Salt Creek (12 page)

‘You speak English?'

She didn't reply and her eyes moved across the mess I had made, the scattered reeds all different lengths and the roots mixed with the grassy tops and the muck I had splattered on the shore.

‘I thought there was something there I could catch,' I said. ‘You can have them if you like. The reeds, I mean.'

She regarded them and then me. ‘Good for nothing now.' She looked away. I would sooner endure the worst of Papa's lectures than that disdain.

‘I'm sorry,' I said, which was true, but I did not know what for, just that my being there was a sorrow.

She made a contemptuous noise and if anyone thinks natives dull witted one look into this woman's face would teach them otherwise. The other women hung back still, but the tall woman took my hand in both of hers and thrust it at the other natives and rubbed her fingers and thumbs across it, hard, lifting the skin on its back and releasing it, showing the other natives as she did it and she said something too, and they edged in until they were all around, and there were the faint nibbling touches and tweaks of their hands at my skirts and sleeves. I couldn't understand what they were saying, of course, but one word or phrase was repeated enough that I remembered it. One girl, bolder than the rest, lifted the bottom of my dress and looked at my stockinged leg and the cracked boots on my feet. It gave the others courage and soon both my hands were being held and squeezed and pinched and inspected – a strange feeling, as if my body were no longer my own.

‘Your hair,' the tall woman said. ‘Blood hair.'

‘Red.'

She shook her head. ‘Blood.'

I touched it. ‘They think it has blood in it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh.' I wanted to sit then or hold something to steady myself, remembering Tull when we first spoke. It was not a pleasant feeling to be thought a horror. I reached up and untwisted my hair and it fell in dark red coils. They were aghast. I stroked my head and held my hand out palm upwards to show them how white it still was and lifted a curl in the air and teased it apart and bent over that they might touch it. One of the children caught the end of a curl and the children shrieked at her daring. I could have cried but I shut my eyes tight and the moment passed. I put my hair back in a plait as best I could without a mirror and seeing it some of the girls wanted plaits too so I showed them how, using a few of the torn reeds to bind their ends so they were not all wasted.

The women began digging some daisies growing above the shoreline and put their roots in the baskets they had brought. Having lost their fear of me they talked again, a sound that was as incomprehensible as birdsong or waves hitting a shore. I thought it the foreignest thing I ever heard, which much later made me blush to recall, and fascinating. I wondered what English might sound like to them, its words being so distinct. The tall woman paid me no more attention until I had to go, when I took her the packet of sugar, opening it to show her what lay inside. She took it from me with reverence almost and reached into the packet and drew out a pinch and tipping her head back released the sugar. She shut her eyes and her face was suffused with pleasure. Seeing her, seeing this, everyone gathered around and she showed them how sugar might be enjoyed, licking her finger and plunging it into the sugar and into her mouth, and each in turn copied her and was delighted.

Lessons would be starting and I wasn't there, but I wanted to take a proper leave, and for something to have changed. I approached the tall woman and the others made space for me. I said, ‘I am Hester.'

She looked at me in a different way – not with warmth or as a friend. As if I were there and the fact of me could not be ignored.

‘I am Rimmilli,' she said.

I went back home and wrote down a word, as best as I could remember the sound, which the women had said more than once, separate enough from the other sounds I had heard. I would ask Tull when he came back with Papa and the boys. They were clearing some land to let more sun in and improve the pasture, and that was after milking at first light. They were exhausted when they rode in and I waited until after dinner before I spoke to Tull about meeting the native women. ‘What does “grinkry” mean?' I asked.

‘Grinkry?'

‘They looked at me and they used this word. Something like that. I wrote it down.'

There was a flash of comprehension. ‘I see.' His eyes moved across my face, and then, reluctantly, he said, ‘
Grinkari
.'

‘That's it. What does it mean?'

‘It's just a name they call white people. Not only you.' But he did not meet my eyes.

‘But what does it mean exactly?'

‘It is a word for dead people. They are pink after their skin comes off.'

