Steele had recognised that Billy couldn’t be tied to him forever and that he’d have to be given the freedom to develop both his career and his life. Billy could play the piano as well as he could play the guitar, but it was his voice that so many people wanted to hear. For a time, Steele had chosen the venues for Billy and accompanied him. He hadn’t allowed him to go too far afield but he was aware that he couldn’t go on doing this for too long. If Billy believed Steele thought he was incapable of travelling about under his own steam, it could lead to resentment and a fragmentation of the special relationship he’d built with Billy. But the truth was that Steele was more than a little concerned about Billy’s ability to cope with the wider world. Billy was reckless with the money Steele doled out to him and would give it away to anyone who persuaded him that he needed help. Those who seemed to need it most were mostly distant family and friends who gravitated towards Billy after he left school and started earning money from gigs. They all thought he was Christmas-come-early and Billy enjoyed their company and adoration. To them, he was a kind of hero.
So, Billy began to play the club circuit. He was young, nice-looking, extremely talented and dressed well. Everyone wanted to see and hear Billy Sanders and money piled up in Billy’s account. But it didn’t stay there very long as Billy always found some reason to spend it, or someone to spend it for him. He recorded his first album and it sold well. Life was just as he had always wanted it to be. He had a lot of fun, particularly with girls, and began to drink a little.
In between gigs, Billy came back to see Steele. He told Steele about the audiences he’d entertained, the places he’d visited and gave him a rough accounting of the money he’d made. But Steele, who knew the young man backwards, saw changes in Billy. He was no longer the boy he’d taken under his wing, but a brash young man. Too brash. To a certain extent, the success he’d enjoyed had gone to his head.
“Is everything all right with you, Billy?” Steele asked on one of Billy’s visits.
“Everything’s just fine, Mr Clay,” Billy assured him. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Steele about the speeding fines or the girl he’d got pregnant and had to pay off. These misdemeanours were all wiped away by money and he had plenty of it with engagements stretching months ahead.
As time went on, Billy drank more and some mornings after a late-night session, he didn’t feel so good. It was about the same time that Billy got mixed up with some Aboriginal activists, including a girl called Jackie Banda, an abbreviated form of her virtually unpronounceable tribal name. Jackie was the closest female in looks and figure to the mother he remembered when he was a young boy, and just as beautiful. Jackie was darker than his mother but, with a far better brain. She had clear goals, too, whereas his mother had never looked beyond the next male who wanted her. Jackie was a fiery speaker and she was also great in bed and Billy fell for her like a ton of bricks. He bought her fancy clothes and jewellery, and she presented an eye-catching picture when she accompanied him to his gigs.
Billy was proud of Jackie and eventually brought her home to meet his mother and Steele. He imagined that Steele would complement him on his choice of woman. Steele didn’t, but he didn’t criticise her either. It didn’t take Steele long to recognise that Jackie wasn’t the right woman for Billy. The way she looked at Billy made him suspect she was simply using Billy and his money to push her cause. He didn’t blame her for her Aboriginal activism, as long as Billy wasn’t hurt too badly or taken to the cleaners. Jackie had a better brain than Billy, and from what he could see, Jackie was going to use his popularity for all it was worth. But in terms of a woman to keep Billy on the right course, Jackie Banda was absolutely the wrong choice. In some respects, she was quite brilliant and if she’d had a tertiary education, she might have become anything she wanted to be. As it was, she’d come a fair way through her own efforts and was set to go further. But this still didn’t make her right for Billy.
“Clay doesn’t like me,” Jackie said when she and Billy were in the van and heading off for another engagement.
“How do you know? Mr Clay didn’t say anything to me about not liking you and he’s always been upfront about everything,” Billy said. He didn’t like hearing any criticism of his mentor who, to him, was still the best man in the country.
“Well, he doesn’t like me. I can tell. It’s easy to see that he thinks I’m a bad influence on you. Do you think I’m a bad influence on you, Billy?” she asked sweetly.
“Of course not. You’re the best thing in my life, Jackie.” She was certainly the best woman in bed he’d experienced and she always looked good, too. She wasn’t very musical but you couldn’t have everything. Billy knew that. If his mother had had half Jackie’s brains and aggro, she could’ve gone anywhere.
What concerned Steele was that despite Billy’s popularity and the money he was making, he didn’t seem to be any better off financially. He’d had to replace the first van he’d given Billy, which was written off after a prang, and there were hotel bills and other expenses galore while Billy waited for the second van to be fashioned to his specifications. The fact that heaps of money went down the gurgler didn’t seem to faze Billy at all because there was always another engagement down the track.
