by Terri Janke
Serge has overheard me. When I am back behind the servery he throws his hands in the air. ‘What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you lighten up?’
‘I don’t like being talked to like that. How would you like it?’
‘C’mon, people always call me wog, but hey, I laugh. I call them Aussie bastard, what’s your problem? This is a restaurant, you’re not the word police.’
Maybe he’s right. Sticks and stones can break your bones but names will never hurt you. I should lighten up. I pour Scotch into a coffee cup and take a swig. If it’s going to be a long night, I may as well enjoy it.
coonardoo
Canberra, 1983
At the start of the eighties our family moved from Cairns to Canberra, and this was where I attended high school. Every Tuesday morning we had English class. Our teacher was an ancient man in a cardigan, probably born in the year the printing press was invented.
Coonardoo is the novel we are studying. ‘Has everyone read the book?’ he says. There is no immediate answer.
‘I said, has everyone read the book?’ There are a few ‘yeah’s. The teacher’s false teeth fall forward in his mouth. He licks his upper lip every thirty seconds to keep the teeth in place.
His bone-coloured fingers start to flick through the pages. He quotes a paragraph from the book. ‘Now, in this chapter the author is juxtaposing cultures. Coonardoo is living on the edge of two cultures. She is in a white world, falling in love with a white man, but she can never be a part of it, really. The beginning of the book details cultural practices. Tarena, you’re an Aborigine, what can you tell us about the cultural practices of Coonardoo?’
I want to tell him that I’m actually Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal, but I’m too frightened. I’ve read the book and didn’t understand it. I’m not like that. Does that mean I’m not a real blackfella? I feel stupid. I am silent.
‘Well, do you have any comments on the representation of Aboriginal culture in the novel?’
The silence in the classroom is screeching. ‘Coonardoo,’ I start, and stop. Someone to the side of me is laughing behind her hand.
‘Stop that,’ says the old teacher. That gives me time to quickly glance at the cover of the book.
‘Coonardoo was written by Katharine Susannah Prichard.’
‘Yes, we know that, Tarena.’
‘Well, Coonardoo was written by a non-Aboriginal writer, so that’s got nothing to do with me,’ I say.
‘The writer’s skill is in depicting, and the author has served to illustrate the awakening of a primitive culture – a moving towards the colonial culture.’ The teacher keeps going. My eyes glaze over but I am happy I’m no longer the focus.
After class I sit on the lawn among a herd of girls. I peel my lunch from its plastic wrap.
‘Coonardoo is such a boring book,’ says someone.
‘Coon?’ says another girl. ‘Is that where they got coon from?’
I’m not sure if she’s talking to me. I start to sing a song to change the subject. It’s a song from the radio, from the Top 40, and the others join in. A schoolgirl’s life is like that. What we girls talk about can move as fast as a twist of the radio dial.
x-mark at uni
Sydney, 1988
My skin is so itchy it flakes and peels all over my body, like a lizard’s. I scratch and scratch until the blood comes. My skin is cracked at the backs of my legs. Behind my ears the skin is weeping. To top it off I have developed carbuncles on my face that ooze pus.
‘Do you like being at university?’ asks the university doctor.
‘No, I hate it.’ I examine the green cross on his desk pad.
‘Your skin has broken out quite badly.’
‘I’ve had eczema all my life. Can you give me something to make it go away?’
The doctor’s pen writes across the yellow and white page. The paper tears unevenly from the top of the pad. ‘Maybe you should think about changing your environment?’
Back in my room at college it is already dark and cold. The July moon softens. The wall of the building next door is covered with a thick green vine. It looks like nature is trying to conquer the brown bricks and mortar.
Kirsty, my neighbour, knocks on my door. ‘Hi, Tarena, we’re all going to the pub. Come with us?’
‘No, I’ve got to study.’
‘You can use my notes. C’mon, Evan and the other blokes from class are coming.’
‘I don’t feel like drinking.’
‘What? Drinking’s in your blood.’
