Chapters

Desire

Of course all the people were shocked at Franny’s death. Word first came with the return of Raphael and the others. Billy saw their vehicle return: Raphael had acquired a new one, an old station wagon which looked like it had little time left to it after being bullied along the track all the way from Derby. Billy was standing out under the mango trees in front of his house which faced onto the main track to Derby. He saw them return. He waved, but they ignored him.

Moses stayed in Broome and Derby for a time with some of his family, for the trial.

Alex returned having heard nothing of the murder, and complaining only of his own problems with ‘Stella’s crew’. So the news made him quiet, anyway.

But the real shock was the verdict of the jury. Those that went to the court case returned in dribs and drabs. They were sullen and hurt. Moses tried to say how it was for him, and he spoke with the others, quietly. It was a disjointed thing, and hard to understand without anger and weakness and loss.

He had been in that court the whole time. Other people did march, protest. He been like a shadow in that court.

Yeah. It was in the news. On the television. Everything. And they let them killers go free. That shocked the whole Aboriginal people, the whole community, you know. Why, we, nowadays we follow the white law, you know.

They wanted us to follow the white law and we did that.

There was the rotting smell of unhappiness, defeat, and festering, helpless anger in the hot winds that slipped around the community and left the red dust in eyes ears between teeth.

It was not good. People carried bitterness, mistrust, defeat with them. In their pockets, purses, shoes; in their bowels and heads. It was always there, and now it was growing.

The students came to school late. Billy visited houses in the early morning. Everyone weary.

Billy walked to school early in the balmy mornings, and then home again in the bone-wilting heat. Liz and he, they slumped in the kitchen chairs and ate burnt mission-baked bread. They returned to school to do preparation until a couple of hours before sunset when Billy would go to the gorge and fish. The red rocks radiating heat, the sky bleeding, the river rushing with the tide. The sound of the water, all the time muttering, speaking, singing.

Moses, you know, he sat in that court, and sometimes Fatima was with him, and sometimes Sebastian. They sat there listening like big fools. Nobody telling them anything. Sitting. Looking at them talking twisting showing themselves off like big rich boss men. The boy dead.

After what happened you expect someone, the crown or someone, to do something. If we gotta follow the white law then we expect them to do the right thing by all Australians, by everybody.

We Aboriginal people. Look at us. We’re low down, we down there in the dark, and nobody. One time it was different, for us and this land. We had ones that could fix things, and could fly, disappear, punish.

We feel we must find our traditional homeland, go home, go back and try to forget. Or no? Maybe we should try to find answers to these problems. We are trying so hard for the past and our hopes to return. Maybe some of that past and our power.

Alphonse returned from prison. He was glad to be home, but he had like an adventure and holiday staying in prison for a short time.