Territory (35 page)

Henrietta instinctively cringed in her chair.

‘This is your doing,' he snarled. ‘You and that English string of misery have done your best to ruin my son. Well, I'll have no more of this rubbish, do you hear?' He smashed his fist down on the table. ‘Not one more word!' Then he turned again to his younger son, who was staring open-mouthed in bewilderment at his father's sudden rage.

‘And you, boy,' Terence growled with utter contempt, ‘you will go to military college when the time is right and you'll make a man of yourself. You're a Galloway and it's high time you started behaving like one.'

Terence strode from the room before his temper got the better of him and he started throwing punches.

The following weeks of the boys' vacation were not the joyous school holidays which Henrietta normally awaited with eager enthusiasm. Terence was in a constant ill humour and they all trod warily, fearful that the slightest thing might give offence and bring down the force of his wrath. Even the weather seemed to match the mood of the household. The wet season hit early and the days were either clammy and oppressive or beset with violent storms.

For the first time in years Henrietta was thankful when the boys returned to school. She didn't know which had been worse, the threat of Kit's rebellion, or Malcolm's desperate attempts to mollify his father.

Henrietta had promised Kit, privately, the very night after the confrontation, that he would go to university. She had funds of her own, she'd said, but he must be patient and wait. In silence. So Kit had wandered around, sullen, resentful, wanting to speak his mind but obeying his mother's wishes.

Malcolm, on the other hand, had been overanxious and determined to please his father.

‘I've set the goal posts up, Dad, do you want to kick the ball around?'

‘In this weather? Don't be bloody stupid.'

Time and again Malcolm had been left feeling humiliated and wretched, and each time he'd been spurned, Henrietta's heart had gone out to him.

She did not attempt to confront Terence herself, she dared not for fear he would take his black rage out upon his sons. She pretended instead that nothing untoward had happened. She was bright and breezy with the boys and pleasant with Terence, and careful every minute of the day that he should find no chink in their armour. No books appeared during the holidays, there were no discussions about literature, and she breathed a sigh of relief when Kit and Malcolm returned to school.

 

‘The house won't be finished until the middle of next year,' Terence said pleasantly as he sipped at his Scotch in the quiet evening of the lounge room.

He'd been going out of his way to be pleasant since the boys had left, and in ratio to the re-emergence of his good humour, Henrietta had reverted to silence and her books. She had decided there was no point in trying to communicate with him, what was the use, but she was infuriated. He'd made the boys' holiday hell and now he expected everything to be back on an even keel. Well, bugger him, she thought, as she buried her head in her book.

‘So when we move to Darwin at Christmas we'll have to stay somewhere else.' He ignored the fact that she was paying him no attention. She was probably punishing him for his behaviour when the boys were here, he thought. He knew he'd been surly, but what did she expect? He'd worked his guts out organising things to the best possible advantage, ensuring Henrietta's middle years would be comfortable and his sons would inherit an empire, and what thanks did he get? Terence had been unable to shake off his reaction to such ingratitude for weeks, but now that the boys had gone, particularly Kit, whose presence had been a constant annoyance, he was prepared to let bygones
be bygones. The fact that Henrietta was sulking and disappearing once again into her books irked him but he was determined to do his best to pacify her.

‘I thought perhaps the Hotel Darwin,' he said.

At the mention of the Hotel Darwin, Henrietta looked up.

Good, he had her attention. He'd known that the Hotel Darwin would please her.

‘What?' she said.

‘The Hotel Darwin, that's where we'll stay whilst the house is being finished. I thought you'd be pleased,' he said, ‘you've always liked the Hotel Darwin.'

‘Yes,' she said. Dear God, no, she thought. ‘But surely when the boys come home for the holidays we'll need to rent a house for the space.'

‘They might rather like the novelty of the hotel,' Terence replied, ‘and it would save you a lot of work.' He was doing his best to be agreeable.

‘Perhaps. But then there are newer places than the Hotel Darwin, maybe we should try somewhere different.'

Why, he wondered? Because she associated the Hotel Darwin with fond memories of her precious friend Trewinnard? Terence pushed for an answer. ‘Why?' he demanded belligerently.

Henrietta retreated. ‘Oh for heaven's sake, Terence, no reason whatsoever, we'll stay wherever you like, let's discuss it closer to the time, shall we?' And she returned to her book.

 

‘I'm going into town tomorrow to see Aggie,' Henrietta announced the following week, ‘she's taking her class to a special art exhibition at the old Town Hall and I said I'd join them.'

‘Fine.'

‘I'll probably stay a few days, I haven't seen her in months.'

