'What do you mean by guilt?' ...greetings from Rotto
When it comes to taking responsibility for things of going wrong...
the human personality has always been the same.
From a very early age, humans have a tendency to blame others for our own errors and misfortune.
More sinisterly, throughout history humans have shown a willingness to victimise...
certain individuals, group and yes, animals so as to went their rage and feel better about themselves.
In the west, the culture of denial means that nothing is ever our responsibility....
that saying sorry in public is reserved for those occasions when we safely apologize without admitting anything personally.
One of the most admirable traits in humans is our innate sense of fairness and desire for justice.
Scapegoats are created when rational processes of accountabiity are perverted...
though that doesn't mean that the concept of accountability without which there can not be a civil society is not an ideal...
worth striving for...
and attempting to apply in our daily lives.
Often the concept of evil is merely a convenient mechanism for transfering blame.
Evil often comes in more subtle guises and we create them ourselves.
A capacity of evil may lurk within each of us and yet it is one thing to think evil thoughts...
but quite another to actively seek to harm others.
All too often we define evil by pointing at monsters - Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot...Sir Ronald in our story...
each of them is still a monster....
although...
he is also a scapegoat of a kind.
After finishing 'An unsuitable Job for a Woman', I went to my favourite place: Rottnest Island...
20 km off the coast of Perth,
a year round holiday resort that is part of Western Australia's psyche,
a breathtakingly beautiful and casual resort of white sandy beaches for white middle class Australians.
Enter sparkling and transculent waters on this 'friendly family island of summer holidays'....
a place to leave your troubles behind.
This island is your 'mate' given the ultimate Aussie respect of informality: 'Rotto."
Yet behind this lies another personal history barely conceivable to most.
It is the astounding and humbling history of the Whadjuk Noongar, the Sea Eagle people and the traditional Aboriginal custodians of Derbal Yarragan,
the land of the Swan River coastal plain now home to Western Australia's capital city of Perth.
It is the history of Wadjemup, the 'Place across the water,' the sacred home of their ancestral spirits and protected by Yrprinri, the Caperpillar.
It speaks also of a connection to the land back 20,000years, a time before rising ocean levels finally separated Wadjemup from the mainland some 7,000 years ago.
There is something deeply satisfying and rewarding to listen to the stories of the Traditional Owners.
Simply take a quiet moment to gather a handful of sand, so as to be at one with the land...
then release it into the sea to show the sprits you respect their land...
and respect the Whadjuk Noongar as the Traditional Owners.
Sadly, between 1838 and 1931 this cultural connection was harshly distorted as English settlers, having already claimed this deeply spiritual landscape for their own...
used Rotto to imprison Aboriginal men and boys from all over Western Australia.
A legacy of this time remains in the colonial buildings of The Settlement...
many of which were constructed using Aboriginal prisoner labour...
many of which we used for our holiday purposes without any idea why and by whom they have been built.
Some 4,000 Aboriginal men and boys died on this island during this period.
They have died due to lack of food and harsh treatment in the hands of new white settlers...
their descendants and new migrants, just like me, to this promised land...
use their burial site as a place for holiday, without realizing...
that Rottnest Island is a placeof deep significance to all Aboriginal peoples across the State.
This island, so many of young Australians use as their honey moon destination, is full of mass graves....
a sacred site of remembrance and sorrow.
Is it possible for love to flourish in such a place?
A concept plan for the Wadjemup Burial Ground's restoration in recognition of its status
will finally stop its use as a camping holiday ground by white middle class holiday-makers...
and hopefully starts a new era of the gradual reconciliation
between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.
'Let us look after you for the day and enjoy all the major attractions of Rottnest Island', I read big noticement boards on my arrival.
'Consider a trip to lighthouse at night, basking in the setting sun at West End?' ...suggests one.
'We can arrange direct transport to your secret fishing spot.'...suggests another one.
'What about the thrill of a sunset train ride to Oliver Hill to view the twinkling lights of the mainland?'...suggests another one.
I stop reading and in the attempt to avoid holidaying crowds I walk 5 km inland to sit on the banks of pink lake.
There, using a stick, I write another holiday suggestion:
'Come to this island to pay respect...
to acknowledge Aboriginal people as the first custodians of this ancient piece of land.'
The last dialogue between an young less innocent woman and a murderer
“
An Unsuitable Job for A Woman
written in 1972
by PD James
is still
so actual.
An unsuitable,
young
Cordelia Gray
with a failing
detective agency
inherited
from her last lover
and no money
takes her first case
and learns
everything
she needs to know
about
LOVE.
“I shouldn't think,
your mother would approve
what you do.”
An older lady
passed her drink
avoiding her eyes.
Cordelia
could see
her own reflection
in the mirror
above the bar.
A cat's face,
a gentle mouth,
despite its look of deceptive youth,
it concealed a secret
of a childhood deprivation,
evolving into
a philosophy of compensation.
