by Judy Nunn
When she finally came to the end of her story, Jessica felt the need to once again apologise. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve carried on a bit, haven’t I? But it’s become an obsession with me.’
‘Don’t apologise, my dear, may I call you Jessica?’
‘Of course,’ she said, a little taken aback by the non sequitur, but charmed nonetheless.
‘And I am Foong Lee,’ he said with a gracious bow of his head which she took as a signal that they were friends. ‘I’m very much afraid, Jessica, that I cannot tell you the locket’s whereabouts.’
She stared at him. Cannot or would not, she wondered. His tone, although kind, was final.
‘I cannot tell you, simply because I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I gave it to my very dearest friend, a man by the name of Paul Trewinnard, and he has since died. Many years ago now.’
‘Do you have any contact you could give me?’ she asked desperately. To have come so close! ‘His family, anyone who might know …’
‘Certainly you would have no trouble getting in touch with his blood relatives. Trewinnard’s is a well-known family firm of solicitors operating in both London and Singapore, as they have for the past fifty years or more. But I’m afraid it would do you little good,’ he dashed her hopes as soon as he’d raised them. ‘Paul had no contact with his family. He was a solitary man.’
Her disappointment was clearly profound and Foong Lee wished he could tell her the truth. He would like to have told her that Paul Trewinnard had given the locket to a beautiful woman called Henrietta Galloway. That the locket had symbolised the great love they had shared. He would have enjoyed telling such a love story to this passionate young woman. But the story was not his to tell, it was a story which endangered too many people.
‘I’m sorry that I’m unable to take you to the locket, Jessica,’ he said, ‘I would if I could, I’d like very much to be present when you saw it.’
Why did he seem to know more than he was saying, Jessica wondered.
‘However,’ Foong Lee continued, ‘I can tell you a great deal about it which I’m sure will enable you to trace its origins. Do you have a pen and paper?’
‘Of course.’ She took out the notebook she always carried in her oversized shoulder bag.
He gave her an intricate description of the locket. Its size, weight, silver content, and diamond carat value, all of which he’d evaluated before he’d bought it. He also gave her details of the craftsman’s insignia, two small g’s, and the initials engraved inside, ‘L v.d. M and B v.d. M’.
‘It should be easy enough to trace,’ he said. ‘The initials appear Dutch, and I would suggest you start your search in Amsterdam. Amsterdam was the home of the true diamond cutters and master craftsmen of the seventeenth century.’
Jessica looked up from the notes she’d been scribbling at the rate of knots. She didn’t know how to thank him. With this detail she knew she’d be able to trace the locket. The fact that she would never see it was a personal disappointment, but she would know its origins. And that was, after all, she told herself, the most important part of her search. To tie up all the links. She was greatly indebted to him.
‘Thank you, Foong Lee,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what this means to me.’
‘I’m sure I don’t, a passion like yours can be hard to fathom for we non-academics.’ He seemed to study her for a moment before continuing. ‘I would suggest, however, that such a passion goes far deeper than your academic studies.’ Foong Lee knew he was being presumptuous, but he liked to prove himself right. ‘Could it perhaps have something to do with the discovery of your people?’
Jessica was astonished. In the whole of her life, no-one, either black or white, had ever guessed at her Aboriginal ancestry. ‘My mother was a Yamatji woman,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’
‘It’s a hobby of mine,’ Foong Lee smiled, very pleased with himself. ‘We are such a mixed breed here in Darwin, people’s origins are a constant source of interest for me and guessing has become a habit. Will you join me in a fresh pot of tea?’
‘I’d love to,’ she said. She meant it, she could have talked to the old Chinese for hours, ‘but I have to get home and do some packing, I leave for Perth first thing tomorrow.’
‘Very wise,’ he said, ‘with the cyclone coming.’
‘Do you think it’ll hit Darwin? Everyone seems very blasé.’
‘Who knows?’ Foong Lee shrugged, ‘they’re such mercurial things, cyclones, but yes, I think it will.’
‘Thank you, Foong Lee.’ They shook hands. ‘You’ve been a wonderful help.’
‘I only wish I could have done more,’ he said.
