Rain Music (15 page)

There is great fear of the Chinese among many here in Cooktown. Some are saying that this is now a yellow country, for the influx of the Chinese coolies is becoming overwhelming, and people are generally suspicious of them. Twenty thousand of them are on the Palmer River goldfields, we are told. Father O'Brien tells us stories about them. Many of them have arrived in ignorance, with no knowledge of the vastness and ruggedness of this country. Father says they expect to turn a corner in Cooktown and find the gold diggings there, when in fact the fields are located more than a hundred miles inland and are difficult to reach. Most miners are forced to walk to the diggings. They must carry at least six months' worth of provisions to see them through the wet season since supplies cannot be brought to the goldfields at this time. In the wet season the rain arrives in torrential downpours and the rivers flood, isolating the miners completely. Indeed, we are ourselves isolated and can only leave Cooktown by ship at this time of year. Nor do these miners know about the natives who attack not just the settlers' cattle but sometimes the settlers themselves, as well as miners on their way to the Palmer River. One hears such terrible stories of murders and massacres one scarcely knows what to believe, but we heartily pray for the lives of all those in danger.

In Cooktown, we have our own Chinese community who have built their own Chinatown, a jumble of wooden shacks divided by mean alleyways, with shops and eating houses, gambling places and a joss house where they worship their own gods. The Chinese crowd into small rooms and spill out onto the street, where I have seen them eating and smoking. They are often shrewd businesspeople. There are many Chinese establishments in town, and Father O'Brien assures me that there are also Chinese businesses in the towns around the diggings, Maytown and Palmerston. The Chinese make themselves storekeepers, barbers and laundrymen. They work as cooks and station hands out in the pastoral holdings, and provide eating houses in town and on the diggings for which they grow vegetables and breed pigs. They run hotels, often through licences owned by their European wives. Here in Cooktown we have several Chinese doctors, and many swear by their herbal cures. There is also a Chinese photographic studio and several fine tailors, I believe, who make beautiful silk dresses and handsome suits. I have also been told that the boarding houses they run are cleaner and cheaper than rooms in the hotels, so it is little wonder that they are well patronised. The Chinese often have noisy celebrations with drums, cymbals and fireworks, which we have no trouble hearing in our convent.

People may not like the Chinese, but they are impossible to ignore.

‘Damn,' said Ned. Another missing page, or pages. He could hardly believe that the ship's captain had hated the Chinese passengers so much that he would abandon them like that. Still, they had all made it to shore in one piece. ‘Must have been the power of your prayer, Sister,' he muttered to himself.

As he folded the letter carefully, he tried to return to the present. He thought of the sleepy Cooktown he had experienced, so different from the town that Sister Evangelista described. But Sister Evangelista wrote with such clarity and expression that he could easily imagine it as it had been when it was a bustling sea port more than a hundred years ago. He felt he could almost hear her voice.

Although it was getting late, Ned decided to read one more letter before bed, although, like some of the others, it seemed to be incomplete, but he was delighted when he quickly realised that it told more about her experiences with the local Chinese community.

Although the town has many Chinese, we have very little to do with them, so I was pleased to be able to go with our Reverend Mother to the house of Mr and Mrs Woo Tan one afternoon. Mrs Tan is English and no doubt a civilising influence on her husband. She is also a great patron of our school. The Tans enquired about our school as soon as it opened and when Mrs Tan made a fine donation of good English books she'd brought with her from England, Reverend Mother was pleased to admit the Tan children to our school and occasionally accepts their invitation to afternoon tea.

The Tans' house is interesting and comfortable. The windows have wooden shutters which open to the breeze. The front door is very wide with a carved stable door in front to screen it. Mrs Tan explained to us that the whole house was designed to keep out bad spirits and bring good luck. The Chinese are very superstitious!

