Milton and Billy went fishing in Billy’s dinghy. ‘This way.’ Milton’s arm pointed across the smooth ocean toward some land, vague in the distance. He sat at the bow, his shape dark against the milky turquoise sea and the traces of mist which remained above it, as yet untouched by this day’s breeze.
They skimmed across the ocean. The outboard’s roar was left behind them, and the aluminium hull amplified the skip and tap of the sea. A lone dolphin flashed across their bow, dark and swift, and flew, once, for a blinking time only, clear of the water, splashing them, before looping away into its own blue silence.
Milton knew a place around the headland. He was returning there, to that place, the one quite close to the rocks and red beach, but where the water is very deep. The old people used to walk there. Milton and Billy motored slowly to and fro across it, dragging silver lures. Occasionally the lures broke the surface. Great fish sprang from the deep, and silver arcs flashed past the boat. Sometimes a lure was hit clear of the water.
The sudden singing of a line as it tautened. The queenfish Milton brought in; it shot into the air shaking itself to free the lure from its mouth. Milton kept the line taut. The line cut the water as the fish swam deep, and it burned in his hand. Billy had silenced the motor. A tension, a singing line. The fish leapt again, it seemed in slow motion, and hung in the air for a moment, a template held against the blue hues of sea and sky with a crowd of silver droplets feeing it.
Milton hauled it in, and the gaff pierced its armour of scales. Red blood spurted over the floor of the dinghy, and over their bare feet as the big fish thrashed among the stiff corpses of its fellows. They cursed each fish with joy, and with a tiny whispering fear as they saw the sun fade in each great, glassy, dying eye.
There were little suns all around them. They bounced from the knife blade, the aluminium of the dinghy, the ocean’s surface as the sea exhaled. Little suns sparkling thorns. The sea breeze began.
Returning around the headland they saw the catamaran which brought the rich tourists. It was moored out from where they’d left the car. They circled it in the dinghy, not having seen it up close before. The few staff remaining on board came out and called down to them as they tossed around in the echo of their motor and the chop bouncing off the large hull.
Someone invited them aboard, so they tied the dinghy to the catamaran and were led through small upholstered rooms, treading the carpets in their blood-caked feet. They sat at the bar with the crew and shared a beer with them, and spoke in embarrassed belches. It was small and muffled after being in the spread of the sea, under the roofless sky, in their tiny resonating dinghy, yet they spoke beneath those low ceilings as if across a great distance. The tourists and some of the crew had gone into the village to have a look. There was a corroboree tonight, for the tourists. Milton had forgotten, Billy hadn’t heard.
It’s a good idea, that crew said, having the bus take the tourists into the settlement itself. Must be rough on the bus though.
They took the dinghy ashore, waving their thanks to the crew gathered at the top of the ladder. The catamaran looked more impressive from the shore with its white paint sparkling as it slowly turned on its mooring, its shape and size so novel along this coast. It looked so out of place, so pristine, and so, well, advanced that it could have been a spaceship.
Halfway back to the camp they came across the bus. The chassis at the rear rested on the ground, and the vehicle sat at an uncomfortable angle. It had become bogged, and Raphael, revving the motor and spinning the wheels, had broken the rear axle. The tourists sat huddled under the trees, like exotic and very ripe fruit, unable to survive the heat and about to suddenly decompose into this foreign soil. Only fading pastel clothing, a sandal or two, and their rusting cameras would remain to show they ever existed here. Their hands waved the flies away from their flushed faces, and their breathing was rapid and light.
Some of the tourists accepted Billy’s offer and crammed themselves into the back of his vehicle and under the dinghy which, roped to a high rack level with the top of the cab, provided some shifting shade. Billy drove as carefully as he could, suddenly mindful of the frailty of the pale people behind him. The hot metal stung their thin skin, their soft flesh bruised, their eyes wept with the wind and dust. It seemed their brittle bones would break, their very skeletons fall apart within them as the Toyota lurched along.
Usually Billy and Milton distributed their catch as they came back among the houses. As they drove back through the camp Milton would tell Billy where to stop, and to whom they should give fish. It made them feel strong and generous. ‘Proper hunters, eh?’ one or the other of them would say.
They did the same today, otherwise the fish would be wasted. But they did it hurriedly, because of their cargo of fail humanity, but also because that cargo revived itself. They remembered they were paying passengers, and they transformed themselves from cargo to consumers. They cooed at the babies, wrinkled their noses at the smells, stared into the grimy gloom within doorways and shook their heads at the rubbish and the signs of neglect. Their cameras whirred clicked flashed in accompaniment. Such black skins, such bright sun; this would mean problems with film exposure for sure. The people receiving fish kept their heads bowed, and showed no pleasure in the gifts. They mumbled and turned away. The tourists wanted to be friendly, and shouted at them, apparently hoping that they could communicate with the aliens by doing so.
So everyone was pleased when they saw Jasmine. A white girl. A young white girl. Oh, all alone here. How does she do it? And Milton, awkward and grinning, gave a large fish to Jasmine. She was just outside her place. But he saw her standing, blank faced, with the heavy fish in her arms and changed his mind.
