by Sally Morgan
The senior officer looked at me silently for a few minutes and then said, ‘Well, Mrs Morgan. You are either telling the truth, or you’re a very good actress!’
I was amazed, still my innocence wasn’t to be conceded.
‘I’m telling the truth,’ I said crossly.
‘Very well, you may go.’ I was dismissed with a nod of the head. I was unable to move.
‘I’m not sure I want this scholarship any more,’ I said. ‘What if someone else makes a complaint? Will I be hauled in here for the same thing?’
The senior office thought for a moment, then said, ‘No. If someone else complains, we’ll ignore it.’
Satisfied, I left and walked quickly to the elevator. I felt sick and I wasn’t sure how much longer my legs would support me. It was just as well I’d lost my temper, I thought. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have defended myself at all. It was the thought that somehow Mum and Nan might have to be involved that had angered me. It had seemed so demeaning.
Once I was outside, I let the breeze blowing up the street ease away the tenseness in the muscles in my face. I breathed deeply to steady myself and walked slowly to the bus stop.
What if I had been too shy to defend myself, I thought. What would have happened then? I had no doubt they would have taken the scholarship away from me. Then I thought, maybe I’m doing the wrong thing. It hadn’t been easy trying to identify with being Aboriginal. No one was sympathetic, so many people equated it with dollars and cents, no one understood why it was so important. I should chuck it all in, I thought. Paul was supporting me now, I could finish my studies without the scholarship. It wasn’t worth it.
I wanted to cry. I hated myself when I got like that. I never cried, and yet, since all this had been going on, I’d wanted to cry often. It wasn’t something I could control. Sometimes when I looked at Nan, I just wanted to cry. It was absurd. There was so much about myself I didn’t understand.
The bus pulled in and I hopped on and paid my fare. Then I headed for the back of the bus. I just made it. My eyes were becoming clouded with unshed tears and if the bus had been any longer, I would have probably fallen over in the aisle. I turned my face to the window and stared out at the passing bitumen. Had I been dishonest with myself? What did it really mean to be Aboriginal? I’d never lived off the land and been a hunter and a gatherer. I’d never participated in corroborees or heard stories of the Dreamtime. I hardly knew any Aboriginal people. What did it mean for someone like me?
halfway home on the bus, I felt so weighed down with all my questions that I decided to give it all up. I would telephone the department and tell them I wanted to go off the scholarship. I didn’t think my family would care what I did, they’d probably be relieved I wasn’t trying to rock the boat any more. They could all go on being what they’d been for years, they wouldn’t have to cope with a crazy member of the family who didn’t know who she was. That’s what I’d do. And I’d do it as soon as possible. I wasn’t a brave person.
Just then, for some reason, I could see Nan. She was standing in front of me, looking at me. Her eyes were sad, ‘Oh Nan,’ I sighed, ‘why did you have to turn up now, of all times?’ She vanished as quickly as she’d come. I knew then that, for some reason, it was very important I stayed on the scholarship. If I denied my tentative identification with the past now, I’d be denying her as well. I had to hold on to the fact that, some day, it might all mean something. And if that turned out to be the belief of a fool, then I would just have to live with it.
When I told Jill about my interview, she was amazed. ‘I’m glad it was you and not me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have said what you did. I’d have let them think I was guilty. I can’t stick up for myself like that.’
‘I don’t know how I did it, either,’ I replied. ‘But you know what, I’m really glad I did. From now on, I’m going to say more, be more assertive.’
‘Heaven help us!’
‘Who do you think dobbed me in?’
‘Dunno. It makes you suspicious, though.’
For the next few weeks, we watched all our friends closely, searching for any small signs of guilt and betrayal. There were none.
‘I give up,’ I told Jill one lunchtime, ‘if we keeping watching everyone, we’ll never trust anyone again, better to forget it.’
On the weekend, I told Mum what had happened. She was very upset, much more upset than I had anticipated. She took it as a personal slight on herself.
