The Clay Dreaming (37 page)

Brippoki’s shadow moans. Each man searches his pockets and throws various scraps in his direction. A grateful hand reaches out to gather them up. It appears shaky. He gurgles, thrusting the foodstuff at his unseen face.

Patient for the most part, they wait him out.

At length, their erstwhile colleague utters a plaintive mumble.

‘
Na
?’ demands Red Cap. He speaks a little
Wergaia
– the tongue of the
Wudjubalug
, and of other mobs that once roamed the eucalyptus scrublands of the
Malleegundidj. ‘Puru watjala…putuna kulinu. Na
?’

‘He said “many days, no sleep”,’ snaps Dick-a-Dick, showing annoyance. ‘Keep to English.’

His protective instincts are to the fore, his main concern for the greater good.

‘Bael? Bael Nangry
?’ says Red Cap. ‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look like it.’

‘Gulum-gulum
,’ someone sniggers. ‘Him gone wild.’

‘You let us down, mate,’ says Dick-a-Dick, firmly.

Dick reflects; Neddy comes from somewhere near to Sydney, Cuzens down south at Rose Banks.
Brimbunyah
– Red Cap – like him, come up from Bringalbert woolshed. Tiger and Peter are
Marditjali
from Lake Wallace South. Most belonged to sand, and some belonged to swamp. The survivors of many distinct clan groupings, as a team they are only loosely affiliated. But wherever they might be from, all of the totem crests respect his word. In questions of behaviour, and in dealing with the whites especially, the others most often take his lead.

‘King Richard’, the white men dubbed him. ‘King Dick’.

The names that are given are the names that take. Even before the coming of the white man, this has always been true of their society.

Since those earliest days between black man and white, many have adopted European names, their identities doubling, or halved. A man might become lost or die, but his namesake could live on, a ghost of sorts of his former self.

In the exchange of names, of clothes, manners, language, any joke, often enough repeated, becomes fact. They are stuck with bastard English as a common lingo not because it is worth believing in, but because it is easier to pretend. Their arts of mimicry ensure their invisibility.

Dick looks around at his fellows and their paled faces. Johnny Cuzens, Tiger, Mullagh, Jim Crow. They are people with names of their own, but nobody alive left to speak them. They might exist, but do not live.

It is survival, of a sort.

King Dick. His name is
Jungunjinanuke
.

‘We looked for the smoke of your fire,
mate
.’ Dick puts an unkind stress on the last word. ‘Couldn’t make it out.’

‘
Murry murry
pire this place, how we spot his?’ asks Neddy, incredulous.

Twopenny clips his ear.

‘
Ball…Ballrinjarrimin? Ba-been!
’ Brippoki cries out for his best friend and only real kinsman. He cannot see him anywhere in this crowd.

‘Him not ’ere.’

‘Sundown? Him not feelin’ too good,’ explains Cuzens. ‘He’s back in Town…
Nung
, eh?’

He adds, as an afterthought, ‘They look after ’im good.’

Slinking deeper into the shadows, Brippoki begins keening. He asks for
Ballrinjarrimin
, insistently, repeatedly, only to be told – quietly, sympathetically – that he is absent.

‘We bloody tellin’ you,’ says Neddy finally, ‘…’e’s not ’ere!’

As Brippoki moves about they can see glimmers of white. They smell the animal fat on him, and their curiosity is piqued.

All things being equal, a man’s authority and influence increase in proportion to his years. This is not true with regard to Brippoki or Peter, who are both considered foolish – for entirely different reasons. Cole, with his child’s penis and his peculiar ignorance in matters of the Truth, is
mainmait
, the perennial odd man out – whereas Peter is merely stupid.

As full-grown men, however, they are left to their own devices, Brippoki not excluded any more than is necessary.

‘Bet you wanna know how we doin’, eh,’ says Cuzens, brightly.

He seeks to change the subject. The others, cottoning on, chime in. Despite their fears, they mostly feel sorry for Brippoki.

‘Yeah! We doin’ bloody alright!’

‘Keep on winnin’! Shoulda seen ‘em Win-dy. Bloody mad mob, dem pellas!’

‘It Purs-die!’

‘…Win-dy, me bleve.’

‘Pursdie!’

‘
Pssssh
!’ With a curt gesture Dick-a-Dick bids them cease.

Mullagh steps forward. He unwinds a chain from around his neck that holds the fob watch, and places it on the ground amid the food crumbs. At length the piteous sobs quieten, and then a skinny hand reaches forth to take it up.

Within the darkness, Brippoki reads what he can of the inscription on the casing. ‘“Pine”,’ he repeats, ‘“pine gentlyman”.’ He replaces it, paying his respects. ‘
Budgere pella
!’

A flash of teeth from the shadows is returned, six or sevenfold.

