Territory (27 page)

‘Hello,' Henrietta called with a friendly wave, and the women waved back. Then once more she grasped his hands.

‘Is this wise?' he smiled.

‘What's wrong in holding hands with your very best friend?' she asked. ‘Besides, it'll stop them coming over, let them talk if they want to.' She looked into the familiar
grey eyes she'd so often seen in her sleeping and waking moments over the past decade. ‘Tell me what happened.'

‘In a little while,' he said. ‘Perhaps, when you've collected the boys we could go for a drive to Mindil Beach?' he asked hopefully. ‘While the boys are playing we could talk.'

‘Of course.' She wondered briefly how he'd known she would be here collecting the boys, then she realised. Aggie, naturally.

‘Do you think you should pick up the hat?' he suggested. The two women were still watching, and another car was pulling up. Henrietta swiftly scooped her hat up from the ground.

‘Mum!' It was Kit, belting towards them. ‘I won!' The Christmas essay competition results had been announced in class today, he explained, breathless with excitement, ignoring the man standing beside his mother.

Paul stared at the boy. He was seeing himself as a child.

‘And I won!' Kit exclaimed.

‘I'm so proud of you, darling.' Henrietta knelt and hugged her son. ‘I'd like you to meet a very dear friend of mine,' she said as she stood. ‘His name is Paul Trewinnard. Paul, this is my son Kit.'

‘How do you do, Kit,' Paul offered his hand, not daring to look at Henrietta. Why hadn't she told him?

‘Hello,' Kit shook the man's hand. ‘I got a prize,' he said to his mother, ‘look.' He took a bookmark from the pocket of his shorts. ‘Read what it says.'

‘“Christopher Galloway,”' she quoted. The bookmark was gilt-edged with gold stars on it and she recognised Aggie's handiwork. ‘“Winner of the Christmas Essay Competition.” That's wonderful, Kit, I'm proud of you.'

‘It got a bit crumpled,' he said.

‘We can iron it. And then we might frame it, what do you think?'

‘Okay.' He grinned happily.

Malcolm was walking through the school gates in the company of several other boys, but Henrietta knew better than to call out to him. ‘I wish you wouldn't do that, Mum, it's embarrassing,' he'd told her. He said goodbye to his mates and sauntered over to meet his mother and brother.

‘Malcolm, this is my friend Paul Trewinnard,' Henrietta said.

‘We've met before, Malcolm,' Paul shook the boy's hand. ‘But you'd have been too young to remember.'

‘We thought we'd go to Mindil Beach before we drive home,' Henrietta told the boys, ‘would you like that?'

‘Yeah!' Kit punched the air in his enthusiasm.

‘All right,' Malcolm nodded, careful not to show too much enthusiasm, but Henrietta could tell he was keen on the idea.

As they drove to the beach, Paul following in his car, Kit chattered on about the essay prize and, for once, Malcolm didn't stare out the window pretending disinterest, he was nice to his little brother.

‘Good on you, Kit,' he said, imitating his father. ‘Well done.' Malcolm actually felt a bit sorry for Kit. Winning an essay prize wouldn't impress Dad much, he thought.

As the boys talked, Henrietta's mind was elsewhere. She'd been overwhelmed at the sight of Paul. And when he'd shaken his son's hand and she'd looked at the two of them, she'd wondered if he'd guessed at the truth. If he had, then he'd given nothing away. And if he hadn't, she would never tell him.

All four of them took off their shoes and sandals and walked along the beach by the water's edge where the sand was cooler.

‘You might find some good stones up there, Malcolm,' Paul pointed towards the headland. Malcolm looked at him distrustfully. ‘You used to like collecting stones when you were a little boy.'

‘I don't anymore,' Malcolm replied.

‘I do,' Kit jumped in quickly. Mr Trewinnard seemed like a nice bloke, he'd asked them to call him Paul, and Malcolm had sounded rude. ‘I like collecting stones.'

