‘You are not going to train tomorrow?’
‘No. You can go with Darcy and his mob.’
‘I don’t vont to go . . . not for long vile yet.’
‘Eh? Oh, I see . . . that business last time. It seems so long ago. But you mustn’t let that worry you.’
She drew close to him as they walked. ‘I cannot help vorry.’
‘Why?’ Lightly with his cheek he touched the glinting copper falling on his shoulder.
For a few steps she was silent, then said with a sigh, ‘I am fright’ somezing happen spoil my happiness.’ She paused again, then added quickly: ‘I must go svim in Rainbow Pool, so zey cannot tek me avay.’
‘Eh . . . who’s going to take you away?’
‘I am not naturalise’ citizen . . .’
‘Rubbish! What about all the Jews coming? They’ll all have to wait for three years, or whatever the period is. Anyway, you don’t swim in that pool till I’m there to watch you . . .’ He broke off with a laugh, adding: ‘And since I’m not a blackfellow, that means you buy a bathing suit first.’
She giggled, dropped her head, to rub it against his chest.
When on their return Kurt was told of the idea to challenge the anti-semitism of Free Australia, he also showed lack of enthusiasm, in fact more actively than Rifkah had. Frowning over it, he said more harm than good always came out of attacking anti-semites, since it only increased their antagonism — best to make them feel silly by ignoring it. Jeremy declared, ‘Ignoring it didn’t do you much good in Germany, did it?’
Kurt shrugged in his elaborate way. ‘Australia is different. Zis zing is only small European influence.’
‘It’s the small influences we’ve got to get rid of, whether German, Scotch, Irish, Greek, Italian, as well as the big British.’
‘But not Jewish?’ asked Kurt with a sly smile.
Jeremy showed his puzzlement to their attitude with his expression. Still, he compromised by agreeing to tackle the thing not as an evil in itself, but something foreign to Australia, that, being so, must retard the Movement’s avowed ideal of true nationhood. He said he would not mention the experiences of Kurt and Rifkah, or the mooted settlement. Kurt said that publicity in the first case could harm people who’d helped them out of bondage, and in the second embarrass those he called his Principals with too many importuning refugees.
It certainly made the job harder for Jeremy, who next morning red-eyed, confessed that he was far from having a draft to present for criticism. Still, he was also far from displeased with his efforts because he could see shaping a subtle use of the delicate subject to drive home that point of his about ridding the community of those ancient importations which retarded its growth and at the same time do something for the Aboriginal cause by comparing it with that of the Jews.
Kurt went along to Beatrice with the Darcys and Prindy, and returned to report that he’d received word from his Principals to say they would be along, flying their own aircraft, any day, if it suited Jeremy. In reply Jeremy sounded well enough pleased. But such was the effect of the news on Rifkah as to cause her to show but half-hearted interest in the bushel or so of ripe plums also brought back, when she had been so full of what she was going to do with them. Also, she scarcely seemed to hear the personal message Kurt had for her, from Clancy, who evidently in reply to something Denzil had said to him about her after all, sent his affectionate regards in return and hoped to see her again soon.
Rifkah’s moody preoccupation persisted, so that out on the walk that evening Jeremy asked what was wrong. She sighed. ‘Too many people come to us. I am fright’ for my loffly peace.’
‘They’ll be calling you a Scrub Cow, if they find you’re hiding from ’em.’
But she wasn’t amused. ‘It haf been so loffly, I am fright’ it cannot last.’
‘Why not use that magic formula of yours to ward off the demons of ill-omen . . . Kayn Aynhorah?’
‘Better I use ze magic of ze country and svim in se Rainbow Pool.’
‘You just keep out of that pool, my lady, till I’m ready, and you’re equipped, for proper and decent baptism.’
‘Baptism . . . vot is?’
He explained, going on to tell of similar forms of primitive initiation ceremony, coming back to Christianity to express his old hatred and contempt. She was in a mood for that. She told him how her Bubbeh and Zaydeh in tales of the hardships of their early days told of being chased and caught by Christian children, who having forced them to confess that they had killed Christ the Saviour, baptised them with urine. Tauchen she called the ceremony of baptism. That made Jeremy blaze: ‘The bastards! Was there ever anything so hypocritically low as a Christian?’
