That Devil's Madness (7 page)

Marius nodded in agreement. Behind them, Louis also nodded. Mr Campetti seemed an ordinary man, yet he already owned a number of properties – if he could do it, maybe they could too.

#

Louis sat a little straighter, trying to keep awake. He and Marius had shared a hot bath before dinner – the first in weeks – and the combination of cleanliness and good food had a soporific effect on him. He could still smell the odour of the vinegar and lavender paste they had used to scrub their gritty, musky bodies and hair, which Bertin had given them to rid themselves of fleas and lice. They had soaked in the water until it turned cold, then put on their other suit of clothes. The clothes they had taken off had been collected by a servant as soon as discarded, and were being boiled in a cauldron as they ate.

He looked around the large mahogany table. Madame Bertin's gentle features and thoughtful manner reminded him of his mother. He thought she would have liked a dress like Madame Bertin's, trimmed with pin-tucks and lace and a satin sash. Bertin's sons, all much older than Louis, were sitting back in their chairs, politely listening to their father explain that, as well as his role as military administrator, his property was also the relay station for caravans from the south.

‘You'll enjoy the caravans,' he told Louis. ‘Something a bit different to what you saw in Sablières, I should imagine – they're quite a sight, coming through the gates of the town. The salt caravans – now there's a picture. Thirty, forty camels long, some of them. You'll like those, young man.'

Louis nodded, stifling a yawn. A maid came into the dining room to remove the cheese plates.

‘Then, of course, there are the crops. The Arabs do that for me; clear any new land, do the planting – I let them graze their flocks in my fields after harvest. You'll have to hire some yourself, immediately, or you'll never get the land ready in time before the winter snows. You'll only pay them at harvest time, with a portion of the crops.'

The maid came back with fresh plates and a platter of figs, dates and grapes.

‘Now my little Therèse,' Bertin said, nodding towards Louis, ‘she'd be a bit younger than you, young man – she's away at boarding school right now, but you'll meet her when she comes home – she thought that wasn't fair; thought they should get paid with money. I caught her giving them her birthday money once. You wouldn't believe how cross she was with me when I made them give it back!

‘You're not eating, Monsieur. Can I pass you something? No?' He took a fig from the platter and bit into it. ‘My oldest child – she's married now – she would never have done that. Funny how different each of your children can be, wouldn't you say, Monsieur? How many children have you, if I may ask?'

‘Four. Four boys.'

‘Oh well, there's still plenty of time.'

‘When will Madame de Dercou be joining you?' asked Madame Bertin.

‘My wife died, Madame. Three months ago.'

‘Oh. I'm sorry, Monsieur. I didn't know. My condolences.'

Marius nodded.

‘My condolences,' muttered Bertin and his sons. Bertin cleared his throat. Coughed. ‘Well, how about some coffee then? And maybe a little glass of something?'

‘If you don't mind,' answered Marius, ‘just coffee. It's been a long day, and we have a lot to organise tomorrow.'

‘Yes, of course, of course… Now, tomorrow you must get a horse.'

‘I hadn't planned on—'

‘Oh, but you must – it's a matter of prestige, of status! The Arabs walk, the
pieds noirs
ride. That's how it is.'

‘
Pieds noirs
?'

Madame Bertin laughed. ‘Yes, “Black feet”. The French call us
colons
, but the Arabs call us “black feet”. It's because of the shoes we wear – so different from theirs…'

‘In any case,' Bertin continued, ‘you will need some sort of beast. You'll need something to carry your crops into town, eventually. Maybe a mule, if not a horse.'

‘A mule, maybe,' agreed Marius.

‘Oh, and don't have an Arab for a headman – you'll want a Berber, if you want things to go well.'

‘Why is that?'

‘Ahhh, see, I didn't know either when we first came, but then I read about it in
La Revue des deux mondes
. The scientists in France, they studied them. Had their skulls sent to them and studied them. Compared them to Arab skulls. And do you know what they found, Monsieur?'

Marius shook his head.

‘Apparently their skulls are like that of the German people. Who would have thought? That's why they have that proud look about them. Makes sense, when you think about it. Not like the Arabs, all thin and nervous and dry. So that makes them more like us, more hard-working and courageous, you see. More intelligent. That's why you have to make sure you get a Berber headman, you see?'

