by Judy Nunn
‘Think of your mother, Kit. Think how proud of you Henrietta would have been.’ She didn’t know why she’d said it, in her customary blunt fashion the words had just come out. But, surprisingly enough, they hit the right chord.
‘Yes she would, wouldn’t she?’ Kit thought of his mother, and suddenly the tears welled in his eyes. He didn’t attempt to fight them back.
Aggie embraced him and, unashamedly, Kit returned the embrace. He clung to her as he wept for his brother. He’d had no-one with whom to share his own grief and, as he wept, the emotion he’d kept in check was released with his tears until, finally, he was left with an overwhelming sense of relief.
‘Thanks, Aggie,’ he said when he’d recovered and Aggie had returned from the bathroom with a box of tissues. ‘Sorry to be such a baby,’ he apologised, grabbing a fistful of Kleenex, ‘but I must say I feel a hell of a lot better.’
‘It’s a pity your father can’t have a good cry.’
‘Yes, isn’t it,’ Kit agreed. ‘Perhaps you should visit him,’ he grinned as he blew his nose loudly, ‘you’re an excellent therapist.’
He was only joking, but it was a damn good idea, Aggie thought. Terence might well tell her to mind her own business. But then Aggie was used to that.
‘He told you this, did he?’
Aggie froze at the animosity in Terence’s voice and the dangerous glint in his eyes. She thought she’d chosen the right moment. They had the house to themselves, Kit was at the library studying, as he was most afternoons; he was returning to university in the new year. Fran had served them afternoon tea and they were comfortably settled in the lounge room with the ceiling fan whirring, it was far too hot for the verandah, and Terence, although subdued, had seemed pleased to see her.
Aggie had visited him a number of times over the past months. She had been amongst the first to offer her condolences upon the news of Malcolm’s death, and when Terence had returned from Kit’s award ceremony, he had responded pleasantly to her congratulations. ‘Yes of course I’m very proud,’ he’d said. He’d seemed a little distracted, which was understandable, but there’d been no animosity in him as there now was.
‘What exactly did he say?’
‘Well he didn’t say it, not in so many words.’ Aggie started backing off as quickly as she could. ‘It was just something I sensed.’
‘How exactly could you sense that my son thinks I hate him? Don’t treat me like a fool, Aggie, what exactly did he say?’
Aggie cursed herself, her interference had caused trouble for Kit. ‘He said he felt guilty that he’d come home and Malcolm hadn’t.’
‘Well, that’s his problem, isn’t it,’ Terence sneered, ‘and then he said that I hated him, is that it?’ Terence was angry. How dare the boy go running to Aggie Marshall with his problems, the snivelling little coward.
‘As I said,’ Aggie hedged, ‘I just sensed that …’
‘Don’t lie to me, Aggie.’ There was something threatening in the way Terence leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips methodically on the wide wooden armrests. ‘I will not have lies, do you understand?’
Aggie felt a jab of fear. He was trying to intimidate her, and with some success, she realised. Terence Galloway could be formidable. But her protectiveness of Kit quickly overrode her fear. If he was prepared to bully her in this way, just exactly how far would he go with his son?
‘Terence, I know that you’re grieving,’ she said, ‘but you must understand …’
‘Don’t bullshit me, woman,’ Terence growled angrily, rising from his armchair. ‘What did the boy say?’
At fifty-five, Terence Galloway was still an impressive looking man, but his body had thickened over the years. Now, as he towered over Aggie, his shoulders bull-like, the veins standing out on his powerful neck, he presented a frightening figure.
Perhaps it was his very power, and his awareness of it, which goaded Aggie. Terence was a bully who liked to instill fear, and Aggie refused to be bullied. She also stood, prepared now to give as good as she got.
‘Malcolm was always your favourite, Terence,’ she said, and it was the voice of accusation. ‘God only knows why, but you favoured him for years, and now that he’s dead you’re forgetting that you have another son.’
