My Place (16 page)

‘Nan … what's wrong?'

‘Nothin'!'

‘Then what are you crying for?'

She lifted up her arm and thumped her clenched fist hard on the kitchen table. ‘You bloody kids don't want me, you want a bloody white grandmother, I'm black. Do you hear, black, black, black!' With that, Nan pushed back her chair and hurried out to her room. I continued to stand in the doorway, I could feel the strap of my heavy school bag cutting into my shoulder, but I was too stunned to remove it.

For the first time in my fifteen years, I was conscious of Nan's colouring. She was right, she wasn't white. Well, I thought logically, if she wasn't white, then neither were we. What did that make us, what did that make me? I had never thought of myself as being black before.

That night, as Jill and I were lying quietly on our beds, looking at a poster of John, Paul, George and Ringo, I said, ‘Jill … did you know Nan was black?'

‘Course I did.'

‘I didn't, I just found out.'

‘I know you didn't. You're really dumb, sometimes. God, you reckon I'm gullible, some things you just don't see.'

‘Oh …'

‘You know we're not Indian, don't you?' Jill mumbled.

‘Mum said we're Indian.'

‘Look at Nan, does she look Indian?'

‘I've never really thought about how she looks. Maybe she comes from some Indian tribe we don't know about.'

‘Ha! That'll be the day! You know what we are, don't you?'

‘No, what?'

‘Boongs, we're boongs!' I could see Jill was unhappy with the idea.

It took a few minutes before I summoned up enough courage to say, ‘What's a boong?'

‘A boong. You know, Aboriginal. God, of all things, we're Aboriginal!'

‘Oh.' I suddenly understood. There was a great deal of social stigma attached to being Aboriginal at our school.

‘I can't believe you've never heard the word boong,' she muttered in disgust. ‘Haven't you ever listened to the kids at school? If they want to run you down, they say, “Aah, ya just a boong.” Honestly, Sally, you live the whole of your life in a daze!'

Jill was right, I did live in a world of my own. She was much more attuned to our social environment. It was important for her to be accepted at school, because she enjoyed being there. All I wanted to do was stay home.

‘You know, Jill,' I said after a while, ‘if we are boongs, and I don't know if we are or not, but if we are, there's nothing we can do about it, so we might as well just accept it.'

‘Accept it? Can you tell me one good thing about being an Abo?'

‘Well, I don't know much about them,' I answered. ‘They like animals, don't they? We like animals.'

‘A lot of people like animals, Sally. Haven't you heard of the RSPCA?'

‘Of course I have! But don't Abos feel close to the earth and all that stuff?'

‘God, I don't know. All I know is none of my friends like them. You know, I've been trying to convince Lee for two years that we're Indian.' Lee was Jill's best friend and her opinions were very important. Lee loved Nan, so I didn't see that it mattered.

‘You know Susan?' Jill said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Her mother said she doesn't want her mixing with you because you're a bad influence. She reckons all Abos are a bad influence.'

‘Aaah, I don't care about Susan, never liked her much anyway.'

‘You still don't understand, do you,' Jill groaned in disbelief. ‘It's a terrible thing to be Aboriginal. Nobody wants to know you, not just Susan. You can be Indian, Dutch, Italian, anything, but not Aboriginal! I suppose it's all right for someone like you, you don't care what people think. You don't need anyone, but I do!' Jill pulled her rugs over her head and pretended she'd gone to sleep. I think she was crying, but I had too much new information to think about to try and comfort her. Besides, what could I say?

Nan's outburst over her colouring and Jill's assertion that we were Aboriginal heralded a new phase in my relationship with my mother. I began to pester her incessantly about our background. Mum was a hard nut to crack and consistently denied Jill's assertion. She even told me that Nan had come out on a boat from India in the early days. In fact, she was so convincing I began to wonder if Jill was right after all.

