The Secret River (13 page)

A stirring of breeze puffed down at them from the cliffs. Blackwood stood holding the tiller, watching for the wind across the water, his whole body twisted away from what he had seen. The wind met them and the
Queen
leapt forward, the sail bulging and the sheets taut. Thornhill took a breath to speak but thought better of it.

When Blackwood spoke, his voice was raspy with a press of feeling.
Ain’t nothing in this world just for the taking
, he said. He spat over the side and stared away at where the water crinkled into glare towards the west.
A man got to pay a fair price for taking
, he said.
Matter of give a little, take a little
.

Thornhill watched the mangroves passing, the simple curve of the ridge against the sky. He could hear only the small sound
of the boat, its foot sliding through the glassy water. It had become a still, pearly afternoon, the tide filling up nicely, bearing the
Queen
along.

Near the end of a long reach with a high unbroken wall of cliff to starboard, Blackwood pointed up ahead.
Got my place up
there a ways
. The words came out in clots, as if something in him wanted to tell but something else did not.
Where that First Branch
come in
. Thornhill peered forward and saw where another stream, glinting among reeds, veered off the main river. He waited out the silence.
Got myself a pardon, be two years this summer
, Blackwood said, and let out a roar of mirth.
Best pardon money could buy
. He stared forward gripping a stay. There was no sound but the rustle of the water under the keel.
Picked meself out a hundred acres
, he said at last.
Five mile up the Branch, Blackwood’s Lagoon they call it
. He was speaking more to himself than Thornhill.
Away a ways up
.

The way he said it, it was a poem.

The thought of his place seemed to have allowed him to forget Smasher Sullivan. His mouth was soft, savouring the words, and there was a private pleasure on his face as he gazed ahead.
Catch a few fish, grow a bit of corn, brew a bit of rotgut, I can please meself
.

In Thornhill’s world, a person might own some sticks of furniture, a few clothes, perhaps a lighter. That was wealth. But no one that Thornhill knew personally had bought so much as a yard of land. Even Mr Middleton had not owned the freehold on the narrow house in Swan Lane.

Yet here was Blackwood, a lighterman and convicted lag, no better in any particular than he was himself, owning a stretch of ground. Not simply owning it: naming it after himself!

How’s that?
Thornhill said, astonished.
They give you a hundred
acres just for the asking?

Blackwood glanced at him.
Not a matter of ask up here mate
, he said.
Get your backside on a bit of ground, sit tight. That’s all the asking you
got to do
.

Blackwood began to hum to himself, staring out into the silver glinting of the water.
Just as soon give the Camp a miss, tell the truth
, he said at last.
Too many buggers there never let a man forget he’s worn the
broad arrow
. He went on, almost talking to himself.
Long’s he stays off
the booze, a feller with a boat can do real good for himself
.

The First Branch angled off to starboard, and just after, the river swung hard to port, almost doubling back on itself, as if around a hinge. The long spit of land it swung around rose from the water, a sweet place with scattered trees and grass, as green and tender as a gentleman’s park even in this summer season. Thornhill found himself looking for the manor house in among the trees with its windows winking, but there was only a kangaroo watching them pass, its forepaws held up to its chest and its ears twitching towards them. As the
Queen
swept around the point, he saw the rounded tip where sand had collected to form a curve of beach, and a bulge along the side.

He almost laughed aloud, seeing it as just the shape of his own thumb, nail and knuckle and all.

A chaos opened up inside him, a confusion of wanting. No one had ever spoken to him of how a man might fall in love with a piece of ground. No one had ever spoken of how there could be this teasing sparkle and dance of light among the trees, this calm clean space that invited feet to enter it.

He let himself imagine it: standing on the crest of that slope, looking down over his own place. Thornhill’s Point. It was a piercing hunger in his guts: to own it. To say
mine
, in a way he had never been able to say
mine
of anything at all. He had not known until this minute that it was something he wanted so much.

But the picture of Thornhill’s Point seemed too frail to be exposed to the air in anything as blunt as words. It was hardly to be thought of, even in the privacy of his own mind. He said nothing, turned away with no interest on his face, no surprise. Certainly no desire.

But Blackwood knew what was in his mind.
Any amount a good
land
, he said, so quick that Thornhill had to think to make sense of it. Blackwood shot him one of his direct looks.
I seen you looking
, he said. He gazed out at where the bush stirred.
That back there
. He spat astern as if to get the taste of Smasher out of his mouth.
That
ain’t no good
. There was something he wanted to establish between them, some important thought that had to be conveyed.
Give a
little, take a little, that’s the only way
. He stared out across the water, then turned and spoke close in Thornhill’s face, quite calm.
Otherwise you’re dead as a flea
.

He was matter-of-fact.

Thornhill nodded, stared away upriver to where another headland was swinging around to reveal another reach of shining water.
Got no argument with that
, he said. He resisted the urge to glance back at the piece of land in the shape of his own thumb.

Blackwood watched him, reading his thoughts.
Well then
, he said, but with a doubt in his tone. The words hung between them like an unanswered question.

As the First Branch and the long point fell astern they felt the tide turning, and went ashore for the night on a low island, lying beside the fire on the sand with the forest at their backs. Before dawn they were up again, catching the tide upriver.

Now there were more triangles of flat land, like the one Smasher Sullivan had made his own, where creeks came down in folds between the cliffs. Shelves of grass and trees bordered the river in places, and rounded hills began to take the place of the rearing buttresses of stone. The personality of the river was beginning to change into something softer, kinder, on a more human scale. Approaching Green Hills, river flats stretched away on both sides, squared off into fenced fields of corn and wheat, and orchards of glossy orange trees. Behind the fields the forest was pushed back like a blanket.

