The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish

by Dido Butterworth

  Beatrice fidgeted with her cuff, and looked at her feet.

  ‘I can’t give it back, Archie—because he has it!’ she finally wailed.

  Archie’s face hardened. ‘Good God! What are you saying, Beatrice! Do you mean that you gave that little ponce my foreskin?’

  ‘Oh, Archie! Please don’t! I knew you’d be upset. But you must know that I’d never do anything like that. He has it because he stole it! When I showed it to him in the collection, he reached down and snatched it out of the cabinet drawer before I could do anything. I couldn’t go to the director, Archie, I just couldn’t,’ Beatrice wailed again. ‘It was just too embarrassing.’

  Archie had no idea how he found his way back to Dithers’ rooms. He was so upset he could barely speak. Dithers, assuming that Beatrice continued to remain distant, and having run out of ideas, left Archie to his silence.

  So it was true, Archie told himself. Beatrice had been seeing Giles while he was away. Had she kissed him? Or maybe gone further? He found himself shaking with rage. It was as if the top of his skull had been lifted off and a green poison poured into his brain. A poison that suffused his vision and coloured every thought and action. A poison that made Beatrice seem at once desirable and detestable.

  To top it all off, the little ponce had his foreskin. A terrible suspicion began to form in Archie’s mind. What could Mordant possibly want with the thing? Then he remembered Griffon. Did the director know of his circumcision? Was Mordant working for him, and might his foreskin end up on the fetish, with his skull to follow?

  The only alternative explanation was that Mordant was out to embarrass him—to make Archie look like something out of a circus sideshow. He could just imagine it: ‘Step up, step up and see the man who proposed to his girl with his foreskin!’ Perhaps Mordant was displaying the thing to some squealing hussy right now. Or, horror of horrors, maybe he was showing it around the museum. The thought that the people he worked with could be gawking and pawing at it unmanned him. Archie choked with revulsion as he lay in his bed. Endless scenes of mockery played out in his mind. Perhaps even Nellie at the Maori’s Head had seen it! It was all too much. What a total idiot he had been.

  He knew he must get his foreskin back. But if his suspicion that Mordant was in cahoots with the director was correct, he would have to be very careful indeed.

  Chapter 12

  Abotomy found Dithers at his desk, examining a series of small bats through a hand lens.

  ‘Understand you’re a bit stuck, old fellow?’

  Dithers sprang to attention. ‘Yes, sir. A combination of unfortunate circumstances. But I’ll soon be off to British East Africa to secure your lion and zebra.’

  ‘As it happens, I could do with your help out at Abotomy Park. We’re having a battué, and a fellow who knows how to do a little stuffing could be of use.

  ‘A battué?’

  ‘Shooting the fauna off the place, you know. For the museum.’

  The news put Courtenay Dithers in a quandary. There was no doubt that the specimens could be valuable. Abotomy Park was located in one of the biologically richest and least explored regions of New South Wales. But what of his position as treasurer of the Society for the Preservation of Native Animals? Its members might look askance at his participation in a battué.

  ‘Umm, Mr Abotomy…’

  ‘It’s Abumley, Dithers, but Chumley will do between us.’

  ‘Thank you, er, Chumley, I’m a little unsure…’

  ‘Man, don’t talk twaddle! Vere Griffon insisted on your participation. He’ll be severely disappointed if you don’t come.’

  ‘I see,’ replied Dithers. ‘How long do you think the battué will take?’

  ‘Be away for a few weeks, I expect.’

  ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. You can stay with me tonight. We’ll set off early.’

  That afternoon Dithers packed his bags and left a note on Archie’s bed saying that he’d had to depart urgently, on director’s orders, and would be away for ‘some time’. He remembered that he’d booked tickets on a steamer to Cape Town the following week. Now he would have to delay his African adventure once again.

  ‘You’ll enjoy the crowd,’ Abotomy said, as he loaded Dithers’ luggage into his Rolls Royce Phantom II Sports Saloon. ‘We country folk are a sociable lot, and I’m sure Portia will appreciate your company. She gets a bit glum up on the farm by herself.’

  The sun was at its zenith as they drove through the Blue Mountains. An hour or two later, Abotomy pulled into the Hydro Majestic Hotel. Perched at the edge of a vertiginous cliff, almost on the summit of the mountains, it resembled a sumptuous palace.

  Dithers stepped from the car and breathed deeply. Humus, oak. The crisp, cool mountain air soothed him. When he saw his suite, he was astonished. It consisted of a bedroom, lounge room and a most extravagant bathroom, all exquisitely appointed. He’d seen nothing like it since the Savoy years ago. By the bed he found a catalogue offering a range of hydropathic treatments. Drawings of languorous women, draped in nightwear or up to their necks in bubbles, adorned the pages. And there were advertisements, too, for various ‘electric therapies’ which were not illustrated, but were evidently meant for those with nervous complaints.

  That evening, after soaking in the bath, Dithers met Abotomy in the Hydro’s dining room. He mentioned the electric therapies.

  ‘Well, you’re most welcome to try one, Dithers old chap,’ Abotomy said with a wry smile.

