The Clay Dreaming (39 page)

Inland from the coal jetties, dockside, heads the Regent’s Canal. Tracing the borderline between Stepney and Limehouse, it passes beneath the London and Blackwall Railway, then in swift succession bustling Commercial-road and quieter Salmon’s-lane. Above Stonebridge Wharf is the Salmon’s-lane Lock. A stone’s throw beyond, opposite the towpath, stretches waste ground. Marshland overgrown with reed and tall swamp grasses, it is effectively cut off by the
brick-span
arches of a viaduct.

Tucked away well out of sight, behind this retired spot, a semi-circle of branches has been arranged: fallen from the surrounding, sickly trees, they are struck into the ground against the prevailing wind. Constructed from materials to hand, the rudimentary shelter blends entirely with the landscape, invisible to within a matter of feet.

Brippoki keeps his bare head to the leeward end. He does not sleep, but rarely moves, except, whenever the sun makes an appearance, to roll forward and bask, like a reptile warming his blood. Every now and then he wafts a switch of goose feathers tied with gut, to brush away the flies. All comes from that same bird whose fat and plumage have furnished the basis of his ritual ‘hero’ costume. The rest he has eaten raw.

After many days of running in a blind panic, the simple pleasures of staying still cannot be overestimated. In a city so filled, empty of life, finding any suitable place to rest has been almost impossible. The small mud creek in which he first settled turned out to be a tidal inlet, his encampment washed away. Without a source of fresh water, his every effort at digging a well was frustrated by the thick and cloying muck. His second choice, the Serpent’s lair, was no better. 
Milling children had disturbed him. Too many bodies, too close for comfort – even there they had come intruding.

No more streets. No more people. He’s staying put.

Happy elbows, here is better,
balla-duik
. He’s lying here quietly.

High ground would make for a better outlook, but low ground scrub, this secluded grove, is best for hiding out. In such a high wind, a natural hollow beside a water-course is the choicest option.

Not that this place,
eora
, is without its faults. The water flows unnaturally straight, as if bewitched. A hillside pocked with caves overlooks from the opposite shore. And there is the willow tree. Yet a small brook weaves through the banks of tall reed, there is sand as well as clay underfoot, and, to alleviate his crowding miseries, the bliss of being able to sit, at long last, skin to the bare earth.

‘What would you say, if you were to meet with one of the Aboriginal cricketers?’ asked Sarah.

‘I should say nothing,’ Lambert replied, ‘unless they were willing to visit me in my bed.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I don’t deny they have a pleasant, a sympathetic sort of a face. It is not, however, a look of great intelligence.’

Sarah moved to speak, but Lambert cut her off.

‘Meeting one on the street,’ he said, ‘I would raise my hat. I might even challenge him at the wicket, yes. But invite one to supper? Dine at the same table? No, daughter, I think not. Wisdom allows that a man may recognise his opposite. In association, there is none.’

The lion lay down with the Lamb. Imperfect sympathy indeed!

‘From all that I have read of our missionary efforts,’ he went on, ‘the Black races seem incapable of being brought out of darkness into light. And by darkness I mean the power of Satan. All is vain.’

‘All is vain?’ repeated Sarah, unsure of his meaning.

‘In vain.’ Lambert threw up his hands. ‘The animal’s thirst may be quenched, but, be sure, it remains a horse.’

The insistent rattle of the window, closed against the battering winds, caused their heads to turn in unison. Lambert barely paused in his speech.

‘The savage is an infant,’ he said. ‘Incapable of self-control, innocent of the knowledge of good and evil – ’

‘Not – ’ Sarah tried and failed to interrupt him.

‘ – destitute alike of foresight and experience. What might be learned from them?’

Nothing, if our mouths were perennially open and our ears shut.

‘As a child,’ he continued, ‘he is helpless. And if not properly attended, his moral state does not elevate in and of itself. He rather becomes degenerate. In this respect, Messrs Hayman and Lawrence are heroes. The performance of
their native cricketers, on and off the field, does them credit. Would that I could say the same for their countrymen, that “Colony of Disgracefuls”, convicts, escapees, and emancipists…’

He evoked men like Druce. Sarah, who had begun to tidy the room, turned.

