‘Calm down, Al! There’s no point dealin with them arseholes, they wouldn’t do nuthin anyway. We’ll start the search ourselves.’
I can see the tears Mum is fighting behind all that rage and I stare back towards that old building. I can’t help wondering how he would’ve treated us if we were some other shade of brown.
‘If it’d been the old constable we’d have been right,’ I mumble, more to myself than anyone else.
Uncle grunts. ‘Only decent cop this town ever had.’
There isn’t much to say after that.
Day 1, Twilight
Walking up the street to Pop’s place wasn’t my idea of ‘helping’ the search effort, but I’d finally stepped on Mum’s last nerve and been ordered out of the house. After we’d gotten home, Uncle Joe went out to talk to our mob and Mum started ringing everyone and anyone she could think of. It was like watching her shake the limbs of a big ghost gum and getting depressed when nothing fell out. No one had seen Laney. It didn’t help that we’d both spring to the phone if it so much as squeaked. Plus I kept staring at her, wondering if I should try to talk to her about my dream. I don’t believe but I knew she would. When she went off at me for creeping her out it helped relieve the uncertainty. If she was going to yell, then it probably is a good thing I don’t tell her. A nightmare isn’t going to help us find Laney. The one upside is that now everyone knows what’s happening the biggest mob is turning up. They’re all at our place, sitting down, dividing up streets, properties and search areas. And I hate that I’m not there with them.
The feed of barbecue steak, sausages, eggs and tomatoes is still warm on the plate and wrapped in alfoil as I trudge the back roads. There is a big frigging hill this way but a lot fewer houses, and I don’t want anyone stopping me to ask how it’s going. I focus on keeping the bread from sliding off of the top of the alfoil so I don’t have to look up. I know the path to Pop’s like the back of my hand; I can walk around blindfolded in this town. Eidsvold is mostly little weatherboards like ours, most I’d been in were small three bedrooms with one bathroom and a kitchen. If you are lucky the toilet is in the house. If you aren’t, it means tiptoeing over cane toads to do a dump at night. Even my white mates’ places are like that. A bit flasher maybe, not needing anything done, like a bathroom that actually has four complete walls, but still a similar layout. Then again most of them own their places, us blackfullas are all renting from the Aboriginal Housing or private way. There are so few options for us in our town that you take what you can get and are thankful for it.
I can’t shake the feeling that all this is useless, that Laney never left that property. The Potters have a reputation with us that goes back generations; there’s no way they’d let us out there to look around, no point even asking. Instead, a whole heap of the uncles, aunties and older cousins are going out on the roads around the Potters’ place, hoping she made it that far. I try not to imagine my twin walking somewhere out there without food or water. Alone, maybe lost. Others will be out at different places, hoping to get lucky.
Potters’ is rare around here, having survived mostly intact through the years. They haven’t had to lease out paddocks, or subdivide like others. They have enough sons to run the place and still be able to employ a few jackaroos, none of them black. Then again, not many blackfullas will go out there. On the most western side of the property sits a mountain that none of us will go near. The elders are clear on that one.
I shove those thoughts aside as I hit Pop’s driveway. His place is an old weatherboard up on short stilts. The difference is ours is cream and his is white. Most places in town are a shade of white or pink and all of it peeling. His yard is filled with flowers, and out the back is one of the best vegetable gardens in town. Mum said his last job before he retired was as a gardener.
Like always, he’s stretched out on the verandah, rollies on the table and one burning away in his hand, watching everything. Men are worse gossips than women, Mum always says, and I believe her.
‘Hey Pop.’
‘Hurmph.’ His grizzled voice grumps and he nods his silver head. I can tell straight away I’m in trouble.
‘Bought you up a feed.’
I put it on the table in front of him, drop a quick kiss to his cheek before picking up his gigantic mug and starting into the house.
