Page 147 of The Pearl Sister
‘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 trusthim.
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 actuallyisit?’
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.’
