Snake Dancing

by Roberta Sykes

  Denis had no such history in the north. When I first saw him, holding court on Evelyn’s verandah, he was wearing a trim afro, a black suit and sporting gold chains around his neck and his wrist. He exuded charisma and carried himself with such pride that we were impressed. His sophisticated presentation had a clarity and relevance that excited us all, providing us with a much needed infusion of hope.

  ‘We need all Blacks involved in the struggle,’ he told us, ‘people prepared to do whatever’s necessary to force the system to recognise our equality and end discrimination.’ I said that I was leaving Townsville to go south within a few weeks, and asked him where he thought I should go.

  ‘Sydney’s where the action will happen,’ he said. ‘There are many young Blacks working there and lots more support. It’s closer to Canberra, we have to put pressure on federal politicians to honour the referendum. But come by the Tribal Council in Brisbane on your way. You’ll be made very welcome.’

  I had been worried about the major decision I was making to leave my marriage and my many Townsville friends. I had few friends elsewhere, and the idea of starting out anew scared me. Denis’ words suggested a warm reception would be waiting in the south if I was prepared to throw my weight into the struggle for change. I had two small children for whom I wanted a better life and greater opportunities than had been possible for me. My decision to leave, I felt, was right.

  5

  Originally I had planned to drive to Sydney with my personal effects stored in the boot of the car. I’d bought a stereo that I was very fond of, and had a record and small book collection, which, although inexpensive, was valuable to me. But the history of the car was a problem. I had bought the first car we owned. It wasn’t fancy but it got us around when we had no other way to travel, and Townsville is a difficult place to live without a car. When William became more financial, he traded my car in on one which he put in both our names. Then, without approval or consultation with me, he traded the second car in on another in his name only. I was angry that the mateship amongst men around used car lots was such that this could happen so easily. Women were still deemed to own nothing of their own, everything of economic value belonged to the men in the family. My car had somehow disappeared.

  By the time of my decision to leave, William also owned a truck, so I drove the car most of the time. Our arguments about the ownership of it were never resolved, but I felt it was mine. Although William made the payments, he could only do so because I had carried the financial burden of everything else concerned with the house. As well, I was a partner in the painting business, and had never received one penny from my initial investment.

  I used the car to drive Russel to Charters Towers where I had arranged for him to board for one term at the Catholic school. This, I thought, would give me time to establish myself in the south, and find a place where the children and I could live. It would give Russel the option of remaining at the school if he liked it and if I could afford it, or coming south to live with me.

  William was ambivalent about my leaving. He’d try to sweet-talk me into changing my mind and when I held firm he would bang and kick the furniture. And he’d do both these things over a space of just a few minutes. Then he’d help me make my departure arrangements, thinking that if he behaved reasonably it would later weigh in his favour and I would return. However, he was unable to maintain a sense of reason over any length of time. As the day drew near for me to leave, he hid the car, put my clothes under lock and key, and I would have had to fight him to remove anything I owned from the house.

  I had earlier sorted through my clothes and left a pile of things which were fairly worn out at a girlfriend’s house to be given away to people who needed them. So, when William refused to let me take my good clothes, I asked my friend to put the old clothes in a suitcase and leave them for me at the railway station. These, and my sweet young daughter, Naomi, ended up being the sum total that I carried away with me from a relationship that had lasted seven years.

  I reflected on this as the train raced through the night towards Brisbane, bearing my child and me towards our new life. I had promised to meet William three months hence, on neutral ground, to discuss our respective lives and whether there was any point in continuing our marriage. I knew deep down, however, that he was unlikely to be able to change to accommodate my needs, and I would never be the obedient wife he required in order to find happiness.

  Aunty Glad welcomed us for a few days’ stopover, and she looked after Naomi the night before I left while I went to the National Tribal Council headquarters. Denis sent a van to pick me up after I rang him. It was driven by Cheryl Buchanan, who would later become a staunch friend.

  The headquarters consisted of a large open-plan office, and even though it was nightfall many people were still working and the place was a hive of activity. Denis and many of the others were folding papers and stuffing envelopes to be mailed, so I sat on the opposite side of his desk and joined in the task while we talked.

  Playing around on the floor was a child who was, from time to time, getting into mischief. Denis, whose conversation was littered with swear-words, struck out with his foot, narrowly missing the little one. This was not the Denis I had seen in Townsville, where he had been very cool, respectful and polite. Quite early in our conversation as he was explaining the set-up and goals of the council, I leaned over and, smiling, said quietly to him, ‘Denis, don’t swear.’

  Behind me I heard the room full of people turn still and silent. A tense moment passed, during which Denis was frowning and looking down, then he raised his head and replied, ‘Okay. If it’s important to you, okay.’ I thought I’d stretch my luck so I added, ‘And don’t kick the child.’ He hadn’t actually kicked the child, but he knew what I meant. I’d taken objection to his feinting towards the lad as an effort to instil fear into him. ‘Okay,’ Denis said without hesitation, and the room regained its clatter.

