Chapter 50
Litters to the Editor
Dear Madam,
As our Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser says, life wasn’t meant to be easy. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for the garbage truck to ignore certain streets each time someone we won’t name has had too good a time at the Royal the night before. We pay our rates in town for a garbage system. If the council garbo can’t do the job, council needs to get one who can.
Name withheld by request
JED
Jed peered out of the window. ‘The car’s down on the track to the billabong again. No, it’s not, it’s Nancy’s ute.’ Her alarm faded.
Julieanne looked up from admiring her new engagement ring, sapphires clustered in old gold. She’d been gazing at it on and off since she arrived an hour earlier. ‘Why is Nancy parked miles from anywhere, and what car is or isn’t there again?’
‘Hope she hasn’t broken down. No, she’s talking to someone. Oops, no, honey, we don’t eat Maxi’s dog food.’
‘Book!’ said Mattie, who was very sure she did. She began to crawl vigorously to her Auntie Julieanne.
‘What car?’ repeated Julieanne, bending down to help Mattie stand up next to the sofa. Mattie began to walk unsteadily along it, using the sofa to steady herself. ‘Look, she’s walking!’
Jed grinned. ‘She’s been doing that for a couple of weeks now. Not quite ready to go solo for long yet.’
‘The car,’ repeated Julieanne patiently.
Jed shrugged. ‘I’ve seen a car down there a couple of times recently.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s been at about two am,’ said Jed reluctantly. ‘I saw it accidentally the first time, but it was there often after that. Someone came prowling around too. Scarlett and I called the police. We scared whoever it was off.’
‘Good,’ said Julieanne. ‘Mattie still not giving you much sleep?’
‘Only once a night now. I’m giving her cow’s milk now too and more solids.’ Jed flushed. ‘That’s not why I can’t sleep.’
‘I didn’t think it was,’ said Julieanne gently. ‘No, honey, you can’t chew Auntie’s shoes . . .’
Jed handed Mattie a lemon to gnaw. The baby sat, cushioned by her nappy, and began to maul it.
‘I had no idea one baby could produce so much drool,’ said Julieanne, grinning as Mattie made a face at the sourness, but kept sucking anyway.
‘Teething. Blue said a lemon helps. Do you and your gorgeous fiancé plan to have kids?’
‘Six. Or maybe one. Or two. Or breed Great Danes. We’ll see how it goes.’ Julieanne looked at Jed sharply. ‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Not just Sam, or being tired. Or Scarlett breaking up with her boyfriend,’ she added, ‘which she seems totally okay with.’
Jed nodded. ‘I thought at first it was just stuff coming back from the past. When you’ve been scared for a long time, your body sort of gets used to it. The terror leaps out at you when you’re not expecting it. But just lately . . . you’ll think I’m crazy. I have the feeling someone’s watching me.’
‘Like Merv did?’
‘Not quite. Merv parked outside, where I could see him and be scared. This is just a feeling that someone is watching. And then that car . . .’
‘You shouldn’t be alone here.’
‘I’m not alone. You’re here now, and Scarlett’s here as much as she can be. I might ask Carol if she’d mind staying a few nights too. The police and Michael or Joseph are only a phone call and twenty minutes away, and Maxi barks if there’s a stranger around.’
‘She hasn’t been barking?’
‘No. Good dog, Maxi,’ she added as the Doberperson appeared, hearing her name and hoping for cake. Maxi subsided. Mattie crawled over to her, eager to demonstrate how she too was a four-legged creature.
‘I think Mattie wants to grow up to be a dog,’ said Jed.
‘And I think you should move into town.’
‘No!’
‘Why not?’
‘What if Sam wakes up and we’re not here?’
‘Jed, honey, it’s not as if you’re going to disappear. Or as if he’s going to wake up and just be able to walk out of the hospital and catch a lift back to Dribble.’
‘I know. It’s just . . . this is my home.’
‘You can have another home. One with no bad memories,’ added Julieanne gently.
