2011 - Theses - Flinders University

White Lives in a Black Community: The lives of Jim Page and Rebecca Forbes in the Adnyamathanha communityTracy SpencerVolume Three Appendices: Creative Life WritingSection C: Contact Zonewith a smart wooden railing, behind the traditional head break. 49 The steady movements ofcamp are disturbed by an eddy of small children running into Fred’s camp, and Rebeccamakes out little Pearl Wilton among them, just Raymond’s age, bursting with a message.Rachel sits them down with mugs of sugary tea, but Fred has left his work and is walkingtowards his neighbours. He looks directly at Rebecca.‘Mrs Forbes, I’m gonna need you help on this one. Got to get that baby. You got somethings to bring?’ 50Rebecca opens her mouth, shuts it again, and begins stuffing a bag with a billy, some cleancotton cloth, and bandages. Her mind races, remembering the strong bodies of the midwivesat Yandama, supporting the woman, and their quiet chatter as they waited for the baby, andeven when they had tended her own births, manhandling her into a squat in the creek.Snatches of the fast narrations of young Alice Trafford, describing rows of robed women onthin cots, legs akimbo for the harried doctor, come to her as she searches out scissors, andsome poultice. Fred is already striding away towards Henry and May Wilton’s camp, whereHenry stands still, except for his inquiring hands.‘Udnyu artu coming too,’ Fred says, mid stride, and turns towards the crook in thetwisting creek, where Becky sees a number of women variously arranged in the shade ofstunted rivergum bending over the dry and sandy bed. 51 Now she makes out May crouchingon the ground, and several women supporting her. Fred kneels before her, placing his handson the bulge of her belly, covered with the coarse white shift the women wore under theirblouses. He speaks something to the attending women, and they help May straighten up.36