by Julie Janson
‘I have a question, are the pedagogical outcomes measurable in a cognitive philosophical paradigm? In addition, are the consequences of using this measuring device comparable to the outcomes measured by other educational mechanisms? Alternatively, all of the above? Oh, and who won last night’s raffle? I was dying to get my hands on that meat tray.’
Someone yelled: ‘Get your hand off it, Orlly.’
The room laughed. Jane looked at him sideways; she didn’t recognise him. Who was this pompous educational theorist?
She had a dreamlike memory of the end of the previous night. Arrgh, it was coming back. That’s right, focus. Orlando was dancing on the pool table with a flowerpot on his head. At one stage he might have hung his willy out of his fly with the trouser pockets turned inside out, ‘dancing the elephant’, he said. No, it wasn’t possible; he couldn’t have. Then the brunette had disappeared with him into the ladies toilet; she had come out ten minutes later, brushing her skirt. There seemed to be flecks of semen on her blouse. Jane imagined Orlando pumping Marcia’s pussy standing up in the cubicle, tight black dress pulled up to her armpits. A rootin’ tootin’ Territory lad. It couldn’t have been like that. It wasn’t possible. He loved Jane; no man could be so awful.
Later in the motel, the row began.
‘How could you? Everyone at the conference saw you go in there with her! How does that make me look?’ Jane said.
‘Who cares what people think?’
‘I care.’
‘Well, that shows how middle-class you are. We are not married; we are friends.’
‘We are teachers. We have to be respectable’, she said.
‘No one tells me how to behave, I do what I want, and I always have. We Russians beat the Germans.’
‘Why are you doing this to me? I don’t deserve it.’
‘It’s not all about you. I have my needs. Get over it, it doesn’t mean anything. I love you.’
She looked away, the words ‘break up’ and ‘affair over’ floated on the flocked purple wallpaper. They got into bed and turned their backs. She felt terrible, she wanted to choke him and spit fire in his face.
‘I hope you get the clap’, she hissed.
A few days later, the gift was crabs. They itched and crawled in her pants. She searched with disgust and cursed the brunette. Orlando came back from the chemist with DDT lotion.
‘This will kill them. Sorry, Jane.’ She watched him cover his pubic area with white lotion.
The town of Katherine had all the aspects of a social world: dinners, pubs, and drunkenness, vomiting in gutters, prostitutes, desperate people, selfdelusion, cruelty and loads of good wholesome fun. Jane hoped that in the future Orlando could avoid the temptations that were around every corner. She loved being in a couple but he was a man with roving eyes; every attractive woman they met was a rival; it could be exhausting.
The next day Jane made friends with the historians. They were so courageous and eccentric that the Department of Education didn’t know how to treat them. In the battered Suzuki, alone, Rosie had travelled one thousand kilometres to record stories from Aboriginal informants. She was young, tall, dark and striking, had babies and loved writing true history. They had applied for a grant to write a social history book for the Northern Territory.
‘They wanted a book about brave pioneers battling the Australian outback, maybe a mention of attacks by treacherous natives on valiant men installing the telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin. Nice photos. It was suggested that some cartoons from the Bulletin could show a few Chinese at Halls Creek in coolie hats and pigtails. Gold, Afghans and the outback spirit. Yes, that would be good, with lots of lively folk memories’, said Brian.
‘And photographs of the first town mayor, with his wife in a pith helmet,’ said Rosie.
Jane visited them in town and sat on the plastic lounge in their demountable house – this was the only accommodation available, at the army aerodrome. Jane and Rosie discussed the work of historians.
‘Why is it that concerned citizens always refer to the ‘Aboriginal problem’, and what to do about infant mortality, alcoholism, poverty, unemployment? Those people talk with a mock sorrowful expression. It’s an ecstasy of mourning for a ‘passing people’; the need to ‘smooth the dying pillow’. It’s an orgy of ‘tut tut’ grief’, said Jane.
‘There was ignorance about the vibrant and growing Aboriginal communities, both urban and rural, so oral history is all that remains.’
