by Jared Thomas
Craning my neck to look up at the big blue sky through the window I felt glad that I wasn’t smoking ganja. Little things like just looking around at the environment seemed much better when I wasn’t stoned. Not being so paranoid was the best thing though. Sure, I still stressed about Run and paying the rent and things, but being straight, I felt like I could handle it all.
The whole landscape changed as the bus moved along. There were paddocks full of saltbush and malley shrubs and when I saw the Flinders Ranges in the distance, the soil started changing from brown to red. Approaching the Flinders Ranges is deadly. At first you just notice a few small rolling hills in the north-east and they gradually grow until they become like a giant swelling wave that stretches for hundreds of kilometres. The mountains look purple with bits of red and pink through them.
Mum was always telling me about her country when I was a little fella. She told me about going fishing, deadly snakes she had to watch out for, the lizards she played with, the roos cruising through the valleys and the emus on the plains. Most of all she liked telling me about going hunting with her family and how she and Aunty Elsie would swim and play in the creeks. The sun was shining on the ranges and I started to understand why Mum loved this place and how much she missed it.
I grabbed the notes I had scribbled down with directions to Aunty Janet’s from my bag. Take the Blanchetown Road just out of Port Germein and then take the third left. The house is at the end of the dirt track.
The other passengers must have thought I was a freak when I stepped off the bus at the Highway One and Port Germein intersection because there was no one waiting for me when the bus took off. I just stood there by the edge of the road for a while. I wasn’t sure if the Blanchetown Road was to the north or south so I started to walk into Port Germein to ask for directions.
It was only a kilometre or something to the centre of town but as soon as I got walking, the sweat started dripping. It was still pretty much morning but the heat was dry and I could feel it tearing into me. I heard a car coming up from behind so I turned to watch it approach. It was an old beat-up gold van. It backfired and sounded like shit.
The van slowed down and then pulled over to the side of the road in front of me. I started walking past it and this old blackfella stuck his head out the window. ‘Where you going?’ he asked.
‘I’m looking for Aunty Janet …’
He looked at me for a while and then said, ‘Well, jump in and I’ll take you to her. I’ve just got to grab a few things from the shop.’
I walked around and hopped into the van. The old fella had this huge rock hard gut that pushed up against the steering wheel.
As we drove along with the van making a racket, the bloke didn’t bother striking up conversation. He kept looking at me kind of weird though and I wondered if I’d made a mistake getting in. I mean just ’cause we’re both black doesn’t mean we should trust each other does it?
The old fella pulled into the Port Germein service station and got out of the van without saying a word to me. So I just followed him. He grabbed a carton of milk, and eggs, went up to the attendant and paid for the things without the shopkeeper saying a word. I wished I could do business like that.
The old fella walked out of the shop as I grabbed a sandwich. He was revving the shit out of the van when I opened the door. As we started moving I took the sandwich from the plastic container and bit into it.
‘Shit sandwiches eh?’ the old fella asked.
‘It’s alright,’ I said before taking another mouthful and the old fella went up through the gears as we travelled out of town.
‘So how do you know Aunty Janet?’ I asked.
‘She’s my niece.’
‘Really? She’s my grandfather’s sister’s daughter,’ I said, feeling good that I was meeting a relative.
‘I know,’ said the old fella just chuckling a bit.
‘So that must make you my great uncle.’
‘Yeah, I know that too,’ said the old fella, ‘Uncle Al.’
‘Good to meet you Uncle,’ I said.
Then a moment later he turned onto a dirt track and said, ‘There’s a meeting going on at Aunty Janet’s. Just wait on the porch until it’s over.’
The van rolled through an old farm gate, up the drive to Aunty Janet’s house. The house was set on a large block, at least ten times bigger than a city block. Some geese crossed the dirt drive as the van came to a halt. There were plants everywhere in the yard. I didn’t know what type of plants they were but I thought they must be important as they were set in rows. Al jumped out of the van and I watched him walk into Aunty Janet’s house. I was glad for the lift but it would have been good if he’d told me what the meeting was about and how long it would take.
