Into That Forest (11 page)

They put us back in the slings. We hadn’t eaten proper food for days. We needed meat, fresh meat at that. Every day the two men would put us in the slings and hang us from the pepper tree and they’d try to get us to walk upright. But the thing were - we were too dead beat to do anything that meant effort. We were thinning. We were starving. I think Ernie knew and I seen him staring at us and rubbing his shiny chin as if thinking real deep ’bout us. One morning he guided Mr Carsons out to where we were lying on the verandah. They stared down at us. I couldn’t see Mr Carsons’ reactions cos of his black beard but I seen his eyes and they seemed hurt as he looked long and hard at us. Then he nodded, said something, and went into the house, coming back out with a rifle. He headed off into the nearby scrub and not long afterwards we heard a couple of shots.

Our eyes were keen and we could see him returning through the scrub and wattle trees with a small wallaby. O me, O my, how excited were we. I knew, Becky knew, that the wallaby were for us. We were so jittery with eagerness that we swang back and forth and round in the pepper tree like we were storm-tossed. Mr Carsons walked right past us while Ernie brought out a meat safe. Instead of giving us the wallaby, Mr Carsons cut it up and shoved it in the meat safe. At this point I were starting to be cranky. On another bough of the pepper tree Ernie rigged up the meat safe to a rope so it hung there smelling of warm blood and meat. Now I were really cranky like Becky were and we were growling and coughing and giving both men the stare and opening our jaws real wide to show them we were angry.

Finally we were released from the slings but still tied to ropes. We reached up for the meat but it were too far above us. Carsons touched the safe handle and guided Becky underneath it. She coughed with frustration as she tried to reach the meat and then her father lifted her up onto her legs. She stood up and reached for the handle. I knew what her father were doing. He were trying to make us stand up and not be on all fours like an animal.

He helped her turn the handle then he grabbed some meat and threw it to her. She ate like it were her last meal. Ernie did the same thing to me and it took every effort for me weak legs to hold me up but with the help of Ernie I reached the handle. I pulled and pulled at it and began to cry with frustration til Ernie opened the door for me. I needed no second chance. I reached in and grabbed a hunk of meat. Ernie let me go and I fell to the ground. I were ’bout to eat when I heard Becky’s soft growling and crunching. I looked and seen her in the shade of the verandah tied to one of the posts gobbling down her meat. I ran to her as fast as my chain - held by Ernie - could take me.

That day is so clear in me head. We were famished and just ate and ate while the two men watched us with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. There were so much blood and meat muck on us when we finished that they stripped us naked and hosed us down. We didn’t care, cos we were full up to dolly’s wax. We were buzzing with life as dusk came - that’s how much fresh meat pucked us full of energy.

We stayed awake on the verandah listening to the dark. Even though we were tied up, the men took it in turns to watch us through the night. Near dawn I thought I heard a snuffle in the bush outside the front fence. Becky looked at me. She must have heard it too. We listened real careful but the sound were gone. We stayed alert but there were nothing more.

We were curled up together sleeping when we were woken up and taken into a bedroom. I were yawning and not in a happy mood and nipped Ernie’s hand. He yelped like a dog and stayed his distance from me. Mr Carsons undressed Becky. She were naked and looked to me as if to say,
What’s happening, Hannah?
Her father tried to put a blue dress on her but she squirmed and whimpered. I seen it were too tight, but her father and the fat man squeezed it onto her. She tried to pull it off but her father kept on shouting,
No!
He were very firm with her. He dragged her in front of a full-length mirror and asked her some questions. She did not answer but stared at herself like she were seeing a stranger. She took a step closer and really looked at herself. She stroked the dress as if she recognised it and frowned like she had all the thoughts in the world whirling through her.

They tried to put a dress on me. I couldn’t hack it. There were a kerfuffle and once I ripped off the dress the men gave up. I gave Ernie a threat yawn when he came towards me holding another frock. Becky gave a peculiar smile when I did me yawn, like she were looking down on me for some reason I couldn’t work out; it were like she thought she were better than me. Her father went out of the room and came back with a shirt and trousers. He measured the pants against me and then picked up a pair of scissors and cut them to me size. The shirt were loose on me and so were the trousers which Ernie tied round me with a piece of string. I felt free compared to Becky. She couldn’t run in her dress unless she lifted it up, and she had to walk slower with smaller steps.

The men were pleased with what they had done and took us into the living room where there were a piano and a mechanical contraption Ernie were putting together with a box and a horn like a funnel ’bout six feet long. I were going to sit on the floor when I seen a movement out of the corner of me eye. I felt like playing, so I jumped at a string swinging back and forth across the window. I held it by me teeth and pulled. It gave way and I fell backwards in fright as the stick holding the curtains broke and they fell on top of me. There were yelling and shouting, but once I seen that it were only the curtains, I grabbed them by me teeth and dragged them round and round the room chased by the two men. Becky were laughing and I were inwardly laughing too. It were great fun. Once they caught me they tore the curtains from me hands and tied me up again.

The ropes were tight so I could tell Ernie were getting angry with me. I looked to Becky to help me but she were staring at the piano. Her father seen what she were doing and opened up the lid. She had that frown again. She stepped right up to it and bent down and sniffed it, then she touched a key with her nose. The sound of the note made her jump back in surprise. Her father said something soothing. It calmed her and she reached out and touched a note with her finger. It made a sound, then she touched another one and another one. It sounded like icicles breaking off and other times like an animal were making a threat.

