Ah gammon I don’t believe ya, she cried from the corner, with the bluntness of a clever child.
Tall Mary sucked her teeth in alarm. Too much lip, this little gin! she observed.
Pretty Mary, the world’s most modest woman, startled at the realisation that she had been overheard, and gave her daughter a strange look. Then, horrifyingly, she put down her bowl of peas, pulled up her dress and yanked down her knicker elastic to show her daughter the mark that appeared just once in every generation. Kerry saw a neat familiar pattern marked out on Pretty Mary’s brown skin, a crossed rectangle of purple blotches, and then gazed out across the paddock, feeling strangely disconnected from her body and knowing that nobody at school would ever, ever believe it. God Save Our Gracious Queen. She had heard Principal Taylor sing it under his breath as the faded blue cloth with the Union Jack in the corner jerked up the tall steel pole every Monday morning. That day on the veranda Kerry learned the reality about being a Salter; it was not simply that you were black, and different, but that the differences couldn’t even be spoken of sensibly. You could tell the gospel truth to white people and be thought a crazy liar and there was no way of bridging the gap. Some things could never be told. Some secrets could hardly even be held inside your nine-year-old mind.
I was born with it, like Granny Ruth before me. Donna, too, said Pretty Mary quietly. So best you believe it, bub. Cos it coulda been you wearing the dugai brand all ya born days.
For weeks afterwards, Kerry stared at Donna, wondering where history could possibly have marked her sister that she had never noticed in nine years of sharing a room, a bath, very often a bed. Something stopped her asking outright, though. It was as if, having once been proven wrong by a softly spoken mother, there was nothing that she couldn’t be wrong about. Her sister could be revealed as a werewolf. Her brother could turn out to be a black snake. It might be better to watch in silence and think things through; words were dangerously powerful and nothing much good came of them.
Kerry flipped over now in the gentle current of the river, gasping for breath. As her heart slowed, she lay floating easily again, a bony black starfish, and she listened. Midday shone hot on her face, until behind her eyelids she saw only a red blur. Her T-shirt billowed up around her stomach, exposing her black undies and making her glad that she’d picked the most isolated of their childhood swimming holes to jump in the river and think. The Harley was parked on the opposite bank near where Donny squatted. Her jeans were draped over the seat and the backpack was hooked safe in view on the handlebars. For the first time since she’d crossed the New South Wales border that morning, Kerry felt at ease. There was nobody but her and Donny around for at least a couple of kays, the distance down the secret dirt track that led to the highway.
Above her, giant blue gums soared high on either edge of the river; their hollow branches tantalising her, completely safe but completely inaccessible too. There were weathered stumps all around in the scrub, though. Dozens of them, left over from the dairying days when pasture was suddenly infinitely more valuable than eucalypts, and the broad-axes came out swinging with a vengeance. Kerry shifted to tread water, making her own mark in the surface patterns of the river. Her pulse beat fast as she took in the many indistinguishable stumps on the river flat opposite. It could work; it would work. There were enough stumps to make it a viable proposition. She could get a watertight container, tape it up in thick plastic, and bury it deep inside the rotted heartwood of one stump, anonymous among the multitude. Sprinkle the top with fine dirt and weathered gum leaves, then walk backwards sweeping the ground with a branch. Nobody would ever know. Kerry smiled in triumph. She’d come back alone tonight, and make her first and only deposit in the Caledonian River Bank.
‘Whaddya reckon?’ she called out with sudden enthusiasm, her problem solved. ‘Beat Warcraft?’ Donny was shivering on his rock now, arms wrapped around his sticks of legs for warmth. ‘Hey, go stand in the sun before ya die of pneumonia and we hafta go to all the trouble of digging ya a hole next to Granny.’
‘Aunty,’ Donny obliged, crabwalking sideways into the sun, ‘how come they didn’t bury her in the cemetery?’
‘Cos this was her home, bub,’ Kerry answered, startled by the idea of Granny resting anywhere else but on her island. ‘Grandad worked so long for the Nunnes I think everyone probably turned a blind eye, no pun intended. She had to be here, same as Dad and Grandad Chinky Joe – and Pop too, when it’s his time. Ya gotta go back to where ya from.’
