The Swan Book Page 21

  Oblivia looks side-on across the haze-covered spinifex as though she fully expected to see soldiers from the swamp following them, but all she sees through the wiyarr is Bella Donna’s ghost straining to drag things out of the ground and calling for them to wait for her, and Oblivia thinks she must be digging up the genies, or she found some dead girls, and this makes her heart pound even harder and she walks faster and hears the old woman’s voice reciting – So mastered by the brute blood of the air…Before the indifferent beak could let her drop? – and she tries to walk through the Harbour Master who looks where she looks, and he walks backwards quicker, but ignores what the old woman was doing and he continues talking right into Oblivia’s face as though he is taunting her to use that half-dead tongue of hers to shout at him to get out of her way. There must have been dozens of those blokes running amuck with their revolvers with silencers and whatnot, and sneaking through the spinifex with infra-red search-lights strapped onto their heads. Like combat soldiers. Yes, just like soldiers in some war zone, although who knows if they were soldiers or not – I just don’t know for sure what they were, or if they were from the whiteman’s hell. Could’ve been from the swamp. They could have been anyone, just like you or me, or more like me than you because you would be too gutless to kill anyone, just like you are too gutless to speak. Alright then! They didn’t know ‘someone’ was looking at them through the darkness with my own infra-red night-vision binoculars eyes.

  Oblivia thinks he is tricking her and tries not to look at his eyes and continues to look around for Army men, although she cannot hear the old woman any more who she figures must be still trying to dig up bodies, but the Harbour Master goes on about how good his infra-red vision eyes were. I saw the whole thing coming, just like silly Warren knew it was coming, only difference is a person like me can dream wherever I want to go, whereas Warren Finch, he’s a dog! Well! Look at him. He has to call someone on that mobile of his to tell him what’s going on and he hides somewhere else. The Harbour Master paused to pay his respects to the genies, I really and truly hope you good boys haunt the living daylights out of some of those buggers. Come back and haunt Warren Finch too if you like. Yea! That would be good. And he continues berating Oblivia, That’s the reason why your-suppose-to-be-husband Warren bloody Finch was acting strange last night. I saw him sneaking around in the night too. He knew there were people wanting to assassinate him. He heard their vehicles. You better lay low, I am telling you girl, if you are going to keep hanging around with that idiot. He will get you killed before too long. You can bet on that. That’s why you will never see those good fellas again. Really decent blokes too they were. Oblivia was listening now and walking normally, so the Harbour Master slowed down, but continued talking, and whenever he spoke about Warren, pouted his lips in his direction. The coward Warren disposes of the bodies quick smart. Buried his staff members in the bush. Hardly dug a hole deep enough for any of them. You would think he’d do something better for his mates. Shallow graves. Real shallow. Better get a rifle too if I were you. You are just another staff member. Remember that. The Harbour Master blamed Bella Donna’s ghost for killing the genies. He really had it in for her. You know how she needs to kill off any strong black people. It gives her strength, he claimed. Yulurri! Murderer! Yulurri! She led the assassins right up to them like a bloody big road train heading through the bush with an arrowhead marking the spot just in the front of where those three boys were sleeping. Didn’t know what struck them, it was strange seeing it happen – real quick like that. You don’t want to think about her any more if she is going to cause trouble like this. Get rid of her from your mind. You don’t need her now. The Harbour Master looks back, and although the old woman’s ghost was nowhere in sight, he tells her to git away from them. Get away from Australia. Yulurri! We don’t want you overseas ghosts here.

  At the end of the day of walking and the Harbour Master’s tirade to Oblivia, they reached a sandy river overgrown with the vines of paddy melons laden with fresh yellow balls of fruit. A flock of white corellas stared with black beady eyes as Warren Finch and the girl passed by, then continued gnawing with sharp pointy beaks on the paddy melons held in their claws. Families of bush ducks flew from out of the reeds on the side of a dry riverbed, where there were still ponds of water from the flood after the rains of months ago.

  Across the river the next morning, Oblivia was alarmed to see that there was a small rural township of less then a dozen unkempt houses painted in every combination of bright primary colours, flash blue, red, green, and yellow. All was quiet, and it seemed as though these houses had been willed to appear like a playful whim in amongst the spinifex, and if you turned your back, would disappear. Oblivia saw that they were close to the roughly cut airstrip that ran through the thickets of saltbush where, the evening before, Warren had taken an interest in walking along its length and kicking the dirt runway with his feet. She noticed that he did not use his mobile phone now, and this made her feel even more vulnerable, unsure of what was going to happen to her, and of the possibility they would be seen by strangers in this town without his genies to guard them.

  She could not help staring at the houses.

  Just people, Warren snapped, as though he knew she was wondering about who lived there.

