The Indigo Sky

by Alison Booth

  She lifted the top of the piano seat. After putting the sheets of music inside the compartment, she found a Shostakovich prelude. When she’d finished playing it, she felt more restored than she’d been an hour before. Next she really should try to get some sleep.

  As she climbed into bed, Peter stirred.

  ‘Sweet dreams, darling,’ she whispered.

  ‘I missed you.’

  ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘Still missed you though.’

  ‘Did you get teased when you were a boarder?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you tease anyone else?’

  ‘Not really. Well, never in the nasty way I think you mean. You’ve been reading Philip’s letter again, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I never noticed anything like that at my school.’

  He was the sort of man whom everybody liked, in spite of his deep reserve. As a boy he would have been popular too. Average at schoolwork, good at sport, good-looking, kind-hearted and generous. The sort of kid all the others would want to befriend. But if he’d been put into the wrong milieu, what would have happened to him? He would have survived, just as he’d managed to survive the prisoner-of-war camp. He was strong, even allowing for the panic attacks.

  Lorna had everything going for her except she was neither black nor white. Half-caste, how Ilona hated those words. What would have happened to Lorna if she’d been sent to an ordinary high school like Zidra, instead of to a training home for domestics that was intent on destroying her identity? ‘Is what Philip’s going through so different to Lorna’s experience?’ she said.

  At this, Peter sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. For an instant she felt guilty at disturbing his sleep. He looked tired and there were crease marks on his cheek where it had pressed against the pillow. ‘They’re very different,’ he said quietly. ‘But I agree with you. Both are forced to be where they don’t want to be, so in a sense both are imprisoned. In one case the parents want the child to be there, in the other case they don’t.’

  Gently he pulled her head onto his shoulder and they sat in silence for several minutes until the hall clock chimed four times. ‘Go to sleep now,’ he said, switching off the lamp. ‘Think of some music. I heard you playing the piano earlier.’

  ‘What was I playing?’

  ‘Shostakovich.’

  Thank God he hadn’t heard the Talivaldis, she thought. Don’t want any jealousy; he doesn’t deserve to feel that. Inhaling deeply his scent of warm skin and cotton pyjamas, she at last felt herself drifting to sleep.

  Chapter 32

  Two days before they were to head north to Jervis Bay, Zidra’s bag was already packed. Not much, just a couple of changes of clothes and her swimmers. There had to be room in the boot for the sheets and towels they were taking, enough for them and the Hunters who mightn’t have any spare linen. Through the tourist information place, Mama had discovered some cabins about half a mile from the boarding house where the Gudgiegalah girls would stay, and she’d booked two. Endlessly popping up and down the stairs to the attic with new instructions, she seemed as nervous as Zidra felt. The most natural way of meeting Lorna, she had decided, was on the beach in front of where the girls would be staying, so they must be prepared to spend quite a few hours on the sand. At this point a beach umbrella was added to her list of things to pack, plus the inevitable zinc cream and sunhats.

  The night before they were to leave, Zidra took down from her shelves the book she’d decided to give to Lorna, The Two Fires, by Judith Wright. She opened it and flicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for.

  Those dark-skinned people who once

  named Cooloolah

  knew that no land is lost or won by wars,

  for earth is spirit: the invader’s feet will tangle

  in nets there and his blood be thinned by fears.

  Earth is spirit: that meant so much to Zidra but what would this poem mean to Lorna? She had no idea and there’d be little chance of finding out over the next few days. Mama had emphasised, again and again, that they could only hope to see Lorna briefly, and that the available time would be for Lorna’s mother.

