Benevolence

by Julie Janson

  ‘You cannot have her!’ Mary screams.

  Henry hangs his head. Mary walks to the door and, through the crack, sees Susan with her ear pressed to the door.

  ‘We will find my mob,’ says Mary.

  ‘Some of your people are living by the Liverpool clock tower. The word is ngurra, is that correct? You can go there.’ Henry pushes her gently towards the door.

  Mary goes to her room. She is strong and determined. She puts on the blue silk gown and combs her curls. Henry had been unable to resist her in that dress; it still has his smell.

  Suddenly an enraged Susan bursts into the room, and stands before her. Her face is scarlet. She runs at Mary and tries to rip the dress from her body. The pale fingers scratch and tear at the dress. In Susan’s other hand is a riding crop and she brings it down on Mary’s back. She beats her in a frenzy, and then attacks Mary’s face. Blood drips onto the floor.

  Henry bursts into the room and takes Susan’s wrist and he bends it backwards and twists it. She cries out, ‘I hate you, I hate you!’

  ‘Drop the whip, Susan, dear. I am so sorry. Let God forgive me for this,’ he whispers as he holds out his hand. Susan drops the whip into his hand and faces him, weeping.

  ‘Really, you surprise me, Henry. And her child, little Eleanor, she is your own true bastard child, isn’t she?’ asks Susan. ‘She’s yours, isn’t she – and hers? Her standing here in my English dress!’

  Mary speaks slowly, as if to an old person.

  ‘He gave me the dress. And Eleanor belongs to him. Henry has ridden me many times,’ says Mary.

  ‘No, Mary. Oh God, please! Don’t speak! Wari wari,’ implores Henry Smythe.

  He takes Mary’s arm and tries to force her to the door, but she grips him by his thin arms and shakes vigorously. His wobbling eyes, her spitting anger, a burst boil, at last out, out. A tea cup breaks. She is free inside, something has lifted.

  Susan is a pile of desolation as Henry helps her to stand and takes her handkerchief to blot the red face. She whimpers and falls against his chest. Holding the bottom of the torn dress in her hands, Mary backs out of the room, heads to her bed, checks on Eleanor and collapses, exhausted.

  …

  Mary is jolted awake by intense visions. She is fighting off the giant eel spirit and his fierce eye looks directly into hers. He calls her to wake up! He has sharp snapping teeth. Its eel head is tipped on the side and is talking to her, calling out for her to play music. Coins fall from the serpent’s mouth. It is an awakening! She sees clearly now how she will escape servitude and oppression: she will make a living as a travelling musician.

  Mary imagines her warrior family standing before her painted in white ochre. She will make a new life and become someone who stands apart from the waibala. Her bending in subservience will disappear and she will be the valiant one, free from their trickery and seduction. She will find a way to move against the people from the ghost ships that would take the land and imprison her.

  Early the next morning, Mary washes her face, dresses in her oldest clothes and fills a basket from the kitchen with food. Eleanor is asleep, wrapped in a blanket. A cold, stern Henry is at the door.

  ‘That particular English cane basket belongs in this house,’ says Henry.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ says Mary with steely determination.

  ‘You never fold properly, let me …’ he says as he touches the clothing in the basket and begins to flatten the material. Mary snatches it away but he sees that she has taken a silver box, carved with phoenix birds and petals. His finger strokes the incised pattern. He covers the box with the cloth and their eyes meet and he says nothing further. He strokes Eleanor’s face and sighs.

  ‘Mama, what are we doing?’ Eleanor asks.

  ‘We’re going away. Come on, little one. We’ll go for a big walk,’ says Mary.

  Mary is trembling but feels strong. She cannot spend another night under his roof. She no longer desires him. He could never be a husband – she should have listened to Granny Wiring.

  ‘Of course, as you wish. I could perhaps walk with you to the outskirts of the town. No, my stupidity,’ says Henry as he mops his forehead. He stretches out his beckoning hand to Eleanor; it hovers and Eleanor clings to her mother.

  ‘You must do as God wills,’ says Henry. ‘I leave it to you to decide upon the correct actions. The Lord knows that I have tried to show you good behaviour …’

  ‘You are a devil, weri waibala. You preach goodness up in the pulpit but do something else,’ Mary says, and Henry pulls at his hair.

