The Crying Place

by Lia Hills

  He knelt with difficulty, pushed back the unbuttoned shirt. Prodded the area around the cut.

  ‘Needs air,’ he said, ‘as much as you’re willing to give it. It’s so dry here you don’t risk much, as long as you keep the flies out of it.’

  He closed the shirt with the briskness of a ward matron, no sympathy for the flesh.

  ‘Did I do a lot of crazy talk last night?’ I asked him.

  ‘Never clearer.’

  ‘The dogs, it was like they were waiting for me. And the dingoes. They were out in force.’

  ‘Conversing with the moon.’

  ‘They weren’t the only ones.’

  Thaddeus raised an eyebrow. I drank some of the water he’d given me. It tasted metallic.

  ‘It took me a while to work out where you were talking about,’ he said.

  ‘I guess I wasn’t making much sense.’

  ‘I’ve been there too, with some of the senior law men. Important place, that one. Powerful.’

  ‘Something happened out there last night, Thaddeus – something I’m not sure I even believe in. It was like he was there. Jed. Some part of him. Others, too. I can’t explain it.’

  ‘But no one warned that the mind repeats in its ignorance the vision of others.’

  ‘What’s that? Old Testament?’

  ‘No. Ern Malley, fictional poet. The perfect hoax. The ghost of a ghost.’

  Thaddeus angled his way to standing.

  ‘What is it with you and ghosts, Thaddeus?’

  ‘I never met a man who wasn’t haunted. Nor a woman, for that matter.’

  ‘There was something you said last night. About history being a hard taskmaster.’

  ‘So you weren’t completely delirious,’ he said, leaning against the table.

  ‘I don’t get it. When you said it, it sounded so personal, like it was connected to this place. But you’re not from here.’

  ‘Born and bred south of the Rangitata, like I told you.’

  ‘Still.’

  Thaddeus thrummed his nose.

  ‘The Stones crossed the Tasman a few generations back,’ he said. ‘Settled in the Land of the Long White Cloud.’

  Thaddeus Stone. ‘And before that?’

  ‘Second Fleet: 1790. The Death Fleet they called it, all bilge water and chains and scurvy, the commissioned transporters more used to carrying slaves. Landed in the tent town of Sydney, seven years’ hard labour for thieving a bag of flour commuted to five. Ended up a freeman in the promising new penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land.’

  ‘Hobart? You’re kidding me.’

  ‘’Fraid not, son. Landed there two years after it was settled, or so the story goes. Soldiers at first, then farmers mostly, a century of clearing the land. After which the move was made across the waters to New Zealand.’

  ‘Clearing the land?’

  ‘Ah, the splendour of euphemism.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Even helped man the Black Line. I did some digging. Amazing what you can find out.’

  Thaddeus glanced at a pile of manila folders on the shelf beside the cassettes. I’d never forgotten seeing that map – Governor Arthur’s Black Line of 1830. Hand-drawn, the line demarcated the area into which the three thousand soldiers, settlers and convicts who’d formed a human chain would push the remaining natives. It was during my third year at uni. One of the lecturers had brought it into a history tute one afternoon – a clear example of the power of primary sources, of ‘a living document’ – but its effect had gone way beyond anything cerebral. It had been visceral. A raw hit to the gut.

  ‘Did you talk to Jed about this?’

  ‘Not at first. But, like you, he was never content with half the truth. He needed to know everything about why I came here, how this place had affected me. What it was like to live in the borderlands with the burden of history weighing on you at every turn. He understood, you see – it was no longer an abstraction for him either. The problem was he didn’t know where to go from there. Things became distorted. He was stuck in a kind of no-man’s-land. It was like he made her his country.’

  ‘His country?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He once told me that, about Nara. Almost those exact words. Why didn’t you tell me all this before?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you could understand. You’d only been here five minutes. And your grief, it made you volatile. It required a little managing. Last thing I wanted was to unleash another crazy bastard on the community.’

  ‘That’s a bit bloody patronising, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe. I learnt caution the hard way.’