  One of Zidra’s anxieties was that she wouldn’t recognise her old friend. She would have changed, just as Zidra herself had altered. She stood in front of the long wardrobe mirror and inspected her reflection. Was she all that different from four years ago? In appearance, certainly. She was above average height and had breasts and hips and a waist. Her brown hair and eyes were the same, of course, but now her olive skin was inclined to spots that she would squeeze discreetly last thing at night and dab with metho that she’d taken from under the kitchen sink. All sorts of new information – relevant and otherwise – was stuffed into her head, but no one could see that or know her memories and patterns of thinking. Yet she was essentially the same, a flawed bundle of idiosyncrasies that she would never be able to alter, no matter how hard she might want to be someone else. Someone who was less critical, someone who laughed a lot like Sally and made everyone else happy. Someone who was brave and rebellious like Lorna. Narrowing her eyes at her reflection, she visualised Lorna standing by her side. Her dark-skinned friend who had been declared sufficiently light-skinned to become Australian. To become interned, as Mama described it. Perhaps she’d still be taller than Zidra but not by much, and those lovely dark curls would be cut short.

  How would being interned have changed Lorna? Would she be embittered or defeated? Zidra pulled out of her desk the letter she’d received from Lorna before Christmas and read it again. I’M ALWAYS GETTING INTO TROUBLE – THAT’S NOTHING NEW – AND THEN I GET LOCKED IN THE BOXROOM. THEY DON’T KNOW I CAN GET OUT THE ROOF LIGHT AND sit on THE ROOF. HA HA. This was definitely the same girl Zidra had met when she first came to Jingera. The same defiant spirit.

  Zidra gazed out of the dormer window that faced east, and saw the moonlight glinting over the ocean. Shortly Lorna would see her mother and that was the point of the expedition.

  Zidra and her mother were simply making possible a reunion between Lorna and Mrs Hunter and she mustn’t hope for any more than to bring them together again, however briefly. Yet in spite of this her stomach fluttered with anticipation, and it was several hours before she was able to fall asleep.

  It seemed only minutes later that her mother’s hand was on her shoulder. ‘Wake up, Zidra. We’ve a long drive ahead of us and I promised the Hunters we’d collect them by nine o’clock.’

  After rushing Zidra into the car, her mother drove uncharacteristically fast along the dirt road to Bermagui, so fast that Zidra had to shut her eyes at several points. Eventually she said, ‘Slow down, Ma. We’re far too early. We don’t want to be hanging around at the Reserve making the Hunters nervous while they finish their packing.’

  ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘Just before eight. It says so on the car clock.’

  ‘I always keep my eyes on the road when I drive, not on the clock.’

  Or the speedometer, Zidra thought, but kept this to herself. Although they arrived at Wallaga Lake a good fifteen minutes too early, the Hunters were ready. Rather formally attired, they were waiting on the grass just before the settlement, with a group of twenty or so Aborigines and half-a-dozen dogs. Smoke from the chimneys of several of the shacks drifted up through the still morning air, and the lake glimmered palely in the distance. The mountain to the north-west was barely visible, shrouded in mist. On the ground in front of the Hunters was an old overnight bag.

  ‘Thank God they’re ready. And travelling light too, Zidra. They don’t have much. You could learn from that.’

  Zidra laughed. She had a fraction of the luggage that her mother had packed.

  Everyone smiled and stared curiously at her mother as she got out of the car. If she hadn’t felt so anxious
, Zidra might have felt put out at the lack of attention to herself. Probably they were staring because of her mother’s act of generosity, although really it had been Zidra’s idea, or maybe it was her mother’s huge grin as she hugged Mrs Hunter and shook Mr Hunter’s hand. She looked as happy as if the journey was over, when they still had hours of driving ahead of them yet.

  Eventually the Hunters were settled into the back seat. After they were waved off, Zidra became increasingly absorbed in her own anxieties. She was only dimly aware of the sporadic conversation of her mother and the Hunters as they headed north, and even less aware of the countryside through which they passed. Her nervousness blossomed as the miles passed. What if the Gudgiegalah girls didn’t turn up? What if Lorna had got into trouble yesterday and had been banned from making the trip? What if the girls did turn up but Lorna couldn’t get away? Anything and everything could go wrong.

