Eric moved to freeze the assets of the owners and begin a case against them. Despite cautioning me against it, when I arrived home from Eric’s office I rang the woman up the road.
‘Our solicitor told us we could do it,’ she said, referring to herself and her siblings who stood to benefit from their mother’s will. ‘I wasn’t keen, but I had to go along with it. I’m really sorry and embarrassed.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ I replied. ‘Your solicitor told you what you could do, but he didn’t tell you what I could do. We had a verbal contract, and you’ve broken it. So, my solicitor has frozen your assets and you’ll be back in court, maybe for another few years.’
As a gesture of my sincerity and compassion, I agreed, through my solicitor, to a moderate increase in the sale price, and the matter was settled. The deposit completely cleaned out my small savings and, for the first time in my life, I was in debt to a bank. But I also became ‘a householder’, with all the responsibilities which that position incurs, although I had neither the time nor inclination to celebrate my change of status.
I had, by this time, decided to make a real effort to get organised to pursue the Harvard offer. I visited Evan Sutton at the Commonwealth Department of Education, who enthusiastically encouraged me to apply for an Aboriginal Overseas Study Award. This was a comparatively new program which enabled ten Blacks per year to go overseas for study trips. It had received a lot of criticism from within the Black community though, in part because of the brevity of the study period and the limitations this placed on the ambitions of students. Many felt that the program funded people to go and visit, for example, Native American cultural and alcohol rehabilitation projects, but forced them to come back without either the qualifications or access to the resources to establish anything similar if they had found it to be appropriate. Only one person had ever been funded to undertake a nine months program and come back with qualifications. Evan was eager to discover whether admission to Harvard would prove to be a tripwire that would release the program from its restrictive operation.
I applied, but I also continued to look elsewhere for sources of educational funding. I found none. There was postgraduate funding available to those who had completed undergraduate study, but I hadn’t even graduated from high school. There was funding available for people who had certain surnames or belonged to specific families, beneficiaries of trusts set up in this way, but I had no rich relatives or ancestors.
I continued to work while the selection process was moving ahead, and received constant assurance from Evan that my application was being given top, and positive, consideration.
I had earlier given a commitment to MumShirl that I would write her autobiography, and this was an ongoing pressure I felt heavily. The Bardas Foundation, under the stewardship of my friends, Sandra and David Bardas, put up funds to cover expenses incurred during this project. They were to be repaid from the royalties, and I felt obliged to complete the work.
MumShirl knew about the vices of many people, some of whom I considered to be very dangerous, such as a few detectives who were, much later, dismissed from the force for corruption. Aware of this, I had cautioned her not to tell anyone that her autobiography was forthcoming.
MumShirl was too elated to say nothing. Barely able to sign her own name, the idea of a real book with her name on the cover was extremely attractive to her. I arranged on a few occasions for her to come to my house of an evening where, after dinner, I would tape-record interviews. This turned out to be a bit of a disaster as far as writing a book was concerned. MumShirl was not so much an oral historian as an educator, turning each story she told me into some sort of parable. When I would gently remind her that she was being recorded, the material turned into a book, she would immediately revise information she had just given me.
‘Oh, yes,’ she would counter about a family event which she had just described, ‘well, in that case, Aunty Maudie wasn’t there and old Joe wasn’t there either. They were at another christening party another time.’ As well, MumShirl had never read a book and therefore did not know the sequencing of its structure or the sort of information that it should contain. I realised after a couple of these interview-dinners, that all of the work, and not just the writing, was going to be up to me.
While the book would need to be narrowly personal, in order for MumShirl not to lose, by disclosure, the implicit power she had amassed over the years, I thought the personal struggle of her life would stand alone.
We had only just started on this project when MumShirl’s brother, Laurie, was suddenly picked up and arrested by the police. We were on a regular visit to him at the Wisemans Ferry alcohol rehabilitation program, for which he was the coordinator, when this happened. With Mum urging me on, I pursued the police vehicle from Wisemans Ferry to Raymond Terrace where he was formally charged. We drove over rough back roads through the dusk, never allowing the police car out of our sight for a moment. We learned later in court that the police alleged Laurie had confessed, and they had written his words into their notebooks, all during that ride. This was patently untrue—it had been dark, and their vehicle’s interior light was never turned on at any time. Verballing people was very common in those days, especially Aboriginal people. It would be many years before sufficient pressure—and the introduction of recording interviews—forced the practice to be stopped.
Laurie had been charged with the murder of a youth who was stabbed to death in the middle of a crowd of people. But he was innocent. In his younger days, Laurie had been a bit of a tearaway, but had carried a gun and never a knife. As MumShirl said, ‘carrying a knife would have been beneath him’. In his old age, however, Laurie had completely reformed his ways. He was fostering at least one of the dead boy’s younger brothers amongst the many young people for whom he provided a home and guidance at the time of his arrest. Police built a frame around him, tightly enough to get his conviction through the local courts. On appeal to the Supreme Court he was exonerated, but not before he had spent a considerable time in prison and suffered a stroke which left him without speech.