  ‘I have confessed and been delivered by God’s grace,’ he says with pious tones.

  A carriage pulls up outside and they hear the servants welcoming a visitor. There are footsteps approaching and in a moment the Reverend Masters pokes his head around the door. He holds his black hat under his arm and suddenly he is standing stiffly beside Henry Smythe.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Reverend. I have been summoned by your fearful wife. What ails you, Sir?’ he asks Henry.

  He looks at Mary and her child as though they are rubbish. Eleanor is scared.

  ‘What mischief have you created, girl? She must be turned out immediately,’ he says to Henry.

  ‘Now, Smythe, I have suggested to Captain Woodrow that he take his troopers and shoot all the Blacks who dare to come into the town and attack your corn – the ones who are armed to the teeth. Renegades. Make manure of them. It is outrageous in 1830! Woodrow will collect their heads in a basket like the Frenchies did. Boil them down for Joseph Banks and the Royal Academy. The rest, the tame ones, can be loved like Jesus would.’ Masters coughs into his hand and Mary is consumed with hatred.

  She takes up the basket and heaves the frightened child onto her hip. Henry puts his hand on Eleanor but Mary’s look moves him back.

  ‘I beg you Mary, leave the kurung, your child with me. No more crying, yunga. You can’t feed her on vermin out in the bush,’ says Henry.

  ‘Let the slut go, for God’s sake!’ implores Masters.

  ‘It is not clear. The world seems full of clamber. Alright, but I will help you on your way. Let me carry the child,’ says Smythe. ‘Quickly, before the house is awakened, we can find our way through the kitchen.’ He tries to take Eleanor but Mary pulls her away. Meanwhile, Reverend Masters has helped himself to a glass of claret and wipes his face with a lace napkin.

  ‘I will not slink away like a thief. I will go out the front door!’ says Mary.

  ‘Leave like a savage, you mean! Slamming doors like a wild creature. You have no manners, despite our best teachings. No grace,’ says Masters. ‘I’m certain Henry will miss your fiery presence. Everyone else is so dull.’

  ‘I am sorry, Reverend, for you to see this unseemly mess,’ says Henry, his eyes protruding.

  ‘Your wife, she is stitched up, stiff back. She has got a hard eye. She is like a witch, she’s got skinny nabungs,’ says Mary.

  ‘Oh, yes, this is priceless. I must write this down in my language journal. Skinny nabungs. Oh, how funny! Write down that word Henry!’ says Masters and he chuckles with merriment.

  ‘Come, we are going. We can butter our own bread,’ says Mary as she hugs Eleanor and laughs. The little one holds her tightly.

  ‘There will be little butter where you are headed – to become a harlot in a bawdy house for a penny a go,’ laughs Masters.

  Mary walks down the hallway and straight out the front door, slamming it behind her. Henry Smythe collapses onto the carpet.

  …

  Mary has taken cotton shifts and aprons in the hope that she will find work as a house servant. She took a loaf of bread and a bottle of claret wine from the kitchen, despite Cook’s glare. Her violin and bow are wrapped in a blanket.

  The dogs follow her even though she tells them to stay. Dogs are smart and know she is leaving. Their tongues loll out and they trot down the path away from the stone building.

  Mary walks down the dark road with Eleanor skipping alongsi
de her, singing and clutching her rabbit toy, knitted from brown wool, to her chest. She is blithe and too young to realise how terrible the scene has been.

  ‘Come on, good girl. We will go to find aunty, cousin, grandfather,’ says Mary.

  They walk under a sharp blue eucalypt mist. After a few hours of walking, they are tired and squat against a tree. Mary holds her arms tight around her knees waiting for some animal or something to give her a sign about where to go.

  That night they sleep by the road, Eleanor wrapped in Mary’s arms. In the morning they wake and keep walking until they pass a farm. Dogs bark. Mary carries Eleanor on her hip and balances the basket on the other side and, after a long walk, they arrive in Liverpool town. She sees the tribe happily camped around the big clock tower and wonders what kind of greeting she will receive from the headmen of the Darug Cabrogal mob, King Geoffrey, and the other chiefs Cooman and Gilbert.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1832: LIVERPOOL BLACKS CAMP

  Kings School at Parramatta is opened with fanfare, and three small boys of the gentrified squattocracy are seen being delivered to the sandstone gates. A royal heraldic shield reminds all who walk beneath it that the crown of England rules.

