The Belburd

by Nardi Simpson

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

From the award-winning author of Song of the Crocodile comes a lyrical and masterfully woven novel about women, creation, belonging and the precious fragility of a life.

'Mothers are experts at overflow . . . You may forget the words or kisses or gifts they give but that doesn't mean they didn't happen . . . We don't need to remember all the love poured into us. We need to be thankful that it makes us. When it comes to love, it's all about being. Not remembering so much.'

Ginny Dilboong is a young poet, fierce and deadly. She's making sense of the world and her place in it, grappling with love, family and the spaces in which to create her art. Like powerful women before her, Ginny hugs the edges of waterways, and though she is a daughter of Country, the place that shapes her is not hers. Determined and brave, Ginny seeks to protect the truth of others while learning her own. The question is how?

And, all the while, others are watching. Some old, some new. They are the sound of the belburd as it echoes through the world; the sound of cars and trucks and trains. They are in trees and paper and the shape of ideas. They are the builder and the built. Everything, even Ginny, is because of them.

The Belburd is a powerful story that shows us we are all connected from before we began to long after we begin again.

'The most beautiful montage of life and death . . . The Belburd will leave you with a lasting appreciation of place, nature and life itself' BOOKS+PUBLISHING

'A lyrical and haunting exploration of the mystery of being' BRISBANE TIMES

'Poetic. Profound . . . An astonishing read' THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY

'A tremendous feat of imagination . . . Indelible' THE GUARDIAN

'With a lyrical mastery only further cultivated since her debut, Simpson finds the sublime in the quotidian, elevating experiences (as base as being born or dying, as complex as grief or motherhood) to an art form' READINGS

'Braids a contemporary setting with cultural storytelling in a lyrical and aesthetic journey. The Belburd skilfully draws readers into its creative banquet' WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

'Simpson is a lyrical, magical weaver of words' ARTSHUB

Praise for Nardi Simpson's Song of the Crocodile

'Exquisite . . . Simpson explores the enduring legacy of violence and racism in a narrative enriched by beautiful descriptions of the landscape' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

'Simpson's writing attains a rare quality of grace, the prose lyrical and grounded at the same time . . . skilfully weaving the profound into the everyday' SATURDAY PAPER

'Lyrical and evocative' SUNDAY AGE

'A captivating saga from an astonishing Australian writer' WHO WEEKLY

'Drips with evocative descriptions of the land' THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY

'A lightning debut' KILL YOUR DARLINGS

'A moving, wise and deeply rewarding novel from an astonishing writer' EMILY MAGUIRE

Release date: September 25, 2024

Publisher: Hachette Australia

Print pages: 416

Sample

Ginny wanted to get there as early as she could. Not too early to risk looking like a tragic, but early enough to scope out the place, see how the open mic worked. She parked in the alley. The spot was a no-standing zone. She didn’t care. She grabbed her bag, locked the car, and began walking through the pungent, bin-clogged backstreet that led to the university campus. Cutting through would shave a few minutes off the walk and help her avoid the greasy side streets that slid into creepiness as soon as the sun began to fall. Then it would be a scurry through an art spattered tunnellish laneway to the park, across which the uni’s bookshop-come-bar-come-cafe venue stood.

Ginny, expert at shortcuts, quickly made it to the poster-lathered underpass. The soles of her scruffy white Cons squeaked against the concrete, the echo shooting down the tunnel walls. These were lathered in years of glue and spray-painted slogans. It was so uni. Just like all the student types she watched scurry around. Seemingly chaotically carefree but actually cultivated and self-aware. She read what she could of the posters as she passed. Marches and gigs and calls to action. Strikes and shows and revues and recitals. Pink and silver and fluoro yellow streaks popped from the shadowy, lettery word soup.

A moment before the tunnel ended, a bleached patch of white caught her eye. It was only a scrap of paper, a twinkle in the smudge-stained streak. But its clarity found its way to her from beneath the faded tags and congealed paste.

Ginny stopped in front of the paper. Contribute work to Smart Cookie Press, an independent, student-run printing and publishing collective.

In the sea of expansive, printed bill posters, the modest A4 beamed at her. Stories, prose, music and poetry all accepted. A naive, hand-drawn illustration, obviously Smart Cookie’s logo, portrayed a squat, sprawling tree with purple leaves. Ginny knew the very one. It was in the Main Quad, hemmed by sandstone walkways and squares of manicured grass. She looked at the flickers of paper that hung from the bottom of the page. Strips of Smart Cookie Press with a mobile number curled like fake eyelashes. She stared. Then blinked. The fluoro light bounced off the numbers. She leaned closer and raised her hand, running her fingertips over the paper’s curl. A wash of voices filled the tunnel. Ginny retreated then continued through the tunnel and across the park.

