The Clay Dreaming (59 page)

He spoke of the district she knew as Apothecary, very close to the cathedral. The excavations for the new Queen Victoria-street tore right through it.

All the noblemen of authority were Christians: yet it had taken a poor man without work of his own to offer Druce charity, even if were only a place to lay his head. Only thereafter did the other gentleman give him bread, and meat, and hope.

Druce threaded another daisy chain of names.

That was the end of the book.

Sarah sat in silence for a time, before bending forward to stir the remains of the fire in the grate.

‘I have lived out…my Grace Days.’ Lambert’s breath was short. ‘I must,’ he said, ‘pay my dues.’

‘Hush,’ said Sarah.

He was so small, so shrunken in the bed. His hair lay lank and stringy across the pillows, and Sarah wished she had lately thought to cut it for him, or at least to wash it.

‘I am…fearful…’ he said.

‘Hush, now.’

‘…of a leap…in the dark.’

‘In the dark?’ Sarah repeated.

Her father’s eye shone a moment. Sarah laid a hand to the pillow, checking for dampness. His night-sweats had stained the bedding. She might at least refresh…

Lambert flinched. She reached across to clear a white strand from his face. He hissed.

Sarah protested. ‘Whatever for?’

His pursed lips began to tremble and he forced his head aside, face dissolving into a mess of deeper creases. More was at work here than the vanity of a manful Christian.

‘It was not mine to judge,’ he whimpered.

‘Your judgement was not your own,’ she said.

Surprised, he turned. His face searched hers for understanding, saw it absent – infinite sympathy, yes, but no comprehension. None.

Lambert smiled, but his eyes were crying.

‘Father!’ she said.

‘
Aoowwrrraarrhr!
’

He made such a cry!

‘I draw…near to Calvary,’ Lambert gasped.

Calvary was Golgotha, burial site of Adam’s skull and hill of crucifixion. Looking at him now, Sarah did not doubt it. She knew that he was dying; and that he had known, all along. She wiped the back of her hand across both cheeks.

Wrestling with her skirts, she knelt down at her father’s bedside. Pressing dampened fingers together just beneath her lips, she prevailed on Him – Him who seemed to turn a deaf ear when needed the most – to listen to the voice of her entreaty.

‘“Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults,”’ prayed Sarah. ‘“Restore them that are penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. Attend to the things which make for his everlasting peace, before they are for ever hidden from his eyes. Amen.”’

Quickly she struggled to her feet, and collapsed back into the chair.

‘“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done!”’ Lambert spoke with a new urgency. ‘“And we have done those things which we ought not…not to have done…and there is no health in us.”’

The health he spoke of, in this context of the general Confession, was spiritual soundness – its absence, she knew full well, the absence of all righteousness in ourselves; of self-respect. Rubric directed that certain lines be repeated after the minister: in her confusion, Sarah supplied the next.

‘“O Lord,”’ she said, ‘“have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.”’

‘No…’ pleaded Lambert. ‘No…’ He waved for her to stop. ‘My dear… sweet maid.’

He made as if to stroke her cheek, yet faltered, stopping short. He stared into his palm. She too stared at the back of that great palp, its flesh collapsed, veins hanging like slack cable – her father’s hands.

‘Child,’ said Lambert, ‘you are not answerable for
my
sins… “God gave them up to uncleanness…through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their bodies between themselves”!’

Wracked with sobs even in the midst of anger, Lambert’s mouth, wet and working, opened so wide and trembling that it was hard to make out his slurred words.

‘Fff-fornication…wickedness…’

Another frightful roar, and he thrust his head into his hands. They tore at his face and beard.

‘No, no, stop!’ Sarah demanded. ‘Father –!’

‘FATHER?’ He cut her short.

She froze.

Lambert gave a wry laugh. ‘“Judge not,”’ he warned her, ‘“lest ye be judged.”’

Lambert quoted scripture as he had done in his fever, nearly the whole of the day before. What scared Sarah almost out of her wits was that he was now in full command of his senses.

