To the Islands (6 page)

Oh, that I am such a fool, cried Heriot inwardly, such a fool. To mention death, the islands of the dead, here, to him. Oh God, let him not die now, let me not have killed him.

‘I was joking,’ he protested, ‘
jagun ngaram, maoba.
Joking,’ he said, his voice trailing away.

But there was no persuading the white head to turn and look again at the man who spoke of death, and of his own death, with such lightness, defying the spirits to descend on him and send him on his last long journey to the far islands. Galumbu was turned to stone.

Guilty, uncertain, Heriot moved quietly away and went to the dispensary, where Helen, unexpectedly, sat rolling bandages in her brown hands. He watched her for a moment, the hands and the dark head bent over them, and said: ‘Helen.’

She looked up inquiringly. ‘Hullo.’

‘The old man’s not well.’

She stood up, absently disposing of the bandages. ‘I noticed he’d stopped singing. But he seemed happy a few minutes ago.’

‘I upset him, I’m afraid. I talked about dying. Perhaps you could do something with him.’

Because he seemed uneasy, even a little ashamed of the effect his joke had had on Galumbu, she was sorry for him, and glad to be, since all that morning his lofty cross-examination on the subject of Gunn had rankled, and sitting there with her bandages and with nothing to occupy her mind but Heriot she had felt herself growing steadily more resentful. So she said: ‘I’ll go and speak to him.’

He sat down on the chair when she had gone out, picked up a bandage and idly began to roll it, feeling useless and old. Most of the men had gone with the tractor to get more stone for the new building; Dixon and Way were superintending the roofing of the finished part, Gunn was in his schoolhouse, Harris in his store. But for Heriot there was nothing to do but wander round his village and wait for the next schedule on the wireless. But tomorrow, he thought, he would go with the tractor, he would gather stones himself, he was strong, his heart was good, there was nothing wrong with him but this tiredness of the mind, this throbbing resentment and desolation. And tonight he would write a letter demanding more staff, two youngish men. He would say it was absurd, the only young man he had was Dixon, and if they were all young the place would still be under-staffed. He would say that he had had enough of being the forgotten man in the forgotten country, he wanted attention and cooperation. He would offer even to withdraw his resignation if only he could have two new men. Then perhaps he would have a chance of getting something done about the cattle. As it was, too much of his time was taken up with paper work, he had no opportunity to think of it. Oh, he’d explain to them, he’d tell this distant council a thing or two.

Helen came back and stood at the doorway, looking brown and cool. ‘Galumbu’s forgiven and forgotten,’ she said. ‘A bit of faith curing on my part. He’s shaken off his miseries.’

‘I’ll go back for a moment, then. Thank you, Helen.’

‘Thank you for the bandage,’ she said lightly, taking it from him.

‘Have you—I wonder if you could lend me a cigarette? I’ve left my tobacco, I’ve nothing to give the old man.’

She pulled a packet from the pocket in her skirt and gave it to him.

Outside on the veranda Galumbu was sitting up in his bed again, and watched without expression as Heriot dimly approached, and sat down on his bed, and lit a cigarette. His cloudy eyes watched the smoke drift from the white man’s lips into the sunlight.

‘You want a smoke?’ Heriot asked tentatively.

‘Djmog? Yeah.’

Heriot lit a cigarette and pushed it between the open lips, and the old man, staring at nothing, his crooked hands on his chest, slowly puffed. Meanwhile Heriot watched the old women, across the grass at the meathouse, and thought of misery and hopelessness, of the wretched tribe of indigents. But it is their choice, their own choice...

He became conscious of the smell of burning and turned back to look at Galumbu. The old man had not moved, still lay gazing into nothingness; but the cigarette had fallen from his mouth on to his hand, and the smell was the smell of burning flesh.

‘Old man,’ said Heriot, very gently, ‘I’ll give you your smoke.’

He took the cigarette from the crooked hand, long paralysed by leprosy, and held it to Galumbu’s lips. The old man took half the cigarette in his mouth and puffed. It grew sodden, and his spittle ran down Heriot’s fingers.

‘All right, old man,’ Heriot said when the dry half of the cigarette was burned. ‘Finished now.’

Galumbu, resigning it, requested, ‘Bumper, bodj,’ and Heriot, after stubbing it, placed the butt in the open mouth. The old man chewed it contentedly.

To himself Heriot murmured: ‘You’ve been a fine man in your day, upright and intelligent, a fine man. And I don’t know that we can produce another Galumbu. That’s my fear.’ Galumbu ruminated, oblivious.

