The Philosopher's Daughters

by Alison Booth

  When she had finished, she felt drained. She stood and walked a few hundred yards away before wheeling around and returning to the easel. If I come upon it suddenly, she thought, I might take it by surprise, it might be as if I’m seeing it for the first time. Brilliant or awful, she could not yet tell but she had to find out. Holding her breath, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands, she stopped in front of the picture and looked at it through half-closed eyes. The canvas was ablaze with light and colour, it was as she had remembered the rock face, it was everything she had hoped it would be. Widening her eyes, she recognised in that moment that it was her best work ever. It was as if here, at Dimbulah Downs, she had discovered her vision, her voice, her own unique view of the world.

  She sat down on the small folding stool and gazed again at the painting, this time with her head rather than her heart. The picture was good. It was very good. What made it work was that somehow – with her little dashes of many-hued paints – she had made the light look temporary, the way it had been in the gorge, when you knew it would go as soon as the sun moved across the sky, as soon as the shadows from the cliffs cast the gorge into darkness. The scene looked transient in a way that she could not analyse, and in this transience it had acquired the sort of dynamism that characterised each day with the passing of the hours and the movement of the sun across the heavens.

  A crunching of leaves behind her made her start. Turning, she saw her sister, who stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the easel.

  ‘That’s beautiful, Hattie,’ Sarah said at last.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s your best ever.’

  ‘I think so too.’

  Sarah smiled and Harriet felt her sister’s arm rest lightly on her shoulder. Her cotton sleeve smelt faintly of wood smoke. ‘Do you know, Hattie, that is the first time you have ever said anything nice about your own work?’

  ‘There is a reason for that.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My earlier work was banal.’

  ‘Hattie, you’re so hard on yourself.’

  ‘There is something about the light here,’ Harriet said, her voice so soft that Sarah had to lean forward to catch the words. ‘In Australia and in the Territory.’

  But even as Harriet spoke, she knew that it wasn’t only the light that had led her to what she suspected was a metamorphosis. Something had happened at the gorge, something had happened since then with Mick, that had moved her forward. It had given her a shove along the trajectory that she knew now she would follow in the future. Yet she did not want to vocalise this thought, even to Sarah. It might vanish if she voiced it. She needed more time to know if she was right.

  * * *

  It was the mailman Frank O’Connor who brought the news. Heralded by a cloud of red dust, he arrived one afternoon with his string of packhorses and the bags of mail and newspapers that they had been looking forward to for weeks. Bringing the local gossip too, collected from every cattle station and every telegraph repeater station that Frank had visited along the way. Sarah asked Ah Soy to bring some tea to the part of the verandah protected by mosquito netting. After the usual talk of this and that – the polite stuff that had to be sat through before moving on to what was on all their minds – Henry was quick to ask Frank what he’d heard of Carruthers.

  ‘Carruthers’ and Brady’s names have been on everyone’s lips,’ Frank said. ‘And a grand set of rumours have been flying around about them, so I count myself lucky that I heard the truth about what happened straight from the horse’s mouth. You see, I’d stopped at the repeater station not far south of Pine Creek and was yarning with one of the telegraph boys, and he told me that the troopers had recently been through and found Brady’s body not that far from Empty Creek Station. Brady had fallen off his horse, you see, and broken his neck. His body was pretty badly decomposed by the time they got to him, it’s this terrible heat, that’s the thing.’

  Sarah glanced at Harriet, who was staring into the distance, almost as if she wasn’t listening to anything Frank was saying. Her shoulders were hunched forward. That and a vertical line between her eyebrows and her jiggling leg gave her agitation away. Sarah herself felt no guilt. She’d saved her sister from Brady’s attack and in so doing had only lightly wounded him. She was not responsible for his demise.

  Frank took a swig of tea before continuing. ‘And you know they could find no trace of Carruthers, none at all, although Brady had somehow sent a telegram to Port Darwin to say he’d been murdered. The blacks had all gone walkabout, apparently, and there was no sign of the stockmen either. They’d all cleared off with the horses, by the look of things.’

  ‘Was there anything else about Carruthers?’ Henry said.

  ‘It turned out that Carruthers was wanted by the police in Melbourne,’ Frank replied. ‘It was for the murder of a white feller in a pub brawl a few years back. So, what with one thing and another, it seems that no one is to be charged with Carruthers’ murder.’

  Again Sarah looked at her sister. Her shoulders were no longer folded inwards, her face had relaxed, and that vertical line between her eyebrows had quite vanished.

  ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,’ Frank said, before proceeding to do precisely that. ‘But I never liked Carruthers much, he had such an unkind manner on him. Someone must have dropped him on his head when he was a baby. Happen that’s the thing about being a big man. With all that strength, you have to learn how to hold back.’

  Frank now launched into a tale about his uncle. ‘Six foot three in his socks and all on a diet of milk and cheese and potatoes and cabbage. Bejesus, that’s a grand diet for good health if only you can eat enough of it, and he was the gentlest man in the world. His strength was to protect others, he always said, not to get them to do his bidding.’