Nan took an interest in the proceedings as well. She wasn’t angry, just very pessimistic. ‘You shouldn’t have done it, Sally,’ she growled. ‘You don’t know what they’ll do now. The might send someone to the house. Government people are like that. Best to say nothing, just go along with them till you see which way the wind blows. You don’t know what will happen now, you mark my words.’
‘Oh don’t be stupid, Nan,’ Mum yelled. ‘She did right to defend herself. No one’s going to come snooping around. Times have changed.’
‘You’re stupid, Glad,’ Nan grunted, and before Mum could reply, she shuffled out to her bedroom.
‘You’re going to be in for it tonight, Mum,’ I sighed. ‘She’s going to be in a real lousy mood.’
‘I don’t know why she gets like that,’ Mum said. ‘She’s frightened, you see. She’s been frightened all her life. You can tell her things have changed, but she won’t listen. She thinks it’s still like the old days when people could do what they liked with you.’
‘Could they, Mum?’
‘What?’
‘Do what they liked with you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to talk now, Sally. Not now.’
However, my run-in with the Education Department did produce some unexpected results. Mum suddenly became more sympathetic to my desire to learn about the past. One day, she said to me, ‘Of course, you know Nan was born on Corunna Downs Station, don’t you?’
‘I’ve heard her mention that station,’ I replied, ‘but whenever I’ve asked her about it, she clams up. Remember when David got that map of the north and showed her on the map where Corunna Downs was? She was quite excited that it was on a map, wasn’t she? Yet, she still won’t talk.’
‘I know. It really upsets me, sometimes.’
‘Mum, who owned Corunna Downs?’
‘Judy’s father.’
‘I didn’t know that. What was his name?’
‘Alfred Howden Drake-Brockman.’
‘Fancy that. I suppose that’s why Judy and Nan are so close. That and the fact that Nan used to work for the family.’
‘Yes. Nan was Judy’s nursemaid when she was little.’
‘Tell me the other things she used to do then, Mum.’
‘I remember she used to work very hard. Very, very hard … Oh, I don’t want to talk any more. Maybe some other time.’
For once, I accepted her decision without complaint. I knew now there would be other times.
Even though I was married, I saw my family nearly every day. There were such strong bonds between us it was impossible for me not to want to see them. Just as well Paul was the uncomplaining sort.
One Saturday afternoon, I was over visiting Mum when she asked me to help her with Curly. ‘He’s in one of his cantankerous moods,’ she said. ‘He won’t come inside, see what you can do with him.’
I eyed Curly in disgust from my standpoint on the front porch. He was lying in the middle of the road as usual. All morning, cars had been tooting at him, all to no avail. Curly moved for no one.
‘You’ll get run over, Curl,’ I called in my Let’s Be Reasonable voice. ‘You’d better come in.’ Still no response.
‘I don’t think he’ll come in, Mum,’ I replied. ‘I wish Paul were here, he always obeys Paul.’
‘You don’t think he’s going deaf in his old age?’ Mum asked with a concerned look on her face.
‘Naah, just stupid.’
‘He’s a good dog, Sally,’ she protested. ‘You shouldn’t talk about him l
ike that.’
‘I think you’d better go inside, Mum,’ I advised. ‘He’ll never listen to me with you standing there.’ Mum disappeared and I called once again to the flat layer of black fur lying on the road.
‘Curl, Mum’s gone now. If you don’t come in, I’m gunna drag you in.’ Curl raised his head slightly and growled. I knew what that meant. As soon as I touched him, he’d bite me. I’d been through this before.
‘Listen, you bloody mongrel,’ I yelled.
‘But before I could continue my tirade, Nan came up behind me and said, ‘Don’t say that, Sally, it hurts me here,’ she patted her chest. ‘Fancy, my own grand daughter sayin’ that. I never thought you’d be the one.’
‘You’re as bad as Mum,’ I complained. ‘I’m not allowed to say anything.’
‘I been called that,’ Nan replied. ‘It makes you feel real rotten inside.’