Mullagh stoops to take up his prize, and leaves something else in its place. This he pushes forward, to signify that it is a gift for keeping. Not a gift, to his mind, but Brippoki’s rightful share of recent winnings.

‘Plenny tic-pent,’ smirks Peter. ‘Some it you!’

The spidery hand steals forth again and claims the large coin. Everybody approves. Mullagh is clapped on the back for his good sense.

Dick-a-Dick reaches for Twopenny’s back pocket and retrieves a magenta cap – King Cole’s colours. This he also offers. It is not taken up. As both player and personality, ‘King Cole’ has already made his final appearance.

Someone else thinks to put down his skins, or ‘fleshings’, the close-fitting black leggings worn for their athletic demonstrations; another his boomerang, one of a cache of over a dozen that Charley Dumas has brought into the country, many of them already sold. These are taken up.

Brippoki shuffles back behind the tabletop, out of sight.

‘
Bripumyarrimin. Worum mwa
?’ Dick-a-Dick gently enquires, his tongue tackling
Wergaia
. ‘Where ya bin, mate?’ In the spirit of giving, he hopes for a reply. None comes. ‘Got hisself a
gin
.’ Dick grins. Even this provokes no response.

Cuzens flips a coin of his own. ‘C’n buy y’self a
gin
now, b’ra!’

A few of them laugh.

‘
Ludko
.’

The disembodied voice shatters their levity. ‘Shadow’, it says, meaning soul: the part of a man that leaves the body at death and travels to the Spirit World, where he will never have to die again.

The room plunges into absolute silence. For a minute or two, the beehive mumble of the crowd outside is all that can be heard.

From where he is crouched, out of their sight, Brippoki’s voice again croaks. ‘I walk the streets,’ he says. ‘A shadow…walk in mine.’ Carefully he picks his way among the words, until he almost sounds like his old self. ‘Mine, others,’ he continues. ‘Shadow to shadow, it walk. It hunt me in the dark.’

Dick-a-Dick does not like the turn events are taking. ‘Solid…?’ he asks. ‘Solid shadow?’

‘
Uah
,’ confirms Brippoki. ‘Not all there yet.’

‘
Atpida! Brrrraaah!
’

An outbreak of whispers and the urgent shaking of heads, much hissing – the players are possessed by all the shivers and shakes of extreme anxiety.

Dick-a-Dick speaks, matter of fact. ‘It want something.’

‘Dunno,’ says Brippoki. ‘
Arlak… In-gna
.’

‘
In-gna!
?’ Tongues click teeth. They all repeat the words, terror-stricken to varying degrees.

‘Crack my bones, pro’ly,’ mutters Brippoki. ‘Gnaw on them, tomorra.’

To a man they have shrunk back, and cluster around the door. Brippoki is lost to them, and they to him. He lives in another world now.

‘There is,’ whispers Brippoki, ‘a man. Man, I think. Deadman. His shadow cross mine. I need to pind him…pind him pirst.’

First, or fast – his voice is so quiet they can’t be sure.

‘Deadman?’

Who was it? Watty?
Bilayarrimin
. Jellico?
Unamurrimin
. Everybody starts talking at once. The deceased may not be mentioned by name, and so must be described by other, more roundabout means. If they are to list all possible candidates, they may as well stay forever: the litany will itself bring their lives to an end.

Was it Sugar?

Brippoki puts them out of his misery. ‘Him no body we know,’ he says.

‘You seen ’im?’

Heard him first, singing his song. Hunter moon. Stupid. Defied the Law. ‘Yes. I see him.’

More clicks. A couple of the men, the ones who have hardly spoken at all, they turn to face the wall. All of them most desperately want to leave.

‘Speaks through his eyes,’ says Brippoki. ‘Burning fire…darts, through his eyes.’

Dick-a-Dick wishes Bullocky were there to back him up, instead of off getting drunk. ‘Y’ got a
woorie
?’ he asks, only faintly. Dick-a-Dick touches his anus. A nervous reflex – Brippoki cannot see him.

Brippoki shakes his head sadly. His continued silence is answer enough. Filled with shame, bitter in disappointment, he begins to dissolve into the dark.

No hope for him, then. Deadman.

One by one, without another word, his former companions file out and creep away.

In the darkness, Brippoki hugs himself and begins to rock on his heels. They are a mass of cuts, and bleed afresh. His cries are very quiet. Sundown is gone. ‘
Ba-beeeen. Ba-beeeen!
’ He is totally and utterly alone.

Once deserted, all eventually falls quiet in the old shed. The dust settles. Brippoki crawls into the light a little, to rest his head on the dry splinters of the window-frame. The paint, peeling, scratches his cheek. He doesn’t care. Light shreds of cloud race through the sky. Brippoki searches out a single patch of blue, a hole in the white lace of upper atmosphere. The clouds speed past one by one.

