Bush sounds. EDIE, CATHY, LON and TOM appear.
EDIE: Over the river. The other side of the river from here. On the second Yumba. Tin houses that grew like topsy, when’s that hammering ever going to let up, our parents used to say. How many more extensions can that poor old excuse for a house take? Not always bodgy, sometimes good. Kerosene lights and long shadows across the circle of dirt grown smooth and bald from all those feet playing rounders for as late as you could as kids. Are you kids still playing rounders, school’s tomorra. And casuarinas and trudging home from the pictures along the creek on a moonless night, the noise of old aunties playing cards to steer you home by. And good we’re not on the run anymore. And Jim the water tank coming over selling water and weren’t we mugs thinking that was all right when town water had been on for years. In town. Everyone knew everyone. Gambling away under the stars.
LON: When it’s that still you can hear your own pulse. Some days that still you’d swear you can hear your old man. Watch that woody weed before it gets a hold. Clear as day. Everything’s always sooner than you think.
TOM: Up the top of the second hill from the homestead. Not when the light bleaches everything to a blur, but morning time. Dusk. The top of the trees, you look down on them, they’re making patterns like in paintings. If an artist came, they’d paint the trees, the horizon maybe, the red earth. One thing for certain is even if I was there with them they wouldn’t paint me.
CATHY: When you open the gate to leave, there’s a ridge that’s been made in the soil. Over the years. The gate must have scratched and scraped that dirt and now there’s an arc. And on top of that little arc, near the fence post, are a couple of flowers. Weeds really, that manage to grow. I notice them. And I’m always careful when I open the gate not to crush them. Tessie and Lon, sometimes they crush them, but eventually they grow again. I don’t say to them watch the weeds. They’re my secret, I suppose. My pact with the weeds. If a pact can be one way.
Transition.
The heat of the day. LON is waiting for TOM, who is repairing a fence, offstage.
LON: [trying to find a rhyme] Wedding… Wedding… Treading. Heading. Bedding. Jesus. Heading…
Pause.
Only yesterday it seems
That Tessie was on her first pony,
Today she’s resplendent in white
And hitched to Tom Maloney.
As kids they played and raced their horses—
TOM enters during the following. LON repeats some of the poem for him.
How’s this? Dum de dum de dum, etcetera, bit of work needed at the top then…
Today she’s resplendent in white
And hitched to Tom Maloney.
As kids they rode and raced their horses
From Sanders End to Devil’s Courses—
TOM: That’s good.
LON: My darling Tessie has become Tom’s bride, Now they’re up for a whole new ride.
Pause.
I’ll work on the last two lines.
TOM: Good. It’s good.
LON: For the reception. It’ll change. You need to think about it for a while and… I’ll work it up.
TOM: Wouldn’t be an occasion without one.
LON: It’s an occasion all right.
TOM: It will be.
LON: You’re working up a sweat all right. Sorry I can’t help.
TOM: Smoke-oh, eh. [Pause.] She’s feeling the pressure, I think. Tessie. The wedding.
LON: Women get nervous.
TOM: Once she gets the dress right.
LON: Once she gets the dress right. That’s right. [He kicks his heel into the soil.] You think how many times you’ve fallen on this. Hard as iron. Christ, I’ve had some falls on this.
TOM: If it’s got four legs it can knock you down.
LON: You think back to those stock camps. Sleeping on the bare ground. I probably wouldn’t get back up again these days.
TOM: You’re going all right.
LON: Still, it can feel like a mattress when you’ve done a hard day’s work. Until about three o’clock in the morning when the Bundy wears off.
TOM: True.
LON: Very few nights I haven’t slept here, Tom, on this property. Very few nights in my life. On the few occasions I wasn’t sleeping here I dreamt all night I was.
TOM: I had a dream the other night. About that fan belt in the generator.
LON: Dream how to fix the blasted thing?
TOM: Almost. Every night I shut my eyes and go come on, have that dream again, but this time don’t wake up.
LON: We’ll figure it out.
TOM: Yep.
LON: You know, when my father arrived out here to take over he was a city boy, all he knew about the land was that vegetables grew in it. No natural affinity whatsoever. Sure, he’d spent his Christmas holidays up here, to see the old aunty, and the spinster cousin Alice. I remember him saying after this cousin Alice died, and the will was read, and he came up here to take over, he scanned the property and felt like he’d been handed an orphan. This land was orphaned, and the stock was orphaned. But he knew he’d been called to set it right. And he lived up to the task that had been set. You get me? You get what I’m saying?
TOM: No.
LON: I’m not a well man.
TOM nods.
I mean really not well.
TOM: You’ll be right once you ease up a bit.
LON: You know what the specialist told me, Tom?
TOM: To go easy. Which is why I’m… go on.
LON: More than that. Thank Christ Cathy wasn’t with me that day, she’s high strung enough as it is just lately. This doctor, he looked me in the eye, and said I shouldn’t be surprised if one day I just dropped down dead. I’d have thought being surprised about it’d be the least of my worries, but they were his words and I gleaned his meaning. After something like that you look at things differently.
TOM: I imagine you do.
LON: I do imagine. You look at things differently. What you might have done. You’ve done this. You’ve done that. You’ve kept this land going. You’ve developed runs, sunk bores, scraped through more droughts than you’ve had hot sausages, but you always think you could have done more.
TOM: You’re getting better prices than some round here.
LON: What I’m trying to say is that for me to know that something’s taken care of… that you’re marrying Tessie, you’ll take over, that if I cark it suddenly I won’t be leaving this place orphaned. Or her orphaned for that matter. [Pause.] When Tessie said yes to you was one of the happiest days of my life. You know what you’re doing. You’ve got your head screwed on.
TOM: Well, I was pretty chuffed. With Tessie you’re never certain.
LON: You work like I did at your age. You know this country. You can anticipate what it’ll throw at you, only way you can approach it. And your brother’s still sweet about coming back to run your place…
TOM: Never wanted to leave in the first place.
LON: Long as that’s still the plan.
TOM: Yep. Yep.
LON: She can fret about things, Tessie. It’s only imagination, but get it started and she can’t stop.
TOM: Her new colt days. That’s what I call them.
LON: Yeah. That’s it. Then it passes.
TOM: All things pass.
LON: She’s more like one of those butterflies brushes past you and leaves a dusting. You wonder if it’s got enough left on its wings to still be able to fly. Or for whatever they need that dusting for.
Pause.
TOM: I’ll take care of her. If she’ll let me. [Pause.] I don’t always understand how she wants me to be. What she wants.
LON: You can wither her or her mother in a look. Without a word.
TOM: I wouldn’t. Wither her.
LON: If I do get a surprise, and drop dead… you will look after them both for me. I need to know if you’d do that.
TOM: Yes.
Pause.
LON: The wedding can’t come soon enough.