  Denis gave me names, an address and phone numbers of people he thought I should contact on my arrival in Sydney: Paul Coe, Gary Foley, Gary Williams, Sekia Holland, all unknown to me. He asked me to send him my address when I got settled, and to stay in touch. I agreed. Cheryl drove me home.

  This meeting, brief though it was, proved to be a pivotal event for me. My ideas about joining forces with the Black movement and using my skills to write began to gain form. At last I could see that I had the means to make a worthwhile contribution. Someone was writing the copy for the brochures and pamphlets we had been stuffing in the envelopes, and with a bit of practice that could be me.

  In Sydney, however, the enormity of my undertaking gradually became evident as I tried to become established and find a place to live. A friend, Margaret Hudson, who had also worked at Lowth’s Hotel, invited me to stay with her at her small Kings Cross flat until I could find something more permanent.

  Margaret was managing a Cahill’s restaurant in an underground arcade in the city, and her long working day started before dawn and ended after dark. She allowed Naomi and me to sleep in her little dayroom and was tremendously encouraging in my search.

  Naomi, however, was three years old, and had never been happy to travel. Unlike Russel, she seemed unable to get through a few minutes without demanding the total attention of another person. Also she had to be thoroughly familiar with the environment around her before she felt secure. We’d always had to carry her own plate, cup and eating utensils, as well as the odd items she clung to for a security blanket, whenever we’d travelled outside the house.

  I had thought I would be able to find a place for her in a play school, as she had been attending one in Townsville, but this proved to be impossible. I was told that, even as a single parent, I’d have to be working for her to qualify. I explained that if Naomi could be in care, I would be working, but they were most insistent that having a job had to come first. I trudged around with her, looking for restaurant work, but the reception given to a woman who brings her child with her to an interview was
quite negative, and the search proved fruitless.

  So, too, was my check of publishers to whom I had sent articles. I had sent Reader’s Digest a short true story about an old Murri woman who lived in the mangroves on the edge of town and the incredible life she had lived. When I rang to make an appointment, even the telephonist had read my story and she became upset about it on the phone. At the interview, however, I was informed that, although everyone there had been deeply touched by the story, it was felt that such stories about Aboriginal people were ‘premature’, their readership wasn’t ready.

  At Pol I was told the articles I had sent, in which I had proposed new ways of addressing feminist concerns, were good, but that they had chosen not to publish them. This, of course, was their prerogative. I was disappointed later to learn that my ideas had been reworked by another writer and published by Pol under her name. I was too green at the time to know what to do about something like that, but I felt ripped off.

  Disheartened, but not willing to give up, I wrote a couple of topical articles and sent them to the Australian. I thought, I must stick with areas I know a lot about. So one of these new pieces was about a speech given by a visiting Native American which had direct parallels to concerns in Australia. The other was an analysis of an Aboriginal issue that had made news. A few days after sending them, I followed up with a phone call. I was invited to come in to discuss the work with an acting editor, Dominic Nagle.

  Dominic wanted to talk with me outside the office and arranged for a staff member, a woman called Allison, to look after Naomi while we went to a small cafe nearby. Once seated, he told me we’d left the building because he wanted to be frank. Newspapers, he said, had been told by the government not to carry any more anti-apartheid or pro-Aboriginal coverage than they could help. Dominic disapproved of this interference with the ‘free’ press, but said his job was dependent on carrying out the paper’s policies. My work, he told me, was great and he would have liked to run the pieces. When we returned to the office, I found Naomi clutching an envelope. Allison had written her a reference on Australian stationery for being such ‘a good girl’.

  I was amazed by what Dominic had said, though I appreciated the risk he had taken in telling me and the reasons behind his decision. He had said he wanted to contact me again in a few months because he liked my direct writing style, and I felt encouraged by this. However, beneath that feeling I was angry, very angry, that my efforts had been short-circuited, and I believed that the public was being manipulated by the government.

  Up to this point I hadn’t really thought much about government. Townsville was a long way from the federal centre of power. I had had little to do with local politicians, having left that aspect to people such as Evelyn Scott and Margaret Reynolds to deal with, both of whom knew much more about it than me. My two brushes with politics had been, one unremarkable, the other unimpressive: the Premier, Mr Joh Bjelke-Petersen, had held a function at Lowth’s Hotel at which I’d organised the service of food and drinks; and Mr Killoran, who was in charge of Aboriginal Affairs for the state of Queensland, had once met with representatives from OPAL. During this meeting he had, in front of everyone, patted me on the knee and told me he could get me a house. I had almost fainted with embarrassment at his behaviour and everyone had been affronted on my behalf.

  The thought grew in my mind that I’d have to fight Canberra if I wanted to get my work published. This was a tall order and I didn’t have a clue where to start.

  When the twelve weeks of Russel’s term in boarding school were almost over I had made no progress towards either making a living or finding a place where we could all stay. In the terms of Margaret’s lease she could not have children living in her flat, and Naomi had made the most of this once she’d twigged to it. When she didn’t get her own way she would threaten to scream because, although she didn’t understand the reasons why, Margaret and I had tried to impress on her the need to be quiet while we were at home. A Taurean, Naomi could not be reasoned with or cajoled once she’d made up her mind.

