Free Holden's Performance by Murray Bail Page B

represented preservation and accumulation, movement of capital: essentially conservatism; the second specialising in dismantling and dissemination, piecemeal exchange, was more visible, physically active, democratic.
    Frank McBee belonged to the…probably the second category.
    Not all the aircraft belonged to him; part of the paddock he leased to the first category of merchant. ‘I swap their planes around,’ he explained with a wink. ‘They wouldn't know the bloody difference.’
    Most dealers began with an Anson—plenty of non-ferrous scrap, and they were the cheapest. McBee had a lucky break. Through a contact he heard about a Spitfire. ‘Not as much metal, but crikey, I'm a romantic. Look how they performed in the Battle of Britain.’ On the day it was delivered a speedboat enthusiast bought the supercharged engine. He had his own personal mechanic lift it out. ‘I then thought: no, bugger it, I can pick up an Anson anytime.’ Instead he turned to the DC3—the old Gooneybird. These went for four times the cost of the Anson. McBee bought two on credit. The Spitfire shell he meanwhile sold to a German in the Barossa Valley. Took out options on another two DC3s. Small airlines were springing up in Australia and all through the Pacific basin. They needed spare parts. McBee quickly sold the propellers, flaps, balloon tyres and hydraulic systems; Air New Guinea became a regular client of undercarriages. Anything left was sold for scrap. At one stage he had thirteen DC3s. By then he owned the paddock, freehold, and branched out into Ansons, Wirraways and plywood flying boats.
    â€˜This is a great country of ours,’ he said with a simple but expansive gesture. ‘Thank Christ the Japs didn't come down and take us.’
    The land remained silent. The sky had darkened to a fuselage grey pierced by a full moon, a single flared cannon hole letting in light.
    â€˜What happened to the speedboat driver?’
    McBee gave a short laugh. ‘Don't you read the papers? This was a few weeks back. The idiot was trying to break the Australian water speed record. He broke his neck instead. His boat turned turtle at over a hundred. They're only made of plywood. I got one of the boys to make up a kind of wreath out of a few exhaust pipes, and the man's wife, not a bad-looking tart, was so touched, or chewed up, one or the other, she let me have the engine for nix. If I fished it out. That was easy enough. And you know what? I sold it while it was still dripping saltwater to an ex-RAF type who's getting the whole thing chrome-plated and mounted in his loungeroom. It takes all types.’
    Looking around at the extent of the paddock Holden could see McBee was different from everybody else. And with his face partially cast in shadow he now looked especially able, a man who wore the burden of complicated components and high numbers lightly. Towards Holden he had always been friendly and yet remote. And that was how it should be. It was only natural, Holden decided. These numbered among Holden's happiest days. Many years later the sight of deserted aircraft on a tarmac, especially at the close of a tropical day when the windscreens turned into panels of mica, never failed to remind him of the dusty paddock near Parafield, and even brought a slight smile to his face.
    For after that first visit he became McBee's assistant. Like many national heroes McBee had an aversion to being alone.
    They rattled out on the A-J, Siamese twins suffering curvature of the spine. With his forehead pressed almost daily against the billowing back, flecks of khaki from the passing landscape and McBee's war-disposal shorts entered Holden's pupils and remained: wind-conditioned eyes, marbled khaki. At the paddock McBee hop-hopped into his ex-RAAF overalls (zippers, map-pockets, flaps…), already casting around for the most immediate task. Plenty of times Holden climbed into a cockpit— ‘Pancake to Four