The White Earth (34 page)

Impatience simmered in William. He didn’t care about any of this. And anyway, nothing she said could be trusted.

But his cousin wasn’t finished. ‘The same thing happened on this station — for all that my father would like to forget it. This land belonged to the Kuran people. No one knows how many of them there were either — but after a few decades of settlement, they numbered less than twenty. The survivors used to live right here around the House, and if they were lucky they got blankets and flour. But by 1911, time was up. They were shipped off with all the others. And that’s why, to this day, you’ll barely see a black face in this part of the world.’ She eyed him knowingly. ‘And my father is lucky it happened that way, otherwise he might really have a Native Title claim to worry about.’

William stayed silent.

‘Come on. I’ve read your uncle’s newsletters, remember. Don’t try and tell me you don’t know about Native Title. What do you think that whole rally was for?’

He spoke at last, out of resentment. ‘It was about stopping a bad law.’

‘A bad law?’ She appeared to ponder the notion.‘Maybe it is bad. Most likely it’s unworkable. Black, white, no one’s really happy about it.’ Her eyes were on William again. ‘But I’m interested — why do
you
think it’s a bad law?’

‘It’s unfair.’

‘Unfair? To who?’

William felt the importance of the question. She was challenging him, and his uncle too, so he strove to be defiant. ‘People will lose their farms,’ he said.

‘Rubbish.’

‘They will. Out west.’

Ruth shook her head patiently. ‘You’re talking about pastoral leases. And this new law actually rules out claims on those sorts of properties. Of course, the Aboriginal land councils won’t stand for that, they’ll test it in court, so who knows — but at most, it’s only about sharing access. And only if the tribes can prove that they’ve had a continuous connection with the land in question, which is going to be a big problem. But no matter what, absolutely no one is going to get kicked off their farm.’

William knew that he was missing some vital point of the argument, but he was becoming furious with her.‘It’s a stupid law. It’s just what people in the cities want. They don’t care, because nothing will happen to them.’

She shook her head, disappointed. ‘That’s your uncle talking.’

He dredged his memory. ‘The blacks are gone. You just want to rewrite history.’

‘And those racist idiots in the League…’

‘They’re not idiots!’

‘Of course they are, and rednecks too.’

‘Australia is our place now! You can’t make us give it back!’

And he noted with satisfaction that she was finally struck silent. But he felt so dizzy and hot, and Ruth was studying him now with distaste.

‘Jesus,’ she breathed, ‘just listen to what my father’s got you saying. You’re all caught up in this idea that the station will be yours one day. And then he tells you, look out, the evil Aborigines are coming to steal it away, so you better start hating them.’

But William was ready for that. ‘He doesn’t hate them.’

‘No, of course not. I’m sure he respects their culture. That’s the way he likes to put it, isn’t it?’

‘He doesn’t even care about them. He knows they can’t claim this property anyway.’

For a moment Ruth seemed on the verge of disputing this. Then she sank back bitterly.‘No, they probably can’t. But Christ, it would serve him right if they could.’

Relief ran through William. He felt that he’d won something. And he had made it clear that he was siding with his uncle, not with her. ‘This is the wrong sort of land,’ he said. ‘It’s not like the stations out west. It’s perpetual.’

Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Perpetual?’ And to William’s alarm she sat forward again. ‘You mean a perpetual lease? Is that what your uncle said?’

William blinked. He could barely remember.‘It’s safe,that’s all…’

‘A lease,’ she wondered. ‘I always thought it was freehold.’

William didn’t understand. Had he said something wrong?

But his cousin had forgotten him. She was looking up at the House. ‘Well, well. That changes a few things, doesn’t it?’ And suddenly she was standing. ‘Thanks for the tour, Will. But you should get out of this sun. You look a little flushed.’

And with that — as if they had been discussing nothing of importance — she hurried up the steps and disappeared into the darkness of the House.

