Stars over Shiralee

by Sheryl McCorry

  One morning’s filming began at a beautiful billabong selected by the Aboriginal women. It was snuggled behind low sandhills and trickled into a stream that flowed slowly out to the ocean. The dark water of the billabong was covered with a blanket of blue waterlilies. Old paperbark trees dotted the surrounding area and provided shade, but also made it difficult to note any kind of movement in the waterhole.

  Dad was aware that crocodiles frequented this otherwise enchanting billabong and wasn’t happy that this particular site had been chosen for the filming. He had been taking readings from sand movement gauges on the beaches as part of his work at the time, and often found reptile tracks heading into the spring which led into the billabong.

  A number of women were waist deep in the billabong, the water droplets on their breasts like jewellery in the sun. Floating coolamons — shallow dishes made from the paper-bark trees — carried the waterlily bulbs they were collecting for bush tucker. My father stretched himself out on an over-hanging paperbark branch, his gun at the ready.

  It’s a rule of filmmaking that the film always runs out in the middle of the best shot. The gofer for the second camera unit was sent back to the Landrover, a half-mile walk through the scrub, to collect more film. On his way back, he decided to take a short cut and in a thicket of tangled vines and pandanus trees met a sleepy old bull buffalo head on. ‘AAAAH, HELLPP, HELLPP!’ came his anguished cry, a mixture of pommy accent, city slicker and sick terror echoing out of the thicket.

  Suddenly both man and beast burst into the open with a hell of a racket, the gofer screaming and the buffalo bull snorting as he charged straight for the film crew. Then the Aboriginal women joined in the chorus, screaming in panic; this somehow had the effect of diverting the buffalo, which changed direction and galloped obligingly in front of the first cameraman. The buffalo stopped suddenly, sending dirt and debris flying high into the air with his hooves. He was angry. An aggressive shake of those huge horns, a tremendous snort, and he charged again, lunging towards the terrified crew.

  ‘Him proper angry one,’ yelled Mary.

  ‘You gonna shoot him, Mr Snow?’ said another of the women.

  Dad had no plans to shoot the ‘old fella’ buffalo — it was probably too tough to eat. He figured it would run out of steam and simply drift away shortly.

  In all the panic, the first cameraman somehow kept shooting, right up to the moment he was thrown aside by the agitated beast as it made its final pass before heading off into the scrub again. Camera and man, tangled in metres of cords and unravelled film that had spilled out of the camera, went arse up on the ground, and yells and cries of fear and laughter filled the air as everyone converged to untangle the mess left behind by the buffalo.

  Luckily other cameras were recording the exciting events, so all was not lost. The shoot in the billabong went on for another three days, during which time Mr Snow’s crocodile count happily did not increase and the women harvested all their waterlily bulbs safely.

  Back at Wildwood I sank myself back into writing. I felt an urgency to complete the story of my Kimberley life, to give the children a picture of their mother when she was firing on all cylinders! When I reached the point of old McCorry’s dying, I knew I’d done what I wanted to do. I hadn’t even realised it till then, but the memoir that was to become Diamonds and Dust was also a testament to my old cattleman, my children’s father.

  There were plenty of stories about McCorry that didn’t make it into the first book. We had a lot of years together, and I couldn’t put all of them in. There was a funny story — well, I didn’t think it was so funny at the time! — when we were mustering out the back of the Robinson River on Oobagooma station in the late sixties. Competition in mustering the boundaries of your station before your neighbour did was ferocious. People would listen in on the party line to find out when neighbours were planning a boundary muster. The properties had no fences and the cattle wandered where they wanted in search of fresh green grass, from one property to the next. In my twenty-year-old eyes, the better cattleman was the one who knew and understood both the cattle and the untamed country — the one who mustered more cleanskins than their neighbour did. The Wild West had nothing on outback Kimberley!

