by Cara Shaw
“You are a lucky man. Some of our mob has never even seen it. Must be spirit at work,” she smiled at him again.
He did feel lucky. To know his heritage in depth had settled his soul. He believed now that it was his grandfather’s spirit who had led him to Duradjuri country, all way from that miserable period he had spent in hospital where he had somehow lost himself. If he had taken anything at all from the smattering of Duradjuri culture he had learned over the past few days, he was aware that Roberto, as Robbie’s first son, had been adrift in a spiritual sense. He was the son of an Aboriginal man, a powerful one, yet he had been born abroad and because of that fact an important ancestral link had been broken. It may have been a fanciful idea, but it made sense to Nico. He was the descendant of these gifted men, and only he had the ability to restore the balance that was lost through war and dispossession. Coralie had been the unbreakable link in the final part of his journey, and he felt a rush of desire flood through him.
Then Nico was filled with a true certainty, “You should travel with me Coralie. Billington’s a small town and the world is a big place. Maybe it’s time to make a change – I did. Duradjuri people are strong, I know that now. We should be together.”
Coralie looked into Nico’s dark brown eyes, and saw clearly that his face held the recollection of his Aboriginal ancestry, albeit heavily overlaid by his Italian heritage. The slight pull of soul recognition surprised her and her deep connection with Nico was unexpected. She was impressed by the way Nico had taken ownership of his Duradjuri bloodline. The thought of leaving her town and what it would mean for her mob frightened her a little – she had never really travelled anywhere. After completing her law degree at one of the big regional universities, and attending the College of Law in Sydney to gain her admission to practice – she had returned to Billington as soon as that was completed. Later she worked with a solicitor at Cranston before joining the Corporation.
She knew Nico wasn’t talking about simply a holiday in Italy, he was a serious man; just the mere fact that he had suggested the idea indicated his intentions. Coralie had devoted her life so far to her family and to her mob – she was Duradjuri through and through; so why did she feel conflicted? Nico’s great-grandfather, Robbie Dalton came to mind, he was a Duradjuri man and a true warrior. He hadn’t been content to stay in Billington and accept his lot, he had taken risks and stepped outside his given domain – on more than one occasion. Would he have gone to find Maria if he had been able to? If he’d had the resources; the money, the freedom to make a choice? Even though he’d been forced to stay and had never left Billington again, his legacy was embedded into the town and still endured. The hundreds of letters he had written to every official authority regarding the plight of the Aboriginal race had chipped away at the status quo of the system, and at the same time served to enlighten his own people about their civil rights. He had joined every political movement that related to the progression of Aboriginal welfare, sat in the local library for hours at a time, researching laws that related to equal rights and land ownership. He tutored all the Duradjuri children of his generation in literacy; and when it came to matters of equality, never took no for an answer. How much difference had his sense of true self made to others? A lot. Would she have been the person she was today without Robert Dalton’s efforts? The short answer was no. What would he have wanted for her; a strong, educated and independent Duradjuri woman with the freedom now to make any choice she wanted; who had followed the path forged by Aboriginal athletes, artists, actors, academics and social activists, and had worked hard for her people, just as Robbie had.
A strange shiver ran through her. Nico was watching her intently, waiting, when all of a sudden, a rude shriek rent through the silence in the office, and she looked out her window. A black cockatoo clung to an electrical line, twisting its head to stare at them both while arching its yellow-coloured comb. She held out her hand to the beautiful man in front of her, who took it in his own.
“Yes Nico, I would love to come with you,“ and very relieved, he hugged her tightly, and never wanted to let her go.
Epilogue
When Robbie’s time came he was sitting in his deck chair under the corrugated iron roof of his little concrete patio in the backyard. The house that he and Evan had built together; one bedroom, a kitchen and sitting room, a tiny bathroom and an outdoor toilet. This had been his home for sixty years after he had moved up from the camp to Murruma, when Evan had run a string along one side of his land and said to Robbie, “This where we’ll build your house.”
He looked over his tiny yard, the vegetable patch and his clothesline, across the paddocks and over to the low mountain that stood guard over Duradjuri land. There was an old legend that a powerful warrior had chased a bunyip that had been terrorising the Duradjuri into a cave and sung a magic spell to it, which made it sleep and never wake up so it would remain trapped inside the mountain forever. When the bushfires came and burnt away all the trees on the mountain, everybody said they could see the bunyip’s face etched on the hillside on the newly-bare rock face. Robbie squinted a little, he couldn’t see it, but the weather had been good and the mountain was covered in green foliage. A guugubarra settled on the clothesline and watched the old man.
“yamandu marang?” said Robbie to the bird teasingly, and the guugubarra turned its head to the side, watching the old man intently.
Then from nowhere, a searing pain pierced Robbie’s temple and he squeezed his eyes closed in shock. The guugubarra flew away, and at that moment the old warrior died instantly of a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a condition that he was born with and had respectfully lain dormant while Robbie completed all the tasks that he was meant to do in this life. Swiftly and abruptly, the clot swelled and burst and released Robbie back up into the sky. Once there, he went to look for his old friend Biamie and he decided that when he found him, they would sit at his campfire together and have a good yarn about all the things that still needed to be done for the Duradjuri, their beloved people.