The Clay Dreaming

by Ed Hillyer

  The trains scream as they pass overhead, making the ground tremble.

  When the land is no good, a body must move on – but where? Walypela spreads himself over the whole of the earth, like a heavy, foul-smelling blanket.

  Before he is born, the walypela, the Ngamadjidj, come up Karawalla, yellow-rain river, seen crossing the lands next to their own; and then their own. By the time he is a baby, they have already come to Konongwootong. Taken it. As payment for their land, the Wootong clan steals their sheep. The Whyte brothers shoot them all down, so the story goes. Ngamadjidj then come to Mar-deer-um. The Darkogang Gundidj live there. Darkogangs take many licks from the thunder stick. Mar-deer-um becomes Muntham Station.

  And so the story goes.

  Ngamadjidj take the Jardwa lands. The Jardwa come to live on the land the Wudjubalug belong to. His people make war with the Jardwadjali, when he is only a boy.

  The land can only support one. That is the Way. More than one child at any one time, and two will starve.

  Brippoki thinks of his be-anna, his blood father, and compassion bows his head. He is known only as Rockootarap, ‘one whose wife is dead’

  His mother, she wanders up from country far to the south, mainmait, and his father takes pity on her – so the story goes, from before he is born. Once she is gone, he is nothing, not belonging to No place. Brippoki is only Kertameru, a number, a small child at this time. His care falls to Old Aunty, his father’s sister.

  Blood must answer blood.

  Ngamadjidj does not stand against the spears to take his punishment, so they spear the friends and relatives of the dead. His father is no good. He does not take his punishment well – a spear in the thigh makes him lame. He wanders their new lands in misery, or else hangs about the walypela houses, begging for food, more often drink – for rum, for gin. His dingo is shot for going after chickens, and he tries to spear Old Aunty for it.

  A wife gives value when a man has none. Once Rockootarap’s wife, his mother, is gone, poor father mourns, but does not replace her. Got to give him respect for that.

  Lambert, as a young man, would take long hikes into the mountains, exploring. He once told Sarah about extinguishing his lamp deep inside a cave, far underground, an accident revealing a natural wonder. Gradually, an ever so subtle light seemed to shine – illumination, he realised, coming from within the rocks themselves. Sarah had often admired Brippoki’s black skin: unless greased, he returned no light. The hidden depths of his black eyes, however, had on occasion yielded something similar, suggesting frequencies of light that existed beyond sight – beyond average human perception, at least.

  She had first suspected it when they walked the colonnades of the Royal Naval Hospital, Whit Monday in Greenwich, without an inkling of what he saw; his world view drawn from another source, the blazing blacklight of his imagination or else a unique brand of faith.

  Brippoki was so very far from average.

  A block south of the British Museum, Sarah sat within the nave of St George’s, Bloomsbury, the blackened church with its aberrant north–south orientation. She had come here to pray for her father.

  Diamond shapes, glowing pink and red; a sliver of blue; shards of yellow – others scattered across the cool dark flared so bright they seemed almost liquid silver. The sunlight faltered. Sarah blinked against a phosphorescent afterimage, etched, as it were, into the air itself. Wherever she looked, there it also was, within her; a magical effect, achieved without magic – merely coloured light, filtered through stained glass, splashed against the deep brown wood of the pews.

  She prayed for her father. She prayed for her mother. She prayed for Brippoki; even for Druce.

  For her own sake she asked nothing, except forgiveness for what she was about to do.

  Presenting the small pink card, the Ordinary Reading-ticket – her means of entry into the library – Sarah could not help but look at its reverse.

  This Ticket should not be allowed to go out of the Reader’s

  possession; it must be produced if asked for at the

  Museum; and it should be preserved for renewal, or

  returned if no longer required.

  N.B. Readers are not, under any circumstances, to take a

  Book or MS. out of the Reading-room.

  Reader’s Signature Sarah Larkin

  Without even looking at her card or noting her down in the Register, the young attendant on duty waved her through.

