Beth

Neme startles at the scratching of the possum, then returns to the jigsaw puzzle laid out on the table. She’s been cagey since the news crew left. I don’t blame her. We’ve spent most of the last week between four walls, and now, with the media hellbent on turning rumour into headline, even going out the front door will require vigilance. She found the puzzle on the bookshelf, next to the board games that belonged to my brother and survived my mother’s purging. It’s a map of Australia, drawings of oil rigs and huge mining trucks alongside stylised versions of kangaroos and sheep, Uluru like a giant slug in the centre. Rather than start at the edges, Neme’s been completing it in sections, two already done – the Great Barrier Reef and an Aboriginal man holding a spear above his head. It’s hard not to read into her method, or that last night, after she returned from the river, I found her in the studio lying facedown on the patchwork of paintings, her arms and legs spread into an X.

The landline rings. Neme pauses, her hand hovering above the puzzle. When I pick up the phone, I don’t recognise the number on the screen.

‘Hello?’

‘Beth, it’s Sal.’

‘Sal? Oh, how are you?’

‘Good, thanks. I was wondering if I might come over.’

Sal’s never called me before, never been to my house, but this last week has been a time of firsts. I look over at Neme, her hand still suspended above the puzzle. She’d probably prefer to be left alone. But Sal’s an Elder, which I can’t help thinking adds weight to her request. And the only one to ring before showing up.

‘Of course. What time?’

‘In half an hour or so?’

‘That would be fine.’

‘Just a moment,’ she says, followed by the sound of her hand muffling the phone – voices, more than one. Then she’s back. ‘Half an hour. Thanks, Beth. See you then.’

I take a moment to hang up, surprised by the suddenness and brevity of her call. I haven’t seen Sal since the last time I was at the Historical Society, about a month ago. She uses the archives to do research into her family, some of whom were at the mission, and on more than one occasion we’ve got talking over a cup of tea – mostly about grass varieties and bushfoods. Sal is part of a group that’s begun recording local Indigenous knowledge, including plant names and their uses. The first time I heard about their work, I was reminded of the day with the Blue Devils and how I still don’t know their Wergaia name. I have so much to learn. Though I don’t know Sal that well, her daughter Kate was in the same class as me in primary school. During those years, and later at high school, I didn’t learn anything about her language or Wotjobaluk land management. Our teachers reinforced the notion that the nation’s history only began with the arrival of the First Fleet.

The soil tells a different story.

When I spend time at the Historical Society, it can sometimes feel like I’m a detective on the trail of a cold case – like in one of my father’s beloved cop shows – as I track down images and descriptions of the land before the worst crimes were visited upon it by settlers. The work is never easy, given my own family’s record. There’s no doubt that if I cut down into the soil of this place and had it tested by an agronomist, the seam my family made would be easily detectable. Its toxic load would be evident from years of chemical fertilisers and insecticides – glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, DDT. And the profound loss of nutrients – from overcropping – and of root mass, the complex networks that once stretched for metres below the surface.

My hope is that if I keep doing this work and keep learning, then leave this land to the national park, a century from now that deadened seam will constitute the thinnest of all the layers.

A sliver in the eye of time.

Below it, millennia of Wotjobaluk living with, not off, the land.

And above it, a new layer, carbon-rich and alive.

Parked in the shade of the Sugar Gums, Sal’s blue Honda Civic has a fringe of dried mud, like the wash along the hull of a boat. She winds down the window, her dark hair streaked with grey around the temples, the frames of her glasses bright red.

‘Morning, Beth.’

‘Good to see you. Come on in.’

The car door creaks as she gets out, her hand rearranging the sheer scarf that got snagged in the seatbelt. She walks around to the back passenger side and emerges, carrying a little girl in a frilly dress.

‘My granddaughter, Mia,’ she says, hitching the girl higher on her hip. ‘Katie’s youngest.’

‘Hi, Mia. I’m Beth and this is Neme,’ I say, pointing to where she’s waiting on the verandah, thumbs hooked in the pockets of her cut-off jeans.

Mia wriggles out of Sal’s arms. With a quick glance at her grandmother, she runs over to Neme, who’s descended the steps and is waiting for her, crouched so she’s the same height. Mia says something to Neme and she smiles. As we walk towards the house, Sal stops beside a self-seeded patch of Woolly New Holland Daisies clustered at the bottom of the steps, their stems like unshaved legs.

‘They’ve been flowering early this year,’ she says.

‘I noticed that too. And in greater number, at least this side of the river.’

‘Maybe we could talk about that some other time,’ she says, and follows Mia and Neme up the steps.

I put the kettle on and bring a packet of biscuits over to where Sal and the girls have gathered at the table. Sal holds a finger up to her granddaughter.

‘Just one,’ she says with a warning look.

