Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea (15 page)

I am peering through the louvres of my bedroom at what must unquestionably be the ugliest man I have ever seen. I haven't seen him around before but he and mummy are having a great time yakking about people I don't know and bush holiday trips to Fourcroy that I've never been on and stuff like that. He's even asking mummy for another cup of her disgusting tea, he must have guts of cast iron. When he's gone I come out and ask her who he is but she just gets up my arse for being rude and staying in my room when we had guests. I tell her I was sleeping but she just gives me that look that tells me she can read my thoughts and I'm lying. She says her ‘friend' will be at the club later and I can meet him then. I'm curious about her ‘friend' and wonder if he was a former lover – mummy is a real dark horse sometimes.

I've just got back from the bar with drinks for mummy and me and what do you know? There's F, mummy's ‘friend', sitting in my seat and chatting away like there's no tomorrow. Mummy introduces us and I say, ‘Hello, pleased to meet you and you're sitting in my seat and can I have it back.'

I feel mummy stiffen beside me and avoid her eyes so she can't give me her death stare. He apologises profusely and moves to another spot while I deposit my arse onto my now vacated seat and hand mummy her drink. I look around the club at the sea of black faces and then at F sitting with us. Why does he want to hang around with us, I wonder, instead of with his own kind? What does he want? Is he one of those weird whitefellas on some spiritual journey to find his soul with the blacks and he's chosen my family to latch himself onto. I've noticed there are a lot of weird whitefellas around this place. They are either in your face and want a blackfella skin name and to become part of the tribe, or they treat you like a piece of crap. But F treats mummy with respect and he's buying the drinks for me and mummy and my brothers so I start to thaw a bit and join in the conversation.

He is interested in the fact that I was removed from my family and have found my way back again. I tell him it's no big deal which seems to impress him no end. He then asks me how I have settled back in. A piece of cake, I tell him, lying through my teeth and avoiding mummy's eyes
again. As for F, he worked here a few years ago but missed it and is now back for more. He befriended Mario when he first came, but then the whole family took him under their wing and they've taken him out camping and taught him about the bush. I feel the jealousy begin to rise up like a snake about to strike. I ask him if he got a hard time like I do when he buggered things up but his lavish compliments of my family and their patience and tolerance tells me he got special treatment. Mummy sits there basking in his praise and I smoulder. Why should a white person get such consideration and care, while I, their own flesh and blood, cop endless shit for my mistakes? Maybe they think I should know better and that's not F's fault I guess.

He keeps asking me questions about growing up and how I discovered mummy but his attentiveness is starting to annoy me. I don't want to spill my guts to a complete stranger and I wander off and sit with Aunty Marie Evelyn and Uncle Stanley Bushman.

At closing time Louis is at my elbow ushering me towards F's 4x4 because we're going back to his place for a barbecue. Oh god, not more questions, I think as I make excuses to go home, but everyone including F insists that I come. Mummy, Louis and Mario are already comfort ably seated in the back where I would have preferred to be, so I reluctantly jump in the front and off we go. F manages to change gears about four times before we leave the car
park, rubbing my leg with his sweaty fingers each time. I have the feeling he's trying to tell me something.

F's house is sparkling – he must spend all his time cleaning the damned thing when he's not at work because not a speck of dust or cobweb is to be seen anywhere. No bacteria could live in such an environment and I reckon that a swab of the toilet seat would produce no live specimens. Mummy and the boys settle themselves inside while I wander out the back where the barbie gets fired up and F busies himself cooking some enormous steaks and chops and sausages on the cleanest barbecue I've ever seen. By the look of the food F obviously has a grocery order sent over on the plane like all the other whitefellas because the perky ripe tomatoes and crisp lettuces definitely weren't bought at the store. The fridge in the laundry is filled to capacity with beer and bottles of nice wine. He must smuggle his supplies over on the barge in boxes marked groceries like all the other white folk. In a community where the consumption of alcohol is restricted to the club, I've heard a lot of stories about the grog in the
murruntani
houses, but we're not complaining as mummy and the boys tuck into a beer and I open a nice chardonnay to share with our generous host. We have to drink inside because we don't want to get F in strife for sneaking the grog into Nguiu and supplying it to the locals. Sadly for mummy and the boys, F's music collection doesn't extend to country and western, not that any of us are sober enough to care anyway, but I'm in heaven as I
select a rather nice Debussy for a bit of background music. I note that he's into the French classics as well-thumbed copies of Camus and Collette sit on his bookshelf along with a framed picture of what must be his parents. The resemblance of F to the woman is quite alarming.

