In Tasmania Read online

  Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Bruce Chatwin was published to unstinting critical acclaim and was lauded as being one of the most outstanding biographies of the decade. Shakespeare is also the author of The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award; The High Flyer, for which he was nominated as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and The Dancer Upstairs, which was the American Libraries Association’s Best Novel of 1997 and which was later adapted for the film of the same title directed by John Malkovich. His most recent novel, Snowleg, was published by Harvill in 2004.

  PRAISE FOR IN TASMANIA:

  ‘A narrative that is bracing, adventurous, touched by surprises, perfectly balanced and completely engrossing.’

  Tom Adair, The Scotsman

  ‘Shakespeare takes on Van Diemonian history with a breadth and depth of research nothing short of breathtaking.’

  Mark Svendsen, The Courier-Mail

  ‘For many people, Tasmania is an island of the imagination, distant and alluring. Nicholas Shakespeare weaves a cast of unlikely characters into 200 years of Tasmanian history.’

  The Economist, Books of the Year

  ‘Shakespeare’s non-judgmental pen and his poetic turn of phrase, in which skies are “grey as a beard”, make for a compelling book … Riveting.’

  Christina Lamb, Sunday Times

  ‘Tasmania is a singular place and Nicholas Shakespeare pays it a singular tribute … Anyone who fancies emigrating should get started now.’

  Peter Porter, The Times

  ‘Tasmania is an enigmatic place and Shakespeare captures it with an appreciative eye.’

  Penny Green, The Guardian

  ‘A writer who possesses real heart and flair.’

  Louis de Bernières

  ‘Shakespeare is the best social, historical and cultural commentator to have set his sights on this region. As with Chatwin and Patagonia, Shakespeare has made Tasmania his own.’

  Peter Lewis, Mail on Sunday

  ‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s narrative is, without question, a romance, and a brilliant and glittering one … [a] marvellously vital book.’

  Julian Evans, Daily Telegraph

  ‘This is, in many ways, the sort of book I like best; a collection of extraordinary incidents and fantastic claims, of phantom visions and unbelievable facts; animals which can eat 40 per cent of their own body weight in one sitting, and a possum-catcher’s niece who became the Queen of Denmark … There are many gems in this irresistibly rum book …’

  Philip Hensher, The Spectator

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  In Tasmania

  ePub ISBN 9781742744964

  A Vintage book

  Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney, NSW 2060

  http://www.randomhouse.com.au

  Sydney New York Toronto

  London Auckland Johannesburg

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2004 by The Harvill Press

  First published in Australia in 2004 by Knopf

  Paperback edition first published in 2005 by Vintage

  This Vintage edition first published in 2007

  Copyright © Nicholas Shakespeare 2004

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry –

  Shakespeare, Nicholas, 1957–.

  In Tasmania.

  Bibliography.

  Includes index.

  ISBN 978 1 74166 906 0

  ISBN 1 74166 906 5

  1. Shakespeare, Nicholas, 1957– – Homes and haunts – Tasmania. 2. Kemp, Anthony Fenn, 1773–1868. 3. Tasmania – History. I. Title.

  994.6

  ALSO BY NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE

  FICTION

  The Vision of Elena Silves

  The High Flyer

  The Dancer Upstairs

  Snowleg

  BIOGRAPHY

  Bruce Chatwin

  To Max and Benedict, two Tasmanian devils

  ‘The same sky covers us, the same sun and all the stars revolve about us, and light us in turn.’

  Comenius (1592–1671),

  quoted by Julian Sorell Huxley in We Europeans

  ‘What would you do, Father, if you had to be present at the birth of a monster with two heads?’

  ‘I would baptise it, of course. What an absurd question.’

  Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Praise for In Tasmania

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Imprint Page

  Also by Nicholas Shakespeare

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I: Father of Tasmania

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Part II: Black Lines

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Part III: Elysium

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Part IV: Oyster Bay

  Chapter I: Daughter of Tasma
nia

  Chapter II: Tigers and Devils

  Chapter III: Oyster Bay

  Chapter IV: Doubles

  Acknowledgements

  Sources

  Illustrations

  Index

  Part I: Father of Tasmania

  ‘… like the legendary uncle from Australia’

  Günter Grass, The Tin Drum

  I

  IN OUR THIRD YEAR ON DOLPHIN SANDS, A FRIEND TELEPHONED from England. ‘Did you know you had a double in Tasmania?’