  What kind of people? People. People, who are more interested in talking to their white daddy and granddaddy graves about selling cattle, horses, or people for that matter; they work at the petrol and diesel service station over there. Mostly used by cattle trucks. He spoke impatiently as though speaking to a child. She knew that he did not want to speak to her. Did not want to answer questions. The town was silent. It looked deserted.

  In the distant mirage beyond the houses, Oblivia saw the green and white service station. The sight of the green roof became a thought to reach, not of running away, but taking back her life. He knew her thought as she looked off in the distance, and said: It won’t pay to go over there. You will find that this is a pretty rough joint. We will wait here. The plane won’t be long. His mobile phone rang once, twice, and three times before he answered it. Yep! Right! He seemed relieved to be leaving. She could hear him talking about the plane’s arrival time and then the droning off in the distance. She listened to the sky too – for the heartbeat of swans flying, and for a few moments of panic, caused by the thought of being forcibly pushed onto the plane by Warren, she was again standing on the shores of the empty salt lake. Only the warmth of the swans remained where they had rested on the ground covered with low-growing tussock grass and saltbush.

  Within moments of the blue aeroplane landing they were gone. Only the deafening howl of the engine could be heard as it flew above the saltbush landscape, over the salt lakes, and into another world. There was nothing but clouds, and the frightened girl thought how the clouds would look around the mountaintop of the old woman’s homeland, and thought she should have asked the old woman a question about clouds, because she did not know: Who spoke of great seas of clouds where wind was eddying under the crevices?

  The Christmas House

  After clouds, always mist, and another ghost story to tell.

  Ah! Beautiful, isn’t it. This is where we will be living from now on. Well! For you this will be your home for a little while at least. Look! Right down there, can you see it? Just there! That place! It will be your home from now on. Warren Finch sighed, his face marvellously at ease as he looked longingly through the small window of the plane. Below, the city she saw was a sea of stars twinkling from the base of mountains, and sprawling across flatlands to the ocean. The plane flew through dozens of searchlights splashing back and forth through the skies, and on to Warren’s relaxed face while he was humming that old song, Sea of Heartbreak, sea of dungkumini, malu of heartbreak…the lights in the harbour, don’t shine for me, and the relief was in his voice: Yes! It is good to be home.

  There was no way Oblivia ever expected that she of all people would see the riches of paradise from a plane. How come? Sh
e thought about the Heaven people taken from the cities by the Army and dumped in the swamp. They prayed all the time for the chance to see their paradise again, How did I lose you, where did I fail? The lights he called home spun meaninglessly in her head. She searched for the distant light of the burial chamber he had pointed out, to show her where she would be living and from the sea of lights below, all she extracted was a single glow. She looked away to censure the old woman creeping from the clouds and into her head, forbidding her from asking the question about women and girls who have disappeared: Can you see any left dead on the side of a road in that light?

  Ah! Don’t worry, you are dead already, the Harbour Master answered on the girl’s behalf. He was also somewhere on board the plane – said he was the bloody pilot. That’s right, he laughed, better remember to put the wheels down. Who was to know if she was dead or alive? The plane bounced on the winds of one pilot short, in its descent to land.

  Warren kept talking: You are going to love it here. You’ll see. It will take a little bit of time but it will be better for us if you give it a chance. He spoke philosophically, so it is equally important that you make an effort to do this for me and for yourself. You will find that life will be better if you see things like this.

  They stepped from the aircraft and into a world shrouded in fog and darkness. Warren Finch was immediately surrounded by a group of security people, and within moments, they were leaving in a shining black, chauffeur-driven limousine with a small Australian flag fluttering in the breeze. Several security cars, that had been discreetly parked, would also accompany them for the rest of their journey.

  The limousine careered through a foggy maze of concrete industrial buildings, high-rise offices, factories and houses. In this closer glimpse of paradise, the girl could see that much of the city had cracked; the city was breaking up, as though the land beneath had collapsed under its weight. This had happened a long time ago and now, the natural landscape was quietly returning and reclaiming its original habitat. In its strange kind of way, the city was creating a garden. Through the cracks in the footpaths small trees had sprouted, and ferns and grasses became obstacles through which people were struggling to steer a clear path as they walked. She saw more mature trees with the orange fungi Pycnoporus coccineus growing from branches and tree-trunks, while ferns and grasses that swayed from mossy walls and roof tops caught her attention with each gust of wind. There were places on the roads not hit by heavy traffic where long grasses grew.

  She saw no camp dogs hanging about these streets. No birds. There were only crowds of people moving quickly past one another with blank faces, and many others living in footpath ghettos, like people were in the swamp. They were begging for food. She heard frogs croaking in the drains where the rainwater poured in such profusion it was hard not to imagine an underground river flowing beneath the city.

