Caprice (2 page)

Seated on old wicker cane chairs on the back verandah, Jack and Phyliss Donaldson told me how it was that my grandfather, Mick Muldune, met my grandmother, Lucy, all those years ago.

The trip on the mail truck was rough and that was putting it mildly. The station roads were some of the most hazardous in the state. After heavy rains, there were washaways—where the roads were washed away. In some places there were no roads but deep creek beds full of running water. Road surfaces changed and varied en route. The traveller could find himself on corrugated gravel roads or potholes full of bulldust, or claypans and loose stones. This form of travel was a new experience for the Irishman. He remained silent throughout the trip north. Was he regretting this impulsive action? thought Jack. I hope not.

They stayed on at Mt Dunbar Station, the first station that wanted workers, for three years, then Jack finished up and went back to Kingsley.

During those three years Mick worked hard and willingly doing all the labour required. There was mustering cattle, cleaning troughs, fixing windmills, boundary riding and
breaking in horses. He adapted immediately to station life and liked it.

The owners, Mal and Anne Forbes, had three children, Mark, 10, William, 8, and Caroline, 6.

The Forbes also cared for and provided work for 100 to 200 Aborigines living at “Native Camp”, across the other side of the creek from the station. The family clan ranged from able-bodied individuals, children, adolescents and toddlers, to the maimed, lamed and the almost blind old people.

The Forbes, referred to by all the Aborigines as the “boss” and the “missus”, lived in a large shady comfortable house called the homestead. The domestic staff consisted of six women who were responsible for the care and the cleaning of the homestead; the duties differed according to age, status and experience. Amongst this group was a young fullblooded Mardu girl called Lucy, a Milangga, who was becoming a favourite of Mrs Forbes because she proved to be reliable, responsive and an excellent worker.

Anne Forbes wasn't the only one who noticed these qualities, apparently.

“I could see that Mick was taking a shine to young Lucy and I tried to talk him out of it,” said Jack. “I said to him, ‘Wait till we get back to Kingsley and find a nice white woman. Don't marry a fullblood girl'. I was a bit worried the old men might take to him with their spears and boomerangs.”

But Mick the Irishman had already made up his mind, he was determined to marry Lucy, this thin straight black-haired girl with a flashing smile and large brown eyes.

From the information he gleaned from “the boss”, Mal Forbes, he learned that Lucy had been betrothed to a young man when she was a child, but when she reached marriageable age (thirteen or fourteen) her biljur (promised
man) rejected her. His current or first wife did not want to share him with a co-wife.

Mick approached her family and asked for her hand in marriage in the traditional European manner.

He was told by an uncle, the spokesman and tribal elder, “You wait 'til meeting time, big meeting.”

These annual “big meetings” usually occurred during the summer months—coinciding with the slack period on all stations in the Murchison and Pilbara regions. This was the time the workers took their holidays.

Certain rites and rituals were performed involving members from other traditionally-oriented communities such as Wiluna, Leonora, Nullagine, Marble Bar, and also others further north.

When the ceremonial rites and rituals were over, meetings discussed the releasing of widows/widowers from mourning period, allowing them to remarry. There were grievances to be aired. Special attention was given to individuals who had disregarded or broken the “Law”. These individuals endured physical punishment and social ostracism.

This kind of deterrent would have to be the most effective I've witnessed, thought Mick nervously.

It was with mixed feeling and trepidation that he joined the group of male elders that morning. He wondered what the hell he was doing there. One white man, a foreigner, an Irishman, surrounded by hundreds of fullblooded Aborigines. He kept his eyes focused on the ground in front of him. He could feel the hundreds of pairs of dark eyes staring silently, boring into his soul.

He definitely would have remained at the station had he not been reassured by his half-caste friend Jack
Donaldson that he wouldn't have to become initiated into the Aboriginal tribe to marry Lucy.

“Only tribal boys go through the ‘Law',” Jack told him confidently. “Just take your swag, you will camp with the young single fullahs. The old men, the tribal elders, will look after you and tell you what to do. Don't worry it will be alright. You'll see.”

Jack advised him well. Mick was instructed where to sit and with whom.

Mick learnt that Dreamtime beings handed down the belief system referred to as the “Law” which included rules for social behaviour, codes and mores of Aboriginal society. The Mardudjara or Mardus (Martus) of the western desert have a unique kinship system which provides a system of moral codes of behaviour, rules for socialisation and marriages. All individuals are categorised into one of four kinship or skin groups, Banaga, Garimara, Burungu or Milangga. Each individual is born into one of these sections and cannot change or transfer into another group. Children are instructed at a very early age to conform to the kinship system, which is very rigid and complicated. The kinship terms are in constant use every day in preparation for more important roles when adulthood is reached. By that stage the pattern of behaviour towards other members of the clan and indeed the community—according to the kinship rules—are established. It is most important that obligations and commitments are fulfilled according to the kinship system.

Lucy, who was in the skin group Milangga, was only allowed to marry a Burungu. A Banaga could only marry a Garimara.

