The Silent Country

by Di Morrissey

  What started as a half-hour chat to the forty students became more than an hour as the students continued to ask questions. Veronica found them all highly motivated and she enjoyed the discussion.

  Over a late lunch with Doris, she began to outline suggestions and ideas for the school.

  ‘You should be telling Glen all this,’ said Doris. ‘We should make you a consultant.’

  ‘I enjoy their enthusiasm and their fresh approach and their ways of looking at things so differently from many of the people I know down south,’ said Veronica. She told Doris about how she entered television and how important mentoring and guidance had been to her career. ‘And still is. My boss Andy is such an old hand. Technology might have changed but certain things never do. Sensing and shaping a story, for example.’

  Doris glanced at her watch. ‘I’m going home to change and head out to the farm. Why don’t you come and see my horses. Do you like riding?’

  ‘Oh, I’d love to see the farm, but I’m not sure about riding.’

  ‘Do it another day with Jamie. I have a foal and a few other things to check on. It’s only forty minutes out of town.’

  It amused Veronica to see Doris change from her businesswoman’s attire of tailored skirt and blouse into old jeans, boots and a sleeveless shirt. Her hair was curly and tinged with grey but her brown arms were muscled and strong and her figure youthful.

  Veronica had assumed that what Doris called ‘the farm’ would be a couple of paddocks and stables where she kept her horses. So she was surprised to see a neatly graded road, good fences and a small ranch-style bungalow. The stables were well kept. There was a small training ring and several fit horses were standing in the shade of trees by a dam.

  ‘This is amazing! I thought you just had horses in a couple of paddocks.’

  Doris smiled as she got out of the car. ‘It’s my little retreat. Well, it’s for all of us, but I seem to be the one who uses it most. When I have a lot of thinking or reading to do I come and stay overnight. I have a friend who comes by most days to feed, water and check the horses as I don’t get out here every day. I bring Billy out here too. He’s developing into quite a good little rider.’

  ‘Have you always had horses? After you left Brolga Springs and went to Melbourne, how long before you started riding again?’ asked Veronica as she followed Doris to where a mare and foal were standing in the corral waiting for them.

  ‘Not till I was a young teenager.’ She clicked her tongue and the mare trotted towards her. ‘But I’ve always wanted my own horses to breed and train and when Alistair and I moved to the Territory, I got my chance. I believe that Lord Vesty and some others let a few English thoroughbred stallions loose in the north and that accounts for the good brumby stock we have now. It would be great to develop some really excellent breeding lines. I’d like to get into it more seriously when I stop work.’

  ‘And when might that be? You don’t seem the type to retire, Doris.’

  Doris leaned on the railing, one hand caressing the mare, then looked at Veronica. ‘No. I feel I owe it to my people to keep fighting for better circumstances for us all. I was lucky in many ways. I lost my mother and nothing can change that, but I also got an education and a wonderful husband and Jamie has had advantages too. So that makes us feel obligated to help our people.’

  ‘Do you ever think back to your childhood, to Brolga Springs?’ asked Veronica.

  ‘Occasionally. Even now those early memories can be very sad because while I had lots of the opportunities the white world offers, I’ve lost most of my own family. I sometimes wish I’d made the move back up here earlier and become involved with my own people sooner.’ Doris drew a long breath. ‘Because there is still shameful inequality in this country, you know. Half the people in gaols across the country are Aboriginal and yet they make up only two per cent of the population. Our people have shorter life spans and suffer dreadful health problems. Time isn’t fixing it. We are losing the next generation, like Travis, to despair. Old people haven’t been able to fit in and young people don’t respect them. Traditional knowledge and lore is being lost.’

  Veronica looked at Doris’s earnest face and asked, ‘But there must be something that can be done to improve this.’

  ‘There are no easy answers. It is true that education, better health and housing are part of the solution, but it’s a very complex problem. I just want to be able to help constructively where I can and I know that Jamie feels the same way.’

  ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about, Doris,’ said Veronica quietly.

  Doris relaxed. ‘Let’s go and see the other horses. I want to see how the foal responds to the touch of a human hand.’

