Poor Fellow My Country
Page 150
Without raising her head, she pushed the hand towards him. Laying his own on it and stroking gently with a finger or two, he asked, ‘Is anything terribly wrong, dear?’
Shuddering with suppression of her grief, she muttered, ‘I vill haf to go avay.’
‘Who says?’
She lapsed back into weeping. Nan came with the tea-things. Jeremy glanced at her. She smiled. But there was the glint of tears in the deep-set eyes. He turned back to Rifkah, raised her hand and shook it slightly. ‘Tea’s ready now. What about sitting up . . . and getting rid of those sniffles. Here’s my hanky.’
The copper head rose. The great eyes blinked on the welling tears.
Jeremy said, ‘I see no reason for your having to go away . . . unless you want to.’
She shook her head vigorously. He went on: ‘Matter of fact, Esk told me he wouldn’t do anything about you and Kurt . . . in that investigation thing he said he’s making.’
She snuffled: ‘I hear him. I vos vaiting for you in annexe when he come back. I was hiding in lab.’
‘You naughty girl! But if you heard what he said, what’re you crying about?’
‘He expect me to go . . . because . . . because it is not goot for you to haf me here.’
‘He didn’t say that.’
‘He tell you about his daughter to say it.’
Jeremy swallowed, turned when Nan began to pour the tea. ‘Well, let’s have some tea. Nothing like tea to cheer you up, as they say . . . a shot of Caffeine to clear the vision. What’s there to bother about? They’ll all be gone after breakfast. Then, by the look of it, we’re going to have a spell of real wet . . . and nobody able to get near us for quite a while. You’ve been saying you want to see the Wet. It’s a bit early . . . but listen to that!’ A long roll of distant thunder. He added, ‘Real rain behind that . . . eh?’ He looked at Prindy, who had giggled.
Prindy said, ‘That motor car . . . Clancy go.’
Jeremy chuckled. ‘Well, now . . . we all make mistakes.’ Nan also giggled. But Rifkah looked troubled. Jeremy said to her, ‘It’s all right . . . I hunted ’em both.’
They drank tea. The true rumble of thunder was soon heard. It gave them something to talk about. Heavy rain too early meant a poor Wet Season. Worse than that, as Prindy reminded them, it meant no Blackfellow Christmas. Jeremy said to that, ‘I thought Christmas wasn’t your Yomtov any more?’ That got them laughing.
Thus for the best part of an hour, by which time Rifkah’s tears were completely gone; but the great eyes were blinking with sleepiness; and Prindy’s fair head nodding. At last, at a signal from Jeremy, Nan got the pair up, and with them snuggled against her yawning, led them away to bed. She also got a signal from Jeremy to come back to him. While he was waiting, he went into the kitchen storeroom and brought out a bottle of brandy.
When Nan returned, Jeremy asked, ‘Sleepy?’ She shook her head. He said, ‘Well, have a drink. Then how about we take the bottle, and go for a run in the ute?’ She eyed him quickly. ‘Lovely night,’ he said. ‘Pity to waste it . . . seeing it’ll be about the last fine moonlight night we’ll have for a while. Right?’ She nodded.
They went out arm in arm, across the blazing yard. Old Igulgul was past the zenith, and shoving back the northwestern clouds, evidently because he wanted a clear field for his magic-making. Jeremy made Nan giggle by murmuring to her, speaking the argot, as rarely he ever did to her, ‘Like that old Igulgul make him me-two-feller go tchinikin Wrong-tchide bijnitch, eh?’
When they were in the utility and Nanago asked where they were going, Jeremy said they would have to go South, since Clancy had gone the other way and they didn’t want their drive spoilt by his dust. However, that his choice of direction had nothing to do with Clancy’s was shown when they were gone along the Beatrice Road that nine or ten miles to where the track to the Rainbow Pool ran off it, and without hesitation he turned into the track, while talking of the events of the evening. Nan interrupted him, exclaiming, ‘Eh, look out!’
‘What better place for a bit of Wrong-tchide bijnitch than the pool?’ he asked.
‘Why you take me dere?’ she demanded.
‘Aren’t we going to play-about lil bits?’
She stared at him for a moment, then said, ‘You know I don’t like dat pool.’