  ‘Why, thank you, Chumley. But what are they?’

  ‘Don’t suppose you know much about farm animals, do you? More an expert on wild beasts. Well, if you leave a mare without a stallion for too long, she grows edgy. Same as a cow without a bull. Women are no different. And these damn quack doctors have got onto it. They get to work with a bit of electrical fiddling and before you know it the womanly nerviness vanishes! Damn cunning. And damn rum too, if you ask me. I’d never let Portia near the place, though she’s at me often enough for a holiday here.’

  ‘How the other half live!’ thought Dithers as he blushed into his soup.

  First light saw the Phantom again heading westwards, the great vista of the inland plains open before it. Dithers had not appreciated how far beyond the black stump Abotomy Park was. Or how poor the roads of the outback were.

  ‘It stretches on forever,’ Dithers gasped. He had no idea of the extent of the country.

  ‘Yes, indeed. And the soil’s pretty good in parts. If it weren’t for the droughts it would be the best country in the world, my grandfather used to say.’

  As the countryside drifted by, Abotomy explained to Dithers how the museum intended to make an exchange for the Giglione goats. Prudently, he omitted mention of the thylacines. It seemed to Dithers that Abotomy was a splendid sort of chap, truly passionate about science and the welfare of the museum. Abotomy even took a keen interest in the distributions of Australasian bats—a subject Dithers was working up a report on, and which hitherto had aroused little curiosity, even among his fellow curators.

  ‘Are there any dangers in the outback?’ Dithers asked, thinking it best to have a little local knowledge.

  ‘We have
our fair share of spiders and snakes, but nothing a man of your experience couldn’t handle.’

  ‘Spiders?’ echoed Dithers. Since childhood he had had a phobia about them: he could front a charging lion without blanching, but there was something about large, hairy spiders that terrified him.

  ‘You don’t like them, Dithers? Don’t worry. There are very few at Abotomy Park.’

  Dithers was keen to change the subject. ‘Has the director told you how he plans to exhibit the African mammals I’ll bring back?’

  ‘No, nothing as yet. Old Vere’s been a blank page on that. What do you think, Dithers?’

  ‘I did have visions of a grand diorama. Perhaps as part of a new mammals hall.’

  ‘What do you mean, a diorama?’

  ‘Have you ever seen the exhibits of fauna at the museum in London? Their lion are displayed magnificently. The pride sit on a grassy slope below a kopje. The rocks in the foreground are real, but those behind are painted. You can’t tell where the real grass and rocks end and the painted ones begin. Looking at it, you really feel you’re there on the veldt.’

  ‘I see what you mean, old chap. A great maned male in the foreground, female and cubs at his feet. Yes, it could be very stirring.’

  ‘There’s a real trick to making a diorama, Chumley. In them, you’ll never see animals as they are in nature. You might see a pride of lion on the veldt, but you’ll never see the hyenas as close to them as they are in a diorama. Or the warthog and gerenuk. Dioramas beguile you into believing they represent the wild as it is. But they present things as we’d like them to be. They’re as much artifice as science.’

  ‘Hmm. I wonder if Vere would be interested in a diorama of Abotomy Park?’

  ‘Well, the creatures of the western plains are fascinating. And fast disappearing. I imagine that if you mentioned it to him, he might.’

  ‘If he did, I’d like to include myself and Portia in the work. Perhaps painted into the background. Portia should be shown eight months bubbly, and myself with my shotgun. Might be fun.’

  ‘Is Portia pregnant, Chumley?’

  ‘Yes, dear chap. Sorry I forgot to mention it. Early days, but we’re hoping for the best. After all, she’s from excellent stock. The Clarks have a great pedigree, and Portia is a Yarck Clark. Seat of the family. True currency aristocracy. Not a broad arrow or touch of the tar-brush as far back as they can trace. Purity of race, Dithers. Tremendously important in breeding. One must guard it with one’s life.’

  ‘Congratulations! Excellent news, old fellow,’ said Dithers, deciding to ignore the last part of the conversation. ‘I just hope that Portia doesn’t resent the intrusion of a stranger at such a time.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Dithers. All will be taken care of.’

  By afternoon Dithers was beginning to tire. The plains were so endless and bleached that it felt to him as if the car had been crawling over them like an ant across a tabletop. When he asked how far it was to Abotomy Park, he heard himself sounding like a child on a long journey.

  ‘A while yet, old chap. Should reach the place by tomorrow afternoon. Can’t drive at night in these parts, you know. Too many kangaroos. We’ll pull up at Barrunbuttock.’

  Just before dusk the Rolls swerved off the road and down a track towards a low, ramshackle homestead. Two date palms stood in the middle of what had once been extensive flower beds. A flight of decayed wooden steps led to a verandah, on which swung a painted wooden board bearing the property’s name. From the cobwebs and dust, Courtenay could see that the front door was never used. Chumley guided him towards a rear entry, explaining as they went that Barrunbuttock was the ancestral pile of the Bastion family.