MumShirl withdrew from the book project as soon as Laurie was charged, blaming herself for her brother’s arrest. She had let it be known that she was writing her biography, and she reasoned that the police had chosen this means of silencing her, knowing how close she was to her brother.
I proposed that I would write the book without her help, based on things she had shared with me during all the time we had spent together. MumShirl readily agreed.
I took three days out, picked up my trusty typewriter and went to stay at a friend’s house. He worked all day and I knew that if the phone rang there it would not be for me. I immersed myself completely in the persona of MumShirl and wrote the book, using her phrasing and her grammatical construction throughout.
At the end of those three days, I called to tell her the book was finished. Then we went to the house of another friend, where I encouraged her to read as much of it as she could, with me just filling in the words she was unable to sound out. For an illiterate person, MumShirl had a very extensive vocabulary, though she was unable to identify many of her words when they were written. Indeed, one of her favourite expressions, which she would shout out if another Black, while speaking at a meeting, used a long word, was ‘bourgeois’. She came across only two words in the draft that were not within her vocabulary, so I struck them out. This exercise took another three days. Because she was chronically short of cash, I paid her for her time from the funds I had received from the Bardas Foundation, and obtained from her receipts, so that I could account to the Foundation for how their money had been dispersed. Then I set about trying to find a publisher.
The students at the Aboriginal and Island Dance School, where I continued to teach and work as a voluntary counsellor, were preparing to put on their annual public performance. All the students were to appear in the production, in one guise or another. And all the teachers were asked to contribute a segment to the show. The
central story line was to be about a traditional dancer who came down to Sydney to join the school and learn a wide variety of other dance styles including classical ballet, and about the cultural shocks he received along the way as he undertook this journey. The program, then, was rich with possibilities.
There were several traditional youths who had joined the company, and many of us had been either privy to, or involved, in these sometimes traumatic processes and pressures. The teachers of tap, or ballet or jazz, generally chose to use their creative medium to produce drama and humour.
I chose for my presentation a slot just before interval, occurring after the youth had progressed in the school, had been exposed to the wild and loud nightlife of Kings Cross, and become quite a sophisticate, an accomplished performer in every dance style, and fluent in the language, nuance and culture of both tribal and urban life.
My segment opened with the youth lolling in a park, taking his leisure, when he is ‘spotted’ by a talent scout, a movie producer (very ably played by Kim Walker, in white face, who went on to fame with the Sydney Dance Company). The movie producer immediately zeroes in on his mark, announcing that he will make him a Star. To show his joy, the youth dances and prances in the stage-park. As part of the process towards the creation of this stardom, the producer insists on a photo shoot, during which the backdrop fades out and the youth is left standing alone in a shaft of light. The producer, with the photographers, stands on the periphery of the now dimly lit stage.
The handsome youth in his really neat gear strikes a few poses, camera flashlights pop, then the producer’s voice booms out.
‘No, no, no. This won’t do at all. Look more casual—take off your shoes.’ The young man struggles in the light shaft to remove his shoes and socks, tosses them offstage, strikes a few more poses.
‘No. The shirt’s got to go. Take off the shirt.’
Removing his tie and unbuttoning his snow white shirt, the man’s slender but muscled chest and back emerge, glowing with vitality and touched upon by the overhead light, a stunning visual contrast. In this half-clad state, he again strikes up poses for the flashing cameras, displaying the power and sensuous beauty of his fine physique. The producer, however, remains dissatisfied.
‘Take off the pants. The pants have to go.’
By now the youth is embarrassed, but feeling stardom might slip through his fingers, he rather shyly removes his trousers. He is left, starkly and almost tragically alone in the light, in his briefs. With a deep breath, he again strikes up what he hopes to be suitable poses from his dance routines.
The producer’s voice is pitched with tension and excitement by now, as he cajoles and commands his prey.
‘Now, just look more primitive!’
Following this shock ending, during the interval, a man came up and spoke to me.
‘I didn’t need to look in the program to know which was your piece. As soon as the clothes started to come off, I knew what was happening—and I hated it. But I couldn’t stop watching, it was so riveting.’
I had dreamed the scene long before I began to develop it. In part, it reflected my experience, how I had seen white society too often respond to Blacks. When we had achieved in the ways of white people, whether in theatrical or educational venues, there seemed to be an overwhelming desire to force us back, reduce us somehow to a mere primal level, and to strip our souls bare in the process.