I made a face. ‘We look like dead people?'

‘It is just a name,' he said.

CHAPTER 9

The Coorong, October 1857

IT WAS MORNING AND THE
SKY WAS
gathered up like smocking when I followed Mama to the shore of
the lagoon. I took it as a good sign. At least she had left the parlour, which, so
dark and shrouded and closed to air, put me in mind of the kennel of an old dog
waiting out its time. Her spirits had fallen again in the month since the visit to
the Travellers Rest and nothing we could do would lift them. The running of lessons
and the household had fallen to me, which was not as bad as when we first arrived. I
was older and had grown stronger from doing chores and hard riding and from walking
so far, much farther than in Adelaide where we would go visiting in the buggy and
need do no work in the garden save picking flowers for the house if we were of a
mind to, and never mind if we were not because Violet would do it otherwise.

The sandy soil spilled from the path's edges over my boots and insects rushed away into the scrubby bushes that edged it. I lifted my skirts; I was not frightened of them precisely, but I preferred not to touch them or for them to touch me. The wind had shifted to the north, from inland, and now everywhere was the smell of warmth and grass and things that I could not see instead of the salt sea blowing over the sand hills and the lagoon from the south that I was used to, and my spirits could not help lifting despite Mama. I was thinking to speak to her, to see if I could divert her mind to our clothes, with all of us growing. We might talk about which clothes were ready for alteration or could be reworked into something respectable. The warm weather was coming; every day the sun was stronger and higher and the grasses and reeds sprang green and tall and we were not so different.

I reached Mama's side on the shallow slope, my skirts brushed against hers, and I put an arm about her thin shoulders and pulled her close and we watched the birds teeming in from their long winter flights. They were thick as storm clouds and plummeted to water where they made a living carpet and began to call, cacophonous as a group of musicians tuning their instruments, but conversational, social.

She was like another bird, fine boned against me. She gave me a faint smile and looked back again at the birds: gulls and gannets, terns, ducks and I knew not what else.

‘Look,' she said.

‘Aren't they funny?'

‘They have so much company they can scarcely move,' she said. ‘And I have none and can scarcely move.' And she shrugged and drew her shawl close about her shoulders though it was a balmy morning and not likely to get cooler until evening. I had already pushed back my sleeves.

My hair blew across my face and I brushed it away and tucked my arm through hers and stroked the back of her limp hand.

‘They do not even see us.' Her voice became querulous and she pulled free of me, moving towards them but they did not alter their behaviour in any way that I could see. She was nothing to them, not even something to be cautious of. She hardly existed.

‘Come, Mama.'

And then from around the headland further up the lagoon came a small boat with a brown sail, the like of which I had never before seen on the lagoon. From the peninsula we saw ships passing far out to sea and would track their progress across the pale horizon, thinking of what they carried – sheep or passengers or other goods – and wondered whether they would arrive safely at their destination, wherever that might be, because sometimes they would not. Nothing was more certain than that. Once, while watching a ship with Papa while he was checking the cows, he had removed his hat and held it tight by the brim with both hands and bowed his head and murmured a prayer. ‘The Lord bless them and keep them safe. Let the waves and the deep not claim them.' I do not remember the rest. He had a horror of shipwrecks and what might befall their survivors. It was a dangerous coast. ‘There is help at hand now,' Papa said once. ‘No need for the blacks. All will be well.'

The boat came closer – there were two men aboard moving about and adjusting sails, coiling ropes, their arms brown against their white sleeves – and we walked down to the landing place below the bluff, where our own boat was moored. Mama's hands fluttered about her hair, tucking in the wisps and looking at me as if I were a mirror that might reassure. She had not troubled to fix it yet. Later I might persuade her to sit out in the sun, her eyes shut, and I would brush it smooth and neat and coil it into a bun. We all felt better when Mama resembled her old self.