‘Of course,' he replied pleasantly enough, although he
found her peremptory tone irritating. ‘Tomorrow's Wednesday, I'll give Nellie the night off, she and Jackie might like to go to the pictures.'

Wednesday was the only night Aborigines were permitted to attend the picture theatre in Darwin, where they sat in the cheap seats up the back. In fact Wednesday was the only night Aborigines were allowed into town at all, ‘between sunset and sunrise', and even then they needed to queue up for permits.

‘That'd be nice,' Henrietta said, ‘I'm sure they'd like that.'

Again the coldness of her tone irritated him, but then Terence had been in a constant state of annoyance for the past week. Despite all of his efforts, Henrietta remained remote. It infuriated him.

Nellie and Jackie were indeed delighted at the prospect of an outing to the Star Picture Theatre, and Wednesday night found Terence alone in the house. It also found him brooding and angry. Henrietta had turned her cheek to him when he'd kissed her goodbye that morning. She'd actually avoided his lips and proffered her cheek like a maiden aunt. Her action symbolised the coldness she'd displayed to him over the past fortnight since the boys' departure, and the more Terence brooded upon it the angrier he became.

The emptiness of the house aggravated his burgeoning ill-temper. The lack of Henrietta's presence seemed to taunt him, as if it was another gesture of hers intended to humiliate him, and he stalked about the place, Scotch in hand, wishing that she was with him. If she was here now, he thought as he poured himself another drink, he'd put her in her true place. And her true place was upstairs, naked, with her legs spread. He'd rip her clothes off her and he'd drive himself into her with all the force he could muster, and he'd bite her lips and her breasts until he drew blood. If she was here now he'd demand she serve
him as a true wife should. Terence was frustrated beyond endurance.

Bella, he thought, he needed Bella. He slammed down his Scotch and left for the Aboriginal camp. But on the way there, he had a better idea.

Half an hour later, Terence returned to the homestead, and he brought Bella with him. The girl was nervous, she didn't want to come into the big house, and he had to literally drag her through the back door.

‘There's no-one here, see?' He dragged her through the kitchen and into the hall. ‘Big house empty. People gone.'

Bella stopped struggling and looked about, her mouth open, her eyes wide in wonderment. She had never seen such grandeur. She gazed up at the high ceilings of the hall, at the wide ornate wooden staircase, she peeked through the open door of the lounge room where the light from the wall brackets illuminated furnishings that she had never known existed. This was a magic place. A palace. She looked at Terence and smiled with childish delight.

The excitement in her eyes, the fullness of her lips and the whiteness of her teeth gleaming in the dim light of the hall intensified Terence's desire. He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the stairs. Her nervousness returning, she baulked a little, but once he got her up to the landing, pushed the door of the main bedroom open and turned on the lights, she was once again like a child in fairyland.

Bella had never imagined a bed could be so big. She'd never actually seen a bed before, only an occasional discarded mattress at the camp, put to use during the muster and dumped as the families moved on. And the dressing table! With its huge gilt-edged mirror and silver-topped jars and brushes and combs …

She crossed to it and looked at herself in the mirror. She discovered that, if she stood back from the dressing table a little, she could see her whole body, from the top of her head to her knees. She'd never seen her whole reflection
before. She didn't have long to wonder at the fact, however, Terence was beside her, ordering her to take her clothes off.

There wasn't much to take off, she wore no underwear beneath her light smock and, as Terence rummaged in the top drawer of the dressing table Bella slipped the smock over her head and admired her nakedness in the mirror.

‘Put these on,' he told her, and he handed her a pair of white panties and a lacy white brassiere.

Bella giggled as she stepped into the panties, and he had to help her with the brassiere, she had no idea how to fasten it. Then she stood before the mirror admiring herself in the fancy underwear of the white missus. It would be uncomfortable to wear all the time, but it looked very sexy. She cupped her breasts and pulled them up higher into the brassiere; it was too big for her, but its lace looked lovely against her skin. She turned and looked over her shoulder, admiring her bottom in the panties. She liked what she saw.

So did Terence. As he sat on the bed watching Bella admire herself, the sight of his wife's stark white underwear against the girl's black skin excited him. He undressed, not taking his eyes from the girl for one instant, and when he was naked he stepped behind her and gazed at their reflections.

‘Bend over,' he said. Bella knew what was expected of her, and she started to take off the panties. ‘Leave them on,' he ordered.

Bella leaned her elbows on the dressing table, parted her legs, and arched her back, her rump pointing up invitingly at him.

Terence pulled aside the panties and entered her from behind. He tried to move slowly, to savour the image as he looked down at his groin and thrust himself through his wife's underwear into Bella's velvet interior. He looked at their reflections in the mirror. Bella was enjoying herself
now. Her head lolled back, her eyes half open, her lips parted, she was making guttural sounds as she met his every thrust.

