Benang Page 8

  At least they were together, and sharing. Things are never so bad when you’re together, or so I have been told. It was what made Uncle Jack strong enough, eventually, to lead me back. Whereas my closer family—say, Harriette’s children—were weak and floating, and becoming free.

  Uncle Jack Chatalong?

  The supervisor accompanied him to the camp. Too old for the compound. Male. Too dark to be sent elsewhere. It was tents, huts of packing case and flattened drums, and snotty-nosed kids. The adults watched him. A few welcoming grins.

  ‘You can put him up,’ the supervisor said to an old couple. Jack wanted to apologise, and his expression must’ve shown this. ‘They’re blind, you can help them.’ He wanted to refuse, felt quite numb. ‘We’ll try you at the kitchen. Charlie here will collect you in the morning.’

  Uncle Jack learnt many things in the kitchen, and there was an awakening, just as there have been many awakenings. There was much Dinah, his mother, could tell him.

  So suddenly; death, and then a wedding. The soil still settling in the grave, and Daniel and Harriette’s daughters were hurrying their white husbands from various small towns around and beyond our traditional country.

  Sergeant Hall, having decided Kathleen was unequivocally a white girl, said there was no need for permission from the department. And even though Kathleen was sick in the morning, she glowed at the wedding.

  Yes, Kathleen glowed. Wore white. Sergeant Hall insisted that he give her away. With great respect to the recently departed. The sergeant stood beside her for so long in front of the priest that his good, quiet wife was forced to hiss at him and give Ernest a little shove into position.

  I hovered over that wedding. A wedding. A white wedding. A couple of photographs of it exist, and I inspected them with a magnifying glass, wanting more, more. I used to hope that they loved one another. He married her. I wanted some help, some support for the fact that I stayed with the old man.

  There was even a reception, a few presents on the table. A tablecloth, white, and patterned in a lace of straight lines and right angles which gives its edges teeth. Teeth which saw at the shadows beneath the table. On the table there is a clock, which I recognise as the one in Grandfather’s study. There is also a cake, of two tiers; a china teapot; cups and saucers; a vase, with roses in it.

  I concentrated so fiercely upon that photograph, and yet was otherwise so often floating and drifting toward the ceiling, that it must have appeared to my grandfather that I balanced upon an eyeball, upside down upon a lens of glass.

  Deep in that photograph, there is another photograph, of a couple. White man, black woman; it must be Daniel and Harriette. The man stands at the rear and one of his hands is on his chest, the other on the shoulder of the woman seated before him. I can make out only the shape of her dress.

  The man’s hands are so pale they glow, and look like mittens or even paws. He is probably wearing gloves, and I imagine his hands ineffectually and clumsily groping, perhaps wishing to cling to something or someone always about to leave.

  The clock chimed an hour.

  In the clock’s face there is even the reflection of the photographer, bending at his tripod. Ern had hired the photographer. It seemed only right that he contribute to the costs of the wedding. Other than the photographer’s reflection the only indication that anyone other than myself admired these presents is the hem and cuff of someone’s jacket, and part of a pair of trousers. There is—of course—a body inside these clothes, and indeed there is a hand protruding from the jacket, holding a celebratory glass. Ern told me the hand was his own.

  In another hour the clock chimed beautifully, its sound all the purer because there was no one there to hear it.

  There is a photograph of what I assume to be the wedding party. Ern is surrounded by women; Harriette, and her daughters. The women are frozen in a moment between glancing at one another, but their faces reveal that they are sharing the occasion. They hold their chins high in what seems an extravagant manner. Kathleen has flowers in her hands. There is another, smaller, woman beside her who I cannot account for. A darker woman, plump and grinning. Who can it be? It cannot be Fanny, surely? Knowing the conventions and equipment of the era, she must have had to hold that grin for some considerable time.

  A magnifying glass reveals that she is looking straight into the camera, is defiant, and that it is a very serious smile, intended for me.

  Ern is also staring intently into the camera, but he looks a little anxious, as if trying to read his future.

  Following branches of my family tree, I discovered a series of white men who—because they married Nyoongar woman and claimed their children—were exceptional. But their children grew in a climate of denial and shame that made it difficult for even a strong spirit to express itself. And there were other children those same fathers did not claim. Witness Ern’s first spree on arriving in this nation. What came of that? He dismissed it; a moment of weakness only. Another aberration. And another, another, another, regularly repeated. Ahem. And Kathleen, my almost-grandmother, was rejected by her father which, whatever foster-father and policeman might say, hurts. He was a white man, like them. And then there is my own father...

  Once again, I am confusing things, not following an appropriate sequence. I wish to note that at this wedding there were other white men, those who had married Daniel and Harriette’s daughters. After the wedding, these white brothers-in-law shook hands with Ern, grabbed their wives, and rushed off in different directions.

  Searching the archives I have come across photographs of ancestors which have been withdrawn from collections, presumably because evidence of a too-dark baby has embarrassed some descendant or other.

