The Cherry Picker's Daughter

by Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert

  Constable Saunders harasses us kids when we go to the shop or the disco they have at the town hall sometimes. He comes along and lets down the tyres on our bikes. We start arguing with him, telling him, ‘You have no right. What about the other kids’ bikes? They’re standing right beside ours. Are you gonna let ’em down, too?’

  He says our tyres are baldy and dangerous but it’s not true: Kevin fixes our bikes all the time and he’s good at it. After he leaves, we swear about him and call him ‘Cuntstable Saunders’. We’ve gotta walk our bikes home. When we get home, we tell Mummy. She goes after him; she won’t let people harass us, even if it’s a policeman.

  But she can’t stop him from harassing us all the time, and eventually, she’s had enough. She writes to his boss, she puts in a complaint. She tells his boss about Mrs D’Elboux, about Constable Saunders not charging her, how she had to go to Cowra and how he deliberately ran over our dogs, killing ’em. About the townspeople shooting our animals and stalking our house at night; and how Saunders picks on us kids whenever he sees us up the street without her.

  He’s in big trouble then and he don’t like it. He comes to Mummy and asks her to withdraw the complaint but Mummy says, ‘No. I hope you rot where you’re going.’

  We’re happy to see the back of him and hope there’s no Blackfellas in the town he’s going to; they’re gonna cop it real bad. The kids at school don’t pick on me so much now. They must be getting used to having a Black gin going to their school. Me and Heather are still best friends.

  32

  Anzac Day and Martin Luther King

  We’re back in Condo temporarily; I think Meryl’s having a baby again. I sing in the choir at school and I even sing with them on Anzac Day, down the main street. It’s a public holiday but we all go to show our respect to the soldiers who fought in all the wars. When everyone is marching, I think Mummy wishes Daddy and Uncle Raymond were here to represent us as a family. Uncle Raymond still lives in Sydney with Aunty Una and their kids but I reckon Mummy wishes they were here so they could march, too. I know she’s real proud of them both. Uncle Athol (Paddy and Lynnie’s Dad) was in the war but he passed away down in Shepparton. Mummy was proud of him, too.

  Uncle Raymond, especially. He was sneaked into the Army at sixteen when the laws of our country wouldn’t let him because he was Aboriginal. All my Uncles weren’t allowed to enlist because they were Aboriginal but ours did. He wasn’t supposed to be in the war but he stole Mummy’s birth certificate and pretended he was older than he was. Uncle Raymond was fairer-skinned so he was able to sneak in. A lot of other Aboriginal men went, even with the law banning Blacks from serving in the army. They went because it was our country, too.

  One day, after we’ve been living in Koora for about six months, I get invited to the birthday of Colleen from school. Mummy takes me to town on the train to buy a new dress and a present. When the day comes, she gets Lynnie to walk me halfway and I’m allowed to walk the rest of the way to Colleen’s house by myself, and I’m feeling so good. This is the first time I’ve ever been to a birthday party that doesn’t belong to one of my family. I walk, so happy, smiling like the world was just meant for me. I round the corner near her house and her father’s standing on their front verandah. He yells at me, ‘Get home, you Black slut! We don’t want your kind here.’

  I run away, crying. I head to the railway silos and I hide. I rip the present apart and chuck it in the grass. Nobody’s gonna have it now. I sit and wait, crying. I can’t go home and tell Mummy; she would go after him. Then, there’d be trouble again and she might really get hurt this time.

  I watch the sun slowly going over the sky till I think it’s time to go home. I walk in the house smiling. Mummy asks me, ‘Did you have a good time? Did she like her present?’ I lie through my teeth and tell her, ‘Yes, it was great and everyone was real nice’.

  It’s 1968. In other places, the hippies and the peace movement are in full swing but, in Koora, our news is that Mummy’s gonna get her licence and then get a little car. We won’t have to go on the train no more and it will save us camping all the time while we’re doing the prunes and tomatoes; we can drive there each day. The car is a little red Hillman Hunter. My nieces and nephews sing songs about her and the car.

  ‘Here comes Ma in her little red wagon, jumping up and down, and the rear end dragging.’

