to “A” Division of nearby Pentridge Jail. Soon Jim’s trial came on and, after sentence of death was passed, he went to the condemned yard, then to one of the condemned cells below the gallows. At his trial he had refused legal aid and had offered no defence. When the judge passed sentence, Jim electrified the court by saying in a firm voice: “I have a last request, Your Honour. I want you to tell the Government not to consider a reprieve. I wish the death sentence to be carried out!” After Jim went to the condemned cell, I strove desperately to make contact with him but, isolated and heavily guarded day and night as he was, I experienced great difficulty. The Bush Lawyer again came to the rescue. Through the jail barber he transmitted a note from me to Jim. The note was a promise that I would write the book. That Jim received it, I am certain for next day came his reply written on jail toilet paper: “Thanks, Paul, the book is all I have got to live for” – and the word “live” was crossed out and replaced with “die”. I have honoured my vow: that is all that protects me from an insanity of remorse. I received three further notes from Jim. One said: “Horses don’t bet on people; that’s why they never get hung.” Another note reported: “Kathie is coming today!” Oh, that some mysterious power could relate to me their conversation! Please let it be that the embers of their love flamed anew, and that they kissed with the passion of old! And then I saw poor Jim for the last time. I had learned that he sometimes came with the chaplain to the Roman Catholic service, to get away from the condemned cell for a while. So I contrived to go to Mass the Sunday before Jim died. And there I saw him sitting apart between two armed warders. His face was pale and drawn, he had lost weight, but he smiled and waved his hand. Then I noticed him writing on a piece of paper, the warders pretending not to see and, after the service, a prisoner handing me Jim’s last note. “ ‘ Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once’ – been reading Shakespeare!” I have kept those four notes from Jim Roberts hidden in a crevice between the wall and floor in a corner of the cell behind my bed. Tonight, I have taken them from their hiding-place and sit holding them in trembling hands like sacred parchments. 30 Would a man have chosen to be born at all if he knew he must live through this night and morning? Such a thought came to me as I lay on my bed the night before Jim Roberts was hanged. My answer was: “No, better not to have lived at all!” And what of Jim? What thoughts came to torture him in the cell below the gallows? For they came that night above him – yes they did it! – they came above his head and tested the gallows, using a bag of sand for his body! But I like to think, I feel positively certain, he was too strong and courageous for them… “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once! But, Jim, what thoughts came to you that night? The “crims” told me that the authorities dope the doomed man so that he will find forgetfulness in his sleep. Did you sleep? Or being wakeful, what were your thoughts? What were your thoughts? Of Kathie? What did she say to you, Jim, when she came to the jail last week? Did she say: “I love you?” That is what I like to believe; that your love was reborn in the shadow of the gallows. Did you think of Cissie Roberts, of Tom Roberts?... Of Pittson? This last scene I cannot describe because your guiding hand has been withdrawn. Did you think of Paul Whittaker? And did you blame him?... Is there some mysterious telepathy between the dead and the living? Can I attune myself to its wave- length to know your last thoughts? Through the long weary months I have tried, but it cannot be… Let novelists be humble when they set themselves the task to know the thoughts of other men! It is for me only to record my own thoughts and reactions during that night and that horrible dawn. They are hanging Jim Roberts in the morning, in the morning at ten o’clock. Who is hanging Jim Roberts? A man, a man without a name? Or a man with a name? None slept in the jail, Jim, none slept! The men admired you and your cheerful courage; the authorities were alarmed by your quiet fearlessness. They could hang you, yes! But they could not bring fear to you; they like to bring fear to the damned, but they could not bring it to Jim Roberts. “… the valiant never taste of death but once!” The sun rose that morning, neutral in the affairs of men, indifferent to revenge. And the criminals were restive and tense as they ate breakfast. Meat – meat, Jim! – meat for breakfast! They were afraid of this day, Jim, and they gave us meat for breakfast! They were afraid of your power over us, and they gave us cigarettes, cigarettes not tobacco! And they locked every man in his cell as though they feared we would storm the gallows as the old Bastille… And now I must write – the tale of how Jim