Territory

by Judy Nunn

  Cornelisz’s next problem was how to split up the survivors. There were simply too many to kill en masse. But it proved very simple.

  ‘We are overcrowded,’ he said to the assembled community, ‘we must disperse our company. If only for the sake of hygiene and the gathering of firewood, it will be to all of our advantage.’ None could disagree, the living conditions had become intolerable. Seals’ Island was the perfect answer, Cornelisz said. It had an adequate water supply, he lied, and regular supplies and provisions would be delivered for all those who wished to escape the overcrowded confines of their present environment.

  Forty-five men, women and children gathered on the small coral beach and were transported to Seals’ Island where they were left to fend for themselves as best they could. There would be no provisions delivered and, if they didn’t die, then in time Cornelisz would redress the situation. In the meantime he assessed the remaining numbers. Quite manageable, he thought. He dissolved the community’s council and set up his own elected members to govern the island. The island which was to become known as Batavia’s Graveyard.

  ‘Now, Coenraat,’ he said, ‘now you can start killing.’ Coenraat van Huyssen and the other young noblemen cadets had been secretly practising their swordcraft for beheadings and disembowellings; their bloodlust was up and they were craving to kill. ‘The strong ones first,’ Cornelisz ordered. ‘At night. And dispose of the bodies, we’ll tell the others they’ve gone to the High Islands.’

  ‘But we’ll keep some of the women,’ Coenraat said, for some time now he’d had his eye firmly fixed on young Judick Bastiaensz, the predikant’s daughter.

  ‘Of course,’ Cornelisz agreed, ‘we’ll keep the good-looking women.’ Now, at long last, Lucretia van den Mylen would be his.

  Henrietta was pregnant and Terence was delighted.

  Henrietta was delighted too, despite her certainty that the child she was carrying was Paul’s. She did not doubt the fact for one instant. Just as she had known that her first child had been conceived that day on the ridge overlooking the waterfall, so she knew that this child had been conceived during her night of lovemaking with Paul Trewinnard at the Hotel Darwin.

  Paul had not returned to Darwin. True to his promise he had kept well out of her life and, although she thought of him daily, Henrietta was grateful for his absence. To act out the charade of a casual friendship would have been unbearable for them both. She regularly received messages via Aggie, however, and recognising a code, she replied in kind.

  ‘Paul’s going to settle in London,’ Aggie had said several months after he’d gone, ‘I don’t know why, he hates the place. He says it’s because most of his work is based in Europe these days, but why doesn’t he live in Paris? He speaks passable French.’

  ‘He told me once that he loves Paris but he can’t stand the Parisians,’ Henrietta replied.

  Aggie conceded the fact. ‘Anyway, he sends his best and says he hopes you’re well and happy.’

  ‘Very well and very happy,’ Henrietta said, knowing her message would be relayed.

  Several times Aggie chastised her. ‘Why don’t you write to him as I do?’ she said. ‘We’re his friends and he misses us.’

  ‘I’m a terrible letter writer, Paul knows that.’

  ‘Yes, he said that’s why he doesn’t bother writing to you himself, he knows he’ll never get a reply.’

  After a while Aggie gave up nagging and simply relayed the innocently solicitous messages back and forth. She was the reliable conduit through which Paul could keep a check on Henrietta and Henrietta could assure him of her safety.

  Henrietta’s visits to Darwin dwindled and she said nothing of her pregnancy to Aggie until several months down the track when, during a rare trip to town, her condition was only too evident.

  ‘Good heavens, Henrietta,’ Aggie exclaimed, ‘so that’s the surprise you mentioned, why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  Henrietta laughed. ‘I didn’t bother over the telephone, I thought I’d come into town and show off instead. Six months now.’ She lied, she was seven months pregnant. ‘And Terence is ecstatic.’