‘Off you go then,' Henrietta said with a look of rebuke at her elder son.

‘I'll help you find some,' Malcolm said by way of apology; he hadn't meant to be rude.

‘Don't go too far,' Henrietta called after them as they ran off up the beach, ‘the storm's going to break any moment.' But the boys weren't listening as they quickened their pace, it had turned into a race to the headland.

‘They're nice boys,' Paul said. ‘They seem like good friends.'

‘They are,' she smiled.

The two of them sat on the sand and watched the boys galloping up the beach like healthy young colts. ‘Why didn't you tell me, Henrietta?' he asked.

So he'd guessed, she supposed it was inevitable. ‘It would have made life too difficult,' she said after a moment or so, ‘for all of us. But I'm glad you know now.'

‘So am I.' She couldn't possibly know how glad, he thought. Of course he understood why she hadn't told him at the time, her life would have been intolerable. But the knowledge that he and Henrietta had a son, albeit a son he could not claim as his own, filled Paul with indescribable happiness.

They held hands like young lovers, and looked out at the black clouds gathering over the sea. The light was sombre, more like dusk than day and, despite the impending storm, Henrietta thought that she had never before felt such a sense of peace.

‘I'd like to get to know him if I may,' Paul said, ‘just as a friend of course.'

‘So you're staying in Darwin?' Her response was so joyful that Paul looked away. He was careful in his reply,
he must not encourage any hope, she must not become dependent upon his friendship.

‘For a while at least.'

He seemed wary, she thought, circumspect, even afraid. Why? Did he think she wanted to resume a torrid affair? ‘Don't worry, my love,' she kept her tone light and humorous, ‘I'm not going to ravish you, I promise.'

‘Just as well,' he said with a touch of irony, ‘that part of me doesn't really work anymore, in fact not much of me does.'

Henrietta's smile faded. Suddenly she noticed how old he looked. He was fifty-seven years of age but he could have been a man in his late sixties.

‘Tell me about it,' she said.

‘Not much to tell, really, they did what they could.' He didn't want to talk about the cancer, the endless operations and treatments. ‘And now they don't think there's any point in going further. For which I'm extremely grateful,' he added with one of his wry grins, ‘I'm lucky to be here, and seeing you makes it all worthwhile.'

Henrietta looked down at his hand, their fingers entwined, remembering how, all those years ago, that hand had been her lifeline. And now he was dying.

‘How long do they say?' she whispered.

‘Oh Henrietta, my darling girl.' She looked so sick with concern, he hadn't wanted it to be that way. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. ‘It could be a year, it could be two,' he said as their lips parted and he stroked her hair, ‘I didn't want to make you unhappy, I just wanted to see you.'

He grinned to lighten the moment, and the boyishness of his smile lit up his haggard face. ‘And now there's Kit as well. If I can see you both, just now and then, between the two of you, who knows, you might keep me hanging around for years.'

Henrietta returned his smile, forcing back the tears
which threatened, knowing it was not what he wanted. ‘Between the two of us we'll try,' she said.

A bolt of lightning streaked across the horizon illuminating the world in the split second of its brilliance. They jumped to their feet.

‘Malcolm! Kit!' she called. And in the distance the boys started running towards them.

The thunder roared, more lightning cracked, and then the rain started, a torrential downpour. The tropical storm had hit in seconds, as it always did in the Territory, and by the time the boys had joined them, all four were drenched.

‘Let's get wet!' Henrietta yelled above the thunder, although it was impossible for them to get any wetter. And she stood with her arms outstretched, her eyes closed, and her face upturned to the deluge. The boys imitated her, they weren't normally encouraged to stand out in the rain and it was a good game as far as they were concerned.

Paul looked at the three of them. Oh God he was glad he'd come home. For this was his home, he realised. Darwin and the drama of her seasons, how he'd missed it, Europe had nothing to compare. He took off his Panama hat, closed his eyes and bent his head back to the sky. The four of them stood like that for a full minute or so, unafraid of nature's wrath which roared about them, their faces turned to the rain.

