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  He definitely would have remained at the station had he not been reassured by his half-caste friend Jack Donaldson that he wouldn’t have to become initiated into the Aboriginal tribe to marry Lucy.

  “Only tribal boys go through the ‘Law’,” Jack told him confidently. “Just take your swag, you will camp with the young single fullahs. The old men, the tribal elders, will look after you and tell you what to do. Don’t worry it will be alright. You’ll see.”

  Jack advised him well. Mick was instructed where to sit and with whom.

  Mick learnt that Dreamtime beings handed down the belief system referred to as the “Law” which included rules for social behaviour, codes and mores of Aboriginal society. The Mardudjara or Mardus (Martus) of the western desert have a unique kinship system which provides a system of moral codes of behaviour, rules for socialisation and marriages. All individuals are categorised into one of four kinship or skin groups, Banaga, Garimara, Burungu or Milangga. Each individual is born into one of these sections and cannot change or transfer into another group. Children are instructed at a very early age to conform to the kinship system, which is very rigid and complicated. The kinship terms are in constant use every day in preparation for more important roles when adulthood is reached. By that stage the pattern of behaviour towards other members of the clan and indeed the community—according to the kinship rules—are established. It is most important that obligations and commitments are fulfilled according to the kinship system.

  Lucy, who was in the skin group Milangga, was only allowed to marry a Burungu. A Banaga could only marry a Garimara.

  A man must choose a wife from the right section. He cannot marry just any woman of his own choice. The marriage or union can and will be seen as incestuous and can never be accepted by the community. Many couples have eloped only to be apprehended and escorted back to Jigalong to face tribal punishment, which means ostracism and public flogging. These couples ran away to other towns, but one couple went into the desert. They were not followed and brought back like the other lovers, but were left there in self exile and annexation in the Great Sandy Desert.

  Mick was given a skin name, Burungu, thus putting him in the appropriate section to be the “right way” or the correct husband for Lucy—a Milangga woman.

  With the community’s blessings he returned to Kingsley with his intended bride. He returned only once to Jigalong and that was to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.

  Although he never accompanied Lucy on her visits to Jigalong, he was content to meet and interact with her relations at the annual race meetings which were held in October and May at the Kingsley race course. There was no pressure on Lucy to abandon or reject her tribal culture or to become involved in ceremonial rites and rituals. She chose the latter. So every year after Christmas, Lucy would spend four to six weeks at Jigalong with her family.

  Return to Kingsley

  Within a week of the couple’s return to Kingsley Mick found employment as a labourer with the Western Australian Government Railways. He tried to talk his mate Jack into applying for a job with him at the Red Hill Mining Company as miners.

  “Look, I am a Yamagee, I work on top of the ground—not underneath like a rabbit,” Jack said.

  “It was only a suggestion,” Mick said.

  “We should take Katie and show her where her Grannies lived, Jack,” suggested Phyliss as she collected our empty mugs.

  “Come on then,” said Jack, rising from the rickety chair which he picked up and placed in the corner. “We’d better go while it’s cool. Leave your ute in the driveway. It’ll be safe there.”

  I’m glad one of us is confident and trusting. I did as I was bid, not completely sure whether I should leave it there. You never know who you cannot trust these days.

  Their ancient Holden station wagon had all the characteristics of an outback owner’s vehicle—both exterior and interior. I had to move an assortment of tools and mechanical parts to make room for my feet. Everywhere you looked there was red dust about a couple of centimetres thick. I gave a light cough and wound the windows down to let the fresh air in.

  “Be careful with that window Katie, sometimes the glass slips down and it’s hard to wind up,” advised Jack as he started the motor and drove down the main street. He turned right near the Shell garage, stopping only when we came to a couple of pathetic looking tamarisk trees and an equally depressed peppermint tree.

  “This is it,” said Jack as he pulled up and stopped the engine, and pointed to where the house once stood. It was overrun with couch grass, except in the places where there were concrete slabs.

  “This used to be the laundry and the bathroom,” he said stamping on them with his right foot for emphasis. “The toilet used to be outside and covered with purple morning glory creepers.”

  Yes, I could imagine that, quite a common sight even today.

  Phyliss plucked a handful of leaves from the miserable looking peppermint tree and crushed them in both hands and took a big sniff. “I used to do this all the time when the old people lived here,” she said wistfully.

  Jack began pacing up and down, marking an invisible rectangular plot where the bough shed was, or rather where it used to be attached to the front of the house. This was a popular place, often filled with visitors who would come to listen to the Irishman sing or perhaps join in with him.

  His Irish tenor’s voice would carry across the black stony flats. For a few hours at least, Michael Muldune would be mentally transported to his birthplace in Ireland, borne on wings of song. This was how he was able to express his emotions, through his music.

  “Did he talk about his homeland, his country or his family?” I asked wistfully.

  “Not much,” came the reply from Jack who was trying very hard to recall those memories of yesteryear. “Only that his mother and father, he called them his ‘mam’ and ‘da’, died in Ireland, his only sister ran off with a Protestant and that he had an aunt and uncle in America, Boston I think, and some cousins too.”