  At this point Ah Soy reappeared with a smile and a cake and a pot of steaming water to replenish the teapot. The afternoon was beginning to feel cold, and Sarah knew that shortly the white cockatoos would come squawking in to jockey for position in the old gum tree down by the billabong. She felt peace descend on her as she watched the plumes of smoke arising from the Aboriginal camp. The sky was lightening, the cobalt blue fading to the palest shade, with a blaze of orange and gold at the horizon. In only a few more weeks the regular manager of Dimbulah Downs would return – with a new wife, it seemed, and Sarah hoped she knew what she was letting herself in for – and their sojourn in the Territory would be over before the start of the wet season.

  EPILOGUE

  Sydney, 1897

  Tiny brushstrokes, a multiplicity of colours. A fractured, flickering, scintillating interpretation of Mosman Bay sparkles from the canvas. This is not by Harriet, but next to it is one of hers: a painting of the gorge that Mick took her to. She has four pictures in this Sydney exhibition. They hang side by side with some great names of Sydney and Melbourne impressionists. She can’t believe her good fortune.

  It is opening night. The gallery doors have just been unlocked. A couple of dozen people are already here, attaching themselves to the known artists, connected to one another by little threads of conversation, everyone talking at once. Someone says something that is imperfectly heard; someone else throws back something that is loosely related, or perhaps not related at all. And so it goes on: threads of conversations becoming hopelessly tangled.

  And so far, no one is looking at the canvases.

  Turning away from the crowd she again examines the view of Mosman Bay. The voices grow even louder as more people arrive. Get away, she thinks, her heart now a panicking caged bird. Get away fast. Soon these people will look at the paintings and she can’t bear to hear the comments when they see hers. They will cut right into her and excise whatever impulse it is that makes her expose herself on canvas.

  Be sensible, she tells herself sternly, wiping her sticky palms on her mus
tard yellow skirt and easing the neck of her high-collared white blouse. You can’t leave, that will never do. It’s a great honour to have your work selected for this exhibition and you’ve got to stay.

  Turning abruptly away from the Mosman Bay painting, she finds herself staring at a familiar face. ‘Mick Spencer!’ Although she tries to make her voice sound normal, it emerges half-strangled. ‘How wonderful to see you.’

  ‘Mick Yarrapunga.’

  ‘Yarrapunga?’

  ‘Yes.’ He spells it out for her. ‘That is my name.’

  ‘So that’s why I couldn’t trace you.’

  ‘You tried to trace me?’

  ‘Of course. In Adelaide and in Darwin and in Sydney and in Melbourne. And in Brisbane. No one had heard of Mick Spencer. After a while I began to think you might be dead.’

  ‘But here I am.’ In his smiling face she recognises something timeless that makes her catch her breath.

  ‘I should have guessed you’d changed your name. I remember what you said when I asked for your last name, do you remember? “Too many syllables,” you said. “They give me civilised name.”

  ‘I remember. That was the day I asked you if you’d like to see the gorge.’

  ‘I still have your paintings.’

  ‘I’m glad. I hoped you’d keep them.’

  ‘Would you like them back?’

  ‘They were a gift for you.’

  ‘I’ve had them framed.’

  ‘Did you get your sketch of Port Darwin, the one I left with my clothes?’

  ‘Yes. I still have it.’ She carries it around with her like a talisman. It is folded up in an envelope in her bag.

  ‘It was a message for you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Are you that Harry Cameron exhibited here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hoped it might be you. That’s why I agreed to come. I’m in Sydney for a few weeks. I work for the Aborigines’ Friends’ Association and some friends told me about this exhibition.’

  ‘I’m so glad you came.’ The silence expands while she slowly sweats.

  Eventually he says, ‘But Harry Cameron is your working name. Have you married?’

  ‘No.’ Charles, with whom she still corresponds, has married someone else, a friend of Violet’s, and she is glad of it. ‘And you, Mick – are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened to you after you left Dimbulah Downs?’

  ‘I made my way to the Kimberley and took a boat down to Perth. Then I did some odd-jobs before going back to the Coorong. Stayed there for a bit until I found out what had happened and then I got the job in Adelaide.’

  She explains how she wrote to the Aborigines’ Friends’ Association asking if they knew anything about Mick Spencer, and received a reply saying they had no record of anyone of that name. She does not yet tell him how sad that made her. Instead, she says, ‘So you know that Brady died in a fall from his horse without having a chance to blame you for Carruthers’ death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the end no one was blamed for Carruthers’ death. He had a bad reputation, everyone agreed. He was wanted for a murder down south, he’d killed a white fellow there after a pub brawl, but the police had lost track of him.’

  ‘I saw that in the Adelaide Advertiser. In a tiny article on page 6. Where are Henry and your sister?’

  ‘Farming north of Bega. Sheep mainly but some dairy too. They have a son and a second child on the way. They’re very happy. Sarah has a piano again – I don’t know how she managed for so long without one. And she shoots. She’s very good at it. She wins competitions at country shows.’

  Mick smiles. ‘And you, Harriet – are you happy?’

  ‘I’m contented enough. And I’m especially happy to see you again.’