The house is as clean as could be in spite of the dust, which is a problem caused by the dirt roads. The furniture in the main room is ornately carved and heavy with many richly embroidered silk cushions. There are many family photographs on the walls and many beautiful lacquered and porcelain ornaments and vases. I noticed that in one corner of the room there is a shrine. People say these are common in all Chinese homes. The place is very cluttered but prosperous looking, and it seems a happy home, especially helped by the cheerful songbirds which hang in lovely cages in the shade of the courtyard just outside the windows.

We were served tea from a silver tea service with beautiful English bone china cups and tasty Chinese rolls. Mrs Tan was very welcoming and Mr Tan stepped in to greet us and pass a few pleasantries. He told us he'd asked his cook to make us food which is a specialty of his home town.

Mr Tan is an oriental gentleman who dresses in fashionable and formal English attire, although he still has a traditional long pigtail. His English is quite refined. He is an important member of the Cooktown community as he is head of one of the Chinese guilds. Reverend Mother is pleased to acknowledge the contribution that he and his wife make towards the progress of our school in spite of the fact that Mr Tan is, without doubt, still a heathen.

Ned could not help but chuckle to himself. Clearly Reverend Mother was a pragmatist who could distinguish between ordinary heathens and those who could help her school. What courageous women those Sisters of Mercy were to leave the soft and misty green of Ireland for the harsh red heat of the unknown and the extraordinary society in which they found themselves.

*

With renewed determination, Ned returned to his work the next day, but still inspiration refused to come. The peace and calm he enjoyed at the river house were not proving to be the solution to rekindling his creativity. He began to feel the nagging fear of failure. He found
that he'd get just so far into writing a song and then he'd dry up. Nothing flowed; inspiration was always short lived. He tried re-establishing a firm routine of working, but he found the time dragging. He tried taking short breaks and then longer ones in an attempt to still his mind. In the past these restless moods had prompted Ned to move on, in the hope that new places and new people would give him ideas. But here he was in the perfect setting, with all the right circumstances: peace and quiet, no interruptions, nothing to do except write, and yet he couldn't get his act together. If nothing came to him, what would he do? In his head he imagined he could hear his mother's gentle voice saying,
You'll get there, Ned. You'll do it. This is your dream. This is what you have always wanted to do. I have such faith in you
.

Such thoughts only made him feel worse. Sitting in the sun in the beautiful garden, he found himself beginning to panic. He stood and began to pace back and forth. He could no longer delude himself. He was nearly forty, he thought, and he'd only released one album, and although he'd played in many gigs to appreciative audiences, they had tended to be small ones. In short, although his career might be called a moderate success, that was all it was. He
had not hit the big time and his chances of doing so now were running out. He began to pace faster. Maybe he had made the wrong decisions right from the start. He was a perfectionist and wanted to do things his way and not sell out to the big companies. But, if he thought about it, there were few artists who'd stuck to their guns and followed this route who had ever been successful. Perhaps being such an idealist was hindering him? He wanted his music to unite people, to move their spirit. He wanted his songs to honour the earth, to ask people to learn to love what they had around them. He knew people responded positively to him whenever he appeared, but he couldn't live on applause from a few devoted fans. Should he now abandon his dream of creating music his way? But if not, then what?

He shook his head and felt his stomach turn. He walked over and stood on one of the terraces. For the hundredth time, he was amazed by his bizarre surroundings. It was not just the unusual dwelling but the entire landscape in which he now found himself that gave him cause to reflect. He slowed his breathing, trying to relax himself. Was the remoteness and the climate part of the attraction for certain types of individuals, who were prepared to put up with all the vicissitudes, problems and loneliness just to live here? Perhaps this was why he had often heard the remark about the far north being full of
interesting
characters, a comment sometimes said in an amused tone, sometimes quite disparagingly. He knew his time here was short. The rainy season would be here soon. And while he had managed his finances so he could sustain himself through this break, his money wouldn't last forever. He needed to accomplish something during this time to make it worthwhile. He
would
accomplish something.

