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8

1920

W
HEN THE BABY ARRIVED, the labour pains drowned out every other feeling Elizabeth carried. The force of life exploding from her, the unswallowing, was a most overwhelming physical punishment. Through her screams she cried for her mother. She cried for Euroke. She cried for escape from her loneliness. She cried for the bird's-eye view of her family's camp from her tree. She cried for a feeling of long-ago innocence, for a feeling so lost to her that she could not give it a name. As the pain ebbed and subsided, she fell into a deep sleep.

In her waking moments she dreamt of her new life with little Euroke, his hands reaching out to her, her heart needing him. As she stitched clothes and booties and a little blanket, her bursting love for her child pulsated through her with each heartbeat. She lay impatiently awaiting her reunion with her son, wishing the door would open so her new life could be carried towards her, his limbs outstretched like a naradarn.

The door did open but it was not the nurse. It was Mrs Carlyle. Elizabeth saw pale skin and a dark linen suit and thought of the terror of the train ride to Parkes, the pungent smell of the police cell and of her brother, her mother, her father. Elizabeth's tightening flesh forewarned her that Mrs Carlyle's presence was an evil omen. “Euroke,” she whispered. The lost brother. Now the lost son.

“Well,” began Mrs Carlyle sharply, “I had expected more from you, though I don't know why.”

“Where is my son?” Elizabeth demanded, her eyes widening.

“The baby has been sent off to a good home,” Mrs Carlyle replied briskly.

“But I want to keep him. He's mine. He's mine,” Elizabeth fiercely demanded, clenching her fists.

“How are you going to look after a baby? You have no money, no husband, and you are only sixteen years old.”

“He's mine. I want him. Don't touch him!” she leaned towards Mrs Carlyle, who stepped back. Elizabeth saw that Mrs Carlyle was edging towards the door, “No,” she began to plead. “I'll look after him. Please, please, please. Give him to me. Please!”

Mrs Carlyle stared at the young girl's face now wrenched with painful urgency. She also saw her clenched fists. She closed the door against Elizabeth's sobbing pleas and comforted herself that she was giving the little boy a better life than the one he would have had with a girl who could behave so violently and irrationally. “How ungrateful. And how little they know.”

She reflected on her theory that such children needed to be taken quite young to ensure the best chance of a better life. It was only later she would wonder how the girl could have known she had a son when no one had told her.

Miss Grainger was silent, torn between compassion and self-righteousness, between the living and the dead. She had thought much about Edward Howard in her time away from the oppressive house in Parkes. She had esteemed him in a way that was undeserved and she had made herself subservient to both him and his discourteous and spiteful wife. She felt a bitterness growing within her towards the little darkie, and towards Edward Howard, and her tolerance of the abusive eccentricities of Lydia Howard now seemed exhausted. She felt that she had been used, duped into a situation that she should have found demeaning. Her desire that she would wake to find Edward standing over her bed confessing love had vanished into the same darkness in which she had lost so much already.

Certainly, Edward had made no comments to her that would have led her to believe that he would act in a way that was inappropriate towards her; she had interpreted his distance as confirmation of the strong and immutable values that she had thought he possessed. But, she would also think, he could not be unaware of the way she looked at him, the way she felt, the extra effort she put into everything she did for him. She would, before the developments with the kitchen girl, have been content to have him acknowledge all that she gave to him without expecting anything in return. The awareness that he had longings that she had thought he was above and, even more hurtful to her, that those longings for someone who could not love him as much as she did, sunk her into the most resentful of moods.

Now, accompanying the little darkie back to the Howard household, Frances looked across into the tear-filled, troubled brown eyes and could only see the enemy, the woman, girl actually, who had come between her and Edward. She could see on the dark face the desolate isolation, the abandonment, but she could not offer a touch or a kind word.

The only comfort Elizabeth had on the trip back to Parkes was the rocking of the train. At the home where she had waited for the birth, there had been eight other Aboriginal girls. All, like her, had been taken from their families and placed at a house or cattle station to work as servants. They came from many different places — Kempsey, Junee, Forbes, Newcastle. One girl, Joan Morgan, came from Lightning Ridge and by tracing the limbs of their family tree they discovered that they were cousins. Through their mothers, they were both Eualeyai. With Joan, she could talk about people that they both knew, particularly Kooradgie who had joined Joan's family as often as he had Elizabeth's. Both remembered his permanent wink and his stories about every animal, every part of the landscape and every thing that hung in the sky. What neither of them spoke about was the circumstances by which they came to be carrying children.

As the landscape blurred through Elizabeth's steady gaze, she thought about how much had happened since she was first taken to the Howard house. Mrs Carlyle had been more imposing than Miss Grainger. Mrs Carlyle was pale in expensive dark clothes whereas Miss Grainger was lemon-coloured with her blonde hair and dressed in white cotton. When she had arrived at the Howard house, Elizabeth had thought that Miss Grainger would be kind to her, would offer her friendship and protection. She had worked hard to gain Miss Grainger's favour, was eager to do all that was asked of her, to get the attention, affection and acceptance that would have made the routine of her life more bearable. There were moments where that connection had seemed to be within reach, but it had never been as forthcoming as Elizabeth had initially hoped and with the pregnancy it seemed to evaporate.