‘But to see you now, you and the others—blind or crippled or paralysed with leprosy—thin, covered with sores—flies and trachoma in your eyes. Living with dogs in filthy humpies and refusing anything better—reinfecting yourselves with all the diseases we cure you of...Wretched to be old in your country, old man.’

The old, dark face showed no light of interest.

‘I must go,’ said Heriot, rising. ‘Good day, old man.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and put the butt in the old man’s mouth. ‘Good day, old brother.’

*******

—Keep me as the apple of thine eye.

—Hide me under the shadow of thy wing.

The church shuffled, murmured, giggled, muttered deep responses, burst suddenly into singing. The little girls sang high, loud and raucous. The men sang deeply, harmonizing among themselves.

The Lord Almighty—

The boys grinned over their shoulders at their girls, their fathers.

—grant us a quiet night, and a perfect end.

*******

Gunn was sitting reading in his house when a knock came on the door. He shouted: ‘Come in,’ and a guitar entered, followed by Stephen.

‘Ah, you,’ Gunn said. ‘Whose guitar?’

‘Rex, brother.’

Gunn looked away, letting it be clearly seen that he had nothing to say on the subject of Rex. ‘So you still play,’ he said presently.

‘Yes, brother.’

‘Learn any new ones—where you were?’

‘I know plenty now, brother. I sing you that
Old Wagon
, eh? Real nice one that.’

Pushing his book away, a trace of resignation in his voice: ‘Yes,’ said Gunn, ‘sing that one.’

‘I sit on you bed, brother?’

‘Go ahead.’

But once seated on the bed with the guitar across his thigh, Stephen made no movement to play, only fixed his deep and shining eyes on Gunn’s and searched for something there with an embarrassing intensity. Gunn looked away again. After a moment he asked casually: ‘Glad to be back?’

‘Yes, brother.’

Another silence struck.

‘Brother—’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t do that again.’

‘Do what?’

‘Stealing, brother.’

‘You’d be a fool,’ Gunn said shortly. He was helpless to deal with this sly child who in the next few days would be doing the rounds of the whites who had once believed in and helped him. He could hear the same words addressed ingratiatingly to each in turn, to Helen, to Harry, to himself, and the same glance, though for Helen it would be more melting. ‘I suppose by now you’ve forgotten all Sister Bond and I taught you?’

‘No, brother.’

‘Good.’

‘Brother—’

‘Well?’

‘You ask Brother Heriot not to send me away?’

‘He won’t send you away,’ Gunn said. ‘How about singing your song?’

The dark head went down then, the dark fingers worked nimbly at the neck of the guitar. After a bar or two Stephen began to sing, mainly to himself, his hill-billy song of some white man’s boyhood. He sang well, his voice clear and firm, and he was also an actor able to fill his singing with surprising nostalgia. Watching him now, Gunn remembered seeing him in camp corroborees, dancing lithely into the firelight and out again, always in the most prominent position, always the supplest and most histrionic of the group. He could be a ballet dancer, Gunn thought. All that lovely limelight...

At the end of the song Terry Dixon came and leaned, long, skinny, and red, in the doorway. ‘Didn’t think it could’ve been you, Bob,’ he said. ‘Knew you never went much on that stuff.’

His eyes wandered to the bed and took in Stephen, uneasily watching him.

‘You scared of me, Steve?’

‘No, brother.’

‘Think I’d go crook at you?’

‘No, brother.’

‘Don’t worry, Rex is the man that did me wrong. All forgotten, anyway.’

‘Is it?’ Gunn asked.

‘My part of it. Free pardon from the old tiger because of inexperience.’

‘Quiet,’ said Gunn. ‘Not in front of the child.’

Dixon grinned. ‘I’ve had him. Thinks he knows the lot. Tell the child to go and stand outside his house and sing
All The Cowhands Want to Marry Heriot
with a big cheerio from a cowhand without any cows.’

‘But with pretty heavy hands,’ Gunn murmured.

The electric light breathed with the panting engine across the road. Stephen, who had been watching it uncomfortably, stood up with his guitar and said: ‘I go now, brother.’

‘Stay and sing to Brother Terry, if you like.’

‘I better go,’ Stephen said, waiting for Dixon to move from the doorway. ‘I better look after them little kids for Ella. He my cousins, them little kids.’ He was very earnest now, wanting to show Dixon the goodness of his heart, to impress him and receive his forgiveness for having recommended Rex as a passenger on the boat.