  ‘Who are you, Thaddeus?’

  He pushed away from the table. ‘Neither a sinner nor a saint, so you can wipe that look off your face.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Just a man who went for a wander and landed in a place that ended up becoming the centre of his world. In that way, if I’m like anybody, I’m probably most like your mate. Except unlike him, I’m still here!’

  Thaddeus strode towards the door, stopped short and turned around.

  ‘My past’s not going to get the better of me, and neither is this desert – it can’t, I’m not in competition with it. I let go of that a long time ago. It’s just a myth. There’s nothing malevolent about weather or space. Others have found their gods out here and their demons, in every bloody desert on the planet. And I’ve dabbled with that stuff, of course I have, who wouldn’t … All you gotta do is take a walk out there beyond the gap and you’ll come up with a hundred new types of divinity before sunset. But me, you know what I found? I found people, and some good ones at that. The kind who’ll let a man fumble for words when he sees something he doesn’t understand, and allow him his silence when saying nothing is about as much as he can manage. Who know things that seem to me worth knowing. There’s been darkness in my family, terrible things, and it’s taken a while, but I reckon I’ve got to a point where I don’t owe anybody anything. I’ve given and I’ve taken and the score feels about even. I’m just here, that’s all. Here.’ Thaddeus tapped his palm on the wall, his thigh, his chest, as if trying to prove it to himself, that his argument came from and went back into substance.

  I sat up as straight as the cut would allow. ‘What about the tapes, then?’

  ‘Ah, those.’

  ‘How do they fit in?’

  ‘He asked me that too.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘Nothing much at first. No one had ever challenged me about them, not for a long time. But he said something, not long before he left. It shook me up, I remember now.’

  ‘Tell me, Thaddeus.’

  ‘About not making a monument of it.’

  My hand went to my chest.

  ‘Sad thing was,’ said Thaddeus, ‘he could see that in me but not in himself.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you, did he?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t know either – not until Nara told me. She thought I knew.’

  Thaddeus waited, but he was tiring. It didn’t look like he’d got much sleep. I sat up, my hand guarding my chest.

  ‘Jed had Aboriginal blood in him,’ I said.

  ‘Pitjantjatjara?’

  ‘Tasmanian.’

  ‘And he never told you?’

  ‘I’m not sure how long he’d known about it. He would’ve said something to me otherwise, somewhere along the way. It’s not the kind of thing he would’ve kept from me. Maybe he was just waiting till he saw me again. Or maybe he needed to work out what he thought about it first.’

  Thaddeus lumbered over to a chair and sat down.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked him.

  ‘Just thinking about how he must’ve taken it, when I told him about my family’s past. I remember, he was sitting over there.’ He pointed to the couch, a broom propped against it.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. He looked tired, kind of distracted, and I figured he had something else on his m
ind. But then he got up and walked over to where you’re standing – exactly the same place – and he gave me this look, I tell you, fit to tan a hide. Jesus, he must’ve felt like he’d just encountered his mortal enemy.’

  ‘It was all a long time ago, Thaddeus.’

  ‘Yes, and no. Time’s like a concertina. One minute it’s all stretched out before you, then suddenly it folds and collapses on itself. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from this mob, it’s that the past is a living, breathing thing, and I’m not just talking genetics here. Who’s got what, what chance you have, everything we believe in and strive for – that’s history reminding us that we’re even more responsible for the present than we are for what went on ten, fifty, two hundred years ago.’

  Fist raised, Thaddeus unfurled one finger after the other as if it was possible to tally what had been lost, what gained. And I tried to imagine Jed standing here, feet occupying the same scrap of stained lino, eyeballing this man whose ancestors may have once rounded up his own. Two men who’d found themselves in this place – not by accident, it was suddenly clear to me – thrashing out their pasts.

  ‘Do you think that’s why he came here when he found out?’ I asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first. Seen plenty of Aboriginal folk turn up here looking for a portal into a world that’s been closed to them. Tricky territory that. More than one’s come apart trying to navigate it.’

