Earth, p.1
Earth, page 1
Bruce Pascoe was born in Richmond, Victoria in 1947. He graduated as a secondary teacher but has also worked as a farmer, fisherman and barman. He now runs Pascoe Publishing with his wife, Lyn. Until recently, they also published the successful quarterly, Australian Short Stories. He has two children and lives at Cape Otway in Victoria where he is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative. His other publications include Night Animals, Fox, Ruby-eyed Coucal, and Shark. In 2013, Bruce won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (Young Adult Category) for his novel, Fog A Dox.
EARTH
Bruce Pascoe
First published in 2001 by Magabala Books Aboriginal Corporation,
2/15 Saville Street, PO Box 668, Broome, Western Australia 6725
Email: info@magabala.com
Magabala Books receives financial assistance from the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. The State of Western Australia has made an investment in this project through ArtsWA in association with the Lotteries Commission.
Copyright © Bruce Pascoe 2001
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism and review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process whatsoever without the written permission of the authors, illustrators and the publisher.
Designer Narelle Jones
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Pascoe, Bruce
Earth
ISBN 1 875641 61 0
1.Title
A823.3
Cover Photograph
“We Come from the Land, We Belong to The Land” by Eleanor Williams published in “Breath of Life: Moments in Transit towards Aboriginal Sovereignty” Kevin Gilbert (1933-1993) and Eleanor Williams, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra 1996.
For the Australians
Contents
1 Holes in the ground
2 Holes in the head
3 Holes in the heart
4 Holes in heaven
5 Korraiyn
6 Da
7 Moorabool
8 Whispers
9 Smoke
Glossary of the Wathaurong language
Acknowledgements
1
Holes in the ground
‘Post holes, Alf, that’s what’s good.’
Chut chut chut chut chut
‘See, ya dig ‘em square, clean ‘em out and then . . . and then ya put the post in, face her up square with all the others, look along the line and there you are, straight as a die. Ya gotta have a good clean hole dug by a good clean man . . . like me . . . and a good straight post split out by a good straight man . . . like me . . . and then you’ve got to tamp the bastards in hard . . . ’
er ough er ough er ough er ough er ough.
‘That’s the hard part, Alf, tampin’ the bloody clay back in the hole . . . ’
er ough er ough er ough
‘But if you don’t the bastards won’t stand up . . . ’
er ough er ough er ough er ough
‘And ya grandma says ya never sleep, Alf. Yer out like a bloody light. Sick of posts are ya? Well, so am I. Now, let’s see what’s in the grub bag. What have we got do ya reckon? Well, here we’ve got a lump of damper and butter a roo couldn’t jump. Bit of yesterdee’s mutton a galah couldn’t fly across and a bottle of cold tea looks as if a turtle shat in. The lot of a working man it is, Alf. Bugger all.
‘I’ll have to wait until ya wake up I s’pose. Yer’ll be cranky if I start without ya. What about a quiet smoke then? Don’t mind if I do.
‘Done fifty-six posts. Another forty’ll do, I reckon, then we can go home, eh Alf? Come on now, wake up, boy. What’s this here stickin’ in yer ribs? Might be a snake. Could be a hedgehog? Clarrie’s ol’ bull. Might be a ghost.’
‘Grandpa?’
‘Thought yer was gunna sleep for ever, Alf. Time for tucker, young fella. Yer gunna do the honours?’
‘Yeah. Aw look, Gran’s given us the best bit of mutton. Can I have a bit of that shank, Grandpa?’
‘Yeah, little mate, here y’are, cut it off with the knife, here. Cut away from yerself, now. That’s the boy. She’s not bad, eh? The shank’s the strong bit, the bit the mad buggers use to run an’ jump. Nothin’ as silly as a sheep, Alf . . . ‘cept maybe a rich man or a politician . . . or a rich man who is a politician.’
‘We’re not rich, are we Grandpa?’
‘No, Alf, we’re not, an’ never likely to be. No one ever got rich diggin’ holes in the ground.’
‘Unless we found gold.’
‘Well, that’s when the rich stop ya diggin’ holes in that particular earth. Then we’d be encroachin’ on a private reserve. That’s what they did to the miners at Ballarat few years back, threatened ‘em with the law as soon as they struck anything worthwhile.’