‘It’s no use you going on, Nan,’ I said without listening, ‘he is a bloody mongrel!’
‘Don’t! Don’t!’ she said, as though I was inflicting some kind of pain on her.
‘Nan,’ I reasoned, ‘someone has got to be firm with him or he’ll get run over one day.’
‘What are you talkin’ about, Sally?’
‘I’m talking about Curly,’ I replied in exasperation, and then paused. ‘Why, what are you talking about?’
Nan gazed towards the oval directly opposite our house. Just where the bitumen ended and the grass began sat a small Aboriginal boy. I recognised him as belonging to a house around the corner from us. He was intent on some sort of game.
‘Nan!’ I said in shock. ‘You don’t think I was calling that little fella a bloody mongrel, do you? Oh Nan, I’d never call a kid that. That’s a terrible thing to call anyone. How could you think I’d do such a thing?’
‘I’ve heard them called that. It’s not right, they got feelings.’
‘Nan, did you say you’d been called that?’
She put her hand over her mouth.
‘Who was it, Nan? What rotten bugger called you that?’
‘Don’t want to talk about it, Sally,’ she shook her head.
‘You’ve been called that more than once, haven’t you, Nan?’ She ignored my question and turned to go inside. halfway through the doorway, she stopped and said, ‘Sal?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Promise me you won’t ever call them that? When you see a little bloke like that, think of your Nanna.’
I nodded my head. I was too close to tears to reply. I wished I could wipe memories like that from her mind. She looked so vulnerable, not like her usual complaining self. It was times like that I realised just how much I loved her.
_____________
*Nyoongah — the Aboriginal people of south-west Australia. (Derived from man or person.) Also the language of these people.
A visitor
After I graduated from university, I continued postgraduate studies in Psychology at the Western Australian Institute of Technology.
My brother David was also successful in completing his Leaving exams that year, and now Helen was the only one of us still at school. She was in third year high school.
Mum and I had many small conversations about the past, but they weren’t really informative, because we tended to cover the same ground. Sometimes, Mum would try and get Nan to talk. One day, I heard Nan shout, ‘You’re always goin’ on about the past these days, Glad. I’m sick of it. It makes me sick in here,’ she pointed to her chest. ‘My brain’s no good, Glad, I can’t ’member!’
Mum gave up easily. ‘She’s been like that all her life,’ she complained to me one day, ‘she’ll never change. When I was little, I used to ask about my father, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. In the end, I gave up.’
‘Who was your father?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she replied sadly, ‘Nan just said he was a white man who died when I was very small.’
I felt sad then. I promised myself that, one day, I would find out who her father was. She had a right to know.
In 1975, I gave birth to a daughter, Ambelin Star. The family was very excited, it was our first grandchild. Mum cried when she saw her, so did Nan. Now, instead of collecting antiques, Mum started buying up toys and children’s books.
I passed my course at WAIT and decided to give up study for a while and concentrate on being a wife and mother.
I continued to prompt Nan about the past, but she dug her heels in further and further. She said that I didn’t love her, that none of us had ever loved or wanted her. She maintained that Mum had never looked after her properly. In fact, she became so consistently cantankerous that she gradually drove us all away. Everyone in the family got to the stage where, if we could avoid seeing Nan, we would.
Paul and I also became fed-up with city life at this time, so we thought we’d try the country for a while. Paul’s parents were now living in Albany on a small farmlet, so we moved down to Albany for twelve months.
Jill had now left university and was helping Mum run her florist shop. She had had enough of study for a while, although she did return later and complete an Arts degree.
My brothers were now working; Bill was up North with a mining company and David in the city with a firm of auctioneers. David was also working at night and in the evenings as a musician with a rock-and-roll band.
In 1976, Helen successfully completed her Tertiary Admittance Examination. The TAE had replaced the Leaving examination.
