Snake Dancing

by Roberta Sykes

  A young Koori ex-prisoner, who I had met earlier and was assisting with rehabilitation, became obsessed with me. One morning he attempted to abduct me and my daughter from our home—he wanted to marry me. Consequently our family was forced to give up the flat and go into hiding. A victim of the Stolen Generations, I was aware of his background of institutionalisation throughout his childhood and youth, so I didn’t contact the police. I realised that his problems with emotional deprivation stemmed from these sources.

  I was very upset that we had to leave our Crows Nest flat. Conveniently located, so many visitors had dropped by to chat that we often ended up having fullblown political meetings in the one large room where the children and I did everything but sleep. We had hauled out our guest mattress and put it in this room when occasionally we had visitors to stay overnight. Koiki Mabo often rested and freshened up at our place on his long train trips from Townsville to Melbourne where his lawyers were based. Burnum Burnum, who was at the time based in Canberra, stayed, as did many international visitors who came to Australia to attend conferences or investigate the conditions of Aboriginal people for overseas agencies. On one occasion we had Maoris, Native Americans, Kevin Gilbert and other Aboriginal people all visiting at the same time, eating pizzas and discussing global politics, racism, and their effects on indigenous communities. The flat was filled with many such warm memories. The NSW Health Commission had engaged Dr John Ward, formerly of the AMS, to oversee the expansion of duties of the Aboriginal Health Section of the Commission beyond employing a clerk to respond to letters on Aboriginal health concerns. Dr Ward approached me about making a video documentary on conditions in Aboriginal communities around New South Wales.

  For safety following the attempted abduction, I had sent Russel to New Zealand to stay for six weeks with my sister, Della, and Naomi north to visit her father. I used this opportunity to travel around the state with another Koori woman, Lorraine Richardson, and interview people and gather recorded evidence of communities’ health and environmental status for the documentary. The Health Commission provided us with a vehicle, and the Australian Film and Television School loaned us back-pack video equipment and lights.

  We received a warm welcome from Aboriginal people wherever we went, and I learned a great deal about social customs and mores, as well as about traditional health methods. We encountered a lot of racism, too. When we occasionally booked into motels and caravan parks, we were admonished ‘not to bring men to the room’, even though we arrived in the station wagon marked ‘NSW Health Commission’. Sometimes caravan parks were the only facilities that would give us accommodation. We were refused service on numerous occasions, and service stations were reluctant to accept our government petrol vouchers.

  In the main, though, we shared beds and floor-space with Aboriginal children in often bleak Koori homes or slept in the car. Aboriginal families willingly shared what little they had with us, allowing us to use basic community facilities and experience for ourselves the difficulty of taking a shower with one hand holding onto the spring-loaded taps with which they had been provided.

  The documentary that we made of this trip, in 1974, was called Black Voices. It was later screened at the Black Film Festival in Los Angeles.

  Although I had arranged with William for him to have his daughter for the duration of her school holidays, he sent her back early as soon as he heard I had returned from the country trip, saying she was ‘disobedient’ and ‘unmanageable’. I also learned that an Aboriginal Elder, Eileen Lester, who was employed by the Health Commission, had objected to me being put on staff.

  At the time the Sydney Black community was divided into clan groups—large families—most, if not all, of which were headed by matriarchs. Some of these women were friendly towards each other, but others were not. My identification with MumShirl’s clan was being held against me by Mrs Lester, who I barely knew.

  When, some short time later, Mrs Lester became ill and was hospitalised, MumShirl went to visit her. MumShirl and Mrs Lester had not spoken in years. When the older woman realised MumShirl had come to see her out of respect, they embraced, and it was only after this that Mrs Lester agreed to see my documentary. She was so impressed with my work that she asked Dr Ward to ask me if I would make a documentary about her own extraordinary life.

  I sent word that I would be happy, indeed honoured, to do so, but on the very next day Mrs Lester died.

