Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea (8 page)

Until I was about eight or nine a regular holiday place was Normanville, a small coastal town east of Adelaide. We would spend our summer holidays there and sometimes a cold, wet and wintry weekend as well. Our parents must have thought it was safe for kids because Julie and I were allowed to wander down to play on the beach without supervision, the only stipulations being that we weren't allowed to get our feet wet. That didn't bother me because I loved to walk along the sand and in the dunes looking for driftwood and shells and feathers. Sometimes the beach would throw up rare surprises like starfish or beautiful creamy cone-shaped shells that were so highly polished they felt like glass when I rubbed my fingers over them or licked them to taste the salt. If I found two I would lie down on the sand and put one to each ear and listen to
the swirling wind. I carried my treasures in a small blue beach bag I'd found, and examined them over again and again. At home they lived in a cardboard box underneath my bed.

Our summers at Normanville were balmy and free and every day gave us intense blue oceans and skies. The beautiful weather meant we had to share the beach with other people so Julie and I had to go a lot further down to have a piece of it to ourselves. Our parents sometimes came but a lot of the time we were there with only each other for company. Even on the hottest days the rule about not getting wet feet still applied but that didn't stop us paddling in the shallows. I loved disobeying them.

But it was the winters at Normanville that I loved the most, with their wild winds and pounding seas. I had a more vigorous constitution than Julie so was allowed out into the intemperate weather rugged up against the elements to walk on the beach or sit on the dunes watching the changing sky and the ocean rolling in. Each wave was different from the one before and the one that came after. The angle, the curl, the spray, the foam that spread across the sand, they were all unique. Seagulls would swoop and soar in the stormy skies, their voices magnified and carried along with the howling winds and the crashing waves like a fugue. Once cradled in the curve of an enormous wave I saw a manta ray and, expecting to see it dashed onto the beach, I watched with heart in my throat, but it was gone
as miraculously as it had appeared. After the big storms thick rows of seaweed would be washed up on the shore, and hidden in and under the folds would be all sorts of treasures. Exotic-looking crabs, a delicate orange-coloured seahorse, a glass fishing-net float. There is something magical about being alone and experiencing beauty like this without another single soul to witness it.

School had always been an escape for me from the ‘rigours' of home and I viewed my final year with anticipation. Not because of exams but because I had been planning for some time that as soon as school was finished I would leave home. Although I'd have liked to have gone well before that I knew I had to stick it out, as an education was vital to my future and it would serve no purpose to end up without the means to either go on to university or get a decent job.

But if you trust in the universe things will always work out, just as they did for me. Julie had a friend called Mark who had a friend called Wayne, and as luck would have it Wayne moved out of his parents' place and got a flat just around the time of my final exams. The day I did my last exam I went home, packed my belongings and took
a taxi to Wayne's flat. Wayne later became my husband, but I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't been desperate to escape and had been free to take another path. Did I marry Wayne out of gratitude or because I needed a safe person to be around? Whatever the reason, I will be indebted to him for the rest of my life for giving me a safe place to live.

Moving out of home caused me no end of harassment from my parents who, when they discovered from Wayne's parents where I was, constantly came around to the flat demanding I go back home and berating me for not going to mass on Sundays. Why they wanted me back was a great mystery to me. Maybe they felt empty without someone to harass, maybe I was a distraction from their own sad lives. Whatever the reason, I ignored their frenzied knocking and teary bleating at the front door and went about enjoying my newfound freedom with great enthusiasm. And I never set foot in a church again.

But it's funny that how, no matter how much fun you're having, old ways die hard, and after a few months I sometimes found myself missing our mother's nagging so badly that I'd ring her up or go visit to get a dose of it. It was terrible. It was like battered wife's syndrome, and no matter that the abuse had been so bad I just couldn't drag myself away from it. I really despised that weakness in myself and struggled endlessly with it, but thankfully I took control a few years later and cut them off completely.

I know they had been through some harrowing times themselves such as making it through World War II and leaving everything they knew to live on the other side of the world, but there must have been some other really ugly stuff that had happened in their lives for them to turn out the way they did.

