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 OneJim groans, and the sudden sound against the loneliness of his night startles him. He hasforgotten himself, wandering far down his memories and imagination. He crumples up theletter in his hand and throws that into the fire too. He bends down close to watch it burn, andthe heat dries his tears so the dust tightens into fine mud on his cheeks. The flames flare andreflect in his spectacles.‘They haven’t even given me a moiety!’ he exclaims, aloud again, not caring for a momentwho might hear, until he remembers there is no other missionary to pass on the censuringwhispers, or report and spy and plot against him. He takes another letter from the box wherehe keeps them folded, and smoothes it out on the rough bedside table. He’s re-read it severaltimes, sometimes vindictively, although he still has made no reply. He would not stoop todefending himself. That smart-arse jumped-up Mr Wyld! All the charges he levelled againstJim when the Mission delegates visited in winter…and they all came to naught. Mr Wyld wasmoved on, not Jim. Jim, they said, could stay, even on his own, until…until something elsecould be found for him. But he didn’t want to leave. He should – he knew that – but hedidn’t want to, not again. When he returned, the yuras had all said they knew he would, eventhough it had been such a surprise – and a shock – to him. After all that time on the road, itdid feel like he’d come home. The only home he’d had for as long as he could remembernow. He throws the letter across the room, and lets it lie where it falls.He knows what he will write, while he lets the stew thicken a little more over the ashyembers. He’ll write about home. He’ll write about home, to the dear friend in England, whowill notice immediately he does not write it: Home. He’ll write about home, to the Messengermagazine, where Schenk will read it and think for a moment he has won, until he realises120