The White Girl

by Birch, Tony;

  Odette boarded the bus outside the Deane Town Hall and took a seat towards the back. The only other time she’d visited Gatlin was when she’d gone searching for her daughter. In the days after Lila vanished, Odette was hopeful the girl would soon come home for the sake of her baby. On the third day, after Lila still had not returned, Odette arrived on Millie Khan’s doorstep with Sissy under one arm.

  ‘Lila, she’s run off somewhere,’ Odette explained to her old friend. ‘She’d have no money, so I can’t see her getting further than Gatlin. I need to go and fetch her back.’

  ‘Run off?’ Millie shook her head. ‘She can’t go running off. If the Welfare track her down before you do, they’ll have her trained up for some country mansion.’ Millie took Sissy from Odette, held her in her arms and kissed her on the forehead. ‘And they’ll be after this little one as well, the buggers. Have you had a word to Bill Shea?’

  ‘Why would I? If he bothered to shift himself at all, he’d only move as far as the telephone to call the Welfare Board himself.’

  Millie considered Odette’s words. It wouldn’t be the first time Bill Shea had stood idly by and allowed the kids of his childhood friends to be taken away by Welfare officers.

  ‘You’re most likely right. The best we can hope from here, I suppose, is that Bill does nothing.’

  Searching for Lila in Gatlin, Odette had walked every street surrounding the town centre, enquiring after her daughter in shops and cafés where she may have sought work. By the end of the day, exhausted and at a loss, Odette found herself standing outside a stone church. The building was similar to the one on the mission, except for the addition of a large metal crucifix adorning the steeple. Her search for Lila had drained her of both energy and hope. She had nowhere to go but home, yet was reluctant to return without her daughter. When it began to rain, Odette had no choice but to seek shelter. Inside the church, she wearily took a seat, rested her hand on her chin and closed her eyes.

  A little while later someone was gently shaking her shoulder. ‘You look beat, love,’ she heard someone say, and sat up. An Aboriginal woman around her own age, but with lighter skin, was smiling down at her. Before Odette could respond, the woman took her by the hand and guided her along the aisle to a small room behind the church. She introduced herself as Delores Reed, and said she was from the south coast. The woman seemed desperate to talk, as if she’d been waiting for Odette to come along. She spoke in a rush of words and Odette had difficulty following her story.

  Delores had moved to Gatlin three years earlier to be closer to her two daughters, who’d been placed in a Home attached to the Convent.

  ‘I’m a lucky one,’ Delores said.

  ‘You’re lucky?’ Odette replied, puzzled. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Well, when I found out where my girls were, I made my way up here. It was good news, to hear that they’d been kept together. Best for them that way, to comfort each other. One of the nuns from the Convent, she looked out for me when I got here. She had words with the priest, Father O’Brien, on my behalf. The Father is dead now. Only six months ago. His heart,’ Delores explained. She made the sign of the cross and uttered Amen before going on. ‘That same nun organised for me to take this job here.’

  ‘What sort of work do you do?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Well, I clean the church and help in the kitchen. In return, I get all my food and board.’ Delores pointed to the narrow doorway off the room. ‘I have my own little crib in there.’

  ‘And wages?’ Odette asked. ‘What do they pay you?’

  ‘It’s not about money,’ Delores snapped, as if the suggestion was an insult. ‘I’m taken care of and I get to see my girls once every month.’

  ‘Once a month?’ Odette could barely hide her disgust.

  ‘Yes. Father O’Brien, he didn’t think it would be good for any of us, the girls or me, to see each other, not at the beginning. He said the visits might be too much, get us all emotional. But it has worked out for the good.’

  ‘You must miss them between visits,’ Odette said. ‘A month is a long time not to see your own kiddies.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ Delores said. ‘But I keep myself busy with the cleaning. Takes my mind off the worry.’ She leaned into Odette and whispered, ‘Sometimes I sneak over to the school and look at them through the fence. They look so happy, skipping about with the other kids. They’re all so happy here. And I pray, of course.’