The words struck him like a blow. Terence stared at her. He had gone too far, he realised. Since Malcolm’s death he had felt recurring bouts of his madness. There had been times when he could have killed Kit for the fact that he had survived when Malcolm had not. Terence suddenly realised that he had been endangering himself. He must be more guarded.
‘I was not aware that I had so favoured Malcolm,’ he said a little stiffly. Had it been that obvious, he wondered.
‘You always did, Terence. Ever since he was a little boy it was quite obvious he was your favourite.’ Aggie was astonished at the effect her outburst had had upon him. She hadn’t intended to sound so brutal. ‘It’s understandable, he was so like you. But Kit is your son too,’ she added a little more gently.
‘Thank you, Aggie,’ he said. Annoyed as he was at Aggie Marshall’s interference, Terence was nonetheless grateful. Her warning was timely. ‘Since he was a little boy’ she’d said. So she’d recognised that Malcolm had been his favourite well before Henrietta’s death, that was good. Nothing suspect could be read into that.
‘I haven’t been kind enough to Kit, I agree.’ He sat. Leaning forward in his chair, elbows on knees, hands clenched, he stared at the floor. ‘Malcolm’s death was such a shock. I haven’t been able to think about anything else. It was wrong of me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Aggie said. She remembered the day at the Hotel Darwin when Terence had cried over the death of Henrietta. A broken man. He looked much the same now. ‘I’m truly sorry, I didn’t mean to be hurtful.’
‘No, you’re right, and I’m grateful. Kit is my son and I love him.’
‘Of course you do, Terence, I know that.’ She knelt beside his armchair, her face a picture of concern. ‘Just as he loves you.’
Terence wanted to give the interfering bitch a swift backhander, but he played the distraught father instead. ‘I hadn’t realised I’d been so cruel. I’ll make it up to him, Aggie.’ Damn Kit, he thought. Thank Christ it was only a couple of months until he returned to university, Terence couldn’t wait for the boy to be out of his sight.
He suffered a few more of Aggie Marshall’s platitudes and when she’d gone he breathed a sigh of relief. But, irritating as she was, Aggie had given him a great deal to think about. Not only must he take care to disguise his antipathy towards Kit, he must accept Malcolm’s death or it would destroy his life. For months now he’d avoided the emporium and the showrooms, ignoring all contact from his associates. He knew that his business had suffered.
Terence poured himself a large Scotch and ice. He’d become obsessed with the death of his son, he realised. He needed distraction. A woman would help. The discreet call-girl service he’d employed on a regular basis over the years wasn’t enough. He needed a woman living in the house. Not a wife. Not yet anyway. But a woman who could be at his beck and call.
‘You need some help, Fran,’ he said when his housekeeper arrived half an hour later to clear away the tea things.
Fran looked at him, mystified, as he sat back in his armchair nursing the fresh Scotch he’d just poured for himself. Why would she need help carrying a tea tray?
‘You need some help running the household,’ he said, ‘you’re not getting any younger.’
‘No, sir, no help necessary.’ Why did he think she needed help, Fran wondered. The young Mr Galloway would be going to Adelaide in less than two months and there would be just the two of them left in the house. She’d even been a little worried that Mr Galloway might dispense with her services.
‘Yes, I think it’s a good idea,’ Terence said taking a hefty swig at his drink. ‘A strong young woman who can share some of your burden, she can have the small bedroom near the back stairs. If there�
�s anyone who comes to mind I’d be willing to consider your suggestions.’
Fran knew exactly what he meant. When she had taken up her position in the Galloway household eight years previously, she had rather hoped it might lead to a more intimate and binding relationship than that of a housekeeper. She’d soon realised, however, that she was too old for Mr Galloway, despite the fact that they were approximately the same age. The women who occasionally visited the house, and who Fran recognised as professionals at their trade, were young, not even thirty. Ah well, no matter, Mr Galloway paid well, and she was not worked too hard. But now he was seeking a companion. What a perfect opportunity for her niece, Fran thought.
‘I know someone, Mr Galloway,’ she said.
