Spirits of the Ghan

by Judy Nunn

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Pam who was now keen to move things along. Being the senior aunty, Pam considered it her job to do so: Molly had had her chat, the niceties had been observed.

  ‘Righto,’ she said, reverting to English, ‘time to go,’ and she hauled herself to her feet with a grace that belied her considerable size.

  Jill and Molly rose with equal ease. They could sit or squat on the ground for hours and experience no stiffness or discomfort upon rising. The three walked from the creek bed, Jess by their side, and out into the open scrubland. Unlike Jess, who had work boots on, the women wore rubber thongs, but again their movement was graceful, their thin strong legs at odds with the bulk of their bodies, as they strode across the rough terrain, languid and assured.

  They walked for several kilometres until they reached their destination, a formation of rocks with a clearing in the centre that might well have been part of a dried creek course, for several white-limbed coolabah trees stood there and coolabah trees like water. The setting was pretty, but nothing remarkable – such settings abounded.

  The women had chatted while they’d walked. Now they were silent. From the moment they entered the clearing not a word was spoken.

  Moving slowly about the site, Pam, Jill and Molly paid their respects to the spirit beings that dwelt there. Hands were run reverently over rocks, fingers lingered on the smooth trunks of coolabah trees, outstretched arms brushed foliage in passing, all fond, familiar actions like the sharing of a caress with something unseen.

  Jess had witnessed similar practices before. Sometimes those paying homage talked or chanted, sometimes they were silent, but always deeply respectful. On several such occasions she had experienced the strangest of sensations. At first she’d been alarmed, even fearful, sensing the unknown so close at hand.

  Now, standing in the centre of the clearing, she was visited by the same sensation, but she was no longer alarmed, no longer fearful. Instead, she gave herself up to the touch that was not really a touch, to the breath that was not really a breath. How could she possibly describe the presence she felt? Something unseen was making contact with her skin, something unseen was breathing on her. But this ‘something’ was not frightening. This ‘something’ wished her well.

  She had no idea how long she’d been standing there communicating with whatever force was present, or perhaps allowing whatever force was present to communicate with her. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, but feeling a human touch on her arm she was startled.

  She turned to see Pam, Jill and Molly lined up beside her. The women were ready to go.

  They left in silence, but once clear of the site, the aunties chatted, leaving Jess to reflect upon her experience. For all her academic knowledge of Indigenous culture and mythology, there was no denying the desert had changed her. Or perhaps it had merely made her aware of who she really was and who she always had been. Either way, it doesn’t matter, she told herself. It doesn’t matter at all. The connection has been made.

  Jess was to drive the aunties back to town, but before getting into the car, Pam spoke on behalf of all three and on behalf of the women of their community.

  ‘You know our place now.’ Despite the fact that she was discussing official business, Pam chose this time to speak in Arunta. ‘You have felt this place.’

  ‘Yes, I have felt this place,’ Jess replied.

  Pam glanced at Jill and Molly, who both nodded. Each of the women knew that the spirit beings had made themselves known to Jess.

  ‘You will look after this place? You will make sure it is safe?

  ‘I will make sure it is safe.’ Jess was already quite sure that the site was safe, for it was well clear of the rock cuttings that were to be blasted, but the aunties would no doubt like assurance from a higher authority. ‘I will meet with the surveyor boss tomorrow,’ she said, ‘I will check with him the effects of the explosives and make sure that this place will not be harmed.’

  ‘Good. That is what we wish.’

  More nods all around and the women smiled, clapping Jess on the back before piling into the car, Pam in the front, Jill and Molly in the back. Problem now solved, they talked happily throughout the twenty-kilometre drive back to town. They had been right to approach young Jessica Manning. She was one of them and a true champion of their cause.

  Looking at Pam beside her and the other two women in the rear-vision mirror, Jess felt an overwhelming wave of affection. She could have been looking at her very own aunty. Aunty May, like these women, was an elder who held the official title of ‘aunty’ to her people, whether directly related or not. Like these women, Aunty May was also a grandmother who played an invaluable role in her family and community. The only unfortunate similarity was that Aunty May, too, suffered from diabetes.