  William and I had agreed to meet at Aunty Glad’s house to discuss our respective futures. I was concerned that he may have become angry and violent once he realised I was not going back to live with him, and Aunty Glad’s presence would ensure this did not happen. William picked up Russel from school and they drove down to Brisbane. Naomi and I came up from Sydney by train.

  Russel did not want to continue at boarding school. I felt, therefore, that both children should come with me, and that William should financially support them until I was able to do so.

  William, however, had been going up to Charters Towers on weekends and taking Russel out fishing and camping, the very things he’d always baulked at doing while we were together. We had also earlier agreed, because of the very deep attachment they displayed towards each other, that we wouldn’t separate the children. I was surprised when he said that Russel and Naomi were both to return to Townsville with him. Immediately I knew that this was a manipulative tactic designed to force me to return too. I refused.

  I felt sure that William had neither the love nor the stamina to keep the children long term, so although I was sad to leave them with him, in my heart I knew it would not be for too long. I returned to Sydney.

  I had spent my small store of cash and I was now desperate to find work. Margaret suggested I might find something at the Cahill’s restaurant at the top of William Street, which was a short block from where she lived.

  At this self-service restaurant, I was unhappy to find myself just carrying loads of dirty plates from the tables to the kitchen, with little or no prospect of advancement. But at least I could contribute to the rent and pay for my share of the domestic expenses. I was biding my time. Margaret kept encouraging me to write, but I went through a very stressful period.

  When I first arrived in Sydney I had visited the address Denis Walker had given me—a large house in Ruthven Street, Bondi Junction—to meet the people he had suggested I contact. The pace in the house was frenetic, with people coming and going, and Naomi had become distressed. Taking care of her had largely prevented me from absorbing much of what was happening around me, or of striking up anything in the way of a friendship or even a proper conversation.

  Now, with more freedom, I sought out some of these people again, although I preferred to meet with them individually and away from the bustle of their house. I didn’t hear well in noisy environments.

  I was never sure who actually lived there. Sekai Holland, an extremely assertive woman from Rhodesia, and her husband certainly did, and some of the Murris (although, so they informed me, in New South Wales they use the word ‘Koori’) had clothes and bedrolls, so their nomadic lifestyle obviously included staying over at this house. But I also met a lot of white people living there who were active in many of the burning issues of the time, such as the anti-war movement, anti-apartheid, and support for the liberation struggle in Rhodesia.

  One of the people I met, Neville Yeomans, a psychiatrist, was active and well-versed in the politics of most of the issues, and he began calling by to see me after he’d finished work. It eventuated that he had fallen in love with a North Vietnamese woman and was in the process of a very stressful divorce from his wife. He talked at great length about the trials of these family matters, so much so that I felt that I was his counsellor. But he also managed to give me a rundown on many important issues and generally kept me informed about the political activities that were taking place.

  My youngest sister, Leonie, now had two sons and was living with her husband, Terry, just a few blocks away. Terry worked at a television station and his shifts were long and irregular. As Leonie was very advanced with her third pregnancy, I offered to stay for a couple of days to look after her two young boys while she went into hospital. When she returned, with three children well under school age, she was quite distracted. Even to go for a walk in the park, she looked like a procession with her stroller, a child hanging onto each side, nappy
bag, bottles and spare changes for the toddlers who were also not yet toilet trained.

  Nevertheless, visiting her helped soothe the ache in my heart as I was missing my own children. Also, I used her home as a postal address to receive letters from Townsville. Family and friends, including a Catholic priest, Father Kevin Livingstone, who lived in the presbytery across the street from William, wrote to me that William was making threats to harm me. So I didn’t want to be easily found.

  Strange things began happening around my work, my life at Margaret’s flat and elsewhere. Often, pairs of suited white men, detectives I thought, followed me as I walked from home to Cahill’s. Sometimes a pair would be sitting in a car, just watching me. I grew nervous and confided my fear to Margaret. At her suggestion I began to use some of my scarce resources to catch a cab home, even though it was only a few hundred metres away. I often finished work at around 10.30 or 11 pm, and in the dark I felt vulnerable and afraid, sensations I couldn’t live with.

  Then we found evidence that someone had been in the flat: papers not where we had left them, things rearranged. On one occasion we asked the woman across the hall if she had noticed anyone coming or going. ‘Just a plumber, to fix your sink,’ she replied. The sink didn’t need repairs, and we hadn’t reported any problems to the apartment block management. It was quite worrying.

  Even more strangely, my mail, addressed to me care of Leonie, was also tampered with. Once she found an empty envelope for me in her letter-box, and the next day its contents were delivered to her house even though the pages did not contain her address. We were mystified.

  One afternoon Margaret and I went into a bar in Darlinghurst Road which played loud music. Whenever I could, I still loved to dance, and dance music was always a magnet. The place was full of Americans on R&R from Vietnam, and almost immediately two of them began to try to strike up a conversation with us. Margaret, who was soon to become engaged to a South American, wasn’t very interested in the rather rough-looking white soldier who spoke to her. However, his companion, a sober and tidy Black American, Charles, wanted to know what was happening in our struggle in Australia, and his concern about our issues interested me.