  I was out on a cattle muster with old McCorry, way out back on the boundary, years before we married. The stockmen rose each day at 4.30 am; we all had a pannikin of black tea made in Dingo Flour drums and warm damper smothered with treacle for breakfast. After breakfast I collected, checked and oiled the bull straps for the day’s work. There was no point chasing feral bulls if I couldn’t secure them safely once the bull buggy had them on the ground for me to strap. This was my morning ritual before I left the camp each day.

  One morning McCorry walked over with an old .303 rifle in his hand, leaned it up against a gum tree, then turned to face me. Looking straight at me, his eyes black beneath the brim of his hat, he gave me orders that shocked me.

  ‘I want you to spend the day on that hill over there,’ he said, and he seemed deadly serious, although I couldn’t always tell when he was joking, ‘Keep your eyes out for any horsemen, and if the manager rides into camp, gut-shoot him.’ He was always talking about gut-shooting someone, though to my knowledge, he had never shot anyone.

  I looked at him, amazed. He pointed to the .303. ‘There’s the rifle, he’ll be well over his boundaries if he gets this far. And don’t worry about his stockmen, they’ll only be following orders,’ he added.

  ‘What do you mean? You don’t want me to shoot them, only the manager?’ I said, incredulous. Not that I was going to shoot anyone, in any part of their body, not even for McCorry. ‘That’s right,’ he said and, not giving me time to question him further, turned and walked away, and in a moment was up in the saddle, off on another day’s muster.

  Bloody hell, I thought, looking from the gun to McCorry’s disappearing back as he and the stockmen vanished against the thick scrub. I don’t believe this.

  Thinking about it, however, I remembered that the day before I had overheard the stockmen and McCorry discussing their find of three sets of shod horse tracks ‘well inside our Oobagooma country’. From the tone of their voices I guessed that they were stirred up by this information.

  When McCorry and the stockmen were out of sight, I walked across the flat to climb the rocky outcrop to the highest point. This was a long haul, lugging the heavy firearm; by the time I reached a point where I could look about the vast countryside to spot any intruders, I wasn’t very happy. In fact I was very angry with old McCorry and wished I could tell him so.

  I moved about the rocky plateau surveying the country below. There was no one to be seen, so I made myself comfortable, leaning my back against an old stump, the firearm beside me. This is ludicrous, the whole idea, I thought as I watched and waited. How the hell can I tell whether it’s the manager or his bloody stockmen from up here? The heat of the midday sun was fierce, and the little black native bees were giving me hell, getting into my hair, ears, eyes, searching for salty moisture.

  I got up off the ground and paced around the rocky outcrop. I decided maybe I would put two or three rounds into the air if I saw intruders, but hell, from this height, how was I to know who they were? Still, if they were intruders and this didn’t make them turn their horses around and head back into their own country, the noise of the .303 echoing through the hills should be enough to bring McCorry galloping back to camp. Then again, he could be having me on. I just didn’t know.

  That was it, I’d had enough. I couldn’t second-guess McCorry, never could. I stomped back down to where I’d begun and waited for them to return. And did I get a straight answer from the old bastard when he got back? No I did not. But I’m sure he was setting me up; they were probably all having a good laugh at my expense.

  Now I had to work out what to do with my finished memoir. I made some enquiries and found an editor who would help tidy it up, correct the grammar — I had no illusions whatsoever that I could write — an
d present it in a printable fashion so I could run off a few copies for the family. When it was finished, it suddenly looked so professional, all properly paragraphed and set out on the page, that I decided, ‘What the hell, let’s see if anyone wants to publish it.’ Over the years in the Kimberley, I had been the subject of a few newspaper and magazine stories, some of them syndicated around the country, and a lot of people had responded positively to the stories. It made good headlines — ‘QUEEN OF THE WILD CATTLE RANGES’ and ‘ON KIMBERLEY DOWNS THE BOSS WEARS DIAMONDS’, though Bob wasn’t keen on that one, or ‘no bull, she’s boss’.

  I asked the editor how he thought I should go about finding a publisher, and was quite taken aback when he said, ‘I doubt you’ll ever get this published.’ He went on, ‘You’d certainly battle to get an east coast agent to take you on, and no east coast publisher would even look at it.’

