Mothers and Daughters (13 page)

‘They taught us about that in year seven,’ Tess said. ‘Back in Melbourne. Australian studies. Do you remember, Janey?’ She went on without waiting for an answer. ‘We had a test on it, like all the other topics—gold or the explorers or whatever. And then I got up here, and I met Tia, and one day she told me about her grandma, and it made me feel weird. Suddenly it wasn’t just history anymore, like Burke and Wills. It was real, you know?’

Amira nodded, and so did Caro.

‘I know about that,’ said Morag. ‘Sorry Day. We watched it on TV, with the boys, after Rudd got in. But didn’t it all happen ages ago?’

Mason shook his head. ‘Went on up to the sixties. Sal was taken in 1957 or ’58, as far as Aki can tell. She tried to look into it but didn’t find much. The records weren’t good. Lots of kids were sent to Beagle Bay mission, like Sal was, just down the coast. They didn’t bother with their names. Just wrote: “Girl, aged five”.’

Bronte felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘That’s horrible!’ she said. ‘They just took her? Marched into her home and hauled her off?’

‘Sal says she was out in the bush. Playin’, lookin’ for possums, and there were two white men who told her to come and get in their car. She’d never been in a car, so she did.’ Mason shrugged. ‘That was all she ever said about it—and that she missed her mother. We don’t think she ever saw her again.’

‘Never?’ asked Morag. ‘Did she try?’

Mason laughed, slapping one hand down on his blue jeans and raising a small puff of dust.

‘Oh, I’ve got no doubt she tried. Tried to escape, and was probably beaten for her trouble. The officials and the nuns thought they were savin’ them, you know. Uncivilised darkies, runnin’ round naked . . . savin’ them from the bush and themselves by takin’ them away from their families and bringin’ them up white.’

Bronte couldn’t help herself. The sobs crowded in her throat, pushed out of her mouth like vomit. Without thinking about what she was doing, she sprang up and grabbed the baby, who had crawled over to Fiona’s sandals and was sucking on a buckle, then sat back down with the startled child held tightly against her shoulder.

Fiona sighed. God, Bronte could be so embarrassing. First the earnest questions about the artwork, as if she hadn’t asked enough in the gallery, then this—seizing that boy as if at any moment men in suits carrying clipboards were going to leap out of the bushes and snatch him away. Caro had half-risen to her feet as if to go to her, but Fiona shook her head. No
one needed to make a fuss. It was just Bronte, overreacting as she always did—if Dom teased her at dinner, or someone made any sort of comment about her appearance. She was so bloody sensitive. Fiona exhaled through her teeth, cringing internally as she watched Bronte croon to the baby, who simply looked confused. How the hell had she, Fiona, raised such a thin-skinned child?

‘It is sad, isn’t it?’ Mason said. Oh God, he was going to humour her.

Fiona shifted slightly and felt something seep between her legs. Her fucking period, which had started that morning. She needed to change her tampon, but she could hardly stand up now, with Mason giving them the whole
Roots
treatment, and just walk off. Amira would think she was rude, and besides, she didn’t want them all watching her as she went. For almost a year now her periods had been getting heavier, thick and clotted, and it would be just her luck if she’d bled onto her pants. Caro would have heart failure. The thought made her smile. It would almost be worth such an undignified exit to see the look on Caro’s face.

‘But Sal—Yara—had her own children, at least I presume?’ said Morag. ‘She made a new family.’

‘She had Aki when she was sixteen,’ said Mason. ‘Got pregnant to a cook at the mission. She was still goin’ to school, but the nuns gave them all chores, and Sal’s was to help in the kitchen.’ He shrugged. ‘The fella denied it was his, but it was pretty plain when Aki was born.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Morag.

‘He was Japanese,’ said Amira, glancing over to see if Mason minded her taking up the story. He waved her on. ‘The only one on the mission, descended from a family of pearl divers. And, well, Aki had his eyes.’

‘Did he have to marry her?’ Caro asked.

‘I don’t think they ever spoke again,’ Mason said. Beagle Bay couldn’t afford to fire their cook, so Sal was shipped down to the St John mission in Broome to have the baby. Then that closed, so they were moved to La Grange . . . and then Sal turned eighteen, so she left.’

‘Left?’ sniffed Bronte. ‘But with Aki?’ The child on her lap wriggled away.

Amira shook her head. ‘She must have been desperate to find her people, her country. She knew Aki would be cared for. I’m sure she thought she’d come back . . .’

‘You never told me that,’ said Tess to Amira. ‘So Aki was orphaned too, really?’

Mason lifted his hat to wipe his brow, the black curls underneath springing straight up. ‘That’s the thing. All those government types with their talk, your lessons at school . . . it wasn’t just one generation that was stolen, it was the children that came after them too. Aki never had a mother. Sal didn’t know how to
be
a mother. How could she? She grew up in an orphanage, not a family.’

Fiona fought the urge to stand up, to walk away, to head straight to Morag’s room and that cold bottle of vodka, to switch on the air-conditioner and lie down with the bottle and not come out again until it was empty. OK, the whole Sal/Aki thing was pretty awful if it was true, but Mason was
laying it on a bit thick, wasn’t he? Maybe Aki had been better off without a mother anyway. Lord knows, some women simply weren’t up to the task. Fiona had met Aki yesterday, just before dinner, when she’d come to ask Amira if she knew where Tia was, and the woman looked fine. Tall, healthy, a child on her hip, though not the one with Mason today . . . she seemed to have any number of them, small brown boys with round bellies and cheeky dark eyes, and they were fine too, they were all just fine.

