Cicada

by Moira McKinnon

  Sergeant Perez stood with a sheet of paper in his hand ready to read, but the judge banged his hammer on the table as if irritated and called out, ‘Jeferies.’

  The fan moved slowly and there was no breath from it.

  ‘Jeferies! Where in the hell is Jeferies?’

  A middle-aged portly man made his way to the bench. The court clerk held the Bible towards him. Tom Jeferies hesitated then took the book in his hands. The judge paused, noticing Jeferies’ flushed face and the shake of his hands.

  ‘Thomas Jeferies, you are a Christian?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Not many people here are, but we are all asked to reply to every question in truth. You understand that and by oath agree.’

  Tom Jeferies dropped his chin to his chest. ‘I do.’

  ‘The statement please.’

  Sergeant Perez read Jeferies’ statement; in it was an admission that he and Calhoon had been drinking. They had wandered to the river and seen an Aboriginal woman fishing in the moonlight. He remembered her clearly, her hair was bushy and she was wearing trousers. He remembered that particularly because that was unusual for a woman to wear trousers. John thought she might be the gin who had murdered a baby and a man. She ran away and John Calhoon chased her, threatening her with the gun but couldn’t catch her. She got away. They needed to pee (here the courtroom tittered). They had their backs to the banks of the river. Jeferies heard her coming, looked behind him and saw her running with the digging stick in both hands. She drove it into Calhoon’s back. He went down but tried to get up, his gun fell from his pocket. She picked it up and shot him in the chest.

  The judge leant across the table. ‘You swear by this statement?’

  Jeferies kept his eyes on the floor under the judge’s table. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this the same woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How does the defendant plead?’

  Wirritjil stared at the floor. The fan whirred. The judge’s face and neck were red. He blinked the sweat away from his eyes. He fiddled with his gavel, frowned and banged it on the desk.

  ‘Well, guilty, then. I will need to consider the sentence.’

  There was scattered applause among the audience. Kathryn was perplexed. She looked at the plump man standing with his head low and hands by his side as though he was guilty. The drover surely was sincere and somehow this Aboriginal creature was connected with Emily. Kathryn stepped around the end of the rope into the space in front of the judge and Perez.

  ‘It is wrong to convict this woman.’

  The courthouse was suddenly silent. The judge peered over his glasses, his eyebrows raised as he scrutinised the woman’s fine clothes, from her polished boots to the feathered hat worn slightly to one side.

  ‘Have you evidence to the contrary?’

  ‘No, Your Honour.’

  The judge frowned and rose. ‘The court is adjourned.’

  Perez strode in front of the policeman chained to Wirritjil and glanced at Kathryn Lidscombe before leading the prisoner out. The people pushed behind the police, eager for another glimpse of the convicted Aboriginal murderer.

  Jeferies walked with his head down, stumbling, keeping his arms close to his side as if he didn’t want to bump or touch anyone.

  Kathryn remained at the bench, her eyes on the judge.

  The judge gathered his papers and spoke without looking at her. ‘This is a court of law, madam.’

  ‘Maybe, but it is not a court of justice, and not a court worthy of the British Empire.’

  The judge pursed his lips and considered again the cut of her clothes and the way she held her head. ‘Unfortunately, this is not Mother England.’

  ‘Lady Kathryn Lidscombe, guest of Governor Newdegate.’

  The judge nodded politely. ‘Lady Lidscombe, welcome to Australia. You heard the man’s evidence.’

  ‘This woman has had no defence. She obviously has difficulty with English. She cannot understand, sir. Is that justice?’

  ‘The court is adjourned, madam.’ The judge picked up his case and turned to go. The fan swished in the silence of the room.

  ‘And so will your tenure be adjourned.’

  The judge turned. Kathryn’s black hair was damp and flat against the sides of her white face; only the points of her cheeks had a touch of rose colour.

  ‘She needs representation and a translator.’

  ‘Lady Lidscombe, you must understand . . .’

