Doctor Wooreddy's Prescription for Enduring the End of the World. Mudrooroo
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after him. Luckily he had tied a charmed cord around his leg for energy – but not for speed, he found, as he lagged more and more behind Robinson as he charged towards the sea. The num came up against the steep slope of a hill and perforce had to slow his pace. He was clambering up as Wooreddy reached the foot. Higher and higher they climbed and slower and slower went Robinson until his companion caught up with him. They climbed up and over the summit, then down and along a wide crack below the lip of a cliff. Wooreddy shuddered and avoided glancing down at the lashing ocean which filled his ears, whooshing like his breath. His nostrils filled with sea-smell and his bare feet and ghost-skin leg coverings dripped from the hurtling spray. Then they were rushing off inland along a stream which rapidly became a swamp. Wooreddy became bogged in the clinging mud and left his trousers behind. Free of them he almost skimmed over the sticky mud. Now they scrambled up another hill, but this time the man had found his second breath and took the lead from the ghost. He even helped him over the steepest places and slyly when they reached the summit began a wide circle which would take them back to the camp. The sun was hidden by thick clouds and Robinson did not notice until the brush thinned, then he headed them towards the sea.
They came out onto the beach where a sharpened pile of rocks stood just offshore. The wind had died and Wooreddy felt that he could look at the stretch of water. It seemed less menacing. Tiny wavelets felt the sand grains and fell back. He saw three women standing on a low rock just above sea level. Each had a woven bag slung over the left shoulder. They climbed up the rock pile to stand sharply etched against the sky. Wooreddy recognised the lithe figure of Trugernanna – and so did Robinson! The woman held herself as straight as a child’s toy spear, and the man decided that her small, pointed breasts were large enough to feed a manchild just as her hips were wide enough to give one birth. Robinson pushed down any carnal thoughts and sought to see the scene before him as an idyllic painting.
The women, in formation, flung themselves headfirst at the sea. Wooreddy gave a gasp. Such daring, he thought. Though the scene was very familiar, it always filled him with dread. Few men, if any, would have the nerve, or the courage, or potent enough charms, to dive headfirst into the domain of Ria Warrawah. The very idea gave him goosebumps. The women did not appear and he grew alarmed. No one was safe in the sea! Then their three cropped heads bobbed in the water, and towing full bags, they slowly made their way towards the beach.
Robinson’s mouth went dry and his ruddy face paled as the women rose like succubi from hell to tempt him with all the dripping nakedness of firm brown flesh.
‘God, let this chalice pass from me, let me not succumb to temptation and the snares of the evil one,’ he whispered hoarsely as the dainty Trugernanna came to him, smiling around the wooden chisel clenched between her strong white teeth. The man with the ghost was more interested in the weight and content of the woman’s bag. It bulged with oysters, and poking up from the bottom a large crayfish quivered spasmodically.
‘Good, good, Fader,’ Wooreddy exclaimed to the ghost.
‘Very good,’ the num replied, meaning not the harvest of the woman, but her body.
The object of attention was very conscious of Wooreddy’s smile and the direction of his eyes. With his male gone to the fire, he would be after a replacement. She scowled into his eyes, then turned to the silent Robinson and mock-snarled: ‘No kangaroo, no possum, no man!’ The good doctor smiled after her retreating buttocks. These words marked the beginning of their courtship. After all, she knew his skill as a hunter!
Trugernanna went to where her father sat cross-legged before his fire. She watched him watch a glowing coal fade and die. She only saw the coal fading, but he saw his people dying. One by one, two by two, three by three and more, they went, some quickly, some slowly to Great Ancestor or to Ria Warrawah. So Mangana thought, but his daughter had little concern for the contents of the old man’s mind and his morose lines of thought. Very much the physical person, she enjoyed things she could touch and affect, and ignored anything like the wispy mind-traces of the aging. Now she stoked up the fire, waited until the sticks had become glowing coals, then put on them the large crayfish and around it a number of oysters. When the shell of the crustacean had turned the red of the best imported ochre and the shells of the oysters gaped open like so many little mouths, she carefully removed them and put them on a piece of bark which she placed in front of her father. He stared at the food for an overlong minute, then broke off the tail and legs. He pushed the rest toward the girl. She ate, then went off to gather wood to last the fire throughout the night. Since that man, Wooreddy, the one with the funny walk, had given her father a num axe, she could even chop up the larger logs. Still they had been so long in this place that good, dry timber was becoming scarce. Carrying the last armful back, she found the man sitting with her father. This was not unusual, nor were the two possums roasting on the fire. She was surprised when she found that one of the possums was for her. Breaking the fragile body apart, she found inside a tiny baby. She popped the morsel into her mouth, enjoying the sweetest of all flavours.
Unlike other nights, Mangana retired early to his shelter. The two were alone at the fire. Trugernanna scowled into the flames, completely ignoring the man. They sat in silence for an hour, then the woman shot a hostile glance at Wooreddy and got up to make a fire in front of her sleeping quarters. She returned, put a large log on the main campfire, checked the supply of wood in front of her shelter, then went to bed.
The good doctor sat on at the fire. At last he moved. Not getting to his feet he hopped like a kangaroo towards where Trugernanna lay. The last few metres he covered in such exaggerated stealth that he managed to crack a twig. The sharp snap alerted the woman who was pretending to be asleep. She lay still until the man reached out a finger to scratch her on one firm breast, then she sprang up with a whispered string of curses: ‘Get away, you ghost, you demon, you evil spirit. My father will take his knife and make a woman out of you, you mistake of a man that cannot even find the carcass of a rotting kangaroo for the bride price. Go and find a man to fit your womanhood. Go, or I’ll scream for my father!’
Wooreddy’s teeth gleamed in the firelight. The good doctor knew the stages of courtship. On the first night should be only a slight touch, or if possible a scratch; on the second, the suitor might move his hand over part of the woman’s body; and on the third, he could try to lie beside her – though this (unless they were already lovers) should be met with lamentation, the woman should threaten to do away with herself rather than stay with him. On the fourth night, the woman flees to sleep beside her mother and father, and repeats this on the succeeding night. On the sixth night the couple finally lie together, but without touching, and after an hour or so the man should leave in mock dismay and anger. They stay apart on the seventh night, but at dawn the woman glides into the bush and after a time the man follows her. They spend a few days away from the camp with the male showing his prowess as a hunter by keeping the bride supplied with food. If all goes well, they return married. Such was the tradition and both had the theory down pat. Trugernanna found herself enjoying the rituals which were heightening her emotions to the final point of relief in surrender.
Mangana was too listless to play the role of both father and mother, or even just the father. His daughter, as custom demanded, needing someone who would listen to her bewailing her fate, chose Meeter Ro-bin-un. If Wooreddy appeared in her sight, she immediately sought out her protector, her cheeks wet with tears. She accused the man of being a demon and even of killing his first wife. ‘Fader’ became overheated with the excited girl hanging from his neck while she tearfully sobbed out some wild accusation. Constantly, he had, figuratively, to take himself by the scruff of that same neck and force himself to play the role of father. The good doctor had filled ‘Fader’ in on his part and Wooreddy himself also had a role to play. One moment he smiled meaningfully at the woman, the next he crept up on her unawares, gestured angrily and acted as if he would carry her off by force. At other times he would scowl and turn away if he so much as glimpsed her. The nights moved along until by the fifth everything and everyone had become entangled in the mock drama of the courtship. Wooreddy often found himself trying to hide a partial or full erection. The num trousers helped, but also hindered – the woman should notice in mock horror and show contempt for his erect penis.
The sixth and seventh nights were a time of trial for the good doctor. Fully aroused, he tried