TOM: That’s pretty much what I say.
Pause.
LON: You’ll be right shifting into the second homestead. You’ll have privacy down there.
TOM: Right as rain.
LON: Cathy’s running on adrenaline, of course.
TOM: She is. Ten years younger she’s looking, I reckon.
LON: Yeah?
TOM: She just looks… more lively. Or something.
LON: Change of life.
TOM: Oh. Oh, right.
LON: Women thrive on weddings.
TOM: Right.
LON: I don’t tell her everything. Cathy. She probably would be surprised. If I dropped dead. Unlike me, since I’ve been warned. Not to be surprised. Not sure how I’ll manage that.
TOM: You’ll outlive us all.
LON: Cathy of course, she thinks it’s just angina.
TOM: Gotcha. Right. [Pause.] She promised to phone me. Tessie. When she got to town. It’s been a week.
LON: Public phones.
TOM: True. [Pause.] But you’ve heard from her.
LON: Just once or twice. Quick calls. I think she did say she’d been trying to catch you.
TOM: Good. [Pause.] That’s all I need to know. Give her a bit of… Well, this won’t get a fence fixed.
LON: Once this medication kicks in, I’ll be a bit more…
TOM: Take in the view. Go easy. Then we’ll move up to Rowling’s.
He goes.
LON: You look for signs that you’ve achieved something. Not just something. Achieved your life.
1931.
ALICE enters wearing a black dress.
ALICE: Wait. Wait, Jim. Wait.
JIM enters, carrying a saddle bag. He’s hot and sweaty, just ridden in from town.
I’ve been looking for you since breakfast.
JIM: Just got back. Stayed another night at the Yumba.
ALICE: What are your plans for today?
Pause.
JIM: Bits and pieces.
He starts to go.
ALICE: Are you riding somewhere? Going out? [Pause.] Can I come with you then? [Pause.] If you’re going to be riding.
JIM: I might just work round here.
ALICE: You’re saddling up a new horse. You must be going somewhere.
[Pause.] The minister left a paper from Sydney. They’ve joined the arches on the Harbour Bridge. I saved it for the boys—remember when we saw that newsreel?
JIM: I collected the post. Here. Plenty of it.
He gives it to her, then starts to go.
ALICE: Hold up.
JIM: I might want to check on the bores over west.
ALICE: Then I could come with you.
JIM: Might end up at Devil’s Corner. Have to camp.
ALICE: I’ll get my swag. And some extra tucker from Millie just in case.
JIM: You’ve still got your funeral mob here? Or they mostly gone or what?
ALICE: No. But drinking endless cups of tea and talking about Mother to relatives who hardly knew her isn’t going to bring her back. I wish it would.
Pause.
JIM: I’ll build you that memorial. Areal good one. We’ll get those stones and build it good.
ALICE: Today. We could go to the river today. Or another day. Another day. I don’t care if you’re riding to the tip and back, I’m coming with you. Just saddle Ginger while I get changed. We can talk through things while we ride.
JIM: What things is that?
ALICE: I’ll tell you when we’re out there.
She heads inside to change.
Present day.
The homestead. LON is on the fixed phone, CATHY on the hands free. Their daughter is on the other end.
CATHY: Tessie… Tessie.… I don’t think she’s still there. Are you still there, Tessie?
LON: It’s your dad again, Tessie.
Pause.
CATHY: Speak to us, Tessie! Are you still there? [Pause.] Thank you.
LON: Good.
Pause.
CATHY: Your father’s been saying how quiet it is. Without you. I’ve got leftovers every meal from lunchtime to breakfast. You’d think I could work out proportions after two weeks, but no. No. [Pause.] Does it seem to you like this dressmaker’s taking a long time? Just wondering. It seems a long time to wait to be called back for the final fitting. Even for a wedding dress. What did Tom say, something funny. What was it, Lon, that Tom said? [Pause.] Something about getting a going-away dress as well, that maybe you’re having a parachute stitched in so you can do a bunk. Something really funny like that. Ask us how we are. [Pause.] I’m terrific. Really well.
Pause.
LON: As long as you’re all right there at the Youth Hostel. [Pause.] You haven’t lost your bus ticket or something. That happened to me once. Christ, I remember my father gave me a hiding.
CATHY: She’s got a keycard. Unless you’ve lost that as well.
Pause.
LON: Some brolgas flew in this morning. Beautiful they were. Wandering around near your orange tree. Beautiful. I was remembering the last time we had such a flock of brolgas, remember when that was.
Pause.
CATHY: Yes, you do know, Tessie. It was the morning of your twenty-first, all those brolgas. You do know. [Pause.] Are you still there? Then talk to us, have a conversation. It’s reverse charges remember. Tell us for instance about this dressmaker you’ve gone to. She hasn’t sent us any kind of bill yet and we don’t know her name. [Pause.] What’s her name we were wondering? What street’s she on? When does she think she’ll finish your dress?
LON: It’s all your choice, we don’t mind it’s someone new. We were just wondering her name.
CATHY: Say if you’re standing outside the post office, is she left or right of there? On the main street? Whereabouts in relation to Dalgety’s, for instance?
Pause.
LON: Never mind. Bring a little map and we’ll look when you get home.
CATHY: And, you know, I’m not even sure what fabric you’ve chosen.
LON: White, Mum. White. White.
CATHY: The new GP’s arrived. That’s something. Your father likes him, don’t you Lon?
LON: Terrific.
CATHY: Lovely fellow. Indian. Dr Rash… Rashma… Anyway, it’s on the receipt. I think they get a subsidy for coming out here. I think so. It’s not good for your father’s heart worrying why you’re taking so long.
LON: You know what he said, this dark chap. After he’d asked our names. ‘And where do you belong?’ Must be an expression. For ‘What’s your address?’ Where do you belong.
CATHY: How about I come down and join you? We could have a girls’ night out. Come back home on the bus together. I might even buy myself another frock, I’m going off that blue thing.
LON: Frozen?
CATHY: Frozen?
LON: You don’t mean literally you’re frozen… it’s thirty-five in the shade.
CATHY: She’s joking, Dad.
LON: Yes, we’re turning to ice up here, too. I’m just snuggling up to your mother right now to ward off hypothermia—
CATHY: Don’t. [To the phone] What’s that noise you’re making?
LON: She’s making shivering sounds. [To the phone] Princess, listen. Has someone spiked your drink or something? Is that what—?
Tessie has hung up.
CATHY: That happened last time. As soon as you called her Princess…
LON: That’s what I’ve always called her.
CATHY: Someone suggested that calling her that…
LON: What?
CATHY: Diminishes her. Treats her like a child.
LON: Which someone’s that?
CATHY: Sorry?
LON: Who’s the someone who knows our business?
Pause.
CATHY: Me. I meant me. A figure of speech, it’s what I think. That’s what I think.
