One Place Read online

  One Place

  Cara Shaw

  Copyright © 2018 Cara Shaw

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

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  ISBN 9781789012194

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  This book is dedicated to

  Wyndradyne,

  the Greatest Warrior of all.

  Contents

  Prologue

  wirradhuaay words

  kamilaroi words

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The story, One Place is a fictionalised history of the Aboriginal experience in Australia set in three separate eras. The tribal name Duradjuri is a combination of two actual tribe names found in Australia, Wiradjuri and Dharug. The tribe described in the novel, Duradjuri does not exist, and has been created to describe many of the different Aboriginal language groups whose ancestry originates in central New South Wales, Australia.

  The author emphasises that this book is a work of fiction, and does not represent the story of any Aboriginal person living or dead. The reference to Charles Perkins (b.1936-d.2000) and the Freedom Riders, is an actual event taken from Australian history.

  The towns, Billington and Cranston are also fictional. The word Murruma, used to describe the suburb where Aboriginal people live was found on a street sign, and the meaning, flat place, was created by the author.

  The reference to the pointed end of the womerah that Eunony invents to use as a weapon is referenced from The Red Chief by Ion I Idriess.

  All the language in the book is wirradhuaay, which is a well recorded Aboriginal language from central New South Wales, Australia and available for public view. The meanings of the words were sourced from the Macquarie Aboriginal Words dictionary, published in 1994, by the Macquarie Library.

  The word karandajina was feminised by the author to indicate the female gender of the spiritual leader in a tribe, and does not exist in actuality.

  The tribal name kumaroi is a combination of traditional tribal names, the kamilaroi and ularoi, which are tribes both located in central New South Wales.

  The story of birong the moon, was sourced from a kamilaroi story website, containing Aboriginal myths. All other tribal stories have been created by the author.

  wirradhuaay words

  nharrung – jew lizard

  wirray – no

  coolamon – shallow carved wooden bowl

  yamandu marang – how are you

  dhaga ngindhu muganha guuya – where do you find fish

  yindyamarra – magpie

  dyrirridyirri – wili-wagtail

  yulubirrngiin – rainbow

  girra – wind

  walang – rain

  bila – waterhole

  wadayali – echidna

  bunyip – hairy monster, mythical

  gamabal – plains turkey

  yaba – snake

  nulla nulla -club

  walaru – wallaby

  bora – initiation circle

  karandajin – spirit man or woman

  gunyah – shelter

  yirribin – swallows

  bidyan – totem

  wumbuwunay – kangaroo

  mimi – happy spirit

  wambad – wombat

  kalare – river

  woggabaliri – football

  cumbungi – bullrush

  guuyar – fish

  wilay – possum

  mun – vagina

  guugubarra – kookaburra

  buujaan -bird

  girrawaa – tree goanna

  womerah – fighting shield

  kamilaroi words

  bigiblia – echidna

  thinawan – emu

  bandaar – kangaroo

  Chapter One

  THEN

  “It’s a wage.”

  “No”

  “But Mum!”

  “I said no Robbie! I mean it!”

  Robbie turned angrily away from his mother and marched through the door to the hard dirt-packed area that was the gathering place for his mob’s camp. Breathing heavily and heart pounding with disappointment, he looked around the place where he lived. A few campfires glimmered softly in the dusky evening, and rich eucalyptus smoke coiled amongst the velvet grey tree trunks that encircled the camp. He spied Dilly sitting quietly next to his small fire and after striding over, threw himself on the ground in disgust.

  “She say no, aye?”

  Robbie didn’t answer and he stared angrily into the low flames, watching as tiny white-hot splinters shot into the air. Dilly poked at the embers with a long stick.

  “She’ll always say no Robbie. You her boy – she not going send you away to get shot. Want some damper?”

  Robbie nodded and Dilly fished out the hot round of cooked damper from the coals. He brushed off the ash with leathered hands – barely feeling the searing heat that infused the hot bread. He broke it in half and laid Robbie’s portion on a battered tin plate before handing it over, steaming, fragrant, smelling of the bush. Robbie took it, damper; the staple of his diet since a young child. This was the way he liked it best too, straight out of the fire, soft, hot – comforting.

  “I’m guessin’ you don’t want no sweet?” laughed Dilly.

  Robbie finally flashed him a wide white grin, “Where is it Dil? Come on…”

  Dilly reached behind him and revealed a tin of golden syrup, “Give it then.”

  Robbie handed over his plate and as Dilly poured a generous amount of the thick brown syrup, felt his mouth begin to water, “Thanks Dilly.”

  “Fix you right up that will.”

  Robbie glanced at him, “You think I need fixin’?”

  “Yeah – you know it” replied Dilly.