  Not until the hour before dawn had her father finally ceased struggling for breath and fallen into a slumber. He had been sleeping soundly when Sarah had left the house.

  It wasn’t his first attack. Temporary setbacks, that was all they were; disturbed nights.

  Dr Epps assured her sleep was the best tonic; and that, if Lambert was able to sleep at all, things couldn’t really be that bad. If she wished – oh, yes, she wished very much – he would pay them a return visit on Saturday morning. She should get some rest herself, and not worry about it.

  There was little chance of that.

  On sunny days, the central dais appeared the focal point of the sun’s concentrated eye. Sarah looked towards where George Bullen, the superintendent, sat in surveillance of the entire Reading-room. She purposely chose to situate herself at short table XVI, adjoining long table T – one of only two spots in the public part of the library where she could not be directly observed.

  Really, thought Sarah, she shouldn’t have been there; it was entirely wrong for her to be out. But then, she was there for his sake – to set herself free.

  Only first, she needed to understand. She must understand.

  One final circuit around the shelves led to her text of last resort: the second volume of Edward John Eyre’s Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia, and Overland from Adelaide to King George’s Sound, in the years 1840–1 – specifically, the catalogued supplement: An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Aborigines, and the State of their Relations with Europeans.

  This well-thumbed book, opened on the desktop in front of her, was one she had formerly and very deliberately passed over because of its author, the notorious ‘Monster of Jamaica’. She could hardly credit the evidence in front of her own eyes – the voice of reason coming from the least likely of sources. How could this comparatively enlightened and sympathetic overview be the work of the same man?

  At the time of his account, Eyre had been living in South Australia for over a decade, as resident magistrate of the district of Adelaide and the Murray River system, a place more densely populated by natives than any other in that colony. Prior to his arrival in October 1841, frightful scenes of hostility, bloodshed, rapine and murder between the natives and settler squatters had been of frequent occurrence.

  Aborigines were Eyre’s constant companions, but as employees or servants. In quest of peace, therefore, he went to where no settler had ventured, to make himself familiar with tribesmen in their native state.

  Out of all the many authors Sarah had consulted, only Eyre showed insight sufficient to entertain ideas of their religion, citing cave paintings discovered by Captain Grey as indicative of system and reflection in their minds, and avowing that other conclusions owed more to the carelessness and ignorance of enquirers.

  Of all the experts she had attended, it took Eyre to solve the mystery of why, on that fateful Monday nearly a fortnight ago, Brippoki had fled shrieking from her parlour, quite possibly never to return.

  Mr Eyre declared, ‘I have never known a case of twins among the Aborigines, and Mr Moorhouse informs me that no case has ever come under his observation.’

  Twins – this, she had no doubt, explained the obscene and revolting sin which missionaries among them could not even bring themselves to pronounce: child-killing.

  If a child were born a twin, it and its sibling would be killed, smothered in sand. The slaughter of twins was an imperative. Given all of her burdens, her duties, the inconstancy of supply in an arid land, a mother could n
ot spare more than one arm to carry an extra infant. Such a hardhearted act was made easier by dint of superstition. Twins were discounted as ‘manu-tjitji’, malignant spirit children.

  Joseph and Josiah Druce – the names alone perhaps contained unholy power; more dread lay in the combination of two together.

  Brippoki is still Parnko, a young boy, when men from his mob camp near Mokepille, ‘not many trees’, to join with Barbardin and Djab Wurrung warriors for raids on sheep at ‘spear point’, now Ledcourt Station. The Nundadjali formerly belonged to these lands, until Briggs, the first walypela, at spear point shot them down. By and by he learns to live with them, and go hunting ’roo instead. Many tears are shed when he moves on.