LON: Tessie wasn’t a hundred per cent before she left.
CATHY: That’s true.
LON: But she’s in love.
CATHY: Let’s hope so.
LON: And nervous about the wedding.
CATHY: She could be having second thoughts. What if she does have second thoughts?
LON: Then she’ll have third ones. She’s marrying Tom.
CATHY: Maybe she doesn’t love him as much as she thought. Perhaps it’s all too tied up with Tom taking over here.
Pause.
LON: She just needs to be stronger. Strong enough to run a homestead, be a wife. What?
CATHY: That’s a tall order, Lon. Strong enough to be a wife.
1931.
JIM enters, followed by ALICE. They’ve been riding, fast. Both are out of breath, hot. JIM carries a sack and a spade.
ALICE: Well, that didn’t work, did it? [Pause.] You were hoping we’d turn back. You were. ’Fess up.
JIM: Not me, Miss Alice.
ALICE: Or trying to lose us. One or the other.
JIM: Stardust needed a run, that’s all.
ALICE: A run? That wasn’t a run, that was a heat for the Melbourne Cup. God.
Pause. JIM kneels down, scraping off some rocks and soft clay, surreptitiously testing the quality.
JIM: You know the ring-barkers are just about finished over at the Stevens place. [Pause.] You might want them here.
ALICE: I’m not sure.
JIM: They’ll be finished there by the end of the week.
ALICE: What do you think?
JIM: Not up to me, up to you.
Pause.
ALICE: You might as well tell me what I’ve done. You’re shirty as all get-out. You might as well tell me what I’ve done. Or haven’t done.
Pause.
JIM: You’re in charge of Ambertrue now. You’re the one’s got to make decisions. Start planning. You’re the boss.
ALICE: So we should get the ring-barkers here. To do that section of the eastern run.
JIM continues looking at the rocks, finding one that he wants. He prises it up and into a sack.
What are you doing with those?
He doesn’t answer.
The silence was deafening. Alice was puzzled. What transgression had she made, what on earth had she done?
JIM: [not listening] Sorry?
ALICE: Two can play at this game, Jim. The day’s yours. You won. You want to be on your own, well so do I. [She starts to head back to the horses.] We’ll discuss the next few months when you’re in a better mood.
JIM: What do you mean?
ALICE: What I said. You’re barely civil.
JIM: About the next few months.
ALICE: We’ll sit down with the calendar. Decisions have to be made, you’re right.
JIM: What decisions exactly?
ALICE: The whole flaming lot, Jim. The new hayshed for starters. Before the old one falls down.
JIM: So you’ll build the hayshed?
ALICE: And I need your advice. Oh, don’t look so surprised, Jim. There hasn’t been so much as a shed or a doghouse on this land without you or your father telling Mother and me where it should go. Why should anything change? The homestead’s where it is because your grandfather marked it out on the dirt.
JIM: Are you saying you won’t be going back then? With the funeral mob.
ALICE: That’s never even entered my head. Is that what you thought, that I’d walk off here? What sort of bulldust’s that? Back to where? This is my home.
JIM: When you said you wanted to talk about things…
ALICE: A book I’m writing…
JIM: A book?
ALICE: A book. A history of Ambertrue. From the day Papa came until now. I started it when Mother became ill. About everyone who’s ever worked here, lived here. How your parents taught me the country when I was a child. And the tribes we used to come across. But there are things I’ve forgotten and Yirralong words I can’t remember and I thought wouldn’t it be a good thing to do, to ride out with Jim and start seeing whether we can’t fill in some of the gaps.
JIM: Right.
ALICE: But how dare you think I’d walk off Ambertrue. How dare you, Jim.
JIM: Keep your hat on.
ALICE: How dare you think I’d give this up. It really takes the cake. Is that why the other blacks have all been acting strange? I give you my word I’m staying. Take it or leave it, up to you.
JIM hesitates, then walks some distance away in search of another piece of clay.
Present day.
Bush sounds. EDIE is speaking to the old people, in her mind.
EDIE: People are reasonable. And you don’t know, Grannie, they’ve probably been expecting it, some sort of Native Title claim, somewhere down the line. They must have been. The letters are out, they’ve gone. From the Yirralong people. Possess, occupy and enjoy is how you have to put it, blanket-like. To exercise our Native Title Rights, rights meaning that we’ve always had them. And people are reasonable, once we talk through what it all means… In practical terms it’s sweet bugger-all we’ll get, but it’s the spirit of the thing over legal carry-on, and the pastoralists’ll realise that. Give the kids back some knowledge before it’s too late. According to the lawyers the most we can hope for is to have a say if they want to build something over a site, and to be able to take the kids onto leases for a camp. But it’ll be in writing. Recognised as Yirralong country, it’ll say so in whitefella law. This is the country your ancestors looked after. Your great great great great great great great… Remember we used to play that game in the back of the car see how far you could go back ’til Dad’d say stick a sock in it. And now it’s yours to watch over, we’ll be saying to the young ones. Now you look after it too when you visit there. They’re not a bad lot, the whites round here, they’d’ve been expecting this, for sure. Even my Steve’s taken an interest the last few days, lawyers on and off the phone and picking me up at the airport. So if nothing else comes of this but Steve gets interested in more than that wretched nyadi, that’s a victory in itself. But, by God, we had to claim over a helluva lot. Up past Sommervilles’ lease, past Terribong, down Derry Downs, and a bit of a curve to Stanfords’. And some scraps of Crown Land and old Telstra land. You can get nervous if you think about it too much. That the connection report could be better, we could’ve done with a few of you folk hanging on for a few more years for that, given us a bit more detail. Along with a few more anthropologists sticking their noses in. Still, as Lorraine said, weren’t we lucky some of our old Aunties loved a gossip? We’d never have found out half we needed except for them. Their side’ll try to shoot holes all through it, the connection report, and we’ll have to argue why we haven’t had continuous connection… but name me a mob who has round this part of the state. The lawyer wouldn’t have let us proceed if he didn’t think we had a chance. I keep saying to him, all this work and you don’t take a penny, reckons he wants to do his bit. And he’s in for the long haul, he said that. Then there’ll be this latest bullshit that we Yirralongs were blow-ins from down south, don’t go crook, I heard Colin Whelan going on about that at the bowling club. God, he’s a terrible piece of work. They are a cloud on the horizon, Colin Whelan’s mob. Whoever half of them are. First half of them ever heard they were Karunya was when the ATSIC grant went in. He’s been sucking up to ATSIC something shocking, they must have got wind of our claim. Colin knows as well as we do they came from down south a hundred-odd years back if they’re lucky. Camped on old man Whelan’s place and took his name, but if Colin’s convinced himself otherwise… Well, we can’t worry about that. People are reasonable. Even Colin Bloody Whelan.
