The Crocodile Hotel

by Julie Janson

  ‘Come on, I don’t want this. He’s on foot.’

  ‘Put your foot down. We’ll teach him to go sniffin yer missus.’

  Jane laughed.

  ‘We broke up a year ago! I’m not with him. It ended.’

  They were on fire, the boys, the posse with a hanging rope. A black wallaby beat across in the headlights.

  ‘Get that wallaby! Hello dinner.’ The Land Rover swerved and missed.

  Still she couldn’t speak up. Taken over by the crushing weight of it all. The terrible significance. The violence and lashing out. The idea of a white woman with an Aboriginal man, the sex and smell of the act, the luscious black skin, pumping big man, the squealing pink flesh – it frightened them, it enraged them: it was all linked. Ancient hate, envy of the dark man. No, envy it was of the freedom they had, and the Aboriginal belonging to the landscape. Owning nothing in white law, but they had it all.

  ‘That’s him!’

  ‘We’ll get him with the spotlight.’ They gunned onto the bush track, David, clearly alone, walking in the dark, pulling the trouble away from the others. Orlando dropped his head. Daniel screamed, frenzied, as Harry’s spotlight trapped David.

  ‘Hey Davo, I want to bust you like a roo on the bull bar.’

  Jane tried to open the car door. ‘Stop this! I will get the police onto you!’

  Orlando was stirred.

  ‘I can’t stand this. Let me out. I’m a pacifist.’

  ‘Hey Orlando. He’s rootin’ your missus. You’re an idiot, mate, to take it. Stand up for yourself!’ Daniel laughed. Jane pulled at his arm as he reached beneath the seat.

  ‘I don’t care!’ said Orlando. Daniel slid a rifle out from under the seat.

  ‘Want a lend of my gun? Watch it – he’s hiding in the pandanus.’ The headlights now held David, standing, shading his eyes. He held up his fists, a boxer’s stance. Jane hid her head in panic as Daniel smiled, then he jumped out with the other men.

  ‘Look at him. Stunned like a wallaby. Got ya! Off with Orlando’s woman. We oughta cut it off, eh! How about it, fellas? How’d Davo go without it? Come on Ando, where’s your manhood?’ The other builders, one drawing a plank of wood from the tray, were forming behind Daniel. Then Orlando turned and jumped backwards, fist raised beside David.

  ‘I don’t have to beat up people to be a fuckin’ man. You’ll have to take me too!’

  David and Orlando, nodding in unison, moving, warming up with raised forearms.

  ‘My brother here’, exhaled David.

  Daniel had the plank, starting a low rotation then faster and rising up, eye level. Jane couldn’t scream, the sounds wouldn’t come. She held up her hand, to what? Was she going to run in and stop it? Her hand was pathetic. The plank curved through the air and found its mark with a crack.

  David’s skull bubbled in blood. His head sagged sideways. Blood spurted in the dark air, crimson. The plank dropped. He’d been belted with a four by two. David staggered, his feet separating trying to stay upright, while he lurched backwards. Jane slumped to her haunches, fist in mouth. David looked at her and fell to the sand. Blood around his mouth.

  His eyes closed and he lay still. Harry kicked the form of David.

  ‘That’ll teach yer to want land bloody rights! How about white rights? You fucker.’

  Orlando moved to kneel down between Harry and the body. The howls coming with a repellent frequency. Harry wavered, uncertain. He kicked at the dirt, spent and drifting backwards.

  Jane, slumped at the tree, saw all the blood, saw it glimmer as he twitched. Blood covered one side of his face, then she screamed at the Land Rover, at its cargo of cowards, dumb with hate. She wanted to touch him, feel his body limp and fallen. The blood tasting of salt or sweet, could she remember? Yes, from being punched in the mouth, an explosion of broken skin against her teeth. She wanted to lift him in her arms, tear bandages from her dress.

  Daniel moved into her vision, bringing her back. Daniel, hot and sweaty against her side, holding the builders’ wood caked in cement, now blood. Orlando on his knees, sobbing. His shirt was off, bunched up to press against the head wound. Thunder rumbled out there, the pandanus trees bent in the sudden wind. Rain began pelting, bullets of rain to turn the track into sliding grey mud.

