Kupulyu Creek. I’d heard of it. Like Moonlight, a fledgling community, a little band of people struggling to escape time’s gravitational pull. Kantiji country, a few hours to the south-east.
I settled back into the wickerwork chair, pulled my feet up underneath. A minute or two drifted by as we quietly worked our way through the scones.
‘So who are you, Jojo?’
He raised a brow. ‘Who am I?’
‘You seem so at home around here. You can spot a witchdoctor in the dark. You listen to the Warumpis. You know where the townboys stash the loot. But you didn’t grow up round here.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘You’re—what, twenty-seven, twenty-eight? I’d have come across you. But you do sound local: got that parched-out Territorian drawl, the sun-dried eyes.’
‘I first come up to the Centre when I was eight years old. Me and me mum.’
‘Just the two of you? Like me and Jack.’
‘I suppose so. Grace was an arts coordinator on various communities out from Alice. Yuendumu. Ernabella. Spent a year living out of a swag on the outstations west of Papunya. She had a rather… how would you put it?…chaotic idea of parenting. Long as she had a paint brush in her hands, she didn’t notice what I was up to. I spent more time running around the bush with a mob of little mates than I did in the classroom. Then we moved in to Alice, only there running wild meant something different. Something a lot more dangerous.’
‘So how come you didn’t end up in some gutter?’
‘I spent plenty of time in gutters, actually. Or I would have if they’d had gutters where I was lying.’
‘Yeah, but you’re not still there. What happened?’
‘Shit, you are a pushy little thing, aren’t you?’ He stared off into the scrub across the road, ran his fingers through the sand and said, ‘I suppose the bush is what happened.’
I waited.
‘When I was eighteen,’ he continued, ‘I picked up a casual job delivering stores out to the stations. Spent a couple of days marooned by a flooded river and found myself thinking about what I’d left behind when we came to Alice. You know. The colours, the kids, the waterholes. Thought how much I missed them.’
He paused, but the silence between us was a comfortable one.
‘So you ended up a ranger.’
‘Buggered if I could think of any other job was going to let me loose out bush. One of the blokes stuck by the river with me was Tom McGillivray. He took me under his wing; helped me get into Parks and Wildlife. I’ve been working round here ever since.’
We sat there quietly drinking our tea, then he went on, ‘You grew up at Moonlight Downs, didn’t you, Emily?’
‘Mainly.’
‘Well, you know what I’m talking about, then. Bit of a riot, wasn’t it?’
I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, enjoyed the last lingering rays of the sun and thought about the wild, aimless days of my childhood. I pictured Hazel and me running along a dry creek bed, no clothes, no cares, hair streaming. Coming across a pool and diving in. Bobbing up, laughing so hard we just about drowned.
My body felt lithe and alive; maybe it was the sun, maybe it was the memories. When I opened my eyes, he was gazing at me, a bemused smile on his face. ‘Yeah,’ I smiled. ‘Most of the time.’
Soon afterwards he hauled himself to his feet. ‘Suppose I’d better go and earn my pay,’ he said, then an idea seemed to ripple across his face. ‘Chances are I’ll be heading out to Kupulyu first thing in the morning. Want to come along?’
I gave the invitation a moment’s consideration. ‘Interesting to see what the community’s like.’
‘Be a good thing, having a woman along. You could do the cooking.’
He made it off the veranda, but not before I’d knocked his beanie off with the nulla-nulla I kept by the door for such eventualities.
‘Pick you up at seven?’ he called from his car.
‘Unless I get a better offer.’
That cake—it flew!
JOJO ROLLED up early the next morning, gave a quick beep on the horn. I grabbed my pack and headed for the door.
Sprawled across the back seat was the collection of hats, hoods and attitude known as the Sandhill Gang. A long grey streak of a dog, a cross between a whippet and a pony, lay stretched out on the floor.
‘Let’s go,’ I said to Jojo. ‘Neighbours get a look at us, there’ll be a lynch mob.’
He did a casual u-ie in the driveway and headed south.