I began to research Harvard and found it to be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, separated only by a bridge from Boston. I located Boston on a map and read notes about it in an encyclopaedia. Apart from the Boston Tea Party, and being held up as the birthplace of American Freedom and Emancipation, the most definitive things I could find with relevance to me was that it was extremely cold in winter and had blizzards.
I felt myself to be heading towards very dangerous ground.
6
Late in 1979, Evan Sutton rang to tell me my application for funding had been shortlisted by the New South Wales committee, and sent to Canberra. ‘It’s a sure thing, so just get ready to pack,’ he said, adding that I was top of their list. This certainly cheered up my Christmas, though I had many things left to do.
Aware that success often excites jealousy in others, I told very few people. This is, unfortunately, almost a self-defeating fact in the Black community. I have seen nearly an entire community rise up in anger—through envy and jealousy—at the allocation of a decent house to one of their own. Although people in the Black community often collectively say they want better housing, employment and educational opportunities for ‘their people’, they don’t seem to mean ‘any’ Aboriginal person. Each seems to want to nominate the recipient. This, of course, leads to all sorts of problems, factions and feelings of general dissatisfaction, as well as an inability to derive joy or pleasure from the success of others.
I did share the news, though, with Hiram Ryan. He was a childhood friend and maybe-cousin, who was working in Canberra and came by to visit from time to time whenever he was in Sydney. It elicited a mixed response. While warmly encouraging on the one hand, Hiram kept lamenting the fact that he hadn’t completed all his own educational endeavours, although he had already done business studies and always seemed to me to be doing quite well.
I felt more heartened, however, that those Blacks on the New South Wales selection committee had seen that having someone open the gates to a top international university would be of great advantage to the whole Black community, and had entrusted me with their votes. Still, the list had to go on to Canberra. There a national selection committee would have the final say, based on a range of criteria, such as state distributions, sexual representation, and ensuring that the aspirations of rural applicants were given equal consideration with those from urban regions.
At last I, along with the other New South Wales candidates, was called in for an interview with the national committee, on 29 January 1980. There were only a couple of non-Aboriginal people in the room, and I was assured that they were there as note-takers, that these decisions were actually made by the Blacks who were present.
I explained how I had come to be accepted at Harvard, and how I felt I would be able to share the knowledge I gained with others in the Black community, as well as with the wider community, through the position I held at the NSW Health Commission. The interview was very positive, I thought, with people asking questions and nodding at my answers.
From calculations I had made based on the documents sent to me by the Harvard administration, I worked out that I would need twelve thousand dollars in Australian currency to cover my fees, medical insurance and accommodation costs. The exchange rate was in Australia’s favour, our dollar worth about $US1.20. It was the first time in my life that I’d had to be concerned about monetary exchange rates, bringing home to me afresh how enormous was my undertaking. I thought that bringing Naomi with me would perhaps be considered a luxury, and therefore I shouldn’t request money for her. I would just budget tightly and we would have to live within those means.
Despite the prospect of these frugalities, it was a huge shock to me when Evan Sutton rang me to say that I had not been chosen to receive the funding. He was very upset, saying he was going to look into the matter, find out more, and get back to me. Meanwhile, he intended to do his own research on where other funds might be found, because he thought my project was of the utmost importance.
It had been a dream to me anyway, I consoled myself. Studying at Harvard was not really going to happen. Still, when I shared this depressing news with the few people I had confided in, they urged me to think of this rejection as a challenge, and not as the end of the world. I had always subscribed to the adage that ‘Whatever is going to happen will happen’ because the spirits will it to be so. But I also knew that it is up to the individual to make sure they are in the right place at the right time, and in a state of readiness. Was Harvard my right place? Was this my ‘right time’?
No sooner were the results received than I s
et out on a letter-writing campaign, casting my net widely and targeting, amongst others, the Ministers for Education, Aboriginal Affairs and Health in state and federal politics. My supporters and I also trawled for information, trying to find out how and why this situation had occurred.
Behind some of the veiled replies, I heard, ‘She’s not really an Aborigine’, though no one said this to me directly, or allowed me to put forward my own position on the issue.
I decided to write to Senator Neville Bonner. On the numerous occasions when we had met over the years, he had gone out of his way to greet me and be effusive in his support for everything I was doing.
To Neville and the ministers I wrote: ‘If, as I have heard, this refusal is based on my inability to prove Aboriginality, where should I go to have my blood checked or my head measured?’
From a few I received acknowledgements advising me that my letter had been received, would be looked into, and that a reply would be forthcoming. Of course, in the main they never came.
Seeking to explore what funds might exist overseas, particularly in America, I even wrote to Germaine Greer. She did not know that I had read the article she had written about rape victims and how betrayed I felt about it. I had never raised this with her, so I thought she might be another resource I could tap for information. I knew that she taught at the University of Texas, though I was unaware that this was for only one semester each year, and as my luck would have it, not the semester in which I wrote.
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