by Judy Nunn
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your mother and father were sending signals loud and clear the night of your birthday party.’
‘It wasn’t a party, it was a dinner. And what exactly were the signals?’
‘Well, all that stuff about the oleanders for starters.’
‘And what stuff about the oleanders would that be?’
Daniel, in his youthful exuberance, failed to read the warning signs. ‘All that symbolic stuff – it was a test to see how I felt about your father being Jewish.’
‘I think the analogy went a little deeper than that,’ she said coolly. ‘I think my father was sharing something intensely personal that night.’
‘Of course he was! But why did he choose that night of all nights? And why did he choose to tell me of all people? You asked that yourself, don’t you remember?’
Elizabeth said nothing. Of course she remembered. And of course, she realised, with a sudden rush of anger – of course he was right.
Daniel misguidedly read approval in her silence and, considering himself well and truly on the home stretch, made his final, irrevocable mistake.
‘Your mother knew what was going on all along,’ he said. ‘In fact, I got the distinct impression she approved.’
‘Of you?’
He was halted just a little by the bark of her question. ‘Of us,’ he said. ‘I got the impression your mother and father both approved –’
‘Of us.’
‘Yes.’ Daniel faltered. Things seemed to have taken a turn for the worse.
‘You passed the test then?’
‘It would appear so, yes.’ Something was definitely wrong.
‘Well, bully for you.’
‘What is it, Elizabeth? Why are you angry?’
Elizabeth was far more than angry. She was hurt and humiliated by the thought that her parents and Danny had been in collusion that night. She felt stupid for not having recognised the signs. Her father’s admission about the oleanders had touched her deeply, and she’d considered it a personal and precious gift that he’d chosen her birthday, of all nights, to share his secret. How gallingly stupid of her, she thought.
‘I’m delighted,’ she said caustically as she rose from the bench, ‘that you and my parents have come to such an amicable decision regarding my future. What on earth would I do without you all?’
Daniel also stood. ‘Good God, Elizabeth, it wasn’t exactly a conspiracy, they were only –’
‘It certainly sounds that way to me.’
‘Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little?’ he said. ‘You’re not normally one for paranoia.’
‘I’m not normally one to be dictated to either. Nor am I one to be easily influenced by the opinions of others. It does not impress me in the least that you have the approval of my parents, Danny. The answer to your ridiculous proposition is a definite no.’
She stormed off without another word, and he was left wondering what had happened. How had things got so out of hand? What had he said that was so terribly wrong?
The following week was a miserable one for Daniel. He didn’t call Elizabeth for fear of annoying her further, and decided to leave any contact until shortly before her departure. Perhaps when he rang to say goodbye she might have cooled down. Perhaps he might sense a change in her feelings. He desperately hoped so.
The weekend came and went, and then, on the Monday …
‘Call for you, Lieutenant.’
He’d just walked into the guardroom, and the duty sergeant handed him the receiver before discreetly disappearing into the transport office.
‘Hello,’ he said as he sat at the desk, ‘Lieutenant Gardiner here.’
Elizabeth’s voice came down the line. ‘It’s me. I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I realise that I overreacted and that I owe you an apology.’
‘That’s all right. I’m sorry I gave you such a shock. I didn’t mean –’
‘Don’t apologise, Danny. Please. That’s my job.’
‘Right. Apology accepted then.’ He wanted to say, So where to from here, but didn’t dare, she sounded so brittle. ‘When do you leave?’ he asked.
‘On Friday.’
‘Oh. So soon.’
‘Yes. Daddy’s driving me up to London. An associate of his has a real estate business and he’s going to show us some flats in South Kensington.’
Will I see you before you go? he wanted to ask, but he didn’t because he knew he’d sound desperate. ‘That’s good,’ he said.
‘I feel ridiculously mollycoddled, but Daddy’s insistent that he won’t be satisfied until he sees me properly settled, so I’ve had to give in.’
‘Well, you’d be insane not to take advantage of his contacts, Elizabeth, and surely it’s a father’s prerogative to look after his daughter.’
