Rain Stones 25th Anniversary Edition

by Jackie French

  Gwyn shuddered. Dusty saw her, and shook his head, as though to shake away his memories.

  ‘I remembered the dole camp and I worked with my mates, all of us helping each other. That saved me too. Once, when I was weak, Red Harris got Coates the medico to give me a blood transfusion, some of Red’s own blood. He stood next to my bed and they fed it into me. He saved me.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ asked Rob softly. ‘Are you still friends?’

  ‘He died, got cholera. We put bamboo name bracelets on the men with cholera, ’cause at the end they were too thin to recognise. Even a friend like Red . . . I didn’t know him at the end, just his skin and staring eyes. When we finished the railway they sent me to Japan to work there, but the ship was torpedoed and the Yanks fished me out of the water.

  ‘There are things that happened in those years I’ll never tell you. But if I tell you a bit of it you might remember. There are different ways of fighting. But you’ve got to fight to live.’

  The storm had quietened now. The whole world was quiet. All you could hear was the steady drip from sodden leaves, the rush of the freshened creek below. Suddenly the owl began to boom again.

  ‘That means it’s over,’ said Dusty. ‘The mopoke always sings when it’s over. Off to bed now, you lot. Fill up your hot water bottles if you’re cold.’

  ‘Will you come and tuck us in?’ asked Gwyn.

  Dusty paused. ‘I haven’t tucked anyone in for twenty years,’ he said. ‘I suppose I remember how. Yeah, I’ll tuck you in. Get along with you.’

  The creek was still up next morning. It ran and sang among the rocks. The casuarinas shone silver in the clear blue light. Rob and Gwyn ran down through the sodden grass.

  ‘It’s twice as high as yesterday!’ called Gwyn.

  ‘Do you think we can still swim?’

  Gwyn nodded. ‘It’s just fresh,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s dangerous. We’ll ask Dusty. Look, it’s been higher. That must have been the roaring in the middle of the night. It’s washed all the casuarina needles from the bank.’

  They walked back across the flat. The grass seemed to steam in the sunlight. You could almost see green sprouting after the rain.

  Dusty was frying eggs in the kitchen. The room smelt of hot butter and fresh bread. The radio was muttering on the mantelpiece. General news, strikes and money markets, wars in other countries, then the local news. The children pricked up their ears.

  ‘Hey, that’s about the meeting we read about in the cafe!’ said Rob.

  Dusty looked up. ‘I don’t suppose you want to go to it?’ he asked, too casually.

  Rob looked at Gwyn. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said carelessly. Dusty’s shoulders dropped a little.

  ‘Just thought you might,’ he muttered. The eggs snapped and sizzled in the pan as he turned them. Gwyn took the bread out of the bread bin and began to cut sandwiches.

  ‘You don’t mind if we have lunch away again, do you, Dusty?’ she asked.

  Dusty raised an eyebrow. ‘Reckon you’ve found something interesting out there. Or maybe the bush’s just got to you.’

  Rob grinned. ‘You’re not the only one to have adventures, Dusty.’

  ‘Never said I was,’ said Dusty Dargan.

  ‘We’ll stay if you need a hand with anything,’ offered Gwyn anxiously.

  Dusty shook his head as he sliced the eggs onto plates. ‘You’re only here for two weeks. Heaven knows if you’ll ever be back again. Next time your parents want a trip away and can’t book you into anywhere else, I reckon. You go off and enjoy yourselves. Come on. Sit down. The eggs are ready.’

  They ate in silence for a minute.

  ‘Tell us a story,’ asked Gwyn. ‘Tell us a happy story this time.’

  Dusty lifted an eyebrow. ‘All stories are happy,’ he said. ‘Happy and sad together. You don’t get one without the other. I’ll tell you a good story,’ said Dusty Dargan. ‘I’ll tell you how I won your gran.’

  Rob and Gwyn forked their eggs slowly as he began to speak.

  ‘I got back here in ’46. The roof had fallen in and the fences looked like an elephant’d sat on them.’

  Gwyn giggled.

