True Country Read online

  So everyone was pleased when they saw Jasmine. A white girl. A young white girl. Oh, all alone here. How does she do it? And Milton, awkward and grinning, gave a large fish to Jasmine. She was just outside her place. But he saw her standing, blank faced, with the heavy fish in her arms and changed his mind.

  ‘I’ll fillet it, clean it, bring it back to you.’ The passengers, standing on the tray, looking down on Milton and Jasmine, nodded approvingly among themselves. Milton leapt back into the cab and, even from the driver’s side, Billy felt himself wrapped in the curves of Jasmine’s smile and cleavage as she leaned in the passenger window. She gave Milton a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘For the audience,’ she winked.

  The tourists disembarked, slowly and stiffy, at the community office. They felt better now, having reasserted themselves. ‘What an experience.’

  Gerrard organised vehicles to ferry the others in and tried to arrange to get the bus fixed, somehow. He opened the artefacts store and invited the tourists to look through what was there. ‘Feel free to have a look around,’ he said, and some of the tourists continued to circle within the small store. The rest of them moved to just outside the doorway, and stood there, turning their heads from side to side, squinting and grinning. Then they headed for the community store which stood on the fringe of the housing and by one of the school’s gates. One person detoured toward the stone buildings and green lawns of the mission grounds, and a couple walked over to the school and peered in the windows of a classroom, before Alex, putting in some more weekend work, and always guarding his territory, came out to investigate them.

  The corroboree that night, the first held for tourists at the camp rather than one of the beaches, was not a success. Too many of the men were late getting back from helping Raphael with the bus, and his bad mood had tainted them all. Samson didn’t turn up. It was a half-hearted affair, which didn’t start until after dark, and even then the fires did not glow, but weakly flickered and sputtered because they were lit too late and no one cared to stoke them. The performance finished early. Many reasons.

  Gerrard said afterward that he wasn’t going to pay them, but he did when Samson started talking about the people getting together and sacking him. He was not a project officer’s arsehole. They didn’t want the bloody tourists here anyway.

  Perhaps the tourists enjoyed the argument more than the dance.

  Milton came over to visit Billy later in the evening. Billy had kept out of the way, not wanting to be asked to transport tourists back out to their catamaran. He was filleting fish, and putting them into small freezer bags when Milton arrived.

  They filleted and packed the remaining fish together. It was a plan they had worked out this morning. Like most people in the camp Milton didn’t have a refrigerator, let alone a freezer. Now he could come over during the week and get tucker for just him and his family. They kept the packs stacked separately.

  When they had finished they sat under the air-conditioner in the lounge room and drank tea. Milton looked around the room and admired the house again. ‘Maybe I’ll get one like this next time, one of these new ones,’ he said.

  Billy looked at him across his cup. ‘Who? How do you decide who gets the new ones?’ he asked.

  Milton shrugged. ‘It just happens. We all talk about it. Chairman, them on the council, their mob first.’

  He picked up an old newspaper from under the chair and found the motoring section of the classified advertisements. ‘I want a Toyota like your one, strong one. My father can have my little old one then.’ He pointed at the small photographs. Billy read out the advertisements and prices, and they speculated on whether it was best to go all the way to Perth or Darwin and drive one back. Billy calculated how much Milton would need to save from each pay, and for how long. The result was depressing, so they ignored it.

  ‘I could leave it here, with you, in your yard then, maybe, when I wasn’t using it? Hey, I can leave my car here now, when I want to?’

  ‘Sure Milton, but why would you want to do that?’

  ‘All right for you, you haven’t got everyone, like family, cousin-brothers, everybody, using your stuff all the time. I need a box with a lock to keep everything in.

  ‘Then I could maybe get rich, go on holidays like these tourists that come here, if I wanted to. But I wouldn’t expect the people, where I went, to put on shows for me like in a zoo or something. And I wouldn’t complain to their boss and say I won’t pay, for seein’ nothin’ but a lot of old men and kids kickin’ dust and drunk men yelling.’

  But many times the tourists come to the camp here, to look at the real Aborigine people. Them tourists from the Kimberley Cruiser boat, but them terrorists (tourists, yes?) always here in the dry time with their shiny four-wheel drives.

  That Kimberley Cruiser is one big boat. Carpet all through it, little swimming pool on it, little pub there. Everybody has their own room, for himself and his wife or husband. Them people proper old but, most of them. Moses been on that boat. He went with Gerrard one time to have a look. He told us about it. Gerrard took a trip from here to Wyndham, or Darwin. He told us how food is cooked for you and is like on videos. He had a good time, and it cost him nothing. It was free for him. This last year that boat started coming in here for us to dance for them, because Karnama has the best dancers. Or pretty close to best anyway.

  Most times we all go out to the beach and dance at about sunset. Fire dance. We have a fish, get oysters, maybe camp out. But sometimes now we get Gerrard’s bus and we bring them in here, if they come early in the day.