Many other things had changed with the pregnancy. Before then, Peter would laugh and do thoughtful things for her. He had given her a shell that curled over itself and had a brown spotted pattern on it, the colour of her eyes, he had said shyly. But, as her stomach began to bloom, coolness seeped in to the way he spoke. When the bulge became visible, he would simply hand her the letters, not even looking her in the eye. His iciness hurt deeply, especially since she was unable to explain why it had happened, that it wasn't her choice. She didn't even like Edward Howard. Once she had, before he began coming to her room to stroke her hair and rub against her. She felt sorry for Miss Grainger, whose gaze still followed him, still thinking of him as a good man. Mr Howard had taken things from Elizabeth — her friendship with Peter, the trust of Miss Grainger, and the freedom to be with Xiao-ying — and he had done nothing to help her keep her baby. Mrs Howard watched her now in a way that she never had before and it made Elizabeth self-conscious and frightened; as she did her household chores, she felt anxious. Her breasts, full of unneeded milk, ached and reminded her constantly that her child was not with her.

She wanted to lay in the grass with Xiao-ying and look at the sky, to tell someone what she felt. She wanted to be with someone who she would not have to talk to, who would know how she was feeling without having to say it. She wanted to be with Euroke. She wanted to be Garibooli again. And as the train trundled along, she could hear the old language repeating in her head. Euroke. Garibooli, Euroke. Garibooli. Euroke. Euroke. Euroke. Garibooli. Garibooli. Garibooli.

Garibooli. The sound of my name reminds me.

Another time, another place, another me.

I could run fast, through the grass, amongst the trees, like the wind.

Garibooli. My name means whirlwind.

Say it like I say it.

Garibooli. Garibooli. Garibooli.

I say it over and over and over again.

9

1920

O
N RETURNING TO THE HOWARD HOUSE, Elizabeth thought of nothing but escaping. She thought of running, through the grass, side by side with the wind. She thought of the train — of moving further and further away with every rumble. She thought of holding her breath until life drained from her. She tried the latter — lying in bed at night trying not to let any more air in — but something, some unknown spark of life, would always make her gasp for air.

Thoughts of a son that she could not nurse and a brother, who seemed her best and only chance to feel protected but whom she could not reach, were with her constantly during the day as she prepared the fire, or made tea or ironed Mrs Howard's tablecloths. At night, when all else in the large house seemed still, she continued to scratch at her skin, harder and harder, the constant motion of her fingernails putting her into a trance. It stopped her thinking about Mr Howard's hands on her.

Edward Howard had gone to Sydney on business for what seemed like a longer than usual period. In his absence, the house was clouded with a thick, expectant atmosphere. Lydia Howard was more bitterly reserved and resentful of her husband's absence now that his presence was focused on her. He would stand behind her, watching as she brushed her hair, as if he wanted to stroke it. He would offer to assist her to close the clasp on her necklace, touching her shoulder when he was finished. He would mutter awkward compliments about her dress and complexion. He withdrew less, begged silent forgiveness and she came to feel closer to him for the acknowledgment of her moral superiority.

Elizabeth had never found affection in the Howard house. Even before the baby, her little Euroke, she was always an outsider and never able to break through to the hearts of the adults around her. But at least before her pregnancy she had human contact that sustained her — Peter and Xiao-ying. Now Peter was as cool towards her as the people she worked with in the Howard house. His change in attitude towards her cut deeply and she felt humiliated and distressed after each encounter with him. Xiao-ying did not withdraw her friendship, but her parents now told Xiao-ying to get back to her chores when Elizabeth would come into the shop. “They say you are a bad influence,” Xiao-ying would explain with a sigh.

As Frances Grainger withdrew the hopes she had placed in Edward Howard, she retreated deeper and deeper into the world of the just-ended war. She resented people who treated life as though it could continue on so easily, as though nothing had happened, as though they had slept through the past years. Frances focused much of her resentment on those who had made the war an issue, a campaign and cause while it was taking place, only to move on so easily when it finished. Much of this stewing wrath was directed at Lydia Howard, whose pretence of caring was as easily evaporated as water from a burning log.

But a new threat — communism — became her most consuming fear. Where young men had mowed down the threat of the Hun in the Great War, the communists had sprouted. This spectre had arisen to mock the dead, her dead. She could see its hand reaching over to her with no one left to protect her, everyone either buried or unwilling. There was now no Harold with whom she could build a life. Those dreams had been crushed in crash of surf and gunfire on the shore of Turkey.

There was no Edward Howard either. His handsome face and masculine poise had made her think that he possessed a character to match his looks. That illusion had disappeared as the little darkie's stomach had started to swell. Feeling alone, she was fearful of what she saw as threats to the way of life she had now, simple as it was. She had no sympathy for the Germans, but the communists, she felt, were feeding amongst her. She was overwhelmed by the slow sinking terror that the world was falling in upon her, that she would be crushed.

