Benevolence

by Julie Janson

  She hears the distant sound of a military drum and bagpipes, like the roar of angry beasts. Then she hears a whistle – the cry of a great white bird across a sea bringing more hell to her life.

  A few hours pass and she sits by an immense Port Jackson fig tree. The red and black flying foxes hang over her head and chatter and stink and she thinks, ‘What will I say to a daughter I have abandoned? Sorry for this and that, sorry for my abandonment and cowardice. What will I say to her when at last I see her again? What will I say when she blames me for this betrayal?’

  Many miles later, Mary sees an inn ahead with a yard full of wine barrels. She sees a worker from the vineyard unloading empty bottles into a crate and nods in recognition. Perhaps there will be work? But Mary hears people laughing inside the inn and a heckling sound like crows. The door opens and startled white faces gape at her. The air smells of tobacco and dirty old sucked pipes. A man yells at her to get out.

  The road ahead stretches out in front of her. All she can see is cold, hunger and fear.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  1835: SOUTH CREEK AND PRISON

  A year passes and when Mary sleeps she remembers there was a time when she had been a child of moonlight and rivers, when she glimpsed the power of the great serpent eel in the mountains. She had sat at Freeman’s Reach in her mother’s lap by a fire and played with lighted sticks. All around were linked ponds, bardo, and fresh clear water flowing into South Creek. Yuranyi, the black duck, swam nearby. She remembers diving under a brown duck, drowning it and plucking it, then eating it. That water was so clean they could drink it while swimming. Its sparkling water was fringed with ferns and had a platypus on the bottom. Red yabbies scattered in pools were caught and cooked in hot ashes. The long-necked turtle were roasted and the people drank soup from their shells.

  In her pockets she has crumbs of old damper, smears of jam glued in the cotton thread. Each day when she begs, she hides a tiny bit to eat later. Her skin is dry. She is starving, and cold. She remembers a wool coat from the mountains and longs for that coat, for her family to appear.

  Mary is willing to eat anything. She will scratch out eyes and tear at faces. Somehow, she survives in the bush with its butaeen, brown snakes, under the dry leaves. She has dreams of making incantations. Yes, she will get some nail clippings of Smythe’s. She will find some of his hair and make magic. Half-remembered chants come from her mouth. She is battle-hardened and knows that her aunts could conjure his death from mist and create sadness with the help of rain. She dances in the morning light and is covered in dirt and visions of revenge.

  She is stealing fowls again; this time she has five big fat leghorns in her arms. They will be delicious.

  But Mary is arrested as she sits in Windsor Park. Her foot is on her violin, and she quickly hides it in a bag. She is called a vagrant, a thief, an outcast black and a beggar.

  Incarceration is her punishment and the sound of her violin soars over the watch-house walls as she sits in the cell. The guard asks how she can know such celestial music.

  Mary looks out the window at the new grand building of the Magistrate’s Court in Windsor and marvels at the white columns out the front.

  Mary is a felon and all the felons are kept in fetid cells out the back, while the magistrate has his tea. They are led into the court in a row with clanging chains, strung together like convicts. Women, even children, hobbled in ankle manacles, trudging with their heads down, along the corridor to wait to be summoned.

  ‘All rise! Court is in session,’ yells the court official to the rowdy courtroom.

  ‘The matter of thieving by Mary James of five fowls. Witnesses saw her at it some months ago, and again, a few days ago,’ says the gentleman in a black suit and white collar. He is standing by the dock and Mary’s cheeks flush with embarrassment. The men around her have committed crimes such as murder and arson.

  ‘How do you plead, Mary James?’ asks the Magistrate, who is none other than Reverend Masters.

  ‘Not guilty, Your Honour,’ says Mary.

  ‘You were seen running from a backyard with chickens sticking out of your shift and two hanging from your shoulder. They were white leghorns. Is that correct Madam?’ says the policeman.

  ‘And a prize rooster, a red one,’ says the owner of the fowls as she sits fat and cross at the front of the court.

  ‘I took no rooster,’ says Mary.

