Becoming Kirrali Lewis

by Jane Harrison

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said.

  I did know what he meant. ‘What? That you’re racist …’

  ‘For God’s sake, I am not racist.’

  We argued on and on like this for about two hours. The more he tried to defend himself, the bigger the hole he dug.

  At one stage the argument went off on a tangent and he declared that ‘Aboriginal people hardly invented the wheel, did they?’ It was at that point I couldn’t take it any longer.

  ‘I would like to go home please.’

  ‘We’re meant to be having a romantic weekend.’

  Michael couldn’t understand why I was upset and that was it for me. With those few comments I no longer felt like sharing my weekend, let alone the rest of my life, with him. We left the next morning and drove back to the city in silence.

  We saw each other once or twice after we got back but it was never the same. The phone calls got less frequent and then they stopped. A year later, I heard he’d married a girl called Josephine.

  There were other relationships but somehow no one was quite right for me. Or maybe I wasn’t quite right for them. My parents gave up inquiring after my ‘dates’ and stopped dropping hints that they would like grandchildren. Of course their granddaughter, the baby that they had forced me to give up, was never mentioned.

  Twenty

  My address book had several entries for Charley. Charley at his aunty’s place. Charley at the Aboriginal Land Council. Charley at the local council where he worked as a community liaison officer. The last entry was the most recent — Charley at home. The prefix was familiar — it was in the same neighbourhood as the Centre.

  I rang the number after rehearsing what I wanted to say. He needed to know it was important but I didn’t want to spill it over the phone. This news needed to be given face-to-face.

  The phone kept ringing. Maybe he was away. I was just about to hang up when it was answered.

  ‘Hello,’ said a sleepy, young female voice. I could tell that she was gorgeous just by the way she uttered that one word. I wondered who she was.

  ‘Oh, I might have the wrong number. I’m after Charley Jackson.’

  ‘You’ve got the right number but he’s out. Can I pass on a message?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Leila.’

  Leila who? ‘Could you ask him to ring Cherie Taylor please.’

  ‘Who?’ She yawned.

  I told her again and asked her to write down my phone number, even though I hoped he still had it. Charley and I had worked together on community projects at various times. As co-workers, our relationship had always been cordial — distant but cordial. And that’s all we would ever be. A girl could always dream but dreams seldom come true.

  Every time the phone rang, I hoped it was Kirrali. This time when I answered, there was a slight pause …

  ‘I was wondering if you had told my father about me yet?’

  ‘He’s a difficult man to track down. I mean, I’ve left messages all over the place, not that he’s unreliable. It’s just that he could be anywhere, he leaves town often. Would we be able to meet again?’

  Seconds ticked over until she said, ‘Okay. The same place. Friday morning. I don’t have lectures then. How about 10.30?’

  I thanked her but she just said goodbye and hung up.

  At least I scored another meeting. Small victory.

  I was a little early this time. It was a crisp morning and the sun was struggling to weave its way through the clouds. Inside the café, the smell of freshly baked muffins permeated the air. Right on time, Kirrali walked through the door. I was a bit dismayed to see Martina again. She seemed nice but it would make it harder for Kirrali and me to get to know one another. Maybe that was the idea.

  There was silence between us — we were strangers — so I tried to make small talk. I started with Martina, the easier nut to crack.

  ‘Are you a student too?’

  ‘Martina has just, um, left uni,’ Kirrali answered on behalf of her friend.

  ‘She means dropped out. I did this crazy thing. I met someone and I threw it all in and got married,’ Martina laughed at herself.

  ‘He’s Aboriginal. He’s a big hunky footballer,’ said Kirrali.

  ‘That’s not why I married him.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

  So even they rubbed each other up the wrong way — it wasn’t just me. Luckily the waitress rescued us by taking our orders. When she had gone, I tried another approach.

  ‘I thought you might want to know a bit about my … your biological family.’