  ‘I do, sir—it is long and hard work under trying circumstances. It is easier for us all to forget God and your role is crucial. You are the scales of justice for Our Beloved God on earth and you hold virtue, always in humility for his tolerance and his love for all mankind. All mankind. Your Honourable Justice.’

  The judge paused. His head went back as though he was about to laugh outright. He lifted his wig again and his face suddenly became tired as he let the wig fall back. ‘Lady Lidscombe, I will ask that the woman be found a translator. Tomorrow we will tread this path again. The steamer sails, blessedly, on the following day.’

  ‘In God’s name,’ replied Kathryn.

  Trevor sat in a grimy office of the police station facing Perez across a bare table. In the corner on a dusty black box sat a couple of vinyl records with torn covers. On top of them was a box of bullets. Perez sat with his back straight. The metal buttons of his uniform shone, even in the low light of the room.

  ‘I have been waiting a long time for this discussion.’

  Trevor was dishevelled and his eyes glazed. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to concentrate.

  Perez continued. ‘Your brother dead, his wife dead. A sorry story.’ He pressed his hands together across the table. ‘What is your part in this?’

  Trevor didn’t answer.

  Perez’s eyes sparked with a quick anger. He felt the anger, he didn’t like it, didn’t like the loss of control. ‘There is a lot at stake here. Your reputation.’ The sweat on the policeman’s olive face gave his skin an oily gleam. ‘It is your baby, isn’t it?’ Perez smiled and sat back. ‘I agree with the dilution of the race. It is a good thing. I think that, if anyone, it is a man’s role to dilute, so to speak. I think it is abhorrent that white women should bear that burden.’

  Trevor’s face was impassive.

  Perez tapped the table. ‘I know full well you were complicit in John Calhoon’s death. I will not push this fact or try to uncover your reasoning. I suspect an unwarranted sympathy and a lust. The women are easy. That is true. I have nothing to pin on you. I also do not want to disadvantage you in any way. You are a young strong man with a future ahead of you. I want only to warn you.’

  Trevor stood up. His hands were clenched.

  Perez’s back stiffened. ‘I am helping you.’

  Trevor gave a small laugh.

  Perez reached for the gun on his belt. He pulled it out, a short barrelled semi-automatic pistol, and laid it sideways in his hand on the desk. ‘It is loaded.’ Perez smiled.

  Trevor looked at the pistol, then at Perez. ‘I am walking out of here.’

  ‘I will shoot.’

  Trevor closed his eyes and lowered his head. ‘Have you ever been to war, Perez?’

  ‘In my mind, countless times.’

  ‘The war gave me a nightmare worse than any gun.’

  Perez waited.

  Trevor opened his eyes. He spoke softly. ‘That old man, he took away that nightmare.’

  The two men faced one another. The noise of the street came into the silence of the room and along with it the rise and fall of an argument far away.

  With his right hand still tight on the pistol the policeman raised his left hand almost to his lips and leant across the table towards Trevor. He peered into Trevor’s eyes as if trying to find truth and his brow furrowed.‘You feel sorry for me?’

  Trevor walked away and for a few seconds Perez was in darkness as Trevor’s form blocked the light from the door.

  The judge rose from his
bed and walked out to the veranda. He watched the moon as the clouds seemed to caress it, hide it, then let it free again.

  It wasn’t the oppressive heat that stopped his sleep. It was the voice of the English lady that kept coming back to him. The word justice, the definite inflection on ‘just’—the way he had said it when he was young. He saw himself striding along the oak-lined lanes in Oxford, hating the rich for their despoiling of justice. His words, yes, his words, and the other students looked at him bemused. Justice. They manoeuvred it, slid around it, moulded it like putty and made it their own. Only in the brilliant rare light of no invested interests did those in power proclaim and progress the truth. It is remarkable, thought the judge, that those brilliances survive to be the guide for mankind. The travesties die with the stained investors. Only truth survives a person. It is a hateful time when wilful immoralities blossom under the care of the powerful, stay and linger because the weak, the great masses, are hoodwinked, and only the chipchipping of honest men ensures that eventually morality survives. A waiting time.