When I wasn't pestering Mum, I was busy pestering Nan. To my surprise, I discovered that Nan had a real short fuse when it came to talking about the past. Whenever I attempted to question her, she either lost her temper and began to accuse me of all sorts of things, or she locked herself in her room and wouldn't emerge until it was time for Mum to come home from work. It was a conspiracy.

One night, Mum came into my room and sat on the end of my bed. She had her This Is Serious look on her face. With an
unusual amount of firmness in her voice, she said quietly, ‘Sally, I want to talk to you.'

I lowered my
Archie
comic. ‘What is it?'

‘I think you know, don't act dumb with me. You're not to bother Nan any more. She's not as young as she used to be and your questions are making her sick. She never knows when you're going to try and trick her. There's no point in digging up the past, some things are better left buried. Do you understand what I'm saying? You're to leave her alone.'

‘Okay Mum,' I replied glibly, ‘but on one condition.'

‘What's that?'

‘You answer one question for me?'

‘What is it?' Poor Mum, she was a trusting soul.

‘Are we Aboriginal?'

Mum snorted in anger and stormed out. Jill chuckled from her bed. ‘I don't know why you keep it up. Why keep pestering them? I think it's better not to know for sure, that way you don't have to face up to it.'

‘I keep pestering them because I want to know the truth, and I want to hear it from Mum's own lips.'

‘It's a lost cause, they'll never tell you.'

‘I'll crack 'em one day.'

Jill shrugged good-naturedly and went back to reading her
True Romance
magazine.

I settled back into my mattress and began to think about the past. Were we Aboriginal? I sighed and closed my eyes. A mental picture flashed vividly before me. I was a little girl again, and Nan and I were squatting in the sand near the back steps.

‘This is a track, Sally. See how they go.' I watched, entranced, as she made the pattern of a kangaroo. ‘Now, this is a goanna and here are emu tracks. You see, they all different. You got to know all of them if you want to catch tucker.'

‘That's real good, Nan.'

‘You want me to draw you a picture, Sal?' she said as she picked up a stick.

‘Okay.'

‘These are men, you see, three men. They are very quiet, they're hunting. Here are kangaroos, they're listening, waiting. They'll take off if they know you're coming.' Nan wiped the sand picture out with her hand. ‘It's your turn now,' she said, ‘you draw something.' I grasped the stick eagerly.

‘This is Jill and this is me. We're going down the swamp.' I drew some trees and bushes.

I opened my eyes, and, just as suddenly, the picture vanished. Had I remembered something important? I didn't know. That was the trouble, I knew nothing about Aboriginal people. I was clutching at straws.

It wasn't long before I was too caught up in my preparation for my Junior examinations to bother too much about where we'd come from. At that time, the Junior exam was the first major one in high school, and, to a large extent, it determined your future. If you failed, you automatically left school and looked for a job. If you passed, it was generally accepted that you would do another two years' study and aim at entrance to university.

Mum was keen on me doing well, so I decided that, for her, I'd make the effort and try and pass subjects I'd previously failed. For the first time in my school life, I actually sat up late, studying my textbooks. It was hard work, but Mum encouraged me by bringing in cups of tea and cake or toast and jam.

After each examination, she'd ask me anxiously how I'd gone. My reply was always, ‘Okay.' I never really knew. Sometimes, I thought I'd done all right, but then I reasoned that all I needed was a hard marker and I might fail. I didn't want to get Mum's hopes up.

Much to the surprise of the whole family, I passed every subject, even scoring close to the distinction mark in English and Art. Mum was elated.

‘Now, aren't you pleased? I knew you could do it. Mr Buddee was right about you.'

Good old Mr Buddee. I didn't know whether to curse or thank him. Now that I had passed my Junior, I sensed that there was no hope of Mum allowing me to leave school. I should have deliberately failed, I thought. Then she wouldn't have had any choice. Actually, I had considered doing just that, but, for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I guess it was my pride again.