‘This is a rich man’s land, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, mate, sure is.’
‘An’ we haven’t found gold yet, have we?’
‘No me mate, we haven’t, an’ that’s why we’re still allowed the privilege of diggin’ holes for a shillin’ a day.’
‘Grandpa, you know that old Billy Wurrun?’
‘Yep.’
‘He told me he was my uncle.’
‘When was that?’
‘When I was fishin’ down at the river. An’ he showed me how to –’
‘Listen, Alf, yer as white as snow. Look at yer. Ya can see that, can’t ya? White as the bloody King.’
‘But the King’s rich, Grandpa.’
‘Yeah, but he’s a white king.’
‘Billy Wurrun reckons he’s a king, he showed me – ’
‘But that stupid old Billy is black, Alf, black as the ace a’ spades, an’ I tell you now he’ll never live under anythin’ better than a bit of bark and he’ll always have the arse out of his strides.’
‘He reckons he’s your uncle too.’
‘Listen, Alf, knock it off, now. Don’t listen to any of that bloody rot. Yer Grandma’d put you over her knee an’ go for ya with the jam spoon if she heard ya talkin’ like that. True, Alf, she’s never raised a hand to ya before, but she’d be after ya if she heard that rot yer talkin’ . . . Here, have a cup of tea with this damper an’ let’s start talkin’ about somethin’ good.’
‘Like fishin’.’
‘Yeah, like when we get our boat.’
‘An’ we can go out on the bay.’
‘An’ catch gars, an’ snapper, an’ whiting.’
‘An’ we’ll sell what we can’t eat, won’t we?’
‘Yeah, sell ‘em to old Snotty Snodgrass at the pub for tuppence a pound.’
‘Will we be rich, Grandpa?’
‘We will that, lad, we’ll be richer by sixpence an’ livin’ off the fat of the land.’
‘Billy showed me – ’
‘Good boy, that’s the way, shut up about Billy before ya get home or that jam spoon’ll be paddlin’ on ya backside like the drum major in the Footscray band. Anyway, another forty bloody holes before knock off, Alf. Yer can give us a hand ta push a bit of the clay back in, if yer stay awake long enough.’
‘What’ll we call our boat, Grandpa?’
‘Tuppence?’
‘What about, Sixpence?’
‘Or a shilling?’
‘Or ten bob.’
‘Or a king’s ransom?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Might be better to stick with tuppence, eh? Stick our heads up an’ some rich bastard’ll kick ‘em off for us.’
‘Billy said he had a bark boat . . . sorry, Grandpa.’
‘Well that mightn’t be a bad name for ours, eh? Tuppeny Bark. No one else’d have a boat called Tuppeny Bark.’
‘Could we paint it on, Grandpa?’
‘We could. Poor men in the drink with Tuppeny Bark.’
*
‘Mrs Geraghty, all that noise, is doin’ no good at all. If you don’t push, we’ll all be here at Christmas, and there’s another six women gotta deliver before then.’
‘I’m gunna die, Mrs Palmer.’
‘You will not die. God is watchin’ over you Mrs Geraghty and you know how the Lord hates waste. He knows someone has to wash the floor of the Morning Star and he knows that woman is you.’
‘But it’s killin’ me.’
‘It’s not killing you, Mrs Geraghty; it is hurting you. You let Reg stick it in, now you have to push it out. That’s what we get for our troubles. We don’t die, that’s the easy way, we hurt like all hell, have a baby and start all over again.’
‘Not me, never.’
‘Tell that to Reg, Mrs Geraghty, he’ll be the one to convince, an’ you know what men are like.’
‘Bloody rotten.’
‘No need to swear. Save your strength to push. I can see the baby’s turnin’ round nice an’ slow now. So, one more decent push an’ we can start to get somewhere . . . Now that’s the way Valda darlin’, an’ I can tell you your baby has a fine head of hair, an’ if we take it easy now, without splittin’ yerself open I’ll be able to tell you what else it’s got.’