‘I know. But you know very well it can’t hurt you to go there . . . with me, anyway. Besides . . . I want you to go there for a particular reason.’
‘What dat?’
‘I tell you when you get there. Meantime, you say Our Father and I Believe and all the Mission stuff, so’s the wahji can’t hurt you.’
They reached the pool, got out with brandy bottle and glasses, went to the bit of silky beach. The pool lay as shimmering silver. There was only slight tinkling from the waterfall and murmuring from the overflow, but that same mysterious hissing whisper from where the silver turned upon itself to make the chalice lip. She eyed it apprehensively. He chuckled as he pushed her down to sit on the sand: ‘That Old One can’t hurt you and me. Didn’t Prindy tell us that he told him he regarded us as mates, because we’re looking out for his boy? Have a drink.’ He poured the brandy. Raising his glass, he said, ‘To life . . . our life!’ She stared at him, the moonlight glowing in her deep dark eyes.
After sipping, she asked, ‘What dat particular t’ing you say you come here for?’
‘Drink that brandy off, and I’ll tell you.’
When she had drunk, he took the glass, then reached for her, taking hold of her skirt at the hem, attempting to raise it. She stopped him by locking her dark arms round her legs, crying, ‘What you doing?’
‘I want you to have a dip with me.’
‘Eh, look out!’
‘Come on!’
‘No-more. I can’t go in dere!’
‘But I want you to. You’ve never been in there. I want to make sure you stop here.’ When she stared at him, he went on: ‘I had a dream a while back. I dreamt you left me . . . went away back to the Mission.’ As she stared, he continued: ‘It worried me . . . not only in my sleep. In the dream, when I lost you, I felt I lost myself, too . . . well, I didn’t know where I was, although I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t a very distinct dream . . . but, as I say, it worried me, and I thought, I’ll make her take a dip in the pool, and then she can’t run away.’
‘Run away?’ she murmured.
‘I heard you talking to those Jewish women one day . . . telling them you’d been a teacher at the Mission . . . and you said you might run away sometime and do it again. Yes . . . you said Run Away. That’s why I noticed it. So. Well, what about stripping off . . . and we’ll have a little dip . . . and then a little play-about . . .’
She said quite sharply, ‘No!’
‘Eh? What’s that mean?’
‘I mean dis not right time.’
‘What for?’
‘For anyt’ing.’
‘Come on . . . out with it.’
‘You love dat girl, Jeremy.’
‘Now, don’t be silly . . .’
‘Yas . . . you do. You know you love her . . . but you frighten’ love . . .’
‘She’s young enough to be my daughter.’
‘She not your daughter.’
‘All the same . . . she’s young enough for it.’
‘Young girl good for old man. Make him young again.’
‘Make a fool of him!’
‘Dem old blackfeller in wild country all got young wife. They all strong man.’
‘Only because of the Kudijingera. And the young fellers play about with their wives behind their backs. Besides, that’s what’s kept the Aborigines back. An old man should have dig . . . er . . . integrity.’
‘Da’s what General say, eh?’
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Da’s what Rifkah say . . . General he’s talking ’bout his daughter. Dat one run after old man . . .’
‘Now, listen . . .’ He tried to lay hands on her again.
He asked, huskily, ‘What about her?’
‘She is woman. She love you cos you kind and strong.’
‘Like a father. Don’t forget, her father half-deserted her from the start. Then she lost him when she most needed him.’
‘No matter she love you like father . . . she love you . . . and spone you want her, she got to give herself to you.’
Jeremy caught his breath. She reached and touched his arm. ‘I talk true, Jeremy. I know all dat lot woman get after you. I know how much chance dey got, cos I can see how much you want ’em. Before it all play-about for you. Not dis time.’
He sighed, stared at the slowly whirling corner of the pool. He asked, ‘Do you love me?’
‘Yas, course.’
‘Aren’t you jealous?’
‘Only whitewoman get jealous . . . only woman she want to be boss of man.’
‘What about Rifkah . . . is she jealous of you?’
Nan giggled slightly. ‘No-more. I am like her auntie. But if you want her . . . if you marry her . . . den I reckon she start get jealous, spone I stay round. But I go first-time.’
‘What on earth are you talking about . . . marry Rifkah?’