  Kirrali nodded so I sketched out my upbringing. I had even brought a few photos — me as a pale, blonde child, my arm around the family dog, Muff; my brother James as a teenager and at his wedding; his children as toddlers eating birthday cake; and my parents, when they were first married and had just moved into their first home; and more recently, all dressed up for their wedding anniversary. Kirrali poured over the photos without saying anything.

  Martina was the one asking all the questions — where had I grown up, what school I had gone to, did I get along with my brother? Kirrali paused at the picture of me and Muff.

  ‘Do you have a dog?’ I asked her.

  ‘My dog, Finn, was all scruffy like him but more apricot-coloured. He died recently.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She gave me a wan smile, then picked up the photo of my parents taken the year before. My mother was resplendent in mauve.

  ‘I’d like to meet them sometime. I don’t have any living grandparents anymore. I mean, like with my adoptive parents.’

  I was surprised, ‘Sure. Of course you can. I’ll organise it.’

  I wanted to ask about her adoptive family but she looked at her watch and stood up.

  ‘Look, sorry, I have to go. I have a lecture in half an hour. I’m just going to go to the …’

  ‘… jiliwa,’ said Martina and I simultaneously. We looked at each other and laughed. Kirrali looked a bit annoyed and then headed to the restroom.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Martina said. ‘Did you ever think that you made a mistake?’

  ‘Having Kirrali? No. Adopting her out? Yes.’

  ‘I meant getting involved with her father. I mean, I don’t know what your relationship was like.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re not talking about Kirrali.’

  ‘No … maybe I just threw myself at Robbie because he was, you know, different, exotic.’

  ‘Exotic? He’s quite the opposite actually. You doubt your love for your husband?’ I probed her gently.

  ‘Not at all. I have friends who say how “brave” I am. What’s that about? For having an Aboriginal husband? Then there’s others who think I have hit some kind of jackpot, mainly ’cos he’s a footballer. It’s depressing.’

  ‘You sound like me twenty years ago. Although I didn’t have that much self-awareness.’

  ‘See, I met him and I just felt like I belonged with him. Like I was home for the first time in my life.’

  ‘Yes, but a home requires looking after. You can’t just build it, move in and that’s it.’

  ‘I guess you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

  Kirrali came back and stood over the table, waiting for Martina. ‘I will get to know who my father is, won’t I? It’s my right to know.’

  ‘I am not trying to keep anything from you, I promise.’

  ‘You could at least tell me his name.’

  ‘Look what happened the last time you got hold of someone’s name — you scared the pants off both of us.’

  ‘You don’t trust me.’ Kirrali looked deeply offended.

  ‘She doesn’t know you well enough to know if she can trust you,’ Martina laughed. ‘But you can trust Kirrali,’ she said to me. ‘She’s sensible. I’m the crazy one.’

  ‘Your father’s name is Charley.’

  ‘Charley ...’

  They turned to leav
e but then Martina turned back and gave me an impulsive kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  I smiled back at her, my eyes just a bit misted over.

  As they left, I heard Kirrali say to Martina, ‘What was that all about?’ I didn’t hear her answer but Kirrali did pause and flash me a curious look before they both disappeared out the door.

  Twenty-one

  I rang Mum and Dad and we agreed that I would bring Kirrali home to meet them the following weekend. I hadn’t told them that she was Koori. The thought of their reaction made me feel ill. But they were about to find out and I was about to be judged for something I had done nineteen years ago — I’d fallen in love with a man of the ‘wrong’ race. I knew they wouldn’t be deliberately rude. But even on the way there, I felt guilty for potentially putting Kirrali in an awkward situation.

  I met Kirrali at the station at the arranged time on Sunday morning. She was with a young Koori guy who had the most amazing green eyes and a warm, shy smile. I liked him on sight.

  ‘Cherie, this is Kirk.’

  I shook his hand. ‘Good to meet you, Kirk. Have I met you before? What’s your surname?’

  Kirrali rolled her eyes.

  Kirk kissed her good-naturedly. ‘You’ll get used to it, Kirrali.’

  He turned to me.

  ‘The surname’s Anderson and I’m from up Gippsland way. Gunnai Kurnai people.’

