Dad got in the car. Everyone said goodbye to me, through the window of the car. Mum held my hand as Dad drove down the country roads in our old Vauxhall, heading for the city. I tried not to whimper, because I noticed that every time I made a noise it made Mum cry. I didn’t want to hear Mum cry anymore, I just wanted our family to be happy.
Fifteen
Outside the Adelaide Children’s Hospital the nurses put me on a trolley bed and wheeled me away from Mum and Dad. I couldn’t see them anymore, but I screamed and called for them. The icy wind started coming back. Finally Mum appeared at my side, but Dad was still out parking the car.
We raced off down the corridor, and the lights along the ceiling flashed past. The nurses pushed me through big flapping doors, and a strange man told Mum that she had to leave. Mum kissed me and told me everything would be alright. She said she would pray for me, and that she would see me in the morning. Then she was gone.
The strange man began talking to me. I didn’t understand what he was saying because I was more concerned about the pair of scissors in his hand. He was trying to take my clothes off, and then he started cutting off my underpants. I screamed out for Mum and Dad and God. I screamed until everything went black.
Sixteen
‘Where you from?’ asked a girl in the bed next to mine. I told her I lived on the farm. ‘But where you from?’ she asked again. I looked away. I didn’t know what she meant.
She looked a bit like my big brother. She had the same beautiful dark skin, darker than mine, but her hair was black and thick and long, just like mine. She was very skinny.
The nurses told her she must rest, but when they were busy down the other end of the ward the girl told me her name was Jennifer. She was fourteen years old, and she came from Alice Springs. She also told me that her mother died, and that she had nowhere to live. She told me I should look for my real family when I grew up. I started to tell her about my family, but she was very tired, and while I was talking she fell asleep.
When I woke the next morning, her bed was empty.
Seventeen
My leg was in traction, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It hung from the rail above my bed in an assembly of steel rods and strings. Everyone fussed over me, and a special doctor came to visit me. He told me he was from Africa, and he told me I was very brave. He visited me every day. I liked being in hospital. I wasn’t being hurt anymore.
My nice doctor told Mum I had to stay in the hospital for six weeks. I met lots of people who lived in the city, and I met people who came from different countries. I liked the staff who looked darker, like my big brother. They were very friendly to me.
A white-haired lady also came each day, and gave me schoolwork to do. The lessons were easy and didn’t take long, so when I finished them I spent the rest of the day reading or watching TV. We didn’t have TV at home. Mum said we were too busy for TV on the farm.
Another lady came and asked if I wanted to learn basket weaving. The lady showed me how to start the basket frame, and she said I could make it as big as I wished. I worked on it for hours. I wanted to make something nice for Mum, to let her know I was sorry. I knew I was in the hospital because I got too angry.
I was working on the basket so much that I forgot to do my school work, and that made the white-haired lady really cranky. She seemed not to see me when I tried to show her my basket, and then she yelled at me. I didn’t like her after that.
Eighteen
My family visited me on Sundays, and would stay for an hour, then drive back to the farm for the evening milking. Mum talked a lot, and Dad sometimes held my hand. My younger brother and sister chattered away, telling me stories about the farm. I missed the calves and the chickens and the cats. But something between me and Big Brother had changed. We found it difficult to talk to each other, especially in front of Mum and Dad. Mum always fussed with my hair, and during her visits she would brush my hair which was the longest it had been for a very long time. It covered my whole back. I tried not to cry each time when they had to leave.
One day a nurse said that the staff didn’t have time to brush my hair during the week. Then she roughly tied my hair back in a ponytail, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut my hair off. She put my ponytail in my bedside drawer.
The next Sunday my family walked straight past me in the ward. They didn’t recognise me with my new short hair. Later Mum said it looked nice, but I could tell by her eyes that I looked ugly. My little sister looked scared when she peered at me from behind Mum’s dress.
After that I didn’t want to stay in the hospital anymore. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I just wanted people to stop being nasty to me and to stop making me feel ugly.
Nineteen
My legs and stomach were covered in a white plaster cast. It was uncomfortable and itchy. There was a square hole left open between my legs, so I could go to the toilet. Mum or a nurse would lift me up and slide a bed pan under me. It was uncomfortable, and I felt ashamed when the blanket wasn’t covering me. But I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t move.
After six weeks in traction, I was allowed to go home. I had to live in the kitchen, on a special bed that Mum had made. Dad had hired a TV, to ‘keep me company,’ he said. I watched TV most of the day, while my brothers went to school, and Mum and Dad worked on the farm. My little sister played with me in the mornings. I felt lonely after lunchtime when she was sleeping.
Our foster brother didn’t live with us anymore. Mum said he had moved to the city and enrolled in a teachers college. She showed me photos of his birthday party. He had turned eighteen while I was in hospital.