1931.
ALICE and JIM enter. ALICE claps some stones together, trying to jog JIM’s memory.
ALICE: That’s the sound they made. Don’t you remember that tribe?
JIM: Most of the real old blackfellas were gone by the time I was born. You know more about my mob than I do half the time.
ALICE: I would have been about ten, so I suppose it was before you were born. Your mother and father, and me. Out looking for survey pegs. And we camped and it was pitch dark and across the gully we heard this sound. Over some chanting. The sound of stones. [She claps them to a crescendo.] Chattering—stone chatter, that’s what your father called it. Talking to each other through the night. It was a feature of this particular tribe. Did he ever talk about them? They’d visit once a year.
JIM: That’s right…
ALICE: But did he ever say their name, your father? [Pause.] He wouldn’t let us come with him visiting their camp. It was a tribe renowned for being gossips. But he’d never tell me the gossip. What’s the gossip, I asked him when he came back to us, and he roared laughing. And wouldn’t tell. They’d travel across the country trading. And star legends. That was the other thing they were known for. Maybe I could come with you next time you go to the Yumba. See if Uncle Arthur knows. Or one of the others. If you write a book you have to get things right.
JIM: They won’t.
ALICE: They might.
JIM: They won’t.
ALICE: Or I could give you a list of Yirralong names I need for things. And you could ask them. They wouldn’t mind if you told them what it was for. Get them interested.
JIM: Long story, Miss Alice. But they’ve had enough of lists.
He stands and picks up the hessian sack.
ALICE: What’s it for, Jim? This clay.
JIM: Some questions, Miss Alice, you don’t want to know.
JIM heads off to the horses, ALICE follows.
Present day.
LON is on the phone, popping a heart pill.
LON: Sandra. Sandra. Of course I’m not saying you know where she is. You’re her aunt, that’s all and… I just thought on the off chance that she’d headed off to the bright lights of Brisbane on some sort of personal hens night, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on inside her head. [Pause.] She went to Toowoomba for a fitting for her wedding dress and she’s been gone a fortnight. [Pause.] Of course I’ve phoned the police, but there’s not a lot they can do. Then yesterday we get this envelope in Tessie’s writing. From Tessie. A blank postcard from the youth hostel where she was staying, along with a piece of black material. Dress material. Black. Cathy had asked her when she arrived to send us a sample of the fabric. Of this dress I’m meant to be paying for. That’s what she sends. Black. [Pause.] It’s got nothing to do with Tom, she loves Tom. Worships Tom. But she’s not herself, not by a long shot. So if you get any funny calls from Tessie… [Pause.] Cathy’s mother? Yes, she did. You’re right. She did. Cathy’s mother went very odd. And she wasn’t all that old. That’s true. Christ. [Pause.] What? What’s that supposed to mean, punishment? You said we were being punished—what exactly do you mean? [Pause.] Here we go, here we go. You’re as mad as a two-bob watch Sandra, never mind anyone else. You want to run this dried-up, windswept shit of a property you come up and do it. If it’s worried you all these years, we’ll leave the gate open, walk on in. Listen to me, and this is the last time I say this. When Dad died either you bought me out or I bought you out. Not a property around here where siblings didn’t have to walk off. You agreed to my offer. It’s why you’re sitting in your little unit. And yes it is worth more now, but so are my teeth—to me—and if it’s any consolation it’ll be worth fuck-all if I drop dead in my tracks and/or if Tessie doesn’t do the right thing and marry Tom who does know how to run cattle among his other assets. This is history, Sandra, history. Bit of advice. Lugging history on your back’s a sure-fire way to become a pain in the neck. [Pause.] I hope to see you at the wedding, Sandra. I sincerely hope.
CATHY enters with mail.
1931.
JIM calls across the space.
JIM: Stay there! Don’t move! Don’t move!
Present day.
LON: [at the phone] You silly, bloody, twisted bitch. Sandra.
CATHY: Why did she phone?
LON: I thought Tessie…
CATHY: She doesn’t like her. As if she’d go there.
LON: Dad’d fling himself around in his grave the things she comes out with. [Pause.] You know when all this business with Tessie started, and I’m right on this. The year she stopped going out mustering. She started going all… inward…
CATHY: You’re the one who stopped her, Lon.
LON: A young girl camping out with a bunch of blokes, what’s a man supposed to do?
Pause.
CATHY: Perhaps she’s just wanted to go away on her own. For a while. She is an adult after all.
LON: It’s not some other bloke…
CATHY: Tessie?
LON: What age was your mother when she started going strange?
CATHY: Don’t.
LON: Piece things together. That episode at Easter when she started babbling away, when we were driving along. Going on and on about the rocks or some damned thing. These weird calls. This postcard. It’s in the genes. Your mother that first Christmas I had with your family, out in the clothesline in her slips and suspenders while the turkey was burning to a crisp. Talking to the cockatoos.
CATHY: She went through a bad patch.
LON: And her brother, good old Uncle Ed—
CATHY: Ted.
LON: What’d he do? Try to walk bare-foot to Bourke and back? [Pointing to his head] Zing zing.
CATHY: Why don’t you start on me, Lon? I suppose I’m mad too.
LON: Well, I’m watching you through the window just right now smiling away to yourself. In a world of your own. Daughter’s missing, but you’re smiling away.
CATHY: I’ll go and look for her, how’s that?
LON: We’re pretty certain she’s left Toowoomba. Or not. So that should narrow it down.
Pause.
CATHY: There’s a vehicle coming. Tom. It’s Tom. I’ll put the jug on.
1931.
JIM runs across the space.
JIM: [calling] The best thing to do is don’t move… [To the horse] Jesus, Ginger—you idiot of a horse… don’t move!
Present day.
TOM enters. He hands some mail to LON.
TOM: Brought your mail up.
LON: Cheers.
TOM: No card from Tessie. I checked. [Pause.] Heard from her yet?
LON: No.
CATHY: Yes.
LON: Yes.
CATHY: Yes, she rang to say every time I try to call Tom he’s either not there or the phone’s engaged. Or the public phone’s not working. That’s the thing, I think. Those public phones. She seems to keep losing her phone card. But she’s having a lovely time, choosing things for the wedding. She’s going to look lovely from how she describes the dress.
TOM: She did call me.
CATHY: Oh, she did. Oh, good.
TOM: She said she was still in Toowoomba.
CATHY: Did she say she’d left the youth hostel? We’re not quite sure where she’s staying.
TOM: Then Shirley Thomas spoke to a mate of mine arrived here yesterday, Shirley Thomas saw her way down Barlow way that same day. Barlow’s three hundred ks away.
LON: She could do that in a day.
TOM: That’s really why I came by. To see what she might be doing down Barlow. If you knew why she’d say she was staying in Toowoomba and be in Barlow.
