Wonderlands

LON: Ssssh. There. There they are. You can just see the top of the tent. Down there on the riverbank.

LON: I don’t have them. When you shift to my place I don’t have them. Your brother Paul can have hordes of them here if he wants, but I don’t.

LON: They’re blow-ins. Couldn’t care less. Drive a couple of hundred ks to shoot pigs, no idea of where they are. They can’t shut a gate. Black white brindle, electricity or Telstra, they can’t shut gates. You wouldn’t know now, you wouldn’t know what gates they left open last night. What they’ll leave open today.

LON: Not to mention these Yirra-wrong wanting to wander round with a cask of moselle under their arm. Let’s not mince words, connection to the land, my arse.

LON: We can’t get lethargic about this. Now we’ve got Rodney Crittenden on our side, people can get complacent. Sure, Crittenden’s good, look what he did with the wharfies. But a leader’s only as good as his army. There won’t be any bucketloads of extinguishment, unless he knows we’re behind him. Turning up to meetings. [Pause.] I think of you as a son. I think of you as the son I never had.

TOM: I’m heading off to Barlow. To your cousin’s. To talk to Tessie. Bring her home.

LON: I need you here. And the truth of the matter is this. No going mentioning it to Cathy.

LON: She and Tessie have had a row. A tiff. About the wedding, the invitations, who’d know what it was? Tessie’s having her little Custer’s last stand of independence.

LON: No but… she just wants to go and visit some relatives, take her time… that sort of thing. Cool down and come home. That’d be what the shoe means. She needs you to be at this meeting.

TOM: That he’s going to put in a second claim. Colin Whelan and his family—mob—whatever they call it. They’re going to put in a counter claim. All of what the Yirralong want and more. I thought you would of got told.

TOM: He reckons ATSIC’s not too keen on Edie Jordan. Something political like she didn’t vote the right way or something.

TOM: So they’re saying ATSIC might put some money into Whelan’s lawyers. To shove it up the Yirralong lot.

LON: It’s Zimbabwe! What they’re up to in Zimbabwe! A couple of years time they’ll have no whites at all on the land. We could be the last of the line.

TOM: [noticing, offstage] The pig-shooters… I better go and see what they want…

LON: Are you going to have Tessie too scared to open her back door? Having her having to step over a mob of half-castes when all she’s trying to do is take out the washing. That’s why you’ve got to be at this meeting.

LON: It’ll cut the hot air straight out of her. I should of used it from the start.

The homestead. CATHY has recently opened a postbag, containing a single, mutilated shoe.

CATHY: [talking on the phone] I’m listening, Tessie, what sort of signs—? Are you sure that’s what it meant? I mean just because you see birds flying in an arrow shape doesn’t mean that they’re pointing somewhere—Where are you Tessie—? I’m not sure that’s right—Someone said they saw you down near Barlow. Looking into a river. River bed. Are you near Barlow? It was all we could do to stop Tom jumping in a car to bring you home—Of course no one’s following you, of course not. Tom’s being very patient, Tessie. But you’re going to have to get yourself back here. [Pause.] Did something happen, Tessie, that you don’t want to come home? Something… I don’t know what. [Pause.] Well, you know I was thinking of one thing, this is so silly you have to laugh and I do laugh I really do laugh at how silly this is. Apparently there’s a rumour going round that I’ve… I’ve… I’ve got a crush on the bank manager. It’s so funny. But I thought, gosh, maybe you heard that rumour and maybe you got upset because you thought it was true and you worried your father and I might be having troubles. Which we’re not. [Pause.] Or maybe you saw me talking to him in town or somewhere else, I might have bumped into him, and thought the worst of me. And got upset—Oh well, that’s good. Forget I said all that, silly talk. Because I don’t. Have a crush. I don’t even know his name. [Pause.] We’re just trying to wrack our brains as to why you’ve… you’ve evaporated from our lives.

[Continuing on the phone] We got the shoe—The shoe you sent—Oh, come on, Tessie, it’s in your size.

LON: [talking on the phone] It’s your father here, Tessie, you sent one to Tom as well. Are you calling off the wedding, is that what this is—? No, I’m with you, Tessie. You tell me. I’m listening—Oh yeah, that’s really interesting. Yes, I’m with you. Car numberplates have very deep meanings, they hold the wisdom of the ages in those three little letters. If we had more passing traffic here I’d probably be running my life by them as well.

LON: [talking on the phone] Tessie. Will you do something for your dad? If I ask you to do something, will you do it—? Go and see a doctor, tell him about these signs and see what he’s got to say.

How long had she been babbling on like that? Or more to the point how long have you been standing there agreeing with her? The numberplate was E-S-C, so I knew I had to escape. I’m calling the police.