Blink.

Blink.

He stays like that for hours.

Sarah Larkin moved as low on the public stands of the Lord’s ground as she dared. Ready and waiting for the Aboriginal Eleven’s second innings, she was almost on a level with the pitch, on a good eye-line with incoming batsmen.

After some delay they began to stream out of the enclosure, showing themselves off prior to their batting in pairs. Sarah clutched the team colour card she had purchased, leaving just enough for her bus journey home.

‘KING COLE (CHARLES ROSE / BRIPUMYARRIMIN) – ’ it read, ‘Magenta.’

‘Charles Rose’? He had yet another name?

There was no magenta cap in sight, but the man in McGregor plaid wore a sash of magenta. It was not Brippoki. She scanned the other faces of the team, the card, the faces again. Brippoki wasn’t among them. He was nowhere to be seen.

Play might go on until seven in the evening. She could not wait that long. Where was he? The match began, Sarah too miserable to take it in properly. She feared losing sight of him altogether.

Even though she left early, the traffic was bad coming away from Lord’s. When Sarah finally got home, Lambert was asleep. It was as well – he would be disgusted with the inadequacy of her match report.

The impostor had been run out for seven. He did not look so bad at the bat, but quite corpulent by comparison, his hair a ridiculous triangle of frizz. The crowd seemed none the wiser that Cole’s crown had been usurped.

Sarah warmed up a bowl of soup, and sat in the kitchen with it. She sprinkled a little water over a stale bread roll and freshened it in the heat of the open flame. When she had done, she wiped the last of the crust around the bowl, and then wondered what else to do.

Night had fallen and the wind was getting up. She checked again on Lambert, still fast asleep. He was sleeping more and more these days, which was probably a kindness. In the parlour, the candle in the window she had earlier lit was out. The curtains jerked like the starched dresses on a chorus-line of string-puppets. The opened window banged in its frame, so she shut it.

As Sarah turned there was movement, a scrabbling in the fireplace. She shrieked.

After five filled days, Brippoki had returned to her.

Monday night had been a pandemonium, in the aftermath of which his appearance was almost completely transformed. The dark stranger sat among the ashes, completely nude, smearing his body over with white powder and streaks of black soot. Wide and bloodshot, his feral eyes glinted like those of a fox.

Following her initial shock, Sarah remained strangely calm. The last thing she wanted was for him to disappear again, into the night. She walked to her usual chair and sat down, without comment, acting as if there were nothing untoward about the occasion. To be in the same room with a naked man, a naked black man…what could be more normal?

He wore feathers in his hair – all of his hair. She took great care not to look too directly, nor even to glance at him for more than split seconds at a time. Looking thinner than before, he wore a whitened face, like the first time they had met. What was that, clay?

Feathers, snake and feathers…no, don’t look!

Brippoki stayed where he was, framed within the dark wood and stone mantel. Humming and muttering to himself, he rooted around in the grate, appearing to rub some found substance across his gleaming teeth. Eventually he emerged, very much in the flesh. Sarah gasped a little before covering her open mouth. By the flicker of candlelight she caught glimpses of a network of raised scar tissue: a swath of fleshy ribbons cut across the entire length of his torso, his long torso, marring the pristine bronzed skin. Dark within the darkness, he shone at points, reflecting light.

Brippoki crept a few feet into the room then curled his body in on itself. Close to her, almost opposite, he squatted on his haunches, impassive, staring straight ahead. It was more of an effort this time, but Sarah kept up her affect of casual disinterest.

Even in relaxation the curves of his musculature expressed movement, latent force, bicep hanging like a swollen fruit, ripe inside the supple flesh. He was compact, but powerfully built, the symmetry of proportion near perfect in such a relatively small man: admirable, were it not for the horrific scarification of his skin – mottled glaze on a misfired vase. In addition to the ash and soot he was greased with some sort of glutinous paste, like beef dripping, and pungent to say the least.

Freed of crumple and restraint he recovered his natural advantage, a vital and fully remarkable creature once more. Sarah thought she might never care to see him quite so muffled in cloth or trouser again. There could be no accompanying him in the street, however. Something had to be done about his…about his…

She hurried to the kitchen, rattling cups in saucers and decanting a bowl of soup. Improbable, she knew, but if Lambert were to come walking down the stairs… She laughed, giddily. Short of breath, she had to stop a moment; hold on to her midriff to stop it climbing up out of her corset. Calmer now, she swallowed hard.

Sarah spared no thought for herself, too naïve to be sensible of the risks.

Brippoki sat just as she had left him. She took the tea tray to the table, near to the re-lit candle, and placed a setting. Only once she had returned to her seat did he rise and glide over to investigate. He was graceful more than naked, a shower of stars, the elasticity of his gait a constant marvel. He strolled more than ever rich and royal – lord of the forest, most natural of monarchs, the Emperor in his New Clothes. Standing erect at the table, he took tea.