  Jess had met her mother Rose’s older sister twelve years previously, during the trip she’d made to the Northern Territory just before starting university. She and her father had travelled to Alice Springs together and it had been a cathartic time for both, Toby Manning taking his daughter on the journey he’d longed to make with his wife, and Jess bent on learning of her mother’s people, if possible even discovering members of their family.

  Finding the family hadn’t proved difficult, but then Toby had never really expected it would. They’d headed for Hermannsburg, the Aboriginal community roughly a hundred and thirty kilometres southwest of Alice Springs, and once there they’d asked around. As it turned out the Napangurrayi family hadn’t moved out of the area at all. Old Mum and Dad Napangurrayi had passed on a long time ago, they’d been told by a man they’d met in the local shop, but members of their family were still there and well known around town. ‘Anyone who’s been here that long is,’ he’d said. ‘Hermannsburg’s a pretty small place.’ He’d directed them towards Aunty May’s house. ‘Aunty May was a Napangurrayi,’ he’d told them, ‘course she’s Tjenimana now since she married Ken, but the Napangurrayis always stay at her place. Keeps them out of trouble; she’s well respected in town.’

  How easy it would have been, Toby had thought, for Rose to trace her family. But he’d shrugged off the thought – no sense going down that road. There was his daughter to think of now.

  He’d waited outside in the four-wheel drive hire car watching as Jess knocked on the door of the tin-roofed shack that was no better or worse than others in the little township’s broad, dusty streets. It was a stiflingly hot afternoon in January, still and breezeless, and there was a desultory feel to the place. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, as if time itself were baking in the heat, here and there people lolling under the shade of scrawny trees, the dogs beside them equally languid, here and there people ambling down the road in silence, speech seemingly too much of an effort.

  Hermannsburg, established by two Lutheran priests as an Aboriginal mission in 1877, had a colourful history. Pastor Carl Strehlow, who had taken over the settlement in the 1890s, had been credited with translating sections of the Bible into the local language. His son, TGH (Ted) Strehlow, had become a noted anthropologist and linguist and had undergone a ritual adoption by the Western Arunta people. The renowned landscape artist, Albert Namatjira, born at Hermannsburg in 1902, had created a unique style that over following generations had become known as the Hermannsburg School of Painting. The town had a great deal to be proud of, but somewhere along the line pride seemed to have taken a bit of a beating.

  Toby had been thinking exactly that as he’d watched Jess knock on the door of the tin-roofed shack, then again more loudly when there was no answer. He’d done his homework well in advance, and he knew of Hermannsburg’s proud past, just as he knew of its recent history. The community had a severe alcohol problem and a reputation for violence that kept the police busy. Lazy and languorous as the township appeared on this blistering afternoon, he’d nonetheless kept the car door open, ready to run to his daughter’s aid should she need him. Jess had been insistent she introduce herself to the family alone and
he’d respected her argument, agreeing that the presence of a white man could prove a hindrance, but it hadn’t allayed his concern.

  The shack’s door had been opened by a boy of around ten with a football nonchalantly tucked under his arm. There was a brief exchange, then Jess had stepped inside, the door had closed, and Toby had waited.

  ‘She’s out the back doing the washing,’ the boy said as he closed the door. He let the football drop into his hand and started tossing it up and down with a quick flick of his wrist, not intending to be rude, but keen to return to his footy practice. ‘Do you want me to get her?’

  ‘No, I’ll go out the back – you lead the way.’

  They communicated in the local language, Jess having asked for Aunty May in the Western Arunta dialect.

