Mazin Grace

by Dylan Coleman

  7

  Goin’ away

  Next day, Ada just pretends nothin’ happen. We all up early and gettin’ ready to go to Denial Bay on the Mission truck for ’olidays. S’pose them walbiya mob on the Mission need a holiday too, to go see their family in the city or other places. I’m usually real ’appy to be goin’ away from the Mission for ’olidays but I feel rotten right now. I keep thinkin’, who else’s tellin’ lies. I’m even wonderin’ if everythin’ grown-ups say is lies. How do I know what they say is true or ngoonji?

  I’m in our bedroom lookin’ up in the fireplace for my minya stash of lollies that I saved from the Christmas party when I ’ear Aunty Rose’s voice, she must be back from Mount Faith. Then, I ’ear Aunty Dorrie raisin’ ’er voice. Dee-Dee Doe come runnin’ in callin’ me, real worried-way and I ’it my gugga on the fireplace tryin’ to get out in a hurry.

  ‘Gracie, my Mumma Rose’s ’ere. She wants to take me with ’er long way away.’ She hug me. ‘I wanna stay ’ere with you and my mumma Dorrie.’

  Dee-Dee’s cryin’ now. I’m cryin’ too.

  ‘We can run away into the scrub ’til she’s gone,’ I say.

  ‘No, Grace. Papa Neddy say I gotta go ’cause Rose’s my proper mumma.’

  Dee-Dee Doe and me hug each other real tight. We can ’ear Aunty Dorrie cryin’ in the next room; she’s been like mumma to Dee-Dee since she was real minya wunyi.

  ‘Please,’ she’s sayin’. And Papa he sayin’ again, ‘No, Dee-Dee’s Rose’s gu wunyi, she has to go with ’er mother and that’s it.’

  ‘Spit oath, Dee-Dee. Spit oath that we will never forget each other and we will always remember our secret-pretty-things and all the deadly things we shared together.’

  We spit oath with our murra mooga then.

  ‘Dee-Dee,’ Papa callin’ ’er.

  ‘Grace, I really ’ope you find out who’s your mummatja?’

  ‘Dee-Dee, you meant to be the first one I tell when I find out. Now ’ow am I gonna tell you?’

  ‘Catch a butterfly and whisper in its yuree, then let it go and it will fly to me and tell me.’

  ‘Oh, Dee-Dee, you funny minya wunyi, and you my bestest friend. I’m gonna miss you.’

  ‘Me too,’ she say.

  Then Dee-Dee Doe turns ’round and runs out the door. And she gone, just like that, and I feel like there’s a big hole in my guddadu.

  When the truck takes off from the Mission to Denial Bay, we’re all on the back, clean and dressed real nice-way. What’s the point? We always dusty and dirty by the time we get to the beach. But no one cares ’cause they free from the Mission, free to drink and lie without Pastor tellin’ them off, and free to make more secrets to hide.

  On the truck I’m real miserable. Dee-Dee’s my bestest friend in the whole wide world, now she gone. I put my gugga under the blanketie and cry then.

  When we get to Denial Bay, the truck dumps us at the old water tank stands. Everyone piles off the back. We’re all excited ’cause we don’t get off the Mission very much, don’t need to, ’cause we got minya store there that sell lotta things, except for malu and wadu burru, men gotta go huntin’ for them, and all the bush mai that Mumma, Ada and the aunties take us in the scrub for a good feed. But I reckon Superintendent and Pastor make us all stay on the Mission for long time to keep eye on us. Sometimes us Nyunga mob leave the Mission when the men do wheat lumpin’ work on the big ships when they come to the Thevenard jetty. Sometimes, if Papa or my uncles go for work at the jetty, Mumma, Ada and some of the aunties go too and take some of us kids. We always camp near the Ceduna cemetery at night and go down near the Thevenard jetty where the big boats come in every day. It’s deadly there ’cause we near the beach and go swimmin’ and there’s a shop that sells everythin’, even bullseye lollies, they my favourite.

  Sometimes, if I’m lucky, Ada or Mumma might give me bunda to buy lollies or ice-block over at the shop. I like that shop. It’s got two big doors, one for sellin’ hot feed for the workers, and another door for other things like lollies, ice-blocks and fruit. Sometimes Mumma goes there and buys bread and other tucker. I love takin’ big deep breaths in that shop, lotsa different smells all mixed together, mostly nice. When I go through the door to get lollies there’s a minya bell that rings to tell the lady I’m comin’ into ’er shop.

