Spirits of the Ghan

by Judy Nunn

  Perhaps some of the old gang are still there, she now thought. In any event, she needed black faces around her, even black faces she didn’t know. She needed to be with people she could pretend were her own.

  The Block had undergone many changes since Rose’s time in the late sixties. Local landlords had tried to have the Aboriginal residents evicted in the early 1970s, but Indigenous leaders and supporters had successfully lobbied the Whitlam government to prevent such action. The Aboriginal Housing Company had been formed and offered a grant to purchase their first six houses, with many further acquisitions to follow over the ensuing years. The Block was an innovative, pioneering urban experiment in Aboriginal-run housing, and as such attracted much media attention.

  Now a decade on, the Block had become far more than the affordable rental area for disadvantaged Aborigines it had been in the past. Now run by its own, the Block was viewed by many outback and rural Indigenous as a spiritual home in the very heart of Sydney. The Block was special to Aboriginal people.

  To non-Aboriginal people, however, this clearly defined area of Redfern represented something quite different. Over the years, the Block had earned a reputation as a ghetto notorious for crime and violence. White people didn’t feel safe walking the streets of the Block.

  Rose felt no threat at all as she walked down Eveleigh Street towards the house where she’d lived a lifetime ago. It even seemed to her that for the first time in many years she was somewhere she belonged.

  As it turned out, Jimmy Gunnamurra was still there, Jimmy and his wife, Bib, who’d been so good to her when Eddie had run off. But Jimmy and Bib were old now, or at least they looked it, particularly Jimmy. He couldn’t have been any more than fifty, but he was in the grip of the drink, lolling around, brain-addled, making no sense. Bib looked old too, Rose thought, but probably because she’d worn herself out looking after Jimmy and the kids. The kids were grown up now of course, in their twenties, Bib told her as they sat around downing beers with some of the other mob who shared the house. Mavis was no problem, Bib said, in fact Mavis was being courted by a most acceptable young man from down the street, but the boys? Well the boys were always trouble.

  ‘Nicking cars, thieving, break and enter when they reckon there’s no-one there,’ Bib said with a shrug, ‘you know, same old thing. What do you do? Boys, they’re more trouble than they’re worth.’

  No wonder poor Bib looks old, Rose thought.

  As they chatted, more people kept arriving and settling in for a drink and a chat, which Rose found most companionable. They were a younger set than Jimmy and Bib and when the grog ran out they moved on to someone else’s house where there was a fresh supply. Rose went with them, and when they took up a collection from whoever had money, which Rose did, she forked out and a couple of the blokes went off to the pub, returning with another slab of beer and two cardboard casks of wine. She knew she was getting drunk, but it didn’t seem to matter: she was having a good time.

  Common sense kicked in at around five o’clock. Crikey, is that the time? she thought, glancing at her watch. Jess’ll be well and truly home from school by now.

  She made her hasty farewells and took off, walking a little unsteadily she knew. When she got on the bus, she hoped the other passengers weren’t judging her, but she had a definite feeling they were. Looking around at the white faces, she was quite sure she could hear their thoughts. Drunken Abo – they’re all the same.

  She’d more or less sobered up by the time she got home, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. There was no-one there when she arrived. Toby was still in his studio and Jess was in her room applying herself to her homework at the desk Toby had set up for her.

  Rose poured herself a large tumbler full of water, downed it quickly and set about preparing the dinner. When Toby and Jess finally surfaced half an hour or so later she was relieved to note that neither suspected a thing.

  They sat down to their chops and vegetables and she listened to her husband and daughter as they chatted about school, Toby demanding a blow-by-blow account of Jess’s day and Jess good-naturedly obliging.

  Then from out of the blue came a comment that rather took her by surprise.

  ‘Did you go out this afternoon, Rosie love?’

  She started guiltily. Why did he want to know? ‘Yes, for a while. Why?’

  ‘Oh, no reason,’ he answered with a shrug, ‘just that when I came inside to fetch something you weren’t here is all.’

