by Anita Heiss
The women laughed; they all knew who at least one character represented in real life, but none of them was game to say it out loud.
Xanthe swallowed quickly, slapped her own chest as if anxious to get something out desperately. ‘And,’ she swallowed again, ‘the racist, thuggish old-school cop Higgins, and his unsure-of-his-identity partner, Detective Jason Matthews, didn’t do much to help us like the Queensland cops. God!’ She shook her head.
‘So true,’ they all agreed.
‘All I know is that reading it made me realise people need to choose a side,’ Ellen said with authority. ‘You either support traditional owners begging for their rightful claims to land ownership or you support the developers that governments feel they have the right to sell land to.’
Ellen’s mobile rang on her last word. While the women kept talking she jumped up. She saw ‘Mum’ flashing on the screen and was tempted not to answer because she knew any conversation, regardless of the purpose of the call, would never be short. She looked at the name again and felt a pang of guilt.
‘Mum,’ she said enthusiastically.
‘Ellen Jane,’ her mother always addressed her by her Christian and middle name, ‘you’ve got to come home.’
Ellen could tell by the sound of her mother’s shaky voice that something was wrong. ‘What’s happened?’
The women noticed Ellen’s worried frown; they stopped talking and watched her with concern.
‘Aunty Molly passed away today. Just dropped dead at the bowlo. I can’t go through this without you,’ she sobbed.
Ellen managed to get as many details about her aunty’s passing as she could and promised she’d be there as soon as possible. Then she ended the call and looked around at her tiddas.
‘I’ll help with the service, obviously,’ she said, wiping her eyes and then blowing her nose.
‘Of course.’
‘Naturally.’
‘That’d be beautiful.’
‘When shall we leave?’ Xanthe asked, grabbing hold of Ellen’s hand.
‘Yes, when?’ Izzy would be heading home for Aunty Molly’s funeral too.
‘I’ll probably go the day after tomorrow. I have a service in the morning, have to meet another family in the afternoon, and then I can get packed and leave fresh the next day.’
‘I’d like to go with you, if you think that’s okay?’ Veronica was looking for endorsement but she just wanted to offer any support she could.
‘It’d be lovely to be back there together,’ Xanthe said.
‘I guess you and Richard will take the kids down too, eh?’ Izzy looked at Nadine.
‘Yes, I’m just texting him now to come and get me so we can start planning.’
The women said their goodbyes solemnly, each with mixed emotions about heading back home to Mudgee to farewell a woman who had been part of all their lives. Aunty Molly was Ellen’s biological aunty, but she was everyone’s aunty otherwise. Although Xanthe, Ellen and Izzy had been away from country for a long time, they hadn’t lost their sense of responsibility and commitment to community, often returning for funerals as a mark of respect. Nadine had always gone back with Richard; and Veronica, long a close tidda, was never far away. She had grown up understanding how significant funerals were to the local mob.
7
BACK TO COUNTRY
Mudgee airport was tiny, like a Lego building compared to the forever developing Brisbane airport they’d all arrived from via Sydney not long before. They knew they were home when their Aeropelican Jetstream aircraft was coming into land and they could see the township only five kilometres from the runway.
On the flight Veronica was quiet; her own parents long deceased, she reminisced about the good times and then thought about the only family she had left in Mudgee, her in-laws. She felt her usual insecure self, concerned about seeing Alex’s parents for the first time since she and Alex had officially separated. Before then, she had always been close to his mother, receiving regular Sunday night phone calls, even when Alex was away on business. They had long shared recipes and a love of a good pot of Earl Grey. But the warmth had all but disappeared since the split, now that Alex was living with a new woman. A mother’s loyalty was always going to be to her son, and that was something even Veronica knew she couldn’t argue with. However, she vowed to remain a dignified daughter-in-law and role-model mother, urging her own sons to write and call their grandparents on special occasions. She would maintain the tradition of getting them to sign their own names on Christmas and birthday cards. And she made sure they always returned a note of thanks for any gifts sent to them.
