Taboo

by Kim Scott

  Again the house windows showed a girl and two men walking away, then more figures, trembling and shifting shape in the flawed glass. Unseen by the walkers, a snake crossed the space between them and the building, its rippling undulations as uncanny as some old and forgotten magic.

  Back at the creek bed they saw how an old flood had here and there woven what almost looked like screens between the trunks and limbs of trees either side of the sand; screens of sticks and twigs, leaves and feathers – it was unclear where the edges were, where they began and ceased.

  Tilly stopped and turned in a circle on her heels. In an open space, she saw the house on the bleached and prickly slope. Trees crowding the edge of the creek bed bent toward her, ushering her away from its gaze.

  ‘I don’t remember a thing. Jeez. I was just a baby.’

  ‘Yeah, but you helped make sure family always been here.’ Gerald thought himself the serious one. ‘Our old granny married a white man, maybe she wanted to forget, and then you come lived here, too little to know and . . . Old man Horton trusts us ’cause he remembers the old women, he remembers our family.’

  Again he pointed to prints in the sand, naming in the old language the animals and birds that had made them.

  ‘I dunno them words,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Learned them in prison. Your dad was teaching us younger fellas . . . Well, not all so young.’

  ‘Pity he was never around to teach me.’

  ‘That’s why we’re all down here, Til. In our old country.’

  ‘Your dad never really been here either. He only knowed to wind up the windows and keep driving. ’Cause of the massacre, see,’ the other twin said.

  Tilly pointed along the creek bed, to a single tall tree in the distance and an eagle perched on one of its lower branches.

  Gerald spoke its name in the old language.

  ‘Don’t see ’em low down like that much,’ said Gerrard.

  The eagle and the three people studied one another.

  ‘Eagle, he don’t sing. Not like us curlew – us Wirlomin. That’s our totem, Tilly.’ Gerald said the old word for curlew. ‘Scary when you hear them, boy. Lots of people reckon, “death bird”, ’cause of the sound.’

  ‘Not many around now,’ said his brother.

  ‘Bit like us then,’ replied Gerald.

  ‘Maybe none,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Maybe they just keeping quiet. Camouflaged. You might never see one, think it’s just a stick of wood.’

  The brothers began to sing. They were transformed by the song, the singing of it. Then it faded. Surprised at themselves, they listened to the sound of the wind, of insects and birds.

  The eagle opened its wings. It seemed for a moment it might even fall but, wings straining, it rose into the sky.

  ‘That song,’ Tilly began.

  ‘Not an old one. Your dad made that one up. First couple of words are from an old song, but no one really remembered how it went.’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  The eagle spiralled higher and higher as they watched. Became a small thing, easily lost in the sky.

  No storm, but still those heavy clouds gathering on one side of the sky. Darkness was coming upon them.

  Gerald checked his phone. ‘Pay the old fella a visit, unna?’

  Tilly shrugged.

  ‘Sure,’ said Gerrard. ‘He asked us.’

  ‘Rest of them won’t be there for hours yet. Got held up somewhere.’

  The car drove away, and the trees leaned back from the water and sand, reached for the sky again. Light thickened, became something almost palpable.

  *

  It was only a short distance, but already the trees sprang from the darkness ahead of them and bent over the headlight beams. The car slowed. Through a filigree of leaves: a globe shining down upon a front door; a window outlined in yellow light.

  Footsteps crunched on gravel. Tiny, dancing tongues of flame: a small barbeque arrangement close to the house, glistening iron plate dripping grease on the fire. A low wall in the fire glow, two hunched cats. Globes smouldering beneath slow eyelids.

  The three at the front door listened to one muffled singing voice, the piano’s simple accompaniment. Tilly slipped around the corner of the house, waved them to the window. They looked upon Dan at the piano, singing. The dogs content at his feet.

  They knocked again at the front, more loudly. Heard the small dogs barking, claws scrabbling the other side of the door which now swung open. Little dogs swirled around them, growling, and then were gone. Dan shook hands with one of the twins, put a hand on the shoulder of the other and with this firm grip, pulled them into the house. Tilly remained just outside the door, her back to them and her arms wrapped around herself. The little yapping dogs bouncing around her.