Defiantly he took up his guitar and headed towards a spot at the back of the garden where the branches of the poinciana trees hung low, shading him from the fierce northern sun like a green tent.

He was deeply involved in his music when some instinct made him stop playing. He was used to being totally alone, and he was familiar with all the sounds around him, so when he heard an unusual noise, he was immediately on the alert.

He got up and walked down the steps and into the main building. As he went into its central area, he was shocked to see a man lounging on a chair. The toilet flushed from out the back and another man strode into the room.

‘Hey! What's up? Who the hell are you?' Ned exclaimed.

The men looked up, clearly surprised to see him.

Where have these men come from?
thought Ned. He always kept the gate locked, and besides, he would have heard a car approach. Ned felt distinctly uncomfortable. The men were scruffy, as though they'd been in the bush for some time, and two backpacks had been dumped in one corner.

‘Did your car break down?' Ned asked. ‘Are you friends of Carlo's?'

‘Yeah, Carlo, that's right,' said one of the men, who was wearing a faded blue shirt. ‘We're a bit short on supplies so we thought we'd see if we could pick up some food. Didn't think anyone was here.'

The second man, who was sporting a mullet haircut, spoke quickly. ‘How about a drink?'

‘Okay,' said Ned guardedly. The men had made themselves at home, yet Ned couldn't help but feel they didn't belong here. ‘I'm Ned.'

‘Hi, Ned,' said the man with the blue shirt. Somehow he didn't sound friendly.

‘So, what are you guys up to? Hunting? Fossicking?' Ned asked, pouring some water into a couple of glasses and handing them to the men. The men drank the water and then started looking around the room.

The man in the blue shirt didn't say anything, but grabbed the remains of Jack's bourbon and a bottle of rum and packed them into his backpack.

‘Hey, you can't take that,' Ned said sharply.

‘Who says?' asked the man in the blue shirt. ‘Carlo always gives us supplies.'

The other man picked up a whisky bottle and a couple of bottles of Carlo's homemade grappa. ‘Got any beer?'

Before Ned could reply, the man with the blue shirt spoke pointedly to his mate. ‘You nuts? We can't carry a stack of tinnies. This'll do.' He turned to Ned. ‘What food you got?'

‘Not a lot.' Ned was not going to tell them about his recent big shop in Cooktown. ‘Look, all I can give you is some basic supplies. How did you say you knew Carlo?' He almost felt he should offer them a lift, just to get rid of them, until it occurred to him that they might simply drive off with his car.

‘Old mates. We go way back,' answered the man in the blue shirt, looking around again. ‘Where's the food you've got?'

Ned pointed to the kitchen. ‘There's some bread and ham and cheese in the fridge. You could get better food at the roadhouse, though.'

The men didn't answer him, but walked through to the kitchen, where one of them started to pull food from the fridge. Ned watched on helplessly.

‘Carlo always lets us take food too,' the man with the mullet said over his shoulder.

As Ned watched the two men pack the food in their backpacks, he began to sweat.
Could these men really know Carlo? Why did I mention Carlo's name?
he thought, mentally kicking himself. They seemed very sure of themselves, but they made Ned feel very uneasy. He wished that he had met Carlo before moving in so that he could have found out more about any friends who were likely to drop in and help themselves. Ned controlled his impulse to ask more questions as he didn't want the men hanging around.

‘How come you're here, mate?' one of the men asked abruptly.

‘I'm housesitting until the wet season starts,' said Ned, thinking that it was none of their business. ‘I'm not sure what that has to do with you.'

‘Just trying to be friendly,' replied the man in the blue shirt, who sounded anything but. ‘We'd better get going. We've got a way to go before it gets dark.'

‘Thanks for the supplies, mate,' sneered the man with the mullet.

The two men hurried down the terrace towards the
river and, as Ned watched, he saw them get into a couple of camouflaged green double kayaks and stow their backpacks. Then they picked up their paddles and pushed off, gliding down the river in the fading evening light.