  My family, my people, we have done such things. Shown such shame and self-hatred. It is hard to think what I share with them, how we have conspired in our own eradication. It was my Uncle Will who taught me something of this.

  But I was writing of when he was still a very young boy, and of how my grandfather first married a Nyoongar woman, despite the law. Why was it Kathleen? Because she was there. Because he was advantaged. Because of greed. Because it was the challenge of a long-term plan, spanning the generations. Because of the power it would give him over her. Perhaps it was because his brief experiences of drunken sprees in native camps had excited him, and Kathleen promised similar excitement—with the added attraction of greater control of personal hygiene. Oh, and perhaps it was love. Perhaps it was love.

  Ern and the policeman protector had a long talk about this. Or rather, as long a talk as was possible, given the pressures of time, and impending retirement. There were many and various pressures. The policeman protector—the Local Protector of Aborigines—worried as to Ernest’s motives. But, as Ern assured him, if that was all he was after then he needed only to make a short trip to the native camps. Nudge, wink. As men of their world, both knew it happened all the time. And, of course, legally she was a white woman. Parents married; a white father. Living like a white person, of course—goodness—right next-door to the policeman and working for him. (Hall, once again, felt a moment’s unease.)

  Perhaps Ern felt guilty, having bought the house, the wood yard, all business contracts, and split up the family. But, as he explained to Kathleen, he had little choice. He paid a fair price, and otherwise the Aborigines Department would have it all. That’d be worse.

  At Mogumber Settlement, Jack Chatalong cut and carted wood for the old couple. He took them water. They knew him by his voice. In the evenings he sat stoking their fire, seeing its reflection in their blind eyes and listening to words he may not have understood, but which reached deep within him, made him feel like an instrument being played. But such a poor instrument because although he felt the humming alive within him, it was more like a struggle to breathe than articulated song.

  Inside his head he tried the sounds, attempted the rhythm, felt the vowels slipping together.

  Chatalong had been struck dumb. What happened to that easy wa
y with words, the easy launching of them, the unthinking way he could set them into flight?

  Strange, that the first words for a long time were, ‘No. No, no, not me.’ Jack continued to refuse. A corroboree, at the camp, but he would not dance. He wouldn’t do that stuff, couldn’t do it, it was strange to him.

  But he watched. From a distance, in darkness veiled by leaves, he watched. The dark bodies marked with the river’s white clay making these people he recognised from the camp, these strangers, stranger still.

  Sometimes, even the superintendent came to watch.

  The old couple sang, their voices searching out the silent Chatalong, refreshing some other ‘inner man’, and dismantling an outer one.

  Chatalong saw the superintendent staggering into his house in the evening. Saw him sleeping face down on the floor. Saw.

  A great feathery bird was trapped within the little crowd that had gathered, perhaps attracted by its calls. The people watched its clumsy distress, its stumble from a doorway and out among them. Beyond the silence of the large bird standing among them, Jack Chatalong heard the mocking voices of the white women.

  Small feathers spiralled behind the bird. Not a bird. Not a bird, but a man. And his calls were strangled ones of frustration and fear. He ran to the centre of the yard, moved in a few small circles. He stopped and turned, sagging at the knees. The feathers were in bunches, this way and that, stuck to the black tar which covered him and stretched in long drops from his eyelids and nostrils. Tar must have filled his ears.

  His eyes and mouth looked so vulnerable.

  The bird boy was sobbing. Head bowed. Chicken feathers and tar stuck all over him. Silence. Snorting from where he had come.

  Being taught a lesson. Something about being uplifted?

  Our Jack Chatalong was learning. It was whispered to him as he spooned his watery soup, grateful that he could serve himself, and pick the choice bits. His mother, beside him, said softly, ‘Whatever you think about, you keep it to yourself. Careful what you do, you might end up someone else otherwise.’ Tilting his cup to drink, Chatalong saw the reflection of his nose, eyes, long lashes within its closed circle.

  They heard the bird man talking in the little hut of corrugated iron. It had no windows. There was barbed wire on top, and a big iron door locked with handcuffs. A tracker in a shabby military jacket led Jack from the kitchen across a dusty yard which had been swept of all footprints. He motioned with his head for Jack to leave the small battered can of water, the heel of stale bread, at the door.

  ‘Want me to lay them an egg, that’s what they put me in here for. I got no time for chooks. I’m no chook.’

  Jack looked into the hot darkness. He saw the stakes on the inside walls, the small holes in the walls growing tiny stars of light, and how barbed wire slashed at the bellies of the clouds rushing overhead.

  Leaving, Jack softly dragged a hand along the corrugations of the iron wall.

  ‘You wanna keep out of here brother.’ It seemed a different voice.

  In the afternoon a flock of cockatoos flew over the compound, screeching. They flew low to show how their glossy black feathers, so neatly side-by-side, felt the wind. Seeing the white tail-feathers, Jack remembered the clay on the dancers’ bodies. The birds flew in, over, showing themselves off and Jack realised that this was a dance too, and how wonderful it was.