Then they were there, the sails were furled and they laid anchor a little way off shore and the men lowered a small boat and jumped into it – the younger steadying the older – and rowed to our beach in thick even strokes, heaving it clear of the water. They were father and son to look at them – lean and brown, the father with large side whiskers, the younger one a scarce-bearded youth, as Mama would say – but not workers though they worked well together, understanding the movements they made separately and together. They had done this often. They had put jackets on, which had the cut of gentlemen, being longer than practicality demanded and cut away at the front. Their trousers were town clothes too, but the boots – stout, dusty, thick soled – were country. They removed their hats and bowed so gentleman-like it made me smile and the younger one gave a grin, and they introduced themselves. Bagshott was their name.

For a wonder Mama became cheerful, smiling at things that were not the slightest bit amusing – the noise the birds were making out on the water, the difficulty of sailing on a flat day. ‘We would be pleased if you would stay for a meal, if you have the time,' she said. ‘If you have any news – any at all, from anywhere—'

My mind began to fly about, wondering how a meal fit for guests could be contrived. Some carrots and a few elderly turnips remained from winter. But they and a few sprigs of spring parsley would not conceal the fact that it was last night's stew warmed again.

‘We'll tell you what we know, which is not a great deal,' Mr Bagshott said.

‘Mr Finch will have returned by then – my husband, that is,' Mama said. And she forged the way up the path, chattering about the weather and what the men were doing here. I could not have found a space in the conversation even if I had thought of something to say. It was strange to hear so many words spilling from her. Could I create an equation to calculate Mama's words? How then to factor in a variable such as a visitor when no one knew when another might arrive? The younger man did not trouble to talk to me so I was able to pay attention to the conversation in front of us and to ponder my conundrum.

‘I'm on a commission from the province.' Mr Bagshott's voice boomed out as if he were addressing a considerable crowd. Even viewed from behind, his gait was that of a person who had a station in life that had never diminished. His clothes might be as dusty as Papa's, but that was because he had been parted from civilization. ‘Yes, we are undertaking a survey, principally of properties along the coast and rivers and so forth, and Charles, my son, is making a pictorial record of them and of other places of interest,' Mr Bagshott told Mama.

It seemed a peculiar profession, if it was such a thing, but people must use the skills they have here, or so Papa says. I could do nothing but mathematics, play the pianoforte, and read. My cooking was atrocious; I could make butter these days, a description of which I did not think would interest our visitors greatly. They had travelled by cart and horse along the Murray River and inland and had sailed across the lakes, Alexandrina and Albert, to the sea, and here they were. They had seen things that must be of interest to anyone.

‘It is a strange life you have, then, Mr Bagshott,' Mama said, somewhat breathless at the quick pace she had set. She tilted her head to look up at him with bright curious eyes.

‘We are become used to it. Each day is different so we are never bored. The company we meet is most various.'

The younger Mr Bagshott ambled by my side, looking about curiously, one hand in his pocket, the other tapping his hat against his leg. He was more than a boy but not yet a man, not quite, but tall and well made; anyone would have said that, with his dark hair swept back, dented where his hat had pressed it against his head and he had sweated, his ready white smile and his startling blue eyes and a manner that seemed easy. He did not have much to say; perhaps, like me, he had no conversation. He did not appear nervous or proud or uncomfortable.

We paused at the top of the rise when the house came into view again.

‘Well now,' Mr Bagshott said, sizing it up with a thoughtful eye.

I feared what they might think. It seemed to me sometimes that we were as much like driftwood as the timber our house was made of, washed up here after the foundering of Papa's businesses, and now we must make a life out of what remained and hope that we could find shelter there. I wondered if our visitors thought the same.

‘Your husband has been busy,' Mr Bagshott said.

‘And our older sons, Hugh and Stanton.'

‘Would you permit Charles to sketch your house? Perhaps your husband—' Mr Bagshott dragged his eyes from the house in the distance to Mama, so small at his side.

