For a long time we knew about Araselli’s growing belly, about the baby inside her. She stayed here, swelling and swelling, keeping inside and to herself for a long time. Then she went away to Wyndham to stay with her aunty.
She came back. In the old days people thought you got a baby from dreaming, from spirits coming into you. Now people know different, the young ones could even stop having babies and still have their fun if they wanted. Better not let Father Paul know but. Silly buggers. Maybe there is still some of the old way in it.
So whose baby was it? It was black, proper black. Everyone could see it was Alphonse’s son. We knew for sure then. There you are. They had a baby together.
It was a pretty one. Everybody was happy to have a new baby. They could believe that they did not know, not for sure, where it came from.
And Araselli was proud and strong with everybody. Once, when all her friends were around her, she took the baby from Stacie’s arms and quickly walked to Alphonse who stood with his back to her. She bumped him, he turned, she said his name and thrust the baby at him. He took the child, perhaps instinctively to save it from falling, and turned in a circle looking down, looking down at the grinning gurgling child in his arms. Alphonse and child. Alphonse himself grinning too big. The biggest smile.
He said nothing. He gave the child to someone so that they could return it to Araselli who had walked back to her friends and was laughing with them.
So. Araselli and Alphonse. They began to swagger around together, in front of everybody, talkingsmiling together. Nothing bad happened to them. They shouted back at the people who growled at them. Their parents gave up, because after all they had been arguing with them for too long and had not been able to change their minds. Brother Tom, the Sisters, they shrugged, they smiled, they held the baby, they drank cups of tea with those two and their baby. People gave up. They was young, good looking, happy.
But, they have promised ones. They rumbud. Before, Araselli and Alphonse only talked through certain other people. They were not allowed to look or talk to one another. But that’s only the way it should be, the way it used to be. They used to do it like that, even Araselli and Alphonse. But now? Now they live in one room, have a baby together, don’t hardly talk to anybody else, don’t worry about nobody.
Things are all anykind and make no sense.
Alphonse is a strong young man, and clever too. When he was a boy, about Deslie’s age, he went away to Melbourne with Father Paul. He went in a big sports day there. He came back with shining trophies which he gave to Father Paul to look after, and they put his photograph in the newspapers and wrote about him.
Father Paul let Alphonse go and use a room in the mission to do exercises. He made him lift weights, and he timed his running with his watch.
But Alphonse lost interest, being busy with Father Paul all the time after work, and working with Brother Tom all day in the garden. He got too tired, and he didn’t really want to go away running against white fellas anyway. What for? Not for himself.
They trusted him at the mission. He used to drive all the machines, and they knew he could be left to do jobs on his own.
He was always the one who drove out to the airstrip and loaded and unloaded supplies. When they put the telephones in, Alphonse would ring the orders through for the mission. Then, without the mission knowing, he arranged for them to bring beer in. For himself alone.
Now? Alphonse and Araselli, with their baby child, stay in one small room, and they keep it for themselves. They have a video player. The room is dark because they have a heavy blanket across the window. When the air-conditioner used to work it was cold too, and they would stay under a blanket. It was different then but, because that was before the baby. Now they lay there in the dark, and it’s hot, and the video screen flickers colours across their faces, and their eyes reflect the screen, and they look at their child and see the two screens in his face, and they look at one another and see them there too.
Deslie tells Billy that they just lay there all day and don’t let others in. Have some grog, too. The other girls, and Stacie tells Liz this, reckon that Araselli’s just bossy, and is scared of the other girls taking Alphonse away from her. She used to be good fun, but now! Not any more. She gets cranky.
Some of those girls, and women, been going over to that builders’ camp, and drinking beer. It’s not good you see. They get a little bit drunk, and friendly because they like it, you know, and they do silly things gunna cause trouble. They not ask the men, not ever. Those white blokes shouldn’t ask ’em over to have a drink. They sneak over there you know, don’t tell anybody where or when or whatever, but we know. Believe us, we know.