CATHY: She’s got a second cousin there. On my side. She must be showing her the fabric. And things. The garter. All that.
LON: I’ll be calling her then. Give her a piece of my mind. She should be on her way home.
TOM: My first thought was she’s hitched up with another bloke.
LON: No.
CATHY: Not Tessie.
TOM: That that’s why she’s been acting strange.
LON: You got a bit to learn about women, Tom, they are strange, that’s the whole point.
TOM: Shirley Thomas said she didn’t look…
LON: What?
CATHY: What, Tom?
TOM: Quite right.
LON: [turning to CATHY] Did your second cousin in Barlow make mention of Tessie looking not quite right?
CATHY: No. No, she didn’t say that. Not at all.
TOM: Shirley said they met up crossing over the bridge just before town. Tessie was just standing there. Watching faces float down the river, she said.
CATHY: Faces?
TOM: I know. And the river’s been dry for years.
LON distracts himself by opening the mail.
LON: She was being poetic. She’s very poetic, Tessie.
TOM: That’s good to know she’s with family. I was thinking, you know…
LON: Yes…
CATHY: Yes…
TOM: Could you give the cousin a ring while I’m here?
CATHY: Tessie’s naughty, she really is. She says that sort of thing to sound interesting or something. They’re harvesting through the day, we’ll have to try them tonight. [Pause.] She said last time she called, tell Tom I love him very much.
TOM: Cheers.
CATHY: And… she sent a sample of wedding dress fabric, lovely white shot silk. She said when you’ve had a look pass it on to Tom. I wonder… I wonder where I put that small piece of white silk.
By now LON has opened one of his letters. He reads it.
1931.
JIM is helping ALICE to her feet.
LON: [reading] What the fuck…?
ALICE: Ow ow… !
LON: [reading] You have got to be bloody joking.
ALICE: Hold on… Aaaaah… !
LON: You have got to be bloody joking.
ALICE: Not like that!
LON: Not this. Not this. Jesus wept! No!
CATHY: What is it, Lon?
LON: You wouldn’t flaming read about it—
CATHY: Why are you holding your chest? [To TOM] He’s got a pain. Get some water.
LON: This is—this is—
CATHY: [to LON] Whatever this is, calm down. [To TOM] And his pills on the bench. [To LON] Is it Tessie? Just say, just nod.
LON: This is… Answer me this. Answer me this. Who the hell are the Yirralong people?
TOM enters with the water. LON doesn’t take his pill.
Who or what are the Yirralong people when they’re at home?
TOM: Er… the cultural centre co-op place.
CATHY: They’ve got that office, take your pill.
LON: What office would that be? The TAB, the top pub—that office?
CATHY: Are they wanting money? They get money.
LON: [to TOM] You haven’t got your mail yet, then.
TOM: You’re always well ahead of me.
LON passes him the letter.
CATHY: Tell me what it is, Tom. [To LON] Your blood pressure’s rising just to look at you.
TOM: [reading] Possess, occupy and enjoy… according to their rights…
LON: We’ll deal with this, it’s not going to happen. Someone’s put her up to this, I know Edie Jordan, this isn’t her. She’s signed the bloody thing. Someone’s put her up to it. Some city quarter-caste or worse, that’d be. Look at the bowling club, for Christ’s sake. Who’s president? A darkie’s president. Colin Whelan, for Christ’s sake.
TOM: He’s blonde Colin, I always forget—
LON: He wouldn’t be in this. The only native rights Colin Whelan wants to assert is the right to improve his handicap.
CATHY: It’s not as if we’ve been… You all played cricket with them as kids. They’ve always been on the cricket team.
LON: From day one. Paul Keating. This is all him, all him—
CATHY: The doctor said no stress.
LON: I mean it’s not enough we’ve got Pie in the Sky checking if you’ve let one tree drop that shouldn’t have…
TOM: They sit front row at the pictures only because of habit.
LON: We all went to the same school! That’s why all this is a mistake. And here’s the million-dollar question. Ever in your life, ever in your life, have you ever heard the word Yirralong in your life? Of course not.
Pause.
TOM: There was the Yirralong lullaby. Old Sarah taught it to Dad. He taught it to me. In the lingo if I can remember it…
LON: Well, we won’t be singing that to the lawyers.
CATHY: There’ll be lawyers.
LON: It’s a Native Title Claim, Cathy. Written by lawyers for lawyers.
Edie Jordan being the patsy. It’ll cost us money, no doubt about it.
Pause.
TOM: They weren’t a match for us, of course. I often think about that. Spears. Versus guns.
LON: They weren’t here.
TOM: They were here.
LON: There aren’t any permanent water courses across this property, or yours. They weren’t here. And they never had spears.
TOM: They’d dig those deep bush wells.
CATHY: Tea, Tom? And, Lon, take that pill.
TOM: I’m right. But when you think about it…
LON: What?
TOM: Remember that old station journal and your… who was it, that lady relation’s old notebook? Lot of blacks mentioned in that, by name, all the old customs and that. According to Tessie.
CATHY: She did a project on those books once. When she was in sixth class. She got it out from somewhere. Remember how tiny the writing was…? And how it just turned to scribble at the end? Writing over and over on the one spot on the page?
LON: Get this out of your system. They were works of fiction. Some passing teacher, they were always drunks in those days, some passing alky teacher fancied himself a novelist and wrote as if he was from here. A novel. The beginnings of a work of fiction. That’s all that was.
CATHY: Wonder what happened to them, though?
LON: It doesn’t really matter because it wasn’t anything.
CATHY: I thought—
LON: Thrown out. Gone. [Pause.] We’ll be able to knock this on the head, but it’ll have to be a united job.
TOM: Yep.
LON: Only person’s getting my land is you, Tom.
TOM: I wouldn’t put it like that. Like I’m doing a take-over job. It’s Tessie and me.
CATHY: What do we do about this? You read about these things dragging on for years.
LON: Which is why we pay our dues. National Farmers’ll be down on this like a ton of bricks. This is war. My family’s been here one hundred and nineteen years, Tom. One hundred and nineteen years. You’ve seen the gravestones. We’ll organise the biggest meeting this area’s ever seen.
CATHY: The doctor said no stress.
LON: My grandchildren will live on this land!
TOM: I should go home and see if I’ve got one.
LON: You’ll have one. [After him] Tell me what I just said.
TOM: Your grandchildren will live on this land.
LON: Too right.
1931.
JIM is pouring water over a cloth, pressing it to ALICE’s forehead.
ALICE: That’s enough… that’s half your water. Head over turkey. Yow! She baulked at something.
JIM: She was playing up all last week. Always feels all right, that moment, flying through the air. Then you gotta come down.
ALICE: [laughing] Don’t make me laugh… Ow… ! At least I’ve got a thick skull.
JIM: Long as you’re not seeing stars.