  ‘The other children here, do their mums come and visit?’

  Delores vigorously shook her head from side to side. ‘Oh no. It’s not allowed. I’m the only one. Father O’Brien always believed that the children were as good as orphans. It’s the best outcome for half-castes, he said.’

  ‘Half-castes?’

  ‘All of them here are half-caste or quarter-caste. Sometimes a bit less. But they’re all treated the same. The church finds homes for them. With white families.’

  Odette supposed the same fate must be awaiting Delores’s children. As they sat together at the scarred wooden table drinking tea she told Delores about Lila’s sudden and mysterious decision to leave home. ‘She has her own baby girl. I can’t understand what would have caused her to leave.’

  ‘Is she light-skinned, your granddaughter?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s light. Why are you asking?’

  ‘The Welfare, they’re in love with the fairer ones these days. My ex, he was an Irish fella, red hair, freckles. Skin the colour of a fresh bedsheet. My girls look more like him than me. After they were born a nurse at the hospital told me it’s because our Aboriginal blood is weak. Both of them babies, I sat them in the sun from the day I took them home, wanting to darken them up. It didn’t work that way. They turned bright red and ended up with freckles all over them. I guess that nurse at the hospital was right. Our colour is weak.’

  Odette observed Delores gripping the edge of the table with both hands, her eyes sharp and her cheeks reddening.

  ‘The first time the Welfare lady set eyes on my babies,’ Delores said, ‘I knew I had no hope of keeping them.’ She took one hand away from the edge of the table and slammed it against her chest, alarming Odette. ‘From that day on, that bitch followed us around like a bloodhound. My eldest girl, Colleen, she was the first to go. We’d put her in the local school, a Catholic school. My hubby thought it might work in our favour, putting on the God act. He was in the merchant navy. He’d been away at sea six weeks and then his pay stopped coming to me from the company. I never knew it at the time, but he’d jumped ship and took off on me and the girls. I haven’t laid eyes on him since.’ Delores took a worn handkerchief out of the sleeve of her cardigan and wiped her nose. ‘I ran out of money in no time. No sooner was I spotted in the line outside the House of Charity than Colleen was taken. They picked her up at school.’

  ‘Did you fight it?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Fight? There was nothing I could do.’ Delores put a fist into her mouth and bit down on a knuckle to stop herself from sobbing. ‘You know what the nun at the school said when I fronted her? Do you know?’

  Odette shook her head.

  ‘She said, “This is best for you. We’re doing this to help you as much as your daughter.” I wanted to spit in that woman’s face. I went straight home and pulled a case out of the cupboard. I poked some air holes in it with a screwdriver and put my baby girl, Iris, in that case with our clothes.’ Delores took a deep breath. ‘And then we took off.’

  Odette wasn’t certain what she’d just been told. ‘You put your daughter in a suitcase?’

  Delores wiped her nose and laughed hysterically. ‘Sure did. That was my plan.’ She laughed again. ‘Didn’t work out for us, though. We only got as far as the bus station. I was ready to jump on any bus that would get us out of the city. I didn’t care where it was heading. And then, bang, the case sprung open and poor little Iris, she fell out.’

  De
lores looked down, as if the child was on the floor at her feet. She stood up and began circling the table. Odette wanted her to stop, both her manic pacing and the story, which she didn’t want to hear. But Delores couldn’t stop.

  ‘I mean, it was funny. Really funny,’ she cried. ‘We both laughed. My beautiful baby girl, she was giggling and I thought I was going to wet my pants.’ Delores walked over to the back door and looked outside, concerned she was being overheard. ‘I hadn’t noticed that there was a copper right there. He’d been a couple of footsteps behind us the whole time, writing a ticket for some fella who’d parked his car illegally. The copper saw what happened and I knew we were in trouble. I knew it, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Everyone waiting for the buses, they all thought I’d gone mad. After Iris was taken away I was put into one of those hospitals. You know? For sick people? And by then I was mad.’