  He led the way through the house, which was a shambles. Jess took in everything as they went. The front room was a mess of sleeping bags and, as she followed the boy down a short hallway, she saw much the same disarray past the open doors of two more bedrooms. One room had several two-level bunks, the other a double bed with two single mattresses on the floor. A lot of people were obviously housed in this modest weatherboard, which meant the next room came as something of a surprise. It was the kitchen and it too was crammed with the evidence of many residents. Benches were piled high with pots and pans, shelves were stacked with dishes and mugs, and walls were adorned with all manner of cooking utensils hanging from nails driven into the timber. But despite the endless activity it must have seen on a daily basis, the kitchen was spotless. Aunty May runs a tight ship, Jess thought.

  ‘Hey, Gran,’ the boy called in Arunta as he stepped through the open door and into the yard, Jess close behind him, ‘someone wants to see you.’ Then, kicking the football to the back fence forty metres away, where another boy of around his own age was waiting, he scarpered off leaving her standing there.

  A woman was hanging washing on two clotheslines that stretched from the side of the house to a pole with a crossbar at the rear of the yard. She turned, a boy’s T-shirt in one hand, clothes pegs in the other. She was a large woman in her mid-forties, her broad face framed by a handsome head of silver-grey hair, the light cotton shift she wore accentuating the lean arms and legs at odds with her body. Beside her a pretty girl of around twelve was cradling a plastic laundry basket and she too turned. Both were clearly surprised to see Jess.

  ‘Hello,’ the woman said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Jess took a deep breath and embarked upon the opening lines she’d rehearsed in her mind. ‘I have been told you are May Tjenimana and that you were May Napangurrayi before you married, is that right?’

  May was surprised to hear the girl speak her language. The girl was black, certainly, but you could tell at a glance she was a city girl – smartly dressed, slick: she wasn’t one of them.

  ‘Yes, that is right,’ she replied. Confused though she was by the bluntness of the question, her response was nonetheless polite, for the girl’s tone had been respectful. ‘I am May Tjenimana and I was May Napangurrayi before I married.’ There was a pause as she waited for the girl to explain herself, but the girl, for all her initial confidence, seemed unsure of what to say next. ‘Who are you?’ She was still polite, but she stepped up the authority in her voice. ‘What do you want?’

  Jess had rehearsed in her mind the next line too and she had no idea why it had become momentarily stuck. Now the words came out clearly and boldly, but in something of a rush, as if they had been imprisoned too long and needed to escape.

  ‘My name is Jessica Manning. I am the daughter of your sister, Rose.’

  They stared at each other across the twenty metres or so of dusty yard that separated them. The scene remained frozen for what seemed to Jess an agonisingly long time as she waited for a reaction, but nothing was said, no movement was made. Then finally May, eyes still trained upon this stranger who professed to be kin, placed the T-shirt and pegs into the laundry basket her granddaughter Millie held and slowly, as if mesmerised, crossed to where Jess stood.

  Young Millie hadn’t moved a muscle all the while. Now she watched the ongoing proceedings with wide-eyed fascination. Gran’s in a trance, she thought. Millie had witnessed her gran’s trances in the past. And is it really true? she wondered. Is this city girl really one of our mob?

  Jess stood very still, feeling May’s fingers trace their way around her face, feeling the touch of May’s fingers upon her hair and upon her shoulders and stroking a path down her bare arms in some strange, silent ritual. She could see the wonderment in the woman’s eyes as they roamed about her, taking in the very essence of who she was. It was some time before May spoke.

  ‘You are our Rose’s girl. You are our little Rose’s daughter.’

  Jess made no answer; she didn’t even nod. There was no need. May was not asking a question.

  ‘I see her in you,’ May said. ‘I feel her in you. She is here, my little sister Rose.’ She smiled, once again stroking Jess’s face with fond familiarity, as if she were stroking the face of her sister. Then her smile faded and the tone of her voice changed. May could also feel the truth and she needed an answer. ‘But she is with the a ncestors now. She is gone, is this true? Our Rose is no longer with us in this world?’