  10

  I was expected to exist on the small wage I’d received during the few weeks of filming. Of course this would not cover expenses for the three of us, especially as I also had the burden of buying new uniforms for Naomi, who was obliged to change schools when we hastily left the flat.

  Mrs Lester’s change of mind meant that my employment with the Health Commission could proceed. However, I was so despairing about our finances by the time I was appointed to join the regular staff that I had been unable to summon the energy to confront real estate agents to find a suitable place to live while editing Black Voices.

  With the children I moved into a very large old house perched high on a cliff on the waterfront at Waverton. It had been vacant for some time and was awaiting demolition. I was very afraid in this house, having no phone, and I spent many nights sitting upright on a chair in trepidation. The building, which had previously been subdivided into four flats, was rat infested, and possums roamed freely throughout, so there were a lot of night noises to feed my fear.

  I decided that in order to provide stability for the children I would have to buy a house, but despite my stringent thrift I had been unable to make any headway towards a deposit. On any day when I received a cheque for the articles I continued to turn out, in the same mail a gas, electricity or school uniform bill would arrive. I was truly frustrated. Then quite suddenly I received payment for a piece I had written for Reader’s Digest commissioned by the then editor Frank Devine, which paid US rates, and my account rose from nothing to $1500. I felt I was at last on my way.

  When I received notice that the demolition was going ahead in three days, Suzy offered to undertake a search for a flat on my behalf. I was in no frame of mind to accept the racism with which Blacks are routinely confronted when looking for accommodation.

  Suzy rang every real estate agent on the North Shore and after describing me as ‘a woman employed by the Health Commission with two children aged six and thirteen’, she was in each case given several options. To save myself time and disappointment I had asked her to also say that I was Black, and when she did so all but one of the agents withdrew their offers. Suzy was scandalised. She had thought we exaggerated these things.

  Dr Ward accompanied me to the office of the only remaining offer, in Chatswood, where he expected he would be asked to give a reference. Instead, the agent insisted on talking to him, telling him that the place was newly painted, until Dr Ward got up and walked out of the room to force the agent to speak directly to me. Put in that position the agent told me I was ‘second in line’ and that if the first takers didn’t want the place only then could I have it.

  On our way back into the city Dr Ward said that the agent had given himself an out, and it seemed likely he would now withdraw the offer on the grounds that some ‘earlier people’ had taken it. I sat glum and depressed. We were surprised when at day’s end the agent phoned to say I could move in.

  The two-bedroom flat was light and sunny, but the place rippled with strange vibrations. At night I saw stains on the walls but when I went to scrub them off the next day, they were no longer there. Being another school holiday break, I’d sent the children up to stay with Mum so I’d be free to move in without worrying about them. On their return odd things began to happen. Both children began sleep-walking and having bad nightmares. Russel even got up one night and walked, barefoot and in his pyjamas, out onto busy Victoria Avenue. Eventually I became so upset by this phenomena that I asked MumShirl to visit.

  MumShirl was often very sensitive to the presence of spirits and
, when I’d left her alone in the flat for a few minutes, she called out in alarm. A child-spirit, she said, was in the flat, a lonely child-spirit who was seeking a companion. MumShirl offered to locate some visiting traditional Aborigines and have them smoke the flat to clear the spirits, and I agreed. Once this was done I had no more problems with the children.

  On my way out one day, a neighbour whom I’d not met before hailed me in the stairwell.

  ‘We were surprised when you moved in up there. That flat’s been empty for months,’ she told me.

  ‘Yeah,’ she continued, ‘there’s been no one there since the murder.’ My blood chilled.

  ‘Murder? Someone was murdered there? A child?’ I eventually replied.

  ‘Oh, so you know about it, eh? Well, it was all painted out fresh just before you moved in, so we guessed there was somebody coming.’

