The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  "I never thought you weren't respectable," he said. Frank couldn't believe his eyes. Here she was, in the flesh, sitting so close to him that he saw the tiny flecks of black in her green eyes, the pinpoints of glitter on her earrings, the wispy strands of red hair that were stirred by the ocean breeze. When she smiled, small wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes, and Frank recalled Finnegan telling him once that Ivy was nearly forty.

  "Tell me," he said quietly, "why didn't you sail on the Julianna? Where were you going?"

  "I don't know really. Just ... away."

  "Away from me?"

  "Perhaps."

  "But you stayed."

  "Yes."

  "Come back with me, Ivy. Give me a chance."

  "You don't know anything about me," she said. "My mother—"

  "And my father," he said, "was the tenth son of a penniless Manchester factory worker. I don't care about a person's background. I only know that when I think about you, or look at you, I feel good. Please allow me into your life. Please, Ivy." He held out his hand. "You still owe me a picnic, at least," he said.

  SEVENTEEN

  S

  ARAH KNEW WHICH ROOM IN THE BOARDINGHOUSE WAS Philip McNeal's, and as she waited unseen near the back door listening to the kitchen maids prepare breakfast, she looked up at his window and felt her anxiety mount. She prayed she had not come too late.

  The maids finally left with their trays of tea and toast, and Sarah slipped inside. She crept along a hall, making sure no one saw her, and when she came to the foot of the stairs, she ran up on silent, bare feet.

  When she reached Philip's room, she found the door standing open. She looked inside and saw an empty wardrobe, a table covered with blueprints and draughtsman's tools and a bed with rumpled sheets.

  Philip was standing at the dresser, emptying the drawers and folding clothes into a valise. When he looked up, his eyebrows arched. "Sarah! What a pleasant surprise," he said, coming up to her. He looked out into the hall. "Did you come alone?" he said.

  When she didn't answer, he said, "How did you get here? Did you walk, all by yourself from Merinda?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Sarah was silent for a moment, then she said, "To say good-by."

  "You walked all those miles," he said, "with no shoes, just to say good-by?"

  Sarah looked down at her dusty bare feet.

  "You know, Sarah," he said, going back to the dresser. "I think that in all the time I've known you—how long has it been? Six months? In all that time, I haven't heard you say much. I guess they told you I was leaving. Since Mr. Westbrook can't afford to build his house right now, and since I got a letter from my brother in America saying that my mother isn't well, I decided it would be a good time to go home." He looked at her. "I'll miss you."

  As he regarded the tall, dark-skinned girl in the doorway, he noticed that her hair was tied back with a ribbon, something he had never seen her do before. He thought about how she had been down at the river every morning when he had arrived with the work crew. She would hover nearby, almost invisible among the ghost gums, and watch him as he worked, staying until sunset, when he would pack up his tools and leave.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  He gave her a questioning look.

  "Your mother is not well."

  "It's kind of you to say that." As he folded a shirt into the valise, he said, "What about your parents, Sarah? You've never spoken of them."

  He looked at her as she lingered uncertainly in the doorway, as if she were afraid to cross the threshold.

  "Did you know your parents?" he asked.

  "My father was a white man," Sarah said quietly. "He had a farm. They say that he wanted a woman. They say he stole my mother from her camp. He kept her with him at his farm, and then he let her go."

  Sarah's voice moved quietly on the morning air. Philip stood very still, a half-folded shirt in his hands.

  "My mother returned to her people," Sarah continued. "But the clan said she was taboo. They drove her out of the camp. So she came to the Aboriginal Mission. That was where I was born."

  "What became of her?"

  "She went walkabout. She never came back."

  He looked at Sarah a moment longer, then, dropping the shirt onto the bed, he said, "Come on. I'll take you home."

  They went down to the stable where his horse was already saddled. McNeal mounted the mare, then he held a hand down to Sarah. She hesitated.

