The Assembly

by Janet Woods

  ***

  ‘Tell me about my mother while I make the tea,’ Ruby said.

  The unexpected request hung in the still hot air while Bill desperately considered it. What did he know of Ruby’s mother? George had never discussed her apart from saying she’d died.

  Out in the garden, George’s grandchildren were giggling and shrieking as they played with the garden hose. They were wonderful kids, though a bit on the cheeky side. Ruby was a good mother, firm when she had to be, but allowing the kids to enjoy their childhood. Bill decided to buy them a dog when they next went into town. Kids needed a pet to grow up with and George would approve. George would be proud of his grandchildren so Bill decided to invent a grandmother the children could be proud of.

  ‘Your mother was a lovely lady,’ he said. ‘Her hair was like spun gold, her skin the color of milk.’ Dorothy came into his mind. ˇShe was a dainty little thing - and artistic. She played the piano like a dream.’ He shook his head as Ruby set a cup down in front of him. ‘What she saw in the likes of me, I’ll never know.’

  The smell of newly baked biscuits reached his nostrils and his hand groped around for the plate. ‘Your mother was a wonderful cook, so I guess you take after her.’

  Ruby giggled. ‘I can’t play a piano.’

  ‘You can sing like an angel though.’ Bill sighed with pleasure as the hot treacly biscuit crumbled in his mouth. He loved Ruby’s hot bread and biscuits even though they gave him indigestion. George hadn’t been much of a cook, and Bill kept telling himself his stomach would eventually get used to the richer fare.

  The twinge in his chest struck half an hour later. As Bill lay on his bed, it reminded him that he wasn’t getting any younger and he ought to do something about making good his promise to George.

  ‘That will teach you to be such a glutton,’ he grimaced as he waited longer than was usual for the squeezing pain to subside. He heard Ruby’s feet padding towards him, and the worried tone in her voice when she asked.

  ‘Feeling ill again?’ A fizzing sound emitted from the glass she placed in his hand. ‘Get this down you, it’ll help.’

  ‘Thanks, Rube.’ As he gulped down the liquid Bill reflected it was nice having someone to making a fuss over him. George had been good in his own way, but a woman had a different touch.

  The house had never smelled of polish, soap, or baking bread when George had been around, nor had the bedding smelled so sweet. The laughter had been deep, the silences deeper. He and George had grown to know each other so well there was often no need to communicate with words.

  It was different now. Ruby and the kids were never silent. They reminded Bill of a flock of birds. Laughing squabbling inquisitive birds. Although he missed the companionship of George he’d never been lonely since they’d arrived and his life was filled with contentment.

  ***

  Bill couldn’t quite put his finger on what had changed.

  They’d got back from town half an hour ago and the kids were in the garden playing with the dog he’d picked up at the local pound. The ranger had said it was a mongrel that had been dumped, and he’d been about to put him down. Bill was pleased he’d been in time to save its life. The dog had given his hand a lick and its rapidly waving tail had slapped against his leg, so he knew it was a friendly animal.

  He and Ruby were sitting on the verandah when he said casually. ‘I saw the lawyer in town and got my will fixed up.’

  ‘You thinking of leaving us then, Pa?’ Ruby’s voice was fierce.

  ‘Ah, Rube.’ he said, flattered by her anger. ‘Your old dad isn’t going to live forever, you know. I just wanted to make sure you get what you’re entitled to.’

  For three days Ruby’s song was silent. Her voice, when she spoke, was thick with accusation.

  Guilt and sadness washed over Bill in waves. He loved Ruby as though she was his own, and he hated himself for upsetting her.

  On the fourth day she sought him out and laid her cheek against his hand. Bill sensed a softness in the air and knew her anger had been spent.

  ‘I want to tell you something,’ she said. ‘When I was a kid, I dreamed of a place in the sun with my father by my side. I grew up in foster homes and sometimes, when I was sad, I could feel his spirit alive in me.’ There were tears in her voice. ‘I’ve had many fathers. Some were kind, some cruel. I want you to know you’re the only real father I’ve ever had, the one that always lived in my heart. You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been.’