Fiona felt hungry and damp and annoyed. This entire thing, the conversation that had turned into a lecture—had Amira set it up? She wouldn’t put it past her. It all seemed too smooth, the way Mason had just materialised like that and Amira had chimed in, some sort of consciousness-raising double act. Fiona picked up a twig off the ground and snapped it in two. She loved Amira, but jeez, give us a break. The fuss over Sorry Day—it had always annoyed her. She wasn’t responsible. Why should she be sorry? And what did it mean, anyway? It was just a gesture, a front, so the pollies could pat each other on the back and people like her—people who had nothing to do with the whole wretched mess, who’d barely ever met an Aborigine, never mind stolen one—could feel good about themselves, could congratulate themselves on doing the right thing. Fuck, it was all so meaningless. She’d had a shit upbringing too—her dad had shot through, her mother may as well have for all the care she took after that—but no one had ever said sorry to her. That was life, wasn’t it? It was just the luck of the draw. And
Mabo
, she thought, her anger rising; yeah, the abos should have some land if it was that precious
to them, but how much did they need? It wasn’t as if they were actually doing anything with it. They were freeloaders, as her mother had always said. God knows, her mum wasn’t right about much, but she’d nailed that one. The handouts, the land, the special programs—that was what really upset her, made the gall rise in her throat. Everything was just given to them on a plate, while she, Fiona, had to work like a dog just to keep a roof over her head, worked harder than anyone she knew, black or white. It made her blood boil.

A hush had fallen over the group and Fiona prayed that they were done, that she could finally get to the loo and then have something to eat, but Bronte couldn’t let it go.

‘So Aki grew up in an orphanage too, just like Sal? Is that where you met her?’

Mason chuckled.

‘Nah. Aki stayed at La Grange, but she was OK. That was one of the good ones, where they didn’t try to turn the blackfellas white, just let them be who they were. There was a priest there who learned the local language, and set up a footy team just for the black boys. They sent Aki down to Perth to finish high school, because she couldn’t do it there. She stayed, got a job . . .’ He dropped his gaze, plucked at a tuft of grass near his boot. ‘We met when she was working in a bottle shop. I was a pretty regular customer. Bit too regular.’

‘Were you an alkie?’ needled Fiona. Bronte shot her a look, but stuff her. It wouldn’t hurt her to see that it wasn’t only the whites that mucked up.

‘Near enough,’ said Mason. ‘Then Tia was born and I knew I had to get my shit together. My act, I mean.’ He grinned
around the circle. ‘Sorry, ladies. That was when we moved here, to get away from temptation.’

‘And now you work in the garage, and Aki runs the gallery and helps out at Wajarrgi,’ said Amira proudly, as if she was personally responsible for the turnaround.

‘What about Sal?’ asked Morag. ‘Did you ever see her again?’

‘Just once. Tia must have been about three—it was before we had any of the boys. Aki got a call from a historian who was doin’ some research into the mission kids, what happened to them, and he’d tracked Aki down through La Grange. Told us that Sal was back in the Kimberley, a place called Durack, about a day and a half from here. We met the guy and he drove us over. I think he was hopin’ for a big reunion scene.’ Mason stretched his arms out in front of him, cracking his knuckles. ‘Didn’t get it. Sal was three sheets to the wind. He was the one who ended up fillin’ us in on her history—the little she knew, anyway. She was too drunk to even know we were there.’

‘What did you do?’ whispered Caro.

‘Came home again. Went fishin’.’ He smiled at Caro’s stricken expression and stood up. ‘I just came out to get lunch—I better get back to work. Good talkin’ with you. Might see you down the beach this afternoon.’

He scooped up the child, who had crawled back to him, and strode off, pushing his hat down onto his head.

‘That was so sad . . .’ Bronte began, but she was interrupted by a loud snore from Janey, who had fallen asleep.

Lucky bitch
, thought Fiona.

Janey squirted some sunscreen into her palm and smeared it haphazardly across one shoulder. She’d used too much, and thick white droplets spattered onto the floor behind her, befouling the carpet like bird droppings. She paused to rub them in with one toe, then wiped her hands across her stomach, careful not to get any on her bikini. From the bathroom came the sound of humming—her mother, faffing around with her hair or her face. Cow. As if it would make any difference.

Janey picked up the sunscreen again, then changed her mind and snapped the lid shut. She hadn’t done her back, but there was no way she was going to ask Caro, not after the scene she’d made that morning in front of all the others, shrieking so loudly that the girl behind the counter in the shop had come out to see what all the fuss was about. For God’s sake, she’d only been having a nap! It wasn’t a crime. So she hadn’t listened to some story—big deal. She was tired. Her mother would be too if she’d had to spend the night on Tess’s bedroom floor, and anyway, she’d done well not to nod off before that, in that boring gallery. Fiona was right. All the pictures
had
looked the same.

Janey wriggled into her shorts and held her breath as she did up the zip. Were they tighter than the last time she’d worn them? Her coach had told her that for every week missed in training it would take another week to get back to the same fitness level, so that essentially this holiday was putting her a fortnight behind—time, he’d remarked, that she couldn’t afford with the state championships coming up in December. Fuck
it, Janey thought, looking around for her sunglasses. Some bloody holiday. When her mum had told her they were going to Broome she’d imagined a resort, a pool, with waiters and big shady day beds and her sheets turned back every night with a chocolate left on the pillow. Not this, not some godforsaken hole where the lights went out after ten and there wasn’t even a restaurant. And yes, the beach was beautiful, but you had to hike for twenty minutes in the boiling sun to get there, and it only had two tiny shelters that they couldn’t all fit under . . . Janey located her glasses and jammed them on top of her head. She wished she was in Italy, like her father. She’d sightsee and order room service and smile coyly at all the men who whistled at her in the street. She’d drink wine and buy shoes, and there was no way she’d keep a travel diary, as her mother always insisted. She’d do what she liked, just as her dad did.