At the shop’s entrance she was surprised to hear the tinkle of coffee cups. A small grouping of tables seated long-haired girls chatting and sipping. Chai, most probably, this time of evening. She never understood the drink herself. But over a billion Indians couldn’t all be wrong. And she figured it would probably come into its own around about now, in these parts, at this kind of do. Chicks round here were definitely the types who had rules about caffeine intake and bloating and rest and hydration, blah, blah, blah. Sidling past the clinking, she made her way to a covered courtyard. Ginny paused in the doorway, taking it in. She could see a brick wall running the yard’s entire length. A stage was squashed, haphazard, into its middle. Set on its tiny platform was a rounded table with a stack of colour-coded books. A salvaged school chair nestled near the table. This dressing almost took up the entirety of the stage. A microphone and stand teetered at the rise’s edge. Ginny noticed most of the tables and chairs that would presumably hold an audience were oriented to face the opposite direction of the stage. She followed their alignment to the far end of the courtyard and an already humming bar. Fairy lights draped from wooden beams and plastic corrugated roofing. Blended families of ferns clustered in corners. The entire space was filled with the orange and cinnamon scent of warming mulled wine.

‘Excuse me,’ said a slender man inching past.

Ginny shuffled against the wall, her heart pounding a bit. Sensing she might pike she blurted, ‘Do you know where I put my name down?’

As he moved closer to her, he stepped on the absolute end of her first two toes.

‘Sorry.’ He winced. ‘For … ?’ he continued, his eyebrows arching as he shot a look up then down her frame.

Ginny straightened, raising her chest to the challenge. ‘The open mic. I’m not just a pretty face.’

‘The what?’ he bent towards her, cocking an incredibly long lobe.

‘The poetry reading,’ she answered, her voice cresting over the waves of raucous conversation. He was so close, Ginny observed the transition of ear hair into sideburn. She shuffled backwards.

‘Oh, that’s right, it’s poetry night,’ the man replied, straightening. ‘Ah …’ He scanned the heads of the growing crowd. ‘That guy,’ he said, gesturing with his glass. ‘In the Himalayan yak vest.’ His wine glass full of red liquid and ice cubes tinkled towards the bar.

The guy in question was in the middle of a puddle of people. He lounged against the bar, his shoulder-length hair glinting in the fairy lights as he spoke.

Ginny clocked the vest and pressed her lips together, holding tight to the chuckle trying hard to escape. The fluffy fabric’s lavender, indigo and blush patches accentuated his bare, tanned arms. High-waisted jeans with short hems framed sockless, dress-shoed feet. All eyes were on him. And Ginny could see, from the pulled-back shoulders and promoted jawline, that he knew it.

‘Thanks,’ she said, sucking in a deep breath and snaking through the mismatched tables and bench chairs towards him.

The group, mostly women, made a tight circle around the guy, so she loitered for a bit.

‘And Fabs, will you read tonight?’ a woman said, draping herself on his forearm.

‘Ooh yes, Fabs, you must.’

‘I wasn’t intending to,’ he replied, shaking a coil of mousy-blond strands from his cheek, ‘although I do have the germ of an idea that’s really been gnawing …’

‘You have to do it!’

‘Yes, Fabian, it will be wonderful. But you already know that!’

He bowed his head then and sipped, ceremoniously, at his drink.

Ginny pushed into the circle. ‘Hi!’ she announced. ‘Is this where I put my name down?’

The group turned. She felt them scan her. She didn’t care, she’d already done it to them. Sussed every one of them. And they were all a version of the same theme. Privileged playing at boho. Definitely students, arts faculty most likely. Cotton skirts and flowing rayon shuffled, giving her space. Tree of Life mannequins come to life, she thought. Ginny laugh-snorted, the waft of sandalwood rising from the circle, enhancing the joke.

Fabs stepped forward, eyes brightening as he took her in. ‘Enchanté,’ he said, taking Ginny’s hand and bringing it to his lips. They were yucko warm.

Ginny tugged her hand free and wiped it on the back of her jeans. A handful of women peeled away from the group and moved further down the bar.

‘Reading for the first time?’ Fabs continued, sweeping over Ginny’s collarbones and neck before staring directly into her eyes.

Ginny nodded. She held his gaze.

‘I see you’ve come by yourself. Creative. Brave.’ He nodded. ‘You are most definitely in the right place.’

‘So, how’s it work?’

