Bloke, page 17
‘Are we staying here then?’
‘Didn’t I mention that in the contract? Three days we’ve got. Back home Thursdy.’
He slept on one side of the fire, me on the other. Lettuce and tea was about all we had to live on but he caught a trout one night, and the next knocked a rabbit off its feet with a rock from twenty metres away. Very surprised rabbit. Me too. Not a bad shot.
The willows were a mongrel. One day I went up a tributary off the main river for a private toilet and stood stock still. The creek bed was full of willows.
‘That creek is full of willows,’ I said when I came back to camp.
‘I know.’
‘It’s upstream from here – this bank will just get infested again.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, why are we cutting these?’
‘Because the River Authority’s got a permit to cut willas on this river but not that creek.’
‘Doesn’t make sense.’
‘They’re the boss.’
‘But we’ll have to do the same thing in three years’ time.’
‘What I told ’em. Part of the River Agreement. Political stuff. Anyway, it’s smoko. How’s the lettuce hangin out?’
‘Not much left.’
‘We’ll get some cress later, up that creek with the willas.’
We didn’t talk much. Darce liked to work. The harder the better, it seemed. And then he liked to fish and drink tea. At night we lay on canvas sheets looking up at the stars, a slice of dark sky above the narrow gorge of the river valley.
‘See that shootin star?’ he asked once.
‘Yeah.’
‘That was Elvis.’
‘Elvis?’
‘Haven’t heard of Elvis?’
‘Elvis Presley?’
‘Course. They said he was a shootin star. That was him. Pretty sure.’
It was hard to tell if he was pulling the wool or just making conversation, but if it was conversation he wasn’t very good at it. Hard to tell if he’d gone to sleep. I put my arms behind my head and watched the great band of the Milky Way. Wondered if Darce was looking at it. Just watched it and watched it. What the fuck was I doing out here? Trying not to get shot by blokes who had killed other people to gain their silence? Or sulking?
I watched the stars and they winked at me. Venus mocked my doleful self-absorption. Oh dear, oh dear, poor old Jimmy, the trials and tribulations. I watched the sky, wondering what hope you had if the universe taunted your piddling humanity, your piddling little male self.
‘See ya,’ Darce said when he dropped me off in the lane behind the mill three days later. That was it. ‘See ya.’ I gave half the money to Aunty Cookup. She looked at it. Seemed happier with the plastic bag of yabbies and watercress.
‘Oh, I love them little fellas,’ she crooned, stroking the bronze-green armour of their backs. ‘Oh, my oath I do. How was the willas?’
‘Plenty of them.’
‘Good, Darce’ll be back then. Good man that Darce.’
And he was. Good man and came back. Same time the next week we did a downstream stretch of the river. This time I took two lettuces, a tin of pepper and a loaf of bread.
‘Shop bread?’ he said, poking it with his finger. ‘I seen it kill a duck.’ Years later I realised I never heard the story of the duck but the loaf gathered mould because Darce made johnnycakes on the hot stones.
‘Munt makes them like this,’ I commented.
‘Me uncle. Learnt it from him.’
That explained how Darce liked to camp. Bare essentials. Open sky. No baggage. Three sticks for a fire.
Three days later we pulled up in Mill Lane.
‘See ya,’ he called as he wrenched the old ute around. I gave Aunty Cookup another bag of yabbies and half the money.
‘Retha around?’
The old woman looked at me. ‘Think so.’
Of course she was. Lilly came slamming out the front door. ‘Unca Jimmy, Unca Jimmy, I got a dog, a real dog. Codger, his name is.’
‘Did you call him Codger?’
‘No, Unca Binny. He said he was a real good codger. Wanna see him?’ She grabbed my hand and towed me into the house. ‘Look, there he is.’
Codger was sleeping on his back, his little pink tummy and tiny dick exposed to the world. Lilly scooped him up.
‘Codger, Codger, wake up, this is Unca Jimmy, he tells stories. He’ll tell you one too.’ The puppy blinked, hoping he could miss the story and go back to sleep.
‘G’day, Jim.’ Retha was at the sink. She was wearing an old school jumper and a pair of workpants. The vee of the jumper just allowed a glimpse of the map.
‘Retha.’
