by Judy Nunn
Critical acclaim for Maralinga:
‘Judy skilfully shapes a riveting drama threaded with a great love story involving a young British lieutenant and an adventurous and headstrong English journalist’
Australian Women’s Weekly
‘The writing comes alive with colour and detail, the scene fills out in all three dimensions … While Maralinga is a love story in a dangerous landscape, the Aboriginal perspective is the moral anchor of the book and it gives a highly engaging story gravitas and deeper meaning’
The Sunday Telegraph
‘Part historical fiction, part intelligent thriller, part romance … Very compelling’
Good Reading
‘Nunn has put the bitter pill of Maralinga – an ugly story covered up for years – in the palatable form of a spy story that is also a mystery novel and a romance. She tells us about it in a way that is enlightening as well as entertaining’
The Sun-Herald
‘This book has wide appeal for those interested in Australian and English history, romanticism, the 1950s, war, feminism and vivid landscapes’
Australian Bookseller & Publisher
‘Nunn repopulates the world of Maralinga. She gives the people names, faces and lives and tosses them into one of the most controversial and dramatic periods of the nation’s history. This earthy unpretentious storyteller manages her huge cast of players with all the stagecraft she no doubt learned in a lifetime on stage and television’
The Adelaide Advertiser
‘Nunn is known for carefully researched novels that focus on major events in Australian history. A fascinating insight into a dark secret from our past’
Illawarra Mercury
From stage actor and international television star to blockbuster best-selling author, Judy Nunn’s career has been meteoric.
Her first forays into adult fiction resulted in what she describes as her ‘entertainment set’. The Glitter Game, Centre Stage and Araluen, three novels set in the worlds of television, theatre and film respectively, each became instant bestsellers.
Next came her ‘city set’: Kal, a fiercely passionate novel about men and mining set in Kalgoorlie; Beneath the Southern Cross, a mammoth achievement chronicling the story of Sydney since first European settlement; and Territory, a tale of love, family and retribution set in Darwin.
Territory, together with Judy’s next novel, Pacific, a dual story set principally in Vanuatu, placed her firmly in Australia’s top-ten bestseller list. Her following works, Heritage, set in the Snowies during the 1950s, Floodtide, based in her home state of Western Australia, and Maralinga, have consolidated her position as one of the country’s leading fiction writers. Her eagerly awaited new novel, Tiger Men, will publish in November 2011.
Judy Nunn’s fame as a novelist is spreading rapidly. Her books are now published throughout Europe in English, German, French, Dutch and Czech.
Judy lives with her husband, actor-author Bruce Venables, on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
By the same author
The Glitter Game
Centre Stage
Araluen
Kal
Territory
Beneath the Southern Cross Pacific
Heritage
Floodtide
Tiger Men
Children’s fiction
Eye in the Storm
Eye in the City
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Maralinga
9781864714852
An Arrow book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by William Heinemann in 2009
This Arrow edition published in 2010, 2011
Copyright © Judy Nunn 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.com.au/offices
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Nunn, Judy.
Maralinga/Judy Nunn.
ISBN 978 1 86471 251 3 (pbk.)
Nuclear weapons – Australia – Fiction.
Nuclear weapons – Testing – Fiction.
Maralinga (S. Aust) – Fiction.
A823.3
Map by Darian Causby/Highway 51 Designs
Contents
Cover
Praise
By the same author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Imprint Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Map
Introduction
Book 1
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Book 2
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Book 3
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Reading Maralinga
Acknowledgements
Bonus Chapter Sampler
Prologue
Chapter One
Other titles by Judy Nunn
Random House
To Justine
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Indigenous names and regions used in this book are those used in the Encyclopaedia of Aboriginal Australia (D. Horton, general editor) published in 1984 by Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
I have made this choice for the purposes of uniformity. During the period in which this book is set, many of the words would have differed as Indigenous names have altered in their spelling and pronunciation over the years. The use of this relatively recent reference provides some form of consistency. For dramatic purposes, I have occasionally employed anglicised terminology when referring to smaller Indigenous groups such as ‘kin’ and ‘clan’.