  "Have you never been on a horse before?" he asked.

  She shook her head.

  "It's all right," he said with a smile. "I'll make sure you don't get hurt. Put your foot on top of mine in the stirrup. That's it." He pulled her up. "Now put your arms around my waist," he said.

  She held on to him as they rode through the morning sunlight, past green pastures and fields of white, woolly sheep. She closed her eyes and rested her face against his back. She felt the wind blow through her hair; she felt Philip's heart beat beneath her hands. Soon they were galloping; Sarah flung her head back, felt the power of the horse between her legs. Her arms tightened around Philip; she wanted to ride with him past Merinda, toward the horizon and over the edge, and never look back.

  But eventually they arrived at Merinda's yard. Philip jumped down first, then helped Sarah dismount.

  "I want to give you this," he said, and he removed the silver-and-turquoise bracelet from his wrist. "To remember me by." He handed it to her.

  Sarah looked at the bracelet. "When will you come back, Philip McNeal?"

  He gave her a surprised look; he had never heard her speak his name before. "Six months, maybe," he said. "A year at the most. But I will come back. By the time I return you'll be all grown up and you'll have a line of young men waiting to court you, and you won't have time for an old man like me."

  He drew her into his arms, and embraced her. "God be with you, Sarah," he said. And he kissed her on the forehead.

  She watched him ride out of the yard, and she thought of the day she had first met him, down by the river, when he had agreed to build the house away from the ancient ruins. She looked back over the past six months, recalling how Philip had told her about a people across the ocean who also lived in clans and who descended from totem ancestors. She pictured the way he had laughed with his workmen when they had dug trenches or poured concrete, and how he had sat on the grass and eaten with them, telling them stories about his travels in America. She thought of how intently she had seen him keep to the task of building the house, studying the blueprints, conferring with Hugh Westbrook, examining every inch of ground, making the workmen do something over again if it wasn't right, never criticizing them, but guiding them, and how every so often his glance would return to Sarah, to smile at her occasionally as she watched him through the trees.

  Finally, as she watched him disappear down the drive, it was quite clear to fifteen-year-old Sarah King what she had to do.

  Joanna had a strange feeling, a new kind of feeling. She had had it all day, and it kept her from concentrating on her work by the river, where she was tending the rare ginger. She had been at it all afternoon, cutting fresh roots and planting the pieces in the moist earth. Ginger had to be planted in the spring to be ready for harvesting the following autumn, when the leaves died down. The cuttings had to be especially young, distinguishable by a pale green color; they had to have eyes, the same as potatoes did, and, since it was important that each piece have at least three eyes, the task of cutting and planting the roots required care.

  Joanna tried to concentrate, but it was hard. Her thoughts and emotions were confused; she was both very happy and yet troubled.

  A cloud passed over the sun, and she paused in her work to look up.

  It was a hot September day, just early spring, and she was eight months pregnant. She felt slow and full and languid. The hum of bees filled the air, along with the drone of flies and the chatter of birds. But the disquiet that had followed her like a shadow for the p
ast few days was with her, too.

  Finally, she laid aside her spade and sat back.

  Joanna knew that part of what troubled her was that tomorrow marked two years since her arrival in Australia. Then, she had stood on the deck of the Estella and had expected to find out something about her legacy, about Karra Karra, within days. But now, twenty-four months and a great deal of searching—and a great deal of happiness—later, she felt no closer to Karra Karra than when she had left India. Bowman's Creek and Durrebar were proving to be elusive. The only explanation Hugh and Frank had been able to come up with was that, in the forty-three years since her grandparents had been in Australia, those place names had changed. Patrick Lathrop had written to say that he had so far been unable to decode John Makepeace's notes; and Buchanan &Co., the shipping line in London, had reported that their ships the Pegasus and the Minotaur had been constructed in 1836—six years after Joanna's grandparents had sailed for Australia.

