Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World. Mudrooroo

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СКАЧАТЬ words puzzled the good doctor; tentatively they meant that the demon (Ria Warrawah) hated fire and always tried to extinguish it.

      ‘Fader’s’ voice ceased its rolling and only the sound of the surf continued. Wooreddy left his musings and noticed that the num’s eyes glittered (he still could not think of the ocean without a qualm) like the sun shining off the sea.

      Meeter Ro-bin-un was enraptured by the eloquence of his own sermon. He raised his arms and spread them as Wooreddy neared, and exclaimed into the blank faces of the convicts: ‘Come, my child, God has not forgotten you. Poor pitiful child from a pitiful race friendless and alone in a dark and hostile world. Now you too have a father just as I have a father in heaven.’

      ‘Yeh, fader,’ the childman replied, as the ghost’s rapturous eyes clung to him for some sign of recognition. ‘Yeh, fader,’ he repeated, taking the opportunity to try out his pronunciation.

      If the man’s repeated two words were not enough for the ghost, Trugernanna’s seeming rapture equalled his own. She stood beside him, her face uplifted, her brown eyes fixed on his nose while her small body trembled under the sack-like dress she wore. Such obvious adoration elicited from Robinson a deep red flush which had little to do with religious ecstasy.

      He found himself feeling the same temptation he belaboured in others – but, unlike the others (he told himself) he would never take advantage of the trusting natures of these child-like creatures. He moved closer to Wooreddy and was relieved that the woman did not follow him. Then in the need to put space between desire and the object of desire, he indicated to the man that he wished to go to the narrow neck uniting the northern and southern parts of the island.

      Wooreddy picked up his spear as Robinson raced off at a fast trot into the undergrowth. The man would have liked to question the ghost about the sermon, but the fast waddle he was forced to keep up made his breath rush in and out of his lungs like, like – again a sea simile came to trouble him – seawater in a narrow inlet. At last, and none too soon for the gasping Wooreddy, ‘Fader’ halted his headlong plunge, which had rendered him as desireless as his companion breathless. Wooreddy flopped down beside a bush and to excuse himself told the ghost that kangaroos liked to eat it. Robinson too took the opportunity to catch his breath. Wooreddy, after giving the num the names of a few other plants, took the opportunity to get onto his problem. ‘Lubra logemer piggerder nene,’ he began in the pidgin dialect he had labelled ‘Ro-bin-un’ after its inventor. ‘Fader’s ruddy face assumed an expression of concern as he heard the man mention his dead mate, and Wooreddy, observing that he had aroused the correct feeling, continued on to explain how a human male without a female was lost; he felt like that and had fixed on Trugernanna for a mate.

      ‘Fader’ smiled, and his mood and expression switched to jocular. ‘You would like to have that one, eh? Can’t say that I blame you. Might be good for her too! Keep her away from those ruffians at the whaling station. She’ll make you a good wife,’ rambled Robinson, and unfortunately brought Trugernanna to mind. His evil inclinations returned, and instantly his short stubby legs churned, rushing him away from his goal. Wooreddy waddled after him. Luckily he had tied a charmed cord around his leg for energy – but not for speed, he found, as he lagged more and more behind Robinson as he charged towards the sea. The num came up against the steep slope of a hill and perforce had to slow his pace. He was clambering up as Wooreddy reached the foot. Higher and higher they climbed and slower and slower went Robinson until his companion caught up with him. They climbed up and over the summit, then down and along a wide crack below the lip of a cliff. Wooreddy shuddered and avoided glancing down at the lashing ocean which filled his ears, whooshing like his breath. His nostrils filled with sea-smell and his bare feet and ghost-skin leg coverings dripped from the hurtling spray. Then they were rushing off inland along a stream which rapidly became a swamp. Wooreddy became bogged in the clinging mud and left his trousers behind. Free of them he almost skimmed over the sticky mud. Now they scrambled up another hill, but this time the man had found his second breath and took the lead from the ghost. He even helped him over the steepest places and slyly when they reached the summit began a wide circle which would take them back to the camp. The sun was hidden by thick clouds and Robinson did not notice until the brush thinned, then he headed them towards the sea.

      They came out onto the beach where a sharpened pile of rocks stood just offshore. The wind had died and Wooreddy felt that he could look at the stretch of water. It seemed less menacing. Tiny wavelets felt the sand grains and fell back. He saw three women standing on a low rock just above sea level. Each had a woven bag slung over the left shoulder. They climbed up the rock pile to stand sharply etched against the sky. Wooreddy recognised the lithe figure of Trugernanna – and so did Robinson! The woman held herself as straight as a child’s toy spear, and the man decided that her small, pointed breasts were large enough to feed a manchild just as her hips were wide enough to give one birth. Robinson pushed down any carnal thoughts and sought to see the scene before him as an idyllic painting.

      The women, in formation, flung themselves headfirst at the sea. Wooreddy gave a gasp. Such daring, he thought. Though the scene was very familiar, it always filled him with dread. Few men, if any, would have the nerve, or the courage, or potent enough charms, to dive headfirst into the domain of Ria Warrawah. The very idea gave him goosebumps. The women did not appear and he grew alarmed. No one was safe in the sea! Then their three cropped heads bobbed in the water, and towing full bags, they slowly made their way towards the beach.

      Robinson’s mouth went dry and his ruddy face paled as the women rose like succubi from hell to tempt him with all the dripping nakedness of firm brown flesh.

      ‘God, let this chalice pass from me, let me not succumb to temptation and the snares of the evil one,’ he whispered hoarsely as the dainty Trugernanna came to him, smiling around the wooden chisel clenched between her strong white teeth. The man with the ghost was more interested in the weight and content of the woman’s bag. It bulged with oysters, and poking up from the bottom a large crayfish quivered spasmodically.

      ‘Good, good, Fader,’ Wooreddy exclaimed to the ghost.

      ‘Very good,’ the num replied, meaning not the harvest of the woman, but her body.

      The object of attention was very conscious of Wooreddy’s smile and the direction of his eyes. With his male gone to the fire, he would be after a replacement. She scowled into his eyes, then turned to the silent Robinson and mock-snarled: ‘No kangaroo, no possum, no man!’ The good doctor smiled after her retreating buttocks. These words marked the beginning of their courtship. After all, she knew his skill as a hunter!

      Trugernanna went to where her father sat cross-legged before his fire. She watched him watch a glowing coal fade and die. She only saw the coal fading, but he saw his people dying. One by one, two by two, three by three and more, they went, some quickly, some slowly to Great Ancestor or to Ria Warrawah. So Mangana thought, but his daughter had little concern for the contents of the old man’s mind and his morose lines of thought. Very much the physical person, she enjoyed things she could touch and affect, and ignored anything like the wispy mind-traces of the aging. Now she stoked up the fire, waited until the sticks had become glowing coals, then put on them the large crayfish and around it a number of oysters. When the shell of the crustacean had turned the red of the best imported ochre and the shells of the oysters gaped open like so many little mouths, she carefully removed them and put them on a piece of bark which she placed in front of her father. He stared at the food for an overlong minute, then broke off the tail and legs. He pushed the rest toward the girl. She ate, then went off to gather wood to last the fire throughout the night. Since that man, Wooreddy, the one with the funny walk, had given her father a num axe, she could even chop up the larger logs. Still they had been so long in this place that good, dry timber was becoming scarce. Carrying the last armful back, she found the man sitting with her father. This was not unusual, nor were the two possums roasting on the fire. She was surprised СКАЧАТЬ