Kimberley Sun

by Di Morrissey

  But he caught the look on her face. ‘This isn’t where all the action is. You have to go down the creek and out into the bay. But come and I’ll show you to your quarters. Like I said, we’re not geared up for posh lady visitors. Just the workers.’

  ‘You don’t have to make apologies, Dave, we’re here to see how things work,’ said Lily. They pulled their bags from the car and followed him across the sandy clearing. ‘So how are things going?’

  ‘Fair enough. A couple of the men have gone walkabout. We’re still waiting on some food supplies and a spare part for a bilge pump. The truck was supposed to be here yesterday – that’s the story of my life.’

  Star Two’s accommodation and dining area were very basic. There was a general air of disorganisation and the casual staff appeared to work without direction. But although no one gave them instructions on what to do next, the work apparently got done. Occasionally the tranquillity was shattered, usually when Dave found something that displeased him and he would bellow and swear at length. Despite these outbursts, there was a noticeable sense of camaraderie.

  After lunch, when Lily told him that she would take Sami for a walk along the creek to see the old lugger, Dave simply said, ‘Yeah, that’s okay, she’s still there.’

  Lily was astonished when she spotted the boat in the mangroves. ‘Good heavens, what’s he done?’ It was no longer nestled in mud, but sitting high and secure in a wooden cradle, and the hull showed signs of having been extensively restored. The masts were hung with fresh rigging.

  ‘Looks like he’s doing a salvage job on it, Mum.’

  They both took off their shoes and slopped through the mud to reach the freshly painted hull. The anti-fouling was still slightly wet. ‘I’d say he put this coat on only today,’ observed Lily, wiping red anti-fouling off a couple of fingers. ‘It looks beautiful, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not a yachtie, but it has a certain, well, olde world charm.’

  They walked to the stern and for the first time saw that the lugger’s name on the transom, Georgiana, had been touched up, the black lettering sharp against the fresh white of the hull.

  ‘Oh, it’s so lovely,’ exclaimed Lily, once again running her hand gently over the curving hull, first making sure that this time the paint was dry. ‘It blows the mind a bit, doesn’t it, to think that John and Olivia and so many others in our family knew this boat, sailed in her, and probably loved her?’

  Sami was not that moved. ‘Yep, it’s a very romantic link with the past,’ she said, trying to sound appreciative of her mother’s feelings.

  ‘I wonder how much he spent on the work.’

  ‘Ha,’ exclaimed Sami, ‘the business side of the brain just clicked in. Check it out, Mum.’

  ‘Don’t you dare mention a word about that,’ warned Lily, then gave her daughter a brief hug. ‘Okay, let’s get down to serious business.’

  Returning to Dave’s hut they found him stacking some files on the verandah table. ‘I thought you’d like to check out some of the paperwork before looking more closely at the whole operation. You can have a bit of a rest up after the drive and give the brain a workout instead.’ He put an old pipe in his mouth and fussed over it with several matches before asking casually, ‘What did yer think of the Georgiana?’

  ‘She’s come to life again, Dave. It’s such a surprise. It’s wonderful. You’ve been very busy since Tim was here to get the boat looking so good.’

  ‘Not really. Don, our boat maintenance fellow, is a shipwright. He reckons we’ll float her on the next spring tide in a couple of days.’

  Lily and Sami spent the next day exploring the base area and observing the work routines. Sami asked questions that seemed ingenuous and being young and pretty, the workers revealed to her more than they realised. In their room at night after dinner, the two women compared notes. ‘Well, what do you think of Dave, now that you’ve had the chance to see him at work?’ asked Lily.

  ‘Too chauvinistic for my taste. I wouldn’t want to work with him.’

  ‘Oh, I’d say he hasn’t been around women much lately, and he’s run his own thing up here for a long time. But he’s no fool when it comes to pearling. Tomorrow morning we’re going over more paperwork – records, sales figures, projections, costs and expenditure. How much is needed to invest and in what.’

  ‘You don’t know about any of that stuff.’

  ‘Hey, girl. Don’t blow my cover. I’m learning. You’d be surprised what I’ve absorbed.’

