The White Girl

by Birch, Tony;

  ‘What are you here for?’ he asked Odette. ‘Have you had more trouble with Sissy’s bike?’

  ‘No, the bike is working fine. I came here on other business,’ Odette said. ‘But it can wait. Now is not the time.’

  ‘The time is fine with me, Odette. Rowdy’s gone and he won’t be back. Nothing I can do about that. Tell me what you need.’

  ‘Is the utility running, Henry? The car you’ve been driving.’

  ‘Sure is. I haven’t started it since I was over at your place the other day. But it goes really good.’

  ‘Do you think you’d be able to drive Sissy and me to the train station tomorrow morning? We need to be there before the seven-ten train. I’ll pay for petrol, of course, and your time. You’ll need to be early.’

  As was his custom Henry gave the prospect serious thought, checking that his early mornings were otherwise free before answering. ‘I can do that for you, Odette. Are you two going on a holiday?’

  ‘I wish we were,’ she said. ‘Not anything as good as a holiday. It’s family business. I need you to keep this to yourself. After we’ve gone that new policeman, Lowe, he might come round asking after us. You can’t tell him that you drove us to the station. That’s important to us, Henry. Both to me and Sissy.’

  Henry frowned. ‘I understand, Odette. I think it’s best if you tell me no more. You never know if the police will want to torture me or something. You have your secrets and I have my own.’

  Odette took hold of Sissy’s hand. She had not taken her eyes off Rowdy’s burial site.

  ‘We have to go and get ready. You’ll be on time, Henry?’

  He tapped an imaginary wrist-watch. ‘I won’t be late.’

  Later that night, Odette took the framed photograph of Lila down from the wall and put it in her suitcase. She added the photographs of Delores Reed’s daughters. After Sissy had fallen asleep, she also fetched Lila’s letters and added them to the case, along with her life savings, which she tucked in the inside pocket.

  Early the next morning, she laid out Sissy’s clothes and brushed her hair. Once Sissy had put the dress and black dancing shoes on, Odette circled her granddaughter, examining her. She was not fully satisfied with the disguise. ‘Don’t move. We need to do something more.’ She went and rummaged through a drawer in the bedroom and retrieved a small compact of rouge. She dusted it across Sissy’s cheeks. ‘Not too much. If I overdo the colour, it could be a giveaway.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Sissy frowned.

  ‘Just adding a bit of red to your cheeks,’ Odette explained. ‘The right colour.’

  Sissy stamped the heel of her dancing shoe on the wooden floor. ‘I don’t think I want to do this, Nan. I don’t want to be any colour. I just want to be here with you.’

  Odette grabbed hold of Sissy and shook her, vigorously enough to startle the child. ‘Do you think that this makes me feel happy? I don’t want to do this either. We don’t have a choice. We went over this yesterday. If we stay here it won’t be safe for us.’

  ‘We haven’t said goodbye to Auntie Millie,’ Sissy said, stalling.

  ‘We don’t have time to do that,’ Odette replied, although time was not the only reason she didn’t want to involve Millie in her plan. Odette was convinced that once Lowe was aware that she and Sissy had left town, he’d interrogate Millie and the other Aboriginal women Odette knew. She didn’t expect Millie would disclose information to a policeman, but preferred that she not be burdened with her story of escape.

  The front gate squealed. ‘That will be Henry,’ Odette said to Sissy. ‘It’s time for us to go.’

  Odette closed the front door behind her without looking back and followed Henry across the footbridge. He lifted the suitcase into the back of the truck and opened the passenger door with the elegance of a well-trained chauffeur. Sissy hopped in, followed by Odette. It was a tight fit.

  Despite Henry not having a licence he drove well enough, although he was painfully slow. Odette became anxious. ‘Henry,’ she began politely, ‘can I ask you something? Can this car go any faster?’

  ‘I reckon it would,’ he answered. ‘This car has a strong motor.’

  With the speed dial stuck on twenty miles an hour, Odette prodded him again. ‘Do you think you could try it?’