  As soon as our lease was up we moved out. Mr Bob Jones, who also worked in Aboriginal Health, said he would be pleased to share a flat with us as, since his marriage broke up, he lived at home with his mother. Bob undertook to find a place and, being white, he didn’t have the problems that I had experienced. We all moved into a duplex in Wollstonecraft.

  My work took me all over the state. I made reports on health and housing throughout the region and was often despatched to see if I could sort out problems in remote areas.

  The Health Commission per se was very unpopular in many country areas, in part because of its neglect in the past and the misery and loss of life which had ensued from that, but also it was not immune to stupidity, ignorance and thoughtlessness in the present. For instance, in Bourke the Commission installed a mobile clinic on the reserve. As the reserve was outside the town’s flood levees, the clinic was placed on top of its own levee. Electricity was connected and a water supply put on. The surrounding houses where the clients lived were subject to flood, and without power and water. Painted sparkling white, the clinic stood in their midst, representing the ordinary comforts taken for granted by whites, but which most rural Blacks were deprived of. Little wonder then that the clinic was sometimes stoned.

  For my own part, for many years I refused to drive a marked Health Commission vehicle. While this meant that I did not have to be concerned with the possibility of angry vandalism, Blacks driving late-model cars often drew the attention of police. I was stopped countless times and demanded to produce proof of the car’s ownership and of my employment. This happened to so many Koori staff that the Commission issued us with special identification cards to show to the police and at garages where we paid for fuel with government petrol coupons. I was also refused accommodation numerous times throughout these country regions.

  Without doubt, another very stressful thing about my job was the exposure to death reports. Sometimes I hated going to work in the morning, particularly after a weekend, because I could anticipate what was sure to be waiting there:

  Infant, male, fifteen months, gastroenteritis.

  Child, female, two years, measles complications.

  Youth, fifteen years, accidental death.

  It was especially distressing to learn of the death of a child, sometimes a tiny infant, whom I had held just a few days before. I could never imagine how a mother would cope with the pain of such a loss. I tightly embraced my own children every day, with this terrible fear in my heart.

  Kooris incurred such high mortality and morbidity rates that in the city it was difficult to get a handle on prevention. However, once out in the countryside the reasons often became obvious. Aboriginal families lived under sheets of tin, completely exposed to the weather. Indeed, one of the Commission’s own health workers, Olive Mitchell, was forced to live this way for years. As she was a young widow with ten children, the Housing Commission claimed that her family was too large to allow her to move into available three-bedroom accommodation. Instead she and her family had to live in one-room corrugated-iron shanties, without any facilities, while she valiantly held down her job.

  Multiple Aboriginal deaths in car accidents were also, alas, far too common. Driving cheap rust-buckets with faulty brakes over unsealed and rutted roads, accidents were frequent, and their number rose with the additional factor of alcohol.

  But the most stressful duty I was called upon to do was go to the morgue to try to identify a body. In the event of someone, particularly youngsters but occasionally older people, being found dead in the street without identification, a range of people is sometimes called in to see if they can help sort out who the deceased was. When it appeared that the person might have been Aboriginal, sometimes MumShirl went, sometimes I did, and we went together a couple of times. Even if the body is not that of an Aboriginal person, it is extremely hard to view a young person whose life has been prematurely snuffed out and not be moved, to relate the possibility somehow to your own children, or to yourself.

  While my job did not specifically require it of me, my job description being so vague, I also undertook to care for a large number of suicidal rape victims and battered women. Although I had initially been steered into doing this by MumShirl, the deep empathy I projected to Kooris with problems perhaps also accounted for them being attracted to me. I became the first port of call for many people, particularly women, in trouble.

  Despite the hardships I worked furiously at my job with the Health Commission and also at any work which was offered. I was pleased to receive a spate of books to review; my deposit for a house was now mounting up. The only personal luxury I allowed myself was, after a stressful week or traumatic day, to go dancing. I had a friend, Anne La Fontaine, who was happy to throw on her dancing shoes and run out with me at the drop of a hat. We found a number of dance venues that, especially mid-week, allowed us in for free, which was important to both Annie and myself.