Was there the faintest hint of regret in his voice, she wondered? Once again she had the vague feeling there was something he wasn’t telling her. She rummaged in the side pocket of her shoulder bag.
‘I’ll leave my card with you,’ she said, ‘just in case anything else comes to mind.’ His expression was quizzical and Jessica was certain that he knew what she was thinking. She found herself rattling on a little self-consciously. ‘And of course if you ever come to Perth, I do hope you’ll ring me, I’d love to see you, I’ve enjoyed our chat.’
‘Perth,’ he said as he took the card. He seemed most interested. ‘A very pretty place, Perth.’
‘You know it well?’
‘No. But I’ve visited a number of times, I have friends who live there.’ As he opened the door for her, she couldn’t resist impulsively kissing him on the cheek, and it obviously pleased him.
‘Goodbye, Foong Lee, and thanks again.’
‘Good luck with your search, Jessica.’ He stood deep in thought as he watched her walk down the street.
Two days after Jessica’s departure, Foong Lee was concerned that his weather prediction may prove ominously correct. On the morning of Christmas Eve, the cyclone was given a name. She was called Tracy. And although most remained heedless of the warnings, convinced that Tracy would alter her path, Foong Lee, always a man of caution, telephoned his son.
‘You will bring the family around and stay the night with your mother and me, Albert,’ he said.
The large storage cellar beneath Foong Lee’s house, which had been built following the Japanese attack on Darwin, was constructed to also serve as a shelter. It was protection against bombs or cyclones or anything else that might threaten his family, and in the case of Tropical Cyclone Tracy, Foong Lee was taking no chances, particularly with the safety of his beloved grandchildren.
Kit Galloway had more on his mind than an impending cyclone. For three days he had agonised over the locket and what it signified. He’d gazed for hours at the photographs of his mother and the man who must surely have been her lover. He recalled the resemblance he’d initially recognised between himself and Paul Trewinnard. Was it possible that this man was his father? If so, the ramifications were immense. Had his mother lived a lie for fourteen years? Or had her husband known from the outset? It would certainly explain Terence Galloway’s antipathy towards him. For as long as Kit could remember he’d felt alienated from his father. Had Paul Trewinnard himself known? Kit recalled, with vivid clarity, their last meeting at Mindil Beach when he’d known that Paul was dying. He remembered the fervour with which the non-demonstrative man had returned his hug. Had Paul been saying goodbye to his son?
The more Kit pondered the subject, the more he convinced himself that Paul Trewinnard was his father. And the more he gazed upon the locket, the more tortured he became in his desire for the truth. He must know. It was his right to know.
There was only one person able to put his mind at rest. Terence Galloway. But what if his mother had lived the lie until the end? What if his father had never known the truth? Should Kit confront him with the proof of his wife’s infidelity and the knowledge that he’d raised a son not his own?
Then Kit thought of his mother. She had wished him to have the locket, hadn’t she? She had wanted her son to know the truth.
Kit spent the day
s in an agony of indecision until finally he could bear it no longer. He decided to confront his father.
It was Christmas Eve when he drove out to Larrakeyah. Late in the afternoon. A restless day, ominous and threatening. The weather report which had appeared in that day’s edition of the Northern Territory News had run only three paragraphs. Tropical Cyclone Tracy was currently 150 kilometres north-west of Darwin, with winds of 120 kilometres an hour buffeting Bathurst Island. Little attention had been paid to the report.
Terence, Scotch in hand, was sitting on the first-floor verandah looking out over the harbour and the blackening sky. Certainly cyclone weather, he thought, but it wouldn’t reach them, it wouldn’t get past Bathurst Island.
He was surprised when the Kingswood pulled up. He hadn’t seen much of Kit lately. There’d been a definite cooling between them since the magazine article and the confrontation which had followed its publication. Not that Terence particularly cared, it was simply further proof of the gulf which existed between him and the boy. By God, he’d thought, how proud Malcolm would have been of that article. Malcolm was a Galloway, with true Galloway pride. And how staunchly Malcolm would have supported him in his forthcoming mayoral campaign. Kit’s reaction had irked Terence. The ungrateful young bastard didn’t know how lucky he was to bear the Galloway name.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said, rising from his chair as Kit walked up the steps to the verandah, ‘the prodigal son returns.’ He gave a hearty beam, there was no point in further alienating the boy, the family image remained important. ‘How nice to see you, what are you drinking?’ He slung an arm around Kit and hooked his hand over his son’s shoulder. Although much slighter in build, Kit stood a good four inches taller than Terence. ‘Scotch? Beer?’ he offered as they walked inside to the lounge room.