CATHY: You stand on the back verandah, I ask you what are you doing, you tell me you’re reading the clouds. Reading the clouds. Seeing what direction the roos are hopping in. Maybe that’s what she means.

CATHY: Edie Jordan’s eldest girl got a postcard from Tessie just the other day, with nothing on it except her name. What’s she trying to say?

LON: Tessie has something wrong with her. [He picks up the shoe.] So we have to wake up.

CATHY: If she’s frightened of us, she’ll never come home. If we can get her home voluntarily, Doctor Rash… Napurti, she’d like him. It’s a chemical imbalance, medication they’re as right as rain.

LON: We talk to the police. She’s up to a week away in any direction of course, unless she got on a train. They can trace her call. They can do that, even to a phone box.

CATHY: She keeps saying she needs her own space. And that she’s not missing, if we can speak to her.

LON: Space. What’s she got out there? Thousands of square miles she can wander at will. She’s mad. Our only child is loony tunes. Congratulations, Tom. Just keep her drugged up and she should remember her name.

CATHY: There is no gene. You’ve cushioned her from this, cushioned her from that. No wonder she hasn’t got the internal resources to put her hand up and ask for help. This [the shoe] is a cry for something.

LON: Well, you went somewhere, Cathy. If you didn’t go to this Edie Jordan gabfest, then where did you go?

LON: She got you along to this meeting. She got you along to this bullshit ladies’ morning tea. ‘Native Title and what it means’. Refreshments provided.

LON: Thank you. Of course I didn’t check the bloody speedo. Well, let’s hear what you learned then.

LON: Come on. You’ve had the indoctrination. Let’s hear what you learned. I’m all ears.

CATHY: Look, I don’t know. It was all in that letter. The abos get permission or something. I don’t know.

LON: This gets through and you won’t. The tyres have been thrown around our necks, and pretty soon we’ll be hearing them light the match. And this is not how I want to say goodbye to my country. This is not what I want. You want to talk about books, out there’s my book. I’m the chapters. Tom doing it the way I’ve passed on to him. No one else. [Pause.] Sometimes I think you’re hoping I’ll just drop dead, free you up so you can do what you like. Pal up with Edie Jordan.

JIM and ALICE have just arrived at a new spot. JIM begins collecting ochre. ALICE follows him.

ALICE: The chap I ordered from the David Jones catalogue doesn’t seem to have arrived. And if one ever did, he’d have to abide by my decision. If I outlived you, then it would be left to your boys, and

ALICE: People helping each other. Townspeople coming out here to help people off their roofs. The Deltons taking our cattle up to higher ground. Everyone pitching in.

ALICE: There was nothing different to see. It was a flood, people pitched in. [Pause.] What do you mean you saw something different?

JIM: I saw you all helping each other. But to my eye it was migaloo helping migaloo. And mardie helping migaloo. But not the other way round. If the Yumba got flooded, not too many migaloo rushing out there to help blackfellas. This caper, running cattle, managing a place like this, you’re lifting each other up, giving each other advice… and teaching each other this type of feed, that breed of cattle. You’re doing that all the time.

ALICE: That’s what mother thought when father died. ‘Men on the land won’t take me seriously’, she said. But she earnt her stripes. And they did. And we’d run Ambertrue together.

JIM: They might turn on you. And I’m thinking about my boys. I’ve been called a uppity nigger often enough, I don’t wish that on them.

ALICE: What have you got to lose? What’s that saying… the one about stars…?

ALICE: If you reach for the stars and you fall, you fall on clouds. If you reach for the clouds and fall you hit the ground. Old migaloo saying.

JIM: That’s a good one. And you know the one thing I can’t get out of my head… is the thought of that cousin Lonergan…

EDIE: If you’ve got a posse hidden up there, my family’s expecting me home to cook tea.

LON: Alone as a new-born babe. [Pause.] I haven’t been here for years. You still come here to think?

LON: You were a tiny thing and you were sobbing your heart out. Just found out you were pregnant again. With Steve. How is he, by the way? Difficult thing, detox, I’m told. Bounce in and out like a tennis ball on a string.

LON: First up, no more getting my wife along to your secret womens’ meetings. She doesn’t want to go again, she doesn’t want you bothering her with any more calls.

LON: And, as I said on the phone, I think we got off to a bad start that first meeting. It didn’t help matters.

EDIE: Oh, I’m used to all sorts of meetings. That’s where the word ‘Aboriginal’ comes from. Attendee of meetings.

LON: You’ve certainly tossed the grenade in the fish hole all right. For one per cent of the population you don’t do a bad job of putting the wind up the rest of us.

