Washerwoman's Dream Page 23

  Now she found the landscape daunting, just mile upon mile of barren plains stretching as far as the eye could see, until towards evening there would be great herds of kangaroos and emus trying to race the train. The driver would blow the whistle, smoke pouring out of the funnel and cinders flying in the open window, while the boys screamed with joy, their heads hanging out of the window while their father hung on to their legs, afraid they might fall out.

  Even before they arrived at Marree Winifred felt the strangeness and the loneliness of the country. At dusk she watched as shadows chased the daylight to the edge of the horizon, wondering what lay beyond.

  * * *

  As she looked across the stony plains that shimmered in the heat even though it was not yet noon, Winifred’s first response to Marree was one of dismay. It came into being because of the need for a railway from Port Augusta to the copper mines in the Flinders Ranges and beyond. Though the country was arid, with sparse vegetation, there was a chain of springs where the water leaked from the periphery of the Great Artesian Basin. It was from here that the camel-men carried supplies along the Birdsville Track into Queensland.

  The family walked from the station past the shops, school, church and hotel, conscious that they were the centre of attention because they were strangers. The men lounging under the verandah of the Great Northern Hotel, glasses in their hands, stared at them as Ali strode ahead in baggy pants, flowing shirt and waistcoat, his brown eyes fierce under his turban. An Aboriginal boy trotted behind with a wheelbarrow containing a large cane hamper with all their wordly goods, and a sugar bag with their pots and pans, their primus, an axe, a shovel and a tin dish for washing. Ali did not seem to notice when a man spat on the ground and said something that made the other men laugh.

  Winifred strolled along behind, holding Pansy in her arms while Rhamat clung to her skirts. She called out to Yusef, who was running ahead to catch up with his father, not to fall over. The path was strewn with large gibbers and she did not want him to skin his knees. As she drew level with the hotel she raised her head and stared at the man who had spat, until he dropped his eyes and went back inside, the sound of laughter following him. She knew she had got the better of him. She had come to understand this type of man from her years serving behind the bar and knew that what bothered him was the sight of a white woman with a coloured man, when there were so few women to go round. Not many women were willing to give up the comforts of the city to live a lonely life in a humpy in the outback, or to watch their children die because there were no doctors within easy reach — no other white women for hundreds of miles.

  Though she understood the reasons for the man’s hostility, she could not excuse it. Women did not belong to men. They had a right to choose their own husbands. And her choice was Ali. She had been given away to Charles, and he had mistreated her. But now she had found love and respect and she knew that this transcended skin colour and race.

  She was surprised to see Ali striding back to meet them, Yusef trundling along behind. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘The mosque is on the other side of the line. That’s where the camel-men live, near the camel yards.’ Winifred turned and followed in weary silence.

  She smelt the camels coming before she saw them. A swarm of black flies zoomed overhead and she stepped to one side, with Rhamat burying his face in her dress and Pansy screaming. They stood still as the camels were driven forward with shouts and screams until they reached the station where the train was being unloaded. A horse pulling a cart bolted along the road until it upturned into a paddock, throwing out its driver, a man in a bowler hat. He stood and shook his fist at the camels, before unharnessing his horse which was frothing at the mouth, and righting the cart with the help of some passers-by.

  The man looked so comical with his bowler hat squashed and his face red that Winifred had trouble suppressing her mirth. She thought that perhaps horses were afraid of camels. She couldn’t blame them. They looked like snakes with their long necks that twisted and turned this way and that, and she wondered whether she would ever have the courage to get close. Their coats were thick with dust and had patches of mange where the skin was bare. She thought of Jezebel, the old horse that pulled Mr Jackson’s pie-cart, and how she used to brush her coat till it shone and how she would snuffle up to her and eat sugar from her hand. She felt certain that if she tried to do this to one of these creatures it would bite her hand off.

  She crossed the railway track, keeping well away from the camels, and saw Yusef running to meet her. ‘Baba has gone to the mosque. He says to wait here until he comes.’