ALICE: Mary Pickford /
JIM: [overlapping] Douglas Fairbanks.
ALICE: Ow! Well, I’ll have an impressive bump. But no broken bones.
JIM: We’ll just wait a spell.
ALICE: Now I’m holding you up.
JIM shrugs. He kicks over some rocks as he paces around. He notices something in the rubble.
What’ve you found?
JIM: An old chopper… too right… that’s what it is.
She holds out her hand. He gives it to her.
ALICE: It fits my hand.
JIM: Yours if you want it.
She hands it back to him.
ALICE: Put it back. We’ve never had a collection, I’m not about to start now.
Pause.
JIM: Sorry you fell.
ALICE: You didn’t push me.
JIM: I was going too fast.
ALICE: You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about something.
JIM nods.
You and Dora?
JIM: No more than usual. No.
ALICE: Is it because you don’t believe me, that you think I won’t last, and I’ll leave. All I can give you is my word. Or because I’m writing this book? [Pause.] Think ahead to thirty, forty, fifty years time. Australia in the future, imagine what it might be like. People should know how differently we lived with the old blacks. How here on Ambertrue we didn’t chase them off. Maybe there’ll be a time when people won’t believe that you could go out riding and hear that stone chatter or… The things your parents taught me, they’re the sort of things that I’m putting down in the book. Like the time of the boy at the sandhill… Remember we used to talk about that?
JIM: No.
ALICE: Yes you do. That boy who just jumped out of a bush and started whacking me and my horse—I was ten, before you were born—and my mare was trying to throw me—sounds familiar—but this boy just kept hitting me with his coota—and your parents ride up going crook on me for trying to whip the stick out of his hand. He was a second degree initiate, his job was to guard the well. What was that expression of your father’s…? Learn your brains from your elbow, Alice. Remember he used to say that?
Pause.
JIM: They’re having a round-up. The coppers. Under the Act. Moving everyone out of town. And off Derry Downs, off Terribong.
ALICE: Who?
JIM: Just about everyone on the Yumba. Yirralong mob, Karunyah mob, doesn’t matter who. About five hundred of ’em.
ALICE: To where?
JIM: They’re saying that Palm Island. Or that other big place nearly to Brisbane.
ALICE: So far away…
JIM: Everyone’s too sick to fight. Some of Millie’s family bolted, the rest of ’em’s too tired. So Uncle Arthur wants to take ochres with him from this country. He told me four different spots and that’s where the ochre’s gotta come from. Everyone’s saying, Uncle, where we’re going they don’t let you dance, but he’s saying, what sort of place don’t let you dance? If we get to them all today I can take them into him tomorrow.
ALICE: We’ve seen this coming. All the big stations breaking up into smaller blocks. [Pause.] It might be for the best. They’ll be fed, the children clothed, be able to see doctors…
JIM: Me, my boys, the stockyard boys and Dora, we’ll be the last of the Yirralong in these parts.
ALICE: School, too. The children can go to a proper school.
JIM: Miss Alice. If ever you plan to give the nod, to send us off, we’d prefer to know. We’d prefer to go on the run, take our luck fencing, droving further south. I’ve thought about this, I’ve got a way planned to go.
ALICE: You’ve got a job here for as long as you like. Everyone with jobs here, if you have a job you’re not under the Act.
JIM: All it takes is you to give the nod.
ALICE: I know. But it’s not going to happen.
JIM: That’s what they thought. [Pause.] You know what’s been churning through my mind? That Yirralong lullaby. How I never want to hear that bloody song again.
Present day.
CATHY is waving off TOM.
CATHY: He was right about those books, Tom. It wasn’t a novel. It was notes about the old blacks. And the original station journal from the very first days.
LON: Jesus wept! You’re not a loose cannon, you’re a cannon careering over the decks and down the stairs. Into the captain’s quarters. That was half a novel or something, it was fiction. Fantasy. All made up. A couple of blacks might have shown old Major Mitchell which track led where, but they did not live here. You know nothing about those books because they didn’t exist. We tread carefully, Cathy. This is like a war, loose lips and so on.
CATHY: What on earth are we going to do? Faces in the river. Dear sweet Tom. Anyone else’d run a mile.
LON: It can all be solved. Nothing that can’t be solved. Next time she calls you, you find out where she is. Who she’s staying with in Barlow. If she’s still there.
CATHY: She won’t say.
LON: Clues. You get clues. You pay attention to detail. Background noises. And we get the police and we bring her back home. There’s no reason on earth she shouldn’t marry that man. [Pause.] Get her straight to this new doctor. They can treat these things. Jeff Kennett. Your job’s to get our daughter home. My job’s to save the farm.
Transition.
EDIE, LON, TOM and CATHY are at the meeting of the pastoralists and graziers. LON stands on a chair.
LON: For those of you latecomers, the bloke from central office missed his plane, so I was asked to chair the meeting. And I might as well read this again—a fax this morning from the Prime Minister. [Reading] ‘Rest assured you will not be put off your land. We will never allow that to happen.’ That just about says it all. That this is a threat and that it’s imperative that we act. Never mind what kind of lease you’ve got.
EDIE: [sotto] God help us.
TOM raises his hand.
LON: Tom Maloney.
TOM stands, he has notes.
TOM: I suppose what I want to say is you think the Native Title bizzo’s what happens in Torres Strait or the Kimberleys or further west. But here we are in the same shit, excuse my language. And we all pay our fees to this get-up. So we want value for our fees. Because the other side’s going to have teams of lawyers coming out of their ears like the Magic Pudding. Already the government’s freezing leases while they fight other claims, we’ve got the banks not wanting to lend money on something that might disappear. I know the banks are bastards but all the more reason… [Lost for words] It’s a worry.
TOM sits.
LON: If I can speak from the chair for a moment—the way I look at it is this. We’ve made this country work and we’ve made it ours. And it’s not an easy country. It’s country that takes from us and it takes from us and we keep saying yes and coming back for more because—and I don’t want to get too flowery over this—but it is us. They’re trying to ask us to chop off our arm. Drain our blood.
EDIE raises her hand.
EDIE: Excuse me, Mister Chair.
LON: [surprised] Edie Jordan…
EDIE: With respect to you and to our Prime Minister…
LON: Edie, just to save you any embarrassment, this is members only. For people to have their say.
EDIE: I run cattle, Lon. I’ve been a paid-up member for years.
A pause as EDIE fields a comment from someone in the meeting.
On freehold land that I own. That I paid for. [Pause.] Not with a grant, a loan. [Pause.] Maybe I am the nigger in the woodpile, whoever said that so descriptively, but God knows the woodpile’s where most of the men who worked your properties had to eat their tucker in the old days, so maybe I’m in good company.
LON: If I can ask you to get to your point.
