The Girl with No Name Page 5

  ‘Yeah, sounds great,’ said Matthew, not quite as enthusiastic as he would have been before he met No-name. ‘I didn’t go away, but I had a bit of an adventure here.’

  ‘True? What d’you get up to?’

  Matthew told Nick briefly about his trip to Goanna Gorge, how he got lost and found again. Nick was so interested in hearing all about fire-making and hunting that he forgot to tease his friend for getting lost in the first place.

  ‘You wouldn’t think the black kids here could do all those things,’ he said. ‘I thought they just hung round town all the time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Matthew. ‘No wonder some of them don’t show much interest in school. Who’d want to be learning social studies when you could be out hunting!’

  ‘Maybe we don’t need to go all the way to Kakadu after all,’ said Nick.

  Four days after his adventure in the bush, Matthew was summoned by telephone to the police station.

  ‘Did you report the theft of a backpack and sleeping-bag last weekend?’ asked the sergeant, who was a friend of Matthew’s father.

  ‘Yes,’ said Matthew, though it was actually his father who had reported the theft. ‘A khaki backpack and a green sleeping-bag with a red tartan lining. Have you found them?’ He was astonished.

  ‘We think we might have them here, if you’d like to come over and identify them.’

  ‘I’ll come straight away,’ said Matthew, convinced the goods were his, and wondering who on earth could have taken them. He jumped onto his bike at once.

  At the police station the sergeant, a thickset man with a moustache, was looking grave. He led Matthew through the hatch in the counter and into a room behind the office. On the table lay the lost belongings. But it wasn’t these that caught Matthew’s attention. Slumped in a chair against the wall behind the table was a thin young girl wearing a floral dress. It was No-name.

  ‘Hello!’ said Matthew in astonishment. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You know this girl?’ asked the sergeant.

  Matthew nodded. ‘Yes, I know her. She found me last weekend when I was lost.’ He looked inquiringly at the sergeant.

  ‘Did she now? Well, it seems she found more than just you.’ He nodded towards the things on the table. ‘Your gear was at her house.’

  For a moment Matthew was stunned. Then he realised what the sergeant was getting at.

  ‘She didn’t take them,’ he said, without a moment’s hesitation.

  The sergeant gave him a funny look.

  ‘What makes you so sure about that?’

  ‘I just know,’ said Matthew, unable to explain. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’ he asked the girl. But No-name sat with her head hanging down and didn’t answer.

  The sergeant led Matthew back to the main office, and shut the door. ‘You can’t trust these people,’ he told him. ‘Just because they’re friendly doesn’t mean you can trust them. They can smile at you and rob you at the same time, you know.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Matthew said again. ‘She wouldn’t rob me. Besides,’ he suddenly remembered, ‘she didn’t have a chance. My things were already gone when I left her.’ He described his meeting with No-name, and how she had taken him back to Goanna Gorge.

  ‘You say she disappeared. She probably went straight down to the waterhole ahead of you, and knocked off your things before you even got there.’

  ‘She couldn’t have.’ Matthew was stubborn. ‘There’s only one way down, and she didn’t go that way. Anyway, there wasn’t time.’

  ‘Only one way down that you know about,’ said the sergeant, pointing his pencil at Matthew. ‘These black-fellers have their own ways of doing things.’

  ‘But she didn’t even know I’d left anything down there,’ Matthew insisted. ‘She only knew about the bike.’

  ‘You say she saw your tracks and knew you were lost.’ The sergeant tried a different tack. ‘She probably found your belongings first, and hid them in her camp before she went looking for you.’

  ‘I tell you, she didn’t steal them,’ said Matthew, with growing frustration. ‘Look, can I go back and speak to her? I’m sure she’ll be able to explain.’

  ‘It’s not usual,’ said the sergeant, ‘but we’re not going to charge her this time, seeing as we’ve recovered everything. She’s too young, and a bit simple by the looks of her. We’ll just put the wind up her and give her a caution.’