  It’s like that minya bell say, ‘Hello, Grace. Good to see you today. Come in.’

  Then, this lady comes to the counter and smiles at me real nice-way. She don’t talk much English, she got ’nother wonga like us Nyunga mooga. She’s a walaba weena but she’s different from them white mob in town who stare at us, or pretend we’re not there. She’s a real nice lady, smilin’ at me all the time. Then we play this game, I tell ’er what I want and she gotta guess what I’m sayin’. It’s always lollies but sometimes I like to get different ones. She go to this jar and smile, pointin’ at the lollipops, I shake my ’ead. She go to the jar and point, smilin’, and I shake my gugga. Then, she go to the bullseye jar and I nod. Then she gives me extra ones. She don’t know much English but she good at knowin’ what people sayin’ usin’ other parts of their body like us Nyunga mooga do. I like that lady, ’er smile say, ‘You a special minya wunyi and I like you very much,’ and it’s the same feelin’ like when Mumma and Mrs Dempsey give me a big hug. I always give smile back at ’er that say, ‘I like you too, walaba lady, I like you a real lot.’

  Denial Bay got shop too, but it’s smaller and smells different from the shop near Thevenard jetty. The lady in Denial Bay store don’t smile much. But she helped us once when we in trouble, when there’s too much gubby ’round our camp, and a Nyunga man went joobardi, screamin’ round the place, rippin’ ’is clothes off, and runnin’ ’round nigardi with a knife in ’is murra sayin’ he was gonna kill everyone. Us kids were real ngulu, shakin’ under the blanketie, all huddled’ together there.

  ‘Go away you stupid, ugly man,’ I whisperin’, one murra over my yuree and my guru mooga squeezed real tight, other murra hangin’ onto Sarah who’s screamin’ in my other yuree. Then, he jumped right over us kids lyin’ on the munda, wavin’ ’is knife ’round. I’m thinkin’ he’ll stab us through the blanketie, directly. Ada gets real ngulu, then, too, so she grab us and run over to the place where that walaba shop lady lives.

  ‘Tessie,’ she calls out loud-way, bangin’ on the door. ‘Tessie.’

  The door opens and that Tessie weena looks real moogada at Ada. She don’t like us wakin’ ’er in the middle of the night, most probably.

  ‘Man goin’ crazy over there with knife. Please, ’elp us.’ Ada beggin’ her. ‘I’m real scared my girls gonna get ’urt.’

  My minya baby sister, Lil-Lil’s screamin’ in Ada’s arms there, and Ada nearly cryin’, too, and Sarah sobbin’ into Eva’s shoulder while she nursin’ ’er. Us girls all huddled into Ada.

  Even though I’m sobbin’ too ’cause I’m so ngulu, I feel shame. How come Ada knockin’ on a walaba weena’s door and not even callin’ er by Miss or Mrs? Ada got no shame. Maybe she know her? Who is she? I don’t know her.

  First the walaba weena growl Ada but when she look at us kids, all scared and cold, she let us come inside, take us into ’er kitchen, gave us drink of cordial and biscuits. Us kids sittin’ there real quiet-way then, and look ’round ’er kitchen, guru-manardu-way. Sure look flash, all sparklin’ clean with shiny floor and flash stove and pots and things. Not like our kitchen. Ours got hard concrete floor but mostly dirt and one old burnt-out pot for stews. Walbiya mob sure live flash-way.

  When the yellin’ dies down, Ada says thank you to the nice weena and we go back to our camp near the beach. That was real good of that Miss Tessie weena to help us that night.

  Some walbiya mooga all right to us but I don’t trust them walbiya men that come late at night with their car lights turned off, sneakin’ round like
tjunu mooga in the grass. ’Cause that’s when some of the weena mooga go off with ’em and come back later with gubby, and fightin’ starts after that, after everyone’s gubbydja. I reckon big secrets happenin’ on those nights that no-one dare tell Superintendent or Pastor about when they get back to Mission. Sometimes our minya camp ends up with some gubby too.

  When we jump off the truck at Denial Bay all the kids run for the beach and the grown-ups unpack and make camps and light fire. Then they make the sand soft with a stick and move the seaweed ’round to make nice soft bed for us to sleep on later. They put the blanketie down then, and it’s real nice. I just walk off on my own down the beach and start kickin’ the seaweed ’cause I still moogada with Ada and God and Jesus for lyin’ and not helpin’ me. And now Dee-Dee gone. ’Ow come they let that happen? I pick up minya stones, put all my moogada feelings in them and throw them real hard-way onto the wanna so they skip on the top, then disappear. That makes me feel better.

