by Terri Janke
I have the car window wound right down and can hear the sounds of the forest. Colourful birds are chattering and singing in a mid-morning frenzy. I can almost touch their feathery wings with my hand. Mum’s hair glistens in the sun as she tosses her long black mane over her thin shoulders. She begins to sing in harmony with the high-pitched cacophony. ‘Sun, sun, sun – shine on me …’
The trip takes about two hours. Mossman is a small town that has developed as the nucleus for the far north’s expanding sugar industry. The main street is lined with wooden buildings. The local pub is well placed on a busy corner. We arrive at an old Queenslander just past the town centre. The house, on stilts, is like many in the far north, but the underneath has been covered in so that people can live below as well as on top.
Dad gets out of the car. He talks to Mum before heading towards the bottom part of the house. Mum takes us to the park across the road. There are swings there that we play on. We soon grow bored.
‘Where’s Dad gone, Mum?’ asks Clarissa.
‘He’s going to meet someone special,’ my mother explains.
After what seems like a long time, Dad appears and calls us over. Walking up the path, I notice a woman by the front door. Her dark frizzy hair is like a black lamb’s wool. Her skin is the colour of instant coffee. Her face is weathered. She is tall and there is a presence about her that makes me feel so small. I look down, shying away from her gaze. A tiny brown terrier dog yaps about her huge bare feet. I notice she has hard skin on her big toe.
The sound of the barking fades. Somewhere I hear a wireless. Dad introduces us. ‘These are my children.’ The woman reaches forward. I notice the lines on her hand. My own hand remains at my side. I get the courage to look up at her. She smiles down at me. It is a warm smile, but I am still too scared to touch her.
We sit on a lounge suite covered in dog hairs. My legs stick to the blue vinyl. I knock the crocheted doyleys off the armrests.
‘Sorry,’ I say to her.
‘Never mind, love. I made them myself. I’ve got plenty.’ She readjusts the pink and purple doyley on the armrest.
The worn-out floral carpet is stretched around a wooden box being used as a coffee table. The woman makes us cups of tea.
‘Do you like biscuits?’ She holds out a plate.
‘Thanks,’ we say.
The biscuits are a bit stale, so Shane, Clarissa and I dunk them in our tea.
Then, as time cracks, I look into the woman’s face. It is wide and her forehead sticks out. Her nose is pressed into the sides of her cheeks. Her face reminds me of ones I have made out of plasticine. Her dress is loose about her knees. In many years to come, I will describe her as a woman with big bones.
‘It’s time to go,’ Dad says eventually.
We pile into the car and drive to Mossman Gorge and have a picnic. The woman sits on the picnic blanket with her hands in her lap. Mum offers her selections from the picnic spread – chicken sandwiches, ham and salad rolls, canned pineapple, and potato salad. Reaching for a chicken sandwich, the woman knocks over the container of beetroot. Red juice spills over the edge of the blue Tupperware container, staining the picnic blanket.
‘Dad, can we go swimming now?’ My brother has forgotten about crocodiles.
We head towards the freshwater swimming hole. The water is icy-cold in the heat of the day. Dad comes swimming with us in the cool water, and the woman and Mum sit on the nearby bank.
Later, we go for a walk along the rainforest track. The further we venture, the darker it grows. The trees stand tall and spirited, like people, cloaked with dark-green vines. Rainforest ferns bow at their feet.
‘The spirits of the rainforest people are in these trees,’ the woman says. ‘If you look you can see their faces. If you listen you can hear their story.’
The world of the rainforest embraces us – the rustle of the canopy above our heads, the shrill of the birds, the stirring of a skink as it moves over the damp floor. Butterflies blue, black, green and shades of yellow loiter in the tropical surroundings, suckling on the fronds of ancient ferns. Beetles feast on decaying vegetation. A tree frog jumps into a cradle of flowering orchids. A small mammal scurries across our path.
‘Look out.’ Dad exaggerates, attempting to scare us. It works on me.
‘A rat!’ I scream, and Dad laughs.