‘Yes, yes, I know, and I’m grateful.’
There was a moment’s awkward pause as they both realised the small talk had run out.
‘I don’t want to lose your friendship, Danny,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to.’ He felt weary and suddenly defeated. I don’t want to be friends with the woman I love! he felt like yelling. I want to be friends with my wife! ‘We’ll always be friends, Elizabeth,’ he said instead.
‘That’s good. I’m glad.’ Another pause. ‘I’ll let you know where I am and we’ll keep in touch then?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’
‘Bye, Danny.’
‘Bye, Elizabeth.’
Several months later, Daniel was posted to Frankfurt to serve with the occupying forces for six months. When he rang Elizabeth in London to tell her the news, there was another brief and awkward farewell over the phone. Then, shortly before Christmas, he departed, thankful to leave Aldershot.
Yarina crouches in the red dust, motionless, the child beside her, a boy barely three years of age, equally still, equally silent. Aware of his mother’s unspoken signal, he clutches tightly to her hand, and the two become one with the landscape, melding into the shadows of the mallee scrub. In the gathering dusk, they are all but invisible to the approaching strangers.
As the truck slowly passes, Yarina hears the voices of the two white men through its open cabin windows, but she does not understand what they are saying. She does not speak the white man’s language.
She watches as the truck pulls up barely a hundred yards from her, and watches as the men alight and take equipment from its tray.
Her eyes flicker beyond the truck to where she sees her husband, Ngama. He has been hunting, and the fat ramia he has caught for their dinner is slung over one shoulder. He stands frozen amongst a clump of mulga trees, the only movement being a droplet of the goanna’s blood that slowly winds its way down his bare chest. Ngama has not bothered to hide from the strangers, but like Yarina he too has become a part of the landscape. It is easy to remain invisible to the white man, they have found.
Yarina squeezes her little boy’s hand. He is a healthy, boisterous child, unaccustomed to staying still for any length of time. But her warning is not necessary. The boy has seen white men only once before in his short life, and even then from a distance. Instinctively, he fears them.
From their separate vantage points, Yarina and Ngama continue to watch as the men attach something to the fence of wire. They have heard of this fence of wire, which encompasses a part of the desert plains to the south, and they are confused. They are Arrernte people from the centre. They are unaccustomed to fences on their own lands. Why have the white men done this, Yarina wonders.
It is the question on the lips of many. Why do the white men intrude upon our land, ask those of the Pitjantjatjara and Yankuntjatjara and Kokatha. The Luritja, Arrernte and Antakarinja people, who traverse the area, ask the same question. Why do the white men wish to keep us from our tracks? Why do they deny us access to our sacred sites and our waterholes? This is a puzzle to many people. What could the white men want in the desert country that is so foreign to them? There is no
thing for the white man here, they say.
Yarina and her tiny son remain motionless for the fifteen minutes it takes the men to attach the sign and move on. Then, as the truck disappears and the desert dust settles, Yarina joins her husband. Together they examine the strange symbols on the notice that now hangs from the fence. But they do not understand its meaning.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Maralinga,’ Harold announced. ‘They’re calling it Maralinga – means “fields of thunder” in some sort of native lingo, I believe.’ He gave a hoot of delighted laughter. ‘Rather apt for a nuclear bomb test site, what?’
‘It’s certainly colourful,’ his wife agreed. ‘Who came up with the idea?’
‘The Australian chief defence scientist, so I’m told, a chappie by the name of Butement. Never met the fellow myself, but then I haven’t bumped into any of the Australian contingent as yet.’
Harold took a sip of the second cup of tea his wife had just poured him and, discovering it not warm enough for his liking, decided to ring for a fresh pot. He rose from his cosy armchair beside the open fireplace and crossed to the French windows. ‘Bound to meet up with them shortly, of course, now that I’m officially on board,’ he said, giving the bell sash two brisk tugs. ‘I shall be going down there any tick of the clock, I imagine.’