‘How were the willows?’
‘Enough to go round.’
‘Unca Jimmy, Codger wants his story.’
I sat down and told Codger a story about catching yabbies in the river and cooking them in an old black pot. Codger appreciated the story and took the opportunity to go straight back to sleep while Lilly was distracted.
‘Did they bite you?’
‘No, Uncle Darce just throws them in his hat. And then we cook them.’
‘In the hat?’
‘No.’ I looked up and Retha was laughing silently. The effect made me want to cry. ‘No, in the billy, the black billy I told you about. On the fire with the johnnycakes.’
‘I love johnnycakes, let’s cook some johnnycakes.’
‘We’ve got chops, Lilly. Uncle Binny’s chops, remember?’
‘I want johnnycakes like Unca Jimmy cooked.’
‘We’ll cook some johnnycakes on stones down at the river tomorrow if you like,’ I encouraged her.
‘Promise?’
‘Of course.’
That night I couldn’t stop thinking of going down to the river. Not the johnnycakes, Retha in the mauve shade.
Next morning I packed a bit of a picnic and even some yabby lines, just in case.
‘I’ve got to go and see Aunty Stell,’ Retha said when she saw the basket. ‘I’ll be back later but Aunt will go with you.’
The bottom, no, the arse fell right out of the day there and then.
We trudged down through the dry stubble, stepping it out as much as we could because of the heat and Aunt’s laborious gait.
‘Me knee’s givin me gyp again. Uncle Binny give me some of that Old Man Weed. I’ll boil it up later. That should do it. But bloody hell it’s crook.’
Lilly put a lot of work into making me as pliant and energetic as I’d been the last time we picnicked by the river with Retha. She could see the difference in me and rattled through the activities to find something that worked: swimming, sandcastles, stories, lighting a fire, fishing for yabbies, cooking them in the billy, making johnnycakes. She wanted it to be the best day ever. Or at least as good as the last one.
She flagged with the effort and became glum in her failure to evoke the magic. Even a little jealous of her mother’s power. Instinctively.
‘Mummy should have come. She said she would.’
‘She had to see Aunty Stell, darl,’ Aunty Cookup said from beneath her hat where she was having forty winks.
‘I’ll tell you another story if you like,’ I tried.
‘Not about yabbies, about princesses. My princess.’
So I told a bit of a story but it didn’t have the same magical effect as the first one. Lilly pouted a bit and refused to ask questions or interrupt. Failed to go to sleep.
‘Aunty Dossy says you’re not a real blackfella.’
‘She did not, Lilly,’ Aunty Cookup said. ‘She said Uncle Jimmy didn’t know if he was a blackfella or not.’
It felt worse having the old lady come to my defence.
‘She said you weren’t black unless you said you were.’
‘Well, that’s different,’ Aunty Cookup said, ‘and you should be careful not to hurt people’s feelings. Uncle Jimmy just read you a story, taught Codger to swim and cooked us lunch. And did you thank him?’
Lilly murmured her thanks and added, ‘Well, do you think you’re a blackfella?’
The riverbank went quiet, waiting. Even Codger cocked an ear. Unconvincing if you’re on your back and exposing your little pink pebbly balls.
‘My mother was your great-aunty.’
‘Does that make you real?’
‘Of course it does,’ Aunty Cookup cut in. ‘Uncle Jimmy wasn’t as lucky as you. He never knew his mother. Had to grow up alone. So you be careful what you say, miss. Some questions just make people sad.’
‘Are you sad, Unca Jimmy?’
‘I wish I’d seen my mother. I’d —’
Cicadas suddenly began to screech, the temperature just right for their manic shriek. Lilly lost interest in my lame sentence and looked up into the trees, searching for the cicadas.
‘Those yabbies were real good, Jim,’ Aunty Cookup said, lifting the hat an inch above her brow. The eyes in the black square face seemed to glow like little nuggets in a mineshaft. ‘Couldn’a cooked ’em better meself. An’ that’s sayin somethin, coz I’m the champion round here, even the white ladies say so. Some of ’em. Best in Show, Jim, for me fruitcake. An’ me melon jam. Shoulda brought some to spread on them johnnycakes. They were deadly.’ She still had the hat lifted a few inches above her eyes, like a hatch on a tunnel. ‘Not too many people can cook johnnycakes on a stone. Now, that’s a blackfella’s art.’
