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 OneBecky has already dismissed what she sees as a temptation to look up Castledine relations,determined to make her own way into this country, and into the new life she promisedherself. Already, she is not the same. Her eyes are still bright from tears or the hard light, butthey are set now in a face the colour of pale beach sand instead of the pallor of frost meltingon cobbles. Her cheeks are flushed with windburn, and at her neck, colour rises above hergood dress, which is an attractive serge, but cloying in the humid air and under the beatingsun. Others are scanning the crowds at the wharf, but she is all business. She doesn’t have tobe the twenty-five-year-old skipping girl any longer. While the trunks are being unloaded,she walks across to the small cluster of weatherboard buildings. A small piece of sharp gravelhas worked its way past the top of her laced boot and rubs at her ankle. She won’t stop tobend down now. Later, she thinks, I can take my boots and stockings off and feel the dirt withmy toes. The thought surprises her. She hurries on to find the arrivals desk, and asks for anewspaper.34