EDIE: Having been stirred up by people like you. Who have been stirred up by MPs who get the banks to stir you up some more.

LON: People round here’d hold onto their land if it was slipping off the planet and into outer space.

EDIE: For God’s sake, Lon, it’s me you’re talking to. The only way a pastoralist can lose their bloody land is they break the conditions of their lease. Don’t drag yourself down to the same level as that Prime Minister—

EDIE: ‘I promise you won’t lose your land.’ That’s as slippery a piece of lying as I’ve ever heard.

LON: It all seemed we were getting along not too bad. Your… community. And us. [Pause.] And apparently now everyone’s in on the act. [Pause.] Colin Whelan’s tribe. [Pause.] Yeah, that worries you and it should. Because they’ll have first-class lawyers and you’ll be fighting them the same time fighting us. [Pause.] I hear they’re only doing it because you are. You drop your claim, the whole sorry bunfight could be averted.

EDIE: Old Aunty Lydia used to say, beware of people who hunt with their mouths. I’m beware.

LON: Think about pulling out. We go back a long way. I don’t want to see you get destroyed.

EDIE: Here’s what you’re afraid of, Lon. An agreement, that we all draw up together. Conditions we decide together. We Yirralong people are recognised as the traditional owners, our responsibilities for visiting these leases, they’re all written down.

LON: Well, let’s just say that works, which it wouldn’t, let’s say that works for us because we know each other. I don’t know your next generation. I don’t know what they’ll be like. Your Steve, for instance.

EDIE: Works both ways, Lon. What’s your next generation going to be like? Leap of faith. Same as we’ve made all our lives.

EDIE: They’ve always existed. They never went away. We’ve just been too flaming busy keeping ourselves alive. This isn’t an idea that just dropped out of the sky. Go back. Where did your pastoral lease come from?

LON: [losing patience] His cousin Alice. Whose family worked this place up from scratch.

EDIE: —knew that blacks couldn’t just be shunted off their land, that there had to be a way to co-exist.

LON: Pooncy lace scarf around his neck—Oh, I say, cup of Earl Grey, old chap—

EDIE: He said clearly in legislation, the cattle and the cultivation can’t deprive the native of the right to water, the right to hunt—

EDIE: It’s all you need. Which is why leases had restrictions in them. A moral obligation.

EDIE: Nothing is stronger in my heart, and everyone I represent, than this. We know our rightful country. We’ve got no choice except to look after it. And sit there, and be. And listen to what it has to say and get guidance. We’re not well unless we can do that.

LON: You grew up on the Yumba. Go and sit down there, that’s still vacant land.

LON: The spirits, here we go—I’ll tell you something, there are days I stand on Ambertrue and I’m part of the air.

LON: No. My boots aren’t on the soil, they’re of the soil. Like those clouds scudding across that huge, awesome sky, that country scuds through my veins. Pulsing like a bass guitar. And you and your ilk, you shit on that from a great height. You’re the only ones who can feel. You’re the only ones who can connect.

EDIE: I can’t take that from you and I wouldn’t want to. But I won’t go to my grave knowing that I let my kids down, and their kids down. Everyone on this earth’s entitled to be proud of who they are. You know, we used to plead with the old aunties to tell us things, to teach us language, but they couldn’t. They taught us as much as they could—all that walks with me every day—but a lot of stories they couldn’t tell. Because there are stories that can only be told on country. Because our language is lined up with place, with events that happen there. And the things we want to pass onto our kids now are in those places. On that country. The old aunties, they’d ache, their eyes would fill with tears because they couldn’t go there. And they’d pat us on the head and say maybe one day, and they’d try to forget. We never forgot. This is maybe one day.

LON: Actually I think this is pretty much the actual spot I found you that day. Twenty-two years ago. Or so. [Pause.] It’d only be a couple of years later abortion’d be legal. [Pause.] Pregnant again, and you weren’t married to Sam then. And he was off working the docks in Brisbane and the last thing he wanted was another kid. Or that’s what I believed. Three hundred dollars was a lot to me. I was a kid myself. But I felt for you and it’d get you to Toowoomba and get the job done. Next thing, to my amazement I see you walking up the main street, up the duff well and truly. The money and the box, not bad going.

EDIE: Yes you have, your history really is fuzzy. Why you ended up giving me that money. Why would you get an Aboriginal woman out of trouble? We used to see each other at rodeos or the pictures once in a blue moon. Why would you have done that?