  Veronica was fascinated watching Doris work with the horses and it was almost dark when they drove back into Darwin.

  ‘Will Jamie be back?’ asked Veronica.

  ‘Who knows. He’ll call us.’

  ‘Did he ask you to take care of me today?’ asked Veronica suddenly.

  ‘No. It was my idea. I liked spending the day with you.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Veronica warmly. ‘It’s been a wonderful day.’ But she wished she could talk about it with Jamie.

  Alistair and Billy had dinner prepared for them even though it was something pulled from the freezer. Alistair poured drinks and put out a plate of cheese and biscuits as Billy was dispatched to do his homework.

  Veronica’s mobile rang. ‘It’s Jamie.’ She picked up her wine and moved outside.

  ‘Hey. How’s it going, things all right?’

  ‘Forgive me, Veronica. It’s been full on. I’m so sorry about today. I hope you found something to do.’

  ‘I certainly did. I’ve had a fascinating day with your mum. Where are you? When are you coming back?’

  ‘Hopefully tomorrow. I’ve organised a solicitor and Travis is out on bail. Some of the family want to take him bush and give him a good belting, teach him some respect but the old ways don’t work. Mum and I will have to keep an even closer eye on him in the future, or he’ll end up in gaol.’

  ‘That sounds like a full-on job,’ said Veronica.

  ‘We’ll share it. He knows he’s let me down so he’ll probably be fine for a while. I’m sorry about Howard Springs but we can leave the day after tomorrow for Arnhem Land if Dougie is all set.’

  ‘We’re ready.’

  ‘What did you and Mum do today? I hope she hasn’t roped you into anything.’

  ‘She took me to Indigitel Media School, which I loved,’ said Veronica.

  Jamie laughed. ‘So you gave a talk? I bet the students enjoyed that.’

  ‘Well, I certainly answered a lot of questions. They were great. I got swept up in their enthusiasm.’

  ‘Terrific. Listen, I have to go. Tell Mum all is in hand. I’ll check in tomorrow. Give Billy a hug for me.’

  When Jamie finally returned, there seemed to be endless family conversations. He was also busy getting their trip organised so Veronica saw little of him until the following morning when he turned up with his vehicle packed and looking very professional.

  ‘Reg is collecting Dougie, we’re meeting them on the highway. You got everything I told you to bring?’

  Veronica hugged Doris and Alistair goodbye and they drove off in silence. Jamie finally lifted his shoulders and sighed.

  ‘Man, am I glad to be getting out of town. Sorry if I’ve been a bit preoccupied.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Veronica slowly. ‘Does this sort of thing happen very often?’

  ‘Travis? This is his second time, we don’t want three strikes . . .’

  ‘No. I meant the pressure on you to deal with family crises. I can see your role and the responsibilities. I was thinking how I would juggle those things. You do have a lot on your plate. And I realised, here we are taking you away to the bush again on what might be a wild goose chase . . .’

  He smiled and seemed to relax. ‘I could say it’s part of my job.’ He reached over and touched h
er knee. ‘But I wouldn’t miss this for anything. A chance to get away to the old country, be under the stars around a campfire and share my tent with a gorgeous woman called Veronica Anderson. Nah, I wouldn’t miss this.’

  ‘You think we’re going to find something, don’t you?’ she said suddenly. ‘I hope you haven’t done all the permits for this trip for nothing. I wish it was just the two of us,’ she added wistfully.

  ‘Another time. I promise you that.’ They glanced at each other, both sensing that deep waters lay ahead.

  At the roadhouse they met Reg and Dougie and ordered tea and hot meat pies. Reg was cheerful and practical and when Veronica asked if he thought they stood a chance of finding Topov’s remains, he nodded.

  ‘Dunno. You’ll find something that’s for sure. That area is a well-known burial area. Bones are always turning up. Animals tend to disturb them bodies, especially the ones left in caves. Every time we get a new young cop in the area he’ll get all excited when bones turn up. I know of one old blackfella whose bones have been “found” two or three times.’