I watched her eyes. ‘Thanks, Aunt,’ I said.
The hat slammed shut. ‘Sorright,’ she said from beneath it.
‘One day I’d like to come out of my skin like a google,’ Lilly mused, referring to the cicadas.
‘Then you’ll screech like one,’ said Aunty Cookup.
‘Won’t.’
‘Will.’
‘I won’t – will I, Uncle Jimmy?’
‘No, Lil, you’re far too clever to screech.’
‘Am I as beautiful as Mummy?’
‘Of course you are, love,’ Aunty Cookup interrupted. ‘And anyway, look, it’s time we got back to jiggle the stove. Chook tonight.’
I knew the routine. She throttled the pet chook, I split the kindling for the copper.
‘Darce reckons you can go at the axe.’
‘Not like Darce. He’s a machine.’
‘That man’s no machine. He’s a spirit man, truth is known.’
‘He thinks you’re a spirit woman.’
‘I am.’
‘Reckons you stood up to the River Authority, council, politicians, the lot. Got ’em to sort out the river stuff. Says you told them rivers are meant to have water on top of the sand.’
‘Not bad for an old girl. But they struggled with the concept; putting water into a river. Reckon I’m a raving leftie. Radical, eh, a wet river?’
‘Will we ever get the willows fixed? There’s more upstream.’
‘That’s on Forestry land, not Parks, even a spirit woman can’t get them galahs to work together.’
‘What now, then?’
‘We keep chippin away until the light goes on an’ they can see inside their own head, keep chippin away an’ hopin our young fellas learn enough to take it up to ’em.’
‘Big job.’
‘That’s why every blackfella has to be a blackfella, because there’s not enough to go round all the work.’ She wrung the poor chook’s neck with a quick twist of her massive wrists. I swallowed involuntarily. She looked straight into my face. ‘We’re not just playin happy families, ya know, we got no time to lose. Not many our fellas got your education.’
‘There’s plenty doing school inside.’
‘Yeah, an’ that’s where they’ll stay, inside. We need fellas on the outside. We want rivers on top of the sand and our men outside. That’s how it used ta be.’ She looked down at the hen dangling from her hand. ‘She just went off the lay, this one, but by crikey she was a lovely thing you know, when she was young. Better get that pot on the fire, she’ll need a good boil before we roast her. She’s been around for a while, this one, one of me mates she was. Lonely for an old woman havin chooks fa mates.’
‘You’ve got Retha and Lilly.’
‘An’ all me cousins and nephews an’ such, but Retha will go soon, I’ll send her away. We need her to finish school too. And Lilly.’
‘That’s a while off yet.’
‘But it’s a big plan, Jim, you mark my words, we’re not done with yet.’ She looked down at the hen again. ‘Phyllis, we used to call her. Coz she filled us with eggs. Now she’ll fill us again. Shame but, I loved this chook.’
‘What do you expect of me, Aunt? It’s hard —’
‘Hard? I’ll tell you hard. It’s not hard, it’s how it is. You reckon it’s hard being chucked in gaol for things you never did? Join the black club. You killed that man in a fight. Hit his head, didn’t he? Reckon a white man would go to gaol for that? Now they lock you up for their convenience. If it was a pretty white girl in gaol the papers’d be wringin their bloody hands – what a waste of a young life! What a waste of all them black lives.’
She started plucking the bird as if unaware what her hands were doing. Just a good chance to wrench something.
‘We’re not pickin on you, Jim, we’re not demandin nothin, we got no choice. You is you. We can’t ignore you, you’re part of us. No fun bein a blackfella lotta the time, but how can you ignore your blood? Plenty do, I can tell ya, but you look at ’em, Jim, you look at those people, they know they’re hidin, they know they’re not really white, no matter how hard they try to be, mowin the lawns, joinin Lions club, playin fuckin golf fa Christ’s sake. They know they’ll never patch that hole no matter how shamed of us they might be.’
The hen dangled from her hand, all goose pimples and tufts of small down, that dead chook smell rising between us. I stood with an armful of kindling, mesmerised, as if a snake had lifted its blind head and was tasting the air. My air.