‘…and now that detestable term, “squatters”. By their behaviours, they put to shame their men of light and leading. How eagerly they abandon their mother country. Men of all classes, wilfully, demoralising themselves. Grubbing, for gold…

‘Here is the descent of the species!’

Sitting up higher in the bed, Lambert Larkin paused to wipe away the phlegm gathered on his lips.

‘God gave man dominion over all other creatures,’ he said. ‘Why, then, sink below the level of brute creation? Through folly, intemperance, the indulgence of his evil lusts… The seething mass of humanity, drawn together by the love of gold! Is
this
progress? Have we evolved?’

‘Father – ’

‘Victory, the golden crown…goes to the man least mindful of clambering atop the heads of his fellows, in order that
he
might gain it for himself. Be sure, it is the only way and the only time that he will ascend.

‘Have we learnt nothing from that dreadful spectre of Civil War?’ Lambert asked. ‘As if war,’ he said, ‘could ever be “civil”! Shall the strongest survive this struggle for existence? Or will it be the most foolhardy, the most greedy, the most ruthless, the most venal who alone succeed? There,’ he snarled, ‘in the land of the lazy Doasyoulike.’

Eighty degrees. Brippoki keeps to his
gunya, waddy
close at hand. He sits and soaks up the heat, replenishing his energies, remaining invisible. Waterholes are dangerous for the same reason they are delightful – all living things congregate there. The dead, he hopes, will stay away.

Through half-lidded eyes he relishes the liquid sparkle of sunlight, at the same time keeping watch; glad to the brink of fear.

Deadman, Dreaming, got speared in the foot, numb in the side. Laid him out on the old tree. Mind the crows don’t pluck him.

Brippoki’s head droops. He is so tired. But no sleep! Sense and knowledge – Deadman comes for him when he is sleeping. Shadows claim him. No catching him sleeping. He’s still got his spirit. Keepin’ it.

The surface of the waters glitters.

Despite his equitable feelings, Thara cannot be entirely trusted. She may not deliberately seek to mislead him, but…

Brippoki’s jaw works in a chewing motion. He chews at length, then spits, chews, and spits. He makes a pause to examine the results. Each sample in his
lap is of a different sort of bark, which he has begun breaking down into fibres with his teeth. Having selected the best, he places it into his
coolamon
, his dilly bag. Noting the type, he knows where to find more.

He has made the dilly bag from his skins, the leggings torn into strips, looped and tied at the waist. He uses the string-pull there to seal it.

Brippoki settles back on his haunches and looks deep into the sky. He fingers the golden guinea
Unaarrimin
has gifted him. In trade, the practice whitefellows so much enjoy, such glittering objects are highly respected. More coins in a man’s pocket means better treatment from the
walypela
.

All of his adult life, back in the World, he has worked the sheep stations, in what is now called ‘Western District’. He never saw so many of these valued tokens as he has since joining the team. They pick them up regular, following feats of hunting prowess and showing their skill with weapons, mimes played out at the end of each public game of cricket. Even when at play it is to earn, doing it over and again as necessary, for ‘prize money’. Play without pure joy or laughter.

He turns the pretty coin over and over in the sunlight. Brippoki likes the way it shines, but is otherwise indifferent. What shall he buy with it?

‘An inferior creature knows its place and abides by nature’s laws. Man was created a superior being…and yet he continually abuses that divine potential, choosing to sink instead. He wars with himself…thieves, commits adultery… and other crimes too horrible to mention.’

Lambert became misty-eyed.

‘Blood-letting,’ he said, his voice breaking, ‘more shameful and sinful, because committed by men who profess to know better!’

Some reflection beyond his words appeared to rip him to the core.

‘Even an angel is not, of necessity, a civilised being,’ he whimpered. ‘Not even an angel.’