‘Malcolm, Kit, time to go home.' Henrietta yelled. Suddenly aware of her motherly duties, she thought it was time to call a halt to the fun.

‘Oh Mum …' they both whinged, they could have stood there forever.

‘Time to go home,' she repeated. She looked at Paul, the two of them could have stood there forever too. ‘You're at the Hotel Darwin.' It wasn't a question.

‘Of course,' he shouted back.

‘I'll ring you! Come on boys!' And they belted for the car.

Paul watched them go. He stood there in the storm, drenched and bedraggled, for a good five minutes or so before he walked up the rise and back to his car. He hadn't felt this happy in a very long time.

Lucretia watched, hollow-eyed, from the far end of the table as he strutted about in his scarlet tunic, his silk stockings and garters of lace. She recognised, vaguely, that the tunic was Pelsaert's.

In his grand tent, Jeronimus Cornelisz was holding court. A number of his men were present, including the handsome young cadet, Coenraat van Huyssen.

Cornelisz unlocked the heavy wooden casket which sat in the middle of the table, threw back the lid with a grand flourish and stood aside in order that the riches within might be admired. He himself never tired of caressing the treasures, buffing the jewels with a fine silk cloth, holding them up to the light. His favourite was the great cameo of onyx, one of the largest in the world, Pelsaert had once told him. Carved for the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD, and intended for the Indian Emperor Jahangir.

‘Now it is ours!' Cornelisz would proclaim to his friends, but he really meant ‘it is mine'.

Lucretia continued to watch dully from the sidelines. The jewels were of no interest to her, nothing was of any interest to her, except the mere matter of survival. These
were times when the only task at hand was how to exist from one day to the next.

She had momentarily wondered at the presence of the predikant. Gijsbert Bastiaensz was a weak man who could serve no purpose to Cornelisz, and yet the predikant appeared to be the guest of honour. Then she realised of course that it was all part of the game. The predikant had been invited along with his eldest daughter, not his wife, nor his other five children, just pretty young Judick. And Judick had recently become ‘betrothed' to van Huyssen. Was poor old Gijsbert being feted as the father of the ‘bride', Lucretia wondered. It was a mockery in the eyes of God, but it was a mockery which God Himself would surely forgive, for the playing of such a blasphemous game would no doubt save Judick's life.

The murders were becoming more blatant now. At first people had simply disappeared. They'd gone to the High Islands, the community had been told, in search of water, or to Seals' Island to join the settlement there. And they'd chosen to believe Cornelisz and his men; after all, it meant more space and more provisions for those who remained. But they could no longer close their eyes to the truth. Remains of bodies fed to the sharks had been washed up on the shore. The more handsome of the women, several married, whose husbands had disappeared, were servicing Cornelisz's men in order to stay alive.

The mock betrothal of Judick to the vile van Huyssen mirrored Lucretia's own predicament. Jeronimus Cornelisz was wooing her. Like a suitor paying court, he called upon her daily, and several times he had invited her to his tent. Fearful for her life, she had attended and sat silently witnessing such scenes as this. And after the jewels had been admired, and they'd all eaten and drunk and the others had departed, he would read poetry to her in Latin and French and ply her with fine Spanish wine. He would even offer her a jewel from the Company casket in his
efforts to seduce her. But, silent, repulsed, Lucretia had withstood his advances. Perhaps if he had held a knife to her throat she might have succumbed, she did not wish to die. But he didn't threaten her. He behaved like a frustrated admirer and allowed her to return to her tent unscathed. Lucretia wondered how much longer it would be before he tired of the game.

A man appeared at the tent opening, Cornelisz gave him a brief nod, and he disappeared. Lucretia observed the interchange, in her detached state little escaped her notice. The man was Davdt Zeevanck, Cornelisz's closest confidant and a ruthless killer. She wondered who it was they were going to murder tonight.