  Delores had exhausted herself. She could hardly look at Odette. She quickly changed the subject and offered to contact Odette if she heard any news about Lila.

  Odette thanked her, and left the church and the town that night on an empty bus. The story of Delores losing her young daughters shook Odette. Although she never searched for Lila again, she lived in hope that her daughter would return home. About a month after her meeting with Delores Reed, Odette received a letter. The postmark was illegible and there was no return address on the back. The few lines from Lila, accompanied by a one-pound note, asked that Odette care for Sissy, until I make it back there. The letter gave no indication where Lila might be. It was obvious she wouldn’t be coming home. Odette got a job cleaning at a hotel in town and Millie Khan took care of Sissy during the day. Over the following years additional letters from Lila occasionally arrived, with little comment and giving nothing away.

  At the Gatlin hospital, Odette once again found herself laying on a padded table behind a screen. Doctor Singer was as polite and considerate as she remembered him.

  ‘I’ll be wearing a heavy apron during the procedure, which alarms some people,’ he said. ‘I’ll look a bit like a mad scientist, but don’t worry, I’m not out to frighten you.’

  Each time he asked Odette to shift her position on the table he said, ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’. When he had finished with the X-ray and Odette had dressed he sat beside her in the waiting room. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s just before eleven now. I’d like you to come back here at two o’clock for the results.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Yes. I can see that you are in constant pain, Mrs Brown. We need to find out what is causing it, and we need to deal with it as quickly as possible. Do you know anyone here in Gatlin?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you can get some lunch? Also, they have a decent public library in Gatlin. I use it myself.’

  Odette walked aimlessly along the main street to pass the time. She looked in the shop windows, at bright dresses, cookware, and dominating the window of an electrical store, a television set. She stood in front of a display TV and watched a woman cleaning her teeth. Odette didn’t own a television and thought nothing could be more absurd than a person cleaning their teeth in public. The woman on the screen opened her mouth widely. Odette had never seen teeth as white or straight.

  Another window shopper, standing next to Odette, chuckled to herself and pointed at the screen. ‘I don’t see why she’d need to bother with the toothbrush. You couldn’t get them teeth any cleaner if you scrubbed them with bleach.’ The woman removed a full set of nicotine-stained dentures from her mouth and proudly showed them to Odette. ‘These fangs would test that stuff. If they could get these white I’d buy a truckload of that paste myself.’

  In the next window, a gift shop, Odette admired a set of greeting cards arranged in a wire-framed stand. It took a moment for it to register that the cards were her own artwork. A notice above the stand announced that the cards were painted by a native woman of the Bilga tribe. Odette lingered, watching the proprietor select several cards from the display to show to a customer. She remembered the woman as the one who’d sat at her kitchen table a few years earlier. The woman looked out the window at Odette and smiled; it was not an expression of recognition but one of general politeness.

  Odette walked to the end of the street and looked up when she reached the clock tower of the Gatlin Post Office. She was not due back at the hospital for another hour. She began walking with a sense of purpose. After some initial confusion, she found the old church she’d visited years earlier. In the yard Odette could see a man kneeling in a garden. He was crouched on all fours, turning the soil over with a spade. He heard Odette’s footsteps and turned towards her.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you the priest here?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Oh no. I’m the gardener, Robert. Not one so worthy as a priest.’

  Odette looked down at the clumps of soil stuck to the front of his woollen jumper. He also noticed the dirt and brushed it away. ‘Can I be of any help to you?’

  ‘I’m in town for the day,’ Odette explained. ‘I’m looking for someone who used to live here. Her name is Delores Reed. She worked here some time ago. At the church.’

  The man frowned as he stood up. He had a soft and gentle face, reminding Odette of Henry Lamb.

  ‘Are you related to Mrs Reed?’ he asked. ‘Or a friend?’

