We have our two dogs, Poidy and Rex. They’re our protectors. We’re not allowed to go down to the river unless they go with us. Mummy tells them dogs to ‘look after us’. I’m sure they know they would get into a lot of trouble if something happened to one of us kids on their watch. Their faces look straight at her as she speaks—I reckon they know what she’s saying. They look at her and then us.
Laughing and happy, we run and get our swimmers on and grab a towel each and head down to our favourite spot. Rex stands on the riverbank barking at us, wanting us to get outta the water and go home. We play games with them. When we’re swimming, Poidy thinks we’re drowning and tries to save us all the time. We tease him, sing out to him. He swims out to one of us, then we’ll dive under the water.
While he searches for us slowly, we come up for air and let him grab our arm in his mouth to pull us up; we tell him he’s ‘a good boy’. Paddy can hold his breath the longest and he keeps ducking under the water making Poidy try to find him. Lynnie, Kevin and me laugh as Poidy paddles around in circles until he spots Paddy, his favourite, and then he pulls him up.
Our dogs don’t like no one smacking us either. Poidy and Rex don’t mind Mummy going crook on us but they don’t like anyone else doing it. Mummy don’t like anyone going crook on us, either, so the big boys only give us a hard time when she’s not home. Especially Paddy and Kevin—they give the boys, especially Paddy, a harder time than us girls.
4
When the river floods
The river’s flowing! We all love living on the Island. Sometimes, when we get flooded, we gotta make a rock bridge so we can go to town or school. When the water starts to rise, we need to carry rocks; the more it rises, the more we carry. It takes a long time to build the bridge, even when all of us are doing it.
Paddy, Lynnie and Mummy carry the bigger ones. Stacking the rocks on top of each other our bridge starts to take shape. Me and Kevin’s job is to fill up the gaps with the smaller rocks. We race to see who can fill the holes up the best. Making the bridge, searching for big and little rocks, is such fun.
Hearing a groan, we look over and see Mummy struggling to lift a great big rock—her legs are buckling. The boys run to help; they each grab a part of that rock and help hold it in her arms, taking dolly steps as they walk together till the rock is in place.
Every now and again, we all try to carry the real big rocks so that we can help more but Mummy tells us not to as we could hurt ourselves. It’s taken several days but, finally, the bridge is all done and Mummy walks across a few times to make sure that it’s safe. Standing on different stones, legs firmly placed rocking side to side, she makes sure that no rock is loose so none of us can slip off as we walk across.
Soon the river’s rising fast and the water is flowing between the rocks. We wait now for the floodwater to hit us. It doesn’t take long before we put our bridge to the test. So far, we can walk across with our shoes on—the bridge is still higher than the water. Mummy reckons, ‘In a couple of days, we’re gonna have to build it up more’. And we do!
One day, Paddy runs down to the gutters before us and then he runs back saying the river has risen. The water’s starting to come over the bridge and we have to take our shoes and socks off so they don’t get wet. Mummy walks the bridge, testing it as she goes. Lynnie carries my shoes, just in case I slip and lose them. If I did, I’d never see them again.
Walking in front of me, Lynnie tells me I gotta put my feet on the same rock, in the same spot as she does. Feeling like I’m splitting in half, I stretch my legs out real wide. I’m stretching till I can’t stretch no more and it hurts. Sometimes I wonder if I’m gonna split in half. Making it to the other side of the riverbank, I tell my big sister that I was walking in her footsteps. We both giggle.
Watching Paddy and Kevin begin their dangerous journey to reach us, we hold our breath. Kevin’s placing his feet where Paddy did. He’s stretching as far as he can go. I wonder if Kevin ever worries about being split in half, too. We’re all happy when we’re on the other side together.
The kids go to school and I go with Mummy. After school, the other kids run home yelling out to Mummy, telling her that the water’s coming up fast and we won’t be able to walk on our bridge tomorrow.
The next morning, we head down to the gutters and the water has risen higher and the current is strong. Our bridge of rocks and stones has been carried away by this force of nature. We don’t even try to walk over the bridge anymore. It’s a long way to the other side. The river current is strong—it’s already taken some of my cousins away, making them drown, even though they were all grown up.
