Spirits of the Ghan

by Judy Nunn

  Rose nodded in solemn agreement, a sign Toby found most encouraging.

  ‘Teach her all you can, Rosie,’ he urged. ‘Teach her about where you come from. Teach her about your people. Tell her their stories. They’re her people too …’ Then he stopped, halted by the utter hopelessness he saw in her eyes. He’d lost her, all of a sudden, just like that. Why?

  ‘What is it, love?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know my people,’ she said, ‘I don’t know their stories.’ She shook her head, again helplessly, and Toby thought he had never seen a soul more lost. ‘I grew up in a white man’s world.’

  What could he say? He reached out and took her hand, caressing the silky softness of her skin and they remained silent for a moment or so. ‘Then you must teach her about you, Rosie,’ he said finally. ‘You must teach her who you are.’

  She stared down at their hands entwined, the black and the white, and the questions whirled anew. But who am I? How can I teach her who I am when I don’t know myself? Don’t you see I am nothing? Don’t you see I belong nowhere? I am a person of no significance. What can I possibly teach my daughter?

  He could see the familiar demons circling. Her lack of self-confidence was always so heartbreakingly painful to watch. ‘Tell her your feelings, love,’ he said gently but firmly. ‘Speak from your heart. Share as much of the past with her as you can. Tell her about where you come from. Tell her how you were taken as a little girl. Jess will learn about herself through you, Rosie, I know she will.’ He prayed he was right. He also prayed that he hadn’t made matters worse: she looked so bewildered.

  He stood and circled the table. Then easing her to her feet he kissed her. ‘Now come along, girl. It’s bedtime and I’m in need of a cuddle.’

  They left the wine virtually untouched and went to bed, where they made love. Afterwards, as Toby lay gently snoring, Rose gazed into the darkness, pondering the past. What was she to teach her daughter? What could she remember from the past that would be of any value? All she’d known was Eleanor Downs, a cruel, white world that brought back memories she’d long put behind her. But she did still feel the call of the desert. It was in her blood, that land. And the more she thought about it, the more she felt it in her very heartbeat, throbbing through her body. Is that who I am? she wondered.

  The following morning, when Jess had left for school and Toby was in the studio, Rose took out the drawing paper, the pencils and crayons, the paints and the brushes and settled down to work. Memories flooded back. She was devoured by images of giant eagles soaring over rocky wooded hills, of rugged escarpments towering into cloudless skies, of vast plains of spinifex and endless dry riverbeds where red gums thrived …

  When Toby came in for his scheduled lunch break he found no sandwich waiting, no tea brewing in the pot. He always took a break on the dot of one and Rose always had a sandwich and a pot of tea ready, but not today. Instead, the dining table was covered with vivid paintings and bold, crayon drawings, and all were of central Australia.

  She jumped up when she saw him. ‘Oh!’ She glanced at the clock on the wall, startled. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was so late.’

  ‘Well, well, what do we have here?’ Toby said, picking up one of the drawings. ‘A wedge-tailed eagle, am I right?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not very good.’

  ‘It’s bloody fantastic, that’s what it is!’ He picked up another, and then another. ‘Oh Rosie, just wait till Jess sees these.’

  But Rose had disappeared to the kitchen end of the room and was ferretting in the refrigerator. ‘Lunch won’t be too long, I promise,’ she called apologetically.

  ‘Take your time, love, take your time.’ Toby breathed a sigh of relief as he sat and continued leafing through the drawings and paintings. Last night’s chat had apparently served a purpose after all.

  Toby was right. Rose’s artwork stimulated endless questions from Jess and in fielding them, Rose painted pictures as vividly with words as she had with her brushes and crayons. She had spoken before of the desert area she came from, but always dispassionately.

  ‘I was born in central Australia,’ she’d told her daughter when Jess, ever inquisitive, had asked, ‘at a place called Hermannsburg, not far from Alice Springs. It’s desert country. I’ll show you in the atlas.’ And she’d looked up the atlas, the way Toby had taught her many years previously when they’d talked of her past, and she’d pointed out to Jess the region she came from and the nearby towns of importance.