‘Cuppa tea?’ I sing out as I walk to the kitchen. I don’t even have to ask really. The mug is half full and mostly cold, but it wouldn’t matter if it was only five minutes old, he always has a fresh cuppa with his food.
‘Bring me the milk and sugar.’
Grinning and shaking my head, I hit the kettle’s button and rummage around his kitchen to make us both one. He had to talk to me that time, no choice. We are all under strict orders from Mum to only give him a certain amount of sugar and milk; I can’t ignore her but Pop sure does.
‘And don’t forget the salt and pepper!’
This time I groan.
I cart cutlery and all the fixings out to him, finish the teas and set them on the table before plonking down in one of the mismatched chairs he has strewn about. I watch him pour on the salt and pepper and wince.
‘That’s yucky, Pop. You’re ruinin Mum’s cookin doin that.’
‘Adds more flavour.’ He gives me one of his mischievous eye-twinkles from under his big bushy eyebrows. Then he remembers to be mad at me, frowns and focuses on getting into his feed. The tea is next and it’s even worse what he does to that, so I stop looking and watch his hands instead.
Mum says he’d been a giant of a man and you can see it. Into his seventies and he’s still taller than all of his sons. His broad shoulders might be skinny now, but they are always straight, his head up and his posture perfect. An upright, big mountain of a man. Those are my earliest memories and how I’ve always seen him. I love sitting with him like this, even if he’s being all sulky with me.
I stare out over the front lawn. Picture perfect as always, Mum is gonna crack. He isn’t supposed to be pushing a mower or using a whipper-snipper either. I hide my grin behind my mug because if he thinks I’m laughing at him I’ll be in for it. He always says I’m never too old to smack, not that he ever did it, but I wouldn’t put it past him.
‘Where’s your mother?’ he growls as he reaches for his mug.
‘Callin round to check if anyone’s seen Laney.’ My grin drops and I lower the mug, looking at him from the corner of my eye. He’s too busy looking at his plate.
‘She gone?’
‘Yep. Didn’t Uncle Terrance come tell you?’
‘Nobody tells me anythin in this family.’
And there’s the reason for his sulk.
‘Not! Mum’ll go off at Uncle for that, he was sposed to come tell you what was happenin while we started the search.’ I am outraged but not surprised. Mum’s brother is a known flake, we should’ve come check he’d done it but we had other things on the go.
‘Well you shoulda come told me.’ The knife gets thrust in my direction to make the point.
‘Pop, that’s not our fault, Mum was ringin everyone, Uncle Joe went for a drive around to everyone who doesn’t have a phone and I was cookin that dinner you eatin. Sides it’s not like you never heard about it.’
He waves his hand at me, gumming down his latest mouthful. ‘Mmmphmmmphmmph.’ See, big gossip, he knows everything that old fulla. He swallows a bit of tea to clear the way and starts again. ‘Never mind that now, anyone seen her?’
Accusation delivered, he’s straight to the point. Pop never really seems to be that worried about any of us, but Mum says you have to watch close to see it. Once he got into one of his sulks he usually holds onto it for dear life, now he’s pushing it aside for news of his granddaughter. I feel my shoulders drop and I curl my body around my mug.
‘Nah, nuthin.’
Pop and all the oldies hate tears or any show of sadness
so I stare straight into my mug and try not to let them well. I figured they’d been through so much in their time that our lives must seem easy as, and any complaints made us whingers. The silence stretches for a while and I realise he’s stopped eating to eye me closely. As soon as I tilt my head towards him he speaks again.
‘You been dreamin?’
My eyes go wide with surprise and I look straight at him. He nods and takes another mouthful, motioning with his knife for me to get a move on. Sometimes it’s eerie how the old people just know stuff. One day I’ll get the courage up to ask how, but Laney reckons there are some things we maybe don’t want to know.
‘I mighta … I sorta … had this nightmare, but. But it’s not real, Pop, it was just a dream!’
