A Prayer for Blue Delaney (12 page)
‘Get in.’
‘No,’ shouted Colm, trying to wriggle free of Bill’s grip. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Doreen can sort him without you making things worse. That’s just Nugget, angry as a bull-ant. It’s his way.’
‘It’s a stupid way! Why doesn’t he do something? Why don’t you do something?’
Bill looked at the ground and Colm could see the defeat in the old man’s whole body. Colm clenched his fists. What was the use of being a grown-up if you were as helpless as a child?
‘You wait here,’ said Bill, manhandling Colm into the front seat of Tin Annie and then turning back to the bungalow.
Colm could hear Bill’s voice, a calming murmur beneath the roar of Nugget’s anger.
When everything was quiet again, Colm climbed out of the ute and tiptoed over to the bungalow. The adults were talking in normal voices now. He edged the door open and saw Nugget sitting at the table with a cup of tea in front of him. Doreen was beside him, one hand resting on Nugget’s shoulder. Colm couldn’t believe she’d forgiven him so quickly. He came into the room and stood behind Bill.
‘So what are you going to do?’ asked Colm.
Nugget shrugged.
‘They’ve probably sent ‘em to Moore River. It’s where they took Pat, Doreen’s other boy.’
‘Then you have to go and get them back,’ said Colm insistently.
‘Jesus, mate,’ said Nugget, looking to Bill. ‘Can you get that kid to shut up?’
‘He doesn’t usually have this much to say,’ said Bill, frowning at Colm meaningfully.
‘They probably won’t give me Emily’s kids, but I might get Rosie. I’ll have to go to Perth to try. I don’t know. Me and Doreen, we’re not married - couldn’t get permission from the boffins in South Australia, so I just took her out of the state.’
‘Do you want me to come?’ asked Bill.
It was Doreen who made the decision. She looked around the whole table, her dark eyes resting for a moment on each face.
‘No, Nugget goes alone,’ she said. ‘I have to go home, and Bill, you have to take care of this boy of yours. That’s how it has to be.’
Bill opened his mouth to argue but Nugget lifted a hand to silence him.
‘Dor’s right. Crikey, Bill, I taught you how to fight, didn’t I? I can fight my own battles. I’ll get the girl back, one way or another.’
‘If there’s anything we can do,’ said Bill uncertainly.
‘I don’t want to leave her and the little tacker alone. The welfare have been watching us for a long time now, and they’ll be back. Reckon you could drive Dor and the little one to Ceduna and put ‘em on the train there?’
‘This isn’t my country,’ explained Doreen. ‘My people, the Ngarrindjeri, they’re from Raukkan. White fellas call it Point McLeay, near where the Murray River meets the sea. I can maybe keep Jimmy safe with me there.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ asked Bill, looking from Doreen to Nugget. ‘If you want me to help you out in Perth, take on the bastards . . .’
‘You got your own worries, Bill,’ said Nugget, shaking his head. ‘You’ll lose that kid of yours if you’re not careful and I know how much he means to you.’
Colm was astonished. Bill had hardly spoken to him since they’d arrived in Kalgoorlie. Colm had started to think Bill had even forgotten his real name as he hadn’t called him anything but ‘Sonny Jim’ for weeks.
That evening everyone bedded down early, exhausted by the terrible events of the afternoon. Bill brought his swag out onto the verandah, alongside Colm’s, and they lay talking in the darkness.
‘Thank God they didn’t get you, too,’ said Bill.
‘But why did they take the others?’ asked Colm. ‘I don’t understand. I thought it was me they were after.’
‘The thing is, the authorities reckon it ain’t right for a black woman to raise a white man’s kids,’ said Bill awkwardly. ‘The black fellas … they’re not like citizens in the way white folk are.’
‘That’s stupid! Why not?’
‘Well, that’s a mighty good question,’ said Bill. He sounded uncomfortable. He didn’t seem to have good answers to any of Colm’s questions.
Colm lay on his side, puzzling out what had happened. Every way he turned it, it was wrong. People did such stupid, terrible things to each other. It made him glad that he believed in God. At least God didn’t do stupid things. He put his hands together and began to pray.
‘What are you muttering about there?’ asked Bill.
‘I’m praying,’ said Colm.
Bill made a hurumphing sort of noise and turned his back on Colm. ‘Waste of breath, if you ask me. Prayers won’t change the law.’
‘I’m praying to Our Lady so she’ll watch over the children until they get back to Doreen.’
Bill didn’t reply. Colm added an extra prayer for Billy Dare.
