5

White, wet snow reveals a light. Anchor.
A gleaming emerald of green and fawn.

Taj was right. As we motored over the lake towards the barrage that separated this freshwater basin from the briny passage to the sea, the water all around us was smooth like glass. Our boat cut a line through the placid waters, round waves, milky blue from the pale morning light, rippling out from us and fading again into stillness. I sat at the front of the tinny, Taj at the back steering.

As we neared the middle of the lake Taj slowed the motor so we were almost stopped in the waterway. He lifted a finger and pointed back around the curve of the river.

‘See how it bends?’

I nodded. He killed the motor and we sat, floating in the centre of the lake, drifting.

‘That’s where the name ‘Goolwa’ comes from. It means elbow in Ngarrindjeri.’

‘Really?’ I felt my eyebrows rise and a broad smile form on my lips. ‘I like that.’

He smiled. ‘Where we are going today is called the Coorong, starts just after the river mouth. ‘Coorong’ means long neck.’

He pointed back to a row of affluent houses wrapped along the lakeside. ‘The green area there? That’s Stranger’s Ground. Back when aboriginal groups traded along the river, other groups could come here to camp. It was the place they could set up and show they were there for trade and not for trouble.’

‘I never knew they had such rules,’ I said, and grimaced to myself at the ignorance of the words. Nodding, Taj fired up the motor again.

As we neared the barrage Taj waved to the operator. Soon enough the large gates opened and we motored into the channel between the waterways. Taj roped up the boat in silence as the gate shut behind us. The water rushed away, exposing barnacles and drooping lichen as we sank to the water level of the Goolwa Channel on the other side. Then the gates opened and we were away again.

The view was spectacular. Before me stretched a long, narrow waterway, lined on my right by tall, proud sand dunes crusted with saltbush and spinifex, and to my left, the coast of Hindmarsh Island. Both sides were lined with narrow sandy beaches. The water here had a current, no doubt from the ocean tides. This early we were the only souls on the water, though Taj assured me there would be fishermen up ahead. Slick, black water birds sailed overhead, or rode the currents, ducking under the water, chasing their breakfast. We passed a tumbling channel of water: the Murray Mouth, where the river meets the sea. Taj slowed the boat as I took in the churning waves, a glimpse of ocean beyond. I settled down inside the boat, pulling my jacket tight against the brisk winds that coursed down the natural alleyway of the Coorong National Park and simply existed.

At some point on our journey Taj passed me a fruit muffin from the backpack he carried, and poured me a cup of hot coffee from a flask. I accepted both gratefully as we carried on our way, the silence between us comfortable and companionable.

Eventually Taj slowed the motor, this time turning into the bank that led to the sand dunes. He motored the boat part way up onto the shore before jumping overboard, feet bare, jeans rolled to his knees and pulled the boat up a bit further onto the beach. I jumped out and taking up a spot beside him, helped to finish the beaching. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and then led me up the beach and onto the sand dunes. Around me the spinifex rustled, the rising sun glinting off their sharp-edged leaves. Underfoot saltbush crunched, their green and red fronds plump and juice heavy. We crested the dune and came to a flat expanse of sand between the first dune and the next, the ground covered in cockle shells.

‘My ancestors ate pipis and left the shells.’ Taj said by way of explanation. The shells crunched under my sneakers. I wondered at Taj’s still bare feet but said nothing. We topped two more dunes, the sound of the ocean growing louder and louder as we approached. Finally, we broke over the last dune and there before me was the ocean. Wild, powerful, full of storm, the waves crashed against the long sandy beach that stretched undisturbed as far as the eye could see. The clouds were grey, but high overhead. Seagulls and small black birds littered the skies and the beach. A sensation welled up inside me. It felt like my chest had expanded, opened up, released.

Taj headed down the slope of the dune and I followed. At its base he squatted down and drew a towel from his backpack for us to sit on. We settled and he passed me a sandwich stuffed with ham and cheese, wax paper wrapped. Again I smiled in silent thanks. When my alarm woke me that morning, the challenge of getting out of bed had been all encompassing. It had not even occurred to me to bring food or drink.

