The Dreaming

by Barbara Wood

  Presently she came to a place on the river that was protected by a screen of trees and boulders. She listened to the wind and heard no voices riding it. She turned in a slow circle and saw no farms, no fences, no riders on horseback. White people, Sarah knew, feared Aboriginal magic. Mr. Simms had once locked her away for three days without food and water for doing what he called "a heathen practice." She had only been trying to call down the rain because the mission's crops were dying.

  She undressed slowly and folded her clothes into a neat pile. She untied the bundle and took out each object, whispering its song as she placed it on the river bank: the ocher, the fat, the feathers, the hair-string, the shoes. Then she walked into the river and washed herself in its cold water. She gathered stones and grass and made a small fire on the bank, singing as she fanned the flames, inviting the spirit of the All-Mother to give power to the fire. Then she proceeded to make paint out of the clay and ocher.

  When the paint was ready, Sarah greased her body all over with the emu fat. She rubbed it into her skin until she glowed red-brown in the dying sun. She massaged it into her hair, she mixed it into the ash of the fire, singing the songs of the All-Mother. Finally she began to paint her naked body.

  First she highlighted the contours in red and black paint, calling upon the Bush Berry Dreaming from which the black had been made, and the River Clay Dreaming from which the red had come, bringing their power into the designs she created. The white paint she applied with a stick, tracing stripes from her shoulders down her arms, and circles on her breasts, and dots on her abdomen. Her thighs received stars and suns, and the great swells of ocean currents, and symbols which stood for a rocky beach that lay far to the south and was the original home of the fur seal. She sang all the while, validating the paint and the symbols, giving them power. She sang her mother's songline.

  Sarah was aware as she sang that her range of songs was limited, because her secret initiation at the mission had been interrupted, but she was confident that she knew enough of the ritual to draw the power into herself.

  When she was done, she drew the hairstring over her head as a headband, then she sat down and faced the setting sun.

  She breathed in the smoke from the fire, smelling the charred kangaroo grass, the fat-enriched ashes, the burnt feathers—a magic smoke that possessed the spirits of the powerful Kangaroo, Emu and Cockatoo Dreamings. She swayed as she sang. She closed her eyes and felt the rays of the sun pierce her flesh. Colors and shapes moved behind her eyelids. Then she was on her feet, and she began to dance the reenactment of the long journey of the fur seal from antarctic waters to warmer ones.

  She felt her body begin to change. She felt the mighty ocean move around her, she tasted its salty waters, she saw shimmering green sunlight stream through swirling kelp forests.

  Sarah felt power move through her body. She felt strength and magic course through her veins. She sang and danced the Dreaming of her clan; and by her singing and dancing she was continuing the songline, as her mothers had done before her, each in her own time.

  She should not have had to go through this alone; the law of the People dictated that her mother be there, leading her through the sacred rites, passing the songline on to her daughter. But Sarah had no mother; she was alone.

  Joanna was dreaming.

  She was watching the entrance to a cave; she was very little, and being held in someone's arms.

  Women were coming out of the cave, and the little girl Joanna was happy to see them. Then she saw a white woman, who was so beautiful as she walked with the others, singing with them. Joanna thought that the woman must be her mother, and yet she didn't recognize her. And then into Joanna's dream came the thought: Am I dreaming my mother's dream?

  The child in the dream asked the woman who was holding her, "Can I go into the cave?"

  But she was told, No, only girls who have become women can go in there. And they must go with their mothers.

  Can daddies go in? Joanna asked.

  No, taboo for daddies. Very bad magic for men to be there.

  And then Joanna saw a man coming out of the cave, behind the women, moving among the rocks. And she cried out, "There is he is! There's Daddy!"

  And she reached out for him.

  But then the dream began to change. The sky grew dark; the landscape took on ominous shapes. The people became angry; they began to chase the man who had come out of the mountain. And suddenly there were dogs, and Joanna was running toward the man, whom she thought of as "Father," but whom she didn't recognize. And the dogs came closer.

  The man's arms seemed to be reaching for her and she wanted to go to him, but she saw that he was starting to change shape. He grew tall; he collapsed onto the ground; his body seemed to flow over the red sand. He writhed in the shadows until Joanna saw that he had turned into an enormous rainbow-colored snake.

