The Songmaster (32 page)

A
t the back of her tent, Veronica sat on a chair and dipped into the small styrofoam container, bringing out a needle and a phial in a sealed packet that she ripped open. She inserted the needle into the liquid, pulling up the plunger. After a test squirt, she squeezed her thigh and injected the fluid into her body. The used needle, phial and packet went into a plastic trash bag and she jammed it all back into the mini box that had been stowed in the Oka’s refrigerated chiller.

No one noticed the incident, except Lilian, moving silently from the trees back to her camp after another fruitless morning hunting for sugarbag.

Veronica walked to the river and sat quietly in her favourite spot. She was deep in thought
when Jennifer came and sat down beside her. ‘Nice place, eh?’

‘Yes. So peaceful.’ Veronica’s usual effervescent demeanour was subdued.

‘You all right?’ asked Jennifer. ‘My mother is worried about you.’

‘She is? Why?’

‘She thinks you have a drug problem. Maybe I shouldn’t speak about this.’

‘I’m not a drug addict! I’m on the IVF program – trying to have a baby!’ Veronica burst out laughing, as the smile spread across Jennifer’s relieved face.

‘It’s not an area I’ve studied. But I’ve heard it’s a very difficult way to have a baby. Why did the doctors suggest you try it?’

‘Because of my age, I don’t make enough eggs, or at least strong enough eggs. So the in-vitro fertilisation program is run by a hospital I attend and the doctor gives me these hormone injections. I use them for a couple of weeks to make me produce lots of eggs. Then, when I go back to the hospital, the eggs are harvested – sucked out of me – and an hour later they’re mixed with my husband’s sperm in a jar. A few days later, they see if the eggs have fertilised, and then they put two or three of the embryos into my womb. And they freeze the rest that appear to be healthy. Maybe there are half a dozen or so. And we hope that one inside me grows into a baby.’

‘The modern way to make babies, eh?’ Jennifer looked bemused.

‘Fingers crossed. I’ve been trying for years to have a baby on IVF. They didn’t like me coming so far away, so I have a puffer thing to stop me ovulating early. When I go back, they will harvest my eggs and try again.’

‘You really want a baby this badly?’

‘Yes, I’ll keep trying for as long as it takes or as long as it’s feasible. It costs a lot of money, but I won’t give up. I’m taking Chinese herbs and I’m willing to try just about anything. I know I can get pregnant.’

‘Why did you wait so long?’

‘I’ve always been involved with fellows I didn’t think suitable father material. And I wasn’t ready to settle down, I was a dedicated career woman. But now I have Boris, and he would be a wonderful father. I sometimes get very depressed about it. I feel I’m not fulfilling my destiny till I have a baby.’

Jennifer studied Veronica for a moment. ‘Would you like us to help you?’ she asked tentatively. ‘Barradja way.’

Veronica didn’t answer. Back in the city, this might have seemed an odd offer. But she realised that in her heart, she’d been hoping she might find help from these people. She was beginning to see that they had a knowledge beyond what she’d experienced. ‘Jennifer, I’ll do anything, anything.’ She paused. ‘What’s involved?’

Jennifer gave a little smile. ‘Baby-making isn’t sex. We take you in the wunggud water and do women’s business. I’ll talk to my
mother.’ She touched Veronica’s arm. ‘You come with us, and trust your baby spirit finds you. I’ll tell you when.’

Breakfast was over and Billy had issued instructions on tent sweeping, and a roster for doing dishes and meal preparation. Mick had volunteered to make damper to go with the last of their meat – steaks that would be barbecued with potatoes in their jackets, and served with salad. ‘It will be coming out of cans soon enough,’ said Billy.

‘Ardjani says the men can go hunting with him. Then we’ll have fresh meat,’ said Barwon.

‘Fresh what, though? I don’t know that I fancy baked local fauna.’ Veronica drained the last of the tea from the teapot.

‘You blokes are going hunting in a day or so. We’ll be staying here to do women’s business,’ said Beth. ‘Let’s deal with today’s plans first. Now, as soon as everyone is ready, we’ll assemble. The elders, including Lilian and Jennifer, are coming over to take us to Eagle Rock Station.’ She turned to Susan, ‘They’re getting quite excited about it.’

‘It’ll be lunchtime before this mob is ready to go.’ Billy looked over to see Alan strolling back from the river, his towel around his neck. ‘He hasn’t had his breakfast yet.’

‘Give him a coffee and make him wait till smoko. If they’re not here when brekky is
dished up, tough. That’s a rule.’ Beth grinned. ‘I just made it up.’

‘You’re a hard woman, Beth. But coffee will do fine.’ Alan paused at his tent. ‘No espresso, I suppose?’

Beth laughed, Billy scowled. Until his domain was shipshape, his sense of humour deserted him.

They were grouped about the Oka as Ardjani, Rusty and Digger drove up in a flat-bed truck. Lilian, with Jennifer holding her baby, and the two boys were in the back.

‘Jennifer, you and the baby and Lilian come in the Oka with us. It’s cooler, more comfortable.’ Beth reached over and took the baby as the women jumped out.

To Billy’s obvious pleasure, everyone settled quickly into the van and they were soon on their way to Eagle Rock. Veronica asked Jennifer where Jimmy was.

‘He’s gone to Derby with the rest of the mob,’ Beth answered first. ‘Besides, he couldn’t come with Lilian here. He cannot look directly on his mother-in-law. It’s the law that sons-in-law don’t look on the mothers-in-law.’

‘Sounds like a good law to me,’ said Mick.

‘Hear, hear,’ added Alistair.

Jennifer smiled. ‘It means look on as face to face.’

‘How do you learn all these laws? Seems like
it would be pretty easy to put a foot wrong,’ said Mick.