  ‘Try what?’ he asked.

  ‘Try to go a little faster, Henry. The train we’re meeting up with, it’s the only one for the day. We wouldn’t want to miss it and get stuck at the railway station.’

  ‘If you want me to,’ Henry replied, ‘I’ll drive faster. But the roos will be on the move, looking for breakfast. I don’t want to bump into one of them.’

  ‘Yes, I need you to do that, Henry. Go a little faster. You watch the road and I’ll look out for the kangaroos.’

  Henry put his foot down, only slightly, and increased his speed to twenty-five miles an hour. Odette looked out of the window at a line of ghost gums on the side of the road. The car passed the sagging front gate of the Kane farm. She thought of Lila and the horrors Joe Kane must have subjected her to. She felt renewed guilt for not searching harder for her daughter when she first ran away. Odette put her arm over Sissy’s shoulders, drew her closer and resolved that this time she would do all she could to locate Lila and reunite her with her own daughter.

  The railway station on the outskirts of Gatlin was quiet except for a wind kicking whirlpools of dust into the air. Henry pulled over to the side of the road, jumped out and opened the passenger door. ‘We’re here.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll get the case for you.’

  After setting the suitcase on the footpath, Henry stood back, his arms folded and his hands tucked into his armpits. Odette couldn’t help but smile at him. Somehow, Henry Lamb had never grown up. Although he’d been tormented over the years, Henry’s innocence also offered him some protection from the stain of the town. ‘Thank you, for everything,’ she said. ‘You take care of yourself, Henry Lamb. Can I give you some advice?’

  ‘You can, Odette.’

  ‘That Kane boy, Aaron. He’s not worth your trouble, Henry. You stay away from him.’

  ‘I don’t know that I can do that, Odette. I would be happy to if he would stay away from me. I would be happy then.’

  Odette had never touched a white man in her life, not voluntarily. She walked over to Henry, put a hand on one cheek, leaned forward and kissed the other. Henry put his hand to his cheek and left it there. Sissy tugged at his shirtsleeve. ‘Goodbye, Henry. You can ride the bike anytime you want to.’

  ‘When will you be back, Odette?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t be sure.’

  The bells on the closing gates signalled that the train was arriving. Odette picked up her case in one hand and took Sissy’s hand with the other.

  Chapter Eleven

  Odette had not ridden on a train before, let alone purchased a ticket. Gatlin was as far from home as she’d ever been, and she had little idea what lay beyond the town except for what she’d read in newspapers and heard on the radio. She stood in the waiting room and observed the other passengers in line at the ticket window. She took the travel permit from her handbag and approached the window.

  ‘I need two tickets, please,’ she said when she reached the front of the queue. ‘One adult and a child.’

  The young station assistant looked up. ‘Are you going to the end of the line?’

  Odette presumed the state capital was as far as the train would go. ‘Yes. The end of the line.’

  ‘And will the trip be one-way or return, Madam?’

  The young man’s dimpled face was dotted with acne. Odette couldn’t comprehend the question. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Are you coming back?’ he asked.

  Odette gathered herself. ‘Yes, I’m coming back. But I’m not sure when.’

  ‘Okay,’ he nodded. ‘One-way it is. Would you pre
fer first class or economy?’

  Odette wasn’t sure what he meant by economy, but first class sounded foreign. ‘Economy, please.’

  The boy calculated the fare and Odette handed him the cash and her travel permit. The station assistant handed the permit back to her along with the tickets without reading the document. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘this must be yours. Have a comfortable trip.’

  Odette had little more than five minutes to get them something to eat. She ordered a Cornish pastie for both herself and Sissy before getting on the train. They walked along the aisle of the carriage searching for their seats. Odette was relieved to find the compartment empty. She placed the suitcase in the baggage rack above their seat, sat down and passed Sissy the steaming brown bag with the pastie inside. The smudges of rouge on Sissy’s cheeks momentarily unnerved her. Odette wasn’t sure if the journey they were about to embark on was the right choice.

