Mazin Grace

by Dylan Coleman

  Then suddenly everything starts to make sense in a strange blurry kind of way. What I just heard gives me all the clues to work out the riddle and show me the secret Ada and Mumma’d been hidin’. My guru mooga dart from one side of the ceiling to the other as thoughts tumble ’round in my head.

  Ada and Mumma knew all along that Old Rod was our father. Every time I asked, ‘Who’s my father?’ or ‘Why my skin fairer than the other kids’?’ they just growled me, so they don’t ’ave to tell me. All the times them nasty kids yell at me, ‘You bastard whitefella kid . . . you Williams’ pigs.’ I always thought they were being real mean to me for nothin’, just ’cause they jealous. But now I know they were callin’ me those names because I did ’ave a walbiya father. And Old Rod’s always sayin’ to us, ‘You’re different from those other kids on the Mission. Don’t forget that now.’

  My guru mooga stop at a cobweb floatin’ in the corner.

  Old Rod musta been tellin’ us that because he was our father. That’s why he always had us stayin’ over in the ’olidays and why he took Ada and us kids out in his back paddocks campin’ and we’d go with ’im to drive the sheep along the road and go fencin’ out the back with him. That’s why he brought us food and clothes and presents all the time. That’s why he took us into town and gave us money at the show every year. And it wasn’t a mumoo at all that jumped into him when he crossed over the railway line, he was just nervous about what walbiya mob were gonna say when they seen him, big important whitefella in town with his black mudgie and his black gidjida mooga, that’s why he always drop us off at the bushes by the wanna.

  Sobbin’ is comin’ from the room, now. It sounds like Old Rod cryin’. I see Old Rod’s head movin’ up and down in his hands. I feel scared, I’ve never seen Old Rod like this before. Are we in trouble? What’s happenin’? Is he all right? Are we gonna be all right? I look at Eva. Her eyebrows are real high in ’er ngulya and ’er guru mooga dart from me to the piano and back again as if she’s tryin’ to read Old Rod’s thoughts or work out what’s gonna happen next.

  I look ’round the room with all its deadly furniture. It makes sense now why Old Rod bought that land for us at the back of the Catholic church and why the walbiya Council mob gave ’im ’is money back. They reckon blackfellas not allowed to own land even though it all belonged to us Kokatha before the whitefellas came. Maybe that’s a law or rules walbiya mob made, that’s different from Nyunga ways, like Papa told me about.

  And Old Rod is always goin’ on about not sittin’ on the dirty toilets on the Mission and keepin’ clean and takin’ care of ourselves. But how can we with one minya bowl for all of us to wash ourselves in? The water’s always real muddy. Not like the flash bath they probably have here somewhere in this house.

  I remember once way back, when I was hidin’ under the bed in the kitchen playin’ hide-and-seek, I heard Mumma talkin’ to the other weena mooga.

  ‘Old Rod went to jail after Eva was born and that finished ’im then ’cause he wanted to be a big boonri in Parliament’s House,’ she said. ‘And it just might’ve been, if he hadn’t had his way with Ada and ’er havin’ Eva. “Consortin’”, walbiya mob call it.’ Mumma gave a laugh like she thought it was stupid.

  I didn’t know who Parliament was, and why Old Rod wanted to go to his house, or what Ada and Eva had to do with stoppin’ ’im. It just didn’t make sense.

  So later, I asked Papa Neddy. I wouldn’t dare ask Mumma, she’d only growl me for bein’ nosey minya wunyi. ‘Who’s Parliament, Papa? An’ where he live?’

  Papa laughed. ‘Where you been gettin’ big words like that from, girl? That teacher’s been learnin’ you lotta things at school, indie?’ He rubbed the scratchy gunja on his chin, like he was tryin’ to remember the answer. ‘It’s a place where walbiya mob make laws that tell us what we can do and can’t do.’

  ‘Oh, so Parliament’s not a person,’ I said to Papa.

  He smiled and nodded then, and a funny minya chuckle came outa his mouth.

  Maybe, Old Rod wanted to make some laws to help Nyunga mooga like us be allowed to own land walbiya way, I thought. But I still didn’t know what Ada and Eva had to do with Old Rod goin’ to jail. Unless it was ’cause he already had a wife, Mrs Williams.