‘I thought Pop didn’t really know his own country.’
‘Well, no. But sometimes a country kinda grabs a person, see. And this place grabbed him through Dad Charlie marrying Mum. Pop come up here from Rivertown and just never went back south again.’
‘Can ya get buried anywhere then?’
Kerry squinted at Donny. Was the kid thinking about doing himself in?
‘Nah. But back in them days, if an old Goorie up and died in the bush, see, nobody in town would’ve cared much. So Granny Ava and Grandad Joe got away with it. And with Dad Charlie it was ashes, and you can scatter them anywhere – so long as nobody knows.’
Kerry paused. Donny hadn’t even been remotely thought of when Dad Charlie had clutched his chest in the kitchen and fallen in 1999. Ken had already chucked school to play basketball for the Brisbane Bullets on weekends and party hard on the Goldie all week. Pretty Mary blamed Donna for her husband’s death, but sometimes Kerry wondered how much of it was really down to Ken. Dad must have been waiting for the night Ken would disappear too, shotgunned by the bikies he was buying drugs off in Surfers, or murdered by the Westville KKK. And the strain proved too much in the end, Dad crushed by overwork and heartbreak at fifty, leaving Pretty Mary alone to raise her and Black Superman. Pop Owen had done what he could to take his son’s place, but ah, how could he replace Dad Charlie? How could anyone? Kerry swam slowly across the river to Donny, and despite the heat of the day she shivered off the guilt, the questions. Dead was dead, and that was the end of it. Don’t look back. She gestured at a golden wattle in blossom.
‘Let’s get some flowers to put on the graves, eh?’
Kerry was climbing out of the water to do just that when a trio of cockatoos rocketed, screeching, out of a strangler fig. A dog barked in the distance, and then Kerry heard the faint buzz of a four-wheel drive barrelling along on the gravel track. Fuck. Dugais coming. And her precious bag just hanging there for anyone to grab. She clambered over the slippery rocks, hurrying, but fell heavily in her haste. She gave a cry of pain as her elbow met hard, hot granite.
‘What’s up?’ Donny turned to ask.
‘I’ve got warrants out. Quick – move!’ she urged, flailing at him in a panic with her good arm. She would have to leave the backpack where it was on the bike and pray not to be robbed, not to be discovered trespassing on private land, wrapped up in her suspiciously black skin.
All there was time to do before the 4WD burst noisily around the corner was drag Donny into the thick undergrowth. The two of them hid together behind a large grey stump, hidden by masses of lantana and high crofton weed. Scratched on her legs by lantana stems and bothered by insects she didn’t dare swat, her elbow on fire, Kerry lay on her wet stomach and watched in dismay as Jim Buckley pulled up in the clearing. His late model LandCruiser ute was decked out with all the expensive shit: roof racks, snorkel, the top-shelf type of square towbar, and fat white-inscribed tyres that each individually held more tread than all of Ken’s tyres combined. Along the ute doors ran the spray-painted legend: Jim’s Conveyancing, Earthworks and Development. A pigger bitch grinned bossily in the tray. She was a pedigree hulk of a dog, supremely confident of her place in the scheme of things, a confidence that was only mildly shaken when Jim and his passenger – a fifty-something bloke in expensive cream trousers and a John Deere cap – got out and wandered off without unchaining her.
Kerry’s gut tightened.
/> The men strolled across and puzzled over the Harley. Jim stared at the bike in clear affront, then flipped up the legs of Kerry’s flaccid jeans. John Deere Cap made a crack about a shallow grave, and both men chuckled. Lucky, Kerry thought, that there’s nothing there to tell them I’m female and a very different kind of target. The bag hung from the handlebar, a cheap generic nylon thing, square with the bounty it held. Oh sweet Jesus leave it alone. Buckley paused, looking without touching. Holding her breath, Kerry caught some commentary about ‘trespass’ and ‘development approval’ before the men wandered off to inspect the river. Keep walking, you dumb cunts. Surely, surely, they would have to notice two sets of wet footprints on the grass, or on the rocks she’d fallen on just a minute ago. Yet all they did was gesture – well, Jim pointed and John Deere Cap nodded – and squint around at the scrub. Could she breathe yet? Was it safe? (It would never be safe, not with outstanding warrants for possession and assault police.)
