The White Girl

by Birch, Tony;

  ‘Do you know where she went, after she left here?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Alfie said. ‘She sent us a postcard to show she had no hard feelings over me pinching her on the arse now and then.’ He winked. ‘She was a good sport, Lorna, with that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Could I see it, please? The postcard?’ Odette asked, checking her disgust.

  ‘Are you two related?’ he asked. ‘You don’t look much alike.’

  ‘No,’ Odette said. ‘I’m just a friend of the family. They live in the country and asked me to ask after her.’

  Alfie went into the kitchen, returned with a postcard and handed it to Odette. On the front was a picture of a wide sandy beach and deep blue sea. Odette turned the card over. She recognised Lila’s handwriting. The card read, Enjoying the good life with my man! Odette dropped the postcard on the table. The waitress was looking at her closely when she finally looked up. She tore up the bill.

  ‘Hey, the cuppa’s on the house, Love,’ she said to Odette. ‘You take care.’

  Alfie and Sheila walked back into the kitchen. Standing up to leave, Odette overheard them talking. ‘You know that she’s an Abo, the old girl there,’ he said. ‘I can pick ’em, most races of the world.’

  ‘So fucking what, Alf? Can’t you see she’s upset?’

  ‘Upset? Hey, I was just saying. You don’t see many of them around here these days.’

  Odette walked several city blocks with little sense of purpose, cursing her own stupidity. She’d convinced herself that she would simply arrive in the city and find her daughter waiting for her in the crowd. Now she could see how foolish she’d been. She’d been tested many times in her life but had always managed to find a solution. Back in Deane she sometimes sat by the river and talked with the old people, seeking guidance. There was nobody in the city for her to talk to and she didn’t know what to do next.

  When she opened the door to the hotel room the first thing she saw was the photographs of Delores Reed’s young daughters on the floor. The remains of Lila’s letters were strewn across the carpet. Sissy was asleep on the bed, her face buried in a pillow. Odette picked up a scrap of one of the letters and read the faded words. She slowly retrieved the treasured letters, one piece of paper at a time. When she’d finished cleaning up the mess, Odette stood by the bed. The child did not stir. She sat on the spare bed and sifted the mound of paper between her fingers, recreating the sound of a child running through fallen leaves. She felt no anger towards Sissy and, to her surprise, felt some relief that the letters had been destroyed. She’d held onto them over the years in the hope that one day they might have something more to tell her. They never did.

  Odette dropped the scraps of paper into the bin. When she turned, she could see Sissy had woken and had one eye open. She was closely watching her grandmother.

  ‘I read them all, Nan,’ she said. ‘The letters. She never said one word about me in any of those letters.’

  ‘You’re right, Sis. She didn’t.’

  ‘She mustn’t have wanted me,’ Sissy added. ‘If she’d loved me, she’d have stayed with us. She went away because of me.’

  Odette took Sissy’s hands in her own and kissed them. ‘Don’t you be thinking that. Of course she wanted you.’

  ‘If she wanted me, why would she go and not let us know where she was?’

  Odette was stuck for a reply. Discovering the truth about what had happened to Lila would only harm Sissy further. ‘She had troubles I’ve only now come to understand. Your mother did love you.’ She cupped Sissy’s cheeks in her hands. ‘And all I’ve ever wanted is for you to feel love. For her, me, but most of all for yourself.’ Odette held her granddaughter in her arms, rocking her gently.

  Sissy’s eyes were raw and swollen from crying. ‘I’m sorry I looked in your suitcase, Nanna.’

  ‘Shush,’ Odette whispered. ‘There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.’

  ‘Those girls, in the photographs, with all the red hair, who are they?’

  ‘They are two poor girls who lost their mum many years ago. I was given those pictures by a man who knew her. I’ve thought of throwing them away, but I can’t do it. It would be wrong of me.’

  ‘I’ll take care of the pictures, if you want me to, Nan.’