In researching the subject of Maralinga, I have encountered many contradictory reports in both the literature I’ve studied and the material I’ve accessed on the internet. While weaving the facts through my fictional story I have aimed for a general consensus of opinion, but there are so many variables I’ve come to the conclusion that no-one really knows the full truth, and probably never will.
His name is Amitu, and he is a Kok
atha man from the southern desert of the Ancient Land. He stands alone, the sole of his right foot resting against his left knee, the spear in his right hand providing perfect balance. He is waiting. He has been waiting like this since dawn, but he feels no fatigue; he is a strong man. The father of two sturdy young boys, he is an excellent hunter and highly respected amongst his clan. But he is far from his clan now. They are many days’ walk to the south.
In a dream, Amitu has been summoned by the Rainbow Serpent to the site of sacred boulders. He has been travelling northward for ten days, following one of the many Tjurkurpa tracks that lead to Kata Tjuta and Uluru, and he is now in Pitjantjatjara country, less than one day’s walk from the mother rock of all people. Yet the spirits do not wish him to travel any farther. It is here, beside this waterhole, that he knows he must wait.
The day lacks even a scintilla of breeze. The land is an unruffled carpet of red, and the leaves of the desert willow droop motionless over the near-dry bed of the waterhole. The sun is high in the sky, the heat at its zenith and all is breathlessly still. No bird flies overhead, no insect stirs the dust, no animal rustles the nearby spinifex grass.
The land is waiting, Amitu thinks. The spirits are close. He can feel their presence, and he has slowed his breathing to a minimum, blanketing his mind of thought in order to receive them. He is in a trance-like state, but even so he cannot quell his sense of fear. What if the spirits are mamu? Deep in his heart, he believes that the Rainbow Serpent would not summon him to his destruction, for he has committed no wrong that would warrant the visitation of devil spirits upon him. But still the fear is there.
He can see them now, coming from the west across the rolling plains of sand, dark shadows dancing in the shimmering heat haze. Nearer they come. Nearer and nearer until his entire vision is filled with their dancing forms. They are chanting as they surround him, and their voices are the sound of the land itself, the echo of all things living. Like flickering tongues of fire they envelop his body, and the song they sing envelops his mind. Amitu is being consumed. But he is no longer afraid. He is joyful. These spirit beings are not mamu. These are good spirit beings who wish him well.
Ho! Amitu, you are patient
Waiting silent with your songs
We are of the Dreaming being
Come to sing you a new song
Dance before you, dance around you
Hear us sing this dancing song
Dance inside us, dance within us
Amitu, learn this dancing song
Amitu, learn this song of warning
Teach your children this new song
Ho! Amitu, teach Anangu
Teach them all this fateful song.
Amitu gives himself up to the spirit beings. He joins in their corroboree, dancing and singing until evening descends, and then on and on throughout the night. He repeats the song he is taught. It is the Song of the Seven Stars, the spirit beings tell him. He does not understand the song’s meaning, but he does not question its importance. Over and over he sings the words, until he knows every single one by heart.
Throughout the whole of the next day Amitu dances and sings. Then, as the sun sets, he falls unconscious, and the spirit beings come to him in a dream. He sees them staring at his inert body where it lies in the dust, and he watches as they gather about him. One by one, they kneel at his side, and he listens as they complete their prophecy in song.
In Amitu’s dream, the spirit beings foretell of a series of cataclysmic events that will befall the land and his people far in the future. It will be a time when men with white skin inhabit the world of the Kokatha, and that of the Pitjantjatjara, and of the Yankuntjatjara, and of many others who roam the Ancient Land.
Seven stars will be born, the spirit beings tell Amitu; seven births, and each birth will rival the others in ferocity. There will be a flash of light so powerful that any who look directly at it will lose their sight, and as each star rushes into the sky, a cloud of birth dust will follow, killing all those it touches.
The spirit beings foretell that the earth will become cursed, a barren place where no creatures will survive. For these stars, they say, are mamu. These newly born mamu will wield great power, and will bring about the death of many of Amitu’s people. The unborn children of Amitu’s people, too, will die, all victims of the birth dust. And the land itself will become mamu country.
Amitu awakes alone, and cries for his people. He reaches out his arms, pleading with the spirit beings to intercede with the Great Serpent and save his people. All is silent. He weeps, and the desert dust drinks his tears.