  ‘Thank you, Nan.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Odette urged.

  ‘Do what?’ Sissy asked. ‘Show my manners?’

  ‘You’re not to call me Nan while we’re on the train,’ Odette whispered. ‘You can call me Auntie or even Odette, but not Nan.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Sissy said, amused at the thought of calling her grandmother by her first name. She took a bite out of the pastie. ‘I know I can’t call you Nan, because of our story, but you say I can call you Auntie. Why? That still means that we’re related, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ Odette explained, ‘white families, they like to call the women who look after their children Auntie. When I looked after white kiddies they always called me Auntie.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They wanted me to feel like I was part of the family.’

  ‘How could you be part of their family?’ Sissy asked. ‘You had your own family.’

  ‘Exactly. I’ve always had my own family. And I was never really part of theirs, shuffled out the back door at the end of the day or asked to sleep over in some rundown shack.’

  A white woman, elegantly dressed in a tweed coat and straw hat was standing outside their compartment. She tried opening the sliding door, struggling with her suitcase. Odette nodded towards Sissy. ‘Give her some help, Love.’

  Sissy jumped down from her seat and opened the door.

  ‘Thank you, Darling,’ the woman said, checking the reserved numbers above each seat. She looked at the ticket in her hand and sat down next to Sissy. The suitcase remained on the floor. Odette recognised an opportunity.

  ‘Would you like me to put your case on the rack for you, Missus?’

  The woman, who would have been slightly younger than Odette, turned to her and smiled. ‘Oh, yes. Thank you. And it’s Miss,’ she smiled.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Odette said, picking up the woman’s bag.

  ‘No need to apologise,’ the woman laughed, a little too highly pitched for Odette’s liking. ‘I’m a single woman.’ She straightened the crease in her dress. ‘By choice,’ she added.

  The pain in Odette’s side caught her off-guard as she lifted the bag above her shoulders. She struggled and almost dropped the case. The woman did not bother to help. The porter’s voice came over a speaker, announcing that the train would not be leaving the station for another fifteen minutes, due to an unforeseen delay.

  Odette became anxious, worried that the train might never leave. As ridiculous as it was, she imagined Henry Lamb in the police cells at Deane, being beaten by Sergeant Lowe, who would be on his way to the Gatlin train station to arrest her. She willed the train to leave the station. Sissy ate her pastie and watched as the white woman took a compact from her handbag and powdered her already pale face in a round mirror.

  Sissy looked up at several framed photographs decorating the carriage walls. Come and Visit the Countryside the advertisements read. In each of the pictures there was a scene of the mountains, a coastline and a magical fern gully.

  ‘Auntie,’ Sissy said purposefully, after she’d finished eating, ‘do you think that we could visit the beach some time?’

  ‘You have never visited the coast?’ the woman interrupted before Odette could respond.

  ‘No, I never have,’ Sissy answered.

  ‘Well, you are missing out on a wonderful experience. The coast is fresh and clean, and as long as you escape the city beaches, you might never see another soul while walking along the sand. But,’ she paused, ‘always protect your skin, particularly your face.’ She showed Sissy the powder compact. ‘I use this and wash with a delicate soap of an evening. The sun never touches me. Hence, I have no wrinkles or blemishes.’ She examined Sissy’s face. ‘You have too much colour already.’

  ‘Colour?’ Sissy responded.

  ‘Yes. And at such a young age. Where do you live, young lady?’

  ‘In Gatlin,’ Sissy answered, as she and Odette had rehearsed.

  ‘Really? So do I. At least, I did originally. I live in the city now. I’ve just been visiting family,’ she explained. ‘I have to detour and see other relatives at the next station. Where in Gatlin are your family located?’

  It wasn’t a question that Odette had considered, or one that she and Sissy had rehearsed. ‘We’re not in town,’ Odette offered. ‘Cecily’s family live on a farm outside of town.’

  ‘Which farm would that be?’ the woman asked Sissy, without looking at Odette.

