Return to Kingsley
Within a week of the couple’s return to Kingsley Mick found employment as a labourer with the Western Australian Government Railways. He tried to talk his mate Jack into applying for a job with him at the Red Hill Mining Company as miners.
“Look, I am a Yamagee, I work on top of the ground—not underneath like a rabbit,” Jack said.
“It was only a suggestion,” Mick said.
“We should take Katie and show her where her Grannies lived, Jack,” suggested Phyliss as she collected our empty mugs.
“Come on then,” said Jack, rising from the rickety chair which he picked up and placed in the corner. “We’d better go while it’s cool. Leave your ute in the driveway. It’ll be safe there.”
I’m glad one of us is confident and trusting. I did as I was bid, not completely sure whether I should leave it there. You never know who you cannot trust these days.
Their ancient Holden station wagon had all the characteristics of an outback owner’s vehicle—both exterior and interior. I had to move an assortment of tools and mechanical parts to make room for my feet. Everywhere you looked there was red dust about a couple of centimetres thick. I gave a light cough and wound the windows down to let the fresh air in.
“Be careful with that window Katie, sometimes the glass slips down and it’s hard to wind up,” advised Jack as he started the motor and drove down the main street. He turned right near the Shell garage, stopping only when we came to a couple of pathetic looking tamarisk trees and an equally depressed peppermint tree.
“This is it,” said Jack as he pulled up and stopped the engine, and pointed to where the house once stood. It was overrun with couch grass, except in the places where there were concrete slabs.
“This used to be the laundry and the bathroom,” he said stamping on them with his right foot for emphasis. “The toilet used to be outside and covered with purple morning glory creepers.”
Yes, I could imagine that, quite a common sight even today.
Phyliss plucked a handful of leaves from the miserable looking peppermint tree and crushed them in both hands and took a big sniff. “I used to do this all the time when the old people lived here,” she said wistfully.
Jack began pacing up and down, marking an invisible rectangular plot where the bough shed was, or rather where it used to be attached to the front of the house. This was a popular place, often filled with visitors who would come to listen to the Irishman sing or perhaps join in with him.
His Irish tenor’s voice would carry across the black stony flats. For a few hours at least, Michael Muldune would be mentally transported to his birthplace in Ireland, borne on wings of song. This was how he was able to express his emotions, through his music.
“Did he talk about his homeland, his country or his family?” I asked wistfully.
“Not much,” came the reply from Jack who was trying very hard to recall those memories of yesteryear. “Only that his mother and father, he called them his ‘mam’ and ‘da’, died in Ireland, his only sister ran off with a Protestant and that he had an aunt and uncle in America, Boston I think, and some cousins too.”
“But surely there must have been times when a memory stirred or he may have had a twinge of nostalgia, perhaps?”
The two old people looked at each other. I could see that they did not quite understand my question so I rephrased it.
“Did he long for his home, you know, say he wished he was in Ireland at special times of the year?”
“No, but he used to sing a lot when he was feeling low, or miserable. You know all those Irish songs we grew up with,” said Jack as he appealed to his memory by cocking his head to one side, at the same time taking a drag on his roll-your-smoke. “You remember, Phyliss, you know, ballads, folksongs and sometimes he had requests from people to sing hymns like ‘Beyond the Sunset’, ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’, and ‘Whispering Hope’. But I think his favourite was ‘Danny Boy’.”
His sentiments were carried pleasantly in the evening, usually at sunset. How many times did he sing this refrain, I wondered. It must have been scores of times during his lifetime, I’d guess.
Lucy never joined in the singing. She preferred to listen to her husband, sometimes humming silently to herself.
“Your grandfather leased this block from the railways and when he died they reclaimed it,” said Jack, marking the invisible boundary with his right hand.
“Well we’d better go back before it gets too hot,” said Phyliss, this gentle gracious little half-caste lady who had befriended my grandmother so many years before.
I was reluctant to leave this place. I wanted to spend a few more minutes and try to visualise and feel their ghostly presence as they must have sat in the shady bough shed shooing the sticky bush flies away from their meals and themselves. This is where they sat silently or singing, but always watching the vivid sunsets every evening—a different one each day, none the same, special uninhibited views of the beautiful Kingsley sunsets.