  I look over to the shop and houses and wonder who’s that nice walaba weena Miss Tessie, that helped us that night. Ada knew ’er, ’cause she called ’er by ’er name. Maybe she works for ’er cleanin’ sometimes? But she should call ’er Miss or Mrs.

  ‘Grace,’ Eva yells from a big clump of seaweed down the beach. ‘Biggest mob of wanna mai, nyumu mai ’ere. Come and ’elp me get them for feed.’

  I start runnin’ towards Eva, laughin’. The wind whooshin’ in my mouth, carryin’ my breath away. Even though we bin comin’ ’ere ever since I bin minya wunyi, just like Ada and Mumma Jenna when they minya wunyi mooga, I never get tired of it. We can run and run without no fences stoppin’ us, we free. That’s cause our mob use to come here long time ago before walbiya mooga. We go here on holidays ’cause this our country and walbiya go back to their homes – just for a minya while anyway.

  Eva’s scoopin’ ’em into ’er dress, it’s real full. My mouth’s waterin’, my djuda growlin’ too, cause I ’aven’t ’ad anything to eat since this mornin’, only minya bit of damper.

  We both laughin’ when we get back to camp with our dresses dripping wet and full of mussels. We’ve bin actin’ silly-way, pretendin’ we gubbydja staggerin’ back to camp holdin’ on to our dresses, heavy and full up with nyumu mai. Then, I trip over at the last minute and them mussels go flyin’ all over the sand near the fire. Eva drop hers too and we rollin’ on the ground laughin, ’er nyumu mai all over me and the munda too, and our dresses caked in sand mud.

  ‘You two must be gubbydja carryin’ on like that,’ Ada say, shakin’ ’er gugga at us.

  Mumma smilin’. She ’appy ’er grannies are ’appy.

  We pick up the shells and put them in the hot coals ’til they sizzle and open, then we ’ave good feed. Oh, they taste beautiful.

  Minya while later, Eva gets tired of playin’ with our minya sisters and brothers. We walk along the beach with our arms ’round each other and talk ’bout how deadly it is that we on ’olidays, at least we off the stupid Mission and can go swimmin’ and collect our own tucker and run for ages along the beach with no-one tellin’ us what to do.

  ‘Hey, you stinkin’ whitefella kids. Williams’ pigs.’ Two mean boys kickin’ up sand in our faces as they run past. ‘Why don’t you go ’ave a wash in the wanna to get rid of your boongada.’

  ‘Get lost,’ I scream out after ’em. ‘You the stinkin’ ones and real ugly too.’

  ‘I hate it when they call me names,’ I tell Eva. ‘Make me feel like piece of goona. Just ’cause our mob get work on the farm ’cause we good workers.’

  ‘You not the only one who get called names,’ Eva tell me. ‘Them arse’oles pick on me too. Sometimes, I just wanna knock ’em in the gugga.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘me too.’ I look over at my sister, we feel the same way. I spit in my murra then. ‘Let’s do special truce, cross our hearts and hope to die, that we stick up for each other ’gainst them rotten kids, no matter what.’ I hold my drippin’ murra out to her.

  Eva’s lookin’ back at me now, big smile spreadin’ over ’er face. She does a big spit in ’er murra too, and we shake on it, our spit all squishes together. That mean we’ll keep our promise to each other, no matter what. Eva’s got real pretty face with ’er blondie brown ’air fallin’ over it. I never noticed ’er ’air was different from us other kids before.

  ‘Where you get that blonde ’air from?’ I ask ’er.

  ‘From inside my ’ead. It grows out of it, stupid,’ she tell me with one side of ’er face screwed up.

  ‘Yeah, but who got ’air like that in our family?’

  ‘Aunty Essie and some of ’er kids got white colour ’air.’

  I nod, then. Some mob in our family real muroo but some of us got lighter colour skin too, not only me and Eva.

  We go wanderin’ off into the bushes then, to look for more mai. It’s like that spit oath’s stopped us from fightin’, made us good friends. We talk ’bout lotta things, like how we feel different from other kids and left outa things a lot, and how sometimes we don’t feel like we belong ’specially when them kids tease us. As we pick the berries off the bushes and eat ’em, we talk ’bout how we feel sad and moogada and sometimes not very nice inside, like somethin’ missing. I never knew Eva feels just like me. Then I wonder if she knows ’bout Old Rod and Ada and Mumma’s secrets. She might know who our mummatja is. No-one else wants to tell me, they just get moogada with me when I ask.