  ‘Oh God what have you done? You might’ve killed him. David, can you hear me?’

  Jane was up, tending the crumpled figure. Harry moved in; she stared him off. But not Daniel.

  ‘We’d better get going. Come on, Jane!’ He pulled her up as she thrashed at him, frog marching her into an opened door of the Rover. Harry and the others were in. It smelt like wet dogs. Daniel leant out of the car window.

  ‘Orly, come on, mate, he’ll be fine; he’s got a head like concrete.’

  Orlando sat in the wet sand, David’s head cradled in his lap. Unconscious David. Orlando was facing up, rain flying on him.

  ‘Go on, fuck off, cowards!’

  Harry wheelied off, honking the horn. Jane watched Orlando diminish through the window. He looked destroyed. The Land Rover skidded against casuarinas, shunting Jane into Daniel, her tormentor, mad Daniel. All of them, faces silent, stunned at what they’d done. The only sound the unrelenting swish of the window wipers.

  ‘I have to help him. We’ve got to go back, Harry.’

  ‘You came along to save him? Yeah, right!’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, I have to go back!’

  ‘You played them off against each other.’

  ‘We have to get help. He might die – he could have a fractured skull’, she said.

  Daniel pushed his face into hers, pressed his leg against hers.

  ‘You were there Jane, limp-wristed; you didn’t even try to stop us! Did you get a thrill from being the woman that men fight over? Get you hot? It’s your fault, ever think of that? What does Freud say about that? Make you feel good about yourself? Your righteous goody-goody act?’

  She didn’t answer; she felt sick. Daniel, he might as well just stick his hand in her chest and poke her in the heart.

  Harry drove up onto the hotel room pavement under the neon light. ‘Pokies, Keno’.

  Jane got out and they drove off, honking the horn. Jane sat on her bed sobbing, then she picked up the phone. She called the Aboriginal Legal Service in Sydney, left a message on the machine and then dialled the local ambulance.

  Breathe deep, then go forth and act. She splashed water on her face, then took the keys to her car. She drove out to the spot where she had last seen David and Orlando, but there was nothing there. Just a pool of blood amongst the casuarina seeds in the white sand. She touched the blood and it stuck to her fingers. The white sand looked different now; it was a post-apocalyptic paddock, with cracked black bones, beer cans, mussel shells and leaning pandanus palms blown by the howling wind.

  That night, she heard the psychotic alcohol-driven frenzy of Aboriginal men and white men shouting – degrading, strange and terrible. She huddled in her room and tried to block out the fear. She had heard horrible things said about Aboriginal communities, the whites’ pathological dislike, Aboriginal people described as animals in filth and squalor. That was why she had chosen the Lanniwahs: no alcohol. She sat until she lost a sense of time.

  Later, outside Jane’s motel room, Orlando leaned against the wall, soaked and in mental pain.

  ‘David’s in the hospital. I’m sorry. But he will be okay. I can’t say no to the mates and their expectations of loyalty, the brotherhood, never let a mate down. It got out of control. It should have stopped before the violence. He’ll recover. We all will, I hope.’

  She looked at him and said nothing, shut the door to her room and heard him walk away. She wanted to call him back, but it was too late. The whole thing was over; she was glad, it was all horrible and she wanted to be alone to face herself. Where the hell was her moral judgement? What kind of so-called compassion did she exhibit? In the end, Orlando had stood by his Lanniwah mate. Not her. It could only be fear; she
had been in shock, utterly frozen and unable to move to stop her complicity. Jane willed herself to face her weakness: she wasn’t brave.

  An urgent tap on the door – would this night ever be over? Orlando again maybe? No, he would be back at the hospital; he had taken over her role as concerned friend.

  Knocking gain, urgent. She pulled back the polyester sheet. She ached all over. She looked through the peephole. A blur.

  ‘Who is it?’ said Jane.

  ‘It’s Rosie, are you alright?’

  Jane was not surprised. The invisible gossip-line in town, better than a phone. Rosie sat on the only chair in front of the vanity table. Whose vanity? Jane was a wreck.

  ‘The whole town knows about it’

  ‘They love a scandal.’

  ‘Orlando came to us; he was desperate.’

