My Place (36 page)

But the night before we were due to leave, Mum arrived with a station wagon full of gear. Amber and Blaze laughed and laughed when they saw her drive in. Paul failed to see the funny side. He just put his head in his hands, muttered, ‘I can't believe it,' and assigned me the task of sorting through it all.

Despite strenuous objections, as we hauled everything from the back of her car, I began to make two piles, one for necessities, the other for luxuries. I tossed the pick, shovel and bucket on the unwanted pile. I was sure Mum would have no luck hunting for gold with that lot. Also on this pile went the shotgun that didn't shoot, two eiderdowns, a sack of potatoes and two suitcases of clothes. Mum had bought an outfit for every occasion imaginable. We realised then that her definition of roughing it was very different to ours. We decided to take the case of apples and the cartons of Deb Instant Mashed Potato, as well as the boxes of dehydrated peas and corn. It seemed a waste not to use them, though we did wonder how on earth we could eat our way through so much.

By late that evening, we'd finished packing. Mum decided to sleep in the van, just in case anyone pinched it. Paul grinned hopefully when she mentioned this possibility.

Five o'clock the following morning, we were on our way.

By the time we arrived in Port Hedland, we were eager to begin our investigations. We'd been told to look up an older gentleman by the name of Jack, as he knew a lot of people in the area and might be able to help us.

As soon as we saw Jack, we liked him. He was very friendly. I explained who we were, why we'd come to see him and asked if he could tell us anything about the Brockman or Corunna families. We were amazed when he told us that Albert Brockman had been his good friend and that they'd worked together for many years.

‘Jiggawarra, that's his Aboriginal name, that's what we all call him up here. Now, he had a brother and a sister that were taken away. They never came back, I think the brother was called Arthur.'

‘That's right!' I added excitedly, ‘and the sister was called Daisy, that's my grandmother.'

‘Well, I'll be,' he said, with tears in his eyes. ‘So you've come back! There's not many come back. I don't think some of them are interested. Fancy, you comin' back after all these years.'

‘Are we related to you, then?'

‘Well now, which way do you go by, the blackfella's way or the white man's way?'

‘The blackfella's way.'

‘Then I'm your grandfather,' he said, ‘and your mother would
be my nuba
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, that means I can marry her.' Mum laughed. We felt excited at discovering even that.

Jack went on to explain that he was, in fact, Nanna's cousin and that his mother's sister had been on Corunna in the very early days and had married one of the people from Corunna.

‘I could have been there myself as a young baby,' he added, ‘but that's too far back to remember. I was born in 1903 and worked on Corunna from 1924 onwards. Foulkes-Taylor owned it then. They was a real good mob, that Corunna lot, but, slowly, they started drifting away. They didn't like the boss.'

‘What about Lily?' Mum asked, ‘did you know her?' Lily was Nan and Arthur's half-sister.

‘Lily? I'd forgotten about her. Oh yes, I knew Lily, she was a good mate of mine. So was her bloke, Big Eadie. He was a Corunna man too. Aah, we used to have a lot of corroborees in those days. We'd all get together and have a good old corroboree. I can't explain to you how it made us feel inside. I loved the singing, sometimes we'd get a song and it'd last for days. Lily was a good singer, you could hear her voice singin' out high above the others. All those people are gone now. I suppose Arthur and Daisy are dead, too?'

‘Arthur is, but my mother is still alive,' replied Mum.

Jack was very moved. ‘Why didn't you bring her with you?'

‘We tried,' I replied ‘but she reckoned she was too old to come North. Said her legs wouldn't hold her up.'

Jack laughed. ‘That's one thing about Mulbas
**
,' he said, ‘they can find an excuse for anything! She's one of the last old ones, you know. Gee, I'd like to meet her!'

‘Maybe she'll come next time,' I said hopefully. ‘Did Lily have any children, Jack?'

‘No. She wanted to. She was good with kids. Looked after plenty of kids in her time. She could turn her hand to anything, that woman. How many kids did Daisy have?'

‘Only me,' Mum said sadly, ‘I'd love to have come from a big family.'

‘Ooh, you ask around,' Jack laughed, ‘you'll soon have so many relatives you won't know what to do with them. You'd be related to a lot up here.'