‘We will ask him when he returns. I think he will be pleased.' And then, her face dropping and her voice less certain: ‘He might be, that is. Yes, he has done a great deal.' It reassured her to say this, I believe. It gave a frame for the way to look at all that was about us, and I supposed she and Mr Bagshott were right. Even if the house was not comfortable it was at least better than a native shelter made of bark and grass and reeds.

With a clattering of boots we went up to the back veranda. We could not ask strangers and visitors to remove their boots, so it was a mercy that the ground had dried and they were not muddy. And we pushed the door and stepped into the dining room. As I expected, Addie had not cleared the dishes or the table but had just disappeared. Mama would never have permitted her laziness in town. Socks were hanging on the stove railings. A bee was caught at the window. I flushed with the shame of it and then had to turn from the light of the window until my complexion had calmed. But the two men did not judge or did not appear to at any rate, or even to notice, but stood taking up a great deal of room until Mama remembered herself and asked if they would like to sit, which they did, scraping the chairs back from the table. Charles gazed at the rough ceiling: just a small lizard and a spider as big as my palm on this fine day. I took the opportunity to remove the socks and put the kettle on and clear the dishes; there was nothing I could do about the rest. Mr Bagshott rested a hand on the table, his fingers idly gathering a small mound of crumbs. I was ready to sink through the floor.

He talked on, and it was fascinating to hear. The first parliament in South Australia had been elected earlier in the year, he said, since which time he and his son had been far into the interior of the country. They had named places and Mr Bagshott was drafting maps. He promised to show them to us later. It was dry inland – with expanses of desert where very little grew and there were no trees at all.

We drank tea and ate oat biscuits, which were all we had. ‘We entertain so seldom out here,' Mama said by way of explanation, which was a huge exaggeration. ‘Practically never' would have been closer to the truth.

‘They are quite delicious, I assure you, Ma'am,' Mr Bagshott said.

I went and lit the stove in the outside kitchen, banging the door in vexation. As if they would not have known visitors were never expected the instant they passed the tubs of washing soaking in the sun and the house not swept nor cushions plumped, nor flowers anywhere and all of us shabby. I had seen it on our return from Mrs Robinson's, but with so much to do, and Mama not herself, it was hard to keep up. We had become ramshackle. And oh, my dress, my blue dimity, growing daily more faded. Why was I wearing it this day? I fetched the old veal stew from the pantry and took it to the kitchen, and scraped and cut up carrots and turnips and threw them in with the meat and into the oven.

Papa and the boys, Tull too, returned late in the morning and Papa took the Bagshotts on a small tour (how could it be otherwise when there was so little to see?). I followed along, not wishing to miss any news. From the rise looking back the house was homey enough, with the smoke rising and the horses stamping and twitching their tails in the fenced-off paddock. The bullocks were sober creatures and moved as imperceptibly as becalmed ships across the grassy land as if their slobbery noses were attached to the ground. Bullocks are a necessity, but they are not a pleasure. Looking at our visitors' expressions I saw how the house appeared to have run adrift into a dip in the slope and was set at an awkward angle – also the patchwork effect of the wood, the modest size of the buildings, the plain veranda posts and small windows.

Papa's face settled into moroseness. He put his hands in his pockets. ‘Why do you wish to draw it?'

‘For a record of these times to show how we are developing the land. That is all.' Mr Bagshott spoke very plain and dignified and I think this reassured Papa, who I knew felt the fall in his station. He spoke often of the civilizing influence of our presence and religion. ‘Tull is the proof of it, my dear,' I had heard him say to Mama more than once. I found it hard to discern God in what lay about us but no one was interested in my opinion.

‘If you had seen our house in Adelaide, and our old dairy farm. They were worth making a record of, I can assure you of that. Very fine.' Papa became hearty at the memory, rocking on his heels.

‘I like this house. It's picturesque.'

‘Picturesque,' Papa said slowly, as if he was testing the word. ‘Well, I don't know. We will build a stone house when we are able, and then we shall have something worth drawing. No, we shall have something worth painting. Perhaps you will come by in another year or two and see what we have become.'