Sarah had seen these same distresses distort his features ever more frequently of late. They would come over him like a rash, knotting his brow, writhing his lips – plunging them both back into those unbearable, unwanted years, when they found themselves newly alone; on their own in that house.

The heat in the room was fierce.

‘Civilisation,’ he rallied. ‘We are perhaps more at risk within these walls than ever we were without them.’

‘These walls?’ she asked.

‘The city walls,’ he said. ‘Any civilisation…in which morals are forgotten, ceases to advance. Yes, yes, I see what they are saying. It will instead stagnate, fall into decline. Babylon, Medo-Persia, Ancient Greece, Egypt, Rome: history provides us with many examples…empires whose great cities are in dust.’

He made explicit reference to that queer editorial piece she had read to him that very morning. Sarah searched among the pages at the bedside in quest of it. She took up the paper, only to discover the report on Sir John Lubbock and the lectures she had missed. Casting her eye over the paragraphs again, what seemed obvious was that Lambert must have read and digested these too.

She was once more reminded: how much her father already knew of matters she had only yet begun to discover.

Civilisation implied the development of arts and science, but what were those worth offering without enlightened and moral conduct? They had taken an unpopulated paradise and made of it a penal colony. Before attempting to save the native Australians, souls blissfully unaware that they were lost, the colony’s spiritual enforcers must of necessity look to themselves, and put their own house in order. Equitable treatment was necessary to society, if it was to be at all recommended.

Was it this gap alone between reality and the ideal that deranged her dear father’s mind? Sarah wondered what could be said that might put him at ease.

‘“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,”’ said Lambert, once more sounding confident, ‘“and to depart from evil, that is understanding.”’

Fear…really, the rule of fear? He had expressed this before: Jerusalem, built by the sword.

‘A proverb of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel,’ he confirmed. ‘And here’s another… “Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.” Christ came also as the Healer of Nations, and to take away the sin of the world. Stretched out upon the cross of Calvary, He offered himself a Holy Sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. He died, but the grave could not hold Him!’

The Word was irrefutable: Lambert often preachified when seeking to conclude an argument, even one largely conducted with himself.

Out of breath, he lapsed into silence, for which Sarah silently gave thanks.

She was no pretty meadow flower, nor any ugly sort of weed; she was the blackberry, clinging to a thorny bramble.

Sundown. Brippoki is alone.

He casts fearful looks across the choppy waters. All day long the scorching wind has blown hot and fierce. The twisted willow shakes, speaking through its leaves.

The broken building beyond, a towering tenement, is honeycombed with caves, a hive as big as a hillside filled from top to bottom with bloodsucking bats and other predatory creatures, waiting for the sun to fall before they will emerge. Brippoki senses their massive dozing presence as a sinister background buzz.

Dread plucks at his liver. Twilight is the worst time, the spirit especially vulnerable. As the last of daylight disappears, the shadows gather in close. Joining up. Under cover of night they will come to remove him.

Back in the World, his mob would wait out the day, only coming out once the heat had died down, the plaguing insects taken to their own
gunyas
among the spike grass. Then it was time for them to congregate around the campfires, to sing, and tell stories, and fuck – time for them, but never for him.

Night falls, the dark time. Night alone is not good; and he is so very alone.

Dark and stormy, the night has no moon. All is in shadow. Trees creak and groan to the blast, threatening to break. None is very near, but he can hear them, moaning. Wickedness and vengeance are abroad.

Spirits in darkness will murder him in his sleep. And so he will not sleep.

Brippoki thinks to get moving. He needs to move if he wants to stay awake. Best, though, not to travel at night, unless there is a good moon. If he can’t see where he is going, he might fall down a ravine, become lost beyond recovery.

He misses having his campfire. A fire by day is a danger, a sure way to be spotted, the thin trail of smoke leading his enemies right to him. They will be watching for it. But fire at night can appease the Spirits of the dead. The fire is life, that quality they lack. Fire keeps them away from the campsites of the living.

Tea-tree is good for a fire-stick, and may be found in swampy regions – a light wood, brittle, with resin. It burns with the fiercest flame, smells sweet, and gives off almost no smoke.