Snake Circle

by Roberta Sykes

  Love blossomed between us. We happily sang out of tune as I drove, and told jokes and laughed a lot. We were able to cry in each other’s company without embarrassment as we struggled to make sense of some of the terrible things we saw and heard together. Although I never shared with her the traumas of my past life, she watched as I strove to keep a roof over my children’s heads, food on the table and clothes on their backs. And she appreciated the many personal sacrifices I had to make in order to do so. In many ways we shared a world view and a rare intimacy born of mutual respect. Initially she had introduced me to people as her daughter, but over time our relationship changed. I became something more than an acolyte amongst many who rendered her services in exchange for her company and for the satisfaction of helping her to accomplish her missions. I was one of a very few people who would and could chide her when necessary and have her turn towards me to listen. She sought my opinion and often called upon me to accompany her to any place where she was likely to be asked ‘highfalutin’ questions’.

  Mum had easily over a hundred children placed in her care by courts and parents and institutions. I never saw her raise her hand to any of them, but she sometimes verbally lashed out at them in ways that I found quite unacceptable, and frequently told her so.

  During many of our trips, Mum had the older children looking after smaller ones in her absence. When we arrived back we would be met with bedlam. The house in total chaos, the reek of urine-soaked mattresses would overwhelm us at the door, and radio and television blaring. She would be greeted with a long list of complaints, requests for money and sometimes food, and the sight of often half-naked kids galloping noisily around at whatever hour of the night. We may have just spent hours comforting a rape victim, a threatening suicide, or a victim of domestic violence, rounded off with a five-hour drive back to Sydney, and Mum’s temper would be hair-trigger.

  Stepping past the children who raced each other to get to the door first, and over whatever piles of clothes or sheets were stacked up in her way, Mum would bellow down the hallway, ‘What *** pigs have been living in my house while I’ve been away. Start cleaning up this *** bloody mess straight away. You littlies with your shitty pants, get out of my bloody sight. And you big ***, when I get hold of you I’m going to kick all your arses up to breakfast time.’

  If I had time, I would take her by the elbow and draw her back outside, into the car, where we would sit and talk for a while. From inside the house, sounds of furious activity assured me that everyone there knew that Mum was back and that she was on the warpath.

  ‘When you rouse at the kids like that, Mum, you make them feel bad about themselves.’

  ‘Well, they’re cleaning up the place now, aren’t they?’

  ‘Sounds like it, but I’m talking about long-term damage to their self-esteem.’

  I took particular exception to any name-calling that had a sexual or criminal reference, and often told Mum that if she talked to the kids like that, she shouldn’t be surprised if they began to act like that. She was always sorry, pleading tiredness, and I’d urge her to ignore the mess, close her bedroom door and get some rest before trying to deal with anything.

  ‘How can I rest when there’s three kids have to sleep in my bed with me. And two of them bed-wetters?’

  Mum sometimes rang me to come and get her, spirit her away to my house, where, despite the enormous discomforts endured by myself and my kids, such as no hot water for a shower, she could steal a few hours or days of peace.

  ‘If anyone rings, looking for me,’ she’d say, ‘tell ’em I’m not here.’

  At other times Mum’s demands could be quite exasperating, although I found out over time that there was always a point to them, even if that point wasn’t immediately obvious.

  Once MumShirl asked me to pick her up at four in the afternoon and take her to Newcastle. I said it wasn’t a convenient time for me to leave as I’d made no arrangements for my children. I would pick her up at three, get across the Sydney Harbour Bridge before peak hour traffic, supervise the children when they came home from school, cook dinner and arrange for a neighbour to keep on eye on them overnight. She agreed.

  Liz Milne, an emergency surgery nursing sister at Royal North Shore Hospital, lived across the street from us. Often she allowed herself to be roped into over-night duties at my house if she wasn’t rostered on night duty in her regular job. Liz also had a lemon tree growing in the side of her yard.