  It’s a funny little song and Mummy loves it. Now, we can go to Condo to see all the family. It takes us five hours because Mummy refuses to drive over forty miles per hour and, along the way, we have pit stops for cuppas from the thermos. We can go to bingo, too. Mummy loves bingo and usually she wins, not a lot, but just what she needs. She always says, ‘I need this much to buy Kevin a pair of shoes and I need this much for petrol to get us home and this much for tucker’. And she wins it, sometimes not enough for everything, but most times she does, anyway. I know she says a little prayer to God to help her now and again.

  One day in April, us kids are at home watching TV and Mummy comes in the room and turns it off. We’re upset; we wanted to watch but she tells us that Dr Martin Luther King got shot down today and we had to show some respect for this man which means no TV.

  We all know who he was. He was a special Black man in America who fought for human rights for Black people. We have heard him on TV and my favourite is when he says, ‘I have a dream’. We want a dream here, too, for Aboriginal people. It hasn’t changed much in this place, I reckon, for us or for the Blackfellas over in America, either, since President Kennedy got shot.

  We don’t mind showing this man respect. He deserves it and, anyway, when any of our family members pass away, Mummy does the same thing. The TV’s not allowed to go on and it stays off until she decides we’re allowed to have it on again. We go into our rooms, knowing we have to be quiet. Being quiet when people are talking is respectful and being quiet when someone has died is respectful, too.

  My big sister [actually Kerry’s cousin but they all live together with Kerry’s Aunt whom Kerry calls ‘Mummy’], Meryl, is having troubles with her baby so I have to go and help her in her house in Condo. Mummy drives over and stays for a night, and then heads back to Koora. I go back to Condo school and help Meryl when I come home in the afternoons. It’s just before Easter and I’m sleeping in the lounge room. My big brother [actually Kerry’s cousin], Darryl, is staying there, too. Something about Darryl makes me feel like spiders are crawling over my skin. I try to avoid him the best I can.

  When Meryl is a little better with the baby, Mummy comes to take me home to Koora. I’m glad. If Mummy thinks I’m a bad girl, the Welfare might come and take me away. I sit terrified in the back of the car, not talking or laughing or even singing any songs.

  Mummy knows something is wrong.

  She tells the other kids to go and put the jug on. I tell her I’m bleeding inside. She sings out to Lynnie to come and get me to take me in the house. She tells me, ‘Lynnie’ll show me what to do’. I have my periods; there’s nothing to worry about, it’s normal. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not gonna be sent away. The Welfare won’t come; it’s only my periods.

  Meryl gets sick with the baby again so I go back to help her. The Condo school carnival is on and I love sports; all us kids are good at what we do. I love the high jump and I come second place in the Senior High Jump. And it’s great that I’m a senior at my school. I run home to Mummy to show her my certificate. I tell her how much I got beat, ‘Only by one inch, that’s all,’ and how it wasn’t just the Condo kids I was jumping against but all the other kids from the schools from all over the bush.

  The certificate—it’s got my name on it but they spelt Kerry wrong. I take a pen and change the ‘–ie’ to a ‘–y’. Mr Readon’s one of my favourite teachers and I can’t believe he spelt my name wrong. He dates it, 9th August 1968.

  In October, we’re all camped at Meryl’s and my thirteenth birthday is tomorrow. I’m sleeping in the lounge room again. I’m so happy. When I wake up, I�
�ve got a piece of string tied to my finger and I gotta follow it to find my present. The string goes into the kitchen, it goes around the bread canister, around the toaster, down and out of a cupboard, out into the laundry and it’s still not ending.

  The string, it’s going everywhere. I’m so excited! I follow it out the back door and under the lemon tree and orange trees up along the back fence into the flowers. Finally, I come to the end, lying there with the Lily of the Valley. I’ve found a little box on the end of the string. I gotta watch, my very own watch! Mummy tells me that now that I’m getting ready for high school next year, I need my own watch to tell the time.