‘May we be excused, Father?' asked one of the sons. Bertin nodded. ‘Good night, Sir. Louis.'

The maid brought in a tray with coffee and cups. Bertin pulled a pipe out of his pocket and lit it. Marius did the same. Sat back, relaxed.

‘Now, you'll also have to get a pump.'

‘A pump? I think the pump can wait a while; we'll manage, carrying water.'

‘Ah, no. You must get a pump. The river might dry up in summer. Everyone has to dig a well, so you'll need a pump. I'll be sending the well-digger to you soon. Buy it tomorrow and tell them to deliver it here – I'll see it goes with the well-digger. I'm sorry, but I must insist. It has to be this way. You'll find this a very different country to our dear France, Monsieur de Dercou, but you'll learn…' He puffed on his pipe, thoughtful. ‘You know, when we first came, we hadn't much more than you have now. Do you remember, my dear, where we first came?'

Madame Bertin laughed. ‘Oh dear, yes. They were hard times, Monsieur. When we first came, all we had was six children and a pig. And not a whole pig at that – its tail was missing.' She smiled at the memory.

‘You look surprised, but it's true what my wife is telling you. We were just like you. And there wasn't as much here then, either, was there, my dear?' Madame Bertin shook her head. ‘But the soil here, Monsieur, it's so rich, it's black. You can grow anything. If you're not afraid of a bit of hard work, you can do well here, Monsieur de Dercou. Yes, you can do very, very well indeed…'

7

Nicolette walked across the black and white tiled floor of the reporters' room, past the grey steel desks, past the chief of staff's ‘playpen' – an enclave bordered by a waist high partition – then through the swinging double doors and down the corridor until she reached Pictorials. It was still dark outside, still cool, though the weather bureau predicted another scorcher. It was fairly quiet on the third floor of
The Herald
building, with only the foreign sub-editor and copy boys sorting through the overnight cables from the telex machine, but Nicolette knew that by six a.m. the chief of staff and other sub-editors would arrive, followed shortly by editor John Fitzgerald, or ‘Fitzie', as everyone called him. By then the floor would be a hive of activity, the intensity of which would only increase with the arrival of reporters and cadets bringing the clatter of typewriters, the shouts of ‘copy!' or ‘shute!', and the constant ringing of telephones. Which was why Nicolette preferred to arrive so early – a habit she'd formed when she too had been a copy ‘boy'. At five a.m., she knew she had a good hour which she could spend examining the previous day's contact sheets and news photos; she might only be a cadet right now, but her three-year cadetship was almost over, and then she intended becoming a fully-fledged photojournalist.

The routine for journalism cadets was three-and-a-half days on the floor, one-and-a-half days at RMIT, but this taught her little about photojournalism
per se
. She didn't complain; she knew she was lucky to have this cadetship, as all the others here were bright young things straight out of high school. So she did what she was told, went where she was sent, but in her free time she not only examined
The Herald
's photos, but also submerged herself in the works of photojournalist like Neil Davis and Eric Piper, Robert Cappa and Larry Burrows, Welshman Philip Jones Griffiths and Englishmen like Tim Page and Don McCullin, all whose reputations rested on their reportage of war from around the world. But most of all she examined the photographs of women photojournalists – Lee Miller and Catherine Leroy, Dickey Chapelle and Gloria Emerson. There was something different about these women's images, something more humane –
those
were the sort of photographs she wanted to take.

But she knew that compared to theirs, her photographs were those of a rank amateur, so she examined each image – the angle from which the light hit, the composition of positive and negative shapes, the contrasts between light and dark – and with each photo she asked herself
What is it that makes this a good photo? Why are some photos so memorable, whilst others leave me cold?
And over time, she'd realised it came down to two things – emotion and energy.

‘What the hell d'you think you're doing?'

