‘Tom Berry was a treasure hunter,’ Violet says.
‘A treasure hunter?’ Molly gasps.
‘Tom Berry searched every corner of this land for gold,’ Violet says.
Molly finds numbers beneath the name on the headstone: 1868–1929.
‘Tom Berry was your grandfather, Molly.’
There are so many words beneath those numbers: cramped and busy and too small, filling every available space on the headstone. It’s less an epitaph than a warning, or a public service message for the people of Darwin, and Molly struggles to fathom its meaning.
LET IT BE KNOWN I DIED ACCURSED BY
A SORCERER. I TOOK RAW GOLD FROM
LAND BELONGING TO THE BLACK NAMED
LONGCOAT BOB AND I SWEAR, UNDER GOD,
HE PUT A CURSE ON ME AND MY KIN FOR
THE SIN OF MY GREED. LONGCOAT BOB
TURNED OUR TRUE HEARTS TO STONE.
I PUT THAT GOLD BACK BUT LONGCOAT
BOB DID NOT LIFT HIS CURSE AND I REST
HERE DEAD WITH ONE REGRET: THAT I
DID NOT KILL LONGCOAT BOB WHEN
I HAD THE CHANCE. ALAS, I WILL TAKE
MY CHANCE IN HELL.
‘What’s all the words for, Mum?’
‘It’s called an epitaph, Molly.’
‘What’s an epitaph, Mum?’
‘It’s the story of a life.’
Molly studies the words. She points her finger at a word in the second line.
‘A maker of magic,’ Violet says.
Molly points at another word.
‘Bad magic for someone who might deserve it,’ Violet says.
The child’s finger on another word.
‘Kin,’ Violet says. ‘It means family, Molly.’
‘Fathers?’
‘Yes, Molly.’
‘Mothers?’
‘Yes, Molly.’
‘Daughters?’
‘Yes, Molly.’
Molly’s right forefinger nail scratches at Bert’s handle.
‘Did Longcoat Bob turn your heart to stone, Mum?’
A long silence. Violet Hook and her shaking hands. A long lock of curled brown hair blowing across her eyes.
‘This epitaph is ugly, Molly,’ Violet says. ‘Your grandfather has tarnished his life story with bluster and vengeful thoughts. An epitaph should be graceful and it should be true. This epitaph is only one of those things. An epitaph should be poetic, Molly.’
Molly turns to her mother. ‘Like the writing on Mrs Salmon’s grave, Mum?’
HERE LIES PEGGY SALMON
WHO FISHED FOR LOVE AND WINE
THOUGH IT WAS NO FEAST NOR FAMINE
SHE ALWAYS DROPPED A LINE
‘Will you promise me something, Molly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Promise me you will read all of the poetry books on the shelf by the front door.’
‘I promise, Mum.’
‘Will you promise me something else, Molly?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Promise me you will make your life graceful, Molly. Promise me you’ll make your life grand and beautiful and poetic, and even if it’s not poetic you’ll write it so it is. You write it, Molly, you understand? Promise me your epitaph won’t be ugly like this. And if someone else writes your epitaph, don’t make them struggle to write your epitaph. You must live a life so full that your epitaph will write itself, you understand? Will you promise me that, Molly?’
‘I promise, Mum.’
Molly wobbles her knees. Molly is restless. Because she wants to and because she can, Molly drops Bert on the dirt and executes a cartwheel beside her grandfather’s grave and her yard dress falls down over her face and she’s blinded and she can’t nail the cartwheel’s landing and stumbles and falls into the dirt in a mess of legs and arms.
‘Not very graceful, Molly,’ Violet says. ‘Those poetry books will teach you how to be graceful.’
Molly brushes her floppy hair from her eyes and smiles. Violet directs the gravedigger girl back to her side with a sharply pointed forefinger. Molly picks up Bert the shovel and resumes her place close to her mother’s hip.
‘Be quiet now,’ Violet says.
The stillness of this cemetery, this sun-baked dead collective. Dry season Darwin and every tree in the cemetery wants to burn. Darwin stringybark eucalyptus trees leaning over graves so old their owners can’t be identified. Woollybutt trees and their fallen and dead orange-red flowers surrounding each trunk like fire circles, growing in gravelly soil for fifty years and climbing as high as the shops on the Darwin Esplanade. Wild weeds and grasses creeping over memorials to carpenters, farmers, criminals, soldiers and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Kin.
The earth is swallowing up Hollow Wood Cemetery. The dirt below it has eaten the dead and now it chews on the evidence of their living.
Molly breaks the silence. Molly always breaks the silence.
‘Is my grandfather down there?’ Molly asks.
Violet takes a moment to answer.
‘Some of him is down there,’ Violet says.
‘Where’s the rest of him?’
Violet looks up at that blue sky the bull ant hasn’t noticed yet.
‘Up there.’
Molly flips her head back and takes in the sky, her eyes squinting in the Darwin sun at full height.
‘The best of him is up there,’ Violet says.
Molly readjusts her footing, shifts her right foot back, never turns away from the sky. There’s a single dry season cumulus cloud on the left side of Molly’s sky, a fluffy and heaped floating metropolis of warm rising air that looks to Molly like the foam that forms when Bert Green drops a scoop of ice cream into a tall glass of sarsaparilla. Everything to the right of that cloud is blue. Violet Hook follows her daughter’s gaze to the sky and she stares up there for almost half a minute, then she turns back to stare at something equally expansive: her daughter’s face. Dirt across her left cheek. A blotch of breakfast egg yolk hardened at the left corner of her lips. Molly’s eyes always on the sky.
‘What is this place, Molly?’
Molly knows the question and she knows the answer. ‘This place is hard, Mum.’
‘What is rock, Molly?’
Molly knows the question and she knows the answer. ‘Rock is hard, Mum.’
‘What is your heart, Molly?’
‘My heart is hard, Mum.’
‘How hard is it?’
‘Hard as rock,’ Molly says, eyes still on the sky. ‘So hard it can’t be broken.’
Violet nods, breathes deep. A long silence now. Then four simple words. ‘I’m going away, Molly.’
Molly shifts her bare left foot and turns her head to her mother. ‘Where ya goin’, Mum?’ she asks, her right hand driving Bert’s blade haphazardly into the dirt. ‘You goin’ to Katherine again, Mum?’
Violet says nothing.
‘You goin’ to Timber Creek again, Mum? Can I come, too?’
Violet’s eyes turning
