Corroboree

by Graham Masterton

  The skeleton Aborigine came forward and stood close to the coach. He raised his fingers in a quick series of complicated signs, without saying a word. Then he solemnly reached into a small kangaroo-skin pouch which hung around his neck, and took out a piece of stone. He handed it to Eyre, bowed his head slightly, and then retreated into the darkness. The other Aborigines followed him; until within a few moments they were all gone.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Christopher, sounding shaken. ‘What the devil was all that about? I’d like to know?’

  Eyre sat down, and examined the fragment of stone. It was a piece of granite, sharpened and pointed, with curling decorations carved on it, and red ochre rubbed into the indentations.

  ‘It looks like a token,’ he said. ‘Some sort of a sign.’

  ‘But what’s it all about, Eyre? For goodness’ sake! And what are we going to do about these chaps? Dead as dodos, those chaps in the street, I should say. And the coachman looks rather more than out of sorts.’

  Eyre dropped the stone into his pocket, and climbed down from the phaeton. The coachman was sitting up now, dusty and dazed; a huge red lump rising on the side of his forehead.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ he cursed; and spat dust and saliva.

  Eyre knelt down beside him, and retrieved his watch and Christopher’s purse. ‘You’re fortunate you weren’t killed,’ he said. ‘Your villainous friends were, though, two of them.’

  The coachman squinted through unfocused eyes at the bodies of red-pepper face and the limping man lying in the road. His high hat had been knocked off by the boomerang, and Eyre could see now by the light of the coachlamp that his head was shaved, a lumpy skull covered with bone-white bristles. It gave him a brutish, half-human appearance; but at the same time there was something remarkably vulnerable about him; like a retarded child.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ he spat again.

  ‘You realise I’m going to have to call the police,’ said Eyre.

  Grunting, the coachman managed to heave himself up on to his feet, and lean unsteadily against the phaeton’s rear wheel. He dragged a rag out of his pocket, and wiped his face. ‘Well, then, sir,’ he said, ‘that, I suppose, is your privilege. But I should like to know what happened here. Was it you who knocked me down? And what are these spears?’

  Red-pepper-face was lying legs-apart on his back, his dead hands still clutching the shaft of the spear which had skewered his neck. His eyes were wide open; and he looked as if he were just about to explain what had happened to him.

  ‘It seems we have friends, this gentleman and I,’ said Eyre.

  ‘Blackfellows, sir?’

  Eyre nodded. He was quite as confused and disoriented as the coachman must have been; but he thrust his hands into his pockets and did his best to walk confidently around the side of the coach as if he had expected this sudden rescue all along.

  ‘I wish they had done for me too,’ the coachman said, glumly. ‘By God I do.’

  Eyre looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Well, sir,’ the coachman said, ‘they’ll hang me this time, and no mistake; or worse.’

  ‘What could be worse than hanging?’ asked Eyre.

  ‘You don’t know the penal settlements, sir, if you don’t know what’s worse than hanging.’

  Eyre said, curiously, ‘What’s your name, fellow?’

  ‘Arthur Mortlock, sir.’

  ‘Well, Arthur Mortlock, tell me why you tried to rob us tonight, if you’re so much afraid of the penal settlements.’

  Mortlock looked down at red-pepper-face, and his black dry blood in the dust. ‘That man’s Duncan Croucher, sir; and he and me was together for seven years at Macquarie Harbour. We’re ticket-of-leave men, both of us; and we was supposed to stay within sight of Sydney; but there was no work for us there. So we absconded and came to Adelaide, I suppose to find ourselves a respectable living. They always told us that Adelaide was just the place for respectability, sir. The kind of town where a man isn’t looked down on for being a Crown pensioner, sir; nor ostracised.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you tried to rob us.’

  Mortlock dabbed gingerly at the lump on his forehead. ‘No, sir. But I expect you understand. We tried to start up a carriage business between us, on account of Croucher was a cabbie, back in London; and I was a drayman for Bass. But the times aren’t good, sir, and tonight was the first bit of legitimate business we’d had for a fortnight.’

  Christopher, irritable and frightened, said, ‘Come on, Eyre. We’re frightfully late. Let’s call the police and have this chap locked up where he belongs. Daisy and May will be quite frothing by now; and the Ball will have started.’