  I thank her so much for my watch and I tell her how much I loved playing the game of following the string and finding it in amongst the flowers. She got the kids to put the string everywhere but told them to leave the present in the flowers. I tell her I like the Lily of the Valley and she says she does, too, and that ‘They were your mother’s favourite flowers’.

  My mother’s favourite flowers—wow, this is cool. I know something else about my mother. We head back to Koora after a couple of days and back to Koora primary school. I can’t wait to be in high school. What’s more important, I’m gonna be the youngest in my family ever to go to high school. My cousin, Rachel, is gonna come and live with us. She’s younger than me so I won’t be the baby anymore; but that’s all right—we love her heaps. She has to sleep with me in the room with Lynnie.

  Darryl’s also moving in to live with us. I think Mummy thinks we gotta have a man here to help protect us from the town; they’re still giving us hell. I wish he wasn’t, though. He’s working in Cowra at Edgell’s Cannery, though, so that’s good. We don’t see him much and, when we do, we try to stay away from him.

  33

  Mother’s Day and White Trash

  It’s Mother’s Day and we’ve got no money to buy Mummy a present. There’s no work around, either, but Mummy has an account at the Koora General Store; and we’re allowed to book up a present each for her on her bill. There’s nothing real pretty in that shop but I find a big silver alarm clock that has a bell on top and rings real loud. I think it’s a great present for Mummy so I buy her that, take it home and wrap it up.

  I give it to her and she loves it, so I’m happy. But it’s real funny, I don’t think us kids ever paid our bill at the store—only Mummy.

  Mummy sends me to Cowra High School but I don’t like it. I wanna go to school with Kevin and Lynnie and Heather; I wanna go to Young. I tell her and she lets me go there instead. We keep heading back to Condo regularly for family occasions. When the school holidays come, we still do the fruits.

  Meryl’s having her fourth baby and we’re all hoping for a boy. She has three girls and they’re all beautiful but a little boy would be special. Meryl hasn’t got a washing machine and has been bending over the bathtub washing the clothes. She nearly loses the baby so I go back to help her. This time, Darryl’s not around and so I feel safe. Meryl does have a little boy.

  Mummy bought me my very own camera for my fourteenth birthday and I’m so happy. I love photos as much as she does and I wanna takes lots of the family. I can only take pictures in black and white since coloured photos are too dear; and I only get a little bit of pocket money unless we’re picking. I guess my family’s just gonna have a lotta black and white photos.

  I get to be like Mummy; I don’t like leaving my photos at home when we travel. I put them with Mummy’s in the pretty Arnott’s biscuit and lolly tins in the back of the car, just to make sure. That way, if there’s a fire again, they won’t get burnt.

  Big brother, Johnny, and his wife, Beryl, and their kids are living with us in Koora now. Cousin Rachel’s gone home to Uncle Paddy and Aunty Carol, and Darryl has moved into Cowra for work. I’m not sorry to see him go.

  Aunty Doris, Mummy’s eldest sister, and her kids, have moved to Koora, too. Aunty Doris is just like Mummy; she works real hard so she can keep her kids happy. She’s lovely and soft and kind. Mummy always says she’s the soft one in the family. Loretta goes to school with me. She’s the same age and she’s in my class. Sharon’s my other cousin; she’s the same age as Lynnie. Us girls all hang around together; there’s Lynnie and Sharon, me and Loretta and my best friend, Heather. We walk around like this little gang of girls.

  We don’t do bad things, just fun things like teasing the boys. When we’re all together, we call ourselves ‘We, Us & Co.’ We wear a yellow T-shirt with all our names on the back and ‘We, Us & Co.’ written on there, too, and a pair of cut-off jeans. We all think we’re real cool, and boy, do we strut!

  Some of the grown-ups in town, they’re still bastards—the ones who hate us for being Black. Most of the white kids are good now but there’s still a couple who hate us, just like their parents do. One day, me and Heather are walking up the main street to the shops. One of the boys calls me a ‘Black slut’ as I walk past. I go to go after him but he runs. I yell after him, ‘I’m gonna flog you when I get ya!’ Heather says not to worry—we can get him on the bus tomorrow.

