Earth, page 9
‘Well, you can see everything’s in pretty good order, me darlin’. Little Cecily’s tidied up, mostly, an’ drinkin’ like a south coast sailor.’
‘Get the scissors and hold the blades over the kettle for five minutes.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait – ’
‘Wait for who, Frank? Who’s going to come out in the middle of the night for a child they’re determined to see as black.’
‘It’s not like that, Claudie.’
‘It is like that, Frank. I’m not blaming you so don’t get that look on your face. But that is how it is and if I know this town that’s how it’s going to be. Now get the scissors and hold them in the steam for a few minutes and bring them back here to me.’
‘Shouldn’t we –’
‘No, we shouldn’t. I’ve been doing this for thirty years, Frank, and I’ll not be calling anyone into this house to act superior and charitable.’
‘Won’t it hurt?’
‘No more than that first lungful of air. More a surprise than anything. And a peg. Bring back a new peg as well. Goodness me, I prepare better for other people’s children than my own.’
‘Bit of a surprise all around, little Cecily turnin’ up like this.’
‘Did you name her while I was asleep.’
‘You always said a girl’d be Cecily.’
‘But you might have let me do the naming of my own daughter.’
‘Alright, alright, I’ll go and get the scissors.’
‘Over the steam, Frank.’
‘Yes, Claudie. She goes all calm and business like and I start to worry about feedin’ ‘em all. Little while ago there was only three and barely managin’ at that, an’ now five. One thing at a time now. Over the steam. Got the peg. Good-o. Here we are, Claudie.’
‘Right, now my little darling, here we go and . . . there we are. Free, my little one. Free.’
*
‘Who’s for the Empire?’
‘Shut up, Pearson, you’ll get your grog soon enough.’
‘Yeah, Pearson, shut up, boong fucker.’
‘You oughta talk, Armstrong.’
‘Gentlemen, bit of shush please, we need a formal declaration of our intention to form a Loyal Society for the advancement of all Australian sons. Mr Angliss has already vouched ten pounds to such a society and I have matched that amount in order that we might meet once a week until pledges from the public should establish us on a sound footing. Mr Campbell as a man of the cloth perhaps you might do us the honour.’
‘Thank you Mr Snodgrass, it would be an honour. Gentlemen –’
‘Can’t see no gentlemen here.’
‘Shut up Pearson.’
‘Gentlemen, I propose that our Society be formed along the same lines as other societies being formed throughout the colony, societies loyal to His Majesty, the Royal Highness, and yet peculiarly Australian.’
‘Here, here.’
‘A society whose aims are to observe the values of law, property, and morals as set out by the institutions of the British Empire.’
‘No Chinamen.’
‘Shut up, Pearson,’
‘No blacks.’
‘Here, here.’
‘A society based on the Christian observance where a man and his family may live in peace and prosperity –’
‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves,
No more Chinamen allowed in New South Wales.’
‘Shut up, Pearson, ya sound like a horse’s arse.’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, a southern land on the bounteous southern soils and yet loyal to King and country, a civilising influence in the southern seas. Let us pray to God that our ventures are blessed by – ’
‘Let us drink.’
‘Put a sock in it, Pearson, ya silly galoot.’
‘Blessed by both church and state, a fair and prosperous society that can receive the grace of the Lord our Father. Gentlemen, raise your glasses to the Empire and the King.’
‘The King, the King.’
*
‘Hear that hullabaloo up the road, Frank.’
‘I can.’
‘They’ll wake the babies with all their noise.’
‘You can hear Pearson from here.’
‘What do they hope to achieve?’
‘A free drink, most of them, and an excuse to kick out the Chinks and tread on the blackfellas. Rule Britannia, what a lot of old bulldust. They sound more like a lynching party than a loyalist society.’
‘Snodgrass would be in it up to his goitre, wouldn’t he, Frank?’
‘And Angliss, and Manifold and Pakington and Campbell. You name it, they’re in it. And there’s the baby crying. No wonder.’
‘Both of them.’
‘You stay there, I’ll go and bring them in.’
‘Don’t wake Alfie.’
‘He’ll be already awake if I know him . . . And so it is, eh, Alf. The whole nursery awake, eh?’
‘What’s all that racket, Grandpa.’
‘That’s the Loyalists, Alfie, the new society dedicated to the elimination of anyone not white.’
They’ve woke the babies.’
‘They’ll raise the dead before they’re finished.’
