Taboo

by Kim Scott

  Suddenly the men stopped pulling at her clothes.

  ‘Fuck. How many?’

  ‘Get out of here.’

  She felt herself released. Her legs gave way. Gerry and Dougie – the fucks – were running to the bus. No, they ran right past the bus and down the gravel track, leaving small puffs of dust that the rising sun ignited. The light so warm, so clean it felt like something sacred. Tilly – tracksuit pants half pulled from her, t-shirt ripped – sat on the ground in sacred light.

  Someone was calling her name. Tilly got to her feet warily, looking around as she adjusted her clothing. Heard it again, but could see no one. Then, down by the river she saw a great many people, quiet and slow-moving. Women, dark women in kangaroo-skin cloaks pulled close around their bodies. Looking this way, looking at her. Not all in cloaks. Leading them, walking up from the river and lit by the first golden light of the day: Kathy and Ruby, Angela, and then, neither leading nor following but as if compelled by the dark women behind him, Gerry . . . This would be Gerald. Then all those other women stopped, they remained behind, were blending back into the trees, their eyes still on Tilly. Smiling, she was sure they were smiling. She blinked, and they were gone, while Gerry and Kathy and the rest – look at them – continued toward her, so very serious and grim, their faces lined and twisted with worry. She saw Wally was with them too.

  Tilly felt both saved and as if she was the saviour. Was she laughing? Crying? She fell into the arms of the women. So grateful, so relieved; so proud of them and of herself.

  *

  ‘Well, we heard the bus go, and we knew you slept in there.’

  ‘And when I woke Wally, he said . . .’

  ‘We couldn’t see who it was . . .’

  ‘Something made us go that way . . .’

  Over and over again as they drove back in the bus, they told the story of how they’d found her. Tilly assured them she was unhurt; her clothes were ripped but nothing really happened; just a fright.

  ‘You sure it was them?’

  She was.

  ‘They run all the way home?’

  ‘Two little piggies run all the way home,’ said Wally from the driver’s seat. They smiled, partly from relief and good manners, but mostly just because of Wally’s strange sense of humour.

  Gerry had waved them away, said he’d join them later. They’d tried to persuade him otherwise but he’d borrowed a car, he said, and wanted to get it back. Stole it, they agreed; that’s why he wants to get it back. Stole it from that fella he was gunna beat up on the pool table last night . . . And then they had to tell that story too.

  Ruby would have to hear it later; she was in the car they’d driven here, looking for Tilly.

  ‘Borrowed it from Wilfred’s new friends,’ Wally said. ‘They come home with him. Very taken with our old Elder, unna? Gunna help him finish off whatever it is he’s made for the ceremony today.’

  Tilly was surprised she was not more upset. Perhaps it was because of what she’d been through before, and this time Dougie hadn’t been able to do anything, not this time, not now. She felt betrayed, yes, by the twin; but his brother had led the rescue. The size of the crowd, all those women behind him . . . She didn’t question it.

  ‘No. No police,’ said Tilly. And no need for the hospital. Really. She smiled, and conversation bubbled and flowed within the rushing vehicle.

  *

  When Gerald got to where he’d left the car, there was nothing but its tyre prints. It had accelerated away, that was clear from the way the soil was scattered from the arc it had left in the dirt. He imagined Dougie placating Tommy; wasn’t us that took it, was that mad cunt Gerald. We brought it back to you, you should thank us. Here, have this. He’d give him drugs, help smooth it all over in the way only Dougie could, put himself in your line of dependency. They might get the cops on him, Gerry; but they couldn’t prove nothing, and his brother . . . His brother wouldn’t want that, wouldn’t do that to him again.

  He was going to walk the river anyway, just like his ancestors had done, carrying stones worn and smoothed and delivered by the ocean. It would have been the young men, probably younger than himself. But it was harder today. He followed in their footsteps, but must travel a little further too.

  He reckoned it would take about four to six hours to reach Dan Horton’s property, at least that part of the riverbed where his family had collected all of the stones. The Peace Park ceremony was in nine. He had time. He would meet all the others there.

