by Cameron Nunn
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
“Burnt Norton” (extract) from Four Quartets by T S Eliot
This novel reflects the views of early European settlers towards Aboriginal people. Ignorance, fear and greed led to the view that Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal people were inferior. This was then reflected in the language and actions towards Aboriginal people. It was easier to take land from someone they considered ‘less human’ than to try and understand the richness and complexity of Aboriginal society.
Nangar, where the novel is set, is Wiradjuri country, an area that extends across the Western Plains of New South Wales down to the Victorian border. Wiradjuri people lived there for 50,000 years before Europeans arrived.
Early contact between Europeans and the Wiradjuri nation was initially peaceful but in 1824 a misunderstanding between a farmer at Bathurst and local Aboriginal people over a potato crop saw Aboriginal people shot at and conflict escalated.
As more Europeans arrived, they displaced Wiradjuri groups, often unwittingly selecting important meeting and sacred sites for homesteads. Resistance by Wiradjuri people was met with killings and desecration of important tribal areas.
I have intentionally not softened the language or the wrong beliefs of many of the characters. It is important that history is not sanitised or that readers should feel comfortable when understanding how Aboriginal people were viewed and treated.
Despite the terrible treatment at the hands of ignorant men, the Wiradjuri nation tenaciously preserved customs, language and connection to their lands. That connection continues to this day.
Will Richards sat just beyond where the spray of the waves would catch him. Every now and then a gurgle of water would come rushing between the rocks below his feet and then be sucked out again into the tumbling ocean. His high school trousers were rolled halfway up his shins. In the distance a group of surfers paddled on their boards. Even in the middle of winter there were always a handful of diehards, bobbing like black seals in their wetsuits.
A cold breeze blew offshore and swept Will’s hair across his face. The ocean was where Will came to think. He ran his finger over the shape of a fossilised shell embedded in the rock. Fifteen years seemed so long, but was only a blink in the life of the ocean. The waves splitting themselves over stone, the wind catching the salt and blowing it across the rock shelves. They’d all been here forever – before the shops had been built along the beachline and the houses along the clifftop, before white settlers arrived, even before Aboriginal people felt the rush of the surf over their toes for the first time. The ocean was a place without time. It was without beginning and without end.
A small stone hit Will in the back of the head from the rock ledge above. “Piss off,” he said without even turning around. He knew who it’d be.
“Hey, I thought you were going to be at cricket training?” Marty shouted.
“Morrison’s pissed off that you didn’t turn up again,” said Jeff, flicking another stone at the hunched figure below.
Will shrugged, still without turning.
There was a scrambling sound and the two boys made their way down to the rock shelf.
“You said he was going to drop me after last week anyway. I guess I quit. I just haven’t said anything yet.”
There was a long silence.
“Whatcha doing down here?” Jeff asked.
“Nothing much. Just thinking.”
“About cricket?”
“Yeah, right,” said Will, still staring out at the ocean.
The silence lingered awkwardly.
“You coming to Jeff’s party on Saturday?” asked Marty.
“Can’t,” Will said automatically. “Dad won’t let me leave Rosie by herself.”
“Then bring her with you,” Jeff said.
“Piss off, Jeff. She’s eight years old.”
“Hey, Marty, here’s your chance to finally get a girlfriend.”
Marty jumped on Jeff, grabbing him in a headlock. “You’re an arsehole,” he said, laughing.
The boys tumbled onto Will. Despite his mood, he began laughing as well.
“Seriously, Will,” Marty said, as they disentangled themselves. “Just tell your dad that you’re going to the party and if he doesn’t like it then he can shove it.”
Will shook his head. “You don’t know my dad,” his voice becoming serious again.
Jeff raised his eyebrows. “Mate, you need to grow a pair.”
The bus grumbled up the hill, coughing its diesel breath with each gear change. He knew when he got home Rosie would want to know why he was so late. She’d have been waiting for him. Mum wouldn’t have. She’d be in her room watching TV or sleeping, like always. And Dad would be working at the shop. Will put his face against the cool glass and watched as the headlights from cars glinted against the window.
It was nearly dark when he got off the bus and began to walk home. He felt bad that Rosie would be worried about who was going to cook dinner, but no one else would even notice he wasn’t home.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?” Will’s dad shouted as soon as he stepped in the door. His dad stood with his hands on his hips, his face red with anger. His face was always red with anger.
“How come you’re home?”
“Your sister phoned me because she was worried. So I had to leave the shop, didn’t I? You couldn’t do the one simple thing that you’ve been asked to do.”
“I had cricket training,” Will said. “It went late.”
“Haven’t you heard of a phone? You could have called and let her know where you were.”
“I’ve run out of credit and . . . honestly, I didn’t expect it to be this late.”
“I’m busting my guts to pay the bills and all I ask of you is to help your mother and look after your sister. Is that too much to ask?”
Will hung his head in surrender. He hoped he looked sorry enough for his dad to quit. But he didn’t.
“I can’t keep closing the shop every five minutes because you can’t be responsible. It’s called a bloody convenience store because it’s meant to be conveniently open. I can’t always be racing back here for your convenience.”
