by Alison Booth
‘Dizzy, you’re here, I knew you’d come. It’s really good to see you again.’ Lorna held out her arms. The girls embraced, so tightly that Zidra could feel Lorna’s heart thumping, or perhaps that was her own, and she could smell the faint scent of Sunlight soap and toothpaste. Shortly, Lorna gently pushed her away and held her at arms-length. Her face looked tense as she said, ‘Did you bring Mum?’
‘Yes, and your stepfather too. They’re near the beach with my mother. Can you slip away?’ Nervously Zidra looked around. The other girls were carrying on with their game of rounders as if nothing had happened.
‘I warned them I might vanish for a little while, and they were to pretend to know nothing and be on their best behaviour. Those two don’t need to pretend though. They’re so switched off they don’t know what’s going on, poor kids.’ Lorna gestured to the two blank-faced children sitting on the grass at the end of the yard, who seemed oblivious to everything. There was no one else in sight. ‘We’ll just walk out,’ Lorna continued. ‘Not through the lobby, though, but along the side passage. I can probably get away for a couple of hours. She flashed her old smile, all those white teeth on show. ‘I hoped you’d come today. I got your Christmas card. Knew right away it was from you.’
At the side of the house, Lorna put her hand on Zidra’s arm. ‘Can’t thank you enough for coming today. I knew I could count on you.’
‘Those other girls, were they all taken away like you?’
‘Yeah. Some of them don’t know where they’re from; that’s the ones who were taken as babies or toddlers. They’ll never even know who their families were. They’ve been told their parents are dead but I don’t believe that. That’s what they tried to tell me, the liars. At least I’ve got good memories of my family, unlike some of those kids. You saw those two sitting on their own. They’re always like that, completely withdrawn. They were taken as babies.’ Almost at the end of the passage, Lorna stopped. ‘Shh, someone’s coming.’
Zidra peered over her shoulder. A plump middle-aged woman, with tightly permed grey hair and a magazine under her arm, was walking towards the entrance.
‘That’s the matron. We’ll have to stay here till she’s inside. I hate her but I never let her see that. She’s dangerous. Tells us we’re all rubbish. She’s cruel too.’
They waited for a few seconds, not saying any more. Zidra’s heart was pumping hard again. To be apprehended now would be too much. ‘Make a run for it if she sees us,’ she whispered to Lorna. ‘At least you’ll have a few minutes with your parents. They’re sitting under one of those pine trees over to the left of here. You can’t miss them. I’ll hold back that woman.’
‘She won’t see us. We’ll wait a bit longer though. She’s got the Women’s Weekly with her. That should keep her quiet for a bit.’
They heard the entrance door slam shut and nothing more apart from the girls’ voices from the back garden and the chittering of birds. Several drops of water landed on Zidra’s head, making her start. Grinning, Lorna pointed to the blocked off guttering above them in which a pair of lorikeets was bathing.
‘We’ll give her another minute,’ Lorna whispered. ‘The funny thing is that she thinks she’s grooming the blackness out of us girls, but she’s not. She’s grooming it into us. We’ve got a common bond, you see. Against the staff and her. And against the AWB.’
‘The AWB?’
‘The Aborigines’ Welfare Board.’
‘Not against me, I hope.’ The words sounded childish to Zidra’s ears as soon as she’d said them. They must seem even more infantile to Lorna, who’d changed, Zidra decided. She was grown up now.
‘You’re family, Dizzy. Do you know I’ve only got a few months to go before they let me out? They’ll send me off to be a servant somewhere. After that I’m going to go home. Or maybe I’ll run away.’
‘To Wallaga Lake?’
‘Yeah. Though maybe they’d come and get me and I’d have to go into hiding. I’ve heard Wallaga is one of the better reserves. You should hear about the places some of the girls’ve come from, the ones who can remember, that is. I think Wallaga is the most beautiful spot in the world, that and Mount Gulaga.’
‘Mount Gulaga? Do you mean Mount Dromedary?’
‘Yeah. That’s our name for it. Gulaga.’