  A smooth stone cupped in the palm of each hand, Gerald was one of many moving among the paperbarks, there in the shadows near the water’s edge. Gerald was gently compelled: go this way, that way. And then there was a thin path through rushes and he strode out briskly, his muscles long and loose even so long without sleep. He breathed deeply, free of anxiety. The stones reminded him; let gravity ground you, your spirit soar; let the energy of this old path move you; let it set the direction and you just stay by the tiller.

  Darkness became more than monochrome, light rising from the ground. Again and again Gerald sensed a figure – figures – at a curve just ahead of him, slipping behind a tree and away into some other world. Back again.

  He detoured across coarse river sand to a small, deep rock pool. Dropped to his knees, put the stones either side of it, cupped his hands, drank. On an impulse, reached into the water. His fingers closed around a fist-sized stone. He drew it out, dripping, and laid it on the sheet of rock. A hollow had been manufactured at its centre. Who left it, how long had it waited? Gerald placed one of the stones he’d been carrying into the pool, and carried this new one away with him. He saw no skull, jammed among rocks, nor how his own face remained, for a moment reflected in the water there, the wan sky behind. The moon was almost gone. Light rose from the pale sand of the creek bed, flowed in the tumbling gully he entered.

  Later that same morning, still walking strongly, Gerald heard thunder. He looked up, a clear, bright sky; if thunderclouds, he cannot see them. The treetops writhe, but he is sheltered in the creek bed and the canopy closes again.

  He hears crickets. Frogs. Rumbling thunder.

  And, surprised, himself singing, one of those songs in the tongue of this place. Thunder and his own voice rolled along this creek bed, these gullies.

  His feet crossed sheets of rock, wide banks of coarse river sand. Trees leaned over him, made a canopy above him, opened again.

  Another waterhole. Gerry drinks, reaches into it. Leaves the stone he’s carried from the last, takes another one with him. Smooth stone in the palm of each hand.

  *

  Dan had gone to bed thinking about the opening of the Peace Park, and when he awoke was thinking about it still. He worried about the weather – not unusual for a farmer in this or any part of the world. The forecast referred to the possibility of a storm, and isolated gale force winds. It wasn’t because of the Peace Park opening that he worried – that could go ahead with a bit of rain and wind – but because of business. A bit of rain was nearly always valuable, especially now that the crop – such as it was this miserable year – was harvested. No, he wasn’t so worried about rain, but everywhere was so dry and the soil so loose that a strong wind would blow the best soil away.

  Rain this year in particular had been isolated and patchy, and the yield had been extremely poor – some areas had no harvest to speak of – except there was that one paddock adjoining the sites he wanted to show Tilly and the others later today. It must be something to do with the topography there, the river valley, or that ridge to the west, but something seemed to ensure that small paddock always had a good yield. Every year when they ploughed, countless yams came up with the turned earth. Perhaps there was something in the soil there.

  The early sun was large and red; dust in the air already, then.

  He expected to figure in the Peace Park ceremony, to at least be mentioned,
especially since the Wirlomin group apparently intended donating some of the grinding stones to the Historical Society. Janet would’ve been thrilled by that, and it would make the rest think of how they should have included him more. He expected some of the Aborigines this morning, so he could show them the area where most of the stones had been collected. He was looking forward to it.

  He’d asked that Tilly be among those who came. He had a plan; perhaps it was a wish. He’d talked to his brother, Malcolm, about it already.

  ‘Malcolm, I want to give them the property.’

  ‘What? Who? Them Aborigines?’

  ‘Yes, in a way.’

  ‘Tell me what way.’

  ‘Well, I’ll show them around first, show them the “sites”; the riverbed, the springs, the rock hole and that.’

  ‘Yes, where their ancestors were.’

  ‘Yes, they’re all very interested in their old culture. It means a lot to them, and some of what they say, it’s like God. Janet used to talk about it all the time.’

  ‘Yes, pagan . . .’

  ‘And Doug, see. I told you he’s with them?’

  ‘Yes. I’m happy for you that he’s back, Dan, really I am.’

