Salt Creek (31 page)

Papa's recommendations about Kangaroo Island came to naught. The committee instead recommended the appointment of a protector and the removal of children from their parents, the better to provide moral and religious instruction, which Papa did not agree with: ‘For say what you will about them, they do love their children.' He spoke as if from a distance, as if it were a report from another country. Having made this final effort to save the natives he was done with it. Society, civilization, had made its decision.

‘We'll have to move them on then. I think that's the best thing: to encourage them to leave. We need to give some inducement. Or stop giving them inducements to remain. We cannot afford the loss of any more stock.'

‘Papa,' I said. I didn't know what to say next; all my thoughts would not sit smooth. What I wanted to know was how something – caring for the natives, civilizing them – could be important, and then not. It made humanity seem such a simple thing, that it could be separated from the rest of a person's actions in such a way. Had he been persuading himself of this new course in small increments, while waiting to hear from the committee, and now it was done? What else could be excised if that were so? What if I were made up of fragments and the things I held to be important could be peeled away, quite delicately even, almost without what remained noticing. I couldn't say why that frightened me so. If it could happen to Papa, if he could act against his sworn self, perhaps it could also happen to me.

It might have meant more to me, but it was forgotten so quickly in the events that followed. I found Tull on the veranda the next week, shivering despite the summer warmth, and grey and slick with sweat, gripping the handle of the back door. His four months away had changed him.

‘Tull,' I said.

His clothes were new: a wool jacket and a shirt with a thin grey stripe, a good belt of leather, trousers that were the correct length. He looked as if he had been dressed to become visible. His mass of hair had been cut short and his head exposed, and something else about him was exposed too – I couldn't say what.

His eyes moved to me but with no great certainty. It was as if he'd become untethered and there was no knowing what he might do next, as if he did not know what he should do. He had become a stranger to himself even. (The truth of it was that he, dear Tull, frightened me.) He was trembling, fearful of and missing the thing he'd lost whatever it was, and beyond that terribly ill.

‘They cut my hair.'

‘I see that. Who would do such a thing?'

‘Reverend Taplin's wife, Mrs Taplin, she did it, her hands on my head.' He trembled afresh at these words.

‘It's just a haircut,' I said.

‘He said I could still be a man.'

‘You can. You are.'

Then with a flicker of bravado he said, ‘I don't need them. They can't tell me what I should do.'

‘Who?'

‘My
lakalinyeri
, my family.' He shivered again. ‘I will die now.'

‘You won't. I won't let you.'

‘I cannot be
narambe
. It is true, what they said, what's happening,' he said. He shivered again, violently, and coughed.

‘Who?'

‘My family. They came to get me, but too late.' His hand skittered across the outlines of his head.

‘Never mind that now. Some inflammation of the lungs is all. Come inside and warm yourself.'

He sat by the fire and I put more wood on, opening the flue to make it burn fast. Then Addie was there, rushing at him. ‘You're back. I knew you would come. Oh, your hair.' Her hand almost reached it, but she stopped herself.

I left the room to fetch a quilt and when I came back Addie snatched it and wrapped it close about his shoulders. Not knowing what else I should do I made some good sweet tea, which Tull drank, his teeth rattling against the cup. Addie drew a chair close to his side, on the brink of touching. After a few minutes she bestirred herself to make him breakfast, fussing about him, but he could not eat it, so I collected that and the other scraps remaining from breakfast.

‘Come help me feed the chickens, Addie.'

She glared, but I said nothing and she had to give way.

‘Addie,' I said, once we had quit the house.

‘Don't. Don't say anything, Hester. I will not listen. I am glad he's back. Do not tell me to be otherwise.'

‘You will have him sent away again.'

‘Did you tell Papa before?'

‘No. Of course not. I thought of it.'

She became wheedling. ‘It's nothing, Hett, truly. Just that he's ill. I was worried to see it. You know how they succumb.'

When we got back Tull went to his room. Addie heated a brick in the oven and wrapped it in flannel and went and put it under his covers – I watched from the door, her shadowy movements in the dimness – drawing them back very gently and covering him with the same gentleness. Addie pressed the tips of her fingers against her mouth. She watched the shape of him change as he curled himself around it.

‘Addie,' I said, and ‘Addie,' again.

‘Coming.'

But I had to go in and take her by the arm and lead her out.

Papa's face fell when he came home and heard the news. It was another failure, but a different one. ‘I had hoped. Well, he will be useful about the run. It's good to have him back, yes. And he has been spared initiation at least, for that we must be grateful. Poor wretch. Let us count our blessings.'

‘Is it wise to take him back?' Hugh said. ‘We might all catch it, whatever it is that he has. Put him outside at least.'

‘Where is your charity, Hugh? For shame. Have you listened to nothing all these years?' Papa said.

‘You know, Papa, I sometimes think you care more for him than for any of us.'

‘Now you are being ridiculous,' Papa said.

Addie and Fred took Tull broths and books and put him in the sun and he recovered from his illness – his body did at least; the lingering contagion of his spirit remained. He could not lift our spirits now with his games and distractions and company. I missed that.

The level of water in the well began to drop and Papa was obliged to put a lock on the lid to prevent the blacks taking any more. He would not re-fence the soaks. The sheep could not do without them. ‘I do not like to do it, Hester,' he said when I looked at him holding the well key. ‘I must harden myself, we all must. There are the Chinamen's wells, north and south. There is no money to drill another here.'