‘Shush!’ she murmured.
‘Why . . . are you frightened of the dogs even out here?’
‘I am alvays a lil bits fright.’
‘Well, I’ll see to it that you never have cause to be frightened again.’
‘Zank you, dear Jeremy . . . I loff you!’
For a moment they clung kissing. Then he held her off, breathing heavily, starting to talk about his literary piece.
II
Do a thing three times running and it becomes a habit. Do it in company and it becomes an institution. So said Jeremy over breakfast on Thursday morning when he heard Rifkah and Prindy planning another barramundi fishing.
Again it was a picnic affair, with something like a dozen going along, counting those tots double-banking with grown-ups. Again with the use of infallible methods, the fishing was routine. They took only three big fellows, two for home, one for the piendi bake. The bake was on, and the entire company in the water, playing, when Prindy caught a sound and called for silence. With head cocked northward, he said, ‘Aeroplane.’ The adult females came rushing from the water to dress.
However, there was no aerial peeping-tom business this time, even though the aeronaut again was Fergus, according to Prindy’s almost undoubted judgment. The aircraft was not even seen. Apparently it came in low over the Plateau and straight in to land. Rifkah was the only one to doubt, suggesting that it might be another aerial party that was due any day and arguing that the General had said it would be two or three weeks before he was back again. Perhaps her doubting was due more to fear than to lack of confidence on those marvellous ears, as betrayed by her look and her repeated question, ‘Vy ze General vont to come back so soon?’ The others noted her fear, that haggard look, new to all save Prindy, and exchanged coveted glances over it. Prindy stared at her frankly, as if waiting for her to communicate her fear to him.
She ate but little of the tasty lunch, and as soon as it was over and the others settling for a nap, came out with the first of that communication to Prindy: ‘I do not sleep. I vont to ride.’ Prindy leapt up at once and ran to get the horses. She told the others that when they were ready they might go on home with the fish. When she was with Prindy saddling up, she said, ‘I vont to svim in pool now.’ His lips framed the inhalation: Eh, look out!
As they rode, she said, ‘Might be ze General haf come to tek me avay. I moost haf ze magic to help me.’ She went on to explain the half-threat and the intricacies of Naturalisation and Deportation. Evidently he didn’t understand much of what she was saying, but was no less forthright in declaring that he wouldn’t let her be taken away.
At the pool they simply slipped their horses’ bits, and left them, docile Snowball and Sugarbag, to graze on the bit of verdure behind the little beach.
As Rifkah stripped, of necessity much slower than her companion, she stared at the pool, at the mirror smoothness close in, unbroken till it met the rocks on the downside and poured smoothly down to become the river, at the emerald deep shaded by the rocky wall across the way and mysteriously flowing backward. A family of tiny sunbirds were bathing in the cascades constituting debouchment of Knowles’ Creek, making tiny rainbows with ruffled plumage of purple and gold.
At last, in the ivory and copper-touched buff, she gave Prindy her hand. H
e would have rushed her in. She held back, and halted at knee-deep, plopping down when he tried to pull her, sat with water to her breasts, and took handfuls and dashed it over her shoulders. He insisted that she must come out to swim. She argued that she could not swim well enough, that it was sufficient to have a dip to ensure that bond between you and the pool, according to the Mullaka. Prindy argued that it was all right for ordinary white people to do that, but not she, who was to become his mother. When she questioned him about this, he told her that the Pookarakka had come to him one night and told him that she was not just a whitewoman but a Shade of Koonapippi and might become his Koyu, or Mumma, if she let the Old One take a good look at her up through his hole in the water there and he was pleased with her. She listened in astonishment, reassuming that haggardness which had passed off as soon as she’d entered the water. ‘Come on!’ he kept on saying, tugging at her hand. ‘Come on . . . you got ’o come.’ Almost moaning, she declared that she would drown out there. He said, ‘Old One can’t drown’d you. He want you for my Koyu. You come . . . you come . . . I Sing you come!’