‘I’ll fillet it, clean it, bring it back to you.’ The passengers, standing on the tray, looking down on Milton and Jasmine, nodded approvingly among themselves. Milton leapt back into the cab and, even from the driver’s side, Billy felt himself wrapped in the curves of Jasmine’s smile and cleavage as she leaned in the passenger window. She gave Milton a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘For the audience,’ she winked.
The tourists disembarked, slowly and stiffy, at the community office. They felt better now, having reasserted themselves. ‘What an experience.’
Gerrard organised vehicles to ferry the others in and tried to arrange to get the bus fixed, somehow. He opened the artefacts store and invited the tourists to look through what was there. ‘Feel free to have a look around,’ he said, and some of the tourists continued to circle within the small store. The rest of them moved to just outside the doorway, and stood there, turning their heads from side to side, squinting and grinning. Then they headed for the community store which stood on the fringe of the housing and by one of the school’s gates. One person detoured toward the stone buildings and green lawns of the mission grounds, and a couple walked over to the school and peered in the windows of a classroom, before Alex, putting in some more weekend work, and always guarding his territory, came out to investigate them.
The corroboree that night, the first held for tourists at the camp rather than one of the beaches, was not a success. Too many of the men were late getting back from helping Raphael with the bus, and his bad mood had tainted them all. Samson didn’t turn up. It was a half-hearted affair, which didn’t start until after dark, and even then the fires did not glow, but weakly flickered and sputtered because they were lit too late and no one cared to stoke them. The performance finished early. Many reasons.
Gerrard said afterward that he wasn’t going to pay them, but he did when Samson started talking about the people getting together and sacking him. He was not a project officer’s arsehole. They didn’t want the bloody tourists here anyway.
Perhaps the tourists enjoyed the argument more than the dance.
Milton came over to visit Billy later in the evening. Billy had kept out of the way, not wanting to be asked to transport tourists back out to their catamaran. He was filleting fish, and putting them into small freezer bags when Milton arrived.
They filleted and packed the remaining fish together. It was a plan they had worked out this morning. Like most people in the camp Milton didn’t have a refrigerator, let alone a freezer. Now he could come over during the week and get tucker for just him and his family. They kept the packs stacked separately.
When they had finished they sat under the air-conditioner in the lounge room and drank tea. Milton looked around the room and admired the house again. ‘Maybe I’ll get one like this next time, one of these new ones,’ he said.
Billy looked at him across his cup. ‘Who? How do you decide who gets the new ones?’ he asked.
Milton shrugged. ‘It just happens. We all talk about it. Chairman, them on the council, their mob first.’
He picked up an old newspaper from under the chair and found the motoring section of the classified advertisements. ‘I want a Toyota like your one, strong one. My father can have my little old one then.’ He pointed at the small photographs. Billy read out the advertisements and prices, and they speculated on whether it was best to go all the way to Perth or Darwin and drive one back. Billy calculated how much Milton would need to save from each pay, and for how long. The result was depressing, so they ignored it.
‘I could leave it here, with you, in your yard then, maybe, when I wasn’t using it? Hey, I can leave my car here now, when I want to?’
‘Sure Milton, but why would you want to do that?’
‘All right for you, you haven’t got everyone, like family, cousin-brothers, everybody, using your stuff all the time. I need a box with a lock to keep everything in.
‘Then I could maybe get rich, go on holidays like these tourists that come here, if I wanted to. But I wouldn’t expect the people, where I went, to put on shows for me like in a zoo or something. And I wouldn’t complain to their boss and say I won’t pay, for seein’ nothin’ but a lot of old men and kids kickin’ dust and drunk men yelling.’
But many times the tourists come to the camp here, to look at the real Aborigine people. Them tourists from the Kimberley Cruiser boat, but them terrorists (tourists, yes?) always here in the dry time with their shiny four-wheel drives.
That Kimberley Cruiser is one big boat. Carpet all through it, little swimming pool on it, little pub there. Everybody has their own room, for himself and his wife or husband. Them people proper old but, most of them. Moses been on that boat. He went with Gerrard one time to have a look. He told us about it. Gerrard took a trip from here to Wyndham, or Darwin. He told us how food is cooked for you and is like on videos. He had a good time, and it cost him nothing. It was free for him. This last year that boat started coming in here for us to dance for them, because Karnama has the best dancers. Or pretty close to best anyway.
Most times we all go out to the beach and dance at about sunset. Fire dance. We have a fish, get oysters, maybe camp out. But sometimes now we get Gerrard’s bus and we bring them in here, if they come early in the day.
They drive in and their heads all turn around and around and they wave back like they are toys. They get of the bus slowly, because they all so old. They look mostly the same. White, big hats, clothes so clean. Pink spots, little pink bits around their nails and eyes. And they all smell sweet like soap, and powder. People here thought they came in to see the river, and they didn’t know why they just stayed around our store, and kept taking photographs. One man might take a photo of his old wife holding up one of our kids. Or a photo of her standing in the shop with all us mob, buying things. They think we monkeys maybe. Or sitting on the ground outside, in the shade, with us. We laughed when their clothes got dirty but.
