HELD UP TO THE MOON by RUBY CARTER. Story by Bruce Pascoe.

 

This story is from Rivers Flow. Reflections on the songs of Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter (Fremantle Press, November 2025).
 

High as a kite. Drugs.

She’d warned me she was going to ring because I couldn’t get down to see her.

‘Remember all that grass you got me?’

Of course I remembered.

‘Those days at Fram, eh.’

Unforgettable.

‘All that work, eh.’

‘Yes, you were incredible.’

‘Glad you remember.’

‘Can’t forget.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘In the car.’

‘Coming to see me?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll be too late. They reckon I’m on the way out … it’s the end.’

She was right. They were right.

All that time together, travelling around the Western District collecting basket grass, remembering language, terrorising museum staff. She was a wonder.

I was green as grass. She’d purse her lips at times, but she knew I wanted to learn – that I could make a cup of tea and had a car. Irresistible to any teacher, apparently.

She and her brother taught me Australian history. Slowly, because the learning curve was so steep. Patience and humour, razor-sharp ironic humour. And cheeky. I had to be quick on my feet to avoid her grenades.

Even in her own house she made me brew the tea. She delayed her approval of the result until I was sweating. She enjoyed the power.

Her house was full of her baskets and fish traps, her son’s emu eggs and paintings her family had made for her.

Over the years I learned to appreciate her style. At first it looked like clutter – caravan chic – but gradually I realised it was all about fabrics and textures, like living in a grass tussock. Just the way she liked it.

And always Archie and Ruby on her cranky little cassette player. When Ruby hit her bass vibrato, glasses and cups rumbled on the shelf.

She always brought a tape when we travelled in the car. Often to Framlingham.

‘Archie came from here, you know,’ she said, the first time we gathered lomandra grass in the forest.

‘I know Aunt. You told me.’

‘They came in a car and just grabbed him. Took him away.’

‘Yes.’

‘This is my grandfather’s land too.’

‘Yes.’

‘Like Ruby said.’

She died within an hour of that last call and I didn’t get to see her.

So when I hear Archie and Ruby I think of her. I hear cups rattling on a shelf and I think of her.

When someone helps you, teaches you about who you are, you don’t forget it.

Now I know I was held up to the moon and asked to think.

 
Stereo Story 865
 

Bruce Pascoe is a Yuin, Bunurong and Tasmanian man born in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. He’s the author of the best-selling Dark Emu, Young Dark Emu: A Truer History, Loving Country: A Guide to Sacred Australia and over thirty other books.

 

Rivers Flow is the fourth in the Fremantle Press series of Australian authors riffing on songs by Australian musicians. This Friday afternoon, 7 November, our Stereo Stories colleagues Angela Savage and Jock Serong will join Kirsten Krauth and Claire G Coleman in a discussion of all four books. Frankston Library, Victoria. 2pm to 3pm. More details.