Life

by Tim Flannery

  Gershwin leaves us with a disturbing final rumination:

  When I began writing this book…I had a naive gut feeling that all was still salvageable…But I think I underestimated how severely we have damaged our oceans and their inhabitants. I now think that we have pushed them too far, past some mysterious tipping point that came and went without fanfare, with no red circle on the calendar and without us knowing the precise moment it all became irreversible. I now sincerely believe that it is only a matter of time before the oceans as we know them and need them to be become very different places indeed. No coral reefs teeming with life. No more mighty whales or wobbling penguins. No lobsters or oysters. Sushi without fish.

  Her final word to her readers: ‘Adapt’.

  The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish, chapter three

  2014

  IF CIRCUMSTANCES HAD ever conspired to keep a girl from knowledge of the world, they had done so in the case of Miss Beatrice Goodenough. The second child of a straight-laced father who sired only daughters, she grew up in an isolated if rather grand homestead on the western plains of New South Wales. It was the kind of place where masters and servants never mixed, where father came to dinner in a high starched collar, and where even the ebony legs of the piano were decorously hidden behind voluminous rolls of cloth.

  Her childhood memories consisted of time passing slowly: she and her younger sisters dressing dolls; the parlour with its heavy drapes and ticking grandfather clock, its chimes marking what seemed an unvarying eternity. Just once, something extraordinary happened. She had gone to the kitchen, a realm forbidden to her, when a knock sounded at the back door. Cookie, as the children called her—a rotund woman in her fifties—rose and opened it.

  And there stood a near-naked Aborigine, a nulla-nulla in his hand.

  ‘Mi laikim tukka, missus. Cuttim plenty piaiwood.’

  Cookie slammed the door shut. She noticed Beatrice and shooed her away. But not before that momentary glimpse of the wider world had both terrified and thrilled the young girl.

  Beatrice was schooled by her mother until she was twelve, and then packed off to stay with an aunt and uncle at Mosman on Sydney’s north shore. She would be ‘finished’ at the Methodist Ladies College. Her custodians, she was dismayed to discover, were even more Victorian in their attitudes than her parents. Beatrice felt that the only reason they accepted her was the generous stipend paid them by her father. With few diversions, she devoted herself single-mindedly to her schoolwork. Unsurprisingly, she matriculated with the highest encomia.

  Despite her obvious intelligence, her teachers worried about young Miss Goodenough. Miss Sodworthy, the Latin mistress, summed matters up when, on the eve of Beatrice’s matriculation, she warned the girl that her combination of naivety and rather rapturous temperament would get her into trouble.

  ‘You’re an intelligent and diligent student, Beatrice, but you’re hopelessly romantic—and flighty to boot. To avoid, er, let us say, distractions, I suggest a job in a quiet environment. A museum, for example. There are always lots of labels to be written in such a place, and your calligraphy is excellent. There’s a new director at the natural history museum. From Cambridge, I hear. And so handsome.’ A dreamy quality crept into her voice. ‘Perhaps Headmistress can make inquiries on your behalf.’

  And so it was that in 1926, at the age of seventeen, Beatrice’s glorious copperplate secured her the position of registrar in the museum’s anthropology department. Archie, a year older, was in the final year of his museum cadetship. Gangly, pimply, pale and small for his age, he was awkward in the way only teenage boys can be. A careful observer, however, might have noticed in his hazel eyes, fine nose and well-defined mouth the makings of a handsome young man.

  The anthropology department occupied the entire basement of the museum. At one end, tall double doors opened into a capacious room used to unpack collections and curate oversized objects such as canoes and carved trees. This space opened onto the registration area. At its centre was an imposing oak table, upon which sat, on an angled bookstand, a great leather-bound register. Beside it was an inkwell, a fountain pen and blotting paper. A stool, and a tall wooden cabinet against the adjacent wall, in which were stored specimens upon which the registrar was working, completed Beatrice’s realm.

