by Julie Janson
A look of great misery passed over her face.
‘She maybe in the clouds; she not cry no more; we not cry no more.’
‘I cry, Shirley. She was so little, we shouldn’t have put her in the ground – she might wake up.’
‘She no more wake up.’ Shirley stopped and stared at the ground. Jane put her arms around her.
Jane sank into despair. Being in love with someone was hell; it tore out your stomach. So she withdrew and wondered what being dead would feel like. She thought about her body swinging from a rope. It looked simple. She knew from Girl Guides how to tie a hangman’s noose.
Returning to the Harrison clinic, Jane watched to see if the missionary nurses attended, asking loudly when they would arrive. Having a social cause was a help; it made her forget about David. The Aboriginal health worker bustled around distributing medicine, laughing and filling the makeshift room with hope.
‘Why no doctor come and stay here, Jane? We only got Missus Boss. We need a doctor so bad’, said the health worker. There was no answer.
CHAPTER 2
Margie And Edie Cook Stew
It was a morning of wind, full of dust and leaves. Jane sat by Margie at recess. The stockman’s breakfast sat cooling in the makeshift kitchen. There was a big fire and griddle on bricks under a roof of gum branches and tin. No walls, stinking hot at midday. Margie had swept the dirt floor with a broom of twigs; her sister’s small child was hanging from her shoulders. A grey dog licked the meat fat from stones at her bare feet. She threw some beef livers on the hotplate and sprinkled it with salt; the smell was pungent, something between urine and hamburger. An eaglehawk perched on a mulga tree; she threw it some fat. Margie winked at Jane.
‘My meat, totem, that bird; can’t hurt him’, Margie said.
Every day, Margie cooked stews and damper at the bush kitchen near the school where a huge piece of salted green bullock hung in a meat safe. The damper of flour, water and salt was huge and cooked in a big iron camp oven on the fire. Flies buzzed. Jane sat in the shade. Edie walked in and emptied packets of dried vegetables into the iron pot on the fire. She was avoiding Jane, punishing her. Edie chatted amiably to Margie as she stirred the stew.
‘Don’t put a whole box of curry powder in – you’ll ruin it’, said Edie.
‘My stew, Missus, my way. You know nothing. I cook for twenty years for big mob men, and you only cook for a few kids’, said Margie.
‘Okay, Margie, next time you’re in labour you can do it yourself.’
‘My mamma had six kid all by herself at Pink Lily Lagoon. One tree there my Dreaming place. True’, said Margie.
‘My Dreaming place must be under the bridge in Manchester, then’, Edie said.
Jane laughed, and Edie gave her a withering look. ‘What do you want?’ said Edie.
‘Company’, said Jane. Margie looked at the Missus and kept stirring the stew.
‘You wantem some stew, Miss Jane?’ said Margie.
Jane nodded. Edie shook her head.
‘She doesn’t eat here’, said Edie.
Margie dished out some stew for Jane. Edie looked at the plate and pushed it out of Jane’s reach.
‘I hear bout dat teacher fella at Kelly Downs. He was too lonely, so he jump off that cliff, true’, said Margie.
‘Reverend Wiltshire said he had been drinking metho’, said Jane.
‘Why would an atheist like you be talking to the Reverend?’ said Edie.
‘I have to talk to some adults. Aaron mostly talks about Lego, and the Reverend has a duty to talk to lonely women, doesn’t he Edie? He has compassion, and if you want me to define that, it is “with proper grace, informing a correct compassion”.’ Edie slammed the meat cleaver into the block and walked out. Margie whistled.
‘Nice one.’ Margie said. Jane cut herself a piece of damper and piled on golden syrup. It was the end of recess.
Edie turned and stepped back under the bough shade.
‘Just because you helped me when I was under the weather, doesn’t mean I want you in my face. I have other friends, good Christians. Why don’t you move up to David’s camp?’
‘Sure, whatever you want, I can be the devil incarnate, I eat babies, I teach Satan worship, I am corrupt … I have sex with all the Lanniwah men. I am not perfect and you are so … judgemental’, said Jane.