  ‘What about your friend Tim? What’s he told you?’

  ‘I’m relying on his expertise. Together I hope we can work out the feasibility of this place. I haven’t had a chance to go over what Tim thinks of the workings of the farm.’

  Sami was trying to decide whether her mother was mad, slightly mad or brilliantly mad in contemplating taking on this romantic but rather ramshackle pearl farm. It all seemed too laid back, in a casual, shambolic state with a staff to match. And who knew if there were even any decent pearls growing in the panels of oysters hung in deep water out from where the creek entered the bay. ‘I wouldn’t rely on him too much. Get your own independent advice. You’re not committed to this,’ Sami reminded her.

  ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ Lily veered away from the subject of Tim.

  ‘I’ve seen enough of the work on the boats in the creek shelter, and the smell of oysters in those sheds turns my stomach,’ Sami declared. ‘I think I’ll talk to some of the men, go further up the creek maybe. Though what I’d really like is to go for a sail right out in the bay. When’s the Georgiana going to be floated?’

  ‘The timing has something to do with the next big tide, ask around.’

  Sami walked down to the mouth of the creek, past a collapsed jetty and a large functional pontoon, then the track broke out of the low shrub and mangroves onto a strip of white sand that ran into the startling blue water of the bay. Rakka ran ahead to the edge of the water, looked around, then raced up the beach to a woman kneeling on the sand and apparently looking for something, until the dog arrived and demanded patting.

  ‘Hi,’ she called as Sami drew close. ‘You’ve got a very friendly dog.’

  ‘Yes, she’s friendly enough if your vibes are okay. I hope she didn’t scare you. That’s Rakka, and I’m Samantha Barton.’

  ‘I’m Serena. You’re up at the Star camp, right?’

  ‘Yes, we’re staying for a few days,’ said Sami then changed the subject. ‘What are you looking for?’

  Serena held up a small shell, dropped it in the cotton shoulder bag beside her, then reached in and pulled out a handful of shells, most of them broken. ‘I use them in making pictures. A particular style of art that I’m working on.’

  There were many shades of pink, blue, cream, gold through to black and stark white. ‘I use all kinds of things, turtle shell, dugong bones, fish heads, cuttlefish, operculum, pearlshell. They’re my paints.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t get it.’ Sami was intrigued. The woman was attractive, in her forties, with dark hair, and wore unusual earrings made from painted shells and what looked to be fish vertebrae. ‘You’re an artist? Do you grind these up?’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose you’d say they are more a kind of collage than paintings. I use seashore material to paint with. They’re quite effective when you stand back and look at the finished picture.’

  The woman stood up. ‘I just do it for my own pleasure. My husband Donny works for the farm. He used to be a diver, now he looks after the boats. Good boat builder too. I’m usually the chief cook and bottle washer, but I’ve been away for two days. I’m back on duty tonight. At least you haven’t been poisoned while I’ve been off.’

  ‘No, but I wouldn’t say the food was wildly exciting. Grilled fish, grilled steak and veggies. Some from a tin.’

  ‘I’ve been telling Dave to get a garden going. It’s hard to get salad and fresh produce up here. And the boys need their protein. So what do you think of the place?’ They began to walk al
ong the shoreline, Serena keeping her eyes on the sand.

  ‘Umm. What do I think?’ mused Sami. She didn’t want to give too much away about her mother’s plans or her own misgivings. ‘This is my first visit to a pearl farm. My mother is obsessed with pearling.’

  Serena laughed. ‘I get it. You’re worried your mother is romanticising the lure of pearls. As you can probably tell, Dave’s joint isn’t exactly a threat to the big players.’

  ‘So what’s the story? How much do you know about Star Two?’

  Serena bent down and picked up a tiny dead crab and rolled it in a tissue from her pocket before putting it in the bag. ‘Dave is an old pearler from way back. In the 1970s he bought the farm after it had been let go. But where others took off and expanded into corporate concerns, he just plodded along. Of course, he had a bit of bad luck. Others might have thrown the towel in but he kept going. He probably had no other option.’

  ‘I gather luck plays a big part in pearling.’