‘What do you mean by that comment?’ I look her in the eye.
‘It’s just a joke. I need you to come because I really want to bonk Evan. I’m worried he’ll get it on with Rita.’
College life is all about loud parties, bed-hopping, and sparring in the hallways. I feel lonely and vulnerable as a crab with a thin shell.
shark hotel
Sydney, 1988
When the music starts it’s a fuzz of noise. It’s too loud for people to talk. Kirsty drags me onto the dancefloor. She loves the limelight. I follow, wishing I had drunk more beer. It feels like a stage. As I move my feet to the crushing sound, I feel out of place. Kirsty swivels her hips and flicks her hair. Her eyes turn to see who is watching.
‘Is that Evan in the corner?’ Her eyes are flashing, still looking around the room.
‘Huh?’
‘I think it is. C’mon. Do you want another beer?’ She moves to the bar.
‘Yeah.’ I toss my hair back, trying to mimic how she does it.
Kirsty leads the way. There is a big plastic shark above the bar. Its sharp teeth are exposed and one plastic eyeball gazes out at the people waiting to buy drinks. The faded paisley carpet stinks of beer. We buy two middies. On the way back to our table, Kirsty is stopped.
‘Hey, big tits, wanna dance?’ The man is swaying as he holds her arm. He’s older than the student crowd in the bar, maybe thirty.
‘No thanks, jerk.’ She shakes and releases his greasy grip.
‘C’mon, let’s all go back up there.’
‘Piss off, dick-brain.’ Kirsty has this way of finding words that can twist the edge of a person. Something I can never manage, but in my half-drunken state I try.
‘Yes, arsehole, go scale a fish.’
‘Abo!’ he calls me. His words cut across the space between us. I suddenly feel like the dark nipples of my breasts are showing. He is in my face and the smell of marijuana on his thick breath meanders from his crooked lips, past his slippery teeth.
‘I thought we extincted you mob around this area,’ he says, slurring his words. His fingers are clenched tightly around his beer.
I feel like telling him that ‘extincted’ is not a word. ‘Well, you’re wrong.’ I turn to walk away, but his hand grabs my own.
‘You blacks –’
‘Fuck off!’ I say, and throw my beer in his face.
His hands are on my back. He is yelling, ‘You’re not as good as you think you are!’ I’m trying to get outside as he calls, ‘You’ll never amount to anything!’ People are looking. The music is swirling. The others are coming over. I cannot see their faces. My own face is hot. The noise is like a bucket turning around and around on a rope. There is my own voice somewhere in the confusion but there are no words, just syllables, clutching and dragging in the circling force.
The man is being told to leave and the bouncer is pushing him out onto the street. I don’t hear them ask me if I’m okay. I don’t go back inside. I start to walk. Kirsty follows but I run away from her. Past the queue at the door and the hot-dog man selling at the corner. The streetlights flash. I break through a wall of people. Bright faces. A man stands in front of a pub with dark circles under his eyes. He is holding out his hands to a woman with red lips. Clown face. I run below tall buildings with neon signs. I head out towards the edge of the city. There are people living in the park, sleeping here. Poor white people living on the fringes of this mighty city. A woman sleeps o
n the park bench with a layer of newspapers over her. There is a trolley beside her. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t see me.
I walk down Oxford Street. I walk for hours. Then later, somewhere in front of me, there is an ocean. A thunderstorm creeps up, splashing purple, blue, white and orange across the sky. The colours dance around, then disappear into the abyss. Thunder clashes, and lightning, like a strobelight, illuminates the night. Someone is crying. It is me. I am crying like a child.
The next day, I wake up later than everyone else. I don’t want to see anybody. I want to leave this horrible place.
Two days later, I am packing books into cardboard boxes.
Kirsty comes in and sits on the unmade bed. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
I am silent.
‘Well, I’ll see you next semester.’
I look up at her. ‘I’m not coming back.’
She stops my hands from packing. ‘You’re not going to give up university because of what happened the other night?’