Mummy is onto her third steak and doesn't look like she has any intention of slowing down, I don't know where she's tucking it all away. It's a magnificent feast and I get stuck in as well as I haven't eaten food like this for ages. And the piss just keeps coming, my glass is never empty and mummy and the boys are never without a beer in their hands. I haven't been on the piss like this for that long that I'd almost forgotten what it was like. But I'm not so drunk that I don't keep an eye on F. He keeps casting looks in my direction even when he's talking with the others, the type of look mummy calls ‘bullocky face', like cows with big brown eyes and a moon-face like when they're in love. And when he gets a moment he comes and sits down next to me, never failing to pat me on the arm or shoulder when he has to get up and tend to somebody's needs. Initially I didn't want to be presumptuous in case I'd gotten it wrong but I know now he is definitely trying to crack on to me. I wait until he has his back turned and is deep in conversation before I go to the loo. I don't want to be waylaid in his sterile bathroom. When I get out of the loo he rushes over like he hasn't seen me for twenty years to ask if I need another drink.

It's late and mummy and F are fast asleep snoring lightly in their chairs while my two brothers are hugging and crying and saying how much they love each other. The food has been reduced to a few crusts and a bit of salad while a sizeable dent has been made on the grog in the fridge. I clean up the bits of leftover food and quietly wash the dishes and stack them on the sink. I don't know where the dish drainer is but I'm guessing it's in its special place somewhere because F would have a place for everything.

Then I grab a beer for the road and head for the front door. I push in the lock button and then pull the door shut behind me. But F must have been woken by the door noise because he's out here before I hit the end of the driveway. He insists on taking me home and knowing the packs of camp dogs that will be roaming around at this time of night I agree and we get into his vehicle. But instead of heading towards mummy's place F plants the foot and heads out of town. The lights of Four Mile flash past and I resign myself to my kidnapping. A few kilometres down the road F hands me a bottle of wine and a corkscrew while he negotiates the Tarntippi turn-off with one hand. The bottle opens with a beautiful pop and I take a swig and hand it back to F. I wonder what mummy and the boys are up to.

The moon is full and high in the sky, bathing the sea and sand in a beautiful silvery glow. We are up on the dunes where no curious crocodiles can take advantage of
our drunkenness. We sip our wine in silence and I wait for F to make his move while I formulate a plan to get out of having sex with him. Will I tell him I'm gay or will I be in the secondary stage of syphilis with some genital warts thrown in for good measure? F is clearing his throat so I know he's about to say something.

Then he's explaining that he was a lay missionary until a few years ago and although he likes women he has never been in a relationship before so could I forgive his hopeless attempts at showing an interest in me. I have just taken a sip of wine but my choking is quickly under control as I absorb this unexpected piece of information. I'm glad it's dark so he can't see the astonishment on my face. My heart wells up with compassion for the poor bugger even though there is one tiny part of my brain telling me not to be fooled. But the compassion wins over and I immediately abandon my plans to fob him off and start planning how I'm going to seduce him instead.

But nothing. We've gotten past the fumbling and getting sand in sensitive places and we've kicked the wine bottle over, but F's penis has other ideas and no amount of coaxing will make it do as it's supposed to. I put this all down to F's nerves of course and not my ineptitude. When F heads to the car for something else to drink I rearrange my clothing, hoping that nothing is inside out because mummy would spot it immediately, then he returns with a bottle of gin, jokingly remarking that it might liven things
up a bit. Yes, nothing like a stiff gin, is there, I think, but keep my comments to myself as I don't want to insult him and his unresponsive penis and then be walking the seventeen kilometres home in the dark.

But despite everything he's really good company and we have a great laugh about his missionary days and the rotten arseholes he has to work with and my crazy family. He asks me what I want out of life and I tell him I want endless adventures and we raise our glasses and toast.