The next morning, Doreen packed her and Jimmy’s things into a suitcase and a battered carry-all and put them in the back of Tin Annie. Colm and Rusty jumped into the back as well so that Doreen and Jimmy could share the front seat with Bill.
When all the goodbyes had been said, Bill fixed a tarp over the top of Colm and Rusty so that the sun wouldn’t burn them.
‘There you go, Sonny Jim,’ said Bill. ‘You ready for the open road again?’
‘Yes, but can I ask a favour?’
‘You can ask,’ said Bill warily.
‘Please don’t call me “Sonny Jim” any more. I have a name, my own name.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with having a nickname,’ said the old man. ‘I’ve had more names than you can poke a stick at. A rose by any other name smells as sweet, as old Will Shakespeare would say.’
‘I’m not someone in a play!’ said Colm. ‘I’m me. You never use my real name. You always call me other things. My name is Colm.’
Bill laughed.
‘All right, Colm it is, then. But if you and I are going to keep gallivanting across the countryside together, I reckon one of us should be changing their name. See, all this trouble, it’s given me a lot to think about. I reckon if folks think you’re a stray, someone might take you away.’
‘What do you mean?’
Bill put his hands on Colm’s shoulders and looked him square in the face. ‘I reckon you ought to call me Grandad from now on. That way no one is going to go asking us questions, eh? I don’t have any grandkids of my own, but if I did that’s what I’d want them to call me - Grandad.’
Colm smiled. It felt strange to be so happy after all the tears of the day before, to feel the warmth of it fill him up like sweet tea.
‘All right, Grandad,’ he said.
There was plenty of time to think in the long drive across the Nullarbor. Sometimes Colm could hear Doreen crying over the roar of the engine. Rusty flattened her ears at the sound and pushed her snout against Colm’s hand. She didn’t like it any more than Colm. When Jimmy shouted ‘Nani, Nani’, over and over again, Doreen’s voice became a hum of comforting sounds. Colm pulled out his harmonica and played the happiest tunes he could think of in the hope it would cheer everyone up.
Colm found himself practising the word ‘Grandad’ over and over again. When they stopped to camp overnight and Bill handed him a plate of beans for his dinner, Colm said, ‘Thanks, Grandad!’ so loudly that both Bill and Doreen laughed, for the first time since leaving Kalgoorlie.
At the train station in Ceduna, Doreen took Colm’s face in her hands and kissed him on the forehead. Colm shut his eyes and took in the warmth of her skin, the dusky scent of her hands.
‘You take care of that old bugger,’ she whispered. ‘And if you get worried out there in that desert, you look up at the Seven Sisters and let them light your darkness, eh? And we both say our prayers and maybe Rosie‘ll find her way home again soon.’
The train pulled out of the station and Jimmy stood on Doreen’s lap and pressed his face against the glass, waving at Colm. Colm waved back.
‘It was a good thing you saved Jimmy,’ said Bill. ‘I reckon Doreen’s heart would have broken without a little one to take care of.’
‘But I didn’t save Rosie,’ said Colm.
‘A man can only do his best and your best was bloody good,’ said Bill.
As they drove out of Ceduna, Bill said, T heard from an old mate that there’s work going along the Dog Fence, filling in for one of the regular patrollers. Thought I might take it on. No one will come chasing us along that lonely stretch of country. Gotta let my reputation as a preacher settle down too. I’m overdue for a bit of peace and quiet, so the desert’s the place for us.’
The Victoria Desert began to unfold as they drove further away from the town. They headed north to the Dog Fence, through a wide, open landscape of earth and sky. Colm fiddled with the catch on the glovebox and flipped it open. Instantly, he saw that the old black Bible was missing. The thought of the long weeks of driving without it made his heart sink.
‘Where is it?’ he asked.
‘Where’s what?’ asked Bill, innocently.
‘The Bible. The black one. My Bible,’ said Colm.
‘Reckon it got left behind at the two-up school.’
‘You left it?’
‘Forgot to put it back. You don’t want that old thing. You know those stories inside out. Tell you what, next town we get to, well, that won’t be for a long stretch, but when we do, I’ll buy you a book of funnies and a nice fat collection of my old mate, Henry Lawson.’
Colm couldn’t believe it. How could Bill have forgotten his Bible? He looked at him sideways, wondering how deliberate the forgetting had been. Worst of all, the photo of Blue Delaney had been tucked into the Bible between the pages of the Book of Ruth and now it was lost forever. He pulled out his harmonica and blew a long, mournful note.