  The lie was necessary. If Paul was to hear the news of her pregnancy via Aggie, and he was bound to do so, he must not suspect the child was his. ‘Terence is hoping it’ll be a brother for Malcolm,’ she chatted on, ‘but I’m rather hoping for a girl myself.’ It was easy to play the garrulous, excited mother-to-be, it was exactly the way Henrietta felt. Initially she’d agonised over the fact that her child’s life was to be based on a lie, and she still had misgivings, but what other option was there? None. Perhaps, one day when the child was grown, she would admit to the truth. Perhaps not. Only time could tell as to the wisdom of such a revelation. In the meantime, she must ensure that her baby had a happy and healthy childhood. Having accepted such a priority, Henrietta once again glowed with the joy of impending motherhood; pregnancy suited her.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t matter at all whether it’s a boy or a girl,’ she continued, ‘just so long as it’s healthy. Oh Aggie, I’m so happy.’

  After she’d said goodbye to Paul that morning outside the Hotel Darwin, Henrietta had wondered whether she would ever be happy again. For her son’s sake, she knew she must live the appearance of happiness but, as she’d driven back to Bullalalla, she’d wondered how she would be able to face Terence. What would she say to him? She’d wondered whether she’d even be able to look at him. She had found the answers in Nellie.

  Nellie had been waiting near the mango grove not far from the main gates. She’d been waiting and watching for the car all day and, when she’d seen the trail of dust in the distance, she’d gone to the grove.

  Henrietta pulled up and got out of the car. The woman was agitated, obviously Pearl had told her mother what had happened.

  ‘I knew you’d come back by and by, missus,’ Nellie said, ‘and I been waiting to say thank you.’ She took one of Henrietta’s hands in both of hers and held it to her chest as if she was praying. ‘Thank you for saving my Pearl.’

  Henrietta could feel Nellie’s hands shaking and it was quite obvious the woman had been crying. ‘It’s all right, Nellie,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  Nellie pulled herself together. She wanted to make sense to the missus, it would not serve her cause to start blubbering. ‘I know what goes on, missus … down the camp …’ She was trying to be discreet, she didn’t want to say ‘I know the boss sleeps with the girls in the camp’, not to the missus. ‘… but Pearl,’ she continued, then she paused. It was very difficult to be discreet about the next part. ‘Pearl is … family.’

  Nellie had been shocked to the very core of her being that the boss had tried to have his way with Pearl. Nellie herself had been treated not only with respect but even a certain degree of affection by the old boss, Lionel, her father. He had built a house for her and Jackie. And Jock Galloway, tyrant as he was, had regarded both her and Pearl as valuable members of the household. He had even put Nellie on a modest weekly wage. That the young boss should force himself upon Pearl showed such a lack of respect that Nellie’s world had been turned upside down and she didn’t know what to do. When Jackie came home from the muster she would have to tell him, she and Jackie shared everything, and Jackie would ask her what they should do. Jackie always asked her advice, ‘you bin school, Nellie’, he’d tell her with one of his cheeky grins. That meant she was smarter than he was. And she would tell him they’d have to leave. But this was a top job Jackie had, and what other boss would build them a house? And she didn’t want to leave the missus. The missus needed them, she shouldn’t be left alone with the boss.

  Nellie looked at the bruise on Henrietta’s cheek, Pearl had told her the boss had hit the missus. Nellie was in a terrible quandary, she didn’t want to leave but she couldn’t risk the boss having another go at Pearl. Her daughter was not one to be had whenever the white boss felt like a black woman.

  Mission-school educated, Nellie had b
een brought up in a white man’s world. She could even read and write, the basics anyway. Jackie refused to let her teach him, in the early days he’d teased her about being a white lubra. The white man was there to be used, he’d tell her, they paid you and fed you and you could learn things from them, sure, but you didn’t want to turn into one. Beneath his teasing, he was serious. ‘You Warai, Nellie,’ he’d tell her, ‘you don’ never forget that.’ Jackie even went walkabout for a month during the wet when the work was slow and he was allowed time off. He would visit a clan of the Warai whose territory was the high rocky escarpments above the plains. He missed his own people in far-off Queensland and, through marriage, the Warai had become his family. Nellie never went with him, her place was in the home caring for the Galloways, but she liked Jackie’s contact with her clansmen. He had taught her to be proud of her Aboriginality.

