The Songmaster (27 page)

They saw why the station was named The Avenue. The first settlers had planted rows of massive gum trees on either side of the three-kilometre track leading to the homestead. Now stately and creased in old age, their branches provided a curtain of shade along the road that welcomed visitors to Rosalie and Frank Ward’s grand house. But Billy turned the Oka off inside the first gate to park beneath three young trees at the edge of the dirt airstrip. A truck was pulled up to a shed close by, but it appeared deserted.

‘Where are all the cattle, the stockmen galloping, the stuff you see in the movies?’ asked Veronica, as they stepped from the Oka into dazzling midday sun. All around was quiet.

Billy opened one side of the trailer, sliding out a metal chiller on runners. From this he took milk and butter. ‘Last of the fresh milk, be on the Long Life stuff after this. Gather some wood for the fire,’ he asked.

They boiled the billy and had tea and sandwiches sitting under the shade of the trees. Billy offered cushions from the Oka, but the men squatted on the ground and the three women sat along a log. ‘You look like crows on a fence,’ commented Mick.

‘He’s a charmer,’ said Beth.

‘He gives good interviews,’ grinned Veronica.

Beth sipped her mug of tea and put it back on the ground between her feet. ‘You reckon
you could get a story out of this trip, Veronica?’ she asked slowly.

The way Beth asked, Veronica didn’t answer instantly. Her professional assessment of a story’s potential had been finely honed over many years and while she had no doubts that here were the ingredients for a radio documentary, she liked to be in charge. She’d recognised straight away that Beth was a forceful woman who would want to take control of any situation. ‘I would say so. But I’d have to do it my way,’ she said, attacking the problem in her forthright way. ‘I haven’t yet decided what kind of story it could be. Personal odyssey, unusual travel, group dynamics in extraordinary situation, Aboriginal politics, art and beliefs, land issues, black and white law.’

‘I’d tick all of those boxes,’ said Alistair.

‘Be a hell of a good story,’ said the judge. ‘Any objections, Beth?’

Beth was cagey. ‘Yes and no. Yes, there are sensitive subjects and possibly events that might be shared with us, which aren’t usually meant for outsiders. Nor do we want to present this as tourism.’ She sipped her tea again and Veronica thought, ha, here it comes, the proviso. ‘But what?’ she prompted.

‘The elders would have to give permission and we’d like some input into your stories.’

‘You can’t dictate how a journalist presents a story. Remember I work for the ABC. Tenuous as its hold on the national psyche might be, it
still stands for independence, integrity, and no ties to vested interests.’

‘But if you had the opportunity to present a story that could be instrumental in helping highlight another viewpoint, and help a nation come to some sort of harmony, wouldn’t that be a valid reason for doing the story?’

‘It would, provided I made all the decisions.’

‘Then it’s you making value judgements and exercising influence and control,’ said the judge.

‘What nation are you referring to, Beth? The Aboriginal nation or Australia?’ asked Susan.

‘Aren’t we all supposed to be one people?’ asked Billy, topping up his tea from the blackened billy can.

The sound of a Range Rover driving towards them halted the jousting. Billy threw the dregs of the tea on the fire ash making it hiss, and began packing up as Beth stood to greet the newcomer.

A man, dressed in shorts, blue shirt, scuffed work boots and an expensive but battered hat, came towards them. ‘I’m Frank Ward. The plane is coming and they’ve got your fellow with them.’ He looked around at their makeshift lunch site. ‘Having a picnic, eh. Glad to see you know what to do.’ He nodded at Billy, who was shovelling dirt over the fire with a small spade.

‘Billy is a professional bushman. And we’ve just made ourselves lunch, we’ve had a hard drive since five o’clock,’ said Beth with some tartness to her words.

‘Thanks for letting us pull in,’ said Billy diplomatically.

‘Where you blokes off to? You’re a bit off the sightseeing route, aren’t you?’

Beth ignored the question and did the introductions. ‘This is Alistair MacKenzie, QC, and Judge Mick Duffy.’ She gave a satisfied grin at the surprise that leapt into the man’s eyes. ‘And Veronica Hoffman from the ABC, and Susan Massey, a solicitor from Sydney. We’re grateful to your wife for giving our friend a lift up in the plane.’

Frank Ward was openly curious. ‘If you’d mentioned who was with you, Beth, you could have come to the house.’

‘A shady tree suits us just fine,’ she said, biting her tongue.

‘There’s the plane,’ said Susan, who was starting to feel uncomfortable, and everyone turned to look into the sky.

Rosalie Ward was first to step down after the twin-engine Cessna came to a stop. Dressed in a sleeveless green linen dress with a straw hat and sunglasses, she lifted her face for a short kiss on the cheek from her husband. The pilot pulled Alan’s bag out of the hold and handed it to him.

‘How are you all?’ asked Rosalie, adding with a little laugh, ‘this almost feels like a regional terminal with so many people.’

‘We’re just fine. This has worked very well. Appreciate you doing this, Rosalie,’ said Beth.

‘Indeed yes. I’ve already expressed my thanks on the way up,’ said Alan, joining the group and nodding to everyone. ‘Hope I haven’t held you up.’

‘Seeing we have the plane and our pilot Gordon here, it was no trouble at all.’ Rosalie gave Alan a brilliant smile.

‘He’s a full-time pilot?’ asked Mick. ‘Why don’t you learn to fly it yourself?’

‘Horses for courses,’ cut in Frank, making clear such an idea was beyond Rosalie’s interests. ‘She might have grown up on a farm, but when we moved to Melbourne she learned pretty quick that her time was better spent designing our house. And my background was selling cars, not fiddling around with planes.’

