Taboo

by Kim Scott

  A child in a nappy peeped from the front door and then, rubbing its eyes, retreated into the diminishing slot of the doorway, waving goodbye goodbye . . .

  Wally turned his back on the cigarettes as Ruby reappeared and he had started the motor before she reached the vehicle.

  Angela lifted Wally’s cap from behind as she got back onto the bus, and kissed his bald dome. ‘Love ya, my uncle.’ She pulled his ponytail gently.

  The bus grumbled past a school, past little houses spilling down a long slope to where the land flattened out and became a mix of swamp and scrubby bush, and then a blue-gum plantation. Deeper in that dense forest, a set of tall chimneys reached above the trees, spilling smoke day and night. The drains that ran underground and had for years leaked heavy metals into the harbour were invisible.

  ‘Ate plenty of fish from there,’ Nita said as they turned along the foreshore. They sniffed the salty sea and rotting seaweed. Between rusted and peeling sheds and railway infrastructure the other passengers glimpsed the ocean harbour. ‘Didn’t do none of us any harm, the pollution. “Mercurial”, they say, unna? Well, that’s not a word for my lazy bloody family, that for sure.’

  No one protested. No one defended the family, or their individual selves. ‘Except you lot of course,’ she said, after a pause. ‘You’re all special.’ She clutched Angela’s knee. Angela lifted her grandmother’s hand and passed it to Ruby, who clasped and squeezed and gently kneaded.

  ‘Beryl’s in number fourteen, or sixteen,’ Nita called as Wally pulled into a large block of duplexes. Voices joined hers: ‘Fourteen,’ or, ‘No, number ten, number ten!’ Mostly, ‘No, no!’ There were a couple of grunts, a brighter exclamation. Beside the door marked number fourteen there was a piece of what might – but for the fact that it glowed with the colours of chocolate and honey – be called ‘driftwood furniture’. The bench sat level, but each of its timbers twisted and turned in such a way that people viewing it often found themselves wriggling, firstly with the thought of trying to sit upon it, and then because it provoked them to straighten up their stance and align their own skeleton with respect for gravity. A packed bag and pair of sheepskin boots sat between the bench and doorframe, along with a faint blue haze of smoke and the lingering smell of marijuana.

  ‘Be right with you, Wally.’

  Curtains twitched and heads appeared at several of the windows facing number fourteen. The door opened fully and out waddled a short woman in a sombrero, long trousers and sleeves. She pulled at a fingertip, adjusting her cotton gloves and glared at the doors and windows surrounding her own. ‘You can all go fuck yourselves,’ she said, loudly. A set of curtains twitched one last time. Beryl went back through the door, and emerged swinging a small baseball bat. She tucked it under her arm, snatched the bag and boots from the chair and walked to the bus.

  ‘Hello, Mummy,’ she said, collapsing onto a seat and grinning. ‘Uncle Wally. Ruby.’ She flicked a hand; it might’ve been a greeting, might have been disdain. ‘This it? This all of us?’

  ‘Plenty more yet, Beryl,’ said Wally, releasing the clutch.

  Beryl stared out the window.

  ‘Who?’

  There was an old man, Milton, with the rounded shoulders of a fighter and a hoarse, whispering voice that made the others lean toward him. There were a few young men and women, a mother and child, and as they were drawn into the bus the others shifted to accommodate them. Angela’s vigilance eased and she drifted from Nita’s side and toward the younger ones.

  The bus pulled into another driveway where Kathy Pinyan sat facing away from the driveway on a tiny front porch; a case beside her, and a box, a bundle of blankets and pillow balanced on top. The pillow wobbled and nearly fell as Kathy, hearing the bus pull into the driveway, spiralled to her feet and faced them. No longer of an age to spring and dance in welcome, she rocked back on her heels and opened her arms. Hands behind the glass waved, muffled voices reached her. The bus settled, and those within watched Kathy ascend from bleached sunlight, and some saw a pulse of light and not her shadow slip in behind her as the door hissed and closed. Her luggage went by hand to hand ahead of her to join the growing pile on the rear-most seats and floor as Kathy, hands resting for support on the shoulders of those already seated, made short, quick steps as the bus began to move.