  Thaddeus walked over to the shelf where he kept the boxes of cassettes and took one out, along with an old tape deck, the battery casing held on with masking tape.

  ‘There’s something I think you should listen to,’ he said, putting the player on the table. ‘I’d forgotten I had it, but I found it the other day, after you left.’

  I sat down. Watched him insert the cassette that looked in better nick than the ones I’d seen previously. He pressed play, and let himself out through the front door.

  The tape started straight in as if it was already part way through. Someone was speaking in Pitjantjatjara, the voice guttural, familiar. It was Kata, the rhythms of his speech that of a storyteller. I managed to pick up a few words – papa, dog; kinara, moon – but that was all, till he broke off and spoke in English.

  ‘Finished,’ he said.

  This was followed by the sound of a door being opened and closed. A chair shuffling on a sandy floor.

  ‘Thaddeus,’ said a voice, distorted by the sfiss-sfiss of the tape but unmistakable.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’

  There was a long pause before Thaddeus answered, ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I’m not sure I came here for the right reasons.’

  ‘That’s a hard one, son. Don’t know if I can help you with that.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Jed, his voice descending in the way it did when he was gearing up – the calm before the onslaught – but only silence followed this time.

  I waited, the tape continuing its cadenced hiss.

  ‘I love her, you know.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I never would’ve imagined, but it’s like, with her, everything makes sense. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I might really belong somewhere. Do you know what I mean? That it’s possible to find your place where two worlds overlap. Maybe the only place for me now. Except …’

  The sound of knocking on the door. Of someone calling out, ‘Thaddeus.’ A click as the recorder was turned off. The drawn-out hiss of what wasn’t said.

  I pressed stop.

  Let out a deep breath.

  Thought about rewinding the tape and playing it back, but to do so would rob it of its qualities of a conversation. Because that was what it had felt like, that I’d been the third person in the room. Afforded one last chance to hear his voice. Things had happened after that – maybe things he couldn’t live with – but the Jed on that tape was the one I’d known.

  I removed the tape from the player. Laid it on the table.

  Where two worlds overlap.

  Outside, Thaddeus was sitting in the chair below the bougainvillea, surrounded by its bright pink fallout.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked, getting up.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There’s this story I’ve been thinking about. Thought it might help. About a time when people measured their grief in layers of gypsum.’

  ‘Maybe another time. I need to go.’

  ‘No chance. I can’t have you taking off, not in your state.’

  ‘I’m not leaving town. But there’s something I have to do. It’s important. Nothing crazy. I’ve never felt so clear-headed in my life.’

  ‘The clarity of a madman.’ Thaddeus shook his head, but it was accompanied by a grin. ‘You’re going to see Nara,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Caution, my friend.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘She’s my daughter, you know.’

  ‘Skin?’

  ‘Like blood,’ he said.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, sensed its bones under the thin shirt.

  ‘Thanks, Thaddeus.’

  He bowed his head. Swept his hand in the direction of the road.

  85

  I half expected the dogs to be waiting at Thaddeus’ gate to escort me, but for once there were none in sight. The store was open, cars I’d never seen before parked out front. The influx had begun. From the direction of the ranges, clouds amassed with greater vigour than the day before, the wind willing its way through the mulga that framed the closed art centre. I met no one along the way, the verandahs empty, even those facing the filtered sun. Smoke rose from an abandoned fire.

  When I got to Nara’s, Roopie was sitting in the sand. I opened the buckle on the gate. He turned at the sound of the click, came pelting towards me.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ he chanted, his hands gripping my forearms as he climbed up my legs. I felt my chest give.

  ‘Sorry, mate, can’t do it,’ I said and lowered him to the ground.

  He ran towards the house, disappeared through the open doorway calling my name, something else tacked on that I took to mean returned. I sat on the edge of the verandah, on Inti’s blanket. Unbuttoned the shirt that Thaddeus had lent me and inspected the damage. The cut had opened at its deepest point.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Roopie, who was standing behind me.

