Rain Stones 25th Anniversary Edition

by Jackie French

  Helen nodded. ‘That’s what Mrs Halibut said,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you, Miss Wallace.’

  The school bus dropped Helen at the gate. She walked up the dusty track slowly. If she did her homework now, she could go out and explore when it was cooler. There might still be some blackberries near the creek, or some ripe wombat berries hanging from the bursaria bushes on the other side.

  The house and the sheds were deserted. From somewhere down near the orchard came the thrum of the tractor. Dad must still be spraying.

  Something screamed. She froze. It came again, a high keening noise. This time it went on, high and vivid through the still hot air.

  She dropped her bag. She ran. The noise was coming from the creek. She scrambled through the boulders, slipping in her school shoes. She could see it now. It was the wombat.

  It was standing by the boulder near the pool beating its head against a rock. Over and over and over, so the rock was red with blood. The sores on its back had broken open again. It was mad with pain.

  She ran again, up from the creek, across the flat, down to the orchard. Her father saw her coming.

  ‘Helen! What is it?’

  She was sobbing. ‘Daddy! Please! You have to shoot it!’

  ‘Shoot what, darling?’

  ‘It’s a wombat. Down by the creek. Please shoot it.’

  He looked at her, reached over and turned off the tractor. ‘Show me where,’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘By the swimming pool. You’ll hear it.’

  He didn’t ask why. He nodded. ‘You stay up at the house. I won’t be long.’

  She watched him stride back to the house. She followed slowly, sat on the hot verandah as he ran down to the creek carrying the rifle, trying to block her ears to the sound of pain.

  The shot echoed from the hills. The screaming stopped. Helen looked at the sky, high flat clouds in a dry blue sky, and wished her tears were rain.

  Tuesday

  It was hot in the playground. Alison and Deb and Jan were playing hopscotch under the oak tree. Helen didn’t go over to them. She felt tired. She wanted to think and be alone.

  The boys by the fence were having a rough house. Mr Brice would catch them if they didn’t look out. Jimmie Harrison had thrown his lunch wrapper at Dwayne Sarancen, and Dwayne had him in a hammer lock. Jimmie forced himself free.

  ‘Black legs!’ he yelled. ‘Your mum ate burnt toast!’

  ‘Yours cooks maggots and calls it spaghetti!’

  ‘All right, you two.’ It was Mr Brice. He grabbed Jimmie by the ear, and Dwayne by the scruff of the neck. ‘Up to the office. You heard me. Off!’

  The boys went reluctantly. Mr Brice watched them for a minute, then turned back to the main playground.

  ‘Mr Brice?’

  ‘Yes, Helen. What is it?’

  ‘Why did Jimmie call Dwayne black legs? He’s the same colour I am.’

  Mr Brice paused. ‘Some of his ancestors were black, Helen. That’s all. Jimmie Harrison was just being stupid.’

  ‘You mean he’s Indigenous?’

  ‘I think his grandmother was. Something like that.’

  There was another scuffle over by the fence. Mr Brice was away again.

  Helen thought about it. Dwayne Sarancen wouldn’t know anything about rain stones. He wasn’t even sure of the five-times table. He didn’t even know that yabbies ate old meat when she brought one to school last term. But his father . . . he’d be more Indigenous than Dwayne. He was the sort of man who knew things.

  Mr Sarancen was the town building inspector. He’d come from Sydney three years before, replacing old Jobbins, who they said wouldn’t notice if you’d put the steps on back-to-front. Mr Sarancen knew about building codes and septic systems and how to stop a roof from blowing off in the wind. Important things.

  She’d ask him.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, love?’ Her mother was balancing the farm accounts at the kitchen table after dinner. Her hair hung limp on her forehead.

  ‘Could I come home with you tomorrow instead of on the bus? I want to call in at the council after school.’

  ‘Is it a school project?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Of course. It won’t be too late for you will it?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I’ll be right, Mum.’

  Wednesday

  At little lunch, Helen slid through the school gates, and over to the phone box across the road.

  ‘Hello. Crow’s Hill Council Chambers.’