‘Predikant Bastiaensz,' Cornelisz said with gusto, raising his glass, ‘I drink a toast to your beautiful daughter and my young friend Coenraat.'

The assembled company followed suit, Gijsbert Bastiaensz accepting the toast as if it were a personal salutation and reciprocating with a vote of thanks to Cornelisz. How flattering to be so feted, he thought with an eye to the food which lay in wait, they didn't eat like this in his tent. The fear having momentarily left him, the predikant was pompous, jovial, and pathetic in his vanity.

Cornelisz gestured to his lackeys for the feast to be brought to the table.

 

Wybrecht Claes, young serving maid to the predikant and his family, answered the soft call from outside the tent. Her throat was slit in an instant and the five men stood and watched silently as she lay twitching on the ground. When death had clouded the terror in her eyes, they raised their adzes above their heads and stormed into the tent.

Cornelisz, in ordering the dispatch of the predikant's family, had himself suggested that adzes would be the most effective weapons in close and crowded quarters. ‘Several
can be felled with one blow,' he'd said, wishing he could be present to witness the slaughter.

Maria Bastiaensz, her three sons and two daughters, sat eating their meagre meal in the light of a single lamp. A man swung his adze, the lamp shattered and, in the near darkness, the men set about their grisly task. The eldest son, eighteen years of age, was the first to die, his skull smashed in one blow. Then the men went into a frenzy, swinging their deadly adzes in every direction.

The infant, Roelant, nearly made good his bid to escape. Running between the knees of the murderers, he was at the door of the tent when his silhouette was spied in the dim light of the moon which issued from outside, and he was felled by one of the men with a back-handed blow. The child's skull shattered like a young melon, and all was silent.

The bodies were dragged from the tent to a shallow grave which had been dug in preparation, and there they were unceremoniously dumped and covered in a thin layer of dirt. The disposal of bodies was becoming more and more slovenly, the murderers by now fearing no reprisals.

 

In Cornelisz's tent, the party continued. The men, having gorged themselves, continued to guzzle from their tumblers, wine running down sodden beards and dripping to the ground. Led by Cornelisz, they were now singing. The predikant was drunk, and his daughter Judick was sitting in a corner with her young cadet, smiling as van Huyssen whispered in her ear.

Lucretia watched them. They looked for all the world like a young couple in love, she thought, sickened. Was the girl deliberately blinding herself to the fact that her handsome young man was the most bestial of murderers, guilty of the foulest deeds beyond all imagining?

Cornelisz, who was in turn watching Lucretia, stopped singing. The others continuing without him, he sidled up
to her unnoticed, bent and whispered in her ear. ‘Young love is a beautiful thing, is it not?'

She jumped, startled, then quickly regained her composure. She made no reply, nor did she look at him.

‘You haven't touched your wine, is it not to your palate?' Still she made no reply. ‘Look at me, Lucretia,' he commanded, and she knew that she must.

He smiled as her eyes met his. ‘I said, do you not like the wine?' he repeated gently.

She picked up the glass and took a sip. ‘The wine is excellent,' she said obediently. Did he think he could beguile her with the smile of Satan? She did not flinch, sitting proudly at the table, her back ramrod straight, but inwardly she recoiled at the evil before her.

‘You must stay and have a drink with me after they've gone,' he whispered.

‘As you wish.' Yet again he would press his suit, she knew it, and yet again she would refuse him, wondering if this would be the night he would force her to his bed at knifepoint.

Cornelisz soon tired of the revelry, he wanted Lucretia to himself. Perhaps tonight would be the night he would win her. Abruptly, he ordered everyone to leave.

‘My dear,' he said when they'd departed, ‘have more wine.' He sat beside her and filled her empty glass, she had surreptitiously tipped its contents onto the ground as she always did. Then he sang to her softly, one of his favourite French ballads set to music, she had heard it a number of times before. ‘Did you like that?' he whispered, his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath.