We come to a stream of clear water flowing over mossy rocks and fallen tree trunks. I touch the water with my fingers and wash my face. It feels like we have reached the centre of the universe.
We drive the woman back to her house. ‘Goodbye,’ we wave.
Later, on the road back down the mountain, Dad hits the dashboard with his hand. ‘I couldn’t talk to her,’ he says. There are words clinging to question marks.
‘You tried,’ Mum consoles.
Dad slides the car down into low gear. ‘You know, Lily, for as long as I can remember, I wanted to see her. I imagined what it would be like to meet her again.’
‘You have to give her a chance – it’s been a long time.’
‘I wanted to ask her so many questions.’
‘Things were different in those days. It’s a different world now.’
In the back seat, my sister hums a slow tune and my brother slips into a restful sleep. ‘Who was that woman?’ I ask.
Mum explains. ‘She’s your father’s mother. He hasn’t seen her for a long time.’
Now the afternoon light casts a different glow over the rainforest. Sunlight flickers intermittently through the tall trees, making our journey seem like an old black-and-white, reel-to-reel movie. The noise of the car engine negotiating the hairpin bends of the Mossman Ranges is like the hum of the school’s projector. Words in my head are like specks of dust recurring on every frame. She is my grandmother. I have always wanted a grandmother, someone old to cuddle. I have this feeling of being half awake and half asleep.
That was the first and only time I met my grandmother. A couple of years later, we moved to Canberra. One evening, at the dinner table, Mum would not let us leave until we’d finished eating all our green vegetables.
‘I hate peas,’ my brother announced as he flicked a fork full of food at Clarissa’s head. Mashed potato and peas stained her white T-shirt. Clarissa turned to hit him. Reaching over to restrain her hand, my sleeve brushed against my glass of cordial, knocking it over. My hands were slow to find the serviette. The red cordial was staining the tablecloth.
Mum rose to her feet, screaming for us to be quiet. ‘For God’s sake, stop fighting, you kids, your father’s mother died today.’
I turned to look at Dad, trying to gauge his reaction. I watched him raise his beer to his lips. ‘That old woman we met up at Mossman, she died today?’ I asked.
‘Dad, don’t be sad,’ Clarissa comforted.
Dad’s voice was clear enough, but softer than usual. ‘Come on, you children, eat up your dinner.’
In the years since, that incident has stuck in my head. The melancholy lingered. I would cry – a different kind of weeping. I had cried many times before, but this was for a different pain. I’d never had a chance to get to know my grandmother. I never sat on her lap or cuddled her. I didn’t have any treasures to remind me of her – not a ring or a brooch, nothing. I didn’t know her. But she did matter, didn’t she? I felt a sense of loss that ran deep into my heart, and into the heart of my family.
Yet I remember Mara’s smile and her presence. I remember the rainforest at Mossman Gorge. I look at my hands with their dark creases in the palms. Just like hers. I realise that the past does matter. Mara remains even now a strong memory for me. A memory that grows stronger every time I venture into a rainforest. Meeting her was an emotional and connecting experience. She is a part of me and I do know her.
the heart of compassion
Cairns, 1992
Driving across town, I find memories everywhere. The Cairns Civic Centre is where my father took us kids to see a folk-guitar player. There’s the old post offic
e where Dad used to work. Now I’m passing the giant statue of Captain Cook. The railway lines cross over Florence Street – this is where we would stop when the train passed to get a hot pie from the van. The old Chinese shop at the edge of Malaytown is where my mother bought the cunje and salty plums.
I turn right, then pull up at the side of the road and check the street sign. So much has changed. There are more new buildings. More trees. More concrete. I remember the school, the row of classrooms with louvre windows from floor to the ceiling. The tamarind tree still stands, but the green wooden convent building is not there any more. A new brick building stands in its place. I remember someone telling me about a fire.
The front lawn was where we used to pose for school photos. I always got the same spot in the photo, bottom right-hand corner.