  ‘I talked to him a little bit the other day, with them at the camp. It’ll take us time, I know. I think he might move back. And I could donate this farm, with its special places and that, to Tilly and to Doug both. Just this property. Tilly representing them, the family, and Doug . . . They could run it together, like these camps they do, and wouldn’t need to stay in the caravan park, and the waterholes . . .’

  ‘I see, but . . .’

  ‘I’m thinking about it, that’s all. I’ll sow the idea . . .’

  ‘You’ll need a lawyer.’

  ‘Of course, but . . . I want to put the idea to them today . . .’

  ‘Well, of course it’s your decision, Dan. It’s a very Christian thing to do, really. But with a lawyer, Dan; a lawyer. But I guess you can broach the idea with them first, if you feel you must.’

  Dan had already decided he must. It was a Reconciliation thing, real reconciliation. And to have Doug back . . . Doug seemed so interested in these people and what they were doing. It would be family – Tilly and Malcom and Doug – together with these Aboriginal people. One family, descended from Adam and Eve. Janet had dreamed of something like this.

  He checked the clock. Hours yet before they arrived.

  The dogs reminded him it was time to get out of the house. Yes. He’d wait in the shed, do some repairs and tidy up a bit while he waited.

  He stepped outside and into a dry, stinging hail of soil.

  The shed door slid easily, the concrete floor was neatly swept. The truck and its trailer were loaded with wheat. He touched the tarpaulin, checked (unnecessarily) that the cords were tight. The last decent load; he’d take it to the depot today, weigh-in after the ceremony.

  It had been a terrible year, generally. Most of the crop had failed – lack of rain – except that one paddock where the yams were.

  The wind howled around the shed, threw sand and leaves against the corrugated iron walls. Just as suddenly dropped again.

  Dan gazed upon the tools hanging on the wall. There was the house to keep tidy as well, now that Janet was gone. He couldn’t keep up, not by himself.

  The sound of a car pulling up startled him from his thoughts of Janet, the past, Janet, a diffused anxiety about the future. Janet. He ventured to the doorway; saw a strange car, and his estranged son. Returning. Doug walked toward him beaming. ‘Not trespassing am I, Dad?’ He’d made the same joke yesterday. Behind him, one of those twins laughed.

  ‘I feel better here than at Kokanarup,’ his son said, shaking his father’s hand warmly. Dan felt absurdly grateful that the boy – the man – had returned and was not ashamed to face what it meant to live on this river, its history. They had so much to talk about, he and his son.

  ‘You know Gerry, I think?’ Of course Dan knew Gerry, and Tommy, the driver. They shook hands.

  ‘I wanted to show them our sites,’ Doug said. ‘You know, around where we found the rocks: the springs, the clearing. Heard you showed them the other places already.’

  Dan nodded. ‘The others will be here later this morning.’

  ‘That’s bad luck. Me and Tom and Gerry gotta be back in King George Town today. Can’t even stay for the Peace Park opening.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. But you’ll be back?’

  ‘Yeah. I know, I’m sorry, but like I said, Dad, I want to come home.’

  ‘Wonderful. We need to have a chat sometime, soon?’

  ‘Yep, but not just yet, hey? I wanna show ’em our sites, what you’re gunna show the rest of them, but then we have to go. Rush.’

  ‘Doug, I want to give this property to you and to Tilly, together, so they can do their camps, their language and that, here, and it will still be a farm and you and Tilly, representing her people. Your mother . . .’

  Dan wanted to tell him all this, but Doug drove off before he’d hardly begun.

  Dan watched them drive toward the river, the dust rising behind their vehicle. He returned to the shed. Increasingly, he found himself at the workbench, daydreaming. As if lost. Stranded. He stood in the wide doorway, looked to the sky. A fire somewhere? Sandstorm? Some menace in the air? He smiled; it could be nothing he’d not dealt with before.

  STICKS AND STONES

  The light was strange, as if there was a distant bushfire, but the smoke was very high and must’ve been well above the wind that was gusting so irregularly around them. Wally, Ruby, Nita and Kathy were by the campfire, having separately scouted around to see who’d not returned from the pub and the party.