  And what about what Hetty Clare said? Papa gave Ada a floggin’ when she still had Eva growin’ in ’er djuda ’cause he was shame of her. Maybe that was against the law too, and that’s why Mission mob threw stones at ’er and baby Eva. Or maybe Mumma and Hetty just got their stories wrong. After all, Ada’s still Old Rod’s mudgie and five of us girls’ve been born since Eva. So, why isn’t he in jail now?

  I look back towards the bedroom door.

  ‘Well, you do what you need to, Rod,’ Mrs Williams say.

  And if Old Rod’s already married with a wife, how come him and Ada still together mudgie-way? It doesn’t make sense. But now it makes sense why they kept this secret from us kids. Pastor would ’ave somethin’ to say about it. He’d say the devil’s well and truly got Ada and Old Rod tricked and they goin’ to hell with fire and brimstone. But I know deep inside Old Rod’s good, and Ada can be grumpy but she’s good mumma the way she does ’er best to keep us clean and fed, and gooloo out of our ’air, so I know there’s no way Old Rod and Ada gonna go to hell.

  After a while, Old Rod lifts up his head, pulls a hankie out ’is pocket and blows ’is nose. He stands up then, and begins to walk towards us.

  I can feel a warm glowin’ inside me like the fireplace that’s now so hot my face is burnin’. My excitement starts to grow, sittin’ in this lovely room, sippin’ a warm cuppa in this once mysterious old house. I just know things are about to change for the better for me, Eva and my minya sisters because now I know this man is our father.

  ‘Dee-Dee Doe,’ I whisper under my breath, imagining I’m whisperin’ to a butterfly. ‘I know who my mummatja is – you’ll never guess who. It’s Old Rod.’

  And that butterfly in my mind fly off.

  13

  Lookin’ through new guru mooga

  ‘You can both sleep in here tonight,’ Old Rod says in a warm, gentle voice. His guru mooga and face all red as he walks into the lounge room.

  Eva and me both nod and smile at each other. We both thinkin’ the same thing, we don’t ’ave to sleep on the dirt floor in the shed or that damp old smelly caravan.We are sleepin’ in this deadly house, a walbiya house.

  But best of all that walbiya is our father. He is the other part of what I’ve been lookin’ for all these years. That’s why I’ve never felt like I fitted in anywhere, not with the other Nyunga mooga on the Mission, except my family and friends, and not with walbiya mooga. But somehow right in this strange moment sittin’ on the floor in Old Rod’s house in front of the fire, I feel like I belong. It’s like all the emptiness inside me has just disappeared, like the fire that warms us now, it’s just burnt it all up.

  Old Rod pulls back the covers on the bed near the window. There’s a big fluffy pillow, nice white sheets and clean blankets, just like in hospital. Eva and me both jump onto the bed and snuggle between the nice-smellin’ sheets, then Old Rod pulls the covers over us and tucks us in.

  ‘I’ll play you some songs before you go to sleep,’ he says, walking back towards his bedroom.

  When he comes back his hands are graspin’ a piano accordion. He plays a few notes that don’t quite sound right before he starts to play wonderful music from this box that he seems to squeeze the air out of and tickle at the same time. Some of the songs I know the tunes from him singin’ them to us before and some I don’t know. He tells us some of them are old Irish songs that his mother taught him when he was a little boy. When he sings his voice sounds real nice, just like the voices on the radio. And even though I’m not singin’ along like I do with Uncle Murdi, it still takes me to that real nice place where I go when I sing and it
feels real relaxin’ and nice. Before I know it I’m floatin’ off to sleep.

  Next mornin’ I wake up with light on my face and feel around the sheets. I can’t believe it. For the first time in ages I didn’t goomboo the bed that night.

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ Eva says in a flat voice when she notices the same thing.

  I smile real proud-way. ‘Maybe we should stay over here more often,’ I say. Lookin’ around the room, it seems strange, like I’m still dreamin’.

  ‘I would’ve been living ’ere if it wasn’t for you,’ Eva says with a moogada look on ’er face.

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ I ask, sittin’ up.

  ‘I overheard Mumma talkin’ once,’ she says. ‘’Bout when I was born.’ Eva stops and points ’er lips towards the bedroom. ‘They were gonna adopt me, bring me up as their own, but then you came along.’

  ‘What are you talkin’ about?’ I say again.