‘“THEREFORE thou art inexcusable!”’ he bull-roared. ‘“And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgement of God?”’

It was as if some great switch had been thrown, and he could only speak in Common Prayer, his priest’s business – but with what rationale? What was it that he could not bring himself to say in plain English?

‘“Thou…”’ he said, ‘“that art thyself a guide of the blind…a light of them which are in darkness…

‘“Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

‘“Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery?

‘“Thou that preachest against…against…”

‘…

‘I cannot speak of it… I cannot…’

He recited the commandments as handed down to Moses – not in the correct order, but in reverse. Thou shalt not steal; commit adultery – what came next?

‘Who…’

What?

‘“Who shall judge the quick and the dead… at His appearing and His Kingdom?”’

‘“God,”’ she answered, obediently. ‘“And the Lord Jesus Christ.”’

‘“I charge thee therefore,”’ said Lambert. He looked straight at her. ‘You…’

‘Yes,’ she said. Anything.

‘Yes…yes.’ Lambert sounded decisive. ‘You… God forgive me. You must help me…help me to confess…’

Confess what?

She did. And he did. And she could not believe it.

Her – Lambert – he was not – not the person she thought he was. She was not the person she thought she was.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my
mother conceive me
. She was his daughter in name only – conceived outside of marriage; born of illicit love.

Thrown by the truth, Sarah reeled. This wasn’t at all what she had prayed for. Tears – in his last hours, her father had given in to Catholic weakness, and she could not for the life of her process the matter he confessed. Belief? It went beyond belief: that you could live your whole life with someone and not know them.

No one. No one, as it turned out, was who they were first said to be.

The coffin lid splintered and she felt the skeletal clutch. A shameful family secret, long concealed, burst from the grave – her mother, strayed from the path of righteousness.

Narrow was the path, and broad the Way – and worse yet to come. More than one skeleton lurked in that hollow recess. Lambert kept it as he had kept her: in the dark, jealously guarded.

‘…Put…’ he sobbed, barely audible, ‘put out the light.’

Sarah wasn’t sure that she heard him right. She wasn’t much sure of anything.

‘…light of my life, ohhh…better extinguish the light of the world…’

Was this still confession?

‘I put out the light…’ he said.

His empty hands, thick fingers spread, were shaking.

‘…and then put out the light.’

Oh, God.

Exposed at the turn of the tide, a sunken wreck rests in the riverine mud. Its rotten ribs jut, the butchered remains of a kill.

To increase his strength of spirit for a coming battle, a warrior consumes a portion of his sacred
goobong
. Undertaking Holy Communion, Brippoki swallows hard. At any other time such an act, akin to cannibalism, would be forbidden.

‘I shall be hungry by and by!’ he sings.

Taking up his
karko
on the end of a length of string – his
min-tum
, newly adapted for its purpose – Brippoki, as
Moo-by
, whirls it around his head. The makeshift device produces a lowing noise, much duller than intended, nothing like the roar of a true
mooryumkarr
.

His disappointment is keen – his opponent unlikely to be discouraged by the weak sound.

Brippoki makes his way inland, back to the dilapidated Greenwich graveyard. Even the dark time empty places fill with echoes of old suffering, solitary places the least lonely.

Sky filled with cloud, the new moon is no longer visible.

‘A man am I!’
Moo-by
sings, louder now. ‘I don’t want to go back to the grave!’

The evening breeze moans louder still, stirring the treetops overhead. A burial place, likeliest haunt of evil spirits, is doubly worth avoiding. He has already risked much by returning there with Thara in tow. What more harm can now be done? Brippoki weighs the odds. Opposing his troubles is his only chance to end them – his one last chance remaining.

To be a man, Brippoki must
be
a man. He will face down the terror seeking his life in the place that he released it. Meeting on home ground, he might
persuade the Spirit to return to its camp, a trial by combat as much as an ordeal of magic. In fighting back, he may reclaim his honour, and – possibly – make a name for himself.

