‘You’d better hurry,’ she said, trying to make light of it. That evil always seemed not too far away when the Nagdu people seemed to be happy. Ada looked at Queenie, who was desperately in a rush to move. Not forgetting her love for her grandma, she called out, ‘Love you, Grandma Polly.’
Polly waved as she watched her daughter and her two grandchildren heading for the wildflowers. She gave a sad smile as she saw Queenie ducking and weaving amongst the bush, with her mother and brother trying to hurry along behind. Looking back for her mother, Queenie had to giggle, because Mum was a fair way back, trying to coax Jack who, to be quite honest, was not excited about the galaxy of flowers that awaited. He would rather have gone out and looked for bush tucker, Queenie thought.
But Grandma Polly was transfixed on the movements of Ada and her two children.
She mumbled, almost in silence, ‘If anything happened to the children we’d have to blame Mother Nature for luring Queenie in.’
Innocent of the genocidal wave that was slowly drowning her people, Queenie ran through the bush in exhilarating happiness, letting her fingers flick the leaves of the young saplings as she whizzed by. Running into the cleared area, she gasped. Standing silently, still, mesmerised and in her wildflower land, she thought of Grandma Polly telling her of the beauty that appears every year about springtime. Polly would often tell all the children that they must be good Nadgu children and, once a year, if the children behaved really well, Mother Nature would send the rain down in the winter and, come the spring, the wildflowers would appear for the good Nadgu kids. And looking at what lay before her eyes, she thought, ‘We must have all been good kids.’
She looked longingly over her wondrous wildflowers and knew that she had to pick enough for all the families, but not pick too much. If we pick too much or trample these pretty flowers, Grandma Polly and also Mum will rouse. Mother Nature will not let the rain fall on our Nadgu land, and there will be no display of her kindness to the Nadgu people. Looking over her beautiful wildflowers, she thought of the stories she had heard last night around a campfire, snuggled against her little sisters and listening to the elders talk, sing and play the didjeridoo. Sometimes she heard the stories being told but sometimes the elders would talk with great concern in their voices, especially when they spoke of the children in the Nadgu tongue. Words like ‘hide’ … ‘children’ … ‘British Government’ … ‘no more you will see them’.
This would often confuse young Queenie, when sleep was about to engulf her. She would always think, before drifting off into her wildflower land, ‘As long as I’ve got my mother, my brother and all my family and the flowers that await me I am happy.’
Ada with Jack came out of the bush and laughed at her daughter spinning around, arms outstretched either side of her, in front of the wildflowers. Mother and daughter looked over the magical carpet of flowers and little Queenie imagined that they were all laughing and smiling at her as they danced to the tune of a slight breeze. They had Queenie in a world so far away from the theft of little Aboriginal children from their mums and dads to make these little black kids like little white kids in this country they called ‘Australia’. All Queenie wanted was to be around her family and around the bush.
‘Hey, my big girl, looks like they knew you was comin’.’
Queenie ran to her mother, who let Jack slide down from her hip and stand on the ground. Ada put her arms around her daughter’s shoulders and looked at the beautiful flowers.
Ada thought that all the seasons had been good to the Nadgu people and she knew of the hot summer they just had, the cold chilly winds that come in from Esperance, followed by the cold winter rains, which made us forever have the fires burning, and the beautiful spring weather through which the bush gave us these wildflowers.
Then gently pushing Queenie onto her back, Ada said, ‘All those purty flowers are waitin’ for you girl.’ Queenie walked softly at first and was afraid to trample on those ‘purty flowers’, as her mother called them.
As long as Queenie could remember, her mother and the rest of the mothers, and even Grandma Polly, would take all the children out to the wildflowers and turn a day into a festival. Dampers would be made out in the bush. Kangaroo meat would be taken out and cooked on the hot coals. And whatever bush tucker they found in the bush they all shared: lizards, goannas, bardies and whatever bush fruit was around; in spring they were never short of the bush fruit that grew around the Fraser Ranges.
And on this particular day, thought Queenie, It’s only me, my brother and my mother. This, she thought, is the first time that we are alone. I wonder what kept the other families away? Never mind, she told herself, I will pick the flowers for all the families. I wish the other kids were here with me.
Ada walked back to the bush and found a hollow log to sit on and was quite at ease with herself. From here she could watch Queenie picking all her flowers and could see Jack looking for bobtails. She knew that in this warm weather there’d be a lot of young bobtails out, and the family loved roasted bobtails.
With the excitement of Queenie, who seemed quite happy just picking her flowers, she had to laugh at her son Jack who was trying to kill a bobtail.
I’d better go and help him, Ada thought. Either that bobtail is gunna bite him on the toe or he’s gunna hit himself on the toe with that stick he’s trying to flatten the bobtail with.
Ada quickly got up from the log and walked to Jack, who in his frustration couldn’t understand why he couldn’t kill his favourite meal. Ada had to laugh at him because she had just seen one tasty meal get away before her very eyes. Picking Jack up and hugging him, she said, ‘Never mind, bub, we’ll get it later. I’m sure there’s lot more bush tucker here.’