She touched his shoulder, pressed and heaved herself up by means of it, saying, ‘We finish dat talk now. No-more talk about dat, pliss, Jeremy. Now I want go home. Early breakfast for dat lot. I get it. More better Rifkah stay in bed.’
He rose, reached to kiss her. She turned her dark cheek, began to move towards the truck. He put an arm about her plump waist, leaned towards her glistening dark curly hair, whispered, ‘Bless you, dear Nan . . . bless you!’
She swung to him, clung to him, with arms and lips — for a moment — then broke away, gasping, giggling, ‘Gwan, you . . . old night-horse! Come on . . . we go!’
In a minute they were running home. It was getting dark now, with Igulgul slipped into the cloud, his job done, perhaps, or perhaps done for him. Soon they were going through the gate, with the crippled animals whimpering and jostling round them, and the heartbeat welcoming them: Home, home, home, a-home, home!
17
I
Jeremy’s prediction of early heavy rain proved right, but not his supposing that the condition, dubious blessing as he considered it otherwise, would mean relief for his household from the intrusions upon its usually happy seclusion that lately had become a veritable plague. However, they did get a week or so of the old happiness, a spell enjoyed by everyone (excepting those who saw the rain first as a threat to the Christmas festivities) but by none nearly so much as by Rifkah. Nor was it simply the fact that the place again had become a haven that gave the girl the fairly bubbling joy she showed during the period, but the rain, the rain, the rain! Already in love with the land in its most unattractive state, drought-stricken by months of Dry Season, having heard so much about its sudden transformation by rain, she lapped up the change in conditions eagerly as a child does happy variation, and lapped literally, often with tongue out-thrust to drink of the stinging sweetness.
Jeremy warned her that this seeming bounty could be disastrous to the natural economy, that grasses could be roused to sprouting out of suspended animation only to be exposed to the solsticial ferocity to be expected at that time of year but normally from which growing things in their frailty were protected by the tempering conditions of the Intertropic Frontal System: the massive clouding, the dripping humidity, the sheeting rain. If the freakish rains ceased and drought struck the land again because the proper frontal movement had been checked, buds could wither on the bough, roots give up hoarded moisture for lack of which a tree could die, a myriad creatures unprepared for sudden dehydration left to perish in cracked mud. Absolute evidence that conditions were not normal, he said, was the fact that the Giant Cuckoo, so-called, properly called Googoomara, was still about, waging noisy mock battles with his mates to divert the crows and magpies and the like from their nesting so as to cuckoo ’em. Googoomara invariably came with the first thunderstorms, and cleared out before the rain set in properly, leaving his victims to suffer the discomfort of it while rearing his fobbed-off progeny. The fact was, you could just about estimate when it was Christmas with cessation of all the yelling, screaming, fluttering that accompanied this annual piece of dirty work. Prindy corroborated his grandfather’s reasoning as far as Googoomara was concerned, but contended that only Tchamala was responsible for the abnormal conditions. Rifkah appeared to accept it both ways.
She spent most of the period out of doors, along with Prindy, splashing about on foot in rubber boots and oilskins. Riding was out of the question, because all of the horses were too fractious for safe handling, as always the case at the onset of continuous rain. Thus did she roam the neighbourhood, watching the pools fill, to spill into streamlets, to set the creeks trickling, racing, roaring — helping where possible the creatures scrambling and struggling to adapt themselves to the too-sudden change in the state of things and rescuing where disaster threatened — taking note of all that was shown her: the sprouting and budding, the shedding of old bark to reveal the wonder of what had been created in secret meanwhile, the frantic masonry of termites and engineering of ants and forth-popping of so many lovely things metamorphosed from deep-lain pupation — and, joy of joys, spying on the large white flowers, whitefeller named Morning Glory, during the couple of hours of their exquisite blossoming before the dawn. It did, in fact, seem as if the rain always eased off to mere mist to permit the blossoming, as local legend had it.
