Stars over Shiralee

by Sheryl McCorry

  ‘Come back and hang on, it’s dead!’ Dad roared when the tail sent me tearing up the beach for the third time. But I’d had enough of that, and flatly refused to help any more. My ears had picked up the murmur of voices somewhere beyond the wall of tall spear grass, and soon a group of people came out into the open — they’d heard the shot from their campsites and come to investigate. With their help, the task was quickly done and they all disappeared again with their fresh meat.

  My father was a tough hard man of the outback, fearless and fit, and I wanted to be just like him. He brought up my brothers and me to survive in even tougher conditions. It didn’t matter what was going on, my father was in control and protecting us; we felt safe with him. By contrast, it seemed to me that my husband looked after no one but himself.

  Days crabbing with Eric were a rare relief from the sorry thing my life had become. I slowly slipped into a dark tunnel, isolated from family and friends. There was never a real home for people to visit me at the caravan park, and I felt less and less like going out to see them. My life seemed to be contracting into smaller and smaller circles, and I was worried about the effect all this was having on Robby. He seemed to be withdrawing from everyone, cocooned away in his dingy caravan. He hated Terry’s aggressive moods, and seeing me so miserable. How I wish I had been able to act decisively then and take him away from the damage it was doing to both of us.

  The straw that broke the camel’s back was quite meaningless. It came during a dinner with one of Terry’s friends. The two of them were as full as boots and were telling me how lucky I was to have Terry for a husband. You’d think we lived in different universes.

  I don’t know why, but this particular night I snapped and let them have my honest opinion for the first time. It was almost worth it for the look of utter shock on their faces. ‘I’m sick of hearing how bloody good you are,’ I yelled. ‘You think you’re god’s gift — well I’m here to tell you, mate, you are not!’ I was so mad. But when the friend had gone, Terry brought out his old refrain. ‘You really are mad in the head.’ He almost sounded as if he felt sorry for me. ‘You really need to get that checked out.’

  The next morning I packed my bags and Robby and I left for Perth. I felt an enormous sense of relief on leaving Terry and the park behind. Once I realised I could breathe freely again, without the pent-up tension that had been part of my life for so long, my body wanted only to shut down and sleep.

  I battled to keep going; I wanted to get the greatest distance between me and my husband as I possibly could.

  I was driving on nervous energy, and I hit two kangaroos between Karratha and the Fortescue roadhouse. These were the first roos I’d ever hit while driving, and I doubt I would have hit them had circumstances been different. There was no damage to my trusty Landcruiser, but the deafening whack of the second animal against the bullbar shocked me.

  ‘Stop Mum,’ Robby pleaded. ‘You’re way too tired to keep going tonight.’ He was right. But I was glad we had got beyond Karratha. I don’t know why I was so worried; I didn’t really expect Terry to try to follow us. When I told him I was taking some time out in the south, he had nothing to say, only stood staring at me as though he hadn’t got a clue what was happening — and couldn’t care less anyway.

  We stopped at the Fortescue roadhouse and got a room for the night, and the next morning kept travelling until we arrived at my parents’ house in Northampton, just north of Geraldton. The further south we drove, the more we found ourselves relaxed and smiling. I had no need to explain to my parents why we were there; they knew. Only a few weeks before I had unburdened myself to my mother after a nasty outburst from Terry, and she had encouraged me to take some time away to think.

  That evening I received a phone call from Terry. He was ringing full of gentle concern to make sure we had arrived safely, and told me he loved me.

  ‘Why are you telling me this after months on end of insisting I was mad in the head?’ I said. He had no response. I was thinking, If you want to say something, why not say sorry? This was a word I never heard my husband use.

  After just two days away from him, in a place where I was loved and supported, I could see my husband’s behaviour for what it was. Unpredictable, except that predictably it always left me unsettled, distressed and quite often physically unwell.

  I listened to him speak, feeling almost nothing at all, only sadness for the mess my life was in, and sorrow that it had also affected my son.

