Gifts of the Peramangk

by Dean Mayes

  Wayne looked worriedly at Jeremy then at the rapidly disappearing muscle car.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  Jeremy himself watched the car until he could no longer see it then shook his head.

  He turned and walked away from Wayne without answering.

  The suburban train trundled along the tracks through the inner northern suburbs of Adelaide on its way to the city’s central station. A blurry stream of houses, buildings, trees and parks rushed by Ruby’s field of view as she sat with her forehead leaning against the glass, lost in thought.

  Her school bag lay across her lap, containing her violin case. Ruby held it close to her chest protectively. Beside her, Jeremy sat bent forward, elbows resting on his knees, absently scanning the various passengers as they entered the cabin and left again. He had done this trip enough times now, that many of the faces were familiar to him. He was interested in people’s faces, their expressions and he often wondered what was going on in the minds of those passengers. What secrets did they hold, what struggles did they endure in the lives they led? It was a curiosity Jeremy had, though he didn’t fully understand why he had it. Perhaps it was because of these trips accompanying Ruby—his sense of duty to watch out for her on these trips.

  These trips.

  Every Tuesday, Ruby and Jeremy would sneak away to the city after school under the pretense that Jeremy was going to football training at a local sporting ground and Ruby wanted to watch him. Instead they would catch the afternoon express service into the city.

  Asher was in on the ruse while Minty was not yet old enough to see through the deception. So far as her aunty Belle or uncle Rex were concerned, Ruby knew they had no idea—not that they would have cared much anyhow. As for her grandmother and her increasingly frequent lapses in memory, Ruby was confident that Virginia was as blissfully unaware as Minty was.

  All Ruby really knew about the Elder Conservatorium of Music was what she had discovered from an old newspaper Arts supplement. Ruby had retrieved it from the art and craft box in her classroom when her burgeoning interest in the violin began. A feature article, spread across two pages of the supplement, profiled the world renowned school of music in the heart of Adelaide, its history, and its prestige. It described in detail how the school had become the home for many ensembles and orchestras.

  But it was less the descriptions of the school itself than it was the images of musicians playing that drew Ruby to the Conservatory. In particular, it was a quartet—a string quartet—that really captured her imagination. Ruby was fascinated by the picture of a beautiful woman, dressed in a flowing evening gown, playing the violin in one image. She imagined herself, dressed similarly one day perhaps, performing just like that woman.

  Ruby marvelled at another shot of the quartet performing on a stage in front of a capacity audience. She’d pinned these pictures to her bed head and looked at them every night before going to sleep.

  Ruby knew then, that she had to find this place and experience its music first hand. When Ruby began making her trips and she found the Conservatorium, she discovered a place in the gardens just outside a window where she could listen to the quartet rehearse. It turned out to be the ideal vantage point, hidden away from view of passersby.

  After listening each week, Ruby went home to practise and incorporate elements of what she’d heard into her own performance. Before too long, Ruby had begun to bring her violin with her so that she could practise as though she were a part of the quartet inside.

  That curiosity had blossomed into an insatiable love for their music, for their performance. And over time that love evolved into ambition—an ambition to become just like these musicians and to play on a stage for an audience.

  It was her dream—a dream that she wanted more than anything else.

  Ruby blinked, snapping out of her trance and she turned toward Jeremy who remained lost in his own world. Slowly lifting one hand off her school bag, Ruby extended her finger and jabbed him in the ribs. Jeremy jumped in his seat and cursed her. Ruby giggled and raised her bag in front of her as Jeremy turned to attack her playfully.

  “You little bugger,” he growled jokingly as he poked at her around the bulk of the bag.

  “I was just trying to wake you up,” Ruby squeaked as she batted his arms away ineffectually. “You’ve said nothing since we got on the train.”

  Jeremy ceased his attack and slumped back in his seat.

  “I’m alright,” he said simply. “Just—thinking about stuff.”

  “What stuff?” Ruby asked absently, gazing out the window once more.