‘Thank heavens for you two’, said Jane.
‘There are a few records of the killings, rapes and poisonings. Aboriginal people had learnt to lie to protect themselves from any do-gooder reaction down south – and the backlash up here? It might be a knee-jerk response, kids taken. How could human memory be trusted? White people tend to only believe paper records, and if it wasn’t written down then it didn’t happen.’
‘It’s like a series of victories over Aboriginal people’s stories, so they could massage history into noble events … I saw the museum, oh dear, these stories revealed sugar-coated fairy tales where the Wunungah husband went on …”
‘Nigger hunts and bushwhacks to clear the land of Aborigines.’
‘Yep and the ‘little missus’ supervised the starching of cotton lace tablecloths, nice. I like a good table cloth…’
Brian continued:
‘Instead, after a year of research, and travel to so many towns and Aboriginal communities, Rosie and I produced a huge document full of damning revelations about the treatment of Aboriginal people at the hands of white Australians. There were massacres; land was stolen, destroyed, water holes poisoned. Children were taken and the Aboriginal families never saw them again. Men set fire to dying Aborigines. Aboriginal woman were raped, half-caste babies killed with sticks by their white fathers or buried alive – you can listen to the recordings’.
Jane listened to the tapes of oral histories Rosie and Brian had gathered while squatting by campfires, listening for days to Aboriginal stories that made your hair curl, their cassette recorder burning with horror. They would sit near to sites that frothed with corpses, where people who had speared a cow were murdered and left in the burning sun for dingos to eat. No burial markers – the earth was made of skin and bones, hearts and lungs.
The couple would joke about how to approach old white cattlemen who had reputations for murder. They described it to Jane: ‘Um, hi, nice place you got here. Killed any Aboriginal people lately?’
However, in reality, they had devised lists of non-confronting questions, with gentle probing about their families and long ownership of the land, which might lead to sub-textual replies.
Jane went with them on an interview with an old cattleman.
‘Was it leasehold or freehold? Did any Aborigines live here?’ asked Rosie.
‘No, not now. Maybe once, but they had moved on long ago’, the old man said.
‘Gone where?’ asked Brian as he wrote studious notes.
‘Dunno mate, walkabout, you know how they are. Government gives them everything these days and they just drink grog, piss it up against the wall.’ Brian nodded sagely and carefully tucked away the tape recorder. The old cattleman called him back.
‘They used to say, when it came to darkies, shoot, shovel and shut up.’
Jane heard from Brian about what happened when the History of the Northern Territory publication was ready. The Department of Education was horrified. The Director brought Brian and Rosie into his office. Brian imitated the director:
‘This is not what we wanted. Why are there so many Aboriginal stories? Why haven’t you researchers spoken to any of the local historical societies? Have you read any of the pioneer diaries or brave stories of Leichhardt and his journey to Port Essington or Stuart? These were explorers of real courage. In addition, what are these wild and unsubstantiated claims that a well-known and respected pioneer, one George Renway, had shot hundreds of Aborigines around Rainer River in the early 1900s? It is ridiculous!
Renway’s grandson is the head of the local Rotary Club and Chairman of the Shire Council, and he will tell you that it was positively insulting. No, it will not do, we cannot publish this document! The Department is sorry, but it has been a waste of funds and we suggest that you, Brian and Rosie, might like to go back to teaching. That would suit you better, don’t you think? And would you like a remote school on the Gulf, one hundred kilometres from Borroloola?’ They all laughed.
Brian asked Jane if he could get permission to visit Harrison Station, he would send a letter to Old Pelican for Jane to deliver. There was a huge story to record out there. Rosie and Brian would record it. They would publish all the stories themselves, with tapes of the interviews.
As Jane came out of their house, she noticed that there were men watching her from a car. They looked like city fellas, and one man in a suit jumped out and took a photograph of her. She walked over to them. Perhaps they were lost and she could help them. They drove off.
