Spirits of the Ghan

by Judy Nunn

  The prospect of the tour filled Rose with apprehension. She dreaded what would happen when Toby went out on the road with the band. He’d accepted the news of her pregnancy with surprising calm. She’d been nervous when she’d told him, unsure of herself, wondering what his reaction might be, for they’d never talked of a baby. He might well be angry and she reckoned he had every right to be because she was always forgetting to take her contraceptive pill. She’d thought he might insist she get rid of the baby, but she really didn’t want to. She hadn’t forgotten to take the pill on purpose, she would never do that to him, but now she was pregnant she didn’t want to get rid of it. She would like to have Toby’s baby.

  ‘Don’t you worry, love,’ he’d said, ‘a baby will fit into our lives quite nicely. Don’t go fretting now.’ Toby could see all the fears that were circling like demons in Rose’s head. He could always see Rose’s demons. He hadn’t planned on a child, certainly, but they’d get around it all right. Who knows? he thought in his typically laid-back fashion. It might be rather fun being a dad.

  As the tour date grew ever nearer, Rose’s misgivings loomed larger and larger with every passing day. Toby would be leaving to travel around the country with a famous rock band. He’d be surrounded by the band’s adoring fans and all the trappings of success. He’d be living a life of reflected glory. Why would he bother coming back to her? What place could there be in that new life of his for a black woman who didn’t fit into his circle and a child he’d never asked for and couldn’t really want?

  Again, although Rose kept her fears to herself, Toby could see the demons circling.

  ‘Let’s get married,’ he said, the week before he was due to leave.

  ‘What?’ She was struck virtually dumb.

  ‘We’ll get married and you’ll come on tour with the band. The boys won’t mind – you can work your way, you’re a damn fine roadie.’

  ‘Married,’ she repeated, sounding foolish, but unable to think of anything else to say.

  ‘Sure, I’m not having a child of mine born a bastard.’ Toby hadn’t actually given the matter much thought, but now, in allaying Rose’s fears, it occurred to him that marriage was a rather good idea. He loved her and she was having his baby. Why not? he asked himself. Why not get married? It’s what people do, isn’t it?

  They married at the Registry Office the following week and spent their honeymoon on the road with the band.

  The tour was as hectic as had been expected and as madly fan-fuelled as Lenny’s promotional drive had dictated it should be. Television crews, photographers and journalists were lined up at every stop along the way and crowds were whipped into a frenzy of adulation.

  For Toby the work was gruelling. The endless setting up and bumping out of one-night stands was relentless and he was grateful not only for Rose’s company, but for her practical assistance. Despite her pregnancy, Rose worked as hard as any of the three roadies who followed the bus in their beaten-up Holden.

  Rose loved every minute of the tour. She’d been well past the morning sickness phase when they left, having suffered little discomfort in any event, and she revelled in her usefulness.

  By the time they returned to Sydney, her pregnancy was patently obvious and over the next couple of months as the New Year crept in and January slipped by, the larger she grew the more they both basked in the sight.

  ‘This is what they mean by “huge with child”, Toby said as they sat naked together in bed, Rose propped up on pillows. He ran the palms of his hands over her taut black skin, his fingers tracing the impressive globe of her belly. ‘Huuuge with child,’ he repeated, chanting the words, milking them for all they were worth and enjoying the sound, ‘huuuuge with child. It makes a man feel humble, it truly does.’

  Rose laughed. He’d just smoked a joint. ‘You and your Irish blarney,’ she said, but she delighted in his admiration, knowing it wasn’t just the dope and that he was only half joking.

  She gave birth in early March, a relatively easy delivery, and when they returned home from the hospital with their little brown bundle, Toby remained lost in awe.

  ‘Look at her now,’ he said, gazing down at the baby in its cradle, studying the tiny hand clutching his little finger with such surprising strength even in sleep. ‘Was there ever a more perfect baby?’