  There is a moment of stillness against the background roar of the gallery visitors. She must take a risk; she can’t bear the thought of losing track of Mick again. She feels her face burn as she says, ‘Do you have plans for tonight? We could have dinner after this opening’s over.’

  ‘That depends on whether we can find a place that will serve a white woman dining with a black fellow.’

  ‘We can do that. We’ll avoid the proper places. We’ll find somewhere.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There is a pause. She sees on the far side of the gallery a couple standing in front of one of her paintings.

  He says, ‘Are you willing to go down this track, Harriet? It won’t be easy.’

  She looks into his dark eyes that miss nothing and feels like she’s come home. ‘I know it won’t be easy,’ she says. ‘But I think we should give it a try.’

  Acknowledgements

  The Philosopher’s Daughters is a work of fiction embedded in historical fact. Although at times I have altered minor details to fit the narrative, the story reflects the period of the 1890s as seen through the eyes of the two protagonists, the daughters of moral philosopher James Cameron. Readers may find some of the dialogue confronting, since it occasionally reflects some of the attitudes and expressions of the period. All characters and incidents in the book are fictitious.

  I owe special thanks to my late father, Norman Booth, whose tales of his years in the Northern Territory awakened my interest in that part of the world. Warm thanks to RedDoor Press for stewarding this book into production, and also to first readers Heather Boisseau, Karen Colston, Tom Flood, Maggie Hamand, Tim Hatton, Ann McGrath, Kathy Mossop and Lyn Tranter. Historian Nicole McLennan was a wonderful person to discuss the 1890s with, and I much appreciate her meticulous research and insights. I am also grateful to Ana Baeza, who accompanied me on that long train journey from Darwin to Adelaide. Last but not least I thank Justine Small, who guided me on wonderful trips through the Northern Territory, and Alex Lee Small, who brokered some unforgettable visits to remote Northern Territory communities.

  I am grateful to Varuna the Writers’ House for the opportunity to write with no interruptions when this was most needed. Thanks also to the Northern Territory Library in Darwin, to the National Library of Australia, to the libraries of the Australian National University, and especially to the collection of the Northern Australia Research Unit that was held in the basement of the Chifley Library at the Australian National University until early 2018. I was fortunate to have browsed its contents before it was destroyed in a terrible flood in early 2018.

  I am indebted to many books and newspapers of the time. Below is a selection of relevant books that readers might find interesting.

  Blakeley, Fred, (1938), Hard Liberty. London: George G Harrap & Co. Ltd.

  Booth, Norman W (2002), Up the Dusty Track. Darwin: Charles Darwin University Press. Reprinted 2006.

  Dixon, Val (ed.) (1988), Looking Back: The Northern Territory in 1888. Casuarina. NT: Historical Society of the Northern Territory.

  Gunn, Jeannie (Mrs Æneas) (1907), We of the Never-Never. London: Hutchinson.

  Headon, David (ed.) (1991), North of the Ten Commandments: A Collection of Northern Territory Literature. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

  Knight, J G (1880) (ed.), The Northern Territory of South Australia. Adelaide: E. Spiller, Government Printer.

  Leichhardt, Ludwig (1847), Ludwig Leichhardt’s Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, 1844–5. First published 1847, London: T & W Boone. This edition: Adelaide: Corkwood Press, 1996.

  Masson, Elsie R. (1915), An Untamed Territory: The Northern Territory of Australia. London: Macmillan and Co.

  McGrath, Ann (1987), ‘Born in the Cattle’: Aborigines in the Cattle Country. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

  Searcy, Alfred (1911), By Flood and Field, London: G Bell and Sons, 1912.

  Stevens, Frank S, Aborigines in the Northern Territory Cattle Industry. Canberra: Australia
n National University Press, 1974.

  Also by Alison Booth

  Chapter 1

  THEN

  The body lay on a gurney in the middle of the room. When the coroner’s assistant uncovered the head, my heart began to knock against my ribcage and I could feel the thump-thump-thump of a migraine starting.

  The assistant stood back and I stepped forward.

  The body was his all right. They must have cleaned him up. I put out a hand to touch the pale forehead. It was icy cold from the refrigeration. There were fine lines around his eyes and his blond hair was tousled. He was beautiful still, in spite of what had happened to him.

  I waited as the minutes passed by, almost expecting to see his chest rise and fall, almost expecting to see the eyelids flutter open. I forgot about the coroner’s assistant until she gave a discreet cough. Turning away from the body, I nodded to her. As I walked past, she took a step towards me and lightly patted my forearm.

  Outside, sadness and relief wavered through my head like paper kites tossed about in a high wind. I bought a copy of the Evening Standard from the newsvendor on the corner. On the front page there was yet another picture of that woman. Behind the piles of newspapers was a wire rack with yesterday’s headlines that I knew I’d never forget.

  A blast of diesel fumes from a passing bus precipitated my migraine. I leaned against the mottled trunk of a plane tree. When the nausea came, I stood at the edge of the pavement and threw up in the gutter. No one appeared to notice, certainly no one stopped.

  I carried on retching until my stomach hurt. After a while, a smartly dressed woman asked if I needed help. Her kindness made me weep, hot silent tears. ‘Is there someone I can call?’ she said, her arm around my shoulders.