He looks at me. No expression, nothing. The focus in his gaze has me squirming till I spill my guts all over the place about the nightmare, which is what he wants.
‘So she’s under the car, lookin at Troy. Then next minute, something just grabs er.’
He sits there chewing. A swallow, some more tea.
‘Didja see what did it?’ Another mouthful went in.
‘Nuh, but it was like I was her in the dream and she didn’t see it neither.’
‘Got her from behind.’
‘Yeah by the ankles, pulled her from under the … How did you …’ I trail off and wait. Questions are the fastest way to shut the old fullas up, either he’ll tell me or he won’t. My job is to keep my mouth shut and my ears open.
It’s my turn to watch him closely as he finally glances down to scrape the last of the bits together and scoop them onto his fork. He doesn’t look up as he cleans his plate with the last of the bread. I start to fidget.
‘Might be, there was another girl while back, disappeared one night out at that place.’
I suck my breath in, clench my jaw tight and force the breath out through my nose.
‘When Mum was little?’ There, that sounds calm enough.
‘Mm.’ He shakes his head and put his plate to the side, takes out one of his millions of hankies and dabs at his mouth before picking up his tea and gulping some down. ‘Fore that, when your grandmother was a girl workin out at Eidsvold Station.’
He isn’t deliberately teasing me – he has to see and I have to prove that I’m worth it. Knowledge for us isn’t like rocking up to school or opening a book and it’s all there laid out for you. You have to prove yourself, that you deserve the old people’s trust, and even then there are some things they will never tell. I’ve had those yarns with Nan, but I’m almost an adult now, the rules have changed. I’d never had this kind of talk with Pop. I should be honoured that he was willing at all, especially about Nan. He hasn’t said a word about her since the funeral.
I might be ready to jump out of my seat and throw a full-on tanty till he told me what I want, but I won’t. It would get me nothing and Mum would pitch a fit if I did something that disrespectful. Worse, Pop wouldn’t tell me anything ever again.
‘But you would’nt’ve been ere then, ay?’
He waves his hand in a northerly direction. ‘I was up round Rocky then, happened while I was out there. Young woman snatched was all I heard. There was nuthin in the newspapers, not till the end and not about what happened to er.’
It’s said to his mug, not me, and I can see he’s getting jittery talking about it. Still, this is for Laney. I so desperately want to push, to know.
‘Do you remember what year, Pop?’
I watch him pull back and look at me, the ends of his eyebrows falling over his dark brown eyes, creating a screen that he watches me from under. There’s a second I think for sure he’ll clam up.
‘Mighta been ’47. No, had to be ’48, a few years fore I met your nan.’
His gaze goes back to his mug and that moment of sharing vanishes. I could’ve swum through his sadness, but all he does is take another gulp of tea. Bringing out his tobacco, he starts making his rollies. That’s all I am going to get. I feel tears burn my eyes so I grab the plate and mumble something about cleaning up and getting back home. He pushes his mug towards me and says nothing as I take everything inside. Pop leaves me to myself while I scrub away my pain under boiling hot water. Making him up another mug of tea, I place it carefully in front of him. I get the biggest shock when his hand covers mine, patting it softly a few times before pulling back like nothing happened. The tears I’ve been fighting threaten again. I bend down and give him a peck on the cheek before making a quick retreat. He says nothing, watching me walk off with Mum’s plate.
The walk home clears my head a bit, although not as much as that hand pat, and I realise how silly it all sounds. How could a young woman disappearing over fifty years ago have anything to do with Laney? Unless those Potter boys are some kind of Deliverance freaks, going around taking black girls every few decades. I want to laugh it off, but what other options are there? I know I’m deliberately shying away from the other possibilities.
Remember daughter, the world is a lot bigger than anyone knows. There are things that science may never explain. Maybe some things that shouldn’t be explained.
Mum’s voice intrudes. These women are sending me nuts.