  It was a lie. He’d been locked away in the studio with a rock band for the whole of the afternoon, but he could tell she’d been drinking. He’d read the signs immediately, the glazed eyes and the way she followed the conversation between him and Jess in slow motion like an observer at a tennis match who was always a second or so behind each shot. He’d found it endearingly funny in their partying days of old. ‘You’re a two-pot screamer, love, that’s what you are,’ he used to say. Rose had never been able to handle the drink well. She wasn’t one to drink alone though, and he wondered where she’d been. More importantly, he wondered why she was keeping the matter to herself.

  ‘Go shopping, did you?’ He concentrated on the huge forkful of mashed potato he was shovelling together and tried to make the question appear as casual as possible. He wasn’t trying to catch her out. He didn’t care in the least that she was drunk, but he fervently hoped she wouldn’t lie to him.

  It would have been so easy for her to answer ‘Yes, I went shopping,’ but some sixth sense warned Rose not to. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I went to see some old friends in Redfern.’ Then she added, with a slightly defiant air. ‘I had a real nice afternoon actually.’

  ‘That’s good, love.’ Toby grinned and gave her a nod. ‘I’m glad,’ he said, tucking into his mashed potato. He was glad. It was a healthy sign, he thought.

  He wasn’t so glad several weeks later, however, when the ‘real nice afternoons’ had become a habit and Rose was regularly rolling home drunk. That was not a healthy sign at all. Jess was also aware of the problem by now and Toby knew it was time to read the riot act.

  ‘You don’t have to go out to drink, Rosie,’ he said one late afternoon when she arrived to discover him sitting in the living room waiting for her. Jess, just back from school, was again in her bedroom doing her homework.

  He rose to meet her. ‘You can drink right here in your own home you know.’ He knew that she already did drink at home, he’d seen the empty bottles hidden behind the bin, but he’d decided that a bit of cupboard drinking was the least of their worries. It was the drunken excursions that needed to be addressed.

  Rose had been expecting him to confront her for some time. In fact she’d been wondering why he hadn’t. Twice now she’d got back from Redfern so drunk she’d just collapsed on the bed and they’d had to get their own dinner.

  ‘I want to be with my friends.’ She glared accusingly at him. ‘You’re out there in that studio surrounded by people and I’m supposed to stay stuck in here all day on my own. I don’t reckon that’s fair.’

  She was swaying unsteadily on her feet. God, he thought, she’s well and truly hammered this time. How the hell did she get home? It’s a wonder she wasn’t arrested.

  ‘You’re welcome in the studio any time,’ he said patiently, ‘you know that. You can spend the whole day in there with us if you like. The bands always love an audience.’

  But she wasn’t listening. ‘You don’t like me having friends – that’s it, isn’t it?’ she said, her words slurring. ‘You don’t want me to have friends! You’ve never wanted me to have friends!’

  ‘Of course I want you to have friends, Rosie.’ He refused to be goaded into an argument; it was the mixture of guilt and grog that was making her belligerent. ‘Why don’t you bring your friends home? You can drink here.’

  ‘My friends wouldn’t like it here. My friends wouldn’t like you,’ she gave a scornful wave of her hand, tottering as she did so, ‘and you wouldn’t like my friends.’

  ‘G
ive it a try, Rosie, that’s all I ask, just give it a try. Now come on, girl, let’s get you to bed.’ God how he hated seeing her like this, this wasn’t his Rose.

  The following morning, Rose had only the vaguest memory of the confrontation. But she knew there’d been one and she felt thoroughly ashamed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered over and over. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …’

  ‘Shush, shush, love,’ he said comfortingly, ‘don’t go upsetting yourself now. But like I said, if you want to have an afternoon on the turps, bring your friends home here. At least that way you won’t get yourself arrested.’

  He tried to make it sound amusing, but Toby knew they had a problem, a very serious problem. What exactly was it though? Why was Rose drinking? What was she trying to escape from? Did she even know?

  Rose didn’t invite her Redfern drinking mates to the house, she felt too ashamed, but the problem didn’t go away. For a while she managed to moderate her drinking, but it was still a daily habit. She avoided the Block, drinking at home instead, not to excess but enough to suitably dull the senses.