Mia screws up her nose but obeys, taking her time selecting the right candidate, then Neme leads her over to the section of the bookshelf where the picture books are kept. They take my old copy of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie over to the couch. Mia doesn’t seem bothered that no commentary adjoins the page turning. Behind them, the quilt Pearl gave Neme is draped over the back of the couch.

Sal leans towards them. ‘Neme?’

Both girls look up from the book.

‘They say you came from the desert.’ Sal gestures to the west. ‘Plenty of food out there this time of year, but you have to know what you’re looking for.’

Neme nods, her fingers gripping the edge of the open book.

‘You’re not talking, eh? I heard about that. That’s all right.’ Sal leans back into her chair, thoughtful.

Mia jumps off the couch and trots over to her. ‘Biscuit, Nanna,’ she says, tugging at Sal’s arm.

Sal smiles but shakes her head. ‘One’s enough,’ she says. ‘You won’t eat your dinner and then I’ll be in trouble with your mum.’

Mia places her hand in her grandmother’s palm and twists it around. I gesture to Neme to return the packet to the cupboard, which she does before coaxing Mia back to the couch, the book spread once more across their knees.

‘Got a lot of faith in the young ones,’ says Sal, watching them.

‘So do I,’ I say, the words affirming something I didn’t know I believed.

I wait for Sal to tell me why she’s come, but she seems content to have a moment to herself while I make the tea. I carry it over and try to hold my tongue, but for some reason her presence here makes me feel awkward, like I’ve done something wrong. As she drinks her tea, I tell her how adept Neme is at pricking out seedlings and the speed with which she learns, moving on to a description of the herbs that have emerged this spring among the grasses on my place, some for the first time. Sal listens, adding a comment here and there about which ones might be edible and at what time of the year, the conversation flowing along, similar to those we’ve had at the Historical Society, until Mia comes over again and whispers in her ear.

‘Toilet?’ Sal asks me.

Before I can answer, Neme takes Mia’s hand.

‘You all right to go with Neme?’ Sal asks her granddaughter.

Mia nods and the two of them head down the hallway to the bathroom. Sal watches them leave.

‘I’ve done a lot of work to trace family members, so I reckon I’d know if there was someone missing,’ she says, turning her focus on me.

I lower my mug to the table and wait for her to continue. What would it mean if Neme is Aboriginal? What would it change? Sal looks over the top of her glasses. Maybe she’s hoping I know something.

‘I remember the research you were doing,’ I say, not sure how to respond.

‘Research. I suppose you could call it that.’

‘Sounded like it wasn’t easy.’

‘No.’

Sal tugs on her scarf, the design a series of ochre dots. I remember once when I was little, my father took me for a walk by the river where the local Aboriginal community used to live in humpies right up until the sixties, including some of the kids in his class. He wanted to show me a scar tree. He told me it was proof that the ancestors of the boys he’d known at school had knowledge and skills long since lost. Real Aborigines, he called them, a thread of something like nostalgia in his voice. I’ve come across stories, in documents at the Historical Society, and elsewhere, in books about the area. Some I’ve heard. The hiding of local Wotjobaluk children in Gippsland to keep them safe from being removed by authorities. Or families stocking cupboards with tinned food they never ate so as to look like ‘good parents’, while secretly feeding their kids bush foods, often gathered during foraging trips into the desert. Earlier on, the stealing of sheep in retaliation for losing access to land. And, side by side with those stories, the records of the Aboriginal Advancement League, whose members included, at one point, nearly the entire population of a small town not far from here, their aim to create employment and housing for local Aboriginal families. In towns like this, the history is entangled. And still raw. I see that now, in Sal’s face, and the way she’s stroking her mug of tea.

‘Plenty of hurting,’ she says. ‘Things people don’t want known.’ She nods at the festival flyer lying on the table, Time to Remember written across the top. ‘Did Pearl drop that off?’

‘No, it came with the mail.’

‘She told me she’d been round here. I saw her in town this morning. She came over to speak to me. She didn’t seem well.’

‘She wasn’t herself when she turned up here the other day either,’ I tell Sal, glancing at the quilt, the flowers so lifelike from a distance. ‘What did Pearl say?’

‘Hard to make sense of. She kept stopping mid-sentence. Something about a room.’

‘Pearl didn’t mention anything about that when she was here. At least, not to me.’

Sal looks away, one of her earrings, made of long emu feathers, caught in her hair. ‘I thought the girl might be one of our mob,’ she says, clasping her hands in her lap.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything …’

‘Nanna,’ interrupts a small voice.

It’s Mia, standing in the hallway beside Neme, who’s let go of her hand. Neme walks past me to where Sal is sitting and puts her hand on Sal’s arm. Neme shakes her head.

‘So, you’re not, then,’ says Sal. ‘I thought as much, but I had to make sure.’ She covers Neme’s hand with her own. ‘Well, then, that’s that, eh?’

Mia runs over and jumps into her grandmother’s arms.