  I don’t doubt what she’s sayin’ ’bout Mumma is true. I always find out stuff I shouldn’t from listenin’ in on Mumma’s yarns but I was a real sweet minya wunyi. Even Eva’s always sayin’ that I’m Papa Neddy and Uncle Murdi’s favourite, so why would they want to leave me out?

  ‘Why wouldn’t they want to take me as their own too?’ I cross my arms, feelin’ real put out.

  ‘Well, it’s simple. They must’ve thought Ada wasn’t gonna ’ave any more kids with Old Rod so they could pretend I was theirs and no-one’d know. But after you was born, they must’ve thought, we can’t keep goin’ on adoptin’ more bastard kids, so they didn’t worry about it.’ Eva kicks the blankets off rough-way. ‘Anyways, some of us like you and me are real fair and could pass for walbiya but some of us are more muroo.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wanna pass for a walbiya anyway,’ I snap back.

  ‘Even if it meant livin’ like this every day?’ Eva asks.

  I think about that for a while. ‘I’d live like this and stay Nyunga,’ I say.

  Eva shakes ’er head and laughs at me. ‘I don’t think you’d have a choice, Grace. Old Rod would tell you what to do and you’d have to listen to ’im.’

  I nod, thinkin’ how sometimes he bosses Ada ’round and that time Ada took us kids and ran away to Penong with a Nyunga man who lived there, tryin’ to get away from Old Rod. But Old Rod just drove up to Penong and made Ada get in the car and drove her and us kids back to the Mission. Ada was so sick of the Mission she would’ve done anything to get off it, but Old Rod wouldn’t let ’er live on the farm, probably ’cause he still had ’is wife. He only lets us stay when it suits ’im.

  ‘Even if I wasn’t born,’ I tell Eva, ‘Ada and Mumma wouldn’t let them take you away anyway. They’d fight for you to stay with ’em, no matter what. And if Papa put his foot down and said “no”, that’d be it, ’cause he’s the big boonri of all of us.’

  ‘Old Rod’s our father, isn’t he? And he’s walbiya. They wouldn’t ’ave any say.’

  I think about what Eva’s saying. She’s right. Walbiya mooga have lotta say over lotta things, even us Nyunga mooga. Old Rod could probably do whatever he wants as long as it isn’t against the laws that they make in that Parliament House place. But just imagine sleepin’ in a nice, soft, clean bed like this one without anythin’ suckin’ blood from you all night, always havin’ plenty of food to eat and a father who’s got plenty of money to buy you things like books and clothes? That’d be so deadly to live like that.

  ‘Good morning, my girls.’ Old Rod’s words are like a song as he comes through the back door. ‘Your breakfast is on the table and when you’ve finished we’re going to go for a drive in my new truck to check the animals and the water troughs.’

  There’s the biggest plates of food waitin’ on the table, bacon, eggs and toast and orange juice. Me and Eva smile real wide, this is the flashest breakfast ever. When we finish Eva and me go outside and play while we wait for Old Rod. Everywhere we go looks different. We play where we’ve always played but this time I see it new-way, like it’s more real than before, like it’s got different meaning now because Old Rod’s our father. I feel like Sleepin’ Beauty who just woke out of ’er sleep, tryin’ to remember back, to make sense of what’s happenin’. I jump and skip and laugh and sing. Eva looks a bit annoyed, but I don’t care, I feel so deadly to be alive.

  Soon, Old Rod is yellin’ for us to hurry up so we can get goin’, then he helps us up into ’is truck.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asks, real proud-way. ‘I brought it from Adelaide last week. It can fit five people across.’ He slaps the seat next to ’im. His hand makes a loud sound on the new leather. ‘Only one in the district,’ he beams.

  Bouncin’ along the dirt track, Old Rod whistles away as Eva and I look out the window. We pass a paddock that I remember visitin’ when we were younger. Eva and me were real minya wunyi mooga back then, in the front of Old Rod’s old truck. Big bales of hay were piled on the back of ’is truck for the cattle feed. As we bumped over the paddock, Old Rod told us he was goin’ to feed the cattle, and to do that he would slow the truck right down, jump on the back and throw off the feed, but we had to promise ’im that we wouldn’t get outa the truck and we mustn’t touch anything, no levers or buttons or pedals, nothing. He told Eva to ‘just do the steerin’.

