The Songmaster (54 page)

‘What am I supposed to do? I can’t watch over every rock on this place. It’s not my
responsibility.’ He sounded irritable, talk of cultural heritage disturbed him.

‘So you’d have no objection to the sites being watched over, maintained, by their traditional custodians?’ Mick leapt in quickly.

‘I didn’t say that. I certainly wouldn’t want to see tourists brought in for someone else to make a dollar out of my land.’

Barwon couldn’t resist firing a barb. ‘Without getting into the debate over whose land it is, you don’t seem too unhappy about a mining company poking around.’

‘I’ve no control over that! And it’s none of your damn business anyway. Mining companies can dig wherever they want, as long as they’ve got the proper papers from the government.’

Alistair broke in quickly as the two men glared at each other. ‘Well, now, that mining is another problem, or at least has become one. It may have to be stopped.’

Jackson looked at the lawyer in amazement. ‘Why would I want to do that?’ he said slowly.

‘Perhaps Esme could fill you in on just what seems to be emerging at Birrimitji – that’s what the Barradja call the site Professor de Witt’s team has been working on.’

Jackson leaned forward, took off his sunglasses and gave Esme a piercing look. ‘Do tell.’

The old lady drew herself up and eyeballed him right back. ‘While you dismissed our work as poking about in the past, and while you said that no one would be interested in what a bunch
of blacks had for breakfast a few centuries back – if I recall your words exactly,’ she gave a hint of a smile, knowing fully well she’d quoted him precisely, ‘many people around the world are going to be very interested in Michael’s initial findings on this property.’

‘Which are?’ His gaze hadn’t wavered. Norma Jackson, who had been pouring more drinks, stopped and listened.

‘We believe there is evidence that suggests, possibly proves, Aborigines lived here more than 150,000 years ago, possibly 170,000 years. Which naturally makes a significant impact on the writing of the history of man. It also makes this a site of huge scientific interest.’

‘I don’t want mobs of academic wankers trooping in here,’ blustered Jackson. His mind, however, was trying to compute the numbers being thrown around and settle on whether this could somehow benefit Boulder Downs. At the moment he only foresaw trouble. Unconsciously he clenched his fists.

‘I doubt you’ll be able to stop them if the heritage laws are enforced,’ said Mick. ‘This is potentially a place of massive importance to international scientists.’

‘Bloody hell! I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to you lot digging around.’ Jackson’s anger flared and he turned on his wife. ‘I told you I didn’t want them in here!’

‘Giles, listen to them, please. Maybe this will make the place more valuable . . .’

‘Crap. We’re not going to get a cent out of some pile of rocks and old stone tools or whatever. Scientists don’t have money. If there’s any wealth here, it’s in the ground all right, in diamonds!’

It was the first time he’d made an outright admission that he saw the future of Boulder Downs being linked to mining. Ardjani made a subtle signal to Alistair.

‘The mining situation could be threatened as the Birrimitji site is rather close to where the mining exploration is located. The conflict is obvious,’ said Alistair.

‘Not to me. There’s no conflict at all. They have a lease to explore and I have an agreement with them should they find anything.’

A ripple of reaction ran around the group. ‘You might not have any say in what happens if the findings at Birrimitji are substantiated,’ said Mick.

Susan had seen the avaricious glint in Jackson’s eye earlier. ‘There’s probably more wealth in the site as a cultural icon than in the mining anyway. We all know how chancy mining exploration can be.’

‘I’ll stick to diamonds, thanks.’

‘Well, we felt it correct to tell you the news about Birrimitji before you heard it on the radio or television news,’ said Beth evenly. ‘There will also be a police investigation into the art theft.’

Ardjani unnecessarily tapped the crown of his hat but the movement got Jackson’s attention. The
Aboriginal elder stood up and addressed the red-faced pastoralist. He spoke with quiet authority. ‘Our culture is in this land, from creation time. It is in the hills, the rivers, the trees, the rocks. It is in the earth and in the animals and plants. It is watched over by the spirits of our ancestors who are in the paintings up there where our bones rest in sacred places. This land has always been our land, will always be our land, and must never be disturbed. Those who dig it up, or take it away, will be punished by the spirits who watch over our land. Those people will die.’

The words were simply put but, given the emotionally charged atmosphere, they had an impact on Jackson like a punch in the guts. He jumped to his feet and waved a fist at Ardjani. ‘Don’t threaten me, you old bastard. Don’t kid yourself you’re going to frighten me off my land with your bloody stupid bones and sacred sites crap.’ He turned to take in the whole group. ‘Jesus, just what do you people think you’re up to? For Chrissake, pack your bloody bags and get back down south where you can carry on all you like. Up here, the reality is that this land belongs to us. We lease it, we work it, we own it. End of story. Goodbye.’

He turned and strode off towards the house.

‘You’re going off half cocked, Jackson,’ shouted Barwon angrily to his back.

‘Leave it, Barwon,’ warned Mick.

Norma Jackson was embarrassed. She took a couple of steps after her husband, then returned to the group. ‘I’m sorry. Giles is under a lot of strain. You know things haven’t been going too well financially, and all this land claim stuff, extinguishment, sacred sites and so on, hasn’t made it any easier for him.’