‘But I want the memories! All of them. This is . . .’ Jed struggled for words ‘. . . mine. Matilda gave it to me so I’d always have somewhere. I think Dribble and I bonded as soon as she said that. I’d never had a home, and then I did. Matilda’s here and Sam’s here and Mattie was born right where Maxi is lying now. I just wish the police would find out who killed Merv,’ she added in a rush. ‘I’ll know he’s really dead then.’
Julieanne looked at her sharply. ‘What if someone you love did it?’
‘Not Sam! He wouldn’t have.’
‘Michael? Or Nancy even? That’s one impressive woman. I can see Nancy doing whatever was necessary to protect the people she loved.’
‘Maybe. But it wouldn’t have been necessary. Nancy would have called the police if she’d seen Merv.’
Julieanne stood and hugged her. ‘Oh, honey, no wonder you’re having nightmares. And daymares.’
‘But I wasn’t having them before! After Mattie was born, it . . . the past just didn’t seem to matter. All the pain and terror. I was just happy, and so was Sam, and Mattie was gorgeous and Merv had vanished.’
‘And then you lost Sam,’ said Julieanne softly.
‘I haven’t lost him! He’s still alive!’
Julieanne just looked at her. The silence grew.
‘Okay, let’s talk about something else,’ said Julieanne with a determined smile. ‘Like your book, and exactly how far have you got with that rewrite?’
‘Book!’ said Mattie, looking up delightedly.
Chapter 51
Ours News is Good News
Last week’s survey has shown that 65% of readers still rely on the good old Gazette for there news, rather than TV or radio. 12% read The Australian or Sydney Morning Herald or The Age too, 17% hear the news from family and fiends, and 14% said they ‘don’t bother’. Thank you, Fibbers Creek, for you’re loyalty!
FISH
‘You . . . you murdered them?’ whispered Fish, then realised that was impossible. This woman was not a killer, despite her attitude to sheep and rabbits; nor would she still be walking free if Detective Sergeant Rodrigues knew she’d murdered anyone. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered quickly. ‘That was dumb.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Nancy crisply.
‘Who were they then? Why did you put them under the church?’
‘Actually I only helped put two there. My grandparents.’
‘Your grandparents? Why?’
‘Because that is where they wanted to be buried,’ said Nancy softly. ‘And every time I sat in that church I thought of Gran and Granddad smiling at me, seeing their great-grandsons growing up.’
She looked out at the billabong, lost in memory for a moment. ‘I told you that Gran was Aboriginal. Granddad was white,’ she said at last. ‘Clancy of the Overflow, pretty much as the poem said. His family disowned him when he married Gran. They went droving together for years, then when his father died, Granddad found the old man had never changed his will. Maybe there was just no one else to leave Overflow to. Do you know what it was like to be Aboriginal back then? Silly question,’ she answered herself. ‘You couldn’t know.’
‘I do know a bit,’ Fish pointed out. Mum had marched in the Aboriginal land rights marches, taking Fish with her, had raised money for the new Aboriginal Legal Service and the Tribal Council.
Nancy shrugged. ‘Knowing something intellectually isn’t like living it. My people were exterminated, or at best treated as outcasts in their own land. Most Aboriginal people had to live on reserves run either by the state or the churches, as you said. You couldn’t leave without
permission. You couldn’t have visitors without permission. You couldn’t even buy a house without permission from the Aboriginal Protection Board. If you lived outside a reserve, you weren’t allowed to “congregate” with other Aboriginal people. Pete doesn’t have a birth certificate, despite his war record, and neither do his kids. Aboriginal wages were taken by the state, on the pretext that we couldn’t manage our money. They still haven’t got them back. Men like old Drinkwater killed many of my people who fought to keep their land . . .’
My people, thought Fish wonderingly, shocked by the anger in Nancy’s voice. She still couldn’t really think of Nancy as Aboriginal, no matter what she said. Lots of people had skin tanned as dark as hers, and had brown eyes, dark hair. Nancy lived among white people, dressed like them, acted like them . . .
Except none of those people would know it wouldn’t rain for three years unless Nancy had told them.