  The bird man heard the birds, must have seen them through some pinhole in the iron around him, arcing twice across the little sky above him. The birds, in turn, would have heard him.

  He kept up his screeching even as theirs faded.

  Jack had heard others in the little prison hut, when they first went in, singing, ‘You are my sunshine...’ They came out, dressed in hessian, heads shaven, squinting and with a hand shading their eyes. It might have been that they tried to smile.

  But no one saw the bird man emerge in that night’s heavy rain. He got away.

  Dinah said, ‘See? You can get away.’ Jack let his skills be known. Good with horses; handling them, caring for them, and he could mend wheels and wagons. Yes, he could even drive a car.

  He’d be valuable on a farm, if they sent him to one.

  Some of these, my people—let us call them ‘characters’—are distributed variously. Some gathered together and gained in strength. Others ran to where they could.

  My grandmother. Plucked from our family tree, falling toward me.

  ern to close

  To the Chief Protector of Aborigines:

  There is an Aboriginal woman name of Fanny Benang...

  Benang? Consider the spelling of hard-of-hearing and ignorant scribes: Benang, Pinyan; Winnery, Wonyin. It is the same people. We are of the same people.

  Fanny? It was really a no-name, a mean-nothing name. Not a name used to distinguish between people. We cannot depend on such names put down on paper. I think it was Dinah who had accepted what her mother bequeathed her and now had a baby in arms and a young girl walking at her side like a sister. But it may have been Fanny herself, rejuvenated by her escape and Sandy’s goodbye. Or perhaps, even, that the two of them had come together so close to their home to make yet another effort to keep the spirit they represented alive in the face of continuing betrayal.

  Constable Blake, temporarily stationed at Gebalup, was merely doing his duty, part of which was to report on the activities of people such as this Fanny Benang, however that name might be pronounced, or spelled. He was passing on information received:

  ...Fanny Benang, who wanders about the country between Wirlup Haven and Dubitj Creek. She has two half-caste children with her; one a little girl between nine and ten years old and the other I am informed was born at the Dubitj Creek about four weeks ago.

  The woman I am informed is at present at fifty miles from Wirlup Haven. From what I can learn from stockmen and others she is a notorious prostitute. It would be exceedingly difficult to say who is the father of the children. I would suggest arrangements be made to have her and her children removed to an institution when opportunity offers.

  Mr Ernest Scat of Gebalup, a reputable and kindly person, informed me that he would willingly adopt this eldest half-caste if you give your consent.

  PC Blake

  1/7/1930

  To Const Blake:

  Gebalup

  I have no objection to the child being adopted within the town. Police will of course be required to keep an eye out for the child’s welfare.

  A O Neville

  Chief Protector of Aborigines

  To Chief Protector Neville:

  In reply to yours of 1/7/30 the Aboriginal woman Fanny had left Wirlup Haven with her children before your news arrived and until recently I have been unable to ascertain her whereabouts.

  At present she is about eighty miles from Gebalup and I am informed is coming in this direction.

  November 17 1930

  Const Blake

  Report of Edward Blake PC Reg No 939 relative to Aboriginal woman Fanny and half-caste children

  Inspector Segal

  I respectfully forward for your information completed file relative to Aboriginal woman Fanny Benang and half-caste child Topsy.

  This matter was perused by you during your last visit to Gebalup, but was only completed this date. The delay was due to the woman Fanny being induced by other natives to go to Barren Peaks and Munglinup, ninety to one hundred miles from Gebalup, last August. I seized her and the children at Wirlup Haven on 27th November.

  The girl Topsy is an extra fair skinned half-caste, perhaps ten years of age, but the baby (six months) which was reported to me as being a half-caste, is, in my opinion, not a half-caste at all, but is the child of a half-caste father, and is very black.

  Relative to the removal of the woman and remaining child I am informed that she is willing to mate with a rather respectable black fellow named Ted Cuddles, who is the sole native employed by Done, twenty miles from Gebalup. If so, I think she should be allowed to remain. The baby is still at brea
st and could best stay with her for the time being at least. The child was handed to Mr Ernest Scat, in the presence of the visiting R M Mustle, this date, and will, I am satisfied, receive every care and attention.

  Edward Blake

  Constable

  To Commissioner of Police

  Despite your officer’s report and the advice of members of the Gebalup community I have serious objections to the woman remaining in the Gebalup district instead of being removed to the Native Settlement. I enclose the necessary warrant for her removal. Also the child; if it seems to have a preponderance of white blood it would be best to also have it removed unless we can be confident of no reversion to type, or unless we have someone close at hand to tend to its welfare. In this case we have, and what a pity we do not have more people in our community like Mr Ernest Scat.

  Deputy Chief Protector 22/12/1930

  My dear grandfather knew the Inspector, knew the Chief Protector, knew the neighbourly policeman and—being of a kind—he trusted them. His kindly heart had him take in the poor waif, and Kathleen and her mother and this last adopted child were photographically captured together on the verandah. Ern was struck by how frail and thin the young girl was, and how good it felt to be able to help her.

  Together, at least the women were together.