EDIE: This is a shameful thing for me to say, Lon, but I’ll say it if it’ll make you remember. I said to you how different you were from your father. And you asked me what I meant. So I told you how Lonergan senior, your father, how he’d come into town one night, on the drink, when he was still a single man, gone out the Yumba when our men were all out droving, and how he’d got Sheila pregnant. And how she’d used herbs and then some knitting needles and done herself some damage. But got rid of it all the same. You blushed easily when you were younger and your cheeks all fired up. You knew I was telling the truth and you felt shame. And you said, don’t go down that path. I’ll give you the money. That’s right. When I decided not to go Toowoomba, I gave that money to Sheila. To buy something for herself, pay the rent, whatever she wanted. From the family of the child she never had. I thought that seemed fair all round.

LON: He mightn’t be going so good if he knew all this though, would he? That if you’d had the get up and go to get on a bus, he’d be a memory, if that.

LON: Because I don’t have a lot of time. I’m not a well man. You do what you have to do to tidy up loose ends.

LON: You could go a very different path. You could say to your mob, look. This is just going to be too hard. There’s the Telstra land, and the bits of Crown Land. We could just go for that. All those old ladies, they’re eating out of your hands. They’ll go with what you say. And we could get on with our lives. And everyone’d think, well, she’s come to her senses.

EDIE: So. You could turn my life around like that. In a breath my life might change. But you know something, Lon? I could do the same to you.

LON: Well, didn’t we just have all the luck? That’s the way the penny falls.

EDIE: Do anything to me, Lon. Anything you like, but don’t go near my son. Your Tessie’s not a well girl either. The least you can do is leave our kids out of it.

EDIE: I couldn’t quite understand her train of thought but it was something about having carved her name somewhere. When she was a kid. She said she was getting more and more worried that she’d been sung. Her words. Not mine.

EDIE: That was the only bit I could understand. It was very clear to me that she’s not a well girl either. So the least you can do is understand.

LON: My wife said one of your girls got a postcard. I’d like to have it, please.

EDIE: Of rock paintings, as a matter of fact. Beautiful, pristine rock paintings. From one of the gorges, somewhere. And just her name on the back.

ALICE has found a part of the journal with very fragile, yellowed fold-out paper. Together she and JIM are folding it out.

Slowly they handle the paper, bearing the faint pencil marks of an old family tree.

We should look at this at home.

JIM: Like a bible…

ALICE: Like a family tree in a bible… but it’s your family. How everyone was connected. Look—look how many were Yirralong. There, there, all there.

JIM: Before outsider mobs started coming in.

ALICE: Add this to the one I’ve sketched out for my book and… this really fills in the gaps. We should fold it back. If the wind catches this…

They fold the page back carefully.

So, whatever we do now, whatever decisions we have to make—finances, buying machinery—equal.

JIM: I wasn’t gunna go that far, letting you make decisions.

ALICE smiles, then looks up, slightly off-balance. Her eyesight is troubling her but she’s not letting on.

ALICE: Willy wagtail.

JIM: Message bird.

ALICE: That’s a message from Father that we’re doing the right thing. You know what I’m going to do? Write you a letter of agreement. Just so you know I’m fair dinkum. That it wasn’t the bump on the head.

She opens her notebook and eventually makes a few marks on the page. JIM walks over a rocky outcrop.

JIM: No, it’s not, I thought it was… old blackfella well. But it’s not. That one over the south-west boundary has to be ten feet deep. No shovels in them days. We should ride over some time have a look if it’s still there.

ALICE: Aren’t the colours bright? It’s a very… very vivid light. What were we talking about…? Sorry. The things that go… what’s the word…?

JIM: In language, Miss Alice? This ground.

ALICE: No, the… the… the hole there. What you were talking about.

JIM: Wells?

ALICE: Wells. Wells. Yes. I’m feeling very parched. I need to…

JIM: Come on…

ALICE: Isn’t it just… absurdly bright…?

Present day.

The homestead. LON is hauling on a heavy hessian bundle, tied ‘kerchief ’ style. He carries a flogging hammer.

CATHY: What are you doing with those…?

LON: This is not the sort of stuff you have hanging around—out of my way—I’ll deal with it. I’m going to deal with it.

CATHY: What are you—what are you doing, Lon?

LON: Stopping people from taking away who I am. Figuring out a way to stand in front of my father’s grave and hold my head up high. I think she said something. Edie Jordan. I think Tessie’s said something to her. About the rock paintings. Don’t look at me like that.

TOM: [offstage, calling] Hello? Hello?

LON: Shit.

CATHY: [calling] In here, Tom.

TOM enters, anxious to show them the map that he’s holding.

TOM: Jack Farley got hold of the map that’s gone in with this claim business, asked me to pass it [the map] on. Ambertrue’s definitely not on it. These little triangles are sacred sights. These squares are the burial grounds. These ones mark the camps. And the waterholes. You’re not here. I mean, we’re not here. And my place neither.