  A few chairs, scattered about a bench set below a high window, occupied most of the remaining space, which acted as a sort of anthropology common area. Four doors opened from this room. Three led to offices of varying size, while the fourth opened onto a dank corridor that led deep under the building. Light switches along its length lit up only three bulbs, while simultaneously turning off the three behind, so as to leave darkness before and behind the visitor. Heavy wooden doors, resembling those of prison cells, opened off it. Behind each lay a storeroom crammed with objects for which there was no space in the exhibition, or which were considered unsuitable for public display. Painted wooden plaques indicated the category of the objects therein: Egyptology, Oceania, Osteology and so on, into the far darkness.

  In his early days at the museum Archie wandered the storerooms, familiarising himself with the contents. The walls of the osteology room, he discovered, were fitted with wooden racks, while coffin-sized crates, stacked almost to the ceiling, occupied the centre of the room. The boxes held skeletons, the racks, skulls. Hundreds of them. Each shelf was labelled: ‘Solomon Islands’, ‘British New Guinea’, ‘New Hebrides’, ‘New Zealand’, ‘Tasmania’, ‘Victoria’ and so on. The largest area was ‘New South Wales’, every shelf of which was crammed with skulls. Some had jaws, but many did not. Some were stained brown with soil, indicating a long time buried, but others were fresh and white from the dissection table. One day Archie took a skull in his hands. It looked like it had been burned, and he noticed that there was a neat hole in its side, just large enough to accommodate the tip of his little finger. ‘Myall Creek, Female’ had been inked across the brow. He put the skull back in its place, wondering how the perforation had been made.

  By the time he entered the next room the minor mystery had been forgotten. ‘Oceania’ was long and rectangular, much larger than ‘Osteology’. The walls were festooned with shields, spears and clubs, while dozens of canoes, fish-traps and doors to spirit houses were slung from the ceiling. On the far wall, lying like a funnelweb spider in its lair, was a terrifying mask, surrounded by skulls—the Great Venus Island Fetish. Archie backed out, shut the door and vowed never again to enter the room alone.

  On the rare occasion that Archie emerged into the registration area, Beatrice hardly noticed him. As a cadet he was a general dogsbody, and, except when she needed a heavy object moved or something brought up from the storeroom, Beatrice ignored the painfully shy young man. But from the moment Archie laid eyes on Beatrice, he’d been ensorcelled. As she sat, straight-backed on her stool, with the great register open before her, her blue eyes fierce with concentration, her blonde locks cascading around her face, she became his goddess.

  Beatrice would never admit it, but despite her romantic flights of fancy she was probably the one person on earth more shy and awkward with the opposite sex than Archie. The merest intimation of anything to do with real boys had her melting in an agony of embarrassment, which perhaps explained why her taste extended only to pale, skinny, academic types—and then only in her dreams.

  It was some time before Archie plucked up the courage to speak to his idol. It happened at the museum Christmas party, after they had each drunk two glasses of punch.

  ‘Miss Goodenough, are you musical, at all?’ he blurted. ‘I mean, do you like music—that sort of thing?’

  Somehow, Archie’s mirroring of her own internal anguish put Beatrice at ease. Or perhaps it was the punch. In any case she responded in a rather breathless way about the glories of Brahms and Schubert, and the virtues of Elgar, then blushed violently.

  Desperate to sound cultured, Archie had drawn his question from thin air. He knew nothing at all about music, and was trappe
d by a rising sense of panic. He was about to slink away, a self-confirmed failure, when he remembered the posters advertising a recital at the town hall.

  ‘Would you come to a concert with me?’ he stammered.

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Beatrice, somewhat surprising herself.

  Archie made a feeble excuse that he was needed at home, then rushed into the street to find out exactly what the poster advertised. To his horror, he saw that it was not Brahms or Schubert, but a Salvation Army hymn night. But he was committed now. Just have to make the best of it, he said to himself. It was, after all, the season for such things.

  The more Archie thought about the concert, the more daunting the whole thing became. What does one do with a young lady on a first date? Was it even a date? And what to wear? He confessed his worries to his best friend, the mammalogist Courtenay Dithers.

  ‘Just kiss her,’ Dithers replied airily. ‘Politely, on the cheek. Or the lips if you must. That’s all that’s required on a first date, Archie. But you must pass muster, clothes-wise, old man. Do you have a suit?’