  Joanna tried to scream, but she had no voice. She wanted to run, but her feet wouldn't move. The snake inched slowly toward her, and then suddenly Lady Emily was there. Joanna stood frozen in fear as she saw the giant serpent draw closer and closer to them, its slitted golden eye fixed upon her.

  Now the dogs were running toward Lady Emily. They started to spring. But just then the snake opened up its jaws and swallowed Lady Emily whole.

  Joanna saw her disappear into the snake. She screamed. Suddenly, the snake was upon her; it curled around her waist, it began to crush her. There was sudden, unbearable pain.

  Joanna awoke with a start. She lay still. Night had fallen; the river was black. As she lay in the darkness of the woods, still in the grip of the terrifying dream, barely aware of the sharp pains in her abdomen, Joanna thought how extraordinary it was. Had she in fact been able to dream her mother's dream? She tried to go back over it, to fathom its meaning. She recalled her mother's lifelong fear of dogs, and she wondered if the dream had somehow been a memory of an incident she had once witnessed. Had the poison-song something to do with dogs? Was it some form of a curse, placed perhaps upon the Makepeaces and their future generations? A curse involving dogs?

  Suddenly, another memory came to Joanna: two years ago, on the road to Emu Creek camp, the Aborigines at the side of the road, the old woman telling Joanna's fortune—"I see the shadow of a dog following you"—and Joanna thinking the woman had been speaking of the past, while Hugh had said that he thought the old woman had been referring to the future. Did the curse, then, somehow involve death by dogs, either imaginary or real?

  But why? Joanna silently asked the river darkness. What was it her grandparents had done to bring such a terrible punishment upon themselves and their descendants? Lady Emily had described in her diary a dream in which she saw her father emerge from the cave. Had such an incident actually taken place? In another entry, she had written: "Something is buried, and I must unearth it. I feel compelled to return to Karra Karra and claim a legacy." What legacy? What did it all mean?

  Joanna looked around and felt the power of the Aborigines in this place. The people might be gone, but here their presence remained, their spirits, energies and passions. She understood now the nature of the uneasiness that had haunted her pregnancy: Some deep part of her was afraid that the mother-daughter legacy of fear—was somehow going to be passed along to her unborn child.

  Joanna tried to pull herself to her feet, but a hot pain suddenly shot around her waist. The Rainbow Serpent strangling her.

  No, she thought in fear as she sank back to the ground. No, it was the baby, coming too soon.

  Sarah bathed in the river. She washed off the sacred symbols and the emu fat, giving their power to the river, watching them float away to a secret place. On the river bank she erased the symbols she had drawn in the dirt, and smothered the fire, singing the Dreaming back into the land. It was over. Sarah had done her own initiation; she had done it by herself. Her mother had not led her through the mysteries, nor taught her the secrets. There had been no grandmother to pass down ancestral wisdom, no sisters or female cousins t
o celebrate her passage, no clan to receive her into its loving embrace. And so Sarah had gone through her initiation alone, and she knew that that was now how it must be.

  She also knew that it might be the last ritual of her people that she would ever perform.

  As she thought of Philip McNeal and how it had felt to ride behind him on his horse with her arms around him, feeling the reassuring beat of his strong heart, she carefully removed the leather thong from her neck. She tucked the bone from the Fur Seal Dreaming into the pocket of her dress. Then she put on the shoes for the first time. Finally she slipped Philip McNeal's bracelet onto her wrist.

  And she turned her back on the vanished sun.

  Pain struck again, a band of fire encircling Joanna's waist. Her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed to the ground. She lay against the rock and forced her breathing to come more easily. She closed her eyes and tried to examine herself internally. Something was wrong. She knew about child-bearing; she had helped her mother in midwifery. The baby was supposed to turn before it emerged, but Joanna felt the head still high up. And the pains were coming too close together.