‘Here, you grab that Woorer Woorer and I’ll take Cecily in for a drink with her ma. And Alfie, keep your head down around that pack of parasites. You can hear how they are, they’ll be looking for a few examples to prove their loyalty to King George first chance they get, and a little half’n’half will be just made to order.’
‘Come on, Frank, stop mumbling to yourself out there.’
‘Here we are, Claudie, the whole box and dice. I’m gunna make a cup of tea an’ some toast, seein’ as we’re all up.’
‘All that roarin’ up at the Star woke ‘em up, Gran.’
‘I’m sure it did, Alfie. You’re a good boy to get little Gus back to sleep so soon. Look at him, the little dear. Stay out of the way of that mob, Alfie.’
‘That’s what Grandpa said.’
‘And he’s dead right. They’re making Frank’s job a misery wherever he goes. That Snodgrass picking on everything he does and Angliss still making noises about his horse. They don’t want a land of the free, they want a land of the rich.’
‘And the white. Hardly Christian, is it? Here’s your tea an’ toast, night owls.’
‘You don’t have to remind me of the church’s failings, Frank, as long as you remember the benediction of the Lord’s grace.’
‘The Lord might have grace, my darlin’, but the lords have none as far as I can see.’
‘Well let’s just keep ourselves to ourselves and our noses out of trouble and don’t forget I warned you not to make an issue of your background, Frank, or it will make trouble for the boy, too.’
‘And if we were Chinese?’
‘Well they bring in all that leprosy.’
‘Bunkum, Claudie. It’s another excuse.’
‘And your medical qualifications allow you to make such comments, Frank?’
‘They’re jealous of the Chinamen, that’s all. They work hard and get rich on working our tailings and selling us vegetables. Too much like competition for our God Almighty graziers who want to give a few orders to shepherds in the morning and drink port all afternoon. When old Ah Chee got robbed McCallum couldn’t even manage to go out and see him, the court – ’
‘Alright, Frank, I know what the court did.’
‘Didn’t do.’
‘Alright, all I’m saying is we should keep ourselves to ourselves and not get involved because they’ll turn on us then.’
‘I’ll be ready, Gran.’
‘Nonsense, Alfie, get such ideas out of your head, let’s drink our tea and eat our toast. I want my children, grandchildren, and all the others in this house to become thinkers, not fighters.’
‘All that currency lad muck makes me sick.’
‘Well, mark my words, Frank, it’ll be better for you to be sick than at the mercy of the mob.’
‘And their policemen and courts.’
‘Alright, Frank you’ve made your point. It’s a good cuppa, Frank, let’s be grateful for that.’
‘Not bad for midnight tea.’
‘And moonlight toast.’
‘Very good, Alf. Well, Claudie, there’s your thinker.’
*
‘You don’t understand, Alwyn.’
‘Because I’m a woman.’
‘No, because you don’t have to deal with them day in, day out. You don’t have to be on your guard against their treachery and murder. It’s not you who has to clear the land and keep the homesteads safe.’
‘Safe? Safe from old Billy Wurrun, Mary, Elsie?’
‘That’s because we have made them see the will of our law, the power and righteousness of our civilisation. Do you think they won’t benefit from it in time to come?’
‘If they survive, perhaps.’
‘And if they don’t survive perhaps they weren’t meant to survive.’
‘Meant, Mr Angliss. Who meant that we should have their land?’
‘They never used the land. Where are the farms, where are the fences, where are their crops.’
‘I’ve heard Miss Dawson say they cultivated the daisy, netted the rivers.’
‘Do you equate that with agriculture? Do you equate their heathen blood lust and dances with civilisation? Perhaps you’d like to live in a hole in the ground with them.’
‘Miss Dawson says their houses were much like Irish croft houses until they were burnt down.’
‘Alwyn, I suggest you’re becoming one of those Christian Society people that produced Bourke and Robinson with their noble savage ideas so easy to hold in London. So easy to espouse tolerance and forbearance over tea and scones in The Strand. We are dealing with the reality on the ground. We have to protect our flocks, our shepherds, our wives, we have to protect all the comforts you enjoy!’
‘Enjoy William? I don’t remember using the word enjoy.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. Enjoyment, perhaps too much like carnal pleasure.’
‘Carnality, is it? Is that the foundation of your argument. Our pleasure in place of theirs?’
‘Or mine against yours.’
‘Is that what operates your mind, William?’
‘I wish it would operate yours occasionally.’