Then again, Mum might know the story of the girl, but asking her about it now would be suicide. I see Laney’s face and know I have to try. I hope Mum understands.
Day 1, Night
An hour later guilt has raised its ugly head. Not only did I confess to Mum what Pop had told me, it also forced out the story of my nightmare. Mum’s complete silence as she stood at the kitchen counter refusing to look at me leaves me with the horrifying feeling that she’s crying. I mumble an apology, say something about my English assignment, and go to my room to stare at the ceiling in misery. A soft tap at my open door and I look up to see Uncle Joe’s face, glancing nervously around. Another thing men don’t do is go into their niece’s bedrooms alone. All the family had left before I got back. Uncle stayed so he and Mum can do a few laps around the most obvious places Laney might go.
I sit up, pull my port off my desk chair and wave him onto it. He drops down with a grunt that means his knees are playing up again. Too many years of footy, Mum says.
‘I heard what you asked your mother.’
I nod, ducking my head and waiting for the chewing out I know I deserve. When his voice comes again it is much quieter. I look up to see him sneaking glances at the door.
‘Your grandfather on your father’s side told me a story once, bout a woman that disappeared. Only when she came back she wasn’t the same. They reckon she was …’ He looks at me and I swear I see pain there, when normally there’s nothing but strength. All of our black men have to be a certain way too.
‘I don’t think it’s the same thing, niece, or I hope it isn’t. And knowin this won’t help us any. It’ll make us worry that much more about er.’
‘Please Uncle. Please tell me the story.’
Ordinarily begging doesn’t work, but I think his worry over Laney forces him.
‘It was May.’
An image flickers through my head and I recoil.
‘Mad May Miller?’ I whisper violently. Uncle looks at the door again and he makes ‘quiet down’ motions with his hands. Stuff ‘quiet’. There’s no way my sister is coming back like that.
‘Did it really happen?’
I feel bad saying it, but I’ve seen this woman talk a blue streak to herself all my life. Her mob try to keep her home but she still gets out, like the other morning. Warngee she might be, but she can still get past them. Sometimes kids will make fun of her but only to each other, no one teases her to her face. I always figure it takes a certain level of cruelty to do that to someone so defenceless, and most people don’t have that in them. I’d seen Cassie and her two cousins do it once outside the school gates. I was so full of disgust I went to find Sam Miller at his usual spot in dete
ntion. He didn’t say anything, just ran out to stare Cassie down before leading May away. I don’t think they’ve liked each other after that. Cassie had looked up to where I was standing and I’d stared straight back. She knew what I’d done.
‘It was in the papers and all. Grandfather said that whatever happened it made her that way.’ His voice drops even lower and I have to lean in to hear him properly. ‘They reckon it was the property owners took her and her father went after them for payback.’
He is so uncomfortable he’s shaking both legs uncontrollably, but I hold my tongue this time. My silence encourages him to keep going.
‘The newspapers said he was tried and convicted, but they reckon it was an old-fashioned lynchin that day. All those people’d be dead and buried now but.’ Uncle must’ve hit his limit because he suddenly straightens and that stern expression I am so familiar with is aimed fair at me. ‘Now you know there’s nothing there, leave it at that.’
He pushes up from his chair and goes back to the doorway, having a quick look out to see where Mum is. He pauses for one second to look back at me. ‘And don’t tell your mother I told you that neither.’
Hurrying out, he vanishes just as Mum comes through the other door, the one that leads to what used to be a verandah and was built in at some point to create another room. She sits on the end of my bed and glares at me. I resist the urge to tuck my knees into my chest and wait her out. She’s been swinging violently between crying and fury all afternoon.
‘Do you know where your sister is?’ Her voice slices off every word.
‘No, I swear.’
I know I’ve stuffed up even before I see her fingers clench the doona.
‘And how am I supposed to believe that after all the lyin you been doin?’
I drop my eyes.
Ghost Bird Page 5