  She squats down then, and pulls the top off a pig-face flower, and sticks the round juicy part in ’er mouth and squashes it. I sit down next to ’er on the munda and we both ’ave a good feed of the pig-face. It’s real nice and juicy and tastes real good.

  ‘Eva, who’s our mummatja then?’ I ask.

  ‘We don’t ’ave one,’ she say. ‘That’s why we’re bastard kids.’

  ‘Don’t call us that,’ I growl ’er, pushin ’er back so she fall in the tjilga bush. ‘I’m no bastard kid.’

  ‘Ouch. Right, you little cow, that ’urt.’

  Eva’s ready to punch me, then she must’ve remembered our spit oath and stops to pull the tjilga off ’er bultha. I start pickin’ at one of my scabs below my knee, they always clear up when we on ’olidays swimmin’ in the wanna. Then tears start fallin’ on my scab, makin’ it all soft.

  Eva just shakes ’er gugga at me, then puts ’er arm ’round me again.

  ‘Why don’t we ’ave a mummatja like other kids?’ I ask her.

  ‘’Cause we can’t, ’cause of God’s Commandment.’

  ‘Maybe Old Rod will know who our mummatja is,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t even talk ’bout ’im,’ she says.

  She spit on the munda in front of us. I look at the spit curl up into a ball with dirt floatin’ ’round it.

  ‘But why’s he so nice to us?’ I ask, lookin’ at an ant tryin’ to climb on the spit ball. ‘Give us things and that?’

  ‘We better get back to camp. Ada and Mumma will be wonderin’ where we are.’

  She’s tryin’ to get out of answerin’ the question, just like Ada and Mumma. She ’elps me up and steppin’ over the spit ball, I ask ’er, ‘Is he our mummatja?’

  We walk along the track in the sand towards ’nother clump of bushes without sayin’ nothin’.

  ‘I already told you, Grace, we not allowed to ’ave a father, so he’s not.’ Eva stopped walkin’ and turned to me. ‘In other words, Grace, no.’

  I start cryin’ again then. Eva’s my big sister and she knows lotta things. Sometimes she’s wrong but I know this time she’s tellin’ me the truth. I know she won’t lie to me after a spit oath.

  Eva hugs me then. ‘Look, my sissy. We don’t need no stupid mummatja. We got Papa Neddy and lotsa uncles who’re our fathers Nyunga-way, they look after us and I’ll look after you, too.’ She grabs me by the arms then, and looks me in
the wah. ‘I’ll make sure nothin’ happens to you and our minya sisters. And just look out if them kids call us any filthy names again. We’ll give ’em a hidin’.’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon,’ I say, wipin’ my murra under my nose and sniffin’ the snot back up. ‘We’ll give it’ to ’em.’

  I do boxin’ punches that I seen Papa do when he playin’ ’round with my uncles. Eva pretends I hit ’er and falls back on the munda again but not in a tjilga bush though. Then she gets up again.

  Laughs are comin’ outa my mouth now, I’m feelin’ better.

  Then, Eva started laughin’, too.

  We both laughin’ so ’ard we fall back over together, almost outa breath. We lay there quiet-way for a while. From the bushes we look out over the white sand beach and the dark blue wanna. No-one can see us there tucked behind the bushes on the warm munda, ’cept for the minya ant mooga, no-one can hurt us here, me and my big sister. I wanna stay here forever, I think, and sink into the warm sand.

  ‘Jindu duthbin,’ Eva whispers, moving ’er lips towards the sun goin’ down over the saltbushes behind us. The waves almost drown out her voice. ‘We better get back to camp.’

  Next mornin’ I wake up and I’ve pissed the bed but it don’t even matter, the seaweed smells anyway, and no-one even notices. I do a big yawn and look ’round at my sisters on our seaweed mattress. They all look like minya djita mooga in a nest there. A big smile comes over my face. I see Eva smilin’ back.

  She throws ’er ’ead over towards the wanna, ’er tangled ’air blowin’ in the wind.

  Lookin’ over I can see the tide way out. My mouth’s waterin’ and I run my tongue over my lips.

  ‘Are you thinkin’ the same as me?’ Eva say.

  We both jump up and run to get a stick from the bushes, then cut it flat-out-way down the beach. Sarah cryin’ for us to wait for ’er.

  ‘Come on, sissy,’ I yell out, ‘We gonna ’ave a good feed of gulda marra for breakfast.’