The sight of the girl's blackness and her wantonness in Henrietta's pristine underwear was both erotic and rebellious and Terence was losing control. He tried to slow down but it was impossible. The thought of Henrietta's debasement was giving him untold pleasure, and the harder and stronger he pumped himself into the girl's body, the more he was making Henrietta pay for her coldness.

Frigid bitch, he thought as he thrust more and more brutally and, as he reached his climax, the knowledge that he had defiled Henrietta in her absence, in her own bedroom, with her own underwear, afforded him the most exquisite pleasure.

As soon as he was spent, he dismissed the girl. ‘Go home, Bella,' he said.

Bella was a little disappointed. She'd wanted to explore the grand house, but the boss was in one of his bad moods. He was funny like that. Sometimes after they'd done it he'd laugh and play with her, and sometimes he'd just walk off. Bella slipped her smock back on and disappeared.

The panties were damp and they smelled of his semen. Terence decided to destroy them. It was one thing to humiliate Henrietta in her absence, another entirely to be found out. Faced with the knowledge of his indiscretion she might well leave him, and that was a prospect which, deep down, terrified Terence. But he wondered, as he folded the brassiere and returned it to the drawer, whether she might smell the black woman next time she dressed. A musky smell which she would put down to damp, but the thought pleased Terence.

About to close the drawer, he noticed what looked like a jewellery case. Henrietta wore little jewellery. He'd been unaware that she had recently acquired this small silver
box. And without informing him too. Terence was intrigued.

The case was locked. Even more intriguing. He searched briefly for a key without success. No matter. He'd break the lock easily enough, husbands and wives should have no secrets, after all. And he took the jewellery case downstairs to his study to attack it with his penknife.

1878

Benjamin Sullivan liked to show off the locket. In Barclay's Room, a converted old store of the famous surveyor Goyder, where the elite of Port Darwin attended concerts or played dominoes and charades, Benjamin would sit in a corner chatting to the latest newcomer, and it would be only a matter of minutes before he produced the locket. It was always an excellent conversation opener.

‘Where did you get it?' the newcomer would ask, suitably impressed.

‘Exchanged it with a black,' Benjamin would lie, ‘for a tomahawk, the blacks like tomahawks.'

Monsieur Durand, the dandified mining magnate complete with tamarind-blossom buttonhole and waxed moustache, who acted as master of ceremonies at Barclay's Room, would inevitably be holding court or introducing the latest performer, but Benjamin always preferred a quiet chat in the corner.

‘I was a surveyor with Goyder's expedition in '69,' he'd
continue which, if not exactly a lie, was certainly an exaggeration. He'd been a cadet surveyor doubling as an axeman when the need demanded. Again the newcomer would be impressed, the year-long expedition of Goyder and his team was the stuff of legends.

In 1869 the South Australian Government had decided that the mysteries of the far-distant Northern Territory must be revealed. Who knew what pastoral lands might lie hidden amongst the vast tracts of unexplored country, or what wealth of minerals might lie undiscovered beneath its surface. George Woodroffe Goyder, Surveyor-General of South Australia, was the man chosen to lead the expedition, the purpose of which was the survey of a half a million acres of tropical territory in less than a year.

Not only did Goyder carry out his mammoth task but, two years later, the success of the ‘Singing String' was considered largely due to George Woodroffe Goyder's Northern Territory Survey Expedition. The ‘Singing String' was two thousand miles of overland telegraph line stretching from Port Darwin to Adelaide. Linked by submarine cable to Java, the line had thence linked Australia to the rest of the world.

A bit of the hero was bound to rub off on anyone connected with the Goyder expedition, and Benjamin Sullivan liked to be considered a hero. He always started off his tales with the locket, though, such a visual way to impress, before branching off into his adventures and the men with whom he'd shared intimate acquaintance.

‘Goyder, yes, knew him well, a fine man.' He hadn't known Goyder well at all, taking most of his orders from one of the junior surveyors. ‘And Bennett, tragic story Bennett, we were close friends.'

Benjamin and J.W.O. Bennett hadn't been ‘close friends', but Benjamin had indeed known the young draftsman. They'd been the same age, just twenty-three, when Bennett had been stabbed in the back by natives.
There'd been a recent tribute to him in the
Northern Territory Times.
A retrospective article indeed, but an indication that Bennett's death remained a newsworthy item.

‘Took him four days to die, poor fellow.' And Benjamin would shake his head, as if reliving the loss of his dearest companion.