The boys sat there in stony silence. The only member of the gang to show any animation was the dog, which stirred itself, climbed up and peered over my shoulder, looking for a feed. It had huge teeth, terrible breath, a great grey tongue and a set of balls that bounced around like coconuts in a tropical breeze.
‘Dog’s called Rollo,’ said Jojo.
‘I can see why.’
‘Boys persuaded me to bring him along.’
‘He’s looking hungry.’
‘So am I. Hey, Russell!’ The boy closest to the window looked up. ‘Have a look in the bag at your feet.’
The boy reached down, rummaged through the bag, came up with a bag of toasted sandwiches wrapped in foil. Ham and tomato. A trace of life gleamed in his eyes.
‘Dig a little deeper, there’s a thermos.’
By the time we’d finished breakfast, the hats and the hoods were still in place, but the attitude was breaking down. One of the boys opened a coat and revealed a puppy he’d somehow been concealing, and it proceeded to play havoc with Rollo. The boys and I sussed out each other’s names and countries, ran through the people and places we had in common. They were Russell and his brother Red, their cousins, Willy, Ring and Wildboy.
‘What the hell were you boys doing,’ I said when I thought it was safe to do so, ‘breaking into people’s houses like that?’
‘Sorry Em’ly,’ said Russell, a sheepish smile on his mouth, the puppy cradled in his arms. ‘We did’n know you bin livin there.’
‘Shouldn’t matter who’s living there,’ Jojo growled. ‘You boys’ll be men soon. Bout time you started acting that way.’
By the time we reached the Hawk’s Well Waterhole, they were really sparking up. They were coming into their own country: they scrutinised every rock and tree, whispered and tugged each other’s shirts at every watercourse or hill.
Jojo drove slowly. Not long before we reached the Kupulyu turn-off he cast an anxious glance at the western sky. Purple clouds floated across the horizon, trailing rain.
‘We driving into that?’ I asked.
‘Hopefully not. You know what it’s like out here—floods one end of town, drought at the other. We’ve come this far, don’t want to turn back now. If we do run into trouble it’ll be near Kupulyu. Plenty of people around to give us a hand.’
The road was heavy with the recent rain but manageable, and in twenty minutes we drove into the Kupulyu community: a dozen Colorbond houses, a similar number of humpies, a health centre, a store and, some five hundred metres to the south, a school.
An old man in a grey singlet and a blue stockman’s hat was sitting on a spring bed in front of one of the houses. When Jojo emerged he smiled, came over and shook his hand. Jojo introduced him to us as Johnny Friday, leader of the community and driver of the tractor parked alongside the house. Johnny said they were expecting the boys, and suggested we take them straight over to the school, where the kids had prepared a welcome.
Jojo looked suspiciously at the road between the community and the school, which appeared to have been the focus of the downpour.
‘What’s that road like, Johnny?’ he enquired. ‘Good road?’
‘Oh, my word, yes, very good road, that one.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes, very sure.’
We got a hundred metres down the track before sinking to our axles in a quagmire of black glue.
We piled out, walked back to where Johnny was waiting, watching us.
> ‘Got bogged, Johnny.’
‘Mmmm, I see,’ he replied, nodding sagely. He considered our predicament for a moment, then added, ‘Mmmm…I bin get bog, that same place, just this morning.’
Jojo and I glanced at each other.
‘Can I borrow your tractor?’
‘No worries, mate.’
The school, when we were eventually towed into it, consisted of a large, silver classroom, a teacher’s van, a gaudy plastic playground, an orchard and a few acres of red dirt with goal posts at either end.
A solid, bearded bloke with a florid face and a navy windcheater was standing on the veranda of the van. In his arms was a Black Forest cake slightly smaller than one of the tractor’s tyres.
‘G’day, Con,’ said Jojo.
‘Jojo.’ He looked out to where Johnny Friday was rolling the tackle back up into the winch. ‘Where would we be without Johnny and his tractor?’
‘Probably hoeing into that cake. Morning tea, I hope?’
‘Kids have been baking all day.’ He placed the cake on a table, came down and shook my hand. ‘Con Christou.’
‘Emily Tempest.’
He frowned slightly. ‘Tempest?’