‘It is a beautiful verse,' she replied. How dare a voice so vile profane words of such beauty.

‘Lucretia,' he murmured. Her loveliness, the very sound of her voice, filled him with desire. ‘Lucretia, my dear,' he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. She suffered the caress in silence. Emboldened, Cornelisz leaned towards her, his breath
fanning her face, his mouth bent upon seeking hers.

Lucretia rose from the table. ‘I have told you before, I am married.' She could never bring herself to call him by name, much as he insisted she do so. ‘I cannot commit adultery.'

Thwarted once again, frustrated beyond endurance, Cornelisz leaped to his feet. ‘A kiss, woman!' he snarled. ‘Jesu, just a kiss!'

She stood her ground. Was tonight the night he would kill her, or at least threaten to do so? And if he did, would she have the strength to die? ‘A kiss is an act of adultery,' she said, and she added, ‘I beseech you to accept my refusal.' No, she did not want to die.

A harrowing cry rang out through the night. ‘Oh horror of horrors!' It was the predikant's voice. ‘What cruelty!' he wailed. ‘Oh horror of horrors!' And he fell into a fit of sobbing which echoed about the island.

Lucretia felt the blood drain from her face. So that was why the predikant and his daughter had been invited to the grand tent. She stared dumbly at Cornelisz who smiled as he stared back at her. Perhaps now, he thought, the knowledge of his power might force her to succumb.

Lucretia turned and stumbled from the tent.

Early the following evening, she received a visit from Davdt Zeevanck, the man with whom Cornelisz shared his innermost confidences.

‘I hear complaints about you, Vrouwe van den Mylen,' Zeevanck said with a voice like ice. ‘You do not comply with our Captain's wishes.' Cornelisz had long assumed the rank of captain with his men, and of late the entire community had considered it safer to address him as such. ‘In his generosity,' Zeevanck continued, ‘the Captain begs for your kindness, and yet you disobey him.'

Zeevanck himself was bewildered as to why Cornelisz had not taken the haughty bitch by force. ‘Stick a dagger at her throat and she's yours, Jeronimus,' he'd said. But for twelve
days Cornelisz had wooed the woman like a lovesick schoolboy. For twelve whole days she'd withstood his advances. Why, yet again, just this morning, he had said, most unhappily, ‘Still she resists me, Davdt, what am I to do?'

Zeevanck refused to allow such behaviour to continue, it undermined his Captain's authority. ‘Leave it to me, Jeronimus,' he'd said. ‘Tonight you shall have her.'

‘You must make up your mind, Vrouwe van den Mylen,' he said, ‘either you must do that for which we have kept the women, or you will go the way of the others.'

Lucretia had seen the shallow grave of the Bastiaensz family, the bloodied remnants visible beneath the scattering of earth. And she had seen the blood-drenched tent where the slaughter had taken place, the horror of it all was etched in her brain.

‘The decision is yours,' Zeevanck said. The woman did not reply and he took her silence as acquiescence. He walked to the door of the tent and turned. ‘I shall be back in one hour to escort you to your Captain.'

When he'd gone, Lucretia knelt and prayed. She did not question her strength to resist, she knew she had none. She prayed that God might take her quietly during the night, that when she had been defiled by the Devil, she might die. But she did not have the strength to offer herself up for a bloody death at the hands of the murderers, may God forgive her. She would do what she must to avoid becoming one of the corpses of Batavia's Graveyard.

She unfastened the locket from around her neck. When Cornelisz saw her in her nakedness he would surely take it from her. She made a pocket amongst the lining of her skirts and, as she kissed the symbol of her love, the mountain peak and the diamond sun, she wondered, if she were ever to survive, how she could allow her husband to touch her body which had been so defiled. Carefully she concealed the locket amongst her skirts, and awaited the return of Zeevanck.