  “But surely there must have been times when a memory stirred or he may have had a twinge of nostalgia, perhaps?”

  The two old people looked at each other. I could see that they did not quite understand my question so I rephrased it.

  “Did he long for his home, you know, say he wished he was in Ireland at special times of the year?”

  “No, but he used to sing a lot when he was feeling low, or miserable. You know all those Irish songs we grew up with,” said Jack as he appealed to his memory by cocking his head to one side, at the same time taking a drag on his roll-your-smoke. “You remember, Phyliss, you know, ballads, folksongs and sometimes he had requests from people to sing hymns like ‘Beyond the Sunset’, ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away’, and ‘Whispering Hope’. But I think his favourite was ‘Danny Boy’.”

  His sentiments were carried pleasantly in the evening, usually at sunset. How many times did he sing this refrain, I wondered. It must have been scores of times during his lifetime, I’d guess.

  But, come ye back, when summer’s in the meadow.

  Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow,

  Then I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,

  Oh, Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy I love you so.

  Lucy never joined in the singing. She preferred to listen to her husband, sometimes humming silently to herself.

  “Your grandfather leased this block from the railways and when he died they reclaimed it,” said Jack, marking the invisible boundary with his right hand.

  “Well we’d better go back before it gets too hot,” said Phyliss, this gentle gracious little half-caste lady who had befriended my grandmother so many years before.

  I was reluctant to leave this place. I wanted to spend a few more minutes and try to visualise and feel their ghostly presence as they must have sat in the shady bough shed shooing the sticky bush flies away from their meals and themselves. This is where they sat silently or singing, but always watching the viv
id sunsets every evening—a different one each day, none the same, special uninhibited views of the beautiful Kingsley sunsets.

  The Donaldsons

  Jack Donaldson began work immediately on his return from Mt Dunbar Station, as an orderly at the Kingsley Hospital.

  “I liked it until they asked me to do a shift in the morgue, you know, handling dead people. I couldn’t do that, I told the matron, Matron O’Neil,” he said.

  “I told them I was pulling out straight away. But they called me back and gave me a job as the gardener,” he said proudly, his leathery sunburnt face lighting up with self-satisfaction.

  Phyliss Charles was one of the hospital laundresses. Her Auntie Bella Charles was the senior laundress. Their working day began at 5.00 am, lighting the two coppers. They washed everything by hand—no washing machines in those days.

  “We starched and ironed the next day. We worked really hard then,” remembered Phyliss.

  Phyliss actually came up from Geraldton for a holiday with her aunt and decided to stay on in Kingsley.

  “I’m glad she did, cos I wanted to marry her as soon as I set eyes on her,” said Jack.

  She was a very attractive young girl, short—not quite five feet—slightly plump with dark brown hair, not too curly, but nice and wavy. She was a pleasant smiling, popular young woman. She and Jack were married six months later at Geraldton.

  At the same time, Lucy was working as a part-time kitchen hand, until she became pregnant with Peggy, who became my mother.

  “Mad” Mick Muldune

  Before Lucy and Mick Muldune were married, Sergeant Andrew (Andy) Miller and other white people in town tried to undermine their relationship and some even went as far as encouraging unattached white women to seduce the Irishman.

  “Marry a nice white woman,” they said.

  There were few white eligible women to choose from: there were the nurses from the hospital, the local barmaids and a few transients, so the competition amongst the men folk of the town was fierce. The ratio must have been in the vicinity of 80:1. There must have been more unmarried males in Kingsley than anywhere else in Western Australia.

  “We used to watch all the young white fullahs, all spruced up, going up the path to the nurses’ quarters to try their luck,” said Jack grinning sardonically.

  The Irishman used to tell the others, “Why should I want to marry a white woman when Lucy’s perfect for me. She doesn’t yell or shout and let her tongue run away out of control.

  “And further,” he added, “When I go out I know she’ll be waiting for me at home.

  “No man, and I mean no man,” getting quite angry now, “will covet my wife. I can trust her not to run away with any oily-tongued, charming hawker.”

  Is this what happened to the Irishman back in his homeland? Did a hawker elope with his sweetheart? Perhaps so, or perhaps not. Who knows? He was a very private person, secretive and selective. No one will ever know. He continued expounding Lucy’s attributes with great fervour.

  “She’s a good cook, a good housekeeper. She’s not a demanding, domineering woman. She suits me very well, thank you very much.”

  To Mick Muldune, Lucy compared with his mother as the embodiment of pure womanhood. A most unusual comparison considering one was an Aborigine and one was Irish. “Me mam was a saint, who struggled all her life without complaining. God bless her.”

  Others tried to influence him by attacking Lucy personally, advising him, “You don’t have to marry her. Do what the other white men do.”

  “Oh, and what’s that,” snapped Mick, getting angry and annoyed with these so-called well-meaning friends.

  “Stay with these gins until a decent white woman comes along,” said another boring condescending man.

  “Are you saying that Lucy is not a decent woman?” roared Mick, who was moving menacingly towards him, his large fists clenched ready to strike.

  “No! No, I didn’t mean that at all Mick,” said the man backing slowly away from the bar.