EDIE: No one can take your land away. You know that as well as I do. But your newspapers, this organisation that claims to be a peak body, National Party members who should know better, they’re taking you all for fools. Whipping up a storm.
LON: ‘To consult with leaseholders’ activities such as laying fences, roads, boards or any land-moving activity.’ They’re the words you’ve signed off on. They’re more than a storm, they’re a full-on tempest. They’re a declared national disaster.
EDIE: And if you think through what that means—
LON: It covers just about anything we do—
EDIE: If such an activity affected any nominated sites—look, I didn’t come here for a slanging match—any sites designated in the connection report. [Pause.] The connection report’s available in our office. Our office is two hundred and fifty metres up the road.
LON: With respect, Edie, I think I’m speaking for the entire meeting when I say that the only full-caste Aboriginal ever walked my place was either on their way to somewhere else or lost.
EDIE: Can we please raise the level of this debate—?
LON: Guaranteed there wasn’t.
EDIE: Walking off because your father hadn’t paid them their wages more like it.
LON: My father paid every single half-caste, quarter-caste and quadroon—
EDIE: And you’ve walked the length and breadth of your property, have you? You’ve never seen a stone scatter? Never looked under a rocky outcrop, seen a faded painting?
LON: Have I ever seen a painting? That’s a good question. Yeah, I have, Edie. One. The only painting I’ve seen done by blacks in a hundred-mile radius was the shelter shed at the stockyards, done for sit-down money, and if I recall it’s still never got past the undercoat.
TOM: Apparently the urn’s ready, for morning tea.
EDIE: I really came here to say, that if anyone’s got any questions about the claim, about the legislation—our office is two hundred and fifty metres up the road.
TOM: They’ve set it up on the verandah.
EDIE: Surely the more we share our history, it’s not just ours, it’s yours… If any of you had any brains you’d realise—
She stops herself.
LON: Go on, Mrs Jordan. If we had any brains. If we had any brains we’d be asking why one tiny percentage of the Australian population wants privileges over another.
EDIE: They’re rights. It’s exercising rights. Under the law. Looking to the future, I don’t see we have any choice.
LON: Here’s mine. Here’s my choice. And we’ll get to morning tea. Do I honour my father and carry on his hard, hard work, or am I known forever as the one who threw up his hands—?
EDIE: No one’s asking you to—
LON: Threw up his hands and handed it all over to a mob of half-castes who think that bashing two sticks together entitles them to what is mine? Do I want to have my wife tripping over strangers on their way to wander at will, shoot at my prime cattle? That won’t happen on my watch.
EDIE: It won’t happen anyway—
LON: Not on my watch, it won’t. And you know why it won’t? Because you’ll lose. You lost the first day people came up here. It was survival of the fittest and you lost. And we survived here. And it kills you. Your families are wrecks and your men bash you senseless and your livers are shot with the drink and your churn out the same old rubbish that the land talks to you or something. Well, you know what we all feel like saying if only we had the guts? Change the record, it’s boring us all to tears. But you won’t because if you keep saying it loud enough you know there’ll be a handout in it. But you know the irony? You’d be better off letting all that go. It’s chains around your feet. Holding you all back to a time that didn’t exist anyway. It was survival of the fittest, you lost and you’re very poor losers. Very poor losers indeed. [Pause.] Now, let’s look to the future. Morning tea.
1931.
ALICE is still shaky from the fall. She looks up.
ALICE: What on earth is that? Look.
JIM follows her gaze upwards.
JIM: What the hell…? A rock…
ALICE: A meteor, but it’s too slow.
JIM: What’s falling off it…?
ALICE: Feathers, feathers, it’s a bird…
JIM: No, it’s not… it’s two birds…
ALICE: Two birds. Digging into each other—you can see the talons, look. They’re fighting. In mid-air…
JIM: They’ll be hitting the ground together at this rate—
The ‘birds’ spring apart. ALICE and JIM watch them fly off in different directions.
ALICE: A buzzard.
JIM: And an eagle.
ALICE: They did all that without a sound.
JIM: Fighting over a nest.
ALICE: They’ve gone. Who won?
JIM: No one.
Pause.
ALICE: People could come and camp here. Uncle Arthur, he’ll die if he has to go away.
JIM: He’d be wanting to take care of the others. Get them there. Watch over them. Sooner or later Welfare’d come. But you know what gets up my goat? Why they aren’t putting up a fight. Yirralong used to be warriors. Blood should be flowing in the river, fight to the death before we get taken away.
ALICE: I don’t know what to say.
Pause.
JIM: You rest here, next place I’m going you can’t go. Save yourself for the ride across to Good Luck Camp. I’ll be about an hour.
ALICE: I’ll write down the story of the buzzard and the eagle.
JIM: There’s something else. Something in my saddlebag I’ve got to give you.
ALICE: A headache powder, my prayers are answered!
JIM: Something I collected in town.
He leaves.
Present.
River bank. EDIE is talking to the old people.
EDIE: It wasn’t even a meeting I needed to go to. There’ll be a mediation… if we ever get that far. You don’t need to know how it went. Crook. I don’t think I’m cut out for this. You might want to find someone else.
1931.
JIM has returned with a cloth-wrapped bundle. It’s covered in dirt.
JIM: It’s been buried. It’s yours.
He unwraps the parcel, and the layers of newspaper.
When I was in town they were digging stuff up at the Yumba they’d hidden over the years, to take with them. Remember that night when Abraham got sent away for being on the grog? That night of the fire in your mother’s quarters?
ALICE: Eleven years this August. The year Vera died.
ALICE unwraps the final layers of the bundle. It’s an old journal filled with pieces of paper filed away between the yellowing pages. It is filled with dust and dirt.
It’s Papa’s. His Day Book and Journal. His writings from… from the beginning. This is his. We thought it had been burnt.
Pause.
JIM: Everyone feels bad. Still. You got it now. Will you be right? You’ve got enough water?
ALICE: Yes…
JIM: Won’t be too long.
Present day.
EDIE is on the riverbank.
EDIE: Yes indeed. Three days I sat in that office. Right across the road from the supermarket. After that meeting I looked out, on my tod, a very good view of the pastoralists getting their groceries. And not one person made that walk from Safeway’s to our door. A town full of questions and there I am sitting up like Jackie. You’d have thought someone would have said, well all right, she got steamed up, but so did everyone, let’s go hear her side of things. See what this really means. Three days, no one. Old Sheila said, never mind, love, you’re dealing with some of the most ignorant people in the country but… this is the mouth that said ‘if any of you had any brains’, so I’m not pumping up my own tyres. I thought I could stay calm. You might want to get someone else, I might not have the temperament. I worry about that connection report, I do. Major Mitchell wrote us up all right, and every day we keep adding bits to those family trees, but we’d be foolish not to be worried about those gaps. Aunty Sheila used to go way back and back, but even on a good day now her memory’s in and out like a feeding bird, and old Uncle Jim goes on and on about a cave of paintings that he was always told were Yirralong, but he’s taken us to the wrong place that many times in the end Lorraine said, ‘You’ve been watching that Discovery Channel. Getting yourself mixed up with some other mob. Like Eskimos.’ Now he thinks she’s right. Anyway. If you want someone else you can send me a sign.
