The Crocodile Hotel

by Julie Janson

  Jabirus flew overhead where Edie was planting new geraniums. She waved. Jane felt like a woman who could do anything, teach anyone. An incredible feeling of happiness welled up. Aaron sang and they hugged each other. Flash was up front in the Toyota and barked as Jane packed up their belongings.

  Shirley sat inside the caravan and helped her sort out things to give away as Aaron played on the floor and counted Lego pieces.

  ‘One hundred and two, one hundred and three … I’ve got more than when I started. Yeeai.’

  ‘Who get dis present?’ said Shirley. She held up a royal blue cowboy shirt.

  ‘Old Pelican’, said Jane.

  On the day they left, Jane tied the painted boomerangs and bark paintings carefully on the back of the vehicle. All the schoolchildren stood outside the school and sobbed. Jane sobbed. Raymond cried. Jane handed him a new copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare; she hugged him and everyone. The Lanniwah mob walked over to sit in the shade of a gum tree.

  Old Pelican strolled over to say goodbye.

  ‘You know that one builder he bin finish up?’ he said.

  ‘I know. Poor bugger. Crocodile got him.’

  ‘Might be Kurria spirit take him. He might got footprints stab with hot wire, might be his shirt got em poison, he go mad in bush. What you reckon?’ He laughed and walked away but turned to look at her. She felt sick. It was too horrible – the greenish skin, the vile mangrove mud smell, the memory of the body.

  ‘Old man, please, it all has to stop’, she said.

  ‘You got present for me?’ he said.

  Jane looked back; she felt cold, a shiver of illness and pain. She was afraid of him. He was so dangerous, but she went into her room, took out the new cowboy shirt, and laid it on the bed; she stroked the royal blue cotton and white tassels, the pearl shell buttons. She put it back in her suitcase and closed the lid. She walked out to the old man.

  ‘No, sorry. I got nothing for you. All gone.’

  ‘You got tobacco?’ he said.

  She looked at his outstretched palm, pale with black lines. He looked innocent and needy but his eyes were of steel. Jane looked into them and held the gaze. Not respectful.

  ‘No tobacco either.’

  ‘Yeeai.’ He turned and shuffled back to his camp. She thought: poor stupid Daniel, he didn’t stand a chance against this man. And what about Mayda? A life of sleeping alongside Old Pelican and his four other wives. She would be their drudge and be beaten if she strayed.

  Shirley cried as she hugged Jane, and Lizzy lifted Aaron onto her shoulders and ran towards the billabong. ‘You not go wid her. You stay wid me’, she said as she swung him around. Aaron giggled and they ran back to the packed Toyota. Shirley had a present for Aaron; it was Arabian Nights, a treasure.

  ‘Let’s go, Mummy’, Aaron said. Then Edie whistled for Jane to come to the fence. Jane walked over and Edie kissed her.

  ‘I don’t think the next teacher will be so interesting, Mrs Reynolds’, she said.

  ‘I’ll miss you, Edie, and Hubert.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘I’ll come back one day for a visit.’

  ‘No, you won’t. And with any luck we’ll be in Brisbane’, Edie said.

  Jane drove out of her gate. Hubert rode up on his motor bike. He waved at her to stop.

  ‘See you around like a rissole. Here’s a little gift for ya.’ He handed her a small soft tanned crocodile skin. It was gold and smooth. She took it from his meaty hand and thanked him. It was a strange gift, she didn’t really appreciate dead crocodile skins and no doubt, it came from Harry.

  They left Harrison Station and Lanniwah country. Lanniwah people stood along the road and waved. Jane felt devastated to leave them. Leroy and the other little boys ran up to the car. Aaron waved and shouted: ‘I’m going to big school! See you when we come back!’

  Jane thought, “We will never come back”. Leroy, Ricky, Shirley, Lizzy, Robert and Mayda all ran along beside the car, and then they stopped to wave one more time, their outlines against blue sky. Jane saw the last line of mulga trees disappear as the Brahman bullocks chewed on.