  Ruby’s words made Bill feel humble and proud all at the same time. He touched her cheek, felt the dampness of her tears. ‘I wish Bill had lived to see you,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I’ll sing a song for Bill if you like,’ she offered. ‘If you think he’ll listen.’

  ‘He’ll listen, lass.’ Bill had felt close to George of late, had felt his spirit in the wind that blew in from the desert. He liked to think George was watching over them.

  Ruby’s song had a sweet, melancholy sound that quieted the kids. The boards of the veranda creaked as they settled themselves at his feet to listen, and the dog flopped panting beside them. Bill was content, his life full to overflowing, and he reckoned he didn’t deserve such happiness.

  A hush settled over the land as the afternoon grew old. The harsh cry of the crows ceased, the wind sighing in the gum tree died to a whisper. Bill leaned back in his chair and thought of George, remembering the good times they’d had. He hoped George could hear Ruby’s song.

  The tongue she sang in was strange to him, but somehow it conjured up images for Bill. Dorothy came into his mind, small and sweet. She was smiling as she played a love song on the piano.

  Then there came a sunset so glorious it hurt his eyes and made him feel dizzy. He saw himself hacking at the base of a rock with a pick, and felt the earth’s pain as it shuddered. He experienced once again his own agony, the fall pressing the life from his body, the choking dust, the sun searing the sight from his eyes as punishment for his sin.

  Ruby’s song conjured up images of painted hands, a goanna, a snake with rainbow colours. A dust devil made its way across a paddock, and he saw the property he and George had bought. It was exactly how George had described it. A white-painted house with a red tin roof.

  It was sort of homely looking with a verandah all round. On the verandah an old man slept in a rocking chair with two kids and a dog at his feet. There was a woman singing a melancholy song, and though Bill couldn’t hear her, he could see her tears, like diamonds gleaming in the sun. She was lovely, and Bill thought it was good of George to have given him Ruby to love.

  ‘I can see her, George,’ he whispered, thanking God for giving him the gift of his sight back. ‘She’s a daughter any man would be proud of.’

  George touched his hand. ‘Come on, mate,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a long journey to make.’

  ‘She’ll be all right without me?’

  George smiled. ‘She’ll be sad for a while, but that’s the way of things.’

  Something puzzled Bill as he followed George across the paddock. George didn’t look anything like he’d imagined. As if he’d read Bill’s thoughts George looked back over his shoulder and grinned.

  Bill cackled with laughter. ‘You didn’t tell me you were such an ugly old devil. No wonder Ruby was always laughing at me.’

  ***

  Ruby sang as she took the bread from the oven. It had been a month since the funeral and her mourning was over. Her glance took in the crumpled newspaper clipping pinned to the wall, the watch hanging on a nail next to it.

  It hadn’t occurred to Bill that a blind man had no need for a watch. But even if it had, she wouldn’t have called his bluff. Bill had been a good an honest man. He’d repaid the debt he owed her father with respect, and in doing so had given her dignity. He’d loved her as a daughter. She’d loved and respected him for the father he’d become.

  Ruby smiled as she looked at the two young men grinning at her from the yellowing newspaper clippi
ng. One was Bill, and his eyes were bandaged, the other . . . ? The other was her father.

  Aboriginal Stockman Rescues Prospector From Certain Death, the headline it stated.

  *****

  KIRRA, KIRRA – general.

  She’d been five when she’d left this place. Beneath her, the red earth was warm and uneasy against the soles of her shoes. She slipped them off, curling her toes into the dust.

  Her mother’s feet had sent up little puffs of red dust as they’d pounded after the truck. Her eyes had bulged and her breath had been harsh with the effort of keeping up. Eventually, she could run no more and had fallen to her knees, her head bowed against her chest. As the truck gathered speed she’d grown smaller and smaller until she’d become little more than a grain of sand in the vast landscape that was the desert country.