‘It’s okay—I don’t bite.’
‘From Moonlight Downs?’
‘Among other places. You know Moonlight?’
‘Made a few trips out there. Heard your name on the bush telegraph. That old Kuminjayi had been badgering the Department for a new school, and I was slotted to be the first teacher.’ I frowned, felt as though a shadow had just passed over the day. ‘Tragic, the way it all turned out.’
‘It’s not over yet,’ I replied.
Con introduced himself to the Sandhill boys, teamed them up with their Kupulyu counterparts, grabbed a football and thumped it out onto the oval. ‘Okay fellers, go and sort out your pecking order,’ he yelled. ‘Cake time in ten minutes.’
The boys went haring off in pursuit, with Rollo bringing up the rear.
We walked up onto the veranda of the van. ‘Come inside,’ said Con. ‘You’ll want to freshen up. Siena! Macey!’ He indicated the cake. ‘Nobody’s to touch this until we get back, okay?’ Two stringy girls nodded compliantly, and we followed the teacher inside.
‘Bathroom’s over there,’ he said.
Jojo washed his hands, then muttered, ‘Better go out and keep an eye on that cake.’
As he swung the door open, Con looked out onto the veranda. A look of horror shot across his face.
‘Aaagh!!!’ he bellowed. ‘You little bastards!’
I followed his gaze
There was a riot going on around the wretched cake. The Sandhill Gang were in the thick of it, of course, shovelling great handfuls into their mouths, chucking cherries into the air and catching them with their teeth, but the Kupulyu mob weren’t far behind.
A couple of boys were smacking each other with creamy fists, and Siena and Macey were hungrily licking their fingers. Toddlers were being thrust aside, although one determined little boy was making ferocious sorties up at the cake from under the table. Even Rollo looked like he’d scored.
The Kupulyu teacher pushed past Jojo, burst through the crowd, picked up the plate, stared at the shattered remnants in dismay.
‘Have the fucking lot then!’ he roared, and sent it spinning out through the air.
The kids stood there, gawping and gaping, wide-eyed, as the plate whizzed over them. Crumbs and globs drifted down and landed on their heads. There was a stunned silence until the plate landed with a piercing twang on the other side of the yard.
A little girl in a long blue dress was standing in the yard. Her enormous eyes retraced the path of the missile. Her jaw hung down.
‘That cake,’ she said at last. ‘It flew!’
Into the silence burst a tiny, half-choked splutter. Jojo. Then he began to laugh, a rollicking burst of pure delight that pealed across the yard like a set of bells.
The Kupulyu teacher glared for a moment but the contagion caught, and in seconds the schoolyard was full of kids and adults rolling around in the mud clutching their sides and slapping each other’s backs.
They were still giggling about it when Jojo and I left for Bluebush later that afternoon. The kids ran along beside us, whistling and hooting, slapping the sides of the vehicle, swinging off the gate.
‘That cake!’ they called after us. ‘It flew!’
At the Hawk’s Well
KUPULYU DISAPPEARED in the rear-view mirror and we hit the main drag. Headed north, up into the fading embers of the day. Cool air drifted in the open window. I settled back, put my legs up on the seat, nestled my head against the blanket, content to be quiet. My eyes were half closed, but from time to time I found them drifting across to the man at the wheel.
Tiny drops of rainwater clung to the corners of his brow, to the whiskers on his jaw. The habitual smile hung about the corners of his mouth, the outward expression of what I’d come to think of as his natural state of mind: amused, surprised, at ease with the revolutions of the world.
His fist—hard, scarred, dappled in black mud—moved down to the gearstick, and I found myself imagining it slipping over onto my thigh.
The shadows lengthened. The termite mounds on the passing plains looked like an invading army; kamikazi birds swooped among our wheels.
Coming up to the Hawk’s Well Waterhole, Jojo stretched his shoulders, twisted his neck, ruefully rubbed a knee.
‘Any permanent damage?’ I asked him.
‘Don’t think so, but jeez, they can move, those kids.’ We’d spent the last hour at Kupulyu playing barefoot football, but only one of us had had the sense to retire before getting hurt.