  Joanna listened to the night, but all she heard was the gurgling of the waterfall, the rustling of the wind in the trees. She thought of the Rainbow Serpent, whom every Aborigine revered and feared, and which even her own mother, Lady Emily, had feared too—and which, revealed by the dream she had just had, Joanna also feared. She felt the spirits in the rocks and branches stir to life around her, as if her presence in the woods were waking them from an old sleep. She heard Sarah, telling her again that terrible things befell the person who desecrated a sacred site. It was taboo to step on a stone that was inhabited by a spirit, or to brush aside a ghost-inhabited branch. In the old days, Sarah had explained, the People had known where it was safe to walk, and which rocks and trees to treat with respect. But Joanna didn't know about this place; no one had taught her.

  She struggled to her feet and paused while another circle of fire shot around her waist. She tried to take a step, but walking increased the pain. The child was coming.

  And then she heard a sound that chilled her: the hungry wail of a dingo.

  And the nightmare came back to her, and she realized that she was suddenly afraid of dogs.

  She had to get away from the river, away from the wild dogs. So she moved slowly, going from tree to tree, stopping when the pain was too great. Perspiration broke out on her face. Bands of pain flew down her legs.

  The woods were dark, it was difficult to see, there was only a sliver of moon in the sky. Joanna looked around at the darkness and thought of stories that Sarah had told her of the spirits that came out at night. When the sun set, ghosts and phantoms walked the land, Sarah had said, stealing babies, killing the old ones. The People knew never to go abroad at night, but to stay by the fire, close together, watchful.

  Joanna was immobilized with pain. Her breath came in quick gasps. She wished Sarah were there. There was comfort in knowing that Sarah was familiar with the forces that walked the land at night; that she knew how to deal with them.

  Someone had to be coming soon. Surely they were all wondering where she was, and were out searching for her. Or were Sarah and Adam thinking that she was with Hugh, at the lambing pens? What if it was hours before anyone missed her?

  Something black and shapeless suddenly loomed in Joanna's path—a low, moss-covered wall that was part of the Aboriginal ruins. Centuries ago, it had been someone's home.

  Thinking of the kangaroo with the joey, and what Sarah had said to her about her being a member of that clan, Joanna drew comfort from the thought that the Kangaroo Ancestress might be here, in these ancient stones. She crawled inside and lay back against the wall. She put her hands on her abdomen and felt the baby move.

  Another pain, and then a rustling sound, and heavy breathing.

  It was Sarah. "I went to the house," the girl said anxiously. "Adam said you had not come home. I came looking for you."

  "The baby is coming, Sarah."

  'I'll go for help."

  "No," Joanna said, catching her wrist. "There's no time. Sarah—you will have to help me. My shawl ... spread it beneath me."

  Sarah looked back through the trees. She couldn't see the homestead. It was too far—if she called out, no one would hear.

  "Hurry!" Joanna said.

  Sarah moved quickly.

  When Joanna suddenly cried out, Sarah lifted Joanna's skirt. She froze.

  Two tiny feet, pale and unmoving, had emerged.

  Joanna cried out again; Sarah stared with wide eyes. The baby's feet had protruded a little and then receded.

  "Take hold of it," Joanna said. "The next time ... take hold of the baby."

  Sarah tried to remember births she had witnessed at the mission, and others she had heard about. She reached down and took careful hold of the tiny feet.

  With the next contraction, Sarah gave a gentle pull, but the baby didn't move. Sarah thought there was too much blood.

  Her mind raced. She should run to the homestead, she told herself, and get help. But from whom? Hugh was away in the lambing pad dock, and it would be useless to try sending someone to fetch Poll Gramercy, who lived miles away in Cameron Town.

  Joanna gave another sharp cry, and when Sarah saw that the baby made no progress, she remembered the Aboriginal Mission, and how the women gave birth there—in the Aboriginal way.

  Suddenly she was on her feet, searching frantically in the darkness until she found a large stick. Then she dropped to the ground and began to dig.

  "Sarah—" Joanna gasped. "What—"

  The girl attacked the damp soil, sending dirt and clods flying, prizing up rocks and throwing them aside. She dug until her body ran with sweat, she clawed away at the earth until her arms were caked to the elbows in mud. Then she pulled off her shawl and spread it inside the wide, deep hole.

  She went back to Joanna and helped her to her feet. "Over here," she said. "Quickly."

  They staggered together to the place Sarah had dug. Sarah steadied Joanna as she knelt over the hole. "Now," she said.