CATHY appears. Both women scream.
Aaaah!
CATHY: Aaaaah!
They recover. CATHY is carrying a picnic rug and a thermos.
EDIE: I didn’t—I didn’t hear a car—I didn’t hear you.
CATHY: I parked—sorry—I didn’t see you until… I wasn’t sure this was the track.
EDIE: That way. And that way. No one usually comes here. Suddenly it’s George Street.
CATHY: Nice day.
EDIE: It’s where I come to think.
CATHY hesitates, which way to go…
CATHY: Well. Leave you to it.
EDIE: There’s a sandy beach sort of thing along that way. Through the scrub. That’s the way he went.
CATHY: Who?
EDIE: He didn’t expect to see anyone here either. [Pause.] Alan the bank manager. He had a towel with him. Tell him he wants to watch the water snakes if he decides to have a swim.
Pause.
CATHY: I’m sorry?
EDIE smiles.
I’m not sure I know what you find so amusing.
EDIE: I’m neutral. I’m just standing here directing traffic.
CATHY hesitates, then begins to walk in the opposite direction from the one that EDIE indicated.
Cathy. I’m going to stay here for a while.
CATHY: Good.
EDIE: And a bank manager wouldn’t be able to take that long a break.
CATHY: Honestly, Edie, I don’t know what you mean.
EDIE: So after all your planning and whatever coded conversations it took yourself to get here, and all the nice little delicacies to nibble in your pack there, you’re just going off to sit and eat on your own.
CATHY: Who did you say was along there?
EDIE: Our swashbuckling bank manager. Half your luck.
CATHY: I beg your pardon.
EDIE: Go and meet up with him and discuss your interest rates. If no one knows no one will know. Good luck to you. I’m not going to gossip, I’ve got a bit more dignity than that. And a bit more on my plate.
Pause.
CATHY: I felt for you at the meeting. The men gave you a bit of a mauling.
EDIE: The men held the floor all right. Made me think I might organise a meeting of our own. Just women. [Pause.] Time’s ticking. You’re just going to have to trust me. As easy and as difficult as that.
As CATHY heads towards the bank manager…
By the way, Josslyn my eldest had a postcard from your Tessie. Just the other day. She hasn’t spoken to her since netball days. Just her name on it, nothing else. Is she all right?
CATHY: Good. Marvellous. Terrific. Thank you.
1931.
ALICE is poring over the old journal. JIM returns.
ALICE: At last—I’ve been willing you to get back.
JIM: How’s your scone?
ALICE: The same—better. And reading this is… Jim, listen. I’ve got a proposition to make.
JIM: A proposition? Dora’ll kill me.
ALICE: Very funny.
JIM: I should stick with Dora, thanks all the same.
ALICE: A serious proposition. Reading this journal, Jim—you have to read it—it’s like my father talking to me. I was six when he died, and now he’s here again. And there’s so much and… he was a wonderful man.
JIM: That’s true. The Quiet Wise One the old grandfather used to call him.
ALICE: Your grandfather’s in here. When my father first set up camp. How the old blacks came to help.
JIM: Other whitefellas’d be looking at their maps, looking for their claims, they’d get pointed off in the wrong direction. ‘Hundred miles west’, the old blacks’d say. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, that’s the last we’ll see of them.’ But your father had ears, he could listen. My grandfather always said that.
ALICE: He writes that the Yirralong were landlords, how we were here on your terms. Listen. [She reads.] ‘Long detours this month on Ambertrue. Some central parts of the property are closed to whites for three more weeks, while the Yirralong celebrate their private ceremonies connected with the moon.’
JIM: I remember them as a kid.
ALICE: The grace my father used to say was black saviours, white pioneers. And he’d approve of what I’m about to say, I know he would. [Pause.] My proposition is this. I’m going to pass Ambertrue onto you. In my will. If you want to stay here. If we could keep on working together. If your family would want to keep working this land when I’m gone. Under white man’s law.
JIM: Now I know you’re seeing stars.
ALICE: I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Look what I found in here [the journal]. From 1884. It’s a survey he filled in, and never sent. [Reading] ‘A survey on the Australian race. E.M. Curr, Melbourne. Kindly return by August, 1884.’
JIM: It’s a bit overdue. Forty-seven years.
ALICE: Eighty-three questions. About tribal life. Father’s drawn the Ambertrue boundary and the tribal boundaries. ‘Describe the rules of marriage in your area.’ He’s plotted out all the groups—Emu, Snake, Eagle…
JIM looks at the journal.
The survey asks the population levels. Describe any warfare that occurred during settlement. If native numbers are declining state the reasons. Father writes down ‘… bloody warfare, the Native Police, and my fellow pastoralists poisoning natives like vermin.’ He keeps referring to the ‘colonial invasion’. There are clippings from newspapers here—letters he wrote to the editor saying exactly that. And from others all over Queensland, graziers who felt uncomfortable about what was going on. He kept all these for a reason. And you can guess why he didn’t send this survey back.
JIM: Yes. I imagine I can.
ALICE: Protection for the Yirralong. In case it got into the wrong hands.
JIM: That’s right.
ALICE: When the show comes up this way there’ll be a solicitor. We can have a new will written up. At the moment, if I die, that cousin Lonergan takes over this lease.
JIM: Him? The vegetable patch king.
ALICE: Lonergan who comes up every Christmas and goes home with hands cleaner than when he arrived.
JIM: No offence, but he’d worry sheep, that fella. If we had any. Remember that time I let him come out branding, I thought he was going to brand himself. [Pause.] I will read that [the journal]. I’d like to.
ALICE: What would Dora say, to this idea?
JIM: Dora’d say… let’s just bump Alice off right now and get the jewellery as well…
ALICE: I don’t have any jewellery.
JIM: Foiled again. [Pause.] I don’t know.
ALICE: It’s a commitment.
JIM: Yep.
ALICE: You, me, Dora, we’ll all go in at Show Week. Get it written up properly. And I’ll write a letter to Lonergan, so there won’t be any challenges, no nasty surprises. All I know is that this [the journal] puts us somewhere. My family. And yours. It’s our history of our time together. We’re part of this. A continuum. It’s not my role—or your role—to stop that continuum now.
She holds out her hand. JIM extends his. Just as they’re about to shake on it, her legs give way.
I really need to get out of the sun.
JIM helps her to her feet, and leads her offstage to some shade.
END OF ACT ONE