Anyway, despite growing up with such people and thinking that everything was going to be fine when I left home and made my way out into the big world, nothing could have prepared me for what I was to encounter when I went to live with my biological family. They were as different from my foster family as you could possibly get. They were an entirely new kettle of fish.

My family don't even bat an eyelid when I arrive back on Bathurst Island and on their doorstep with my belongings, it's like I hadn't even left the place. But I can handle that because there are no routines here, people eat when they're hungry and go to sleep when they're tired, and after a lifetime of rules and being told what to do I know I am going to love the freedom.

Within minutes of my arrival Aunty Marie Evelyn turns up. She is a shameless gossip and is obviously here for some juicy information to pass on to other waiting ears and not because she has missed me. She immediately starts throwing out little hints about what I've brought in all the boxes and suitcases and how much money I've got, so to distract her I ask her how come I have to call her aunty if she isn't my mother's or father's sister. Now aunty loves
talking just as much as gossiping so she fidgets around a bit to get her ample arse into a more comfortable position and takes a big sip of tea to lubricate her throat and off she goes. She tells me that because of the strict marriage structure, everyone here is related to each other, so when I was born I was automatically a daughter, mother, aunty or grandmother to every Tiwi person. And although mummy and I were both born in Arnhem Land we are still considered Tiwi because marriage ties are as strong as blood ties. So being related to everyone ensures that we are obligated to them in different ways so there is always someone to look after you, young or old. And if a woman has sisters then all her sisters' kids call her their mother as well, and the same with blokes and their brothers. That way there are plenty of parents to look after the kids if someone dies, or if you are a widow there will always be sons and daughters to care for you, both biological and kinship. This is a bit daunting, I am only beginning to get used to my biological family and now I have two and a half thousand kinship family to contend with as well. As aunty swallows the last of her tea and gets up to leave after extracting twenty dollars from me, I find myself wishing I hadn't asked.

This time mummy gives me the right-hand front room to live in. I like how she doesn't ask a million questions about what my intentions are and how long I'm going to stay and all that crap like the old bat would have done,
because I don't even know myself. In mummy's house Louis and Gemma have the left front bedroom, Mario, Theresa Anne and baby Casmira have the back bedroom and my mum is still on the lounge-room floor with Lorraine and JJ where I was sleeping a few months ago. It's great having a room for myself because I won't have to fret so much about getting nits and listening to mummy grind her teeth in her sleep and everyone snoring.

Lorraine who is fourteen comes from Belyuen and JJ who is ten comes from Wadeye. They were both abandoned at Darwin Hospital at birth so my mum took them home after she'd been there visiting family. Despite attending Monivae College in Hamilton, Victoria because the mission must have thought he had ‘promise', my brother Louis works at the garage as a mechanic. This is really handy – when I complained about not having a mirror he brought me home a mirror off a truck. He was once spotted by an Essendon football talent scout because he could kick a ball down the footy field further than this bloke had ever seen it done before. But Louis didn't want the bright lights of the AFL world because he couldn't bear to leave our mum. His wife Gemma is a senior health worker who studied nursing but has always considered herself a health worker. Health workers are locals from the community who have some medical training but, despite their expertise and intimate knowledge of the community and the people and their lives, are paid a pittance for what they do. My other
brother, Mario, works at the school printing books in the Tiwi language for the kids to read, and he sells dope. He makes more money selling dope than he does working and is considering giving up work. He is a beautiful artist with a cheeky sense of humour and his wife Theresa Anne stays at home looking after baby Casmira. Mummy is a weaver of exceptional talent and she sometimes paints as well and makes things like
tunga
which are waterproof bark baskets, and
tutinni
which are ceremonial headdresses and armbands.

Lorraine and JJ head off to school every day but rarely make it and go off to their mates' places instead like most of the kids do. Despite my nagging they see no point in going to school because all the good jobs on the Tiwi Islands are filled by white people. I tell them, ‘Look at me, I've gone through school!' but they stare at me askance like I'm confirming their reasons not to go. And they might have a point there, school obviously did nothing for me if I am living like a blackfella in an overcrowded house at a mission in the middle of nowhere.