We told council, ‘No grog.’ But, no one listens.
That Araselli. What’s with her? She want trouble? Plenty of it already anyway, with her going with Alphonse when they’re rumbud and they have that baby. We talk about this and talk about it and we have to do something, or there be all sorts of things going on make Karnama go down get worse too quick. But who listens? We got no stories, we got no punishments. We losing it. We losing that power.
In the evenings the builders make a campfire by the shed where they sleep and store their gear. They sit around, eat, and drink. They drink until they are sleepy or until they know if they have more they cannot work tomorrow. Experienced drinkers.
All the school teachers went there one evening. They were asked for a meal. They walked into the light, and sat with those men. Billy smiling, quiet joking, but not able to say much and often not being heard. Annette left early because of young Alan. The big heavy flanked men conscious of that woman who remained among them.
As the night aged Liz got angry with the talk of the people who lived here, with the men’s muted braying about women, their own appetites. She stood up, said some angry things, and the men said they were sorry, and not used to a lady in their camp. She got angrier, blazed there in the light, and left. Alex tried to explain it away. At the school, he said, it’s very trying, we’re all tired. And Billy said I think she is right, quietly, I agree with her, it seems there is nothing to say. And he disappeared.
Some mutterings. Then, like testing, like reassuring itself, a louder voice. Haw.
Each night the laughter and the voices carry from behind the mission workshop where they are camped. Haw haw haw from the flickering firelight and the bright neon torches. The pop and fizz of cans being opened, and the jokes about the women and who they fancied.
Eh Barry, that Sharon fancies you mate. You gunna try her, or what?
I’m a married man, mate.
She’s all right. Put a bit of weight in her legs. Big tits.
Shit, I wonder if you grabbed ’em young and tied their fuckin’ feet up like the chinks do, eh? Stop ’em gettin’ such big hoofers. Squeeze some meat back into their fuckin’ legs.
Fuckin’ legs.
What’s her name? Araselli? You get her up the duff? That baby yours?
Nah, too black for you.
She’d be all right, I reckon.
Geez you’re a desperate bastard.
Haw. Haw, haw. Cans popping, meat sizzling on their fires.
People have seen some of the women over there. On the edge of the light. Shadows were there, different voices. Just for a laugh and a drink they say.
Raphael and one or two other men went over to the camp one Friday, night-time, evening, to talk, have a drink. But they were not wanted there. It was polite. They had a drink or two, but knew they had to go. When they left it started again.
Haw haw.
A Saturday morning, very early, and Milton was knocking at Billy’s door. He came in and sat down.
‘Oh no, what I gunna do?’ He laughed ruefully and pushed himself back into the armchair. ‘Mr Seddum sack me I reckon. Alex gunna sack his gardener.’
Billy was puzzled. He studied Milton closely. ‘Milton you’re pissed. You been drinking, haven’t you?’
‘No. Not just now. Last night, yeah. I didn’t know, see.’ His head was bowed. He straightened and relaxed his arms, pushing himself to and fro in the cushions of the armchair. He looked up, gave an unreliable smile. There was something shameful in his pleading, bloodshot eyes. ‘I had just two maybe three cans so I was little bit drunk and I had the taste of it. Someone gave me little glass one, you know bottle, and I had that. I didn’t know.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘If I go and tell them now ... They forgive you. It better to confess and say you did do wrong. They forgive you like Christ, eh? Oh, but that Father Paul, he frighten me. He must forgive me, eh?’
‘Forgive you for what?’
Milton pushed himself back into the chair again, then drummed his fingers on its arms. He pivoted both bare feet on their heels and moved them in little arcs.
‘I didn’t take ’em. I only drank some. I knew, and I wasn’t gunna drink any then. But they was already stolen.’
