The Cemetery Incident; waking the dead

When packing for our camping trip to Chillagoe, eleven of my last forty-three reminders to Sutchy, Seffy and Kibby were, “Bring a book to read.”

     “Why?” each one asked more than once, sometimes together.

     “Because there will be quiet moments and you’ll be able to sit under a tree and read.”

     Not one child packed a book.  I found books and I packed them.  I was determined the kids would read during quiet moments.

     To be honest, there weren’t quiet moments.  When the kids weren’t swimming in the creek, spearing, fishing, eating, yarning, playing cards or practising shooting arrows into targets of plastic water bottles, they were sightseeing.  They explored a landscape of hidden treasures like Aboriginal cave paintings, dingoes and snakes.  They walked through four million year-old caves, mining settlements now ghost towns, the Chillagoe Smelters that operated in the early 19th century and the cemetery.

Exploring Mungana settlement, abandoned for almost a century (Kibby wearing one shoe, one thong).

Cousin Bridget and Kibby in the Archways Caves.

Sutchy and Sammy take in the Aboriginal cave paintings.

Swimming in the Walsh River.

Sutchy helps a snake to safety (despite my pleas to stay away!).

Sutchy returning after a failed feral dog hunt (despite my pleas for him not to go). 

Last minute fish before total darkness.

     I have a fascination with cemeteries and the histories they hold.  I strolled between the graves, gazing at the head stones and imagining the lives of the deceased and their families.  The kids lost interest early on and retreated to the cars parked in the patchy shade of trees with failing leaves.  Jen and I continued exploring the graves and then she wandered back to the cars.  The sun was overhead, the temperatures in the mid-thirties and not a leaf or blade of grass moved.  I was lost to another world, a century ago.

Vincent Bennet Nash, passed away suddenly 19th Sept 1940 aged 2 years and 9 months.  Erected by his mother, father and brothers.

Sacred to the memory of Charles P Allen and Michael O'Haloran who were instantaneously killed in the Gipofla mine by the falling of a pump, February 20th 1901.

     The Chillagoe cemetery was the location of Cemetery Incident. 

     A desperate cry rang out, drawing me back to the 21^st century, Chillagoe, the cemetery. It sounded uncannily like, Open the fucking door, along with banging, the sort of banging that comes with a fist on steel.

     “Kibbim, open the fucking door!”  It was none other than my princess, hammering her fists into the car door.  “Open the fuuucking dooor!”

     I realised this monologue may have continued for some time, but I had been oblivious.

     I marched over, pushing into the furnace like heat that was perhaps my fury.

     Like magic the doors flew open with my approach.

     “Mum,” said Seffy with wide-eyed innocence, “they locked me out.”

     Kibbim was holding his arm, his face soaked with tears.  “Mum, Seffy threw the hairbrush at me.”

     “Mum,” said Sutchy who was in the driver’s seat, next to the window controls, “Kibbim locked Seffy out for two minutes and I was trying to unlock the doors, but he kept locking them.”

     They prefaced their futile excuses with "Mum" as if they could appeal to my no-longer existent maternal nature.

     My chest bubbled with snakes and spiders and scoprpions, multiplying, twisting and turning over each other until the only escape they could find was through my mouth.

     “Get out.  All of you.”  My voice was no whisper and I wondered how many dead had been wakened first by Seffy and then me.  “Out.  You can sit in the sun for half an hour.  Can’t you just sit quietly while I do something?  Do I have to constantly supervise you three?  Out, out, out. For half an hour.  You can learn to sit quietly.  Burn in the sun for all I care.”  There was more, much more, but you get the gist.

     They all sat down, quietly, in the sun.

     About burning in the sun, I did care because that is the sort of thing that the Department of Child Safety can investigate.  So I amended my orders.

     “Sit in the shade for the half hour!”

     Seffy has developed a sharp tongue which is fine, but she needs to use it at appropriate moments. Complaining about her brothers and my style of discipline when she was supposed to be sitting quietly, was not an appropriate moment.

     “Listen,” I said, without knowing where I was heading, “I am sick of your sarcastic and derogatory comments.  You need to know when to stop.  From now on, from now on.”   

     And I faltered, trying to think of a threat for Seffy.  She is usually a good girl and will always apologise if she has screamed at me or refused to do something I have asked.  I can’t ever remember smacking her.  But during the Cemetery Incident I was angry and everyone knows that anger fuels only folly.  I still needed a threat to deal with Seffy’s hurtful comments and I thought of one, not well thought out, but one nonetheless. 

     “From now on, if you make sarcastic and hurtful comments I will reach across and slap your face.”

     “I don’t care," she said.  "I’ll call Child Safety.”  

     “Great and they’ll take you away.”

     “Good.  I’ll be happy and safe then.”

     “Oh, for God’s sake, shut up.  All of you.”  The boys held out their hands as if to say, What have we done?  “Half an hour.  Sit. Quietly.”

     I sat by default.  I stared at the white headstones like a mouthful of rotten teeth.  I gazed at the baby blue skies and the shrunken, brown leaves that can’t even manage the heat.  I looked at my watch.  Two minutes had elapsed.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a book in my bag.  How could I be so stupid? 

     “How much longer do we have?” said Kibby.

     “Twenty seven minutes.”

     I checked my watch again.  Four minutes had passed.

     “Get in the car.  You can spend your half hour reading.”

     We drove to the campsite in silence.  Without a word, each child alighted, found a book and sat and read for half an hour.  It was a beautiful sight, my darlings reading quietly.