Ted Boyd dropped his camera bag at her feet. Of all
The Herald'
s photojournalist, he was the only one who actually frightened Nicolette. In his fifties, he always looked as if he'd slept in his clothes on a park bench and was permanently hung-over, which, considering how much time many of them spent at the Phoenix in Flinders Street or the Astoria, next door in Exhibition Street, was probably a fact. But she'd heard he'd cut his teeth as a photojournalist in World War II while still no more than a kid, then went straight on to cover the Greek Civil war, Indochina, Korea then the Congo Crisis. After that, rumours were vague, so that he both intrigued and frightened her.

‘I'm only looking at yesterday's proofs. I—'

‘I don't care what you're doing – I've got work to do. So fuck off!'

#

Nicolette sat at her desk writing captions for the photos that would be used in a forthcoming edition, oblivious to the usual chaos around her. Most cadets hated being sent to Captions – they'd rather be out and about gathering bits of mediocre news – but she didn't mind it. Better this than interviewing city shoppers for their opinion on whether they approved of Princess Margaret divorcing Lord Snowdon, or of South Australian Premier Don Dunstan's fashion sense – who really cared! The poor man's wife had died earlier in the year, and he himself was now ill, but it seemed to Nicolette that people couldn't get passed him daring to wear pink shorts in State Parliament, some years previously. Not the type of news she hoped to cover. Explaining an image in no more than one or two lines was much better training for what she wanted to do; it made her realise what was important in the photograph.

The building gave a slight shudder and Nicolette looked at her watch. Ten thirty – dead on time. Deep in the bowels of the building the printing presses had started up, and she knew that within half an hour that day's first edition would hit the streets. She went back to the caption she was writing. Tomorrow was a public holiday – the Melbourne Cup – and she was looking forward to it. She wasn't interested in the race, much to the horror of those she worked with, and planned instead to go with her camera gear to the Dandenongs. It was something she hadn't done in years – she used to love going bush, loved the isolation, that feeling of being one with nature. But she'd also been afraid it would remind her too much of the times she'd gone to Mount Lofty with Willow in a baby sling, so that she hadn't done it since Willow's death. But now she felt she could handle the memories.

She pulled the glue-backed paper out of her typewriter, trimmed it and licked the back before affixing this caption to a photograph. Willow's death. Funny how she'd taken up her mother's way of talking about that horrible day. But Willow hadn't been the only one to die that day…

Nicolette remembered little of what happened after the doctor and ambulance had arrived. She'd been numb. Unable to think, to react, to grieve. It was as if every emotion had been turned off. She vaguely remembered neighbours coming over, bringing food, feeding the dog. The bedroom cleaned up, the bed linen changed – who had done all that? Had that been for just a day? For weeks? She remembered someone helping her dress for the funeral –
that
she remembered. Remembered sitting in church, staring at the coffins, angry that they'd been placed side by side when it was Michael's fault that Willow had died, but not saying anything, not wanting to hear what the priest was saying because what did he know about the ones he was burying? Then later, back at the house, sandwiches and scones and cups of tea to accompany the condolences, the offers of help.

Finally, only her and Benji and the solitude she craved. But with solitude came feelings. Anger. Hovering between life and death. Wanting one, then the other. Hating Michael. Grieving for him because she'd loved him so. But most of all grieving for Willow until the pain became so great that she welcomed the numbness back as if a long-lost lover.

In the end, she'd realised she couldn't stay there anymore. She'd packed and the landlord understood, and she gave Benji away to a neighbour, knowing he was a country dog, and that he'd be miserable in the city. Besides, the neighbour had young children…

She'd gone to visit her mother in Adelaide, hoping to reconnect even though they'd never really been close, but she needed to feel as if she belonged – that she was part of a family, a clan. Part of a group that would accept her and love her for who and what she was. The way her Grandpa Louis had loved and accepted her. She wanted to feel that there was someone in the world who would grieve if
she
were to die. She'd had cousins once, uncles and aunts in Algeria. Why were they not in contact? She'd never wondered about that before. She'd been a child when they'd come to Australia, and in the newness and strangeness of settling in a new country, she didn't remember asking her mother much about those left behind. Besides, she'd had her Grandpa Louis – it was all she'd needed at time. But her mother would know where they were now, had probably kept in contact. She could write to them, re-establish ties. Surely it wasn't too late…