  Robbie bit into the hot sweet treat, yes; he supposed he did know it, and observed the old man while he ate. Dilly was around seventy-five and his face held the pattern of his whole life upon it. His skin was dark, much darker than Robbie’s, so he knew he was the one with a bit of white in him somewhere. How – he didn’t want to think about it.

  Dilly was from the old crew, the Duradjuri who had lived here for forever and even longer than that, since the Dreamtime. Sometimes Dilly told stories, mainly to the young o
nes about Biamie, the Dreamtime and the animals. He even taught them a few words in language. Robbie remembered some, nharrung, jew lizard, which was his people’s totem, he never forgot that. wirray – no. He caught the old man watching him.

  “You thinkin’ mate? Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

  Dilly leant back on his elbow and pulled an old leather pouch from his pocket to fix himself a smoke. Robbie looked around the campsite with new eyes, not knowing where to begin. This was the place where he had been raised, had lived all his life with his family – just a few miles out of town. According to the older people this clearing amongst the high-reaching gums was one of the traditional camping spots that belonged to the Duradjuri. A stopping point where the tribe had rested during long walks between seasons, never meant for long term use. The Duradjuri had been pushed off their traditional lands bit by bit over a long period of time. This was all they had left, and this was where they stayed. Fringe dwellers, always sitting outside the main town; keeping out of sight, hidden from the whites who refused to have anything to do with them. Robbie felt his ire rise, this is our land; he thought angrily, this place belongs to us. He knew the story of Windradyne the greatest warrior of all the Duradjuri, who fought for his right to live and hunt freely on his land until in the end he died, a defeated and broken man.

  “This war’s the only way blokes like me can get a start Dilly.”

  “What’s blokes like you?” asked Dilly, drawing deeply on his smoke.

  Robbie gave him a withering look. “Us. Duradjuri, you know, blackfellas.”

  Dilly looked at him with kind dark eyes, “You already you mate. Black, white, brindle, don’t make no difference.”

  Robbie felt his emotion rise. Dilly saw life differently to him; he came from the wild people, one of that last groups to leave the bush. His family had lived on a mission with the rest of their mob, reluctantly giving up their freedom to the cattle and sheep that had ruined the fragile system of the land they cared for so deeply. He’d even spoken language until the rule was passed that no one must speak it, or sing and dance, or even hunt using the old ways. Some people, desperate to survive, accepted the rule and took up the other religion that was offered to them along with clothes and flour.

  Eventually those who practised the traditional ways secretly and in the dead of the night were thought to be old-fashioned. A few of the older men like Dilly took it upon themselves to give the younger boys basic instruction in the old law, and accompanied them to the bora circle for a symbolic initiation. They did this because they were deeply concerned the spirits who dwelled in every part of Duradjuri land would become restless and angry if the Dreamtime obligations were not met, and as a consequence there would be trouble amongst the people themselves.

  “You always Duradjuri, right down to your toes mate. Remember that night?”

  Robbie remembered it well, it was only four years ago and he had just turned thirteen. For nearly a year Dilly had taught him the same four songs over and over again in language. Robbie learnt them diligently, although he didn’t know what the words meant. He really didn’t mind sitting with the old man in the dirt and singing quietly in the evenings, and Dilly always made sure that his belly was full and there was a sweet treat ready for him at the end of his lesson. The songs soothed him and Dilly sang them in a fierce, determined whisper, making sure that Robbie repeated each word carefully. After a while Robbie would feel light, weightless, as if his consciousness had expanded way beyond the camp and up into the sky, as if he was looking down on the whole world while hanging from a star. Sometimes Dilly would tap him on the shoulder to bring him back to earth, and he was always surprised that time had passed so quickly.

  One night when he arrived for his lesson, instead of sitting down and beginning his practise as he normally did, Dilly tapped him on the shoulder and said quietly, “Come with me.”

  They left the campsite together and the indigo evening enveloped them as they walked silently along a dark trail while the blue gums shifted and sighed above them, trunks creaking along with the swaying branches. Robbie was more curious than afraid and eventually they entered a clearing, which Robbie knew was the old bora circle. To his surprise there were three other boys there, his peers who were also accompanied by older men. There was a fire alight in the centre of the circle and he and Dilly sat down. The older men began a song, a different one to those that he had been learning and when it ended, Dilly nudged him and he too began to sing. All the boys repeated the songs they been taught, the rhythm and words taking on a completely different connotation when sung together, and then they were quiet. One of the uncles Charley Pace, rose and brought with him a coolamon that held dried eucalyptus leaves, alight and smouldering in the shallow dish. He approached each boy and waved the sweet smoke over him, chanting as he did so. He returned to his spot and then brought out a sheaf of paper bark containing a mix of white clay. He approached each boy and dipped his thumb into the clay and drew a mark along their nose and cheeks. Then he returned to his place and the group sat in silence for a while.

