Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [89]
‘Then the convict archives.’
‘And the ruin. The poem. A month later Wise would leak the story. Press would hear about a man looking like Billy K going out there, visiting the orphanage in Kenya. All that business with the reverend in the desert. That was unexpected. Freaked me out, but Wise loved it. More mystery I suppose.’
‘And more record sales. More money in his pocket. What about Billy K? Did you ask?’
‘Wise is not the kind of geezer you go demanding answers from, but yeah, I did ask.’
‘And?’ Again my skin prickles. I stand up off the wall.
‘He just smiles, says something about music never dying, even when the artist does. I asked if he knew he was dead. He said, “He died the day he stopped writing songs. The day he ran back to mummy.”’
Terra Incognita
I must write this down. I must explain, somehow, this waking and feverish dream, a vision which has possessed my very soul for the best part of the afternoon. This is what I saw and heard:
The church is complete. A crooked lintel above the entrance, two glassless windows overlooking the glaring scrub, a wooden cross fixed to the roof, and the reverend, hammering nails into the base of a broken, upturned pew. He raises the hammer, swings, misses, and strikes his thumb. He does not swear, but grits the curse between his teeth. A pregnant aborigine, more girl than woman, stands at the door. When the priest sees her, he waves her away and bellows he is busy. Overweight and sweating in the heat, frustrated at the menial task beyond his ability, he strikes the nail with such anger and ferocity he splits the seat.
‘Having a spot of bother there, reverend?’ A male voice calls from outside.
‘Jesus.’ The reverend drops the hammer in shock. ‘McCreedy! You jumped me from my bones.’
‘You want some advice on hammering a nail?’ The voice is a silhouette, a shadow on the dazzle beyond the doorway. ‘You should ask a Roman.’
‘Not stopped your blaspheming then.’ The reverend stands, straining.
The two men are similar height and shape, though the mass of McCreedy is the muscle of labour and toil, unlike the reverend, a man bloated on sitting and eating.
‘Come out of the sun, now,’ directs the reverend.
The aboriginal elder with McCreedy does not approach. Instead he turns and walks to the stand of gum trees. He folds his legs and sits down in the shade, staring beyond the little church as if it were not even there. McCreedy takes off his hat, kicks the dirt from his boots against the doorframe, and enters.
‘Well, sit. Sit down, man.’ The reverend directs McCreedy to a pew. ‘And tell me it was a day the devil lost.’
McCreedy is dusted with red sand. His lips are cracked and peeling, the handkerchief around his neck soaked with sweat. And despite the journey here, his weary limbs and nights beneath the stars, he does not sit.
‘Oh yes, reverend,’ he confirms. ‘A day the devil lost.’
The news seems to make the reverend stand a little taller. ‘Dearest McCreedy,’ he says with a smile of relief. ‘The good Lord does not let such deeds pass without reward. And though blood was spilled, and the earth reddened by a commandment broken, forgiveness is close when the act itself was willed by our Heavenly Father.’
Again, the reverend offers McCreedy a pew, fussing until he takes a seat.
‘Was it not Providence that brought the stockmen through our lonely parish, that they delivered news of Mr Babbage and his arrival to these shores? To think that he dare venture a return to England with the audacity of seeking an audience with Queen Victoria herself. That he was journeying into the heart of our kingdom to plead that Britain and the Mission Society leave Fiji, his hell-pit of cannibals and debauchers, to its own devices. We gave this man the power of our language, and he uses it to deny and sabotage the word of the Lord, the light upon his land.’
The reverend takes a blackened handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his forehead and neck.
‘Now what would the Lord think of us, or of any good Christian man, who would hold open the door of his house and let Satan walk right