‘You seem to devise alternative arrangements.’
‘How dare you address me – ’
‘How dare you come to my bed after forcing – ’
‘Force? Don’t be absurd.’
‘You mean she’s attracted to the might of your physique and personality.’
‘What are you talking about? I have never – ’
‘You have and I know it from sources which even you would approve, white men and women.’
‘If a man is left without – ’
‘Don’t talk to me, William, it is far better we never talk about it.’
‘You brought it up. One moment you’re arguing the case of your dusky brethren and the next we get to the real source of your disaffection. Perhaps it’s time you reconsidered your position in this house. Many, many women would leap at the opportunity to live in such –’
‘In such a philistine environment, in a country with no seasons and flies so starved they suck at your eyes. Are these the glorious conditions which you believe so irresistible to English women?’
‘We will become a laughing stock. We will become the gossip of the district.’
‘We, you rather, are already the gossip of the district, I am merely pitied.’
‘What you’ve heard is the malicious gossip of people who wish they had what you already have.’
‘No, William, it is the gossip of people who pay particular attention when a white man of high station drops his breeches in particular company. They pay no attention to the letter aitch, or to table napkins, or Christian kindness, but they pay a great deal of attention when particular people descend to the same level as themselves.’
‘If we cannot repair this argument, Alwyn, I can see no hope for us here.’
‘Is that an invitation to leave?’
‘It’s an invitation to try and salvage a marriage which has brought you – ’
‘But what has it brought me? Have you ever considered –’
‘I have given every consideration to your welfare, Alwyn, I have provided the kind of marriage which many –’
‘What you have provided me with, William, is enormous shame. That I should be asked to share a bed with a man who has slept with a woman . . . a girl, a child, Mr Angliss, a child dressed in filthy rags – ’
‘I thought these were the people you champion, your noble –’
‘And who boasts in company of the eradication of all these people ever owned including their lives –’
‘What complete –’
‘Their lives, good sir. Miss Dawson is caring for a child now with a musket ball in her shoulder and chest, and that girl’s family were all murdered.’
‘What. . .
‘Murdered, murdered, do you hear me? Murdered by your overseers, Carney, Watson, and that mob of degenerates from Fairbanks. ’
‘You can’t believe the loose talk.’
‘Oh, I know our courts can’t accept their evidence and I know your henchmen clear their tracks, but like your other misdemeanours, William, it is common knowledge in the whole community.’
‘You will become an old maid back in England, no one in their right mind – ’
‘No, William, it is far worse than that. I will become your enemy and to all those others like you. This society has been spawned by the most base desires of men and it infects everybody who comes in contact with it. This country, this society is doomed.’
‘You’re wrong, you’ve completely misunderstood what is happening. Men who were landless in England have fine properties here, their children who would have been ignorant beasts back home are being schooled here, men who lived a life of crime are being repatriated by –’
‘And all of that, every skerrick of that beneficence is built on murder and lies. Civilisation is destroyed by such things, not made.’
‘You’re wrong, Alwyn, you’ve allowed your own bitterness and unhappiness – ’
‘No, William, I’ve taken my eyes off the land and looked into my heart and I cannot live here any longer.’
*
‘When that Wirran flies on his own you ‘ear ‘im callin’ out, callin’ out all over bush, yijn, yijn. Trouble time true.
‘Look him now. All black that fella, jus’ like us, look ‘im now, look at yellow face, yellow tail, oh proper sorry that one now. Like our people, travellin’ over country lookin’ for this one, lookin’ for that one. Can’t find. Proper sorry time. Where our people gone?
‘Oh, they aroun’ all right. Oh, yueh, they aroun’, but look now, look at our people. This one lyin’ down beside bottle, that one lyin’ down beside white man, an’ this one lyin’ down beside white woman. House full, eh. Warrun full a’ bobup, bit colour fellas, bit of this, bit of that, hidin’ away, hopin’ them amerjee not notice how he sneak a breath here, take a drink there, gather them pennies, hopin’, hopin’ amerjee not notice.
‘That how it gunna be for our people? That how our warriors gunna live? Look that Moorabool crawlin’ in gunyah, hole in chest like rat’s mouth, how he gunna live eh? What good that? Who gunna go and speak to the country, eh? Who gunna speak for the river and the hills, the sea and the salt? Who gunna speak for our salt, eh? Who gunna put the korraiyn on his tongue and say, my mother, eh? Who say that? Build fence, hammer roof, sneak pennies, patch pants. Little life that one, little.