  He had contacted directory enquiries and been put through to N. Shakespeare in Burnie on the north coast, who told him: ‘You got the wrong fella.’ In Argentina I had once met a Reynaldo Shakespeare, a photographer, but in four decades of wandering, I had never come across another Shakespeare with my initial. So I called him.

  A young-sounding man answered. He was not put out to hear from me and the idea of meeting up appealed. ‘I’m pretty poor on the family side,’ he warned. ‘Not a family tree man.’

  A double is an invitation and a dare. I arranged to be in Burnie the following Sunday.

  I found my namesake getting off a glittering black motorbike in the drive of a house behind the Old Surrey Road industrial estate. ‘I’m in trouble,’ he grinned through his visor. He had gone to Smithton ‘for a hoon’, as he called his ride, and enjoyed himself so much – ‘no distraction, just concentrating on the road and what the machine’s doing’ – that he had lost track of time.

  ‘I’ve only had him a week,’ he said.

  ‘What is he?’ I asked, feeling a stab of envy. I had never ridden on a motorbike, not even as a passenger.

  ‘Suzuki 750 GSXF,’ he said, with great fondness, enunciating each syllable. His parents had been dead set against him buying it. His father had worked as an apprentice turner and lost four of his friends on motorbikes. Motorbikies were known widely in Tasmania as ‘temporary Australians’.

  ‘It does look fast,’ I said.

  ‘Nah, good cheap little cruisy bike.’

  He took off his helmet and we shook hands. I looked into a decent, laid-back face, early thirties, framed by a thick black beard, brown eyes. I had no idea what he saw, but he knew well enough where I lived: he had installed the alarm for a house just down the road from us and had discussed with his wife buying a property there.

  I asked, ‘What does the N stand for?’

  ‘Nevin.’

  Nevin Shakespeare ran his own one-man electrical business. Blocking the steep drive was a red van with the Chandos portrait stamped on the doors and the logo ‘Shakespeare Electricals’. Among his clients was the founder of the Delta Force, a New Yorker in his seventies who lived in Tasmania for his safety. ‘He killed two of his own men so as not to leave them wounded and once had Qaddafi in his crosshairs when orders came not to shoot.’ Nevin had rewired his home. But he was cutting back on residential work. ‘You’re always chasing the money.’

  His wife came out to tell him that he was late and he introduced me to Laurelle, whom he had met at a hockey match – ‘while trying to get off with my sister,’ she said. Then their two sons: Garion, ten, and Martyn, six – both curious to see this interloper from England with a name like their Dad’s.

  ‘Does it interest you to know where you’re from?’ Nevin asked Garion.

  ‘Not really.’

  Nevin had also invited his parents, Gavin and Gloria. Gavin so resembled my own father that when I introduced them to each other a few months later, my father leaned across the table and said: ‘I don’t know what I look like, but you look like what I think I look like.’

  Gavin had a stronger grip on family history than his son. His grandfather James Shakespeare came from Staffordshire in the nineteenth century and was a bricklayer in Sydney. In 1959, he left the Australian mainland to work in the paper mill in Burnie, where Nevin was born.

  ‘I’m darn pleased my parents didn’t call me Bill,’ Nevin said.

  ‘Were you teased?’ I wanted to know. In the army, my father was addressed as ‘the effing swan of Avon’, and at prep school I had had to endure everything from Shagspot to Shaggers.

  ‘I was Shakey,’ Gavin said.

  ‘I was Shakers, or Bill,’ Nevin said. ‘“Good day, Bill. Do you write many songs?” They say a lot of weird things here, a lot of misinformation. “No,” I tell them, “he wrote plays.”’

  ‘Speaking of the plays,’ Gavin said. ‘I was the bottom of every class in English. It was my worst subject.’

  ‘Mine, too, pretty much,’ Nevin said. ‘That’s been passed on. Comes from the bricklayer’s side. Don’t have to write anything. Just get the bricks level.’

  We discussed other family traits. Gavin’s wife Gloria said, apropos of Nevin’s youngest son: ‘He’s a Shakespeare.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  Gloria said: ‘You never argue with him.’

  Gavin said: ‘My father wasn’t interested in arguments.’