  But Joanna knew that this was not the sole cause of her uneasiness. There was something more, something deeper, she thought, and it had to do with the baby, and the poison-song.

  She felt the baby move. She wondered if it sensed her unrest. From the day Joanna had found out she was pregnant, her joy had been clouded by misgivings and fears. And as the day of delivery had drawn closer, her anxiety had grown. Had a poison-song been sung on her family, and did it still have power, after so many years? She thought of her grandfather's cryptic papers, and she felt a cold chill go through her. Were they the poison-song, and would it be passed on to her baby?

  Joanna settled back against a large boulder, drawing a measure of relief from the heat in the rock. She reached into her workbasket and took out her mother's diary. Just the feel of it in her hands brought a sense of comfort and solace. She turned the pages and read, "February 23, 1848: Gathering dandelion roots—darling Petronius tells me that the name comes from the French dent de lion, which means 'lion's tooth,' because of the jagged edges of the leaves." On May 14, 1850, Lady Emily had written, "Old Jaswaran is proving to be a treasure trove of healing knowledge. Today he has shown me how to make eyedrops from licorice root. They are an excellent treatment for inflammation of the eyes." Lastly, Joanna came upon an entry dated January 30, 1871—three months before Lady Emily died: "I pray that the poison will not be passed on to Joanna."

  The wind suddenly picked up, carrying with it the distant bleating of sheep on the plains.

  Joanna thought of Hugh, who was in the special paddock that had been set up for his lambing ewes. Even though the storm had destroyed much of Merinda's stock, there were still the nearly three hundred ewes which his new ram, Zeus, had serviced. They were close to lambing, and Hugh was holding vigil over them. There were many dangers when lambs were born—from eagles and hawks that swooped down and carried them off at the instant of birth, to the scavenging crows that came along and pecked the newborn lambs' eyes out. Joanna knew how important those lambs were to Hugh. They were going to be the first step along the way to the fulfillment of his dream, and to the recovery of Merinda.

  But, Joanna wondered as she gazed out over the green pastures, what if Zeus's offspring turned out to be inferior? In the past few months, graziers had dropped by to look the ram over and speculate upon Hugh's chances of success. "I think you're making a mistake, Hugh," Ian Hamilton had said as he had stood at the fence rail with a toothpick in his mouth. "You'll never get superfine wool out of that fellow's offspring. And superfine is all anyone is interested in." John Reed had shaken his head and said, "Some blokes in New Zealand tried the same thing. They crossed Lincoln rams with large-framed merino ewes and got disastrous results. The lambs all had weak shoulders and tail drop. I'd give it up if I were you, Westbrook. It's a waste of money."

  Frank Downs was the only one who gave Hugh any encouragement. He owned fifty thousand acres up in New South Wales that so far had been unable to support sheep, and he had promised Hugh he would buy the first of Zeus's rams, if they turned out the way Hugh was expecting. Any day now, the results of Hugh's experiment would be known.

  Joanna prayed that he would be successful. She looked at the concrete footings Mr. McNeal had put in. There were only four of them—half the number needed for the house. She thought about Frank's offer of a loan, and Hugh's adamant refusal to accept money from anyone. Joanna had even offered to sell the fire opal, but Hugh would not hear of it. And unfortunately her inheritance had become caught up in a legal tangle because, as Mr. Drexler had reported in his last letter, a relative of Joanna's father had appeared unexpectedly to claim some of the money. Although Drexler had assured her that it would work out in her favor in the end, the money would be slow in coming. And the loss from the storm had been enormous; Hugh was deeply in debt.

  Joanna wondered if Colin MacGregor was truly responsible for their catastrophic loss, as some people were whispering. She couldn't imagine why Mr. MacGregor would do such a thing. What reason would he have for despising Hugh so? And yet Poll Gramercy, the midwife, had hinted at revenge—revenge for what, Joanna wondered? She also suspected that a few of the Aborigines still wondered if bad things came from her. But at least Ezekiel no longer seemed to be poisoning people, turning them against her.