All that day, watching the river change, Thornhill thought
about the long point of land. He had heard the preachers mouthing about the Promised Land. He had taken it as being another thing in the world that was just for gentry. Nothing had ever been promised to him.

He knew that this was not what the preachers meant, but he took pleasure in remembering the phrase. That point of land was by way of being promised: not by God, but by himself, to himself.

~

Back in Sydney he told Sal about the wild cliffs and crags of the lower reaches of the river, the farmers grubbing out a living on the humid banks of its mild upper reaches. Blackwood had them over a barrel, he told her. Without his boat their crops might as well rot in the fields. There were two other traders on the river, but Bartlett was a drunk and Andrews a robber. All the farmers waited for Blackwood. He told her about the expanses of shining mangroves and the way the river was notched so privily into the land. Told her about the First Branch: drew a little plan of it on the ground to explain where it came into the river and showed her, with an X in the dust, where Blackwood had given his name to a piece of the wild.

His stick drew the shape of the river, explaining how it folded back on itself just where the Branch came in, how that corner was the point at which a salt river began to be a fresh one, and how upstream of it the land was tamer. He watched the tip of his stick deepening the groove that showed the course of that far-off river.

The thing he did not share with her was that his stick was also drawing the shape of a point of land. A kangaroo had stood chest high in the grass there and watched him, and he had discovered a hunger in himself he had never known before.

That place was a dream that might shrivel if put into words.

~

It was months later, on the night of Dick’s third birthday in July of 1809, before he told her about it. Dick had celebrated with the treat of a honey-cake, and his mother and father had celebrated with a few tots. Now they sat together by the fire, hearing the wind roaring in the treetops, shooting down the bark chimney now and then and puffing white ash into their faces. It was a cosy feeling, to know that cold wind might bluster away all night but would never bring snow or ice, would never bring as much as a touch of frost. The first winter they got piles of firewood ready by the door and spent money on blankets. Now, three winters after they had first arrived, they knew that what passed for cold in Sydney was nothing to fear.

Sal sat yawning, staring into the flames. Bub, though over a year old, was still waking her during the night, whimpering and finally crying out until she got up and nursed him.
Oughter be in bed
, she murmured, but shifted her stool closer to him so that she could line up her leg along his.
Best bit of the day, but, this
.

It seemed as good a moment as any to try the idea on her.
There’s a bit of land
, he said.
Up the river. Hard by the Branch there
. She did not turn her face away from the fire, but he felt her grow very still, listening.
We oughter get it, Sal, before some other bugger does
. He heard his voice catch on the thought so the last words were rough with urgency.

Farmer Will?
she cried, her face alight with the fun of it.
You
don’t hardly know one end of a turnip from the other!

Prime bit of land
, he said, when she had had her fun.
Set ourselves
up there like Blackwood done, never look back
. He heard the eagerness in his voice and made himself stop.

She saw that he was not joking.
We done all right up till now
, she said.
Got to know when to leave well alone
.

She was right in that: they knew other men who had got land and been too idle to work it, or squandered their profits on horseflesh and fancy waistcoats. Some had picked a bit of land where
nothing would grow and ended up worn to shadows, a paddock of weeds their reward for years of labour.

Will
, she said, and hesitated as if not knowing where to start. She worked at the fire with a stick, then turned to look him full in the face.
Will, we had a lot of luck
, she said.
We could both be dead and
them boys not even born
. She turned back to the fire and spread her hands out to the warmth. He saw how thin her fingers were against the brightness of the flames.

We’re doing real good, Will
, she said after a while.
Couple of years
we’ll have enough to go back
. She glanced quickly at him.
Get the house
and them wherries. The stuffed armchairs and that
.

He wanted to convince her that the land would get them the wherries and the house quicker, how the children would thank them for it. But he made himself hold his tongue. Outside he heard a rustle and creak. Scabby Bill, that would be, settling down for the night.

We best grab this chance, Sal
, he said. He heard his voice start reasonable and then rise in spite of himself.
Not muck about!

But he had pressed her too hard.
No
, she said.
I ain’t coming at
it, Will, and that’s flat
.

He could feel the children, woken by the raised voices, watching from the mattress. He glanced over to where Willie’s face was a pale circle in the gloom. As the oldest, at eight, he got the part of the mattress closest to the fire. Dick had to make do with the draughty side by the wall. Bub, that puny child, had only just outgrown the cradle, and was still not used to sleeping with the older boys. He was making the scratchy noises in his throat that meant he was not yet awake enough to cry, but soon would be. They all went very still. After a moment Bub fell silent and the boys lay down again.

He was proud of the fact that his boys had a blanket each. They did not have to lie awake, as he had done as a lad, waiting for the others to fall asleep.

Sal tightened her shoulders into herself and leaned towards the fire, not looking at her husband. They had never disagreed on anything that mattered. He wished he could explain to her the marvel of that land, the way the sunlight fell so sweet along the grass.

But she could not imagine it, did not want to. He saw that her dreams had stayed small and cautious, being of nothing grander than the London they had left. Perhaps it was because she had not felt the rope around her neck. That changed a man forever.

~

He said no more, but the thought of that mild-mannered point of land was with him from the instant of waking, as if his dreams had been full of it. On his trips up and down the river with Blackwood he saw it in all weathers and conditions. Under the black skies of August he would see the curtain of rain advancing up what he thought of as Thornhill’s Reach, turning the headland grey, making the bushes on the point twist and flail in the wind. As summer came, birds sang from the trees on sweet blue and gold mornings. He saw kangaroos, and striped lizards as long as his arm sidling up the trunks of the river-oaks. Sometimes he thought there was a haze of smoke rising up between the trees, but when he looked harder it was not there.