‘We should get going,’ says Sal, straightening her glasses. ‘Nice to meet you, Neme.’ Then she turns to me. ‘Thanks for the cuppa.’

‘Any time.’

She hoists Mia off her lap and says something to her that I don’t understand. Sal notices my confusion.

‘I’ve been teaching her Language,’ she says, stroking her granddaughter’s hair.

Mia slips out from under Sal’s hand and runs towards the door, turning back to make sure Neme is behind her. We follow them out, Mia singing to herself. Last time I ran into Sal, she told me about an old song she and some of the other Wotjobaluk women had been working on reviving, a song that the old people, as she called them, sang. She didn’t say what it was about.

The girls run down the steps, but Sal and I stop for a moment, both of us looking towards the desert, its edge so clearly defined by the line of the road.

Maybe it was nostalgia I’d heard in my father’s voice, but a distortion of its original meaning. A kind of homesickness, though in his case, for a place he’d never known. For what could’ve been. Or was it something more insidious? A refusal to concede that those boys from his class held on to skills and knowledge and, along with their descendants, had been building on them in this very community?

Sal turns to me and takes hold of my arm, her fingers cool against my skin. ‘You take care of that girl.’

‘I will.’

‘People aren’t always kind,’ she says, before walking away.

Neme helps me package seeds till dinnertime – Lady Sings the Desert Blues, Stars Fall on the Wimmera, Body and Soil – the two of us working side by side till my jazz collection of species is replenished. From time to time, Neme holds a sachet to her ear and shakes it, each seed rattling with a different pitch. Then we take down the washing – her things folded in the basket with mine – and make a beef curry, Neme on the onions, watching each slice fall away, as if its rings tell as much of a story as a cross-section of tree. I guess they do, just over a shorter span. Afterwards, I watch an old cop show while Neme spends an hour in the bath, as she does most nights, for which I have a few theories, some I don’t care to entertain. I help her put on the clean doona cover that carries the scent of blossom nectar, the wind having travelled through the Wimmera Wattle the whole afternoon. Then, with a small wave, she heads out to the back verandah, the old couch creaking as she settles into it. And playing beneath all of it Sal’s warning. People aren’t always kind.

I pour myself a nip, then a second. Another for the hell of it. Text Nate, Ring me when you get a chance. Doesn’t matter how late. By the time he does, I’m primed to have another go at the idea that you can distil the essence of a thing.

‘Everything okay?’

‘Sal was round here this afternoon.’

‘Yeah, she mentioned she might drop in.’

‘She said some things.’

‘People do that. Sounds like you’ve been having yourself a bit of a party.’

‘Let’s call it research. I’ve decided the salty mint combo works.’

‘Glad to hear it. Would this have anything to do with what Sal said?’

‘Probably.’ I fill him in – little Mia, Sal wondering if Neme was Aboriginal.

‘I hadn’t thought about that. Guess it would make a difference.’ He goes quiet, the sound of a passing truck in the background. ‘Which reminds me, did you read the article I sent you? The one Henry wrote about how the Harvesters are trying to have some new sacred relationship with the land. And all that weird stuff about acquiring “the status of indigeneity”?’

‘Yeah, I did. Been thinking about it. A new relationship with the land – that’s a no-brainer – but sounds to me like they’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’

‘In what way?’

‘Not sure yet. Like you said – weird.’

‘Maggie reckons they have nothing to do with Neme, but I’m not convinced. Hey, listen, I need to get going. You all right?’

‘Sure.’

‘Maybe lay off the salty minties. Your head will thank you in the morning.’

‘Sleep tight.’

The room feels empty after he hangs up, and a little loose at the edges. I stick the cork back in the bottle and return it to the kitchen cupboard. Outside, the moon hangs like a white stone, one pummelled by its version of weather and time.

As I lean into the window, I’m reminded of another night, not long after I found the box of stones in my father’s toolshed. A report came on the news that upset him. It was about the handback of Uluru. In the report, the politicians in grey suits were vastly outnumbered by the local Aboriginal people. At some point, one of the Elders, a blind man, half-joked to the reporter about how people would wake up one day to find ‘The Rock’ gone. When the news item ended, my father got up and marched outside. I followed him into the reddening light, worried that its colour was proof of his mood. He went into the toolshed and came out carrying the box of stones, which he threw in the back of his truck. He didn’t look at me, didn’t toot as he normally did when he drove off. I remember vividly that one of the tail-lights was smashed. Nothing was ever said about where he went that night, and I never saw that box or its contents again.

I squint at the moon. It has an aura around it that I didn’t notice before, green-tinged and, as far as I can tell, not a by-product of the gin. I shiver, despite the night still being warm. At the deepest level, my father must’ve always believed he might one day lose his land, to a native title claim, or some other force beyond his control. That his hold on this place was tenuous.

And, by inheritance, mine too.