Steele worried a great deal about Billy. One of the last things Steele had done for him was to team him up with a reliable agent, a man by the name of Jack Bellew. Bellew managed several leading entertainers and had come highly recommended. The calibre of people he represented bore testimony to Bellew’s standing.
There was no doubt that Bellew was a professional operator. He was shrewd too and had checked up on Steele and found that he was up there with the best as a writer. So, he didn’t pull any punches with Steele and always told him what he thought. Bellew was aware of how much Steele had done for Billy Sanders and he felt a bit sorry for him when the young man began to slide off the rails. Steele rang more and more to find out how Billy was faring and each time the reports were more disturbing than the last.
“Billy’s very popular, Clay. People like him and he puts on a good show. How’s he behaving? He’s playing up quite a bit. A bit flash. Some performers are like that when they get a bit of success and get their hands on some money. Could be his blood showing,” Bellew said.
“Billy’s a good kid,” Steele protested.
“It’s his Abo blood that’s causing all the trouble. It’s always the same, whether they’re entertainers, fighters, footballers or whatever,” Bellew said.
Steele’s free hand fisted. “That’s drawing a pretty wide bow, Jack,” Steele said. “What about all the screwed up, drugged out and alcoholic rock stars and film stars?”
“Yeah, I’m aware of them, Clay. Look, you did a great job with Billy and he’s a real talent, but blood will tell. It’d be a different matter if he was socking the dough away for the future, but he’s throwing it around like there’s no tomorrow. I’d have a word with him, Clay. He might listen to you because he’s certainly not listening to me. I had a go and he didn’t like it one little bit. The best of British luck, Clay,” Bellew said.
After he’d put the phone down, Steele went outside and sat on the log seat he’d built. He’d sat on this same seat with Billy on innumerable occasions and they’d discussed a wide range of subjects, but they usually came back to music. He recognised that there was a kind of irresponsibility in Billy that no amount of advice or criticism could alter. Billy’s mother had been the same. You could teach Billy certain things but you couldn’t teach him how to behave in the big world beyond Jerogeree, especially when alcohol became part of that scene. If Billy hadn’t been so talented and if he hadn’t been such an obvious success, he might’ve been more willing to accept Steele’s advice, but he felt that he was a man now and had outgrown the need to listen to Steele. What Steele feared was that Billy was headed for trouble that might stuff up his life. He just had to hope that whatever crash came, it would only be financial. If the worst came to the worst, he’d be able to look after Billy. But he’d never tell him about the gold. Not now. Not ever.
As a great many people made demands on his time and money, Billy came less frequently to see Steele. Steele rationalised that he’d done all he could for Billy and it was up to him now what he made of his life.
When Billy and Jackie announced they were expecting, Steele hoped that fatherhood would help Billy settle down and focus on his future. Billy was certainly excited when he told Steele about the birth of his baby son, and for a while, little Charlie made a difference. But that difference didn’t last and Billy soon returned to drinking and partying after his performances.
Charlie was just six months old when Billy, Jackie and her brother, Roy, headed off to Darwin for a gig, followed by a tour through the inland of the Northern Territory. It was after they’d had a big performance followed by a night of partying that they left the next morning for Alice Springs where, so Roy assured Billy, there were heaps of Murri hanging out to both meet him and hear him sing. Bleary-eyed from a hangover and lack of sleep, they never made it to Alice Springs. Billy’s van hit a water buffalo somewhere south of Darwin and cartwheeled into the desert.
Glenda Butler heard about the accident on her radio and immediately rang Steele. She was aware that he often wrote for days without any concern for what was happening in the outside world. Steele listened to her patiently before telling her that the Northern Territory police had been in touch with the local police who’d been out to see him, as he’d been listed on Billy’s licence as the person to be contacted in the event of an accident.
“You might have told me, Clay,” Glenda said crossly.
“I’ve been waiting to hear more details from the hospital. Billy’s in surgery now but Jackie and her brother were killed outright when they rolled.” Steele’s voice caught and he struggled to go on. “Billy is badly smashed up, Glenda, but the baby is supposed to be doing okay. I’ll be flying up as soon as I can organise a flight.”
“Clay, I’m so sorry. I’m coming out,” Glenda said.
Steele put down the phone and then sat and looked about the house he’d restored. It was filled with memories of Billy. His mind went back to the first day he’d seen the boy. Billy had told him about the fish and the craybobs in the creek and then he’d helped clean up the mess after Josh had torn down parts of the old cottage. And what great times they’d had after Billy came to live with him. Billy had had so much musical ability to go with his beautiful voice that he’d been almost guaranteed a great future as a performer. Would he have any kind of a future now?
Would he live?