“I only had a mother for the first hour
of my life,
so I don't have to worry about that.”
She finally replied
and saw at once,
a deep shock in the bar lady's eyes.
She wondered again
at the capacity
of older people
to be outraged by simple facts
and yet
capable of accepting
any amount of perverse.
His arrogant head
was held high
and the eyes
were keen
wary
under the heavy lids.
Cordelia had seen it
before
from the back
of crowds
watching the famous
pass,
that almost physical glow
of men
who knew
and enjoyed
the realities of power.
“Eighteen days ago my son hanged himself.
I hired you to find out why.”
She saw the picture
of a laughing boy
of her age,
his head half turned
towards the camera,
wearing jeans,
half lying on the lawn,
a pile of books beside him,
and behind
a thick hedge,
and a cottage
at first
difficult to see.
Cordelia liked to drive
through the flat countryside,
the openness and freedom
of the far horizons
and wide skies,
with the euphoria of hope
she approached the orchard,
where Mark
took a summer job
before his death,
far away as possible
from the city
and Sir Ronald's residence.
She followed a farmer
into the rear garden
where the thick bramble hedge,
dark and impenetrable,
grew wild for a generation.
There it was,
a low building
under a slate roof.
“ I don't like your generation, Miss Gray,”
She said opening its bare, rain scoured door:
“I don't like your arrogance,
your selfishness,
your violence,
the curious selectivity
of your compassion,
the men I knew were not like that.”
“I don't think Mark was like that either.”
Cordelia replied entering the gloomy sitting room.
“Perhaps not.
At least
the violence
he practised
was on himself.”
“..so nothing had changed here,”
Cordelia examined a washed up cup
and one unwashed,
an untouched
half cooked
vegetable stew
decaying slowly
on a stove.
“ The police had taken away
the body
and anything
they required
but no one,
neither the boy's family
or friends,
had bothered to come back,
to clean up
the pathetic leavings after his death.”
The un curtained window
gave a view
of the garden,
Cordelia opened it
and watched
the old widow walking slowly
down the path
towards her own homestead.
She turned back,
only once:
“It's unwise to become
too personally involved
with another human being.
When that person it dead,
it can be dangerous as well.”
A good advice from her old friend
suddenly came to her mind:
“When you are examining a building,
look at it as you would look
at a country church,
walk around it first,
look at the whole scene inside
and out.
Then make your deduction,
ask yourself what you saw,
not what you expected to see
or what you hoped to see,
just what you saw
and you will be right.”
A mysterious place,
heavy with atmosphere,
showing two distinct faces
to the world,
the north with its dead-thorns,
barred windows,
its encroaching weeds,
a stage for horror and tragedy.
Yet the rear,
where he had lived,
and worked
and opened the windows
to the sun
was as peaceful as a sanctuary.
“It was an unexpected visitor,”
She muttered to herself:
“The visitor wouldn't have washed up
the mug
if Mark were still there
and alive.
He would only have
obliterated the evidence
of his visit
if Mark were already dead.”
She was seeing Cambridge
at its loveliest,
the sun shone in unclouded
but gentle radiance.
How could the heart be indifferent
to such a city,
where stone and stained glass,
green lawns, trees and flowers
arranged in such ordered beauty
for the service of learning.
Here is an young man,
who gave up his university course,
for no apparent reason,
and went to live on his own
some discomfort,
an introspective,
rather solitary life,
one, who doesn't confide
in his family or friends.
He took trouble to destroy
all his diaries in the cottage
and yet
left the work in the garden
half completed.
He bothered to cook
himself
a supper,
which he didn't eat.
“Mark was a very private
person,
quiet, gentle, self-contained,”
His student buddy,
Sophie said to her:
“We were lovers
for almost a year,
it ended,
when I met someone else.”
“Were you in love?'
Cordelia Gray asked.
“Mark needed to believe
himself
in love,
I'm not sure,
what the word means.”
Sophie shrugged her shoulders
and left.
Cordelia closed her eyes,
thinking about insecurity,
vulnerability
of being young.
Before her first lover,
she had been lonely
and inexperienced.
Afterwards,
she had been
lonely
and a little less
inexperienced,
neither had
inconveniently
touched her heart
but for the last of them,
she had felt tenderness.
“Someone,
whom he knew
and trusted,
had pulled a strap
tight
round his neck.”
A handsome confident voice
ringed in her ear.
She opened her eyes
to see
a group of young students
resting on a perfect lawn.
“Intelligent without being clever,
but very kind,”
One of the students said jovially
and another added:
“Little self-esteem,
but it never seems to worry him.”
“Someone had listened to
and watched his agonised chocking,”
a student with handsome face
said again,
gloomily:
“Someone had strung his body on a hook
like the carcass of an animal.
“But who and why?”
Cordelia looked him in the eye:
“His Father believes it is suicide.”
“Sir Ronald took no particular interest
in his son
when he was alive,
why begin now?”