  Joanna's thighs rippled with strength as the next powerful contraction gathered momentum. Sarah watched for the baby.

  "Again," she said.

  Joanna's fingers dug into the girl's shoulders as she pushed.

  And two tiny legs appeared.

  Letting go of Joanna, Sarah quickly reached down and took hold of the cold limbs. "Again," she said. "It's coming!"

  It took several more pushes, and then finally the baby was out. Sarah caught it and she saw that it was a red and wrinkled little girl, who shivered but did not cry.

  As Joanna sank to the ground, Sarah quickly seized handfuls of kangaroo grass and rubbed them over the baby's body. She sucked the mucus out of its nose and mouth, and finally it cried. She laid it on Joanna's breast.

  Joanna looked at the baby in her arms. A girl! She thought of Naomi Makepeace giving birth to her baby, to Emily, somewhere in the Australian wilderness. She thought of Lady Emily giving birth to Joanna at a remote outpost in India. And she saw the thread connecting them—the songline—as if it were a bright silver filament traveling from grand mother to mother to granddaughter. Joanna looked at the beautiful baby and thought: my daughter.

  As she laughed weakly, Sarah frowned. She lay down next to Joanna and put an arm across her, to warm her and the child.

  "Keep the Rainbow Serpent away from her, Sarah," Joanna whispered.

  "Yes," Sarah said, "yes"—hoping that she could, hoping that she had the power now, the power of women's songlines. That she could sing the poison away from Merinda, and away from this woman and this child, once and for all time.

  PART THREE

  1880

  EIGHTEEN

  H

  EY, MRS. WESTBROOK," THE BOY IN THE DOORWAY SAID. "What's wrong with Mum?"

  What is wrong with your mother, Joanna thought as she secured the bandage, is that she married the wrong man. "Sh
e just had a little accident," she said, glancing at Sarah, who stood at the foot of the bed. Fanny had asked that no one be told the truth of her injuries. "She'll be all right."

  It was still early morning. A few hours ago, shortly before dawn, the Merinda household had been awakened by a banging at the front door, and the frantic shouts of a boy, calling, "Missus, you gotta come quick! Mum's awful crook!" Such sudden emergencies, often interrupting sleep or meals, were not uncommon at Merinda, because the women of the Western District had gotten into the habit of calling for Joanna Westbrook whenever they needed doctoring, rather than summoning the male doctor in Cameron Town. Mrs. Westbrook might not have the formal schooling, but everyone from Maude Reed to the poorest of squatter's wives declared she had a gentler touch and more understanding than most medical men.

  So Joanna and Sarah had dressed quickly, and driven through the predawn light in a buggy, following the boy on his horse. The Drummond homestead was located twelve miles away on a hardscrabble farm; it consisted of bark cabin, a falling-down barn, and the bare remains of a shearing shed. Mike Drummond was struggling to support thirty acres of wheat and eight raggedy children ranging from ten years to four months. Joanna had been here before, the last time Drummond had gotten drunk and beaten his wife.

  "Fanny, why don't you report him to Constable McManus?" Joanna said as she washed her hands and rolled down her sleeves. She spoke quietly so as not to alarm the children, who were gathered in the doorway, barefooted, with running noses and bewildered expressions on their faces.

  "It's not his fault," Fanny said with swollen, cracked lips. "I deserved it."

  Joanna shook her head. It was what Fanny always said—that she deserved it.

  Joanna thought it ironic that, with these outback men being so desperate for wives, and newly arriving single girls being desperate for husbands, the matches seemed rarely to work out well. The problem was that the young men came to Australia with unrealistic visions of getting rich quick, and when they saw their dreams slowly crumble as farms failed, gold mines dried up or a lifetime's savings was lost at gambling, they took their frustrations out on the innocent bystander—the wife. And the young girls who arrived from England, ignorant and uneducated, knowing little about life, let alone being equipped with what it took to survive on a bare-existence farm, took up with the first man who made big promises. Many of the girls were so innocent when they accepted the marriage proposal of a stranger, usually as soon as they got off the boat, that the wedding night was a shock, sometimes tantamount to rape. And life afterward became an inescapable treadmill of babies, debts, poverty and drunkenness.