My Place (39 page)

Over the next few days, Mum talked at length with Nan about the different people we had met. Nan feigned disinterest, but we knew it was just a bluff. She was desperately interested in everything we had to say, but she didn't want to let her feelings show. In many ways, she was a very private person.

One night when they were alone, Mum told her how Annie and a lot of the other older ones from Corunna Downs had died at Shaw River. ‘She had Lily,' Mum said. ‘She devoted herself to the old ones. Annie wasn't alone when she died, she had some of her people with her.' Nan nodded. There were tears in her eyes. Her lips were set.

‘Do any of them remember me?' she asked wistfully.

‘They all do,' Mum said, ‘they all remember you. Do you remember Topsy and another woman called Nancy? They said they lived with you and Annie on Corunna.'

Nan looked shocked. ‘They still alive?' she asked in disbelief.

‘Yes.'

Nan just shook her head. ‘I'm going to bed,' she muttered. Mum laid down and cried herself to sleep.

A few weeks later, I tackled Nan about being able to speak two languages, she was unwilling to discuss the subject. When I told her about the different skin groups, she said crossly, ‘I know all that, I'm not stupid.' She wouldn't be drawn further. There'd been a slight change, a softening, but she was still unwilling to share the personal details of her life with us.

When Mum and I got together, we couldn't help reminiscing about our trip.

‘Well, we found out one thing,' said Mum, ‘Maltese Sam definitely wasn't Nan's father.'

‘That's right. Though it doesn't necessarily mean Howden was either.'

‘No, I know. Probably, we'll never really know who fathered her.'

‘Do you reckon Jack Grime really is your father?'

‘Oh, I don't know, Sally,' Mum sighed. ‘When I was little, I always thought Howden was my father, isn't that silly?'

‘Howden? Why did you think that?'

‘I suppose because he was Judy and June and Dick's father. I guess because I was little and didn't understand. I assumed he was my father too. You know how it is when you're a kid.'

‘Yeah, I could see how you might think that. You were all living there at Ivanhoe.'

‘Yes.'

‘Aunty Judy said you're the image of Jack Grime, though, that'd be some sort of proof, wouldn't it?'

‘Oh, I don't know, people can look like one another, but it doesn't mean they're related.'

‘Yeah. Hey, I know. I've got a photo of Jack, a big one, why don't we look at it, see if you do look alike?'

‘I don't want to do that.'

‘Go on! We'll hold it up to the big mirror in my room, you can put your head next to it and we'll see if you do look like him.'

‘Oh, all right,' Mum giggled, ‘why not?'

Within minutes, Mum and I and the photo were all facing the large mirrors in the doors of my wardrobe.

‘Well, that was a dead loss. You don't look anything like him, even taking into account the fact that you've put on weight. There's no resemblance there at all.'

‘He doesn't look like any of you kids, either, does he?'

‘Naah,' I agreed. ‘Hang on a tick and I'll get another picture.' I returned quickly. ‘Okay,' I said, ‘face the mirror.'

Mum fronted up to the mirror and tried not to laugh. She felt silly.

Suddenly, I held up a photograph of Howden as a young man next to her face. We both fell into silence.

‘My God,' I whispered. ‘Give him black, curly hair and a big bust and he's the spitting image of you!'

Mum was shocked. ‘I can't believe it,' she said. ‘Why haven't I ever noticed this before, I've seen that picture hundreds of times.'

‘I suppose it never occurred to you,' I replied.

‘You don't think it's possible he was my father?'

‘Anything's possible. But he couldn't be yours as well as Nan's. You know, features can skip a generation. Say he was Nan's father, well you could have inherited those looks from that.'

‘Oh, I don't know, Sally,' Mum sighed. ‘It's such a puzzle. You know, for nearly all my life, I've desperately wanted to know who my father was, now, I couldn't care less. Why should I bother with whoever it was, they never bothered with me.'

‘But that's been the recent history of Aboriginal people all along, Mum. Kids running around, not knowing who fathered them. Those early pioneers, they've got a lot to answer for.'