*
‘She was in a bad way the poor girl. Two days, Frank, sweating an’ crying an’ screaming, she had nothin’ left at all an’ then, thank the Lord, the baby moved for her and then, out it comes, clean as a whistle an’ screamin’ blue murder. I tell you Frank, that’s 187 and I never get used to it. Each time I
‘Well, I’ll calm ya down.’
‘No you won’t, you’re more than half the trouble you men.’
‘And if we weren’t trouble what a great and wonderful world it would be, Mrs Palmer. Who’d keep yer back warm in July then, eh?’
‘There’s always a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel.’
‘Hot water bottles leak.’
‘So do men.’
‘Well, you don’t mind, too much, do you. Rubbin’ ya back . . . an’ ya chest . . . an’ ya – ’
‘Shh, Frank, the boy might still be awake.’
‘Mmm, I don’t think so, he could sleep on a barbed wire fence that one. An’ he spent all afternoon shovellin’ clay like a man. I kept thinkin’ he’d stop, but not that one, he’s a bloody Trojan. And a thinker. Got more brains than most men I know. He worries away at things. Won’t let ‘em go. He was tellin’ me that Billy Wurrun been tellin’ him that he’s his uncle.’
‘That bloody Billy. You’ve got to put a stop to that, Frank. If he starts hangin’ around that old drunk. They should have left him on the Reserve.’
‘They’re tryin’ to turn ‘em into white men.’
‘Well it won’t work with people like Billy.’
‘He’s not a bad man Claudie, he just doesn’t know who he is. They pass a law to make all half-castes honorary whites just so they don’t have to feed them and hope like hell the rest will die. They’re tryin’ to forget they ever existed.’
‘And if you let young Alf hang around with him they’ll treat him like one of them and then we’ll never keep him at school.’
‘We’ll keep him at school, Claudie, because ya can’t keep him out of his books, but I tell ya, when he’s grown up, that’s when he’ll want – ’
‘Well he’ll have to be put right, because how’s that goin’ to help, Frank, how’s that goin’ to fit with his schooling, how’s he – ’
‘I know that, darlin’, I do know all that, but I’m tellin’ ya he’s a peculiar piece of goods all together. I’ve got a feelin’ about the kid . . . Now don’t start throwin’ ya hands around, I’ve already told him, I put it straight to him about all that stuff, I mentioned the jam spoon an’ everything, but he’s different, and you an’ me will never change him. We can warn him, we can show him what is best, but clay is clay, an’ granite is granite.’
‘And men are men.’
‘And women are women an’ have the sweetest smellin’ hair . . . ’
‘That’s Dettol you’re smelling.’
‘. . . an’ when ya put yer arm around their waist you can slip yer hand up and feel . . . ’
‘Their corsets.’
‘Their breasts, an’ even a post-hole digger can get his fingers aroun’ them hooks and things an’ then he can . . . ahh . . . tell ya Claudie, my darlin’, I don’t care what happens at all, if you’re mine and I can touch your . . . flesh . . . well, nothin’, nothin’ matters at all.’
‘Frank?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Frank?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Your hands, Frank . . . ’
‘Are rough as hoof parings.’
‘Are big, Frank. Rub me back my man, rub me . . . ohh . . . ’
‘Like that?’
‘Like that.’
‘There?’
‘Yes, there.’
‘Here?’
‘If you like. Ahh, Frank, your hands . . . ’
‘Are clumsy.’
‘Are loving, Frank, you’re a loving man.’
‘Here’s the loving man, darlin’.’
‘Ohh, Frank . . . Ohh, Frank . . . How long have . . . ohh . . . how long have we been married, Frank?’
‘Goin’ on thirty years. Thirty years. Mmm. An’ here we are . . . ’
‘Still lovin’, Frank, still . . . ohh . . . still ohh, Frank . . . still in love.’
‘Still lovin’, darlin’. Making love.’
‘You gotta hold me, now, Frank . . . ’
‘I know, I know.’
‘Gotta crush me to your chest.’
‘I know the rules.’
‘Thirty years you’ve been lovin’ this old woman.’
‘Old my arse.’
‘Frank!’
‘Old my big hairy arse.’
‘Frank, that’s enough. But you do, don’t you? Even though I’m an old pudding?’