Across the aisle Izzy’s symptoms of nausea, tender breasts, and fatigue were lessening, but now she felt a plague of butterflies running amok in her belly. She was dreading telling her mother about her ‘condition’, and still hadn’t had the courage to tell Asher. On top of that she knew that Tracey’s patience, however professional, was wearing thinner by the day. She hadn’t scripted how she would tell her mother, or what responses she’d have to the questions that were likely to be thrown at her. All she knew was that she needed her mother’s love and strength right now, and while she might not leave Mudgee with an endorsement, she knew she would leave with some level of emotional support. The real problem was that her mum was a God-fearing Catholic and there was no way their chat was going to be easy. She hadn’t even mentioned Asher’s name to her mother before. On top of Aunty Molly’s funeral, which all the tiddas were upset about, the next few days were going to be challenging.
Ellen had spent the entire flight reading her notes, making comments on pages she had edited and re-edited over and over again in the previous twenty-four hours. Sick with nerves, she was grateful the family had decided on a church funeral rather than a crematorium or graveside service; it relieved her of the need to keep it together completely, as a priest would do the service. But she’d still assumed the role of coordinating everything in lieu of anyone else in the family being emotionally equipped to do so. Aunty Molly’s sudden death had left the family and her friends not only grief-stricken, but in shock, dazed that a vibrant woman in her early sixties had just collapsed and died, her heart giving way long before her mind or her passion for life.
Before leaving Brisbane, Ellen had spoken to the priest, organised the funeral director, the flowers, the wake, the music and written a few words just in case she was asked or felt like she wanted to say something. It was often the case at Koori services that people were given the opportunity to speak, and she’d seen a lot of families disappointed when a Church – regardless of denomination – stuck to a timeframe which limited the mob participating. Negotiating a sense of community in church services was something Ellen prided herself on being able to achieve, but she wasn’t always successful. At least in Mudgee, the town was tight and her aunt would be given the due respect and send-off she well deserved.
Staring out the window as the plane made its descent, Xanthe was looking forward to seeing her grandmother the most. In her nineties, Noonie was the matriarch of their large family and Xanthe trusted her judgement on almost any subject. She was determined to get some pearls of wisdom about her inability to fall pregnant. She quietly hoped the respected Elder might have some old ways of doing things that would help her and Spencer conceive. If not, she’d have to pressure her reluctant husband once more about IVF, and that wasn’t something she felt excited about doing.
Nadine and Richard had taken the kids out of school and driven the 900 kilometres. They both wanted their children to see the countryside outside of Queensland; the changing landscape and the various flora and fauna along the Oxley Highway. The autumn leaves were breathtaking as they drove through Kamilaroi country and the township of Gunnedah. They stopped and took photos of the Namoi River and a memorial in Abbott Street to Cumbo Gunnerah, the Aboriginal warrior and leader of the Gunn-e-dar people.
The family of four, silent from the long, tiring drive and desperate to stretch their legs again, all noticed
the stark change in temperature when they reached Mudgee. As they pulled into the central New South Wales town, they noticed the sign welcoming visitors to Wiradjuri country had been removed, stolen again. Richard didn’t care though, or mind that the Aboriginal flag was upside down at the Town Hall. All he was looking forward to was seeing his mother and brothers again, and Brittany and Cameron spending time with their cousins. Nadine was anxious about doing a book signing in town, but when she was asked to do something as a teaser for the Mudgee Readers’ Festival, she didn’t feel she could say no. As soon as word got out the star author would be in town for the funeral, the invitation was extended. Her nerves made her want to drink though. At least she was in the right place for it; Mudgee was wine country.
The day of the funeral was sunny, the sky a blanket of baby blue with tufts of white clouds scattered across it. Hundreds of mourners gathered outside St. Mary of the Presentation Catholic Church on Market Street, many admiring the newly restored copper spires that could be seen from across town. The manicured lawns, covered with mourners now, would two days later be transformed into the farmers’ market with locally produced wine, fruit and vegies, baked goods, nuts, cheese, eggs and meat. Many visitors to town would hang around a few days just to stock up on what the region had to offer.