Everybody was accountable, somewhere along the Revenge Trail.

Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them
.

Sarah struggled not to scream.

Truly
…

It couldn’t be, but it was.

Truly ye bear witness, that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them
…

Killer.

…and ye build their sepulchres
.

In one swift motion, she set aside the candlestick. A single blow would not be enough.

Under a mountain was a volcano, at the very bottom of the sea. It was filled with souls, after death, torturing other souls. There, the dead waged endless war, one with another – killing, as surely as Cain killed his brother, over, and over, and over again.

Sarah kept her hands firmly pressed across her chest, lest her heart should burst from its cage.

Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

Blackfellow lies motionless on a rock, as one dead or asleep in the sun. If he takes a piece of fish or flesh and holds it out in his hand, a careless hunter might think it easy prey. Then, when he swoops down on the offering, the blackfellow leaps up and seizes him – throws him on the fire and makes a meal of him.

This is the way to catch him crow.

If Brippoki’s scheme is successful, Deadman will be obliged to enter into his liver and his service, as his
woorie
, a vital protector against enchantments – including evil spirits such as the
In-gna.

Standing some way off, he first checks over the cleared ground around the grave for any signs of disturbance that could indicate the provenance of the murderer. Satisfied, Brippoki gathers fallen branches, which he arranges in a half-circle from head to foot, on the south side. On top of this he adds grass, and a length of log dragged and heaved into place with no little effort, covered over in turn with more disguising grass.

An attack would be most effective just before dawn, when the victim is drowsy. He means to lure his enemy with expectation of the same.

Finally in position, Brippoki, disguised as the demon
Moo-by
, forces the breath in and out of his mouth. He sits up in his grave, crying out for Deadman, and stamping his feet on the bare earth. Hands held together in front of his face beat out a matching rhythm.

Polpol
the Hero Ancestor cries and sings for the dead.

He hears the soft swish of bat wings, coming from everywhere.

It is time to race the devil.

Sun, moon, tide –
Moo-by
is fast travelling. A restless spirit of diabolical vengeance follows in close pursuit, and gaining. Through darkness he runs, between pools of light, through the crowding dead, through wastelands empty of life. Deadman comes on, never turning aside. Step by step and line by line the figure in shadow advances, relentless, unstoppable – no longer fart-catcher, three paces behind, but closing, almost on him.

Run, faster.

In a dash across open ground, speed counts for all.

At the bitter end of their race, cornered
Moo-by
turns to confront his aggressor, showing off his true colours. Casually he discards his
mooryumkarr
, making much display of throwing down his weapons. Apparently unarmed, he walks forward, a green bough carried in the hand as a sign of peace. He drags a foot along the ground, spear gripped between his toes. With a dextrous flick it appears in his hand, as if by magic.

He brandishes the spear and roars his challenge, fakes a throw, then retreats to where lie his
waddy
and modified
karko
. Picking these up, he beats them together – advances, retreats, advances, shouting the while, and furiously kicking up dust. Taking up the firebrand, he sets light to the grass and bushes.

The deathly peace and quiet of the grove is shattered.

A voice shouts, ‘Is this the body I formerly inhabited?’

‘We are not dead,’ comes the reply, ‘but still living.’

Moo-by
hops from one foot to the other, shaking and pointing his spear. ‘
Wia
ma pitja
,’ he growls, ‘
nungkarpa lara pupinpa!
’

Brippoki contrives a convincing guttural menace. He spits and bites his beard in defiance. ‘Come you, God damn it son of a bitch! BAASTID!’

Legs distended, he quivers his thighs and rolls his eyes – showing the whites. He cries out lustily, taunting his adversary, deriding their weaponry, their skills in the arts of war.

‘Yelo!
’ he shouts. ‘Coward! I will eat your kidney fat!!’

‘I shall be hungry by and by,’ a small voice says. ‘A man am I. I don’t want to go back to the grave!’

‘Back you must go!’
Moo-by
insists. ‘This place is forbidden!’