  That would be Debbie Stevens. She only left school three years ago. She worked on the council desk now. Helen tried to make her voice as adult as possible.

  ‘I’d like to make an appointment with the building inspector please.’

  ‘Certainly. What time would you like it?’

  ‘This afternoon? About four o’clock?’

  ‘Four o’clock then. What name is it?’

  She hadn’t thought of that. It would have to be her own. ‘Helen Doherty.’ She held her breath.

  Debbie didn’t recognise it. The phone clicked in her ear.

  The council chambers were in the main street. The building was tall, and made of pale pink cement, with floodlights at Christmas and in Heritage Week. You went up the steps to the main door, turned left for the building inspector, right for the counter, dog licences and rates payments. Helen had been in before, when her father put in an application for the new packing shed, and when her mother registered the dogs each year and bought hydatid tablets.

  The building inspector’s door was shut. The sign read: ‘Appointments only. Please ring.’ She pressed the button and waited.

  The door opened. It was Mr Sarancen. He looked surprised.

  ‘Helen Doherty?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I see. Won’t you come in then?’ He gestured her through the door. ‘Take a seat. Now, how can I help you? Is it a school project?’

  She shook her head. She looked at him. His skin was maybe a bit darker than Dwayne’s, not much darker than Dad’s, from years in the sun. He didn’t look like the pictures in the library books.

  ‘Is it a message from your parents?’

  She shook her head again. ‘Mr Sarancen, are you Indigenous?’

  His face became expressionless. He looked at her for a minute.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ he said finally. ‘Is it something to do with Dwayne?’

  ‘No. It’s for me. I need to find an Indigenous person. Please, Mr Sarancen.’

  He swung round on his chair, looked out the window, then swung back again. ‘My mother was Indigenous,’ he said finally. ‘I suppose that makes me one. What do you need to know for?’

  The relief was overwhelming. ‘Mr Sarancen, please, you’ve got to make it rain. You’ve got to get your rain stones. Everything’s dying. Dad’s trees, the cattle, the wombats along the creek. Please help us.’

  ‘Honey, slow down. I can’t make it rain.’

  ‘You could use your rain stones.’

  He shook his head. She thought he was close to smiling. ‘I don’t have any rain stones, honey. I come from Sydney, not from the bush. I don’t know anything about blackfeller magic.’

  ‘Would your mother know?’

  He shook his head again. ‘My mother’s dead. She couldn’t have helped you anyway. They took her away from her tribe when she was a baby, brought her up in a mission. I don’t think she ever knew her family.’

  ‘But you’re Indigenous. You have to know these things.’

  ‘Honey, I was brought up in Redfern. I did my studying at Sydney University, not the bush. My family was disinherited generations back. You probably know a lot more about the bush than me.’

  She couldn’t give up. ‘Mr Sarancen, couldn’t you just try? Don’t you want to know? Couldn’t you just look for rain stones? It’s so dry. The roos haven’t had joeys for nearly two years and all the eels have gone from the creek and the apple boxes are dying on the hills. Dad says they’re hundred
s of years old. Please, Mr Sarancen.’

  He wasn’t smiling now. ‘Honey, I wouldn’t even know where to start.’

  ‘There are some stones down past Landy’s Bridge,’ she offered. ‘On the bend of the river. Lovely white ones with bits of blue in them. They look like they might be rain stones.’

  ‘Maybe you should try them then. You see if they’re rain stones.’

  He stood up. He wanted her to go.

  ‘Please, Mr Sarancen. It’s your country. Even if you’re from Sydney. You have to help it.’

  He was silent a minute. ‘The only bit of land my family’s had in generations is our home in Wattle Street, and even that’s mortgaged. I don’t reckon it’d be my job to make it rain even if I could.’ He ushered her to the door. ‘I’m sorry, honey. I really am. I can’t help you.’

  She left the office. She had $2 in her pocket. It was her lunch money. She hadn’t spent it. She went up to the Royal Cafe and ordered a milkshake. She drank it slowly, staring through the doors of the cafe. Then she wandered up the road to wait for her mother.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘Could you drop me off at Landy’s Bridge? I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

  ‘Helen, it’s too hot. It’s getting late.’