The crowd included local Kooris as well as family who had travelled from towns across the state including Bathurst, Dubbo, Orange and Cowra. It was obvious many had popped into Rockmans or Rivers to update their red, black and yellow wardrobe, to be worn at funerals and other community events in the future.
Lifelong friends, local parishioners, members of the CWA, the mayor and three councillors were there – even local Mudgee girl Natarsha Belling, who was covering it for the news. Aunty Molly wasn’t just anyone, she was known as one of the Matriarchs of Mudgee; an activist and feminist, just like the Mudgee heroine of the past, Louisa Lawson.
With crowds spilling onto Market Street, traffic was almost at a standstill on Church Street but there was no road rage. Everyone knew the score. Aunty Molly, known to many as ‘the volunteer from Vinnies’, was being laid to rest.
The service was scheduled to start at ten, but by nine thirty the church was full, with young men lining the walls and back of the church, kids already running around out of control and a constant low hum of people reuniting in wooden pews. Outside, smokers huddled in groups, happy to brave the chilly winter air for one last puff on their cancer sticks.
Six women carrying stems of orange gerberas lined one pew at the front of the church; they represented the volunteers from St Vincent de Paul across the road. They had all worked on a roster with Aunty Molly for years. Her death meant a hole not only in their roster but also in their hearts. About forty men and women in bowling whites took the last six rows on the left-hand side of the church. Many were present the day she collapsed during a social tournament and were still in shock that one of their favourite players would no longer be around to share her cheeky jokes. The ‘bowlo’ had been Aunty Molly’s home every Tuesday and Thursday for nearly twenty-five years. Things wouldn’t be the same without her.
As the clock rapidly approached ten, Ellen focused on the task at hand, liaising with the funeral director, the priest, her cousins, the organist, and the readers the family had chosen. Having to coordinate most aspects of the service had taken her mind off the sorrow that was burrowing deep in her heart, but every time she looked over to the casket draped in the Aboriginal flag and with a mountain of red, yellow, and dyed-black gerberas on top, she had to swallow hard.
Having left her mother in the care of her two younger sisters, Ellen briefed her three brothers and the three cousins who would be pallbearers. They were sitting behind their Uncle Ron, a once jovial man, now a distraught widower; apparently he’d not eaten since his wife had passed over.
It was during the eulogy, which Uncle Ron insisted on giving himself, that Ellen really came to understand the meaning of true love, of unconditional love, of the reason why couples actually got married and committed to each other for life. It was a love between man and woman she had never witnessed to such a depth before, and certainly never between her own parents. It was a love that she had never even thought about experiencing herself, nor had ever come close to feeling before. She wondered what her mother was thinking, listening to her brother-in-law talk about his love for her sister. Did she feel jealousy for the sister who chose the right man?
Uncle Ron told those gathered about his nearly fifty years of companionship with the love of his life, where a daily cup of tea on the veranda and morning walks along the Cudgegong River at Lawson Park was all they needed. These moments meant more to Uncle Ron than the ‘trips to the big city young people had to do these days to experience romance’. Listening to his choked-up words, Ellen considered the meaning of the word ‘love’: affection, passion, adoration, respect, commitment.
As the funeral drew to a close, Ellen felt a pang of guilt for missing so much of what was going on in her family since moving to Brisbane. She knew her family loved her; even if she had never allowed herself to love or receive love from a man, love in its truest form had always been there for her. For the first time ever, she wondered if she might actually fall in love one day, if there was the possibility of someone loving her like Uncle Ron had loved – still loved – Aunty Molly.
