Finally the receptionist returned. ‘I’m sorry about the wait. The TV stations are chasing interviews for the six o’clock news. Marlene will see you now. Come through.’
Marlene was younger than I expected and more casually dressed than I was. She offered her hand but I was disappointed.
‘I thought I’d see an Aboriginal lawyer.’
‘You will when there’s enough to keep up with the demand. Until then I’ll have to do,’ she said firmly. ‘Now, how can I help?’
She listened to my story without interruption and without surprise, making notes on a yellow pad. I told her I had asked the hospital to take photos.
‘Well, that will help if we ever bring the perpetrators to court. Well done to have had the foresight to get them taken. I’ll follow it up with the hospital.’
I blushed despite myself. ‘Well, I am a first-year law student.’
‘Great, well you know we need more Aboriginal lawyers.’
‘Actually, I was thinking of going into international law.’
She said nothing, fixing me with a cool gaze. She turned over a page on her yellow pad. ‘Okay, now we need your details. Let’s start with your address, where you come from.’
I felt like I was telling my life story to this woman. It was nearly 6pm before she put down her pen and stood up and stretched, stifling a yawn.
‘So what’s going to happen now?’ I asked.
‘We’ll follow up with the police but unless they catch the perpetrators, there’s not much we can do.’
‘But we could have been killed. And what about the police? They were so racist towards us.’
‘Look, Kirrali, you’re not the first Aboriginal person to be bashed up. See that pile of folders, the one that’s about to topple over? All assaults against Koori people and that’s only in the last eighteen months. Most of them go no further than that. They’re just the ones where people bother to make a complaint — most people don’t. That other pile, the one on the chair? They’re all complaints we’ve had about mistreatment at the hands of the police. False arrests, harassments, a bit of a bashing with a phone book, the list goes on. And that’s just in my office. Multiply that by the other four solicitors working here and you start to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem. We’re understaffed and now our budget’s been cut, which doesn’t help. But I’m surprised that this is all new to you. You’re from a country town. What about the rest of your family? It must have happened to them.’
I blushed. ‘No it hasn’t. Actually, my family aren’t Aboriginal. They’re white.’
‘Right. Now I understand,’ she looked sympathetic. ‘So you haven’t experienced this kind of thing before?’
I shook my head. ‘Never. When I’d read things in the paper about Aboriginal people getting pushed around by the police, I thought it was just the media being sensational.’
‘Mostly the media don’t want to know. Unless of course it’s something dramatic like the police shooting today.’
‘What happened?’
‘Poor Mavis. We’ve had dealings with her before. She’s an alcoholic, or rather was. She got into a fight with one of the other residents of the boarding house where she was living and the landlord called the cops. She wouldn’t let them into her room so they broke the door down. The police aren’t saying much but it seems she was hiding behind the bathroom door holding up a screwdriver. They shot her — four times at close range. She was a harmless soul, except for her swearing. Mavis could swear like no one I’ve ever met before. But that wasn’t much of a weapon against a cop’s .38 Smith & Wesson, now was it?’
‘It’s unbelievable.’
‘It happens. She’s not the first and she won’t be the last,’ she said. ‘Well, I’m in court tomorrow and I need to prepare so you’ll have to excuse me. I’ll be in touch if we hear anything.’
‘Well, thanks for your time.’ I didn’t know what else to say.
‘That’s okay. And Kirrali — good luck with your studies.’
My face flushed red. She probably thought I was the biggest wannabe in the world for wanting to do international law. But who in their right mind would want her job? I shuddered, even more determined to aim for the best possible law firm after I graduated. And no community work.
The next morning, I was woken up by a loud banging on the door. I buried my head under the pillow but the thumping didn’t stop.
‘All right, all right, I’m coming’, I mumbled.
I pulled on my old dressing gown and opened the door just a crack. The door pushed open and a newspaper was shoved up against my nose. Behind it was Erin’s animated face.
‘Look!’ she cried, her voice high-pitched with excitement.