‘The ones who behaved themselves,’ continued Nancy bitterly, ‘were allowed to stay, as long as they obeyed the rules. No ideas above your station. Do what the white boss tells you. Gran was a maid in my great-grandfather’s house till she fell in love with Granddad. Her brother, old Pete Sampson’s father, was a stockman, a good one too, but he was never paid like the whites, just given rations and supposed to think himself lucky to get them.’
‘But Pete looks well off.’
‘He is. His father eventually became manager of Moura with old Matilda — well, a very young Matilda then — and then he was manager of Drinkwater too, when she took over there. Matilda made sure he didn’t just get wages, but got to keep them — she had all sorts of ways to get around the regulations. When Matilda found out she was related to him and understood his family had been dispossessed, she gave Pete’s father part of Drinkwater, mostly blocks of land she’d bought up in the Federation drought. His two sons inherited the land, but Paul had been gassed in the war — he died a year after his father — and, well, you know what happened to Pete.’
‘He couldn’t farm with one leg and one arm?’
‘No.’ A grin broke through. ‘He said he raised kids instead of sheep. Fourteen of them.’
‘Fourteen!’
‘Yep. You’ll find Sampsons all over around here. But back then even the “well-behaved” Aboriginals weren’t allowed to go into places like the Blue Belle Café or pubs or the picture theatre. Theoretically they could go to school, but almost all schools found a pretext to kick them out after a few days. My grandfather built a school at Overflow instead and paid for a teacher himself — my mum was one of them. Two of Pete’s kids were some of the first Aboriginal people to get university degrees. But also,’ said Nancy, ‘Aboriginal people were often not allowed in church.’
‘But you said there were reserves run by churches?’
‘Oh, they were allowed in “their own” churches, ones where they wouldn’t upset the nice white people. And some churches welcomed them. But others didn’t, including the church in Gibber’s Creek. Nor,’ said Nancy softly, ‘would they allow them to be buried in their graveyards. No sanctified ground for dark skins.’
‘Oh,’ said Fish, beginning to see.
‘Matilda’s great-grandmother wanted to be buried with her daughter. Matilda didn’t even know Auntie Love was her great-grandmother back then. Auntie Love — that’s what everyone called her — was glad her great-granddaughter passed for white. She wasn’t going to tell her different. When Auntie Love knew she was going to die, she came to her brother —’
‘Knew she was going to die?’
‘Yes,’ said Nancy, looking at her with that ‘I am not going to tell you any more unless you want to spend years etc.’ look on her face. ‘Pete’s father buried her at Drinkwater. Didn’t tell Matilda either, not till years later, after old Drinkwater had died. Pete’s dad told Matilda then because he wanted to be buried with his family too.
‘Well, Matilda wasn’t one to let anyone tell her what to do. If the church wouldn’t have her relatives in their graveyard, then she’d build another church on Drinkwater land. So she did.’
‘Over the graves?’
‘You got it. Their graves were now in consecrated ground. But the Drinkwater church was just a satellite of the Gibber’s Creek one, and even Matilda couldn’t control who was going to be buried in the new graveyard once the building was consecrated. So when Pete’s uncle died — my great-uncle — Matilda and Pete’s sons took up part of the church floor one night and buried him alongside his family.’
Fish tried to imagine it: torchlight, or maybe lamplight back then. They’d have left the vehicles at a distance, carried the tools silently, in love and defiance. The grave would have been dug first, the night before maybe, then the body carried to it, the earth and floorboards replaced.
Had they said prayers and sung hymns for them? Fish suspected that they would.
‘Matilda had kindly donated a carpet to the church to cover up any sign the floor had been moved,’ continued Nancy. ‘Services were only held there once a week — Gibber’s Creek still had the district’s main church — so no one suspected anything. A few years later Pete’s dad was buried there too, then Pete’s baby daughter who died of polio, and my grandfather — he insisted he lie where his wife would be buried. And I helped the others bury him, and so did Matilda, and we did the same when Gran joined Granddad. We sang hymns at two am and said the prayers.’
‘Where did people think they’d been buried?’