  Veronica was amazed at how familiar some of the landscape looked. She loved the paperbark swamps, the pale trees of soft shredding bark standing guard over dark, still pools spotted with giant waterlilies.

  When she saw the rugged sandstone ridges of the Arnhem Plateau in the distance, she asked, ‘I don’t suppose that anyone has ever explored every bit of that land? Looked in every crevice and cave?’

  ‘No secrets in the stone country,’ said Jamie. ‘I doubt there’s a spot that isn’t known, or hasn’t been touched, by the local people in the last forty thousand or so years. But the knowledge is dying out and not being passed on so a lot of special places have been forgotten. When ceremonies aren’t performed and the custodial care is gone, the land is lost. But the old stories remain in the rocks and the rivers and the trees.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ said Veronica.

  ‘So part of my job is to try and find out from the old people some of their knowledge before it’s gone.’

  ‘What are you finding out?

  ‘A lot about land management, for one thing. Aboriginal people had thousands of years to perfect the use of fire. Now we realise that people aren’t burning off as much as they used to so while there aren’t as many fires, when there are they’re much hotter and cause more damage and changes to the vegetation. Working with the old people helps to put the pieces of the puzzle back together and maintain the country properly.’

  As Veronica listened to Jamie talk she looked at the landscape and could hardly wait for the opportunity to walk slowly through it, observing its detail.

  It was almost dark when Jamie pulled into a clearing near Wild Man’s Crossing.

  ‘We can pitch tents here for the night. Safer on this side of the river. There’s a toilet in a shed over there with an outdoor shower. The water comes from the river so it might be a bit brackish.’

  ‘A campfire with a hotplate, very useful,’ commented Reg. ‘Who’s catching dinner?’

  ‘I’m not going near that river,’ said Dougie looking at the last of the light glinting steely silver on the water in the distance.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dougie, we have an Esky full of goodies,’ said Veronica. ‘Steaks, salad, bread rolls.’

  ‘Then I’ll help cook,’ offered Dougie.

  Reg unrolled his swag, Dougie put up his pup tent and Jamie pitched the small tent for Veronica and him. When he threw both of their sleeping bags into it neither Dougie nor Reg commented. Sitting round the blazing campfire, feeling the closeness of Jamie beside her and gazing up at a night sky so full of stars that you couldn’t stick a pin between them, as Reg had said, Veronica was utterly content. Later in the tent she slept, rolled in Jamie’s arms.

  They had a hasty breakfast and talked excitedly about what they hoped to find that day. Then they piled into Jamie’s vehicle, after checking that they had all of Dougie’s camera gear along with everything else they needed for the day.

  The water running over the Crossing was clear and calm. No-one was out on the river as Dougie grabbed a few shots of the peaceful morning.

  Veronica had transcribed Marta’s interview and she read aloud Marta’s description of the area as she’d remembered it. It seemed as though little had changed. Jamie drove among the boulders and scrubby grasses, past a termite mound and slowed as they began to study the rock formations and jump-ups carefully. With the escarpment as a backdrop, they wound slowly among the outcrops. Veronica was trying to imagine Topov with his Geiger counter testing the different types of rocks and soil. And then rising before them so that they spotted it simultaneously was a large rock formation in the shape of a mushroom.

  ‘Jamie, didn’t you point this out to me last time we were out here?’ asked Veronica.

  Jamie stopped and they got out. Dougie filmed them as they picked their way towards it; Jamie in the lead, Veronica close behind and Reg with a spade over his shoulder. They walked slowly around the outcrop seeing nothing unusual, not sure what they were looking for. The ground was strewn with rocks and hard-packed earth, there was no overhang or obvious shelter. But directly behind was the lower end of a sandstone cliff. Small trees and saplings sprouted from its crevices. They came to it and began walking slowly in front of its face.

  Veronica found she was studying the ground as if some marker to indicate Topov’s grave would be obvious.

  They circled the rock as Dougie followed with the camera.

  ‘Here! Look,’ shouted Reg.

  ‘What is it?’ Veronica stumbled in her hurry.