  ‘Maybe I could borrow my brother’s,’ Archie replied doubtfully.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’d be swimming in the thing. Better ask for Nev at the Maori’s Head. He’ll sort you out.’

  That lunchtime Archie detoured via the Maori’s Head Hotel. It was the museum’s local. Nellie, the barmaid, pointed out Nev, a slight, furtive-looking man who was smoking in a darkened corner of the public bar. He was, Archie felt, the kind of bloke who’d vanish at the first sign of trouble. And, judging by the look on his face, trouble was never far off.

  ‘Suit, is it?’ Nev said, as he mentally measured Archie up. ‘Formal? S’right? See me out the back at four, and bring a tenner. Nine bob as surety you’ll return it on time.’

  At the appointed hour Archie presented himself in the dank laneway at the rear of the Maori’s Head. Nev materialised out of nowhere. The fug of smoke around him thickened, courtesy of the durry hanging at a corner of his mouth. He was carrying a large parcel wrapped in newspaper.

  ‘It’ll fit yer like a glove,’ Nev said. A smile revealed gappy, nicotine-stained fangs. ‘Just get it back on time. Tomorrer, 7 a.m. Don’t be bloody late or yer’ll do yer dough!’

  Archie untied the package to reveal a pair of black and grey striped stovepipe trousers and a splendid tails coat that hung halfway down his calves.

  He cornered Dithers. ‘Nev gave me a morning suit! I’m going to a bloody Salvo’s concert,’ Archie wailed, ‘not a state funeral.’

  ‘It will all be all right, Archie. Never hurts to dress up. Just don’t be too public in it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, Nev runs a little sideline. He works for a dry cleaner up the Cross, and rents out clothes overnight. Then he cleans them before the shop opens in the morning. As long as nobody knows, no harm is done. Wouldn’t do for the suit’s owner to see you, though.’

  ‘This is a bloody nightmare,’ Archie mumbled to himself as he waited for Beatrice on the steps of the town hall. She was surprised to see him so smartly decked out. Perhaps the concert was a formal one? If only she’d known, she said to herself. She wore a knee-length tan skirt and bolero jacket, which broadened her shoulders, and an elegant green velvet hat with a fine net over her forehead and eyes. Despite the hat, she now felt distinctly underdressed.

  Archie must have looked like he needed saving, because the ticket seller had given him front-row seats. As they entered the grand hall they saw that the stage was decorated with red flags. In the centre of each was a yellow star on which the words ‘blood and fire’ were emblazoned. Archie and Beatrice had only been in their seats a few moments when a crisply dressed man in a military uniform strode onto the stage. He introduced himself as Brother Amos, leader of the Salvation Army in Sydney, and announced that this was a charity night in aid of homeless families. ‘The three S’s! Soup, Soap and Salvation. That’s what we are here for tonight!’ he shouted as the brass band and choir mounted the stage.

  The announcement added to Archie’s worries: he was down to his last few shillings, and the thought that Beatrice might consider him a skinflint convinced him that he must part with all he had. The band and choir gave a peculiar salute, their forefingers pointing skywards, and shouted, ‘Hallelujah!’ When they launched into ‘I Will Follow Jesus’, Archie risked a peep at Beatrice. She looked glorious. And, he noted with relief, she seemed to be enjoying the hymns. He began to relax.

  ‘Brother, come pray with us,’ a voice boomed. It was Brother Amos. He was pointing directly at Archie. ‘It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Hallelujah, brother. We are delighted to have a gentleman such as yourself here tonight! You are a beacon to your class. Please do honour us by joining our choir for ‘Onwards Christian Soldiers’!’

  There was no choice. Wishing that he might vanish, Archie dragged himself onto the stage. He did his best with the hymn, but his wavering voice couldn’t be controlled, and he found himself slipping up an octave.

  ‘Sounds like a billy goat pissing in a tin!’ a rough-looking chap in the centre of the third row shouted derisively.

  He was, thought Beatrice, probably a member of the ‘skeleton army’, knockabouts recruited by publicans and paid in beer to disrupt teetotal gatherings.