Dazedly at last she let herself be pulled forward to knees, flopped onto her breast, began to swim, in her own fashion, breaststroke. He swum around her, shepherding her. So out to the green, into the edge of the pull, pull, pull, and round it, with set face and steady stroke, stroke, stroke. The sunbirds shrilled and came to hover and look. She seemed not to see them, to see anything. Prindy kept on the inside here, occasionally submerging a little, as if to see what was going on below. Stroke, stroke, stroke — till they were round, and heading for the shore. She crawled up the wet sand, onto the dry, to lie on her belly, weeping now. He came and sat on haunches beside her, stroking her quivering spine from the lank copper of her hair to the darkish patch in the ivory below which the cleft of her perfect buttocks began. So for a couple of minutes. Then she raised her head, resting on elbows, and looked round at him and smiled through tears. He pulled at her shoulder, causing her to turn right round and sit up. Staring at her gravely, he said, ‘Now you properly my Koyu. You call me Mullikirri. Go on . . . you say.’
She breathed it, ‘Mullikirri.’
She reached for him, her lips projecting to kiss him; but he held her off, saying, ‘Blackfeller don’t kiss. You give me kumilungornu.’
‘Vot is zat?’
‘Titty.’ He reached for her left breast, dusted the sand from it. When she held his hand, he urged, ‘Come on.’
‘Vot for?’ she murmured.
‘Blackfeller way. You my Mumma. Must I suck you.’
‘But you big boy!’
‘No matter. Spone I am not man yet. You give me.’
She released his hand. He dusted a little more, then bent and took the small nipple in his lips, all the while looking into her eyes as she looked into his, grey into hazel. Suddenly she wrapped her arms about him, drew him tight so that his cheek flattened on her breast like a baby’s, the golden against the ivory; and she bent and kissed him between the eyes, breathing, ‘Kleine menscheleh!’
He got his lips free, corrected her: ‘Mullikirri.’
‘Mullikirri,’ she repeated, and rocked him.
They let go, to sit staring at each other. A snort from one of the horses. They swung round to see both beasts standing rigid peering towards the upper falls. Prindy cocked an ear. No sound but that of the waters and of the wind getting up with the declination of the Sun. The wind was blowing towards the falls. The sunbirds had vanished. Now the horses moved towards what had attracted their attention, to halt after a few steps, in the manner of their kind, inquisitive but ever wary. He breathed, ‘Something . . . I go look.’ She rose as he did, grabbed up her clothes, ran with them to cover.
Prindy dived into the thick scrub at the end of the beach, where the ground rose steeply to the ridge that further in became the falls. He climbed up through the rocks, stopping at the top of the ridge crouching to reconnoitre. Nothing to be seen or heard. Here the noise of the water was louder. Still crouching, he advanced through the scrub that flanked the creek. Again he halted, this time at sight of fresh tracks of riding boots going to the edge of the ridge, diagonally towards the falls compared with the way he had come. He followed them, soon found that although they went on towards the falls, they converged with others, these of someone wearing ordinary shoes; a jumble of tracks, as if the two persons had run into each other there and stopped to talk. Evidently both parties had first been to the edge of the pool, perhaps unbeknown to each other until they’d met. The tracks went off together up-creek. Again he followed, came on tracks of a horse, which one man had mounted, while the other walked. More horse tracks and indication of mounting and of the pair’s having ridden off together, away from the creek southwestward, no doubt to dodge the rough stuff lying directly between them and the pool, but making in that direction. He ran. Soon from the edge of the rough stuff he caught a glimpse of them, and surely recognised them: Fergus Ferris and Clancy Delacy, the former on Big Ben, the latter on a handsome bay. He then turned from them and ran directly to the pool. As he went he heard halooing from the men. Rifkah was standing waiting on the grass, fully dressed, but great-eyed with apprehension. Prindy panted his report.
Yodelling, in what must have been Fergus’s voice, was next heard. The horses on the grass got the scent and neighed. Back came an answering neigh. Then there were the riders coming in by the track, Fergus grinning and gaily crying greetings, Clancy looking serious and very much like his father mounted. As Fergus swung down to the ground he said, ‘Having a quiet winky, eh?’
Eyeing him dubiously, Rifkah asked, ‘Vot is vinky?’
‘Vinky-vim . . . a swim. Nice spot for it, too . . . although they say it’s haunted, eh?’