  During all of this, Robbie had entered the same trance that he had occasionally experienced when he was alone with Dilly. He looked up to see the Milky Way, which appeared to be undulating and sitting lower in the sky than he had ever seen before. Then he felt as if he were sliding along it, faster and faster and an amazing feeling flooded through him. For the first time in his life he felt completely free, and filled with a knowing that would stay with him forever. He felt a familiar tap on his shoulder and he followed Dilly back along the trail.

  When they reached camp, Dilly said, “Go to bed now,’ and he did, entering the warm silent hut that was his mother’s, to sink down onto his blankets and fall fast asleep.

  Robbie thought about this before he answered the old man. “I know who I am Dil, but living like this isn’t right for anyone, let alone the Duradjuri. I might like some things, you know? Like maybe a house for Mum, not some bloody humpy. I’ve got two hands, I’m a hard worker, people round here don’t see that as enough to earn a wage. You want something, you just gotta show up and be grateful for what you’re given. Now, they want soldiers to go to the War. Well I’ll go, at least it’s fair pay. If I stay here, it’s just more of nothing!”

  Dilly nodded. He understood Robbie’s frustration well, but as an older Aboriginal man living in virtual exile and poverty had taught him to accept that there would never be another way for him. The way he would have chosen for himself, the traditional way, had gone forever and there were no other choices available to him. Dilly had never married nor had he any children, unconsciously guarding his own unborn descendants from a world where he was unable to provide as man, and as a warrior. Robbie was like a son to him, and Dilly knew that somewhere along the line they were related; that’s why he made it his business to instruct him in his initiation.

  As far as he was concerned, Robbie was a man now and had been for a long time. Dilly drew on his smoke and watched the fire peacefully, and fancied he could see the ancestors flitting about in the flames. He half-closed his eyes, and in his mind’s eye saw the great Duradjuri warrior standing in the clearing with them, leaning against his spear.

  “You do what you want to do, make your own walk. You a man now,” and he huddled closely under the blanket that he had slung over his shoulders.

  “I know that. I just don’t want to disappoint Mum.”

  “I don’t think that would ever happen,” replied Dilly gently.

  The source of Robbie’s anger was forged from a deep resentment against the Crane family, who owned the biggest sheep station in the region. He’d been working there only recently with a few of the other young men from his camp for shearing season – the first real work he’d ever had besides fruit picking and fencing. In that world the shearer was king, and there was no possibility of any Aboriginal man even being given the chance to learn to shear or to earn that kind of money. Whil
e he was working on the station and in the shearing shed itself, he had come to learn about the ordinary fact of true inequality. Ordinary because the discrimination was deeply embedded into common thought and never questioned. The Duradjuri had always worked at the Crane Station, and the owner’s forebears were the British settlers who had migrated to the colonies to make their fortune.

  Simeon Crane the patriarch of the family had applied for, and won a land grant west of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales during the mid 1800s. He more or less worked himself into a cripple establishing the sheep station that supplemented the massive exodus of merino wool that made the sheep barons rich beyond belief. Even the main town was named after him – Cranston. Simeon’s reputation was fierce. He was a rough Yorkshire man determined to rise above his lowly station in his home country where he was a just pig farmer’s son. When his father died, Simeon sold the stock and left the frozen downs of his youth for Australia, driven to succeed by sheer greed. He was known throughout the locality as quite simply a bastard. He had no time for Aborigines; and as soon as he was granted his land he rode out, pitched a tent and shot “every bloody darkie he saw” until they stopped coming onto his land. Then he built a fence. This task took two years, and the moment the last piece of barbed wire was hammered in to the final timber post he used the remainder of his savings to buy a Merino ram and six ewes. He bred and bought and sold until he had enough money to erect a cavernous shed and after the first shear, he borrowed enough money to build an enormous house, and an empire was born. Rumour had it that he only slept three hours a night and had never touched a drop of alcohol in his life. By the time he was twenty-eight he was rich, and decided to import a wife to the station, a sturdy Scottish woman who due to her maturity and unfavourable appearance, had answered Simeon’s advertisement in the Edinburgh Times.

  After her arrival, she went on to bear him three sons; Stephen, Eric and James, all redheads with hot tempers and boorish demeanours. Simeon and his wife Bethany were very proud of them, and put them out to the shearing shed when they each turned twelve. Their station, Tulloch Grange was renowned across the state for producing the finest Merino wool in New South Wales – and the Cranes were justifiably proud of their product.