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

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СКАЧАТЬ to include Bruny Island. He knew this for certain as he watched the coughing demon attack the few remaining people. Ria Warrawah sucked up souls and amid the vast sighing danger what could he do but chant the old protection spells, gash into his body extra-potent strength marks, carry about relics of the long dead, and hope – hope and watch the sun rise on another cloudy day of hopelessness? Day fell into day, and his numbness became a kangaroo-skin bag to hold his ever-growing panic. He told himself over and over again that he was destined to be a survivor – but, as he cast a glazed eye over the half-dozen people still alive and suffering, even his survival came into question. To survive, yes – but into what future? It lay ahead of him as dead as a fish tossed from the ocean. Automatically, he stared at the sea as he tried to imagine that his life – though not the old traditions giving it shape and meaning – would continue on aimlessly. He sighed and stared bleakly at the num crawling like insects on the very body of the devil. Behind him he heard the coughing demon acknowledge the sigh of the ocean. The demon hacked at his wife’s chest and he could do nothing. She might eject the demon, but the odds were against it. For some reason he thought of the female, Trugernanna and this caused his mood to lift a little. She would never come to a quick end. The boat pointed in their direction. Its wooden legs swayed the body from side to side. She was every bit a survivor as he himself was. The num were coming to them. She would go on and on, just as he would go on, until the end.

      In the bow of the boat a num stood and, although his body swayed unsteadily, he still managed to impart to it an attitude of eagerness and readiness for action. Wooreddy watched uncaringly. Most num sat in their boats, this one did not – so what! Still, as the boat entered the surf, he felt an urge to flee into the safety of the bush. He stayed where he was examining the crew. He saw no killing sticks. This relieved him enough to wait to see what the boat would bring.

      The bottom of the boat touched the ground. This was instantly followed by a shouted order from the now-sprawling num at the grey-clad crew who grinned as they shipped their oars. At last, obeying the order, they slipped into the surf and manhandled the craft to dry sand. The head ghost scrambled up, assumed his dignity and shouted again: ‘Harder, you ruffians, pull harder there.’ The watching Wooreddy repeated the sounds sotto voce and wondered what they meant. If he had the energy, he might learn the language. The main num jumped dryshod onto the beach, saw the Aborigine and stamped toward him with hand outstretched.

      The Aborigine waited for the strange intruder to reach him. The num was short with a soft body plump from many days of good eating without hunting. Short, stubby legs marched that pot-bellied trunk over the sand with dainty, precise steps lacking the finesse of the hunter. Still there was something of the stamp of a sacred dance in the steps and this gave Wooreddy an interest in the visitor. His eyes brightened as his numbness lessened. The ghost’s face, round like the moon, though unscarred, shone pink like the shoulder skin of the early morning sun. Sharp, sea-coloured eyes sought to bridge the gap between them. The ghostly eyes showed such an avid interest in him that he evaded those eyes by staring at the strange skin on the ghost’s head. From under it, his hair showed rust-coloured like a vein of red ochre in grey rock.

      The num grabbed, and succeeded in capturing Wooreddy’s hand. It lay limply in the grasp, while the pink-petalled lips began fluttering out sounds which were gibberish to the man. ‘Such a poor, poor creature! Such a wretched being bereft of everything we civilised people hold dear. How right I was not to listen to my wife and friends who sought to dissuade me from this charitable and necessary task. No matter what hazard, it is truly the Lord’s work and I will persevere.’

      Behind his back, the convict crew twisted their faces in mockery. Some of them had endured a visit from him in prison and were familiar with the style of his deliverance. They described it, in their colourful way, as a ‘load of shit’. Perhaps it was their felt contempt which had driven George Augustus Robinson to the greener pastures of Aboriginal welfare.

      Wooreddy’s mouth hesitated on the way to a smile, then he saw the faces the convicts were pulling and grinned for the first time in months. The ghost still clung to his hand. Now he fluted: ‘Me, me Mr Robinson.’

      Wooreddy’s agile mind discarded the pronouns and he repeated: ‘Meeter Ro-bin-un.’

      While behind him the convicts mouthed the words and even went into a little dance, Robinson pushed his left index finger against Wooreddy’s greasy chest and, pronouncing each word slowly and distinctly, asked: ‘You, you, your, name, what?’ Loud snickers from the boat crew caused him to whirl around and shout: ‘Don’t stand around. Get that boat up on the beach’ – then he turned back to the Aborigine and repeated the words in the same fluting tone, though now edged with anger.

      Wooreddy politely answered: ‘Narrah warrah (yes)’

      ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure, Narrah Warrah,’ the num burbled enthusiastically, not caring if he was understood by the poor matted-haired apparition which stood before him with its nakedness partially covered by a dirty blanket. He had come to save such creatures and they would understand this intuitively. Already, this Narrah Warrah knew that he was their friend.

      ‘I am your friend,’ he said slowly, his voice dropping to a silky softness which oozed. ‘Have no fear, Narrah Warrah’ – a snigger from the convicts whipped a snarl into his tone. ‘I have come to protect you from such scum as these ruffians behind me –’ and he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Wooreddy intuitively grasped what the gesture meant. He suddenly realised that here was an ally. The self-assured, pompous little ghost before him could be used to help him survive until the end of the world.

      He accepted Meeter Ro-bin-un as his very own num with the same readiness with which Robinson had accepted the fact that he was destined to save these poor, benighted people. Such a modus vivendi, lacking all the essentials of a properly understood relationship, held infinite possibilities from rich comedy to equally rich tragedy. At first, Wooreddy was overjoyed. He had found a protector and also a subject of study. He tested out the relationship by making a gesture and then walking off into the bush. He was happy to find the ghost following, but his happiness disappeared when the ghost marched past him and took the lead. Robinson was defining their relationship from the beginning.

      In the camp Wooreddy’s wife, Lunna, sat naked and uncaring on a piece of blanket. The coughing demon hacked at her lungs. She didn’t even lift her head when the num bent over her, his face filled with solicitude. A short distance away, one of her sons sat chewing on a tough piece of kangaroo meat while the other sat waiting his turn. They glanced up; their eyes filled with the image of the ghost, and with a united single shriek they were away into the scrub as fast as their little legs could carry them. The father called out, ordering them to return, but the sound of their feet diminished into the distance. Now and not for the first time, he wondered how he had fathered such boys. He remembered when he was their age and the sudden deep thoughts that had slowed his feet so that he more often found himself facing danger rather than fleeing from it. They had none of the qualities he cherished. It was the fault of their foreign mother. Wooreddy refused to acknowledge that his own stuffiness and indifference might have had something to do with their behaviour patterns. He hardly ever spoke to them and often ignored his wife as well.

      ‘Meridee bidai lidinee loomerai,’ he said explaining the sickness of his wife, but not his lack of concern – a concern which was expressed on the face of the ghost. But even that concern vanished when Trugernanna walked into the clearing clutching in each small fist an arm of the boys. Wooreddy had not been the only one observing the num. Trugernanna, hidden in the scrub, had studied him and decided that he was unlike the ones at the whaling station on the other side of the island. There, all that they wanted to do was take her off somewhere. At first she had found it flattering, but now it was just one of those things.

      Away from the num the girl often went naked, but now she wore СКАЧАТЬ