  ‘No. Never.’ Rose savoured the moment, holding it close, knowing that this was the happiest moment in her life, simply because no human being could possibly be happier.

  With the proceeds of the tour, which had paid well, Toby put a deposit down on a modest one-storey terrace house in the neighbouring suburb of Balmain, not far from the harbour.

  ‘I’ll not have my daughter raised amongst a horde of doped-up, drunken musicians,’ he said with mock severity, ‘oh dear me, no, it’s the straight and narrow for our Jess.’

  Rose smiled. Toby would always be surrounded by musicians wherever he lived, but once again she knew that he was only half joking and that their days of heavy partying were probably over.

  ‘It’s ours, Rosie,’ he said as they wandered around the house, Toby running his hands over walls that were badly in need of a fresh coat of paint. He addressed the baby asleep in her arms: ‘What do you think, Jess? Our very own home, every brick of it, all ours. Well, no,’ he corrected himself, ‘not all ours – all the bank’s actually, but it’ll be ours soon enough.’

  They stepped out into the backyard, which was surprisingly large, particularly given the size of the house. The backyard was the reason Toby had chosen the property.

  ‘And here’s where the recording studio will go,’ he said, arms outstretched, encompassing the entire yard, ‘right here.’ A recording studio of his own had always been Toby’s dream. A state-of-the-art affair with plenty of space for the band to set up, a huge dividing double plate-glass window, a sixteen-channel mixing desk and big JBL speakers for perfect playback: he could see it all.

  He put his arm around Rose and together they surveyed the tangled mess of weeds and debris over-run by morning glory vines. A crumbling home-made brick barbecue, once someone’s pride and joy, sat on one side, lantana bushes did battle with the morning glory on the other, an umbrella tree and a rubber plant vied for supremacy down the back and in pride of place stood the metal skeleton of a Hills Hoist clothesline, ubiquitous symbol of suburban Australia.

  ‘It’ll take a few more tours I reckon,’ Toby said, sensing as he did that might be something of an understatement.

  Three years, three tours and three albums later, The Real Goodes had faded from the charts to be replaced by other bands with a hotter, newer sound and Ray and his brothers were back playing the clubs and the pubs, although now they performed their own songs and for a far higher fee. But by then Toby’s house was paid off and renovated, and he had his dream studio. He also had a burgeoning reputation as one of the finest sound engineers in the local music industry.

  In a further two short years, Balmain Sound had become the studio for aspiring rock bands and hard-nosed entrepreneurs with an eye for the main chance. Toby Manning’s services were eagerly sought, his clients ranked among the best, he was on the road to success and the timing was perfect. His daughter had just reached school age.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Exotic, that’s what you are, Jess.’ Toby hoisted the five-year-old up into his arms. ‘A mix of the Dreamtime and the blarney,’ he added with a wink. He gave another wink to his wife, who was standing beside them. Rose had refused to come to the school even though it was only a walk away. She believed her presence would cause added problems for the child. ‘You don’t get much more exotic than that,’ he said to them both, the reassurance intended as much for his wife as for his daughter.

  He put the girl down and Rose knelt to hug her.

  Jess flung her arms around her mother’s neck. ‘I wish you would come with us, Mumayee,’ she whispered in Rose’s ear.

  ‘No, no,’ Rose hissed urgently, breaking free of the embrace, ‘you mustn’t sp
eak like that at school. You must never, never speak like that at school.’ The child had said the words in Arunta.

  Jess looked confused. The edge of panic in her mother’s voice had sounded like anger and she didn’t know what she’d done wrong.

  Toby quickly jumped in. ‘She won’t, Rose, she won’t,’ he insisted. ‘Why would she, for God’s sake? No-one would understand her.’

  Rose stood, bowing her head and staring guiltily at the floor as she always did when she sensed something she perceived as criticism or disapproval.