‘Good. Send her along for an interview.’
When Kit came home from the library in the early evening he was surprised to find his father in a most convivial mood.
‘Want a beer?’ Terence asked.
‘Sure. Thanks.’
‘I had a visit from Aggie Marshall today,’ Terence said as he prised the top off the beer bottle.
Oh no, Kit thought. Aggie’s visited and she’s said that I cried on her shoulder and he’s as mad as hell and he’s playing one of his games. Kit accepted the glass of beer and waited for all hell to break loose.
Terence stared into his freshly poured glass of Scotch and ice. It was the fifth he’d had, and he always poured stiff ones, but he never showed the effects.
‘I’m sorry, Kit,’ he said, ‘I’ve been very hurtful.’ He gently swirled the contents in the glass. The ice clinked and it was interesting to note the change in the colour of the alcohol as it melded. A pleasant distraction.
Kit stared at his father. He was saying he was sorry. Did he mean it? Had Aggie wrought such a miracle?
‘I should have shared my grief with you,’ Terence said, studying the Scotch with interest as the melting ice slowly turned it into one shade of brown. ‘It was wrong of me.’
‘That’s okay, Dad,’ Kit said. Oh, thank you, Aggie, he thought.
The interesting swirls had gone now, and the Scotch was boring, the colour of weak cold tea. Terence looked up at his son, put down the glass and held out his arms. ‘Will you forgive me, Kit?’
The two men embraced.
His father was not a physical man, Kit knew that, and their embrace did not last long, but the relief he experienced was extraordinary. The war, the pain, the agony of his brother’s death, all seemed to disappear as he felt Terence’s arms around him.
Abhorrent as physical contact was to him, Terence had decided it was easier to embrace his son rather than look him in the eyes. As he felt Kit’s body beneath the texture of the light cotton shirt, he was surprised at its strength and muscle development. The gangly youth had a strong man’s body. And all Terence could think of was Malcolm. This should be Malcolm’s body he was holding.
Terence broke free of the embrace as quickly as he could.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Kit said.
‘Yes, well, enough said. Another beer?’
‘I haven’t even started this one.’ It was enough, Kit thought, it was all he could expect, and he loved his father for the effort he’d made.
Terence couldn’t wait for the day when Kit would leave for Adelaide. I hope to hell he stays there, he thought.
Jessica Williams didn’t look black. Green-eyed and ginger-haired, she could have been Irish. Indeed she herself didn’t know she was black until one day in early January. The day after her eighteenth birthday.
Born in 1950, Jessica had been taken from her black mother as a three-year-old and farmed out to a respectable white couple keen to adopt. Despite the protestations of her natural mother, the Western Australian Aboriginal welfare authorities carried out their duty, as was the custom of the day, in finding the half-caste infant a suitable environment in order that she might be easily assimilated into white society. Such standard practice was for the child’s own good. It was to the advantage of all half-caste children that they be brought up as whites, the fact was common knowledge.
It was a shock to Jessica when she discovered she was adopted, although her adoptive parents said all the right things. When they’d found they couldn’t have children, they’d been eager to adopt and they’d fallen in love with her the moment they first saw her, they said.
So what about her real parents, she asked. Who were they? Where did they come from?
Dr Williams, a medical practitioner and a sensible man, had discussed such confrontational questions often with his wife. Enid Williams was in agreement that they inform their daughter of her adoption, but not of the fact that her mother had been black.
‘And what do we say when she asks about her natural parents?’
‘We say we don’t know anything about them,’ Enid said, ‘which is true.’
But Grahame Williams disagreed and, when the time came, his wife reluctantly capitulated.
So, following the shock of discovery that she was adopted, Jessica was further confronted with the fact that her natural mother was black. It was a lot to take in all at once.
Grahame Williams told his daughter all that he could. Jessica’s father had been a white drover on a cattle station near Onslow, and her mother a Yamatji woman. Her father had left his Aboriginal mistress shortly after their child was born and three years later Jessica had been taken from her mother by the area welfare officer on the instructions of the Western Australian Aboriginal welfare authorities. And that was as much as he knew.