The kids still have to go to school, though, and since Mummy won’t let me try to walk in the water by myself now, she’s gonna have to piggyback me. There’s a big old gum tree standing beside the riverbank and I climb up onto the branches to get onto her shoulders so she can carry me across.
Reaching up, Lynnie passes me up a big bundle of our clothes that I need to carry while I’m way up high on Mummy’s shoulders. I grab it and hold it close to my chest. I’m a little bit scared as I can’t really hold on but I reach down and grab a piece of her shirt and, with the other one hand, I clench real tight around the bundle. What a balancing act!
Stepping into the river real slow, Mummy takes nerve-racking steps, testing the water and the bottom of the river. She’s got goose bumps all over her arms so the water must be real cold. She takes a few steps and the water’s halfway up to her knees already. The current is fighting her body, trying to push us down the river. I feel her body stiffen; I hold my breath. The water’s creeping higher and higher. Mummy’s wet over her knees now. I watch the water swirl around her body. She’s trying to hold my legs out so they don’t get wet.
I’m sitting on Mummy’s shoulders, finally bigger than the other kids. I twist my head around to look at them, smiling, forgetting about the danger and happy to be where I am at this moment. Mummy tells me to sit still; she holds my legs tighter, just below the knees. I can tell in her voice that she’s getting cranky with me for squirming around. I turn around real quick.
The river, it’s got a mind of its own. It’s trying to push Mummy and me downstream. Her body is tense and strong as she grips my legs tighter, fighting the current with all her might. She’s careful with each step she takes, testing where her foot is gonna go as she walks.
It’s one step at a time and we need to be careful; she might trip on one of those rocks and lose her balance. If she falls, we’ll both end up floating down the Lachlan River, for sure. I’m way up high, holding my breath and praying that there’s not a great big rock, waiting for her to step and trip.
She takes me over to the town side and goes back after the others. She brings Kevin first—he’s gotta hold the belt on the back of her dress and not let go, and so do the others. My heart is beating real quick, watching every step they make. I sit watching, praying for them all to get through the water safe. We all can swim but we know that none of us is good enough to beat the flooded river. I’m happy when Mummy, my sister and two brothers are all standing beside me.
Us girls get dressed first, behind the bushes. The boys are shivering with a towel wrapped around their wet bodies, yelling at us to hurry up so they can get out of their wet clothes, too. They play cockatoo (lookout) up the top of the gutters, with their backs turned away from us. They let us know if anyone is coming so they sing out real loud ‘cooeeeeeee’ and then us girls do the same for them. We all play cockatoo for Mummy but she always waits until we’re dressed before she changes.
We hang our wet clothes over the trees and bushes to dry out for when we come home. The riverbank looks real funny with towels and wet clothes thrown all over the place. We know all our clothes will be there when we return.
Soon enough, a day or two later, the river is raging. The kids can’t go to school no more and Mummy can’t work. We ain’t got no boat so we’re stuck on the Island but us kids are happy. Pawsy, our neighbour fro
m across the river, they got one. They own the paddock beside us with the big fig tree on it. We’re not allowed to go onto their land but we love raiding his fruit trees.
Mummy doesn’t like to ask to borrow their boat unless it’s an emergency. We don’t ask people for nothing. We don’t do nothing that has attention drawn to us. We gotta be dressed well, have ironed clothes, bobby pins in the hair, always have shoes on in town and a spotless house. Everything we do is about avoiding the attention of the white people and, ultimately, the Welfare, at all costs. It’s not safe to ask white people for anything. All the Aboriginal people in Condo know this. People’s houses, tents and tin shacks were spotless, for fear of kids being stolen away.
One day, Kevin’s sick, real sick, and the river’s too high to cross. He has to go to the doctor. Mummy tells brother Paddy to go and wait down the riverbank till he sees Mr Pawsy or his son feeding his cows on the other side. He’s to yell out and tell him Kevin’s sick, and ask him if we can borrow the boat, please? Mr Pawsy gets his son to bring it over. Paddy rows the boat for Mummy to take Kevin to the hospital. He stays in hospital and then Mummy comes home. Mummy offers to pay for the use of the boat but Mr Pawsy wouldn’t take anything—he’s a good man. We borrow the boat when Kevin comes home.