  Nita had moved to the back of the bus so that only Ruby was behind her now, and Kathy sat on the edge of the seat in front of the older woman. She turned. ‘You got over us sharing that man yet?’

  The two old women rested their foreheads together for a moment, then each leaned back. ‘Oh, that was two husbands ago. Sister, even one of us too much woman for him!’ Their upper bodies swayed to and fro with laughter and were it not for the fact that each woman gripped the seat rail between them, their arms would have moved like tree limbs in a gusting breeze. But of course they were not trees; they were aged people on a moving bus, and not quite at ease.

  *

  The bus shilly-shallied through drab and humble streets of this particular struggle-town as if looking for a way in, a way out, an escape. Its passengers said they were detoxing, on rehab, going to a culture camp; some, just along for the ride. A small number were regarded as repositories of great wisdom and heritage, or at the very least were respected as the longest surviving descendants of a small group of common ancestors.

  It was a slow and kind of delayed ricochet through similar parts of the town. Now and then they stopped, tooted or knocked. The pile of blankets and luggage at the back of the bus grew and passengers moved closer, their attention more inside than outside the bus, and so they barely noticed the curtains of the houses twitching, the doors that would not open despite a ringing doorbell and the sound of TV and footsteps within.

  Wally found Wilfred walking away from a small, corrugated iron shed around which some of his nephews and grandchildren stood, smiling sheepishly. A haze of smoke hovered about the shed, and the air was blue and funky. Wilfred was frowning.

  He was a very small, stocky man with a mane of silver-grey hair, dreadlocked in recent years. A few sprouting silver hairs on his nose seemed a cultivated contrast. He had a habit of smiling as he looked away, like someone warily pleased with himself.

  ‘True,’ he’d tell anyone who repeated this observation. ‘I am pleased with myself. And why not?’

  Kathy had once drawn him as some sort of magical or spirit creature, playful and erratic. It no longer seemed a caricature. He’d grown his hair and beard to match the drawing. Despite his age, Wilfred had the hint of a swagger, a bounce and sway, as if he were a doll, a puppet animated by some other source. He wore a bright band on his wrist, sometimes around his head. Sometimes he applied ochre to himself, ran it through his white hair and beard. He liked the way it made people react to him, not only strangers and tourists, but even his own people a lot of the time.

  ‘Same old Wilfred,’ Wally said. ‘He was at the mission with me and Milton. But look at him now.’

  Despite his apparent age, the old man was shadow-boxing with Wally, feinting and moving his fists in small circles, lifting himself onto his toes and shifting his weight and balance like a dancer. For a moment he could have been a younger man; his arms darted around Wally’s ears like angry snakes, fingers clicking. Confused despite himself, Wally stumbled. The old man laughed and turned to the bus, eyes sparkling with excitement. Then he stopped and looked around in the air above him; a pink and grey galah swooped and came to rest on his shoulder. He put a sunflower seed into his own mouth, held out his tongue and the bird took the seed from that soft and small slab of meat. Wilfred didn’t look around to gauge the reaction of the others. No one said anything. Wilfred sat in the seat that had been left vacant for him next to the driver, Wally.

  A middle-aged woman strode out of her front door as the bus pulled into her driveway. She pointed at Wilfred as she entered the bus. ‘You need a haircut.’

&nb
sp; ‘And a real job,’ the parrot said. Wilfred lowered his head, glowering and smiling as if once again caught out in some repeated misdeed by some older authority, and once again forgiven. ‘She shouldn’t talk to me like that, but I can’t stop it, I can’t talk to her. Some people not even allowed to look at women,’ he told Wally later, when she was out of earshot.

  The woman rubbed finger and thumb together and looked around. Spoke a single word of their ancestral tongue. Several packets of cigarettes, opened, were held out to her. ‘But no smoking on the bus, unna?’ she verified, looking around her and laughing at Wally’s back, his frowning expression in the rear-view mirror.

  When they paused at an intersection, Wilfred held the parrot out the window. ‘Know your way from here. Go on, off you go.’ The bird ruffled its feathers, opening its wings as Wilfred tossed it into the air.

  ‘Tilly be there? Jim’s girl?’ he asked, but it seemed the others could not hear him.