  I wasn’t blaming Terry for everything, or for what my marriage had become; I blamed myself for not having my eyes fully open at the very beginning of my life with him. The signs had all been there and I had chosen to ignore them. I thought it would be different. Well I had made my bed and I had to lie in it! I told him I needed some time out.

  Robby and I spent four happy days with my parents. My mother packed a picnic box and in my father’s car we all drove to Port Gregory and Kalbarri. Robby loved listening to his grandfather’s stories of buffalo and croc hunting, and I talked quietly to my mother. She reminded me that I must not let my marriage harm my health, and that my children needed me. These few days of quiet gave me back some strength and serenity, even a little of my confidence. I realised just how much I had doubted my every move, to the point of even having trouble reading a road map — the very map I had read and followed many times before with complete confidence.

  A few days later Robby and I arrived at Leisha and Adam’s unit in Bentley. We would stay with them until Leisha had her baby, then Robby and I would go home to the Shiralee. Adam was at work, and a heavily pregnant Leisha ran out to meet us. It was a pleasant shock to see my daughter this way, though she seemed huge and looked as if she really needed to bring her baby out into the world.

  Leisha and Adam were on cloud nine waiting for the arrival of little Brock McCorry-Smith. They had known their baby’s sex for some months and had named him already.

  In the early hours of Saturday 1 September 2001 Leisha’s waters broke and we all did a mad dash to the Subiaco Natural Birthing Clinic, Robby included.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do it this way, love?’ I asked my girl.

  ‘Yes, Mum. No drugs.’ She was very sure.

  ‘What if the pain becomes too much, do you want something then?’ I asked, not knowing whether she had thought about this.

  ‘No, Mum. I’ve told Adam that even if I ask for drugs he’s not to let them give me anything,’ she said.

  I had been unable to give birth naturally — all my children were Caesarean deliveries, I had no choice. I’d had to have one with my first and was informed that as a result I wouldn’t be able to give natural birth to any subsequent children. So watching my girl suffer the natural pains of childbirth had me suffering with her. Robby couldn’t handle her cries and tried to get out of the building, only to discover he was locked in due to heavy security procedures. Adam seemed to be the calmest of us all. At one point Leisha’s pains became so unbearable for me, I had to get out of the birthing suite, if only for a few minutes. I had been helping Leisha with the oxygen mask, and before leaving the room I instructed Adam on how to use it.

  As I paced the corridor with Robby, who was still trying to find a way out, we couldn’t help but hear Leisha’s cries of pain. Frustrated, I charged back into the room and saw the oxygen mask was not being used. ‘For god’s sake, Adam, put the mask on her,’ I urged. You didn’t get a medal for being brave, not around here anyway.

  Adam ignored me; so, grabbing the mask, I placed it over Leisha’s face, saying to her quietly, ‘Breathe, darling, take big breaths, nice and steady,’ hoping like hell the baby would hurry up and come, not only for Leisha’s sake, but for mine as well. But I could see no effect at all, she wasn’t getting any relief from the oxygen. ‘What’s wrong with this thing?’ I said to Adam in frustration. ‘It’s not working.’ It turned out the mask was more or less useless — this was a natural birthing clinic. I felt like wrapping it around Adam’s neck, thinking, Y
ou’ve done this to my girl, you got her pregnant. Of course I knew it wasn’t his fault. I was a frustrated mother who hated to see her girl hurting.

  Nine and half hours later Brock was born. From the very moment Leisha held him tenderly in her arms, lovingly admiring her new baby, I knew that every scrap of pain was well and truly worth it. Though I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch my daughter give birth again — it was just a bit too traumatic for me.

  Robby and I spent a week in Perth with Leisha and Adam. I had to have some mammograms and ultrasounds for my cancer check-ups, and after that we were able to travel home to the Shiralee. The results were all fine and I had only to keep on taking my daily medication.

  Overflowing with happiness, a wonderful calmness came over me as I walked in through the door of my house. This was my home, and I thanked God for getting us back there safely.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lift the Bloody Plank Yourself

  There was work to be done on the farm, checking fences and drenching cattle for lice and worms. Richard, who is an excellent farmer, had been taking very good care of the Shiralee since Kristy had left. My cattle looked good, and Robby and I were free to take care of that side of things again.