  A flyscreen door led directly into the kitchen. In the galley stood Horatio Bastion himself. Fifty-something, dusty, lean, and with hollowed cheeked, he was dressed in bowyangs, a checked shirt and a battered fedora. He’d clearly come in from a hard day’s work.

  The men seated themselves at an unadorned dinner table boasting three plates of boiled potatoes and corned beef. A kerosene tin with its top hacked off, which might once have served as a vase, was the room’s only ornament—apart from a pair of muddy hobnail boots by the door. The place hadn’t seen a woman for some time, Dithers concluded.

  ‘Hard work breeding sheep out here,’ Bastion exclaimed. ‘Between the pear, the fly strike and the pizzle rot, I’ve lost half my flock this year. It’s no fun handling maggoty sheep and slitting pizzles on my wethers. The poor bastards can’t piss, the rot’s that thick. I tell you, Chumley, it’s not fit work for a man of my position. But I’ve got no money to pay wages, so what bloody choice do I have?

  ‘The worst of it, though, is the blasted pear. Bloody thing’s just about got me buggered. It won’t burn, and not a thing’ll eat it. The growth’s that thick over the home paddock I can’t get a horse through it.’

  Dithers was confused. Talk of pears had brought to mind scenes of orchards and pleasant country arbours. But Horatio could not be talking about that kind of pear. Then he remembered the Opuntia, known colloquially as the prickly pear. It was a kind of cactus that had been imported from South America as a garden ornamental because it bore sweet, fig-sized, very prickly fruit. It had found Australian conditions very much to its liking. So much so that it had become, alongside the rabbit, the greatest plague the country had ever seen.

  Horatio Bastion had stopped eating. His eyes filled with water and his face flushed. ‘Honest, mate, I’m that far down on my luck that even the bloody Abos have taken to pitying me. “Close-up flyblown, that one,” they say as they walk past with their fingers stuck up their nostrils—as if I were a stinking fly-struck sheep!’

  Bastion looked at his plate, then filled his mouth with corned beef. ‘How’s the pear up your way, old son?’

  ‘Doesn’t seem to thrive in the river soils. Hard to believe that a damn cactus could be such a menace.’

  ‘You just wait till you spend your evenings pulling spines out of your backside, like I do. Then you’ll know how bloody bad it is.’

  ‘So sorry to hear it,’ said Abotomy, avoiding Horatio’s eyes.

  ‘Ah well, nothing that can be done about it anyway. Leastways not this evening.’ Bastion gave the faintest of smiles. ‘But I must say it’s good to have company! The wife’s off in Sydney, spending my last pennies, no doubt. Maybe even pennies I don’t have. And bloody good riddance to her.’

  After dinner they retired to what had once been a fine drawing room. Bastion struck up a pipe, while Abotomy offered the port he’d brought from Sydney.

  ‘Haven’t enjoyed a port since you were last through, old chum. By God, it’s good to see you! It can get lonely out here.’

  ‘And good to see you too, Horatio. Very kind of you to put us up.’

  ‘You know, Chumley, my great grandfather, Elias Bastion, could have had that river frontage of yours. Legend has it that he drove his flocks into what is now Abotomy Park, but the river blacks wanted to fight him for it. He wasn’t hard enough to clear them off. In fact, Grandad told me that Elias liked the blackfellas. Always treated them decently. So when the Jigalong tribe suggested that he settle with them, he came here to Barrunbuttock.’

  ‘Less sensitive type
s tried to clean the place up after your great-grandfather left,’ said Abotomy, ‘but the blacks kept disappearing into the brigalow. Stuff wouldn’t burn, so they couldn’t flush ’em out. You know how Grandfather Ebenezer dealt with that, don’t you? Hired a hundred convicts, organised the black police to visit, and then starved the warrigal blackfellas out. The family records say he shot well over a hundred off the place before the remnant agreed to go to the mission.’

  ‘We stand on the shoulders of giants,’ said Horatio, with only the slightest hint of irony. ‘At least some of us do, anyway.’

  Dithers was shocked. Was Abotomy describing mass murder? He said nothing as he refilled his glass and rolled another durry.

  Later that evening Horatio explained to Dithers how the Bastion family had originally come up country from Wagga Wagga, telling the curator that the town was named after the call of the crow. ‘Wgaar, wgaar,’ he warbled slowly—assuming the cry would interest a man of science. But Dithers was tired with a weariness far deeper than that born of travel. Thoughts of the country’s terrible history flowed about him like the first muddy waters of a great flood. He made his apologies and went to bed, leaving the squatters to the last of the port.

  Dithers awoke, as if emerging from the abyss, to the sound of a distant hum. It was, he eventually concluded, caused by the rising sun as its rays heated the plains. He wearily pulled on his trousers and socks, then tried to get his shoes on, but, inexplicably, they seemed to be several sizes too small. He just couldn’t get his heel in.

  After several attempts he heard a giggle at the door. Looking up, he saw Abotomy peeking through a crack. Dithers reached into his shoes—and extracted a crumpled ball of newspaper from each. By the time he’d tied his laces, Abotomy had vanished.