‘Like ol’ Wirran flyin’ aroun’ on his own. Yijn, yijn, yijn. Oh my country, oh my people.’
*
‘As a friend, Alwyn, and please believe that, I tell you your reputation will never recover. You must have noticed that since your return.’
‘I have.’
‘A certain coldness.’
‘Ever since I set foot on the pier at Portsmouth.’
‘And now your talk of a divorce, dear Alwyn, I must really counsel you against – ’
‘My dear Archbishop, I will not return to Australia and as a consequence my marriage has no meaning and I refuse to have my family’s name associated with the kind of barbarity which passes for civilisation in that place.’
‘Fortunes are –’
‘And is that what impresses the church? Fortunes from wool and gold, fortunes from genocide?’
‘Alwyn, surely you’re being a little too dramatic. Certain adjustments to the conditions might have to be made, but – ’
‘Adjustments. You sit there in your purple and talk of the adjustments to the human lives which our church was sent there to save.’
‘Really, Alwyn, if anyone else heard you addressing me like this.’
‘They might be scandalised for a moment until they heard what their church has turned a blind eye to over there. You seem to ignore the campaign the Methodists –’
‘The Methodists!’
‘Don’t be quite so disdainful, your worship, the Methodists have the ear of government and strict adherence to the earliest colonial provisions are being urged and I for one will support them.’
‘But will they invite you to tea, Alwyn?’
‘Archbishop, I have no need of tea or conversation! I have come to see you in the hope you’ll bring our church to understand that something must be done to protect the Christian faith and the good name of the King from the depredations of a couple of hundred sheep farmers and rude men who make fortunes by picking up stones, men who have no qualifications to call themselves gentlemen, whose only refinement is the sterling of currency.’
‘I cannot grant you a divorce on the grounds of your disaffection with men.’
‘Very well, you have now created an Emancipationist in your church.’
‘But Alwyn, dear, you’re a woman, and with all due respects, a woman with reduced social standing, and who will later – ’
‘Other women, your worship, not the tea and tiffin type perhaps, but the voice of women will be heard more often. You’ll notice even The Times has a column for women. We have a voice, Archbishop, and you can either have it work for you in your church, or hear it denounce you.’
‘One voice will – ’
‘Get the scissors and hold the blades over the kettle for five minutes.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait – ’
‘Wait for who, Frank? Who’s going to come out in the middle of the night for a child they’re determined to see as black.’
‘It’s not like that, Claudie.’
‘It is like that, Frank. I’m not blaming you so don’t get that look on your face. But that is how it is and if I know this town that’s how it’s going to be. Now get the scissors and hold them in the steam for a few minutes and bring them back here to me.’
‘Shouldn’t we –’
‘No, we shouldn’t. I’ve been doing this for thirty years, Frank, and I’ll not be calling anyone into this house to act superior and charitable.’
‘Won’t it hurt?’
‘No more than that first lungful of air. More a surprise than anything. And a peg. Bring back a new peg as well. Goodness me, I prepare better for other people’s children than my own.’
‘Bit of a surprise all around, little Cecily turnin’ up like this.’
‘Did you name her while I was asleep.’
‘You always said a girl’d be Cecily.’
‘But you might have let me do the naming of my own daughter.’
‘Alright, alright, I’ll go and get the scissors.’
‘Over the steam, Frank.’
‘Yes, Claudie. She goes all calm and business like and I start to worry about feedin’ ‘em all. Little while ago there was only three and barely managin’ at that, an’ now five. One thing at a time now. Over the steam. Got the peg. Good-o. Here we are, Claudie.’
‘Right, now my little darling, here we go and . . . there we are. Free, my little one. Free.’
*
‘Who’s for the Empire?’
‘Shut up, Pearson, you’ll get your grog soon enough.’
‘Yeah, Pearson, shut up, boong fucker.’
‘You oughta talk, Armstrong.’
‘Gentlemen, bit of shush please, we need a formal declaration of our intention to form a Loyal Society for the advancement of all Australian sons. Mr Angliss has already vouched ten pounds to such a society and I have matched that amount in order that we might meet once a week until pledges from the public should establish us on a sound footing. Mr Campbell as a man of the cloth perhaps you might do us the honour.’
‘Thank you Mr Snodgrass, it would be an honour. Gentlemen –’
‘Can’t see no gentlemen here.’