  The new boss, Boyd, has a headman name of ‘Hamilton’. So the story goes, Boyd tells his man not to worry if blackfellows take a few sheep. Hamilton don’t listen, and buys mantraps. He’s always on horseback, more beast than man, patrolling his fences, a gun in each hand. When Hamilton comes across any hunting party, he breaks their spears and shields and spikes their water-skins. Two and two blackfellows are shot and killed out Wurri-wurri, along the mallee scrub. Rose – the stickybark next door – says Boyd complains. The men and not we are the masters, he says. The lost clans of six lands aim to make Hamilton listen, Barbardin, Djab Wurrung, Jaggilbulug, lake people from around Ngalbagutja, the moody people – and Wudjubalug.

  A new walypela law goes against gathering, and any boree is soon broken up. In any dispute, accused and witnesses alike end up in a neck chain, rounded up and taken away for trial. Same time as the raids, Rockootarap goes along to the station like always, to beg a little. Seized and chained to a tree for two moons, he’s off to jail in Adelaide. Never seen again.

  Parnko is already ‘orphan’, the meaning of that name – the bottle took his father away long time before. If Rockootarap ever seen him, he bursts into tears, and can’t even speak. He looks at the boy and sees his mother.

  His mother.

  One night long ago, in the dry, the men are off hunting. That night, gins and little piccaninnies are burning the bush, to get at the small game and make sweet new grass. Ngamadjidj comes along. The gins and piccaninnies are resting on the banks of the Wimmera, at Worrowen, ‘place of sorrow’. Night turns day, sounds of thunder, and then night darker than ever.

  Brippoki clings to his mother, to her bosom, the hole through it – that night long ago, when he is a baby.

  ‘The grand error of all our past or present systems – the very fons et origo mali – appears to me to consist in the fact, that we have not endeavoured to blend the interests of the settlers and Aborigines together; and by making it the interest of both to live on terms of kindness and good feeling with each, bring about and cement that union and harmony which ought ever to subsist between people inhabiting the same country. So far, however, from our measures producing this very desirable tendency, they have hitherto, unfortunately, had only a contrary effect.

  ‘By our injustice and oppression towards the natives, we have provoked them to retaliation and revenge; whilst by not affording security and protection to the settlers, we have driven them to protect themselves. Mutual distrusts and mutual misunderstandings have been the necessary consequence, and these, as must ever be the case, have but too often terminated in collisions or atrocities at which every right-thinking mind must shudder. Thus, as in a circle, injustice will be found to flow reciprocal injury, and from injury injustice again, in another form.’

  ‘Mutual distrusts and mutual misunderstandings’ – utu, utu, UTU! Eyre’s text reminded Sarah of the indomitable Maori concept of ‘retributive justice’, the diabolical spirit of revenge; about the only trait they and the Pakeha shared with the native Australians. The law of the land of the lazy Doasyoulike was better understood as ‘Do as you would be done by’.

  The Golden Age of Greek and Roman legend was a mythical period, when perfect innocence, peace and happiness reigned. It was also considered the most flourishing period of a nation’s history. No one seemed to consider that the two might be mutually exclusive.

  The slaughters were mutual.

  Frantically Sarah scribbled her notes. There was more, much more, but no time left to attend to it. Her eyes were on the clock face, and her own immediate future. A quarter to one already – Bullen would be on his lunch break. She had not yet found the courage to act. She would. She had to. Overdue since May, the library’s temporary closure began on Monday. It was time for her to go, for good, for Lambert.

  She blotted the pages of her copybook. They were carelessly smudged, but legible.

  Sarah gingerly lifted up the volumes by Eyre, the manuscript concealed beneath. Checking to see that she was still unobserved, she slid it forth – carefully, carefully – and interleaved it with her notebooks. Her last hours, it might be argued, could have been better spent on the transcript; but in light of what she had learnt, she didn’t think so.

  Standing, she had the books gathered one on top of the other. Returning the volumes of Eyre to the ad libitum shelves, she started walking slowly and calmly towards the exit. It was not so very far. More clergymen than ever seemed present, and every single one of them looking her way. Not daring turn her head, she sensed Bullen still at his station. A warden patrolled the upper deck, almost overhead. Her breath caught: she had not thought to check above. Was she seen?