  There had been the white mother in a flowered frock. From her she’d learned of the God of love. From the teachers in black robes, she’d learned that love was a word of less importance to God than discipline and gratefulness.

  Cleanliness was next to godliness on the scale of things. Godliness was earned by diligence and the rigid application of discipline. She’d grappled with the notions of clothes being pressed with a hot ironed, or spending hours learning to stitch evenly along a hem of an apron. And she could never understand that a garment designed to collect dirt, had to be kept scrupulously clean. As she’d grown older the hems had become less important, the books more. Inside them, she found the answer she’d been seeking.

  God was a legal system, his laws interpreted to suit the situation. There could be victims, but no real oppressors under God’s system. He controlled the universe through man - and they controlled him.

  Her mother’s body had felt like warm silk, and it smelled of the mud and reeds that grew at the edge of the water. She’d giggled when her mother had splashed water over her small body and had shaken the water from her hair, squealing with delight as the iridescent drops caught the sun. She’d caught a fish with her hands that day, herding it into a circle of stones she’d made, and then closing the gap so it couldn’t escape. Her mother wrapped it in a leaf so it wouldn’t spoil on the long walk back to camp.

  The truck had been there when they got back that day.

  ‘Run Kirra . . . Kirra . . . Kirra!’ her mother had screamed and the magpies she’d been named after for their black and white colors screamed a warning. But she hadn’t run fast enough.

  ‘Be grateful you have a good brain we can work with.’

  It had been hard to remember all the things she was expected to be grateful for. High on the list were the good sisters who taught her lessons, followed by the white mother who trained her in cleanliness, and how to sew, cook and iron.

  Then there was the nourishing food she found on her plate each day, when other, less fortunate people starved to death. The sampler on the dining room wall was a paradox

  ‘God helps those who help themselves. God loves those who help others.’

  She remembered it on her graduation from university. The white mother had watched her accept the law degree with a look of self-congratulation and pride upon her face, her place in heaven assured.

  She began to help others too, those who helped themselves. No victims, no oppressors. God’s law meted out justice and punished without favor.

  But something inside her struggled for release - something that called uneasily to her.

  One day, when the voice became too strong to ignore, she looked in the mirror and saw the sad eyes of her ancestors gazing back at her.

  ‘Run, Kirra . . . Kirra,’ she whispered and the need to go was strong in her.

  Now her journey was nearly over. Spreading her arms wide, she shouted. ‘I’ve come home.’

  Her words echoed round the purple hills bordering the spinifex plain. A few crows rose in the air, wheeling lazily before they settled back down amongst the dry yellow grasses. Sweat trickled down her back as the sound died away to nothing.

  The sense of aloneness was acute after the city. The sky was too blue and vast to comprehend, the silence unnerving. She stood, breathing in hot, dusty air and swatting the flies that tried to invade her eyes, nose and mouth.

  All around her was life and death. There was a lizard sunning itself on a rock - a teeming termite tower, a spider web glowing iridescent in the sun, a butterfly beating its wings in panic as a spider approached it.

  A hawk circled above, then hurtled on silent wings towards the earth.

  A tiny, alarmed squeak reached her ears, then nothing.

  She shuddered, and moved back to the safety of the car when a meter of brown snake slithered across the track.

  She should never have left the road.

  Her mother’s name was Ruby Namijara.

  The hands of the man had been strong as he’d dragged her from the bush she’d hidden in. The little fish she’d caught so gleefully had fallen into the dust and was churned underfoot by the man in the white collar, his eyes burning with God fervour.

  The journey had been long; the children had huddled together for warmth and comfort, too frightened to cry. Sleep brought forgetfulness. Awakening brought a changed landscape. Gone were the wide spaces, the dust storms, the old man’s dreamtime tales. Gone were the simple everyday tasks and the security of knowing your place. Dreamtime became a dream replaced by a different dream.