He made it sound as though Will had done it on purpose as some sort of a plan to make his dad’s life harder than it already was. “I said I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
Will’s father pressed his fingers to his eyes and said something that Will didn’t catch. Rosie was crying softly like she did whenever Dad shouted. He slammed the door as he left.
“Don’t cry, Rosie. Mum’ll get upset.” Will tried to put on a positive voice. “What’s Mum up to anyway?”
Rosie shrugged and wiped the back of her hand against her nose. At least she wasn’t crying anymore. “Sleeping, I guess. Her TV’s off.” Then she added, “I didn’t ring Dad to get you in trouble. I just wanted to ask him something and he asked where you were.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Will opened the cupboard. There was one tin of beans left. If Mum was feeling better tomorrow he’d ask her to get some more. He wasn’t going to ask his dad for any from the shop. The washing up hadn
’t been done from last night. Mum probably hadn’t been out of her bedroom to notice. He’d take her in something and she’d say that she’d been about to get up and he shouldn’t have bothered. And then she’d promise she’d be feeling better tomorrow and that she’d take them all to dinner, but Will had given up believing her.
Last year, when she had been feeling better, she’d promised that they’d all go to the Gold Coast. She’d made Rosie and him keep it a secret. She said she wanted to surprise their dad. They’d even packed their bags. Will couldn’t remember a family holiday. Not a real one where they all went away together.
They had their bags lined up in the hallway when Will’s dad walked in. That was the worst argument ever. In fact, it wasn’t so much an argument, as his dad doing the shouting and his mum doing the crying. He told her that she’d wasted a week’s worth of wages and they weren’t going to waste any more money up on the Gold Coast. Will crept to his room and Rosie slept in his bed that night. That was the night that Rosie started crying too.
After the argument, Will’s mum spent longer and longer in her bedroom. Sometimes she would be in there for days on end it seemed. Every now and then she’d come out for an hour or so and watch TV but her eyes were always focused just beyond the television, at something that lay out of reach.
“Will?” Rosie climbed onto a stool by the kitchen bench. “How come you told Dad that you were doing cricket training?”
“What do you mean?” Will pulled the ring-pull lid off the can and poured the beans into a bowl.
“You didn’t take any of your cricket stuff to school. You lied.”
Will smiled unconvincingly. “It’s only a lie if you mean to hurt someone.”
“Mrs Timmins says a lie is always a lie.”
“Yeah, well sometimes you have to tell lies not to hurt people’s feelings, and that’s okay. You wouldn’t tell Mrs Timmins that she’s old and fat, would you?”
Rosie smiled. Will put the bowl in the microwave and set the timer.
“Can you wash my school uniform tonight?”
“I’m really busy with homework. Can you just put it in the clothes basket? If Mum hasn’t got to it by tomorrow, I’ll wash it with my things. Okay?”
Rosie fell silent.
“What’s up?”
Rosie shook her head. “Nothing.”
Will knew she wanted him to ask again, so he did.
“Julie told everyone that I smell and they were all laughing,” she blurted. “No one wants to sit next to me and I had to spend lunchtime by myself and then Mrs Timmins called me in and wrote this note and told me I have to give it to Mum ’cause she thinks I smell too but I don’t, do I?” She rubbed her runny nose across the back of her arm and fished out a crumpled envelope from her pocket. “If I give it to Mum, it’ll make her cry. Can you read it?”
Will took the envelope. It was addressed in capital letters to their mum. Rosie looked at him with the expectation that somehow it was going to be alright now that he had the envelope.
He lifted the edges carefully trying not to tear the paper. If he had to reseal it, he didn’t want his dad to know that he’d opened it. He read the small precise handwriting carefully and then folded it back into the envelope. “It’s nothing,” he said. “She just wanted to tell Mum that Julie had been mean, that’s all. I’ll give the letter to her later. If you give me your uniform, I’ll wash it tonight and it’ll be ready for Monday. I’ll make sure.” He slotted the envelope into his back pocket. He’d throw it out later when Rosie wasn’t around.
The bowl turned in its own orbit in the microwave, luminous numbers counting down. A baked bean hung pendulously on the edge of the plastic bowl, before sliding down into a gathering orange pool.
“Should I ask if Mum wants any dinner?” asked Rosie.
“Only if she’s awake.”
A fly buzzed. Will stared at the bowl of beans. The seconds counted.
“Will.” Rosie stood framed by the kitchen door. Her voice was soft. “Mum looks strange.”
“She’s sleeping. I told you not to wake her.”
“I didn’t. But she’s making funny noises and she smells like she’s been sick.”
The microwave pinged zero.
It were the shoes what done me. Dead men’s boots is always bad luck. Not that I blame Amos. It were a kindness well-intended and more ’n Bran would’ve done. But even a well-intended kindness can be a man’s undoing and those shoes were what done me.