‘At Overflow. Lots of properties around here have their own graveyards. You didn’t even need permission to be buried on your own land till recently. That’s where this all began — when Auntie Love’s daughter was buried at Drinkwater.’
‘And then the police dug them up. That’s horrible!’ exclaimed Fish. So much heartbreak and planning, then the bodies taken from the land they’d loved.
‘Yes, it was. But they only found four of them. The others are buried much deeper. We couldn’t let them be disturbed, so Michael and I explained everything to Constable Ryan to stop any further investigation. William was wonderful about it. He told the detective, and it’s all been sorted out quietly. We could have had them reburied straight away, but with that man’s body being found there too, well, it seemed best to wait. Who knows what publicity there’ll be when they find his killer? When all the fuss dies down, we’ll have a proper funeral, a quiet one during the week with only family and close friends there. And this time,’ said Nancy, ‘they will have headstones.’
‘Does Gran know this? Or Great-Aunt Blue, or Joseph?’
‘They have tactfully asked no questions at all, so they’ve probably guessed. Matilda might even have told Blue, who’d definitely have told Mah and Joseph if she knew.’ Nancy considered. ‘She probably did. I’ll ask them and Jed and Scarlett to the reburial, Pete’s family too, of course. Maybe William . . .’
‘And no one will ask questions,’ said Fish slowly.
‘Oh, they probably will, now and then, when they see the new headstones, especially as one is for Clancy of the Overflow and his wife. But I won’t answer them, not while Pete Sampson is still alive.’
‘But he did nothing wrong!’
Nancy sighed. ‘It’s not too bad legally, which is why the police are helping keep it quiet. Nor morally. But can you imagine the fuss the newspapers would make about people hiding bodies at the dead of night? And a Gallipoli veteran too. Pete won’t even give an interview on Anzac Day. He says no one who wasn’t there has any idea what they are celebrating. Australia didn’t even give him a pension after that war, after all he had done and lost. No pensions for Aboriginal soldiers. I’m not going to have people hounding him over this.’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry I hounded him.’
Nancy grinned. ‘You didn’t. He enjoyed talking to you. And knowing he put one over you too.’
‘Nancy, do you know who killed Merv?’
‘No.’ Nancy’s voice was suddenly anguished. ‘It’s . . . it’s just not right! This is my l
and! My people! But I just don’t know . . .’
Fish could hear the truth in her voice. ‘The detective told me the inquest would be soon now. He thinks he knows who did it too.’
Nancy shook her head. ‘If we don’t know, then he can’t.’
And she really didn’t know, thought Fish. Nancy who knew the clouds wouldn’t come for the next three years, who knew the stories of her country for tens of thousands of years.
No matter what, Fish could not leave now.
Chapter 52
Snow Falls in the Sahara Desert
Snow fell in the Sahara Dessert for the first time in living memory this week, prompting the world to wonder if we are heading into a new rice age. If anyone sees the creek freezing this winter, let us know!
SCARLETT
Scarlett pulled her car into the parking bay, then turned to open the back door and let her wheelchair swing out and down. She was bushed after driving through the late afternoon traffic into Sydney. Every kid seemed to be being picked up by their mothers today and every office worker leaving early. Plus waking up at two am in case the prowler came back — though he hadn’t — wasn’t exactly restful.
She expertly hauled her chair to her, then paused before lowering herself into it. Instead she slid from the driver’s seat and momentarily let her legs hold her weight.
They held. Once again, they held. She would have walked further, but that would have meant coming back to her wheelchair to carry her bag.
She grinned and took two steps anyway. Neil Armstrong could not have felt more triumphant when he stepped onto the moon.
She was still grinning as she wheeled up the ramp, bag on her lap, and opened the door of the unit. ‘Alex!’ The grin faded.
He stood up slowly from the sofa. ‘It’s okay,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve moved out.’
And when she didn’t come back last night, he could have guessed what time she’d arrive today. ‘I obviously need your key back then. Have you just popped round to see what’s for dinner?’
‘To apologise. To try to explain.’
The Last Dingo Summer Page 23