  ‘Any relation to Luke Anderson?’

  ‘Cousin. His dad Henry is my dad’s oldest brother,’ he smiled.

  ‘Cool. I’ve met him a few times. Fantastic bloke,’ I smiled back at him. ‘Well, we’d better catch that train, Kirrali. Are you coming too, Kirk?’ I half-hoped he would. There might be safety in numbers.

  ‘Nah. Just came to see her off and wish her well.’

  They embraced and I averted my eyes. Seeing them together made me realise it had been a long time since I had felt that way about someone.

  We boarded our train, and watched Kirk waving and pulling faces as we pulled out of the station. With Kirrali’s attention on Kirk, I used the opportunity to look at her. Initially I had thought she was quite tall but it was her slim waist and narrow shoulders that gave her that look. Really she was about my height. Her face was an unusual amalgam of features. Her beautiful almond shaped eyes were deep, like Charley’s. Her mouth was wide — that was from my side of the family, I thought with a small rush of parental pleasure. Her cheekbones were high and her chin was a little pointy, giving her face a heart-shaped look. Gorgeous teeth too, of which I was envious. She looked cute in a short red velvet skirt, black tights, black boots and black and white striped long-sleeved T-shirt. Her hair was braided and a jaunty red, black and yellow beret completed the look. Kirrali turned to catch me staring at her.

  ‘I like the hat,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Kirk made it for me,’ she said proudly, showing me the intricate way it had been woven.

  ‘He must be very clever.’

  ‘He is. He’s an actor who used to be a law student. Kirk reckons there’s other ways to be sharp than just book clever.’

  From this, I gathered Kirrali was ‘book clever’ so I asked about her studies. Then she asked about my work and seemed curious about my volunteer work at the Centre. Thankfully she didn’t ask about her father. I still hadn’t heard back from Charley and was starting to feel anxious. Maybe he was on the road again. I glanced out the window and realised with a start we were pulling into the station. When I was younger, the train journey seemed to stretch forever.

  ‘It’s a short walk,’ I said as we set off, past the shopping strip — video shop, newsagent, hot bread bakery, two takeaway bars, a fish and chip shop and a lawnmower repair shop. Nothing much had changed except the addition of the video shop since I had flown the coup eighteen years back.

  We turned into a side street with row after row of neat weatherboard houses, the gardens showing the benefits of their retired owners’ keen attention.

  ‘You’re nervous, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I admitted. ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘Not really,’ she answered.

  I paused beside a low brick wall, a place where I had lingered many times as a child. I had always been fascinated by the garden beyond the wall. The fountains and birdbaths and grottoes had been painstakingly constructed from river pebbles and seashells, creating a mosaic-like effect. Dotted around this wonderland were gnomes and fairies and concrete frogs holding up umbrellas. It was the kind of tableau that children are fascinated by, although I had never seen a child there and the fierce looking owner didn’t invite closer inspection. There was even an Aboriginal figurine, one leg folded and propped up with a spear. I hadn’t paid much attention to that as a child but now it made me feel uncomfortable. All the other figurines were fantasy creatures but the one human figure was reduced to a cliché.

  ‘It’s probably this place,’ I said, pointing to the neat houses. ‘It’s too anal for me.’

  Kirrali laughed, ‘I know what you mean. Even the leaves fall in neat piles.’

  An old feeling slipped over me as we trod the familiar path to my parents’ house. The feeling of being suppressed and smothered by people’s expectations still affected me. I had been so under the thumb of those pressures, of not being in control of my own destiny, that I had given in to my parents’ — no, my mother’s — wishes, to give up my baby without a whimper of protest. But now it was the spring of 1985 — a different era. Maybe it was time I broke free. I dragged my thoughts from the past back to the present.

  I turned to Kirrali, ‘Look, I don’t know what kind of welcome you’ll get. I just want to warn you ... your grandparents are pretty conservative.’

  ‘I gathered that. After all, you’re radical and each generation rebels against the previous one, doesn’t it? I was always the most conservative in my class at school.’