  MumShirl shared the little food we had for our evening meal, waited while I got the children settled, and, as I was about to pull out from the kerb, said, ‘Get me some lemons from that tree.’ More precious time wasted, I thought, as I shinned around, scooping up a bag of lemons for her. ‘I want some salt to eat with them.’ Mum eating lemons and salt, or sometimes raw onions and salt, set my teeth on edge, so I made her get out of the front seat and sit in the back. Then she decided she needed to go to the toilet again before we hit the road. It was quite dark by the time we set out, and I’d begun to wonder why she was employing such obvious delaying tactics. I thought that her mission was urgent and I knew that nuns at a convent in Newcastle were awaiting our arrival. I wondered if she had decided she didn’t want to go, that we’re stay at my house and leave early in the morning, but when I asked her, she said no.

  We were almost at Hornsby when Mum suddenly said, ‘Turn right here at this next corner—I know a short-cut’.

  MumShirl seemed to know Sydney like the back of her hand, and was always directing me to drive through alleys so hidden and narrow that I felt only she and immediate residents knew they were there, so I turned as I’d been told. We were in an ordinary poorly-lit suburban street on which even the darkened houses petered out after a while, and our passing was noticed only by a few surly dogs which rose like ghosts in the headlights. The street grew narrow, became a road, became a country lane of only one car’s width, and still we travelled along it. I peeped in the rear vision mirror to make sure Mum was still awake, still monitoring our progress, and that we were still headed in the right direction. She was happily munching away on a lemon, peel and all, and when she spotted me watching her, she just nodded me on.

  A few miles further along, I felt her lean on the back of my seat and peer out into the darkness. There was no moon, no lights, only the car headlights cutting a swath through the jet black night that surrounded us, occasionally casting a glow on a the slender trunk of a tree as we sped by.

  ‘Okay, slow down a bit now,’ she said. We were nowhere. ‘Watch for the next break in this fence on the right.’ Turning the car a little so that the headlights veered off towards the side of the road, I could faintly make out a fence.

  ‘Okay, here. Turn here.’

  I trundled off the road and heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tyres. Now this, I thought to myself, is not the way to Newcastle.

  We travelled some distance along this gravel road, surrounded by complete silence. My curiosity was piqued, but I thought it prudent just to wait and see, rather than try to prise information out of Mum. There was something eerie, too, about the night quiet outside the car, which seemed to demand a reciprocal silence inside.

  The car shuddered as we drove over a bridge of pines, a barrier to prevent stock from straying. We seemed to be in a very large field.

  ‘Brakes,’ Mum whispered. I stopped but kept the engine idling. Two men came up from behind the car, I could barely make them out in the darkness. Mum wound her window down and spoke to them in tones so low that I couldn’t hear what was being said. A short conversation ensued.

  ‘Okay, drive on.’ I was bewildered. A few hundred yards further and I was instructed to turn left. As I did so, the headlights lit up a field of cars and trucks. It was all very mysterious.

  MumShirl directed me here and there, along this row, then another, before motioning towards a space where I was to park. She opened her door in a flash and as she clambered out, she just said, ‘Wait here.’ I killed the engine and watched her w
alk off, zig-zagging through vehicles until she was out of my sight.

  ‘Well, damn, what are we doing here?’ I spoke to myself in the darkness. Long minutes ticked by. For a while I just sat at attention behind the steering wheel, waiting for Mum’s return. As my eyes relaxed from the tension of driving, I realised I could see the twinkling of a spread of stars in the night sky. I turned the radio on, looked at the dashboard clock, and relaxed to hear a human voice and music coming over the air.

  Twenty minutes passed and I began to grow resentful, sitting out there in the dark, waiting for God only knew what. I would give her ten more minutes and then, well, I’d leave her there. She could find her own way home or to Newcastle—there were plenty of cars about. I’d go to my own house and my own increasingly attractive bed. I was tired.

  In ten minutes, the news came on, so I extended her deadline. I’ll make up my mind what to do after I’ve heard what’s been happening in the world, I thought.