  Meanwhile, another Englishman, the settler John Macarthur, is formally declared insane and sent to the asylum. A life in the colony can do that.

  Not far from Parramatta, the fine sandstone buildings grace the square at Liverpool and the houses around are neat, with thatched rooves and pisé walls. There is a stone bridge and archway and some young elm trees growing alongside the dirt road. English flowers grow amongst corn and vegetables. Settlers walk along the street and carry loads of wheat and fruit to the market. The clock tower is high and impressive and there, underneath, is the Liverpool Gundungurra tribe. They lounge happily in the shade of trees and cook some ducks on a fire.

  As Mary gets closer, she strips a green bough from a wattle tree to show her friendship. She holds it up high in front of her. Red Rose, Blue Poppy, Prince Harris, Nancy, Horace the Duke of York, Charles the Third, King Geoffrey and Janet the Cripple. Then there are the cricketers: Willy and Billy Creek. Everyone is happy to see Mary and her child.

  Aunty Nancy is at the camp and she sings with joy to see her long-lost relative. Mary is welcomed by her skin uncles and aunties and cousins. They are responsible for her.

  King Geoffrey has many wives and looks at her as if she might be the next one. Mary is not the right skin for him, not the right group for marriage, and he knows this. He is not molliming, not a suitable moiety for a husband. If her father was here, he would tell the old man that Mary was not for him, or he might spear him.

  No-one asks about Mary’s life. The here and now is more important. The old women are from both Darug and Gundungurra mobs and have authority to teach her about her relationship to everyone – her kinship – because they are her mother’s people. The women pinch Eleanor’s face and squeeze her cheeks. They hold her hand up and examine the cuticles for their colour. She has golden curls and they admire her pink ribbons.

  The old women take Mary and her child to the nearby bush to pat ochre mud on their bodies for a welcome corroboree – they will be safe from the great eel spirit that lives in the nearby lagoon. The middle of the lagoon has a whirlpool that can suck you down. The eye of Garangatch lives there and old women call out to the spirits to introduce them to the newcomers.

  After the corroboree, old Nancy stands by a termite mound and listens to the white ants making buildings and preening their queens. She takes Eleanor’s hand and rests it on the red mound so she too can learn to hear this.

  They settle in the camp, making a gunyah of paperbark, but Mary sees some of the other tribal woman laughing at her. The women snicker and hide their mouths, whispering. They see she is an outcaste, not grown up under the protection of King Geoffrey, not a true member of the tribe but a runaway from waibala. Her clothes mark her as a servant and so the women begin to take away her things. Poppy puts the apron over her naked body. Mary holds on to her shift and growls as they laugh and grab little Eleanor. She is stripped like a corn cob with her pretty dress gone and then her bloomers removed to much laughter. Eleanor stands naked and shaking with her eyes large and pleading. Mary grabs her daughter and hides her in her arms. She manages to wrestle back a shift for Eleanor to put on.

  But she must learn to share others’ things, even her child. She must be like the old people and not like a waibala. They huddle by a small fire as the other human bodies and dogs make a wall of comfort around them. Mary and Eleanor are protected and wanted. It might be the easiest thing in the world to become part of this tribe.

  Mary remembers her childhood, her joyful aunts and swimming for lily pods, and chewing the roasted seeds from the pods and smiling with them while listening to stories of dreams and spirits. The calling out to the little spirit hairy fellas, ‘Shhh, hairy fellas,’ so they wouldn’t hide the lizards and bush tucker like yam, midin. Those little fellas were everywhere watching you.

  The old women smoke clay pipes. They smile and, with upward signs, ask for Mary for baccy, but she has none. She presents the bottle of wine to King Geoffrey and he laughs as he uncorks it. The bottle passes from mouth to mouth and soon it’s empty. Then it disappears into a dillybag. The glass will be used to make spear points.