I see children in blue-and-white checked uniforms running around the playground. I remember sitting at the edge of the playground during lunchtime, going through my lunchbox. My mother would pack jam and cheese sandwiches for me, and a piece of fruit. She used to cut and peel the skin from an orange, then rewrap it neatly, leaving the peel still enveloping the flesh. The whole thing was then covered tightly with Gladwrap. There was a girl called Gabriella Panatella who would sit next to me sometimes. Her lunchbox was filled with strange-smelling sausage sandwiches.
Behind the classrooms a raised walkway ran past the priest’s house to the church. My mother told me that this was the same church my grandmother used to attend every Wednesday and Sunday. Francesca would lead my mother and Uncle Tally on the long walk from town. Francesca was a Christian woman, according to my mother. She probably wouldn’t be too proud that I no longer go to Mass, despite my early indoctrination in the Christian faith.
scars
Cairns, 1975
At school Sister Bernadette gives us each a small card which has on it a painted picture of a saint with a yellow moon behind his head. His heart is red and is on the outside of his robe. There are animals flocked around him. A white bird is perched on his shoulder. A deer, just like Bambi, is standing at his side.
Sister Bernadette has no edges, only sharp lines. Her skin is wrinkly above her elbow and I like to watch it wobble under her white sleeves when she writes on the blackboard. She wears a cross on her habit, above her heart, hanging from a finger of silver metal. Her white veil pulls the skin back from her face. It must be too tight, because she never smiles.
Sister Bernadette teaches us to sing: ‘God is dwelling in my heart. He and I are one. All His joy He gives to me, through Christ His son.’ I like to sing the harmony. I like school.
We are learning to read: ‘Dick and Dora’. Sister Bernadette trills the ‘r’ in Dora. Dora’s hair is yellow, tied back with a blue headband. She wears a red dress with black shoes. I like to read. I read the story in our reader. ‘Dick is a boy. Dora is a girl. Dick has a red bike. Dora has a doll’s house. Dick and Dora have a dog. His name is Nip.’
Sarah Wilson has a blue eye and a green eye. Her eyes change colour in the sun. Sarah has long blond hair just like a Barbie doll’s. My hair is cut short, like a boy’s. I want long hair too. I put my mum’s stockings on my head, stuffing the legs with newspaper to make long thick plaits. Mum’s not happy about it. She says she can never find stockings to wear to work, and when she does they all have ladders in them. Dad says it’s too hot for stockings anyway, but Mum says it’s the fashion.
In the middle of the school year, Sarah invites the whole class to her birthday party. My dad drops me off. I hand over a present of clicker-clackers. Sarah says she already has some and this is a stupid present. We all play in the backyard. In her garden there are furry animals in a low cage. They look like rats. They drop funny-looking kumas on the grass.
Once the candles on the birthday cake are blown out, everyone jumps into the pool. Not me. I return to the cage and lift the latch to play with one of the furry things. It squeals and then bites me. I let it go. It runs away. The others get out of the cage too.
Sarah yells to her mother, ‘Tarena let my guinea pigs out.’
I say nothing. When my father comes to pick me up, he tries not to laugh as he crouches on his hands and knees to help Mr Wilson catch the guinea pigs and put them back in the cage.
‘Guinea pigs produce good fertiliser,’ says Mr Wilson, ‘and you don’t have to mow the lawn as much.’
Sarah tells the other girls that my hands are dirty. ‘She’s got scars. Don’t play with her.’
‘My hands are not dirty,’ I say. ‘I don’t have scars. They’re just lines.’
Later, when we get home, Clarissa and I sing songs in the backyard, our own concert stage. We play old 45s and dance and sing. Just like the kids on Young Talent Time.
I fall asleep on the old lounge suite, listening to my sister sing. My father carries me to bed. In the lazy heat of a tropical night, I dream of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty with stockings on their heads for hair. They are lost in the darkening woods, chased by the saint and his pack of animals. Among the collection of wild animals are the guinea pigs, now turned feral. The animals start to attack each other, and the saint runs, dropping his red heart.
the discovery of australia
Cairns, 1976
Sister Bernadette taps on the blackboard. ‘Get your books out.’ Her blue-and-white habit fits tightly across her bulging stomach. ‘Today we are going to learn about the discovery of Australia.’ Sister Bernadette is drawing a map on the board with coloured chalk.