‘I told you to only bring a jacket,’ Taj said, as if he had heard my thoughts, or perhaps read my face. He passed me another cup of coffee, not as blisteringly hot now, but still steaming. We ate and drank in silence, watching the waves break over the coastline, churning up the sand in a frothy wave along the shore: the Cappuccino Coast.

‘My grandma’s people are part of a coastal group, this was their place. The white settlers called them all ‘Ngarrindjeri’. It’s a collective word they used for the aboriginal people of this area, but really we are a series of separate groups. Grandma tries to keep the old traditions alive, pass them on. But you can’t be truly traditional these days. And why would you anyway? We all like TV.’ He gave me a cheeky grin.

‘I’m sorry,’ I started, not sure if I was being rude, ‘I just… I didn’t realise… You don’t look…’

‘Ngarrindjeri? What would one look like?’ he asked, stone faced.

‘What does an Australian look like?’

‘What have I said?’ I wondered, worried.

Taj grinned. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t look it, not really. Too many white ancestors mixed in. And in this country we all look, however we look.’ He shrugged. ‘But they are still my people, my mob. I am proud of where I come from, on both sides.’

‘So your grandma married a white man?’ I cringed at the term. Taj gave me another grin. ‘She did indeed, and my dad was white too, though I never met him. Or my grandfather, he died before I was born. Heart attack. Mum raised me alone. And grandma did her fair share of babysitting. So I guess the Ngarrindjeri way was how I was raised. Even if I don’t really look the part.’

‘I suspect that doesn’t matter. Not really.’

‘No, you’re right. It doesn’t. We are still one people.’

We fell into that gentle silence again, munching our sandwiches and watching the waves. Taj fished into his backpack and pulled out two cans of cider, passing one to me.

I smiled. ‘You thought of everything.’

He laughed, cracked his can and leaned back, stretching out his long legs before him, arm behind his head, sipping his drink and watching the sky.

I followed suit, enjoying the feel of the cool sand beneath my hand, the kiss of the salt air, the fizz of cider on my tongue.

‘My dad died 2 years ago, just as I was finishing my under grad. I picked The Fall as my thesis topic because of him. It was his favourite poem… It’s a really depressing poem, but I felt able to work on it because of dad. Because he loved it.’ I stared out before me, surprised at myself for what I had just shared so openly.

Taj lay next to me, chewing the last of his sandwich.

‘So, are you going to tell me about it?’ he asked.

Lazily, I flopped my head to face him. ‘It?’

‘Your thesis, your poet, Edward Barrington. I have heard of him. We did one of his poems at school. I think Mrs Anderson hoped we would ‘connect with poetry’ because he had lived here. Same reason we studied Storm Boy, I guess. Bet the teachers had a field day with the new film this year. Didn’t work though, not for me.’

I huffed a laugh. ‘I think that’s why my teachers chose Peter Goldsworthy and Les Murray.’

We grinned together in shared experience. I took another sip of cider.

‘Barrington moved here in the 1880s, from England. We know so much from before then. He kept extensive journals. But then he came to Australia to heal his wife, she was sick, and the trail goes cold.’

Taj rolled over, rising up on an elbow, head on his hand. ‘That’s a big move, especially back then. But he was already famous?’

‘Oh yes, very much so. From a young age.’

‘So he gave that up, for her.’

‘I don’t think he saw it that way, but yes, I suppose that’s true. His writing took off while he was at university, very unusual. I think his fame had a bit of old school ‘sex appeal’ to it. But he was really talented, not just a pretty face… When he married his success slowed. His works weren’t as dark. But the ‘lost poems’ discovered after his death, The Fall is one of those, they were definitely his old style. The mystery of his death and his wife staying out here, it all increased his fame anyway. The story really is a bit unknown, there is more to it definitely.’

‘Tell me, Ellie.’ Taj said quietly, intensely.

So I did.

Next Chapter: Chapter six: Leave-taking