  Still no sign of Mum, so, thinking there might be dogs about, I scrambled up onto the car roof for a look around. I didn’t see any dogs, but in the distance I could faintly see what looked like a very large shed, similar to a tractor shed, but much much longer. I stared at it for a while, and twice I briefly saw slivers of light from doors at one end. Gathering up my courage, I slipped off the roof onto the ground and made my way soundlessly towards them.

  I could hear nothing as I approached, no dogs, no cars arriving or leaving the field, and there appeared to be no lights on in the shed. When I reached the building, I stood still for a moment, taking stock. As I did so, I was able to make out three or four men standing at a distance, smoking, watching me. I was about to bolt back to the safety of the car when a door opened slightly and two more men came out, lighting cigarettes, speaking to each other in low tones, obviously waiting for their eyes to adjust to the dark.

  Through the crack in the door, I saw two other men, standing with what looked like a sheet strung up to a line behind them. I sniffed the air, sensed no hostility, and walked over to the door. The two men inside looked at me.

  ‘I’m with MumShirl,’ I said with as much nonchalance as I could muster, and walked the two steps towards the sheet shielding the room from my view. One of the men pulled a corner of the sheet aside to allow me to enter.

  Inside, there were bright lights, dozens of people milling around, and lots of noise and activity. For a moment I wondered why I hadn’t been able to hear anything from outside. I was standing there with a startled look on my face, about as comfortable as a fish out of water, when a man came up and asked me what I wanted. I was concerned he might tell me to leave and I had just begun to mumble something when a cheer broke out and the people who’d been standing shoulder to shoulder, their backs toward me, broke rank.

  I found myself looking at a big square of canvas on the floor, with a crowd of people standing and squatting around it.

  Heavens above, I suddenly thought, this is an illegal two-up school!

  The man wandered away and I was left to my own devices. As I glanced around I saw a lot of strangers—but also a few familiar faces. They weren’t people I knew personally, but they were faces I’d seen in newspapers and magazines, on television, in corridors or at demonstrations. There were police, though not in uniform, detectives, possibly others higher up in the chain of justice and law enforcement, all looking very relaxed and happy. There were men in suits, others in a casual form of uniform, badges and ties removed, and just a few women. Money was changing hands. I noticed looks of recognition flicker over some of the faces in the crowd as they saw me, but no one spoke or made any movement in my direction.

  I looked across the canvas and there was MumShirl, standing with some people, and they were all bent forwards staring at something on the floor. As she rose, she cast her eyes about and saw me. A guilty, ‘caught-out’ look fluttered across her face, and without another word to her companions she came across, grabbed me by the arm and tried to hustle me back outside. A lot of people there obviously knew her, and she them, but still no one spoke.

  Out at the car, Mum could sense that I was fuming. I wished I had just driven away and left her there. I had more to do with my time than sit around waiting for her at a two-up game. I had children at home, work to do, things to attend to. The silence as we drove away was broken only by Mum’s words of leave with the two men guarding the field.

  The nuns were tired and anxious when we arrived in Newcastle at an ungodly hour. But they served us a cup of tea and a few biscuits before showing us to a narrow cell with two single beds. Barely a word had been spoken on the journey. I lay awake in the darkness for a short while, exhausted by the long day and the thought of the work we would have to do in just a few hours, and tried to reconcile what had transpired. What did it all mean? Being one of those people who draw comfort from the companionable snores of others, when MumShirl’s regular deep and noisy breathing filled the air, I settled down.

  Over time I realised that attending these sorts of illegal places was part of MumShirl’s modus operandi, which is not to say that she didn’t also enjoy participating. She had very little cash to gamble with, but I think she would have been delighted to win a bundle and have lots of money to give away. I became convinced, however, that her main reason for going along was to people-watch, to see who was doing what and where. Sometimes when we were on a mission which involved calling at a brothel to rescue some poor soul who had fallen into ‘the life’, we often sat outside either before or after our visit, MumShirl watching who was going in and out. She gathered up this useful information and used it to enormous advantage by never overtly using it against anyone. I could always tell when she was dealing with a police officer, magistrate or politician with whom she had rubbed shoulders in some unsavoury environment, somewhere she or he would rather not have been seen.