Benjamin Sullivan was a striking looking man. Above average height, thirty-two years of age, he was strong and fit in the body. With thick, wavy hair which grew to his shoulders and an impressive beard and moustache, he looked for all the world like the rugged frontier man he wished to be. But for all the strength of his appearance, he was a weak man at heart. Perhaps he knew it. Perhaps it was why he needed his stories.

He was just as comfortable telling his stories in any one of Darwin's three hotels, each consisting of a bar and three rooms. There was the Pickford's Family Hotel, the Palmerston Club and the North Australian. But not being a drinking man himself, Benjamin preferred Barclay's Room. Gold miners, when they returned to their shanties near town and sought out the bars, were more intent on getting the grog into them than they were in conversation.

It was the pioneer families in their shack homes dotted about the scrub whose company Benjamin most enjoyed, the wives being particularly fascinated by the locket, and the varying stories he told of its acquisition—he always varied his stories about the locket according to the audience he was entertaining. These brave young wives had joined their husbands, many of whom had been members of surveying teams, and settled in Port Darwin, bringing with them a cultural and social change to the town. Benjamin wanted nothing more than to be one of those pioneer families. He had built his own modest home and intended a trip to Adelaide soon to find himself a wife, one who would bear him strong children.

Benjamin was in his customary corner at Barclay's
Room and this time he was out to impress the wife of James Masterson, a successful gold miner who had recently joined forces with Monsieur Durand. No shanties for those two, both men lived in fine houses, and no prospector's pan for them either; they employed whole teams of pig-tailed, palm-leaf-hatted Chinese coolies—and two whites with rifles to keep them in order—and at no initial cost. The South Australian Government had given free passage to thousands of Chinese in order to provide cheap labour for its northern province. With thirty Chinese to a team, each paid a shilling a day, tons of supplies and equipment could be carried in the baskets of their shoulder poles across the 120 miles to Pine Creek and the mines. And even if it took the teams three weeks, there was little cost to the mining magnates, the coolies lived on a bag of rice, and then they trekked back, their baskets laden with cakes of smelted gold. It was necessary to keep replacing the coolies, however; more often than not when the Chinese had received their first week's pay they purchased a pannikin, a shovel and dish and set off to fossick on their own. There were hundreds of them out there, it was told.

‘It is certainly a most lovely thing,' Mrs Masterson said, holding the locket up to the light, ‘how did you come by it?'

‘Yes it is lovely, isn't it?' Benjamin agreed, admiring the line of Mrs Masterson's neck as she held the locket up to the light. She was a handsome woman, he'd like his wife to resemble Mrs Masterson. ‘It was given to me by a black woman. Of the Larrakia tribe. A great beauty.'

Mrs Masterson handed the locket back to him and directed her attention to Monsieur Durand, who was introducing a soprano to the minuscule stage.

Benjamin realised she had taken offence. He'd meant no harm by his remark, he'd simply wished to gain her attention. But then Mrs Masterson was an Englishwoman
newly arrived in Port Darwin and possibly fearful of the blacks. It was certainly obvious from the set of her pursed lips that she didn't approve of them. Personally, Benjamin didn't find the blacks at all offensive, he had come to know them during the expedition. Come to admire them in fact. Therein lay the huge weight of his guilt, but no, he mustn't think about that.

‘I was a surveyor on the Goyder expedition at the time.' He hastily dropped his story of the Larrakia beauty and was about to launch into his adventures on the trail, but she cut him off dead in his tracks.

‘Really,' she said without interest, her tone glacial and dismissive.

Annabelle Masterson had assumed Sullivan was offering the locket for sale and she'd been about to enquire as to its purchase price. Now she wiped her soiled fingers daintily on the lace handkerchief which she kept secreted in the sleeve of her gown. How dare the wretched fellow proffer her a tainted piece of merchandise. And his mention of the black woman's ‘beauty', did that mean he'd had intimate relations with a native? Was she supposed to be impressed? Was he deliberately insulting her? It was indescribably sordid, and she signalled Monsieur Durand with a subtle lift of her eyebrows.

‘Mrs Masterson,' Durand was at her side in a matter of seconds. He'd been keeping his eye on Sullivan, it had always irritated him the way the man paid no attention to the evening festivities. In fact Durand often wondered why Sullivan bothered coming to Barclay's Room at all. If he simply wanted to sit and talk then why didn't he frequent one of the hotels? He certainly looked as if he belonged in a bar, with his long hair and his untrimmed beard. It was appallingly obvious that he didn't even clip his moustache. And now it appeared he was annoying Masterson's wife.