Panacua's name has something to do with Tangiyaw, our place on the south-western side of Bathurst Island that was named Cape Fourcroy by some French explorer by the name of Nicholas Baudin. Mummy tells me that I am to refer to Panacua as my brother. Brother? Although I've seen childless people treating their dogs like babies, this is the
first I've heard of people referring to dogs as real members of the family. In addition to that I call Aunty Ursula's three dogs my son, my son-in-law and my daughter and Aunty Beatrice's two dogs my uncle and nephew. Each dog in our extended family is explained to me in kinship terms and the term of acknowledgement I must use for them, but there is still the thought in the back of my head that they're having me on. I ask what happens if different family members get puppies from the same litter. What happens then? But, they explain patiently, if the litter of puppies belongs to my aminay, for instance, I will always call the puppy uncle or aunty, no matter who they are living with. I realise after much discussion that they are deadly serious about the dogs belonging to our family structure and no one is pulling my leg.

Before I start learning anything more I sweep and mop the floor and scrub the years of ingrained dirt off my bedroom walls. Smack-bang in the middle of the wall is a foot-sized hole between my bedroom and Mario's so I get out the scissors and cut the side off a cardboard box to cover the hole up and then I cut out pictures from the
Women's Weekly
magazine and glue them on so it looks like a nice collage instead of boring cardboard. I leave the old shirt that is already stuffed in the hole for extra sound-proofing and stick my masterpiece over the hole with sticky tape. I sew up the broken flyscreens and put up curtains for privacy. No one seems to give
a stuff about privacy or personal possessions around this place and having grown up with locks on doors I am a bit uncomfortable as my door has a hole where the door knob was once and a T-shirt has been tied through the hole so the door stays shut when you close it. I have taped another piece of cardboard across the door-knob hole so no one can peek in but I don't like the fact that anyone could barge in at any time or go poking through my stuff when I'm not there. My bed is a blow-up camping mattress which will be a lot more comfortable than sleeping on a blanket on the floor like before. The bruises on my hip bones, my arse and any other bone that had contact with that floor have faded now and with a fold-up camping chair to sit on, my future looks a whole lot less painful.

I've brought my own kitchen utensils, plates, cutlery etc. because there aren't any here, as well as some nice tablecloths so I'm not eating directly off the floor. My pride and joy is an electric frying pan. I've never used one of these before and I peruse my new cookbooks in search of recipes that can be adapted to this culinary marvel. I didn't know how to cook before, I just bought food that didn't need extravagant preparation, or ate out, so there is a certain amount of fear and excitement about having to fend for myself. So far I've worked out that I can toast sandwiches in the frying pan, heat up baked beans and cook eggs. I won't starve.

I spend the day scrubbing the kitchen and neatly place all my things by themselves on a shelf so everyone can see they belong to me, and then I have a well-earnt nap. I sleep soundly and wake up to the smells of cooking. Stretching and yawning I make my way to the kitchen to put on the billy for tea only to stop at the doorway in horror, my mouth still open from the yawn. The room in an absolute shithole of a mess. My stuff is strewn everywhere, the frying pan has the remains of something burnt, brown and unrecognisable stuck to it and my Wiltshire all-purpose kitchen knife has the tip broken off it. My billy with the spout has disappeared completely along with all my cups, wooden spoons and some of the cutlery and plates. The spatula is poking out of a hole in the flyscreen and the lid is missing from my teapot which is lying on the floor. My box of food has been decimated. Herbal teas have been trodden into the floor, tinned staples of baked beans, spaghetti and ham that I gave mummy money to buy from the store when they went over earlier in the day have been eaten and the empty cans discarded. The loaf of bread has had two big mouthfuls bitten out of it and been dumped straight onto the benchtop without going back into its wrapper. There is a large cockroach sitting smugly on the corner of it washing its antennae while a trail of ants march over it on their way from a bag of sugar to their nest.

My bloodcurdling screams bring everyone running and they crowd through the kitchen doorway, their faces
registering alarm as they look around to see the source of my horror.

‘
Kamini
,' says mummy, her eyes darting wildly around the kitchen. ‘
Kamini mwaringa
?' (‘What, daughter?')

