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 Onepound to be their best man. And they were married in Bourke—in Louth?—and as far as Iknow and that was it. 59And that was it. No mention of Becky and Jack going on a bender in Bourke and marryingthe next day on the spur of the moment, as he had said to me when I first asked him thatquestion on the phone. Stories are fickle things.Winbar Station, 1914Becky has her end of year salary in her purse, and best wishes for her holidays ringing in herears. If she feels tearful, it isn’t apparent through the dark veil she tucks about her face, andthe darker moving veil of flies that dance about any stationary and living thing. Her trunksare packed and waiting for the mail coach under the shade tree at the gate. Jack Forbes hasalso drawn his wages, taken leave, and stands waiting in the same pool of shade.‘Windurah knimba bury?’ 60 (‘Where are you going?’ he? she? asks.)‘Burrey lay mutpa, Mattels’ 61 (‘Come with me, sweetheart,’ she? he? replies.)Together on the mail truck, they lurch hot and damp into Louth. Over the next several days,they continue the journey into Bourke with the mail, and stop there while the letters went on,perhaps including one to Becky’s sisters. She doesn’t expect a reply, and gives no forwardingaddress.Druid Vale Station, 2001The A4 envelope from Her Majesty’s Registrar of Marriages, NSW arrived in my postbox atthe Hawker Post Office, and I opened it right there. Rebecca and Jack’s Marriage certificate!46