Durand raised Annabelle Masterson's hand to his lips in the flamboyant gesture he extended to all the ladies; they
loved it. ‘Perhaps you would care to sit a little closer to the front,' he said, ‘your view is somewhat obscured here in the corner.' Although bent upon rescuing his new business partner's wife, and although he neither liked nor approved of Benjamin Sullivan, Durand knew better than to directly offend the man who was, after all, a renowned surveyor.

‘Thank you, that is most kind. Good evening, Mr Sullivan.' And Annabelle Masterson sailed away without so much as a glance at Benjamin, who sat, with the locket still in his hands, wondering exactly what he'd done wrong.

Benjamin had never received such a reaction before. Many of the pioneer wives had been titillated by his story of the Larrakia ‘princess' whom he had befriended. The daughter of a native ‘king', she had been a great beauty and he had saved her life, in return for which she had given him the precious locket. He always kept the story innocent and heroic. Unless there was a suggestive twinkle in the eyes of his listener, in which case he would look away and say modestly, ‘she remains my friend to this very day', and allow them to read into his remark whatever they wished.

But it hadn't been like that at all. The locket had not been gained by heroic deeds, nor indeed by simple barter. No matter how many stories Benjamin invented, no matter how hard he tried to forget, every now and then something would jog his memory, as strangely enough Mrs Masterson's snub had just done, and the hideousness of that morning would return as vivid as ever.

It had been during the long sea voyage aboard the
Moonta
when they'd rounded the southern coast of Western Australia and headed northwards, bound for Darwin Harbour from where the Northern Territory Expedition would set out. They'd stopped at several ports en route to replenish supplies, and they'd set up camp in several protected bays during the voyage. They were well north of the Gascoyne River, bound for Port Hedland,
when the orders came that they were to hove to, disembark, and set up their tents.

The following morning he and Harry Stafford had gone on a hunting expedition. So had a number of the others, whatever fresh meat or fish supply they could find was a welcome relief from the endless corned beef rations on board.

Harry Stafford and Benjamin had become good friends. Harry was a survey hand and, although lower in the ranks than Benjamin, far more of a leader. In fact Harry was trouble. A tough, wiry young man who enjoyed a fight and took on any dare offered him. Benjamin, six years younger, rather envied Harry and tried, when he could, to emulate him.

They were well into the bush, three or four miles from the camp, in a clearing beside a creek which augured well for their hunting prospects, when they heard a noise, something big in the scrub behind them, perhaps a kangaroo. Harry turned, revolver raised at the ready.

Yatamudtji was travelling alone with his wife Toolainah. She was carrying a baby in her belly and wished to give birth to her firstborn in the company of the women of her own people, the Kullari, far to the north. Yatamudtji had travelled across many tribal lands, he was now in the territory of the Ngarli and he wanted no trouble. At first, when he'd heard the tread of human feet through the bush he had thought it was people of the Ngarli, but the steps were too heavy, he'd realised. Then he'd seen the white men.

Yatamudtji had seen white men on two occasions before, from a distance, and although at the time they had done no harm to his people, he was very wary of them. They carried fire weapons which could kill in the blink of an eyelid. If he'd been alone he would have crept stealthily away, but they were nearing the place where his wife was resting, in the bark lean-to amongst the bushes by the creek. Any minute Toolainah might rise and startle them, and they might think she was some beast of prey and point their fire weapons at her.

Yatamudtji put down his spear, he must give them no cause to find him threatening. He would offer them the two goannas he held, strung together with twine. Then he had an even better idea, he would show them
minya yindi,
the symbol of peace. Yatamudtji wore
minya yindi
around his neck, his father had entrusted it to him as an omen of good luck, that his firstborn might be a son.

‘Waminda,'
Yatamudtji said, which meant ‘friend', as he stepped from the bushes, and in his right hand he held up the locket.

Harry fired in the instant that he saw the black. Even as he pulled the trigger he was aware that the man carried no spear, but what the hell, he was a big healthy young buck, not one to tangle with, and God knew how many more of the bastards might be hiding in the bushes.

Yatamudtji was thrown backwards by the impact, his chest shattering as the bullet entered his heart.

‘Take cover, Ben!' Harry yelled, ‘they might have us surrounded.' He felt the thrill of battle as he circled the clearing, aiming his revolver at the bushes, prepared for attack from any quarter. Come on you black bastards, he thought, just try to take me. Just try, I dare you.

Benjamin was terrified. But, even in his terror, he'd registered that the native had been weaponless, and that he'd been holding up his hand. Surely it meant he was approaching them as a friend. But what if Harry was right? What if they were surrounded? Any minute hordes of black savages might come at them from out of the scrub. Benjamin spun about fearfully, searching in every direction, his revolver raised at the ready.