  I smiled in spite of the heavy feeling in my gut. ‘But now you’re not. You’ve been to the dark side.’

  Kirrali laughed. ‘C’mon. Let’s get it over and done with. They can hardly make too much of a fuss, can they?’

  But she was wrong about that.

  It wasn’t that my parents were unkind. They were kind. If a neighbour had an accident, say a broken arm or a crook back, Mum would be the first one to turn up with a casserole and a homemade fruitcake. She did volunteer duty with Meals on Wheels and she knitted toys for the Red Cross street stalls. Dad would chop wood for the old dear next door and he was always up on her roof fixing loose tiles or running the mower over her nature strip. But they were old-fashioned. Jeans were ironed with a seam up the middle of the leg. Hair had to be neat and tidy — even if you were at home alone. Tracksuit pants were frowned upon — they were for sports only. You only wore thongs at the beach. Now none of this sounds like crimes against humanity but their conservatism showed in other, less clement ways. They voted conservatively and believed that there should be no single mother’s pension. Living together out of marriage was wrong and homosexuality was unnatural.

  As a teenager, I clashed with their views again and again. Eventually I learned that I could not beat their dry brand of logic or influence their opinions, so I gave up. I was a cardboard cut-out around them, never revealing my true feelings and beliefs.

  Later, when I starting working at the Centre, I could sense their disapproval. Nothing critical was ever said but it wasn’t hard to glean they were opposed, if not to the Centre itself, then to me working there. So was it any wonder I had never told them my child was Koori? It was something that was easier avoided. But it couldn’t be avoided any longer. The tectonic plates of their lives were about to shift.

  We turned the corner and there was my parents’ home, the home where I presume I had been conceived although I wouldn’t have dreamt to ask. It was one of the oldest homes in the neighbourhood. The sweeping gravel driveway lead to a timber Victorian house painted a crisp white, its wide verandah edged with a tracer
y of lacework. It was as neat as a pin, as always. The only changes made to it over the years were the curtains in the front room — the venetian blinds had been replaced just as they were becoming trendy again.

  The only other thing that varied were the colours in the flowerbed — this spring they had gone for lemon and apricot shades. The house looked the way it always did — except this time, strung up from the lacework, was a sign the width of the verandah.

  WELCOME HOME, KIRRALI

  My parents and my brother and his family were standing under the sign. When my mother saw us, she ran, arms outstretched. Kirrali had stopped at the end of the driveway while I had kept walking, drawn to the sign. My mother dashed past me and scooped Kirrali up in her arms. Dad came and put his arm around my shoulder. James and Helen, and their kids Jack and Kyle, held back while the reunion scene, like something from a movie, played out on the driveway.

  I was dumbfounded. I looked at the sign and then at my parents, who were now both crushing Kirrali in bear hugs. I hadn’t even hugged her yet and I had given birth to her. I looked at the sign again. Then it clicked. It was painted in red, black and yellow. It had to be intentional.

  They knew Kirrali was Koori and it didn’t matter. Looking at the tears streaming down my mother’s face, I knew that it mattered not one bit. It was me, not them, who got the biggest shock of her life.

  All that day I felt like I was outside myself looking in. Here I was, a thirty-seven-year-old woman, who was confused about whether she was meant to act the part of ‘mother’ or ‘daughter’. There was this young woman who was meeting her biological grandparents for the first time — the prodigal granddaughter. There was James, the older brother, and Helen, the sister-in-law with her fake smile. There were the granddaughter’s biological cousins, who, after initially bursting into tears — their mother claimed they were ‘shy’ — were already beginning to reassert their status as the ‘real’ grandchildren. In other words, they were demanding attention.

  But the star of the show was the matriarch, a woman one year shy of her sixtieth birthday. She charmed and she fussed and she talked non-stop. She acted as if Kirrali had been on a long trip and was overjoyed at her safe return. In all my speculations, when I had envisaged what my mother would do and say when she saw Kirrali, I never imagined a scene like this. My parents’ welcome was everything that I could have wanted but didn’t dare expect. So why did I feel confused and cheated?