  “I am making Lucy my wife and that’s that,” said Mick with finality. All discussion on the matter stopped abruptly.

  Was my grandfather really mad? I wondered. Because to describe him as “mad” would be to attribute insane qualities such as spontaneous violence, wouldn’t it?

  I was reassured by the Donaldsons that although he frequently dished out his own form of Irish deterrent, “he wasn’t mad in the head”.

  “And he didn’t always win either,” said Jack passionately as he recalled dimmed memories. “I seen him get flogged a couple of times.”

  Sergeant Andy Miller, the sandy haired officer in charge of the Kingsley police station, was a large strong and powerful man.

  “He must have been about 24 stone, a real big man,” said Jack.

  “In fact, he looked like those policemen in cartoons. You know those big-chested blokes like that,” Jack said, spreading his arms wide.

  He didn’t ignore Mick’s behaviour—especially when a pugilist like him metes out his own form of punishment. That’s taking the law into his own bare hands; or rather his large bare knuckles. It was impossible to reassure some that the Irishman wasn’t mad. His fines amounted to a few bob.

  Mick Muldune always maintained that he fought to uphold his principles and he was ready to defy the law for them. But he never made moral judgment on any man.

  Under normal circumstances he was the most law-abiding citizen, and one of the most civic minded. He was by birth a fervent Catholic, so naturally enough blasphemy against the Pope and the Catholic church, also racism and bigotry, would rile him.

  But there were two things he hated with a firmly ingrained vehemence: they were the colonists and the constabulary.

  This became apparent one Saturday afternoon when the public bar at the Kingsley Arms Hotel was full to capacity, and the topic was marriage ceremonies. This incident occurred before Mick and Lucy were married.

  “The sergeant has powers vested in him to perform marriages, funerals and things, you know, anything legal,” informed a stranger at the other end of the bar.

  “What!” roared “Mad” Mick the Irishman, “me get married by the local constabulary!

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, me mam and da will roll over in their graves. Holy Mother of God. What blasphemy,” he moaned.

  He turned to face the unfortunate stranger and continued to bombard him with verbal abuse, pausing only to glare at him with contempt.

  “How dare you suggest such a thing,” he said, banging his large fist on the bar top, making the drinkers grab their glasses firmly in their hands. He apparently took a quick sip from his glass of beer and without wiping the froth from his mouth, he continued his verbal attack on the stranger.

  “Well,” recalled Jack, “some of the blokes in the pub saw the white froth around his mouth and passed the word around that the Irishman was frothing at the mouth like a mad dog with rabies.”

  “I only made a suggestion,” said the stranger meekly. He was visibly agitated and bewildered by my grandfather’s outburst. This surely was a reaction he never expected.

  “He was a miner from the Red Hill Mine, southeast of the town, there wasn’t as many slag dumps as there is now. He left quicker than he came in. Poor bugger,” said Jack sardonically.

  Someone made a drunken, submissive speech, and thus pacified the Irishman and everything went back to normal, well almost normal. Many were still astonished and confused by Mick’s outburst. They couldn’t understand it at all.

  “That’s why they called him ‘Mad’ Mick or the ‘Mad Irishman’—though not to his face, mind you. They wouldn’t be game enough,” said Jack.

  The Wedding Day

  “Mick and Lucy were married by Father John Delvany,” said Jack. “The marriage ceremony took place in Matron Margaret O’Neil’s sitting room. I was best man and Phyliss was Lucy’s matron-of-honour. We had drinks and eats after. Most of the hospital staff and railway workers came to their wedding.”

  Mick
and Lucy lived simply and quietly by themselves without any interference from anyone and were very devoted to each other. Lucy’s patience and silence bothered many visitors.

  “They thought she was deaf and dumb because she didn’t talk much in those days,” said Phyliss.

  “I got sick of telling them that was the way with tribal women and also that she was very shy when strangers were about.

  “The only time I saw her get wild was when she was carrying (pregnant) for your mother Peggy,” said Phyliss quietly.

  “Yeah, I remember that time,” smiled Jack. “He forgot to bring some oranges and tinned lambs tongues home for her.

  “She banged a pot on the table and swore in Mardu Wangka, her own lingo. I don’t know what she called him. Well I never seen that Irishman move so quickly.

  “‘Sorry, dear, I forgot,’ he said sheepishly and he hurried down the road to the store.”

  Their relationship was truly established; their marriage flourished with few demands made on each other, which resulted in less pressure and tension. They accepted each other for what they were. They never tried to change or act out roles, and they never got on each others nerves. Mick often said, “You can’t expect respect and tolerance from others if you have none yourself.”

  Despite her husband’s reputation as a pugilist who violently thrashed the daylights out of abusive, insulting and offensive men, he never showed any violence towards Lucy.

  Although she was not demonstrative with her affection for her husband—the embracing and touching, the natural displays of love—her facial expressions and smiles said all. Her emotions were not suppressed but merely simmering under the surface, and remained hidden from prying eyes. This was yet another aspect of their unique relationship and a new quality Mick Muldune saw in his young wife to whom he vowed “to love and cherish, until death do us part”.