  ‘I was just out of hospital and thin as a rooster’s ankle. I worked here for a year and got back to looking like myself, not that that’s anything to write home about. Anyway, I got the roof back on and the possums out from under the bed and I bought some cattle for the flat. Then I went to this dance in town. You get good tucker at the dances round here. I was cooking for myself and I felt like a feed. I saw her dancing and that was it.

  ‘She wasn’t beautiful. She had hair like everyone else’s and skin that’d been too long in the sun. But she was enjoying herself. I never knew a woman enjoy things like your gran. She was as happy that night as a kookaburra after rain when the worms come out. I asked her for a dance and she laughed at me, not at anything I said but just for the joy of it.

  ‘She was a teacher at the school. Half the blokes in town were after her. They had more to offer her than I did — houses with hot water and record players and cars. They’d had more education than what I got at the dole camp, than what I got here trying to scratch a living with my dad. So I thought about what I did have.’

  ‘What was that, Dusty?’ asked Gwyn.

  Dusty looked at her across the table. ‘I had this place. I knew that if she didn’t love it she couldn’t love me either. I’d realised that back on the railway, finally. I’d realised what was important. You are what you love. This place and me, there’s no separating us. I asked her down one Sunday and she came, and I showed her the creek, and we swam where you kids swim now. I took her up the top of Big Henry and we watched the shadows creep up the valley and the light thicken with the night. I saw how her face lit up with everything she saw. I showed her a bowerbird’s nest full of blue things for his love and I told her I’d do the same for her if she gave me time.

  ‘I didn’t want her to miss out on anything marrying me. But I reckoned we were two of a kind. We faced life and we wanted it and we lived all we could get of it. We belonged together, your gran and me. But I wanted her to have everything.

  ‘I built this house for her. It was only two rooms when I started. I built a bathroom and bedrooms. I got running water for the kitchen and put in the biggest tank I could, so she’d always have fresh water. It took me two years. I went back to fencing for other people and I bought all the things she’d need, curtains and saucepans, though she said she didn’t need them. Then we were married.’

  Dusty Dargan looked out the window. ‘When you kids aren’t here I still climb Big Henry at night and think of her. I don’t think she’s far away. She loved this valley as I do, and there’s still that between us and always will be. While I’ve got this valley I’m near your gran.’

  Dusty looked back at them. ‘She died before you were born, when your mother was in the city doing her uni. She died of cancer. She died slowly. She wouldn’t let it take her. She fought till she was too tired to fight any longer. You can’t fight other people’s battles,’ said Dusty Dargan. ‘I’d have fought the cancer for her if I could.

  ‘I learnt that with your uncle too. With my Michael. When he died in Vietnam it was part of me dying, as well as part of your gran. But you can’t die for other people. You can’t do their fighting for them. If people believe in something they’ve got to do their own fighting or it means nothing. And if they don’t fight, well, it means they aren’t interested. Not enough to commit themselves anyway. If you want to live you fight for that, if you want to save a bit of bush you fight as well.’

  Dusty stood up. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I’m too tired to fight. I’ve spent my whole life fighting and where has it got me? I’ve nothing to fight for now. No one to fight for.’

  They listened to his footsteps down the passage, out into the garden beyond.

  ‘Rob, we’ve got to tell him,’ said Gwyn. ‘He’s so sad. He thinks we don’t care. We have to tell him about
the dragon so he knows the valley’s safe.’

  Rob considered. ‘You know what we decided,’ he said. ‘What if it disappears if people get to know about it?’

  ‘Dusty isn’t “people”,’ argued Gwyn. ‘He’s Dusty. Please, Rob.’

  Rob went over to the window. The sun thrust gold fingers through the trees. The light caught the scattered raindrops so they glittered like broken quartz. He watched for a moment.

  ‘All right,’ he said finally.

  They walked out into the garden. The noise of the creek muttered fresh from the flat. Dusty was mending the netting by the chook house. He didn’t look at them as they came out. His mouth was set. They went over to him.

  Gwyn nudged Rob. Rob shook his head. ‘You tell him,’ he whispered.

  Dusty turned. ‘You tell me what?’ he demanded. ‘What’ve you been up to, you two?’

  Gwyn cleared her throat. ‘Dusty, we found something yesterday. Something we want to show you. Something magic.’

