The Grass Castle (45 page)
Daphne feels the burden too. It is heavy on her heart. ‘My family settled on Aboriginal land,’ she says. ‘It was the way of the times, but it seems so wrong. I felt it even as a child.’
Betty’s nod is small but affirmative. ‘Those are hard words for white people to say. Not many see it that way. Even now.’
‘I was told all the Aboriginal people were gone,’ Daphne says, remembering her mother’s unsatisfactory explanations. ‘That you’d all died out. It’s no excuse, but it’s what I believed for a long time. I’m sorry for that.’
Betty sighs again. ‘That’s what everyone was saying for so many years. That we all died out. But we bin here all along. They wanted to forget us. But we’re still here.’
Betty’s story is a patchwork, quilted together from all the little pieces told to her by the old folk on the mission where she grew up. She tells it to Daphne, piece by piece. After white folk landed in Australia and the sickness wiped out hundreds of her people, what was left of them were pushed onto missions. Most of her family went to Hollywood down at Yass. But there were other missions too: Brungle up by Tumut, Nowra, Cootamundra. In Yass, her family lived with other fragmented families on the edge of town. They lived in houses made from kerosene tins beaten flat. No electricity. No water. The only jobs were working for the white people who would have them as maids or nurses. The men worked as farmhands, picking fruit, working stock. They were away a lot or home drinking, nothing in between. It wasn’t much different at the other missions she visited over the years. Those were bad times. Her people lost many things: family, language, customs, dignity. But they kept things too. They stayed connected with each other: aunties, uncles, cousins. They worked whatever jobs were going. They held on. In the seventies the missions were shut down and they all moved into towns. That’s when white people thought they’d died out, because they weren’t so visible anymore. But they were there. Making their way as best they could.
Daphne listens, struck by the loss that equals her own and surpasses it. But as Betty speaks there is only fact, no anger, no blame. Daphne can’t understand it. The injustice. The racism. How can Betty be so calm? Where is her rage?
‘All bin happen long time ago,’ Betty says, a weary smile on her face. ‘I’ve had plenty of anger, but you can’t wear your hurt on your sleeve forever. Gotta get on. No point being cut up with it all your life. Anger is for the young ones who got the energy to make change. I’m past it now. Never had the rage, really. What would have been the use of it? My people, they’ve suffered, but they’ve survived. I’ve seen changes in my time. Lots of changes. Most of them good. My people live in houses now, instead of humpies. We can go where we like. Don’t need permission no more. The children can go to school. We can give birth in hospitals. Go to movies. Sit wherever we like. Use the front door. Sure, there’s a long way to go. But I’m old. It’s up to others to take things forward. I done my time.’
Daphne feels the burden of shame. She thinks of her father denying the existence of Betty’s people, of Johnny’s people, even though he was happy to employ the black man to find his cattle. There was no-one with better bush skills than Johnny, and there was a reason for this: Johnny knew the land. He
was
the land. It was in his bones. And her father and his men had driven Johnny away. Exiled him for kissing a white girl. Where was the crime in that, compared with the transgressions of her family and all the other families who’d taken the so-called empty land? That was how her father had described it: land for the taking. It was a lie and he always knew it. But she must forgive, as Betty has forgiven her. The sins of the fathers . . . she knows what that means. Feels it.
And Doug? She never spoke to him of her guilt about her family’s occupation of the mountain runs. A lifetime of love, and a lifetime of silence on this issue. Perhaps she should have talked to him. Through his connection with the land, he might have understood. But land rights had been a taboo topic among farmers, especially if you supported the Aborigines. And yet she ought to have trusted him. Now she needs to forgive him too, for leaving her. Nearly twenty years she’s battled life on her own. He should have been beside her till poor health took him, not the weakness of a shattered mind. He laid down his bones and soul for the land, same as the Aborigines.
She wonders where Johnny Button’s bones finished up. There was no-one to hide them among the granite boulders like his ancestors. Maybe he wandered up into the hills too, like Doug.
‘How did you go on?’ she asks Betty.
‘Because, even though we had it bad, we also had it good,’ Betty says. ‘Yeah, the grog and the beatings were there. But I don’t want to remember that. I want to think of happier times. I got plenty of those good memories too. Fishing down by the river. Playing music, singing all together. Caring. Loving. Getting married. Babies. That’s the way forward. Not always beating yourself up over the past.’
