At last I had saved almost $3000, which I understood would enable me to place a deposit on a house priced under thirty thousand. Wishing to remain in the same area in which my children went to school, I could find only two houses to inspect in my price range. Both were extremely ramshackle, and one had just two bedrooms. I felt that, at ages seven and fourteen, Russel and Naomi should have the privacy of a room each and opted to take the larger house.
The location, in Narembum, had several good features, though the house itself, apart from its size, had none. The street was a dead-end and, with no through traffic, the children could play safely. The block was across the road from a large bush reserve and the area was as pretty as a picture. It was two minutes from an expressway into the city, enabling me to be at the office, with a good run, in just on seven minutes, and in Redfern in under ten minutes.
But the most important point for me was that, even with the address, the place was extremely difficult to find. Fourteen years, the prison sentence given to the most brutal of my attackers, was almost up. I had had nightmares for years thinking he might come to wreak revenge on me, on us, for the penalty he had received for his actions. I did not want us to be easily found. Since moving from Surry Hills I had always taken steps to conceal our whereabouts, a difficult manoeuvre because I didn’t want Russel and Naomi to become too aware of the precautions and begin to ask questions. The location of the property was ideal from this point of view.
The house had been the first in the area, erected even before the land was apportioned and gazetted. Built of scrap timber and fibro, the rooms had been added piecemeal over many years and they didn’t line up with the original all-purpose basic structure. The elderly woman down the street who was offering the place for sale had been born in a tiny back room of the house, which had later been converted into a crude bathroom. The roof leaked so badly we slept with buckets beside the beds, but during some storms even this was not sufficient to ensure that we all stayed dry. Soaked children often climbed into bed with me. We also had a fire in the roof when water came in contact with the ancient electrical wiring, and I constantly feared that we would all die in a house fire because of this.
The yard was completely—and I mean completely— covered with dense morning glory vines. Indeed, some sections of the house were only supported by this avaricious weed, and when I removed it parts of walls crumbled down. The task of eliminating the vines was awesome. The children and I did most of it, though various friends over the years also gave a hand. When it was cleared we discovered a U-shaped structure of dog pens and a central cemented dog-run in which previous occupants had kept and exercised greyhounds.
Apart from the farm-house style kitchen, which was large, all the other rooms were dark and tiny. Holes in the floor let in blue-tongue lizards and other creatures. Oh well, I thought, this will have to do until I can afford some repairs.
The house was a deceased estate, and just as we were establishing the contract to purchase it, the owner, on behalf of her kinsmen, told me that their ownership was in dispute. Someone of the same surname, who they had never even heard of, was challenging them through the court. They would have to delay the sale. But, she said, for security reasons they did not want the house vacant, so I could rent it for two or three months until the matter was sorted out. This situation remained unresolved for five years.
In the process of buying the house I had approached my bank for a housing loan. I had heard the complaints women had made about sexism in the banking industry, and during my interview with the manager I saw the reason for them, as well as a whole lot more I could raise myself about racism.
‘You’re separated. Well, you’d better get divorced. You have just the two children? Oh, that’s good. Your people often have a lot more than that. Are you planning to have any more? Ah, um, you, um, don’t drink much, do you? Because that’s another trouble with your people.’
I suspect I may have been a problem for the manager in other ways too.
‘You don’t have a credit rating? Well, you must have bought something on credit over the years? You own a car? And a refrigerator? Washing machine? And you saved up and bought them all for cash?’
I was incredulous, and said as much, when he told me to go to Grace Brothers in Chatswood and buy a toaster on credit, then to go back the next day and pay it off! This, he said, would give me the credit rating I needed to complete the application.
‘But I already have a toaster, and an electric jug and an iron. All I need is a house!’
I felt that the bank manager was really trying to be friendly and helpful, but he had no idea that he was sexist and racist too. In those days when banks closed at three, he had set my appointment at two-thirty to make it the last of the day. At three-thirty he’d called to staff to make us tea, and at four-thirty he had them open the huge metal doors so I could leave. During the intervening two hours he had not only interviewed me for a loan but also shared with me all his views on, and few experiences with, Aboriginal people!
When we moved in Mum came down to look at our humble house and was disgusted. The good-sized block of land, she said, had potential, but the dwelling on it wasn’t fit for human habitation. She asked me again why I was not pursuing William to help provide a home for the children, and I reiterated my earlier reply. She told me then, not for the first time, that Naomi had a right to his help in her life. But Russel, she continued, had no one apart from me and her, no grandparent would ever die and leave him anything except her, so it was her intention to leave him ‘looked after’. She was going on for eighty, she said, and had already made a will to that effect. I was concerned about the favouritism this might imply, the jealousy it might arouse from my sisters and their children. I also explained that her boyfriend, Arthur, might think he had a claim too.
‘All my other grandchildren have other grandparents. How they fare with them will depend on how they behave themselves. Russel is the only one who has no one. That’s not favouritism, it’s common sense.