Some of the people here say we should stop letting tourists in. They just treat us as we in a zoo, or something. Even government ones, not all of them. Talk to us like they can’t talk proper English.
Those boat people, we can laugh at them, even though we get sick of their cameras. We can get away from them. But the tourists that drive in, ha! You go to a beach and you can’t be alone with your own. We tell you, it’s not so good if there’s strangers on the beach with you. One mob stole an outboard from a big boat the government gave us. That was the only outboard we had then. They take all our oysters. Sometimes they make more rubbish than us, and some of our mob bad enough, for sure. They shit everywhere. You go to some of the beaches and there be toilet paper everywhere through the bush behind the beach.
People everywhere in dry time. If you stay at the office, the basketball court you can see them coming in. School holidays time especially. One, two, three, more. Dust with them, but sun still shining of them. Stuff packed everywhere; on top, on trailers, crammed against windows. And they look look look. Stop outside the shop, come in and stand around with us.
We can make money from them. Gerrard says that, lots of people say that to us. What for? What we want their money for? What can they give us for what we have? More grog? More card games? We must be mad bastards. That’s what some other people think. Father Pujol’s time, no tourists here.
Not even museum people come in then. Plenty now. And too many people want to go with them, show them things. Drive around in a big four-wheel drive, just like tourists themselves. They say they will help us to look after our sites, and guard the old things. But, how come?
In the old days we did look after our sacred sites ourselves, without letting white people, white men, women, take care of them. We know what to do. These others shouldn’t interfere with our sacred things. Kiddies of ours, young men even, they not allowed to go near our sacred sites, trees even, that was anywhere in the bush. We didn’t let them know because they wasn’t men. They had to be initiated before they could go to these things and they sacred to us. They are very sacred things. We didn’t say nothing to nobody, we just look after these things ourselves. That’s why we don’t like white women or white men coming to ask different things about our things, or saying we should do this, and why don’t we ... That’s our sacred things. What they want them for, too. It’s not right for so many people to show them things. And what are we? They studying us too? Like animals? Or maybe they want to steal our secrets, and when even the black man has lost his special things and his magic, then—hey, here it is!—the whitefellas have it and they use it on us.
Maybe we will have to change. Maybe make more things sacred, not just places, and keep them just for us. But then, we already sell some things to tourists.
Maybe we make a little building like a church, ourselves.
You know, you can’t act the fool with our Law. It’ll kill you.
True. Like when a young man, uninitiated man, eats food that he shouldn’t. Maybe he eats bush turkey. Well, you see. He get feathers and bones growing out of his knees. I hear one man got cancer from showing and working on sacred sites that were too powerful for him. That might happen you know.
But it is maybe true we have had tourists for a long time. Old Dr Oliver, he been coming up here every year since he was a young fella. He stays with Fatima, in her hut, on the little verandah there. He brings up a big Toyota and takes her and some of the other old people out to show him things. He takes photos and videos of old camps, and ovens. Indonesian ones. So those Indonesians, they tourists too, long time ago. White people also. But they stay.
There’s another story, very good story, about early days and tourists, about this place. It was somewhere about Long Reef, somewhere about there. This bloke, Indonesian bloke, came in with a lugger, and he saw this girl. Young girl, and pretty. He made love with her, and he tell her, ‘Come on, we can go on this lugger. We’ll take you.’
But the girl wanted her husband too. Silly girl, she did jump on the lugger, with her husband. Her husband Walanguh, or the one who father for Walanguh, I forget. Walanguh told this story.
They sailing sailing sailing. This white bloke told him, told the husband, this Aborigine man, ‘Climb up there and take rope to tie it with.’ The Aborigine man climbed up to the top of the sails on the rope.
And this man cut that rope! This white bloke cut that rope. And he fell, that Walanguh one, he fell into the sea. They left him, swimming, swimming right out there in the ocean.
But this Aborigine man, he’s a magic man and he was swimming across and he sing for that whale. He sing song for that whale, and that whale was way out swimming in deepest ocean. The whale went in close to the man, and the man get on top of his back next to his head.
He sat there above the water, in the sun and the spray, and he patted the whale, and he told him, ‘We go for that lugger and we smash that lugger!’
The whale swam fast with that Walanguh man up on its back. They went straight for that lugger, and smashed it. Smashed it to pieces!
The man got his Aborigine girl, put her on the whale, and away they went to their home, to their island. When they got to that special island the whale came into the shallow water. They gave it fish, all kinds of fish. They patted him, and they let it go.
And this is a true story this one, this is a true story again. This mob here can tell you. Same words again.
And where is that island? You thinking that, eh? You want to know? But it might not be there, where it was, that land. Maybe just bones, nothing.
Listen, we tell no lies to you. Not ever. But we could help you there, maybe.