  When Jeremy didn’t answer, Ruby turned her head in his direction.

  “What stuff?” she repeated, studying his features more attentively.

  “Nothing,” Jeremy answered quietly. “It’s nothing.”

  Ruby frowned, knowing right away that Jeremy wasn’t being truthful.

  “C’mon,” she pressed, her smile fading. “You’re hopeless at fibbing. Tell me.”

  Jeremy retreated further into his seat and he shifted uncomfortably. “Really, it’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you having trouble with that teacher again?”

  “Rube…” Jeremy flashed his cousin an icy glare and added a warning tone to his voice.

  “You’re gonna get suspended if you keep having run-ins with tha—”

  “Rube, shut up! It’s none of your business alright!”

  Ruby shuddered at the forcefulness of Jeremy’s voice and she shuffled away from him, pressing herself up against the window of the train.

  “Sorry,” she retorted quietly, screwing up her face at him, while Jeremy shook his head and folded his arms over his chest, annoyed.

  “Aunty Belle’s gonna kick your ar—” she began to mutter under her breath until Jeremy whipped his head around and glared at her.

  They rode the remainder of the trip in silence.

  The late afternoon traffic snaked along busy North Terrace as Jeremy and Ruby walked silently side by side, making their way toward the university precinct. A breeze had struck up, blowing the leaves from the plane trees across the pavement and up onto the steps of the Roman inspired art gallery building.

  Ruby eyed Jeremy as they walked along but she wasn’t game to speak. She sensed something must have happened to him at school today. It had been an ongoing problem and Jeremy seemed to be willfully exacerbating whatever conflict there was.

  As she thought about it now though, Ruby felt guilty for having pressed him on the train. But she didn’t know quite what to say to make it better.

  They approached a large stone structure upon which sat an imposing bronze statue of a man reclining in a chair. The man’s face was stern, etched into a foreboding frown. His hair and beard were thick and bushy; his mighty hands rested on the arms of the chair, looking as though they could pound the chair itself into splinters.

  The memorial was a depiction of Sir Walter Watson Hughes, one of the founding benefactors of the Adelaide University and, perhaps one of the strongest advocates for the genesis of Elder Conservatory.

  Ruby slowed to regard the statue and Jeremy wordlessly rolled his eyes, watching her stop at the foot of the stone, where she raised her head up to regard the bronzed figure.

  ‘Here we go again,’ Jeremy thought as he distanced himself from his cousin just enough so that he was still in close proximity, without looking like he was with her.

  Ruby shifted on the spot as she regarded the statue reverentially.

  “Hello, Wally!” she greeted aloud, squinting her eyes so she could focus more clearly.

  “How many times have I told you not to call me that, child!?”

  A deep, rumbling voice boomed in Ruby’s ears and she flinched, causing a group of nearby pigeons to scatter.

  Ruby looked up into the piercing eyes of Sir Walter Hughes.

  “Sorry, sir,” she replied awkwardly, clutching her bag in front of her.

  She waited for what seemed like an
eternity.

  “How is your practise coming along this week?” he asked. “Have you managed to master the ending of that Vivaldi piece yet?”

  “No,” Ruby answered, downcast. “I’ve gotten better at it, but Nana says I’m still too impatient. That’s why I keep stuffing it up.”

  Sir Walter clicked his tongue noisily and peered down upon Ruby, leaning his great forearm on the arm of his chair.

  “Patience is the most important skill a violinist can covet on their journey. It is indeed a gift—the patience to listen, the patience to find each note. You must learn to attain it and savour it. That is how you will succeed, my child.”

  Ruby looked down at her feet and nodded.

  “I understand,” she said simply.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Jeremy who stood, hands in pocket across the plaza from them.

  “He seems troubled,” Sir Walter observed with a note of concern.

  Ruby wrinkled her nose worriedly.

  “He’s still having problems at school. I tried to talk to him about it today but he got angry with me again.”