  Well bugger you, mate, I thought to myself. I’ll show you. This was the nudge I needed to push me along. There’s that cussed side to me, that if you tell me I can’t do something, it only makes me the more determined.

  As I said to Leisha, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose, I’ve already achieved what I wanted to do, anything else is a bonus.’ I felt so confident. I hadn’t felt so much like my old self for a long time. All those days and nights writing, my strength had slowly seeped back through my veins.

  I decided the local Western Australian presses were too small; I wanted to try for a major commercial publisher on the east coast first. If that failed, then I could always try the local press. And if nobody was interested, I would forget the publishing game and keep my story for my children as it was originally intended. So I printed out half the memoir and mailed it with photos to several large publishing companies. I didn’t really care whether I heard back or not — in fact it never occurred to me that I would — I packed my bag and took a plane to Broome for a short break.

  Less than two weeks later, while I was still in Broome, I got my first phone call of real interest, from Pan Macmillan in Sydney. The non-fiction publisher thought it was a great Australian story. I couldn’t believe it, I was over the moon.

  Of course, my situation with Terry had to turn this moment of triumph into burlesque. While I was taking the phone call on my mobile, my husband kept walking into the bedroom telling me loudly to, ‘Hurry up, hurry up.’ He wanted to go to the post office and for some reason needed me to go with him. Trying in vain to brush him away, I ended up turning my back on him in order to concentrate on the conversation. I couldn’t believe it, the very phone call every writer wants to receive and Terry decided at that very moment he needed my undivided attention!

  Once my manuscript was in the hands of the publishers, I had some moments of panic as I thought of how many people would get to read about my life. ‘Don’t be silly, Mum,’ said Leisha. ‘You’ve done some amazing things, you should be proud of yourself. We’re proud of you.’

  Well, I thought, it was all in the lap of the gods. I’d just have to get on with my life now. So I took the Shiralee off the market. I had never really wanted to sell it; I’d just battled with not being able to care for it properly. Having a book deal gave me a more positive sense of a future and a new confidence that I could live on my farm and manage it as I once had.

  I was coming back to life again, my heart and body waking up after a long sleep. Now the absence of love and sex in my life was making itself felt again. Sex with Terry had come to an end only eighteen months into our marriage.

  It was an interesting pattern, I had to admit, to suffer a sex drought in two marriages. I once had a healthy sex drive, but now I worried I would become a dried-up old woman. Some nights I would lie curled up in my large bed, haunted by feelings of loneliness. Would I ever feel love from a partner again? I certainly wouldn’t if I continued living in this sham of a marriage. Was it already too late? I longed to feel the intensity of desire, intimacy; the fire and heat of passionate lovemaking, but I feared that part of my life was over.

  ‘Well, you made your bed and you have to lie in it,’ I told myself, but I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of this ‘hang in there at all costs’ attitude of mine. Still, when a friend suggested I have an affair, I realised I couldn’t do that; I didn’t have the courage to break with the ‘right’ thing to do. I was more old-fashioned than a lot of people far older than me. My daughters called me strait-laced. Maybe that’s why they decided a vibrator would be an excellent Christmas present.

  ‘Everyone has them, Mum,’ Leisha laughed. ‘You can get them with lights and revolving pearls,’ added Kristy. ‘I can just see the headlines,’ I said. ‘AUTHOR ELECTROCUTED BY REVOLVING VIBRATOR!’ This had Leisha rolling around in laughter on the floor. When the laughter had subsided, she said, ‘So you will let us give you one then, Mum?’ No, I would not! ‘Not bloody likely,’ I said. ‘You can forget all about that bright idea.’

  In November Terry was on one of his visits to the Wildwood farm when my doctor rang, asking me to come in to discuss the results of some blood tests. I organised to do this in a couple of days, for Terry wanted to visit his two grandsons. Leisha had recently moved off the farm to rent a place of her own in the Serpentine area, south of Perth. She had stopped studying for the time being. The coursework was too demanding with two small children, and she deferred it until she could give it her undivided attention.