  The next day, I wait till the afternoon. Just as we’re pulling into Koora, I walk up to him. I’ve cooled down by now but I tell him, ‘If you ever call me that again, I‘ll flog ya’. Me and Heather walk off the bus, laughing. I would’ve got in trouble if I started on him in the bus. Mr Brown would’ve barred me from the bus for a week and then I would’ve been in trouble with Mummy, too.

  The next day, all is good in the world and I ignore him; the bus to and from school is good. Pulling into the bus stop at Koora, I see his mother, Mrs Worth—she’s waiting for me to get off the bus. She screams at me, ‘How dare you call him White Trash’.

  I tell her, ‘He called me a Black slut. I can call him what I like if he wants to call me names.’

  She hits me right across the face and starts pulling my hair.

  I hit her back.

  Cousin Loretta is trying to stop the fight and attempts to pull me off this big fat woman. Mrs Worth has her hands full of my hair and, every time she pulls, more hair comes outta my head. She’s got handfuls but I keep punching her in the face anywhere that I can connect. My hate and anger, all wrapped up inside me, comes out as I flog her for every racist comment and act this town has done to me and my family. I belt her and belt her. She’ll never hit me again.

  I go home to Mummy; I’m not too badly hurt, except for scratches on my face and less hair up top. When Mummy goes after her, she tells Mummy she’s charging me with assault. She’s got two black eyes and I’m glad. Mummy goes to the police and charges her, instead, with hitting me—a minor—a grown woman, twice my size and married with kids. The law wouldn’t be happy with her.

  Us kids laugh. A big grown fat woman like that charging me with assault. What a joke. The judge only has to take one look at the size of me compared to her and know that she did wrong hitting me in the first place.

  Mrs Worth comes to Mummy and says, ‘What do you want, to drop the charges?’ I’m sure Mummy tells her to leave town and make sure her kids don’t come near us or she’ll charge her. They did and they don’t! ‘Serves them right,’ we laugh. We’re showing this town not to fuck with the Blacks. We won’t run away from them. We’ll stand up and fight each step of the way.

  The racism in town quietens down. They stop picking on a single Aboriginal woman and her four kids, or at least, they’re not so blatant now. We still hate the mad D’Elboux woman, though. We’ll never forgive her for shooting at Mummy. We let her family know we don’t like her and they let us know they don’t like us, neither. Mummy tells us to stay away from them and we do, but if we see them, we give them dirty looks and make a smart comment.

  34

  A letter from the Queen

  One day, it’s my turn to pick the mail up from the post office and there’s a letter from the Queen. Mummy, she’s forever getting these special letters, official government letters with the Queen’s emblem stamped in the corner. It’s a big blue envelope telling the
world it’s real important; it says, ‘On Her Majesty’s Service’. It don’t need a stamp like other letters so that makes it different.

  As I pass it to her, I ask, ‘What are these letters from the Queen for, Mummy?’—I’d seen so many before. She said, ‘I wrote to the Queen and asked her to let your father out of jail. I write every year.’ I ask her what she said to the Queen; I think it’s so wonderful that she wrote to a real important person. I ain’t never heard of anyone writing to the Queen before.

  Mummy tells me that she asked the Queen to take into account how long my father’s been in jail and what kinda life he had, and what was happening here in Australia for Aboriginal people back in those days. I try to imagine what she would’ve written and what her handwriting on the paper would have looked like. She had scrawly writing and, sometimes, it’s even hard for me to read and I’m the best at reading. Maybe, my child’s reasoning went, the letter might have said:

  To Her Majesty, the Queen,

  Dear Madam,

  I am writing to you in relation to my brother, Kevin; he is in jail. I am rearing up his two children, Kevin and Kerry. They need to have their father home with them and they need to know their Dad, every child needs their father.

  I know what my brother did was wrong but he was orphaned at the age of seven when we lost our parents. Since then, life has been hard for him. He’s an Aboriginal man and, in those days, in this country, life was hard for Aboriginal people.

  I ask you to release my brother; he has been in jail now for a long time as punishment. He does not deserve to be in there anymore. He needs to be home with his children so that they can know their father.