  ‘Please, Mum. I won’t be long. I want to look for something for school.’

  The river bed was hot. The late sun glared on the white rocks. She wandered through them. It would be a pure white rock, she thought, an almost transparent one, one with a touch of blue for the sky and a touch of grey for cloud. It would be a rock with a special feel, a cold rock that made you think of rain.

  She thought of Mr Sarancen. She wished he had come. Surely all his ancestors must mean something to him. Surely the rain stones would still cry out to him, if only he would look for them, if only he would try. She turned over more rocks with her toe. The shadows were growing. She’d have to start back.

  There was the noise of an engine on Landy’s Bridge. A car stopped. It was deep blue against the brighter sky. Doors slammed. She looked up. It was Mr Sarancen. Dwayne was behind him, and Dwayne’s younger sister, not yet at school. Mr Sarancen met her eyes.

  ‘We’ll look for them together,’ he said.

  That night it rained. The tanks gurgled, woken from years of quiet, the ground drummed with the heavy drops, the creek beds turned again to water.

  In the cupboard, the rain stones waited for another day.

  Afternoon with Grandma

  The room smelt of old lady and roses outside the window. It was dark after the sun outside. The furniture crouched like sleeping animals in the dimness.

  ‘Is that Grandma?’ whispered Anne. ‘Doesn’t she know we’re here?’

  ‘Shh,’ said Harry.

  Their mother went forward. ‘Hello, Mummy. It’s Helen and Allan and the children.’

  The old woman turned, blinked, then looked back out the window. Her hair was short and very grey. The children’s mother hesitated a minute, then bent down and kissed her cheek. Their father coughed behind them.

  ‘How about you two go into the garden for a bit? You can come in and see your grandmother later.’

  ‘Will she recognise us then?’ asked Anne.

  Their father shrugged. ‘I don’t know . . . maybe. I thought I’d explained it to you last night. Grandma’s sick. Aunty Alice says she mostly doesn’t know anybody any more.’

  ‘Alzheimer’s syndrome,’ repeated Harry. ‘People forget things and can’t understand or do things for themselves because they’re losing brain cells too fast.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said their father. ‘It’s an illness but you can’t catch it. Lots of old people get it. Now you two go outside for a bit. Aunty Alice says that sometimes Grandma starts understanding things after you’ve been with her for a time. We’ll call you in.’

  Anne hesitated at the door. The old woman was still gazing out of the window. Their mother was holding her hand. There were fawn lace curtains at the window, and a row of photographs on the sill: a young woman in a helmet and goggles, two babies in matched lace dresses, sitting on a cushion, an old-fashioned aeroplane with two sets of wings in a bare paddock, and a man in uniform, his hair slicked back. You could tell his face was brown even though the photograph was black and white. It was hard to tell if the old woman was looking at the photographs or out at the rose bushes, paddocks and sky beyond.

  ‘What will we do?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Go and explore. The garden’s big enough. Aunty Alice said that Lauren and Katy should be home soon. Don’t go beyond the house paddock though.’

  Anne nodded. She shut the door carefully behind her. Harry was already leaning over the verandah.

  ‘Hey, look!’ he called. ‘There are horses up on the hills. Do you think we could go up and feed them?’

  ‘Dad said not to go past the house paddock,’ said Anne. ‘He said we were just to explore the garden.’

  ‘Boring,’ said Harry. ‘It’s too hot anyway. Do you think Aunt Alice has a video or something?’

  ‘They can’t get TV here because of the hills,’ said Anne. ‘You remember.’

  ‘Aw, yeah. But that doesn’t stop them getting a video,’ argued Harry. ‘All right, come on, let’s go out then.’

  It was hot in the garden. The short grass seemed to breathe the heat. The tall trees threw down deep shadows. The baked air blew over from the bare paddocks, mingled with the smell of blossom.

  ‘Hey, there’s a pond over there,’ said Harry. They walked over to it. Tall bamboo clumped at one side, with rushes down below. A giant waterlily stretched pale flowers at the edge.

  ‘You couldn’t swim in it,’ said Anne.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s murky. You don’t know what’s in it.’