  ‘Don’t, Rosie,’ Toby said, ‘please, please don’t.’ He gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘No criticism was intended, love. You have nothing to feel guilty about, nothing at all. It’s good that you teach Jess your language. Arunta is something special that you share, it’s her language too.’

  He kissed her tenderly. Then he bent down and took Jess by the hand. ‘And now we’re off to school,’ he said brightly, skipping towards the door, the child laughing and skipping with him.

  Jess had no problems at all with school. In fact for a while Jess’s schooling was something mother and daughter took delight in sharing.

  There were some initial difficulties when, after the first week, Toby insisted Rose accompany him and meet the other mothers. ‘It’ll be good for you, love,’ he said firmly, ‘and it’ll be good for Jess.’ He refused to take no for an answer. ‘Besides, they’re a nice bunch. Well, for squares anyway,’ he added with a smile intended to put her at ease. ‘I doubt they’ve ever smoked a joint in their collective lives, but we can’t hold that against them.’

  Toby was aware that Rose, shy at the best of times, was bound to feel uncomfortable. There were no other Aboriginal women among the mothers, who were a conservative bunch, and she might well get some odd looks to start with. But he’d decided Rose needed to mingle with people other than the bohemian circle of musicians and performers in whose presence she’d become comfortable. If not for her own sake, he thought, then for her daughter’s. Rose needed to mingle without him. Even when they visited the recently created Black Theatre Arts and Cultural Centre in Redfern it was always at his instigation, and she always stuck by his side.

  Toby was a strong supporter of the cultural centre in Botany Street, where an old warehouse, once a printing factory, had been converted into a theatre and studio. There, Aboriginal artworks were on display and dance, music and theatre works were performed, an expression of Indigenous culture not previously witnessed in Sydney. Toby, like many, saw it as a breaking down of barriers, but above all he liked to watch little Jess happily mingling with other Aboriginal children, even though that made Rose’s shyness all the more obvious.

  A week or so later, when the women at Balmain Public had become acquainted with his wife and he could see that she was accepted as a fellow mother rather than being held apart as something alien, he went a step further. He persuaded Rose to walk Jess to and from school on her own. Or rather, he blackmailed her.

  ‘I’m busy recording, love,’ he said. ‘I can’t just keep the fellas hanging around now, can I?’ Of course he could. He wouldn’t charge for the extra time and the band would be quite happy rehearsing for twenty minutes while he popped out to collect his kid, but that was hardly the aim of the exercise, was it?

  His ruse succeeded. Much as she dreaded the prospect, Rose was so riddled with guilt that she instantly agreed to undertake the trips to and from school. It’s the least I can do, she told herself. I must be more useful, I must pull my weight. More and more these days, with Toby locked away in his studio, she felt she served little purpose. He always made it quite clear she was welcome to come and sit up the back during the recording sessions, but when she did, much as she loved the live music, it only made her feel more useless. She was far better off listening to her own music on the stereo while she did the housework.

  Rose never became comfortable with her trips to the school, despite the fact her social exchange with the other mothers was brief and even though several of the women went out of their way to be friendly. She remained painfully self-conscious and so lacking in confidence that she couldn’t wait to get away.

  Jess loved school with a passion and each day as they walked home together hand in hand she would skip along the pavement beside her mother, chattering non-stop about every fresh experience and every new thing she’d learnt. Little Jess’s happiness was so infectious that Rose would laugh out loud.

  When they arrived home, they’d sprawl out on the open-plan living-room floor surrounded by the equipment necessary for whatever project had been the highlight of the day. Rose, who was creative and inventive, had an endless supply of drawing paper, crayons, pencils, paints and plasticine, together with a miscellany of fabrics and felts and glitter that a child might like to glue onto something. Between the two of them they created works of art that Toby declared masterpieces and stuck up all over the walls of the house.

