by Julie Janson
Mary grows to expect him and one day he stands beside her near the garden full of blooming jasmine. He leans down and rubs her face while she smells the flowers; they speak for the first time. ‘Naiya Boothuri. You?’
‘Mary, daughter of a Chief,’ she says and hides her face.
Mercy watches the two of them, and she is jealous.
‘You don’t talk to him; he might steal you,’ says Mercy, later on.
‘I like him, but you know I love you too,’ says Mary.
Boothuri waves to her and sweeps across the field like smoke while Mercy pulls at her trying to take her inside.
‘You can’t run away. Lot of bolters in that bush waiting to nguttatha you or eat you or both might be,’ says Mercy.
Mary can see no signs of his tracks in the dust. She thinks about the possibility of loving this young man but pushes away the idea as too dangerous. She would have to leave the protection of the school. But perhaps she could search for her father?
Mary pictures herself running into Boothuri’s arms as she lies awake at night. But what if his Gundungurra and Darug mob reject her or see her as a waibala spy?
After the week is up Boothuri leaves. She grieves his departure and daydreams during the day and at night as she waits to find him in her dreams.
One night the sound of crickets is broken by the call of a boobook owl and Mary wakes. There is someone pulling at her shoulder. The soft tugging on flesh is like a cat nuzzling – Boothuri is in her room! She can barely breathe. Maybe she should scream but his smile is so enticing.
‘What do you want?’ she says.
‘Ki barley. Me burribi husband. Come,’ he says, and his gentle voice makes her brave as it drips and cajoles. Like a calling from the mountain or river, it sings in her bones.
‘You nugung, wife for me,’ he whispers then mimes her packing blankets and running away. What is this talk of ‘wife’ when she is barely a woman? What does it mean? Will she have to cook for him? Will she survive with Boothuri in a camp after years of a soft bed. Her school family will miss her and Mrs Shelley might even send out a search party with police and then what terrible catastrophe could occur?
She is afraid – afraid of the journey into a forest where so much has been transformed. Will she recognise any place that her family lived? Will she be wanted? Is she an outcast now that the English school has changed her? But at the same time she is more alive than she has ever been, and she is brave. Mary will do this thing that is almost unbearable to contemplate. Yes, this will be her moment of escape and redemption.
‘You come now, tonight, jinmang. Naiya Boothuri,’ he says.
Still she hesitates. She imagines herself walking behind a white husband, weighed down with children and work. She turns to her bedhead and a picture of Jesus looks down as she tries to remember another life, her Aboriginal life.
Boothuri laughs silently at her but his manner is soft and tender as his hand takes her two hands and presses them against his bare chest. She sees the cicatrices carved in his skin and sighs as a lump rises in her throat at the prospect of leaving dear Mrs Shelley and the children who need her.
‘You jinmang, wife, come. You wife, you come, me Gundungurra and Darug man. You Muraging,’ he says as he pulls her to him and the soft grey opossum fur rubs against her neck as he nuzzles her hair.
She fills a basket with flour, tea and clothing and leaves the best calico dress with a lace collar in the cupboard. She will have no need for lace.
Mary is shaking as she dresses. She sees that he has sharp spears and an axe in his belt like he is going off to war. His face stays on hers and she trusts him. It is madness. No more warm bed or meals at Mrs Shelley’s table. She fights off her many doubts and she wonders if he is frightened also. Boothuri leaves and waits outside.
The night is cold and Mary steals two blankets and some bread and, as she wraps the food in cloth, she hears Mercy behind her.
‘Don’t go away. I’ll die without you here. Please stay. You get killed!’ Mary shakes her head and reaches out to hold her friend but Mercy stands cold and stiff, alone and angry.
‘Come with me; come find your tribe too. I am looking for my father. You can look too,’ says Mary.
‘Everyone’s dead. Your mob dead, your father dead. Look at the true story. You’ll soon be dead like all blackfellas.’
Mercy is wondering what it would be like to have a warrior husband. He would do things to her at night and it might be lovely. She is a woman and has a mulamundra bleed; she is ready. He will have big shoulders and strong hands and he will be kind to her and give her a kangaroo tail to eat. But she does not want to eat a tail crouched over a fire. She wants a table and a plate. She will stay with Mrs Shelley and wait.