Clancy, dismounting, said stiffly, ‘It’s a very dangerous place.’
‘Not so dangerous now, but,’ said Fergus, and winked at Rifkah, who flushed. He added: ‘I’m going to have a dip myself. Feel like coming in again, beautiful?’ When she didn’t answer, he looked at Prindy. ‘How ’bout you, young feller?’ Prindy nodded. Fergus looked over the golden nakedness: ‘It’s a free country . . . but I don’t suppose I can go in like you.’ He went off towards the scrub where Rifkah had donned her clothes.
Clancy said gravely to Rifkah, ‘You shouldn’t swim here, you know. Quite a lot of people’ve been drowned here.’
She ignored the remark, asking, ‘Did you come in aeroplane?’
Rather too hastily and wordily, Clancy told her: no, he had been riding up the river looking for stock, heard the mob up there at the fish-hole, gone to investigate and learnt that she’d come down this way for a ride, and had thought to pay his respects: ‘I got your regards from Lieutenant Dickey Tuesday evening. Thank you. I thought you’d be in to meet the train yesterday. Looked for you.’ When she glanced towards where Fergus had vanished, he added: ‘I don’t know what he’s doing here. Only met him on the track.’ He scowled as he said it. The scowl deepened as Fergus appeared, clad only in cotton briefs, looking very hairy and athletic, if somewhat undersized. Finding all eyes on him, Fergus assumed the strut of a parading life-saver.
As Fergus came up, Rifkah asked him, ‘Vy you come back so soon?’
‘On account of you, sweetheart . . . just can’t keep away.’
‘Tell me properly. Is ze General come?’
‘Ze General he is come.’
‘Vy?’
‘Tell you later. Private matter. Here goes!’ He dashed into the pool, dived, vanished for seconds, came up in the emerald, laughing, dashing water from his handsome face. Prindy was there already. Fergus set after him. Prindy took him into the danger zone.
‘Lunatic’ll drown himself out there,’ muttered Clancy.
But Fergus was a strong swimmer. He made the circuit easily, and made it again, even diving a bit with Prindy.
Rifkah asked Clancy, ‘Don’t you svim, Mr Clancy?’
‘Drop the Mister, please. Oh, yes, I swim. Out at Catfish we’ve got the best s
wimming hole in the country . . . springboard, slippery dip and all. You must come out sometime.’
‘You have svim in here?’
‘No fear . . . that’s strictly for lunatics . . . I’m sorry, I mean . . . of course you didn’t know about it.’
‘Oh, yes, I do know.’
He stared at her. She smiled and said, ‘I vont to stop zis country alvays.’
‘Oh, that,’ he said, and shrugged.
‘Don’t you believe?’
‘No. Blackfeller superstition.’ Then with a rush he asked, ‘Are you engaged to that pilot chap?’
‘Engage?’
‘Are you going to marry him?’
Rifkah stared for a moment, then laughed her lovely merry laugh. ‘Vere you get zat?’
‘He told me. He told me you’re his girl.’
Another peal of laughter. He sighed in evident relief. ‘I reckoned he was lying.’
The laughter brought Fergus out of the water, looking rather lewd with what the clinging cotton did to his hairy genitals. ‘What’s the big joke?’
Clancy sniggered, ‘You, mate.’
Fergus flushed, but gave the split grin, saying, ‘Yeah? Well just to make it funnier, what about swimmin’ me round the pool three times for a tenner?’
‘I’m not a lunatic,’ snapped Clancy.
Fergus looked him over boldly. ‘Hmm . . . I can see that. It’s the other ticks you’re interested in, ain’t it. What would you be . . . Tick-dipper in Chief round here?’ With a leer he marched off back to the bushes.
Ignoring it, except for getting very red in the face and somewhat breathless, Clancy proceeded to give Rifkah an account of the drownings that had occurred here. She appeared to be having a struggle to suppress an urge to giggle.
Soon Fergus was dressed and back. They went to their horses. As they mounted he said to Clancy, ‘Well, so long, cowboy . . . be seein’ you, I suppose.’
Ignoring him, Clancy said to Rifkah, ‘I’ll ride along with you if you don’t mind.’
Poor Fellow My Country Page 134