  ‘You would be sentenced to ten years of hard labour if I had anything to do with it. I know this felon very well, yes, very well indeed. But the law is the law and we have no witnesses to testify about the crime,’ says Masters as he raps his pencil and sips sherry.

  ‘I was not there. I didn’t do it. I don’t even like eating fowls. I am a good girl and I was a student at the Native Orphan School set up by Governor Macquarie.’ She is certain that this will sway opinion. The gavel swings down.

  ‘You absconded from the Native School. You absconded from employment as an indentured servant at the Orphan School. Perhaps you do not like work or schools? You absconded from my estate! You are found guilty, and sentenced to three months. There will be no lenience next time, Miss James.’

  ‘I work for you, Sir, when I’m released. I’m a good servant, you know, and I read and write. If you might find my daughter – she is missing – it would be appreciated, Sir,’ says Mary as mild as can be. But Masters ignores her and with a flourish she is led away.

  ‘I left her with Mr Byrne but I heard he’s gone somewhere!’ cries Mary, but nobody is listening.

  ‘What about my poultry?’ the fowl owner asks. She has turned bright red. Perhaps she will find her chooks running down at the native camp. Or at least find their white feathers in the Darug headman’s hair.

  …

  In Windsor Prison, Mary wears a grey blanket with a red stripe and the printed words ‘New South Wales Aborigine’. Just in case she forgets. Mary has many hours to ponder the injustice of being locked up for taking a few birds while the English take everything from her and her people. She wonders at how complete this destruction is in such a short time. Her people have nothing but blankets and are constantly told to move on by constables in Windsor town. No sooner do they find a place to sit when they are again moved on. They are acceptable only if they are willing to be imprisoned in uncomfortable clothes and dark sheds to work as slaves.

  Perhaps she will go to hell, and burn all through, just broken fragments of bones and bits of bird feather all in a sooty mess, tipped onto the ground or floating in the air, for Mary cannot stay underground and she will be missed by some spirits. She carries her mother’s blood, her connections to the past, her flesh, her life. She knows that to have been given away as a child is a curse. Mary has become a liar and a thief.

  She nibbles some grey damper, and tries to suck out any goodness but it is tasteless. Her eyes grow used to the darkness, but she is afraid of the ghosts that live in this cell. She begs the guard to take her out but she sees there is no ngubaty, no love.

  One day is the same as the next. She hears the guard’s breathing, farting and snoring, and stares at him through the bars. She longs to squat under a tree to piss but in here she must use a bucket. It stinks.

  ‘Let me out. I only stole five fowls!’ she cries, knowing how futile it is. And it only makes him laugh. She is of no consequence. She will cease to exist in here.

  It is morning and Mary feels the sunlight slip under the main door. Tiny flies swirl in the beams. The guard stirs. His eyes find hers and she looks away very quickly. He takes a bowl from the meat safe, picks out a piece of cold mutton and chews at it while gawping at Mary. She is still and doesn’t say a word. He throws the chewed bone just outside her cell and she stretches out her hand to pick it up. Mary wishes him to hell.

  He comes back and Mary hides the bone in her shift.

  ‘Stealin’ food, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Stealin’ chickens, stealin’ silver boxes. I heard about you, a dirty blackie thie
f,’ says the guard.

  ‘No.’

  Her porridge arrives with a dribble of treacle in it, and she is overjoyed. As Mary eats she imagines herself in Smythe’s house, eating from silver platters. She looks at the last scrap on the enamel plate for a long time.

  At last her imprisonment is over, and she is released.

  ‘I don’t expect to see you in my courthouse again, you understand?’ says the Magistrate.

  ‘Thank you. I can go now?’ she says impatiently.

  ‘Let her free and give her back her musical instrument. How strange that she can play a violin. Many have never heard of such a thing,’ says the Magistrate.

  Outside the gaol, the steps of white stone beckon her down. Her feet touch the wet grass, and she goes around the courthouse corner. She is out of sight and she breathes in fresh morning air.

  Windsor is quiet and only the owls and cows are awake, with their eyes watching her slow walk across the fields. An old fig tree stands nearby, older than the arrival of the British. The old man spirit in the tree whispers to her to be quiet and brave. He sings to her, beating time on a possum-skin drum. He holds her in his arms and she rests before moving on.

