by Cameron Nunn
Will had stayed in the cave, while Callum had run back to get the police. Callum’s dad had tried to get him to leave but Will was determined that he’d stay until help arrived. Even when paramedics had reached the cave, Will had insisted that he be allowed to help carry the stretcher. At first the police had questioned Will about how he knew where his grandfather would be. He’d tried to explain but in the end he’d just said, “He once told me about a cave and I guessed where it might’ve been.”
It was late afternoon when the last police car left. Rosie and Gran were inside. Somehow Gran had found that strength that she always had, when things seemed their most bleak.
“I’m just wondering,” Callum’s dad said. “Given all that your gran has been through, that maybe you and Rosie might want to come and stay with us for a while?”
He knew Callum’s dad meant well. “Thanks, but I need to be here. We both do.”
He nodded. “Callum guessed you’d say that, but we wanted to let you know that you’d be welcome. Are you going to call your dad and let him know?”
Will shrugged. “He couldn’t manage to drag himself up here when we told him Pa was missing. I’ll tell him but only because I’m not going to do the same thing he’s done to everyone else. If he turns up, then he turns up, but I’m not chasing him.”
“So what next? What do you think your gran will want to do?”
“She’ll want to stay. I know that much. They’ve already sold off most of the stock. We’ll just have to see what we can manage.” Will knew in his heart she wouldn’t sell the land. She’d make sure that Pa has his ashes here.
Will’s dad turned up for the funeral. He sat stony-faced beside Will and spoke hardly a word. He was a cicada shell of a man, brittle and hollow. His hair was pulled back hard and his face was etched with lines. Even the suit that he wore seemed to belong to a younger, bigger man. Perhaps grief takes its own shape, Will thought.
At one point, his dad put a hand on Will’s shoulder. It sat there like something dead for a few seconds and then he pulled it back. Will wondered if he was supposed to do something in return, to say that it was all going to be fine. Perhaps it was the closest thing that his father could give to an apology.
Rosie clung to Gran, the two of them softly holding each other. Will noticed that Rosie had changed as well. It was as though they were supporting each other now. Will knew that Gran needed Rosie as much as she needed Gran.
After the funeral Will’s dad spoke briefly. “You know I can’t stay.” He hesitated and wiped a hand across his face. “I know that you and Rosie argue a lot and I just think Gran could do without the grief. She’s been through a lot. Just don’t make it worse.”
It was like a slap. Will wanted to ask him what the hell he knew about Gran or him or Rosie or anything. He wanted to shout at him that he hadn’t even called or spoken to them for over five months. He wanted to tell him that he was a selfish prick. Instead he just said, “Sure.” It wasn’t a word of surrender or weakness. Will held his father’s gaze until his dad gave a brittle nod.
“Good. I’ll call when I get back to Sydney and I’ve got some things sorted out.”
“Gran doesn’t have a phone.”
“Of course. Yeah, sorry. I’ll call Dot and she can pass on a message.”
Will knew that there wouldn’t be a call, but he was beyond being hurt.
Will’s dad put his hand out for Will to shake. For a few seconds it hung there awkwardly, and then the stranger was gone.
Later that afternoon Will walked up to Dot’s. She must have been expecting him because she came out the front.
“I was about to come down and see if your gran needed a hand with anything.”
“She’d like that.” There was an awkward pause. “I guess I just wanted to come and say thanks for looking after Gran.”
“I don’t know how much looking after I did. She’s a mighty strong woman, your grandmother.”
Will felt a deep wave of emotion surface. “I know that. But thanks for helping with the funeral arrangements and stuff, seeing Pa wasn’t always . . .” Will thought of all the things Pa had said about Dot. “He wasn’t always easy to get on with.”
Dot laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. Anyway, I wanted to see if he’d start banging on the coffin lid and tell me to bugger off. Knowing he wouldn’t want me there gave me a little pleasure.”
“Can I come inside? I wanted to show you something.”
“I can hear the kettle boiling as we speak.”
As they sat down inside, Will grew more serious. “When I was telling everyone that Pa had mentioned a cave and I said I had one of those memories, you told Callum’s dad that I sense things. Do you remember?”
She nodded, “I remember.”
“Do you believe me, about the memories?”