  Some weeks later, at the new remote Aboriginal school, Jane slept in her lovely new fibro house; it smelt of fresh paint and cleanliness. A sound woke her. She sat up in bed and there before her, the old woman’s ghost. Her presence filled the room. She stood dressed in feathered string and a long white feathered headdress, with her Dreaming painted in yellow ochre across her breasts. She danced her Dreaming Ceremony and sang with high clear notes. Jane sat up in bed, stunned. Old Lucy spoke swiftly in language to her, but Jane could not make out the words. Jane was alert; the moist sheet clung to her shoulders and she was about to ask her granny something, when the old woman faded into the venetian blinds like dust.

  Jane was part of the supernatural world that Aboriginal people treated with a sense of common acceptance. It was not strange; it just was. Jane’s experiences with the Lanniwah linked Jane to who she was – her history, her genetic heritage – and she knew she wouldn’t go back to the uncertainty.

  Jane phoned her Darug aunt, who advised her to take a crystal, hold onto it in the night, and ask the ghost what she wanted. Aunty Emily suggested it was like getting the phone on – once you saw one ghost, you would always see them. Jane did not welcome this information. She smoked the house with peppermint gum leaves that she burnt in a wooden coolamon. She cried out, ‘Have peace; go away, ghost’.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  WARNING: Some deceased Aboriginal persons are named below.

  I am indebted to many people who have assisted me in the creation of The Crocodile Hotel, both as a novel and a stage play. Firstly I acknowledge my father Neville (Jedda) Janson for his teaching about the bush and hidden Aboriginal story. My mother, Jovanna Janson for her artistic encouragement and my aunt Rose Pickard for her reading of the novel. I especially thank my husband Michael Fay who has given unswerving support to my writing. Thankyou to my children: Morgan, Zoey and Byron who are an inspiration. Thanks also to the Darug mob and the Buruburongal clan of whom I am a member. This mob has encouraged and facilitated my search for family history from the Hawkesbury River country. I especially thank Shane Smithers and the Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation.

  I also wish to acknowledge the many individuals from the Aboriginal Education Assistants Program, University of Sydney, who nurtured my writing through theatre improvisation in the 1980s and ’90s. Without them, my stage plays Gunjies and Black Mary would not have been possible. In particular, I am grateful for the talented assistance of; Veronica Saunders, Emily Walker, Wirrunga Dunggirr, Delma Davidson and Robyn Williams. I acknowledge the support and input of Aboriginal actors: Justine Saunders, Kevin Smith, Lillian Crombie, Pamela Young, Margaret Harvey and Billy McPherson. I also acknowledge the teachings of Yolngu friends and adopted family past and present: My old mother Dupawal, old father Gulpa Gulpa and elder Burramurra.

  I thank historian, Peter Read for his guidance and support in the research for our project www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au.

  I acknowledge the recognition given to my plays The Crocodile Hotel and The Eyes of Marege through the shortlistings by The Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and the Griffin Award.

  This novel is vastly different to my play The Crocodile Hotel. It has new characters and incidents as it portrays the world of an imagined Northern Territory Aboriginal community and the non-Indigenous people who surround it.

  The novel The Crocodile Hotel would not have been written without the support of the Australia Council’s B R Whiting Studio residence in Rome 2013.

  I also wish to thank those who assisted in completing this novel: Jannawi Dance Clan; editor Brigitte Staples; editor of 2 chapters Wayne Grogan; designer Michelle Ball; proof reader Nigel Parbury; mentor Bem Le Hunte; readers Polly Ryrie and Lesley Giovanelli; John Ogden of Cyclops Press; Tony Gordon of tonygordonprintcounsel.com; and the NSW Writer’s Centre.

  The author ack
nowledges the invaluable support given by the Literature Board, Australia Council for the Arts.

  The writing residency at the BR Whiting Studio, Rome, contributed significantly towards the completion of this novel.