Soldiers came limping back throughout the war years, and Will Coolman came limping back to Gebalup and Wirlup Haven with some companions. His friends were not Nyoongars. Once again, they were men who were a bit dead inside. They flirted with Topsy, when she and her children went to Harriette’s camp outside of Wirlup Haven. Watching from the jetty there you would see them walking along the beach from town, and then quite suddenly disappear.
Tommy had only just started walking.
Harriette continued to tell her old story of what the cry of the curlews meant. Remember, she would say, hold yourself proud. You are as good as anyone, better.
Two Nyoongar women, and sometimes a third or fourth who had made their way to visit Harriette, once again welcomed even these maimed men; one with a leg missing, another an arm, most with an absence of love or sense.
In the mornings the women fished from the reef, the shore, the jetty. The kids crushed and scattered shellfish for bait. Sometimes the shellfish were the tucker; abalone, mussels, periwinkles plucked from the rocks and prised, with a pin, from their boiled black shells.
The kids glistened with the sun and the ocean. Some were always dark-skinned; some—like the toddler Tommy and his sister, Ellen—merely had, um ... a propensity to tan. They all swam, had to learn early. One of the cripples grabbed toddler Tommy with a lone arm and threw him from the jetty. Topsy, fully clothed, leapt in and swam him to shore.
The men laughed at her. Observed how her clothes clung.
The men went to the pub in the afternoons. The publican, first time, questioned Will—not for himself, you understand, but because there was a law, and a policeman in Gebalup. There was a law, yes, about Aborigines and drinking. The men bullied him until he relented. But, he told them, the less he knew about those women the better thankyou very much.
They lit a fire around the corner of the beach; sang. There was sherry from the pub.
Three or so free years Topsy spent with her Aunty Harriette. Jack Chatalong—who had no interest in going to such a war—saw more of them, and some of Harriette’s long-lost daughters, with their white men also away, came to visit Harriette.
Harriette’s camp was among the few peppermint trees behind the dunes around the beach from Wirlup Haven. Tommy swam, walked the reefs, ate of the sea’s abundance.
His sister was inclined to cling to their mother.
Watch toddler Tommy and Jack walking around the beach. A small blond boy, the thin man ... disappear. A tiny inlet tucked out of the winds, and in among the dunes there was home.
Dolphins waved from the sea. Salmon traced the coast, the wind calmed, the ocean flexed with distant storms.
Topsy moved back to Gebalup when those storms came to stay, because Ern had returned. He trembled, and clenched his jaw more than ever.