Rosalie’s smile stayed in place and she shook a finger at him. ‘I’ve taught you a thing or two about the land, Frank, one day I might surprise you.’

‘We’d better be hitting the road. Thanks again, Rosalie, Frank.’ Beth shook hands.

The rest of the group muttered their thanks and got back into the Oka. Alan shook hands with Rosalie and Frank, and Beth walked with the Wards to the Range Rover. Frank Ward was in a sombre mood. ‘Beth, I don’t mean to be nosey, but do you know what you’re doing taking people like that out to an Aboriginal reserve? I’m sure your intentions are good but it
seems a little misguided if you want my honest opinion. It could be taken by the locals as stirring up a bit of trouble.’

‘In what way, Frank?’

He started the motor and gave her a cynical look. ‘A judge, a QC, a solicitor and a reporter? Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

‘I invited them to meet Ardjani and the Barradja people. It’s a cultural exercise, Frank.’

‘I reckon the neighbours are going to see it as shit stirring.’

‘Frank!’ admonished Rosalie.

He looked at his wife. ‘How else are the leaseholders round here going to take it? You don’t normally get white lawyers out here on a holiday.’

Beth was relaxed. ‘That’s all it is, Frank. Tell anyone you talk to on the air tonight, that’s all it is – a cultural holiday. Their backyards are safe.’

Rosalie waved at Beth. ‘Goodbye, good luck. I thought Alan was very interesting. We’ll have to buy some art from him.’

‘We have better things to do with our money,’ said Frank, driving into the avenue of shady trees.

Beth stretched out in her seat and clutched her head. ‘I feel a migraine coming on.’

‘Could the pastoralists here make trouble, Beth?’ asked Alistair.

‘There is a lot of fear amongst the pastoralists about the tenure of their land, of what might happen with the unsettled state of affairs concerning Aboriginal land rights. Many feel their future is threatened.’

Alistair spoke, the voice of reason. ‘Do you not think we might be pre-judging these people? Take the Wards. If they’ve sunk their life savings into that place, they’d naturally feel concerned at any implied suggestion their rights or leases may be under threat.’

‘Fair comment, Alistair. And not all the pastoralists are like the Wards. Some are bad, some terrific,’ added Beth, ‘but take my word for it, the far right is alive and well, even way out here. Unfortunately, some of these properties are on traditional Barradja land. To them, my bringing you mob up here will spell trouble.’

‘You never mentioned this trip could be possibly misconstrued,’ said Alistair.

‘Oh good, a stoush.’ Mick rubbed his hands together.

‘I’d like to see them take on this group,’ declared Susan looking round. ‘I’d say we have the makings of a pretty good war cabinet.’

Beth laughed. ‘What a group you are, the feisty lady lawyer, the wise judge, the advocate, the journalist and the art dealer. Who’d tangle with us?’

‘And you?’ asked Susan.

‘Me? I’m the ex-nun, remember. I’m the one who had difficulty with obedience and humility.’

T
hey settled into their seats, occasionally passing fruit or sweets, as the late afternoon light changed the contours of the landscape. ‘See, Daughter Sun hangs in the fork of a tree, the signal to hunters and children to return to camp before darkness,’ said Beth.

She turned to the two women. ‘You can see why the Barradja people say the earth is female. The rocks, those small hills, all the country around us, is voluptuous. Like thighs and round hips and swelling bellies. Look at those boab trees . . .’

‘I’d like to take a photo,’ interrupted Veronica.

Billy was glad to stretch his legs and brought the bus to a smooth stop close by a cluster of young boabs, the strange bottle-shaped trees that grew from a bulbous base, spreading
stubby arms sparsely fringed with leaves. One large distended tree grew alone, a short distance away.

Susan stood beside this plump beauty for Veronica to take a photo. ‘Are they full of water?’ she asked Beth.

‘They lose their leaves in the dry and store moisture in their spongy bark. They live for several thousand years, and can be as big around the base as sixteen metres. The base is often hollow, softly lined, like a womb. These trees are female in all the stages of development. This group are adolescents – that one, she’s mature, in the full cycle of her womanhood.’

‘Didn’t the cops in the old days lock Aborigines up in the bases of big boabs when they had nowhere to put them?’ asked Mick, recalling a vague image of such an event in a book of early photographs of Aborigines by Baldwin Spencer.

‘Possibly,’ said Beth. ‘Some people say they were just chained to the outside, but if they were put inside the tree then they inflicted a punishment more harsh than they knew. To imprison a warrior in the female womb brought shame on him. When released many died, not from the deprivation of their liberty, but from the loss of dignity.’

Alistair said, ‘That’s an interesting angle on the black deaths in custody issue, Mick.’ Beside him, the judge stooped to pick up the fat brown nuts.

‘The boab nuts, that’s what people carve pictures on,’ declared Billy. ‘I bought one in Alice Springs a few years back.’

‘They’re a popular way of making money from tourists,’ said Alan. ‘The standard of art on them varies enormously, but they make an attractive souvenir. There’s a stockman who works on El Questro who does wonders with a penknife, really fine work. The ones carved with traditional designs are the most popular.’

Susan and Veronica joined Mick, collecting some of the hard, fuzzy-skinned brown nuts.

Beth and Billy conferred over the map, Billy worrying about the falling light and the notion they would be following landmarks as casual as ‘funny shaped trees, and a broken fence line’.

‘We could take a shortcut across here,’ he pointed to an open space on the map. ‘But I don’t like going into unmarked territory. That looks like it’s on a place called Eagle Rock Station.’

‘Can’t we do that?’ asked Alistair.

‘Bugger them, if it’s going to save us time. And how are they going to know anyway? The homestead must be miles away from the track.’ Mick was all for pressing ahead. Billy looked a little dubious but decided to ‘give it a go’.