‘I hate university. I don’t fit in. It’s just so fucked. And why do I want to be a lawyer anyway? The whole system’s fucked.’
‘You’re good at law, you’re smart,’ she says. I realise that no one has ever said that to me before. She looks into my eyes. ‘Listen to me, it’s true.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘but I can’t make any promises. I’m going to take a break and see what happens.’
She gives me a hug and leaves to catch a plane. As I walk out of the building my face is hot. Fuck them, I want to scream. They can have their stupid law degree. I’ve got better things to do. I’ll show you. Inside, I feel defeated, sad and angry. I want them to beg me to stay.
i love the nightlife
Sydney, 1988
Corinne is sipping wine in between looking after her tables.
‘You must be clever to go to university.’
‘Not really. I’m not going back.’ This semester I handed in three essays and did four exams. Just keeping up with the workload was difficult.
‘Lawyers, a bunch of sharks if you ask me,’ interjects Serge. ‘Get back to work!’
‘Want some wine?’ Corinne whispers to me.
‘Yes, please.’
She pours from the light green bottle into a coffee cup. ‘Wanna go out later?’
‘Sure,’ I say.
Before the last table has gone, I’ve finished six glasses. In the taxi on the way to the club, the driver looks back at me in the rear-vision mirror.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Don’t you mean, where am I going? Take us to Jets.’
At the nightclub the fluoro lights make Corinne’s teeth look yellow. She gets up to dance. I order another drink. She comes back with a guy wearing a faded jeans jacket cut off at the sleeves. His muscles bulge like ripe mangoes.
She introduces him. ‘This is Peter.’ They sit down. ‘What’s that?’ She points to my glowing blue drink.
‘A blue lagoon.’ I sip it slowly. It tastes like toothpaste, but I drink it anyway.
‘What country do you come from?’ Peter asks me.
‘Australia. I’m Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.’
‘Oh, really?’ Peter wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘What do you mean, oh really?’
‘You know what I mean. It’s just that you don’t get that many Aboriginal people in Sydney.’ He lights a cigarette.
‘Perhaps there were more, say, two hundred years ago.’
‘Don’t worry about her,’ Corinne says, ‘she used to study law. She loves to argue.’
‘Dropped out, did you? Was it too hard?’ Peter sneers.
Hearing him say it makes me angry. I light a cigarette and blow smoke. I don’t answer.
‘Yeah,’ says Corinne, ‘she’s working with me at Madonna’s.’
‘Well, you can’t argue with the customers.’ He laughs at his weak joke.
He shits me. ‘I think I’ll go home, I’m tired.’ I slurp the rest of my blue drink, ignoring the taste.
Back in my room there is a pile of textbooks on my bed, ready to go to the second-hand bookshop. Maybe that jerk from the nightclub was right. I was a dropout, and too stupid to finish a law course anyway. Through tears I kick at the books. I stub my toe on the thick blue textbook on property law. I throw it out the window. The room spins. I slip between the sheets. I am soon asleep and fall into a deep dream.
I dream I am back in the second grade with Sister Bernadette. She is standing above me. She is taking my pet rock from me. I found it in the playground and have been holding it all morning. She is asking me to put out my hand. ‘You’re a savage little girl,’ she is saying. The kids in the class are laughing and the classroom spins. I am trying to find words but cannot speak. Then I am standing up high on a cliff, a dark edge, and behind me is a faceless boy, calling out names and throwing thick textbooks at me. Each book is getting bigger and bigger, and his laughter is maniacal.
In the morning, I go outside and retrieve the textbook. ‘I’m not giving up,’ I repeat to myself over and over. My hands grip the book tightly. ‘I’m not giving up. I’m not giving up.’
the spinning cake
Sydney, 1989
Browsing through the shelves of the library, I catch a glimpse of Evan. He is at his usual desk, his hair tied in a short pony-tail, pulled off his face except for a single strand that hangs over his left eye. Like straw. I move with each slow breath, my eyes down. He reaches for a book. He wears a piece of leather in a knot around his wrist.
