Salt Creek (45 page)

CHAPTER 24

Chichester, 1874

I HAVE READ THAT SOME SPECIES OF FINCH
become distressed and grieve and cannot settle when separated from their true mate but once returned to each other are restored to life. As to whether this is true I do not know, never having observed such birds.

The events of this afternoon and the evening will not cohere, yet I am strangely peaceful at the end of the day. It is as if yesterday and even most of today was the end point of a journey across a salt plain that had seemed without limit until the final step. I will say, though, that there is an austere satisfaction to traversing such a plain, to stepping forward each day. I took some pride in it. These things I recall clearly: Charles meeting my gaze through the window; that I ran past Ruby and flung the door open; Charles leaping the stairs; Ruby's shocked face; Charles holding me in my private sitting room.

‘You are very forward these days. How do you know I'm not married?' he said.

‘Are you married?' I put my hand to his chest and felt his heartbeat against me. I had been thinking of it for so long.

‘No I am not. I could not find anyone. But you did, Mrs Crane. Is your husband about? Should you be here on my lap? Should you be doing that?' He laughed as if he did not care and tightened his arms about me and rested his cheek against my hair.

‘There is no Mr Crane.'

‘You are widowed?'

‘And never was.'

He stroked the backs of his fingers down my cheek. ‘You've become so pale.'

‘Yes.'

‘Why are you Mrs Crane then? So your father would not find you? Why did you leave?'

I told him about Joss.

We pieced the past together, what we could: his parents had not given him my letter or direction, and my father from bitterness had not forwarded his letter to me, and when Charles went to the Coorong Papa would tell him nothing; he sent him away. We have Hugh to thank. It was through a chance meeting with him on Collins Street in Melbourne that Charles discovered where I now live.

Whether we will ever make something complete I cannot know. It is a fractured thing, life; it is in its nature. These things are true: a fallen cathedral can be rebuilt, a wall held up with a clover leaf of metal, a house brought back to life, and broken people can survive and find each other and become whole. And the people of Salt Creek: some of them have persisted despite all, if Hugh's letter is to be believed. Charles and I cannot be what we were, but we might become something other. I am not reconciled, not to any loss of freedom, which is part of my dearest self, nor yet to life without Charles. But I will live the life I have. I will take the chance.

This is our plan: we will go walking tomorrow and look for fossils or Roman artefacts, or we will ride to Bosham or Chichester Harbour to see the boats and breathe the salt wind, and we might discover what may be made of the future, the three of us: Charles and Joss and me. Perhaps we will go to sea.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Salt Creek
is a blend of fact and fiction. Although there are parallels between my family's story and this fiction, my forebear and his family (about whose characters little is known) were not models for the fictional character Stanton Finch or his family, and my family's property was not in the location of the fictional Salt Creek property.

Malachi Martin, Catherine (Nellie) Robinson/Martin, the missionary George Taplin, and Jane Macmanamin are historical figures, as are the murders and suspected murders depicted. The events of the wreck of
The Maria
,
with the exception of the presence of the fictional figure, Stanton Finch, are based on the historical record. The Bagshotts are modelled on Herschel Babbage and his son Charles, who had the connections with Charles Darwin and the Brontës that appear in this fiction.

There is not the scope in a book of this size and type, and it is not for me to depict in any depth the subtle and sophisticated culture of the Ngarrindjeri. It would be inaccurate for them not to have a presence though. In my thinking and writing about the Ngarrindjeri and the Victorian era I have been particularly influenced by the following books: Diane Bell's
Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin: a world that is, was, and will be
, (1998); Bill Gammage's
The Biggest Estate on Earth
(2012), Charles Darwin's
A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World,
better known as
The Voyage of the Beagle
(first pub. 1839) and
On the Origin of Species
(first pub. 1859); Philip Jones's
Ochre and Dust
(2007); Norman Tindale; Chrisobel Mattingley and Ken Hampton's
Survival in Our Own Land
(1992); Iola Hack Mathews' (with Chris Durrant)
Chequered Lives
(2014); Graham Jenkin's
Conquest of the Ngarrindjeri
(1985); George Taplin's
The Narrinyeri
(1874), the archaeological work of Roger Luebbers on Chinamans Wells and Hacks Station, Charlotte Brontë's
Jane Eyre
, and the King James Bible.

