Richard Shears - Swamp. Who Murdered Margaret Clement?

T here was nowhere more cold, nor bleak, in the autumn of 1952 than the flatlands of South Gippsland, Victoria, at the bottom of Australia, where Antarctic gales turned the waters of Venus Bay black and tore branches from the Mulga bush and ti-tree. And in that sodden, windswept landscape, no place was more joyless than the decayed house standing on a small rise in the middle of a swamp. No-one, then, was more wretched than the old woman who sat inside, hunched against the cold at the kitchen table, her mind full of addled memories.

The shabby, fur-collared black coat in which she was wrapped had seen better days and a wood stove was one of her few means of comfort. The other, a hurricane lamp, was already lit and it deepened the brown in her thick, greying hair. For all that she had been through, her skin, too, was still clear. She had aged surprisingly well. Yet these were the only attributes that hinted that Margaret Clement had once been a beauty.

A dogs bark brought her to her feet.

Her dog.

Dingo.

Unusual. No-one braved the swamp at this hour and in this weather.

Making her way down the hall and onto the front verandah, she called:

Dingo! Dingo! Here boy!

Peering around and across the water that stretched like a vast lake ahead and encircled the house, she called the dog again and he came running to her, soaked.

On each side tangled blackberry thickets threatened to swallow the homestead, having overrun the original garden long ago.

Who were you barking at, Dingo? she said, patting him. Then looking up, she called: Whos out there? Anybody there?

But the only response was a distant roll of thunder.

It was in this light and in this weather and perhaps even at this hour that the men had come for her sister Jeanie nearly two years earlier. She remembered it as if it were yesterday.

Cc

Two faces in one life.

Margaret and her loyal dog Dingo, whose throat was cut.

Margaret, the belle of Melbourne society.

I t was the Lords day at a time when several of them would have been making ready to go to church, but all that fell from their lips were profanities as they pushed through water that was chest deep in places. Dingo had barked and growled then as they approached, but a word from her silenced him.

My God, its a witch, whispered one of the farm hands as her figure materialised through a veil of rain.

Unkempt hair framed the skeletal features of a bloodless face and a bony hand clutched at a hurricane lamp that signalled them towards her.

And you would be Miss Margaret? Constable Bert Fry asked, although, of course, he knew the answer.

She greeted them formally in her cultured tones. Good afternoon. Youve come for my sister.

She raised the lamp and they followed a muddy and slippery rising path to the verandah. There were seven men, including the police officer, from the district; four who would need to carry the stretcher later and three with poles to prod the murky water for hidden obstacles. Two neighbours had volunteered to help the policeman; Paddy Brennocks and Bernie Buckley, both of whom lived several miles away across the swamp. Goff Jongebloed, licensee of the local pub, the River View Hotel, also gave his services. The undertaker, John Keady, and two farm workers made up the rest of the team.

The propertys drainage channels should have been cleared decades ago, Goff had informed the group while they had picked their way through the water. This is what you got when you didnt sort out a little problem at the time.

Be careful of these stepsthey can be quite treacherous in this weather, the old lady warned, then stood aside for them as they gathered on the verandah. My sister is in the back room down there, the one with the door open, she gestured. Her knuckles were swollen with callouses. She has been quite ill and has not been able to leave her room for some time.

With no regard for the mud on their boots, Margaret Clement led them into the hall. The house was dingy, oppressive and stank of the sickly sweet smell of age, death and urine. There were cats everywhere, asleep or sitting in every nook and cranny. On every side, window panes were cracked or broken but the chilly draught that swept through the house had no effect on the fetid odour that hit each man. Even the experienced policeman wanted to be out of there as soon as was respectfully possible. Somewhere at the rear, a door continuously banged in the wind. Only three of the men, Goff Jongebloed, Bernie Buckley and Paddy Brennocks had been to Tullaree before and knew the run-down state the old homestead was in. For the others it was a house of isolation and dark secretsuninvitinga place that made you shudder.

Mind out for the floor, said Margaret, pointing to a gaping hole in the passageway where the boards had rotted away. Water from the torrent outside poured down stained walls as they followed her to the room where the body of her sister lay. Here, the smell that had engulfed them as they entered the house was even worse. The youngest man, a farm hand, had never seen a dead body before and was so shocked he was almost sick. The old ladys face, frozen in death, was covered by matted hair that looked as though it had never seen a brush or a comb. Jeanie Clement was lying on her left side, knees drawn up to her stomach, covered with just a single, dirty sheet. Her bloated, overweight body hung over the side of the bed, almost rolling off the stained mattress on which she had lain for so long.

I lost her yesterday, said Margaret. Perhaps last night, she added. She was all I had, you know.

The undertaker immediately set about preparing the body for its journey out of that rotted old mansion and through the swamp to civilisation. As he went about his work, the policeman took notes while the others tried to make conversation with the surviving sister. However, Margaret appeared too numb to venture little more than say that her sister had become progressively more and more ill. Jeanie knew her time had come, said Margaret, and she wanted to die in the home where she had spent so many long and happy years. Margaret had stayed close to Jeanie until the end. A crumpled blanket lay on a sagging couch near the window and that was where she had slept near her dying sister.

Constable Fry knew of the two old ladies of the swamp, as the community had referred to them, and he asked himself how they had managed to remain so cut off that no-one had been aware that Jeanie Clement was ill. He shook his head slightly as he considered with dismay that it was not until Margaret had waded through the water and passed on the news to her neighbours that anyone knew of Jeanies sickness and death.

The men lifted Jeanie Clements body onto the stretcher, covering her with the same sheet she had been lying in. Unlike Margaret, Jeanie, bedridden for so long, was heavy and they grunted as they hauled the litter onto their shoulders.