As the casket was carried down the length of the aisle to the familiar sounds of the King of Country Roger Knox singing ‘Koori Rose’, Ellen walked behind it with her mother, who stumbled slightly on her frail legs. As rows and rows of cousins followed, Izzy fell in behind with Trish, Xanthe with her mother, then Richard, Nadine and the kids, and finally Veronica joined with the rest of the congregation.
Mudgee Bowling Club had a different heartbeat that afternoon. Ellen noticed little had changed since the last service she’d done there some years before. Women still queued for the three toilets and gossiped while they were surrounded by apricot and lolly-pink walls. The main bar area was full to capacity and spilled into the Lochiel Restaurant and out onto the sizeable shaded veranda. Every wooden-backed, cerise-coloured chair was taken. Large flat-screen TVs above the bar showed golf, club information and an American chat show. But most eyes were on the Keno screen.
Some locals and visitors stood close to the Internet betting wall which was busy with screens; everyone hoped for the ‘big win’. ‘The Aboriginal Bank’, one uncle explained to a young lad, as he pointed to the TAB onsite. They both laughed.
Ceiling fans inside helped to circulate air while the distinctive poker machine ‘music’ was drowned out only by the sounds of laughter, cheers of reunions and the juke box playing the latest tunes from the back of the room. The blue felt pool table was getting a working over with coins lined up along one side. The mustard-coloured vinyl bar stools each had a cowboy half-seated on them, waiting for his turn to shoot. The Condo versus Cowra showdown took only a few minutes with the Erambie mob holding the table for three games.
For many Blackfellas funerals were the only time they got to see their mob, the extensive family network that sprawled across the state, and it was a reminder to Ellen of what she missed by moving to Brisbane. She read the blackboard menu near the pool table. Someone has a sense of humour, she smiled to herself.
Muppet Stew
Kangaroo Martinis
Grapefruit Sandwiches
Outside, the three bowling greens were busy; one had kicked off the Aunty Molly Memorial Cup; another had a social game in progress for out-of-towners; the third was a carefully planned kids’ comp, complete with paid-for coordinator. Ellen knew there’d be lots of kids needing reining in, and she didn’t want to be the one to do it, so she’d called in the best.
Club staff were working overtime and non-stop – not for the tips, but because they all knew Aunty Molly. Later that night the emerald green carpet would be wet with beer but also with the laughter and stories that had been walked into it that day.
In the auditorium,
three of Aunty Molly’s friends from her craft group were set up at easels, each painting a portrait of their late friend. Some locals had made casseroles for Ron, but these women wanted to make something more lasting to honour their beloved friend. None would make it to the Archibald, but all would undoubtedly be hung in a prominent setting in the family home or an organisation in town. Everyone who walked by stopped and admired the efforts; even the city folk understood this was a very country thing to do.
Xanthe sat in a corner holding her grandmother’s wrinkled hand. She thought of all the work her Noonie had done while in service under the Protection Act, forced to cook and clean and cater to the needs of the family she worked for until her twenties.
‘When are you going to start a family, Mima?’
The word was Wiradjuri for star, and it was the only name her grandmother called her by. Hearing it made Xanthe smile. However the question was one she had tired of long ago and she tried hard not to cry; it pierced her heart every time.
‘I’m trying to get pregnant, Noon, but it’s not happening,’ she said, as a tear trickled down her cheek.
‘Maybe that gubbah has bad swimmers,’ her gran replied.
‘Noon! Don’t call him that, and his swimmers are fine.’ Xanthe giggled but didn’t really want her grandmother making insinuations about her husband’s sperm.
‘Ah, I’m just kidding my girl, I meant gubbah affectionately, but about his swimmers, you know there’s nothing wrong with our side of the family,’ she said, waving her hands around the room to signify the number of grannies she had. Xanthe had lost count of how many cousins she had, and every time she went home there were more. There certainly wasn’t anything wrong with fertility on her side.
‘I know, and we’re doing all the right things, but it’s not working,’ Xanthe took a deep breath before she started crying. ‘I want to try IVF. Do you know what that is, Gran?’