  Inside the tinted windows the air conditioner’s fan roared. They ate thin, salted potato chips and sipped water. Tasted the plastic air, although some thought the bus a limousine almost, as the road curved and dipped, rose from a shallow river valley and began a gradual descent. Speed signs slipped by, the numbers upon them increasing. They headed away from a falling sun, gathering momentum, and would cross several small rivers before their destination, Hopetown: a town named some years after all the killing. That’s what the Peace Park idea was all about.

  When the bus pulled into the caravan park it was dark. They stepped out into a strangely charged air and Wally later said he saw, far inland, a bolt of lightning connect sky and earth.

  HIDDEN THINGS

  The twins and Tilly passed the speed signs where the highway from Kepalup became the main street of Hopetown and kept driving straight for the sea. They could see it. There, the street faltered, became a gravel car park, a rock groyne reaching out from the shore. On the right, as they slowed to what seemed walking speed: holiday chalets, a police station, houses; on the left, a school, a few shops and a stand of petrol bowsers marooned almost at the street’s end outside a little supermarket. Between it and the sand, a little park; opposite, an old pub. 1905, it proclaimed. Tilly had wondered if this was Hopetown they had entered; the pub’s name told her it was. They turned right just before the gravel car park and, around the pub, found the entrance to the caravan park, bordered on its ocean side by a grove of peppermint trees through which led a thin sandy path.

  They pulled up near a hire bus.

  ‘This’ll be us,’ said one of the Gerrys. It was still early in the morning. They watched a hunched and tracksuited wraith walking stiffly toward the ablution block. Tilly thought she recognised them; the figure returned her wave indifferently, kept on track.

  ‘I gotta go,’ said Tilly.

  When she came out of the toilet the twins had disappeared.

  She walked through the campground and saw a group – oldies – around a little pile of smoking rubble. Campfire? It was nothing but a busted barbeque. Another person was walking back from the toilets. Her hair was damp and pulled back from her face. She had the loose, upright walk of royalty. She smiled. ‘Tilly?’ And Tilly was so glad to see her, this woman who’d agreed to be her guardian back when Gerry was helping her get her life together. They had never met until then, and even now had spent very little time together. They hugged. Kathy pointed out the breakfast chalet.

  When Tilly got there the twins were head down over breakfast and watching TV with the volume turned very low. They nodded as she came in, but kept eating.

  Tilly took some cereal. Toast. A woman seemed to have taken on kitchen duties.

  ‘Hello, love, I’m Beryl. Aunty Beryl.’

  Tilly thought she was bossing more than helping.

  Beryl’s gaze went everywhere, even as she talked. She jumped from one to another. Turning this way and that, indicating what to do, what direction. Got in the way of anyone moving too fast and straight. Was in constant motion; at the kettle, the fridge, the stove. Brushing away crumbs after Gerry burnt his toast. Putting the lid back on the jam. Wiping the counter. Huddling over a mug, dark eyes this way, that.

  Tilly went back to the toilet block. Waited in a cubicle until the room was empty. She moved a small blade, made small slices on her secret skin. Calmer, she washed her hands. Not much of a mirror, but enough to confirm it was still she. Just a little hurt.

  *

  Tilly recognised the old woman sitting alone by the fire. Nan Nita, wrapped in smoke, seemed so still she might have been asleep or dead. But then Tilly saw her hand move to her mouth. Smoke drifted from the cigarette in her hand as she let it fall, and smoke marked her exhalation. It rose, disappeared. She was bundled in layers of clothing, scarves and a woollen beanie in bright red, yellow and black.

  Tilly slid a chair closer to the fire. The old woman turned her head and lifted her dark glasses; Tilly dimly saw lizard eyes that did not focus but moved about, away. She nodded, and Tilly returned the gesture. Smiled.

  ‘I’m blind, you know that,’ the old woman said. ‘Makes it a bit hard for us to get to know one another better. Best if you sit close,’ she patted the chair beside her, ‘and talk. That’s how I know people.’ She waved a hand in the direction of the breakfast chalet. ‘Ask any of them. My eyes were good once. I’ve seen plenty of things; enough for my lifetime and yours too I reckon.’