  In those days, Rose had considered it her duty to impart only the facts in order to contribute to the child’s education. She saw things differently now. Now, she took her husband’s advice, speaking from her heart and with a passion that surprised even Toby. Also acting on her husband’s advice, she told her daughter of her childhood. Previously, when Jess had asked she’d kept her answers brief and evasive.

  ‘I grew up on a cattle station,’ she’d said. ‘It was run by white people.’ She never gave the station’s name, not wanting to say the words out loud. ‘A great big cattle station in the middle of the desert. The properties have to be big out there, so the cattle can roam a long way for food.’

  Now she told Jess the truth of her past, or at least of the early years, and they talked together in Arunta.

  ‘I was taken from my family when I was six years old,’ she said. ‘I was the youngest. I had two brothers and a sister, May. I don’t really remember my brothers. They didn’t take much interest in me; I was too little. But I remember May – we played together. I remember Mum screaming when they took me too. Screaming her lungs out, she was. Didn’t do her any good. They took me off to the cattle station and I never saw her again. I was brought up by the whitefellas there.’

  ‘Why?’ Jess asked, mystified. She’d often wondered why her mother’s parents were never mentioned, why her mother’s childhood was always just ‘the cattle station’. Jess had come to the conclusion that her mother’s parents must be dead and that was why the white people had looked after her. ‘Why did they take you away from your family, Mumayee?’ She was mystified and horrified equally.

  ‘I don’t know. That happened to a lot of our people.’

  Toby stood silently by, observing them as they spoke. He loved seeing his wife and daughter speak their language; and he understood the conversation. He spoke passable Arunta himself, having insisted Rose teach him in their early years together. He’d considered it important she have someone to communicate with in her native tongue. ‘It’s like us Irish and our songs, Rosie,’ he’d said, ‘it’s who we are, love. A person must never lose sight of that.’ Now, of even greater importance, Jess was discovering who she was, and she was doing so, as Toby had hoped she would, through her mother.

  And always there were the paintings, the paintings and the drawings that so fired the child’s imagination.

  Toby lounged against the island bench one wet Sunday morning, mug of tea in hand, watching Jess watching Rose. Rose was painting and Jess was hunched over, elbows on the table, following her every action. Both were totally absorbed: he might as well not have been there. Normally all three of them would have taken a ferry ride to Manly, one of their favourite Sunday outings. Or else they would simply have wandered down to nearby Ewenton Park where Jess would play and Toby and Rose would wander along the foreshore, looking out over the neat pocket of the bay and across the harbour waters to the city skyline. It was a beautiful spot. But outside the rain was bucketing down and showed no sign of easing so the girls had settled themselves at the dining table.

  ‘Are the rocks really that red?’ Jess asked as her mother, having mixed the colours on the palette, applied a vivid slash of paint to the paper.

  ‘Oh yes, they’re that red all right,’ Rose gazed down critically, ‘but they’re a different kind of red – deeper, richer somehow. There’s no paint here that’ll do them justice, Jessie love.’ She shrugged. ‘Or else I just can’t get the mix right.’

  ‘We’ll go there one day.�
� Toby made the announcement unexpectedly. It came from right out of the blue, surprising them all.

  His wife and daughter turned to stare at him. Neither had even been aware of his presence.

  ‘Will we really, Daddy?’ Jess asked after a breathless moment. Her eyes gleamed with unbearable anticipation: surely it couldn’t be true.

  ‘Yes, we will.’

  ‘When? When will we go?’

  ‘When you’re twelve and you’ve finished primary school. That’s a promise.’

  ‘Oh.’ Instant deflation as she’d only just turned nine. Twelve seemed so far away it didn’t warrant thinking about.

  His statement appeared to have had a similar effect upon Rose, for the two of them returned their attention to the painting.

  Toby was not in the least bothered. His promise had not been an idle one. Already in his mind he was planning the trip. We’ll take off the moment she’s finished at Balmain Primary, he thought. We’ll go for the whole of the summer holidays and come home in time for her to start at SCEGGS. He’d had Jess booked into the elite Sydney Church of England Girls Grammar School for some time now. Only the best for his daughter, he’d decided.