  The news irritated Winifred. It was hot and dry; the dust kicked up by the camels swirled around their heads, and flies were bothering them. All Winifred wanted was a place in the shade and a hot cup of tea. But Ali had gone off with the spirit stove and tea things. She thought about walking back to the station to get some water for the children to drink, but it meant going past the camels. Instead, she told Yusef to mind Pansy and Rhamat and set off to look for Ali.

  Winifred made her way through the galvanised-iron huts with lean-tos in the front, where herds of goats roamed in the dust, conscious of peering eyes and yet not seeing anyone, until she came to a small mosque made of brush and iron set among date palms, where she could hear the sound of men’s voices. She poked her head around the door. There were prayer mats hanging on the iron walls and men were sitting around cross-legged. But there was no sign of Ali. A man with a long grey beard and wearing a turban moved swiftly towards her, admonishing her with one finger before waving her away.

  ‘I’m looking for my husband,’ she said.

  ‘Go home, woman. Your husband will return all in good time. You have no business here.’

  Winifred could feel her anger rising, but then she thought that Ali had come here to find work and she mustn’t provoke this man. He could be important. So she walked back the way she had come, her shoes sending up little eddies of dust. She could feel the heat of the sun biting through her thin cotton dress and she wished she had worn a hat, anything to protect her from the heat.

  Pansy was fretful when she returned and Rhamat was crying. When he saw his mother he said, ‘Yusef won’t get me a drink and I’m thirsty.’

  With Pansy on her hip, holding Rhamat by the hand and with Yusef by her side, she made her way back to the station where there was a tap. She turned it on and, cupping her hands, let Pansy drink before splashing the child’s face with the brackish water. She did the same for Rhamat, then waited while Yusef took a long draught before helping herself.

  They settled on the station to wait, watching the goods being loaded onto the camels. Two men were standing, one on each side, and they balanced the weight while the camels knelt snapping and snarling, trying to cast the load off until it was finally secured. Watching, Winifred wondered how she and Ali could possibly manage a camel team. She knew she did not have the strength to load a camel, let alone have enough courage to go near one. And Yusef was still a child.

  When Ali returned he was angry because she had gone to the mosque. ‘You have shamed me in front of my people. You must learn to be obedient.’

  She was silent, even though angry words rose to her lips, and followed him to where he had found accommodation for her and Pansy in one house and for the boys and himself in another. She was not happy with the arrangements and protested about being separated. ‘Be quiet, woman,’ Ali said. ‘There is no other way.’

  His sharp words were too much and she began to cry until he took her in his arms. ‘Hush, it’s only for a short time. Be patient.’

  ‘I’m afraid you will go off and leave us here alone.’

  ‘It would be best if you and the two younger ones stayed where you will be safe, until I learn how to manage a camel string.’

  She was silent, making up her mind that she would go with him come what may.

  The next day, while Ali was at the mosque, she left the three children and went to the camel yards. She found the smell nause
ating but knew it was something she would have to get used to. But it was the evil look of the creatures, with their large yellow teeth and saliva dripping from their mouths, that repulsed and frightened her.

  There was a man inside the camel enclosure and she called out, ‘Is there a quiet camel I could learn to ride?’

  He looked up and walked over, staring at her.

  ‘My husband will be working with camels and we have three young children. I need a quiet camel for them to ride. I’ve ridden a horse.’

  ‘A camel is a horse of a different colour. They’ll bite your hand off if you get in the way … or your head. If two of them bull camels fight over a female, best keep yer distance.’

  Winifred gave him a winning smile. ‘I’ll be careful.’

  He pointed to a camel lying by the fence. ‘Sheeba, now, she’s expecting a calf and is as gentle as a lamb.’ He called, ‘Hoosta’ and the beast rose to her knees. He lifted a saddle off the fence and fastened it on her back, then tied a long string through a peg in her nose. Winifred saw that the saddle reached almost to the tail of the beast and was nothing like the saddles she had seen on horses. She wondered how anyone could manage to stop falling off the back. Just the same, with the man helping, she settled herself on the saddle, her legs astride, and took the nose strings in her hand. She was conscious that her skirt had ridden up, exposing her knees. She wondered what Ali would say if he could see. She had always ridden side-saddle. She didn’t think there were side-saddles for camels because only men rode them. She would have to manage the best way she could, perhaps borrow a pair of Ali’s old pants.