  And behind him, Nara.

  Her hair was tied back revealing her forehead, the beanie gone.

  ‘Where did you go?’ she asked, the wind tugging at a loose strand.

  ‘To the waterhole.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You stayed there all night?’

  ‘I got back around midnight. Slept at Thaddeus’ place.’

  Nara put her hand on Roopie’s head. I could feel the wet of the blood, its slow downward progression. But there was nothing except a paint-splattered rag or the blankets rife with dog hair and dust. I got up.

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone like that,’ she said. ‘Alone in the dark. What’s that?’

  ‘It’s Thaddeus’ shirt. He lent it to me.’

  ‘No. That.’

  She pointed to a stain spreading across the navy cloth, the size of a fifty-cent piece. The wind blew warm across my face, but I couldn’t answer. Was what I’d done somehow offensive, inept, a breach of Law?

  ‘You’re hurt,’ she said, sitting beside me and pulling back the half-unbuttoned shirt.

  Leaning against her shoulder, Roopie’s face exaggerated hers. He sucked in air between his teeth.

  ‘You did this?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Her tongue clucked. In the distance, a dog barked. Nara was still holding on to the shirt, but she let go of one side and ran her finger across the top of the cut, drew around it, barely touching, the framing skin so sensitive that even this contact sent a shiver through my ribs. Where the blood had leaked, she lifted her finger as if clearin
g a creek, continued on to the place from where she’d begun. I watched, her face centimetres away from mine – her skin matt, the dark skin of that photo I’d found in the room on Fitzroy Street, but so familiar now, no longer just some woman Jed had gone out with.

  Nara.

  The woman he’d loved more than any other.

  Mother of Roopie. Daughter of Kata. And of Thaddeus, in a way I was still coming to terms with.

  She laid her head on my chest, careful not to apply any pressure, like a medic listening for a pulse. My breath stilled, and I had to force myself to release it. It ruffled her hair. And then I heard a sound, like a channelled wind at first, an elongated moan. It vibrated through her throat and out across my chest, until I could feel it inside me, becoming my own.

  I put my arms around her. Held her to me, even though it hurt. Felt the wetness on my chest. Knew it wasn’t blood.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  Sorry for the way I’d forced her, held her hands to my gut. For adding to her grief. But so much more – too much to voice with a few words – and I could feel it ripping through me, history collapsing on itself, like Thaddeus had said. Unfolding. Though there was nothing abstract about this. Nara was flesh and blood. She smelt of smoke. I could feel the bones of her skull against my cheek.

  Roopie heaved a sigh. He was standing in front of us, one hand gripping Nara’s skirt, the other the leg of my jeans.

  ‘Palya?’ he asked me.

  ‘Palya,’ I replied.

  And for once he held still.

  Didn’t budge while I stroked his mother’s head.

  He watched over us – his small bright eyes monitoring every breath, every release – until Nara slowly pulled away.

  ‘Smell that?’ she asked.

  I frowned.

  Heard the first thud.

  Then another, Roopie tilting his head back only to receive a drop smack in his face. He poked out his tongue, a curved pink trap, grinned as water ran down his nose and into his mouth. Made faces at the sky. Dared it, a low growl in his throat.

  Nara laughed and stepped off the verandah. Snatched at drops that rebounded off her palm. I held out my hand too, wet patches blooming on my shirt.

  ‘Ininyingi,’ she said, her nostrils flaring.

  And I took it in, this place – Ininyingi – a cross of bitumen in the desert, an act of hope. All of it. The rain thudding on the low corrugated roofs. A bunch of kids tearing out of the house opposite to catch the spectacle. On the power lines, a row of cowering galahs. The sand welcoming the water, absorbing it with such thirst that only the dark smear of its entry point remained as proof it had ever existed. The camp dogs gathering in the direction of the store. And beyond, the top of the ranges blurred by mist, a fist of a cloud above them, primed to feed the waterhole, maybe set the river running again.