Kit had intended confronting his father with the locket the moment he arrived, but given the enthusiasm of his welcome, it was difficult.
‘Beer thanks, Dad,’ he found himself saying. Christ, how the hell was he to go about it?
‘Fran!’ Terence bellowed, topping up his Scotch from the bottle on the sideboard, and she instantly appeared. ‘Bring a beer for our boy.’
‘Hello, Kit,’ she said, pleased to see him.
‘G’day, Fran.’
‘So what are you getting up to tonight?’ Terence asked, ‘Want to come to a dinner party? Posh affair, I can tell you. Who’s who there, great food, great booze.’ It would look good if Kit was with him, he thought.
‘Sounds great,’ Kit said, it sounded awful, ‘but Maxie’s having a party and I promised I’d go.’
‘Oh yes, I know the sort of thing,’ Terence kept up the bonhomie, ‘a right bloody pissup.’ He gave a laugh which sounded decidedly mirthless. ‘Darwin on a Christmas Eve, eh?’
‘Yes it’ll probably be like that,’ Kit admitted. The beer arrived. ‘Thanks Fran.’
Terence wondered what Kit’s reply would be if he said, ‘Hey son I’d really like you to come with me tonight as a favour, politics, you know what I mean?’ The boy would simply say ‘no thanks, Dad’, he knew it. Malcolm would never have said that. Malcolm would have done anything he’d asked.
He looked at Kit with disdain, but the smile remained painted on his lips. ‘Well, cheers, happy Christmas and all that.’ He clinked his glass against Kit’s and they drank. ‘So to what do I owe the honour?’ he said, ‘Have you got a Christmas present for me?’
Kit recognised the sarcasm, just as he recognised the fact that his father was angry with him. He was supposed to have accepted the invitation to dinner, but he could hardly do so under the circumstances, could he? Not that he would have accepted under normal circumstances. Oh hell, he told himself, just bite the bloody bullet.
‘There’s something I want to show you, Dad,’ he said, depositing his beer on a coffee table and taking the locket, which he’d carefully cleaned and wrapped in a white handkerchief, from the top pocket of his shirt. ‘And there’s something I need to ask you. Could we turn on that lamp?’ The light was dim in the gathering gloom of the afternoon.
Damn the boy’s peremptory tone, Terence thought, but he put down his Scotch, crossed to the standard lamp in the corner and turned it on.
Kit unwrapped the locket and held it beneath the light from the lamp. He shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket, then carefully pressed the locket’s clasp. It was only when he had opened it to display the photographs inside that he looked at his father.
Terence Galloway was staring in stupefaction at the locket. He appeared to be in a state of complete disbelief.
So his father hadn’t known, Kit thought. His father hadn’t known that his wife had had a lover. Damn, he should have been a bit more subtle. He wondered whether he should suggest that perhaps the locket dated from a time previous to their marriage. No, he decided, he wasn’t here to mollify his father and invent explanations. He needed answers, even if the answers were hurtful to Terence Galloway. And if Terence Galloway himself hadn’t known, which it appeared he hadn’t, then surely he too deserved the truth after all these years.
‘It’s Paul Trewinnard, Dad,’ he said. There was no need to explain any further the image in the locket, his father was staring at it, mesmerised, obviously aware of its implications.
In the horrifying instant Terence had seen the locket in the palm of Kit’s hand, he had remembered the moment when he’d pressed his wife’s fingers around that very same locket. It had been the moment before he’d killed her. How could it be here? his mind screamed. Then, as he’d watched Kit open the locket, he’d fought back his panic. There had to be a reasonable explanation for its reappearance. His frenzied brain churned with a dozen scenarios. Someone had found the body! So why hadn’t they reported it? They hadn’t reported it because they’d stolen the locket, yes, that made sense. So why had the locket come to light now? Why was it being returned to him after all these years? Then the sickening realisation struck home. Someone knew the truth! They’d sent the locket as a signal. Was it money they wanted? Was it blackmail?