It was slow and hot travelling along the Dog Fence. The further they drove inland, the hotter the air grew until Colm felt he was breathing fire. It was like being in a furnace. He and Rusty tried sticking their heads out the window, but it was worse than the still, burning heat inside the car. The gritty air scoured Colm’s skin and made his eyes sting. He pulled his head back inside. The few stunted trees were twisted and tortured by the sun. There was nothing to see except saltbush, pigface, tough little grasses struggling to sprout through the rock and sand, and the fence stretching like a thin grey scar across the landscape. Tin Annie seemed to moan as she struggled over the unforgiving ground.
‘What if we break down?’ asked Colm.
‘Don’t you worry about that. They used to do the fence on camel, but these days they use jeeps. Tin Annie here, she’s part camel with a bit of jeep thrown in, so she’ll be fine.’
‘But what if we get lost?’
Bill looked amused. ‘We’re following the fence, mate. It’s more than three thousand miles long and there’s no detours. Doggy Burton knows where we are and if we didn’t check in on time, he’d send someone out. Just enjoy the ride.’
Bill pulled over next to the fence where an emu had crashed into the wire. They both climbed out of the ute to inspect the carcass.
Bill shook his head. ‘She’s hit the fence mighty fast, this one. Looks like she broke her neck.’ The emu was already rotting. Colm had to cover his nose and mouth with his hand to stop the foul smell searing his nostrils.
In the distance, another emu was running across the gibber desert. ‘See, they get speed up. They can go 30 miles an hour but they don’t see the fence until they’ve hit it.’
Colm helped Bill sort through the tools he would need for the job and then climbed back into Tin Annie to wait while Bill repaired the fence. Further along they stopped to fill in a hole made by a hairy-nosed wombat. The day dragged on. They drove so slowly that Colm got dizzy looking at the fence. When he shut his eyes, he saw the endless mesh passing along behind his shut lids. Despite the flies and the heat, he fell asleep. When he woke up, it was to the sound of Bill hammering at a fencepost.
Colm’s shirt was sticking to his back, wet with sweat. He went round to the back of the ute and took a long drink from the billycan. The water was as warm as tea, but it was good to wet his throat. Flies buzzed around his face and no matter how hard he tried to swat them away, they came back and clustered around his eyes and mouth. Colm felt as if he was inside a strange and frightening dream. He wished it was night so that he could look up at the Seven Sisters.
That evening, Bill made the fire from mallee twigs that Colm had gathered. When the wood had burnt down, he raked the coals over and buried some potatoes deep in the red heart of the fire, then opened a long-necked bottle of beer. Colm scowled.
‘Do you have to drink that every night?’
‘A fella deserves a beer after a long working day, doesn’t he?’
‘I don’t want to drink any beer. Ever.’
‘No one’s saying you will.’
‘Drinking makes you forget things. You’re always forgetting things,’ said Colm.
Bill laughed and took another swig. ‘That’s the whole point, cobber. When you grow up, you’ll understand. It’s an art, knowing how to forget.’
‘Forgetting isn’t a good thing. I ask God to help me to remember everything. I ask in my prayers.’
‘Bully for you. But it doesn’t cut that way for me. If there was a saint of forgetfulness, I’d be praying to him for his guidance, but without the angel of forgetting I have to find my own ways and means.’
He threw a couple of thick slabs of meat on a rack and turned his back on Colm. Colm went and sat on the running board of Tin Annie and traced a pattern in the dirt.
Despite the weeks spent sleeping on Nugget and Doreen’s verandah, Colm still didn’t feel comfortable sleeping outside. Everything about this desert made him feel small, from the endless shimmering horizons to the vast starry night skies. A shooting star streaked across the sky. Colm pressed his hand against his chest. The world was too big, too hard to encompass. He wanted something small to think about. He pulled open the glovebox, wishing that his Bible would magically appear, but the only thing that caught his eyes was Bill’s old cigar box. Bill usually kept it in a box in the back of the ute along with his tools.
He flipped open the cigar box and raked through its contents. There was a compass, Bill’s tobacco pouch, a couple of blunt pencils, a bottle of ink and a fountain pen, a single-edge razor blade - and a small piece of silky ribbon. He’d never noticed it before. It was connected to the bottom of the box. When he tugged at it, the bottom lifted up to reveal a secret compartment. Guiltily, he glanced across to Bill, sitting drinking by the campfire. There was a small stack of crisp pound notes in the secret compartment, a couple of official-looking forms folded in half and a small photo. The lost photo of Blue Delaney! He studied it in the half-light. Even though it was shadowy in the car, he could make out the brightness of her face. When he folded his hands to say his goodnight prayers, he added a prayer just for Blue Delaney, that God would keep her safe until he had a chance to meet her.