  ‘We’ll see. You have more than enough to deal with, without looking after a pair of orphans.’

  Sissy put a hand on her grandmother’s cheek. ‘I had lunch and spoke to the lady downstairs. She was asking me questions. More questions than I ask you.’

  ‘That would be a lot of questions. What did she want to know?’

  ‘Where did we travel from?’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told her that we came on the train from Gatlin, and that we lived in Deane.’

  ‘Oh,’ Odette said. ‘And what else did she ask?’

  ‘She wanted to know about you. How you were related to me.’

  ‘And what did you say to that?’

  ‘I pretended that I didn’t hear what she said.’

  ‘And that was it? She didn’t ask anything more?’

  ‘No. I came back up to the room. Is there something wrong, Nan?’

  Odette couldn’t understand why the receptionist would be interested in her. ‘I’m sure she was just being polite. She seems like a nice young woman. You forget about all of this worry. I want you to go to the bathroom and wash your face and hands. And then your Nan is going to take you out.’

  ‘Take me out? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means, we’re going to eat out at a nice café, like people do in the city.’

  They washed over a sink in the bathroom together, brushed each other’s hair and put on fresh sets of clothes. Odette took a ten-pound note from her roll of money and put it in her handbag. ‘Are you ready for a night out?’ she asked Sissy.

  There was a knock at the door. Wanda was standing in the hallway.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were back,’ Wanda said. ‘I was just checking to see that everything was okay with your … the young girl.’

  Odette stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her. ‘There’s no problem here. Everything’s fine with the girl,’ Odette insisted.

  ‘Oh, good. I thought she might be lonely. I decided to pay a visit.’ Wanda hesitated, reached forward and took hold of Odette’s arm, startling her. ‘My name is Wanda Harrison,’ she said urgently. ‘My people are from down south near the border. Along the river.’

  ‘Your people?’

  ‘Aboriginal people. I was taken from my mother when I was four years old. I was brought up in the Saint Mary’s Home.’

  Odette had heard terrible stories about the infamous Saint Mary’s.

  ‘After we came out of the Home,’ Wanda explained, ‘the Welfare Board would billet us here at the hotel until we were found places in domestic service. I must have made an impression on the manageress. She asked if she could keep me on. She looked after me, sent me to business college here in the city. I’d been working here five years when I decided to try and find my family,’ Wanda continued. ‘I took a week’s holiday, got on a bus and went back home, searching for family. But the reserve was gone. The houses and streets, everything had been bulldozed.’

  Odette could see Wanda was desperate to tell her story. It was the way of many Aboriginal people. They kept their silence and their secrets until they found somebody they could confide in.

  ‘Did you find anyone?’ Odette asked.

  ‘One cousin out of a mob of ten. The young ones had taken off before they could be picked up. The oldies, my cousin didn’t know where they went to, except for two aunties. I searched after them, to see if they had information on my mother. One of the aunties had died. I found the other one. She used to care for me when I was a baby. She was living in
a room at the back of a pub where she scrubbed the toilets for meals. It was awful.’

  ‘And your mother?’ Odette asked.

  ‘I have no idea what happened to her. I thought you might be her when you walked in here yesterday.’

  ‘Me? How could that be?’

  Wanda sighed and leaned against the hallway banister. ‘Because any older Aboriginal woman I set eyes on, I really believe she could be my mother. Never is, of course. I’m so sorry that I was nosey with the girl before. I should have let her be.’

  ‘I’ll hear none of that,’ Odette said. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m only sorry that you did not find your mother.’

  ‘You are related to the girl, aren’t you?’

  ‘She’s my granddaughter. She’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘Can I ask you something else?’ Wanda asked.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Can I have a hug?’ she asked, in a tone so hushed Odette could barely hear her.

  Odette smiled. ‘Yes, Bub. Yes.’