  She was relieved that the man didn’t seem to notice her predicament. He was intent on opening the gate. ‘Hang on,’ he said and gave a low whistle. The beast rose in the air.

  Winifred felt alarmed. She had only the flimsy strings to guide the camel and was a long way from the ground. She wondered how she could possibly manage to stay on. It was nothing like being on a horse. She dug her heels into the sides of the beast and the camel began a slow promenade, swaying from side to side down the dirt track, while the man walked ahead with a stick in his hand until they came to a patch of saltbush. The animal stopped and the man called, ‘Hoosta’ and as Winifred clung to the saddle the animal sank to her knees and began to chew at the bush.

  Winifred slid off and turned to the man. ‘Would you sell her?’

  ‘Twenty pounds — two for the price of one.’

  A week later Winifred and Ali were on their way to Birdsville where Ali had been offered work as a companion driver, with two borrowed camels and Sheeba. The camels were tied nose to tail in a string in case one wandered off, with Sheeba at the rear. Ali had agreed to work for rations, taking his pay in camels so that he could build up his own string.

  Before they’d left Marree, Winifred had strolled across to the other side of the line and called at the school where she’d asked Harold Gale, the young schoolmaster, if she could get some books to teach Yusef while they were on the track. He gave her a copy of a reader that was missing its cover and told her to teach him his alphabet and multiplication tables. She had hoped for some story books but there were no spares, only the ones the teacher used. On her way back to ghantown she passed a general store and went in to see if they had any books for sale. But there were none. Instead the shopkeeper sold her a bottle of a castor oil. ‘You can use it for sandy blight, if yer gits a stomick ache and to make a poultice if yer gits a boil.’

  Winifred wrapped the blue bottle carefully in a piece of cloth and put it in her bag, evading the question when he asked, ‘You new here?’ She knew that the camel-men’s wives never crossed the line to shop because they had their own shop in ghantown.

  Before they set out the next morning at dawn, Ali went to the mosque to pray for a safe journey. When he returned to where they were waiting by their camel string, he said, ‘We are going into a trackless waste but Allah will guide us.’

  For Winifred, the first day was the worst, over rough gibber plains with no sign of human life except the trail of empty tins and bottles left behind by other travellers to serve as rough signposts. There were no houses, no smoke rising from chimneys, no paddocks, just a treeless emptiness that stretched to the horizon. Ali walked beside the lead camel which carried all their belongings, plus flour, tea, sugar, some salted beef wrapped in a cloth, a huge bunch of dates which had been a parting gift from the camel-men, jars of water, and firewood because there was no wood to be had on the track.

  It was the most desolate country Winifred had ever seen. The camels plodded on and the sun rose higher. Rhamat complained of the heat, while Pansy grizzled as she lay awake in a basket which Winifred had fastened on the saddle behind her, with an umbrella for shade. All she could do was to give them sips of water, certain that she had made a mistake in bringing them and that they would never get through alive. She kept her thoughts to herself. Ali had warned her of the dangers but she had insisted on having her own way. If anything happened to the children, she had only herself to blame.

  Ali stopped briefly in the middle of the day to pray. The camels sank to their knees to rest and Winifred spread a blanket in the meagre shade they cast. The family sat down and ate a handful of dates with a piece of cold damper, and a mug of water. Winifred would have liked the children to have had a chance to run around and play, but the heat was too intense, the ground parched and almost too hot to walk on.

  They stopped at dusk by a small fringe of stunted bush. Winifred was so weary that she was afraid of falling off her camel, but first she had to see to the children, bathing their hands and faces and making them comfortable. Ali had lit a small fire, heated some tinned vegetables and made some chapattis on the hot coals and a huge damper for the next day. As they sat resting, the sky turned a fiery red, the sun like a huge red ball in the west until it vanished, leaving only a red glow on the horizon.