  The judge took up a crystal decanter of fine whisky. It sparkled even in the poor light of the night. He put it down, reminding himself that it was not good for the anger threatening in his heart or his clarity of mind. He leant on the veranda as the shouts of discontent echoed down the streets and the specially appointed constables shot their rifles in the air as they roamed and kept the peace.

  ‘I am surely in a pitiful state.’

  He could not argue with himself. He saw himself moving from one courtroom to another, his ears so burdened that long ago he had mentally blocked them. He looked at the whisky again, lifted it in one fast move and swigged straight from the mouth of the decanter. He had a sudden desire to escape. But escape what? He laughed. Escape this burden of making sure the vested interests were being served. He hurled the crystal into the hot sultry night.

  He slept fitfully, turning from side to side, as a young man in a graduate cap cajoled him back to the dreams of his youth and scolded him for the tainted man, the lazy man, he had become.

  ‘I am too tired,’ he told his younger self.

  ‘Then your heart has no right to beat,’ the young man told him.

  Kathryn Lidscombe alighted from the buggy and thanked the reinsman. She walked briskly, avoiding patches of mud.

  The police station was busy with people and papers. An officer in full uniform looked up from the desk. She tapped the tip of her umbrella on the floor.

  ‘Kathryn Lidscombe, Cicada Springs station. I am here to find out what happened to my sister, Emily Lidscombe.’

  The policeman’s face was expressionless.

  ‘Madam, you will need to wait for Sergeant Perez, he was seeking knowledge of her next of kin.’

  Kathryn’s heart slowed abruptly and she felt her skin go clammy. ‘Next of kin?’

  ‘Madam, please retire to your lodging. I will inform Sergeant Perez of your presence. I am sure he will come to you immediately.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘He will come to you, ma’am.’

  ‘Surely . . .’ Kathryn tried to collect herself. She thought of the drover and the Aboriginal woman. She didn’t know the Aboriginal woman’s name. ‘I would like to see the native woman.’

  ‘Madam, why?’

  Kathryn kept her breathing even. ‘She and her family reside at Cicada Springs.’

  ‘Sergeant said no visitors.’

  ‘The Good Lord also asks his brethren to take his word to the gentiles. So I would like to take prayer to the prisoner.’

  The constable laughed and concentrated, adding details to columns of names on a piece of paper on his desk.

  ‘This town must be so expensive and your wages not much.’ Kathryn lifted her purse to her waist. ‘I will be brief.’

  The policeman peered around. A clerk worked at a desk nearby, two Asian men wearing sarongs crowded around him chattering, sometimes shouting. The policeman shrugged. Kathryn showed him the corner of a pound note. He looked away. ‘A moment.’

  He gathered a set of keys and led Kathryn from the police station to the lock-up. Inside, it was dark, murky with heat and a foul odour. There was a narrow corridor and three cells off to the side. Through the small barred windows in the doors she could see one was full of Asians and the other two with Aborigines standing or sitting on the floor. Some were bound by chains that went from iron waistbands to an iron loop in the concrete floor. The policeman stopped and looked at Kathryn sideways. The pound note passed quickly between their palms.

  ‘Do you have a translator here?’

  The constable laughed again. ‘This one, someone said she was at Moola Bulla station for a bit, trained as a station maid. She understands. She is tricking; they are always tricking.’

  He opened the back door and dragged in a three-legged stool. He handed it to Kathryn and unlocked the door of a tiny windowless cell. ‘Knock on the door if you need me. She’s on a real short chain, but don’t get too close. I’ll be listenin’.’

  The only light came through where the nails had gone from the roof and a thin wavy line where the corrugated iron met the wall. The room smelt of urine. Kathryn willed nausea away and waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  Wirritjil was alone. She sat on a piece of sacking on the concrete floor. A chain went from an iron loop in the floor to the iron band around her neck. Her head was bowed and her hands folded on her lap. The floor had a layer of dirt on it and in the corner was a bucket.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  Wirritjil didn’t look up or make any acknowledgement of Kathryn’s presence.