  ‘It means the valley’s safe,’ said Rob. ‘You don’t have to worry about the woodchipping at all. You don’t have to fight.’

  Dusty looked puzzled. ‘Magic?’ he demanded. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a dragon,’ offered Gwyn. ‘A magic dragon.’

  Dusty put the chook wire down and scratched his head. ‘You kids think you’ve found a dragon in the valley?’

  Gwyn laughed. ‘Come and see!’ she offered, delighted. ‘Come and we’ll show you.’

  Dusty looked sceptical. ‘If this is a joke or something I’ll cook you snake for dinner,’ he threatened.

  ‘It’s no joke, Dusty. Come and look for yourself.’

  Dusty rubbed his hands on his trousers. ‘There’s nothing here that can’t wait. Not if there’s a dragon around. But if you lot are kidding I’ll have your hides.’

  They hurried down the damp flat, jumped the creek from rock to rock, bubbling silver between its stones, the casuarina pollen washed away in the flood. Then up the gully on the other side. It ran with water now, after the rain, a thin dribble of water between the rocks and grass.

  ‘Up here,’ said Rob. ‘See, it lives round this tree.’

  Dusty’s eyes gleamed. He was beginning to understand. He gestured towards some tracks on the ground. ‘This way,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s try this way.’

  Down towards the creek again, through the field of rocks. Suddenly one of them moved. Eyes peered at them.

  It was the dragon.

  ‘Dusty, watch out!’ called Rob. ‘That’s it!’

  ‘I’d forgotten it was so big!’ breathed Gwyn.

  ‘We should have brought it some food. Maybe it’ll be angry.’

  The dragon seemed undecided whether to leave or stay. It peered at them through narrow eyes. Finally its shoulders moved, the massive legs waddled towards them. It remembered the sandwiches.

  ‘There!’ demanded Rob. ‘What did we tell you, Dusty?’

  ‘A dragon!’ announced Gwyn. ‘Our very own magic dragon.’

  Dusty stood very still.

  ‘I see it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘It’s a magic dragon,’ said Gwyn. ‘I’ve thought for days the valley must be magic. It has to be magic to be as beautiful as this. You can’t hurt magic places.’

  Dusty turned away from the dragon and looked at them. ‘That’s a goanna,’ he said softly. ‘Not a dragon.’

  ‘A goanna!’ cried Rob indignantly. ‘You don’t get goannas that big!’

  ‘You do here,’ said Dusty. ‘Not because it’s magic but because there’s nothing to hurt them here. Goannas get bigger the longer they live. That one must be two hundred years or more. No, you don’t see goannas that size most places. That’s because they’ve been killed long ago — by dogs or people or just not enough food.’

  ‘A giant goanna,’ said Gwyn wonderingly.

  ‘There’s no magic about it,’ said Dusty. ‘What’s kept that goanna alive is people looking after this place. My dad, me, your gran. If we’d run a few hundred sheep through here, if we’d cleared the land for grazing, if we’d burnt it off every year, there wouldn’t be a goanna like that here. That goanna won’t protect the valley, son. It’s the valley that protects it.’

  The goanna looked at them warily. She was so near they could smell her breath, strong as rotten meat. She swished her tail, considered, wondering perhaps if there were sandwiches today or boiled eggs. Finally she seemed to give up on them. She began to climb a casuarina. Her claws scratched the rough bark. The children watched her go.

  ‘Does that mean,’ said Rob slowly, ‘that there’s no such thing as magic?’

  Dusty looked tired. ‘There’s magic enough,’ he said, ‘if you want to look for it. Even your goanna’s magic, if you like. But magic won’t save anything in the real world.’ He held out a hand to each of the children. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go home and have a cuppa.’

  They were quiet on the way home. They crossed the creek at the swimming hole, brown again under the morning’ s coating of casuarina pollen, walked through the strong sunlight up the flat, under the weighted apple trees and through the leafy coolness of their grandmother’s garden. Dusty put the kettle on for his tea, hauled the milk from the cool safe for Rob and Gwyn and began to butter bread. The children started to set the table automatically.

  Gwyn broke the silence. ‘Dusty?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How long before they start to log then?’