William slumped against the fountain, his thoughts a wretched quagmire.
Everything
he’d said had been wrong. He only knew that he’d needed to defend himself. But some of the words that came out of his mouth had sounded horrible, and the way she had looked at him…

His ear throbbed and the sun hurt his eyes. He lifted his gaze and stared out over the plains. Everywhere he looked there was haze and smoke, vague shifting shapes that could have been anything. Towns that became farms that became empty grassland set on fire. Nothing was solid, not the land, and even less so its history. He had been told so many stories — but which ones was he to believe? He had seen none of these events with his own eyes, walked none of the world with his own feet.

He retreated to the safety of the House. Just inside the doors he found his mother. She was standing at the bottom of the central staircase, staring up. William could hear raised voices from somewhere above, distant and unintelligible.

‘They’re fighting up there,’ she told him, hushed. ‘Ruth and your uncle.’

Her eyes were still red and swollen from the morning’s tears, but now her face was lit with hopeful expectation, and William could not stand to be near her. He found his way to his bedroom and cast himself upon the bed. He shut his eyes and saw swirling patterns, felt nausea roiling in his stomach. The foul smell was with him again, and he knew that something was profoundly wrong.

He woke much later in the afternoon. Someone was entering his room.

‘William?’

He dug his face deeper into the pillow. It was his cousin again.

Her voice sounded hoarse. ‘You uncle has asked me to leave.’

He opened his eyes, but did not roll over to face her.

‘I’ve just come to say goodbye.’

But she didn’t go. Instead, he felt her sit down on the edge of the bed.

‘Is it just me,’ she asked, after a time, ‘or is something dead in here?’

William said nothing, his eyes wide.

‘What
is
that smell?’ she repeated.

‘You can smell something?’ William asked.

‘I’m not sure … I thought there was something … or is it just this thing?’

William rolled over. His cousin was holding his captain’s hat, and sniffing it curiously.

‘Is it? No…’

She sniffed the air again, and then her shoulders sagged. William studied her in amazement. She looked so old. And had she been crying?

She handed the cap to him.‘Why do you wear this anyway?’

‘I like it,’ said William.

But he examined the hat closely. Had this been the source all along? And indeed, the material was pungent with age … but it wasn’t the rotten smell. That was something much stronger, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

‘Where on earth did you get it?’ his cousin asked, watching him.

‘I found it,’ William said. ‘I thought it was from the army. But Uncle John said it’s only an old police hat.’

‘It’s old all right.’

‘He said it was his father’s.’

That caught her attention. She peered at the cap again. ‘I didn’t know my grandfather was ever a policeman.’ She touched the brim. ‘So that’s a police badge?’

‘I guess so.’

‘QMP,’ she read. ‘Queensland something Police? Queensland Mounted Police?’ She shook her head and pushed back her grey hair. Her eyes were dry now. ‘Maybe I’ll ask my father about it, next time I see him.’

‘You said you were leaving.’

‘For now. But he’s not rid of me yet. Once I’ve checked into some things, I’ll be back.’

And William couldn’t decide any more if that was good or bad. He had been so angry at her that morning … but she had smelled the rotten thing, when no one else had.

She smiled at him.‘I’m sorry if I upset you before. I know it can’t be any fun, caught between two old people like me and my father.’

And her concern only confused William more.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asked. ‘You really don’t look very well.’

‘I felt dizzy before.’

She slapped her forehead. ‘Oh … of course, I’m sorry, your glandular fever, I forgot all about it. You’re sick and I’ve had you tramping all over the hills.’

There was nothing he could say to that.

‘Well, you just rest. I’ll be off.’ She stood up, looked down at him one last time. ‘Listen, Will. Whatever happens, my father won’t give you this place for free. He’ll make you pay a price. So be careful of what he tells you to do.’

And she was gone.

There it was — another attack, just when William was changing his mind about her. And yet he knew that the old man really was strange sometimes, and frightening. But what was he supposed to do? He could never turn against his uncle. The old man needed him.

He rose finally, and went out to the front porch, standing alone on the steps. The afternoon was fading into a lurid orange haze. His cousin’s car was gone, and only the dead world of the drought remained. He imagined Ruth rolling away towards Powell, conditioned air wafting from the dashboard, cool and delicious. And suddenly he wanted to be anywhere but where he was, to be escaping to somewhere green and wet and far away. A place where there were people, and schools, and back yards with grass to play on, and other children … not these deserted hills all around, and the loneliness of the House at his back.