  “Hmm,” Sir Walter mused thoughtfully. “You cannot force a person to speak if they’re not ready to. He may be struggling with the situation.”

  “But I just want him to talk to me,” Ruby pressed. “Not, like, about his troubles but…just, about anything. I don’t like it when Jeremy doesn’t talk.”

  “Well,” Sir Walter ventured. “Maybe you should surrender what it is you need from him and think about what he might need from you instead.”

  Ruby’s brow furrowed in confusion.

  “I don’t understand,” she grumbled.

  Sir Walter’s great form seemed to recline further back in the chair and he chuckled low in his throat.

  “Patience, child…”

  Frustration welled inside her and she wheeled away from Sir Walter.

  ‘What kind of answer is that?’ she thought angrily as she began to walk away. A few steps from the stone monolith, Ruby swiftly turned back to protest further. But all she found was the imposing bronzed figure sitting silently, reverently underneath the boughs of a Moreton Bay fig.

  “Patience,” she hissed. “Everybody wants me to be patient! Well, I can’t be patient! I’ve got places to go—things I have to do!”

  Shaking her head, she gave up on Sir Walter and made her way angrily over to Jeremy, who was pacing back and forth, a figurative storm cloud of his own over his head.

  As she approached, Ruby noticed his dark expression, his tensed shoulders. Clearly, Jeremy was grappling with something big. In that moment, Ruby’s own frustration and annoyance with him gradually melted away, was replaced by concern and then by sympathy, then sorrow. She knew then, what the legendary professor had meant.

  Jeremy flicked his eyes toward her and spat absently out of the corner of his mouth onto the pavement.

  “You done going crazy at statues?” he grumbled darkly.

  Ruby met his eyes with hers and she nodded, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “For…you know…”

  Jeremy’s shoulders relaxed and his anger seemed to dissipate all at once. He managed a wan smile.

  Jeremy nodded toward a stately building across a lush, green lawn.

  “Come on,” he said, flicking his head in the direction of the Elder Conservatory. “We’ll miss your practise.”

  Jeremy sat on a large boulder underneath a leafy tree watching as Ruby perched herself on a stone ledge adjacent to a window. The window was open several inches, allowing the music from the string quartet to filter through it. As one of her legs dangled down off the ledge, Ruby held her violin. Her eyes were closed, her concentration focused. She matched, note for note, the violin inside that lead the quartet. Jeremy kept a close watch, but he was distracted by Ruby’s performance, carried away by her skill and the harmonic unison she achieved with the quartet. Eventually, he let his guard down completely, moved by the plaintive beauty of Ruby’s violin. His troubled mind was awash with the sound of her music and everything else—his teacher, the gang, his father—was swept aside. He was peaceful, serene.

  Ruby listened intently to the piece as she played it, drawing the music from her memory in the way her grandmother had taught it to her. She heard her grandmother’s voice in her head, guiding Ruby with her gentle instruction. And, as she often did when playing, Ruby wondered about her grandmother’s gift. Where had it come from? How had she been able to impart it to Ruby?

  It was a mystery that Ruby had pondered for much of her life.

  Chapter 5

  1951

  A single rattle trap utility bumped along an outback road, heading toward an unseen destination. It kicked up plumes of dust behind it that were caught up and carried away by a languid breeze, disappearing into an overcast sky above a field of yellow pasture. Clouds had gathered on the near horizon behind the truck and tendrils of rain fell from them but it was unlikely that rain would catch the truck any time soon. The fields around the truck and the sparse population of sheep and cattle that grazed within them had not seen rain for a long time.

  A small figure sat huddled in the tray of the truck, holding onto the wooden sides with a vice-like grip every time the truck shuddered over a pot hole in the track. Virginia winced as she bounced on the wooden surface, her tail bone hitting it harshly. She did not dare protest to the driver inside the cabin. It was likely to fall on deaf ears anyway.