‘Shut up Pearson.’
‘Gentlemen, I propose that our Society be formed along the same lines as other societies being formed throughout the colony, societies loyal to His Majesty, the Royal Highness, and yet peculiarly Australian.’
‘Here, here.’
‘A society whose aims are to observe the values of law, property, and morals as set out by the institutions of the British Empire.’
‘No Chinamen.’
‘Shut up, Pearson,’
‘No blacks.’
‘Here, here.’
‘A society based on the Christian observance where a man and his family may live in peace and prosperity –’
‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves,
No more Chinamen allowed in New South Wales.’
‘Shut up, Pearson, ya sound like a horse’s arse.’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, a southern land on the bounteous southern soils and yet loyal to King and country, a civilising influence in the southern seas. Let us pray to God that our ventures are blessed by – ’
‘Let us drink.’
‘Put a sock in it, Pearson, ya silly galoot.’
‘Blessed by both church and state, a fair and prosperous society that can receive the grace of the Lord our Father. Gentlemen, raise your glasses to the Empire and the King.’
‘The King, the King.’
*
‘Hear that hullabaloo up the road, Frank.’
‘I can.’
‘They’ll wake the babies with all their noise.’
‘You can hear Pearson from here.’
‘What do they hope to achieve?’
‘A free drink, most of them, and an excuse to kick out the Chinks and tread on the blackfellas. Rule Britannia, what a lot of old bulldust. They sound more like a lynching party than a loyalist society.’
‘Snodgrass would be in it up to his goitre, wouldn’t he, Frank?’
‘And Angliss, and Manifold and Pakington and Campbell. You name it, they’re in it. And there’s the baby crying. No wonder.’
‘Both of them.’
‘You stay there, I’ll go and bring them in.’
‘Don’t wake Alfie.’
‘He’ll be already awake if I know him . . . And so it is, eh, Alf. The whole nursery awake, eh?’
‘What’s all that racket, Grandpa.’
‘That’s the Loyalists, Alfie, the new society dedicated to the elimination of anyone not white.’
They’ve woke the babies.’
‘They’ll raise the dead before they’re finished.’
‘Here, you grab that Woorer Woorer and I’ll take Cecily in for a drink with her ma. And Alfie, keep your head down around that pack of parasites. You can hear how they are, they’ll be looking for a few examples to prove their loyalty to King George first chance they get, and a little half’n’half will be just made to order.’
‘Come on, Frank, stop mumbling to yourself out there.’
‘Here we are, Claudie, the whole box and dice. I’m gunna make a cup of tea an’ some toast, seein’ as we’re all up.’
‘All that roarin’ up at the Star woke ‘em up, Gran.’
‘I’m sure it did, Alfie. You’re a good boy to get little Gus back to sleep so soon. Look at him, the little dear. Stay out of the way of that mob, Alfie.’
‘That’s what Grandpa said.’
‘And he’s dead right. They’re making Frank’s job a misery wherever he goes. That Snodgrass picking on everything he does and Angliss still making noises about his horse. They don’t want a land of the free, they want a land of the rich.’
‘And the white. Hardly Christian, is it? Here’s your tea an’ toast, night owls.’
‘You don’t have to remind me of the church’s failings, Frank, as long as you remember the benediction of the Lord’s grace.’
‘The Lord might have grace, my darlin’, but the lords have none as far as I can see.’
‘Well let’s just keep ourselves to ourselves and our noses out of trouble and don’t forget I warned you not to make an issue of your background, Frank, or it will make trouble for the boy, too.’
‘And if we were Chinese?’
‘Well they bring in all that leprosy.’
‘Bunkum, Claudie. It’s another excuse.’
‘And your medical qualifications allow you to make such comments, Frank?’
‘They’re jealous of the Chinamen, that’s all. They work hard and get rich on working our tailings and selling us vegetables. Too much like competition for our God Almighty graziers who want to give a few orders to shepherds in the morning and drink port all afternoon. When old Ah Chee got robbed McCallum couldn’t even manage to go out and see him, the court – ’
‘Alright, Frank, I know what the court did.’
‘Didn’t do.’
‘Alright, all I’m saying is we should keep ourselves to ourselves and not get involved because they’ll turn on us then.’
‘I’ll be ready, Gran.’
‘Nonsense, Alfie, get such ideas out of your head, let’s drink our tea and eat our toast. I want my children, grandchildren, and all the others in this house to become thinkers, not fighters.’