A proud woman, Mummy is. She takes nothing for nothing.
5
Bunyips, spirits and animals
Dusk on the Island is beautiful. Us kids play out in the red dirt that makes up our road. It’s there we play together and with the kids next door and our cousins. Another visitor lives with us on the Island, too, just over the road. There’s a bush with a spirit in it. Every night he comes out and watches us at play. We wait, watching for him to move but he don’t. He just stays there, stuck in that bush, never stirring. He hides in the bush thinking we can’t see him but his whiteness shines through the branches. We know it’s a spirit. We try to chase him away but he won’t go.
We even throw stones at him but still he stays right there. As each stone sails past, our throats are in our mouths. Each time a stone flies, we all stand crouched ready to run just in case, by some miracle, he gets hit and decides he’s gonna come and get us. I reckon we all miss him, deliberately, and are really scared of him, too.
In the morning, we run outside to see if he’s still there but he’s gone. He only comes at dusk. We know he’ll be there as the sun goes to sleep for another day. Soon, we stop trying to scare him away and leave him alone. I reckon he must wanna live on the Island, too.
And we got other spirits, too, down at the riverbank near the bridge that takes us over to the Mission side of the river. Sometimes, you can hear people crying and yelling out.
Lynnie says, ‘That’s the spirits of the people who drowned in the river’.
Tears well in my eyes as she says, ‘They’re crying. They wanna go home and they can’t get to the other side.’
I ask her, ‘What’s the other side?’ She tells me to go to sleep. Sometimes, I lie in bed at night and I can hear a baby cry, and I close my eyes real tight and try not to hear.
Lots of animals live with us on the Island. It’s like a big menagerie. Cocky, he sits up in the tree all day and watches me and Kevin play our favourite game, marbles. We reckon he’s our babysitter, looking after us for Mummy. When the other kids aren’t around, Cocky makes sure we don’t do nothing wrong. I’m sure he’s evil, though. When no one’s looking, he flies at me, flapping his wings and squawking. I run from him, screaming. He never catches me or hurts me, just scares me. He doesn’t pick on Kevin or Paddy or Lynnie, only me.
But when I’m chucking a real tantrum, Mummy says to him, ‘Get her, Cocky’. He chases me all over the yard, trying real hard to catch me. I don’t like him much when he does this but it works. I stop my tantrum.
Cocky, he’s a real troublemaker, too. He sits in the tree and gets up to lotsa mischief. Like Poidy and Rex, he knows we’re not allowed to go to the river by ourselves. He watches Paddy like a hawk, too. If he can’t see Paddy, he screams out to Mummy, ‘Paddy’s down the river!’
Mummy always comes out and asks Cocky, ‘where’s Paddy?’ and he tells her, ‘Paddy’s down the river,’ even if he’s not.
She tells him that ‘Paddy’s at school’ and Cocky’s happy, and then, finally, he decides to go to sleep. Cocky, he keeps me on my toes all the time. He’s worse than a watchdog. He’s special and he loves us kids but he brings me such heartache.
We’ve got two magpies called Heckle and Jeckle who play with us when we play marbles. One day, Jeckle’s leg is missing and Kevin said I did it. But I know I never would do anything like that. I stamp my feet, chucking a tantrum, and still they wouldn’t believe me. I reckon he musta got it caught in some wire, otherwise I reckon Kevin was the one who cut off his leg, only pretending it was me. Not me—I don’t like blood.
As well as Cocky and the dogs and the magpies, we also have Bertha, our pig. She’s big, fat and spoilt. She loves us all, too, and follows us everywhere. This one year, she had eighteen babies. She followed sister Maureen up Bathurst Street one day with all her babies following behind her. The man from the newspaper took their photo and put it in the paper the next day. Mummy put the photo in the family collection, but when our house got burnt down, the photo got destroyed. We had a goat and we used to milk her and drink her milk, too.