In 1977, lack of money and poor employment prospects drove us back to Perth, where Paul began his own cleaning business. He had resigned from teaching when we moved to Albany. I became pregnant with my second child that year and was very sick, spending a number of weeks in hospital.
Because of these various factors, my search for the past seemed to have reached a standstill from 1975 to 1978.
By the time I’d had my second child, Blaze Jake, in 1978, a change was beginning to take place in our family. Nan’s brother, Arthur, began making regular visits. He was keen to see more of Nan now they were both getting older. And he was very fond of Mum.
‘Who is he?’ I asked, when I found him parked in front of the TV one day with a huge meal on his lap.
‘You remember him, Arthur, Nan’s brother. When you were little, he visited us a couple of times, remember?’
I cast my mind back and suddenly I saw him as he had been so many years before. Tall and dark, with a big smile.
‘Is he her only brother?’ I asked. ‘No other relatives hidden away in the closet?’
‘No,’ Mum laughed, ‘he’s the only one that I know of. He’s a darling old bloke, a real character. I think Nan’s jealous of him.’
‘That’d be right! Great to think they’re seeing each other after all these years.’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Mum said with tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve told him to come and stay whenever he likes.’
‘Mum,’ I said slowly, ‘you don’t think he could tell us about the past? About Nan, I mean.’
‘I think he could, if we can get him to talk. He tells some wonderful stories. Go and talk to him.’
It took a while for me to get close to Arthur. He loved Mum, but he was wary of the rest of us. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of us, and he wasn’t quite sure what we made of him. If he had known how insatiably curious we were about him and his past, he would probably have been scared off.
But on one of these early visits, he unexpectedly did provide us with a very vivid picture from the past. Some old photographs of Nan, taken in the nineteen twenties. Nan had always refused to allow any of us to take her photograph, so it was exciting to be able to see her as a young woman. Nan, however, was not impressed.
It became very obvious in a very short time that Nan and Arthur were brother and sister, because they fought like cat and dog. When Arthur was around, Nan behaved like a child. She was jealous because Mum loved him and enjoyed his company. She was also frightened of what he might tell us.
‘Is she goin’ on again?’ Arthur said to Mum. He loved pretending Nan wasn’t there. ‘You know what’s wrong with her, don’t you?’ he whispered. ‘She’s jealous.’
‘You silly old man,’ she grumbled, ‘who do you think you are?Nobody’s interested in your stories. You’re just a silly old blackfella.’
‘Aah, you’ll have to think of a better name than that to call me,’ he smiled, ‘I’m proud of bein’ a blackfella. Anyway, you’re a blackfella yourself, what do ya think of that?!’
Nan was incensed. No one had called her a blackfella for years. She bent down to him and said, ‘I may be a blackfella, but I’m not like you. I dress decent and I know the right way to do things. Look at you, a grown man and you got your pants tied up with a bit of string! You don’t see me goin’ round like that.’
‘Git out of here,’ he said as he shook his fist at her, ‘leave us alone, we want to talk.’
Nan wandered off, but she was back fifteen minutes later to check on what he was saying.
‘You’re like a bag of wind,’ she complained as she stood in the doorway of the lounge room. ‘Blow, blow, blow! Don’t you ever shut up?’
‘I feel sorry for you,’ Arthur replied sympathetically, ‘you got my pity. You don’t have a good word to say about anyone, not even your own daughter. I tell you this, this is a warning, one day I’m gunna get a young wife. I’ll bring her round here and then you won’t dare to talk to me like that.’
Nan always laughed whenever Arthur talked about getting himself a young wife to look after him in his old age. ‘No one would have you,’ she hooted. ‘Young girls are smart these days, they see you comin’ and they run like a willy-willy. Who’d want a silly old blackfella like you, you got no money.’
‘You don’t know what I got,’ Arthur replied. ‘I got all my land up in Mukinbudin, that’s more than what most blackfellas got.’
‘Your land, your land,’ Nan mimicked him. ‘I don’t want to her about your land no more. I bet all the kangaroos eat your crops.’