  Dusty shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s only a proposal at this stage. Might be years.’

  ‘Can it still be stopped?’

  Dusty stopped buttering bread. ‘Do you want it stopped?’

  Gwyn looked at Rob. He nodded.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘We’re sure,’ said Rob.

  Dusty sat down at the table and looked at them. ‘You realise what this means?’ he asked. ‘It takes a lot out of you when you begin to love the land. It’s not just one battle. Once you commit yourself there’s a million ways you have to fight. It’s a big decision.’

  The children stood together. ‘We love it,’ said Gwyn. ‘We’ll fight for it.’

  Dusty brushed his eyes. He looked out the window. Big Henry shone green and gold above the dark line of trees along the creek. The magpies were singing in the red gum down by the creek. He looked back at the children.

  ‘Then it’s yours,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave it to you in my will. It’ll all be frozen till you’re eighteen. But your parents won’t be able to sell it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll probably last till you’re eighteen, anyway,’

  ‘What about the logging?’ asked Rob. ‘Will you show us how to fight, Dusty?’

  ‘What do you mean, show you? I’ll be out there fighting too. Now I’ve got something to fight for.’

  ‘Do you think we’ll win?’

  Dusty grinned. ‘Nothing’s beaten me yet, kids. I reckon nothing will.’

  Outside a breeze raced down Big Henry, touched the casuarinas, sending still more pollen red upon the water, eddying in the hot thick air. The magpies stopped a moment, then carolled louder. The lizards lazed upon their rocks. High above the creek the dragon watched, then slept, safe in the deep valley above the falling creek.

  Afterword

  Once upon a time there was a shed in the bush, with a wombat called Smudge, a wallaby called Fred and a black snake called Gladys. A baby lived there too, with his young mum, who had always longed to be a writer.

  She had written books since she was six years old, and told stories to schoolfriends on long hot afternoons as flies buzzed at the schoolroom windows, or to her sister and brothers under the peach tree down the yard.

  But all her life she had been warned, ‘You can’t be a writer in Australia. No one here can make a living being a writer. Do something useful with your time.’

  And so she did. She got a university degree, a job, married, bought a farm. But the marriage broke down and no rain f
ell. The creek dried up into deep pools shared with wallabies, about one hundred wild ducks, a few black swans, a lost cormorant and whatever other animals were desperate for water. There was no spare water to grow vegetables or fruit to sell, only enough to feed her and her son. She was broke. Too broke even to register her car.

  Before she’d had a baby, if she needed to get anywhere she’d hitchhiked (do not try this, kids) or just walked. But it was too far to walk to town carrying a baby. What if they needed a doctor, fast?

  The young woman, of course, was me, more than thirty years ago: thinner, with two long, dark brown plaits and the baby in a pack on my back, as strollers don’t work in the bush.

  The orchards gave us fruit: small freckled apricots that tasted of sunlight, crisp apples all year round with juice that ran down your chin, white-fleshed peaches that bruised even if you gently carried them up to the shed, hard pears to bake in winter, and old-fashioned fruits you can’t buy now.

  The garden gave us vegies: corn that grew taller than my head, baskets of tomatoes, pumpkins so vast and flat you could sit on them. The hens gave eggs, young roosters to roast.

  The bush provided slabs of old stringybark to roof the dunny, tender young strings to plait twine and baskets, flat horse mushrooms we grilled on the outdoor fire. It gave us stones to turn an open shed into stone-walled rooms to live in, blackberries that my son ate with his mouth open like a baby bird, waiting for another one, emu berries, wood to cook with and keep us warm, the giant branch of the ‘horse tree’ we used as a rocking horse, and native figs to pick as we lazed in the pools on afternoons when the sun blazed too hot to stay in the shed, and felt the fish nibble at our toes.

  The bush gave us almost everything. But the bush couldn’t give me $106.49 to register a car.

  So I wrote a story. I’d told stories when I was a little girl, but as I grew older I’d hidden most of my writing, from my parents, ex-husband, even from friends who’d found my writing weird. Those books, poems, songs and plays had just been for me. This was a story that had to sell. It had to be the best I was able to create.