by Ed Hillyer
He will not be old, but once was young.
He remembers meadow grasslands filled with game, fresh water to drink, roots and vegetables to eat, wood for the fire, and a sky filled with stars – the country he loves.
The firelight of the Ancestors splashes across the surface of the Millewa. Stranger footsteps on the far shore, and the fires wink out all at once. Everything disappears into the dark.
Daylight now, and his mother, she is crossing that same wide river. She pushes him in front, balanced along a piece of bark. Floating, the waters rushing, he grips the bark strip tightly in his hands. Warriarto, his baby half-sister, is tied to her back in a bundle, dead for months. Mother still carries her with them, everywhere they go.
The next day his mother dies too.
Worrowen – shivering, Brippoki shakes his head.
Mother meant to carry his dead sister, her dead baby, until they should come to the proper site for her burial, her miyur. Each clan has its mir or miyur, its sacred waterhole, known to every adult and located in a fixed direction from their territory. It is the Spirit land of their birth – Ancestral home, and final resting place.
Mother came from another place. Brippoki has never known her clan. He has no idea of her, or his, miyur.
Everything seemed to yandy down to that.
Ignorant of his yauerin or miyur, he cannot take the name of just any place. His mother died before he might know it – father too. He was too young to know. There is no place he belongs to, nor any belonging to him. He will always be a child in a man’s body – lost, forever.
Hard rainfall destroys the calm surface of every pool of water, from the shallowest puddle to the deepest dock. Brippoki stands alone, looking over a stone parapet. Staring down into poisonous blackness, he thinks the stretch of dark water the rough river. The turbulence is honest, and inviting.
He hears again the whispers of the willow. How easy it would be to surrender, to allow oneself to go under. Swallowed within the Serpent’s slick embrace, he may at last know peace – oblivion, sweeter than gin.
The wharf’s stone sides are steep and high, the floodwaters fast and furious. One single step, a bold plunge, and there will be no climbing out again.
Sarah succeeded in calming Lambert only at great length – smoothing his icy brow with a cool palm, talking softly; saying anything that came into her head. He had not spoken for some hours now, and things went easier that way. A few whimpers when she cleared away the fragments from his tantrum, the odd murmur, an occasional request for drink to be lifted to his lips; otherwise he drifted quietly in and out of consciousness, the flutter of his eyelids often the only difference between his waking and sleeping. Each time his eyes opened, he seemed to draw at least some measure of comfort from finding her sitting beside him.
She set all the fires and the lights to blazing, even though it was daytime – anything to dispel the day’s damp gloom. None of it afforded the least comfort: the atmosphere of slow poison permeating the house came from within, not without.
Sarah stood a while in the front parlour, lost in contemplation. She would touch one or other of the furnishings and picture her mother, doing the same. In younger days, she had resented her father for refusing ever to speak of her. Latterly she came to understand, in sickness, as in health, the presence of Frances in almost everything that he said and did.
Light and shade in conflict gave our lives strength and colour, but too much grief, hate, fear – ‘the family of Pain’ – unbalanced the mind. Sarah avoided completing the manuscript. All of his pleas and prayers unanswered – beneath notice, as far as he knew – Druce’s sense of isolation must have been total; her own was awful enough.
She would be having words with Dr Epps on his return.
~
Pindi is a great pit in the far west, whence the Ludko come – the soul-shadows of the unborn. The ghosts are so thickly packed on that island, there is no room for them to stand. These shiftless spirits wander the earth, miserable and alone. Hovering among the grass-trees, they wait for the hour of conception so that they can enter into a human body. Only after death and a proper burial, observing all of the attendant rites, do they return to Pindi – the place that everybody comes from, and must eventually return to.
The wind whips the surface of the waters. Rain hits from all sides, at crazy angles, soaking Brippoki beyond skin.
The seedling of a daring plan, a way he might yet save himself, is hatched within his brain. Slipping back from the brink, he tugs at the min-tum girding his loins, and sets off running – away from the dockside.
He heads steadily northwest. The rains cease. In the last hour of daylight clouds part to reveal the thin crescent of a new moon – Mityan, horned.
Head throbbing, Brippoki rues his drunkenness. He carries a glowing ember above his head. Naked body newly adorned with markings, stark outlines define his breast and shoulder bones. A wavy line is drawn down each arm, thigh, and lower leg, also bold slashes across both cheeks, and along each prominent rib. Around each eye he wears a large white circle, the ‘strong eye’. The clay daubs are otherwise of red. Taking up arms – his waddy club and spear – he is disguised as Moo-by, a ferocious demon. By the pale shine of starlight it shows itself – a baring of teeth, a roll of the eyes, all dingo-dog glimmer and glitter.
Footsore, tired, and hungry, despite every caution he leaves behind traces that speak eloquently of his passing. His footprints, tracked through puddles of water, march out across the pavement behind him. He hears the sly pad of paws along a cautious perimeter, the click and drag of long nails, and scrape of sharpening claw.
To the point of death, he cannot sleep.
To preserve one life, another must be ended.