  ‘There’s luck and unlucky circumstances, and there’s a bitch called Lady Luck.’ Serena paused then decided to explain. ‘He had a wife, or almost had a wife, a white girl who lobbed into Broome as a barmaid and fancied she’d find a rich Pommy husband. Dave got lucky one season and harvested some really good pearls. They never married and she took off with the pearls. As they say, the rest is history.’

  ‘Poor old bugger.’

  ‘Yeah, he got on the booze for a while. He still gives it a bit of a nudge from time to time, but seems to have it under control. I can’t imagine him ever leaving here, except in a box. Certainly he doesn’t want to go back to the old country.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Sami, wondering how Lily would digest this news.

  Serena lifted her eyes and nodded her head towards the dunes. ‘Would you like to see some of my work? We have a camp up beyond the body. I didn’t want to live at the farm, it’s more private out here.’

  ‘Body, did you say?’

  Serena chuckled. ‘Yeah. It spooks a lot of the local people. Donny and I don’t mind. In a way it’s the best guard dog you could have. That is, if people know about it and are superstitious.’

  ‘This is the sort of place where ghosts might walk,’ Sami said, looking at the lonely shore.

  ‘Or spirits. Many people in Broome reckon they’ve seen the ghost of Dampier on the poop deck of his frigate the Roebuck shining in the moonlight sailing across Roebuck Bay on a misty night.’

  Sami wondered if they’d ever see the ghost of Tyndall on board The Shamrock. It seemed possible up here. They turned up towards the dunes where tussocks and a straggle of small bushes began. Serena pointed at a small tree sprouting from the stump of a once taller tree. ‘Under there.’

  Sami inched forward then stopped in shock, before crouching down. The bleached bones of a body were laid out on the sand. ‘Who is it?’ She found herself whispering.

  ‘Some pioneer family perhaps, shipwreck, who knows? It’s believed to be a young white girl. The cops aren’t interested in it, it’s too old.’

  Sami sat down and looked out to sea, immensely touched by the lonely scene. Serena squatted beside her. ‘Apparently it’s been uncovered by the wind over the years. No one wants to move it or even touch it.’

  ‘How sad.’ Sami thought back to the graves near Town Beach. ‘You forget how many people must have died in the old days in places like this. Forgotten. It makes the past seem less romantic.’

  Serena rose. ‘Our camp is up here.’

  It was a trailer home with an awning shading an outdoor area, and a thatched three-sided hut that was Serena’s studio. Around the brushwood fence she’d hung her pictures, and Sami was blown away at their simple yet evocative beauty. Landscapes created from the actual landscape she’d depicted was how Serena described them.

  ‘Serena, these are great. You should take them into my cousin, Rosie Wallangou, she has the Little Street Gallery in Broome.’

  ‘Rosie is your cousin?’ Serena was smiling at Sami.

  Sami gave a dismissive gesture. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘You must tell me some time. We spend a lot of time up here telling stories after dinner. I can claim to have a teaspoon or two of white blood. Come and have a cool drink.’

  That night, after a superb meal cooked by Serena, some of the workers and Dave, Lily and Sami sat in plastic chairs around a campfire and watched the moon come up. A few told stories of recent fishing exploits to impress the women, which led to jokes about fishing, then jokes about anything. Sami told them about the fright she got when Serena showed her the skeleton, and Dave chuckled. ‘You should’ve talked to old Doc Peters, Doctor Do or Die – he’s got more funny stories of people karking it out here than you can poke a stick at,’ he said.

  ‘Funny? Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’ asked Lily, glancing at Sami.

  ‘Doc was the undertaker in Broome thirty years ago. Before that his father was the grave digger out at Wyndham.’

  ‘Tell them about the shark,’ threw in one of the divers.

  ‘Righto, so this is a true story that the Doc told me. There was this bloke, Charlie Tick, who reckoned one of the lugger crew was hiding snides – the best pearls found on the trip. He had a fight and the diver was killed. But after they sent him to Davy Jones’ locker they found out he’d swallowed the pearls. Charlie sent one of the other divers down to find the body, but he signalled to get up quick as there was a bloody big shark down there. Charlie threw out all the food and oyster meat on board, cut his arm and soaked a rag in his blood and trailed it overboard. They stayed there for two days and finally caught the bastard. Guess what?’ Dave looked around the circle of faces.