‘You’re committing a crime by even thinking about land rights. You won’t find much support for a land rights march. If someone puts up a land rights flag, they’ll burn it and they’ll track you down and crucify you ’, said Brian.
‘My letters arrive opened. Edie says she doesn’t know why.’
‘They spy on you; they have nothing else to do. Us southerners, we are monsters who want to destroy the real Territory. We are the commos and agent provocateurs; we have been watched and photographed. Its common knowledge’, Rosie said.
Jane thought that perhaps they were being paranoid, but her friends shook their heads.
‘No, there are National First Australia Party spies, really. They pay private detectives to watch us agitators.’
Jane thought that she would be found out and her modest activities in black rights would be monitored – even the CIA was obvious in small towns. She met an American man dressed in the clothes of a Christian linguist: long white socks, buttoned down white shirt, freshly ironed Bermuda shorts, hair glued in place. She saw him at Aboriginal meetings taking copious notes and even openly recording the speeches on a tape recorder. Jane sauntered up to him and smiled.
‘Who are you? Are you CIA?’ he was startled.
‘Ha, no ma’am, just a Christian on God’s work.’
‘Are you making files about outspoken Aboriginal people? Why would you do that?’ He looked very uncomfortable and adjusted his glasses.
‘The Missionary Fellowship Group is translating the New Testament.’
‘Do you report to ASIO or CIA headquarters? Are you using surveillance on us pathetic teacher activists?’ asked Jane. The man laughed and wiped sweat with a handkerchief. He blew his nose and looked lovingly at his snot; he neatly folded the hanky back into his shirt pocket.
‘No, Ma’am, I’m here for Jesus Christ. The devil is among us. Maybe you are suffering from paranoia?’
‘What is it? A worldwide conspiracy? Do you think that the Black Panther Party is on the move in the Northern Territory?’
‘He moved away. Jane turned her back and saw him taking photographs of Lanniwah men and of the outspoken elders. It was a mystery. Perhaps the missionary work was all above board; these men were working against social injustice. Doing wonderful things for Aboriginal people. They could save the languages.
Jane felt fearless in the face of these men. She had seen her father leave the Communist party because he was threatened with dismissal from his job on the railways. Karl Marx’s ideas flowed in her childhood home. They argued about equality, the evil of inherited wealth, the working class, and how to stand up for your beliefs. There would be no bowing to old money and the squattocracy like their grandparents had to. Still, Jane had feelings of panic when she spotted these men taking her photo. What if she became destitute again? The men in black cars might take her child.
‘Who are you? What on earth would you take my photo for?’ she said.
‘It’s nothing sweetheart. It’s for the girly page in The Sun’.
‘Are you the National First Australia Party? Looking for reds under the bed, are you?’ she shouted at the man in the suit.
‘Just ASIO, darling’, he laughed.
Jane leant down. The nervous man sat there writing notes. He looked down her blouse.
‘What are you doing spying on me?’ she said.
The driver started the engine and rolled up the window. She went around the front and kicked at the car’s headlights. The man in the suit stared. She slammed her fist into the window (Ouch, that hurt!).
‘Stop following me!’ she shouted.
In Katherine, she had become an active letter writer to newspapers and government officials. She was riding a wave of political change. She made sure that she could get away from school long enough to attend the historic signing of Northern Territory mining agreements. Jane made super eight films. It seemed important to document the workings of a police state. She paid the price in the suspicion, or downright hatred, she encountered. In the past, she had feared arrest for having kept a little grass, but in the Territory, she was an obvious target … It came to nothing: she was free up there; no one cared; she could do what she liked; be who she liked.
A week later, Orlando called out that he had seen the historians driving up the muddy track. Brian’s old Suzuki car crawled through mud and his first sight of Jane was in her purple see-through purple harem pants as she bent to tend her Chinese cabbages. She looked up.
‘Welcome to Harrison and Lanniwah country.’
‘You look like a hippy, so out of place on a Territory cattle station.’
‘She’s doing a remarkable job’, said Orlando.