  ‘Git.’ She waved her arms and stamped a foot. The dogs retreated to Dan, who gestured at Tilly. ‘Come in,’ he said.

  The walls of the small entrance hall displayed framed paintings of horses drinking from a stream, and photographs: farm animals and machinery, stiff portraits of ancestors and family.

  ‘My brother did the paintings,’ Dan said, but he pointed to a small photograph of a woman with a toddler on her lap. ‘Recognise this photo, Tilly? The little girl, perhaps?’

  Tilly peered closer.

  ‘It’s you, Tilly, and my wife. Bless her.’

  The woman was smiling. The child looked suspicious. Tilly recognised neither of them.

  ‘That’s your frown alright, bub,’ said Gerald.

  A large table sat just off centre of the expansive room. The upright piano pushed back against the wall. A guitar and mandolin were propped beside it, and the walls were covered with large sheets of hymn lyrics, handwritten in thick pen:

  Though I walk in the valley of death . . .

  Just a closer walk with thee . . .

  Lead me Jesus lead me . . .

  The light from a single, suspended globe did not quite reach the cobwebby corners of the room.

  Six places were set on a tablecloth of checked plastic. The cutlery and crockery did not match. Dan lifted a metal cover. Steak, sausages, chops, evidently cooked on the outside barbeque.

  ‘Can you grab the salad from the kitchen, Tilly love?’

  Dan opened the plastic bag of sliced bread, and invited the men to sit. He folded his hands ready for prayer as a disgruntled Tilly returned, then closed his eyes and began to speak. Tilly glanced quickly at the twins; one twin raised his eyebrows, the other had his eyes closed and his palms together. Tilly’s hands were under the table. She dug her nails into her palms, very hard.

  ‘. . . the certainty of your holy word, oh Lord. Our conviction and faith is in your word. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Gerald.

  Dan looked around at his guests. ‘Our meal is waiting for us. I think we should help ourselves, don’t you?’

  The little dogs, stiff and trembling, investigated the shadows by the fireplace. A spider moved to the centre of its web in a high corner of the room.

  Dan indicated the vacant seats. ‘Such a shame the rest of the family – our loved ones – can’t be with us. My son, my wife . . .’

  He ceased speaking. Knives cut, forks jabbed, mouths chewed, lips worked to keep the food from spilling. In turns, they waved their hands to deter two or three persistent flies. Dan folded the bread back into its plastic wrap. Fat coagulated on the meat. The salad wilted. Conversation stretched thinly across the silences. Gerrard tried, ‘Paddocks look dry on the way down.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We saw lightning. There was a spot of rain.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be rain in it for us. You live in the city? Gerry? Gerald?’

  The brothers nodded. One spoke. ‘Yeah, mostly. But this is home. This is my ancestral country.’ He glanced at his brother and Tilly.
‘Our ancestral country.’

  ‘Yes. Well, we’ve lived here, my family, for . . . must be five, six generations now.’

  ‘They’ve moved away, your kids I mean? You have kids?’

  ‘A son.’

  His listeners nodded. One of the twins sat back.

  ‘Yes. I don’t see him, really. He lives in King George Town, I think. I tried to get word to him about his mother’s funeral, but . . . He’s changed his name, I hear.’

  Dan Horton was not yet on Facebook. He thought he’d seen his son once, a young man with a shaven head; a man who shone, was suited, seemed scented and glossy. A man pleased with himself. He’d had a young woman with him, a very young woman, Dan had thought, who did not hold herself well. Something wrong with her. It was but a glance, he turned away, looked back and they were gone.

  ‘It’s no life for a young man, farming. Not now, not here.’

  ‘Salt? Overclearing?’

  ‘Oh, all that. Both. The same. And the changing economy.’

  ‘And climate?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. We’ve had good rains of late. For this district. We like to think the country is recovering in fact. My wife went to her grave regretting how much we’ve cleared. We had to, no real choice at the time, but . . . Came to regret it.’

