4 ideas
At a remote Kimberley mission, Heriot, an ageing Anglican missionary who has spent decades building it, loses his composure and strikes Rex, an Aboriginal man he has long clashed with, and comes to believe he has killed him. Rather than face the mission or the law, he walks out into the country with Justin, an old Aboriginal companion, heading toward 'the islands' where Aboriginal belief places the dead, while the mission continues without him.
A mission built around one man's vision does not end when he loses faith or leaves. Its routines, staff and rationing keep it running, so the founder turns out to have been replaceable to the structure he thought was an extension of himself.
Paternal care over a colonised people carries a suppressed wish to control them, and that wish shows up as rage once the carer's authority and certainty weaken. Seen this way, Heriot's assault is not out of character. It is the concealed underside of decades of benevolent command becoming visible.
Stripped of his own faith, the colonising missionary seeks meaning and death inside the belief system he spent his life trying to replace. He travels toward the Aboriginal islands of the dead with an Aboriginal guide, reversing the direction of instruction. Spiritual bankruptcy forces the converter to become the one who is led.