‘And Arthur,’ she expostulated, ‘he’s the biggest crook. He gets what he can out of me while I’m alive, he’ll get nothing from me when I’m dead. You know, that’s why I’ve always refused to marry him. There’s police running after him for free haircuts half the time, and he and his hangers-on are in trouble the rest of the time. It’s cost me a fortune already just to keep him out of gaol. Who pays his fines? Me! Why? I have no idea. I don’t think he’s harmful, he’s just stupid. But he’s not about to get the little I’ve saved to spend on floozies and his no-hoper mates when I’ve gone. The only real pleasure I get now out of life is knowing I can leave something to that boy’
Arthur sat there silently while Mum spoke, rolling his eyes skyward but not denying anything she said. He knew I was aware of his latest troubles with the law and that I disapproved of many of the things he did.
A short while after this visit I was awoken by a knock on the door. Mum stood there, her suitcase in her hand. She had run away from Arthur, she said, she had reached the last straw. I brought her in and made her tea. I was concerned for her, but also faintly amused by the idea that a woman her age was still running away from a boyfriend who was twenty years younger! Was there no stability in life at any age? When Arthur drove down the next week to pick her up, I wasn’t surprised when she left with him. He was suitably repentant—and such a habit.
Dr Ward had been saying for a while that he felt it was his responsibility to facilitate an Aboriginal person to take over the Aboriginal Health Section, but he hadn’t made a move towards this end. This act would be central to the promotion of self-determination and I began to feel that it was my duty to give him a nudge.
One day while discussing this matter with me and others, he told us he was looking for a suitable person. Naming different Aboriginal people, he said, ‘He or she should have the administrative ability of A, the political nous of B, be as articulate as C, as literate as D, and have some sort of medical or epidemiological background,
I think.’
In the face of such racial and cultural arrogance I couldn’t help myself and said, ‘What? To replace you?’
The elitist idea that the collective skills of five Blacks would be required to replace one white, especially if the white to be replaced was the person who held this view, was one shared by many people in positions where they benefited from a decision that there were no suitably qualified Blacks.
I was frequently chastised by older Aboriginal women on staff who, while conceding Black self-determination was our ultimate aim, nevertheless thought that I should not speak out so to white people if they were friendly towards us. I tried to convince them that it was not sufficient for white people to be friendly and nice. They also had to do the right thing politically. Those not helping us move forward, I felt, were keeping us back.
At last Dr Ward placed an advertisement for an Aboriginal person to train up to take over from him. I was jubilant. I took little interest in the process until the day of the interviews, when I asked who was the successful applicant. There was no one suitable, I was told. I stared blankly, so Dr Ward continued, ‘The nearest person was Joe Mallie.’
Joe Mallie had been working at the AMS, and had previously been a public servant in Canberra. A technological enthusiast, Joe had a formidable bank of skills. I hadn’t even known he had applied, and the thought flashed through my head that he would be ideal, a major plus for the Health Commission.
‘So what’s wrong with Joe?’ I asked, wondering if there was something I’d missed about him which had caused him to be found lacking.
‘Well, he’s a man, and this department is predominantly women. He’s a single man, so that might cause trouble. And he’s got the wrong sort of hair.’
Joe, from North Queensland, had very curly hair like mine which he wore in a short, neat cut. I was speechless and stormed out.
Immediately after this I left on a country trip. When I returned I was absolutely thrilled to find Joe Mallie sitting up in an office across the hall from Dr Ward!
But the path to the top is not straight and smooth, and it was to be a long time before Joe’s unique talents and skills were adequately recognised and rewarded. At the time there were no Black medical graduates in Australia, and arguments raged long in the department about whether the department head had to be a medico with an administrative adviser, or whether an able administrator, as Joe certainly had proved himself to be, could run the place with the assistance of a medical adviser.
In November 1975, Dr Ward, other staff members and I were returning from a meeting in Wollongong when we heard a news flash on the car radio. Gough Whitlam’s Labor government had been sackedl
We could barely believe our ears and twiddled the dial to pull in other radio stations to verify this news. All the efforts people, black and white, had put in to effect a change of government just over three years earlier were going down the drain. I thought of the hardship endured during the Aboriginal voter registration drives, the penalties we had incurred with our activism, and the personal cost to each one of us who had played active roles, and suddenly it all seemed to have been for naught. We had made substantial headway in the intervening years, progress which we felt would be reversed under a caretaker government consisting of the old regime. Grim days were upon us again. We would have to wait and see.
My relationship with Naomi Mayers at the AMS had continued, despite my resignation and subsequent apparent defection to the Health Commission. I supported everything the AMS was doing, and had undertaken numerous unpaid assignments ranging from representing the AMS on the National Health and Medical Research Committee (NHMRC) to liaising with Aboriginal groups around the country that wished to start up their own medical services and needed advice.