She stopped and looked round at us three, her eyes wide with amazement. She remembered it! She remembered playing the piano: that much were plain. Her father told her to sit on the piano stool but she kicked it away and started to thump at the keys with all the energy she could muster. It were like she were playing music that were inside her head, like she were imitating the noises of tigers and devils. It were exciting music to me so I howled along with it and she howled too til her father shouted out above the racket:
Rebecca!

She span round like she heard a shot. He keep repeating her name in a quieter voice. She listened carefully, her head on a tilt. The two men stared so close at her it were like their eyes were drilling right into her to feast on her brain. Then Becky mouthed the word:
Rebecca
. The men egged her on. She said it again and her father laughed with excitement and so did Ernie. She said her name again and again til her father shushed her. Becky were joyful cos she made her father happy. She went back to playing the piano, humming away and making rooster sounds to the nonsense tunes she were making. I pretended I were a rooster too. I liked rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing cos I think it were funny.

Ernie stopped me crowing and pushed me to the table on which he had put his machine. Mr Carsons stopped Becky from playing and placed her next to me. I were curious about this machine. I couldn’t make head or tail of it, but I sensed that the men wanted us to use it or play with it. He hummed what Becky had been singing and pushed us close to the big funnel. Ernie turned a handle and a needle dropped onto a black cylinder that started to spin. Becky realised her father wanted her to sing what she were singing at the piano, so she hummed her song into the funnel. Her father tapped me on the back and I realised he wanted me to join in. Becky and me did this for ’bout a minute and then we were told to stop. It all seemed peculiar to me and to Becky, who looked to me as if to say:
Do you understand any of this?
I had to shake me head.

We were told to sit on chairs but Becky copied me by just flopping down on the floor near the table to wait for another silly request from these two ginks. I were thirsty and thinking about water when Ernie clapped, wanting us to pay attention to him. He turned the handle of the machine. I heard a voice that were singing like Becky. I looked at her but her mouth were hanging open in surprise and wonder. Then I recognised me own voice coming from inside the machine. How had our voices got into that machine? We both ran to the table to find the answer. Becky’s father held us back from touching the funnel. Becky grew really anxious and were shaking her head saying,
No, no, no!
I were trying to reach out and find me voice inside that infernal contraption. Our voices had been stolen! Someone had stolen me! I stared at the needle on the turning cylinder and realised our singing were in there. I wanted to smash it. It were spooky. It were magic. Ernie pushed me back when I reached out to smash the cylinder that had stolen our voices. I gave him the biggest threat yawn ever, as did Becky who seen what I were trying to do and she agreed with me. We were both in a panic wanting our voices to escape from that cylinder prison. She broke free and ran out the room. Ernie was protecting the machine so I were able to run out the room too.

I were hightailing it down the corridor after Becky and then we both skedaddled outside onto the verandah. I continued to run when I noticed that Becky were no longer beside me. I looked back and seen her standing on the edge of the verandah with that frown of hers. Her father and Ernie stopped chasing us and walked up behind her, standing side by side with her as the three of them looked at me. Mr Carsons stepped down off the verandah and called me by me name. Then he pointed to Becky, as if to say,
She is staying, why don’t you?
I looked round and seen the forest and mountains in the distance.
Becky!
I called out, wanting her to come with me but she were staying put like her feet were nailed to the verandah floorboards. What could I do? I didn’t want to run away by meself. Becky were me closest person in the whole world.

I joined her on the verandah and she rubbed her face against mine and the world were fine then. It must have been something about me panic that made Mr Carsons realise he had to do something for me, cos a little while later the four of us were in the buggy riding out of the front gate, the horse jittery maybe cos it sensed we two girls smelt different from other humans.

We rode for several hours down dirt tracks and then along the river bank for some miles. The two men were worried ’bout us escaping, so we were tied together and Ernie held the ropes while Becky’s father drove. It were wonderful to be so inside the bush. It felt like home: the trees, the smells of animals and shit, the flowers and the gums.

Then something happened inside me: I began to recognise, like a dream that becomes real, the countryside we were travelling through. Me heart went racing and I sweated. I realised Mr Carsons were taking me to me real home, me parents’ home. I tried to stand in the buggy I were so excited, but Ernie pulled me down. Memories of me mother and father swirled round me mind. I only had Becky’s word that me mother were drowned and as for me father she hadn’t seen him dead, so I was filled to the brim with the belief that they were still alive and I would see them again.

And there it were! I recognised the house as we drove up the overgrown path. I struggled to free meself. Ernie untied me ropes as we neared me home. I jumped out of the buggy and ran towards it. It seemed the same, but as I raced up the front steps a rotted one gave way and I fell. I didn’t care that I were bleeding from me chin, and after pushing open the door ran inside hearing meself call out
Mummy . . . Daddy . . .
Frightened mice and possums ran across the floors or scrambled up into the ceiling. Me face were soon sticky with cobwebs. I ran from room to room, but there were no one, only putrid couches and curtains. I ran into me parents’ bedroom. The bed were still there with the bed covers splattered with possum and rat shit. A fraying corset were on the mannequin. When I seen the rotting bedroom I knew me mother and father were dead. I couldn’t hack it. I fell to the floor and wept. I heard foot- steps behind me. Then I felt Becky hugging me, cradling me, nuzzling me, as she rocked me back and forth while I wept for me parents and meself. I knew deep down that I had no one, no one except for that girl comforting me.

I can’t remember the trip back to Mr Carsons’s farm. I were a shell of meself. If you had whacked me, all you would have heard would be a hollow sound as if you had hit an empty drum. I were put on the verandah. There were no need to tie me up now - both men knew that. They knew that I would stay wherever Becky were and she wanted to stay on the farm, I sensed that, I knew that.