Amos grinned when I told him it were bad luck. “Aye,” he said, “they’re bad luck for him what’s dead. But I reckon there’s a bit of luck left in them for him what’s living.” He turned back to the canvas he were stitching. “Best pair of boots I ever owned, I got off a dead Frenchie. If boots were bad luck then I reckon I’d be dead ten times over by now. Besides, beggars can n’ be choosers. You can take the shoes and give your thanks, or I can take ’em back and wish the Devil to you.”
Outside London hurries and rattles grey like the greasy eel of the River Thames. Even on a winter’s afternoon, the waterfront road what oozes along Shad Thames sucks in and out like the tide, pushing all sorts of flotsam up and down the bank. A boy paces outside the door with a tray of old apples he pretends to sell. Further off a bigger boy waits, clothed in the cold of the river. They watch for a mark. The younger will harry him to buy an apple while the older will stumble into him and try and empty his pockets. ’Tis a cunning as old as the river itself.
Amos sees me watching. “Tend to your work,” he says firmly. “They’ve naught to do with you, unless you want to spend the spring in the Bridewell again.”
The Bridewell were the house of correction at Tothill Field, where they sent boys unlucky enough to get caught. I’d been there twice.
“I thought they might be coming in here,” I offered, by way of explanation.
“I’ll box their ears if they try.” Then, more softly, he added, “Stick with me, boy, and you’ll stay out of harm’s way.”
I nodded and turned back to the stitching. Amos told me he were “as old as Methuselah and then a bit”. He were near blind in his right eye and he’d a strange way of looking at you sideways when he spoke, like he were peering deep into your soul. Everything I learned ’til then, I got from Amos. He were a man what had seen the world and knew things no one else knew. He’d fought Frenchies and had even been to Trafalgar with Nelson. He’d sailed through the Scottish Isles and had smuggled French brandy in coves and inlets ’round Cornwall. There were naught Amos didn’t know about the sea. He also knew how to tell stories. They were full of colour and sound, so that in the mind’s eye he could take you anywhere in the world. Sailors know how to tell tales in ways ordinary folk don’t. Words were his trade as much as canvas and thread. Amos had no truck for books and such. All his words were in his head and he laid them out as careful as a fishmonger sorting fish. “A man don’t need to read if he’s got a tongue and a brain. Them’s are God’s books,” he’d say. “A man could read a thousand books and never learn how to tell a tale what were worth the hearing.”
I longed to be like Amos. His long, lean brown arms were knotted with a hundred veins what mapped the rivers of so many lands. His muscles twitched and flexed as he moved canvas and needle. There were more sails from them hands than the whole of the English fleet. But when I’d told him I wanted to go to sea, he grew serious and told me to be patient. There were young men’s bones enough, lining the ocean’s floor, afore I raced to add another. But when the winds would blow down the Thames on a running tide, and the great ships would begin to set sail, I could see he still pictured himself hauling canvas and feeling the bow split the waves. Getting old is God’s cruellest trick.
His workshop faced the river where the docks give way to chandler’s shops. He’d sit at his window with a continent of canvas before him, mending sails for the ships he once sailed on. Those days when the rain wanted to wash the whole of London down the river and out to sea, I’d sit in his workshop and
try my hand at mending. I knew when I were gone Amos would likely unpick my work and do it proper, but I liked to think I were his ’prentice and he were teaching me his trade.
But the trade I were already a master of, were how to climb up the side of a building and help myself to the lead what flashed the roofs of houses and warehouses and churches. By whatever means Amos found out, he’d know where a new row of houses were being built and when a watchman might be given a shilling to turn his eye for a half hour or so. I were small and nimble and could climb anywhere I might get a foothold. Bran would wait below as the crow, ready to signal danger, and I’d throw some of the lead down to him. Amos warned never to take more ’n could be easily hidden. A watchman might turn his back for a moment or two, but if it were suspected that he’d allowed a thief to help himself, then it’d be him waiting his time at Newgate.
Bran and me were what were known as bluey hunters. I’d take the locations back to Bran and we’d head out when night fell, and return to Amos with the lead. Amos knew a quartermaster in the navy, he told me, who were always content to pay sterling for lead at a cheaper price and pocket the difference. The navy could never have enough lead and it didn’t mind too much where it came from. Amos told me we were patriotic thieves and that were a better kind than common prigs, and he’d laugh at his own joke.
The day he gave me the shoes were a Sunday; hanging day at Newgate. I could never bring myself to go and watch men die. Bran said it were a weakness in me and maybe that were true. I imagined the rope going around my neck and the parson telling me to make my peace with God. Amos said all men die sooner or later. The wise ones live a little longer than the fools. After hanging day there were the chance to buy a pair of shoes or a coat or shirt cheaply. Once Bran had come home in a hat what he said belonged to a notorious highwayman. Amos brought me the shoes.
They were black and made for someone with much bigger feet than mine. The buckle were missing and in its place a piece of string had been tied. “They were the smallest I could get. Thank the Lord there were none your size.” I put the shoes on and felt my feet slop around in them. “Bigger is better ’n smaller when it comes to feet what are growing. Pack a little bit of straw in them and they’ll keep the winter at bay. That and a thick pair of hose.”