  Ilona watched the Hunters, who were sitting in the shade of one of the Norfolk Island pines. Behind the row of pines was an unkempt stretch of scrub separating the beach at Jervis Bay from the road. Leaning against the rough bark, the Hunters appeared to be settling in for a long wait and trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, although what they were wearing was a little incongruous for the beach. They were dressed as if for a funeral, with Tommy wearing a dark suit and Molly the navy blue long-sleeved dress she’d worn yesterday on the drive from Wallaga Lake to Jervis Bay. Ilona understood their reasoning though. Today was to be an occasion.

  Though it had rained the night before, the sky was cloudless and the ground no longer damp. Ilona and Zidra had planted the beach umbrella in the sand opposite the guesthouse and about thirty yards away from where the Hunters were sitting. Perhaps they’d arrived at the beach too early, but they’d all agreed the night before that this was best, in case the Gudgiegalah girls came out for an early morning swim or were taken on a bus expedition. That was what Ilona most feared, that they’d be whisked off for the day to some other spot, leaving the four of them hanging about on the beach and gazing at the holiday-makers and the calm surface of the bay. At another time she might have thought the flat expanse of blue water beautiful, with its waves that were little more than ripples lapping against the white sand. The low headlands at each end of the beach were dense with eucalyptus trees, whose white trunks dappled with grey were contorted into fantastic shapes by weather less clement than today’s. Yet the prospect of spending the entire day here without meeting the girls filled her with gloom. Nothing to do but swim and fish and wait, and all of them would become more nervous as the seconds ticked by.

  The previous evening, she’d gossiped a bit with the man who ran the fish and chip shop. He’d confirmed that a party of girls was staying at the boarding house. ‘Half-caste girls,’ he’d reported. ‘From somewhere out west. They come here every year for a few days.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  He’d looked at her in surprise. ‘Play on the beach and swim and go for walks. Do what everyone down here does on holiday.’

  ‘We’re doing the same, plus some fishing as well,’ she said. ‘Though I never can catch anything. That’s why I’m ordering fish and chips.’

  Tommy Hunter could catch fish of course. That’s what he had been doing when Ilona first met him on the jetty in Jingera lagoon. On this trip to Jervis Bay he’d brought his fishing line. It was as good a way as any to justify hanging around by the water for hours, but he hadn’t got the line out yet.

  Now Ilona, sitting on the sand under the shade of the beach umbrella, felt the muscles in her foot convulse in a cramp and she stood up to ease them. Some ten minutes ago Zidra had grown restless and taken herself for a walk to the far end of the beach. Ilona could see her slender figure striding towards the low sandstone bluff. The Hunters were still sitting immobile under the Norfolk pine. On the other side of the road was the boarding house, a pale green fibro construction with a passageway running along the front and at first floor level a verandah. Curiously there were no windows facing the front and the view, but only doors. The windows must all look out over the bush behind.

  ‘Someone’s comin’ out,’ Tommy said.

  He had better sight than she did, although after squinting at the figure she could see it was an old man tipping what seemed to be a bag of kitchen scraps into one of the garbage bins in the front yard. That meant breakfast was over.

  At this moment Molly Hunter became agitated. After whispering something to Tommy, she stood up and hurried down the road in the direction of the cabins. This would never do, Lorna would be sure to appear as soon as her mother left. Ilona ran across the sand to where Tommy was sitting.

  ‘Where’s she going?’

  ‘Back to the cabins. Call of nature.’

  ‘But she can’t go now.’

  Tommy shrugged. ‘If you’ve got to go . . .’

  Ilona ran after Molly. ‘Can’t you go behind a bush?’ There weren’t any lavatory facilities anywhere in sight and it would take Molly a good fifteen minutes to get to the cabins and back.

  ‘No likem.’ Molly looked more anxious than ever and her voice quavered slightly.

  Ilona rested her hand on Molly’s arm for an instant as she said, ‘It doesn’t matter where you go. There are plenty of bushes. I’ll wait for you here and look the other way.’

  Afterwards they walked back together to where Tommy was sitting.