A movement caught his eye as he turned towards the front door. Mrs Griffith hovered there, peering out from the interior darkness. The housekeeper grinned her toothless, mirthless smile at him, victorious. Then she slipped away.

Chapter Thirty-six

F
OR WILLIAM, RUTH’S DEPARTURE MARKED A POINT WHERE somehow the real world began to slip away, and where his illness began to consume him. It was the same malaise that had overwhelmed him at the rally — the dizziness, the ache in his ear, the sense of creeping dislocation — only this time there was no remission. Over the next four days it grew steadily worse, until a furnace seemed to burn in his head, and his surroundings shrank away, pale and detached. And with every breath he took, the evil smell that clung to him became more sweet, and more sickening.

Yet no one took any notice of him. The House had more pressing concerns, for on the night that his daughter left, John McIvor suffered a second heart attack. An ambulance raced out from Powell, but as gravely ill as he was, the old man refused to go to hospital. Dr Moffat was called in to attend him daily, and William’s mother, miraculously revived by the disaster, returned to her nursing duty upstairs. In all the tumult, William’s condition was dismissed as nothing worse than a late bout of flu. He spent the days alone, in bed or curled up on the couch, watching television. Sometimes his mother would bring him meals,but she never stayed long enough to see that he threw away most of the food.

Her firm belief was that Ruth had caused the second heart attack. ‘This could be the end of him. His own daughter!’

But William, watching from far inside himself, saw that the outrage was only a pretence. Instead, his mother was happy — Ruth was gone and could do no more harm. He didn’t have the energy to tell her that, in fact, his cousin had already done all the damage necessary. She had tainted the prize, and ruined every certainty. Even the House didn’t seem the same to William. Once, he had been able to see through the thin walls to discover the grand building of long ago. But now, with his sickly thoughts full of Ruth and her stories, he felt that he was being suffocated by decay. He saw on television that the school year was over, that in another world entirely children were heading off with their families for Christmas holidays. But not William. He was trapped here.

They all were. The House still drifted in a zone of murderous calm. At times William would sit hunched in a chair on the front porch, his arms wrapped about himself. There was nothing to see but glare and haze. The smoke had grown thicker every day, an immense pall that was blotting out the world. There was not a breath of wind to disturb it, and yet to William’s eyes it moved and revolved — with infinitesimal slowness, but with a sinister purpose all the same. Gathering, and thickening, and bearing down upon the plains, the pressure of it mounting and mounting until William, sitting rigidly, had to fight not to scream. But the nights were the worst, when the darkness closed in, and the light in his bedroom appeared to burn too dimly, as if through a fog. He couldn’t sleep, but nor was he quite awake, and the House was unquiet around him, full of subtle creaks and groans, as if sharing the agonies of its master.

On the fifth night William slept finally, from sheer exhaustion, but he dreamt of a voice calling his name, louder and louder, until he awoke with a violent trembling. Bewildered, he realised he was not in his bed. Looming shadows surrounded him in a bizarre, alien space. Then, to his dismay, he recognised the hallway of the upper floor. He must have climbed there, walking in his sleep. Through a doorway, jagged moonlight grinned at him from the tiles of a bathroom, but even worse was the memory of the voice that still rang in his ears, as if someone had bellowed at him in a last extremity of rage and pain. And then, turning reluctantly, he saw that far away, at the end of the gallery, there was a dim glow. It came from the doorway of his uncle’s bedroom.

William made a hopeless sound, but his feet were moving, drawn forward. His ear pounded painfully in the silence, and the hallway seemed to lean and veer about him. What was he going to see when he reached the room? Why had he been called? A few feet from the door, the answer came to him. His uncle must be dead. The old man must have died this very minute, and through some link that existed between them, William had been summoned to witness his end. The thought almost stopped him short. Should he run and fetch his mother? Wake the household? But then he was at the door.