He looked out at the serenity of the landscape, where the elm tree cradled its burden of snow in the comfortable crooks of its giant limbs, and the white-laced hedgerow wound its elegant way down the slope that led to the brook. He did so love winter. The romantic in him particularly loved a white Christmas, and, the cold snap having well and truly set in, this Christmas of 1954 held every promise of being white.
‘Probably just in time for a stinking hot desert Christmas,’ he added, ‘blast my luck.’
‘How does the Australian public feel about this Maralinga business?’ Lavinia asked.
‘I don’t think they know.’
‘Really? How extraordinary. One would assume such drastic action would lead to immensely strong public opinion. What a strange breed they must be.’
‘No, no, my love, you misunderstand. The majority of them don’t know what’s going on. Well, not yet anyway. Their government’s keeping the news pretty much to itself – at least until the site’s established, and even then they’ll let the populace know only the barest minimum. In fact, if we have our way, the Australians will know only what we tell them they can know.’
‘Dear me,’ Lavinia tut-tutted. ‘And they’ll accept that, will they? The British public wouldn’t take kindly to being so ill-informed.’
She stopped abruptly. A light tap on the door was a precursor to the maid’s appearance, and she knew better than to discuss her husband’s business in front of the servants. Indeed, Lavinia felt privileged that Harold, in his position as deputy director of MI6, should see fit to share so much of his work with her. She was aware there was material that he did not offer up for discussion, and she never posed a query without his encouragement, but she enjoyed the degree of trust he placed in her. It meant that she could share at least a proportion of the huge burden of responsibility his job entailed. And that, in Lavinia’s opinion, was a wife’s bounden duty.
‘We need a fresh pot,’ Harold called to the maid from his position by the windows.
‘Yes, m’lord.’ The girl bobbed a curtsy and, leaving the double doors open, crossed to the large circular coffee table and picked up the tray.
‘And perhaps one or two of Freda’s scones?’ Lavinia directed the question at her husband rather than the maid.
‘Oh, by jove, yes,’ Harold readily agreed.
‘Jam and clotted cream, please, Bessie.’
‘Very good, m’lady.’ Another bob, and Bessie left, placing the heavy silver tray briefly on the hall table outside as she pulled the drawing room doors closed behind her.
Lavinia waited several seconds before continuing. ‘So it’s to our advantage that the Australians are so gullible.’
‘Dear me, yes.’ Harold returned to his armchair beside the fire. ‘And we have their prime minister well and truly in our pocket,’ he said as he sat opposite her. ‘Several years back, when Menzies agreed to our nuclear weapon testing off the coast of Western Australia, he didn’t even inform his own cabinet.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Harold, that can’t be true.’
‘But it is, my love – heard it directly from the Old Man himself.’ Harold had just returned to his country estate in Sussex following his London meeting with Prime Minister Churchill. ‘Winston told me that in 1950 Attlee sent a top-secret personal request to Menzies regarding the use of the Monte Bello Islands,’ he explained, in response to his wife’s obvious disbelief. ‘Menzies agreed immediately in principle to the nuclear testing, and, according to Winston, there’s never been any record whatsoever of the man having consulted a single one of his cabinet colleagues on the matter.’
‘Goodness gracious.’ The impeccable arch of Lavinia Dartleigh’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. ‘Isn’t that somewhat irregular?’
Harold laughed. He adored his wife’s talent for understatement. Lavinia was the quintessential upper-class Englishwoman. Still beautiful in her early forties, she was the epitome of elegance, highly intelligent and at all times unruffled. Harold valued her greatly. She was the perfect wife for a man in his position.
‘Yes, my love, it is somewhat irregular.’
Harold Rodin Dartleigh, KCMG, KCVO, 6th Baron Somerston, was typical of many born to a life of privilege. He was arrogant and insensitive and took the services of others for granted. But, unlike a number of his contemporaries from equally advantaged backgrounds, he was not lazy and he was not a wastrel. Nor was he stupid. As a young man, Harold had distinguished himself in History and Philosophy at Cambridge University’s Trinity College, after which he had embraced a highly successful diplomatic career, serving in under-secretary positions in the British embassies of Beirut, Istanbul, Tokyo and Prague.