We got chooks and a rooster as well, and the rooster is real mean. When I have to go outside to use the toilet, he chases me madly, flapping his wings. The toilet, it’s one of them old ones that has a hole dug in the dirt and some corrugated tin wrapped around it and a hessian bag as a door. I can’t go out the back by myself. The rooster always chases me but he’s not like Cocky who never catches me. The rooster, when he catches me, he bites me on the bum and it hurts. When he does that, I just stand and scream and scream. I scream out at the top of my lungs for someone to come and save me.
Big tears run down my face as I tell the rooster I hate him and I don’t want him to live on the Island with us anymore. I would be so happy if he went away for good. Tears are rolling down my cheeks and I gulp to catch my breath as I ask Mummy, ‘Why can’t the rooster live somewhere else?’
She looks at me and laughs, telling me ‘not to be silly’.
There’s a Bunyip down the river, too. Us kids, we go down there and try to see him but we’re real careful—we don’t wanna make him mad at us. He’s under a big old willow tree that guards his sacred spot. One time, we climb out on a fat old log that sticks up outta the water. I climb out real careful, testing the log first so I make sure I don’t slip, then I stretch my body way out over the water.
Paddy and Kevin are on the riverbank and Lynnie and me are crowded on the log together. I get scared she’ll rock the log and shake me off. We’re hanging onto the branches and I hold on for dear life, and she points his hole out to me. I look but all I can see is pretty colours swirling down in the water. His waterhole is made up of all the colours of the rainbow that are swishing about.
I gaze at the colours, I look real hard but I can’t see him at all. I tell them ‘I can see him’, pretending, so they don’t think I’m stupid and blind. I’m still looking, straining my eyes searching, but Lynnie has sneaked back onto the riverbank and left me out there all alone.
A plop thuds in my ears as one of the boys chucks a stone right near me. They scream at me, ‘He’s coming to get you, Kerry’. They start running away. I scream. I let go of the willow branches and try to jump from the log onto the bank. I miss and my feet go into the mud. I slip further down! Panic grips me as I try desperately to grab the grass on the dry part of the riverbank.
I nearly fall backwards into the Bunyip’s hole! Scrambling, I pull myself out of the water and I start running. I run fast, screaming and trying to catch my breath at the same time. I don’t stop until I get back to the house and I have a stitch in my side, and it hurts.
They’re laughing at me. They tricked me; he wasn’t coming at all. I start yelling. I lo
ok down at my feet and they’re all covered in mud. I wash my feet with water from the bucket before Mummy sees me. We’re not allowed to go down to the Bunyip’s hole and I’d be in real trouble if she knows. They’re still teasing me. I threaten to dob them in to Mummy so they finally leave me alone. It’s hard being the youngest sometimes.
It’s not just spirits and bunyips and pets. Snakes live on the Island, too. Sometimes, if the water’s rising, when we cart our water up to the house, dozens of snakes will be swimming from the Mission side of the riverbank to our side.
I ask Mummy, ‘Why?’ She tells me, ‘They’re trying to get away from the rising water’. She says, ‘You’re not to go down there; don’t go near there’. I quickly promise not to. There’s no way I’m going near them.
Those snakes must love our place, too—they come crawling all over our yard during summer. When Mummy finds one, she gets the shovel and breaking its back kills it dead. Snake bites can kill so we have to be real careful of snakes. They might bite one of us and their poison can make us real sick or we can even die.
One day, when I was about six, I picked up this old piece of tin and there was a lot of baby snakes under it, wriggling around. Paddy and Kevin got some sticks and started playing with them until Mummy came and saw what they were doing. She went crook and then she killed the snakes, hitting them with the back of the shovel.
When she kills the big snakes, she hangs them over the wire fence past Cocky’s tree. Sometimes, she kills more than one a day. I think Mummy’s trying to tell the other snakes not to come and live in our backyard. They’re dead if they do. One day, when I came home from school, there was about a dozen just hanging over our fence, dead as can be. I tried to count them but there were too many. Mummy doesn’t have to worry about me playing with snakes. If I see one, I will just scream out to her at the top of my lungs, ‘Snake, Mummy!’ and she’ll come running with her shovel. It’s just one more way she looks after us and protects us from any kind of harm.
The Cherry Picker's Daughter Page 3