  ‘The Kane family,’ Odette interrupted, with as much confidence as possible.

  ‘Kane?’

  Odette sensed the woman attempting to place the family. Everybody had their position in the district, not just Aboriginal people. The wealthy white people looked down on the poor whites, and almost all white people looked down on Aboriginal people.

  ‘I do not believe I know of them,’ the woman said.

  ‘We’re closer to Deane than Gatlin,’ Odette offered.

  ‘It makes little difference. We know most families in the district,’ the woman said. ‘My family, we’ve been in this area from the very beginning. We are pioneers. We know everyone.’ She raised an eyebrow, waiting on an explanation from Odette.

  Sissy decided it was her turn to interrupt. ‘Excuse me, have you ever been on a holiday to the mountains?’ she asked, pointing at one of the photographs.

  The woman’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes, I have. Several times over the years.’

  ‘I bet it was exciting,’ Sissy said.

  ‘Oh, it was so exciting. The air is so fresh and clean in the mountains.’

  The whistle blew and the train began moving. The woman took hold of Sissy’s hand. She talked continuously for the next hour or so, telling Sissy stories about being sent away to boarding school when she was a child and how lonely she felt at the time. When she could finally get a word in Sissy talked about the books she’d read and her favourite animals on the farm where she lived. She recited the names of her pets, drawing imaginatively on every storybook and novel she’d ever read.

  Odette looked out of the train window with one ear trained on a conversation she did not expect to be included in. She was struck by the view outside the train window. The country was familiar and yet alien. The farms, or what was left of them, resembled the neglected properties around Deane. The ancient forests had long gone, their vast roots torn from the earth by machines linked with heavy chains. The dams were dry, and the animals scraping at the ground behind the fence lines were scrawny. Odette didn’t see a single person outside the train window.

  The conversation between the woman and Sissy eventually fell quiet. The woman had fallen asleep. Sissy got up from her seat and stood by the window. Although she’d played the role of a young white girl well, the charade bothered her.

  ‘Are you feeling alright,’ Odette whispered.

  ‘Yes, Nan … Auntie.’

  She offered Sissy the paper bag. ‘Would you like this second pastie? I can’t eat
it.’

  ‘No. You keep it for later. You might be hungry then Nanna. I mean, Auntie.’

  Odette detected an unease in the girl.

  ‘I don’t like doing this,’ Sissy whispered.

  The woman woke up, startled by the vibration of the carriage crossing a bridge above a river. Saliva had dribbled down her chin while she’d been sleeping and her hat sat crookedly on her head. Sissy thought the woman looked silly and couldn’t help but laugh. Odette glared at her to stop. The woman sat up, yawned, wiped her chin and blinked several times. She turned to Odette and yawned again. ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon.’

  ‘That’s fine, Missus.’

  Odette returned to her seat opposite the woman. She could feel the woman’s eyes on her, studying her, another habit of many white people.

  ‘Have you always been with the Kane family?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Not always. But, I’ve been with them for some time.’

  The woman moved across the carriage and sat next to her, alarming Odette. ‘I’m sure you would be interested to know that before I went away to school I was cared for by one of your own people. Although,’ she added, ‘she came from the desert and she was darker than you. Several shades darker. You have more of a coffee complexion,’ the woman observed. She waited for an explanation.

  Odette had long ago learned that white people were fascinated with the skin colour of Aboriginal people, and what it might indicate. She’d been similarly interrogated many times over the years. Odette understood that what this woman really wanted to know was how she’d inherited the white blood she carried and who it had come from. Odette didn’t know the answer to such questions. All she knew was that the women in her family loved all their children, regardless of the suffering and violence that had created them. She turned to the woman and repeated a fiction she’d told before, the story of the mythical white forebear who’d saved her family. Stories of such benevolence comforted white people and would often result in an Aboriginal woman attached to a household being treated with some fondness and even care. Odette ended the tale with the punchline she often quoted. ‘The white man who came into our lives, he was a true Christian man.’