‘The builders are here, got in this morning,’ Gerrard told Billy when they met between the office and the store. ‘Their vehicle’s knocked around a bit. The road’s still pretty bad they say.’
‘They starting Monday then?’ Billy asked. Gerrard nodded. Billy continued, ‘Any of our mob working with them?’
Gerrard leaned forward. ‘You’re joking,’ he said. ‘And whaddya mean, “our mob”? No, this lot don’t know how to work.’ He leaned back again and looked around. ‘Anyway, one of the builders was here last year apparently. He knows them. There’s grog around so someone must’ve got him to bring some in for them.’
Alphonse, Raphael, some other young ones, they down near Running Creek opposite the old people’s camp. They had flagons with them, passing them ’round. They sitting there in the shade, on the rocks, just talking and drinking but when they got a bit drunk and started up they got noisier. Deslie was down there with them. He didn’t drink but. They didn’t let him, yet. He come up to the store and get smokes for them when they run out.
Araselli of the growing belly went for a walk about sunset with Margaret. They were talking about what they did a long time ago and what it would be like now if all the old people were still alive. They talking about what you did when you went to school in Darwin, in Perth. They were talking about boys.
Araselli saw them first. Alphonse, Raphael, Milton, Bruno, and that young one, Deslie. They were sitting in that long grass on those little river rocks at Running Creek. Them boys yelled out to those girls. ‘Hey you girls. Hey Margaret, Araselli, what you doing. Hey, spunky girls.’ Alphonse yelled out too. ‘Araselli.’ He young that fella. He shouldn’t drink with them older boys, them men. He shouldn’t say Araselli’s name, or look at her. They rumbud, see. They looked at one another, again, all right. Done more than that, Alphonse, Araselli, and their growing belly.
Araselli said, ‘Those boys are drunk.’ Those girls bent their heads and looked at each other and laughed. They turned around and ran away laughing, and looking back at those boys. The boys called out, but didn’t run after them. Too drunk even then. Too lazy too, probably. But Alphonse must have felt a hunger and ache inside him, looking after her like that, the way he did.
Later they came up to the camp here and were shouting and making noise. Alphonse did fight with one of Araselli’s brothers. Raphael was yelling yelling yelling all the time and acting like a crazy man. He pushed Sebastian even, a little bit, and Sebastian’s boys came in and they took him away and pushed him, shoved him. He’s crazy that Raphael. We should do something. They was making noise all night. And Raphael even had a mission vehicle next morning and he was driving crazy in it. He could kill someone that one. I don’t know how he got it, maybe stole it from that Murray. Father Paul was away that weekend. If he was here this wouldn’t happen. When we were on the council and Father Pujol was here this didn’t happen. We should do something. But they don’t listen this mob.
Murray was over at the mission workshop early in the morning. Raphael came and asked for a Toyota. Murray said no. A mission vehicle didn’t go anywhere unless someone from the mission went in it.
Murray and Raphael were standing on opposite sides of the utility tray. Murray realised that Raphael was drunk.
‘I know you don’t trust me...’
‘Sorry Raphael, that’s the way it is. We don’t lend them to anybody.’
‘Steve said yes. I asked him just now. He said take one.’ Steve was a lay missionary who had been there a month.
‘Maybe he got mixed up. He can’t say yes or no about the vehicles.’
‘He did. Brother Tom, he there too.’
‘Sorry Raphael. No can do.’
Raphael was edging around the tray.
‘You white hole. Fuck you gardiya prick. Why not? Why not you tell me why, eh?’
Murray moved around the utility tray to keep opposite Raphael. Murray had heard of Raphael’s capacity for violence, and he was worried. He realised that some of the other young men were standing about fifty metres away on the edge of the workshop yard.
‘You gardiya hole. You don’t trust us Aborigine? You don’t wanna help black people? One day I make you sting, I lift you proper.’
Murray had the utility between himself and Raphael. The workshop was behind him. This was ridiculous. This bastard was mad, and there was no sense arguing with him. He began moving toward the workshop with his back half turned to Raphael. He had his head down but was watching Raphael on the edge of his vision.
Raphael stomped off to where the others were, but kept yelling at Murray. ‘Fuck off. Look, crawl off like a dog.’
Murray was angry and humiliated. Raphael and the others were walking away. Murray turned into the workshop and busied himself.
He heard a vehicle roaring from the mission grounds a couple of hundred metres away and immediately walked over there. Brother Tom was standing at the mission gates looking up where the road led through coconut palms.
‘You give him it?’
‘No. He called out as he drove past, said he’d seen you. Did he? Had you seen him?’
‘Yeah. He abused me. I said no. I thought he was going to fight me.’
They could see the Toyota speeding recklessly and sliding around the corners of the small tracks leading around the edge of the camp.
Murray turned to Brother Tom. ‘What do we do? What do you do to protect yourself if they do want to fight?’
‘Don’t let it happen in the first place. Use a shotgun. Shoot them below the knees.’ He gave a snort of resignation. ‘Only joking.’ They inhaled and sighed. ‘It is no good. You can’t talk with a drunken Aborigine.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘That Toyota will run out of fuel very soon. I used it yesterday. As long as no one is killed first.’
‘So when it stops we go and get it?’ asked Murray.
‘Yes, when it stops we will go up there. Many of them will be angry with the young men. They do not like Raphael. The way he bashes his two wives, Stella and Gloria, anyone. We will go up there and see.’
Billy and Liz were over at the school on Sunday. From there they watched a fight take place among the houses near the school gate. Two women were pushing and sparring at one another like buck kangaroos. A group of men and women jeered and cheered them, and swore and cursed one another. The distance and the window glass meant that the shouts carried thinly to Billy and Liz, and the dominating silence made it strangely theatrical. It was pathetic of course, but also, somehow, brave, to be making an effort of any sort in all this vastness. They stood at the edge of the window, so that they would not be seen watching, and the frame made the scene seem almost as if staged. They were intrigued.
Next day at school the senior students were sullen and subdued. One girl wrote this in her journal:
Francis sat on his own and worked quietly all morning. He wrote little, but drew a careful and detailed picture of a muscular and bare-chested Aboriginal man careering through the mission grounds in a Toyota. White people fled in all directions. Young black families gathered in bunches and laughed and cheered, some older ones sat under the trees watching glumly. Deslie, who couldn’t write even his own name with confidence, wanted to colour it in.
At recess and lunchtime all the kids were talking about how Raphael was driving like he was in a race and how he pinched a car from the mission. They were excited and impressed with his daring.