‘Let the man pass, Terry,’ said Gunn.

When Stephen had gone Dixon wandered over to the bed and stretched out, yawning. ‘’Struth, tired fella. Thought Heriot was going to go lousy at me, but he didn’t. Just sat me on his knee and told me to remember it next time.’

‘He’s not a bad old bloke, if you know him.’

‘Not the man I’d pick for my best mate. When’s he going?’

‘Don’t know. Not for a while.’

‘Too bad. I tell you what, Bob, they need a younger bloke on this place, someone who knows how to make a spot of money out of it. Cattle’s the shot, that’s what I keep telling the old man. They worked it before, about twenty years ago. But all he’ll say is he’s been thinking about it for some time, in a nasty sort of a voice, so I shut up and keep my ideas to myself, the way he wants it.’

Propped on his elbow, staring at the floor, ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Gunn. ‘But I still don’t dislike him as much as you and Father do. Nor does Helen. I don’t know about Harry, no one ever knows what Harry thinks.’

‘You’re going at the end of the year, are you?’

‘I think so.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Just that I never felt I belonged here, on a mission. I’m agnostic, to start with.’

‘So was I, when I was your age,’ Dixon said.

Gunn smiled faintly behind his supporting hand. ‘How old are you, Terry?’

‘What would you reckon?’

‘Might be twenty-five, might be thirty-five.’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘What turned you Christian?’

Dixon rolled over on his side and said after a moment: ‘That’s a rare stinking hair-oil you’ve got on your pillow.’

‘Sorry. Shouldn’t ask personal questions.’

‘I don’t mind telling you,’ Dixon said. ‘You’ve seen my sort of bloke around, you know what we’re like. Never had much time at school, wander about doing whatever’s got a bit of money in it, droving or station work, whatever’s going.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Gunn said.

‘Yeah, you would. You can get sick of that by the time you’re my age.’

‘And that’s why you came here?’

‘Well, it was like this. One time I was riding up a gully and my horse fell down, broke my leg.’

‘Stiff.’

‘I was there by myself, just lying there, all night. Getting a bit worried too. So I said: “If I get out of this, I’ll never say Jesus Christ again unless I mean it.” You know the way you think sometimes. Then I said: “God, if you help me now I’ll go to church if I can find one to go to.” You know—?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Well, after a bit I got to sleep and had this dream. I dreamt I went back home again to my mum’s place, where we were when we were kids. It was all dark, not a candle in the la-la, as they say. But I went in anyway, and my mum, she’s dead, she was standing there in the dark. She said: “Why didn’t you bring the kids, Terry?” I said: “Mum, you know I haven’t got any kids.” She said: “Well, where’s the wife, son?” I said: “Mum, I never been married.” She said: “Well, what are you doing, what sort of a life are you leading?” I said: “I’m not doing anything, Mum, I haven’t got a life.” Then I woke up, feeling cold, and the leg yelling at me, and a dingo howling up somewhere, you know how they echo in those gullies. I said: “God, if I get out of this I’ll go and do something. I’ll work in a leprosarium, if you’ll help me.”’

Look at me, thought Gunn, listening to this and not feeling smart and cynical. I’m growing up.

‘Well, they found me next day and I finished up at Darwin, in hospital. There was two kids from this place there, nice kids; they kept talking about “Mission” all the time.’

‘Homesick,’ Gunn said.

‘Yeah. Well, I kept thinking about it after they went home, and when I got out I came over here and asked the old man if he could use me. Kept me waiting a long time, but in the end he told me to come. So I did. That’s the story of it.’

He rolled on to his back and stared at the light bulb. ‘I never been sorry. Well, I haven’t been here long, have I?’

‘I don’t think you will be. Won’t be sorry, I mean.’

‘I like the kids. Some of the blokes are a bit hard to get on with.’

He scratched his head and yawned. A new silence was broken by a knock at the door and a voice calling: ‘I come in,
wunong?
’

Gunn raised his head. ‘Come in, Justin.’

Entering suddenly into the light, feeble as it was, Justin blinked and looked down. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered, greying, a man of forty with the quiet dignity belonging to that age among his race. There might be something a little comic about the thin legs running from his loose shorts into his enormous sandshoes, Gunn thought, but nothing to laugh at in his face. From below the broad overhang of his forehead his eyes looked out with a dark shine, observing in silence, making no comment. Homely, thought Gunn, looking at the firm, thick mouth, the broad nose; homely wisdom, and strength, and pride. He said: ‘Good evening, Justin.’