I rubbed my eyes, wincing when my knuckles made contact with my bruises. I adjusted my focus to the paper she was waving about and read the headline:
POLICE OVERKILL CRIES KOORI LEGAL RESOURCE
A lawyer for the Koori Legal Resource claimed today that police used excessive force in the shooting of St Kilda boarding house resident, Mavis Berry. ‘If a police officer can’t overpower a mere woman armed with nothing more dangerous than a screwdriver then I think they need retraining in unarmed combat,’ said Kirrali Lewis, a lawyer with the Koori Legal Resource. It is alleged that the victim, the fourth person to be shot dead by police this year, was suffering from a mental illness. ‘She was probably crying out for help. She needed a hug, not a bullet,’ Ms Lewis went on to say.
Suddenly I was wide-awake.
‘Oh my God,’ I croaked.
I read the paragraph more slowly the second time — the black text swimming before my eyes like ants having a corroboree — and then I saw the photos. One was a mug shot of a sad-looking Aboriginal woman and the other photo was of a well-dressed woman standing underneath the Koori Legal Resource sign. It was me.
‘Uh oh.’ My limbs went limp, like someone had pulled a plug out from the soles of my feet and all my strength was glugging out. I slumped. Erin grabbed me and pushed me back on to the bed.
‘Geez, girl, I let you go alone and look what happens. You end up on page three,’ she said laughing.
‘They’ve made a mistake,’ I said weakly.
‘I’ll say — “a mere woman”! Where’s your solidarity, sister?’ She laughed again.
I lay down on the bed and pulled the newspaper over my eyes. I knew no one at uni would read a trashy newspaper like the Tribune so I felt safe going to my morning lecture. There were benefits to having two hundred students in the one class; you were guaranteed anonymity unless you were one of the smart-arses who liked to engage in argy bargy with the lecturers. And I wasn’t one of those. I made sure I kept my head down and my opinions to myself.
Today’s lecture was on torts and I still hadn’t handed in my essay. It was the hardest subject and I really had to concentrate to understand it. I mean, defining liability versus intentional conduct ... finding intent in regard to trespass on land … false imprisonment … It was all about violation of rights and while that was uppermost in my mind, given the drama of what had happened, I couldn’t focus on the dry old examples the lecturer was giving.
My hand drifted to my forehead. The cut above my eye had two stitches although it didn’t hurt unless I touched it. The bruises were tender and my ribs were aching but the doctor said they would just have to heal themselves. I was wondering how Kirk was going — physically — but also at his audition, when something the lecturer said made me snap to attention.
‘— one of our students, Kirrali Lewis, it appears, has fast- tracked her law degree and is already working at the Koori Legal Resource where her opinion is so highly regarded that it has made the pages of the illustrious tabloid, the Tribune. Our congratulations, Kirrali.’
All of the students turned around to look at me. The lecturer was flourishing page three of the paper. As Erin would say, ‘what a shame job’.
I had to ring my parents before they got wind of the story. I collected my loose coi
ns and headed back to my college precinct where I could find a private pay phone. I also wanted to ring Kirk to see if he was okay. But he would have to wait. My parents came first.
‘Dad? What are you doing at home? Why aren’t you at work?’
‘Kirrali, is that you? Are you all right? Are you mixed up in this shooting? We’ve been worried sick.’
‘Dad, I’m all right.’ I quickly decided not to tell him that I’d been attacked. If he was that worried by the article in the paper, he’d be hysterical if I told him the whole story. Lucky the photo wasn’t great and you couldn’t see my stitches.
‘We’ve been trying to reach you at the College all morning. Your mother has left a dozen messages. The car’s packed and we’re ready to come down.’
‘Dad, it’s a big mistake. I had nothing to do with the shooting. I didn’t see it and I don’t even know the woman involved.’ I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh. It was all so crazy.
‘But why were you quoted then? And why did they say you were from the Koori Legal Resource? Are you doing volunteer work there?’ Dad sounded hurt, probably from my laughter.
‘Um, I just happened to be there when the story broke. The journalist mistook me for someone who worked there. Like they say, you can’t always believe what you read in the papers.’