‘Good water, mostly clear land. Run forty head, easy,’ said Jim. ‘Maybe fifty. If it’s cattle you’re thinking.’ He looked curiously at the man. John Deere Cap didn’t reveal his position on cattle. Instead he assessed the slope of the land, and looked repeatedly at the slim silver tablet he held in both hands. Then he muttered something indistinct. Jim’s forefinger promptly described the hilly boundaries to the north and east. John Deere Cap nodded and made some notes. Then he lifted the tablet, plonked his elastic-sided boot against the broad base of the green sign informing the world that the island opposite him – Ava’s Island – was State Forest, and began taking photos. Kerry clenched her fists around sharp stalks of gritty lantana and wished John Deere Cap dead on the spot. Wished both the dugais dead.
If they’d seen her the men would have puffed up with the word ‘trespass’ in their mouths, but her Old People had Law for trespassers before any dugai ever trod these river flats. And if intruders didn’t heed a fair warning you buried them with their jinung sticking out of the good red earth. Couldn’t make it much simpler than that. If Kerry had a machete she’d send a message too, cut off that dugai foot defiling Granny’s land. She’d hack it off and chuck it to The Doctor for her afternoon tea. Shove the rest of John Deere Cap back in the ute so his flowing blood couldn’t meet this country’s spirit, and fuck both of the men off, onetime. Peering through the delicate blossom of crofton weeds, Donny made a face at her: What the hell? Why are we hiding? Kerry put an urgent finger to her lips. Keep quiet, lad. Not a peep.
She caught a phrase from John Deere Cap: ‘the position on rezoning’. Jim propped his hands on his hips and smiled, real happy way. He looked like it was the kind of phrase he was very fond of. Buckley licked his lips and Kerry suddenly wondered what had become of Russ, the giant cane toad that used to inhabit Pretty Mary’s outdoor dunny.
Never mind bloody toads. She could sense a catastrophe unfolding in front of her, and her throat grew tight with unscreamed objections. What did these mongrels want near her Granny’s land that needed words like ‘rezoning’ and ‘development’? There were no happy answers to that. Kerry’s fear caught, high in her gullet, and she had to hold her hands hard against her mouth to stifle a cough of terror.
On the back of the ute, the pigger bitch gave a high, impatient bark, and was ignored.
‘Well, new business is what we’re all about in Durrongo,’ Jim encouraged, walking the buyer further around the river bend towards the scenic spot where Mount Monk became clearly visible in the distance. ‘Great spot for a B&B, quiet getaway …’
‘And they’re asking, what, a million?’ the man asked, as if he didn’t already know. Wiping sweat off his brow with a freckled forearm, Jim looked carefully at John Deere Cap.
‘Without the DA, one point two. Assuming the DA goes through – and it will – you’d be talking closer to two mill,’ Jim said easily. ‘That’s fully fenced, remember. But you’ll need to go through my associate, of course.’
‘Not with the fences my client wants,’ the man said with a wry smile, but didn’t elaborate.
Black spots swam in dizzying constellations before Kerry’s eyes. Was her bag safe? Was the island? Was anything? By the time they had given the pig dog a few hard blokey claps on her ribs, pulled roughly at her ears and climbed back into the ute, the visitor was adding to his copious notes. Jim started the engine, ran the aircon. Gotta keep the buyers happy, Kerry thought sourly. Go on, then, git. But Jim wasn’t quite done. He opened his door.
‘Just gotta take a leak,’ he said. ‘Won’t be a sec.’ Kerry watched in disbelief as Buckley walked past their hiding spot, unzipped himself and pissed a long yellow ugly stream into the middle of the translucent river. As he pissed he shot inquisitive glances about him, left and right, searching for where the Harley rider was. He pissed for what seemed like minutes. The stench drifted to where Kerry was crouching in anguish. Oh Jesus. Let a branch fall and split his ignorant skull, right here, right now, she prayed. This country’s fed you, watered you, and this is how you repay it? Granny Ava! Grandad Joe! Are you watching? She met Donny’s horrified gaze, and had to stretch out a hand to stop him from leaping up and shoving the mayor of Patterson off the bank into the widening circle of his own disgusting piss. But she couldn’t let Donny intervene; she was paralysed by her warrants.