  Kathryn put the stool down between Wirritjil and the door.

  ‘My name is Kathryn Lidscombe. I don’t know you but a Mr Jim Maley told me he met you and you were with my sister—Emily.’

  There was no reply. Kathryn could see only the back of the woman’s neck and the top of her head.

  ‘The drover said you didn’t kill anyone. Is that true?’

  The only response to her question was Wirritjil’s deepening of her bowed head.

  Kathryn put her umbrella on the ground. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. ‘You are the only link I have with my sister.’ Her voice became high-pitched and broken, and her eyes misted with tears. She tried to stop the tears but it didn’t matter in front of this wild woman, who would hardly care.

  ‘Is she alive?’

  Silence.

  Kathryn repeated slowly, ‘Please, is she alive?’

  Wirritjil lifted her palms a little as if to say: maybe.

  Kathryn drew back. ‘You don’t know, do you? You are nothing.’

  She picked up the umbrella and stood at the door, trembling. ‘I could free you, you know, but you are not even going to try. Were you with my sister? Did you care for her or did you kill her? Do you know they want to hang you?’ Her voice became strident. ‘Where is Emily?’

  Wirritjil looked up. ‘Aammee,’ she whispered.

  Kathryn could see just the whites of her eyes and the shine of scant light on her cheeks.

  ‘Yes, Emily.’

  Wirritjil smiled. ‘Kata.’

  Kathryn felt her lips go numb and her legs weak. She sat down again. ‘Kata,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Kata.’ Wirritjil lifted one hand, the palm open and upwards.

  Kathryn trembled and tears rolled freely down her face. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Ammee, dat bin sea, datta way.’ Wirritjil’s fingers moved slightly on her lap indicating a northerly direction.

  ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘She go, follow ’im big fella turtle man.’

  ‘So she is dead?’

  Wirritjil drew her eyebrows together and shook her head.

  The policeman called out, ‘You okay?’ The handle on the door turned.

  ‘So I can see her?’

  ‘Yes, miss, in dat sea.’

  At the hotel a woman with a low-cut dress and heaving bosom approached Kathryn with an off
er of a bath and hot water.

  Kathryn listened to the laughter in the bar, the singing with the pounding of a piano. ‘Thank you,’ she replied, ‘but I might take a stroll before I retire.’

  The bosomed lady looked at her askance. ‘Just now, ma’am, it’s dangerous round here.’

  ‘The evening is lovely,’ replied Kathryn. ‘I cannot resist it.’

  She turned sharply and left, striking out towards the police station. She ran jewelled rosary beads through her hands and prayed as she walked. The streets were a shade of mauve catching glances of orange from the setting sun. On a rise she could see and hear Chinatown lively with voices and drinking as though many were making up for the recent bad times. The police station was quiet, the doors closed and no officers on the veranda.

  Kathryn found it difficult to walk past the lock-up for she thought of the pitiful creature alone in a room that was no more than a latrine. It was not right that there was a thick wall between her and that poor woman. She stood there for a few minutes as if the will of her thoughts and the indecency of what was might make the walls fall down in front of her.

  Across and up from the lock-up was a hill of red sand between the road and the sea. She hesitated but something drew her to it. The sea, she thought. I must see the sea. Perhaps God will hear my prayers there. She walked with a sudden urgency, as though if she went to the top of the hill and peered down at the ocean her sister might be there, waiting on the shore. She might say, ‘Kata, why do you chide me so?’

  ‘I will never chide you again, I promise.’

  She laboured through the hot sand scattered with struggling saltbush. A hand reached for her, touched her arm. It was a black hand. ‘Watch ’im, miss. Cheeky one.’

  She saw the snake slither away, making wavy arcs in the sand. She gasped, looked at the man and took hurried steps backwards. She rubbed her arm where he had touched her as if trying to wipe away a poison.

  The Aboriginal man was young and his face was bright. He was a half-caste dressed in burlap trousers. His chest was adorned with necklaces of shells and he had animal bones in his hair. He watched her as she fumbled and he turned and walked away.