  Several decades had passed since she’d left this place they called the Pilbara. The journey back had been long and twisting.

  Mining companies had built towns for their workers and were scouring the land for iron ore. A railway line curved like a ribbed snake through the country she’d been born in. The trains brought the ore to the ports where the carriers sailed away with it to foreign countries. There, the red heart of the land was crushed and molded, then brought back changed beyond all recognition into neat silver slices.

  Despite all this, there was a timeless sense about the place. It would be here in the centuries to come when the human race was an endangered species, and the steel, mountains of rust. The rain would still gush through the dry river beds in the wet season, and that which the earth didn’t swallow would fill the scars, turning them into lakes before rushing onwards to the sea.

  Although she couldn’t see the shore, she knew the tide was out. Her nostrils were filled with the warm, and slightly acid aroma of the mangroves that thrust their roots deep into the salty mud. They’d caught crabs when the tide was out, placing them in baskets woven by the women.

  The sea sent its tide creeping back silently over the mud, slowly at first, making seductive little sucking noises. A swift hissing inrush of water followed, trying to catch them unawares as they skipped, laughing over the twisted roots.

  The nearby town of Roebourne was built mostly of local stone.

  The post office, the courthouse with its flag flying gaily at the mast, the jailhouse where the drunks were penned like animals - all were hewn from the earth, and set block upon block to celebrate this early administrative centre.

  Around the outskirts of the town were newer dwellings, weatherboard houses painted pale pink or green with tin roofs and small verandahs. The house stumps were rooted in red earth, to which even the grass clung tenaciously.

  The settlers’ roots had dug deep.

  A bend revealed the hotel. There was a woman slumped against the wall outside, a bottle in her hand as she baked on the hot pavement, and oblivious to the music and laughter coming from inside. Two children crouched patiently by her side, their eyes old.

  Further out of town the reserve radiated watchfulness. Emaciated dogs rushed to threaten her, their hides lumpy with bush ticks.

  They were in the place where her mother was born. She lay warm between the two dogs, half listening to her mother’s song of how the moon crept out of its hiding place in the earth. The sky was dark, the creek a gentle murmur in her ears. She was sleepy. Just behind the trees the moon glow softly lightened the sky. Cicada’s began to call. On
e of the dogs lifted its head and growled when a dingo howled in the distance. Suddenly, a star shot in a blazing arc across the sky. She smiled as she snuggled into the dogs’ warm bodies and listened to her mother sing.

  A magpie carolled its evening lullaby.

  ‘Run . . . Kirra, Kirra,’ she whispered, and her tongue curled around the name and owned it.

  She had known that her mother was still alive. But not like this.

  It was hard to believe the old women in a pink, stained dress was her mother. Her eyes stared unseeingly towards the hills, and she made a low keening noise in her throat as she rocked back and forth. Her skin was thin, brown bark sagging over a frame of bones.

  Neither of them knew the other in the void created for them.

  ‘Ruby, she hit her head on a rock an ’aint never bin same since,’ her uncle said. ‘White fella doctor, him want to take Ruby away to hospital. We wouldn’t let him.’

  Her uncle was white-bearded and big bellied - his woman and six grandchildren all lived in the tiny house amongst the dogs, flies and cockroaches.

  ‘Where are their parents?’

  ‘My son, he did a bloke in. Him in jail long time since, and his woman, she gone walkabout.’

  She’d had a younger brother, long gone.

  ‘Poor fella, petrol took him off.’ Her uncle tapped his head. ‘Ruby took it real hard.’

  Her uncle was a man of few words. The silence between them stretched into the evening.

  The children stared at her through earth-brown eyes, their faces shy and solemn - somehow guarded.

  They were so achingly like her own grandchildren, only different - less knowing of their place in the future, wiser of their place in the past. They made her uncomfortable.

  They made her a bed on the floor next to her mother’s.