The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish by Tim Flannery, Dido Butterworth Read Free Book Online Page A

cabinet when Giles Mordant visited. He said he wanted
to apologise to her, and seemed sorry for what he’d done. Could he see the object
again? Beatrice pointed at the drawer. Giles opened it, picked up the foreskin, and
put it in his pocket.
    ‘I think you should have labelled it “Archie’s cock-end: an exceedingly tiny specimen!”’
he said. ‘Tell Archie-boy when you next write to him that I’ve got his cock-skin
in my wallet, and, blimey, I intend having some fun with it!’

Chapter 5

    By morning tea Archie’s office was beginning to feel like a cell in the insane asylum.
It was impossible for him to think. He needed air. Could Beatrice have been frightened
by his uncouth appearance, he wondered? It wouldn’t hurt to buy a new suit and get
a haircut. Then he’d go to the Maori’s Head for lunch with whatever colleagues he
found there. Perhaps they could shed light on why Beatrice had changed. But first
he needed to set up an experiment—one he had devised as he’d walked away from the
director’s office that morning. He went to the collection store and returned with
three bones—the leg bone of a kangaroo, the rib of a dugong and the jawbone of a
human. They had been kept as trophies in native huts, and were stained brown with
smoke. He arranged them on a windowsill in the anthropology common area, where they
would be exposed to sunlight for several hours each day. Then he placed a piece of
cardboard, on which he had scrawled ‘Do Not Touch’, across one end of the bones.
    The heat of the midday sun was baking the city. The place was largely deserted, except
in the shadows. Archie, now the very picture of tonsorial and sartorial elegance,
strolled down Bourke Street and into Woolloomooloo. Despite lying between the museum
and the up-market suburb of Potts Point, the dockland area, known locally as ‘the
loo’, had earned a reputation as being the most dangerous part of Sydney. The muddle
of narrow lanes between tiny half-derelict terrace houses were the haunt of sailors,
where cheap rum and women were easy to be had. It was far grimier than Archie remembered
it. Tin lean-tos had been set up in every nook and cranny, and the rags that served
as bedding for those sleeping rough lay everywhere.
    Prostitution had always flourished, but now there seemed to be a girl loitering in
every doorway. Some, who were not so young, looked so unhappy that Archie decided
they’d been put there by their husbands. And the street urchins! They’d increased
from a smattering to a persistent cloud. One particularly dishevelled lad was carrying
a bowl of soup to a tired-looking whore—a sight that simultaneously touched and revolted
Archie.
    ‘Mister, got thruppence?’ The scrap of a specimen looked up at Archie imploringly.
His shaved and scabby head hadn’t seen a mother’s care for weeks. Archie handed over
a shilling, and suddenly the street was filled with kids scrambling for the coin.
    At the boxing club on Dowling Street there was a commotion. Archie peeked in. Someone
had given two scrawny runts gloves, and a crowd of men was egging them on as they
clobbered each other. The smaller boxer, who must have been all of eight, already
had a split lip, and tears were welling in his eyes. ‘And they call the Venus Islanders
savages,’ Archie muttered as he pushed his way through the crowd, grabbed the larger
boy and walked to the door. ‘Find a bigger kid to pick on,’ he shouted. He stopped
in the street and put the boy down. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as he untied the
boxing gloves.
    ‘Louie Lopes,’ the boy replied. ‘My mum’s dead.’
    Archie forked out another bob.
    It was only when he got to Dago Joe’s fruit barrow, and the old Italian greeted him
as if he’d been gone five days rather than five years, that Archie began to feel
at home. ‘Some lovely bananas today, Mista Mik?’ Joe cried.
    ‘Not today, Joe. Maybe tomorrow. Good to see you again, though!’
    ‘ Buon giorno , Mista Mik.