Back in the cottage,
fire was dying,
pushing in
the few remaining sticks
from the hearth,
she blew on them
to kindle the flame.
For the first time,
Cordelia knew
she was afraid.
Evil existed,
it had been
present
in this house
Something here
had been stronger
than wickedness,
ruthlessness,
cruelty
or expedience.
She armed herself with a gun
and drove to Sir Ronald's residence.
Before she entered his office,
his old secretary,
gently,
took the gun,
out of her shaking hands.
His Father,
his murderer
greeted her
with these words:
“Mark's death was necessary,
and unlike more deaths
it served a purpose.”
“I can't believe
that a human being
could be so evil.”
Cordelia Gray
spat in his face.
“Human beings, Miss Gray,
have an irresistible urge
towards self-sacrifice,
they die for any reason
or none at all,
for meaningless abstractions,
patriotism, justice, peace,
for other men's ideals,
for other men's power,
for a few feet of earth,
you,
no doubt,
would give your life
to save a child.”
“What about you, Sir Ronald,
what do you love?”
“If one doesn't love,
there is no power on earth,
which can compel him to.”
“What is the use of making the world more beautiful
if the people who live in it can't love one another?”
Cordelia Gray suddenly cried out.
“What do you mean by love?
That human beings must learn
to live together
with a decent concern for each other's
welfare,
the law enforces that.
Read history, Miss Gray,
see to what horrors,
violence, hatred and repression
your religion of love
has led us....”
“I mean love as a parent loves a child,
a passionate commitment to another...”
“Intense personal commitment,
dear Miss Gray,
always ends in jealousy and enslavement.”
A good advice from her old friend
suddenly came to her mind:
“When you are examining a person,
look at it as you would look
at a group of people,
let them open their hearts first,
do not judge,
look at the whole person inside
and out.
Then make your deduction,
ask yourself what you saw,
not what you expected to see
or what you hoped to see,
just what you saw
and you will be right.”
A mysterious person,
heavy with murderous thoughts,
showing two distinct faces
to the world,
two facets of a human personality.
He suddenly
touched
gently
a beautiful rose from his garden,
his devoted secretary
arranged for him
every day.
“My home has everything,
what I need,”
he quietly said.
She was seeing Sir Ronald's residence
at its loveliest,
the sky was an infinity of blue,
water flew.
How could the heart be indifferent
to such a place,
looking out of the window on his properties,
she realised
in her wanderings she had seen lovelier places,
but none in which
she had been happier or more at peace.
“ Why did you pay me to reveal your secret to the world?”
“ You are a woman, young and beautiful,
just like my wife had been before she died.”
He smiled sadly,
suddenly looking so pitiful:
“And about your job,
maybe it was just the scientific urge to confirm,
that some jobs are
for women
unsuitable.”
“Did you love Mark's Mum?
Was she beautiful?”
“ Beauty is intellectually confusing,
it sabotages common sense,
I could never quite accept
that she was
what she had been.
I thought that any woman,
so beautiful
must have an instinct about life,
access to some secret wisdom,
which is beyond cleverness.
I could have spent all my life
just looking at her
and waiting for the oracle
and all she could talk about
were clothes,
anyway,
I came to love this residence,
I came to own by marrying her.”
“And Mark was going it inherit it,
this year,
by reaching his required age,”
Cordelia added triumphantly.
“He was not even her son,
but he kept accusing me of killing her,
which I never did.”
Sir Ronald's voice was full of resentments
and hate.
“He was my son!”
His secretary appeared in a doorway holding Cordelia's gun.
Sir Ronald watched her coming repeating calmly:
“ I was not unhappy.
The secret of contentment is never
to allow yourself to want anything
which reason tells you,
you haven't a chance of getting,
but you kept dreaming
to own this property
through your son,
it is a pity.”
Before Cordelia could stop her,
she fired.
“I only loved one man in my life,”
she said putting the gun into his lifeless hand:
“and he is the one I have just killed.”
“Love is more destructive than hate,”
Cordelia whispered avoiding her stare.
“Maybe, but I only care that the truth of his death
should never be known.”
His secretary followed her out
covering her face with wrinkled,
shaky hands:
“I lived here whole my life.”
“By killing him,
you have no right to live here,
anymore,
you will be kicked out.”
Cordelia supported her down the stairs
feeling under her satin dress
her fragile and brittle bones.
“There is no reason for me
to live here,
anymore,
two men I loved are gone.”
They looked at each other.
They had nothing in common,
except their sex-
the strength of female allegiance.
They didn't even like each other,
yet,
each held the other's safety
in her hands.
Cordelia accepted
once and for all
that sometimes
there is a thin line
between innocence and crime.
She accepted
the enormity,
the justification
of what she had done
and was never
afterwards
to feel the least tinge
of regret or remorse.
What is the use of making the world more beautiful
if the people who live in it can't love one another?
Is it loving one another enough?