Fourth year high school was different to third year. It was supposed to be a transitory year where we were treated more like adults and less like difficult teenagers. Even our classes were supposed to be structured to mimic the kind of organisation we might find later in tertiary institutions. I was a year older, but I was still the same person with the same problems. I felt this was also true of school. The changes were only superficial. However, some deep and important things did happen to me that year.

One day I happened to bump into a girl who I'd been friendly with in my Sunday School days. She invited me to a youth meeting to be held at a nearby church hall.

‘Aw, no thanks, Sharon. I won't come.'

‘Look, it's not going to be anything like you might imagine,' she said confidently. ‘Nothing to do with religion, just some Chinese food and a bit of a get-together, that's all.'

‘You sure?'

‘Positive.'

‘Okay, I'll come. I know some other kids who like Chinese food. I might bring them, too.'

‘Great. See you there.'

I arrived at the meeting with seven girls from around our neighbourhood and two from school. The food was quite good, and, even though everyone else there ignored us, we enjoyed ourselves. When everyone had finished stuffing themselves, a chap
stood up and said, ‘We have a Mr McClean here to give us a little talk. I'd like you all to be quiet while we listen to what he has to say.'

Uh-oh, I thought. Here it comes. I looked towards the back of the hall, the door was closed and there were two elderly gentlemen standing in front of it. I was trapped. I could feel my insides twisting themselves into a knot. I knew if Mr McClean turned out to be half as boring as some of the teachers I'd had in Sunday School, my friends would never forgive me.

Mr McClean stood up and smiled nicely at us all. ‘I'm here to talk to all you young people about your future,' he said. Your eternal future. I mouthed quietly in unison with Mr McClean. I'd heard it all before. It was going to be a long night.

As he continued, I began to think of other things, like the new clothes Mum had promised to buy me, the latest quiz show on TV and the way Jill seemed to be able to whip up an outfit on our old treadle machine in no time at all.

Suddenly, there was someone talking to me. I knew it wasn't Mr McClean. I looked around in a furtive kind of way, trying to see who it was. All eyes were fixed on the speaker, there was no one new in the room.

‘Who are you?' I asked mentally.

With a sudden dreadful insight, I knew it was God.

‘What are you doing here?' I asked. I don't know why I was surprised. It was a church hall, after all.

It had to be Him because the voice seemed to come from without not within, it transcended the reality of the room. I couldn't even see my surroundings any more. I was having an audience with Him, whom I dreaded. The mental images that I had built up of Him so far in my life began to dissolve, and in their place came a new image. A person, overwhelming love, acceptance and humour. What Nan'd call real class. In an instant, I became what others refer to as a believer.

I joined the local youth group after that. I was full of ideas for making the meetings and outings we went on more interesting,
but it was difficult to change the pattern that had been set in motion so many years before. I became friendly with a girl a few years older than me. She was reasonably conservative, but less so than the other girls I'd met, and she had an excellent sense of humour. I could never understand why a lot of the girls at church considered cracking jokes unladylike. Thanks heavens Pat wasn't like that.

One day, she said to me, ‘You know, no one here can figure out why you like Youth Group so much, but hate church. What's the difference?'

In Pat's eyes, one was a natural extension of the other, but to me, church was practically the antipathy of Youth Group. I always felt uncomfortable in church, it was so formal and lacking in spontaneity. The sermons were full of cliches and things I didn't understand. To me, church was like school, more concerned with red tape than the guts of the matter.

I think Mum was relieved that I was finally channelling my energies into what she saw as something creative. Up until then, she hadn't been sure how I'd turn out. Now she hoped that, with the encouragement of people at church, I would begin to lead a more productive and less rebellious life. She was wrong.

One night, one of the deacons of the church asked if he could talk to me. I was friendly with his daughter and he seemed like a nice man, so I agreed.

‘You and Mary are having quite a lot to do with one another, aren't you?' he asked.

‘I suppose so, but we're not best friends.'

‘No. I know that, but you see a lot of each other at Youth Group and church.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Well, Sally,' he smiled, ‘I want to ask a favour of you.'