‘Get goin’ then,’ she said.
He came back to chaos at Highlands.
It was one of those stories that never made any sense, but everyone who’d been there, and a lot who weren’t, enjoyed telling it. He’s heard many versions over the years. The manager had come down to the camp looking for him and somehow it had finished up in a spectacular shouting match between Marj and the boss that had gone back and forth around the camp, up to the homestead and back.
Marj had cited every slight and injustice of every owner and manager back to the time of Stumpy Maclean. The manager had denounced her and Two Bob and ‘every other black cunt in the Kimberley’ as ‘useless, unreliable bludgers not worth feeding’, and threatened to run them off the place.
‘You can’t run us off, you fucken white cunt,’ Marj had raged. ‘We’re fucken leavin’. See how you go on your own runnin’ this fucken cock-rag turnout, you mangy white prick.’
When Two Bob drove into camp with Riley, Marj was already on her way to Snake Springs spearheading the exodus. The two working vehicles in the camp had been precariously loaded with people and possessions, and headed off. Thankfully Milly had been left behind with orders to fill him in, make sure the pot plants were watered, and complete the packing up of their camp. She was fifteen by then, not long back from the hostel in Derby that she hated so much – scarily beautiful in Two Bob’s eyes, with that quiet manner and faraway eyes – and delighted to reunite with her nephew and take him in hand.
The next days were a madness of packing, driving back and forth and unpacking as the exodus was completed. At one point the manager cornered him. Two Bob rather enjoyed the moment; the gammon, half-hearted apology, the barely masked fury, the offer of a big pay increase for him and two of the other boys. He nodded what might have been a thank you, or a dismissal, and got on with the packing.
For a while there it was fine. There was so much to do for a hands-on feller like himself, building boughsheds and makeshift camps for the new Jimbala Wali camp on the eastern side of Snake Springs, the Highlands side. But the only good thing he could say for the camp was that it was better than being in Derby.
As far as he could tell Riley seemed fine, happy in Milly’s care. To his amazement, no-one was asking questions. Was it just the turmoil of the times? Was it the old Highlands way of minding your own business, leaving those Walkers to their own devices? People who didn’t know them seemed to assume that he was Milly’s child. He wasn’t going to rock any boats by offering up explanations that no-one was asking for.
He thought many a time about heading back to the valley, but something about the look in his father’s eye as he handed Riley over and waved him away made him know it was pointless. What would he find? There was no-one left to bury the last man standing.
Once the new camp was set up, Two Bob found himself at a loose end for the first time in his life. It didn’t sit well. Marj had plenty on her plate, but she recognised the signs. It was she who urged him to ask about a job at Boxwood Downs. He argued half-heartedly against it; what if she got crook again and had to go to hospital? Marj retorted that Milly was old enough to look after herself now, for a while at least. Herself and Riley.
He started the new season in the Boxwood stock camp, living in the single men’s quarters. It was the first time he’d ever worked anywhere other than Highlands. He missed Milly and Marj something terrible, and fretted about Riley, but found himself loving it. Boxwood had a proper vehicle plant! Equipment that didn’t break down all the time! And a better class of horse for the stockmen.
You were right about that, Marjie, it was a cock-rag turnout they were runnin’ here.
When the new head stockman they’d recruited from the Territory didn’t work out, Big Al’s manager Goldy promoted Two Bob into the role, ‘for now’. Then the new lad they hired in for the camp to fill the hole turned out to be old Joe Black’s son Andy. The two of them took an immediate shine to each other. ‘For now’ just seemed to roll on, with no further mention of finding a replacement for the Territory feller.
22
He heard the news from Goldy, who’d driven out to the stock camp with supplies. ‘Your old joint’s on the market again, Two Bob. I asked Big Al if he was goin’ to have a crack at it.’
‘What’d he reckon?’
‘Said he’d love to, but he’s a bit stretched just now. If it’s still there next year he might. Reckon it probably will be too. No offence, but it’s a bit of a basket case in the good times. No way it makes sense the way the market is now except as an add-on to this place.’ He was watching Two Bob keenly as he said this, but got no response. ‘S’pose you mob might have a go eh? Government’s buyin’ every other joint in the Kimberley for youse.’