  They drive in and their heads all turn around and around and they wave back like they are toys. They get of the bus slowly, because they all so old. They look mostly the same. White, big hats, clothes so clean. Pink spots, little pink bits around their nails and eyes. And they all smell sweet like soap, and powder. People here thought they came in to see the river, and they didn’t know why they just stayed around our store, and kept taking photographs. One man might take a photo of his old wife holding up one of our kids. Or a photo of her standing in the shop with all us mob, buying things. They think we monkeys maybe. Or sitting on the ground outside, in the shade, with us. We laughed when their clothes got dirty but.

  Some of the people here say we should stop letting tourists in. They just treat us as we in a zoo, or something. Even government ones, not all of them. Talk to us like they can’t talk proper English.

  Those boat people, we can laugh at them, even though we get sick of their cameras. We can get away from them. But the tourists that drive in, ha! You go to a beach and you can’t be alone with your own. We tell you, it’s not so good if there’s strangers on the beach with you. One mob stole an outboard from a big boat the government gave us. That was the only outboard we had then. They take all our oysters. Sometimes they make more rubbish than us, and some of our mob bad enough, for sure. They shit everywhere. You go to some of the beaches and there be toilet paper everywhere through the bush behind the beach.

  People everywhere in dry time. If you stay at the office, the basketball court you can see them coming in. School holidays time especially. One, two, three, more. Dust with them, but sun still shining of them. Stuff packed everywhere; on top, on trailers, crammed against windows. And they look look look. Stop outside the shop, come in and stand around with us.

  We can make money from them. Gerrard says that, lots of people say that to us. What for? What we want their money for? What can they give us for what we have? More grog? More card games? We must be mad bastards. That’s what some other people think. Father Pujol’s time, no tourists here.

  Not even museum people come in then. Plenty now. And too many people want to go with them, show them things. Drive around in a big four-wheel drive, just like tourists themselves. They say they will help us to look after our sites, and guard the old things. But, how come?

  In the old days we did look after our sacred sites ourselves, without letting white people, white men, women, take care of them.
We know what to do. These others shouldn’t interfere with our sacred things. Kiddies of ours, young men even, they not allowed to go near our sacred sites, trees even, that was anywhere in the bush. We didn’t let them know because they wasn’t men. They had to be initiated before they could go to these things and they sacred to us. They are very sacred things. We didn’t say nothing to nobody, we just look after these things ourselves. That’s why we don’t like white women or white men coming to ask different things about our things, or saying we should do this, and why don’t we ... That’s our sacred things. What they want them for, too. It’s not right for so many people to show them things. And what are we? They studying us too? Like animals? Or maybe they want to steal our secrets, and when even the black man has lost his special things and his magic, then—hey, here it is!—the whitefellas have it and they use it on us.

  Maybe we will have to change. Maybe make more things sacred, not just places, and keep them just for us. But then, we already sell some things to tourists.

  Maybe we make a little building like a church, ourselves.

  You know, you can’t act the fool with our Law. It’ll kill you.

  True. Like when a young man, uninitiated man, eats food that he shouldn’t. Maybe he eats bush turkey. Well, you see. He get feathers and bones growing out of his knees. I hear one man got cancer from showing and working on sacred sites that were too powerful for him. That might happen you know.

  But it is maybe true we have had tourists for a long time. Old Dr Oliver, he been coming up here every year since he was a young fella. He stays with Fatima, in her hut, on the little verandah there. He brings up a big Toyota and takes her and some of the other old people out to show him things. He takes photos and videos of old camps, and ovens. Indonesian ones. So those Indonesians, they tourists too, long time ago. White people also. But they stay.

  There’s another story, very good story, about early days and tourists, about this place. It was somewhere about Long Reef, somewhere about there. This bloke, Indonesian bloke, came in with a lugger, and he saw this girl. Young girl, and pretty. He made love with her, and he tell her, ‘Come on, we can go on this lugger. We’ll take you.’

  But the girl wanted her husband too. Silly girl, she did jump on the lugger, with her husband. Her husband Walanguh, or the one who father for Walanguh, I forget. Walanguh told this story.

  They sailing sailing sailing. This white bloke told him, told the husband, this Aborigine man, ‘Climb up there and take rope to tie it with.’ The Aborigine man climbed up to the top of the sails on the rope.

  And this man cut that rope! This white bloke cut that rope. And he fell, that Walanguh one, he fell into the sea. They left him, swimming, swimming right out there in the ocean.

  But this Aborigine man, he’s a magic man and he was swimming across and he sing for that whale. He sing song for that whale, and that whale was way out swimming in deepest ocean. The whale went in close to the man, and the man get on top of his back next to his head.

  He sat there above the water, in the sun and the spray, and he patted the whale, and he told him, ‘We go for that lugger and we smash that lugger!’

  The whale swam fast with that Walanguh man up on its back. They went straight for that lugger, and smashed it. Smashed it to pieces!

  The man got his Aborigine girl, put her on the whale, and away they went to their home, to their island. When they got to that special island the whale came into the shallow water. They gave it fish, all kinds of fish. They patted him, and they let it go.

  And this is a true story this one, this is a true story again. This mob here can tell you. Same words again.

  And where is that island? You thinking that, eh? You want to know? But it might not be there, where it was, that land. Maybe just bones, nothing.