  Jess did nod this time, and this time she spoke in English. ‘Yes, she’s gone,’ she said, trying to keep her voice firm like May’s, doing her best to fight off the embarrassing threat of tears. ‘Mum died just over a year ago.’

  Then, suddenly finding herself engulfed in May’s huge embrace, Jess could no longer stem the tears, hard as she tried.

  They clung wordlessly to each other for a while and when they parted Jess saw that May’s face too was streaked with tears. But May wasn’t in the least embarrassed.

  ‘Bit of a cry does you good,’ she said. ‘Come inside and I’ll get us some tissues.’ She turned back to the children, to Millie who was still standing transfixed with her laundry basket and to the two boys who were kicking the football up and down the yard, oblivious to the drama.

  ‘Hey there, Jack, Bobby,’ she yelled to the boys. ‘Clean yourselves up and give Millie a hand hanging out the washing. Then come inside the three of you and meet your new aunty.’

  May took Jess into the kitchen where she fetched a box of tissues and made them mugs of tea. Then they sat at the small table in the corner.

  ‘The front room’s too messy and outside’s too hot,’ she said, not by way of apology, but simply explanation. ‘When the mob’s here that’s where they eat, the front room or outside: they’re not allowed in my kitchen. Do you want some biscuits? Jessica you said, that right?’

  ‘I’m called Jess, and no thank you, no biscuits …’ Having just met her aunt, Jess was unsure how familiar she should be in her address, but noting the hesitation May quickly set her straight.

  ‘Right, no biscuits, and I’m Aunty May,’ her face cracked into a smile, ‘your real Aunty May – we’re blood you and me. Now, Jess, tell me about Rose. Was Rose happy? Did she have a good life?’ May’s smile broadened into an infectious grin. ‘She must have had a good life to produce a daughter like you. You’re something to be proud of, you are.’

  Accepting the compliment with a smile, Jess proceeded to tell May all she could about the sister who had been so long lost to her. Out of respect for her mother, she omitted the alcoholism that had brought about Rose’s demise, concentrating instead upon the happiness of her marriage.

  ‘My dad’s Irish,’ she said, ‘and he and Mum met in Sydney. It was a wonderful marriage. They loved each other very much.’

  She did not hold back, however, about Rose’s unhappiness as a girl working at Eleanor Downs Station, although, again out of respect for her mother, she did not mention the systematic rape that had taken place.

  ‘It wasn’t a happy time for my mother,’ Jess said. ‘She never spoke of it to me, but Dad believes that being taken from her family to Eleanor Downs brought a sadness that stayed with her the
whole of her life.’

  May’s expression was troubled. She’d been only eight years old when Rose was taken, but hearing her sister’s story aroused in her a terrible guilt.

  ‘It’s because of me Mum didn’t try to trace Rose,’ she said, staring down at the mug of tea though it was no longer of interest. ‘Dad wanted to go to the authorities, but Mum wouldn’t let him. “Rose will have a good home where she’ll be looked after and well educated,” she told us all a week after it happened. “That’s what the government agents promised and that’s what I believe.” Mum probably talked herself into believing them: the truth is she was too scared to go to the authorities. She was too scared to even try to find out where Rose had been taken – none of us knew – it could have been anywhere. Mum was terrified they’d take me too, see. She’d hide me whenever the government agents came around. She’d hide me when there were any whitefellas around the place and she didn’t stop hiding me until I was fifteen. They lose interest after that: it’s the real young ones they’re after, see.’

  May continued to stare distractedly down at her mug of tea on the table, turning it around and around with her fingers, agitated. She shook her head, wretched at the thought. ‘Poor Rose,’ she murmured in her own language, ‘poor little Rose. It was all my fault.’

  Jess felt riddled with guilt herself now for having spoken so openly. ‘No it was not, Aunty May,’ she said and leaning across the table she took both of May’s hands in her own. ‘It was not your fault and it was not your mother’s fault. It was a terrible thing that happened to far too many of our people, but it will not happen again. We will make sure of that.’