  Eyre said, ‘Just a moment, Christopher. I want to hear from Mr Mortlock what it is that is worse than hanging.’

  Mortlock raised his eyes; and they were black and bright and a little mad. Not the madness of rage or felony; but the madness of fear. The madness that dogs’ eyes show, when their owners whip them; and which drives their owners to whip them even harder.

  ‘I was sent out for losing my temper at the brewery, sir, and beating my foreman; but one fine day I lost my temper again and beat my guard; and for that they sent me to Macquarie Harbour. There they flogged me four times in all; two hundred and seventy lashes altogether; but one day I lost my temper yet again and beat a fellow prisoner; and that was when they locked me into solitary confinement, for a year, Christmas to Christmas, with my face covered all the time in a helmet of rough grey felt, sir, with holes pierced for the eyes. And when they let me out of there, and eventually gave me my ticket-of-leave, I was still inclined to lose my temper, and act rash, as I have this evening. But the effect of that confinement, sir, was such that I would rather cut my own throat than go through it for one more hour. You have no idea, sir.’

  Eyre put his hand across his mouth. Both Christopher and Mortlock watched him; Christopher with nervousness and badly disguised impatience, and Mortlock with dreadful fascination.

  After a moment, Eyre asked, ‘Do you think you can still manage to drive the carriage?’

  ‘I don’t understand, sir.’

  ‘Come,’ said Eyre. ‘Let’s drag these two bodies into the bushes, and leave them lie. We didn’t murder them ourselves, after all; and they still have Aborigine spears in them. Let’s leave Major O’Halloran’s constables to think that they were slain by wandering tribesmen.’

  Christopher burst out, ‘This is preposterous! You’re not going to let this fellow go free?’

  ‘I was thinking of it,’ said Eyre.

  ‘But for goodness’ sake, the fellow tried to rob us; he would have killed us himself if he’d half a mind to.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the spirit of Christian forgiveness,’ Eyre retorted.

  ‘Well, of course I have. But I’ve also heard the commandment which says you shall not steal; and I should think that also includes attempted robbery, wouldn’t you?’

  Eyre said, ‘For now, Christopher, I’m not going to argue with you. Mr Mortlock, help us pull these bodies into the bushes. Then let us get on our way exactly as if nothing had happened; and we can discuss the morals of it later. Let me tell you one thing, though, Mr Mortlock.’

  Arthur Mortlock looked at Eyre disbelievingly, and nodded his head.

  ‘From now,’ said Eyre, ‘from this very moment, in fact, you must live your life as if you were aspiring to be one of the angels. For if you do not, I will make quite sure that a letter is held in safekeeping which will condemn you at once. Do I make myself clear?’

  Mortlock stood up straight. ‘You’re asking a lot of me, sir.’

  ‘Of course. But I’m also giving you a lot. Your continued freedom; possibly your life.’

  ‘I know that, sir.’

  ‘Well, then, let’s be quick. One of those boozy fellows at the Cockatoo is going to look across here soon and wonder what we’re up to.’

  Mortlock retrieved his high hat, and brushed it. ‘Yes, sir, and God bless
you, sir.’

  It took them only a few minutes to drag the limping man and red-pepper-face into the thorn bushes. It was a grisly business; and they had to kick dust over the bloodstains on the road. But then they climbed up into the carriage again, and were driving lopsidedly off towards Daisy Frockford’s house.

  As they passed the Cockatoo, the men outside were swinging their bottles of rum in time to a filthy old song from the slums of London.

  ‘If you ever want to charver wiv a leper,

  Make sure you chooses one wiv biggish tits.

  On account of when you charver wiv a leper,

  Yer avridge leper usually falls to bits.’

  From the carriage, Eyre could see in the men’s faces a desperate happy brightness; a terrible oblivious joy; and he was disturbingly reminded of a young blind farmworker he had once seen on the road to Baslow, who was laughing in desperation because his daughter could see a rainbow.

  Christopher was sulking. Even when they drew up outside the smart imported-wood house on Flinders Street where the Frockfords lived; with its sparkling lamps beside the door, and its two dark spires of Araucaria pines in the exact centre of each front lawn; he would do nothing more than pull a face and say to Eyre, as Mortlock pulled down the step for them, ‘You’re making a serious mistake, Eyre. A very serious mistake. You mark my words.’