I have to have a pee but when I get back F has passed out and his previously lined and worried face looks surprisingly gentle and at peace in the moonlight. Stars are reflecting off the languid ocean and the moon is rising steadily over the Cobourg Peninsula in the east. I swig on the bottle of gin and listen to the sounds of the night and marvel at my capacity to find the strangest of people.

I don't know Bishop Francis Xavier Gsell's version of arriving on Bathurst Island to found a mission, or the official version (because there always has to be an official version) but I do know the version told to me by my aminay, and it goes a bit like this. The year was 1910, and one day everybody was just hanging around doing what they always did. Some were hunting and some were fishing and others were having a well-earnt nap when to everyone's surprise a boat appeared on the horizon. The boat came closer and closer and they knew it was coming to their islands but they didn't know which island, this one or Melville Island.

Kids were sent off to warn everyone to be ready in case there was going to be a battle. As the boat got closer they could see there were a few people in the boat and they were
murrantani
, so there was a collective sigh of relief
from the blokes because they were fond of going over to the mainland and stealing Iwadja and Larrakia women and they thought it might have been a retributive visit. But this didn't mean they could relax altogether. Although Joe Cooper had been hunting buffalo on Melville Island since the 1890s, the
murrantani
didn't have a very good reputation for the way they treated black people. As the boat got closer it was obvious that it was going to land where Nguiu is situated now. It reached the beach and one bloke with a long beard got out with a few bits and pieces and then the boat sailed away.

From their hiding places their keen eyes observed that this
murrantani
didn't have a gun and he didn't carry a spear. So what was he there for? He obviously wasn't lost and he wasn't there to fight them. Posting some look-outs nearby they all gathered to discuss this matter. Round and round in circles the discussion went. Was he there looking for a wife? Was he running away from his wife? Was he an outcast? Was he sick? No one could work it out. Finally they decided that he must be
karlu boonta
(no brains), there could be no other reason for it. No white man in his right mind would get dumped on an island in the middle of nowhere like this for no reason. And so they watched him for a few days more just in case he was going to do something dangerous, but all he did was sit in the shade of the coconut palms or pace up and down with something in his hands that he kept looking at (which turned out to
be a Bible). Every now and then he'd get up and go to the bushes and have a piss or shit, but that was all he did. He didn't go for walks anywhere and when he slept he just lay down on a blanket where he was.

Now everyone knows that the strait between the two islands is full of crocodiles and that crocodiles like to eat unsuspecting and unobservant people like this fool sleeping on the beach, so this just reinforced the notion that this man was indeed crazy and that he'd probably been dumped there because he was causing trouble where he came from. In some cultures people might kill a loony person but in ours we care for them because they have a right to live just as we do. It's just invaders and people up to no good who we kill. So it was decided that my grandfather, who was a strapping young lad at the time, be sent down to the beach with some food and water for this poor brainless idiot and to make a fire for him. This must have made a very deep impression on Father Francis Xavier Gsell who noted in his journals that a young man approached him and gave him food and water and he was of such regal bearing that he named him Louis after the king of France, Louis XVI. Naturally his wife was named Marie after Marie Antoinette and so the tradition has stuck and the names have been handed down and that's why my brother and I are called Louis and Marie.

And so Father Francis Xavier stayed and my unsuspecting mob built him a mission because they thought they
had enough to share with this man with a hidden agenda who had befriended and, as it turned out, betrayed them. Apart from establishing the mission, he was also known as the bishop of 150 wives because he would give flour, sugar and the like to the families of girls who didn't want to get married. My Aunty Bertha was one of these wives and she thought it was a great joke how our mob would exploit him like that while he thought he was civilising the blacks. Anyway after he'd gotten a few more missionaries of the Sacred Heart over to run the mission, Father Francis Xavier headed back to Darwin in 1938 to become Bishop Gsell of Darwin.

I wonder what would have happened if a crocodile had eaten ‘Whiskers' as my mob referred to him back then? Would the Catholic Church still have imposed a mission on us or would they have given up? And maybe if my mob hadn't been so kind to fools and had stuck to killing everyone who dared to land on our shores, we might have spared ourselves from having God and a new way of life forced onto us.