  A stranger is walking towards her and strolls past. She watches this tall, thin man who has feathers tied in a plaited topknot and carries an animal skin bundle. He could be shot on sight just for being a blackfellow. He is standing near her, smiling with white teeth and flaring nostrils pierced with a bone.

  ‘Worri native? Where our people?’ he asks.

  ‘Wiannamatta, South Creek,’ Mary answers.

  He speaks a little English. He is a mountain man, a handsome Gundungurra man. Mary tucks the violin under her chin and plays and he sings in a high-pitched croon. They smile at each other. Mary slowly turns around and when she looks back, he is gone.

  She finds wombat meat on a fire at a camp. It looks black but she eats it and walks into the bush. She is embraced by the trees and feels warm and safe. She is home. She quickly finds a track from her people and follows it.

  The ridgeline is on her right and she climbs towards mountain safety. She has a feeling of foreboding and when she comes upon a clearing, the feeling of alarm grows. This is a bora ground. She cannot be here in this secret men’s place where boys are made into men. No place for a woman. The ground is raised in a ceremonial animal figure and the mounds on each end are joined by a path. Mary moves as fast as she can but is caught in thorn bushes, which tear away at her shift and she can hear the shouting of the spirit men.

  She leaves the bora ground and red scratches sting her legs and she spits to wash them. Her hair catches in a tree branch, causing her to stumble and fall among cool soft ferns. There are grubs in that tree trunk eating the wood. If she was in the mangroves near South Creek, the grubs might be tasty cobrah worms that can be cooked on a fire to heat the body and stop the cold.

  …

  After days of travelling on tracks looking for her Burruberongal people, she sees smoke down by a creek. It is Aboriginal smoke – not a waibala with a gun. She creeps into the line of trees above and looks down to where a kangaroo is gutted for the fire. Although she cannot eat her totem, it would taste good to someone who is very hungry. A family puts the meat on the fire to singe the fur and their dogs bark because they can smell her. She stands up.

  ‘Nindi, bado, you got some water?’ Mary calls out.

  ‘Nyangu?’ a woman answers.

  ‘Thirsty,’ says Mary.

  ‘Djin. Who you belong? Nyannungai ?’

  ‘I’m Mary. South Creek Burruberongal mob.’

  ‘Quai, quai, bado here for you. Drink,’ says the mother.

  The family welcome her and hold up a pannikin of water. She walks slowly towards them, nothing to lose. One old man has a bone in his nose and is dressed in possum skins. The women have golden skin and are dressed in waibala clothes. It is not until she sits down by the blessed fire that she realises how very cold she is. The women give her a blanket.

  ‘Wattunga djin?’ they ask.

  ‘From Windsor courthouse gaol,’ says Mary.

  ‘You murderer?’

  ‘No, thief,’ says Mary.

  ‘That alright, we all that. Waibala big one,’ they laugh.

  Mary feels free and she once again travels by foot to the house where she last saw Eleanor, but it is a desolate place with empty rooms and fire-blackened rooms. No person has knowledge of the Irish farmers and her daughter; they have vanished into dust and goong. The road back to Windsor beckons and she makes a living by playing music and singing. She hears a story about a troupe of travelling players, on their way to the town. Her curiosity burns; perhaps she can join them?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  1835: DEERUBBIN, THE HAWKESBURY RIVER

  In 1835, His Excellency Major General Richard Bourke passes the Proclamation of terra nullius upon which British settlement is based. This states that the land belonged to no-one prior to the British Crown taking possession. Aboriginal people therefore could not sell or assign the land, nor could any individual person acquire it except through distribution by the Crown.

  Another proclamation is made regulating the rates of tolls to be levied at markets. There are thirteen public houses in Windsor and a market that is licensed to sell butcher’s meat, pork, beef, mutton, ham, butter, cheese, milk, eggs, poultry, game, fruits and vegetables. It is here, near South Creek toll bridge, that Mary has made her camp, quite close to the gaol.