Roberts died. I can reconstruct it. I found a disused book in the library which described a previous hanging; I questioned the jail doctor; I heard all the jail rumours. During this last hour, the Roman Catholic Chaplain and two warders are in the cell with Jim. The jail governor comes to the cell door and demands that the body of Jim Roberts be handed over according to law. The door opens slowly. The hangman enters and pinions the condemned man’s arms. Jim Roberts says; “No need to tie me up.” They strap his hands behind his back. They lead him out. He brushes against the warders and the chaplain: “I need no screws or priests. I have chosen to die because I have nothing to live for. I have chosen death, let me face it alone. I am a better man than you will ever be!” Jim Roberts’s last walk. Steadily to the trapdoor. Swiftly, the hangman’s assistant straps the condemned man’s legs together. “Have you anything to say, Roberts?” the sheriff calls shakily. “I’ll have my say one of these days…” How can a dead man speak? Swiftly, the hangman places a visor-like hood over the condemned man’s face. And swiftly again the noose around the neck, the washer and knot in position under the left jaw. That way the spinal cord snaps and death is swift. This moment has been well planned. The hangman has secretly observed the condemned man, his weight, the strength of his neck muscles. They have a chart to calculate the drop. “Take the weight in stones and look down the column…” He is young and strong…, Add a couple of feet to the drop.. All is ready. A murmuring begins amongst prisoners in the nearest cells. The official witnesses and the press men watch tight-chested and breathless. A white sheet has been strung across under the gallows to hide the body from view after it falls. Swiftly, the hangman pulls the lever… Did you hear it? Did you hear the thud of the strong body falling? Yes we heard it! It may have been an illusion, but at ten o’clock to the second, every prisoner, even those in the remotest corners of the jail, heard a thud and knew that life had gone from Jim Roberts. For two minutes the body writhed, the knees bending up and down. The eyes, once serene with the light of kindness, stared now fit to leap from their sockets. And blood poured from the nose and ears, turning the white hood the colour of crushed raspberries. I can see the body writhing now. And hear the thud of its fall again and again at my temples. Did you hear it? Did you hear the thud of Jim Roberts’ body falling into the trap, the trap devised by man to murder his own kind? Yes, I heard it! Did you hear it, you proud rich? Did you hear it, you self-righteous priest and parson? Did you hear it, you bookmaker? Did you hear it, Cissie Roberts, somewhere in the telepathy land? Tom Roberts, did you hear it? Oh, Kathie Morris, did you hear it? Did you hear it, little babe at mother’s breast? Did you hear it south wind from the sea? Did you hear it, football player? Did you hear it, artist, and feel it quiver on your on your palette? All the men of the earth, did you hear the thud of the body of Jim Roberts as it crashed into the savage vacuum of the trap-door gallows? You heard it? Then may that thud form some strange symphony to be played in all the tongues of men, that all me shall know the tragedy of it all – the dreadful Australian tragedy of it all! THE END THE FOUR-LEGGED LOTTERY FRANK HARDY Author of POWER WITHOUT GLORY |
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Then may that thud form some strange symphony to be played in all the tongues of men,
that all men shall know the tragedy of it all – the dreadful Australian tragedy of it all! DOH!!!  |
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Indeed.
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spoon ... thank you very much for your time and effort in bringing the book to its new life ... its new remembrance ... amongst us all
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Thanks spoon.
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Thanks Spoony. Loved the story. Spell well mate.
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Thankyou linesmen, thankyou ballboys
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thank you very mucccchhhh........spoon has left the building
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Dear Mopey
Merry Christmas my buddy. |
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would give you a hug if i could
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huggs for both of you
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Great read!!
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yeah, even without ol henry von luca
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looks like some of the peanut gallery have had their replies vaporised on this thread....meh,
still, great story . I do sometimes wonder what that Korean kid's up to these days |