Boothuri whistles from outside and climbs up to the window. He frowns at Mercy and she shoves Mary away from her. There is a long, sad silence between them.
Mary begins to climb out the window and Mercy cannot bring herself to say farewell. Instead she whispers, ‘I hate you!’
Mary and Boothuri climb under the fence and Mary looks back and sees Mercy’s shadow in the window as tears roll down her face.
…
The stars are out and gleam as he opens the school gate. She hurries through, picturing Mr Barnes coming after them with his gun. Mary imagines him packing the barrel with shot like he did to shoot birds! He could pepper their fleeing backsides, but they hear nothing except night birds.
After walking quickly away from the town, Mary crawls up rocks and half falls. Boothuri puts out his hand and pulls her up; they smile at each other. They have nothing and everything, with no home except that everywhere is their home. This night Boothuri knows where they are going. It is west to the mountains and he does not falter. Mary is tired and slow but he smiles and waits for her to catch up.
Boothuri sniffs the air and looks at marks on the ground, then takes a gum tree branch and brushes their tracks away. No-one can track them now.
He trails the leaves behind them as they walk into the shadows of the forest and they stop under the cover of trees to look back one last time. Now they can see a glimmering candlelight in the window. No doubt Mrs Shelley is making tea but Mary knows that they will not notice she has gone until breakfast, and for now the cockerel has not crowed. ‘Wattunga Darug?’ Mary asks him; he inclines his head to the west.
Mrs Shelley will know that she has left of her own free will and will not search for her. She is not the first. She will walk into her drawing room and see that the violin has vanished, along with Mary.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1821: THE MOUNTAINS
Early in the morning, they hear the sound of lyrebirds singing in many voices across the escarpment. Then a whipbird whoops. Two yellow-tailed black cockatoos chew casuarina seeds in a tree overhead. The white mist lifts from the fern forest and it has an eerie beauty and tranquillity that is broken by a striped sparrowhawk diving for insects.
Mary and Boothuri are tired and stop to drink from a creek. The dogs in the settler shacks bark at them and Boothuri hisses a peculiar sound, like a dingo, and the dogs fall silent. The land is newly logged and broken trees litter the ground. It is a kind of sorrow for them to witness this new waibala destruction. Through the trees, they hear the banging of stone against stone and the sharp crack of sledge hammers as convicts build a new road. The couple skirt the edges of the clearing up the mountain where Aboriginal tracks have long been, but they avoid all contact out of fear of attack.
Boothuri is strong and certain and he will lead her to a promised land, like Moses did. He bends down beside a creek and scoops fresh water into his mouth. He cups his hands for Mary to drink and his fingertips brush her mouth. He grins. Now her life is with Boothuri. She is brave with him and his voice seems to come directly from the mountains and rivers. Now she will be jinmang, wife.
When they stop under a huge fig tree to eat some bread, he lifts her blouse to gaze at her breasts. His eyes glow but he does not touch. She i
s shaky. This is where her life begins, on this road, running away with a man who wears the opossum cloak and has spears and an axe in his belt.
‘Wattunga, where we go?’
‘Kurrajong,’ he says.
‘Biana, he’s there?’
‘No, but maybe not far,’ he says.
He walks on and looks back at her – at his wonderful prize. His eyes flicker over her body as he laughs deep into her face. Mary struggles with her dillybag piled with linen clothes and a heavy bag of flour. He puts out his hand and she gives him the flour to carry.
She wonders if she should have said no. Should she have said, ‘Go away, go back to your Gundungurra mob’? There is a lump in her throat as she thinks of dear Mrs Shelley and all the children who have become brothers and sisters to her. She is miserable at the thought of Mrs Shelley’s face when she sees her empty bed. Mary will be seen as yet another reason for the Governor to shut down the school. Another failure in civilising the natives.