A change was noticeable in Mrs Howard too. One not related to the end of the war. One that eclipsed her burgeoning civic interest in prohibition (she was excited by the nobility of abstinence, of public denial). Lydia Howard's obsession was with the kitchen girl, “the little darkie” as the housekeeper called her. That she had allowed Elizabeth to stay on was rooted in a need to see the girl more closely and to force this presence onto her husband; the girl was a constant accusation levelled at him, a reminder of the way he had insulted her.

Lydia's vengeful plan to keep Elizabeth in the house did not play out as she had intended. She found herself consuming the poison she had laid out for Edward. Though she pretended distraction, Lydia watched the girl's every movement carefully as quick hands polished silver, dusted, oiled, cleaned. She wanted to find what it was that had attracted Edward, but the only distinctive features were the dark skin and even darker eyes. She concluded that her husband, unable to express himself to her, had used the girl. Her reasoning attempted to account for his actions but settled nothing within her. When he expressed an opinion about the lack of character of the new doctor or criticised an editorial in the newspaper she felt the festering of her inability to forgive him. Lydia concluded that the danger must come from the girl, that the evil must emanate from within her.

Elizabeth had noticed the increased attention she was receiving. She sensed the eyes following her careful movements, could feel the sustained discomfort of having someone reluctantly drawn to her. It made her uneasy and she much preferred the days when she had existed unobserved, when she had wondered if Mrs Howard even remembered she was in the house.

She tried to cope as best she could with the open animosity that lurked everywhere within the house. Late at night she would lie on the ground in the back garden and look into the same sky that covered her home. All that made her happy she tried to find in the lights that sparkled above her: the seven sisters of the Mea-Mei, the shell that Peter gave her, her jade brooch, Euroke. She grew thin from a lack of appetite. Within the damp walls of her room, her thoughts would turn to her troubles and she would lose herself in her late-night ritual of scratching, raising cherry-pink marks across her arms, legs and now empty stomach.

The oppressive humidity of Lydia Howard's antagonism towards Elizabeth began to permeate the house; it stuck to the skin of the women who lived under the same roof. Lydia's glowering became like distant thunder rumbling. Over time it increased with the curtness of her tongue and objects slammed into hard surfaces — a mirror on her dressing table when she thought her face too lined, a book at a wall when she could no longer keep her thoughts on reading, a plate on the floor when the imploding anger within her made eating impossible. She would shriek when she imagined she saw stains on her clothes and demand that they be rewashed. She would push her food away and refuse to eat, complaining about the taste. Her anger was directed at all the staff but fell hardest and swiftest on the kitchen girl and the housekeeper.

One morning, as Elizabeth polished the silver, Mrs Howard approached her. With her face so close that Elizabeth could feel her constrained breathing, Lydia stared into the girl's stunned eyes. Seeing innocence when she wanted to see cunning enraged Lydia beyond her ability to control it. She became infuriated by the fear in the dark eyes before her, the shrinking away. She brought her hand hard across Elizabeth's face in an attempt to expel her resentment. It remained tightly within her. She hit the girl's face again, clipping Elizabeth's skin with her nails.

Elizabeth fled the house and ran to the railway station, believing that the train could take her away. She had no money and did not know where to go, but if she jumped in front of it, with one giant thump, she would be carried somewhere. Perhaps some place with long grass she could run through, some place she could wait for Euroke. Elizabeth stood on the platform, feeling the sting in the graze on her face. It matched the burning sensation she felt across her body as an aftermath of her own silent acts of scratching.

Miss Grainger arrived to bring her home. She did not understand why she had followed Elizabeth to the train station, was surprised that she had any pity left within her.

“You don't want any more trouble,” she said with a sigh as she offered Elizabeth a handkerchief. As Elizabeth gratefully took it, she added, “If your family had wanted you, they would have come for you by now.”

This last remark, escaping just as Mrs Howard's slap had, came from the part of Frances Grainger that, despite all that had transpired, still coveted Mr Howard and his handsome frame, that part of her that still cursed the fact that he had chosen the little kitchen maid over her.

“I never wanted him to,” Elizabeth had blurted, aware of the source of Miss Grainger's hatred.

“You say that again and
I'll
slap you,” was all Miss Grainger could offer, grabbing Elizabeth's limp hand and dragging her towards the house. Elizabeth fell into the despair of captivity.

For as long as Elizabeth had been away from the soil she was born on she had wanted to return to it. As the time since she had been taken from the camp stretched from months into years, she began to have doubts about why her family had not come to rescue her. She knew that they could be as unable to find her as she was to get to them, but the seeds that Miss Grainger had sown about her not being wanted had started to grow within her. She would always remember what it felt like to want to leave but not have any money for a ticket, to contemplate escaping from the hollowness she felt inside by lying down before an oncoming train. The suffocating feeling of being chained to an unwanted life left her unaware of the scratch on her face and oblivious to the lone male figure standing in the shadows of the train station.