LON: Doesn’t mean we’re off the hook.

TOM: But it means we can ease up a bit and concentrate on Tessie. Wherever she is, I’m going to get her. Bring her home. [To CATHY] I’m sorry you’ve had the tiff or whatever… but I’m going down to Barlow whether she likes it or not.

CATHY: She’s not there.

TOM: Where is she?

CATHY: Her other cousins. In Charleville.

TOM: Well, ring them right now, tell them to keep her there.

CATHY: The thing is though… they’ve just had a baby. They often keep the phone turned right down. I’ll go and get the number.

LON: [reading the map] Bloody Donnigan and his bora bloody ring. The tourist attraction. It doesn’t matter a fig that we’re not here. Doesn’t get us off the claim. We’ve still got to go through the same shit as everyone else. And the courts take this seriously—drawn up from the spirits.

TOM: The old people. And the anthropologist. To be fair.

LON: Old Granny Anderson wouldn’t have known her arse from a bullock’s foot, never mind where all this was.

TOM: In the long run they’ll be more interested in all up here near Taylor’s and Moonee Downs… and this burial site over by Possession Creek. So let’s just concentrate on getting Tessie back.

LON: [reading the map] This is my point. This burial site here is exactly my point! Old Jack’s kept tight about that burial site for as long as I can remember. Never mind his best intentions, he’s ended up on here.

TOM: Nothing we can do about it now.

LON unwraps the hessian bundle.

LON: None of this exists.

It is filled with stone Aboriginal artefacts.

TOM: Christ.

LON: Some of the old buck niggers gave these to my father, before they went off to Palm Island or whatever resort it was. They could spot an axe-head from that far off. There was some handmade fishing net in here somewhere. They get a search warrant… they find this, suddenly we’re on their beaten track.

TOM picks up one of the artefacts.

That one was down near the river, near a bit of old skull. This I broke open to see if it was hollow…

TOM: It’s solid.

LON: That’s right. Now, are you going to turn these to dust for me, or do I have to do it? Soon as it’s done we’re in the car to Charleville, go and bring Tessie home.

TOM: Maybe if you called a museum.

Pause.

LON: I’m disappointed in you, Tom. I thought you had the guts.

LON starts walloping the hammer. Eventually, as he grows breathless, TOM takes the hammer from him… and takes over, taking his frustration and anger out on the stones.

1931.

JIM, concerned for ALICE, picks up their saddle bags, the journal and her notes. ALICE is struggling hard to keep her balance, fighting her panic.

ALICE: Help please, Jim—

He’s trying to help her to her feet.

Jim, do you know I can’t actually see? I can see shapes but… Oh, goodness.

JIM: All right. Watch yourself here… careful…

ALICE: It’ll just be temporary thing… surely it will…

JIM: We’ll need to get you back, get on the radio, get some help…

ALICE: If I sit for a while…

JIM: There’s some shade over there… we’ll get you in the shade.

ALICE: You’ve got the journal… and my notes…

JIM: All here, all safe… you’ll be right…

ALICE: Is it very far, to the shade…?

JIM: No. You’re right…

Present day.

TOM is smashing the artefacts to pieces. And he’s not making much headway.

LON: Stop.

TOM: Maybe just send them to the museum, in Brisbane. Anonymous.

CATHY enters. The phone in her hand.

How’d you go?

CATHY: It’s unbelievable. She left an hour ago. If that. If that, they said. If that.

TOM: Let me speak to them. Press redial, let me speak to them. [Pause. To LON] We can chuck these into a creek. On the way. To Charleville. We could just leave right now. [Pause.] Or… you could tell me what’s going on. Put me out of my misery. Tell me what’s going on.

Pause.

LON: We don’t know.

TOM: Bullshit.

LON: Tessie’s not well. That’s it. She needs to come home, you’re right. We thought it would pass. There are no cousins in Barlow. Or Charleville. She gets… stressed or something. Loses her way.

TOM: So, what, I’m some sort of callous bastard who’s going to run a mile because his fiancee’s got a few problems?

CATHY: No, no—

TOM: The times she has called I could hear she wasn’t herself. And there I was thinking it was me. Or us. If she’s having problems I’ll get her help. But the first thing is to get her home.

LON: Let’s you and I go to Toowoomba. With her photo. That’d be the smart thing to do. Start from there. Start with the dressmaker. Can’t be that many there.

CATHY: I’m going to give you the new photo, the one with her longer hair…

CATHY exits.

LON: Day after tomorrow we can go, how’s that?

TOM: Why not now?

LON: There’s something else. Bigger than those things.

TOM: What?