  ‘No sign yet but I heard some voices.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ilona said, although she was as nervous as if she was expecting to see her own daughter after an absence of over four years.

  ‘Hard not to,’ Tommy said. ‘She’ll be punished if they see us.’

  ‘She won’t,’ Ilona said soothingly. ‘The meeting will be a coincidence.’ She had been through the same debate in her own mind again and again. Would Lorna suffer more if her part in today’s enterprise was found out than if she didn’t see her mother? Each time she’d decided that the answer was no. Family was worth everything, every small risk. To have even a short time together, to hold one another, however briefly. She thought of that moment when she’d hugged her own mother for the last time just before the selection. Before she’d been chosen to live and her mother to die in the gas ovens of the concentration camp. Quickly, she brushed away a tear. Her own memories mustn’t be allowed to spoil today for the Hunters. She needed to have all her wits about her to navigate through whatever lay ahead of them.

  ‘The girls will come out soon, and no one will notice what happens,’ she said. ‘It will be a casual meeting. And if someone sees you, I’ll create a diversion.’ She’d anticipated this, dressing for the occasion in an exuberant orange and pink shift dress, and the lime-green straw sunhat that she’d ordered by mail from David Jones in Sydney, and that was more flamboyant than it had appeared in the catalogue. Your look-at-me hat was how Zidra had described it. The plan was for Ilona to engage whoever accompanied the children in conversation while Zidra joined the girls in whatever they were doing. Lorna was to slip away to see her parents up by the Norfolk pine, although she didn’t know this yet.

  They were still there, her mother and the Hunters, waiting for something to happen. Zidra kicked so hard at the fine white sand that some of it flew up into her face. Angrily she brushed it away. In the string bag she was carrying was the book for Lorna, though she was beginning to doubt that they would ever find her. Anyway what would she want with a book of silly poems, she’d have no time for those, or maybe it would be confiscated. Irritably Zidra pulled at the strap of the swimming costume that she was wearing under her white shorts and navy blue shirt. Although her swimmers were too small, she was determined to wait until next season to get a replacement. Her mother always made such a fuss about buying anything these days – it had to be just so, anyone would think she was the teenager – that even tight swimmers were to be preferred to the alternative.

&
nbsp; Today nothing might happen unless they took some action. She started to walk along the sand towards where the beach umbrella was positioned, but shortly afterwards changed her mind and headed towards the road. Soon she crossed it, and strolled across the bitumen yard of the boarding house to the main entrance. There was no one behind the desk, but she could hear voices from the back garden. She sauntered straight through the lobby and out the glazed door on the other side. A group of about eight girls, of varying skin colour and ages, were playing rounders.

  Zidra saw Lorna right away in the far corner of the yard and caught her breath.

  Probably the oldest girl there, she was certainly the tallest. The girl who was batting thwacked the ball Lorna’s way and she ran for it with that same speed and athletic grace that had made her the fastest runner of all the girls at Jingera primary school.

  There were no adults around, though you couldn’t tell who might be watching from the windows. Zidra stood unnoticed, her back against the fibro wall of the building, under the cantilevered first floor verandah running its width. Two girls aged maybe seven or eight were sitting on the grass at the back of the yard, just in front of the high paling fence. They weren’t talking or even watching the game. One was pulling out handfuls of grass and methodically shredding them. The other, staring at the ground with a dazed expression on her face, was rocking backwards and forwards to some inner rhythm.

  Lorna was not detached though. Lorna was racing around the yard exhorting the girls who were playing. Despite the shapeless dress of some checked material, she appeared even prettier than Zidra remembered. Surrounded by these other girls who were involved in the game, she was no outcast, not like the two little girls on the sidelines. She was a part of this group, maybe even the leader.

  At this thought Zidra began to feel oddly excluded. Now she was the outsider, an interloper observing her old friend. Unable to move, she stood so still that an insect settled on her hair. Quickly she flicked it away. This movement must have caught Lorna’s attention. Although she didn’t wave, she began to jog towards Zidra as naturally as if she was running for a catch.