  Toby, relieved that his wife wasn’t wandering the streets in a stupor, kept an ample supply of wine in the house and even joined her, drinking more than he normally would in order that she shouldn’t feel guilty. And on the weekends they’d leave Jess with friends and go to pub band sessions and party as they had in the old days, but Toby knew it wasn’t solving the issue, that he was only buying time.

  A year or so later, the binge sessions reoccurred, the Block beckoned, and the cycle of shame and remorse followed, particularly when, on two occasions in just three short months, Toby was called down to the police station to collect Rose, who’d been picked up for being drunk and disorderly.

  ‘For God’s sake, Rose, what the fuck are you doing to yourself? What the fuck are you doing to all of us?’ There was the odd occasion when Toby lashed out, frustrated beyond endurance, unable to contain his temper any longer. ‘Things can’t go on like this, woman! God in heaven can’t you give it a fucking rest?’ But of course she couldn’t. His anger only made matters worse.

  Both Toby and Jess were at a loss as to what they could possibly do to address the issue. Toby tried to convince Rose to seek help. She should go to Alcoholics Anonymous, he said, but she closed off completely. She could just see that, couldn’t she? All those white people looking down on the drunken Abo.

  On the bad days that followed a binge, when Rose could vaguely recall her mortification, the memory of the police cell, her husband virtually carrying her stumbling through the front doors of the house, the look of alarm on her daughter’s face, she would be overcome with shame.

  On such days fourteen-year-old Jess would do all she could to comfort her mother. She would cuddle Rose in her arms as she sobbed and begged for forgiveness. ‘It’s all right, Mumayee,’ she would whisper in Arunta, rocking her back and forth like a child, ‘it’s all right,’ and Rose, overwhelmed by guilt, would sob all the more. It isn’t all right, the voices in her brain whispered accusingly, it’s all wrong, and you know it. It’s all wrong, and it’s all your fault.

  Toby and Jess discussed the problem endlessly, but it continued to appear insoluble. Then shortly before the summer holidays Jess came up with a suggestion.

  ‘Got an idea,’ she said, fronting him when he was alone in the studio.

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘We have to get one thing straight though,’ she held up her hands in a gesture of solemn declaration, ‘I am not motivated by self-interest here.’

  ‘I believe you.’ He nodded back with equal solemnity. Fourteen going on thirty, he thought as usual.

  ‘What say we do that trip to the Northern Territory this summer? You reckon it’d help Mum?’

  Oh dear, he thought. ‘Unfortunately no, Jess. In fact I think that’s how this whole problem got started. Well no,’ he said with a shake of his head, ‘it got started way before that. Sit down, love.’ He patted the chair beside him and she sat. ‘There are a lot of things about her past that your mum hasn’t told you, but you’re nearly fifteen, old enough now, and I think it’s time you knew.’

  He proceeded to tell her about Rose’s systematic rape from the age of fourteen. ‘Same age as you, Jess,’ he said bluntly, ‘and it went on for over two years.’ Then he told her about Eddie, and the beatings, and the Block and those lost years when Rose had been rudderless.

  ‘I don’t know why she doesn’t want to go back to the Territory,’ he concluded, ‘truly I don’t. But she’s frightened. Perhaps she sees it as some new form of threat, I don’t know. I’m not sure if Rose knows either. She’s so lost I’m not sure if she even knows who she is.’ Toby had told his story matter-of-factly, but there was a wealth of sadness in him as he added, ‘We’re all she’s got, you and me, Jess love, and I’m afraid right now we don’t seem to be quite enough.’

  Jess was saddened by how defeated her father looked. She took his hand. Mum isn’t the only one in need of comfort, she thought.

  ‘I’m glad you told me all that,’ she said. ‘It’s right I should know.’

  ‘Yes. Yes it is.’

  The terrible day came early in 1988. Jess was sixteen and shortly to start her final year at school. Then on this terrible day Rose didn’t come home. Toby waited for the call from the police station and when there wasn’t one he went down to check, but she wasn’t there. He drove around the streets of Balmain and Redfern in the deepening dusk, headlights on high beam, frantically searching the laneways and alleys, while Jess walked down to Ewenton Park in the hope of finding her mother passed out on a park bench. She searched every other park in the area too, calling out for her mother, but to no avail.

