‘You mean, to be with their ancestors? With the rest of dem spirits? Mama’ – Charlie wagged a finger at her – ‘Cat says that when someone goes up to the skies, we mustn’t speak their name.’ He put his finger to his lips. ‘Shh.’
‘Charlie, it is perfectly all right for us to speak their names. And remember them.’
‘Cat says it’s not—’
‘I don’t care what Cat says!’ All of Kitty’s suppressed tension bubbled over at his words. ‘I am your mother, Charlie, and you will listen to me!’
‘Sorry, Mama.’ Charlie’s bottom lip trembled. ‘So they are gone up to heaven? And we will never see them again?’
‘I’m afraid not, darling. But we will always remember them,’ Kitty replied more gently, feeling dreadful for shouting at him at such a moment. ‘And they will watch over us from the skies.’
‘Can I go and visit them, sometimes?’
‘No, darling, not yet, although one day, you will see them again.’
‘Maybe they’ll come down here. Cat says her ancestors do that sometimes in her dreams.’
‘Perhaps, but you and she are different, Charlie, and . . .’ Kitty shook her head. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now. I am so very sorry, darling.’ She took Charlie in her arms and hugged him to her.
‘I will miss them, specially Uncle Drum. He played such good games.’ Charlie pulled away from her and laid a hand on his mother’s arm. ‘Remember, they are watching over us. Cat says—’ Charlie stopped himself and said no more.
‘Perhaps we will go and stay in Adelaide with Grandmother Edith?’ Kitty tried desperately to recover her equilibrium. It seemed that her four-year-old child was comforting her.
‘No.’ Charlie wrinkled his nose. ‘I like it here with Cat and Camira. They’re our family.’
‘Yes, my brave boy.’ She gave him a weak smile. ‘They are.’
*
Drummond is gone!
Kitty sat bolt upright, relieved to emerge from a terrible nightmare. Then, as her senses returned to her, she realised it wasn’t a nightmare. Or, at least, it was, but not one that would dissipate as she was pulled back into consciousness, because Drummond would never be conscious again.
Or Andrew. Spare a thought for your husband. He is dead too . . .
Or maybe, she thought, it was her that was dead; perhaps she had been sent to hell to suffer for what she had done.
‘Please, Lord, don’t let this be. It can’t be . . .’ She buried her face in the pillow to drown tearless sobs that felt like great gulps of unendurable pain.
And Andrew – what had he ever done to deserve her deception? He had loved her in the only way he knew how. Excitement? No, but did that matter? Did anything matter any more?
‘Nothing matters, nothing matters. I . . .’ Kitty stuffed a handful of sheet into her mouth, realising she was about to scream. ‘I am a whore, a jezebel! No better than my father! I cannot live with this, I cannot live with myself! Oh God!’
She stood up then, pacing the floor and shaking her head from side to side. ‘I cannot live. I cannot live!’
‘Missus Kitty, come outside an’ walk wid me.’
Her vision was full of purple and red lights and she was dizzy but she felt an arm go around her shoulder and guide her to the front door. And then across the garden, the fresh red soil that Fred had spread feeling damp like drying blood beneath her feet.
‘I’m going to scream, I must scream!’
‘Missus Kitty, we will walk, wid the earth beneath us, an’ we will lookum up an’ we will see dem fellas lookin’ down.’
‘I killed both of them, in different ways. I lay with a man who was not my husband, but his twin brother. I loved him! God help me, I loved him so much. I love him now . . .’ Kitty sank to her knees in the earth.
Camira gently tugged her chin upwards. ‘Understand not for you to makem destiny. Dem makem it up there.’ Camira pointed. ‘I know you love dat fella. Me, I lovem him too. But we not kill him, Missus Kitty. Bad things, they happen. I see-a lotta bad things. Dem fellas, they have good life. Life, it begin an’ end. No one change dat.’
‘No one can change that.’ Kitty put her head on her knees and wept. ‘No one can change that . . .’
Eventually, when it felt as if every single drop of fluid in her body had drained out of her eyes, Camira helped her to standing.
‘I take you sleepa now, Missus Kitty. The young fella needum you tomorrow. An’ next day after dat.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Camira, forgive me for my behaviour. I just . . .’ Kitty shook her head. There were no more words.
‘In big desert, we go an’ howl loud as you like at moon an’ stars. Good for you, gettum bad things out. Then feel better.’
Camira helped Kitty into bed, then sat next to her holding her hand. ‘Dunna you worry. I singa dem fellas home.’
As Kitty closed her exhausted eyes, she heard Camira’s high sweet voice humming a soft monotonous tune.
‘God forgive me for what I have done,’ she murmured, before sleep finally overtook her.
CeCe
Broome, Western Australia
January 2008
Aboriginal symbol
for a meeting place
19
I wiped the tears from my eyes and sat up, trying to still my heartbeat.
I thought about the grief I had felt for Pa when he had died and tried to multiply that by all the people that Kitty had lost on the Koombana. All the people that this town had lost . . .
I took off the headphones and rubbed my sore ears, then went to open the window for some fresh air. I tried to imagine everyone in this town assembled up on the hill at the end of Dampier Terrace, a street I had walked down, all waiting to hear the worst news of their lives.
I shut the window to block out the night-time wildlife choir. Despite the air conditioning being on full blast, I still felt hot and sweaty. I couldn’t even begin to think how Kitty had coped here in Broome a century ago, especially in a corset, bloomers and Christ knew how many petticoats. Never mind having to give birth in the heat – which was surely just about the sweatiest process anyone could go through.
Even if I hadn’t really thought through what Kitty was to me before I arrived, there was now a bit of me that would love to be related to her. Not just because of her bravery in going to Australia in the first place, but also because of how she’d handled what she’d faced when she got there. Her experiences made my own problems feel like diddly-squat. To do what she’d done by living in Broome a hundred years ago took real balls. And she’d followed her heart, wherever it might have led her.