  But Nellie could not relinquish her white upbringing. And with it came her own very strict set of rules, which included a strong disapproval of sexual promiscuity. She did not approve of polygamy, a man married one woman, just like her and Jackie. Jackie had no other wives, although Aboriginal law allowed him several. And she did not approve of sex outside marriage. She disapproved of Pearl’s affair with the young stockman but at least they were to marry. She didn’t know how to say any of this to Henrietta, she didn’t have the words, and she didn’t even know where to start.

  ‘My Pearl’s a good girl, missus,’ she said, ‘she going to marry her fella by and by, next season maybe. She been saving up the money I give her each week. She gonna have a proper dowry.’ Nellie said it with pride, but she was becoming agitated again as she squeezed Henrietta’s hand. ‘I don’t want us to leave, but we gonna have to. I can’t take the risk, missus.’

  ‘You don’t have to leave, Nellie.’ Recognising the unfortunate woman’s turmoil, Henrietta clasped Nellie’s hands in her own. ‘It will never happen again, I promise you. He will never go near Pearl again, you have my word.’ Henrietta felt very strong as she looked into Nellie’s eyes. ‘Do you trust me?’

  Nellie nodded. She wondered how the missus could make such a promise, the boss was strong and he had a bad temper on him, but yes, she trusted the missus.

  ‘Furthermore,’ Henrietta continued, ‘Pearl will be paid a wage for her work, just as you are, you don’t need to give her money anymore, she shall have her own.’ She released Nellie’s hands and hugged her close. ‘Will you stay?’ she asked. ‘Please.’ Nellie nodded again, not trusting herself to speak. ‘Good,’ Henrietta broke from the embrace.

  As she did so, Nellie put a hand gently to Henrietta’s cheek, her fingers very softly touching the bruise. ‘It was a brave thing you done, missus.’

  ‘We’ll never talk of it again, Nellie,’ Henrietta said. ‘Never.’

  She got back into the Landrover and drove up towards the house.

  ‘How was Aggie?’ Terence asked as he came out to meet the car.

  ‘I don’t know, I stayed the night at the Hotel Darwin.’ She got out of the car and suffered his embrace and the kiss on the cheek. ‘I didn’t feel like chatting to Aggie.’ She’d briefly considered lying, then realised that she didn’t care enough to bother. What would he do, hit her again? She didn’t even feel frightened of him.

  ‘Ah.’ She seemed very calm, he thought, and a little remote, which was hardly surprising, he supposed. But he was so relieved she was back, he’d been secretly afraid that she might leave him and he hadn’t known what he’d do if she did. Of course he wouldn’t kill her, what had made him say something so stupid? He’d acted like a madman in the shock of discovery, it was all just bluster because he’d been caught out. And how could he have hit her, what on earth had come over him? He loved her, and if she ever left him … It didn’t bear contemplation.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Terence,’ she said as he took her suitcase from the car, ‘about Pearl.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Christ, here come the conditions, he thought. Well to hell with it, he’d get rid of Pearl, he’d get rid of the whole bloody family. It’d be a bastard, he’d never find a head stockman as good as Jackie, but he’d do anything to keep Henrietta happy.

  ‘Yes,’ she said briskly as they walked up the steps to the porch, ‘she should be properly employed, just as Nellie is, it’s disgraceful that she’s treated as an unpaid servant.’

  ‘Sure. We’ll pay her a wage if you like.’

  ‘What a good idea.’ She smiled at him as if it had been his suggestion. ‘She’s been saving the money Nellie gives her, you know, she’s going to marry her young man next season.’

  Terence followed with the suitcase as Henrietta threw open the front door. ‘Malcolm,’ she called, ‘where are you, darling?’

  ‘Mummy!’ The shrill cry of excitement came from the kitchen where Malcolm had been playing with Pearl, and mother and son charged towards each other, meeting in the doorway from the hall. She picked him up and whirled him about, the child laughing and squealing with pleasure.

  Henrietta had never felt so strong. They all needed her. Nellie and Pearl and Jackie, and most of all her son. She could live the lie, she knew it.

  ‘Has he been a good boy?’ she asked Terence, so pleasantly, as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Yes,’ Terence answered. Thank Christ, he thought with relief, she was back and the episode was forgotten. ‘He’s been the best boy.’