  ‘Especially not this one,’ he said, tapping ’is foot on a pedal. ‘All right? Do you understand?’

  Guru mooga wide open and makin’ big nods with our heads, Eva and me let Old Rod know we understood.

  Old Rod moved the gear stick so the truck crawled along at a walking pace. He reminded us once again we were not to touch anything. Then he jumped out of the slow-moving truck, shut the door and jumped onto the back to start throwing off the hay feed.

  Me and Eva sat there real patient-way for a while, thinkin’ about what Old Rod had told us but because we were so little we started to get bored and fidgety.

  ‘Push that there.’ I pointed to the pedal on the floor that Old Rod had sternly warned us against pushing. ‘Push that one there.’

  ‘Old Rod said we not ’lowed to touch anythin’,’ Eva growled me.

  ‘Are you scaredy cat? Eva is a scaredy cat, Eva is a scaredy cat,’ I teased.

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Am too.’

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Show me then,’ I said, puttin’ my hand on my hips and makin’ a face at ’er.

  Eva stuck ’er tongue out at me. ‘All right, then.’

  She slipped down the seat, stretched ’er foot over the pedal and gently pushed down.

  Nothin’ happened. So she began pumpin’ her foot up and down real hard-way. The truck was jerkin’ along then.

  We looked out the back window and saw Old Rod stumblin’ all over the place and nearly fallin’ off the truck. We both started to kill ourselves laughin’. He looked like he was doin’ a silly dance.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ He yellin’ real loud. ‘What are you little rascals doin’ in there? I told you not to touch anything. Hey.’

  We turned back round and giggled some more as Eva kept pushin’ the pedal up and down.

  Old Rod still bouncin’ around on the back of the truck. He grasped for balance on the side railings cursin’ us and the whole time we were nearly fallin’ off the seat laughin’ in the front of the truck.

  But boy, did we get a big growlin’ once Old Rod finally got back into the cabin.

  ‘Grace told me to do it,’ Eva cried.

  But Old Rod growled both of us anyway.

  Rememberin’ back to that time makes me giggle again.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Old Rod has a big smile on ’is face.

  ‘Just rememberin’ a time we came out ’ere with you,’ I say, shy-way.

  ‘Yeah.’ Old Rod pulls up at the next water trough and smiles. ‘We’ve had plenty of go
od times together out here on the farm, haven’t we?’

  Eva and me nod.

  After checkin’ the water trough and makin’ sure no sheep have been killed by dingos, Old Rod drives down to the next gate, opens it and drives through slow-way.

  ‘Baaah. Baaah,’ comes a sound from the back of the truck.

  Old Rod looks over towards the corner of the paddock and sees a single lamb walkin’ along by itself. It’s lost its mumma. Me and Eva see it too, so we jump out of the truck and run over to play with it. Its wool is all wavy and soft as we run our fingers over its fluffy coat. But the poor little thing is real weak. ‘Oh, it’s so nice. Can we keep it? Can we? Can we?’ we both beg Old Rod.

  ‘Well, it looks like it’s lost its mother, so it won’t last too long out here by itself.’ He looks around the paddock. ‘Okay, you can keep it,’ Old Rod finally agrees. ‘But you’ll have to feed it and look after it properly. You promise?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Yes,’ we scream together, jumpin’ up and down on the spot.

  Old Rod picks up the lamb and puts it on the back of the truck.

  ‘What will you call it?’ he asks.

  ‘Dolly,’ I said, thinkin’ of Dee-Dee’s nigardi peg dolly’s mumma dolly she got for a Christmas present.

  ‘Okay, Dolly it is,’ Old Rod says as he puts the truck into gear and takes off to the next trough.

  When we reach the end paddock, Old Rod stops the truck and shares a bottle of water and some sandwiches with us. ‘You know,’ he says, turning to us, ‘I first came here to the west coast when I was about four years old. That’s when my mother and father decided they would move us here. First we stayed at Athena, then we moved here to Charra once my father and elder brothers had made the farm livable. I even went to school in the old Charra woolshed over that way.’ He sweeps his hand towards Penong way. ‘Us kids getting a good education was really important to my parents. It’s important to me too. So I want you girls to study hard at school to do the best you can. I’ll get you off the Mission and make sure you’re well looked after and go to a good school.’