The Songmaster by Di Morrissey

animal is injured, we can’t take it home and nurse it back to health, it’s too far, you can’t hold up men, all those sorts of things.’
    ‘So you shoot it?’
    He nodded and Susan blurted, ‘What about the black population on Yandoo? What happens if an Aboriginal stockman falls off his horse and breaks his leg?’
    Andrew didn’t take offence. He laughed. ‘We wouldn’t shoot him, for God’s sake. We’d call in the Flying Doctor.’
    Nonetheless, Susan could see the pragmatic attitude that ruled Andrew’s thinking.
    Sensing her feeling, Andrew touched her hand. ‘Susan, don’t think I regard Aborigines as second-class citizens. They’re crucial and important men on a station. Great horsemen and good with cattle. They’ve been very important to opening up the west. From way back.And you know, when I was growing up, my closest friendship was with an Aborigine.’ He stopped, looking reflective.
    This remark startled Susan. ‘Ah, now you can say some of my best friends are Aborigines, right?’ she said with sarcasm leavened with a smile.
    He looked at Susan, unsure whether to take it as a joke or a social comment, and decided to let it pass. ‘It’s something I don’t talk about much.’ He topped up their wine. ‘I was four, my brother had just been born and with all the excitement I wasn’t being watched as closely as normal and I toddled off for a walk, and before anyone noticed I was way down by the blacks’ camp close to the creek. I started exploring, and climbing over some pandanus roots, I tripped and fell in the creek and was out of my depth. I couldn’t swim, but I had the wits to hang onto a branch and yell at the top of my lungs.’
    ‘Who rescued you?’
    ‘This black kid. He was only six at the time. A bit of a loner who kept wandering away from the women at the camp.’
    ‘Like you.’
    ‘Yeah. Anyway, he jumped in the creek – he was at home in water like a little platypus – and he swam me piggyback to the bank.’
    ‘He must have been a bit of hero.’
    Andrew smiled. ‘Do you know, we never told anyone. I guess we knew I’d get into trouble and be kept under stricter surveillance. So we started playing games, my clothes dried andI wandered home for lunch. The grown-ups were really fussed when they realised I’d gone missing, but I started to make a habit of it and I always turned up, so as I got older, it became accepted. Within a year I was spending most of the day with Hunter. He taught me to fish, catch lizards, throw a spear, all kinds of stuff. We were like brothers. Hunter and I shared everything until puberty, when he got initiated and I wasn’t allowed to share in that. The old men took him off and when he came back with his body cuts, and he’d been circumcised, he said he couldn’t talk about it. And he’d changed. He seemed older, different. And he couldn’t spend time playing with me the way he used to, he had responsibilities and things to learn.’
    ‘Didn’t you?’
    ‘Of course. I was always helping with musters and around the stockyards. Hunter and I were still educated together through School of the Air. We’d sit under the pepper tree outside the house with the two-way radio on a table. Julian, my brother, and Hunter and I did our homework together for ages like that.’
    ‘So what happened?’ asked Susan.
    ‘Then the day came when I was twelve and I was sent to boarding school. I came home for Christmas holidays and Hunter was gone. He’d been sent to a mission school, so we lost touch.’
    ‘So you’ve never seen him since?’ When Andrew shook his head, Susan reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘That’s sad.’
    ‘Anyway, I can still throw a boomerang.’ He laughed. ‘Maybe that’s something you’ll learn while you’re out west. You going to drive over?’ he asked suddenly.
    ‘Across the Nullarbor Plain? Are you mad?’ laughed Susan.
    ‘Why not? Be an adventure, it’s mostly bitumen road now.’
    ‘I’ll think about it.