  The doors stood open before her. The sound of books slamming shut shot a fusillade behind. Between the doors to the Salon and out, too late to turn back now, Sarah strode down the corridor into the Hall. Were she to look up, she felt sure she would see the glowering marble bust of architect Sir Anthony Panizzi, toppling down.

  Her burden was heavy. She knew by heart the Penalty for the Infringement of Rules. A Reader, once excluded, was seldom re-admitted.

  Across the threshold and into the lobby area without a single backward glance, Sarah Larkin passed out through the colonnade, never to return to the scene of her crime.

  CHAPTER LII

  Friday the 19th of June, 1868

  FIAT LUX

  ‘All visible things are emblems – what thou seest is not there on its own account: strictly taken, it is not there at all.

  Matter exists only spiritually, and to represent some Idea, and body it forth.’

  ~ Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus

  The weather was fine, to look at: bright sunshine and a cloudless sky. It took the tattletale rattle of the window in its frame to inform on winds stronger by the hour. Sarah folded a napkin and used it to interrupt the noise.

  From within the interior pocket of her skirts she retrieved Druce’s manuscript, laying it on the table alongside notebook and papers. There could be no more trips to Shadwell, Piccadilly, or anywhere – to the library at the British Museum, most especially not.

  What had she done?

  Sarah removed the plunder at arm’s length, and stared at it, almost in disbelief. She couldn’t bear to handle the thing, not for a while at least.

  Lambert appeared asleep. From the lightest touch of her hand however his eyelids fluttered open, and at the look on his face…she vowed never to leave him alone in the house again, not for anything.

  He gave assurances that he was well, and, what was more, hungry. She made him a little broth, which he accepted gratefully, spoon after spoonful.

  They passed much of the afternoon in gentle chatter, inconsequential but for Lambert’s appearing to gain in strength. As evening drew close a slight cloud fell across Sarah’s face, her expression fixed with serious intent.

  ‘If… Father, you said that objects might still exist, even if they could not be seen?’

  She spoke tentatively, not wishing to excite him.

  ‘Objects?’ said Lambert.

  She wished to say ‘persons’, but dared not.

  ‘If one of us were to look at the table, and see a table,’ said Sarah, ‘while the other could not…would you believe a table to be there?’

  ‘If you see it,
you say?’ Lambert studied the bedside table, entertaining the idea. ‘I can only think of that fable about Dictionary Johnson and Bishop Berkeley,’ he said.

  Of course, Sarah thought. During his sermon one day, the bishop had put forward a theory – that reality was a matter for individual sensation, rather than of physical material. The good doctor had emerged from the church, kicked a large stone, and declared, ‘I refute it, thus.’

  ‘Hm,’ hummed Lambert, ‘yes, I could accept the possible existence of the table.’

  Naturally he sided with the bishop. Sarah was no longer sure what to think.

  Lambert’s active mind meanwhile turned the tables on science. ‘It is,’ he announced, ‘much less rational to conceive of a stone, or any other inanimate object, that could start into being without a Creator. One might as well worship the stone!’

  He nestled deeper into the bed. He enjoyed philosophical discourse.

  ‘What of the soul?’ he asked. ‘Few people can claim to have seen one, yet all believe we have them. What of the Holy Ghost?’ He reached one hand towards his daughter. ‘We do not have to see something to appreciate its hold over us. I know the spirit of your dear departed mother watches over us still… Always keep her in mind, I beg of you.’

  In the night, in his delirium, he had called her Frances; it had alarmed Sarah at first, until she realised that she wore her mother’s nightdress.

  ‘I…’ Sarah almost choked ‘…I do.’

  It wasn’t true. Her recollection was hazy at best.

  A little later on, no more than half an hour, and Lambert returned to the topic he had obviously been mulling over.

  ‘There is the material world,’ he said, ‘a world of “phenomena”. Except, larger forces are at work in the universe. Beyond the limits of what we know according to our senses, exist things beyond our ken… Not phenomena, but “noumena”, sufficient unto themselves and without the need of our proof for their existence. To assert that we may never know them only sets a limit on our experience.’