  ‘Look what I have for you, darling.’ Henrietta took the suitcase from Terence and squatted on the floor as she opened it. She took out the bag and emptied the stones onto the floorboards. The little boy knelt beside her, immediately engrossed in the shapes and colours and the designs he could make with them.

  With astonishing ease, Henrietta glanced up and exchanged a smile with Terence before returning her attention to her son. Yes, of course she could live the lie, she thought. She looked at the stones, they would always remind her of Paul.

  Three weeks later Jackie returned. He sought out Henrietta, she was feeding the hens in the chook yard.

  He closed the wire gate behind him and stood gazing at her, his black eyes so intense that Henrietta was momentarily mesmerised. She would normally have given a bright ‘hello Jackie’, but she didn’t, she just stared back at him. He was wearing an old khaki shirt, the sleeves cut out, his shoulders and arms glistening with sweat from the heat of the day. He crossed his arms, put his hands beneath his armpits, then wiped them down the wetness of his biceps. He said something in his strange language, took the several paces towards her, and put his hands to her face and her throat and her own bare arms. She could feel the dampness and she could smell his sweat as he patted it onto her skin, but she didn’t feel afraid. And she didn’t feel repulsed. His eyes signalled his actions as a ritual of friendship and gratitude. Several seconds later, the intensity in his black face vanished as he grinned his gappy grin. Jackie had a very infectious smile. She smiled back and offered her hand.

  ‘Thank you, Jackie,’ she said as they shook hands, and he left without uttering a word.

  As the months passed, Henrietta knew that Terence still occasionally visited the Aboriginal camp to satisfy his lust. She didn’t mind, in fact she was grateful, it meant his advances towards her were less frequent. She could no longer stand the touch of his fingers on her flesh or the taste of his mouth when he kissed her. And when they did have sex, which was thankfully not often, she gritted her teeth, blanked out her mind, and counted the minutes until it was over. Henrietta no longer thought of sexual intercourse as ‘making love’. She knew what ‘making love’ meant now, and she realised that, in the five years of her marriage, never once had she and Terence ‘made love’.

  When she became pregnant, she used the baby as an excuse to plead off sexual intercourse as often as she could, pretending a morning sickness which she didn’t experience. So long as she could avoid a physical relationship, life with Terence took on the semblance of happiness. She was constantly wary, always on the lookout for any signs of his madness, but t
here were none, Terence remained kind and considerate. In the meantime, Henrietta lived for her son and for the child she carried in her womb.

  ‘I’d like to have the baby at home,’ she said to him as her time grew near.

  ‘Why?’ Terence had presumed she would go into Darwin Hospital.

  ‘Why not?’ she answered simply, ‘it worked last time, Nellie’s an expert midwife. Besides,’ she added, ‘I’d like the baby to be born at Bullalalla.’ The lie she lived never extended to the mention of ‘our’ baby, somehow she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  Terence smiled. ‘You’ve become a real outback wife, Henrietta,’ he said as he kissed her, ‘I’m proud of you.’

  Henrietta intended to have her baby quietly and privately. When the child was two months old she would take it in to Darwin to show Aggie and no-one would know the exact date of its birth.

  The child was born on 7 March 1948. A boy, and they called him Christopher. Terence was beside himself, two sons, the dynasty was assured. And Henrietta, as she studied the curve of her baby’s lip and the shape of his brow, was glad that she’d had a boy. She was quite sure that she could see Paul in his face.

  Two months later, Henrietta took her children in to Darwin to meet Aggie. Malcolm, who was nearly three years old, had trouble with his little brother’s name. He called the baby ‘Kitsopher’, so they shortened it to ‘Kit’.

  ‘Here he is, Aggie,’ Henrietta tucked back the blanket from the face of the infant she cuddled to her breast. ‘Meet Kit Galloway.’

  ‘Dig your heels in, Kit, you’ve got to make him know who’s boss.’ Ten-year-old Malcolm sounded exactly like his father.

  Kit dug his heels in as far as he could but Seldom Awake didn’t move. The horse wasn’t being disobedient. Through the fleshy surrounds of his upper ribs he couldn’t feel the seven-year-old’s urgent kicks.

  ‘Come on, boy,’ Kit urged. ‘Come on, get going.’

  Seldom understood the vocal command and he quite willingly started to plod.