  Jumping at the opportunity to see Leisha and the boys, I thought how wonderful it was that Terry would drive me to see them.

  Before leaving we stopped at the store to collect the mail and the daily paper. I sorted through the farm’s mail, taking out only the personal letters for Terry. Jean always handled the business mail for the farms. Passing his personal letters to my husband, I was met with a very brusque, ‘Is there any more?’

  ‘Only the usual business mail for Jean,’ I answered, and then he erupted. Yelling and abusing and slamming on the steering wheel, his jaw set in that terrifying way, his eyes dark and distant. Was there some letter he’d been hoping for? This was the behaviour of a thwarted child. I tried to ignore his angry outburst. Putting my head down, I pretended to read the newspaper, but he worked himself up even more, shaking his fists in my face as he threatened me.

  I lifted my face from the newspaper and said very softly, ‘Terry, the way you’re carrying on is really stupid, this is not necessary.’

  His face looked as though it was about to explode. He slammed the steering wheel again and spat, ‘I’d rather be stupid than a coon!’

  That took my breath away. ‘Did I hear right, did you just call me a coon?’

  For an answer, he forced an unnatural laugh and chanted, ‘I may be a hoon, but at least I’m no coon.’

  He obviously liked that, because he sat there repeating it in a singsong voice while I thought of Fanny Wannery and her daughter Dina. I was proud to have them in my heritage. In fact, it was a great day for me when I discovered that my great-gran Dina was of Aboriginal descent.

  It was long after she had died. I was at my mother’s, looking through photographs when I came across one of Dina in her youth — her skin was much darker than I remembered it in old age, and she was unmistakeably of Aboriginal heritage. I remembered visiting her in the Geraldton hospital; I sat by her chair and stroked her hand. Her skin felt like the softest silk — despite the fact that for much of her life she had chopped wood and done all manner of outside jobs around the place after her husband died of cancer.

  Until this day I knew nothing of my mother’s family history. Now my mother told me about my great-great-grandmother Fanny Wannery, born in 1852, the daughter of an Aboriginal woman and an English stockman from a sheep station in Western Australia’s south-west. Fanny’s mother was working in the station cookhouse when she fell pregnant to the stockman. Fanny’s mother left her under a low scrubby saltbush next to the homestead, to be found by the English couple running the station. The couple brought Fanny up as their own, and she grew up as an English girl, well spoken and edu
cated, and treated as one of the family.

  Her daughter Dina rode horses, handled a horse-drawn buggy and was a good shot with a gun. She was a midwife, at the hub of a big extended family. When I learned all this it suddenly made sense of my ease and comfort being in the bush and my deep connection with Aboriginal people — it seemed we were family, no matter how white I was on the outside.

  This made me laugh as I thought of an incident on Napier Downs station, long before this day with my mother. Back then the only way to help indigenous children achieve an education was to deliver them to St Joseph’s Hostel in Derby at the beginning of each term and collect them at the end.

  The school holidays had come to an end and the women on Napier Downs had a huge wash day: clean clothes were flying in the breeze from every fence line around camp. The stockmen were allowing the children a last ride on their stockhorses before Yardie the horse tailor (the stockman who keeps all the horses together during a muster) returned the animals to the paddock. The camp was alive with the sounds of happy chatter and squeals of laughter. The Aboriginal children were sprinting about, teasing mongrel dogs that attacked the camp chooks; a spray of white chook feathers would fly high into the air, accompanied by the poor hen letting out an affronted squawk. A mother’s angry voice, another’s laughter as a billy can landed in the middle of the flat, missing the dog altogether. The children all seemed fit and healthy; it was a shame they had to go off to school in Derby, but it was the only way they would learn to read and write.

  The next morning, with a backdrop of bright blue sky, the heavy clouds sitting comfortably on the distant horizon, I called the women to have their children ready for school. The red cattle truck and crate was washed and shiny, and parents and grandparents were helping to load the children with their swags and bags. Using the cattle crate was the safest way to secure the children. Some of the older camp women were coming along as minders for the long trip into town.