‘They’ll plonk me in the ground near ya mother, Jim, that’s what I told ’em I wanted, to lie next to a good woman. What about you, my boy? Some bloody brick wall with a little sign, maybe not even a sign, bit of blood an’ bone for the roses? We’re botherin you because we loved ya mother, we loved that woman because she was good, an’ we want her back in our life. You is all she left us. You been buggered about by the law and it’s because of who you are. Ah, true, ya shouldn’t knock fellas out in the street, an’ ya shouldn’t sail boats fa bad men, but you went in coz ya black, a black orphan, the ones the law hates most.
‘Fa years we busted our guts findin all the kids taken away, we fought schools for not lettin our kids in, good ol’ Charlie even fought ’em fa not lettin us in their fuckin swimmin pool, we fought to save our people from the grog, to stop gubbas takin our houses, we had ta beg ’em, beg ’em I’m tellin ya, beg the mean bastards not to condemn our house an’ chuck all our kids onto the dump. An’ who does all that fightin an’ beggin, Jim? The ones who can, the ones still whole, not fried up by grog an’ drugs, them who don’t drown in their own misery. Them, Jim, with the nerves of steel. They hurt, their guts weep tears of blood, but they never let go. You did that, young brother. You lasted, an’ lastin is in ya genes, yer a bush black, Jim, ya mother was just some black gin the whites wouldn’t nod to in the street, but she had it, Jim. Retha’s got it, an’ you’ve got it, an’ it’s all black, all black where that come from, Jim.
‘You been bit by the law, we all been bit, thousands a times, but if ya don’t bite back it’ll just go on forever. When Lilly goes to school they’ll never think to ask if she wants to do Year Eleven, they’ll just expect her to leave, an’ when she does they won’t even nod to her in the street.’
‘Not all white —’ I began, but she scowled at me, her wattles shaking with rage.
‘Not all? Is that enough? Not all? So that makes up for the whole shebang? Ya think I don’t know “not all”, but what the fuckin good is that, my brother, if the law is still the same? If they still turn to our kids in classrooms an’ go “Little black Johnny, can you explain why your people have a history of molestin kids? Can you tell us who discovered Australia?” Not all is nowhere near enough, Jim, which is why we’re askin you ta make up ya mind. Coz we need your help, Jim, coz a white man will never do it.’
‘Kevin Gilbert.’
‘So ya read a few black books inside.’
‘It was on the course.’
‘That all? Just on the course? That man sent shivers up them whitefellas’ arse. They hate it when ya won’t bend the knee, won’t kowtow to ’em. They like their blackfellas in footy boots or runnin shoes. But kickin footies won’t change the law, Jim. We need educated people to help us turn on the light in a few white heads. It’s not good enough to go, oh, it was just on the course. Kevin Gilbert’s words aren’t the course, they’re the blood and guts of our people. Which is why I’ll send Retha away to do her uni properly. We need her, Jim, we need everyone we can get to stick up for us. So don’t you go all googly eyes over that girl. I seen ya, it stands out like dog’s balls how you look at her, an’ not the only thing stands out neither. But unless you’re goin to stand by that girl in the trenches don’t muck her up, coz you’re just the kind of mongrel she likes. You’ve —’
‘Aunt,’ I had to stop her, ‘Aunt, I’m not going after Retha, I’m —’
‘Aren’t ya? Your eyes follow her an’ there’s moons in them eyes, Jim. But what can you expect, you’re just a man.’
‘And are you a feminist now?’
She laughed so hard her whole body shook, and the bird – pink going grey – jiggled like a Mexican death wish. ‘Me an’ Germaine, that’s a good one. And why not? Women have to protect each other, because men think through their balls.’ She waggled the chicken corpse in my face. ‘Their balls, Jim. Can’t help it, poor things, an’ we can’t help fallin fa the thimble an’ pea, but we can … Look, my brother, what kind of life have you had these last few years? Yev got a woman waitin for ya, an’ she must be pretty bloody good to wait for a man in gaol and send him long letters – just we can see ya mother an’ it breaks our hearts. You look at us with her eyes an’ she died before she could be proud. Lot of our people die before they can be proud. Which is why the law —’