I remember sitting next to him once in class. He smelled of Sunlight soap and cigarettes. He wrote with a blue pen. His ‘n’s looked the same as his ‘r’s.
Later I see him browsing in the corporate-law section. I move closer towards him, taking a book off the shelves, pretending to read. His toes are like thick fingers poking out of his worn leather sandals. His pants fit loosely about his waist and his cotton top has purple embroidery on the breast. One ear is pierced with a tiny silver ring. His fine fingers rub his sharp, protruding chin while he reads from a textbook.
He sees me hiding my face in an encyclopaedia of legal forms and precedents. ‘Hi,’ Evan says.
‘Hi.’ My hands thumb through the pages.
His head tilts to read the cover of the book. ‘You’re doing the assignment on contract drafting?’
‘Yes.’ I close the book and tuck it awkwardly under my arm. I finger through my backpack, searching for my library card. I drop my card on the thinning carpet. He bends to pick it up. My foot moves. I hope he won’t notice the hole in my left shoe.
He plucks my card with his fingernail from the carpet. ‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’ he says when he straightens up.
Evan orders two cappuccinos. I scoop the powdered chocolate off the top. He tells me he’s bored at law school. He can’t wait to finish. When he does, his parents are going to pay for his holiday overseas.
‘I’m going to India for six months, but I wouldn’t mind going to work in an Aboriginal community. Do you know anyone I can call?’
‘Let me know when you’re going,’ I reply. People are always asking me about Aboriginal things. It’s like they expect me to be a walking Aboriginal encyclopaedia.
‘Do you want to come to a party?’ He’s on his way to a class, looking back at me, like the invitation is ‘by the way’, an afterthought. I hate his casualness but I write my phone number in the book he hands me. It is a small book with a killer whale on the cover.
I return my library books.
‘They’re two weeks late,’ says the librarian. ‘You’re going to have to pay a fine.’ Two beads peer over the cat’s-eye glasses.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and scratch the back of my neck. Evan’s house is in Rose Bay. I walk into a room full of people. I have already sculled half a bottle of Scotch just to get the guts to walk in. Evan is out in the backyard talking to a tall boy in black Doc Martens.
‘Hello,’ he says,
‘glad you could make it.’
‘Happy birthday,’ says another girl, who’s just arrived. She kisses him on the cheek and then goes to put the bottle of wine in the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I didn’t know it was your birthday.’
‘That’s all right. I’m twenty-one. No big deal.’
We sit down with a group of people. ‘Hey, guys, you know Tarena from law school,’ says Evan.
I recognise some of the faces from class, but none of them have ever spoken to me or looked at me before.
‘Yeah, all right,’ says one guy from my contracts class. His name is James. James pulls out a joint and passes it around the table. Evan takes it, a big breathy suck. I have never had dope before but smoke it, pretending to be cool. Evan starts to rub my back and then he touches my leg. I am so surprised I take another drag of the spliff. In a few minutes it feels like I’m looking through a tunnel at the people at the table.
‘The democratic process is overstated.’ James blows smoke out of the corner of his mouth. ‘The world’s population is increasing, but do you know, more and more people who go to university don’t have children. It’s the masses who have the children.’
‘What are you afraid of? The revolution?’ asks Evan.
‘Oh, thank you, comrade,’ someone jests.
‘I don’t see anything wrong with a country’s leaders making decisions for the benefit of the people,’ James says.
‘Machiavellian?’ says a girl sitting to my right.
The conversation keeps going but I am inside my head. I feel sick. I can’t breathe. All of sudden we move inside. The lights go on. I am standing next to Evan and a cake is coming my way, towards my face, with bright candles on it. I vomit. Slippery sticky vomit splashes from my lips onto the cake. I can hear people around me gasp in shock. I turn to leave but am too sick to walk. Evan sits me down. His mother is telling him to call a cab.