Feeling that she made good progress, Sarah went in search of further offerings. On her return she lingered outside the open doorway. She spied on him, through the crack, inspecting and then discarding the dried bread. He dangled a hand in the soup to retrieve a chunk of vegetable. Sniffing at it, he broke it apart. She breezed in.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘I’ve brought you some things.’

Sarah drew as close as she dared. He turned to face her. She saw the trace of disgust leave his open expression – the very same as she had once wiped from hers. Beneath the level of the table his fingers opened and dropped a soggy chunk of carrot. Although masked, his features creased when he saw the gift she held out to him.

‘Pretty-pella stink!’ he cried. Brippoki grasped at the bar of French scented soap in unclouded joy. ‘Gibbit!’

Brippoki no longer stank like a beggar, only foreign – stronger, if anything; nature unadorned adorned the most. Sarah hoped that he might at least wash some of the animal fat from his poor face.

They both sat at table – near to one another, as they had before. Circumstances were only a little different. She withdrew the few coins from her purse and slid them across the dark wood in his direction.

His fingers sorted through the loose change. ‘One-pella shilling,’ he said, ‘an’ three little pella belonga him.’ Brippoki picked up one of the coins and grinned. ‘Ticpents, Thara!’

‘I know it’s not much,’ she said, embarrassed. She rose halfway out of her seat. ‘Should I get you…something to carry them in?’ she asked.

‘Thit,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry?’ she said.

‘Thit.’

She sat.

‘How have you been?’ Sarah asked. ‘That is, I am fine. I hope you are feeling fine too. Only it has been a few days. I’m sorry about…about before.’

After a dreadful long pause, Brippoki nodded. ‘Pine gentlyman!’ he grinned.

His accent seemed thicker than it had been.

‘You look…well,’ said Sarah.

She lost control of her sightline, not knowing where to look.

Delicate of feeling, Brippoki achieved some measure of self-awareness. He took up the nearest likely covering, a tea towel, and laid it across his lap. ‘Torry, Thara,’ he said.

She stood. ‘Should I…’ she stammered. ‘That is, would you like me to…?’

‘
Uah
,’ he said. ‘Read. Read in book.’

Gladly, Sarah fetched her notebooks. They were laid to one side, for some days awaiting their chance.

‘I’ll pick up where we left off,’ she said. ‘We left him…’ mentioning no names ‘…still a fugitive in the outlying settlements of the colony, presumably New South Wales. No exact date is specified, but around the turn of the century. He has been sleeping in some sort of makeshift barn, an “old house full of straw”, and is about to cross a river to go into the mountains. You remember so far?’

Brippoki crossed his legs. He took hold of the raised limb with both hands, and his body began gently to rock. Were it not so dark, Sarah might have recognised the sorry state of his feet – run ragged – and quailed.

She cleared her throat and read.

The name written was ‘
Geelbethoth
’, like that of some minor demon. Sarah, struggling to readjust, consulted her own marginal notes.

Brippoki, ceasing motion, looked a little circumspect. Sarah pressed swiftly on.

Brippoki made a sudden noise and shifted his weight, luckily distracted in doing so by having to adjust his makeshift breechclout.

In the midst of so much else that was unsettled, Sarah had to confess it a relief to fall back into their respective roles, as previously defined: the simple certainty of what was required, and the provision of it.

Breath exploded from between Brippoki’s lips. He was all of a sudden restless and shaking, his hands trembling like moths.

Sarah almost despaired, not knowing whether to read on or to cease.

‘You understand what has happened,’ she said, in her normal tone of voice. ‘He says that he saw his own self, stood before him. Bruce, that is Joseph Druce.’

Brippoki leapt up. He spat, almost dousing the candle, which fizzed. He spat and made a queer noise that sounded like an owl or wood pigeon – ‘
Pooh
! 
Pooh!
’ – and, clutching onto the tea towel and his modesty, eloquently expressed his great disgust.

‘I don’t – ’

‘
Wssshhht!
’ A finger leapt to his pursed lips. Brippoki crooked the same
clay-
stained
digit, black and white like a variegated worm, and with it inscribed various drawings in the air. He turned away from the table.

The harm, so it seemed, arose from her naming Druce – as if, by pronouncing his name out loud, he might be conjured to appear. It occurred to Sarah that this reaction had only been so since they had learnt the man’s true name.

Brippoki leaned in with a long neck. Eyes extraordinarily wide, his fixed stare was a challenge, a caution to her and whatever she might say next. He edged forward to recover his seat, not releasing her from his insolent gaze.

Sarah felt like a fish stalked by a heron. She suffered the heat of her discomfort.

‘Please…’ she said.

He backed away a little.