‘You’re not the slip of a girl that caught my eye at the Mechanics Institute, Claudie, but look at you . . . There, look at yourself now, just look. You’re woman, Claudie. You’re woman. The very sight of ya makes me want to fuck ya.’
‘Frank!’
‘It does. I can’t see ya without imagining my hand brushin’ across ya bush and over ya belly like this an’ up to ya breasts, smooth, Claudie, smooth as a clean-barked gum an’ ya nipples standin’ up like that, hard an’ warm as a bush mouse’s nose, an’ they’re sayin’ to me, “Frank, Frank, put ya lips aroun’ me, Frank.” Just like that. An’ I say, “My word I will . . .” and my tongue, just the tip, like this, just the tip.’
‘Mmm, Frank?’
‘Yes, you fat old thing?’
‘Here, the other one.’
‘Old greedy guts.’
‘That’s me, my man, greedy and shameless as a harlot. That’s how I feel sometimes, Frank. I see all these babies bein’ born and the women with black eyes an’ no food in the cupboards, an’ you’d think I’d get sick of it but when I get home, I’m as greedy for it as a harlot, I feel shame sometimes, Frank, honest.’
‘That’s your mother talkin’, that is. Don’t feel shame. There’s no shame in lovin’. Ya can’t expect the church to know that.’
‘You taught me that, Frank. You and your hands.’
‘It’s not me hands, Claudie, it’s me heart. I love ya with all me heart. True as I’m in this house, I love ya.’
‘Grab a hold of me again, Frank. Harder. Harder. Now don’t let go, ever . . . even when I’m as fat as Mrs Heskith and old as Daisy Bates.’
‘Never.’
*
‘Now look at that one makin’ dam dam with that white woman. We look out for that one too . . . and the boy. Much good it’s doing. But we still look out coz one day maybe, one day, he’ll be ready, one day we show him what’s what and what he is and who he is and what he’s gotta do. We’re watchin’, watchin’. All this business he’s doin’ now, well he doesn’t know the sense of it, thinks he does. So does she, you can tell, but only half of it, don’t know where it comes from. That’s shame of it, they know nothin’ but they’re all we got. Not her, she’s amerjee, white woman, but him, you know, he comes from, oh, great warriors of our people, an’ he knows nothin’, hardly knows he’s one of us. Still that’s all we got now an’ we can’t let none of ‘em go. You unerstan’ that? Me, I’m Weerat Kuyuut, I been come from all them ol’ peoples, we fought them amerjee, kill plenny whitefella, chase sheep, burn house, we give ‘em run around proper you know. We start war killin’ wrong white fella. We kill that mob lookin’ after sheepy. How we know he convict, how we know amerjee doan care less if poor man killed? We waste lotta time chasin’ them convicts. We thought they was the trouble you know? Then we start killin’ them sheepy an’ amerjee shit ‘emselves. “Them sheepy ten pound each, you blackfella can’t kill sheepy.” Then the war was on proper, you know. Our mob camp in that stony ground. You know him? All big stone, liddle lakes, lotsa cave, oh we give ‘em run aroun’ in that country for years . . . an’ then not enough ol’ fellas left, no bobup, no murdimundik, oh, sorry place alright. All them sheep eat up myrniong, you know, like potato, what we eat then, eh, all our beautiful myrniong garden gone. What we eat, where we sleep, where we bury our warrior? Eh sorry time true.
‘Eh, listen, now hear that night-bird, maybe Parwung’s fat old lady not too fat an’ old yet, eh? Maybe gettin’ fatter again bye an’ bye.
‘An’ we watch over that Billy Wurrun too, or as we call him Poort Poort Burrun. They get the Wurrun wrong way about. Who are you? they say, and he says, Wurrundjerri, and they try and say that but don’t get past Wurrun, and that’s too much for ‘em so they settle for Billy and he says I’m the king and so it’s King Billy. But that one not king, there’s no king, he’s one of the last, but he’s not king, who is there to say who’s king? White fellas want a king ‘cos they wanna deal with the boss, but who’s boss? We all boss, but true way the dirt is boss, the place, all this country boss of us peoples. Anyway that Poort Poort he’s not king, and shame, he’s pissin’ his manhood up against the wall. The white man’s wall.