She sighed heavily. “Will, none of it makes any sense to me. You tell me that you have memories that belong to someone else but you can’t tell me who, and that your grandfather had the same memories. You tell me they belong to a boy but you don’t know his name and we can’t find any trace of someone like that being here, except a pipe that your grandfather had, that could’ve been anyone’s. You know what the doctors think. None of it makes sense. I don’t know what to believe.”
“But I knew where Pa was, even though I’d never been there.”
There was a long pause and Will could see that Dot was weighing up things that didn’t make sense.
“When I was on the other side of the creek, there was another memory, different from the cave with the handprints. I had a feeling stronger than I’d had before. It wasn’t him anymore. It was me. There was a fire and I was running and I couldn’t escape. It was the same as I’ve had in my dreams. I was trying to find a place that I knew about, a river that runs underground and then the memories stop. There’s nothing more after that. With everything else it’s like pieces from the middle of a jigsaw but this is an edge. I can’t tell you how I know, I just do.”
“You think this boy died in a fire?”
Will shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps he left and never came back. Memories can end for all sorts of reasons.”
Dot looked thoughtfully. She was still slowly nodding her head as though she were trying to take it all in.
“I’ve got something.” Will placed a small black journal on the table. It’d been tied with a leather cord that had been snapped or broken with age; the corners were curled back like a shrivelled leaf. “It was his,” Will said, before Dot could ask the question. “My grandfather was holding it when I found him in the cave.”
“Why didn’t you give it to the police?”
Will looked puzzled. “It didn’t belong to them. You asked me what his name was and I told you that I didn’t know.” He paused again. “But I understand now. I’ve known the whole time. I just didn’t realise I knew.”
Now it was Dot’s turn to look puzzled.
“I’ll show you,” he said calmly.
He opened the book to the front page. The leather was hard and didn’t give easily. The pages separated and gave up their secrets. Dot leaned over and Will turned the book to face her. It was yellow and faded but there, written with an unmistakable ghostly hand, over and over again was the name William Richards.
In the darkness, I hear someone whisper my name . . . but it’s not to me they speak.
Although the people in the story are fictitious, the places and events are real. Twenty-five thousand children were sent to Australia as convicts. Most were boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen but some were much younger. Like William, they were sent mostly for the crime of theft and sentenced to seven years. William’s time in Newgate and the court hearing are based on real events. Prison records show that some of the boys could read a little but few could write with any skill. The difficulty for the colonial government was knowing what to do with these boys who had little skill other than the ability to steal anything not nailed down. Carters’ Barracks was the first
institution in the world especially set up to train boy convicts. It stood where Sydney Central station is now and received many of the boys before sending them out as apprentices and farm workers.
Mr Harrison’s sheep run on the edge of the Nangar National Park would have been one such place that would have made use of boy shepherds. There was strong demand for wool in England and settlers were pushing deeper inland to look for grazing land. As they moved westward, they displaced local Aboriginal people, wiping out native food sources and desecrating sacred sites. The massacre described in the book was all too frequent, especially if Aboriginal people resisted the encroachment of the squatters. Although white men could be found guilty of murder, it wasn’t until 1838 when seven settlers were found guilty and hanged at Myall Creek that the law took action against settlers. Despite this, massacres continued even into the twentieth century.
William’s realisation that Aboriginal people were no different to Europeans was not common. Cain’s argument that Ireland belonged to the Irish did not seem to apply to Aboriginal people. Acknowledgement that Indigenous people had rights over their own land took another one hundred and fifty years. William’s memories of the past continue to echo into our present-day society and the hands in the cave serve as a reminder of our inseparable human connection to the first people of this land.
I’d like to thank Dr Tanya Evans and Associate Professor Robert Reynolds from Macquarie University who taught me how to be a historian as well as a writer. I will be forever indebted to you for your patience and generosity. Mostly, I would like to thank my family, Belinda, Ben and Kaitlin, for allowing me time to write and for your love and support throughout the long journey.
First published in 2021
by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
Text © 2021 Cameron Nunn
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover images: Cudal Farm House @ Peter Mann;
Tree in Field © Judah Grubb/ Shutterstock;
Manuscript © DuPo/Shutterstock; Neptune Convict Ship/Wiki Commons; Teenage Boy @ Cavan/Adobe.
