2011 - Theses - Flinders University

White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume One Creative Writing Component: Excerpted Chapters from Volume Three Appendix OneThere is no fence to block Jim’s view, and no need of one. The Eatons’ old house – thenthe Williamses’, then the Wylds’ – is dark and silent. The Wylds have finally left. 174 Jimfeels remarkably little: it feels like neither victory nor vindication.Jim slaps at a mosquito. They are breeding in the stagnant wells, he knows, but there’snothing much he can do about it. He rubs at the bite on his arm, and leaves a smear of hisown blood where he killed it. Its little wings ball up under his palm and fall away in thedarkness.Fred has invited him to join with the singing tonight, but something is holding him back. Ifhe goes, he thinks, there will be nobody left at the mission. Nobody ‘white’ holding the fort,and he laughs at himself, looking over the scatter of buildings the mission has managed toerect for themselves. And then there’s Chris as well, claiming his ‘Christian freedom’ to notbe beholden to the old ways. 175 Jim has supported Chris up til now, arguing with Mr Reschkeat Mulga View to pay Chris the wages due to him, and will soon have to press that cause withthe Chief Protector. 176 He can hardly stand against Chris in the faith he professes to share.Jim casts around for a reason to stay sitting out in the starlight. The black hills glint withthe million slate scales that cover them and draw striped patterns across their bodies,breathing silently as they sleep. They have him surrounded, he thinks, like those two akurrasat Wilpena Pound, but the thought comforts him. He searches the sky for the stars he hasbeen shown are the eyes of the two serpents, but instead fixes on the constellation he knowsas the Southern Cross, tipped on its head, pointing down to the ranges, pointing down towhere he sits. Wildu mandawi, he remembers, the spirit eagle’s claw. That was the one theyblamed for the deaths of babies when the air cooled so quickly in the evening it took their114