‘Really?'

‘Too right. You might be sorry you come!'

‘There was another sister,' I interrupted, ‘I think she was full blood, but died young, her name was Rosie.'

‘That'd be right. A lot of full bloods died young in those days.' ‘I can't believe we've met you,' I sighed. ‘All these people have just been names to us, talking to you makes them real. We didn't think anyone would remember.'

‘Aah, mulbas have got long memories. Most around here remember the kids that were taken away. I should have been taken myself, only the policeman took me in after my mother died. Then he farmed me out to other people so I was able to stay in the area.'

‘I suppose it wasn't often that happened.'

‘No. I was one of the lucky ones.'

‘Did you know a bloke called Maltese Sam?' Mum asked.

‘Oh yeah, he's dead now.'

‘Could he have been my mother's father?'

‘No, no, not him. I couldn't tell you who her father was. Maybe the station-owner. There's plenty of pastoralists got black kids runnin' around.'

I asked Jack if there was anyone else we should talk to.

‘You fellas go and see Elsie Brockman, she's your relation, Albert's wife.'

‘Are you sure?' Mum asked in astonishment, ‘I thought they'd all be dead by now.'

‘Oh, Albert's been gone a while, but Elsie's still here. Only be as
young as you,' he said to Mum. ‘Then there's a big mob in Marble Bar you should see, and Tommy Stream in Nullagine. Any of you fellas speak the language?'

‘No,' I replied, ‘but Arthur could and Daisy can. They wouldn't teach us.'

‘Shame! There's mulbas here know their language and won't speak it. I'm not ashamed of my language. I speak it anywhere, even in front of white people.'

‘Do you speak the same language as my mother?' Mum asked.

‘I speak four languages. Light and heavy Naml, Balgoo and Nungamarda and Nybali. Your mother's language would be Balgoo, but she would speak Naml too. All those old ones from Corunna spoke both. Those two languages are very similar.'

Mum and I exchanged glances. We were going to tackle Nan about that when we got home.

‘You mob sure your granny never came back?'

‘Not that we know of, why?'

‘Well, I recall meeting a Daisy in '23. I was workin' between Hillside and Corunna at the time. Never seen her before. It was like she appeared outa nowhere. Took her from Hillside to stay at Corunna. She had family there she wanted to visit. Half-caste she was, pretty, too. She was pregnant, baby must have been near due.'

‘I don't think it'd be her,' I replied.

‘Well, I just wondered.'

I was wondering, too.

It was all too much. Our heads were spinning, we seemed to be inundated with new information. The children were becoming restless, so Paul suggested that we go and have some lunch and talk over what to do. We said goodbye to Jack. It seemed awful, leaving him so soon. We'd only just met and we really liked him. We promised to call back in if we had the opportunity.

Over lunch, we talked about Elsie Brockman. Mum and I both felt it was probably a different person. We reasoned that, as Uncle
Albert had been the oldest and quite a bit older than Nan, it would be unlikely for his wife to only be in her fifties. It would have made her, at the very least, thirty years younger than Albert. We decided to go to Marble Bar, instead.

Fortunately for us, we arrived in Marble Bar on pension day. This meant that most of the people were around town somewhere.

A group of old men were sitting patiently under a tall, shady tree in the main street, waiting for the mail to arrive. We parked nearby and walked over and introduced ourselves. Jack had told us to ask for Roy.

‘We're looking for Roy,' I said.

‘I'm him,' replied an elderly man with a snow-white beard, ‘what do you want?'

‘Gidday,' I smiled and held out my hand. ‘I'm Sally and this is Paul and my mother, Gladys.' We shook hands all round. ‘We're trying to trace our relatives,' I explained, ‘they came from Corunna, went by the names of Brockman or Corunna. We heard you worked on Corunna.'

‘Not me! I worked on Roy Hill and Hillside, but you'd be related to Jiggawarra, wouldn't you? I worked with him on Hillside, he built the homestead there, a good carpenter. A good man.'

Another older man interrupted. ‘Who are these people?' he obviously asked in his own language.

‘Brockman people,' Roy replied. ‘Oh yes,' the other smiled, ‘your mob's from Corunna. You'd be related to most of the people round here, one way or another.'