‘I’ve got something for you. Here, take this.’ Zidra handed Lorna the string bag with the book in it.
‘I love presents. Do I get to keep the bag as well as the book?’
The bag was Mama’s but Zidra knew she wouldn’t mind. She nodded.
‘Just joking, Dizzy. Let’s make a run for it now, down the boundary and out the front.’ Once out of sight of the boarding house, Lorna put an arm around Zidra’s shoulders. As they crossed the road, she caught sight of her parents sitting patiently under the pine tree and broke into a run.
Zidra looked away. This reunion was a private affair, but anyway, she couldn’t see much; her vision was obscured by tears.
For nearly two hours Ilona and Zidra had been sitting under the umbrella on the beach while Lorna and the Hunters talked. Although Ilona could still see them, they wouldn’t be visible from the guesthouse; they’d moved a few hundred yards further away, and were sitting in a spot shielded from the road by a clump of bushes. The plan was that Ilona and Zidra were to watch the guesthouse closely.
‘There’s someone coming out now,’ Zidra said. ‘It’s that matron woman I saw earlier.’
‘Quick, run and warn Lorna,’ Ilona said, but there was no one to hear. Zidra was already sprinting down the sand towards the Hunters.
While the matron strolled across the road and onto the beach, Ilona stood up and walked towards her. As she did so, she unfastened her watch strap and slipped it into the pocket of her dress. ‘Excuse me! Good morning!’ she called, smiling and waving. ‘Do you have the time, please?’
‘Yes, it’s a quarter past twelve.’
‘Thank you so much. I forgot my watch. I thought it must be nearly time for lunch though. It’s hungry work sitting on the beach and watching the waves.’
‘You’re not from these parts, are you?’ The woman spoke more loudly now, as if she thought that being foreign made you slightly hard of hearing. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Near Burford. That’s down south.’
‘I know that. I meant, where are you from originally?’
‘I was born in Latvia, but I’ve been in Australia for many years.’
‘You’ve still got an accent.’
Ilona was used to this comment that sometimes sounded almost like an accusation. ‘My accent I will never lose, no matter how hard I try. Where are you from?’ While speaking, she discerned, out of the corner of her eye, Lorna crossing the road and running towards the guesthouse. It would never do for her to be noticed now. Quickly Ilona waved an arm in the direction of the water. ‘Oh, look!’ she said, in an exaggerated foreign way. ‘How exciting! Isn’t that a whale?’
‘No, it’s much too late for whales, and anyway they wouldn’t be in Jervis Bay. I can’t see anything though. Of course my sight’s not what it was, and I left my glasses inside. If anything, it’s more likely to be a boat.’
‘Yes, you’re right. It’s a little rowing boat. How silly of me. Where are you from?’
‘Gudgiegalah. That’s west of the mountains. Living inland, I really miss the beach. I grew up on the coast near Newcastle, you see.’ She sighed. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better go back inside again. It’s nearly lunchtime and we’re on full board here.’
‘I see. Are you coming out again later? I’d like to hear more about Gudgiegalah. I never get to travel, you see. Not anymore.’
‘I’ll be out after lunch with my girls.’
‘You have a large family?’
The woman laughed. ‘You might say that,’ she said. ‘You�
�ll see, if you’re still here in an hour’s time.’
‘Oh, I will be. My daughter and I brought our sandwiches with us. We shall eat them here, on the beach. And then later, once we have digested them, we shall swim.’
The matron was true to her word. Within an hour, she and the Gudgiegalah girls were trooping onto the beach. Ilona beckoned the woman over to sit with her. Being foreign gave you a licence for such familiarities, she felt. While the girls ran about on the sand or swam, she and Zidra engaged the woman in conversation, and Lorna sidled off unnoticed, to spend more time with her parents.
The woman was garrulous in response to all the questions Ilona asked, about where they were from and what they were doing and if hers was a hard job.
‘They’re all half-caste girls, you see. Call me Ada, by the way.’ She settled herself comfortably on the extra towel Ilona had spread out for her, under the shade of the umbrella.