Glenda found Steele sitting out on the front veranda looking out into the darkness of the garden. She poured him a brandy from the bottle she’d brought and Steele took it and drank. “The first thing I want to say is that it wasn’t your fault, Clay. I know you well enough to have some idea of what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you could have prevented this accident from happening if you’d taken some other course of action, but you couldn’t. Everyone is responsible for his or her actions. You couldn’t hogtie Billy and keep him close to you forever,” Glenda said.
“I could have gone with him and looked after him,” Steele said.
“Do you think he would have wanted you to do that? You looked after Billy as well as anyone could have done, Clay. You couldn’t nursemaid him forever. Young men will be young men and sometimes, they pay a heavy price for it.”
“He’s going to be out of action for some time. The baby is my most immediate concern. He has no mother now and with Billy out of action, I’ll have to see what can be done about bringing him home.”
“Don’t concern yourself about that, Clay. I’ll look after the legal side of things,” Glenda said.
“Lilly and Tess want the baby taken there, but I’m sure there’ll be a lot of legal palaver before I can do that,” Steele said.
“Like I said, I’ll look after it, Clay. When’s your flight?”
“In the morning.”
Glenda nodded. “I have a couple of things to attend to in the morning then I’ll take the first available plane to Darwin and join you. Let’s get some rest now, Clay. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
Glenda held Steele close to her and after a while, he slept. But she didn’t follow suit for quite a long time. Her mind was busy trying to decide on her best course of action. Should she come and live with Clay? He was sure to be upset about Billy for some time. He needed her, even if he didn’t know it, as did Billy and Charlie.
Glenda woke next morning to find Clay’s eyes on her. He kissed her gently and rested his face against hers. “You’re a very remarkable woman, Glenda Butler.”
“And a woman who’d like to be several years younger than I am. I’m a bit old to be a mother again, but it might still be possible, Clay.”
“I don’t have a single doubt about what you could do,” Steele said.
“There are younger women who could certainly do more than me, Clay. You could have your own Billy or Clem right here,” Glenda said.
“I suppose there are. The problem is that I haven’t met one I would want to spend my life with in the expectation that I’d be tolerably happy. A younger woman would make too many demands on me. And I’ve never met one as special as you. I could live with you and be very happy, Glenda,” he said.
“I could live with you too, Clay. If you really want me, I’ll come here and live with you. I could carry on with my job for the time being.” Glenda brushed a stray lock of hair back from her cheek. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him but it wasn’t the right time. “You’ll need to leave soon to catch your flight. You should have some breakfast first.”
“Oh, yes, life has to go on, doesn’t it?” he said.
“That’s the spirit. Look, why don’t you delay your flight while I attend to these couple of legal matters and then, I’ll come back for you and drive you to the airport and we’ll go to Darwin on the same flight,” Glenda suggested.
“I should go, but… thank you, I’d appreciate the support,” Steele said. He would much prefer having Glenda with him than travelling to Darwin alone. That was one other thing he liked about Glenda… her decisiveness. She was good at making decisions because, he supposed, she’d made a great many in her life.
Steele took a deep breath and strode into the room with Glenda at his side. He’d rung the hospital and asked them to let Billy have a single room if one was available and he quickly found a chair for Glenda and another for himself then sat down beside Billy’s bed. His former charge was swathed in bandages and a myriad of tubes connected him to equipment on the other side of the bed.
He rested his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you in one piece, Billy.”
“It’s great to see you, Mr Clay. I knew you’d come. I didn’t expect you would, Mrs Butler, but I’m awful pleased to see you,” Billy said huskily. And then in the next breath, “I’m sorry I let you down, Mr Clay. I killed Jackie and Roy. Should’ve killed myself too and made a good job of it,” he said with a sob in his voice. “Just a miracle the baby didn’t die, too.”
“That’s enough of that kind of talk, Billy. You’ve still got a baby son to look after,” Steele said firmly.
“A lot of use I’ll be for looking after a baby. I won’t be able to look after myself for ages,” Billy said bitterly.
Steele looked at Glenda and shook his head. Billy was so full of guilt there was nothing for it but to take full charge of the situation as the first step to getting Billy right again.
“Mrs Butler and I will take the baby back to your mum and Tess. They want him and will care for him. When you’re able, you can go and live there. It’s a big house, so we’ll probably get a nurse to look after you until you’re back on your feet. You needn’t worry about Charlie and what’s going to happen to him. He’ll be good therapy for Lilly and Tess knows a lot about babies. You okay with all that?” Steele asked.
“It sounds great, Mr Clay. I don’t deserve having people like you and Mrs Butler looking out for me. I really let you down. I promise you if I come good, I’ll never drink another drop of grog,” Billy said.
