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 OneIslington! Becky thinks, but does not venture to say anything yet. The tour ends in the coolrear courtyard, and Edie lists Becky’s chores. ‘Cooking and washing, mainly, for the houseand for the men,’ she says, waving towards the laundry and kitchen areas. ‘And keep an eyeout for those children, if you can.’Each day, Becky moves in and out of doors, passing smells of soap and steam, the softaroma of rising damper, the bite of beef dripping, and the acrid scent of dust and sweat onmen at smoko and dinner. Dark girls bring water from the pumping station and their brothersand cousins bring wood for the kitchen range. She feeds the station hands at the long woodentable in the mess by the kitchen, and takes tucker to the Aboriginal workers outside, wherethey sit and wait and take it from her on tin plates.Several times a day, when the children moon around the kitchen, Becky takes up thechook bucket and hands each child some food scraps, and they set off to feed the fowls. Shewaves at Mr Turner in the store, and might have a word about what they will be needing next.Often as not, Edie is at the stables as they go past, or in the stock yards on the other side,breaking in her colts, or watching the men break in the wild ones, or the crazy ones. Thechooks fuss about the scraps the children let drop morsel by morsel, and Becky lingers in theshade of the spreading coolibah tree, watching her boss. Mrs Warwick is relaxed amongst themen at the stockrails, who are careful with their language, and remember to tip their hats.They know she can sink a bottle bobbing in the river with one shot, and is a finehorsewoman. Today Edie is watching the station coltbreaker, Jack Forbes, calm a younghorse in the yard, and calls him over to the rail to tell him something. Becky notices the waythat tall dark Jack leans over to listen to his boss’s missus, and nods. As he turns back to the42