I felt it was really my fault that he had left.
Twenty
It was not the same at home after my accident. Big Brother told me Mum was different. He said she got angry a lot now, and that she smacked him sometimes. I felt sad that I had made extra work for Mum. I knew it was my fault that Mum got cross.
I wanted to protect Big Brother, so I devised a plan. When he got into trouble with Mum, he had to tell her it was my fault. Then I would get the smack. He offered to do some of my chores in return. I knew brothers were supposed to look after their sisters, but my brother wasn’t as strong as he used to be.
The plan worked. I took most punishments for my brother, and he did my chores. I didn’t worry about the smacks, as Mum couldn’t make me cry. No one could make me cry anymore. Sometimes when I watched Mum’s face I could see a new sadness in her. I wished we could all be happy again.
School was not the same either. Because I had to use crutches to get around I had to sit with the little kids up the front of the class, and the teacher had to help me get up and down from the mat. But I wanted to sit with my friends at the back of the room.
At lunchtime I couldn’t play sport. I had to sit in the library. But the library wasn’t that bad because the library ladies showed me lots of interesting books, and I could read very fast. I liked reading adventure stories and stories of children who were happy. The books I liked reading the most were the Famous Five by Enid Blyton.
When my legs got strong, I practised sport again. I practised and practised and practised. I worked hard at home, doing lots of chores to get strong. But when the sports day races were held I couldn’t win anymore. My friends teased me because they could run faster than me.
I knew my punishment for my anger would last for a long time.
One day I decided to stop running.
Part Two
rhubarb pie
Twenty One
School really sucked sometimes! And I never looked forward to going back as the summer holidays drew close to being over. That year Mum was helping me with my new school uniform. I think she was lowering the hem to make me look like Grandma. All the other girls always wore short skirts and showed off their legs, and they were always popular. I hated that Mum seemed persistent with old fashions and old styles of behaviour. She really believed that if you treated people nicely, then you would be tr
eated the same. I wanted to tell her life didn’t work like that anymore. I had enjoyed the school holidays and wished they would last forever, playing with my brothers and sister, and finding quiet moments on my own to read when we weren’t helping Dad around the farm or helping Mum in the house. I tried to keep up with my piano practise too, but I knew I would never be able to play as well as Big Brother.
Big Brother and I started going to a different school that year, as the old school had been reduced to primary school only. I liked my old school, especially after my foster brother had left. My last report card said I was an ‘excellent’ student. Mum was very happy when she read it, and even Dad said he was proud of me.
I wanted to be by myself and not think about the new school, so I climbed to my favourite place, my old cubby built high in the pine trees, where no one could see me. I watched strips of clouds float through the leaves, and let my thoughts drift with them. Daydreaming had become my new pastime. Mum said daydreaming was an age thing, and that I would hopefully grow out of it soon.
Twenty Two
I had just turned fourteen, and it was my favourite time of the year. We had just returned from our annual two weeks at the shack at Sellicks Beach where we wandered for hours on the beach and in the rock pools. Mum loved the sea water, so we swam every day with her. Dad played cricket with us, and he was good at bowling, and of course he was so fit from all the work on the farm. Mum liked walking, so we walked with her, often sighting dolphins swimming in the late afternoons. Mum was happy and talked to lots of people on the beach. She loved telling everyone that we were her children, and everyone was friendly to us after that.
When Mum and Dad were resting, Big Brother and I explored the caves under the cliffs, and we wondered if Aboriginal people had lived there years before. Our younger brother and sister were bigger now, so we shared our adventures with them too.
We would see the old fisherman sitting on the cliff tops, waiting to spot a shoal of fish. He liked our eagerness to help take the fish out of his nets. It had become our custom, and he always gave us fresh fish for Mum. In the evenings Mum let me help her cook the fish, while my brothers helped make the salads. Dad read a book, and my little sister played quietly with her toys on the floor. Our family was happy.
Dad taught me to play chess, but it was so hard, much harder than draughts. Every evening I set the board for a new game. I could never win, but that didn’t matter, I loved spending so much time with Dad. Once I heard the fisherman tell Dad that I looked like his daughter. I wanted to be a good daughter for Dad.
Black
1.
My father is a unicorn
The mythical beast
Hidden behind clouds
Of gossip.
My mother grasps curtains
Shreds them with anxiety
Plaits ribbons
In an empty church.
My Nana opens windows
Weaving songs
And gently tells
Real myths.
2.
My father thinks I am not his
My mother thinks she knows me
My Nana thinks I am her heart
But I am none of those
I am white
I am grey
I am black
Twenty Three
The new school was located 20 miles away at Clare, and Big Brother and I had to get up really early to catch the bus. Mum and Dad were busy milking the cows, so we had to make our own breakfast and lunches. Sometimes I was so tired that I didn’t eat. Often we had to ride our pushbikes to the bus stop. High school days were long days.
