Windmill Baby

David Milroy

• Publisher: Currency Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781925004267
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Set on an abandoned cattle station in the Kimberley landscape, this one-woman play combines the poetry of a campfire story with the comedy of a great yarn.Also included in Contemporary Indigenous Plays.

On stage is a rusted galvanised washtub and a dismantled push-pole clothes line.

A MUSICIAN enters, sits and plays guitar.

MAYMAY, an old Aboriginal woman, enters, carrying a bag.

As the song finishes, the light comes up. It’s day.

OLD MAY: Oh my, fifty years has knocked the stuffing out of this old station. He look like graveyard. Graveyard full of memories. Like this old bed.

MAYMAY walks to an old rusty bed. She sits down, squeaking the rusty springs.

Lot of bloody good memories from this one. Just like riding a bike. Funny thing that! My husband’s name was Malvern, Malvern Starr. Awwww! Malvern did a lot of things on the station, he built that fence, he put that wire up for me…

A mobile phone rings.

I’m not gonna worry about that. Aaargh!

She answers the phone.

Hello, Maymay Starr speaking. Of course I’m all right! You only dropped me off five minutes ago. No, I told you I got some unfinished business here. You don’t have to know everything. Stickybeak… Huh! I’m a proper bush blackfella, I know where to find water, all I have to do is look in my bag. Never you mind, now goodbye.

She hangs up.

Hmmph! My daughter Gilly. Always checking up on me. Must think I got man out here or what…! Hmmph! I wish!

She wanders over to the clothes line.

Now what was I saying…? My husband Malvern put this wire up for me. Strong enough to tether a bull. He cut this old clothes pole too. My old washtub.

She walks over and peers inside the tub. She looks up with big surprised eyes.

For the past forty years I’ve had this feeling that I’d forgotten something. Now I know what it was—I forgot to hang out the missus’ washing.

She lifts up a jowitch.

Well, if you start something you got to finish it. Even if it’s not important any more. Now where’s them dolly pegs?

She finds the peg bucket and hangs up the jowitch.

Poor missus. I used to think she was made out of wax. She had to keep out of the sun so she didn’t melt. The day before she arrived on the station, boss had everyone raking the yard, oiling the boards and scrubbing the verandah. He came down to the camp barking like a dog after a dingo.

BOSS: And if one dog ain’t tied up, I’ll shoot the bloody lot.

OLD MAY: Had me beating the rugs.

BOSS: Harder, Maymay! Harder! She’s got a dainty nose and I don’t want it red from sneezing.

OLD MAY: Hmmph! Love does funny things to a man. The next day we seen the mail truck kicking up the dust. Malvern was a proper bush blackfella and hadn’t seen many trucks before, so he grabbed a lasso in one hand, whip in the other, and hid behind the woodheap. The truck pulled up and there she sat. The little wax candle. No matter I whipped the rugs into butter, because all that sun and dust had made her nose as red as a beetroot. The missus weren’t made for this country. But love does funny things to a woman.

She goes to go back to the washtub.

The sound of a windmill and creaking tin as the breeze picks up.

The shadow of the windmill appears across the stage.

You hear that…? Listen. Wind picking up.

Who’s there?

That you, Wunman…? Ruby?

Come on now, no good sneakin’ up on an old woman.

Oh, it’s you.

I ain’t got time to talk now.

I got to finish the missus’ washing.

Take a long time to dry ’em, fold ’em and put ’em away.

Ay, what’s that?

No… I got no milk!

I’m an old woman now my gnangyas all dried up like figs.

No goat’s milk either.

She finished long time ago.

You’d better go now.

Gotta get done before sundown.

I know I promised.

We’ll have to cross it some other time.

Go on now.

You come back later.

Too much unfinished business around here.

The lights and the shadow and sound of the windmill fade.

A melon rolls onto the stage.

Ah! You checking up on me too, ay? One of Wunman’s melons!

She picks up the melon.

Wunman got his name because he was one of two twin brothers. He came out first but, poor fella, he had a crippled-up arm like this, and a crippled-up leg. His brother came out second and was perfect but he took too long and was finished. Perfect but finished. In the old days a crippled baby would be left to die. Or if a gudiya had been sleeping with a black woman, gudiya and blackfella might say, ‘Get rid of that baby!’

She holds the melon like a baby.

But his mummy held onto that little crippled-up Wunman and loved him like he was as perfect as Twoman. She didn’t see no crippled-up arm or crippled-up leg. She looked at him and said…

WUNMAN’S MUM: You come out first so your name is Wunman and your brother come out last so his name is Twoman.

She walks to the bed and puts the melon down.

OLD MAY: The old gudiya boss treated us good. He wasn’t worried about Wunman being a cripple, but the new boss had a cruel heart.

BOSS: I’ve got a station to run and I can’t afford to feed blacks who can’t earn their keep. Ship him out to the mission.

OLD MAY: Well, the new missus only ever talked in whispers but when she heard the boss talking bad way, that night she whispered at him awfully loud. The next morning he came shouting down the camp.

BOSS: Malvern! Malvern! Get out here!

OLD MAY: By jingos, Malvern thought he was gonna get a flogging so he grabbed a lasso i...