‘It must be a hard life for you, too,’ said Susan sympathetically, and joined her to put glasses and the jug on the tray as the others moved towards the van. She knew instinctively that Norma would have been dominated all her married life by her husband, but now, maybe for the first time, she felt this woman was getting the courage to disagree with him.

‘Don’t blame him, that’s just how he is. We’ve had to put up with a lot. Getting this place was his dream and it’s been nothing but a nightmare at times. The thought we could lose this place either financially or worse still, to the natives, keeps him awake at night.’ She was torn between loyalty to her husband, and embarrassment at his rudeness and anger, and she could sense what he was not prepared to see, that there could be another path open to them. ‘I’d like to hear more about what this ancient site really means. Perhaps later, when you know more.’

‘Of course,’ said Susan. ‘We’ll get Esme to keep you up to date. There will be a lot of people wanting to come here now, so perhaps if you could talk to your husband, explain . . .’

‘NORMA . . .’ Jackson shouted to his wife and she hastily rose.

‘Good luck,’ she said as she hurried back to the house.

‘Poor woman, fancy being married to that redneck,’ said Veronica.

‘Just because he doesn’t want to lose his property, and doesn’t fully appreciate all this cultural stuff, doesn’t make him a redneck,’ said Shareen.

‘You going after his vote, eh?’ said Barwon, and Susan put a restraining hand on his arm.

Shareen looked at the modest, slightly rundown homestead as she settled back in the van. It was a battler’s homestead, no doubt about it. But a birthplace of hopes, just like so many other properties had been over the decades. Some succeeded, some failed, but they all made a contribution to what she saw as the greatness of Australia, its character as well as its wealth. There were qualities of the old pioneers about Giles Jackson and others like him. They had to be tough. Something these city trendies wouldn’t recognise. One thing that was worrying her, though, was something that she had never really been conscious of before. The sincerity of Ardjani and the other elders could not be denied. She still didn’t agree with everything he was saying. The fact that he was there at all, continuing to fight for his people, and custodian of so much, that he had survived with all this
intact right into the 1990s, was nagging at her previous convictions.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ shouted Giles Jackson when his wife came in carrying a tray of glasses.

‘Whatever are you talking about?’

‘Staying behind making small talk with that bloody lot. The glasses could have waited. You’re on my side, remember. My side.’

Norma put the tray down on the sink and began to rinse the glasses.

‘They’re threatening our future. You know that, don’t you? Bastards. Fuck sacred sites and extinguishment forever,’ he shouted and stomped up and down the kitchen.

‘Maybe they have a point, Giles, about the value of the sites, the World Heritage values and so on. Look at Kakadu, Uluru . . . they’re billion-dollar tourist places now. God, Giles, we seem to have a cultural museum in our backyard.’

Jackson stamped over to the sink, grabbed his wife by the shoulders and spun her around. ‘Listen, and don’t miss a word. Don’t side with the blacks . . . on anything, right? Give them nothing, right? This is not their land. It’s ours, right? What’s on it is ours, right? The banks don’t lend money with sacred sites as security. It’s the lease and our ownership that matters. We’ve all got to stick together on this.’ He
shook her vigorously. ‘Stick together, right? Now I’ve got to make a phone call.’

The archaeological camp was little more than half a dozen tents and a big blue tarpaulin shelter over a cooking area with a scatter of chairs and a table on trestles.

Under a bough shelter covered by another tarpaulin were two tables piled with clipboards, artefacts, rocks, small boxes and plastic bags filled with samples – soil, ochre, ashes. The three researchers, two men and a woman, left their work to greet the new arrivals. While lunch was being organised, Michael de Witt laid out a selection of small stones, quartz and sandstone fragments – the biggest the size of a teaspoon – bits of charcoal and ochre, a sharpened bone. ‘These are samples that show evidence of human manufacture and are taken from various depths at the excavation site, which are linked to corresponding dates at different levels. This one,’ he pointed to a small stone, ‘is a fragment of engraved sandstone which was found at a level that thermoluninescence dates at 118,000 years. And a stone tool and red ochre has been dated from 58,000 to 75,000 years.’

Susan peered closely at the array of very ordinary looking flakes and pebbles on the table. ‘That sounds incredible. Are you sure? How can you prove this?’

Esme chuckled. ‘That’s the 64,000 dollar
question, Susan dear. Until we get back into the laboratory and more tests are done, we can’t make conclusive claims. But the indications are very encouraging.’

‘How is the scientific community going to react?’ asked Mick.

Professor de Witt shrugged. ‘Some with enthusiasm, some with doubt, others will be jealous and some will try to discredit us. There’ll be blood on the lab floor before the day is done. Though actually we could be talking a year or more. Even longer if one wants to get into disproving the evolutionary out-of-Africa theory. How could Homo sapiens be in Australia 175,000 years ago, if they weren’t supposed to have left Africa until 100,000 years ago?’

‘I’ve always leaned towards the theory human evolution happened everywhere, in various regions, as part of a whole,’ said Alistair.

The group stared in silence at the tiny remnants that possibly held the key to this mind-boggling assumption.

Susan noticed that Ardjani had taken little interest in the proceedings. ‘What do you think, Ardjani?’

The scientists, academics and visitors waited as he slowly tilted his hat to the back of his head, scratched a forelock and gave a slow broad smile. ‘This not news to me. Like I keep saying, we been here since creation time.’