  Listen, we tell no lies to you. Not ever. But we could help you there, maybe.

  An Ending

  Walanguh moved himself into one of the tiny old huts down behind the mission. The Sisters tried to dissuade him, but they failed. The huts were each not much larger than an outside lavatory, and were scattered among large mango trees. Loose sheets of iron flapped in the wind. In flood time the river rose up the slope to lap at the lowest huts.

  Walanguh slept outside, under a tree, on some blankets slung over an old wire-framed bed. His dogs kept unwanted people away. If a child ventured too close they would have brought it down, possibly torn it apart. The dogs barked at anyone who approached, and Walanguh would either silence them and welcome the visitor, or let them bark and snarl and keep the intruder at bay. And Walanguh would not even look up, not until that person had gone away.

  He called Billy over to him one afternoon as the teacher was returning from a swimming session at High Diving with his students.

  ‘You bin tellim them kids story?’

  Walanguh was smiling hugely, with his face half averted. He punctuated his sentences with laughter, and kept winking as if he and Billy shared some joke. His dark face was etched with wrinkles, and white whiskers stabbed from his leathery skin. He held a fleshy bone in one hand, and gnawed at it between words.

  Billy kept a watchful eye on the dogs. He hadn’t thought Walanguh knew about the taping sessions. He attempted to explain that he hadn’t found time to transcribe many of them, but he had done so with one or two, and the students seemed to appreciate it, liked hearing familiar words and stories in the classroom. But no, he really hadn’t done it much.

  ‘Your pudda—grandmother—my sister, she die, eh?’

  Billy could not understand what Walanguh was saying. He thought it was something about the river, about Walanguh’s sister or grandmother, about crossing the river. Walanguh was grinning and chuckling the whole time, pleased with himself. But Billy could not understand.

  Walanguh grunted and threw the bone to the dogs. Billy, a little relieved, left.

  ‘Any smoke?’ Walanguh called after him, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, and casting his smile.

  Within twenty-four hours Billy saw Walanguh again. He saw the old man’s face, very close to his own, and he saw the sleep in the corner of the eyes as the old man winked at him. The face began drifting away, and skilfully spat a wad of tobacco from one side of its mouth, without ceasing its cackle.

  Billy saw the old man, fat like a balloon, drifting along in the sunlight, way up above the mango trees and coconut palms. He was silent now. There was no sound but the rustle of leaves in one breath of wind. A thin trail of smoke went straight up into the sky from a campfire below, and Walanguh drifted through it, drifted through it, and the smoke was barely disturbed.

  Billy stood among all the people of Karnama, all of them silent and in awe, but many of them not looking up at Walanguh drifting through the blue. Many were transfixed by the shadow, Walanguh’s shadow, which, solid black, skimmed and rippled along the ground while the old man, naked and shameless, his penis shrivelled below his swollen belly, grinned and waved at those few who turned their eyes up to him. He drifted away and up, going up and up and away.

  And the noise returned to the people, who, with a cough and a sniff, turned to their other tasks. Except Fatima, who began wailing grief and beating her skull with her fists. And the dogs howled.

  Billy and Liz woke to the wailing early in the morning. They could hear it even from their bedroom.

  So Walanguh died. But still, he had been sick for a long time. He was very old. The Sisters at the mission used to bring food to him every day, even when he moved back to one of the little huts with all his wild dogs. Not many people visited him, only some of the other old ones, and Fatima of course, who trusted and loved him the more now that he was growing old, weak, away. He spent his day in feeble dreaming. The night he died some people did dream of him, so they said. He was in their dreams the way each of them remembered and knew him best.

  People were upset, but it was no surprise.

  But one thing began from his death. Beatrice’s young parents did not make sure that Be
atrice, a growing girl, was smoked properly at the funeral. She did come to wail with them, and she looked sorry. She, smart little girl so clever at school and who the gardiya really liked, did not take trouble to walk through smoke as the Law says. Her parents didn’t trouble to make her.

  Some noticed it, but so what? It was not a tragic death. We living in the twentieth century now you know. Only a little girl.

  Look at it. A clever little girl doesn’t even bother. Alphonse and Araselli not bothering with things. People not believing, people not trusting, people not caring. All falling down, all asking to fall down. That’s all we need to say for now.

  Beatrice, she knew nothing. Raphael, her silly bugger father, was one of those whose eyes saw the shadow but didn’t know. That man is empty and has nothing inside him, except when he drinks from a bottle or spurts into a woman or has money in his hand. So. A modern man maybe. That’s all we say for now.

  Breakin’

  Liz walked into her house and out of the green heat. She could hear music above the roar of the air-conditioner. And the soft clicking of the typewriter. She followed the sound to the spare room. Beatrice was hammering away at the typewriter. Two other small girls were dancing to the music which trickled thinly from the cassette player.

  ‘What are you girls doing here!’ It did not sound like a question.

  The two dancing stopped, and bowed their heads. Beatrice turned around laughing, half singing to the music she heard. Her large eyes reflected Liz’s red temper for a moment, then she looked away and resumed punching the keyboard.