  ‘Let him be a hero.’

  ‘He tried.’

  ‘I will go to the police. Make them write a report.’

  ‘Don’t do anything. The police will only go for David again; he’ll get a record.’

  ‘I have to do something right!’

  In the morning, Rosie held Jane’s arm tight as they approached the police station. She sat on the bench as Jane wrote out her version of events.

  ‘They’ll most probably throw this paper away when I leave – they won’t care.’

  ‘In Katherine, there are fights and beatings every night. It’s just another weekend rampage. But just do it, Jane.’

  After the police, the women went to a café and had a coffee. Jane rested her head on her hands and Rosie patted her head. Surely, the worst was over. Jane could just get on with her work, but first she wanted to talk to the town Lanniwah elders – she owed them an explanation.

  CHAPTER 6

  Lanniwah Revenge

  Jane walked through the tall elephant grass behind the riverbank between cardboard humpies, empty port flagons and dogs to the Lanniwah town camp. It was a humid stifling day. Black clouds tumbled overhead. She entered the camp with trepidation: she didn’t belong to this Lanniwah town world. She walked over to a fire and stood at a distance. No one looked at her but she had to find some self-respect and stand by what was right. She stood a way off and waited for someone to acknowledge her, to invite her in. One elder nodded, she crept in.

  ‘Can someone please tell me where David Yaniwuy is?’ She stood alongside the old people until a smiling man offered her a spot on his blanket.

  ‘Sit here, girlie.’ She was grateful, sat on a corner of the blanket, and put down some canned drinks, bread and fruit. The old man nodded and opened the cold lemonade.

  ‘What you want?’ he said.

  Jane heard that David’s cousins had found him caked in black blood and a pool of broken teeth, but he was alive. They had helped him into the ambulance and Orlando had gone with him to the Katherine Hospital.

  The word had gone out on the grape vine, faster than lightning. Lanniwah brothers and cousins gathered at Yellow Grass Camp. She had brought a medical kit for David, but he was in hospital. The older men muttered about revenge; others argued that they should just take it to the police: it was a clear case.

  Finally, three young men stood up and left the camp with David’s cousin, George, who had trained in boxing at the YMCA in Darwin. He was tough and agile; he would be David’s back up. Grim faced, Jane sat in the back of the battered Land Rover with an old woman. They drove to the hospital and signed David out. Head down, shrouded in bandages, he hobbled into the front seat.

  It was hot; the sun was high. David’s brothers pointed the way out to George and they turned off onto the mining road. Black crows flew overhead. David still didn’t speak to Jane; he spoke in language to his brothers. They drove for ten kilometres to the builders’ camp and stopped behind some spindly trees. It was the hottest part of the day and they knew the builders would knock off at three o’clock and head for the pub. Jane sat silently and watched. It had to be this way.

  Jane was melting with anxiety; she saw herself running through the bush, covered in prickles, tripping on ant beds, pathetic. The men whispered and used sign language to indicate where to hide. A low whistle let them know that one of the builders was walking towards the back of the aluminium shed. David looked out and recognised Daniel as the one who had used the wooden plank on him. He was a good target – alone just as David had been. David moved to sit near Jane, leaning against her. She was frightened but comforted David by stroking his curls. The bandage around his head seeped blood. Jane watched with a grim fascination as the Lanniwah men grabbed Daniel from behind, covered his mouth and dragged him struggling into the bush. For a moment, she wanted to cry out a warning but she held David’s head on her lap and couldn’t move. Daniel’s eyes bulged with terror. David leapt from the car, hit Daniel in the jaw and shook his broken hand with the pain of it. His cousins took over with a punch each. The builder staggered and pleaded for his life as tears sprayed from his face and he went down on his knees.

  ‘Don’t hit me! I’m sorry. I didn’t even know your brother. I just like to fight’, said Daniel.

  ‘You racist! You hate us. You lucky we don’t spear you, that’s all.’ George leapt forward to land another punch in the builder’s face but David stopped him.

  ‘That enough now. Let ’im go’, said David. George reluctantly pushed the white man onto the ground and the Lanniwah men walked away. Daniel crawled into some prickle bush. His nose looked broken. Jane saw his eyes on her, a look of shock on his face. His eyes met hers in accusation; she suddenly felt part of the revenge. It was a kind of justice, but she still pitied him.