‘Might be. It’s not up to me, boss.’
But he knew there was no ‘might be’ about it. Marj trumpeted the news as vindication, and immediately embarked on a campaign for Highlands to be acquired for Jimbala Wali. She’d had another bad turn, and this time was down in Perth for a month for tests when the news broke. But that just made it easier for her to get access to the government mob to lobby and plead and plot.
Two Bob was surprised at how ambivalent he felt about the prospect. There was nothing he desired more than to put an end to their exile at Snake Springs, and the eternal cycle of changing owners claiming lordship over their country. It belonged to them. Marj deserved it. But …
Goldy knew what he was talking about. Two Bob was on a hiding to nothing if Marj’s campaign was successful. It was assumed that he would become the manager. And he would. But it was one thing having been the reliable old head stockman on Highlands forever. It was another having the headache of actually running the place.
Two Bob had seen it on so many other stations across the Kimberley. The joy of returning to country as owners. Then the hard reality of trying to keep a run-down property with a rubbish herd afloat with no money. The blackfellers only got the busted-arse places. He knew what he was in for, but kept his ambivalence to himself.
The deal was completed during the wet season. He rang Goldy from Snake Springs to give his notice. ‘Good luck, mate!’ Goldy laughed. It was not malicious. ‘Sing out anytime. I’ll give you a hand where I can, but Big Al keeps me on a pretty tight rein.’
It is years now since he’s set foot inside the old homestead building. He couldn’t get used to living in it back then. Marj and Milly did a huge spring clean. Decades worth of detritus disappeared to the tip. They put a swing set in the yard for Riley which he never used, got the lawn looking green for the first time in thirty years, and brought the bougainvilleas back to life. He had to admit, the place looked better than it ever had. But it didn’t feel like home. The minute he stepped inside the house, he felt out of place.
And he knew from day one that he wasn’t really a manager. He had trouble making sense of the words that poured out from the government feller they sent to help him, let alone the numbers in his budgets; but he knew in his bones that those figures didn’t add up in the real world.
Right from the start he could feel it slipping away. Since he’d pulled out, half the plant, shoddy as it was, had been sold off. He just didn’t have the gear to do the job. The feller he had pencilled in as head stockman got on the grog and didn’t show up. The muster never got into full stride. The truck broke down on the south run out Bullfrog Hole way. That meant they never even started the sweep through Blundstone’s on the east side. The government feller muttered over his papers with a big frown. Elders kept ringing up asking when the freight account was going to be paid.
He bottled it all up. He didn’t want to worry Marj, who was in her element. There was something wonderful about being their own bosses in this small world at the end of the road where they all lived in each other’s laps. About not having to second-guess everything around how the manager might react, or what he might think or say. About letting it all hang out, for good and bad.
The meetings on the verandah planning
a future. There’d be a proper office. A school – only primary, she acknowledged, but at least then the littlies wouldn’t have to be sent away to the hostel. A clinic – her niece Rosa could run it when she’d finished her nursing course down in Perth. Marj could see it all. There was an energy and an excitement at Highlands that had never existed before. He felt like a wet blanket every time he gave his report on station business to the Jimbala Wali council.
His joy through that year was watching Milly. The smile. The bounce in her step. The way she glowed with anticipation when she knew Andy was on his way out. What could be better than seeing the child you love happier than she has ever been in her life!
The spark that had been lit on the weekends off from Boxwood became a raging fire that first year back at Highlands. Marj didn’t approve, but that was to be expected. Two Bob wondered how Andy managed to keep his job at Boxwood, with the amount of time he was spending at Highlands with Milly.
When she knew he was coming, she would wait on the verandah, with her bag of fishing gear and a change of clothes, singing away to Riley until she heard the engine. Then she would be on her feet, looking for the dust, and would run to the gate to hold it open. Two Bob was lucky if he got two minutes of station gossip in before they were gone.