Then a breeze stirs the leaves of the willow. The spinifex grass rustles and, carried on the wind, he hears the voices of the spirit beings:
The song, Amitu. Teach your children the Song of the Seven Stars. You have learnt the words of this dancing song well. One who cannot be humbled and cannot be cursed will shake the dust from the land. A child of your people must sing this song, Amitu. Only then will the mamu release their hold.
BOOK I
CHAPTER ONE
Elizabeth couldn’t understand her father’s passion for oleanders.
Alfred Hoffmann had shifted from London to the leafy county of Surrey, where all forms of glorious flowering shrubs thrived, and yet in the impressive conservatory at the rear of his house he’d chosen to grow nothing but oleanders. A veritable forest of them, in all shapes and sizes. Some remained gangly bushes while others towered to a height of eighteen feet, their leathery leaves sweeping the arched dome of the conservatory. Their pink and white blossoms were not unattractive, but the overall impression was one of unruliness. They were cumbersome plants, there was no denying it, and very much at odds with the surrounding countryside.
The entire situation was bewildering to Elizabeth. For as long as she could remember, her father had been a businessman, and a highly successful businessman at that. If, in his semi-retirement, he’d developed an interest in horticulture, which itself was surprising, why was he limiting himself to just one species? And why a species as mundane as the oleander, considered by some to be little more than a noxious weed – perhaps even poisonous, if she were to believe her colleague at The Aldershot Courier-Mail.
‘Don’t go chewing on the leaves, Elizabeth,’ Walter had warned her during an afternoon tea-break, ‘you’ll end up as sick as a dog.’ When she’d laughed, he’d assured her he wasn’t joking.
‘Why on earth did Daddy choose oleanders?’ she finally asked her mother.
‘I’ve no idea.’ Marjorie Hoffmann had accepted her husband’s idiosyncratic behaviour without question, as she always did. ‘Perhaps it’s his love of travel.’ Noting her daughter’s mystified expression, she drifted a typically vague hand through the air as if she were conducting a heavenly choir. ‘I mean they’re so … Mediterranean, aren’t they?’
Mother and daughter were very alike in appearance. Above average height and regal of bearing, both had dark eyes and auburn hair offset by the fairest of complexions, creating an overall effect that was striking. They were the sort of women people referred to as handsome. In character, however, they could not have differed more greatly. Elizabeth was already wondering why she’d bothered asking her mother about the oleanders. She should have known better.
‘They’re all over the place in Europe,’ Marjorie blithely continued, ‘particularly in Italy and Greece. I’d rather he’d chosen olive trees myself – symbolism and beauty combined. I would have enjoyed painting olive trees.’ Marjorie’s skill with watercolours was considerable; her landscapes adorned the walls of many a boutique gallery in London. ‘But there you are, that’s Alfred.’
With an impatient shake of her head, Elizabeth gave up on her mother and made the enquiry directly of her father, whose response, although less vague than his wife’s, was ultimately just as unfathomable.
‘I admire the oleander,’ he said after she’d cornered him in the conservatory where he sat with a glass of claret. ‘So hardy. Such a passi
on for life. It’s heat and drought resistant, you know, can survive anywhere.’ He appeared most gratified by her interest. ‘Versatile too. Is it a shrub or is it a tree?’ Stroking his trim grey beard thoughtfully, he gazed up at the tallest of the plants. ‘As you can see, Elizabeth, it can be either. All dependent upon the way it’s pruned. Don’t you find such adaptability marvellous?’
Elizabeth didn’t, and she didn’t see how her father could either. ‘Somebody told me it’s poisonous,’ she said in her customary blunt fashion, ‘but that’s not true, surely.’
‘Oh yes, quite true. The whole plant’s highly toxic. Leaves, branches, bark – the sap in particular. Ingestion can produce gastrointestinal and cardiac effects, which, I believe, can be fatal – to children anyway, and most certainly to animals.’
‘Ah, so that’s it.’
All had suddenly become clear. Elizabeth’s grin was triumphant. Her father’s chain of pharmaceutical outlets, over which he still presided as chairman, made him first and foremost a businessman, but didn’t alter the fact that he had started out a humble, and highly dedicated, chemist. It was only natural that such a man would be interested in the chemical properties of a potentially lethal plant.