  Summer in central Australia, he thought, it’ll be bloody hot, but who cares? It’ll be the making of Jess. And it’ll be the making of Rosie too. Oh yes, he had such plans for his girls.

  Toby put his plans into action in the late spring of 1983. He made all the necessary arrangements and then one night, after Jess had gone to bed, he sat Rose down at the dining table and told her about it over a fresh bottle of wine.

  ‘The three of us, Rosie love, you and me and Jess, for the whole of the school holidays, just like I promised.’

  Rose looked at him blankly. She couldn’t remember any promise. When had they talked about this? She was taken completely by surprise.

  ‘I’ve already booked the flights,’ he went on enthusiastically. ‘We’ll hire a four-wheel drive in Alice Springs and we’ll camp out under the stars. We’ll show Jess the red centre, Rosie, where her mob comes from, the very heart of Australia. All the stuff you’ve been painting and drawing for years.’

  He skolled his wine, knowing he was getting a bit drunk. He’d knocked back close to a bottle already during dinner, trying to curb his excitement, wanting to spill his plans out to them both, but aware he should discuss things with Rose first.

  ‘And we’ll go to Hermannsburg, love,’ this was the most exciting prospect of all, ‘and we’ll find your family, Rosie. If they’re no longer there, others are bound to know where they’ve gone – we’ll find them, Rosie love, make no mistake about that, we’ll find them.’ He finally drew breath, poured himself another glass, and waited for her reaction.

  There was none. She was simply staring at him.

  Toby was nonplussed. He’d expected at least some enthusiasm, if not downright excitement. But then he’d sprung it on her pretty quickly, hadn’t he, and Rose was not one for surprises. He should probably have taken things a little slower. ‘Oh, sorry, love. I’ve rushed you a bit, haven’t I, taken you by surprise …’

  Then, to his utter dismay, she started shaking her head in the way he’d come to recognise, the awful way that signified defeat.

  ‘What is it, Rosie? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go back.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t be going back to Eleanor Downs, love,’ he assured her. ‘We wouldn’t go near the cattle station, I promise.’ He stroked her bare arm gently, soothingly. ‘Don’t you want to show Jess your country, Rosie, all the pictures you’ve painted, all the things you’ve described to her? Don’t you want her to see them for herself?’

  Rose nodded.

  ‘Of course you do. And that’s what’ll happen. Don’t you worry about things, love. I just rushed you, that’s all, and I’m sorry. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, eh?’

  She nodded again and they left it at that, but Rose didn’t sleep for the whole of that night. She lay awake trying for her child’s sake to summon up the last vestige of courage she might once have possessed. Why did she feel so threatened? I belong to that land, she thought. Why should I fear returning to my country? But voices in her brain taunted her. You don’t belong there, they said. It’s not your country. You have no country. She tried to force the voices aside. I must find my family, she told herself. I must unite my daughter with her people. Again the voices mocked her. You have no family, they said. You have no people. You belong nowhere. The harder Rose tried to persuade herself, the louder the voices in her brain whispered and the more her fear grew. She didn’t know why she was afraid, but the more she tried to reason with herself the more panic-stricken she became until the fear that consumed her bordered on terror and she thought she might be going mad.

  Toby awoke to discover the bed beside him empty, which was not unusual – quite often Rose went for an early-morning walk down by the harbour.

  He wandered out to the living room in his pyjamas. Jess was getting herself breakfast before heading off for school.

  ‘Mum’s gone to the park,’ she said, cereal packet poised. ‘Is everything all right?’ Her eyes searched his for an answer. ‘She didn’t look too good, I have to say, and she wouldn’t let me go with her.’

  ‘No, no, nothing to worry about, Jess, you just get yourself off to school.’

  He quickly changed and strode down Grafton Street to Ewenton Park.