“Promises, promises,” Steele said with a smile. “You just concentrate on getting well and we’ll see what the future has in store for you.”
Steele and Glenda visited long hours every day and Billy was downcast about their eventual departure from Darwin, though he realised that Mrs Butler couldn’t prolong her visit and Steele didn’t want her flying back on her own with the baby. “I’ll get you down to Brisbane as soon as I can manage it, Billy. And from there, we’ll get you back to your mum and Tess,” Steele told him.
“That sounds great, Mr Clay. Like Mum once said to me, I was awfully lucky the day I met you,” Billy told him with a catch in his voice.
Just before Steele and Glenda left Darwin, they paid Billy a final visit. Almost shyly, Billy put his hand under his pillow and brought forward a short piece of painted stick.
“What do you have there, Billy?”
“An old Murri man came to see me and handed me this stick. He didn’t say much, just that I’d be okay and that I’d sing again. I asked him who’d sent him, as I reckon someone had to have. He said Marjaru sent him. You know about him, don’t you, Mr Clay?”
“I know about him, Billy. Marjaru was supposed to be the last living full blood descendent of the Gubbi Gubbi people who’d fled Jerogeree Creek. The man was reputed to be so old that most people doubted that he still lived. He was supposed to have had highly developed psychic powers, one of the very last of his people to possess them. His name was always spoken about with a kind of awe.”
“What does it mean, Mr Clay? And how did Marjaru know about me being here?”
“There’s such a thing as the radio, Billy. Your accident made the national news. It seems, and this is only what I’ve heard since I came to Jerogeree, that Marjaru has always had a way of keeping in touch with developments that have anything to do with Gubbi Gubbi country. It looks as if Marjaru is taking a personal interest in your welfare, Billy. He’s telling you, having the benefit of his fabled psychic power, that you’re going to come good and that you’ll sing again. That’s awfully powerful medicine, Billy. It should buck you up knowing that everything will be okay,” Steele said.
“Crikey, Marjaru, it’s unreal,” Billy breathed.
They left him on that note and feeling considerably brighter than had been the case when they arrived. “He’ll be all right, Glenda,” he said.
“Do you believe all that business about Marjaru? Or were you just trying to cheer him up?”
“I don’t disbelieve it. There are a lot of things about the Aborigines that I don’t understand. What’s really important is that Billy has enough of the old people in his makeup to believe that this legendary old man is taking an interest in him. That could help him get better, mentally anyway, a lot faster than anything modern medicine could contribute.”
“It’s certainly odd.”
“Only because we’re dealing with something outside our sphere of understanding, a fragment from a past time. There’ve been studies about the existence of psychic power in some Aborigines, both on the mainland and among the Torres Strait islanders. But if we dug a little deeper, we’d probably find that there’s a more rational explanation for Marjaru’s interest in Billy, like the radio or having a ‘spy’ close to Billy’s mother. The old people were very secretive and hard to get anything out of. We’re only on the fringe of things long gone, but I’d say that Marjaru had a very good reason for surfacing now and I’ll be surprised if there’s not more to follow,” Steele said.
“You think so?”
“I’m fairly certain of it,” Steele said.
What Glenda realised was that she, and probably she alone, understood things about Clayton Steele that other people didn’t. She was aware that because of the land he owned and its ancient relationship with its traditional owners, Steele felt that he had a moral responsibility to do what he could for the descendants of the Gubbi Gubbi people, especially Billy Sanders, and now his son, Charlie. Steele would never desert Billy. He’d always be there for him and if it was humanly possible, he’d get Billy back on his feet and singing again. In the current circumstances, it wasn’t hard to understand why Steele was so pleased about Marjaru’s interest in Billy. Nothing could give him greater satisfaction than to see Billy face the troubles that lay ahead of him with some kind of confidence. Although Billy was far removed from the beliefs of his ancient ancestors, it was possible that there remained in Billy a residue of this age-old superstition which made him amenable to Marjaru’s magic.
After ten days at Billy’s side, Steele and Glenda flew back to Brisbane with Charlie. Glenda had dealt with all the legal requirements and then taken possession of the baby who, except for a bruise on one leg had emerged from the accident virtually unscathed. He ate and slept well throughout the return trip and until they turned him over to Lilly and Tess.
It was with a profound sense of relief that Glenda saw the baby handed over to Billy’s mother and her carer. She’d experienced some doubts that it would actually happen and that Steele would decide at the last moment to rear the baby himself. He’d said on the plane going to Darwin that if Lilly and Tess hadn’t wanted the baby, he’d have requested to care for Charlie on Billy’s behalf. Glenda hadn’t wanted the care of Charlie to fall entirely to Clay and had quietly made her opinion known on that score. Now that Charlie’s immediate future was sorted, Glenda felt the weight of her concern ease. If Clay had decided to rear the baby, she’d have felt compelled to offer to move in with him immediately to help. Their future together would have been based on circumstance, and not emotion, which was something Glenda didn’t want.
Glenda dropped Steele off at Jerogeree and returned to her postponed legal schedule. She’d have preferred to stay a day or so longer with Clay, even though she felt that he was easier in his mind now about Billy, but she had responsibilities that needed tending. Billy’s rehabilitation would no doubt take some time, but his prognosis was good.
Although he’d never minded being alone, Steele felt lonely now. He’d had Glenda’s company for some days and had enjoyed it. He and Glenda fitted like a hand and glove. She made decisions that always seemed to be the right ones and her presence was never obtrusive. So when she left in her car, he felt a painful kind of emptiness for the first time since coming to Jerogeree. An emptiness he didn’t care for. Adding to Glenda’s absence was the fact that as he walked about his property, he saw Billy everywhere. The years they’d spent together and the special moments they’d shared played like a movie in his head, and nothing he did could stop it.
Steele entered his workroom and there, behind the voluptuousness of the purple and the red bougainvilleas, he sat down and began to write. For hours he sweated over a song about Billy, the boy he’d first met years ago. He worked at the song well into the night until finally he had a first draft that he thought was all right. Some words might need to be changed and he’d look at them the next day, but he’d poured his thoughts onto the screen and felt better for the experience.
The next morning, Steele re-worked some of the lines and then sang them. The song sounded fine, sounded just like Billy. He thought Billy would like it and he’d have it to give to him when he came home.
Steele put away his guitar and went out to water his garden, filling up the empty bird-trays with seed and some honey-soaked bread. He didn’t like to make the birds dependent on him but he was selfish enough to want them to feel welcome in his garden. And today, he wanted their company more than ever. When he returned to the cottage, he sat on the back veranda and watched the gaily-coloured lorikeets come to the trays, scratching and pecking without any concern for the man watching them, and their happy chatter helped to fill a little of the emptiness he felt.
Steele knew that he couldn’t leave this place. Not ever. It was unthinkable that he could ever return to Sydney to live. Or any other city for that matter. There would be no magic there as there was in this place. And to allow anyone else to live at Jerogeree wasn’t an option. Steele felt that at Jerogeree, he’d been touched by something beyond his power to comprehend.
As his mind ranged over all the countries presently plagued by conflict, drought and diseases, or governed unjustly by dictators, he felt especially grateful to live in such a place and in such a country. He also felt very humble to be blessed with the gift of writing because it was the reason he’d been able to live here. He didn’t live in a swanky house, and he didn’t need to. Here at Jerogeree, he had everything that he needed. He felt very sorry for people who had to work at humdrum jobs in the crowded cities, cities becoming more crowded year by year as new arrivals crammed into them. He even felt sorry for the people in high-paying jobs because of the pressure on them to perform while living their expensive lifestyles. He supposed that there was something of the same kind of pressure on him to keep writing best-selling books, but the way he looked at it, if a book wasn’t a success, it wasn’t the end of the world. There would always be another book. And while he wrote it, there was this place.
What Steele hoped was that the books he had written up to now would be eclipsed by those he planned to write in the years ahead. What he’d done was merely a beginning. There was so much more to write about: the utter futility of war with its pointless wastage of human life and the need for the peoples of the world to unite to defeat starvation, disease, ignorance and bigotry. He would write about religions too, those that had failed the world and spawned hatred and cruelty, and those that empowered individuals to overcome hatred and intolerance.
Steele was aware that his writing plans would fill a lifetime, but he would attempt it. It would be a lonely road, yet he felt that he’d not survived his illness to waste his life. He was sure that he’d been brought to Jerogeree for a definite purpose. The gold he’d discovered seemed to him to be part of the overall scheme of things. It would enable him to stay focused and to ensure that Billy and his son wouldn’t lack for anything. In the short term, there was Billy’s rehabilitation to consider and how best to achieve it. Billy’s physical injuries were one thing, but it was what the accident and its two deaths had done to him mentally that concerned Steele most of all. Billy might not want to sing again and especially not in front of an audience. Steele felt that it was going to take some powerful ‘medicine’ to restore Billy to his old self. Yes, there was plenty of work ahead of him and all of it challenging. There were battles to be won and they would require significant input from him. And with those thoughts uppermost in his mind, Steele rose from his seat and headed for his computer…