I walked over to Aunty Janet’s porch where two really old Aboriginal men were sitting. They were like ninety years old or something. I’d never seen Aboriginal men that old before. I nodded as I went to sit down on the edge of the splintery wooden floorboard veranda and the old fellas nodded back. I sat there looking at the trees spread across the property. Some crows and magpies flew past. The crows wouldn’t stop their squawking.
At the front of the property I could see an old tattered mattress near the fence. I wondered if it was a bed for the dogs barking around the back of the house. Although the plants out the front of the house were set out neatly, Aunty Janet’s house was just a fibro transportable, nothing too flash about it. There were kids’ handprints smeared on the lemon paint.
After about ten minutes of waiting, I started to wonder why no one had come out to meet me. I repositioned myself so that I could look at the old men again. They kind of reminded me of pictures of King Haile Selassie I that I’d seen in books and and uniform and that. The old men looked royal like Selassie, even in old slippers, simple slacks and shirts. With their white documentaries about Bob Marley, with Selassie wearing his crown beards and walking sticks, they looked like they’d seen everything.
At last, someone stepped out of Aunty Janet’s front door. It was a woman, maybe about Evelyn’s age, she looked a bit like Evelyn too. She was thin with long black hair and dark skin. She was real stressed and hurriedly lit a cigarette. I waited for the woman to take a few drags and then I said, ‘Howdy, I’m Calypso.’
‘Calypso!’ she shrieked, coming over to kiss me on the cheek. ‘I thought your name was Kyle, that’s what Mum said it was!’
‘Yeah, that’s my real name but everyone calls me Calypso.’
‘True? You don’t look like a Kyle, you look like a Calypso.’
‘You’re Aunty Janet’s daughter then?’
‘Mel,’ she said, giving me a hug. ‘Long time no see little cuz,’ she said.
‘So what’s going on in there?’ I asked.
‘Big meeting,’ Mel replied, ‘The Aboriginal Lands Trust want us to do some bloody thing.’
‘Lands Trust?’
‘Yeah, all about Baroota, over there,’ Mel indicated with her chin, pointing toward the hills in the east.
‘What’s Baroota?’ I asked.
‘You don’t know Baroota,’ she said, raising an eyebrow.
‘It’s where lots of the old people were born and lived, your Grandfather too I reckon. Baroota means place of good tucker you know?’
‘Oh yeah, Mum told me about it.’
‘Where you been anyways cuz?’
‘City,’ I replied.
‘Yeah, you look like you come from the city too,’ said Mel, reaching out to touch one of my dreads. I thought I heard the old men chuckling but when I turned to look at them they were only sipping tea.
‘When you reckon I can see Aunty Janet?’
‘When the meeting’s over, shouldn’t be long now,’ she said and then walked back into the house.
I just stayed there sitting on the porch feeling like a dickhead. I was getting paranoid about the old men, thinking they could read my thoughts or something. I kept looking to the horizon, across the gulf and then back
to the plants and trees on Aunty Janet’s property. I wondered how far I’d have to search for the plants I was after. Then I heard chairs scraping across the floor and some people arguing, their voices getting rowdy. Talk about making me feel uncomfortable but I couldn’t just get up and walk off.
After an hour or so of sitting there in the heat with the old men, the barking dogs, the squawking crows, Mel and two men stepped out onto the veranda.
‘This is Calypso,’ Mel told them.
I got up from the edge of the veranda to shake both of their hands.
‘We know who he is,’ said the older and fatter fella who introduced himself as Bruce. ‘G’day, I’m Vic,’ said the other fella, shaking my hand.
‘They’re nearly finished up in there, you’ll meet all the mob in a minute,’ Bruce said.
I figured that Bruce and Vic must be at least twenty years older than me. Bruce was a real solid kind of fella with a gut and grey hair. He was dressed kind of pretty flash for a Saturday too, wearing a shirt, jeans and a pair of brown soft leather shoes. Vic also had grey hair but he looked like a footballer or something, all toned, you know. He was dressed more casually than Bruce, wearing a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. Bruce asked me if I wanted a drink and after I told him I was alright, he started yarning with his brother.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Bruce, ‘Of course I’m not complaining about investment into country but the terms are wrong.’