  Before long they segued from finger painting and plasticine to the alphabet, painstakingly printing out each letter and making up words together, starting from the beginning and working their way through. ‘Ant, bat, cat, dog …’ Jess would recite out loud, and when they got to ‘x, y, z’ they would call Toby in. Next they were reading to each other about cats on mats and dogs called Spot, and then they progressed to little picture books about everything from fairies to fire engines, all of which they both loved.

  One day it was decided that Jess was old enough to go to school on her own. A lot of the other kids did, she said, and she was eight years old, she wanted to be grown up. Toby agreed. She was a big girl now, he said. But the relief the decision occasioned Rose, who was still uncomfortable mingling with the mothers, was outweighed by a fresh horror that had by then presented itself.

  Even though over the years she had educated herself further to a certain degree, Rose’s formal schooling to the age of ten only had left her semi-literate. Jess, an eager and clever pupil, was already showing signs of outstripping her at just eight years of age. In the past, Rose had not seen her limited education as a particular obstacle in life. Having always managed somehow, she’d given the matter little thought. But she did now. Now she was so haunted by the prospect of exposure she could think of nothing else. All she could see was the horror that loomed ahead. She was about to be humiliated in the eyes of her daughter.

  ‘No, no, Jessie love, I’m busy with dinner,’ she’d call from the island bench at the kitchen end of the living room, ‘come and read to me while I cook.’ Or: ‘I think it’s best if you read out loud on your own, Jess. The teachers would want you to – you’ll learn quicker that way.’

  Rose came up with endless evasion tactics, all of which Jess accepted at face value, suspecting nothing. But Toby knew. Toby recognised the problem in an instant.

  As a rule he was in the studio all afternoon, but one day he came inside early to fetch some charts that had been delivered to the house that morning.

  ‘No, we can’t take it in turns, Jessie love, I’m peeling the spuds. You bring the book over here and read out loud to me, there’s a good girl.’

  The moment he heard Rose calling to her daughter across the living room, he knew what the problem was. And the moment he challenged Rose, she knew that he knew.

  ‘How long’s this been going on?’ he asked quietly.

  She stared at the floor, saying nothing, just shaking her head helplessly.

  Toby gathered her in his arms. ‘You don’t have to live a lie, love,’ he whispered. ‘Jess loves you the way you are – we both do.’

  But she continued to shake her head and he could tell by the way she was gulping air into her lungs that she was desperately fighting back the need to sob her distress out loud.

  ‘There, there,’ he said stroking her gently, ‘there, there. Everything’ll be all right, Rosie love. Everything’ll be all right.’

  She broke free, quickly wiping away the tears so the child wouldn’t see. ‘Come along, Jess,’ she c
alled briskly, ‘bring the book over and read to me while I do the spuds.’

  Toby collected his charts and went back to the studio. But that night, when Jess was safely tucked up in bed, he confronted Rose.

  ‘Shall we have some wine?’ he said, although it wasn’t really a question: he was already opening a bottle of red. ‘Take a seat, love.’ He poured two glasses, and they sat opposite each other at the dining table.

  ‘We need to talk, Rosie,’ he said. And talk they did. Or rather, Toby talked. Rose listened. And the longer she listened the more the questions began to whirl around in her brain.

  ‘You mustn’t feel threatened by Jess’s education, love,’ he said, getting straight to the point. ‘Leave that side of her life to the school, it’s what they’re there for. Hell, leave it to the university,’ he added with a bold wave of his glass. ‘She’s way out of my league that one, so bloody smart she’ll probably end up a nuclear physicist.’

  He took a swig of his wine and leant forwards in all seriousness. ‘You can be of so much value to Jess, Rosie, can’t you see that? There’s so much she can learn from you and you only, so much you can teach her. With or without the academic side of things, love, you’re the most valuable education she could possibly have.’

  Toby could see Rose was hanging on his every word, and he could only hope he was getting it right.

  ‘You’ve taught her your language – what better start could there be? They sure as hell don’t teach Western Arunta at school.’