Looking around, she saw a quandong tree laden with its fruit, its skin quite red. It might be ready to eat. She carried Jack to the tree and could see that his eyes had lit up on seeing the quandong tree and the bobtail was the furthest thing from his mind. She was glad that the young children were taught at a young age that the bush will look after you as long as you look after the bush, and not to light fires when not the right season and to bury the bones of the animals back in the ground. It is good for the soil.
Putting Jack down, she reached up and grabbed a quandong and peeled its soft red skin from the nut and had a taste. ‘Hmmm, not quite ripe but good enough to eat.’
She took a taste of a few more before getting a handful and giving them to Jack. She knew he would make short work of the quandongs, and the round nuts he would keep to play marbles with the other kids. These kids have got their own shop right out here in the bush and it doesn’t cost them any money. She laughed, looking at Jack who had a big smile on his face while chomping on his quandongs.
She stepped out from the bush to look for Queenie amongst her wildflowers but there was no sign of her. She froze in disbelief. She was there a minute ago, she thought, and began to shout frantically.
‘Queenie, Queenie. Mummy want you, bullay look out for boogie man on horses.’
She saw her daughter run out from the bushes holding onto her flowers with a big smile on her face. ‘Queenie, come back to us. Run quick,’ trying to control her voice, looking for her son who was poking a stick into an ants’ nest a few yards away. She called to him urgently, ‘Jack, run to Mummy.’
At that precise moment, Ada heard the hoofbeats upon her red soil. She froze instinctively, seeking Jack who was running towards her, his face full of fear. Then, she turned to look at Queenie who also realised something was going to happen. Fear overtook her whole body as she ran as fast as she could to her mother.
Ada was close to the hollow log she’d been sitting on and called to Jack in a controlled voice, ‘Jack, run to Mummy and get in this hollow log coz policeman comin’,’ holding her arms out for him to run to.
Grabbing him and hiding him in the hollow log, she turned to see Queenie running towards them and sh
e screamed as the troopers on horseback were suddenly upon her and Queenie. But what caught her eye was how the hooves had churned up so much red dust. There were three policemen on horseback but, with so much red dust around, Ada thought there were twenty horses or more because all she could see were the horses’ chests and one white policeman’s face on his horse. The rest of the legs were covered in red dust, and Ada could still see Queenie running towards her with her hands outstretched in front of her, flowers in each one.
For a split second, Ada thought that Queenie was going to be galloped on and screamed frantically as the horses veered away from Queenie and she was lost in the churned-up dust. ‘Where are you, Queenie?’ she screamed amidst the swirling redness. Ada froze to the point of near collapse as she saw Queenie step out of the thick swirling dust to give her a bunch of wildflowers. Mother and daughter let out an agonising scream. It all happened within a split second of fierce movement. But to Ada it would come to seem a slow-motion replay in her mind. Ada had just barely touched the flowers when her daughter was snatched from the ground, and the troopers held her tightly. Queenie screamed and screamed for her mother.
As the troopers rode off with the screaming child, the dust lingered high in the late morning. All Ada could see were the beautiful petals falling aimlessly to the ground, amidst the red dust.
She didn’t know how long she had lain there, but she could still hear Queenie’s screams and the dreaded hooves beating into the red dry soil.
Then realising she hadn’t heard from Jack, she got up quickly and rushed to the hollow log, only to find it empty. Ada was on the verge of collapse again when she heard a voice in the bushes calling, ‘Mummy, Mummy.’
Regaining composure, she ran into the bushes whispering fiercely, ‘Stay in the bush. Mummy gunna get you.’ She was relieved when she grabbed Jack who was cowering in the bushes and sobbing hysterically. Trying to quell her own sobs, she nestled him to her bosom and did her best to settle him down.
He clung to his mother and, weeping, asked, ‘Will we ever see Queenie again?’
Ada sobbed, ‘Wherever they take you I’m gunna find you, my little wildflower girl!’
Galah
Melanie Saward
Melanie Saward is a Meanjin-based writer and a proud descendant of the Bigambul and Wakka Wakka peoples. She was highly commended in the 2019 Calibre Essay Prize, was a 2019 featured author at Djed Press, and has been shortlisted for the David Unaipon Award twice, in 2018 and 2020.
Sunny has been thinking about the dead galah on the kerb of the Gateway Bridge every time she’s passed it since she spotted it almost a month ago. The first time she saw it, its feathers were still vibrant, its body stiff. That time, she wondered about the bird’s death: how had it died and fallen so perfectly on the lip of the bridge, just inches away from the steady twenty-four-hour procession of cars and trucks? And how long could it lie there?
One time she drove by and she imagined herself slowing to a stop, switching the hazard lights on, and scooting across the passenger seat. She’d reach out and rescue it from the side of the road, maybe take it to a park and leave it beneath a tree. It seemed a better place for a bird to lie dead than a grey concrete tower. But the same constant buzz of traffic over the bridge that stops the predators from picking away at the bird’s carcass kept her from pulling over on her daily commute. And so, it rots away quietly, unnoticed – probably – by anyone but her.