  Tilly wondered if she’d seen someone like herself, naked, and on all fours and eating from the dog’s bowl. And a bastard, the no-name called D . . . Tilly wondered if she’d washed her hands.

  ‘Like your breakfast? Or you one of them that don’t like to eat?’

  Tilly looked around. Maybe she could just get up and walk away?

  ‘You Jim’s girl?’

  Tilly nodded. Then, ‘Yes, Jim’s girl.’

  ‘Tilly?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly said.

  ‘We met, at the funeral.’

  ‘Yes, Nan.’

  ‘Jim was my brother’s boy, my nephew. We love you, Tilly. I’m glad you’re here.’

  Tilly twitched, smiled. Wanted not to cry.

  The old woman kept her face lifted to Tilly, as if she was indeed studying her.

  ‘Spent more time in than out since he was a man. In prison he was a hero. He was a hero in prison.’

  Tilly had not known until less than two years ago who her real father was – had been relieved that it was not her mum’s boyfriend. She had visited her father in prison.

  ‘How long were you together?’ she’d asked her mum.

  ‘Not long. Too long. You’re the one good thing that came of us being together, my daughter. The rest I leave behind. You meet him, I’ll tell you my story one day. Not now, please.’

  Tilly had left it at that.

  ‘Not long,’ her father also said when she eventually met him. ‘It didn’t work out, Tilly. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Is why I’m here, full-up to my eyebrows with sorry. But not you, not about you. You’re my best thing, Tilly. My best.’

  Next he was in solitary, and . . . Best not to think about that.

  Tilly reached across and touched the back of Nita’s hand. The old woman jumped and shrieked.

  ‘Oh, cold!’

  Nita turned her wrist and held her palm open waiting for Tilly’s hand to return. It did. The old woman clasped Tilly’s hand in her own.

  Tilly felt the bones within the loose skin clasp and hold her tight.

  ‘Tried to hang himself one time, your father. You know that?’

  Nan Nita seemed to have gone into a reverie, but her grip did not loosen. ‘His boy saw him, shamed him. Your brother, Tony. You met him?’

  ‘No,’ Tilly said. ‘Some. Not him.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve found us, Tilly. Lovely name, that. Tilly. I’m glad we found you.’ She took her hand away and gest
ured over her shoulder at the camp. ‘We’re a mess. I don’t know . . .’ She hesitated.

  Tilly was a tiny self. A doll within many layers. She felt herself huddled in her own filth, and in the filth of others. A receptacle for their . . .

  ‘Hey, Nita, my sister. You leave the poor girl be.’ A hand gently squeezed Tilly’s shoulder. Tilly stiffened.

  ‘Coffee?’ the voice said, and a cup arrived in Tilly’s hands.

  ‘Thanks. Yes.’

  It was Kathy. ‘You met Nan Nita then?’

  Tilly nodded quietly, her hands wrapped around the mug. The way people did. It was a comfort. She looked into the fire they sat around, itself hemmed with small walls of brick. A heavy bed of ash. Large red coals, veined white and grey. Tilly tapped a long stick once; a tongue of flame leapt and danced. Tapped again, and the glowing coal collapsed on itself as the fire chuckled, wheezed, gave a puff of smoke.

  Kathy swayed like a dancer, though so elderly, so heavy-breasted and grey-haired.

  Nita said, ‘This one wants her father back.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Tilly snapped. ‘Really I’m fine.’

  ‘We all do, bub. You had a tough time.’

  Tilly was angry and Tilly thought she might cry. What did they know?

  ‘We all have our bad times. Bump into mad bad bastards.’

  ‘I’m at boarding school.’

  ‘One of those scholarships?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Did Kathy raise her eyebrows?

  ‘You know your dad blew ’em away at the prison last year.’

  Tilly’s heart leapt.

  Kathy laughed. ‘No, not that way. I mean, impressed them. Made them look again and think. Laugh too. Big NAIDOC thing. Public event like. Community invited, elders and councillors and politicians and big bosses too. Boys put on a dance, bits of the stories your father and his father – rest in peace – put together. All in language. Your dad spoke. People couldn’t believe it. Too deadly.’

  No, Tilly hadn’t heard. He wouldn’t be doing that again.