Fabs reached round to the bar and produced a clipboard. Stuck to it was a blank sheet of white paper. ‘Write down your name and the title of your work, and I’ll call you up at some stage to perform. Or read. We don’t expect all our first timers to have memorised their work. Our audience is very supportive of all our virgins.’ He laughed.

Ginny stared. Creep, she thought.

Fabs smiled, vacant and oblivious, then fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out a biro. He thrust both it and the clipboard into Ginny’s hand.

She took them, scrunching her nose at the transferred warmth lingering on the pen.

‘I like to do a few pieces to start with. To warm up the crowd. Get them ready to … engage.’ His smile spread too wide – it was fake as. ‘Then, if there are any experienced poets, I usually call on them. Most times I have friends keen to read or try out ideas. We’re a close-knit group, us poets. Maybe you could join our writing group,’ he said. Before she could reply, he continued, ‘Anyway, then I’ll curate a flow with the names I have. I position new poets between artists whose work I know. That way it doesn’t feel like a competition.’ He stopped. ‘How’s that sound, Miss …’

Ginny shuffled and looked down at the board. Too late to back out now. ‘Dilboong.’

‘Dil-bung,’ he copied, incorrectly. ‘Dil-bung,’ he repeated. ‘Are you … a sista by any chance?’

‘You mean Indigenous?’ she said, cautiously.

‘Yes, forgive me if I’m using incorrect terminology. Are you Indigenous?’

‘Yes.’

Fab’s body straightened. His face lit up.

‘Miss Dil-bung. Would you do us the honour of welcoming us to country tonight? It would be deadly if we could ground the night in deep respect.’

‘I don’t—’

‘It would be such a magnificent way to start the evening! And might even help shift some of the early nerves.’ He shrugged, moving close to her. ‘We’ve all been to events where the welcome is mere formality. Boring. Gammon,’ he added with a laugh. ‘Miss Dil-bung, a welcome by you would infuse the night with poetic propriety.’ He paused, filling his chest with air, fingertips spread upon his expanded, faux-Tibetan chest.

‘Poetic propriety?’

‘Yes, it will make everything sing.’

Ginny laughed hard. She felt the belly above her jeans wobble. When she looked back at Fabs she realised he was serious.

‘I’m … not—’

‘Not … ?’ He pouted, shaking his lips towards the unfinished sentence.

‘I’m …’ She flung her arm and wrist out in a flick she hoped would finish the sentence on her behalf.

‘But you are Indigenous?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, the word bouncing in refrain.

‘Indigenous to Australia?’ he questioned, leaning on the end of the sentence.

‘So called,’ she replied.

‘Hang on,’ he said, tugging at the bottom of his vest. ‘You are Aboriginal, correct?’

‘Yeah, I’m Blak,’ Ginny declared.

‘I’m sorry,’ Fabs said, bending towards her as he waved to a group sauntering past, ‘I’m not quite catching your drift then.’

‘I won’t welcome anyone.’

Fabs frowned.

‘Maybe you’re not welcome—’

‘Ohh,’ Fabs exclaimed. ‘I am so incredibly sorry, Miss Dilboone,’ he mangled. Ginny sighed. ‘I should know better. I beg your pardon. Acknowledgement. I mean to ask for the blessing of an acknowledgement.’

Ginny stood. Silent and still.

‘Would you perform an acknowledgement for us tonight? Before we begin?’ he added quickly. ‘We would be so honoured,’ he said, stooping into a slight bow while motioning to the bartender for a refill.

Ginny chose her words carefully. ‘It’s not – appropriate,’ she said. Fabs’ pretend listening, fake-smile-smirk-bow made her add, ‘when there’s so much grog around.’

‘Oh.’ He smarted, accepting his fresh tumbler of mulled wine. ‘Of course.’ He took a sip. ‘In that case, you better register.’

‘You mean this?’ Ginny raised the clipboard, its bleached, blank page reflecting warm yellow light.

‘New readers have to register if they want to be considered for a spot on the night. Of course, experienced, regular artists, don’t need to. The quality of their work is known.’

He sniffed as she wrote her name on the page. When she was done Fabs slid both the clipboard and pen from Ginny’s grasp. He tossed them onto the bar. The biro whirred in a circle a few times then fell onto the floor. ‘Hopefully we’ll have time to hear your work, Jenny.’ Fabs then turned from her and dissolved into a group bulging at the bar.