Each day on her way to work, she’s been thinking about the galah but only close to the Eagle Farm exit. She begins to think about it as she drives through the place where the toll booths used to be, and again just as the car accelerates up the crest of the bridge. She never thinks about it for long before, or long after.
It’s there now as Lennon jerks the Camry’s brakes on the descent down the bridge towards the airport. Sunny’s forehead is pressed against the cool passenger-side window and even though her view of the galah is still just a glimpse, she sees it closer this time. The head lolling, limbs loose, muscles withered. Its wings have turned from a soft grey to a mottled, rotten brown that creeps across the dulled pink breast, as though it’s been stepped on or scuffed. She lets out a snort, and Lennon glances at her.
‘What?’
‘The galah. We’re the same,’ Sunny answers. It’s all she offers, and Lennon doesn’t ask her to explain.
When Sunny went to the hospital yesterday, there was nothing about her that showed how broken she was. She sat in the hard plastic chairs next to people who displayed their ailments: blood-soaked cloths pressed to wounds; kids nursing ice-cream container vomit buckets; people with pale faces, red noses. The triage nurse looked her up and down, taking in her bright leggings, heavy smudged eyeliner, and bruise-free face. For the first time she hated her short, spiked hairstyle that managed to look purposefully tousled no matter whether she’d just woken up or just been raped. She felt like telling the nurse she’d come here from an after-church supper, but she was too tired to explain that church girls could wear make-up and bright clothes, and not be white, and that pastors sometimes turned out to be predators; but what would be the point?
This is why, she thought as the nurse pretended she couldn’t hear her whisper the word discreetly, girls don’t report this kind of shit.
She was almost pleased to see the row of darkening bruises on her thighs once she was in the curtained cubicle, naked beneath the hospital gown.
If Lennon was surprised to hear from her, her voice didn’t betray it. She showed up with a jacket over her pyjamas, hair piled on top of her head in a messy topknot. She jumped out of the Camry and led Sunny from the bench at the hospital’s pick-up area, to the passenger side of the car.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Lennon asked, after a mostly silent drive through the city back to her apartment in East Brisbane. Sunny knew Lennon understood that she wouldn’t talk, so she just stared out the window. Once they were inside, Sunny waited until she was sure Lennon had gone to bed before tiptoeing to the door of the spare room and going out onto the balcony.
Lennon found her there just after sunrise, an overflowing ashtray on the table in front of her.
‘Thought you’d quit when you went religious, eh?’
‘I figure,’ Sunny said, pressing the butt of the last cigarette against the table, ‘if pastors can fuck members of their flock, then a few cigarettes aren’t gonna lock me out of heaven.’
There wasn’t much Lennon could say to that. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, lips smacking together.
‘Thanks for answering the phone last night,’ Sunny said. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would.’
Lennon didn’t answer. Instead, she went back inside, reappearing a few minutes later, with two mugs of coffee and a new packet of cigarettes.
‘Is there any point me asking what you’re going to do now?’ Lennon asked, as she put one of the coffees and the smokes in front of Sunny.
There was a lot she wanted to say to Lennon: thank you for making friends with me back at uni. Thanks for not ditching me when I ditched uni and friends and life for Brett. Thanks for not rolling your eyes too hard when I decided God would heal me and abandoned everything and everyone all over again.
But Sunny could also see that Lennon was ready for her to go on to her next terrible decision so that Lennon could get on with her own shiny life.
The apartment was expensive: two bedrooms, a view of the river and, in the distance, the looming shadow of the Gateway Bridge. She’d graduated uni while Sunny never went back after the summer of her first year when Brett had said, ‘What’s an art degree gonna do for you anyway?’ over and over until she agreed with him.
Sunny smoked almost another whole cigarette before either of them spoke again.
‘I fucked up,’ she said. ‘I really thought they could fix me.’
What she’d have liked Lennon to reply then was that maybe running from
Brett to the church was a fuck-up, but it wasn’t her fault that Brett had broken her and the church liked her broken. It wasn’t her fault that Pastor Jay had cornered her yesterday.
But instead what Lennon said was, ‘The problem, Sun, is that you keep expecting other people will fix your problems for you. I think you should move out of that church house and go back to uni. Work hard, get back on track.’
‘I didn’t ask what you thought I should do,’ Sunny said and drank the cooling, bitter dregs of her coffee. ‘But you’re right. I’m gonna go back to Tassie. Stay with my gran for a while.’
Lennon sighed.
‘Not because I want her to fix me, I promise,’ Sunny said, crossing her fingers under the table. ‘Drive me to the airport?’
She feels a deep pain in her chest as they exit the bridge and she realises that if she leaves Brisbane she won’t see the galah again. She feels as though its life will be gone if she doesn’t remember it in those brief moments before and after she passes the body. A couple of previous times, she’d felt panicked; scared that she’d forget to look and see if it was still there. She was scared of the day when the last of its feathers would blow away and all trace of the bird that had died on the bridge would be gone.
At the airport, Lennon doesn’t get out of the car at the drop-off zone. She just reaches out and touches Sunny’s hand and says: ‘I hope things work out better.’
Even if things do work out and Sunny somehow finds herself back in Brisbane, she knows she won’t see Lennon again.
Flock Page 8