‘You have to be a respectable person: you’re the teacher. The missionaries are upset, you abused Dixie; you swear and commit adultery; you have immoral habits; and you had an affair with David. Sex with an Aborigine – how could you? We think you’re having a nervous breakdown. You might have to leave. We are going to write a letter to the Department; we are going to make a complaint! How do you like that?’ The rage poured out of Edie’s face.
Jane edged away. She ate her damper and said nothing, but Edie had her in her sights.
‘And don’t you ever spread rumours about my husband! He is a saint, you hear that? A wonderful, kind and generous man and he was not the father of that pick bastard child! ‘ Edie sat down and blew her nose. It was over.
Margie whistled and kept stirring. Jane stood stock still. She examined her foot, no shoes; it seemed to be part of someone else’s body. Maybe she was losing her mind. She had an idea that she might throw the stew pot at Edie, but it looked too heavy, too hot; she would need a potholder, no two; it would scald her, third degree burns, it would hurt. Jane observed Edie’s face up close: she needed a facial, and she had blackheads.
‘My job is very hard. How would you manage?’
‘I already teach my children. Would you like me to take on your picks as well?’ said Edie.
‘They are not picks; they are children, valuable human beings and a lot smarter than your drongos.’
Margie leaned forward and removed a carving knife out of Edie’s reach.
‘That so? Well a gin would say that. Go on, get away from my kitchen. My boys built this. Don’t come near my drongos or me! And keep your illegitimate brat away too, you witch. I hope the loneliness kills you!’
‘And Hubert is a rapist, and you let him abuse those young girls’, Jane shouted.
‘He was never charged! You got that through yer thick head?’ Edie lunged at Jane and her punch missed as Margie grabbed her from behind and held her until the rage subsided. Edie spat at Jane, shoved her in the chest, and walked out. Jane caught her breath; she was panting. Margie watched Edie go.
‘You don’t worry ’bout Missus. She gone thick in the head since dat Reverend he bin go America. You like Lanniwah now. You not leave us.’ She hugged Jane and the two women stood before the boiling pot.
CHAPTER 3
Wrong For You
During the terrible pre-Wet build up, some young men climbed trees covered in green ants and refused to come down. The heat drove everyone mental … Jane had kept up her letter writing for land rights. One day, she came back from school and saw the door open: something was wrong. All her things were torn up and thrown around the caravan. She reached down and picked up the photograph of her family; it was torn in half. She sat in the mess and wondered who had done it. She looked into her bedroom and over on the mirror was a scribbled sign. “Stop the land rights shit or die!” She traced the Texta words with her finger. She shook with fear, rocked back and forth with her arms pressed around her chest.
Jane was going mental by wanting David as a lover, boyfriend, assistant – or what? They were all waiting for the rain, the black clouds built up and crashed together, lightning pierced the sky, tongues flickered and white light lit up scenes from Fellini movies. A flash, revealing a girl in a white dress running with a bunch of bananas on her head, shattered blackness. Another flash and Raymond was seen with no trousers, holding up a bible – or was it Dante’s Inferno? – pissing on the front door of Reverend Wiltshire’s tent. Again, the light revealed Dixie, the missionary, tearing her blouse while her husband beat her with a switch of bamboo. Jane cowered in her caravan; she was alone again with a child and a m
issing husband. She told herself to be strong, run away, or jump off a cliff.
Jane watched the sky, black clouds, the end of the Dry. And the monsoon was late. David said that the young men went crazy, they made love with wild girls at Third River in the mangroves, crocodiles watching – if they could find a girl, that is. The teenage boys at school reckoned they needed a whole packet of Black Cat condoms for every weekend.
The missionaries seemed oblivious that the school classrooms were the scene of wild love making every day after school. The youngsters simply removed louvres and took over the juniors’ beanbags with libidinous abandon. These same innocent teenagers dressed in boys or girls brigade uniforms and assembled outside the church on Sundays. They had bibles in hands, scrubbed clean for God.
On weekends, Beatrice sometimes knocked on the classroom walls with her stick and yelled at the children to get out. She was a lawmaker. All the Lanniwah respected her. They scattered at the sound of the old lady’s voice. She was a force to be reckoned with. Jane watched her throw a stick at Hubert’s truck as he drove by, she cursed him in Lanniwah language. She saw Jane walking home from the store, and called her over.