  ‘I’m neither. Not really,’ Odette said. ‘She was a help to me many years ago. I was thinking about her this morning. I hoped I might find her here.’

  ‘Oh, she was a very kind woman,’ Robert said.

  ‘You know her?’ Odette asked.

  ‘Yes, I did. We sometimes worked together. She helped in the garden occasionally. Delores was a wonderful woman.’

  ‘You say did. She doesn’t work here any longer?’

  ‘No, she’s gone.’

  Robert picked up a metal rake and methodically worked the ground. He spoke slowly but deliberately, concentrating on his task. ‘You knew about her children?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. She talked about visiting them here. They would be young women now.’

  The gardener let out a long, anguished sigh. He leaned on his rake and looked away. ‘I don’t know why they did it. It was wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘The church authorities, about eight years ago, they decided to move a group of the girls away, including Mrs Reed’s daughters.’ Robert briefly concentrated on the pattern he’d created in the soil below his boots. ‘She wasn’t told what had happened to them until after they’d gone. It was more than a week after when the priest came to her. It was too late by then. There was nothing she could do.’

  ‘Taken? Where to?’ Odette asked.

  ‘To the city. A long way to travel for a woman without means.’

  The gardener placed the rake against the trunk of a gracious elm tree. ‘She lay in the room there for days on end, unable to move. It broke her, what they did to her.’

  Odette dreaded her next question, but had to ask. ‘What happened to Delores?’

  Robert looked up to the sturdy limb above his head. ‘Delores took her own life.’

  Odette gasped. ‘Her life?’

  ‘Yes. It was terrible.’ Robert took a set of keys out of his pocket. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’

  Odette was still trying to comprehend what Robert had said. Her body shook involuntarily. He opened the door to Delores Reed’s old room. ‘Nobody has used it since she …’

  Odette stood in the doorway. The gardener went inside and returned with a faded envelope. He opened it and took out two coloured photographs of young children, both with red curly hair. They were pale-skinned, except for a sprinkling of dark freckles on their cheeks. The names of the children, Colleen and Iris, were written in lead pencil on the back of the photographs.

  ‘This is all she left behind,’ he said. ‘I was asked to clean her room out a
nd found these in a drawer. We couldn’t find any other family. This envelope has been sitting here ever since.’

  Odette looked closely at the photographs. The girls looked so happy, just as Delores had said. ‘Were the girls told about their mother’s death?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. I don’t believe any children in the care of the church are informed about the death of a parent. It would be traumatic, I suppose.’

  ‘Care? Is that what you call it?’ Odette replied, her voice rising.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he shrugged, looking beaten. ‘I don’t know what to call it.’ He coughed nervously, realising there was nothing he could say that would appease Odette. ‘The photographs … it would be best if you could take them. They may be misplaced, or thrown out once I—’

  ‘But they’re not mine.’ Odette was distraught at the very idea. ‘These babies, they’re not my children. I can’t take them. It would be too much.’

  ‘No. Of course not. I’m so sorry. I was only thinking …’ He paused. ‘They belong with your people. If not, they may eventually become lost.’

  ‘Lost? Photographs are not enough. It’s the children in the photographs who are lost.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Robert conceded. ‘But perhaps, one day …’

  Odette noticed the look of sadness on the gardener’s face.

  ‘You say you’re not a priest?’ she asked.

  ‘No. I’m an orphan.’

  ‘I see,’ Odette said. And she did see.

  ‘I was a foundling, as they used to call us back then. I was left on the doorstep of this very church as a newborn, and fortunately I was taken in.’

  ‘Your whole life has been spent here?’

  ‘Most of it. I was let go at sixteen so I could find a means of taking care of myself. The church assisted me in finding work and accommodation. I found my way back here. Three times. Eventually they allowed me to stay on and put me to work.’

  ‘Why did you do that, come back, if you could go anywhere you wanted to?’

  The gardener considered the question, but did not have a satisfactory answer. ‘I cannot say, except that being outside, on my own, I did not know what to do with myself.’