  ‘She passed away not long?’

  ‘Not long.’ He didn’t specify the time, and they did not press him.

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I do. We were fifty years together. She loved this bush, loved this country. We all do.’

  ‘It’s powerful country. Special. Felt it again today.’

  ‘She was a conservationist, you know. Not at first, of course. But late in her life, especially, she was very passionate. She must have replanted thousands of trees, jam and sandalwood and york. Like I said, the country is recovering. Mallee hen, bush turkey . . .’

  Gerald said their names in the ancient tongue.

  Dan looked at him. ‘I see them on the paddocks sometimes. For a long time you never did.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know one if I fell over it,’ said Tilly.

  ‘You speak your Aboriginal language?’ asked Dan.

  Gerald gave him the old word for ‘yes’. He was so proud of himself. ‘It means hello too,’ he said. And then said the word again.

  ‘Used to be a lot of them curlews, when we were lads, before all the clearing. Someone at church was saying, just t’other day, they heard them again.’

  His three guests exchanged glances.

  ‘Used to see their eyes at night-time, when we camped. Just their eyes, shining in the firelight, in a circle around us. Only their eyes. Never hardly see them in daytime, because they camouflage themselves so well.’

  Tilly wondered how they might appear if someone was to peer through a window. The dark corners, the dogs worrying the shadows, the coagulating meat, the four people huddled at the large table with its vacant, set places.

  ‘Gerry was telling me about them, just today, at the farm,’ she said.

  ‘You just never even know if they’re there or not,’ continued Dan. ‘And that call.’ He shivered.

  ‘Emus around the place?’ asked Gerald.

  ‘Emus! They’re nesting now, you know. It’s the male that sits on the nest.’ He was addressing Tilly. ‘It’s the father that cares for them.’ She looked away.

  ‘Funny things, emus. They run in a straight line when you chase them.’

  ‘You’d never catch an emu,’ said Tilly. ‘Even I know that.’

  ‘But you can bring them to you,’ said Gerald. ‘Whistle and lie on your back with your legs moving around in the air. They’ll come looking. Curious, see.’

  ‘I meant when you go after them in a car,’ Dan continued. ‘They stick to the track and you can get right up close behind, so you hear their legs knocking on the roo bar. They can’t turn away and so . . .’

  Dan held his knife and fork upright in his hands.

  ‘Vermin, we used to call them.’

  Tilly grasped a small, sharp blade.

  Dan put his knife and fork on either side of his plate. Straightened them. He had not eaten much at all.

  Tilly got to her feet and began to clear the dishes. When she left the room, Gerald said to Dan, ‘This is very good of you, Mr Horton . . .’

  ‘Please call me Dan.’

  ‘Ok, Dan. Thanks very much for your hospitality. We were wondering, like Tilly said today . . .’

  ‘You’d like to spend a night at the homestead?’

  ‘Well, maybe. No.’

  ‘Yes, let’s,’ said Tilly as she returned to the room, wiping her lips.

  ‘Well, we do wanna pay another visit, a group of us, that are here for the workshop.’

  ‘For the Peace Park opening? I’m so pleased.’

  ‘It’s a chance to reconnect, to face up to and heal the history, the massacre . . .’ Gerald ground to a halt.

  ‘The Peace Park . . .’ Dan hesitated. ‘It’s for the town, for all of us really. Janet was very involved.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, gazed at the floor.

  ‘A lot of Aborigines say it’s taboo,’ Dan said. ‘They don’t like it.’

  ‘Not all of us, and lots have never had a chance to . . .’

  ‘Personally,’ interrupted Dan, ‘I hate the word “massacre”.’ He put both his large hands on the table, palms down. ‘It hurts me. I don’t know . . . Janet started all this; she wanted a plaque to acknowledge the terrible things that happened, and . . .’ His gaze flickered to Tilly. ‘Just let me know when you want to come. We might have a barbeque . . .’

  ‘Let’s stay there tonight. I’m not scared.’ Tilly smiled at Dan. He blushed.