Jane and Orlando made them welcome and on the first night the visitors brought out a bottle of dry white wine and had even brought salad – they had a party. Jane’s need to talk was fierce; she began long monologues with patient Brian smiling – he had learnt to be a good listener and speaker.
‘Revolutions are made by people having one voice: this is the genius of the Black Power movement; its one mind set, the spirit of international rising against colonial hegemony. In Sydney, they are protesting, staging sit-ins. The old order will be overthrown, but it will be gradual.’
Rosie sighed. ‘Aboriginal people in remote places don’t hear about this movement … except from people like us. We are dangerous.’ Jane pushed her chair back:
‘Yes, they have heard about it. Whispers. They know about their own violation, the bizarre and brutal history; they live it every day, walk past the site of murder every day, and feel the oppression every day. The men work for nothing and the women boil clothes in ten-gallon drums, they are paid with flour. Subsistence living. It’s demeaning. Like my family’s life.’
‘You can hear their stories, Jane. Human inquiry; find out the mystery and pathos. The killings all over this country were repetitive and gross. Stories hidden in mangroves, black stinking mud like old bodies decaying. Their history is full of rivers and wetlands polluted by death. The rising of the tide, it sometimes brings reptilian giants, they are king. Everything scatters in fear. They are an allegory that shows humanity’s cruelty and survival.’ Brian spoke calmly while pouring everyone another wine.
Orlando entertained with stories of ceremonies. Isolation in the remote stations drove people mad.
Next day, Old Pelican walked up to meet them. He was crooked with a lame leg, had a carved stick to lean on, clean-shaven and he wore new cowboy clothes with fringed pockets, and elastic-sided black-brown boots. A handsome devil with white slicked down hair, so different to the old person Jane had first met. He beckoned them over near the store, dusted off a place under a tree. He sat for hours with Brian, Rosie and Jane; they brewed tea and ate damper with jam, Old Pelican smoked tobacco that Brian had given him. There were some gifts for him, new blankets and more tobacco; he smoothed the grey wool and rubbed his chin. The old man looked hard at Brian.
‘You tellem true, eh? Not bunkum.’
‘I will, old man, I prom
ise to tell true.’
‘They are good people, trust them’, said Jane.
The old man nodded and they started up the tape recorder.
‘Old people, they hide little fellas from dat East Africa Cold Storage Company; they come first, might be 1890. Government send em up to clean up Lanniwah, Aboriginal people. Body all pile up dat Rainer River. Dat Constable William, he in charge Native Police, he killem thousands our people.’
‘I heard about that, they had an enquiry but the premier of South Australia, he defended that fella. He was found guilty.’
‘Nope. Dat not right. He say not guilty! You Wunungah make up all rubbish one story, I not talk ’bout it no more.’ Old Pelican was angry. Brian sat quietly.
Hubert rode up on his motorbike; he revved the engine and blew dust over Brian and Rosie.
‘Who gave you permission to talk to my blacks?’
‘They’re not your blacks!’ said Rosie.
‘We asked Old Pelican and the other elders’, said Brian.
‘Elders my arse! A group of pathetic bludgers. You come up to my house first and you ask permission from me, not them. They don’t run the show, I do. You got that, townies?’
‘Sure, we’re sorry for not observing station protocols. It won’t happen again’, said Brian.
‘Alright, I accept yer apology. You can come over later and meet the Missus. Show some respect. See you later for smoko, Pelican.’
‘They didn’t know you ruled with an iron hand, Hubert’, said Orlando. Jane nodded to him to be quiet. Hubert roared away on the bike.
Brian offered Pelican a photograph from a library. A mounted constable, William Smith was dressed in white shirt, white moleskin trousers with a broad leather belt and a pistol on the side in a holster. A white felt hat tilted back to reveal his moustachioed face. He wore black leather knee-high boots and leant against a carbine rifle. Next to him, a member of the native police was bare chested with a belt of carbine shells across his chest. He pointed into the distance while the constable looked on. Around them, other members of the force squatted with belts of shells and rifles.