“Gotta watch out for whitefella: dey go mad in dis season. Dat Boss, he gotta chasem young girl cause he got little fella in pants, real tiny one. Poor fella, eh?’ Beatrice fell about laughing. Jane wandered how she might know something like this.
‘You now forget David. It might be killem you. You no go to him. Too hard mixem marriage. He got promise’, Old Beatrice said.
‘You’re right, it’s no good. Bad business. I forget about him’, Jane lied.
‘Yeeai, I likem young fella too. I lookem alla time, yummy.’
‘But you are fifty’, said Jane.
The old lady touched her head. ‘Might be fifty up here, but I fifteen down dere!’ She roared with laughter.
‘You bad womans’, said Jane.
‘Yeeai, young fella feel real good – drive ’im hard.’ She wiggled with laughter
Jane was in turmoil: she couldn’t get David out of her head. She became obsessed, hands thrust in panties, caressing her clitoris, madness, lust, touching, wanting, and daydreaming of him. Was she some sort of sex maniac? She asked permission from Old Lucy to drive the long road to the coast with some older girls. They drove through trees laden with sticky grevillea flowers, the nectar glued to the windscreen. Lizzy and Shirley tore off branches and licked the gold flowers. Jane joined them and the nectar ran down her chin. When they arrived at the azure sea, they broke off rocks, smashed open huge oysters, and slurped them down. Jane drew David’s name in sand and erased it.
Old Lucy was getting very weak: her multiple sclerosis, or whatever it was, had made her crippled, and she could barely walk. Jane helped Old Lucy back to her camp; laid the old woman down and covered her with a blanket.
David had kept quiet about Jane, but why bother? Everyone knew about the affair; they might as well have announced it on the community loudspeaker at the church. The Lanniwah women whispered and laughed at Jane but she just walked past, head held high.
Back at school, time moved slowly. Oh God, every day the bloody same. Jane thought, ‘I sit here at this teacher’s desk, writing plans that nobody will read or care about.’ She waited for small disasters: a snake in the school, nit infestations, a wild bull, a baby born blind, Edie to report her, the missionaries to set her on fire or stone her to death. In her world of duty and books marked, each day she waited for, what? Someone to come, a move to a bigger school?
She thought about David while she worked. David put his head in the door, girls squealed, and some hid behind desks. He laughed and looked at Jane. David held Jane’s eyes for a second too long and the girls noticed it immediately.
‘Missus, he still lub you, oh Missus Jane’.
She blushed and ducked behind a desk, pretending to search for a book. David whistled and strolled down the track as the girls rushed to the window to admire his backside.
Sixteen-year-old girls fluttered their eyelashes at David while they were rehearsing a Hawaiian hula dance. The girls were sensual, dark or golden skin in coloured grass skirts. ‘ Miss gunna dance too?’
Mayda began wearing hibiscus flowers around her beautiful face to school. One afternoon, after school was finished, Jane saw David talking to her. He was leaning across Mayda as she pressed her back against a school wall. Jane felt a flash of violent jealousy. She pushed it aside. It was embarrassing. He could do whatever he wanted: he was not promised to her, and he could have any relationship as long as the woman was in the right subsection for him. Jane began to monitor where he was in the school. She would find excuses to drop into his class. She asked him for extra assistance with the boys. He could treat scabies and take them to the showers. Jane was entering an inner world of obsession with a man she couldn’t love.
One night, Jane woke up because she could hear a distant car. It pulled up near her home and someone got out. She looked through the slightly open door and suddenly it opened. A large man in a brown floppy hat stood there. She was frightened. Time slowed down and everything became unreal. She could smell his cigarette breath, his sweat and unwashed clothes.
‘You Jane Reynolds?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been sent to give you a message.’
‘What? From who?’
‘You keep out of land rights agitation or we will kill you and your son! You got that. We’ll all root you, then shoot you, and bury you where no one will find you, ever! Just a pile of bones in an ants nest. I was in Vietnam – I know how to kill gooks’, he said.