‘I’m Ilona, and this is my daughter, Zidra.’
‘You can call me Deidre, by the way,’ Zidra said. ‘It’s less foreign.’
Ilona narrowed her eyes at her daughter. The last thing she wanted was Ada thinking Zidra was insulting her. Even a fit of the giggles would be preferable at this point.
‘You can’t believe how difficult it is to get the Abos to adopt white ways of working and responsibility,’ Ada said. ‘They’re a dirty useless lot, unless you train them right and the half-castes are just the same. That’s what we’re doing at Gudgiegalah, training them right.’
‘What about a proper education?’ Ilona said. ‘The three Rs and all of that.’
‘Yes, they get a bit of that but the best they can ever hope for is domestic work. And they certainly won’t be able to find work as domestics unless they know how to clean properly. We get them to scrub the floors every day whether they need it or not,’ and here Ada laughed. ‘Might have to kick the bucket of dirty water over sometimes, if they don’t do it right the first time. Practice makes perfect, that’s the thing.’
At this point Zidra stood up and walked a few yards closer to the water. Her shoulders were tensed and she began to scuff at the sand with her bare feet.
‘Do go on, Ada,’ Ilona said.
‘Have to lock them up at night, too; they’re great wanderers, the Abos, and the half-castes are just as bad. You have to be tough to be kind; that’s the thing. We’re terribly short-staffed though, and that makes the job even harder. Today I’m on my own, but that’s only because I’m really soft-hearted. I gave my assistants a few hours off to go to Huskisson to see their mother. Twins you see; not identical, but twins all the same. Fortunately the girls aren’t playing up today. In fact they’re better than usual. It must be the sea air.’
Or because they promised Lorna, Ilona thought.
Later, after the girls and Ada had gone inside again, Ilona walked with Molly along the beach in the direction of the cabins, while Tommy stayed sitting under one of the Norfolk Island pines. Zidra waited near him, leaning against another tree trunk. At first Molly seemed confused, as if she didn’t know quite where she was, and Ilona didn’t wanted to disturb her reverie although she longed to learn how Lorna was surviving at Gudgiegalah. When they were almost at the point where they should turn up the beach to the cabins, Molly abruptly sat down on the sand and put her hands over her eyes. Ilona knelt beside her and gently held her shaking shoulders, and still Molly said nothing.
As the sun sank, Ilona began to feel cool and might have suggested going inside if Molly hadn’t at last begun to talk about Lorna. It was hard to understand what she was saying, though. Her voice was soft, and her words muffled by emotion and the handkerchief she was holding to her face, but Ilona managed to piece together a picture of what Lorna’s life was like. Incessant cleaning and cooking, with little time for learning. Locked up every night in a long room with many beds and with bars on the windows. Treated harshly, fed poorly. Staff unkind when not being outright cruel, and their goal to make the girls feel worthless. Because of it all, Lorna hadn’t remained quite herself. She’d become tougher, or at least that’s what Ilona understood Molly to be saying.
‘She tough girl. No breakem.’
‘Yes, she’s strong,’ Ilona said. ‘And she’ll be able to leave Gudgiegalah after her next birthday.’
That evening, once the Hunters had retired to their cabin, Ilona and Zidra compared notes. ‘Lorna told me that some of the Gudgiegalah girls don’t know who their families are or even where they’re from,’ Zidra said.
‘Can you imagine that? No identity. No sense of belonging. And the cruelty.’
‘I’m lucky I’ve got you, Ma. And Peter.’
That night, Ilona woke from a nightmare with her heart racing. Though she willed herself out of the dream, its content eluded her as soon as she was awake, and for this she was thankful. After rolling onto her stomach, she wept for the Gudgiegalah girls’ losses.
Chapter 33
The following day, on the journey south, everyone was quiet. Subdued, Ilona thought, as she drove the car down the Princes Highway. First stop was to be the Wallaga Lake Reserve. After dropping off the Hunters, she would take the turn-off to Bermagui and the dirt road on to Jingera. The visit had gone far better than she’d anticipated. The very worst outcome would have been not to see Lorna at all.