LON: Now you’re family you can know. [Pause.] That odd bit of rock formation where I border with Ewandale. Where the land drops off to that gully. Where the old man had that stampede of wild cattle that time. There’s a cave there. A shelter sort of thing. Covered in flaming paintings.

TOM: Paintings.

LON: On rocks, with the stencils. On rock walls. All over.

TOM: Fair dinkum.

LON: It’s not on this map. No one knows about it. Only family. We’re the only ones know. Unless someone wandered up there one time that I don’t know about. That’s the danger. Some bloody long-lost cousin of a town half-caste with enough brain cells left to remember going there once. I don’t know if anyone has but that’s the possibility. That’s the weak spot. [Pause.] Painting over won’t work, they’ve got x-rays see through paint. And a claim’d go on it for sure.

TOM: A site of significance.

LON: Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful spot. I love going up there. But it has to go. The overhang. It’s not a small job. It’d take us both. And be between us both. One thing Tessie’s going to need when she comes back is stability. No Native Title lawyers wandering over the place. Everything just rolling along nice and calm. That’ll be what she needs. [Pause.] We could take all these up with us. Do it all in one go. More bang for your buck. Then when Tessie’s home… it’s all done.

1931.

ALICE is sitting, supported by JIM. She’s gulping down water.

JIM: How’s that…?

ALICE: Thank you. I just had an overwhelming thirst, as if I was… parched inside. Every part of me, parched. My eyes are fine now, truly.

JIM: We’re going to have to get you back.

ALICE: Just spell a little bit more.

JIM: I’ll double you. Come on.

ALICE: I’d just like to have a kip. Just twenty minutes, something like that. Would you mind?

JIM: I don’t feel good, letting you have a kip. There’s no moon tonight, we’ll need to get back.

Suddenly ALICE scrambles for her notebook and pen.

What are you after?

ALICE: I didn’t finish… I want to write down our agreement, just so that it’s… then I’ll have a kip. Leave me.

JIM: I’ll go get some more water.

ALICE starts to write, but it’s clear even to us that she’s actually scrawling, scribbling.

Present day.

The homestead. LON and TOM cross the space, carrying swags and camping equipment and the artefacts in the bundles. CATHY follows.

CATHY: Tom. You’re not going to Toowoomba. Tell me where you’re going.

LON: To fix some fencing up near the north-west side. To fix some fencing overnight, then Toowoomba tomorrow.

CATHY: Tom?

TOM: Like Lon said. Some fencing’s down. It’s an overnight job.

CATHY: You’re not a very good liar, Tom.

TOM: Well, no offence meant, Cathy, but you are. Whatever’s up with Tessie I should have known. We’re meant to be getting married. I’m not some stud bull has to be kept in the dark until he’s needed. I’m a part of all this.

CATHY: A stud bull? I don’t know I’ve ever thought of you as that…

TOM: It’s not a joke. And I’m not a joke. You know what I mean.

Pause.

CATHY: [to LON] Where are you going?

LON: Tom I trust with this. You I don’t.

Pause.

CATHY: [calling, to TOM] You should find out how long he’s had that gelignite sitting in that shed.

LON: We’ll be back first thing. If you go out, leave that photo on the table.

CATHY: Where would I go out?

LON: You might go out tonight. You’ll be free as a bird.

CATHY: Well, I’ll just have a great big party, all the middle-aged bachelors and spinsters, round ’em all up.

LON: Just don’t go driving at dusk. Or dawn. There’s a lot of roos around at the present moment.

CATHY: Why would I go driving?

LON: Cathy, Cathy, Cathy. You’re as close to a pane of glass as anyone I’ve ever known. I know you inside out.

CATHY: No, you don’t. You think you know me. No—you think you possess me. Me and Tessie, both of us, that’s what you think. You claim us as yours. But that’s not the same, Lon. As knowing.

LON leaves. TOM follows.

Dusk. Outside the cultural co-op office in town. EDIE is locking up for the day. CATHY is out on the ‘street’. She has a large photograph in her hand.

I… er… I… don’t suppose you’ve seen the sergeant? I’m trying to slip this under the door but… I’m not normally in town this late… everything looks strange all shut.

EDIE: Well, they’re still working at the bank. You can see the light on from here.

Pause.

CATHY: I’m only going to ask you this once. Did you say something to my husband?

EDIE: No. Which is not to say I wasn’t tempted. I can give that to the coppers tomorrow if you like.

Pause.

CATHY: Lon gave them an old photo of her, God knows why he did that. Before she grew her hair. This is only a year ago, the other one wasn’t her. It was old. God knows how long. This is a studio shot, of course, I don’t know if they can make her smaller. That’s the only thing. Scan it in. And make it smaller. To send to other stations. I’m not sure they can do that. Make her smaller. [She starts to cry.] Sorry.