‘What’s there to worry about? We’re being offered a way to start making some real money from the property, the biggest mobs of money,’ Vic said, convincingly.
‘You’re starting to sound like a bloody whitefella, you don’t get it either,’ Bruce interjected. ‘We’re being pressured into running the property like a whitefella farm … with cattle and that.’
‘Well we’re already doing the sheep agistment and that’s going alright.’
‘It barely pays the bills and you know how them sheep bugger up the land.’
‘But with a bit of extra cattle the bills are paid and we’ll have extra cash to do other things with.’
‘All I want Vic is to see some of this country come back to life you know, even if it just comes back to how it was when we were kids, a few patches of proper bush here and there. Just give us a chance to get things back to like that.’ Bruce said frustrated. ‘Even our old people were farming it back in the 1930s, leasing sections and taking a cut.’
‘I am sure they were doing what they needed to, but times have changed, there’s other ways of making the property work.’
‘How long ago was our country returned to us? Twenty years, what? Everyone’s got a good idea but not much has happened unna?’
‘Even if we leave it just the way it is, it’s better than having sheep and cattle tearing it up.’
‘If we don’t start making some money and looking after it, the government and everyone will say we’ve failed … again … That’s just the way it is,’ said Vic.
I could understand where Bruce was coming from, even if I wasn’t raised in the bush with my mob. You just had to look at all the bare paddocks everywhere to see what farming is doing.
Mel walked out of Aunty Janet’s front door with more people. There was an old fella, not as old as the two really old uncles, but an old fella, in a western shirt, cowboy hat and boots, with a bushy salt and pepper moustache, sideburns and hair. A really skinny and dark fella, not much older than me, was with him. He wore a cap and drank beer from a longneck bottle. There was an older lady wearing a t-shirt, long skirt and thongs. The old cowboy fella handed a cigarette to them and Mel introduced me. The cowboy was Uncle Ray, the bearded teenager was cousin Will, and the older lady Auntie Val-May.
Uncle Ray shook my hand, ‘I’ve been waiting long time to see you again neph,’ he said. Will just nodded at me shyly. Aunty Val-May puffed on her cigarette and then gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug and said, ‘I’m Aunty Janet’s cousin, your mother’s cousin too. I used to give you smacks when you were little, so don’t go getting cheeky or I’ll slap your murntu again.’
A woman who looked a lot like Mum but wearing glasses and maybe ten or so years older walked through the front door, looked at me and came and gave me a big hug too. She took one of my dreads in her wrinkled black hands and said, ‘What in the buggery is this Calypso?’ I just smiled at her and said, ‘Nice to meet you Aunty Janet.’
‘You too, Kyle. You hungry or what? I’m starving. Come out the back and have a feed with all the mob, hey?’
10
Everybody sat around two large wooden trestle tables or stood around the BBQ. People were getting things ready for the feed and just about everyone seemed to be helping out. The kids gathered firewood and piled it next to a pit that Will dug into the earth. Once the fire was lit, Uncle Ray got a few kangaroo tails and began singeing the fur off them. When it was time to place the tails in the ground, Mel was ready with a damper to place in the ground with them. ‘Can I have some roo tail Uncle Ray?’ one of the kids asked. ‘No,’ said Ray pretending to be angry. ‘How many times do you need to be told only old fellas can eat this stuff. It makes your hair turn grey you know.’ He took a scull of beer and then winked at me.
Uncle Ray checked on the BBQ. The hotplate was covered with sausages, chicken and steak that spat fat. The dogs took care of the fatty bits of meat that Uncle Ray threw to the ground and any sausages that rolled off the hotplate. The women boiled things in pots and made salads in Aunty Janet’s kitchen.
When people started loading up their plates, Bruce’s wife Shanti placed the final dish on the table, a huge pot of curry crab. She served some of the curry crab to Bruce and when she went to put some on my plate Bruce stopped her. ‘Calypso doesn’t eat crabs, Shanti,’ Bruce told her.
‘Why don’t he eat them?’ Aunty Janet asked, ‘They’re straight out of the sea. Will only just caught ’em.’
‘Because he’s a Rastafarian, Mum,’ Vic answered.
‘A rasta what?’ asked Aunty Janet.