  ‘Most of ’em here, but . . . They’ll have to start their rehab all over again.’

  ‘Yeah, well, not the first time,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve got the artwork to get ready for later today, such as it is. Not much or much good actually. Might be a bit embarrassing.’

  ‘Well, not the first time for that either.’

  ‘Seen old boy’s harem?’ Wally tilted his head toward where two bodies rose, fully clothed, and stood in their rumpled bedding on the veranda of the hut where Wilfred slept. They lifted their arms, stretched, rubbed tousled heads. Two women, Wilfred’s artist friends from last night.

  Wally waved to them from the fireside. They waved back, and made their way over to join them.

  ‘Cuppa?’ asked Ruby, before they’d arrived. ‘Cups and tea and that in the breakfast hut.’ She pointed.

  They returned a little later, each with a steaming mug in their hands.

  ‘Sylvie,’ one of them introduced herself. She was a small woman who, having uttered her name, immediately retreated behind her cup, eyes twinkling in the gap between its rim and the large, blue beanie pulled low over her skull.

  ‘Susan,’ said the other, holding out a hand that proved to be surprisingly callused. She wore heavy boots, jeans and a large jumper. Her salt-and-pepper hair sprang out around her head in a way that made her seem a startled cartoon.

  ‘Met Uncle Wilfred last night,’ Susan said. ‘Drank too much and ended up here.’

  ‘He reckoned he needed a hand, anyway,’ said the smaller woman, Sylvie, ‘to finish up something for the opening of a Peace Park today?’

  ‘Oh yeah, that’s good then,’ said Wally.

  ‘We’re artists,’ one of the women said, and the other nodded agreement. ‘It’s a privilege to meet someone like Uncle Wilfred, to work with Traditional Owners on such an occasion.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Glad you can help.’

  ‘Uncle Wilfred said he was going onto a property, before the ceremony. To get some materials, consult the spirits?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Ruby. ‘He hungover today or what?’

  ‘Oh no, he wasn’t dri
nking,’ said Sylvia, earnestly.

  ‘Thinking about it all the time though,’ said her companion. ‘He an alcoholic?’

  Wilfred was walking toward them. ‘Sorry camp this morning, unna?’ he said as he arrived.

  ‘You! Old man, what time you get in last night?’

  Wilfred looked to Susan and Sylvie. ‘What time was it?’

  ‘About 3 am I think. I was pretty drunk myself.’

  ‘Me too,’ said the other one.

  ‘Special day,’ said Wilfred, looking to the sky. The light had a red tinge, the sun was a coppery disk. At intervals the trees writhed and tried to tear themselves from the ground.

  ‘Tilly alright?’ the old man asked.

  ‘Yeah. You hear?’

  ‘I heard you all talking when you pulled in, musta been around sunrise,’ said Wilfred.

  Wally put his back to the smoking campfire. ‘This lot came in all hours, dribs and drabs.’ The smoke rose in a thin, frail stem; was suddenly shredded by a gust of wind. The trees shuddered and throats of dry grass and leaves called to them.

  Ruby said, ‘We’ll be all morning getting them moving.’

  ‘Well, I promise you they’ll all be there. Kick up the bum. Failed rehab, not gunna be missing the Peace Park opening . . . They need to have a good look at themselves . . .’

  ‘Staggering around like the walking dead.’

  ‘Well, it is a massacre town.’

  ‘But, we’re coming back to life, we are,’ said Wilfred.

  ‘Yeah, slowly. Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s Tilly? Seriously.’

  ‘I told you, she’s right.’

  ‘Maybe me and the girls here,’ Wilfred indicated the two newcomers with a sweep of his hand, ‘and Tilly . . . We’ll go see Dan and have a look at this property of his. Musta been a place . . . I’ve got something that we can use, like an exhibition, a display. Just need to finish it off at Dan’s farm, he’ll have what I need. Have a look around. Nita can speak at the Peace Park, Welcome them in language. It always works out, don’t worry.’