EDIE: Come inside.

They step ‘inside’. Throughout this scene the wall of family trees (actual or abstract) gradually becomes more distinct.

CATHY: [fighting back tears] Isn’t this silly, just the thought of anyone having to be smaller? God. I must be going mad. I don’t even know what I mean by that.

Pause. EDIE passes her a tissue.

Thank you. [She takes in the ‘family trees’.] What are these?

EDIE: These are what you’re so afraid of. The family trees. Who’s related to who.

Pause.

CATHY: What did you mean you were tempted?

EDIE: Mother’s instinct. Your husband threatened to hurt my son.

CATHY makes a noise of disbelief.

He’s a bit like your Tessie, my boy. On the edge.

CATHY: The last thing Lon would do is want to hurt your son. I’m sorry, you misunderstood.

EDIE: You can tell Lon not to waste his breath, the job’s been done.

CATHY: What do you mean?

EDIE: He plans to tell my Steve that I’d wanted to get rid of him, that I’d wanted to have an abortion. It’s true. I did. Until I saw him born.

CATHY: Why would Lon do that?

EDIE: So I’d convince people to withdraw our claim. And because he knows my Steve’s on the edge. Every time I leave that house my heart sits in my throat and I hope to God I’ve cleared the hoses, or the ropes or the ammunition. You can tell Lon I got to him before he did. I told Steve the story. Told him I love him. What he does with it’s up to him.

CATHY: Lon gets… het up.

EDIE: You want me to give the sergeant the photograph tomorrow? You can just leave it here.

CATHY hesitates.

I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it.

CATHY puts down the photo and runs her finger across the family trees.

CATHY: All those question marks…

EDIE: You know the first thing she taught us, my mother? Same as her mother taught her. First thing a black woman teaches her kids… is how to do without you. First thing they’ve got to learn. How to survive if they’re taken away. My kids learnt that from when they were babies. That’s what the question marks are about. You’d leave taking your kids to doctors until you really had to, worried they’d call it neglect.

CATHY: It was a terrible business, all that.

EDIE: My daughter manages a company, travels all over the world, still she’s got that at the back of her mind. And now you’ve got a question mark. Your girl. Happens to us all, black, white or indifferent. Never taught mothers how to do without their kids.

CATHY: My daughter will come home.

EDIE: That’s what our people thought.

CATHY: It’s not the same.

EDIE: My missing child’s more missing than yours? I suppose if that gets you through the night.

CATHY tries to answer, but can’t. Fighting tears, she goes.

1931 and the present.

ALICE is sitting, eyes down in her notebook, pen in hand. JIM is pouring some water into a cup.

JIM: How you feeling now?

ALICE: Good! It is marvellous! All of it.

JIM: This won’t happen again. If the first ride hadn’t been so fast, Ginger wouldn’t have baulked you. Your first ride in months… I got to learn to control my temper, you’re right.

Suddenly ALICE slumps forward. He grabs her, feels her pulse, and begins to shake her.

Alice. Oh, Jesus. No. No! No!

The sound of an enormous explosion. Rocks cracking. LON runs on.

LON: Oh, Jesus… Jesus… Tom! Here! Tom!

JIM: Miss Alice. Please.

TOM enters. He’s grabbed a towel to cover his bleeding hand. JIM is shaking ALICE, trying to revive her. He slaps her. ALICE’s notebook has fallen out of her hands and onto the ground. JIM carefully places ALICE down, and picks it up.

LON: [to TOM] We’re right… you’re right… Jesus. Fuck, the blood. We’ll get you in the truck.

JIM: [to ALICE] I won’t leave you. I won’t.

TOM: I think my hand’s gone.

JIM looks at the final pages and turns it upside down. This doesn’t make it any clearer. He hesitates. He almost decides to take the book, but then carefully puts it into her bag, closing it tight, and placing it next to her.

LON: Fuck. Oh, fuck.

JIM: I’ll sit with you a while…

LON: Elevated… keep it… elevated.

LON runs off in a panic. JIM takes in the landscape.

JIM: We had a dream. For half a day…

LON re-enters.

LON: Come on. Anyone asks, we were blowing rocks for a dam. Blowing rocks for a dam. Fuck, Jesus. The blood. You don’t worry. I’ll be right to drive.

They exit as… CATHY appears in a slip. Silence except for the sound of cockatoos.

CATHY: I know… I know… I know… I know… I do know… I do know… [Calling] I know you! I know you, Tessie, I know you won’t come back. And I know this place, I know. We’ll disappear in the topsoil. All of us in a willy willy, swirled up in the debris and the dust. Scattered. Gone.

