Benevolence by Julie Janson

Author:Julie Janson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magabala Books

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

1832: LIVERPOOL BLACKS CAMP

Kings School at Parramatta is opened with fanfare, and three small boys of the gentrified squattocracy are seen being delivered to the sandstone gates. A royal heraldic shield reminds all who walk beneath it that the crown of England rules.

Meanwhile, another Englishman, the settler John Macarthur, is formally declared insane and sent to the asylum. A life in the colony can do that.

Not far from Parramatta, the fine sandstone buildings grace the square at Liverpool and the houses around are neat, with thatched rooves and pisé walls. There is a stone bridge and archway and some young elm trees growing alongside the dirt road. English flowers grow amongst corn and vegetables. Settlers walk along the street and carry loads of wheat and fruit to the market. The clock tower is high and impressive and there, underneath, is the Liverpool Gundungurra tribe. They lounge happily in the shade of trees and cook some ducks on a fire.

As Mary gets closer, she strips a green bough from a wattle tree to show her friendship. She holds it up high in front of her. Red Rose, Blue Poppy, Prince Harris, Nancy, Horace the Duke of York, Charles the Third, King Geoffrey and Janet the Cripple. Then there are the cricketers: Willy and Billy Creek. Everyone is happy to see Mary and her child.

Aunty Nancy is at the camp and she sings with joy to see her long-lost relative. Mary is welcomed by her skin uncles and aunties and cousins. They are responsible for her.

King Geoffrey has many wives and looks at her as if she might be the next one. Mary is not the right skin for him, not the right group for marriage, and he knows this. He is not molliming, not a suitable moiety for a husband. If her father was here, he would tell the old man that Mary was not for him, or he might spear him.

No-one asks about Mary’s life. The here and now is more important. The old women are from both Darug and Gundungurra mobs and have authority to teach her about her relationship to everyone – her kinship – because they are her mother’s people. The women pinch Eleanor’s face and squeeze her cheeks. They hold her hand up and examine the cuticles for their colour. She has golden curls and they admire her pink ribbons.

The old women take Mary and her child to the nearby bush to pat ochre mud on their bodies for a welcome corroboree – they will be safe from the great eel spirit that lives in the nearby lagoon. The middle of the lagoon has a whirlpool that can suck you down. The eye of Garangatch lives there and old women call out to the spirits to introduce them to the newcomers.

After the corroboree, old Nancy stands by a termite mound and listens to the white ants making buildings and preening their queens. She takes Eleanor’s hand and rests it on the red mound so she too can learn to hear this.

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