‘We’re coming down anyway. Tarquin and Michael, Beatrice too. We’re just waiting for Bea to get home from school. We’ll be there by 6.30 tonight.’
‘Dad, please don’t come down. Really, I’m fine.’
‘Your mother would make herself sick if she didn’t see you. We’ll take you out for tea. Okay?’
What could I do? I was touched by their concern but I really didn’t want to see them. How was I going to hide my bruises?
‘Kirrali, I don’t know how you are ever going to be a successful lawyer,’ sighed my mother.
We were at a local Vietnamese restaurant.
‘What do you mean?’ I said indignantly. ‘I wasn’t passing myself off as a lawyer. It was the journalist who made the mistake.’
‘No love, I didn’t mean that. It’s just that you have great difficulty …’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘You have great difficulty avoiding the truth .’
It was true. I had spent the afternoon holed up in Erin’s room trying to disguise my swollen eye with the makeup for black skin that she’d imported from the States. The afternoon had been a bit of a giggle fest and I was so chilled by the time we got to the restaurant, I had told my family everything before the jasmine tea had even been poured.
Mum looked fluttery and close to tears. Dad looked grim, while Tarquin and Beatrice couldn’t hide their fascination. Michael had his nose in a book. It seemed cartoon action was more interesting than real life.
‘Did you really kick that guy in the goolies?’ asked Beatrice, wide-eyed. She was only ten but she had a gift for the vernacular.
‘Beatrice, really,’ Mum scolded. ‘Anyway if she did, it was self-defence. And I hope it hurt like hell.’
‘Hear, hear.’ said Dad.
‘Mum! Dad!’ This time it was Tarquin’s turn to be shocked.
The night wore on, the dishes kept coming and Mum and Dad spurted forth outrage in response to my bashing. We did talk about other things: my studies, my lovely room at the college. They asked if I’d made new friends and I told them about Amber and Erin. Dad was one to stir if I ever mentioned a boy so I didn’t say much about Kirk. At the end of the night, Mum gave me some spending money and Dad gave me a huge bear hug.
I was dead exhausted but I couldn’t sleep. The events of the last few days kept spiralling around in my head. I couldn’t make sense of the racism I’d experienced. I’d copped a tiny bit in the past — a few mean words and some teasing. Things like going shopping with my mother for something to wear to my end-of-school social and the shop assistant ignoring me while she fawned over my mother, not realising that we were together. Or having Tarquin get into a fight at the local swimming pool because someone had said something about ‘that ugly black chick’, not knowing that she was my sister.
Looking back, I would always tell people I was Aboriginal if they asked but I guess I was a bit embarrassed about being different from everyone else in town. I just wanted to fit in.
One day, when I was still at high school, I did go home and ask Mum about my birth mother. ‘Are you sure my mother was Aboriginal?’ I asked. ‘Maybe she was from Jamaica. They have black people there too, you know.’ I had just got an A+ for an assignment on Jamaica in my social studies class.
‘Darling, there’s no doubt you are Aboriginal,’ my mother said. ‘But that’s a great thing. Your ancestors were the first Australians.’
‘Nobody else says it’s a great thing,’ I said.
There were times when I would daydream about a fantasy mother who I would meet one day. And she wasn’t Aboriginal. She would be someone exotic, like the disco singer Donna Summers. I bet Donna Summers never got teased.
Being a teenager was challenging but these recent events were in a whole different league. The bashing. The police station. The Koori Legal Resource. The Tribune. Seeing my parents. And the kiss from Kirk. Life in the city was becoming way too complicated.
Eight
A few days later, I got a call from Martina. ‘Come over Friday night for drinks’, she said. Bring a friend, she urged.
I still hadn’t rung Kirk to see how he had gone with his audition so now I had two reasons to call him. Three reasons, if I counted wanting to know how he was recovering. Four if ... why did I need another reason? It was time to ’fess up. I actually liked the guy. I wasn’t too sure about the dreadlocks but he was funny and sweet and had gorgeous eyes. I picked up the phone. Maybe he wouldn’t want to go out with me again because I attracted bad luck. I was obsessing. Just ring the bloody number.