  Virginia sat downcast, her knees drawn up against her tiny frame, her bony arms wrapped around her knees. She appeared emaciated; her hair was stringy and limp. The plain dress she wore was made of a harsh material that had been plied with so much starch that it felt abrasive against her skin.

  She felt sick. It seemed as though she always felt sick nowadays. Not since she had been taken from her mother did she remember feeling anything but sick. The food that she had been served up, day after day at the hospital where she had lived for the past few months was little more than gruel. Eventually, and unbeknownst to the Sisters there, Virginia had stopped eating the food altogether. In her mind, it was patently inedible.

  It felt as though a lifetime had passed since she had seen her mother. The very thought of her and not being with her weighed so heavily upon Virginia that it threatened to crush her. Even now, the memory of her mother caused tears to well up and Virginia could not hold them back. She couldn’t understand why her mother never came to get her and take her home, nor could she understand why her questions about seeing her mother again were dismissed by those who had taken her. No one had told Virginia anything, except that she was sick and that her mother could no longer look after her.

  She had been separated from Albert not long after they had been brought to the hospital in the city. Though she had seen him once or twice some time after they arrived, Albert was eventually taken away from there and he disappeared altogether. They wouldn’t tell Virginia where he had gone.

  Initially, she had persisted with her questioning, drawing the ire of the Sisters and Aboriginal Protection Officers. She had been punished many times for defying their instructions whilst in the hospital, for refusing to eat her meals, for trying to escape, for crying for hours on end. Eventually, Virginia stopped fighting them, defying them. A deep depression set in. She grieved for her mother and father. She grieved for Albert and the other children. She grieved for home. In the depths of the night, in the cold hospital ward, she lay curled up in her bed, weeping softly, singing the Peramangk lullaby her father had sung to her about the Wild Dog Rainbow whose colours could be seen in the waters of an ancient creek. Over and over again, she whispered it into the darkness, desperate to cling to something that reminded her of her home. After a time, Virginia stopped interacting or speaking. She experienced night after night of sleeplessness. Her memories became as fractured as her health. The lullaby left her entirely. Her resolve left her and she allowed her captors to do with her whatever they desired.
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br />   Now, inexplicably, she was here. They had bundled her up into this rickety truck without explanation, driven her out of the hospital and away from the city on a road that seemed endless, its destination uncertain. She had sat for hours, passing through rain and wind and the blistering sun with nothing but a canvas sheet to protect her. They had told her nothing.

  The truck passed by a tall, gnarled, dead tree standing solitary near the road. Virginia glanced up at it, spying two crows sitting side by side on a twisted branch. One of them issued a long, mournful caw as the truck passed by. She stared blankly at them until they were out of sight and the road angled around to the right. The tree shrank to a speck behind her, swallowed up by the vastness of the landscape.

  A line of bald hills flanked the road to the north on her left while, to the south, the fields stretched away into infinity. There was so much space that Virginia felt threatened by its vastness.

  Suddenly, Virginia heard the sound of a dog barking and she turned slightly to peer out over the tray. A lean black and white cattle dog galloped along beside the truck at a cracking pace, its tongue flapping along side in the breeze. The dog jumped deftly over the uneven ground beside the road, flanking the vehicle, yapping enthusiastically up at Virginia who just stared dumbfounded at the mutt.

  Overcoming inertia, Virginia turned herself around and looked through the rear window of the cabin. Out through the windshield, sitting on a slight rise above the road, she saw a farm house. It was an austere sandstone homestead with a wide verandah that wrapped all the way around it. Several smaller buildings stood off to one side. Palms bordered the property near a fence that stretched along the front of the grounds.

  For the first time in what seemed an eternity, her curiosity was piqued.

  The truck slowed as it approached the property, allowing the enthusiastic dog to leap across in front of it. It passed through an entrance and over a steel cattle grate, scattering a group of chickens just beyond, before it turned in a wide arc around a lush circle of lawn in front of the farm house. The driver brought the vehicle to a stop and extinguished the engine.