  Warren continued a running commentary like a tour guide. He spoke about why people were running, what they were doing, whether they went into restaurants, grocers, supermarkets, fish shops, meat shops, women’s clothing shops of every description, shoes, pets, computers, furnishing, delicatessens, banks, office buildings that stood side by side reaching for the skies, down and up through narrow streets and onwards, while countless lights shone from the homes of families, single people, couples, and apartments where parties were held, and couples made homes, made love, grew children, cooked food or brought home takeaways, and new furniture, and spent all night discussing life or conspiring, or deceiving, or divorcing, or engaging in adultery, throwing out rubbish, playing computer games about war. He talked more or less about all of this while the girl was thinking about something else. She was trying to determine the natural sound of the wind through the distortion of sounds passing through the laneways between buildings.

  The Christmas house of prehistoric green was lit up like the solar system. It stood in a garden of worse-for-wear Norwegian fairytale forest firs covered in glowing balls of coloured lights that swung madly on the wind-tossed branches. Owls were calling out to one another from the deep foliage like calls from the genies they had left on the salt lake. The girl looked at Warren but he was too occupied with the spectacle of Christmas lights, and what lay ahead. The journey they had taken was now clearly wiped clean from his mind. The first thing she noticed as they stepped from the car was the fragrance of the trees clutching the mist, and the house groaning in despair each time it was buffeted by winds coming in from the sea.

  The Harbour Master and the old woman exiled amongst the clouds were both awestruck with the glamour of it all. Could this be the home that Warren had been pointing to from the plane? It’s bloody marvellous the Harbour Master claimed, but the old woman scoffed at its cheap imitations, and described how pretensions made her feel nauseous by pretending to vomit on the bonnet of the shiny car.

  The driveway was lined on either side by a parade of adult-size glowing snowmen. The people greeting them enthusiastically at the large door shone in the way that people usually greeted Warren Finch. He said they were his anonymous friends. This was a safe house, which immediately had the Harbour Master asking what he needed a safe house for. But before the girl could think of an answer, she became too wrapped up in being ashamed, and looked away. All she had seen looming at the doorway were giant-sized people with red hair blowing like fire in each gust of wind. They were not introduced. The man, the woman, and two children, one boy and one girl, became an avalanche of fiery white ghosts flying out of the house, and descended on Warren with non-stop pattering.

  Don’t tell me this is your E–thyl? Is this really her? The big woman squealed.

  This was a safe house because it was typical, Warren had forewarned Oblivia. Typical of what? Australia! Paradise? Even she could believe it was a place that nobody of right mind would want to come to and she had been nowhere. Old Aunty squealed like the big woman. The Harbour Master pushed his way in front of them and yelled to the girl to keep away from the bunch of red-necks. This had the old woman and the Harbour Master arguing about how you could identify a red-neck. She insisted that they were only missionaries. I know what a missionary looks like, he claimed combatively: How would you know anything? You think every white person is a missionary. The girl wanted to disappear from hearing her name falling off everyone’s lips. Yes! It was true then? They had been talking about her for days, practising that name, because they did not want to offend Warren’s lady. Why, she will be the first Indigenous lady of the country soon.

  E-thyl was a very pretty name the lady claimed, and said she insisted on knowing how she had been given such a name. You sure you got it right? You sure it is not Ethel? That’s a girl’s name. I don’t know where you get a name like E-thyl. Was it Aboriginal?

  The girl was covered in goose bumps every time she heard the name. She hated the name. Wondered where it had come from too and would have preferred to be called nothing, like normal. The girl wore filthy clothes – the ones that she had on when they left the swamp. Warren laughed at everything the red-haired people said. He had not stopped laughing since he had arrived. Should she laugh too?

  She felt thinner and darker than normal people while standing next to this strange family that she thought were the typical Australian family, because Warren said so. And beside their snowy whiteness, she felt an out of place darkness, much darker than Warren even whose golden skin glowed in the soft yellow lights of the house. The more she saw, the more in awe she was of how white Australians lived. Unconsciously, she edged herself up against the wall to keep out of the way of the endless movement of these big people scrambling and gushing with every footstep in welcoming Warren back into their home.

  Hold on now! I have only been gone a few weeks, he joked and laughed loudly, and even the girl was surprised to see him competing to be more extraordinary in a plain, simple laugh. The din of laughter echoing throughout the house was deafening for someone who never laughed. She thought Why laugh? How do you laugh? To say continuously, Ha! Ha!
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br />   Oh! Boy! Our Warren, the woman and her husband beamed in satisfaction, and together they raced through the dark echoing wood-panelled house to see the Christmas decorations in the backyard, while calling back for the girl to follow.

  Come on. You got to have a look, Eee-ah? Come on. It’s better than last year even. Now Warren was speaking like these people, even forgetting how to pronounce her name. What’s wrong with you? Get going. You think that they are contagious or something? Might turn you white? A voice that sounded like the Harbour Master echoed in her head.