  ‘Nevin avoids arguments,’ Laurelle said.

  ‘No, don’t like confrontation,’ Nevin said.

  ‘Something that can be settled in two minutes he lets drag on for two months, that’s my pet hate.’

  ‘I’m with you,’ I said to Nevin. ‘I hate arguments.’

  Then Gavin remembered another Shakespeare trait. ‘My father wasn’t interested in family history.’

  Nevin had inherited this characteristic as well. ‘Once they go, you’ve got no idea. It’s just a heap of old photos. It’s just history.’

  Even so, Nevin had been reading about Tasmania’s forthcoming bicentenary in the Burnie Advocate and he felt a grub of regret to realise how little he knew about his birthplace. ‘We were never taught Tasmanian history at Parklands High School. We were told that Truganini was the last and that the Aborigines couldn’t light a fire, couldn’t swim and all hated each other anyway. We spent more time on English and European history, which at the end of the day means nothing.’

  ‘How much do you know about the man they call the Father of Tasmania?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Did they tell you about the settlement at York Town?’

  ‘What settlement?’

  ‘Do you know York Town?’

  ‘Of course, I know York Town!’ Nevin had driven through it heaps of times. He had camped there and it was also where he had had the motorbike accident that so alarmed his parents. He was overtaking a line of traffic when a car pulled out. ‘I hit the brakes and high-sided, and went surfing on my hands and knees. The car didn’t stop, didn’t even know he’d caused an accident. But I ended up in Deloraine Hospital. Luckily, I knew the blokes because I’d serviced the ambulance station.’

  ‘Well, York Town is near where the Europeans landed 200 years ago,’ I told him. ‘It’s the first place they settled on this coast.’

  He shook his head. ‘We knew nothing of it. You ask anyone in the street, they wouldn’t have much knowledge.’

  An idea was forming. I said to Nevin, ‘Take me on your bike, and I’ll show you.’

  II

  SEPARATED FROM THE AUSTRALIAN MAINLAND BY 140 MILES OF the treacherous pitch and toss of Bass Strait, Tasmania is a byword for remoteness. As with Patagonia, to which in geological prehistory it was attached, it is like outer space on earth and invoked by those at the ‘centre’ to stand for all that is far-flung, strange and unverifiable.

  Tasmania is in myth and in history a secret place, a rarely visited place. Those few who did make the journey compared it to Elysium, or sometimes to Hades. For the first 50 years of its settlement, it was, with the notorious Norfolk Island, Britain’s most distant penal colony and under the name of Van Diemen’s Land was open panopticon to 76,000 convicts gathered from many pockets of the Empire, the majority of them thieves. The average sentence for the transportees was seven years – to a destination that was described by English judges as ‘beyond the seas’ and might take eight months to reach. ‘They call it the end of the world,’ was
one convict’s verdict, ‘and for vice it is truly so. For here wickedness flourishes unchecked.’ Reports and fables of depravity and cannibalism sometimes made of Van Diemen’s Land a synonym for all kinds of terror and dread, but after 1856, under the new name of Tasmania, the island – which is the size of Ireland, Sri Lanka or West Virginia – became popular as a health resort. Its exceptional natural beauty, fertile soil and temperate climate attracted immigrants who were sick of the English weather and yet wanted to be reminded of ‘home’. The extinction of the original native Aboriginal population by 1876 further bolstered the illusion of a society that Anthony Trollope, dropping in on the way to visit his jackaroo son, described as ‘more English than is England herself’. Because it was so far away, it did its best to be very near.

  First sighted by a European in 1642, when the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman mistook it for the mainland of Australia, Tasmania was not colonised by the British until the first years of the nineteenth century. It is a place that the Hollywood actress Merle Oberon was persuaded to claim as her birthplace, in which Errol Flynn and Viscount Montgomery of Alamein grew up, and into which all manner of felons and explorers and adventurous sorts disappeared, of whom perhaps the most interesting was a turbulent British officer called Anthony Fenn Kemp and among the most recent perhaps the fugitive Lord Lucan; a place where not even Iran’s fundamentalist police would dream of looking for you. In an essay that Salman Rushdie wrote after the fatwa, he quoted a joke that was circulating: ‘What’s blonde, has big tits and lives in Tasmania?’ Answer: ‘Salman Rushdie.’