‘All that currency lad muck makes me sick.’
‘Well, mark my words, Frank, it’ll be better for you to be sick than at the mercy of the mob.’
‘And their policemen and courts.’
‘Alright, Frank you’ve made your point. It’s a good cuppa, Frank, let’s be grateful for that.’
‘Not bad for midnight tea.’
‘And moonlight toast.’
‘Very good, Alf. Well, Claudie, there’s your thinker.’
*
‘You don’t understand, Alwyn.’
‘Because I’m a woman.’
‘No, because you don’t have to deal with them day in, day out. You don’t have to be on your guard against their treachery and murder. It’s not you who has to clear the land and keep the homesteads safe.’
‘Safe? Safe from old Billy Wurrun, Mary, Elsie?’
‘That’s because we have made them see the will of our law, the power and righteousness of our civilisation. Do you think they won’t benefit from it in time to come?’
‘If they survive, perhaps.’
‘And if they don’t survive perhaps they weren’t meant to survive.’
‘Meant, Mr Angliss. Who meant that we should have their land?’
‘They never used the land. Where are the farms, where are the fences, where are their crops.’
‘I’ve heard Miss Dawson say they cultivated the daisy, netted the rivers.’
‘Do you equate that with agriculture? Do you equate their heathen blood lust and dances with civilisation? Perhaps you’d like to live in a hole in the ground with them.’
‘Miss Dawson says their houses were much like Irish croft houses until they were burnt down.’
‘Alwyn, I suggest you’re becoming one of those Christian Society people that produced Bourke and Robinson with their noble savage ideas so easy to hold in London. So easy to espouse tolerance and forbearance over tea and scones in The Strand. We are dealing with the reality on the ground. We have to protect our flocks, our shepherds, our wives, we have to protect all the comforts you enjoy!’
‘Enjoy William? I don’t remember using the word enjoy.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. Enjoyment, perhaps too much like carnal pleasure.’
‘Carnality, is it? Is that the foundation of your argument. Our pleasure in place of theirs?’
‘Or mine against yours.’
‘Is that what operates your mind, William?’
‘I wish it would operate yours occasionally.’
‘You seem to devise alternative arrangements.’
‘How dare you address me – ’
‘How dare you come to my bed after forcing – ’
‘Force? Don’t be absurd.’
‘You mean she’s attracted to the might of your physique and personality.’
‘What are you talking about? I have never – ’
‘You have and I know it from sources which even you would approve, white men and women.’
‘If a man is left without – ’
‘Don’t talk to me, William, it is far better we never talk about it.’
‘You brought it up. One moment you’re arguing the case of your dusky brethren and the next we get to the real source of your disaffection. Perhaps it’s time you reconsidered your position in this house. Many, many women would leap at the opportunity to live in such –’
‘In such a philistine environment, in a country with no seasons and flies so starved they suck at your eyes. Are these the glorious conditions which you believe so irresistible to English women?’
‘We will become a laughing stock. We will become the gossip of the district.’
‘We, you rather, are already the gossip of the district, I am merely pitied.’
‘What you’ve heard is the malicious gossip of people who wish they had what you already have.’
‘No, William, it is the gossip of people who pay particular attention when a white man of high station drops his breeches in particular company. They pay no attention to the letter aitch, or to table napkins, or Christian kindness, but they pay a great deal of attention when particular people descend to the same level as themselves.’
‘If we cannot repair this argument, Alwyn, I can see no hope for us here.’
‘Is that an invitation to leave?’
‘It’s an invitation to try and salvage a marriage which has brought you – ’
‘But what has it brought me? Have you ever considered –’
‘I have given every consideration to your welfare, Alwyn, I have provided the kind of marriage which many –’
‘What you have provided me with, William, is enormous shame. That I should be asked to share a bed with a man who has slept with a woman . . . a girl, a child, Mr Angliss, a child dressed in filthy rags – ’
‘I thought these were the people you champion, your noble –’
‘And who boasts in company of the eradication of all these people ever owned including their lives –’
‘What complete –’
‘Their lives, good sir. Miss Dawson is caring for a child now with a musket ball in her shoulder and chest, and that girl’s family were all murdered.’
‘What. . .
‘Murdered, murdered, do you hear me? Murdered by your overseers, Carney, Watson, and that mob of degenerates from Fairbanks. ’
‘You can’t believe the loose talk.’