Now the first stage of the return trip was almost over, and they would soon reach the Reserve. Ilona turned the car off the highway onto the road leading to the settlement. Through the tall trees she saw a flock of wild ducks rise from the lake, their harsh cries echoing through the still air.
While Tommy was lifting the Hunters’ bag out of the boot, Molly said to Ilona, ‘Lorna’s gottem new family as well as old. Them Gudgiegalah girls her sisters. She tellem ‘bout us and they visitem when they get out. You good missus, Missus.’
‘Call me Ilona.’ She’d lost count of the number of times she’d suggested this already but she knew it would never happen.
Behind Molly, the dark mountain loomed, the mountain they could see from Ferndale. ‘You good missus too,’ she said to Zidra. ‘Good sister belongem Lorna.’
Zidra grinned but she looked tired, Ilona thought, as the Hunters waved them on their way. Exhausted by emotion. She herself couldn’t wait to get home. It was the first occasion since her marriage to Peter that she’d spent more than a day away from him. Two days were far too much. What she wanted more than anything was to hold him in her arms and talk to him about what had happened.
‘I’m glad we did this trip, Mama.’ Zidra yawned, and a moment later she was asleep.
To keep alert, Ilona began to sing the first thing that came into her head, the opening bars of Mozart’s Requiem. You could always tell someone’s mood from what they might spontaneously sing or hum. On this trip they’d flouted the regulations of a misguided regime and had made a number of people happier, but this abduction of the children should never be allowed to happen. Mothers losing their children. Children losing their families, their identities, given new names, forbidden to speak their own language, shoved into repressive homes run by people with little or no training. Little ones never even knowing they had a mother or a father.
I am within cooee of Ferndale, she thought after some miles. But she lessened the pressure of her foot on the accelerator. There is an old saying in Latvia, she fabricated, that the worst accidents happen when you are almost home.
Zidra woke up just before Ilona pulled the car into the entrance to Ferndale, and was able to unfasten the gates for her. The barking of the dogs as they drove into the home paddock must have alerted Peter, who was standing next to the open garage doors.
‘Got the old girl back safely,’ he said.
‘Do you mean me or the car?’ Ilona said, as she quite literally fell into his arms, tripped up by Spotless Spot who seemed almost as pleased to welcome them home as his master.
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The following morning, Zidra woke up early. The night before, she’d left the curtains and windows open, so she could fall asleep soothed by the regular crashing of the breakers. A diagonal of sunlight illuminated her untidy desk as if it were a stage piece, and motes of dust danced in the spotlight. Too tired to get up to close the curtains, she rolled onto her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head. If only she could fall asleep again, perhaps this feeling of depression might dissipate.
It was because of Lorna. No longer did she have that trip to Jervis Bay to look forward to and it might be years before she saw her again.
Yet she knew it was silly to feel disheartened. Everything she’d hoped for had been achieved. Lorna had seen her parents and she’d be getting out of Gudgiegalah soon. It was an unexpected bonus that Zidra and Lorna had been able to speak to one other, though not for as long as Zidra would have liked. She’d had little time to tell Lorna of her own life though there’d been time enough for Lorna to tease her. You’re a country girl now, Dizzy, and not a bloody reffo anymore.
The sadness pervading Zidra now wasn’t because their time at Jervis Bay had been so short. In fact she’d ended up having a much longer conversation with Lorna than she’d dared hope for. It was certainly the case that Lorna seemed far more grown up than Zidra and this seemed to widen the gap between them. Not only was she more adult but she was surrounded by friends who, by her own admission, were united in their loathing for the system. Of course Zidra was glad of this unity. It would give Lorna more strength. But it also took her further away. Where once Zidra’s own connection with Lorna had been close – the reffo and the Abo against the rest – it was now Lorna and all these other girls aligned against the AWB, while Zidra was on the periphery, an outsider to her old friend.