‘
Kamini
?' I screech as all eyes immediately stop looking around and focus on me. ‘This is fucking
kamini
!' I yell as I point to the carnage. ‘Where are my fucking cups? Who dumped my fucking teabags on the floor?'

I am shaking with rage. ‘And who did this?' I grab my broken knife and wave it in the air for all to see while they take a step backwards, their eyes focused on the knife. At that moment I hear JJ's voice outside. I look out the window. He is playing in the sand under the tree and is using my frying-pan lid as a shovel. One of my tablecloths is tied around his skinny little black shoulders as a cape while Panacua the king of the camp dogs lies in peaceful repose on another. JJ is busily shovelling the sand into mounds, the very same sand that the germ-ridden hairless dogs roll in to scratch their itchy skin and the local cats use as a toilet. I go back to my room and cry.

A bit later on when I venture into the kitchen I notice two of the cups have been returned, but everything else is still missing. So I take a deep breath and clean up again and take the remnants of my kitchen paraphernalia back to my room. My big bowl that I brought along to wash my feet in before I go to bed will now double up as my washing-up sink as well. The tablecloth that Panacua slept on has been
left for him while the one that JJ appropriated along with the frying-pan lid has been boiled and thoroughly scrubbed and made ready for my use. If I were back home down south I would have thrown everything away and started again but necessity has forced me to be thriftier and more careful in my ways. Everyone tiptoes around me now they know I'm in a bad mood and I'm fine with that, maybe they'll learn not to touch things that they shouldn't.

The first night cooking in my room works well and I make myself some baked beans on toast. With no fridge to keep things cold the butter is liquid but I pour it over my toast and eat my meal with great relish. But when I go to the kitchen sink to fill my bowl for washing up there is what looks like a haunch of beef laid across the sink and the bit where the dishes drain. I had nothing to do with the kitchen when I was growing up and have never touched a piece of raw meat in my life so I find the sight of it confronting, but I know I have to get used to it here because meat and fish is mostly what people eat. They don't bother with vegetables and gravy and stuff like that, just bread and meat. The raw meat smell makes me gag and I head for the laundry sink to get my water instead. But the laundry sink is full of Gemma and Louis' clothes that smell like they have been sitting there for the past week. There is a scum on the surface of the water and a few dead insects floating in it as well. I head for the tap outside and see JJ standing nearby.

‘
Taringa
there,' he says pointing to the grass near the tap. But I am in no mood for jokes and march up to the tap and fill my bowl with water. Bowl filled I turn to go back inside when I see movement in the grass. JJ was right, it's a fucking snake. I nearly drop my bowl but I am determined to get this washing-up done so I cling onto it and slowly back away from the tap. Suddenly I feel something against my leg. I immediately drop the bowl and spin around only to see JJ running off laughing and waving a piece of grass at me. The little shit. The snake is still there so I grab my now empty bowl and march over the road to Aunty Marie Evelyn's place. I march into her kitchen, fill my bowl and then march out again past where she is sitting with Uncle Stanley Bushman having some tea. They look at me in surprise. I give them a nod and head back home to do my washing-up. The clean plate and knife and fork and frying pan are dried up straight away and placed on the shelf in the corner where they sit with other useful things like a digital clock, some books, insect repellent, a compass, a torch and a pair of scissors. My clothes are neatly stashed away in my suitcase so I can close the zips and be assured there are no unwanted spiders or other insects lying in wait inside them to scare the crap out of me when I put them on.

Glad that the day is over I lie on my blow-up camping mattress in my underwear and listen to the drunks fighting a few doors down. There is a dogfight out the
back, probably instigated by Panacua who seems to like fighting more than he likes chasing the girl dogs, and some god-awful country and western music bleating over the road. But I'm determined to be positive and I tell myself it's my first day back, I'll get used to it and besides it could be worse. I could live in a country where bullets whistle overhead while you walk to school, I could live in a country where women are treated like slaves, I could have been born a bloke, and a white one as well – nothing could be worse than that. I have everything I need here, my family around me, food to eat, water to drink and a nice bed to sleep in with purple sheets and pillowcases and colour-coordinated curtains and towels.