‘Oh, I know our courts can’t accept their evidence and I know your henchmen clear their tracks, but like your other misdemeanours, William, it is common knowledge in the whole community.’
‘You will become an old maid back in England, no one in their right mind – ’
‘No, William, it is far worse than that. I will become your enemy and to all those others like you. This society has been spawned by the most base desires of men and it infects everybody who comes in contact with it. This country, this society is doomed.’
‘You’re wrong, you’ve completely misunderstood what is happening. Men who were landless in England have fine properties here, their children who would have been ignorant beasts back home are being schooled here, men who lived a life of crime are being repatriated by –’
‘And all of that, every skerrick of that beneficence is built on murder and lies. Civilisation is destroyed by such things, not made.’
‘You’re wrong, Alwyn, you’ve allowed your own bitterness and unhappiness – ’
‘No, William, I’ve taken my eyes off the land and looked into my heart and I cannot live here any longer.’
*
‘When that Wirran flies on his own you ‘ear ‘im callin’ out, callin’ out all over bush, yijn, yijn. Trouble time true.
‘Look him now. All black that fella, jus’ like us, look ‘im now, look at yellow face, yellow tail, oh proper sorry that one now. Like our people, travellin’ over country lookin’ for this one, lookin’ for that one. Can’t find. Proper sorry time. Where our people gone?
‘Oh, they aroun’ all right. Oh, yueh, they aroun’, but look now, look at our people. This one lyin’ down beside bottle, that one lyin’ down beside white man, an’ this one lyin’ down beside white woman. House full, eh. Warrun full a’ bobup, bit colour fellas, bit of this, bit of that, hidin’ away, hopin’ them amerjee not notice how he sneak a breath here, take a drink there, gather them pennies, hopin’, hopin’ amerjee not notice.
‘That how it gunna be for our people? That how our warriors gunna live? Look that Moorabool crawlin’ in gunyah, hole in chest like rat’s mouth, how he gunna live eh? What good that? Who gunna go and speak to the country, eh? Who gunna speak for the river and the hills, the sea and the salt? Who gunna speak for our salt, eh? Who gunna put the korraiyn on his tongue and say, my mother, eh? Who say that? Build fence, hammer roof, sneak pennies, patch pants. Little life that one, little.
‘Like ol’ Wirran flyin’ aroun’ on his own. Yijn, yijn, yijn. Oh my country, oh my people.’
*
‘As a friend, Alwyn, and please believe that, I tell you your reputation will never recover. You must have noticed that since your return.’
‘I have.’
‘A certain coldness.’
‘Ever since I set foot on the pier at Portsmouth.’
‘And now your talk of a divorce, dear Alwyn, I must really counsel you against – ’
‘My dear Archbishop, I will not return to Australia and as a consequence my marriage has no meaning and I refuse to have my family’s name associated with the kind of barbarity which passes for civilisation in that place.’
‘Fortunes are –’
‘And is that what impresses the church? Fortunes from wool and gold, fortunes from genocide?’
‘Alwyn, surely you’re being a little too dramatic. Certain adjustments to the conditions might have to be made, but – ’
‘Adjustments. You sit there in your purple and talk of the adjustments to the human lives which our church was sent there to save.’
‘Really, Alwyn, if anyone else heard you addressing me like this.’
‘They might be scandalised for a moment until they heard what their church has turned a blind eye to over there. You seem to ignore the campaign the Methodists –’
‘The Methodists!’
‘Don’t be quite so disdainful, your worship, the Methodists have the ear of government and strict adherence to the earliest colonial provisions are being urged and I for one will support them.’
‘But will they invite you to tea, Alwyn?’
‘Archbishop, I have no need of tea or conversation! I have come to see you in the hope you’ll bring our church to understand that something must be done to protect the Christian faith and the good name of the King from the depredations of a couple of hundred sheep farmers and rude men who make fortunes by picking up stones, men who have no qualifications to call themselves gentlemen, whose only refinement is the sterling of currency.’
‘I cannot grant you a divorce on the grounds of your disaffection with men.’
‘Very well, you have now created an Emancipationist in your church.’
‘But Alwyn, dear, you’re a woman, and with all due respects, a woman with reduced social standing, and who will later – ’
‘Other women, your worship, not the tea and tiffin type perhaps, but the voice of women will be heard more often. You’ll notice even The Times has a column for women. We have a voice, Archbishop, and you can either have it work for you in your church, or hear it denounce you.’
‘One voice will – ’