In lingo the Morning Glories were called Gringelli, which also meant stars. The legend told of how the Bandicoot Sisters, Iyuwuk, were fleeing from that old reprobate Wanjin, the Dingo, who declared that he wanted them for wives, but secretly intended to eat them, as everything he could get his sharp teeth into. It was Wet Season. Wanjin manoeuvred the sisters into a swampy region, where he knew that they, helpless in mud and water and in want of their own kind of food, would soon give up. But the Ol’Goomun-Ol’Goomun, watching from the sky, felt sorry for them, gathered some little stars, which are celestial flowers, and scattered them along bits of ridges in the swamp, to show them the way out and also to feed them in the process, since she attached a sweet little yam to every flower as a root. The stars shone only during those couple of hours before daybreak when Wanji has to sleep, and vanished completely with the dawn, so that he could not track them, baffled as he was by the onset of rain again.
In fact, the diaphanous stuff of the swamp morning glories surrounds a silver star. As the rain eases with approach of dawn, the tightly furled buds, pointing like long slim fingers since midnight, open while you watch, unfurling into perfect pentagons in which shape they glow and shimmer as with inner light and seem thus to float along the ground — ‘Like leedle ballerina,’ as Rifkah said. With daylight they fall into rags, to dissolve like wafers in the ooze created by rain now falling like warm tears shed for the reality that beauty is for ever transient. Prindy made up a song about it, which they sang together while gathering mushrooms.
It began to rain the night before the first train-day of the happy period. Only Darcy and his family went in to the siding. They had to use skid-chains to make it home again.
Although Jeremy’s prediction from studying his meteorological apparatus was that the rain would be over by next train-day, when that day came it was raining so hard that Darcy, to whom the trip was left again, had to make it in the dray, with two draught horses pulling. As usual he took his family, who under the low-hung tarpaulin looked and sounded rather like a load of Ah Loy’s pigs be
ing taken for shipping up to Town for Chinese New Year, as with mirth it was stated by those watching them go. Since it would take them the best part of the day to get to the siding, they would be spending the night with the Tooheys and returning tomorrow. When next day they reached home again, it was raining even harder. Thus was the Mullaka, for all his cleverness in other directions, exposed as knowing no more about the weather than any other kuttabah did about natural phenomena, which any fool blackfellow knew had no more to do with barometers and thermometers and such things than a high-tension coil had to do with lightning. At least, that was the way in which Prindy, whom Jeremy had been instructing in meteorology according to the book, privily expressed himself to Rifkah. Similarly, that supposition of Jeremy’s that at least the otherwise dubious blessing of the rain would give them back their old happy isolation was shown up as fallacious, because the seeming load of pigs that drew up in sheeting rain at the back door of the Big House on Thursday afternoon had increased by one, and one so little welcome, that when Jeremy was informed of the intrusion by Nan’s telephoning him at the annexe, he groaned, ‘Oh, lord!’ The intruder was Fay McFee, news-hound, of The Palmeston Progressive.
Fay was come to look into the matter of the Refugee Jews’ Settlement, having been waiting, it was revealed, for the return of Ernest and his party to Town to interview them, learning of their departure only the other day from Fergus. When Jeremy heard of her arrival, she was already in the kitchen of the Big House, drinking tea that had had to be forced on her, more or less, because of her reluctance to accept anything in the way of hospitality from her old enemy. Nan informed him that it was Fay’s intention to camp in a shed, sustained by rations she had brought along with her, while getting what she wanted from Rifkah and Kurt. Jeremy told Nan to give his greetings to Fay and tell her he would be right over, but that meantime he wished to see Kurt and warn him about Fay and would she ask him to come over unbeknown to the lady. When Kurt came, Jeremy growled, ‘She’s a pest, really. I wish I could put her up in a shed. Oh, she means that, all right. Last time she was here, she camped like a drover, under the mangoes. She came here about that Euraustralian thing I tried . . . with the halfcastes . . . my Dictatorship, as she called it in that rag of hers. She’s a fool . . . but a clever journalist . . . which means that she can do a lot of harm. I know you’re clever enough to handle her. But you don’t want publicity . . . and so I thought I’d better have a word with you first. She’s madly political, but in the stiff Centre style of official Labor. Talk socialism . . . but with a small S . . . and you’ll have her eating out of your hand. I guess Rifkah will get her in by having her eating off plates. She likes her turn, does old Fay. I used to torture her while she was camping out there with bully-beef and biscuits by having the roasts that are sent over from the Big House kitchen to the Aboriginal section carried right under her nose. She also has a weakness for the female of her species . . . so they say.’