As the miles pass, the moon shines over the quiet water and fear gives way to excitement. They gaze at each other and touch hands. They walk an ancient pathway through sturdy white gum trees lit with moonlight and through open grass plains beneath the Blue Mountains.
‘Ngulluwa, nangi, sleep,’ says Boothuri, as they arrive in a deep rock shelter. Boothuri sweeps the floor with casuarina branches and lays the soft needles under foot. He makes a bed of bracken ferns piled high then flattened by his feet. He lays the possum cloak over the bed and the blankets on top. He murmurs and pats the creation. They lie down and look at the blackened roof of the shelter. How many thousands have camped in here? Red ochred handprints show the passage of many children.
Boothuri brings flames to life with a twirling stick. Watching him brings back the longing for Berringingy. She sees her father’s hands cupping a small flame and thinks that this longing will kill her. Can you die of sadness and dimming memories? Mary asks for information from every kind Koori they meet along the track, but the shoulders shrug, and pitying faces tell her there is no trace of her family. No-one knows where they have gone.
They pile charcoal around the fire and amongst the black ash are shards of silcrete stone, scrapers like thumb nails, fine and sharp. This is a knapping place. She holds tiny blades that have been used for scraping the flesh from opossum skins. These tools are like the ones from her father’s tool kit, and she takes one and hides it in her dress, hoping to bring her father back – a stone to wish upon. Mary examines the triangular points in the yellow firelight. ‘Karmia, spearheads,’ Boothuri says, and he takes her finger to test the needle-sharp point. She pulls her hand away but he uncurls her fist and lays translucent spearheads in her palm.
‘Buru, kangaroo, your totem’. He nods and points at her. His hand is warm, sending pulses of life through her body.
‘Naiya burru.’
‘Naiya waiali, possum,’ he says and he knows he will not be permitted to marry her because she is the wrong skin group to marry him, but he doesn’t care and Mary doesn’t know.
She feels Boothuri’s breath on her neck as he leans his head against hers and sighs. She quivers. His body is tender and close. His face and soft beard stroke hers and his eyes shine. She dares to kiss his forehead and he gently brushes his lips on hers as they tumble into their first joyful sex.
The morning dawns and they are in each other’s arms on the bracken bed. Currawongs sing out across the mountains. Boothuri fetches water in a coolamon that lies for this purpose beneath a ledge. She runs her fingers across the spear-sharpening grooves at the back of the shelter. Forty people might have slept in this spacious cave at one time. She is beginning to be frightened of the unknown. Mary unpacks her basket and holds up a billy can and some tea. Boothuri grins. They blow on the fire and it comes alive. His eyes are lowered but then they hover on hers. He is shy even though they have embraced in a night of love. King parrots flash red and green as they eat damper.
‘Pittuma Darug.’ He runs his fingers across the rock grooves. Many warriors have passed here. She freezes because she had been taught to fear wild people from other tribes.
‘Karmai?’ Mary asks if they might be killed.
‘Beal,’ he says, they are safe.
Mary has heard talk of murderous mountain Blacks, savages who chop off the heads of lonely settlers.
‘Dullai, not killem you. Darug kill soldier, not you,’ he says.
They walk into the rough bush below Kurrajong Mountain and he climbs a tree with speed. When he comes down he whispers that he can smell native smoke.
‘Dullai, Darug.’
Boothuri teaches Mary skills in tracking. She remembers being shown the tracks of goannas and other animals as a child. Boothuri stops to feel the ashes in a fireplace and tells her he can find the people by the fading warmth of the coals. The movement of a twig or pebble is another sign. If you practise these skills, then you will always be able to track people. He finds the hiding place of an echidna and kills it swiftly. They roast it on coals and it is delicious, like the flesh of young fowl.
They push along a narrow track and come across a clearing with soft yellow grass. It is a paradise valley before they reach the mountains. Bush turkeys bound away and one scrapes at a mound where eggs incubate. Mary helps Boothuri uncover the eggs and they eat them raw. Above them, orange stone cliffs and white waterfalls cascade. Many Darug people camp nearby and Boothuri tells her that other tribes are here, all mixed up. They walk into the clearing and he looks for his mob. People sit amongst paperbark gunyahs next to fires with dillybags hanging in trees next to dozens of spears. They look up and stare at Mary.