Naomi and I socialised together, going dancing in groups and attending parties at her house and elsewhere. In about 1973, Naomi, Marcia Langton, Sue Chilli and I were unwinding from a difficult week by meeting for a drink on Friday afternoon when, in the course of our conversation, we began to talk about the need for a Black community newspaper. We were unanimous in our agreement that this was an important project and, calling ourselves Black Women’s Action, we set out to tackle the task. We would meet at night at the AMS, which by then had moved into large new premises in Tumer Street, Redfern, and write and publish the paper in our free time. We all had other major commitments, children and work, but the importance of our mission, we felt, meant we had to make time. Our paper, Koori-Bina, was published until 1978. By this time the other founders had dispersed or run out of steam, and I took the resources and subscription list to students at the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre where I was teaching literacy skills. They re-named the paper AIM, thus continuing its life for several more years.
On a personal level, Naomi Mayers became godmother to my daughter, who is also called Naomi. People who know them both refer to them as Big Naomi and Little Naomi. Big Naomi’s son, Joseph, and Little Naomi are in the same age group and, as children, were very close. Big Naomi gave my daughter a tiny kitten, the runt of the litter from her own cat. Catso, as she was called, had a long life of almost twenty years, during which Big Naomi’s name and sharing gesture were warmly evoked by the cat’s enduring presence.
For many years very few Blacks had telephones in their homes, and those of us, particularly single parents, who did have phones used them as lifelines, contacting each other for support in our nightly isolation as we stayed home to look after our children. Naomi and I shared many such nights. We swapped theories on childcare, exchanged social news and told each other our secrets. It was during one such long conversation that Naomi raised the subject of my Aboriginality and I told her I was unsure of my parentage. She countered that she had been informed my mother had told the press that my father was a Black American. Naomi had also been told my mother was ‘a rich white woman’.
‘Naomi, some people say you’re rich too.’ Naomi was buying her own house, owned her own car, and her children were attending good schools.
‘Yes, but that’s because they’ve got nothing,’ she replied.
‘Precisely. Anyone with less can always say someone with more is “rich”. My mum hasn’t bought herself a dress or a handbag or anything in years.’
I didn’t wish to say anything which might cast reflections on Mum’s character, so I refused to respond to Naomi’s query about Mum’s statement to the press regarding my father. Instead I reminded her that I had been born and brought up in Townsville, that I’d been put out of school at age fourteen for being black, that I had suffered from discrimination the same as every other Black, and that I didn’t particularly like to use the word ‘Aboriginal’ because there was nothing uniquely ‘Australian’ about it. ‘Black Australian’ sounds much better to me, and it’s always been my preference.
Naomi continued to press me, however, and in an attempt to get her to back off, I told her, in confidence, that I had also been raped. By this time I was becoming emotionally upset and don’t recall how we finished this phone conversation.
A short while later, on one of my regular drop-ins at the AMS, I was walking along the short hallway leading to Naomi’s office when I heard her say loudly, ‘Just because a person’s been raped doesn’t make them an Aborigine.’
My legs went weak and I slumped against the wall. Is Naomi talking about me? I thought. I know she is. I just know it. My heart was palpitating and I thought I was going to throw up where I stood. Unable to think straight and barely able to see or hear, I walked bent over past the young girl on the switchboard. ‘Are you alright?’ she asked me. I gasped, ‘Yes,’ and kept going, through the door, down the stairs and out into the sunlight. My legs were shaking so, I wondered if I would make it to the car.
For two days I sat in my house, depressed and dismayed, rousing only to prepare food for Russel and Naomi and ensure they maintained their daily schedule. I felt totally betrayed, again by someone I had trusted.
As with Germaine, I tried to sum
mon up forgiveness. I would put this incident aside, I thought to myself, and not allow it to get in the way of the bigger picture. Naomi is surely unaware that this information would be likely to have a devastating effect on my children, especially on Russel and, as Little Naomi was also growing up, on her too. Faith in their mother’s ability to protect them must surely be based on a perception that I was able to protect myself, and I did not want either of the children to be made to feel insecure.
But, as with other areas of unresolved pain in our lives, neither forgiveness nor forgetfulness arrived. The echo of Big Naomi’s words, rising unbidden and spontaneously in my mind over time, seriously damaged our relationship. For a long time I lived with the hope that I had made a mistake, had misheard what was said, that Naomi was talking about someone else, but these lingering doubts would later be dispelled by Naomi herself.
One afternoon I was working at my desk when Joe came up to tell me he had just heard about a talk to be held in North Sydney that same night. The speaker was a scientist, giving a series of lectures around the country under the auspices of the Australian Psychiatrists Association, and this would be his last presentation. Joe’s eyes were sparkling when he added, ‘His name’s Chester Pierce, and he’s Black.’
Finding childcare for Russel and Naomi at short notice was often a feat, but I, together with a small group of Aboriginal Health staff, made it to the meeting. We had never seen a Black psychiatrist, as Professor Pierce turned out to be, much less a scientist of such eminence that a mountain at the South Pole had been named after him. Amongst our group were the only Blacks in the audience and we were completely agog. The subject of this talk, although I recall that it impressed us very much at the time, has been lost to my memory because, since then, I have been privileged to hear many more of his lectures.
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