Daphne slips her hand into her handbag and pulls out a folded piece of cloth. It’s her gift—her small attempt to make amends with this woman and her people. She places it in Betty’s hand. ‘This belongs to you,’ she says.
Betty glances at her questioningly before carefully unfolding the cloth. It’s the spearhead, chiseled by ancient hands, shining dull grey in the light. Betty’s fingers stroke the stone.
‘I found it in the mountains,’ Daphne says. ‘Near some rock paintings. I was just a girl. I’ve kept it safe.’ She looks at the stone where it lies in Betty’s crinkled brown palm.
Betty is silent, feeling the stone, the forgotten lives of her ancestors.
‘It’s all I have to give you,’ Daphne says. ‘And my apology, which is long overdue.’
Betty gazes at the stone. Then, without looking up, she reaches across the table and closes her fingers over Daphne’s hand. Tears drip onto the tablecloth—both women overcome by the long arm of history.
Betty looks up, her face bright. ‘Everything has to start somewhere,’ she says.
Abby, watching, weeps quietly too, while outside in the street the leaves rustle up and down, pushed and scattered by the breath of the wind.
Every book is a journey and this novel has been no exception. For ongoing encouragement in the evolution and development of
The Grass Castle
I thank my agent Fiona Inglis at Curtis Brown. There were times when I definitely needed you, Fiona.
For pushing me to go further and to explore deeper in order to find the heart of this story, I thank my wonderful publisher at Allen & Unwin, Jane Palfreyman. No-one has greater wisdom in knowing what will and won’t work than she does. Jane, I appreciate your frankness and advice. I also offer immense thanks and appreciation to all the other fantastic staff at A & U who have contributed to refining this novel and putting it all together, including Siobhán Cantrill, Lisa White, Clare James and others who I probably don’t even know. Thank you, thank you. You are a great team.
I also give special thanks to poet Mark O’Connor for allowing me to use several lines of his lovely poetry in the front of this book. To me, these lines are particularly fitting–beautifully and accurately evoking a sense of atmosphere and time in the mountains.
Above all, I acknowledge my husband David Lindenmayer for everything. Without his positivity, patience and support, I couldn’t even begin to write novels. The same applies to my children, Ryan and Nina. They are tolerant with my impatience when the story takes hold. This book belongs to them as much as it belongs to me.
For providing valuable and insightful comments at a critical time in the development of this novel, and for helping my characters come to life, I thank my sister, Fiona Andersen. And for eternal background support and diligent reading of page-proofs I thank Marjorie Lindenmayer.
The reading of many books has inspired and informed elements of this story. These books include:
Moth Hunters of the Australian Capital Territory: Aboriginal traditional life in the Canberra region
by Josephine Flood (1996);
Rugged Beyond Imagination: Stories from an Australian mountain region
by Matthew Higgins (2009);
Cotter Country: a history of the early settlers, pastoral holdings and events in and around the County of Cowley
by Bruce Moore (1999);
Kangaroos: Myths and Realities
(2005), edited by Maryland Wilson and David B. Croft;
Stories of the Ngunnawal
(2007) by Carl Brown, Dorothy Dickson, Loretta Halloran, Fred Monaghan, Bertha Thorpe, Agnes Shea, Sandra and Tracey Phillips;
High Country Footprints: Aboriginal pathways and movements in the high country of southeastern Australia
by Peter Kabaila (2005); and
Mary Cunningham
:
an Australian life
by Jennifer Horsfield (2004). I also enjoyed listening to several episodes of
Blue Hills
by Gwen Meredith, author of the longest running radio serial of all time which is set in the Brindabella mountains where my novel takes place.
Many friends and colleagues have assisted me in discussions and conversations about kangaroo management and ecology over the years: thank you to all of you. I also thank the numerous wildlife carers who have trusted me with their native animals—through you, I have learned so much.
Finally, I thank my parents, Jim and Diana Viggers, for giving me a country upbringing and the freedom to explore the forests and hills of the Dandenong and Yarra Ranges on the back of my crazy little pony, King. I am sure this was the beginning of my love for mountains, forests, nature and solitude. And without the gift of solitude, I could not write.