  Nine

  The driveway outside Colonel Gawler᾿s residence on North Terrace was impossibly cluttered with carriages when they arrived; and as they jostled in through the gates, Eyre could detect a certain lowering of Mortlock’s head into his shoulders, which suggested to Eyre a well-suppressed urge in Mortlock to lay about him with his whip, and flick off a few hats and ostrich feathers, and clear a way.

  The lawns were lit with sparkling lanterns, which swung prettily in the evening wind, and even the colonel’s tame kangaroos had been dressed up with white silk bows around their necks. Two footmen in green frogged coats stood by the door; one of them as tall as a Tasmanian pine, the other almost a dwarf; and between them, awkwardly, they helped the ladies to alight from their barouches. Each lady as she stepped down glanced quickly around her like an alarmed emu, in case she should see a gown in the same design as hers, or (worse) a gown in the same particular shade of silk. Fine fabrics from London and Paris were in short supply in Adelaide this season, and there were only two dressmakers in King William Street capable of sewing a really fashionable gown; so for the past four or five weeks, fear and secrecy had been intense in the parlours and dressing-rooms of Rundle and Grenfell Streets.

  Daisy Frockford, who now sat beside Christopher fanning herself furiously and uttering little yelps of impatience and disapproval, was dressed in a gown of vivid emerald-green, with white leaf patterns of pearls and diamante all around the hem. She wore a head-dress that looked to Eyre like an overgrown garden-gate, with creepers hanging from it; and it had the effect of making her fat little face seem even fatter, and even littler, like a vexatious baby.

  May Cameron, Eyre’s companion, was quieter, almost melancholy. She was wearing pale pink moiré silk, with seed-pearls sewn on to it in the pattern of butterflies. She was dark-haired, with a profile that reminded Eyre of engravings he had seen of the young Queen Victoria: just a little too plump to be beautiful. Her breasts were quite enormous, and lay side by side in her lace-trimmed décolletage with the gelatinous contentment of two vanilla puddings. Now and then she sighed, and attempted the smallest of small sad smiles, and Eyre supposed she was thinking of the wastrel Peter Harris.

  Wedged in close to Daisy Frockford was an aunt of Daisy’s who had been introduced to Eyre and Christopher as Mrs Palgrave; a talkative woman with a perfectly oval face and false teeth that clattered whenever she spoke, which was often.

  At last, by jamming his dilapidated phaeton in between two highly varnished landaus occupied by some of the wealthier local aristocracy; a manoeuvre which caused one of their coachmen to glare hotly at all of them, and scowl, ‘Bustard,’; Arthur Mortlock brought them up to the entrance, and the two footmen opened their door for them and assisted them down. Mrs Palgrave caught her foot in her hem, and performed the most extraordinary little dance, but the dwarf footman managed to catch her around the waist, and hold her upright while she disentangled herself.

  ‘I declare the silliest thing that ever happened,’ Mrs Palgrave flapped. ‘I shall have that seamstress in court see if I don’t. Could have tumbled head-over-heels and broken my neck and then what.’

  Eyre walked around to the front of the phaeton and spoke to Arthur Mortlock. Arthur Mortlock took off his high hat and looked down at him with unreadable eyes.

  ‘I’d like you to be here when the Ball finishes, to take us home,’ said Eyre. ‘That’s unless you want to make a run for it.’

  ‘I’m done with running, sir,’ said Mortlock.

  ‘You realise that when the militia find your two companions, they may start making enquiries after you; and if they discover that you’re a ticket-of-leave man, they’ll take you directly back to Norfolk Island.’

  ‘I repeat, sir, I’m done with running. All I ask is that you vouch for me, sir, if it comes to trouble. I suppose that’s an impertinence to ask, after this evening’s bit of business; but I’ve made you a promise, sir, that I’ll stay on the straight and narrow, and that’s all I can say.’

  Mrs Palgrave said, ‘Pushing and shoving, no wonder I tripped. Look at them all, like monkeys in the menagerie see if they aren’t, supposed to be high-and-mighty and pushing away rude as you like.’