From the parlour window one morning I saw George and Billy. Tull was with them, all of them talking at once, loud enough so that some of the sound drifted down to me. Their voices were harsh, shouting over Tull, and striking the well lid. I don't know what Tull said, but whatever it was did not give the natives any hope. When I spoke to Papa, although he looked pained, he said, ‘They will have to move; we cannot.' He could not allow himself to be more lenient.

Tull came inside and talked with Papa. So many of the natives had become ill, he said, since they went to rescue him from Point McLeay, and could neither move themselves nor be moved by others. His voice was soft and deep. He knew the right way to be with Papa, as the boys did not. And of his sincerity there could be no doubt.

Papa gripped the arms of his chair. ‘You do not understand, Tull. I will not go so far as some, but I will not have them eating my stock and so you may tell them. And we do not have enough water to share. Tell them that too. It's the truth. Explain to them if you please the importance of the farm, how I depend on it. My family depends on it. They are my first consideration. If they must go, they must. I have done all that I can and that is a great deal more than others and so you may remind them.'

At that, Tull appeared wild and stricken. ‘Sir— Mr Finch.'

‘Yes?' Papa said, with less patience than he was wont to show towards Tull. He stood and drained the last of his tea from his cup.

‘My mother.'

‘What of her?'

The strangest thing: I had become so used to seeing Tull as ours that I had forgot about the family that he must have. He came and went, it was true, but I had never wondered overmuch at that. ‘Your mother?' I said.

‘Yes,' Tull said. ‘She made the basket you have. You gave her sugar.'

‘Rimmilli is your mother?' The feeling was vertiginous almost, as if everything around me that I had thought clear was not. I did not know. I could not, and how could I ever learn? I had never thought to ask. I wondered if Fred had on their explorations.

Tull looked from one of us to the other. Finally, he said, ‘My mother is sick.'

‘Ah,' Papa said. ‘How sick?'

Tull moved his shoulders, and I saw how he was just a boy, and confused and did not know and was even scared. I supposed he had other family who might look after him, and of course he had us, so perhaps he did not fear what the future held as I did.

‘Well,' Papa said, ‘You may take her some water.' He rocked on his heels, pulling at his moustaches before he spoke once more: ‘And bring her back and she may stay here until her health is improved. Yes. The others must make their own way. We all have to cut our coats, do we not? We do. Off you go now to fetch your mother.' He opened the door and Tull was gone and it was my turn. ‘If you would make up a bed in the dairy shed,' he said.

While Fred was gone with Tull, Addie and I took the old cheese moulds from the dairy and stacked them in the sun and swept the room out. A sour smell lingered. We propped the door open, and raised the window and scrubbed it, walls and floor, sluicing them down as best we could.

‘That's better,' I said.

Addie sniffed and wrinkled her nose and left, returning not long after with some of the young eucalyptus leaves that had sprouted from the old felled tree, which she strewed on the floor, and our feet moving across them with Albert's old bed, and while making it up, crushed them and released their scent and the room began to be more pleasant. Addie put a jar of flowers on a wooden crate. There was nothing to do but wait after that. They did not return for some hours. I did not observe Rimmilli's arrival and only learned of it when Fred came to ask for more blankets since she was cold despite the summer heat. Evidently, there had been some trouble taking her from the camp, and with moving her here. I heaved two winter quilts out to the dairy. The door was ajar and Tull moved around in the darkness stoking the stove we had used in the cheese-making days.

‘Tull,' I said and when he came to the door handed him the quilts, one of which he laid over Rimmilli. I left to fetch water and when I went back – Addie with me this time (she wished to help, she said) – he opened the door wide to let us in. Addie halted just inside the door, perhaps from fear of contagion. Whatever sickness Rimmilli had we could not help being exposed to now, since Fred and Tull had all but carried her here. I would not make Addie come further in; that was for her. I took the water to Rimmilli and poured some from the pitcher into the tin mug and set it at her side. She gave me her old look and lay back.

‘If you have need of anything more, Tull, you have only to say,' I said, and left. Addie stayed; I don't know why since she still hadn't left the doorway when I departed, and did not return to the house until luncheon, of stew and bread and hot tea, which she took back with her. This became her habit over the next few days. I was glad to see her thinking of someone other than herself.

For the first two days Rimmilli continued to sicken. Addie came to me very agitated asking what she might do to bring her fever down, but there was nothing I could offer but cool water, so Addie took a bowl and old cloths and for that afternoon and into the evening from the veranda I watched her and Tull coming and going, replenishing the water from the well. I went to visit them the next morning. The door was ajar and Addie was there. If she had come to bed, I had not noticed it. I watched Tull curved over Rimmilli, touching the wet cloth to her forehead and arms; on a chair at her side Addie looked on.

‘Do you need some help?' I said, pushing the door.

They both started. Addie spared me an oblique glance. ‘We're managing quite well, thank you.'

I should have seen what was happening I suppose, from the strange feeling I had, as if I should first have knocked. It was a private world that they had built at the dairy and I told myself that it was from busyness that I did not return for some days.

A week later Rimmilli had recovered sufficiently that I saw her sitting in the sun one morning, weak and swaddled in blankets, but upright. She continued to improve over the next few days. As for the contagion, we none of us caught more than some slight congestion of the lungs, which we did not suffer from overmuch. Tull and Fred and Papa left to return her to the native camp. Addie watched them dwindle up the slope, her eyes fixed on Tull. I wondered how she saw him: was it his slender back and neat head, his long legs, his easy seat on a horse?