‘A Rastafarian, a Rasta man, it’s like a religion like Buddhism or Christianity. There’s a fella who’s like Jesus, they grow dreadlocks and they believe in certain things.’
‘Well I can see they grow funny hair but what type of things they believing in then?’
‘Well for starters,’ said Vic, ‘they don’t believe in eating crabs and crayfish, or pork, because they reckon these animals are scavengers.’
‘Is that what you is?’ Aunty Janet asked as if I was crazy. ‘A fella that don’t eat crab or pig?’
Aunty Janet’s question was a tricky one to answer. I only had a couple of friends from the Caribbean that I met at the cricket. I wasn’t smoking but reggae music was still my thing. And there I was sitting with my mob eating kangaroo tail and curried crab. ‘I’m just too lazy to comb my hair,’ I said. Everyone laughed.
‘Proper blackfella, hey,’ Mel squealed.
‘Our old fellas used to have hair like that way back and I reckon it looks pretty neat, Calypso.’
‘Thanks, Aunty Janet.’
‘There’s certain food they didn’t eat too – us mob still don’t eat them things.’
‘But I eat crab though,’ I told everyone, the smell and sight of the crab making my mouth water.
‘Thank you,’ I said when Shanti finally dished me up some.
‘Don’t thank me, thank Will, he’s the one that caught them.’
I gave Will the thumbs up. I couldn’t believe how good it tasted with all the spice and things mixed together. I’d never thought of eating hot crabs, especially not in a curry. Hot crabs give you the shits.
I always feel a bit shame meeting new people and meeting my family that day was no different. Although I was eating deadly food and Mel, Aunty Janet and other relies were being cool, it seemed like some of the mob, Vic particularly, just wanted me to fuck off. And I don’t think it was just because I’d rocked up when everyone was talking business. Vic watched me closely, like he did
n’t trust me or he was trying to work out what to make of me. It was like he thought I’d steal the ground from beneath his feet … kind of like how some whitefellas look at me. And I didn’t have a clue how to start asking Aunty Janet about Aboriginal plants and medicines and things.
‘So you staying here tonight, Calypso?’ asked Vic, between picking at bits of meat stuck in his teeth.
I looked at Vic not knowing what to say. ‘You’re more than welcome, dear,’ Aunty Janet said and then Bruce said, ‘Stay and then you can grab a ride back to Adelaide with us tomorrow afternoon. Not too early though.’
‘That’ll be good,’ I said.
I wiped my mouth on the inside of the collar of my t-shirt, the crab was burning my mouth a bit. I was starting to worry what it would do to my arse.
‘Good feed, hey bruz?’ Bruce asked.
‘Excellent.’
‘You should go to one of Shanti’s family feeds. Indian mob know how to cook a feed that’s for sure,’ Bruce said.
‘They do proper tandoori style and all,’ Vic added.
‘Alright, who’s up for a game of cricket?’ Ray asked.
Bruce moved slowly from his seat and the kids that were sitting at the other end of the table got up to scout around the yard. Vic stayed sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands resting on his guts. Two little fellas dragged the bin to the middle of the backyard and one of the older kids walked to the wicket with a bat. I got up and followed Bruce to join the game.
Aunty Janet’s backyard, like her front yard, was huge but it wasn’t covered in plants or lawn, just dirt. It was flat though and made a good wicket. Her high fences made good boundaries too, you just had to watch out for some farming equipment, an old car body and the fire pit.
The first batsman was my cousin Mat, Vic’s son, the bowler my cousin Josh, Mel’s son, and the two girls in the field were Bruce’s daughters Shae and Brea. I figured that Mat was about eleven and it didn’t take me too long to realise that he was a wicked sportsman.
Josh commentated as he bowled, pretending to be Pakistani fast bowler Imran Khan, and for a young fella he wasn’t doing a bad imitation, whipping them through to Mat. Occasionally one of the balls slipped through to Vic who was wicketkeeping, and I stood at slip seeing and hearing the tennis ball whiz along. Mat did a good job of smacking the balls all around the yard. If shots didn’t hit the fence on the full, Shae, Brea, Josh and Bruce were in hot pursuit of them.