  ‘Simple?’ Matthew was amazed. ‘She’s not simple! She’s one of the cleverest girls I know!’

  Again the sergeant looked at him oddly. ‘You sure it’s the same girl? Frances Bulu?’

  Frances, thought Matthew. So that’s her real name. He wasn’t going to admit he didn’t know it.

  ‘Of course that’s her. Let me go and talk to her,’ begged Matthew.

  ‘You can have a couple of minutes, but leave the door open.’ Matthew went back into the interview room, and the sergeant continued doing his work in the office. Matthew stood looking at the girl, but she didn’t acknowledge he was there.

  ‘No-name – Frances – whatever you call yourself – just tell me what happened.’ No-name sat with her head down, looking at her hands, which were busy screwing up the hem of her dress. She didn’t speak.

  ‘Why won’t you talk to me? I know you didn’t take my things.’

  Still No-name hung her head. He tried a different approach. ‘I went to the community at Two-mile looking for you.’ The girl gave no sign of having heard him. ‘I want to be your friend,’ he whispered desperately. No-name hung her head even lower.

  Matthew sat in the chair nearest her, and leaned forward. He was trying to will her to look at him when he realised with a shock that she was crying. She made no sound, but tears dropped slowly, one by one, on to her dress. She did not attempt to wipe them away.

  Matthew was aghast. ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ he said in a hurry.

  Just at that moment the sergeant put his head in at the door. ‘How are you getting on?’

  Matthew got up. ‘She’s upset,’ he said lamely. ‘She won’t talk to me.’ Taking a last look at the tousled black head, he left the room.

  ‘What I can’t understand is why the police went to her house,’ said Matthew at tea that evening.

  ‘They had a good idea who she was,’ said his father.

  Matthew didn’t understand.

  ‘When I reported your missing things,’ his father explained.

  ‘You mean you told the police she had taken them?’ Matthew was incredulous.

  ‘She had, hadn’t she?’

  ‘No!’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, there they are.’ His father nodded towards Matthew’s bedroom where he had put his recovered belongings.

  ‘We know how you feel,’ said Matthew’s mother gently. ‘That girl helped you, and you thought you could trust her. It’s disappointing for you. But that’s the way these people are.’

  Matthew pushed his plate of chicken casserole, only half-eaten, away from him.

  ‘What do you know about “these people”?’ he almost shouted. ‘I bet you’ve never even spoken to an Aboriginal person!’

  ‘Of course I have,’ said his mother, offended. ‘I’m secretary of the basketball association, don’t forget.’

  ‘That’s different,’ said Matthew, not quite sure what he meant. He knew many of the town’s best basketball players were black. It was just that he didn’t think No-name’s family would be the sort of people to belong to the basketball association.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, pulling back his plate and forking up some chicken, ‘if you can’t trust the basketball crowd, why do you work as their secretary?’

  ‘I didn’t say I don’t trust the basketballers. What are you talking about?’

  ‘You said “That’s what these people are like”.’

  Matthew and his mother sat staring at one another across the table in mutual incomprehension.

  ‘This is all bes
ide the point,’ his father put in. ‘The fact is, your friend, who found you when you were lost, for which we are all grateful, also turns out to be a thief, for which we are not grateful at all. That’s life.’

  Matthew said nothing more, but inwardly he was still seething with anger. He knew in his guts No-name hadn’t robbed him. But even apart from his feeling that he could trust her, he was sure she hadn’t had the chance to climb down into Goanna Gorge and make off with his pack and sleeping-bag before he got there. She didn’t even know where they were. And she would hardly have come looking for him in the bush if she had robbed him earlier. Besides, none of his things had been in her camp, he was sure of that, and where else would she have left them? But there was no use reasoning with adults who had made up their minds.

  He left the table as soon as he could, and went to his room. He looked through his pack again. Everything was still there, just as he had packed it. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed at all.