  Jane and the Lanniwah men heard the knockoff whistle and saw the builders put their tools in the shed and hang a chain around the door. Jane and the men waited round a corner to see what would happen.

  ‘Where’s Dan?’ yelled the foreman.

  ‘The bludger’s left his gear all over the place’, said his mate. One of the men saw him stumbling towards the gate, blood pouring from his eye.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’

  ‘Black fellas, got me. Where were you when I needed help?’ said Daniel. The other men stood shocked with disbelief. It was rare that they felt the revenge of the blacks. They were used to always being the men who bashed, not the other way round. They spotted the Land Rover, but Jane took off with the Lanniwah men. She looked out the back window at the builders shouting and shaking their fists.

  Jane took David back to hospital where they nursed his broken cheekbone and fractured arm. Jane knew he wasn’t a violent man, but he hated people pushing him around, hated putting up with the white arrogance. It was his people’s land, after all. She felt enormous regret at her actions: her love affair that had exposed David to the attack. She admired him: he was heroic; he had taken the beating because of her – and because he dared to speak up for his people, for their land.

  Sometime later, Jane heard that David was seen driving with his cousins towards Oenpelli. The women told Jane they thought it was best for him to go. Arnhem Land would swallow them up with no trace. David was one of the young educated people who would go a long way. He was also a learned man with deep responsibilities to his people. He would inherit custodianship of sacred sites, have further initiation, be carrier of tradition – and he would fight to get their land back. Old Pelican had chosen him to go further with his education so he could one day be a leader. Jane was not part of this picture.

  Jane knew that she wouldn’t see him again, and that, right now, alone, she would have to face any consequences of the whole mess.

  CHAPTER 7

  Stones of Blood

  At Harrison, Jane hid her guilt and sadness. She was the happy head teacher, full of confidence, then at night a sobbing wreck. Loud thunder broke the night, lightning spirits crashed above. The terrible sight of David on the ground, bleeding and pale. Her memory of the scene made her ill. It had been wrong to run away from the scene, and she’d showed no courage. Forgiveness was what she nee
ded. She had let him down. She may never have the chance to tell him how remorseful she felt.

  Jane went to Old Lucy to tell her everything. The ancient face watched and listened.

  ‘No one help you – we not dere’, Old Lucy said.

  ‘How could anyone help me? It was all my doing. He was beaten because of me.’

  ‘You not hittem. Mens do it. Bad mens.’

  No one meant to be bad. She thought that it was all reactive, some kind of genetic imperative for violence. It made them feel good. Black or white, some men needed to hurt each other, needed to draw blood.

  Old Lucy was sick. Her face close up was a skull, frail thin skin stretched across it like a painting, her cheekbones prominent. Jane saw that the old woman was not quite ready to go – she had more to do in her life, one last reconciliation. Jane went with her to the stone place. She wanted to ask forgiveness for all the treachery and pain.

  They took the Toyota a short distance across brittle spinifex grass, then there was no road. They got out, and the two women walked to the secret solemn place, Jane holding the old woman’s shaking arm. A sheer stone wall against a red hill. Many Lanniwah had warned Jane to stay away, but on this day Old Lucy wanted her to come. It was a moment of prescience. Jane realised that all times were living, all pasts were the present. The ground brought up hundreds of insects. The land was full of signs, singing out, clickety-clack.

  ‘Land speaking now.’

  Old Lucy sang softly with a quavering voice, high notes ringing against cliffs. She gripped Jane’s hand. Old Lucy pointed to a tall pile of smooth reddish stones against a hill, like huge marbles.

  ‘See dark colour?’ asked Lucy.

  Jane squinted in the sun. ‘I can; what is it?’

  ‘Blood splash der when white man smashem babies.’ Jane looked at the dark arc like a boomerang; these were the rocks where the children who had run from the massacre were murdered, their heads shattered like melons against the granite stones. It was unbearably poignant.

  ‘Lookem here’, said Old Lucy. The old lady parted her thin white hair to show Jane a raised scar. Jane touched it and tears came from her eyes. She listened to Old Lucy’s story and touched her face.