JIM: We had a dream for half a day… and that’s the end of that.

JIM lifts ALICE and carries her off.

Transition.

Time has passed. A street. CATHY, with a cardboard box, is moving house. EDIE, with a plate of sandwiches, is carrying her car keys.

CATHY: Oh. Hello.

EDIE: Cathy.

CATHY: Moving day. We’re moving. We’ve moved. Into the townhouses up that drive. Here in town. A change.

EDIE: Lon’s heart not too good, I hear.

CATHY: You can’t keep having heart attacks and… Yes… nice and close to the clinic.

EDIE nods to the sandwiches.

EDIE: One of our old aunties finally passed over.

CATHY: Yes, I saw the funeral…

EDIE: Her family lives over there. The red brick house with the bright blue door. You’ll be neighbours.

CATHY: Oh…

CATHY looks across to the house. Behind them, TOM wheels LON out to supervise proceedings from a distance. He wears an oxygen mask. TOM’s arm is heavily bandaged, so he wheels LON with one hand.

EDIE: I’m first here… There’ll be a big wake. Reminds me of Old Granny Anderson—

CATHY: Here’s Tom come to give me a hand. Oh. Sorry.

TOM: Edie.

EDIE: How’s your arm, Tom?

TOM: Be a bit better with something on the end.

EDIE: I was just thinking about old Granny Anderson. You remember her?

TOM: I remember her. I do.

EDIE: She said she wasn’t waiting to die to have a wake. She had hers about two years before she passed over. Made us all get up there under the bough shed on the Yumba and tell her what we were going to say about her. She enjoyed it, too.

Pause.

TOM: I never talked to her. We were always told to steer clear.

EDIE: She was lethal, Granny Anderson. You shoulda steered clear. If your father was still alive, he’d tell you.

TOM: She was always onto council about something, I remember he used to say that.

EDIE: She’d get ropeable. After the war when the RSL built the pool… there was a lot of discussion. Should Aboriginal children be allowed in? The council said no. Black skin might flake off, wreck the filter, who knows? And Granny Anderson heard about this and up she goes to council. And got all those men in one room. ‘Aboriginal soldiers fought in that war. All right, Aboriginal kids can’t go in the pool, that’s your decision. All right. But I just wanted to let all you men know that I’ll be taking a chair down there outside that lovely white wall you’ve built. And every white kid goes in through those turnstiles, I’ll let them know the names of their black ’lations. Uncles, aunts, half-brothers and sisters. The lot.’ Two days later a unanimous vote. By the end of the week the pool was filled with little black kids doing bombs in the deep end. A good twenty years before Moree.

Pause.

TOM: I’m related. Aren’t I? To Granny Anderson.

CATHY: Tom’s on medication.

EDIE: Yes you are, Tom. You sure are.

TOM: Her father was my great-grandfather, right? Right?

EDIE: Yes.

TOM: I heard once, but I was never sure. They just used to say we had Greek blood in us.

CATHY: I don’t think you’re on the family tree they’ve…

EDIE: She was a good old stick.

TOM: Well. That’s food for thought. Excuse me.

He goes back up to LON.

CATHY: He keeps hoping Tessie might have turned up. But she hasn’t. She rang. I told her about Lon. But all she could talk about was how she was tip-toeing along the edges of canyons. She sounded ‘up’ but she’ll plummet again and…

EDIE: You don’t know where she is.

CATHY: She won’t say. He keeps hoping she’ll just turn up. She probably will. We’ve told her that we’ve moved. [Pause.] While Lon was in hospital, Edie, I went over to the bank.

EDIE: You don’t muck around. Shit. Sorry. I’ve got a quick tongue. That was… I’m sorry. Uncalled for. Good luck to you whatever happens.

CATHY: I’m going to give you something, don’t open it, don’t let Lon see that I’m giving it to you. Is he watching?

EDIE: Tom’s wheeling him inside.

CATHY gets the journal and Alice’s notebook, both still wrapped in the old cloths.

CATHY: I don’t know what you need for that connection report, or if it helps with all those question marks, but this might have something in it.

EDIE slowly unwraps the larger book.

I read them once, years ago. I think you might be able to use them. They’ve been in the safety deposit box for years. Lon’s the only one with the key, but it always helps to know the bank manager, as they say. A journal and day book, then the old aunty’s jottings and memories. It’s not a novel. That was something Lon said. That it was all a novel. But it’s not. You could photocopy it. And give it back. It looks hard to read but… once you get used to it, it becomes easier. Once you get used to the scrawls and flourishes. There are lots of names, and a family tree, at least that’s what it looks like. It might fill in the gaps.

EDIE opens it and begins to read. CATHY watches her. Music.

THE END

ACT TWO