2011 - Theses - Flinders University

Nepabunna General cemetery, with community and Wayanha in the background.Photograph courtesy of Tracy SpencerNepabunna, April 1959Mrs Forbes fusses at her wood stove. She cannot keep it alight and the firewood the childrenbought last week has dwindled to the pieces she knew would be no good – too awkwardlyshaped, too green, or powdered into dust by the termites. And she cannot collect it herself,being so far from the creek. She pours herself a small drink of cool water from the billy shekeeps full beside her stove, and sits down in her rocking chair and waits in the gray light ofher tin shed. Dust whirls on the sunbeams that fill the space with muggy warmth. Sometimesshe reads. Sometimes she writes letters to Joyce. But mostly she waits. Time is only themovement of the shadow her new home casts on the bare earth that surrounds it.Quorn, 2001My questions bemuse Daisy at times, I am sure, but she is always thoughtful in her replies.‘So she fitted into the community life?’ I ask, across the brim of my tea cup.169