Tears of the Moon - Di Morrissey [33]
It was a slow walk, but the women were patient and in no hurry, sometimes pausing to pick wild berries. Olivia tired quickly and she realised that these people must think it normal for a woman to walk soon after giving birth. It was a great contrast to the customs in her world. One of the women offered to carry the baby, and Olivia gratefully handed over the weighty little baby bag.
How she wished she could communicate with these women as they chattered softly amongst themselves, but she was glad enough for their company and felt safe in their care.
They soon came to a billabong surrounded by pandanus palms and river gum trees and they all settled in the shade. Olivia sat with her back to a tree and watched the women gather food from the water plants and shrubs in the mud beneath a floating carpet of broad-leafed plants. One of the women found a huge water snake that was brought ashore with shrieks of delight and quickly killed. With gestures they indicated to Olivia that it was going to be part of their next meal.
On the way back to her camp they stopped and used their digging sticks to unearth two large eggs buried in the sandy soil, to catch a small goanna and to whack a tree and shake free its seed pods which were collected in a little wooden scoop. The short heavy sticks with a fire-hardened pointed end seemed to Olivia to be of huge importance and no woman moved far without this versatile and practical implement. They left their grinding stones at the main camp but around their waists they wore a braided hair belt into which they tucked small tools, which left their hands free to carry children and to hunt. Olivia was fascinated at their skill in catching small animals.
Late in the day several men came out of the scrub further along the beach. The women signalled to them to come into Olivia’s camp. The men hesitated, chuckling and discussing the entreaty before edging forward as a group. Olivia felt as shy with them as they obviously were with her. Their near nakedness embarrassed her but nonetheless she couldn’t help admiring their lean and muscular physiques. The three women pointed at the sleeping baby and were obviously talking about the food they had prepared for Olivia. This brought a surge of talk, with the men pointing to the water’s edge. For the first time Olivia noticed a long low stone wall of loosely packed stones that ran across the mouth of an inlet between two rocky outcrops. This wall was covered by the sea at full tide and as the water receded through the gaps between the stones, fish were trapped behind the wall, making it an effective trap. It was now low tide and the men and women went to the trap and began scooping up the fish. Molluscs and shellfish were also collected and added to the stock of food.
Back near her camp small fires were lit and allowed to smoke to keep insects away, while a large cooking fire blazed in a ring of stones. When it had died down the fire was scraped to one side and the fish and shellfish were buried in the hot sand and covered over with ash and hot embers to cook. Olivia watched from a distance, marvelling at their self-sufficiency and skill. How interested Conrad would be in this, she thought, and with a pang realised it was the first time she’d thought of him for many hours.
She sat by her own small fire in front of her shelter not wishing to intrude, for she had noticed their etiquette involved periods of simply sitting and observing. When the time was deemed appropriate, it was the young girl who shyly approached and gestured for her to join the others.
The men had finished eating by the time the sun began to dip into the sea. Sitting