Corroboree (68 page)

But he looked at Charlotte, sitting next to him; and she
was so excited and aroused and pretty, thrilled with the erotic naughtiness of having touched Eyre's exposed body, and intoxicated by the thought of marrying him in just eleven days' time; and he couldn't say it. How could he explain to her what had happened out there in the desert? How close he had been to death, and despair? How could he tell her about the magnificence of the dreaming; the majesty of Baiame; the thirsty enormity of a land which shimmered with mirages and throbbed with magic?

It was inexplicable; and his duty to Winja and his people was inexplicable. And so he said, hoarsely, ‘Our first son, I'd—well, I'd like his second name to be Lathrop.'

And after Charlotte had kissed him in delight, and run across the hall way to tell her mother how marvellous he was, he stood up, and thrust his hands into his pockets, and stared up at the portrait of Lathrop's grandfather Duncan over the fireplace. There was laughter in the house, and the clattering of feet up and down the stairs. But all Eyre could think of was his son, not yet conceived, not yet born, but whose destiny was already entwined with this strange continent as surely and as inextricably as his own had always been.

The parlour door opened wide, and Mrs Lindsay came in, followed by Charlotte, and Lathrop Lindsay himself, and Mrs Lindsay held open her arms for Eyre and said, ‘My darling Eyre. What a fine boy you are. You can't possibly imagine how happy you've made us.
Lathrop
! How marvellous! And how generous, too!'

Eyre held her in his arms, and smiled over her shoulder at Charlotte, but it took all of his strength not to cry.

On August 15, 1844, Captain Charles Sturt left Adelaide with an expedition of his own in an attempt to find the inland sea. He was so confident of his success that he carried with him a boat with which he hoped he and his companions would eventually sail from one side of the sea to the other.

Heading eastwards at first to avoid the salt-lakes which had bogged down Eyre, he made camp at Broken Hill, and then headed north. As each day dawned, however, all he could see in front of him was a country of ‘salty spinifex and sand ridges, driving for hundreds of miles into the very heart of the interior as if they would never end.'

The daily temperature was higher than 130 degrees in the shade, and nearly 160 degrees in the sun.

At last, 400 miles north of Broken Hill, after crossing a desert of crippling stones, and miles of matted spinifex, Sturt was confronted with what would later be called the Simpson Desert. Ridges of deep-red sand succeeded each other ‘like the waves of the sea'. Sturt realised that he could go no further with the resources he had brought with him, and was forced to turn back.

The expedition broke his health and his pride. In 1853, he returned to England, where his journals about his explorations had made him a celebrity, and it was in England that he died, in 1869.

He left many letters before his death. One, which was opened by his executors, was addressed to Mr Eyre Walker. When they read its contents, Captain Sturt's executors decided that it would probably be prudent to destroy it, since its contents, although rather mysterious, might constitute an admission of liability which could cause complications with the distribution of the Sturt estate.

So it was that on a foggy January afternoon in Chancery
Lane, London, twenty-nine years after Eyre had set out from Government House in Adelaide, the last words about the great corroboree at Yarrakinna were burned in an office fireplace; Captain Sturt's firm sloping script gradually being licked and scorched and charred into ashes; the simple words ‘Forgive me.'

For Wiescka,
and for Roland, Daniel
and Luke,
with love

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London
WC1B 3DP
Copyright © 1984 by Graham Masterson
The moral right of author has been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication
(or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
ISBN: 9781448207640
eISBN: 9781448207336
Visit
www.bloomsburyreader.com
to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can
sign up for
newsletters
to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers