TEOH TOM COMES round at the sound of the approaching dinghy. Night has fallen. He has been lapsing in and out of consciousness all day. He is beyond thinking, beyond fear, and is consumed by thirst. When Big Al rips the tape from his mouth and begins firing questions, all he can do is make croaking noises through his dry swollen throat.
Big Al drags him out to the rear deck, then gets a mug of water. He taps his foot impatiently as, with shaking hands, Tom gulps it down.
‘Well?’ he snaps.
Tom whimpers, ‘Nothin’, nothin’ in my well.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, nothin’.’
‘Move ’em somewhere else did you?’
‘Never.’
‘I’ve had a long hard day, you silly old coot. I’m not in the mood for games.’
As he says this Big Al manhandles Tom to the back of the boat and plunges him into the ocean. He holds him down under the water.
Tom thrashes wildly, but cannot match Big Al’s strength. Just when he thinks he can hold his breath no longer, he is jerked upwards.
Big Al dangles him by a handful of hair.
Tom cannot stop the words that spill out. ‘The boy know. Buddy. He know I got nothin’. He worked it out.’
‘The Jirroo kid? The cheeky one?’
Tom stops struggling, as shame floods through him.
‘What’s he know?’
Tom stays silent this time, even as Big Al shakes him, and hisses, ‘What the hell does the kid know? What did he work out?’
Big Al plunges him back under the water. Tom starts thrashing again. Suddenly, with a great tearing of hair that burns his scalp, he comes free, leaving skin and hair behind in Big Al’s fist.
He kicks wildly as he bobs to the surface, just evading the arm that gropes for him. He ducks under water as he hears the splash of Big Al diving in after him.
The darkness is Tom’s friend, and the water is his element. He does not try to outswim Big Al, instead plays ducks and drakes, breaking the surface silently each time he has to come up for air, then zigzagging in different directions under water, gradually working further away from the boat.
When he hears Big Al clambering back on board he strikes out for the shore. He hears the dinghy’s outboard fire up, and sees the torch beam playing on the water as it circles the cruiser. But by then he has reached the mangroves and he is soon hidden in the maze of roots.
The backyard is a whirl of food, talk and music. Sal is sitting next to Janey, who is pounding out a rhythm as Little Joe and Jimmy trade licks, so engrossed that she does not notice her parents arrive. Ally spots them looking around the crowded yard though, and shepherds Flick and Graham over to sit with her.
Ally and Flick are soon deep in conversation, swapping notes on their daughters, while Graham talks music, cattle and Broome stories with Eddie and Andy. But their conversation dies away when they notice a shifting of chairs over in the music circle, and the kids picking up their instruments.
It’s not really cool to put on a performance in this environment. The vibe of backyard parties is a fluid movement, with different players dropping in and out, and the talking and eating continuing unabated around the music. But the rest of the family have been dying to hear the new song just as much as the kids have been dying to do it, and a hush falls as Buddy starts the beat, using Col’s drum box.
Janey and Dancer kick in with their guitars, playing rhythm and bass, and then Jimmy joins in with the lead line he devised. Flick and Graham can’t keep the grins off their faces when Sal joins Janey on the vocals for the first proper rendition of Dreaming in Broome.
Applause does not really fit into the backyard vibe either, but Flick and Graham don’t know this, and when the song comes to a close they whistle and cheer. Once they have given the lead, others join in and call for more. The kids run through their repertoire, with Janey prodding Sal to join in on the choruses.
After the kids do their thing the night mellows out. Buster and Micky play a couple of slow blues numbers with Little Joe, before Buster drifts over to listen to the flow of conversation around the Pearsons.
Later, when all the other guests have drifted home, the Pearsons are still there. Flick finds herself in a corner with Janey and Dancer, Little Joe and Buster, who seems to have been waiting for this quiet moment to talk to her. Buster turns the conversation to Jiir and Manburr, and the ceremony he and Little Joe have come from.
His voice is quiet, but the effect is mesmerising. He weaves stories of the dreaming and of country around stories of his own life — working the stations, the boats, odd jobs around Broome and up and down the coast. He explains to Flick how as the years passed he was given more and more responsibility for the laws and the ceremonies of the rain dreaming.
His life has come to revolve less around making his way in the white man’s world, and more on the old ways and the well-being of the land. Little Joe is the one from the next generation who looks like he will follow this path, Buster explains. And maybe it will be Dancer in the generation after.
Flick begins to appreciate that for all the trappings and distractions of modern life in a town like Broome, the dreaming and the law of the land are much more than an echo of a time past. They are central to the way these people live, the way they feel, the way they see the world. The impassioned raves she has heard from Janey down in Perth take on a whole new context, watching her sitting at Buster’s knee as he talks.
Buster tells her about the raindancing up at Garnet Bay, and his fear that they will be of no use. ‘I’m a lawyer too, like you, blackfeller way,’ says Buster. ‘Or a lawman, anyway. Only I don’t know if I’m winnin’ my case.’
‘If there’s anything I can do to help, I will,’ Flick answers quietly.
‘There is somethin’ I wanted to ask you,’ Buster says.
‘What’s that?’
Buster reaches under his chair for a shopping bag. Janey and Dancer go goggle eyed as he pulls the biscuit tin out of the bag. ‘I was wonderin’ if you’d mind lookin’ after this for a few days. I reckon you’ll be safe with it.’
‘I’ll be safe?’ Flick has no idea what he is talking about.
He smiles at Janey and Dancer. ‘These two will tell you. If they belong to anyone, they belong to the kids, but more better if you look after ’em for now. My sister doesn’t like having ’em round here.’
But before the conversation can go any further there is a commotion. Teoh Tom, covered in mud and streaked with blood, is staggering down the driveway. Buddy leaps up, and Tom collapses onto him, trying to hug him, and to hold himself up. ‘I’m sorry boy,’ he sobs. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell ’im. ’E was goin’ to kill me.’
Tom is settled on a chair by the stoked-up fire, with a blanket around him and a steaming mug of tea. A bandage around his head has staunched the flow of blood from his scalp.
Bella had supervised cleaning him up as he stammered out an account of his capture and escape, begging forgiveness for telling Big Al that Buddy knew the secret. Eventually, he looked Buster and Bella in the eye and said he had a story to tell them. He asked for a cup of tea, and now he has it they all wait. He stares into the flames for a long minute before he takes a sip.
‘Your daddy come to see me one night. War time. That Japanee war. He been wearin’ that uniform. He ’ad a bad news for me.’
Tom talks in low haunted tones, never taking his eyes from the fire. The Jirroos and the Pearsons edge in closer, hanging on his words.
He tells how his brother had gone up the coast with the lugger mob when they were ordered to evacuate Broome. ‘He been offsider for that Billy Steer now, on ’is lugger. He been say for me to come with ’im. More safer up in that wild country if that Japanee mob come in, he reckon. I told ’im that Steer man was no good. I told ’im to stop with me, we could live off crab an’ fish, anythin’. But he been go with Steer.’
The next news Tom had of his brother was when Jirroo turned up in Broome, after his patrol was diverted to Garnet Bay following the plane crash. ‘They went there, lookin’ round everywhere. They been see the grave for that mother an’ baby. The Beagle Bay priest been put a cross for ’em. But Jirroo, he find ’nother grave. New one, he told that sergeant.
‘That sergeant made ’is soldiers dig up that grave. An’ Jirroo been know my brother, an’ he could tell that been ’im buried there. He didn’t like diggin’ ’im up like that, but that sergeant reckon they ’ad to.’
Tom glances at Buster for a moment, before returning his gaze to the flames. ‘Jirroo been tell me biggest story that night Buster, whole lot. But all mixed up. He been worryin’ too much. Said he already seen Bella that day now, an he ’ad to go back to see you next day, but he ’ad all this job to do, an’ not enough time. I was cryin’ for my brother same time he was talkin’ too.’
Buster slowly draws the story out of Tom. Two old lawmen had come to Jirroo at Garnet Bay. ‘They put the law word on ’im, that blackfeller law word, to help ’em.’
The old men had been alarmed by the talk coming from the lugger camps about trouble at Garnet Bay, where the big ceremony ground was. ‘When they been get down there, right in that ceremony ground, they see tracks — two mans’ tracks. An’ right there in that main place, someone been dig up the ground next to a tree. An’ they find one tin buried there.’
‘Then they find that grave for my brother. They been worryin’ some bad business goin’ on. An’ they been worryin’ for stranger mob goin’ in that ceremony ground. Jirroo tell them two old law men who been in that grave. They said Steer been spreadin’ the word that my brother jump ship, headin’ back to Broome.
‘They reckoned it must be Billy Steer an’ my brother findin’ the diamonds. Must be they take some, an’ leave that other lot, main lot, buried there thinkin’ to go back an’ get ’em after everythin’ settle down.
‘Must be Steer been thinkin’ greedy way, he want to keep ’em all. So he kill my brother. That’s what Jirroo an’ them old fellers reckoned.
‘Those old men never want any trouble comin’. They never want everybody walkin’ through that ceremony ground, diggin’ it up, askin’ question, makin’ trouble.
‘Jirroo told ’em, tell ’is sergeant mate, he’ll sort everythin’ out. But them old fellers wouldn’t let ’im. They put that law word on ’im. They been say he got that law for that place now, he comin’ up to be a main man for that ceremony, he gotta keep it safe, till everythin’ settle down.
‘He ’ad to take that word from those old men. He ’ad to take that tin, hide ’im somewhere. Keep everythin’ buried. Keep everythin’ secret.
‘He never like tellin’ me all this word, but he reckon I gotta know the story for my own brother.’
Tom sneaks a guilty glance at Bella, who is rocking backwards and forwards in her chair, hugging Tich, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
‘I don’t know ’ow Steer got on ’is track. But I been ’ear a noise, after Jirroo head off from my camp.’
‘What kind of noise?’ Bella asks.
‘He been cry out. But … sort of … cut off.
‘I follow down after ’im. But careful like. I been scared.
‘That’s when I seen it. He been lyin’ down on the ground. Steer bendin’ over ’im. He pull a shell from round Jirroo’s neck. Must be I made a noise. Steer been look my way. Only moonlight, you know, an’ I been hidin’ down behind a bush there. But ’is eye. That cold eye. I been go like jelly. When he run off, I just lay there, shiverin’ … too long, I been just lay there.’
After a long pause, he resumes the story.
‘In the moonlight there, I dig ’is grave near that white gum now. I sing a song for ’im. Old Filipino song. I didn’t know any blackfeller song for buryin’ someone. So I just sing a song from my village where I been grow up.
‘I find one shell in ’is pocket, like that one Steer been pull off ’is neck. Same one Buddy been find. I chuck it in the grave with ’im. An’ I think I bury that story, bury that secret, same time I bury Jirroo.’
Tom hunches down into his chair, and looks across at Buster. But it is Dancer who speaks. ‘Why didn’t you tell his family? Nyami and Mimi. All their lives, they didn’t know what happened to their father.’
‘War been goin’ on. Everythin’ been mad. Buster and Bella, they went back up Beagle Bay.
‘But I got to speak true way now, don’t I,’ Tom murmurs. ‘Every night, I seen ’im in my dreams. Those cold eyes. He kill my brother. He kill their father. I been scared he kill me too, if he reckon I say anythin’. I been too scared.
‘Then war finish. Everybody been come back. But too late then. More better everybody think old Tom just a crazy man, leave ’im alone. Leave ’im alone with ’is bad dreams an’ secrets.’
He turns to Buddy. ‘Only this boy now want to talk to me. He don’t worry I’m crazy. He crazy back, dancin’ with crabs, chasin’ me down. If he don’t push me, I never tell this story.’ He turns to Bella and Buster in turn.
‘Sorry Bella. Sorry Buster.
‘An’ now I’ve put Steer’s boy onto ’im. Sorry Buddy. They got purri purri those diamond. More better they should’ve stayed longa sea.’
A long silence follows.
A terrible realisation is dawning on Flick.
She looks down at the tin that has been sitting in her lap. Unable to stop herself, she prises off the lid.
The diamonds glint in the firelight.