By the time Fabs finally called her name, most of the crowd were sloshed. They huddled in small groups, chatting or scrolling or typing into their phones. She stepped onto the stage and placed her lips near the microphone. She breathed, deep and long. A warmth came into her centre. It reminded her that all this had already happened. She had already read it and left and had lived her life. She had also never met Nathan yet. Was minding her own business and snuggling up to her body pillow every night. Holding her notebook but closing her eyes, she drenched herself in Dreaming, and began.

Blak Love

Our particular form of Blak love

Began on DM. Pictorial mostly.

Fruits, flames, pounding hearts

Bitten lip emojis

Had me hungry

Blak-love-laced cupcakes

Crusts dark, middles creaming

Nibbled and oozing

Our particular version of Blak love

Was strewn across corners of

Sterile hotel rooms

Until the island where

Rising mountain and swelling river

Made children of us

Your toes wriggled in freshly washed socks

My head cradled in your lap, dream-wishing

Our specific way of Blak lovin

Was served on platters of salt-sweetness

Olive and oyster

Freshly caught prawns

Breakfast, juice, beer

Lust garnished entrees

of mis-served attention

Gorging ourselves on opportunist greed

Our particular form of Blak love

Probably wasn’t love at all

It was short, like me.

And sweet, like you.

Your flavour lingers

Today we are Blak

And strangers.

Opening her eyes, she added in a quiet but certain voice, ‘Ginny Dilboong’.

It was Eel Mother who told me I began as a bubble from a whale. ‘Great Whale himself,’ she said, ‘sent you to me. And you have been the greatest gift I think I’ve ever received.’

Farts are funny, so I laughed. My bubble wobble-jiggled picturing Great Whale’s fart.

She saw my chuckle in the ripples that pushed from my sac. An irritated flash shot up her floppy sides. The colour glinted into her eyes. She took a swipe at me with her tail.

‘Not that end,’ she said. ‘Great Whale doesn’t pop off like everyone else.’

‘I was a burp?’ I blurted. ‘Gross.’

There was a rumbling near where my gut button and bum cheeks might grow. It could have been another laugh. I held on to this one though, sucking all my squish innards as tight as I could. The effort made me feel wonky. I started seeing things.

Somewhere around where my eyes were going to form, my idea space or head spirit or something, a whale swam into view. Singing and swishing, a line of burps rose from the whale’s spout. Kind of like drool. But the wrong way up. Imaginary Great Whale winked his beady eye then squeezed a tiny toot out from under his meaty tail.

I wobble-roared. That laugh had a lot of power in it. I guess most inside things do. Eel Mother watched my cackle twist itself into a rising whirlpool. It fizzed all the way up to the surface, into the above.

She swiped at me again. This time I went somersaulting into the current that crouched at the edge of her lair. It pulled me towards the sea floor. I watched flashes of apricot and green run up and down Eel Mother’s saggy sides. She sure was floppy. And colourful. I loved her a lot.

‘Not so clever now, are you, little Sprite?’ she said. ‘It’s pretty dark down there,’ she went on, teasing. ‘Who knows what terrible kinds of crawly things live on the sea floor? I’d watch out if I were you.’

I wasn’t frightened, twisting and falling into the depths. I was safe inside my sac. Plus, I could still see Eel Mother, her head bobbling over the sandstone overhang. All teeth and flashes of coloured body light. It was fun spinning and churning and wobbling in the warm, salt flow. If they had existed, I would have chucked out my arms. I loved the water. But I also wanted to fly.

She left me to bobble on the bottom for a while. I wanted to wave at a silly looking prawn, cause I thought he waved first, but it turned out he just had a billion arms that moved all the time.

From the bottom of the harbour I watched Eel Mother’s body deflate before expanding and getting full again. She sucked me back with a huge inhale – drawing me back in a rip, directly towards her jaggedy teeth. Rocketing upwards, I watched her crank open her jaws. After I gushed in, she shut down tight, trapping me inside. The force of the slipstream whacked me into the roof of her mouth.

‘Geeze,’ I said. ‘Not so hard!’ I told her. ‘You’re not half as floppy on the inside, you know.’

She clicked me around. I bounced off her tongue a few times. When I stopped spinning, she spat me out on the ledge right under her cheek crevice. Amber pooled in its sag. The colour seeped into her neck lines, highlighting the wrinkles that dragged her bulk onto the cave floor.

Eel Mother peered down at me. She was trying to look serious. Her happyish colours didn’t help. Also, a sea louse squirmed from a roll of fat beneath her chin.

I shifted, hoping not to laugh and make another spiralling mirth spout again.

Her eyes widened. She leered harder.

I butted in, mostly to stop myself from laughing again. ‘Sorry, Eel Mother,’ I san. . .