  ‘Any thief would have tipped it out to see what was in it,’ muttered Matthew. He thought of No-name as he had seen her at the police station. As if all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. So different from the confident, smiling young girl he had followed through the bush. She probably thinks I put the police on to her, he thought. No wonder she wouldn’t speak to me. She’ll never want to speak to me again.

  Matthew made up his mind he would find No-name the next morning and have it out with her. He couldn’t bear to leave so many misunderstandings between them.

  six

  A Mystery Solved

  The following morning, Matthew was up at the Two-mile community again at seven. While he was mustering the courage to go in, two young men in narrow jeans and cowboy hats came towards the gateway. One had bare feet and the other wore a well-used pair of riding boots with high heels. They looked dishevelled and weary, as if they were suffering from hangovers. They glanced at Matthew, and one of them nodded.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Matthew said, and they both stopped. ‘I’m looking for a girl called …’ he thought for a moment. What had the policeman called her? Frances something. ‘Er, I think her name is Frances.’ Then he wanted to bite his tongue. She had told him people didn’t use her name since someone had died. But he couldn’t remember how to pronounce the other name she had told him.

  Matthew was relieved that the young men didn’t show any sign of distress at his mistake.

  ‘That young Kumunyjayi?’ said one of them.

  ‘Yes, that’s her!’ Matthew nodded eagerly. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘ ’E’s my sister,’ said the other man.

  ‘True?’ said Matthew.

  ‘Yeah. You want to talk to ’im?’

  Matthew nodded again.

  ‘ ’E stopping in that blue house over there.’

  Matthew looked. The houses were painted in several different colours, and he saw that one of them had a bluish tint. ‘It’s okay if I go and knock at the door?’

  ‘Yeah, just go and have a look.’

  ‘Well, thanks.’ Matthew was breathless with nervousness, but he wheeled his bike in through the gateway and towards the house No-name’s brother had pointed out. The houses had been built in a loop, and a lot of people were sitting in their front yards talking in groups, or walking around outside. He felt sure everyone in the community was looking at him. He half expected someone to tell him to go away, but no one did.

  As Matthew approached the blue house he saw that the door was wide open and there were several people in the backyard. No-name wasn’t amongst them, but Matthew was tremendously relieved to recognise her grandmother. The old woman saw him coming and called out to him. She seemed just as friendly as she had been the day he had met her in the bush, and he felt reassured. At least the whole family didn’t hate him.

  ‘You looking for that Napangarti?’ she asked. ‘ ’im not here.’

  Matthew had no idea what Napangarti meant, but he knew the old woman must be talking about her granddaughter. ‘Oh dear.’ He was crestfallen, wondering why her brother hadn’t told him that. ‘Do you know where she is?’

  The old woman shook her head, but said nothing. Matthew wanted to question her further, but didn’t like to do so in case she thought him rude.

  He looked around, trying not to make his curiosity too obvious. The houses were all the same design, single storey, built flat on the ground, with only the colouring to distinguish them. They had been arranged in an oval, with a road running around the front of them. In the central space created by the arrangement of the houses, which was evidently intended to be a sort of park, stood one or two biggish old eucalypt trees, but there was no grass. The ground was bare and dusty and marked with innumerable tyre tracks. A few front yards sprouted patches of grass, and in some of them young trees were growing, but most were of bare earth like the central space. There were no fences between the houses, and Matthew sensed that the people here lived much more closely and publicly than his own kind did. He remembered the community name at the entrance. This did indeed look like a community. He thought it might be all right to live like that, amongst other families instead of walled up behind a fence as his family was, intent on privacy. But then he thought of his neighbours. He couldn’t imagine wanting to be seen by them whenever he moved out of his house. Perhaps it was necessary to know people very well before you could feel comfortable living this closely with them.