Mostly she took Riley with them. But sometimes she talked Two Bob into looking after him for a weekend. Then there was hell to pay. For Milly as she extracted herself from Riley’s clinging embrace. For Two Bob, trying to calm the desolate boy. Riley hated Andy.
How did something that seemed so pure go so wrong?
The question has tormented him ever since, and he has never come close to finding an answer.
23
Kerthunk. Dancer startles back to consciousness as the truck goes over a grid. The sensation in the truck’s cabin changes from the floaty smoothness of the bitumen ride to the gentle shudder of the gravel. It feels good.
‘He’s awake again!’ says Andy. He lip-points. Dancer spots the two pairs of brolgas in a graceful glide, low in the eastern sky.
They watch the brolgas out of sight before Andy speaks again. ‘Do you think about your mum?’
Dancer is immediately tense. For all of his impatience of an hour ago, this is too direct. His answer is hesitant. ‘Yeah … Not so much think, as wonder. There’s no picture there in my head to hang a thought on.’
‘I do. Every day. Or every day since I’ve been sober. That’s the excuse I used to give for me drinkin’ – so I wouldn’t have to think about her.’
It is a change of subject, but Dancer has to ask. ‘What about Buddy’s mum?’
‘It’s different, Dancer. You know it’s different. I don’t want to diss her. She gave us Buddy. In some ways I loved her too; but it was ways that were part of the mad drunk years. And most of the memories are sad, an’ angry. An’ guilty.’
He runs a hand through his hair. Scratches the crown of his head violently. ‘I killed her! I got behind that fucken wheel with her sittin’ beside me when I had no fucken right. I deserved every fucken day of the sentence I got.’ A noisy, lip-flapping, tension-releasing exhalation before he continues. ‘It’s different, Dancer. Your mum, she …’ He takes his eyes off the road to hold Dancer’s eye. ‘She’s deep inside of me, tangled up with whatever part of me is any good.’
They roll on another couple of kilometres with Dancer blinking back tears before Andy asks, ‘What do you wonder?’
‘I wonder everything. Every fucking thing. All those little short words, Dad: How? What? Where? No-one’s ever told me! And don’t forget the main one. Why? … Why? Why? Why fucking why?’
‘Do you want to pull up for a spell?’
‘Nup. Keep driving. Just don’t go all quiet on me again.’
Dancer keeps his gaze out the passenger window. He knows this will be easier without eye contact, without the assessing sidelong glances. But he can sense the shudder as his father holds in a deep, deep breath.
‘I’ve only got half answers to those little words. I’m tryin’ to think, how much do you actually know?’
‘Fuck all, Dad. You took us to Bullfrog Hole, and you told me it was my Unggurr. The rest of it I’ve heard more from the rest of the family than from you. She left me in Broome when I wasn’t even one year old, she went back to Highlands, and she disappeared. That’s about all I bloody know.’
Andy looks across at Dancer, who is still staring fixedly out of his window. Eventually he starts to talk. ‘The doctors called it postnatal depression. The Highlands mob called it spirit sickness. That’s about as much of a why as I ever got.’
But he’s hardly got started when he yanks on the air horn. Up ahead a small mob of cattle startle. He holds the cord down, not slowing. The blare continues as the gap closes. The last weaner scurries clear in the nick of time, lost in the roil of dust the truck throws up. Still he holds the cord. Still it blares, with the cattle left well behind. At last he lets it rest, and continues speaking as if there’s been no interruption. But Dancer can feel the effort it takes for Andy to keep on talking.
‘Maybe they’re the same thing, or two sides of the same coin. Or maybe they’re two completely different things, and she got a giant dose of both at once. But even then, they don’t add up to a proper why. They’re just words, labels.’
Dancer can’t tell whether the sound that escapes his father is a rueful laugh or a choked-off cry. He glances across, but Andy’s eyes are firmly on the road ahead. He gets the sense that his father has been rehearsing this conversation forever, but one wrong word, one wrong move on his part, and the thread might break.