Upon the outbreak of war in 1939, Harold’s father, William, 5th Baron Somerston, had been so horrified at the thought of losing his only son and heir that, through his many connections, he’d had the twenty-nine year old appointed special government envoy to Washington. The move had not dismayed Harold, who had had no deep desire to join the fray – not through any form of fear or cowardice on his part, but solely due to ambition. Death on a distant battlefield was not the destiny young Harold had in mind.
Having seen out the war in relative comfort, Harold had returned to England to care for his ailing father and, upon William’s death in 1946, had taken his seat in the House of Lords. Given his wealth of diplomatic experience, the Secret Intelligence Service had soon beckoned and he’d jumped at the chance, quickly advancing through the ranks to become deputy director of MI6.
To Harold’s extreme satisfaction, his achievements had been recognised in the highest of circles. In 1949 he had been awarded Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) by King George VI for his work in the diplomatic service, and he had recently, early in this very year of 1954, been made Knight Commander Royal Victoria Order (KCVO) by Elizabeth II for service to the Queen and other members of the Royal family.
Forty-five years of age, just over six feet tall, and with a fit body but for a slight thickening of the girth, Harold was a distinguished-looking man. A good head of hair turning steel grey matched eyes of a similar colour, and his features were chiselled, patrician. But there was no denying a coldness about Harold. A coldness that some, in their self-admitted envy, dismissed as the arrogance of the privileged, and that others, perhaps of more generous nature and mostly numbering amongst his colleagues, maintained went with the job. The deputy director of MI6 had to be aloof, they said. And Harold was fun when you got to know him. He was frightfully clever, frightfully witty and an excellent dining companion. All of which was correct, so long as Harold was in the right mood.
Lord Dartleigh did have some genuinely staunch def
enders, particularly amongst the high-ranking clergy, and the women with whom he mingled – mainly his colleagues’ wives, whose standing in society gave them a power of their own. They found it most admirable that never a breath of scandal could be laid at his doorstep. A family man with two grown children, Harold was faithful to a woman whom he clearly adored. The clergy applauded the exemplary marriage of so public a figure, and the women found his openly demonstrative devotion to his wife romantic, even enviable. Indeed, so enviable that several of the wives who indulged in the odd dalliance to match those of their husbands regretted the fact that Harold Dartleigh was unavailable.
And then there were the others – those who lived in fear of Harold. Some feared him instinctively upon first meeting, and for some the fear grew over time, but the results were the same. He unnerved them.
There was one element, however, upon which all were bound to agree. Harold Dartleigh was not a man to be crossed – by friend or by foe.
‘You mentioned the desert,’ Lavinia prompted. ‘I presume one’s not to know precisely which desert, or where?’ She only ever raised queries when the way had been paved for her, and in this case it had. She found the subject of Maralinga most interesting.
‘Quite right, my love, all very hush-hush, mum’s the word.’
‘Naturally. My guess is, nevertheless, South Australia. Wasn’t that the location of Emu Field?’ she asked innocently.
Harold chortled. He did so delight in his wife’s intelligence. ‘How the deuce did you know about Emu Field?’
‘I saw a brief report in the cinema last year.’ Lavinia’s reply was a mixture of apology and criticism. ‘In a Pathé Pictorial, I’m afraid. Hardly hush-hush.’
‘Ah. Well …’ Harold’s smile faded. ‘Maralinga will most certainly be hush-hush, at least for as long as we can keep such a place a secret. Once we start detonating, of course, the whole world will know, but by then we’ll have the site thoroughly secure and be able to monitor how much information we feed to the press. It’s one thing for the Monte Bello and Emu sites to be made public, but we’re talking about the establishment of a permanent nuclear testing ground, my love. All the more reason for MI6 to be running the show, and that’s exactly what I told Churchill. Our department should have been brought in right from the start.’