There was no Salt Creek Station. The Travellers Rest, which exists today as a service station and restaurant, lies in the small town of Salt Creek, at the mouth of the creek itself. I have been assured that they serve a very good meal of Coorong mullet, which has probably been on the menu for the past 160 years.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Coorong is strange and secluded and grand enough to humble, though the sensation of remoteness experienced when visiting it is these days a trick of geography and landscape rather than distance. The traditional custodians of the land, the Ngarrindjeri, inhabited this once almost unimaginably rich region with great sensitivity for millennia; many live there still, working towards its restoration. In some ways
Salt Creek
is a lament for that lost world, and an expression of shame at the part my forebears had to play in its ruin. I have been grateful for the opportunity to visit it.

Many people have assisted in the writing of this novel. Although this is a work of fiction, its starting point lies in the stories that my mother, Aileen and grandmother, Alice Kelly, told of distant ancestors living on the Coorong, a region we drove the margins of on our many journeys to South Australia. From the car windows we looked out at the scene of rolling saltbush, shimmering heat and an impossibly blue sky and wondered. My thanks to them both.

A visit to the Younghusband Peninsula arranged by my distant cousin, Iola Mathews, was the catalyst for finally starting a long imagined novel using fragmentary family stories. I am indebted to the research done by Iola Mathews and Chris Durrant into settler life in this region.

I am grateful to my marvellous agent Gaby Naher for her support and measured advice at various stages. To my wonderful publisher and editor at Picador, Alex Craig and Samantha Sainsbury, for believing in the book from the earliest days and for being such a pleasure to work with: thank you both. Jo Jarrah's forensic editing skills, sensitive reading and considered suggestions were key to suggesting ways forward. Thanks also to Robyn Molyneaux for her beautiful artwork.

To dear writerly friends – Jenny Green, Kate Richards, Trish Bolton, Clare Strahan and Dana Miltins – I'm so grateful for all the support, early reading, insight, laughter and champagne.

Particular thanks and appreciation to Annie Keely who offered valuable insight, and for lending me her extensive reference library, and to Julie Reid for advice. Thanks also to Margie Long-Alleyn of the Coorong Wilderness Lodge for an illuminating conversation and the privilege of hearing some wonderful stories.

I am indebted to many at RMIT for being the best of teachers, enthusiasts, and supporters: Sonia Orchard, Olga Lorenzo, Toni Jordan, Sian Prior and Clare Renner. My gratitude also to Drusilla Modjeska and Catherine Cole for their wonderful mentoring, to Ann Shenfield and Aviva Tuffield for early encouragement, and to Fiona Wood for her generosity of spirit, warmth and advice.

A literature grant from Creative Victoria was invaluable in giving me the time and space I would not otherwise have had. I am thankful for it, as I am for the support of the City of Melbourne through my writing studio at the Arts House Meat Market.

I grew up in the most bookish of households, for which I have my parents, Aileen and F.E. Treloar, to thank.
I'm grateful to Patricia Kelly and Nancy McWaters for being wonderful repositories of family folklore; and to Andrew Treloar, Sophie Treloar and Stephen Treloar, John Coates, Ann Bolch, Suzanne Brenchley, Tash Chiew, Zhiling Hollit, Meredith Stevens, Helen O'Keefe, Tim Richards, and Lisa Vinnicombe for the illuminating discussions on books and life. Thanks also to Corinne Pentecost (sadly missed), Jo Chipperfield, Evelyn Conlon and Fintan Vallely for sharing a wonderful laughter and whisky-fuelled fellowship at Varuna.

My greatest thanks and love go to my family:

- My children, Jack Howes, William Howes, Catherine Treloar and James Howes, who kayaked the Coorong lagoon and explored the peninsula with me, were always willing to discuss the book and writing (including brainstorming various naming crises) and for being the best and funniest of company. It wouldn't have been the same without them.

- And most of all David Howes, for being the most interesting person I know, especially for speculation about the human condition (my favourite subject), for the celebrations, the understanding, and for so many other things.

About Lucy Treloar

Lucy Treloar
was born in Malaysia and educated in England, Sweden and Melbourne. A graduate of the University of Melbourne and RMIT, Lucy is a writer and editor and plies her trades both in Australia and in Cambodia, where she lived for a number of years.

Lucy was the winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Pacific Region), the 2013 Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award and an Asialink Writer's Residency (Cambodia, 2011).

Her short fiction has appeared in
Sleeper
s,
Overland
,
Seizure
and
Best Australian Stories 2013
.

First published 2015 in Picador by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

Copyright © Lucy Treloar 2015

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available

from the National Library of Australia

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

EPUB format: 9781743539033

Typeset by Post Pre-press Group

Map by Laurie Whiddon

Illustrations by Robyn Molyneaux

Cover design: Sandy Cull, gogo:Gingko

Cover images: Majivecka and Bioraven/Shutterstock

The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,

living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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