Most of the other kids from primary school caught the same bus, so I got to sit next to my friends. We had fun telling jokes while the older brothers and sisters chatted amongst themselves, and sometimes teased us younger ones. I wondered why my brother often sat by himself, up the front of the bus.
Other students from all the other towns in the district gathered at Clare High School each day. It was such a big school. I realised I was shy, and hung closely with the girls from primary school. I noticed there were other Aboriginal students there too, which was both confusing and exciting because Big Brother and I had never met Aboriginal people our age before. I knew I wanted to be their friend, but I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want to let my old friends down.
On enrolment I got put into different classes from my friends; they went into the top class, but I was put into a lower class. I didn’t understand why; my last report card had said I was a good student.
Raymond and Mingari were in my class, and we became friends even though they were darker than me. Raymond looked like my big brother and told me he was adopted too. He had an adopted brother and sister, and they were also Aboriginal.
Mingari was very pretty, and I was glad she was my new friend. She lived with her Mum and had little brothers and sisters. She told me the welfare took every second baby from her mother, and there were now four babies missing. She said her Mum drank a lot because of that.
At lunchtime I still sat with my friends from primary school, but I watched the other Aboriginal kids playing sports and having fun. They always stuck together. Sometimes I saw my big brother sitting by himself, and I noticed he was watching them too. I was too ashamed to sit with him, but I didn’t know why.
Every afternoon the school bus took us back to the farm, and every afternoon I went home to my adopted family. Some nights I would wonder about the other Aboriginal kids who went home to their real mums and dads. I wondered what they did there.
Twenty Four
I became good friends with Mingari, and I enjoyed that she was different from my other friends. She introduced me to a new set of friends who taught me to smoke cigarettes and drink beer. Sometimes they even smuggled beer to school and we would share it in the toilets at recess. I idolised their sense of freedom. I was trying to be good for my parents, to achieve good marks at school and to practise our church faith, but I just couldn’t.
Things got worse when some of the girls who I knew from church and netball cornered me in the quadrangle at school. I remember it was a cloudy day. I was walking through the quadrangle to my friends on the other side when suddenly one of the girls grabbed me from behind and held me tightly until I was pushed over onto the asphalt. But I did not cry or yell out. I hadn’t been able to cry for some time now. It felt like all my tears had evaporated out of my body, and the icy wind had turned into an ice block. After a while the ice block had turned to stone, and now there was no moisture left inside me.
They used the ink from inside a felt marker pen to paint my face dark brown, and drew dark brown blotches on my light brown skin. I watched the clouds. I watched trust disappear. Finally I got up off the ground. The humiliation had been successful; I could hardly walk from the shame. I shuffled to the toilets to wash my face, and I stared at my ugly face in the mirror.
My eyes lost some meaning that day. I hated living a life where so many people hurt me, and in that moment I began to hate them back.
Twenty Five
After a while my grades at school dropped. Mum said she didn’t understand why I didn’t try harder at school. The teachers said they didn’t understand either.
Mum suggested I should stay away from my Aboriginal friends, because she thought they were dragging me down. She said I wasn’t allowed to stay at their places and that they weren’t welcome at ours. She said she was proud of my big brother, for not making friends with the Aborigines. I wanted to tell her he didn’t make friends with anyone.
I wanted to tell her about what had happened at school but didn’t know how. Mum and Dad were friends with the girls’ parents at church and I didn’t want to make things worse. So it was easier to say nothing. Not to anybody.
Twenty Six
School dragged on and on. I had made some new friends, since the felt pen ink episode, and many of them had lots of brothers and sisters. Mum even let me stay at their houses sometimes. Us girls would listen
to Rod Stewart and Hush and Sherbet, and trade pictures of our favourite pop stars to stick on our textbooks at school.
The day I turned sixteen I got my driver’s licence. It was easy. I had been driving on the farm since an early age. Mum drove me to the local police station for my practical test, and then we drove to Kadina to register.
The local drive-in theatre was also at Clare. All the young people went there on Saturday nights, after football and netball. I worked hard at my chores all week so I could go. Sometimes my cousins drove. Sometimes Dad lent me the car.
Mingari’s mum didn’t have a car, so I would call past their house, pick up Mingari, and we would go cruising. She introduced me to all sorts of different people. Margy was my favourite. She was always laughing and not afraid to punch anyone who said hurtful things to us. Sometimes we didn’t even get to the drive-in. In the morning I would lie to Mum and Dad about what we got up to the night before.
Sometimes Mingari’s cousins would be visiting. They lived up north, and they told the best stories about the bush. I got nervous when they talked about blackfella magic, about strange things that happened in the desert. They laughed at my fear and teased me. They said I should go there when I finish school.
Too Afraid to Cry Page 3