Siddon Rock (20 page)

The startled congregation let Miss Pearson take the solo, but they rose as one to sing the rollicking chorus:

There at the edge of the salt lake, with no walls to hold them back, the usual harmonies expanded as the Methodists found a new rhythm. They swung into the next verse and chorus with a gusto not heard in the confines of the small church building.

As the last note flew away across the salt lake the unease in Siggy Butow's gut was becoming worse and he wondered if he could finish now. But the congregation settled expectantly onto their hay pews, glowing from the singing and waiting for the full Harvest Festival service they knew so well. Siggy concentrated his gaze inward as his gut churned threateningly. Straw rustled as movement of legs
and bottoms on the bales signalled the need to begin. So Siggy started talking, feeling as though he were plucking words from the air itself.

As this day is such a special one, and since we began with a blessing on a new venture, we shall depart from the usual order of service.
The straw bales stopped rustling as everyone settled to listen.
Man is but a steward of the earth,
he went on.
The earth and all its convolutions are made by God. This lake is made by God, and all the things in it. Should there be beasts beneath the water or on the land, these are made by God, for his own recognition, but we must remember his words in Revelations 14, Verse 11: ‘They have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.'
Here Siggy Butow paused, wondering how he had arrived at this, but the feeling of slight dizziness and disconnection with all around him pushed him on.

Our town is sheltered by the rock, but our town is regularly visited by great storms of dust.
Siggy was speaking faster now, keeping his gaze firmly on the ground just in front of the hay bale pews.
But what is this dust? I'll tell you what it is. It's the whole world that preceded us, for each grain of dust can melt a glacier. Remnants of the dinosaurs have been ground down by time into minute particles …
Siggy paused, and his befuddled mind called up images of dinosaurs striding through the huge dust storm that had engulfed the town on the night Macha Connor came home.

On the front hay bale Miss Pearson began to rise, as did the confused members of the church, who were
watching her for cues as to what was expected of them. They sat again as Siggy continued.

The dust of the galaxies is also there, in the dust storms. Each time the town has a dust storm, we are covered with stardust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust … but the dust never goes away. We wear the world – the galaxy – on our shoulders and in our lungs … and the Lord said, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'

As he spoke these last words, Siggy Butow looked up and there, in the open paddock between the lake and an impenetrable-looking line of bush, was a group of dinosaurs. They were not green as he would have expected, but dark brown with patches of faded yellow and silvery white. There they stood, immobile and menacing.

The shuffling sounds of the uneasy congregation faded, and an ancient timbre filled his head. Siggy heard a bleating scream that could have been from a gigantic prehistoric sheep, and there was an enormous thundering roar from the dinosaurs. Underneath this cacophony a cracking noise came from the lake, sounding as if the world was being split apart. This last was too much for Siggy's distressed mind and gut. He turned and vomited behind the straw pulpit, then rushed up the path over the rock to the confining safety of the Methodist manse.

The next Sunday at the after-service supper Siggy apologised to his bewildered congregation, citing an upset stomach as the reason for his abrupt departure. He sent out tentative
feelers in conversation to see if anyone else had heard the roaring and cracking noises that had been the last straw for his strength of will. It appeared that he had been the only one. What he did hear, however, was concern at the quality of the sermon.
A bit confusing
, Young George said. And
I didn't really understand all that stuff about dinosaurs and stardust, Mr Butow
, came from Gloria Aberline. For the next several Sundays the Methodist sermons were stern and straightforward, upholding the biblical text as written as the only truth to be held to.

For a while there was discussion in the pub and around the town as to whether the Reverend Butow had seen a beast of some sort in the salt lake.
After all
,
who knows what's in there or how long it's been there?
But Young George Aberline stilled the speculation.
There's nothing about a salt lake in the early records
, he said.
Old Henry Aberline's diary specifically says how dry the place was. No mention of the lake at all. And you DO know what's under the bloody water, at least around the edges
.
A friggin' lot of our farms.
But Young George also thought, and kept to himself,
who would know what could have happened beneath the enigmatic, mirror-like surface of the lake
.

Siggy Butow, as he rushed up the rock in his blind panic to get back to the safety of the manse, had not seen three women watching the service from the top of the rock.

Macha, after her final round of the town just after dawn, had made her way over the rock on her way to the
Yackoo where she stayed most mornings before going to the Two Mile at lunch-time. She stopped at the top when she saw the unaccustomed activity at the lake-edge.

As Macha stood watching, Nell, drawn by the unusual early morning sounds of vehicles on the sandy and pitted track to the lake, climbed the north face of the rock from her hut. She walked up to Macha and put her arm around her. Catalin, on her early morning walk, hesitated when she arrived a few minutes later, not wanting to intrude into what appeared to be a private moment of communion.

Nell waved Catalin forward.
This's Macha
, she said to Catalin.
She got things she can't say, too.

Macha pulled back, prepared to run from the ghosts surrounding Catalin. But Nell's arm made it difficult to pull away. Catalin put out her hand, and then looked closely at Macha's face. There she saw an old and familiar message, one she had not expected in this country so far from the European war.
Too much death
, it said,
too much horror.
She changed her gesture from a handshake to something closer and warmer, taking both Macha's hands in hers.
I know
, she said, and she could have been speaking to either Macha or Nell.
I know.

Macha's expression did not change, but she held Catalin's hands for a long moment. The ghosts, it seemed, were not to do with her but were Catalin's alone.

Nell, Catalin and Macha watched the Harvest Festival service, the singing thin but clear in the crystalline air of the inland morning. Catalin smiled when Nell added her own rhythm to ‘Bringing in the Sheaves' but Macha seemed
not to notice. When Siggy Butow rushed up the rock the women stepped out of the way so he could pass, and were not concerned that he offered no greeting; indeed, did not seem to see them at all.

From then on Macha was often at the hospital grounds at the time of Catalin's afternoon break. This happened when Jos was at school, so Catalin and Macha would walk up the rock or out to the lake. They needed no words to be comfortable together.

As for the salt-mining business of Young George Aberline, even though it was blessed by the church the manager at the State and Farmers' Bank said that he wanted to see a financial report. And that would have to be immediately.

After their visit to Brittany, Young George and David had taken up the methods of the French salt-miners. These well suited them, as no machinery or structures were needed, just time to build pond areas, and the special rakes imported from France. It was this very lack of infrastructure that had made the manager at the State and Farmers' Bank place a mortgage over Young George's farm when funding the venture.

Geo. Aberline & Son Minerals may have given work to several young men in the town, but the company had failed to produce a single salt-cellar of usable salt. It was not that Young George and David did not try. Producers
of salted fish or meat, or even of salt-licks for cattle and sheep, were simply not interested in the strangely coloured and bitter salt of Siddon Rock. Young George and David sought out trappers and animal hide preservers, but no sales eventuated when a cloudy yellow film appeared on all hides and furs treated with the mineral. Even potteries, when given samples of the salt to test in glazes, declined to buy. The Capital Commercial Pottery said no matter what type of glaze they used, a yellow overglaze changed the original colour. This was particularly grotesque when their popular blue glaze emerged from the kiln as a sickly acid-green.

Young George sat up for several nights worrying about his salt, and finally sent a sample to laboratories in the capital. He thought that if the contamination could be identified they could find a way of cleaning the salt. When the report came back it merely stated that there was an
unidentified contaminant of unknown origin.
At the bottom of the typed page was a handwritten note:
The composition of this sample is unusual. Under the microscope the crystals are strangely shaped and connected in a manner I've not seen before. Can you send me more samples for analysis?
And it was signed
Jordan Hatherley, Chief Scientist, Research Section.