‘Yes, I know, I know, but I think now I'm better off without all that business. All those wonderful people up North, they all claimed me. Well, that's all I want. That's enough, you see. I don't want to belong to anyone else.'

‘Me either.'

We walked back to the lounge room. After a few seconds' silence, Mum said, ‘Sal …?'

‘What?'

‘Aw … nothing. It doesn't matter.'

‘I hate it when you do that. Come on, out with it.'

‘We-ell … You know the Daisy that Jack said he'd met? You don't think that could have been Nanna?'

‘Dunno. I asked her the other day if she'd ever been back North, but she just got mad with me.'

‘It might have been her,' Mum said tentatively, ‘Alice did tell you she'd gone back once.'

‘But if it was her, it was in 1923 and she would have been pregnant. Mum … do you think you might have a brother or sister somewhere?'

She nodded.

‘But surely Nan would have told you?'

‘Not if she wasn't allowed to keep it.'

‘This is terrible.' I eyed her keenly. ‘There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?'

Mum composed herself, then said, ‘The other night when I was in bed, I had this sort of flashback to when I was little, I'd been pestering Nanna, asking her why I didn't have a brother or a sister, when she put her arms around me and whispered quietly, “You have a sister.” Then she held me really tight. When she let me go, I saw she was crying.'

I couldn't say anything. We both sat in silence. Finally, Mum said, ‘I'm going to ask her.'

A few days later, Mum broached the subject with Nan, only to be met with anger and abuse. Nan locked herself in her room, saying, ‘Let the past be.'

‘I'll never know now,' Mum told me later. ‘If she won't tell me, I'll never know.'

‘You mustn't give up! What does your gut feeling tell you?'

‘Oh Sally, you and your gut feelings, you're like a bloody detective. How do I know my gut feeling isn't pure imagination?'

‘What does it tell you?' I persisted.

She sighed. ‘It tells me I've got a sister. I've had that feeling all my life, from when I was very small, that I had a sister somewhere. If only I could find her.'

‘Then I believe what you feel is true.'

Mum laughed. ‘You're a romantic.'

‘Crap! Be logical, she could still be alive, if she was born in 1923, she'd be in her sixties, now. Also, if Nan had her up North, she could have been brought up by the people round there or a white family could have adopted her.'

‘Sally, we don't even have a name. It's impossible! You talk like we'll find her one day, but it's impossible.'

‘Nothing's impossible.'

‘Could you talk to Nan?'

‘Yeah, but she won't tell me anything. I'll let her cool down a bit first.'

‘There's been so much sadness in my life,' Mum said, ‘I don't think I can take any more.'

‘You want to talk about it?'

‘You mean for that book?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well …' she hesitated for a moment. Then, with sudden determination, she said, ‘Why shouldn't I? If I stay silent like Nanna, it's like saying everything's all right. People should know what it's like for someone like me.'

I smiled at her.

‘Perhaps my sister will read it.'

I have no memory of being taken from my mother and placed in Parkerville Children's Home, but all my life I've carried a mental picture of a little fat kid about three or four years old. She's sitting on the verandah of Babyland Nursery, her nose is running and she's crying. I think that was me when they first took me to Parkerville.

Parkerville was a beautiful place run by Church of England nuns. Set in the hills of the Darling Ranges, it was surrounded by bush and small streams. In the spring, there were wildflowers of every colour and hundreds of varieties of birds. Each morning I awoke to hear the kookaburras laughing and the maggies warbling. That was the side of Parkerville I loved.

That was my home from 1931 when I was three years old. I was only able to go back to my mother at Ivanhoe three times a year, for the holidays.

There were two sections at the Home. The older children's section, where all the houses were named after people who had donated money, and Babyland Nursery. I don't think that was named after anyone.

