‘How could it be?’ I murmured and brushed a fly away from my face, only to find my cheek damp with tears.
‘I am living proof that kin finds kin, that miracles occur.’ He gave me a weak smile and I could see that the telling of the story had both exhausted and shaken him. ‘We can’t ask what the reasons are for the extraordinary things that happen to us. They up there – the Ancestors – or God – are the only ones that know the answers. And we won’t have those until we too go upwards.’
‘What happened to Kitty and Drummond?’
‘Ah, Celaeno, that is quite a question. If only he’d had the patience and fortitude to wait, they could have eventually shared a happy life together after Andrew’s death. But he was impetuous, lived for the moment. There is some of my Great-Uncle Drummond in me, I confess,’ he admitted with a smile.
‘Me too,’ I said, wondering if I’d have done the same as Kitty and sent the man – or woman, as Chrissie jumped into my thoughts – that I loved away.
‘Did you ever meet him?’
‘That is the next part of the story, but we shall have to save it for another time. I suddenly feel as old as I am. Are you hungry?’
‘I could eat, yes,’ I said. My stomach was rumbling like a train on a track, but it wasn’t like we could just pop round the corner for a burger here.
There was a pause as he gazed across at the creek in the distance. ‘Then why don’t I take you back to my place? I have plenty of food, and it’s not far.’
‘Er . . .’ The sky was beginning to turn to delicate shades of pink and peach, the precursor of nightfall. ‘I was planning to go back to Alice Springs tonight.’
‘It is your choice, of course. But if you come with me, we could talk more. And if you want, I have a bed for you.’
‘Okay, I will,’ I replied, remembering this man was my grandfather. He’d trusted me enough to share the secrets of his – and my – family, and I had to trust him.
We stood up and walked back through Phil’s bedroom and out into the courtyard, where we found Phil himself leaning against a wall.
‘Ya ready to go, Celaeno?’
I explained the change of plan and he ambled over to shake my hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure. Don’t be a stranger now, will ya?’
‘She can take my place on the committee when I retire,’ my grandfather joked.
‘The ute’s not locked by the way,’ Phil called as we walked away from him.
I opened the rear door of the truck and went to pull out my rucksack, but my grandfather’s strong brown hands were there before mine. They lifted the rucksack out as if it weighed nothing.
‘This way.’ He beckoned me to follow as he set off.
Maybe he’s parked his car somewhere else, I thought. But as we walked away from the mission entrance, the only vehicle I could see was a pony and cart waiting on a patch of grass.
‘Climb aboard,’ he said, throwing my rucksack up onto the rough wooden bench. ‘Can you ride?’ he asked me, as he clicked the reins.
‘I took lessons as a kid, but my sister, Star, didn’t like it, so we stopped.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘I loved it.’
He proceeded to ignore the road and steered the cart onto the rough earth, the pony taking us up a gentle slope.
‘I can teach you to ride if you’d like. As you’ve heard, your Great-Great-Uncle Drummond spent much of his life on horseback.’
‘And on camels,’ I added as the pony picked its way confidently over the bumpy ground. My grandfather was gazing at me, his hands loose around the reins.
‘If your mother and grandmother could see us now. Together, here.’ He shook his head and reached out to touch the side of my face. I felt the roughness of his hand, like sandpaper, yet it was a gesture full of love.
A question floated to the front of my mind.
‘Can I ask you what the Dreamtime is?’ I began. ‘I mean, I’ve heard some Dreamtime stories, and about the Ancestors, but what actually is it?’
He gave a chuckle. ‘Ah, Celaeno, to us, the Dreamtime is everything. It is how the world was created – where everything originated.’
‘But how?’
‘I will tell it the way my grandmother Camira told me when I was a young boy. In the Dreaming world, the earth was empty when it all began – a flat desert, in darkness. No sounds, no life, nothing. Then the Ancestors came and as they moved across the earth they cared for it and loved it. They created all that was – the ants, the kangaroos, the wallabies, the snakes—’
‘The spiders?’ I interrupted.
‘Yes, even those, Celaeno. Everything is connected and important, no matter how ugly or frightening. The Ancestors also made the moon, and the sun, the humans and our tribes.’
‘Are the Ancestors still here?’
‘Well, after doing all that creating, they retired. They went into the sky, the earth, the clouds, the rain . . . and into all the creatures they had formed. Then they gave us humans the task of protecting everything and nurturing it.’
‘Do all Aboriginal tribes have the Dreamtime?’
‘Yes, although the individual stories vary here and there. I remember how annoyed Grandmother Camira would get when one of our Arrernte stories would disagree with one she’d been raised with. She was Yawuru, you see.’
‘So do you speak Yawuru too?’ I asked, thinking of Chrissie.
‘A little, but at Hermannsburg I learnt to speak German, Arrernte and English, and that was more than enough languages to fill one head.’
Half an hour later, we arrived at what looked to me like a large garden shed that was placed on concrete stilts over the red earth. Behind it was a small stable that my grandfather steered the pony and cart towards. There was a veranda at the front, shielded from the burning sun by a tin roof. It was dotted with bits of furniture which looked like they belonged inside, reminding me of Chrissie’s grandmother’s house. I hauled my rucksack up the steps and turned to admire the view.
‘Look at that,’ he said, placing a hand gently on my shoulder as the two of us stared at the landscape in front of us. The fast-sinking sun was seeping its last rays across an outcrop of rock, and beyond that snaked the line of a creek, glistening in the red sand. In the distance I could see the white huts of Hermannsburg, suffused with a deep orange glow behind them.
‘To the northwest of us is Haasts Bluff, near Papunya,’ he said, gesturing behind us. ‘And to the northeast are the MacDonnell Ranges – Heavitree Gap was always my favourite place to paint.’
‘That’s where the photograph of you and Namatjira was taken?’
‘Yes. You’ve done your homework,’ he said approvingly.
‘Phil did it for me. He recognised it.’
‘He would, we’ve been there together many times.’
‘The view’s amazing,’ I replied as my fingers started to tingle. I wanted to paint it immediately.
‘Let’s go inside.’
The hut smelt of turpentine and paint. The room we were in was small, with an old sofa placed in front of an open fireplace. I saw the rest of the space was taken up with a trestle table splodged with paint and littered with jars full of brushes. A number of canvases were propped against the walls.