Jane tried to push the thin door shut but his foot was jammed in it. He pushed his arm through the crack and grabbed her by the face. His fingers squeezed her cheeks, the grip steel. Her skin white and sweating. She shook and tensed in terror. Her teeth chattered. The hand was cold and it penetrated her skin … Time slowed down and her tongue gagged; she felt like she was rushing towards a brick wall, about to have her face smashed; she was frozen and no sound came from her strangled throat. Minutes seemed to pass, he didn’t speak. Then she heard Aaron wake up, she struggled out of the ice grip and felt like she had a sudden strength and would turn into a she dingo and tear the man’s arm off … She snatched his wrist and gave a vicious judo twist; the man yelped.
‘Who is it, Mummy?’ said Aaron. The man dropped to the dirt. His face had a red bulbous nose with a carcinoma on it. He wore an army camouflage jacket.
‘See you’, he hissed, and then he laughed. She felt a rigid terror as walked away and slammed his car door. He drove back along the track towards town. Jane moved to the bedroom and held Aaron in her arms. He cuddled her and asked for a drink. Jane went to the fridge and found she couldn’t open the milk tin because her hands were trembling … She sat on the floor and held her hand over her mouth; she choked with tears. She hated the Territory; she hated the power of all the old men who ran the place. The black and the white.
CHAPTER 4
Pity
One afternoon, thunder cracked and big drops of water fell from the grey sky. The sublime relief. Jane felt certain everything would turn out fine. She would ask Hubert to talk to Renway. She would surrender and stop writing letters: men like Renway could win, and she didn’t care anymore because her son’s safety was paramount and the Lanniwah could fight their own land rights battles. They had told her to stop. David would carry on without her. She felt a kind of release.
It began to sprinkle and everyone rushed out of the school to drink the rain. Children ran in the rain and it began to pour. Everyone was jubilant, face upturned to the teeming rain, even Reverend Wiltshire, back from America, danced outside in the rain in his ‘y-front’ underpants. It was ecstatic; pink tongues lapped the liquid catching the droplets with joy. It was the renewal of the soil – rebirth. For the Lanniwah it was literal, it was spiritual.
It was Dangurreng, knockem down season with violent storms. Jane was getting desperate for a break. Sh
e looked across the plain and prayed (actually prayed) for someone to take pity on her. Storms flattened the spear grass; plants bore small sour fruits and it was time to harvest yams and light fires to clear grasses.
Reverend Wiltshire had returned with new skills: he was able to speak in tongues and exorcise the devil and the Edvard Munch Ministry of Silly Walks had replaced the caring mission. Wiltshire was seen standing in the middle of the road outside the church laying his hands on unsuspecting Lanniwah men. Jane walked by with a pile of books.
‘I am now a member of the International Organisation of Exorcists. Out! Out!’
The Reverend grabbed Ricky by the shoulders, trembled and shook, rolled his eyes and panted, and looked upward and cried out to God for the salvation of the Lanniwah. Ricky squirmed and his eyes asked Jane to help him. She stood nearby and reached out an arm for Ricky to hold. Her arm shook with his, a chain reaction. She carefully took hold of the Reverend’s hand and unpeeled the gripping fingers; each one reattached like an octopus and Jane again unpeeled them. Ricky slid out from the grasp and ran off. The Reverend’s warm eyes fell on Jane. He sniffed the air; he seemed to be trying to detect brimstone or the smell of sex. He moved up close, still sniffing. She held his arm and squeezed it and they both stared at blood beginning to ooze beneath her nails. He cringed.
‘Wilt, do not even think about exorcising me. I like my resident devils!’ Jane let him go and walked away.
‘I am doing God’s work!’
‘You are just another white interfering shithead. Leave Aboriginal people alone, my people alone!’
‘You? Look at you! You’re not black, you’re a fake!’
‘Not as fake as you. I saw you!’
Jane had heard that the Reverend had held Sammy in a room for two days for exorcism. The Reverend forced Satan out of Sammy’s thin body by preaching to him. However, Sammy had agreed to train as a Lanniwah pastor: miracles could happen.
Edie and Hubert attended a meeting where the Lord spoke to them through the Reverend and they were happy to wait in love for the last judgement. They waved with insane smiles at Jane; it was the first kind thing Edie had done for her in months. She ran over to Jane and gave her a bottle of lemonade. It was warm.