  …

  Mary wishes she could evaporate into the clouds in Windsor town. She is heartily tired of trying to make a living playing a violin. She dreams of a new husband. She no longer thinks about returning to traditional life in wild Burruberongal country because the people are dispersed. She sits on a blanket by the South Creek toll house and waits for sustenance.

  The renowned black and white troubadour’s troupe of wandering waibala actors and Aboriginal musicians is setting up in the town square. Some men play gum-leaf music, their white teeth piercing the leaves trembling with song and, to Mary’s ears, it sounds like a band of violins. A handsome young blond man wearing a red velvet cape stands beside Mary. He glances at her hands. To outstretch them, to beg, is difficult. She wishes her fist would open and ask for a coin, but it will not uncurl.

  The other musicians put up a tent in the square by the Macquarie Hotel and the river. Nearby is a pretty cart festooned with coloured pennants, a piano, and a troupe of white and black misfits. Some are drunks and some are madmen. And Mary can’t help but notice the bags of flour and fresh loaves piled on the cart.

  The blond musician plays a mandolin and begins singing in a strange language. She wonders if it might be French. She is drawn to his beautiful voice, and his eyes beckon to her.

  Apart from hunger, there is another desire within her – the desire for another child. The sight of every mother with a child is a kind of punishment. Envy shoots through her like snake venom. She aches for the memory of lost Eleanor.

  Her eyes meet the blond man’s eyes; she gives a nod and he follows her in a playful dance, and they suddenly kiss. He is also a puppeteer who plays Mr Punch – he will probably have a Judy. He invites her into his cart.

  Mary offers hers body to him for some of his fresh loaves of bread. He takes hold of a loaf and feeds her a piece with pale creamy butter. She holds it in her mouth, savouring the goodness.

  They lie down in his cart on top of costumes of velvet and torn lace. His hair curls down to his shoulders and he wears turquoise beads and wooden seeds around his neck. Gems on a chain glisten on his golden hairy chest. His chamois shirt is open with the leather cord against his skin. He is perfumed and newly bathed and this makes her want to bathe also. She jumps out of the cart and tips a bucket of water over herself and snatches another piece of bread. Now she is ready.

  In a moment, Mary climbs dripping wet and naked back into the cart, shaking her long shimmering hair. He arches back and rests his hands beneath his head to look at her and
she is embarrassed to be so exposed. But she likes this fella with glowing cheeks and pink lips over perfect teeth. His tongue pokes out a little and he laughs with his blue eyes in hers.

  ‘You are très beautiful, so pretty. I am Timothy and today I am heureux, lucky man,’ he whispers.

  A family from the circus climbs onto his cart rummaging for clothes because they have been swimming in the river. Mary sits up and covers her body and cannot look at them. She is shy. But they are happy and bickering, and take no notice of her; she is just a cushion amongst the theatre props.

  ‘You have wife?’ Mary asks.

  ‘Non, these are my fellow jongleurs,’ he says as he pulls her back to him. The family laugh and leave them alone.

  ‘Une belle brune. Creole n’est ce pas? You are beautiful.’

  They make long, slow love and later they lie back as he smokes an Indian cheroot. He climbs down from their bed and takes a large bag of flour from his cart and hands it to her. He also offers a worn blue gown with a lace collar; she nods her head. He kisses her hand and she feels somehow shy again. She clambers over the side of the cart with the flour and hurries away, smiling into her scarf.

  …

  Nobody seems to belong to the native women who walk along the tracks, refugees in their own land. At first, they were covered by hot and hungry family members – brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers – all over them. Whining, hugging, and moaning for more and more love. Uncles and aunts in a field with their arms full of corn, then shot like crows, the smiles wiped from their faces in a blast of gunpowder.

  She moves from camp to camp along the river and meets her Burruberongal people and pleads for information about her daughter but to no avail. She forages for food and her hands are purple with blackberries. The blue dress is bartered for food.

  Months go by and one morning, after sleeping in a pile of dirty blankets, she feels her breasts ache and she realises that she is pregnant. A wibbung, magpie, sings in front of her; he is a message spirit to guide her.

  She walks back where she met her Frenchman lover but the players are long gone, only some forlorn pennants flap from a post.