Jessica was confused and bewildered. Her mother hugged her and told her how much they loved her, as she glared accusingly over her daughter’s shoulder at her husband. She told Jessica that she mustn’t let herself be upset by the facts, they didn’t change anything. After all, she was still their darling girl, her life hadn’t changed.
But her life had changed, Jessica thought as she lay in bed that night. She didn’t doubt the love that she shared with her adoptive parents, but the facts had most certainly changed her life. They had changed who she was, who she had always perceived herself to be.
She became preoccupied. She stared at herself in the mirror, trying to come to terms with the truth. How could she be black? She didn’t look black. She didn’t feel black. She didn’t even know any black people. She and her parents lived in Claremont, one of the more fashionable suburbs of Perth, and no black people lived in Claremont. Occasionally, when she caught the train into the city she saw Aborigines hanging around the railway station. Usually dirty, sometimes drunk. Was that who she was? Her perception of black people, through her own ignorance and through reports she’d read in newspapers, was negative, she needed to know the truth. Jessica then became determined to find out everything she could about her background and her mother’s people.
Enid Williams worried about her daughter’s preoccupation with her new-found identity, and she blamed her husband. ‘We should never have told her,’ she said. But Grahame, after his own initial misgivings at perhaps having opened a Pandora’s box, was convinced that he had done the right thing. Jessica was a very intelligent young woman and, having obviously pondered her situation, was now asking questions and seemed bent on discovering her origins. Grahame would help his daughter in any way he could.
They came up against a brick wall with the Aboriginal welfare authorities, and no amount of insistence could alter the fact. It appeared the Williamses had no automatic right to trace Jessica’s birth parents and, even if they had, it would prove ‘an impossibility’, they were informed.
Jessica was shortly to attend the University of Western Australia. She’d had excellent results in her Leaving Certificate the previous year and could have enrolled in any number of courses, but she’d decided on an arts degree, majoring in English literature, although she wasn’t sure to what end. She really had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
The discovery of her adoption altered everything. She now had a purpose. After meeting with university faculty ad
visers and discussing her reasons, she opted for an arts degree majoring in anthropology. The Chair of the newly created Department of Anthropology was Professor Ronald Berndt, a bald, pear-shaped man with milk-bottle lensed spectacles who puffed incessantly on a meerschaum pipe. His wife, Dr Catherine Berndt, was a senior lecturer and, in contrast to her husband, was a colourful woman with a bird’s nest of grey hair and a penchant for hippie-style long floral dresses. They were a bizarre couple, but experts in their field, both specialising in Australian Aboriginal anthropology. The Berndts keenly encouraged Jessica on her journey of self-discovery.
From the outset, Dr Catherine Berndt became Jessica’s inspiration. Catherine Berndt was, herself, passionate about her work and, during her many field trips over the years, she had so befriended the Aboriginal women that, in certain areas, she had been accepted into the very fabric of their society. Catherine found Jessica’s background of great interest and promised that, upon the successful completion of her bachelor degree, Jessica could accompany her in the field as a research assistant.
Jessica’s mother didn’t at all approve of the turn her daughter’s life was taking.
‘She’s become obsessed,’ Enid said. ‘It’s not healthy.’
‘Of course it is, it’s the best thing that could have happened to her.’ As his wife shook her head in obvious disagreement, Grahame continued before she could interrupt. ‘She’s found a direction, my dear. She’s enjoying university, she’s finding it stimulating. Vastly preferable to stumbling through an arts course with no idea where it’s taking her. This will lead to a whole new career, I couldn’t be happier.’
Enid, who had been quite content ‘stumbling’ through her own arts course and meeting the young medical student she was to marry, had presumed Jessica would follow suit. University was an excellent introduction agency through which one could meet the right marital prospect, what was wrong with that? Enid hadn’t really considered that Jessica would embark upon a ‘career’ as such.