  She was there, seated on the grass, her knees scrunched up to her chest, staring out across the bay and over the harbour waters at the city, but even before he joined her he could tell she wasn’t really seeing the view.

  He sat beside her and she acknowledged him with a quick glance and a tremulous smile before returning her gaze to the harbour. He sensed she was gathering herself together to make some sort of announcement so he said nothing.

  After a moment’s silence, Rose opened her mouth and took a deep breath, but the words wouldn’t come out. She was incapable of speech. All that issued from her was a low, keening sound and she started to rock slowly back and forth, shaking her head.

  He put his arm around her and drew her close. ‘Shush, shush, love, don’t let things get to you like this, there’s no need,’ he said, trying desperately to stem her anguish. ‘You mustn’t worry about the trip, Rosie love. There’s no rush, no rush at all. We’ll leave it for some other time further down the track.’

  Toby knew there would be no other time further down the track. Rose’s demons were as visible as ever, but these were not just the demons of self-doubt that he’d come to recognise over the years. These were demons he didn’t understand and from which he could not save her.

  He cancelled the flights later that same day, thankful that he hadn’t told Jess. At least he was off the hook there, he thought. But he wasn’t.

  ‘Final term ends next week.’ It was a fortnight later when Jess confronted him.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’ve been twelve for ages now and in one week I’ll have finished primary school. When do we leave?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?’ She gave him that challenging look that was so disconcertingly adult. At times he could swear the girl was going on thirty. ‘A promise is a promise, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Jess, I do know.’ He was relieved that she’d sought him out alone in the studio and that he didn’t have to explain in front of Rose. ‘But I’m afraid we have to postpone the Northern Territory for a while, love: your mum’s not quite up to it right now.’

  Jess held his gaze boldly for a moment or so then nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ she said. She’d expected as much, it’s why she’d fronted him on his own. Her mother had been in the strangest mood lately, fragile and withdrawn. Jess had no idea why and she didn’t expect her parents to tell her, but something was wrong.

  ‘I’ve booked us a holiday apartment up the central coast for a month,’ he said, ‘Terrigal.’

  She raised a w
ry eyebrow. ‘Terrigal for the Territory, eh?’ Then she shrugged and gave one of her irrepressible grins. ‘Seems a fair exchange.’

  ‘Hey, Jess,’ he said as she turned to go. God but he loved the girl. ‘A promise is a promise, and we will go to the Territory one day. You do know that, don’t you?’ He’d take her there on his own if needs be, but he couldn’t leave Rose in her current condition.

  ‘Yes, Dad. I do know that.’

  Rose’s condition did not improve – if anything it worsened, particularly during the holidays. Toby knew she felt guilty for having deprived her daughter of the promised trip to the Northern Territory, but whenever he tried to assure her that she mustn’t she withdrew even further, locking herself away somewhere beyond his reach, so he gave up trying.

  There were times when Rose detested Toby. She hated the way he said ‘You mustn’t feel guilty, love.’ Why would she not feel guilty? She’d deprived her daughter of her heritage. She’d transferred her own ghastly curse to Jess: the curse of belonging nowhere, of having no people. Rose suffered far more than guilt. Remorse and shame ate away at her like a cancer.

  Toby worried endlessly about his wife’s fragile state, but he knew he was powerless and the end of the holidays came as something of a relief. With Jess off to school at SCEGGS he dived into the backlog of work that awaited him in the studio. Surely now things could get back to normal.

  Rose, too, was glad the holidays were over. But she was lonely, very lonely. Jess was at school and Toby was locked away in his studio, so near and yet so far, even at lunchtime now he collected his sandwich and tea and then disappeared. The days were empty and she longed for distraction from the thoughts that plagued her.

  One fine autumn afternoon in March, not long after Jess’s birthday, Rose decided to pay a visit to her old stamping ground. Although not far from where she lived, it might have been a world away, she hadn’t revisited the Block for over fifteen years. She had often attended the Black Theatre and Cultural Centre in Redfern, it was true, but the Black Theatre was hardly the Block, was it? Besides, the Black Theatre had long since closed through lack of funding.