  We were fattening steers, but there was also time to relax. It was whale-watching time on the southern coast, when mothers and their calves were journeying north. I listened to the local ABC radio station and each time there was news of a pod in the Middleton Beach area Robby and I would jump into the Landcruiser and head down to the coast. We spent several weeks enjoying coffee on the beachfront while watching mothers and their calves frolic in the bay. It was just what we needed to blow away the miseries of the past.

  Feeling much better after our idyll in the south, we returned to Perth in October to see Leisha, Adam and the baby. Terry was due to fly into Perth too. It was haymaking time again, and he was coming south to work on the family farms. He’d rung to tell me Molly was unwell and had asked me if I’d come and see her and help out with the haymaking. When it came to working together, I always wanted to say yes. I needed something constructive to do. I understood the pressure on the household with meals and smokos during the haymaking season. This was my chance to spend quality time with Molly too, I liked her and we got on well. The Shiralee was under control, so I drove up to the city to collect him from the domestic terminal and we booked into a motel while Robby stayed with Leisha and Adam.

  We both trod carefully, and I felt Terry was trying to make an effort. We had a few days in the city, then left with Robby to stay in Molly’s house. We would cart cattle to Harvey meatworks and then start on the hay.

  I didn’t feel great about Robby coming to Wildwood, and I was torn about what was the best thing to do. Robby was sixteen years old and it was difficult for him to work with his stepfather. ‘I don’t want to stay here, Mum,’ he said. ‘I’d rather go back to Broome while he’s down here. I can’t stand his yelling and screaming, and he always picks on me, just like he does at the caravan park, he’s never game to pick on the other workers, he knows they’d just knock him down.’

  He’d have preferred us to return to the Shiralee, but at this time in his life I worried about the isolation there. At least in Broome he had his uncles and aunts and cousins. Bruce and Eric made a point of being there for him. In the end, he decided he would return to his job in the caravan park for the time being. At least he wouldn’t have Terry to torment him up there. I had tried many times to speak to Terry about his treatment of Robby, but he never listened. He would just scoff, throw his head in the air like a mad stallion and charge off. But Terry was also cunning enough to never let me catch him intimidating Robby — just as he made sure he was never caught abusing me in the presence of my family.

  A lot of farmhands refused to work alongside Terry. His yelling, shouting and abusing was not confined to me or my son.

  Astonishingly, it was doing farm work that we worked best together, though it still almost always ended badly. With Terry, the offsider inevitably copped it. Early on in our marriage, when all the other workers had walked off the job, I helped him replace an old cattle yard. We were going very well until the moment I did not have the strength he needed from me. ‘Lift it higher,’ my husband demanded as I battled to keep a heavy timber plank level above my head. The muscles in my arms were screaming and there was enough heat in the sun to fry an egg on a shovel.

  ‘Higher!’ he yelled at me furiously. ‘Higher, and hold it. Hold the fucking thing steady!’ But I couldn’t. Dropping the plank to the ground, I swung around to face him and said, ‘Lift the bloody plank yourself!’ I waited until I could draw a deep breath and said more calmly, ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to help you and I’m doing my best? No one else can work with you because you’re always so full of anger.’

  Infuriated, I turned and headed for home. The yard was close to completion anyway. I was hot and perspiring and covered in black dust that irritated me almost as much as the hundreds of flies I was battling.

  Back at the farmhouse Molly came out the front door and wrapped her arms around me, cattle dust and all. Which straightaway brought on the tears. Small, frail, white-haired Molly was tenderly taking care of me. I pulled myself together over a cup of tea and said, ‘Molly, I reckon you must have jumped the fence to have Terry.’

  Molly, standing in the kitchen with the teapot in her hand, burst out laughing.

  I’d often heard Terry say, ‘There’s only one of me.’ He meant it in a self-congratulatory way, but how true, I thought, because he and his brother Jim were as different as chalk and cheese.