  Joanna longed for the new house, but she also understood the pride behind Hugh's decision to remain at the homestead until he could afford to resume construction of the house on his own. The cabin had been enlarged and made comfortable. In time, Joanna knew, they would have their big, beautiful house down here by the river.

  As the fragrance of ginger blossoms filled her head, Joanna wondered again about the puzzling uneasiness that seemed to be following her. She had not told Hugh about her troubled state; he was so happy about the coming child that she didn't want to dampen his joy. And then there was the new development with his poetry. Frank Downs had taken it upon himself to publish Hugh's latest ballad under the author's real name, and when everyone in the Western District had discovered that the "Old Drover" of the poetry that occasionally appeared in the Times was their own Hugh Westbrook, he had been the center of attention.

  Joanna understood why everyone loved Hugh's poetry, especially his latest and, all of his friends declared, his best ballad, "The Dreaming"—"Out in the back-blocks of the wild country/Where the ghosts of blackfellow shine ..." It was all there, people said—Australia—in Hugh's shearers and graziers, his drovers and outlaws, in the emus and the hawks, and the Rainbow Serpent "whose body is yellow and red in stripe," and who "strolls curved against the body of his wife," who was "blue from head to tail." People recognized the fact that Hugh Westbrook saw how times were changing, and that someday all that remained of the old Australia might be found only in his verse.

  The hot sun was making Joanna sleepy. She looked up to see a pale-yellow cockatoo land briefly on an overhead branch. She regarded the tall ginger stalks, their sword-like leaves and pink flowers quivering in the mist of the waterfall. The wind fluttered the pages of the diary. Joanna read her mother's delicate, swirling handwriting: "The baby was born at dawn. We are going to call her Joanna. I am no longer a girl. I am a woman."

  As the diary slipped from Joanna's hands, she thought vaguely, perhaps that is all that is troubling me, the fact that I am changing. Does every girl feel this way when she has her first child? Is this what it is like to pass from girlhood to womanhood? Joanna had thought her passing into womanhood had come when she had first made love with Hugh. Or perhaps when she celebrated her twenty-first birthday the following year. But the true affirmation of her femininity, she realized, lay with the creation of a child.

  She closed her eyes and tried to shrug off the uneasiness that continued to trouble her. She laid her hands on her abdomen and felt the baby's restless slumber.

  Joanna wanted to be happy; she wanted to experience only the pure joy and exhilaration that comes with the momentous passage into motherhood. But perhaps there was always a kind of fear that accompanied such a change. Perhaps, she thought as she drif
ted off to sleep, the shedding of the old self and the embracing of the new was something that both excited and frightened every girl who experienced it. She wished her own mother were here to guide her through the miracle, and to share it with her.

  Joanna tried to recall something Sarah had once said about Aboriginal initiations—about mothers and daughters and songlines—but she fell asleep before it came to her.

  As Sarah followed the river, she walked with great care so as not to disturb the Dreaming Sites she passed. Each time she came upon a site she recognized—the Diamond Dove Dreaming, the Golden Cockatoo Dreaming—she softly sang it to show respect.

  She carried a small bundle that contained the clay and ocher and cockatoo feathers she had been collecting for the ritual she had planned to perform when Joanna's baby was born, to ensure the child health and good magic, and to bind it to the land into which it had been born. But Sarah was going to use the objects for another purpose now, because the bundle also contained emu fat stolen from the cookhouse, a hair-string headband she had made for herself and a pair of shoes Joanna had bought for her long ago and which Sarah had never worn.

  She walked with the sun in her face, steadily, with a long stride, and with her eyes always ahead. She had to make sure she was far away from buildings and flocks and men. She had to go to a private place. And as she walked, she sang the songline of the Fur Seal Ancestor—the song-line of her mother and her grandmothers.