  Her reasons for not telling me where we were going on that night were complex. She would have been concerned about my disapproval, not being a gambler, and that I may have refused to drive her there, because I was such a worrier about leaving my children for anything other than urgent missions and emergencies. She may have felt unable to explain her attendance as part of her MO, because I hadn’t yet seen all of it pieced together. Also, it became obvious later, from events that occurred when I was working on her autobiography, that she was worried about my safety if I knew too much. By the same token, there weren’t a lot of people she could comfortably impose upon to take her to these places. She had a number of drivers, from time to time, drawn from religious orders and very strait-laced, who would have been mortified at the things Mum got up to in order to generate the power she had. Mum walked with both saints and sinners, but found it hard to find a companion and helpmate who could straddle these two groups with ease and without too much conflict. I think, for her, I had become one such person.

  3

  I often found it hard to maintain a sense of balance, much less humour, about my life. Working virtually non-stop, and unable to arrange someone to cover for me, I couldn’t take holidays. Routinely, notices arrived on my desk at the Health Commission telling me that I had fifty days leave outstanding and unless I took some, I’d lose them.

  The Commission had moved from Young Street at Circular Quay to the McKell Building, Rawson Place, near Central Station, a much busier area with very little parking. Because I used the Department’s faster vehicle to respond to midnight emergency calls, I was obliged to keep it at my house, even though I had my own trusty little Morris Nomad for personal use. It was often more convenient to drive through the city and into Redfern, park and catch a train back to the office when I had desk work or meetings to attend. I learned that some of my neighbours resented the fact that there were often these two cars parked outside my house, regarding this as a sure sign that the government was wasting tax-payers’ money on Aboriginal problems, but I was kept too busy dealing with the problems to do anything about it.

  Life at home brought its own strain, t
oo. A seemingly endless legal dispute involving the owners of the house we were living in prevented them from finalising its sale to us. Their mother’s will and their inheritance of the property was being challenged by someone on the South Coast who, quite coincidentally, shared the same surname. As a result they were reluctant to undertake any repairs and the house was falling down around our ears.

  At the first drop of rain, Russel, Naomi and I rushed around with buckets and rubbish bins, placing them strategically under the leaks, and we were up and down all night emptying them. Yet water still frequently soaked the children’s beds. On one occasion, water on the electric wiring in the ceiling started a fire, and it was only the asbestos panelling that saved us. I fretted about the children’s safety every time I was away from the house, but there was little I could do. As I was not the owner, I wasn’t entitled to undertake major repairs.

  Over the Christmas school holidays my mother agreed to take care of the children at her place at Tweed Heads. This meant that I could respond to the increase in threatening suicides that came in over that period, but it was always difficult for me to save the money for the children’s plane fares. Mum, accompanied by her rogue boyfriend, Arthur, also lobbed on my doorstep several times a year. As well, she thought nothing of bringing Aunty Glad or some other of her friends with her, despite there being no space in the house. Gratitude was expected if she timed these holidays to coincide with the children’s mid-term vacations, because she saved me the fares, although I usually ended up cooking and cleaning up after everybody. Now in her seventies, Mum tried hard to help me, but her eyesight was failing and clothes or dishes that she washed had to be washed again once she’d gone to bed.

  She made every effort to find me a husband, flirting madly on my behalf on the phone with any male voice on the other end. I often snapped at her about how she was compromising me with men with and for whom I worked, but it made no difference. Mum, with backup from Aunty Glad, chided me about working too long and too hard, about not going out socially. They both said I was suffering from ‘nerves’, and that living alone with just the children for company was ‘most unnatural’. When they realised I wasn’t about to heed their well-intentioned advice, they began turning up with ‘remedies’ in the form of beer, whisky, Guinness, tonics, vitamin supplements and even sleeping tablets. It seemed that they wanted to get me drunk, drugged or both—supposedly for my own good.