  The women embraced. Wanda savoured the scent of Odette’s hair, the touch of her skin and the warmth and strength of the older woman’s body against her own. She listened for Odette’s breathing and the rhythm of the older woman’s heartbeat. It was the first time Wanda had felt the touch of an Aboriginal woman since the day she had been taken away from her own mother.

  Wanda didn’t want to let go. ‘Thank you, Auntie,’ she finally whispered. ‘Thank you.’

  Later that night, as Odette lay in bed, she could feel a dull pain under her ribs. She didn’t want to disturb Sissy with her restlessness. She got out of bed and went down the hallway to the bathroom. The bright fluorescent light startled her. She covered her eyes and studied her face in the mirror. The drama of recent weeks had taken its toll. Odette chastised herself. ‘You are a stupid woman. You’re a silly old gin.’

  She felt heat rise in her chest. The room began to sway and Odette’s legs turned to jelly. She collapsed and knocked the side of her head against the bath. Her deep red blood spread across the stark white floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lowe sat at his desk inspecting the point of a perfectly sharpened pencil. On the other side of the room Bill Shea was going through the motions of shuffling a pile of gun licence applications. Shea had only days left on the force before his retirement and was expecting to go quietly. Lowe was so disgusted by Shea’s general tardiness, he could hardly look at him. Instead, he stared out of the window to the main street. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon. A walk will do you good, man, Lowe decided. He marched across to Shea’s desk. ‘I need you to go out and interview that imbecilic junkman.’

  ‘Henry Lamb? What’s he done?’

  ‘It’s not about what he’s done. He’s had trouble with vandals out there and has complained twice this past week about someone firing a shotgun into his fence. He says it’s happened half a dozen times now. I don’t want him back in here taking up our time. I can’t make sense of the man. Go out there and get a statement.’

  ‘A statement from Henry Lamb won’t make a lot of sense,’ Shea huffed. ‘The yard has been shot up, broken into or set fire to over the years. Giving Henry grief is the local sport for young fellas round here.’

  ‘And what have you done about it?’ Lowe insisted.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What have you done to put an end to this sport, as you refer to it?’ Lowe asked. ‘We’re not in this job to tolerate yahoos driving around the roads with loaded guns. The people of this town must accept the law. And it is our job to enforce it. Get out there now and interview him. I want details – days, times, the names of anyone he may have had trouble with.’

  A northerly wind rattled the window frame. Lowe wasn’t concerned one way or another about Henry Lamb’s fence. He wanted Shea out of his sight.

  ‘Okay,’ Shea said. ‘I’ll head out there tomorrow.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Lowe ordered him. ‘I want you there now.’

  Shea finally looked up at his boss. ‘You mean today?’

  ‘Yes. Right now.’

  Shea picked up the set of keys for the old ambulance.

  ‘Leave the van,’ Lowe ordered. ‘It may be needed. You will have to walk.’

  Shea glared at him. Lowe smiled, aware that the officer lacked the courage to defy him. ‘Off you go now,’ he added. ‘Be sure to take your notebook and a pencil with you. And while you’re out there, ask this Lamb fellow when he last saw Odette Brown.’

  Lowe noticed Shea bristle. ‘Why would I ask him that?’

  ‘Because I haven’t seen Mrs Brown since she was in here seeking a travel permit. I have also been to the school and spoken to the headmistress. Cecily Brown has been absent. Do you have any idea where they may have gone?’

  Shea shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe to Gatlin.’

  ‘Why would the woman go there?’

  ‘Some of them from back on the mission have family in Gatlin. People moved there after the war to work in the steel mill. Odette could have gone visiting.’

  Lowe dismissed the suggestion. ‘When that woman came into this office, she did so with the clear intention of travelling further than Gatlin. I cannot accept that her disappearance is a coincidence. I suspect that Mrs Brown has unlawfully left the district with the child.’

  ‘Odette might be uppity from time to time but I couldn’t see her doing that,’ Shea said, attempting to deflect Lowe’s suspicions. ‘She’s lived here all her life.’