The uppermost part of the house glows like a beacon, the lamps lit in every room. Brippoki’s attention is drawn to the only window that remains dark. The darkness suddenly divides. The Guardian stands revealed in the shaft of light. She looks sad.
Moo-by ducks back.
A few moments later, and she moves away from the closed window. Brippoki shifts position to get a better view. She stays in that same hole where her father lives. Thara sits nose deep in paper-yabber, like always. She shines, almost a ball of fire. Shadows thicken in the air behind her. His grip tightens on his waddy. He sees that she holds the Book.
Eyes in darkness, a lowly scavenger lurks, awaiting his perfect opportunity – not lacking the courage for open attack, but wise, and needful of certain victory.
Brippoki wishes for her to move away from the sick old man. She is afraid for him, when she should fear more for herself.
Approaching the end of the Life, concerning the death of a wife and last days’ despairing, Sarah read the last of the manuscript alone. She did not want Druce’s life to be over. Neither did she know how his real story ended – only that it must. At most there was a page or two of text left to go.
She pulled her chair close beside her father’s bed, where he lay, snoring fitfully. Afraid that a chill might follow on from his fever, she kept a fire roaring in the grate, even on such a clement midsummer evening. Window closed against the rising winds, the heat in his room was oppressive.
but O shourley there is A God. & A most inexsprissibel mircyful one. for alltho wicked infeddel as I am. surely the most Gracious & mircyful God. eard me one morning poring out my soul with grief & hungar.
An after-image of the line before, or premonition of the next; Sarah stared so long at the scrawl on the page that other words appeared, shimmering in the blank spaces between.
it was very early. I was in gloster cort docktors Commons sant pools church yeard.
He spoke of the district she knew as Apothecary, very close to the cathedral. The excavations for the new Queen Victoria-street tore right through it.
all was Silent in their bed. I set down at A door To rest my self. after wandring all night. The clock struck three. I drew A sight. & exclamed. O that it may be the last time I shall ever ear A cl
ock strick. & bursting in to teears at the same time. grife soon Lold me to sleep. tell I was wakt by A poor man. who was goin out to seeck Labor. he told me to come to his house at night & sleep. I was glad to find such A frind. I thinkt him. & that night went To his house. the next day I met A gentlman In the street. who cuk me in A house. & Gave me bread & met. I told him all my Distrees. he told me not to mind it. for this He was sure. all the noblmen of A thority was cristions. both at the admiralty And sumerset house.
All the noblemen of authority were Christians: yet it had taken a poor man without work of his own to offer Druce charity, even if were only a place to lay his head. Only thereafter did the other gentleman give him bread, and meat, and hope.
he told me three of their names. vis. mr croker. mr dyrer. mr lee. & he told me at The same time to go my self. to mr croker. & To mr lee. & they wold give me my sirvtud. for He was sure. they neve was happier then when they was reliving such poor creatures As me.
Druce threaded another daisy chain of names.
I returnd the gentlman thinks. & went To sumerset house. were I found mr lee. who in A most youmane maner told me he wold do all Lay in his powr to mak me happey. but I Must call in A few days. there was A Gentlman in the ofice. his name was mr masion. He see I was in distrees. he told me to com To his house the next day. I went he gave Me plenty to eat. & at the same time. gave orders to his servents. to give me blenty To eat & drink aney time in the day. when Ever I should call at his house. Lady mason Was deeply efficted at my distrees. but in A Few days after. I A gaine went to mr lee At the admarlty. he then interduced me To mr croker and mr dyer. & mr dyer interduced me to the high lords of the admirlty. were Mircy & compassion was shon me. & I was Sent to the royal hospital greenwich.
That was the end of the book.
Sarah sat in silence for a time, before bending forward to stir the remains of the fire in the grate.
CHAPTER LX
Sunday the 21st of June, 1868
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT
‘So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch’d me from the past,
And all at once it seem’d at last
The living soul was flash’d on mine.’
~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
‘I have lived out…my Grace Days.’ Lambert’s breath was short. ‘I must,’ he said, ‘pay my dues.’
‘Hush,’ said Sarah.
He was so small, so shrunken in the bed. His hair lay lank and stringy across the pillows, and Sarah wished she had lately thought to cut it for him, or at least to wash it.
‘I am…fearful…’ he said.
‘Hush, now.’
‘…of a leap…in the dark.’
‘In the dark?’ Sarah repeated.
Her father’s eye shone a moment. Sarah laid a hand to the pillow, checking for dampness. His night-sweats had stained the bedding. She might at least refresh…
Lambert flinched. She reached across to clear a white strand from his face. He hissed.
Sarah protested. ‘Whatever for?’
His pursed lips began to tremble and he forced his head aside, face dissolving into a mess of deeper creases. More was at work here than the vanity of a manful Christian.
‘It was not mine to judge,’ he whimpered.
‘Your judgement was not your own,’ she said.
Surprised, he turned. His face searched hers for understanding, saw it absent – infinite sympathy, yes, but no comprehension. None.