  They all quickly moved to where Reg was pointing. ‘There, see those scratchings. That’s no blackfella picture. See, it’s been done in ochre but not very well,’ said Reg, peering at the little image. ‘The ochre, not the picture.’

  ‘What’s it supposed to be?’ asked Dougie, taking a close-up.

  ‘I think it’s supposed to be a director’s viewfinder,’ said Veronica.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Thought it was some sort of telescope,’ said Dougie.

  ‘Quick, where do we start digging?’ asked Veronica.

  Jamie glanced at Reg who shrugged and put his foot on the top of the shovel, pushing it into the sandy soil.

  ‘Here’s as good a place as any,’ said Reg.

  Two hours passed and they had dug a trench on both sides of the little painting on the rock. The three men had taken it in turns and all were hot and dripping with sweat at the exertion.

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be a thing here,’ said Dougie, his voice filled with disappointment.

  ‘There has to be. Just has to be,’ said Veronica in frustration. ‘Let me have a turn.’

  ‘No, no. Can you pass the water? We’ll try a bit longer,’ said Jamie, knowing how much it meant to Veronica.

  Reg leaned on the shovel. ‘I’m just wondering if we need to go deeper.’

  ‘The hole’s pretty damn deep already. If these people wanted to get away after he died, why would they go to the trouble to make such a deep hole?’ asked Dougie.

  ‘Animals, especially dingoes, would find a body pretty quickly if it was in a shallow grave,’ said Reg.

  ‘And scatter the remains about. That’d give the show away,’ added Jamie.

  ‘In that case, let’s dig deeper right under the picture,’ suggested Veronica.

  They had dug down nearly another metre when there was a dull thud as the shovel hit something hard.

  ‘Hello, what’s that?’ Jamie started to shovel the soil away more quickly.

  ‘It’s just stones,’ said Veronica.

  ‘A whole heap of ’em. But that’s not a natural formation. Someone’s put them there,’ said Reg.

  Dougie picked up his camera. Veronica leaned in closer as Jamie cleared more dirt away. He put the shovel to one side and Reg jumped in the hole beside him and together they began lifting the stones out.

  ‘There’s just dirt under them,’ said Veronica as the last few stones were lifted out
of the hole.

  ‘Nah. There’s something else under here.’ Reg looked at Jamie.

  ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘Hope it’s the whitefella you’re after, Veronica,’ muttered Reg. ‘Otherwise the spirits going to chase me for disturbing some brother’s resting place.’

  ‘There’s something there?’ Veronica knelt at the edge as Dougie stood on the opposite side filming Reg and Jamie as they held up a frayed old rope.

  The two men gingerly lifted a sack of rotting oilskin out of the hole and laid it carefully onto the ground.

  Veronica sat stunned. ‘I can’t open it. Jamie, you do it.’

  Veronica couldn’t help giving a small scream and clamping her hand over her mouth as the rope was removed and oilskin was opened to reveal the remains of what had obviously been a human being. Some shreds of material and leather remained on the bones and they stood there staring at Topov’s skeleton in shocked fascination, while Dougie continued to film.

  Jamie said quietly, ‘I think you’ve found your man, Veronica.’ He leaned down and pulled a leather strap that was around the neck of the body, lifting up a rusted metal object.

  ‘The viewfinder,’ said Veronica in a whisper.

  ‘What’s this?’ Reg lifted a square of metal. He scratched at it and handed it to Veronica.

  ‘It’s a belt buckle,’ she said. She rubbed the rusted artifact and saw an elaborate design. ‘It’s a two-headed eagle with a sceptre and a ball, no, an orb. It does look Russian.’

  ‘This has to be Topov,’ said Jamie.

  Dougie took a lot more shots of the grave and the rock face as the others sat in the shade. No-one spoke for a while as they savoured the moment of their amazing discovery.

  Finally Jamie said, ‘Well, I think we should put him back where we found him. I wouldn’t like the animals to get him after all this time. Reg, would you get a plastic tarpaulin out of the truck? Then we can head back. Mission accomplished.’

  Dougie began packing up his camera and Veronica sat quietly with Jamie, gazing at the monsoon forests and the distant spine of the stone country.