  They found Rose the next day, or rather the police did. An early-morning jogger reported a body washed up around the point. Apparently, when Jess had been searching Ewenton Park the previous dusk, her mother had been there after all. But she hadn’t been in the park. She’d been in the water.

  Autopsy reports showed the deceased had been heavily intoxicated and the death was officially recorded as accidental.

  Whether Rose had died as the result of a terrible drunken mishap or whether she had simply walked into the water and taken her own life, Toby would never know, but for his daughter’s sake he chose to believe the official version and no alternative was ever discussed.

  In the awful months that followed, however, he couldn’t help but be nagged by secret doubts, and he vowed that Jess’s confidence would never be undermined as Rose’s had. She must not go down her mother’s path. Jess must be strong. Jess must know who she was and be proud of it.

  Any fears he may have had were, fortunately, unfounded. Jess already knew who she was. Jess had always known. But strangely enough, it was Rose herself who was to ultimately prove the greatest influence upon young Jess’s life.

  ‘I’ve been discussing my uni choices with the counsellor, Dad,’ she announced a year after the death of her mother. Despite her grief, or most probably because of it, Jess had thrown herself into her studies and now, after passing her HSC with flying colours, had been accepted into Sydney University. ‘I’ll do an arts course, majoring in anthropology, and then I’ll go on to study Indigenous languages.’

  From his stunned reaction she judged he was impressed, but she could also tell he was a little confused.

  ‘There’s a way I can do it, you know,’ she continued enthusiastically, ‘even though it’s not a set course. After an honours year, if I end up doing a PhD in English, which I certainly intend to, I’ll get a choice of Language or Literature, and if I go the Language I can focus on what I like. And that’ll be Indigenous languages,’ she concluded with a ring of triumph, ‘particularly those of the central desert people. Let’s face it, Mum gave me a walk-up start.’

  ‘Wow, pretty impressive, Jess,’ he said. To Toby it was all so much double-dutch, but he could feel a pall slowly starting to lift. ‘Looks like you’ve got everything worked
out, love.’

  ‘Yep, but before I start uni, we’re going on that trip to the Territory, you and me, just like you promised.’

  ‘We are that.’

  ‘I need to meet up with some of the Western Arunta mob,’ she said, ‘learn a bit about them. And maybe we’ll find some of Mum’s family while we’re at it, eh?’

  ‘Maybe we will, love. Maybe we will.’

  Toby felt happier than he had for the whole of the past year. Rose lived on in her daughter, but this was a different Rose: one who was strong. It was as if his Rosie was somehow still here, alive and well.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Upon first meeting, Matthew Witherton appeared something of a mystery. He was good-looking enough in a rugged sort of way. Early thirties, tall, sandy-haired and hazel-eyed with the weathered skin of one who worked outdoors under an Australian sun: the image was commanding. But Matthew’s manner belied his appearance. He tended to watch from the sidelines, seemingly uninterested in making any form of impact. Was he by nature a sullen man? Was he in a bad mood for some specific reason? Or was he perhaps simply shy? To those who didn’t know him, Matthew was difficult to fathom.

  To those who did know him, and particularly to those well acquainted with his family, the answer was simple. Matthew was a product of his parents not only biologically, but also behaviourally.

  Young Matt had learnt from his father to take a back seat to his mother at all times and to feign indifference, because there was no point in attempting to compete for centre stage. David Witherton had never competed with his wife, who had declined to take his name upon their marriage, remaining Lilian Birch, much as Dave had expected. Dave had not taught his son to emulate him, however; the boy had taken on the mantle of indifference more through a form of osmosis. He may have been imitating his father to begin with, but after observing his parents over the years, young Matt had finally come to appreciate the symbiotic relationship that existed between these two people who appeared to have come from quite different planets. His father was not feigning indifference at all, Matt realised. His mother needed centre stage and his father did not; it was that simple. David Witherton’s acquiescence was not a sign of weakness, but rather one of strength. Granting his wife the freedom of expression she demanded was a gift of love, a gift that Lilian returned with equal fervour, for David was the calm in her stormy existence.