  Ali had hobbled the camels and their bells tinkled as they moved off looking for food. Watching them Ali said, ‘I hope they don’t wander too far. Otherwise we may never find them again.’

  Winifred looked at him, her gaze anxious, and he took her hand. ‘Allah will guide us. We have nothing to fear. I will pray.’

  With the setting of the sun a cool breeze sprang up, and with the coming of night the harshness melted into soft darkness. Winifred spread the children’s blankets beside the goods they had unloaded, making a little wall. Pansy was already asleep when she put her down and Rhamat was nodding with exhaustion. She kissed them gently then turned to Yusef, who watched as his father doused the fire and then unwound his turban, preparing for bed.

  She took the child’s hand. ‘Today has been a hard day — nothing to see, only plains covered with stones, not even a tree … no tracks to follow.’

  ‘How will we find our way?’ the child asked, his brown eyes anxious.

  Winifred touched him lightly on the head. ‘The camels know. They understand this type of country. Now they are looking for something to eat. Tomorrow you and Baba must go and bring them back as soon as it is light.’

  ‘But how will we know where to look?’

  ‘Can’t you hear their bells? There’s nothing to worry about. We have the sun to guide us. We’re travelling north-east. When the sun rises in the morning we know which is east. And at night there are the stars.’ She pointed to the night sky that arched above, the stars like beacons against the blackness. ‘Watch, and if you see a falling star, make a wish.’

  He went to speak and she put her finger on his lips. ‘Hush, you mustn’t tell. Otherwise your wish won’t come true.’ She bent and kissed him on the forehead. ‘May Allah bless you, my son, and give you pleasant dreams. Tomorrow we reach the sandhills, like giants’ castles, so they say. They move with the wind. At dawn they will be tinged with red and turn to honey in the light of the day. At night they will be soft as velvet, full of purple shadows.’

  ‘Does anyone live there?’

  ‘Only lizards that take on the colo
ur of the sand, and hopping mice and sometimes a bird.’ She looked down. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply. She stood there gazing at her children. It was cooler now and they were sleeping peacefully, and suddenly her spirits lifted. They had survived the first day. Tomorrow would be easier.

  She unfastened her hair and went to the tin dish where she washed her hands and face, then sponged her body before relieving herself in the sand. She walked across to where Ali was waiting beside their blankets. The stars glittered in the night sky, the breeze cooled her body in her white calico nightdress, and as she lay in Ali’s arms her fears vanished. In some strange way the night seemed holy. She was at peace with herself and her world.

  18

  TRACKLESS WASTES

  LOOKING BACK, WINIFRED WAS SURPRISED at how quickly the family adapted to the nomadic life, spending months away from civilisation, or civilisation as she had come to know it in the small Queensland country towns in which she had lived. But then she thought back to her first year in Australia after growing up in London — the isolation of living in the prickly pear with only her father for company, and the occasional meeting with an Aboriginal boy who sold them a wallaby for sixpence, or Mr McNab who tried to persuade her father to walk off his land. It was a marvel they had survived.

  She wondered about her father, thinking of him with pity. She saw him in the lonely drunkards she noticed on the fringes of towns — morose, unhappy, given to fits of violent rage against anyone who tried to help, a rage that was really directed at themselves. Where her father was, or what had happened to him, she had no idea.

  Her concerns now were with her children, their education, their health and her own need to be with the man she loved. She had lived so long without love that she could not bear to be parted from Ali. If she was being unfair to her children she put it from her mind. She forgot how she had yearned to go to school in the years she spent trapped with her father, telling herself that the life they were leading was richer and fuller. It was a chance for them to run free instead of being cooped up in a schoolroom, though she knew that sooner or later she would have to accept the fact that her children would need a proper education. And when that time came she would be confined to ghantown without friends, living the narrow, restricted existence of a Moslem wife. In her brief visit to Marree she had seen the way the women lived, not permitted to speak to any man other than their husband or male relatives. Not even allowed to cross the railway line to shop. Staying indoors while the men congregated round their fire talking, arguing and passing the water pipe.