Mary and Boothuri are viewed with some suspicion but as his family stand to greet him, there is joyful singing and clapping of boomerangs that builds in a crescendo. The camp dingos prowl around them to sniff out danger but are soon licking their hands.
The people are Gundungurra and Darug. They are scarred by gal gal, smallpox, and have an air of desperation. They speak in both languages and Boothuri understands and helps Mary to find her Darug words. His mother is Gundungurra and she looks warily at the newcomer and will not allow her to sit nearby. The government blanket is shifted away and Mary stands awkwardly. At last, some ancient women brush a place for her next to their fire. One old woman takes her hand and warms it in her lap in the possum fur. Mary feels relief and her chest begins to relax.
She looks at the tiny circles of scarring on the old woman’s hand. She is told that this camp of people are all that is left of a great mountain clan and many are dead and so poor that they now must rely on government blankets to keep warm. She begins to notice more wounds and scars from illness all around her. ‘Let Baiame, the sky god and Jesus punish the waibala for all that has happened here,’ she silently prays.
Mary worries that she will not be accepted. She is informed with frowning faces that her skin group is not right for Boothuri. But Mary is a Burruberongal Darug woman and the daughter of a famous warrior; surely the elders will respect her. And Boothuri is a Darug man. And the tribes are now mixed in because of so much destruction. Everybody knows her and her family for a hundred miles in any direction because every Aboriginal knows everyone else, or of them, and certainly how they are related.
She learns that some clans have travelled long distances for initiation ceremonies and the Awaba, Wonnaruah and Darkinjung from the north come to join the Gundungurra and Darug to fight the waibala. Mary sees that some girls have had the little finger of their left hand removed to show they are the fisherwomen. She hopes she is too old for this.
The camp shimmers with little flickering fires and elders warm themselves and shelter in gunyahs of bark and stones. Mary sees they wear long grey possum-skin cloaks wrapped around their bodies that makes them look like huddles of grey fur. Every man has a pile of spears and a woomera beside him. Some fashion spearheads from silcrete stones chipped from a core at their feet. A fire heating up resin from ferns is used to adhere the deadly points. Other
s lie under small trees and gunyahs smoking pipes and cooking delicious-smelling meat. Children play string games between two trees, jumping and skipping. Among the children, Mary can see her small brother’s spirit drifting above them.
‘Barrio nguyangun, give me!’ A tall naked woman has a head of tousled black curls decorated with kangaroo teeth woven through them. She thrusts her hand in front of Mary’s face. Mary looks at the stretched palm with dark lines criss crossed; the hand demands a gift. She tries to look away but the woman persists until an older woman pushes her hand down. What does she want? The clothes? The dillybag? Everything?
‘She want present,’ says an old Granny with a smile. Mary nods and the old woman points to herself.
‘Naiya Baayjin.’
‘Baayjin,’ Mary nods. She then hands over a precious apron and the naked dyin ties it around her waist and saunters away.
Boothuri beckons her away from Granny Mary and points with his lips to a new spot where she will be more welcome. These women will teach her how to behave, while Boothuri sits with the men. A pile of sleeping dogs are moved to make room and they pat the ground beside them and brush away leaves. They look her over and one auntie loans her a possum skin cloak. It is cosy and warm.
Mary smiles as one old woman squeezes her chin and stares into her face. She pats Mary’s back, then offers a shell full of water, grinning at her. This woman knows everything about them in one look. Mary stops trembling and more women come close and reach for her white garments. She sees they do not trust her and lowers her eyes.
Beside the fire is a gunyah full of furs and baskets of wild fruit like lilly pillies, geebung and sandpaper figs. There is a rich damper made from burrawang nuts that have been soaked and ground up. Yams of different colours are piled ready for baking and string dillybags hang around in the trees. These dillybags are brightly coloured and woven with dyed wild grass.
Two women argue over clothes from her dillybag. A beautiful young woman with blazing black eyes parades in the best petticoat. Mary doesn’t mind and watches with interest.