We draw men in blue, with yellow hair. We draw other men with balls next to their feet. They stand in front of brown boats with white sails. We draw other people on one side of the page. They have no clothes, so we colour their skins with a dark brown pencil. My book has lines for words on one side, and then a blank page for pictures. I copy from the blackboard, ‘The Discovery of Australia’.
Sister Bernadette tells the class about the Endeavour and Captain James Cook, who discovered Australia in 1770. We colour the map in green and brown. A squashed strawberry is how it looks after I cut it out and paste it in my book.
‘The land was empty when Captain Cook came. The first settlers had to work hard to plant crops and tend the land for sheep.’ The flesh under Sister Bernadette’s arms is wobbling as usual as she draws on the blackboard.
We draw tents, then a house. I stick on some cottonwool balls for sheep.
‘The settlers also had to fend off the Aborigines. The Aborigines were savages. They had no clothes, no houses and no laws.’
I sink low in my seat. Sarah Wilson leans across and whispers, ‘Aren’t you a savage?’
‘I am not. I’m a Torres Strait Islander and –’
‘You are too,’ she interrupts. ‘That makes you a dirty savage. That’s why your hands stink.’
‘They do not.’ I hit her arm with my ruler, all thirty centimetres of it. Not hard, but playfully. Still, she squeals like her little guinea pigs.
Sister Bernadette’s face contorts and her nose turns from red to purple. ‘You are a naughty, disobedient little creature.’ I feel my arm being twisted as I am pulled out of my chair and dragged to the front of the class.
‘Hold out your hand. Palm up!’ Sister Bernadette turns my limp hand upwards.
I quiver in fright. I can hear kids up the back making smirking noises. I hear one of them say, ‘She’ll pull her hand away. They always do that.’
‘Class, get out your reading.’
The first hit is a horizontal slam. The thud makes my palm smart. I hold my hand straight out, trying to focus on the silver cross that lies above Sister’s Bernadette’s heart. The smirking has stopped. I can hear my classmates reading from their readers.
At lunchtime I sit alone. I watch the other girls skip and sing: ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair, Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t very fuzzy, was he?’
The end of year comes and the school is preparing for the Christmas concert. We are doing the Nativity – the story of Christmas.
‘Any girl who wants to play Mary must come to the piano room at lunchtime.’
There has to be a blue-eyed Mary. Sister Bernadette knows it to be a fact. ‘You can’t play Mary,’ Sister Bernadette says to me.
I am one of the exotic three kings. I carry a purple painted bottle that Sister Bernadette calls frankincense. In my other hand I have a cardboard camel. It looks more like a cow. I do have a solo and I sing up loud and strong. Sarah Wilson plays Mary. She wears a blue sheet on her head and carries a doll wrapped in a white sheet.
On the last day of school, Sister Bernadette is holding up pictures of black-bodied children with big eyes and round bellies. ‘These poor starving African children are dying of malnutrition. Without the love of God and without your help, they won’t get into heaven.’
The class has finished singing my favourite hymn, ‘God is Dwelling in My Heart’, and Sarah passes around the Project Compassion box. I have two small brown coins in my hand. Sarah holds up the box and I let the coins slip into the slot. There are two soft clinks as the coins drop onto other coins.
She shakes the box. ‘How much money did you put in?’
‘I dunno. Just some money my mum gave me.’ I shrug.
‘The brown ones won’t get to heaven.’
‘What?’ I am staring at the face of the child on the box.
‘The brown children won’t get into heaven if you only give brown coins. It’s the silver ones that count.’ She is still jingling the box as she walks away.
the cat and the cyclone
Cairns, 1976
Cairns was still a small country town in the mid-seventies. Tourism had not yet taken hold of the place. I knew all the streets back then. After school, I’d catch the school bus with my brother and sister.
‘Where’s Clarissa?’ Shane asks.
‘I don’t know, but the bus is about to leave.’ I feel helpless, and wonder whether I should ask the driver to wait or whether we should get off and look for her. The doors close.