  While we were living at Wollstonecraft, Russel and Harold Cattel, a school mate with whom he had struck up a friendship that would endure over several decades, went on a weekend excursion with an adventure club they had joined. When Russel failed to return on Sunday night I began to worry, and by Monday evening Harold’s mother and I were on the phone to each other and beside ourselves with anxiety. Inquiries revealed that the club leader had planned for the boys to float down a river on air mattresses, but instead of going to their original destination, he had taken them somewhere else. The entire party was lost in the Blue Mountains and had been carrying only enough food for two days.

  We alerted the police, and those parents who could rushed to join the search. With Naomi to look after, I was unable to join them. I meditated to find peace during this worrying time, and in one of those sessions I saw my son’s face, stricken and frightened, but otherwise unhurt. On Tuesday I began phoning media contacts, imploring them to put on pressure to get the rescue helicopter into the air as it had not yet been called in. Russel was my precious charge and I wanted no harm to come to him.

  When at last they were located, winched up by helicopter and brought down the mountain, I cried with relief. As I looked into his face when I embraced him, I realised with a jolt that my son was now taller than me and would soon be a man. Russel had been through an ordeal of hunger and fear which greatly increased his sense of the fragility and value of life and of his family and his home. I bought a second-hand television set, which we had up until then not owned, so the children would not have to venture outside the house all the time to be entertained. Russel took up long distance running too, so that he would get regular challenge and exercise independent of group leaders and clubs that didn’t know what they were doing.

  Of course, while working and rearing the children, I encountered many quite ‘ordinary’ domestic problems too, although not necessarily with everyday consequences. I looked in the washing machine one day and saw that the spin-dry was not rotating at its usual speed. I rang the company to send out a repairman. ‘Stay home all day and wait for him,’ I was told by the woman who took down my address. I did so, losing a day’s work and pay, and he failed to turn up. He did sh
ow at the next appointment, another day off. When he left I turned the tap on and water squirted out everywhere. Soiled school clothes and household linen was piling up. After two more days off, waiting for a repairman who again failed to attend, I was very irate. At last he came, only to tell me that the part, a hose which was now broken, was no longer available. He was sorry, and yes, the previous repairman had obviously accidentally broken it, but there was nothing he could do, there was no part.

  I rang Dominic Nagle, who had left the Australian and was now working for the State Minister for Consumer Affairs. He contacted the company with my litany of complaints. The company rang me and, to save me losing yet another day’s work, arranged that a repairman, complete with hose, would come to my house in two days time, on a Saturday morning.

  Not long after I put the phone down from this call, it rang again. Gonzo-journalist Hunter S. Thompson was in town and a television station wanted to know if I would conduct an on-air interview with him. The name only rang a faint bell, but this was the first—and turned out to be the only—time a television station had offered me a job interviewing. I would do it. When did they want me? Oh, no, not Saturday morning!

  I recall even now how rigid and unfriendly I was towards the cordial repairman who turned up promptly at the appointed time that Saturday. I could barely contain my anger. I was also not as delighted as I might have been under different circumstances to have the washing machine returned to its full working capacity and to be told that I had only to let the office know if there was anything more they could do for me. ‘Always pleased to help out a friend of the Consumer Affairs Minister,’ he told me.

  I found the challenge of mothering two young children, taking care of the house, cooking and cleaning, working full-time at the Health Commission combined with up to two or three casual jobs, enormous. More stressful, however, was dealing with the public’s often upsetting reaction to me. No doubt I did not look like a typical ‘mother’, and many of the activities I had to undertake to help further the struggle against racism did not encourage people to think of me in terms of my domestic responsibilities—but neither I nor my children had done anything to invite the blatant stares and often hostile reception we received as we went about our very ordinary business of shopping for groceries or school clothes.