Kit had said something but Terence didn’t hear what it was. ‘Where did you get that?’ he demanded in a menacing growl.
Kit hoped that his father wasn’t about to have one of his fits of rage, it would serve neither of them any purpose if he did. They needed to talk calmly and reasonably, to unveil the secrets of the past and find the answers which both of them deserved to know.
‘It belonged to Mum,’ he said. ‘She and Paul Trewinnard …’ Surely he didn’t need to spell it out.
‘I said where did you get it?’ Terence tore his eyes away from the locket and glared at his son.
Did that really matter? Kit wondered. ‘Someone gave it to me,’ he said.
‘Who?’
Kit recognised something else in his father’s face besides rage. Was it fear?
‘Who, boy? You tell me right now, who gave you that locket?’
‘It doesn’t matter who, Dad,’ Kit didn’t want to get Pearl into trouble. She’d been clearly frightened when she’d returned the locket, better to leave her out of the equation, he thought. ‘We just need to recognise the truth,’ he said. ‘Both of us.’
The familiar madness had come upon Terence, and Kit’s composure now infuriated him. He lunged at the locket. ‘Give me that thing, you sanctimonious little prick!’
But Kit was too quick for him. He snatched the locket away from Terence’s grasp. ‘For God’s sake, be reasonable,’ he yelled, although it appeared that Terence Galloway was beyond all reason. ‘It doesn’t matter who gave it to me! Mum wanted me to have it!’
Terence had been about to hurl himself at Kit and wrestle the locket from him, but he was stopped in his tracks.
She wanted him to have it! She’d lived long enough to give the locket to someone. Again the realisation rocked him. And whoever she had given it to as she lay dying knew that Henrietta Galloway had been murdered. Who was it? Who knew that Terence Galloway had killed his wife?
As his mind screamed the question, Terence forced himself to keep calm. He needed answers.
‘Who told you that she wanted you to have the locket, Kit?’
But Kit appeared not to have heard the question. ‘She wanted me to know the truth, Dad,’ he said, relieved that his father had regained his composure.
Terence froze at the words. What truth? He stared at his son. Did Kit himself know? Was Kit attempting to blackmail him?
‘What truth?’ he asked, his voice now deadly calm. He’d kill the boy if need be.
Someone had to say it out loud, Kit thought. The locket’s implication must have occurred to his father. He’d been quite sure it had, given Terence Galloway’s stunned reaction, but the man seemed unable to admit it. Kit took a deep breath. ‘The truth that Paul Trewinnard was my father.’
Terence continued to glare at him with eyes glassy and menacing. Was that all the boy needed to know? Surely whoever had given him the locket had said something about his mother’s death.
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Kit took his father’s silence as shock. ‘It came as a shock to me too. I actually thought you might have known yourself all this time, but …’ His voice trailed off. The expression on his father’s face was enigmatic. Was he still angry? Was he hurt? It was impossible to tell. ‘… but I believe it’s the truth. I believe that Paul Trewinnard was my natural father.’
Terence wanted to laugh out loud with relief. The boy knew nothing. Whether someone had stolen the locket or whether they’d been given it by the dying Henrietta, they had said nothing. And that same someone had now relinquished the locket. In Terence’s fixated mind, the only proof of her murder was the locket itself, and it was right here in front of him for the taking.
‘Of course Trewinnard was your father,’ he said. Kit was obviously desperate for an answer, might as well tell him. ‘But don’t blab it around town, boy, it wouldn’t do either of us any good.’
‘You knew?’ Kit was dumbfounded.
‘Naturally.’ Not wise to admit to discovering the fact just prior to Henrietta’s mysterious death, Terence thought. ‘I knew from the very start,’ he said, congratulating himself on his cunning. ‘Very noble of me, don’t you think? Bringing up Henrietta’s bastard child.’ Now that he felt safe Terence wanted to twist the knife just a little, the boyishly wounded look on Kit’s face irritated him.