  ‘Scaredy cat,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Anne. ‘It’s being sensible.’

  ‘Huh,’ said Harry. He broke off a stick of old bamboo and poked it in the water. ‘It’s too shallow to swim anyway,’ he said.

  ‘It might be deeper in the middle,’ said Anne.

  ‘Who cares? Come on. Let’s go the other way. There might be something over there.’

  The hot air brushed their faces, smelling of horses from the paddock beyond. Tall bushes of photinia, daphne and rhododendron reared up through the grass. A line of lavender bushes gleamed silver grey in the sun. A wall of hedges, once clipped, now furry at the top and sides, curled round one side of the garden.

  ‘Mum said those hedges were a maze once,’ said Anne.

  ‘Huh,’ said Harry. ‘You couldn’t get lost in them if you tried.’

  ‘Maybe it was bigger when Mummy was a little girl,’ said Anne. ‘She said she and Uncle Ron used to pretend it was a jungle.’

  ‘Dumb maze. Dumb everything,’ said Harry. ‘Hey, what’s that over there? On that big old tree?’

  The air shimmered in the heat. ‘I think it’s a swing,’ said Anne. ‘It’s a funny sort of swing though. It’s more like a chair. Come on, let’s take a look.’

  The wilted grass was hot beneath their sandals. The cool shade was a shock beneath the tree. The air seemed moister, as though it came from somewhere else, not from the baking paddocks at all. The swing was made of cane, with a round top like a hardboiled egg and a flat seat. It hung from a single chain threaded through the oval top from a wide iron loop in the oak tree. ‘You could go really high in that,’ said Anne.

  ‘You’d hit the branches,’ said Harry.

  ‘I bet you wouldn’t,’ said Anne. ‘No one could get that high.’ She pushed herself onto the cane seat and held on to the sides. ‘Give me a shove.’

  Harry pushed. The swing swung crazily round and round. Its back bumped into the tree trunk.

  ‘Not that way!’ yelled Anne.

  ‘What way then?’

  ‘Push me straight!’

  ‘I did! You try it then. Dumb swing.’

  Anne pushed with her legs. Th
e swing circled even faster. There was a laugh from the other side of the tree. Harry looked round. Anne struggled to get her feet on the ground and turned too. A girl came out of the shadows.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ she said.

  Harry nudged Anne. She tried not to giggle. The girl’s clothes were weird, like she’d just fallen out of a movie or something. She wore dark brown stockings, even in the heat. They were thick ones too, that looked like they’d been knitted. Her shoes were buttoned right up to the ankle. Her pale brown dress was covered with a pinafore that had once been white but was now stained from grass and leaves. She had long dark plaits with pink ribbons. Her eyes were as blue as the sky.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Harry. The girl ignored him. She took hold of the swing.

  ‘See. You do it this way.’ The girl wriggled into the seat and walked it backwards to the lowest branch. She pulled herself up onto it, taking the swing up with her. She crouched there on the branch, her bottom still sitting on the cane seat just above their heads. Her plaits dangled like black ropes.

  ‘Here I come! Watch out below!’ she yelled.

  She was falling from the branch, taking the swing with her. Her feet grazed the ground and pushed as they passed. Up she swung, out of the shadow of the tree into the sunlight, then back again, flashing past them. There was a hole in one brown stocking. She reached the trunk again and pushed hard with both legs, swung back, higher now. Suddenly she was gone. The swing swung back without her.

  ‘What the hell?’ cried Harry.

  There was a laugh above them. A head and two plaits hung down.

  ‘How’d you do that?’ yelled Harry.

  ‘It’s easy. Try it.’

  ‘Easy for you.’

  ‘Yah! A sparrow could do it. Think you can’t do as well as a sparrow? Go on!’ insisted the girl. ‘Try it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’ve got to get up on the branch, then push really hard with your feet as you come down. If you don’t push hard, you don’t go fast enough. You just go round in circles. Then push your feet back against the trunk of the tree as you come back in. That gives you enough speed to get up here. Go on. If you can’t get all the way up I’ll try and catch you.’