Richard Runche KC nods, then says, ‘I’m afraid so, Mary. There’s a lot of high-blown rhetoric about the rights of the Aboriginal people, but when it comes down to it, as the Yankees say, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.’ He brings his fist up to his lips and clears his throat. ‘There isn’t much in the law that looks after your interests when it comes either to property or personal rights.’
Mary turns and points in the direction of the bookshelves. ‘You mean them books ain’t gunna get me back me kids? Yiz not gunna find out how to get me kids back outa them books?’ she repeats, then looks at Jessica and says, ‘Shit, Jessie and me, we nearly broke our backs bringing them back.’
‘Oh, they’ll be useful all right, nothing like a precedent or two to confuse a judge or a police magistrate,’ Richard Runche KC says reassuringly. ‘Though I’m quite well versed in this part of the law,’ he explains. ‘When I first arrived in this country in 1890 there was quite a to-do in the papers about a wild race of half-castes .growing up in New South Wales. It was then that the Aborigines’ Protection Board introduced the notion that the children should be “de-socialised” as Aborigines and “re-socialised” as whites — “assimilation” was what it was being termed at the time. The idea of separating children from their parents was so abhorrent to me that I took some interest in the whole affair. It was not so different from the disenfranchising of the American Red Indians, and I confess I thought it might be an area of the law where I might profitably practise.’ He looked up and shrugged. ‘Well, it wasn’t and then things changed for me,’ he said, not explaining any further, though both women knew he meant his drinking. ‘We must obtain a copy of the Aborigines’ Protection Act. We’ll need to know it backwards if we are to proceed.’
‘Where would we get one o’ them?’ Jessica asks. ‘Is it a book?’
‘Why, the nearest courthouse will have it, I should think, or a police station. It will be a government pamphlet, a guide to the law for police magistrates and the like,’ Runche said.
‘I’ll ride into Yanco termorra and get one,’ Jessica promptly responds.
‘It may not be quite as easy as that, my dear. You’ll not be thanked for asking for it and it might well be withheld.’ ‘Why?’ Jessica asks.
‘Well, it’s a tricky business at the moment. You see, the Aborigines live on well over a hundred reserves in New South Wales, all of which have been officially set aside for them by past governments. You could say the government has “deeded” them this land, though this viewpoint has always struck me as odd — after all, it was theirs in the first place.’
‘Do yer mean like Warangesda, Grong Grong and Sandy Hill?’ Mary asks.
‘Well, yes, and a great many government stations and missions and reserves like them.’
‘Well, why they chasin’ the blackfella out them places?’ Mary asks. ‘If it ours, why can’t we stay? We ain’t done nuthin’ wrong!’
‘Ah, well there’s the rub. It’s good land and now the government wants it back.’ ‘What for?’ Jessica asks.
‘Returned soldiers. They want to give the land to the returning troops, divide it into farm settlements.’ ‘But that’s not fair!’ Jessica protests.
‘No, my dear, it isn’t, it isn’t even strictly legal,’ he says, then glances up at Mary. ‘And that, Mary, is where your children come in.’
Both women look at him, puzzled. ‘How come, Mr Runche?’ Mary asks at last.
Richard Runche KC smiles gently. ‘I mean no offence by this question, Mary, but how many of your children are unadulterated?’
Mary shrugs. ‘They all adulteried, sir. Me old man, the one I was married to, he buggered off after the first two kids. The two that’s already grow’d up. I ain’t never married again.’
Richard Runche chuckles despite himself. ‘No, no, that’s not what I mean, my dear. Serves me right, silly word. Let me begin again. How many are full-bloods?’
‘You mean no whitefella somewhere in ‘em?’
‘Yes.’
Mary shrugs. ‘All me girls got whitefella somewhere in ‘em.’
‘How many full-blood Aboriginal children are there in your camp, Mary?’
‘Not many that I knows of.’ Mary taps her finger lightly to her chest. ‘Me neither, I’m black enough, but me grandad were an Irishman.’ She tries to think. ‘Some of the old people, the elders maybe, but most of the full-bloods in the Wiradjuri people they long dead, not many left in these parts, I reckon.’ She glances at Jessica and smiles. ‘Jessie says me kids, they every colour of the rainbow.’
‘Well that’s precisely it, it’s the genetics you see, my dear.’
‘What’s genetics, please?’ Jessica asks.
‘What you look like, the colour of your skin, eyes, hair — it’s all in your blood, your genes.’
‘Oh, you mean like Mary’s black and I’m white?’
‘With brown eyes and blue eyes, yes, that’s the general idea.’
‘And when you mixes them two up you gets me kids,’ Mary says.
‘Exactly, my dear. Now the government of the day happens to think genetics will solve the problem of your people. it seems that, unlike other black races — for instance the negroes in Africa — the Aboriginal people do not “throw back”.’ He is aware the words mean nothing to either of them. ‘What this means is that the colour can be bred out of them quite quickly, and a dark child will not crop up at some future time into a family of white children. If the Aboriginal people can be made to persist with white partners, then their offspring will eventually become white. I am told two or three generations is all it takes.’