Lambert smiled, but his eyes were crying.
‘Father!’ she said.
‘Aoowwrrraarrhr!’
He made such a cry!
‘I draw…near to Calvary,’ Lambert gasped.
Calvary was Golgotha, burial site of Adam’s skull and hill of crucifixion. Looking at him now, Sarah did not doubt it. She knew that he was dying; and that he had known, all along. She wiped the back of her hand across both cheeks.
Wrestling with her skirts, she knelt down at her father’s bedside. Pressing dampened fingers together just beneath her lips, she prevailed on Him – Him who seemed to turn a deaf ear when needed the most – to listen to the voice of her entreaty.
‘“Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults,”’ prayed Sarah. ‘“Restore them that are penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. Attend to the things which make for his everlasting peace, before they are for ever hidden from his eyes. Amen.”’
Quickly she struggled to her feet, and collapsed back into the chair.
‘“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done!”’ Lambert spoke with a new urgency. ‘“And we have done those things which we ought not…not to have done…and there is no health in us.”’
The health he spoke of, in this context of the general Confession, was spiritual soundness – its absence, she knew full well, the absence of all righteousness in ourselves; of self-respect. Rubric directed that certain lines be repeated after the minister: in her confusion, Sarah supplied the next.
‘“O Lord,”’ she said, ‘“have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.”’
‘No…’ pleaded Lambert. ‘No…’ He waved for her to stop. ‘My dear… sweet maid.’
He made as if to stroke her cheek, yet faltered, stopping short. He stared into his palm. She too stared at the back of that great palp, its flesh collapsed, veins hanging like slack cable – her father’s hands.
‘Child,’ said Lambert, ‘you are not answerable for my sins… “God gave them up to uncleanness…through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their bodies between themselves”!’
Wracked with sobs even in the midst of anger, Lambert’s mouth, wet and working, opened so wide and trembling that it was hard to make out his slurred words.
‘Fff-fornication…wickedness…’
Another frightful roar, and he thrust his head into his hands. They tore at his face and beard.
‘No, no, stop!’ Sarah demanded. ‘Father –!’
‘FATHER?’ He cut her short.
She froze.
Lambert gave a wry laugh. ‘“Judge not,”’ he warned her, ‘“lest ye be judged.”’
Lambert quoted scripture as he had done in his fever, nearly the whole of the day before. What scared Sarah almost out of her wits was that he was now in full command of his senses.
‘“THEREFORE thou art inexcusable!”’ he bull-roared. ‘“And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgement of God?”’
It was as if some great switch had been thrown, and he could only speak in Common Prayer, his priest’s business – but with what rationale? What was it that he could not bring himself to say in plain English?
‘“Thou…”’ he said, ‘“that art thyself a guide of the blind…a light of them which are in darkness…
‘“Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?
‘“Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?
‘“Thou that preachest against…against…”
‘…
‘I cannot speak of it… I cannot…’
He recited the commandments as handed down to Moses – not in the correct order, but in reverse. Thou shalt not steal; commit adultery – what came next?
‘Who…’
What?
‘“Who shall judge the quick and the dead… at His appearing and His Kingdom?”’
‘“God,”’ she answered, obediently. ‘“And the Lord Jesus Christ.”’
‘“I charge thee therefore,”’ said Lambert. He looked straight at her. ‘You…’
‘Yes,’ she said. Anything.
‘Yes…yes.’ Lambert sounded decisive. ‘You… God forgive me. You must help me…help me to confess…’
Confess what?
She did. And he did. And she could not believe it.
Her – Lambert – he was not – not the person she
thought he was. She was not the person she thought she was. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. She was his daughter in name only – conceived outside of marriage; born of illicit love.
Thrown by the truth, Sarah reeled. This wasn’t at all what she had prayed for. Tears – in his last hours, her father had given in to Catholic weakness, and she could not for the life of her process the matter he confessed. Belief? It went beyond belief: that you could live your whole life with someone and not know them.
No one. No one, as it turned out, was who they were first said to be.
The coffin lid splintered and she felt the skeletal clutch. A shameful family secret, long concealed, burst from the grave – her mother, strayed from the path of righteousness.
Narrow was the path, and broad the Way – and worse yet to come. More than one skeleton lurked in that hollow recess. Lambert kept it as he had kept her: in the dark, jealously guarded.
‘…Put…’ he sobbed, barely audible, ‘put out the light.’
Sarah wasn’t sure that she heard him right. She wasn’t much sure of anything.
‘…light of my life, ohhh…better extinguish the light of the world…’
Was this still confession?
‘I put out the light…’ he said.
His empty hands, thick fingers spread, were shaking.
‘…and then put out the light.’
Oh, God.
Exposed at the turn of the tide, a sunken wreck rests in the riverine mud. Its rotten ribs jut, the butchered remains of a kill.
To increase his strength of spirit for a coming battle, a warrior consumes a portion of his sacred goobong. Undertaking Holy Communion, Brippoki swallows hard. At any other time such an act, akin to cannibalism, would be forbidden.