Billy laughed shortly, and leaned toward Milton. ‘You buggers pinched Brother Tom’s home-brew and now you’re feelin’ guilty.’
‘Not me, that other mob. I should tell them now, eh? That best. My father said I should ’cos they know.’
Milton felt guilty, but he was also frightened of what might happen if he told them. Especially of what Father Paul might do.
He kept shaking his head, talking of confession and forgiveness, his head down and his forearms resting on his knees. Billy and Liz looked at one another.
Eventually Billy walked over to the mission with Milton. They passed within twenty metres of Sebastian, who sat in the shade of a tree outside one of the houses. He appeared not to look at them.
Billy left Milton standing by the outer wall and large gate of the monastery courtyard and continued looking for Father Paul. He found him at the other end of the monastery building examining the door of the old kindergarten. Billy realised why Milton had not been keen to look for Father Paul over this way. This must be where they kept the home-brew.
‘G’day Paul. Bit of strife last night I hear. I had a visit from someone who knew about it, and’s now wracked with guilt. He’s waiting over at the monastery there. Okay?’
Father Paul hesitated a moment. Looked at Billy a second time. ‘Right. I’ll see him later. Thanks.’
Much later that same day two cans of beer sweat on a laminate table in the monastery courtyard. Two cans of beer are lifted to two mouths. Father Paul’s fingertips are nicotine stained, and his thick fingers sprout tufts of fair hair. Like the hand of God, it is large, and mottled, and the fingernails are bitten down to the quick.
‘I always sleep with my door open. Anyway, during the night I woke up. I was lying on my side facing the wall, but I knew there was someone inside my room. So I turned, as if in my sleep, and I could tell who it was. Raphael and Alphonse. They came only a few steps in before one of them grabbed the other’s arm and beckoned towards the door with his head. I heard Raphael whisper, “Not here.”
‘They were drunk, I could smell it. Raphael’s a dangerous bastard. I couldn’t see any point getting up then. But I was angry. So when I found out they’d broken in and pinched the beer, I knew who it was.
‘So I went over, early in the morning, and walked into where they were sleeping. I knew they’d be crook as dogs. It was all bluff. I was shouting, “Let’s fight, come on! You break in and steal from the mission, you’re looking for trouble.” I walked in rolling my shirt sleeves up and just stood over them.
‘They were crook, they just looked at me. Just lying there, looking at me. The family was there of course. They apologised and promised they’d pay for the beer and the lock, bring Brother Tom’s bottles back, and donate a week’s pay to the mission.’
Billy just nods, keeps nodding. He has no voice here.
‘I went with Moses and old Sebastian straight over to Gerrard’s place and sorted it out so that we can get the money taken straight out of their wages, before they get it. They’ll be in church now for a week or two.
‘What can you do? Call the police? Again? For what? They didn’t say who else was in with them. Milton we know. Most of them, probably. Bloody Alphonse.’
Billy sips his beer. ‘Alphonse?’
‘He’s a disappointment to me, that one,’ says Father Paul. He looks at his fingers tapping the can. ‘The trouble with Alphonse, with a lot of the people here, is that he doesn’t want to push himself. It’s no good for him here, it’s too easy to just slip back. No, not back. That seems impossible. But it’s too easy to, to fall. Maybe one day he’ll get on the council, and get the pick of the vehicles and charter fights out when he wants ... He’ll get lazy, a worse worker. I wanted him to go away, but ... And now, look at him shacked up with Araselli. And her. She’s one of the ones the builders have had over there.’
‘Araselli?’
‘Yeah. But see, I’m being paternalistic again. I’ll be glad to go on sabbatical ... Look what we wanted to give these people, and now ... What can you do, eh? I don’t like what I do, have to do. We have just taken things away.’
The empty can is crushed in a powerful hand.
Billy saw Milton at school next day. Milton was relaxed. He had helped collect up the bottles for Brother Tom and he was going to church every morning and evening. Father Paul had heard confession from him.