‘We’re taught from babies. Already, I’m teaching my little fella here. I tell him who are his skin mothers and sisters and uncles and brothers, and I show a little hand signal so, when he gets big, he can acknowledge what is his relationship with another person by that signal.’

‘What’s a skin relative?’ asked Susan, fascinated by the amazing complexity of Barradja relationships.

‘I am my baby’s blood mother, but my sisters and other mothers are his skin mothers. And then all their skin sisters are part of his kinship. It’s a system of relationships, where different people can be many things – mother, father, uncle, aunty. There are no strangers to our children, everyone has a connection with each other by family kinship, or even by friendship.’

‘Imagine how secure these children feel,’ said Beth. ‘They’re told of their connection with everyone and everything around them, plants, trees, rocks. They are taught their relationships to those, as well as people. It’s all part of developing their sense of self. Self-esteem, as we call it, is in-built.’

‘I imagine then that these people don’t need confidence building, consciousness raising, self-help, spiritual growth, find-yourself workshops,’ mused Alistair.

‘It comes to us as a birthright,’ said Lilian quietly.

‘It’s something that puzzles most white people, who generally perceive Aboriginal culture as dead,’ explained Jennifer. ‘My children will be told how they must behave to other kin, the work they must do, the laws they must observe. They’re taught about their surroundings, physically, spiritually and artistically. They learn the stories, songs and dances connected to all these things. They get these instructions almost every day of their lives.’

‘Even that young?’ Veronica peeped at the chubby baby boy lying in Jennifer’s lap.

‘Yes, I talk to him every day. Even from the sound of my voice, he’s learning. We believe you take in knowledge not just from words. Knowledge flows between people, like feelings.’

‘It’s like reading to little kids. My young son loves that, even though he doesn’t understand any of the reading. It’s the story, and having me close to him, I suppose,’ said Alan.

‘Do you read him art books?’ Mick was teasing, but could imagine Alan showing his son art publications with magnificent colour plates.

They were now quite used to Veronica producing a microphone at any time of the day or night. She was pleased she’d recorded Jennifer’s explanation of kinship and was beginning to see material for a series of radio programs. ‘So, Alan, you’re the art expert, tell us about the Wandjina gallery we’re going to see.’

‘That’s the business of the elders to tell. I want to hear their stories about this site. White
documentation is pretty sketchy. There are the records from when George Grey found the Wandjina rock paintings, but then it was more than a hundred years before they were re-discovered in 1947. Some photographs were published in the 1950s and there are all sorts of garbled versions of what the Wandjina paintings mean and who painted them.’

‘Thanks to the white law men here,’ added Beth. ‘Where we’re going is the Wandjina spiritual sanctuary. It’s a unique place on this earth as it holds the history of ancient human culture embodied in the Wandjina. And that is a philosophy, a spirituality and a symbol which evokes extraordinary power over whoever is in its space. The Barradja is one of three Wandjina tribes whose continuous culture dates back 60,000 years.’

‘Makes our colonisation of two hundred years seem a drop in the bucket,’ said Mick.

‘Around here it’s not even two hundred years,’ laughed Beth. ‘Colonisation of some parts of Western Australia didn’t happen till the latter part of the twentieth century. There were still Aboriginal people coming into Wyndham from the bush forty years ago. There are photos in the Wyndham pub. That’s in my lifetime. And the community of Balgo, in the desert south of Halls Creek, wasn’t established until 1964, which was when many of the locals made their first contact with Europeans. And in 1984, north of Warburton in the same area,
Aborigines were still arriving from the bush, having never seen a white person.’

‘That’s pretty contemporary history,’ agreed Mick.

Barwon, next to Beth, was quiet and thoughtful.

Susan, sitting behind him, asked, ‘Ever thought of making a documentary about all this?’

‘TV was my other life. Now, I’ve got a lot to learn about this part of my life. I don’t know much about it. My personal stuff, anyway.’ He looked rueful.

Beth spoke softly. ‘We’re working on that. Ardjani has asked Jimmy to talk to the old women in Derby about your family . . . and about the abandoned baby . . . our two lost souls, eh?’

Susan touched Barwon’s shoulder. He stared out the window, but he wasn’t seeing the passing landscape.

The grass was high around the wheels of the Oka, the trees clustered in shady clumps, and through open spaces they saw a pile of boulders and rocks ahead. Dotted between them were patches of pink feathery mulla mulla flowers. They’d been driving for an hour, when the truck in front stopped and Rusty waved to Billy to pull over. He parked the Oka and they got out, joined by the three old men. It was a relief to be
out of the van, but it meant stepping over rocks, weaving between prickly bushes and wading through patches of tall grass.

‘Do you think we’re on Eagle Rock Station?’ asked Alistair.

‘I didn’t see any boundaries or fences,’ said Mick. ‘Could be, though.’

Ardjani stopped and he signalled to Lilian, who walked forward. He spoke to her in language, while she listened silently, nodding occasionally.

‘What’s he saying?’ whispered Susan to Rusty.

‘He tell her this her father, grandfather country. Now she got to take care of this place.’

Ardjani set off with Lilian one step behind him. She glanced back at Jennifer, who hurried to catch up, the baby balanced on her hip.

The others fell silent and watched as Ardjani led the women to a rocky outcrop.

‘This very important for Lilian to be in her right country,’ said Rusty.

Ardjani stopped. He lifted up his face and began chanting, a call that rang out with power and authority. Digger turned to the group. ‘He be tellin’ the ancestor spirits who is comin’. That he bring Lilian to see her father, grandfather country. That he bring Lilian’s daughter, Jennifer, and her baby to their country. And that he bring friends, who are good people.’