Babyland was really just a cottage surrounded by verandahs. Inside was a kitchen with a large wood stove, some small tables and chairs and highchairs for the really little ones. There was only one dormitory and it was filled with lots of little iron beds that sat close to the floor. They were very neat and tidy in Babyland. You
were only allowed to play inside on real wintry days. Normally they made us all sit out on the verandahs, that was so you didn't mess up the rooms once they'd been cleaned.

Every morning the older girls came over to bathe us. We were always cold from the night before because we still all wet our beds. I dreaded bath time because of the carbolic soap and the hard scrubbing-brushes. The House Mother used to stand in the doorway and say, ‘Scrub 'em clean, girls!' We'd cry, those brushes really hurt. Our crying always seemed to satisfy her, she'd leave, then. As soon as she left, the girls would throw the brushes away and let us play. It got that way that we'd start crying as soon as the House Mother appeared in the doorway.

Our clothes were kept in a big cupboard and the girls dressed us in whatever fitted.

I guess that was one of the few times when I was lucky to be black, because the older Aboriginal girls always gave us black babies an extra kiss and cuddle. That gave me a wonderful feeling of security, I'll always be grateful for that time. You see, even though we weren't related, there were strong ties between black kids. The older white girls never seemed to care about anyone, and our House Mothers weren't like real mothers, they just bossed us around, they never gave you a kiss or a cuddle.

Every morning I'd sit on the verandah with my friend Iris, she was fat like me. She had very white skin and her freckles stood out like they'd been daubed on with a paintbrush. The older girls called her Chalky, because she was so pale. She always seemed to be unhappy, she had an awful cough and her feet were blue. We didn't have shoes. She loved to sit close to me. We'd play games with the odds and ends of toys that were scattered over the verandah. If we walked around the verandah, she liked to hold my hand. We always stuck together, if there were two of you, the others didn't pick on you so much.

After school, the older girls would come back and carry me around. I used to sit on the verandah and press my face against the wooden railing that faced the school oval. It always seemed to
be such a long time before they came. When the bell rang, they'd all come running over, fighting about whose turn it was to carry me. I felt sorry for Iris then, no one ever wanted to carry her. I wished the big girls would play with her too, but she was always coughing, and I was so busy enjoying the attention that I soon forgot her.

After tea, the girls would dress us in our night clothes. They were a one-piece suit with a square piece that buttoned at the back so we could go on the potty. They had feet in so they kept our toes warm.

Every little bed in the dormitory had a grey or dark green blanket on it, and we had to kneel down beside our beds and say our prayers. After that, the lights were turned out and some of the smaller kids had their cots pushed closer to the House Mother's bedroom so she could hear them if they got sick in the night.

I remember one night hearing Iris cough and cough. I dozed off again and was awakened by the light being turned on and people walking in and out. When I got up in the morning, Iris was gone. I felt very lonely, sitting on the verandah that day. I asked the others if they'd seen her, they said she was sick and had been taken to hospital. I felt very sad.

A few weeks after that, when I was playing on the verandah by myself, she just appeared out of nowhere. She was all dressed up in a white lace dress and she was happy, she wasn't coughing any more. She smiled at me and I smiled at her and then she left. I felt better then, I knew that, wherever she'd gone, she was all right.

When I was five years old, I was sent to George Turner. It was a house opposite Babyland, across a wide expanse of gravel. I had been told to go and see my new House Mother, there were no goodbyes to my friends, they just sat playing on the verandah as usual.

I stumbled down the front steps and began slowly walking across the gravel with my little bundle of clothes. I tried to walk on the clumps of dandelions to keep my feet clean, but they ran
out when I reached the rainwater tank, after that it was just black sand.

When I finally reached the gate of George Turner, I was too scared to open it. I just stood there shyly. I was worried about my feet. In Babyland, it had been very important that you kept your feet clean, that was why we were never allowed off the verandahs, and now here I was with black, sandy feet. I was sure my new House Mother would be very cross with me.

Suddenly, one of the older girls came up to the gate. I felt relieved when I recognised her, she was one of my friends. She took me by the hand and led me up to Miss Moore, who was waiting on the verandah.