‘Kirk? Hi, it’s … oh, great. Yeah, me too, except for the sore ribs. Ha ha. Hey, what I’m ringing about ... You were? … I am going over to my friend Martina’s on Friday and wondered if you were free … Meet you at eight. So how did you go in the audition? … Fantastic! … See you Friday … Bye.’
Phew. I looked down and realised I had been doodling Kirk’s name all over my address book. I hadn’t done that since I’d fallen for Adam. I had to get back on track. I was here to get a law degree, not fall in … I couldn’t bring myself to even think the word. So I settled down to my torts essay which was totally overdue. If anything could distract me from my daydreams, it was torts.
Martina looked gorgeous when she opened the door. I’m glad we had her beauty to focus on because the house was a mess. Overflowing ashtrays, crushed beer cans and sports pages from newspapers covered every surface.
‘Excuse the clutter,’ she said.
I gave her a half-hearted smile and introduced her to Kirk. He just shoved some newspapers over on the couch and made himself at home. It turned out that he knew Robbie through his cousin so he and Martina fell into an easy conversation about Robbie’s form and how awesome Rioli was playing.
While they traded ‘great moments in football’, I looked around. So this was married life. It was a new townhouse, very swish from the outside. The inside was flash too, all shag pile carpet and glamorous granite in the kitchen. The furniture though was another story. Old, sagging and faded. Nothing matched. The biggest fridge I had ever seen and a twenty-six inch television were the exceptions. Did the furniture have sentimental value? Did they run out of money after paying for the TV? Martina saw me looking around.
‘We haven’t got around to furnishing the place yet,’ she said.
I blushed. She could still read my mind.
‘It’s just that Robbie trains five nights a week. He plays on the weekends, sometimes in Sydney against the Swans, and during the day there’s often public appearances. He’s busy. And I want us to choose our furniture together. Not that he minds. If I wanted to, all I’d have to do is go out with the Gold Amex card the footy club gave him and buy, bu
y, buy.’
Her voice had an unnaturally bright edge to it. She did look beautiful but I wasn’t used to seeing her wearing so much make-up — blush, glossy apricot lips and brown eye shadow. When I looked closely, I saw she’d been crying. Immediately I felt guilty. I hadn’t even rung her once since the wedding.
‘Martina, how have you been?’ I asked carefully.
‘Great. Fantastic. Loving married life. Loving every minute of it.’ She flung her golden red hair back with a flourish. It didn’t fool me for one second.
‘Drinks? What would you like? Spirits, beer, soft drink, wine, champagne? I’m drinking gin and tonic.’
Martina playfully rattled the ice cubes in her glass. Kirk settled on a light beer and I opted for wine. I followed Martina into the kitchen and she pulled a bottle of red wine from the wine rack, its label adorned with gold medals.
‘Don’t waste the good stuff on me,’ I said, alarmed. ‘El cheapo will do fine.’
‘Oh no, nothing but the best in this house.’ She raided the cupboards and emerged with two wine goblets.
‘Good to see you’re using the goblets. Do you like them?’ I had given them to her and Robbie as a wedding present. They were hand blown and iridescent and quite beautiful.
‘Love them! I use them all the time.’
She swung around to hand me the glass, now swirling with deep claret, but it slipped through her fingers and crashed onto the terracotta tiles. Shards of glass, glistening with blood red wine, were all around us.
‘Shit.’ She burst into tears. ‘Everything’s falling apart.’
I figured that she wasn’t just talking about the glass. I found a mop and cleaned up the mess while Kirk led Martina to the couch. He didn’t seem to mind as she cried on his shoulder, even though her snot left a snail’s trail on his black hooded jacket. I searched around and found a box of tissues. Martina plucked one out, blew her nose and threw it onto the floor. Soon she was surrounded by the snowy peaks of discarded tissues.
Becoming Kirrali Lewis Page 6