  ‘Well,’ said Gerald, looking up from his phone. ‘The bus is running late.’

  ‘So let’s stay then,’ said Tilly, insisting.

  ‘Let’s help with the dishes first.’ Gerald grinned, and turned toward the kitchen sink.

  ‘No need. There’s a dishwasher,’ the old man said.

  ‘Yes, I’ve stacked it,’ said Tilly.

  ‘It’s wonderful how you’ve grown,’ said Dan, admiringly.

  ‘You know,’ he spoke to the two men now, ‘if you did want to stay at the homestead, where it all started, the killing, I mean . . . You could. It’d be fine. There’s no electricity but there is water, and it’s fine to stay. We were thinking of a bed and breakfast. It’s ready to be used.’

  Walking from the house to the cars they could hardly see one another. Dan’s voice could have come from one of the trees, any one of the figures barely distinguishable in the darkness.

  ‘Did you find the well today, the bubbling spring?’

  *

  How very dark it was, the darkness congealing around them as they moved away from the old house. Trees barely discernible, a patch of star-glittering sky above their heads, wisps of cloud; then leaves and twigs closed again, concealing the stars and sky, and they flitted, the clouds and Tilly and Gerrys too; were wispy, shifting, insubstantial among trunks and limbs, among a tangle of leaves and twig and thorn.

  Dan’s voice reached them from a little distance. Tilly stopped. She heard the light crunch of other footsteps on gravel.

  She saw the old man, framed in the light of his open car door. He looked like something preserved, an exhibition piece.

  Looked like Dougie. A man framed in door light.

  Tilly had been floodlit in a high-walled backyard. Tied up with the dogs. A man walking at her. Dougie. Son of God, he said.

  Tilly in the night, chained at the neck to a dog kennel. Looking back at the house. A bright globe spilling light on the porch. One window light-rimmed. A wan and tired moon.

  The man leading her on a leash away from the kennels. Tilly bent at the
knees, stooped like an ape and just as naked. Her goose-pimpled flanks, her small breasts pointing down. Dougie did not make her go on all fours, not on this occasion. Dougie stumbled on the steps, bumped against the doorframe as he entered. He tugged on the leash around her neck. Tightened his lips, focused his loose and sloppy-mouthed smile.

  Sat her on the floor at his feet, himself at the kitchen table. Began that little ritual with flame and the pipe, with needle or vial or pills. She closed the door, closed the door and turned away.

  *

  The old homestead leapt in the erratically sweeping headlights as the two vehicles approached. Dan’s taillights died.

  Motors off, doors having slammed, it was very quiet. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  ‘The toilet.’ Dan indicated a small outhouse as they walked tentatively in the darkness to the house. ‘There’s a bucket in there to flush it with. Tap just outside the door. Daylight, you’ll see it.’

  The four of them stood close as Dan fumbled with the door key. The door swung open, creaking.

  ‘There’s a torch,’ said Dan. It was very dark.

  Tilly felt the twins close. As if there were more than two of them, more than just they and Dan. She felt reassured somehow. Then, revealed in the wavering spear of torchlight, fragments of the interior of the house. A steel sink, a chair, cupboards, a candle in a bottle.

  ‘There should be a few candles, somewhere.’

  Another flash of lightning showed a number of bottles with candles exclaiming their unlit existence.

  Four candles moved through the dark house, their reflections wobbling, floating in window glass.

  ‘I think you’ll be comfortable, though it’s noisy if it rains in this little house.’

  A strengthening breeze tousled hair as the three watched Dan’s taillights retreat into the scrub near the bottom of the slope.

  ‘I dunno,’ began one of the twins.

  A bank of clouds covered half the sky, closing in on the moon.

  ‘Dunno about staying here, you mean?’ asked Tilly.

  ‘Don’t tighten your hole over it,’ said his brother.

  ‘Well, it’s not taboo for no reason,’ said Gerald, and he gave them one of the old words. ‘Spirity,’ he translated, ‘is not just bad. It can be good too. For us. Our old people here. Gotta be pleased to see us back. Bringing the language back.’