  Matthew was used to being an only child and had never worried about it, but now he was struck by the thought that he could be missing out by having no relations living nearby besides his parents. He felt a touch of envy for No-name’s way of life. She mightn’t have much in the way of belongings, but she had her place in the midst of all these people.

  No-name’s grandmother didn’t seem inclined to give any more information, so after a few minutes Matthew said goodbye to her and wheeled his bicycle out through the entrance. He rode slowly back down the bumpy road to town.

  The following Monday, school started again. Matthew went off reluctantly on his bicycle, feeling that the holiday, which had started off so well, had turned out to be a disappointment. But he met Nick at the gate, and before long the two boys were in a circle of classmates exchanging news. Matthew’s adventure gained excitement in Nick’s retelling.

  ‘And then this black girl appeared out of nowhere and carried him off to her camp in the wilderness!’

  During the morning recess, when his friends had left to play basketball and Matthew was sitting on a bench by himself eating an apple, a shadow fell on him. He squinted up into the sun at the lanky figure standing over him. He started.

  ‘No-name!’ he said out loud. ‘What are you doing here?’

  No-name sat down at the other end of the bench, and smiled just as she had done the first time he met her – with mischief and delight. There was no sign in her face of resentment; it was as if she had completely forgotten the painful incident at the police station. Matthew could not get it out of his mind.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked lamely. ‘And how come you’re here at school?’ No-name laughed, and it suddenly dawned on Matthew that she was a pupil. Of course, she must be! It hadn’t occurred to him that No-name, the girl who had seemed so at home in the bush, so knowledgeable about things of which Matthew knew nothing, also went to school. She must be in a class a year or two below his. Yet Matthew marvelled that he had never noticed her before. She had been just one of the black kids running around the yard.

  No-name still hadn’t said anything.

  ‘What happened at the police station?’ Matthew asked her.

  The girl’s face went serious for a moment, then she shrugged. ‘They let me go home.’ She smiled sunnily again.

  ‘I’m sorry about all that,’ Matthew said, wanting to give her an explanation. But No-name didn’t seem to expect one. He longed to ask her how she came to have his belongings, but was afraid she would think he was accusing her of taking them, so he said nothing.

  ‘I came
looking for you the other day,’ he told her.

  No-name nodded. ‘Granny did tell me.’

  ‘I met your brother,’ he went on. ‘He told me you were at home.’

  No-name grinned. ‘Who that bloke?’ she asked.

  Matthew was puzzled. She must know her own brother.

  ‘Tall fellow, curly hair …’

  ‘ ’E got boots?’

  Matthew thought for a moment. ‘Yes, cowboy boots.’

  No-name grinned again. ‘That’s ’im – Alfie. But ’e not my really brother,’ she said. ‘I call ’im brother. But ’e my cousin-brother.’

  ‘Your cousin-brother?’

  ‘Mm. His mother sister for my mother.’ She thought a moment, then went on: ‘But not really sister. They call one another sister.’

  ‘I see,’ said Matthew, not at all sure what she meant, but with that sense he’d had in the bush, that here was a different way of seeing the world. As then, he wanted to learn more about it.

  ‘That brother did find your bag,’ said No-name suddenly.

  Matthew looked at her. At last he was going to learn the truth.

  ‘Your brother?’ he repeated, foolishly. ‘Alfie? The one with the boots?’

  No-name nodded. ‘That day now, when I did find you. My brother was hunting near that water, and ’e pick up your bag. ’E never know it’s yours. ’E was thinking someone did leave it behind. But I tell him after – that’s Matthew’s gear! ’E was feeling sorry then. But too late – you was already gone.’

  ‘He brought my things to your camp?’ said Matthew. No-name nodded.

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’ He was still uncertain. No-name shrugged and looked away.

  Now Matthew understood. No-name’s brother had taken his things, perhaps thinking they’d been lost, perhaps just because he liked the look of them. No-name had guessed at once that they belonged to Matthew.