‘You lookin' for your mob now?' another asked kindly.

‘Yes,' I replied. ‘My grandmother was taken from here many years ago.'

‘That's right,' he agreed, ‘hundreds of kids gone from here. Most never came back. We think maybe some of them don't want to come home. Some of those light ones, they don't want to own us dark ones.'

‘I saw picture about you lot on TV,' chipped in another. ‘It was real sad. People like you wanderin' around, not knowin' where you come from. Light-coloured ones wanderin' around, not knowin' they black underneath. Good on you for comin' back, I wish you the best.'

‘Thank you,' I smiled, ‘we are like those people on TV. We're up here trying to sort ourselves out.' Then, turning back to Roy, I said, ‘Did you know Lily, Roy?'

‘What do you want to know for?'

‘She's my aunty,' Mum said proudly.

Roy was taken aback for a minute. ‘That's right, I forgot about that.'

‘Go on, Roy, tell them about Lily,' the others teased.

Roy shook his head. ‘I'm not sayin' nothin'. I'm not sayin' a word about Lily.' The other men chuckled. Lily was now a closed topic of conversation.

‘What about Maltese Sam?' I asked.

‘Maltese? He's finished with this world now.'

‘I was told he was my grandmother's father, you know, the father of Jiggawara's sister.'

‘No, no, that's not right,' said Roy.

‘You got that wrong,' others chorused, ‘who told you that?'

‘Oh, just someone I know in Perth.'

‘How would they know, they not livin' here,' replied another. ‘We all knew Maltese, it's not him, be the wrong age.'

‘Do any of you know who her father might have been?' I asked quietly.

There was silence while they all thought, then Roy said, ‘Well, she was half-caste, wasn't she?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then it must have been a white man. Could have been the station-owner. Plenty of black kids belong to them, but they don't own them.'

Just then, we were interrupted by a lady in her fifties. ‘Who are you people?' she asked as she walked up to our group.

‘Brockman people,' Roy said crossly, ‘we're talkin' here!'

‘You Christian people?' she asked Mum.

‘Yes.'

‘I knew it,' she replied excitedly, ‘I knew it in my heart. I was walkin' down the street when I saw you people here and I said to myself, Doris, they Christian people, they your people. Now, what Brockman mob do they come from?'

‘My mother is sister to Albert Brockman,' explained Mum.

‘Oh, no! I can't believe it. You're my relations. My aunty is married to Albert Brockman.'

‘She's not still alive, is she?' I asked quickly.

‘Yes, she's livin' in Hedland. She was a lot younger than him.' Mum and I looked at each other. We were stupid. We should have believed what Jack told us.

‘Come home and have a cup of tea with me,' urged Doris, ‘I'll ring Elsie and tell her about you, she won't believe it!'

We thanked the men for their help and said goodbye.

As we walked down the main street, Doris said, ‘You're lucky you didn't come lookin' for your relations any earlier, we've only all just been converted. Those Warbos
*
people came through and held meetings. It's made such a different to this town, there's not many drunks now.'

Doris made us a cup of tea when we got to her place and we encouraged her to talk about the old days. She said she could remember Annie, Nan's mother, from when she was a small child, and that she thought she'd died somewhere in the thirties at Shaw River.

‘All the old people had a little camp out there,' she explained to us. ‘There was nowhere else for them to go. All the old Corunna mob died out there.'

‘Did Lily die out there, too?' Mum asked.

‘Yes, she did.'

‘Roy wouldn't tell us anything about Lily.'

Doris chuckled. ‘That's because she was one of his old girlfriends. He doesn't like to talk about his old girlfriends.' We all laughed.

Just then, another lady popped in. She was introduced to us as Aunty Katy. She was Elsie's sister. We all shook hands and began to talk again.

‘Lily was very popular around here,' Aunty Katy told us. ‘She could do anything. Everyone liked her, even the white people. She never said no to work.'

‘How did she die?' Mum asked.

‘Now, that's a funny thing,' replied Aunty Katy, ‘she came back from work one day and was doing something for one of the old people, when she dropped down dead, just like that! It was a big funeral, even some white people came. Poor old darling, we thought so much of her.'