‘She had this serious, sort of sad look about her. Everyone used to say that. I’m talkin’ about before it all went wrong. But no way was she a sad person inside. We were happy as a pair of mudlarks in a rainstorm. Then this veil came down. Not all at once. But it kept fallin’ heavier and heavier on her.
‘She was so gentle with you, Dancer. Right through. When you were asleep, she’d just lie there hour after hour, starin’ at you. And every now and then she’d reach out a finger and stroke you, ever so lightly. She never stopped lovin’ you, boy. Never. I’d swear to that. Swear to the end of me days. But she just … She stopped … connectin’ properly. Even to you.’
Without looking at him, Andy reaches a hand across, and gives Dancer’s leg a brief, light squeeze.
‘As for me. That veil became so fucken thick, it was like she couldn’t see me at all.
‘Jesus, Dancer, I was only, what, three years older than you are now. I was completely outta my depth. I just didn’t know what to do.’
Dancer keeps staring out his window, seeing the passing bush through a blur of tears, trying to disguise his intermittent sobs as sniffs.
‘I’m sorry, boyo. You told me not to go quiet.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’ve got a right.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I honestly don’t know much about the rest, except that it was the worst time of my life. I don’t think her mind was workin’ proper any more. But I think she figured that the only chance she had to get her shit back together was to get back to Highlands. So she went.’
‘Without me.’
‘I think she reckoned that’s what was best for you.’
‘And you?’
‘An’ me what?’
‘What did you do?’
‘I followed her up there, mate. Left you with Bella and drove this same fucken road we’re drivin’ now. But it was no good. That bloody thick black veil was still hangin’ there. It was like I was invisible. There was no point. An’ I had to come back. To you.
‘All I could do was wait. Wait an’ hope. I even tried prayin’, Dancer, but that never felt right.’
For some reason this gets a strangled sort of laugh out of Dancer.
‘What? Me prayin’?’ Andy tries to sound indignant.
‘Yeah.’ Dancer points at a big, gnarled boab tree, resplendent in bright green foliage
. ‘Look at that one.’
‘It’s nothin’ to some of the ones up at Highlands.’
‘So what happened next?’ Dancer holds onto the thread.
‘Then I fucked up. I mean, you know, I tell you this story, an’ I could throw myself on your mercy an’ say that I had some pretty damn good excuses to lose it. But I let you down, an’ I let her down, and that’s the hard fucken truth of it.
‘I can’t even remember – an’ it shames me to say this – I can’t even remember the phone call from Two Bob to tell me she’d gone missin’. Basically I stayed drunk from the day I started, until they threw me in the cells after the car crash. You’ve got more to thank your aunties and uncles for than your father.’
‘Shut up!’ Dancer turns to his dad fiercely.
‘Hey! That’s not what you said just now.’
‘No jokes,’ Dancer says, and turns back to face the window.
‘Dancer, I’ve spent your whole life runnin’ away from this conversation. Sometimes I hoped we might never have to do it, that you might be able to just cruise on through. But you’re not the cruisin’ type are you.’
Dancer shrugs but does not reply.
‘Mate,’ Andy says, gentler now, ‘I’m just a dumb bass player and truck driver. I’ve got no idea whether this is helpin’ you or hurtin’ you. Maybe it’s both eh. That two sides of the coin thing. But here we are on the Gibb River Road headin’ for Highlands, so I suppose it was about time.’
24
Marj and Two Bob tried to carry on in the aftermath of losing Milly, but their lives were blighted. How quickly it unravelled. He didn’t have his mind on the job. The muster was a disaster. Late in the year Marj had to go down to Perth for her first spell of dialysis; her kidneys were starting to collapse from the years of diabetes.
When she had to go down again six months later, the rest of the Jimbala Wali council held a meeting. They praised Marj to the skies whilst avoiding Two Bob’s eyes, but said they needed a chairman who was fit to do the job. A different family took over. Two Bob resigned as manager. It was a relief to move out of the homestead, back to his old camp.
The Valley Page 10