  Mary’s basket is empty, the clothes are being worn by anyone who can get hold of them, but she has managed to hide the silver box and her violin in her blanket. In her basket, she has brought a booklet for writing. Mary writes her name on the page and everyone gathers around to see this magic. Poppy takes the pencil and tastes it. Then she breaks it on the ground. Mary retrieves it and carefully keeps the broken bits. This ability to write is a gift; her teachers and the tumbling years of school are a safe memory.

  After a few days, there is no food left in the camp, and everyone forages for something to eat – geebungs or small goannas. Mary sits by the fire but is still unsure of her rightful place and can’t work out what to do – she feels useless. She is not used to a rough life on hard ground. Mary sings an English song then plays the violin for Eleanor; the women clap and laugh.

  Mary knows she has been called back to her country. The beautiful land has called her, and she is with her own people, so she makes some tea in a billy to share amongst the ten of them. One chipped cup is passed around and everyone is muttering about finding some more food. The senior women are strong and knowledgeable about what bush food can be gathered and they discuss the ripening lily bulbs that can be harvested from a billabong and roasted.

  Eleanor takes up some bright red seed pods from a cycad and an old aunt rushes to stop her. She explains how this food is poison and must be handled with paperbark then ground on stones and soaked for a long time. Then it can be baked in ashes and eaten. Mary listens intently because such a mistake can make you die – baletti.

  King Geoffrey is tall and dressed in a blanket tied at the shoulder with kangaroo sinews and Mary’s skirt as a cloak. He has a belt of human hair string with a wooden fighting club hanging down, and a topknot with wallaby teeth. The women wear English bonnets and voluminous skirts or nothing at all. Some of his wives wear white pipe clay in a cap covered by bark string on their hair to remember the dead. They all burn red ant bed to keep away the mosquitoes.

  In the late afternoon, the women help Mary make reed and shell necklaces, while one plaits kangaroo teeth on leather to decorate her hair. Another wraps her in a warm possum skin cloak and she feels alive with their love and kindness. Her memory of the time with Smythe and Masters is fading; her servitude seems horrible and she wonders how she could have lived in such a way. Her reliance on waibala is now shameful.

  …

  A few days later and it is another Native Feast day in Windsor town and the clan walk all morning to attend. They will receive blankets from the government and have their names recorded in the big ledger. Mary carries Eleanor on her shoulders and tramps along in a line of nat
ive women. She is one of their tribe. But there is constant hunger and illness.

  The town of Windsor is decorated with flags and flowers for the feast day and fifty natives gather in the main square near the Macquarie Hotel. Sitting amongst some women is Mercy, who has also run away from English service after being insolent to her employer Masters; she now lives a hand-to-mouth existence with the South Creek mob. Mercy has displayed her resilience in moving away from being a servant: it is rumoured that she left a pile of goona on Masters’ bedroom floor. Mercy is round and beautiful, as she stands up and swings her hips in the white dress she stole from Masters’ house. She smiles with recognition of Mary.

  ‘That old fella too stinky for me, all the time he grab me and I run away again,’ says Mercy.

  Mary hugs Mercy but detects something new about her. She has named herself White Rose and seems to be making money by selling herself to selected waibala males.

  The clan build a fire in the town square and sit down to wait for the gifted English food and bool, a drink of rum and water.

  In the distance Mary sees Chief Jerungi walking with some other men. He is unaware that he is wanted by colonial police. Mercy waves and smiles at him. She flirts and he looks at her body with a grin – she is tempting even though she is the wrong skin for him. He strolls towards them and squats by the fire in front of Mary and Mercy.

  ‘Wiang sister, naiya Native School, remember me: Teddy. You can talk to whitefella, paialla waibala. You write letter for Governor, take letter,’ says Jerungi. Mary shakes her head as he tries to find the words to convince her.

  ‘Jumna ngandu, Mercy naiya nallawalli she stays here,’ says Mary.

  ‘You write letter, save people from big trouble,’ says Jerungi.

  ‘Bobbina, brother, no letter. Pittuma karndo. We’re nothing,’ says Mary.

  Mary is quiet and will not be forced to do the will of this chief. But Jerungi is not happy as he strides away with his companions and she is ashamed that she won’t help him, that she has no power. She fights the rising confusion again. Her feelings of insignificance stop her from writing any letter to a governor.