‘I’d help with the driving, but I imagine your department’s got rules against that sort of thing. Want a break for a while?’
‘Just what I was about to suggest. How about Hawk’s Well?’
‘Sure.’
‘Been there before?’
‘Heaps. I love Hawk’s Well. Dad and I used to stop there for a cup of tea whenever we were down this way.’
‘I could boil a billy now, if you like.’
‘Yeah, all right.’
When we reached the turn-off he pulled over and edged the vehicle down the overgrown track that led to the waterhole. Tussocks of ribbon grass brushed along the undercarriage of the vehicle.
‘Mmmm,’ he shivered, flexing his back and wriggling his shoulders. ‘Tickles.’
He parked on a shallow rise overlooking the water. Took an axe from the cabin and walked away. He had a smooth, easy gait, his boots kicking through the spinifex, crunching over loose stones.
The Toyota clicked and creaked, unwinding. I got out of the cabin and did the same, then sat on a rock overlooking the waterhole. Light shot away from the sandstone, hummed in the plants: grevilleas and sedges, burr daisies, rock ferns. A lonely fig tree struggled for a foothold on the cliffs.
Birds darted and called: honeyeaters and wood swallows, kingfishers, finches. A pair of rock pigeons took off in noisy flaps, glided across the water, alighted upon a shelf.
I remembered a comment my father made once, as we sat here years before: ‘Make it all worthwhile, don’t you reckon, places like this? It’s as if they take all the energy out of a hundred square miles of rough desert and force it through a single fuse.’
The only human sound to be heard was from Jojo, the crunch of his boots on a branch, the soft thunk of iron on wood. He was three metres away, his back to me as he worked.
He turned around, grinned, the hovering sun burnishing his face. ‘Gonna have a fire, might as well make it a decent one,’ he said as he walked towards me, his arms full of branches, his beanie dusted with leaves and pollen. He dropped the wood, cleared a patch of grass.
As he crouched low to put the sticks in place, his shirt rucked up over the top of his shorts to reveal a finger’s-breadth of flesh, the lower stretches of his arcing spine.
I watched him for a moment or two, the breat
h rushing across my throat.
‘Jojo.’
‘Eh?’ He looked up.
I took a couple of steps towards him, put my hand on his beanie, pushed my fingers under its rim, ran a hand through his wiry hair. Lifted my top and drew his head towards my bare belly, let it nestle there for a moment. ‘The fire. Don’t know that I need one right now.’ I took his hand, moved it up under my skirt.
He stood up, smiling into my eyes. ‘Must admit, I was kind of wondering myself.’
‘About the fire?’
‘About you. Us.’ He stroked the inside of my thigh, brushed lightly against the tender flesh further up. ‘This.’
I rubbed my cheek against his jaw. It was pleasantly sweet and rough-whiskered. ‘While since I felt one of those,’ I said, moving against his fingers.
I pulled him in close and kissed him hard, felt his tongue dance in response. ‘While since I felt one of those, too.’ I slipped my hand inside his hard yakkas. ‘Not to mention…’
‘Don’t say it,’ he whispered, and drew my body into the fold of his arms. Ran a hand down my spine, massaging it with fingers that felt as smooth and strong as the limbs of a ghost gum. Cupped my arse, lifted me off my feet and kissed my throat, slow kisses that seemed to ripple through my body.
A low moan escaped from my throat and I pulled my head back. Caught my breath, took a look around.
‘Dunno if this is such a good idea.’
‘Shit,’ he gasped. ‘Now you tell me.’
‘Not what I meant.’
I freed myself from his embrace, went back to the vehicle and grabbed my red blanket. Came back and threw it over the stones and the porcupine grass. ‘Now,’ I said, grappling with his buttons, ‘it’s a good idea. Bloody great idea, in fact.’
We lay down, eased each other out of our clothes, then eased each other out of our brains.
The next morning we loaded the Cruiser and headed back down the track. Even when we hit the highway Jojo drove slowly, with one arm on the wheel and the other around my shoulders. I kicked my shoes off, nestled up close to him, enjoyed the warmth of his body, the solid strength of his ribs.
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