  Molly wasn’t well. She had an unnatural drowsiness about her and I took her to the medical centre. Within minutes of her seeing a doctor I was asked to go home and collect a few of her things and to return with them to Busselton Hospital.

  Molly was diagnosed with leukaemia. The prognosis wasn’t good. Terry had arrived by now and when he and I left her in the care of the medical staff, it was with a heaviness in my heart that I walked with my husband down the long corridor and out of the hospital. Only the echo of our footsteps broke the deep silence. I had grown close to Molly. She was very like a mother to me. She told me I was the daughter she never had and confided in me, telling me some very personal secrets and giving me a list of things she wanted me to do if anything happened to her.

  That evening when we went back to the hospital, Molly had been given a blood transfusion. The sight of her lying listlessly in her hospital bed, pale and lethargic, brought back painful memories of old McCorry. Pulling my chair close by the bed, I held her frail hand.

  ‘How are you feeling, has the blood transfusion helped?’ I asked.

  ‘Dear,’ Molly said, ‘I don’t feel very well at all.’ She didn’t look well, and her hand was very cold. Then she said, ‘Would you mind if I don’t have any more transfusions?’

  This hit me like a smack in the face. Molly was asking me to help her make a life-and-death decision, not Terry. Without further transfusions, she could go downhill fast, and I am sure she knew that.

  Hay season was in full swing. Everyone was working from dawn to dusk to get the hay in. I was working flat out with Terry but every evening I would go to town to visit Molly.

  She didn’t have another transfusion, but five days later she was sitting up in bed doing crosswords, her favourite pastime. I was so happy to see her stronger, but alas, it didn’t last long. Over the next few days she gradually drifted back to the state she’d been in when she was admitted.

  On Thursday, 8 November Molly was again sitting propped up in bed, working on her crossword, and I decided I would stay. I could spend the next day and night with her to keep her company. With my lounge chair stretched out beside her hospital bed, I dozed off while holding Molly’s pale and delicate hand in mine. Twice through the night I woke to check on her, then fell back to sleep. The third time I woke, her hand was quite cold. I sat bolt upright in my chair, and cried softly, ‘Molly, Molly, wake up.’ I couldn’t
find a pulse. Her hand seemed too cold. Dear Molly had passed on and I didn’t know exactly when.

  I stood by her bedside and my vision blurred with tears as I thought how much I admired this woman who had gone without for most of her adult life to help build up a family farming empire. Molly’s death brought back unresolved feelings of emptiness and loneliness from McCorry’s death. Now I was feeling even more isolated. But I did feel grateful to have had her in my life, and still feel Molly was the only gift my marriage really brought me.

  I stood there and thought of another death, on Louisa Downs years before. Kaye, a slightly built, always quiet Aboriginal girl, had been absent from the station for three weeks. Asking after her whereabouts, I was informed, ‘She was kidnapped by some Balgo boys, Missus.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’ I echoed in astonishment. ‘They can’t do that; people can’t just take you away against your will.’

  Their replies were vague and I let the matter rest, presuming she was visiting people, though Balgo men had a bad reputation in Halls Creek. Then she was back at the station and not at all well, and three days later she passed away. I understood that she too had leukaemia, similar to Molly’s. She had had no treatment.

  Another grave to dig with a crowbar and shovel. Filling the forty-four-gallon drums with water we dampened the ground and dug, early morning and late evening in the cooler weather. It was hard going, the ground was so rugged and stony. I worried about a small boulder that protruded a third of the way down at one end of the grave. I pointed it out to the men who were helping to dig the grave. ‘We should get this out,’ I said. ‘Nah, him right,’ replied one. Sacred, superstitious or lazy, I don’t know. I could see they wanted the job completed in a hurry.

  Aboriginal people gathered from surrounding camps and communities to pay their last respects to Kaye. Katie asked for calico, and I gave her a sheet which they tore into scarves and wore to show they were in mourning. Coolabah performed the service.