  ‘Dave! You’re not going to say what I think you are?’ said Lily.

  ‘Bloody oath. The body was inside the shark and Charlie got his pearls back.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ cried one of the boys.

  Sami couldn’t help smiling. ‘It’s an urban myth or, rather, a Kimberley folk tale. Do you have quiet deaths and formal services?’ she asked. ‘I keep thinking of that skeleton out there.’

  ‘Too many of those,’ sighed Dave. ‘I remember Doc talking of the loners who died out on the track, along the rabbit proof fence, often by choice. One old fella was sent to a hospice in the city, but checked out to go back bush. He wanted to meet his maker in the wide open spaces he loved. Another time, bush Aborigines brought an English fella into where a white bloke was riding the fence. The Englishman died so the rider buried him next to the fence and wound a wire cross onto it. No one’ll ever know who he was. Well, no one knows whatever happened to ole Doc, either.’

  The group fell silent for a minute or two and Sami gazed up at the stars that seemed so close as to be eavesdropping. Dave stood up and poked the fire. ‘Stevie, how about a tune? We got a flaming band out here, ya know. You sing, Sami?’

  A guitar and squeeze box were produced and there was a half hour of singing, mainly country and western Kimberley style. There was also a steady consumption of beer, but not heavy drinking, because everyone had an early start the next day.

  After fondling Rakka’s ears as she slept at her feet, Sami looked at her mother’s face in the flickering light of the fire and saw a woman content and strangely at home. It was all so far from her apartment in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, in every respect, and yet Lily seemed to fit into the scene so naturally. It was odd, Sami thought, a scene she could never have imagined.

  Palmer and Eugene got out of the tinnie and walked to a low line of rocks that ran across the beach from the base of a cliff. Eugene led the doctor over the first of the flat rocks, still wet from the recently turned tide, and stopped at a spot that would easily be overlooked by the average visitor. But not Palmer. He saw it immediately – the footprints of a dinosaur captured forever in the rock set his nerve endings tingling. There was a lot here to investigate. Palmer squatted and looked at the footprint for some minutes.

  ‘What do you think of it?’ asked Eugene. ‘T
here are some a little closer to the cliff.’ He was intrigued by this man who made him laugh one moment and then had him spellbound the next with his stories of ancient Australia.

  ‘It’s unusual to have such a large field to study like this. There’s probably much more to be found around here. It’ll be interesting to work out just how old these are . . . there’s every chance they could possibly rewrite the age and development of the continent’s formation and that life developed much earlier than we thought.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘Special techniques – carbon dating for a start. Well, Eugene, you’ve made my day. Thanks very much. Now let’s look at the others, and then scout around a bit. We will have to get a team with top palaeontologists out here to do the job properly. Could take some time. With a bit of luck, we might be able to take you on board.’

  ‘Sami thought you’d be interested. But for now we keep it a secret, eh?’ said Eugene.

  ‘That’s right, until we know for sure. Broome could have another big tourist attraction.’ Palmer grinned. And staying around here wouldn’t be hard to take, he thought.

  Palmer photographed the site and the footprints, and made many notes while Eugene went down to the beach and moved the boat into deeper water as the tide was running out. He sat on the bow watching the white man at work and wondered what was going on in his mind when he finally sat on a rock and seemed to be deep in thought. Eugene felt that Palmer was seeing this place as it was a million or more years before. He was a strange one, this university fellow: a man with a lot of learning, a man who was comfortable in the bush.

  The next morning there seemed to be much more activity than normal before sunrise. The movement around the bunkhouse and grounds woke Lily and Sami but they went back to sleep for another hour or two. When they did get up and go to the canteen for breakfast, they were welcomed by a bright eyed Dave George. ‘We floated the Georgiana this morning. How’d you two like to come for a sail around the bay?’

  ‘Wow, we’d love to!’ Sami exclaimed.