A man must choose a wife from the right section. He cannot marry just any woman of his own choice. The
marriage or union can and will be seen as incestuous and can never be accepted by the community. Many couples have eloped only to be apprehended and escorted back to Jigalong to face tribal punishment, which means ostracism and public flogging. These couples ran away to other towns, but one couple went into the desert. They were not followed and brought back like the other lovers, but were left there in self exile and annexation in the Great Sandy Desert.

Mick was given a skin name, Burungu, thus putting him in the appropriate section to be the “right way” or the correct husband for Lucy—a Milangga woman.

With the community's blessings he returned to Kingsley with his intended bride. He returned only once to Jigalong and that was to attend his mother-in-law's funeral.

Although he never accompanied Lucy on her visits to Jigalong, he was content to meet and interact with her relations at the annual race meetings which were held in October and May at the Kingsley race course. There was no pressure on Lucy to abandon or reject her tribal culture or to become involved in ceremonial rites and rituals. She chose the latter. So every year after Christmas, Lucy would spend four to six weeks at Jigalong with her family.

Within a week of the couple's return to Kingsley Mick found employment as a labourer with the Western Australian Government Railways. He tried to talk his mate Jack into applying for a job with him at the Red Hill Mining Company as miners.

“Look, I am a Yamagee, I work on top of the ground—not underneath like a rabbit,” Jack said.

“It was only a suggestion,” Mick said.

“We should take Katie and show her where her Grannies lived, Jack,” suggested Phyliss as she collected our empty mugs.

“Come on then,” said Jack, rising from the rickety chair which he picked up and placed in the corner. “We'd better go while it's cool. Leave your ute in the driveway. It'll be safe there.”

I'm glad one of us is confident and trusting. I did as I was bid, not completely sure whether I should leave it there. You never know who you cannot trust these days.

Their ancient Holden station wagon had all the characteristics of an outback owner's vehicle—both exterior and interior. I had to move an assortment of tools and mechanical parts to make room for my feet. Everywhere
you looked there was red dust about a couple of centimetres thick. I gave a light cough and wound the windows down to let the fresh air in.

“Be careful with that window Katie, sometimes the glass slips down and it's hard to wind up,” advised Jack as he started the motor and drove down the main street. He turned right near the Shell garage, stopping only when we came to a couple of pathetic looking tamarisk trees and an equally depressed peppermint tree.

“This is it,” said Jack as he pulled up and stopped the engine, and pointed to where the house once stood. It was overrun with couch grass, except in the places where there were concrete slabs.

“This used to be the laundry and the bathroom,” he said stamping on them with his right foot for emphasis. “The toilet used to be outside and covered with purple morning glory creepers.”

Yes, I could imagine that, quite a common sight even today.

Phyliss plucked a handful of leaves from the miserable looking peppermint tree and crushed them in both hands and took a big sniff. “I used to do this all the time when the old people lived here,” she said wistfully.

Jack began pacing up and down, marking an invisible rectangular plot where the bough shed was, or rather where it used to be attached to the front of the house. This was a popular place, often filled with visitors who would come to listen to the Irishman sing or perhaps join in with him.

His Irish tenor's voice would carry across the black stony flats. For a few hours at least, Michael Muldune would be mentally transported to his birthplace in Ireland, borne on wings of song. This was how he was able to express his emotions, through his music.

“Did he talk about his homeland, his country or his family?” I asked wistfully.

“Not much,” came the reply from Jack who was trying very hard to recall those memories of yesteryear. “Only that his mother and father, he called them his ‘mam' and ‘da', died in Ireland, his only sister ran off with a Protestant and that he had an aunt and uncle in America, Boston I think, and some cousins too.”

“But surely there must have been times when a memory stirred or he may have had a twinge of nostalgia, perhaps?”

The two old people looked at each other. I could see that they did not quite understand my question so I rephrased it.

“Did he long for his home, you know, say he wished he was in Ireland at special times of the year?”

“No, but he used to sing a lot when he was feeling low, or miserable. You know all those Irish songs we grew up with,” said Jack as he appealed to his memory by cocking his head to one side, at the same time taking a drag on his roll-your-smoke. “You remember, Phyliss, you know, ballads, folksongs and sometimes he had requests from people to sing hymns like ‘Beyond the Sunset', ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away', and ‘Whispering Hope'. But I think his favourite was ‘Danny Boy'.”

His sentiments were carried pleasantly in the evening, usually at sunset. How many times did he sing this refrain, I wondered. It must have been scores of times during his lifetime, I'd guess.

Lucy never joined in the singing. She preferred to listen to her husband, sometimes humming silently to herself.

“Your grandfather leased this block from the railways and when he died they reclaimed it,” said Jack, marking the invisible boundary with his right hand.

“Well we'd better go back before it gets too hot,” said Phyliss, this gentle gracious little half-caste lady who had befriended my grandmother so many years before.

I was reluctant to leave this place. I wanted to spend a few more minutes and try to visualise and feel their ghostly presence as they must have sat in the shady bough shed shooing the sticky bush flies away from their meals and themselves. This is where they sat silently or singing, but always watching the vivid sunsets every evening—a different one each day, none the same, special uninhibited views of the beautiful Kingsley sunsets.