  ‘She has indeed, and it is here that she belongs. Be sure that you question Lamb about her.’

  ‘I don’t see what good this will do. Henry’s a simple man. This is a waste of time.’

  Lowe turned his back on Shea. ‘I decide how your time is spent. Now, do as I say and get out there.’

  Lowe heard the heel of Shea’s boot scraping against the wooden floorboards. He turned around. Shea was closing the top drawer of his desk. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nothing. I was just thinking, why are you bothering with this?’

  ‘Because we must be able to indicate that we have exhausted all means to locate the family,’ Lowe answered. ‘I intend to report Mrs Brown to the Aborigines Welfare Board. She must be held responsible for her decision to abscond with the child. The insolence she has conveyed towards myself and this office will not go unpunished. Additionally, we, in our role as local guardians, are ultimately responsible for the care of Cecily. We must ensure that we fulfil our duty to her, which includes investigating the cause of her absence.’

  ‘And what is it?’ Shea asked. ‘Our duty?’

  ‘Perhaps you should familiarise yourself with the Bible? We have a flock to manage and I am determined to have the child, Cecily, in my care, whatever it takes.’

  Lowe followed Shea out of the office and stood on the steps of the police station observing the slow movement in the street. Millie Khan came out of the store opposite. Lowe followed her.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but I need to ask you a question, Mrs Khan.’

  She stopped and looked him up and down, unable to disguise her contempt. She pulled the stub of a cigar from behind her ear and studied it for a moment. ‘I doubt I could help you with anything at all, Sergeant,’ she answered.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly know that,’ Lowe smarted. ‘I’m yet to ask you a question.’

  He watched as Millie took a box of matches from her trouser pocket, lit her cigar and filled her lungs with a generous amount of smoke. ‘It wouldn’t matter a lot what question you asked me,’ she explained. ‘I don’t know anything much about anything, unless it has something to do with horses. White folk have been telling me since I was a child, that being a native there wasn’t a lot I could learn. I heard it so many times, I reckon they must be right. I do know a bit about a gelding and the best way to deal with him.
What about you, Sergeant? Are you a horse man?’

  Millie’s attempt to distract Lowe irritated him. He could see she wasn’t easily intimidated. ‘I believe you are an acquaintance of Odette Brown?’

  ‘She’s no acquaintance of mine. Odette Brown is my closest friend.’

  ‘And when did you last see her?’

  Millie had last seen Odette the day she’d returned from Joe Kane’s farm. She scratched the side of her head. ‘Well, I don’t think I could be really sure when that would have been. It may have been this week sometime. Or it could be the week before this one. You know how it is with us? My people, we’re not so good with dates and times. What’s that thing your people have? I reckon there’d be one in your office, on the wall there.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Lowe asked, his frustration growing.

  ‘What do you call that thing, with the numbers all over it? The calendar. That’s it. If I had my own calendar I could tell you what day I last saw that girl, Odette. I’ll have to ask my Yusie to get me one of them calendars for Christmas.’

  Lowe couldn’t decide if Millie Khan was stupid or crafty, although he assumed she was most likely both. ‘You need to be careful, Mrs Khan, with the manner that you carry yourself.’

  ‘How’s that?’ she asked, dropping the cigar butt to the ground and grinding it under the heel of her riding boot.

  ‘As a native woman who enjoys the support of the State …’

  Millie looked defiantly at Lowe. ‘I enjoy no support from the State, as you call it, Sergeant. My name is Mrs Millicent Khan. I am the wife of Mr Yusuf Khan. He’s a free man whose father came to this country from the Punjab. My husband purchased the property we live in with hard-working money from the old stockman who took it away from my people and then hired my own father to work for him. Me and Yusie paid good money for a patch of land stolen from my people. Our children and grandchildren, all of them inherited the Khan name. We take nothing from the government, we are free to do as we want.’