  Eyre looked up at Arthur Mortlock and gave him a small nod of encouragement. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if you really have been converted on the road to Damascus.’

  Mortlock drove the phaeton away to the rear of the stables, where the horses would be fed, and the coachmen would share a pipe or two of tobacco and play cards until it was time for carriages. Eyre and Christopher guided May and Daisy into the wide parquet-floored hallway, with its crystal chandelier and its idealistic paintings of Mount Lofty and the valley of the Torrens River; and there they were met by Colonel Gawler’s head footman, all wig and catarrh, who took their invitations and hoarsely announced their arrival to the disinterested throng in the reception room.

  There was music from a small orchestra which had been formed the previous year by Captain Wintergreen, a retired bandmaster from the New South Wales Corps: quadrilles played like cavalry charges, and waltzes so emphatic that it was obviously going to be easier to march to them than dance to them. At the far end of the room, with a distracted smile, Colonel Gawler himself was standing in his full regalia as Governor and Commissioner, his chest shining like a cutlery canteen with tiers of decorations, trying to make intelligent responses to a tall woman with an exceptionally meaty nose, whom Eyre recognised as Mrs Hillier, one of Adelaide’s few schoolmarms. Captain Bromley was there, too, with his corn-coloured hair and his stutter; and the Farmer sisters, in a bright shade of blue; and the Reverend T.Q. Stow, with his hands clasped adamantly behind his back and his face squeezed up like a closed umbrella. Mrs Maria Gawler, the Governor’s wife, was wearing an unbecoming brown dress, and fluttering her hands about like little birds.

  The noise was tremendous. Not only the whomp-tibomping of the orchestra, but the screeching and laughing of the ladies, and the overblown boasting of the gentlemen: a strange relentless roar of competitive sound, as Adelaide’s socialites did their absolute utmost to outcry, outpose, outshout, and out-amuse each other. Already the reception room was suffocatingly hot, and the ladies’ fans were whirring everywhere, giving the impression that the house was crowded with birds which couldn’t quite manage to raise themselves into the air.

  ‘What a din I declare, never heard the like,’ complained Mrs Palgrave. ‘Toss them nuts and apples I would, see if they scramble for them. Monkeys in the menagerie.’

  ‘Is Sturt here yet?’ Eyre asked Christopher, as they piloted their lady companions into the middle of the room. May n
odded her head at one or two friends whom she hadn’t seen since her engagement had been broken off. Daisy, who couldn’t see anyone she knew, fanned herself even more violently.

  Christopher lifted his head and looked around. ‘Can’t see him. But he’ll be here, all right. Loves the admiration. We might have to wait until the end of the evening before we can talk to him, though.’

  Daisy said, ‘I’d adore a glass of punch.’

  ‘Then you shall certainly have one,’ said Christopher.

  ‘And you, May, would you care for a glass?’ Eyre asked her.

  She nodded. ‘But I’d prefer to drink it outside, if we may. The noise and the heat in here is making me feel dizzy already.’

  They beckoned over a perspiring waiter, who handed them glasses of scarlet punch, rum and grenadine and pineapple-juice, and while Mrs Palgrave perched herself on a small gold-painted chair, and talked to Mrs Warburton about tattooing, and how there wasn’t an ounce of civilized behaviour from Para Scarp to Port Adelaide, Christopher and Daisy went off to find somebody who might give Daisy a compliment, and Eyre took May out of the open French windows and on to the verandah.

  May sat on a garden-chair, while Eyre leaned against the wooden balustrade. Beyond them, in the lantern-lit gardens, the kangaroos slowly hopped, like large animated £-signs; and the night parrots did their best to compete with the screeching ladies indoors.

  The governor’s new house was white-painted, and comparatively elegant, although only the east wing had been fully completed. The original house had been built for Colonel Gawler’s predecessor, Captain John Hindmarsh, out of mud and laths; but because he had employed sailors and ship’s carpenters to put it up, they had forgotten to give him a fireplace, or a chimney. This house was more in keeping with the status of governor and commissioner of South Australia, and Eyre quite coveted it. Sitting on the balustrade with his drink, he felt successful and confident already; and he thought that May wasn’t too bad a companion, either, even if she was a little solemn.