  ‘Tune don’t suit, that’s all,’ said a more sympathetic voice, but all Archie heard was ‘suit’. Was the owner of his splendid outfit about to mount the stage and strip him of it there and then? His throat tightened, and he lost his voice entirely.

  It was a terrible moment. Archie felt as if the eyes of the whole town hall were on him. Then, to his astonishment, he saw that Beatrice was beside him, singing the hymn in a beautiful soprano. She had amazed herself. In all her life she had never done anything quite so public, or so brazen.

  At last the band stopped and Beatrice and Archie stepped down from the stage. Archie emptied his pocket into the collecting tin. Then Brother Amos asked if they would help out in the soup kitchen.

  ‘Of course,’ Beatrice replied. ‘That’s why we came tonight. Wasn’t it, Archie? To help those less fortunate than ourselves.’ She looked up at him and caught his eye, for the first time without blushing.

  Beatrice took to the soup ladle with gusto, while Archie handed out the bowls. They had settled into a splendid rhythm, until a gent whose filthy pants were held up by a rope round the waist held out his bowl to Beatrice. ‘Best tits I’ve seen since I worked in the dairy!’ he smirked, setting the entire line of men laughing.

  Somehow, this upset Beatrice’s soup-serving rhythm. Before she knew it, instead of filling a bowl, she was emptying a ladle full of hot soup straight into Archie’s lap. It all seemed to happen in slow motion: the steaming soup cascading towards Archie’s trouser-front, his yelp of pain, his sharp leap backwards upsetting the piles of waiting soup bowls, and his agonised clutching at his sodden trousers.

  ‘Heavens to Betsy!’ Beatrice squeaked as she dashed forward. She averted her eyes from the actual site of the stain, and dabbed ineffectively with a petite lace handkerchief at Archie’s chest. The homeless men were in gales of laughter. ‘Best prayer meeting ever, Pastor, having that Charlie Chaplin bloke and his girl entertain us. Well worth a hallelujah next Sund’y—just for the laugh.’

  Beatrice and Archie walked towards the ferry in the gathering dusk. The scalding had left Archie feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Beatrice, he knew, must be feeling uncomfortable too, though in a different way. ‘Don’t worry, Beatrice, please,’ he said. ‘It was a simple accident.’ He recalled Dithers’ admonition that a kiss was required. By the time they reached the ferry he’d still been unable to summon the courage to deliver it. So he boarded with her, though he had not intended to do so. Beatrice led him to the bow, where the waters of the harbour lapped in the moonlight. Archie, feeling that time was running out, made a rather unexpected lunge. Beatrice had never been kissed
. Instinctively she turned away, causing Archie merely to brush her lips before landing his kiss on her ear. Or rather in her ear. The explosive sound made her squeal. She was always squealing, she told herself sternly. She must stop it.

  ‘Tickets, please.’ They were now halfway to Mosman. Archie had not a penny.

  ‘Ah, sir. I’m here by accident,’ Archie mumbled.

  ‘I don’t care if you’re here on behalf of Billy Hughes hisself, mate, you need a ticket,’ barked the inspector. ‘Now where is it?’

  ‘I haven’t got a ticket. I got on by accident.’

  ‘Don’t be a smart-arse with me, son!’

  ‘But I’ve got no money!’ Archie almost wailed.

  ‘You look well enough dressed to me, mate,’ the inspector said. ‘Flash as a pox doctor’s clerk, I reckon. Now pay up or I’ll slap a fine on yer!’

  ‘Please, inspector. Give me two singles to Mosman.’ Beatrice handed the inspector a shilling. When they alighted she swiftly turned, kissed Archie on the cheek, and vanished into the darkness.

  It had not occurred to either of them that Archie had no way of getting home. He walked to the ferry at Blue’s Point and cadged a lift, promising to pay the pilot on the morrow. As the ferry crossed the calm waters, Archie looked up and imagined what the great bridge might be like when it was completed. The pylons on the north and south shores were already taking shape. He imagined the arches reaching towards each other from either shore. One day they would be joined, and the bridge would be complete. Would he and Beatrice ever make their own arch?