Clearly Granny and Grandad weren’t watching, for when Jim Buckley was zipped back up, he had no reason – no limb-split skull, no vengeful mundoolun sinking its fangs in his leg, not even a marauding horsefly – to stop him strolling back over to the Harley. Helpless, Kerry could only watch as the mayor casually lifted the blue backpack off the handlebar and in the same smooth movement eased it silently into the back of his ute. John Deere Cap was still deep in calculations on his tablet. The pig dog sniffed at the bag once before turning her back on it, lofty with disinterest.
‘Sorry about that, but better out than in!’ Buckley joked, and accelerated away with a final curious glance at the Harley. The red dust kicked up by the LandCruiser filled the clearing.
Swearing, Kerry sprinted out, dragged on her jeans and jumped onto the bike, telling Donny to wait for her, she’d be back. With her helmet on and tinted visor down, she could catch Buckley and steal the bag right fucking back, lift it out of the tray and then outrun him. She’d show Mr Mayor who was the boss thief around these parts, truesgod. Kerry raised her weight high, then sank to kick the bike over, but as she did the sole of her wet bare foot slid impotently off the kickstarter, the metal bar raking hard against her ankle. She roared in agony as she hauled her right boot on over the fast-reddening scrape. But even with the boot on, kick as she might, the bike simply refused to start. She tried again and again, kicking until the engine flooded, and she fell away in disgust. When she pulled her boot off she discovered a line of red drops had oozed their way along her ankle and begun running to meet each other in a fat red clump at the back of her heel.
Exhausted, Kerry fell onto her hands in the dirt, staring in disbelief at the grass. Her precious stash, whisked away in an instant. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. For white is right, and possession is nine-tenths of the law, they reckon, and a great vertiginous gulf now yawned between her and the blue bag. Jim Buckley didn’t just own the mayoralty and the only real estate office in Patterson. He owned the cops and the local magistrates. He owned the town of Patterson, or he thought he did, and when an old dugai in moleskins and a blue shirt whose great-great-grandfather had been the second white man to ford the Caledonian River in 1859 thought he owned something, then by and large that old white man generally did. Oh, she’d fight him for it. She wouldn’t give up, no way José, but it was going to take a mighty fucking effort to get the bag back once Jim Buckley unzipped it and looked inside. Kerry didn’t much like her chances of getting to it before Jiminy Cricket went laughing all the way to the bank.
It was two minutes before Kerry staggered to her feet, enraged with the unfairne
ss of the world. Ignoring her burning elbow, and her ankle, and Donny’s rapid-fire interrogation, she watched the red cloud of dust sinking along Settlement Road. The LandCruiser had disappeared, but the dust particles lingered before they fell, slow and weightless, turning the grass beside the track to ochre, and changing the Harley from sleek black to a dirty, speckled roan.
One point two mill.
Assuming the DA goes through – and it will.
Great spot for a B&B.
Kerry stumbled to the river’s edge with strength she didn’t have, and kneeled on the ground in the shade of the hoop pine. Help me, she prayed across the river to the graves of her ancestors.
Help me.
Chapter Three
When Kerry got back, full-to-busting with the indignity of Jim Buckley ripping her off in broad daylight, Mum and Pop were already home from the hospital. A bad sign, she thought, chaining the Harley to the Hills hoist just in case Ken or any of the local kids got any silly fucking ideas. Cos if the quacks can do anything for you, it takes forever, not a half day and then home in time for The Bold and the Beautiful. They’d wanted to keep Pop in, Ken reported, but Pretty Mary had kicked and screamed until they agreed to let her take her father-in-law home to die. Pop was already asleep in front of the muted TV. Clear tubes ran from his nostrils to an upright oxygen tank on the lino, still littered with yesterday’s betting slips. His battered old body needed a sheet over it even in December, Kerry saw, because the weight had fallen off him since last year. His cheekbones stuck out, horribly prominent; his frail arms were like charred sticks after a bushfire ripped through.
Too Much Lip Page 4