I Came to Say Goodbye

by Caroline Overington

  Kat had already moved back from New York by then. She did not come home to ‘steal’ Fat’s baby, as some have said. Fat wasn’t even pregnant when Kat came home. She’d bought a place in Hunters Hill and I’d actually been there once or twice. I’d felt like the poor cousin. Kat had developed posh taste. The house made you think you’d make it dirty just by putting your coat down. You had to take off your shoes to walk on the carpet. That was her husband, David. He’s English. He’s got a thing about shoes in the house. Anyway, the first time I’d gone there, it was tea she’d organised – a dinner party, she called it – and she had napkins folded in triangles, sticking out of the glasses. There were bowls with water and lemon in them. I knew they weren’t for drinking. I knew they were for washing your fingers when you peeled the prawns, but there’s nothing I like more than to pop a person’s bubble. I picked up one of the bowls, and went to drink from it, pretending that I didn’t know it was for my fingers. Kat’s husband, David, he sort of leapt up, and said, ‘No, Med!’ and that sort of ruined the joke.

  I tried to save the situation. I said, ‘Oh, we’re going to eat the prawns! I always thought of prawns as bait!’ That didn’t go down too well, either. The night was sort of downhill from there.

  The other thing, obviously, was that Kat and David still had no kids. Why that was, I’d never asked them. It was not my business to ask. Edna wanted to gossip about it. I told her there was no point gossiping with me; I didn’t know anything. I figured they couldn’t have kids. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they have them? But when Edna said to Kat, ‘Do you think you’ll be having children?’ Kat had said, ‘Oh no, Auntie Edna, we’re happy enough with Bella and George. They’re like children to us.’

  Bella and George were the dogs. The King Charles spaniels.

  All that said, I was obviously going to phone Kat and at least put it to her to take Fat’s baby before I was going to let welfare come and put the baby in a home with a stranger, and so that’s what I did. I phoned up Kat and I explained the situation. I said, ‘Fat’s pregnant and they aren’t going to let her keep the baby, which means somebody has to take it, or else it will end up in welfare; and not only that, the baby is going to be black.’

  Well, Kat wasn’t fazed about that part. The Atleys aren’t racist. I don’t believe most Australians are. She said, ‘Another Aborigine? What are we, the Department of Reconciliation?’ and she meant that in a nice way because Blue’s wife was Koori, and I suppose that had been Kat’s first impression, that Fat’s baby must be part-Aborigine, too.

  I said, ‘No, no, Kat, the father’s not Koori. The father’s Sudanese. From what I know of him, he’s black as night’ and there was a bit of pause, while Kat absorbed that, and when her voice came down the line again, it was quieter than it had been, softer, more maternal.

  She said, ‘The father’s Sudanese?’ and I said, ‘That’s what they said’ and went on to explain where Fat was living and how it had happened that she’d come into contact with the refugees. Kat listened to it all, and although she didn’t say yes right away, there’s no doubt in my mind that she was heading that way, because she kept saying, ‘Wow’ and, ‘Wow again’ and, well, I suppose I’m at the point now where I’m going to have to explain what happened to that little baby, but the more I think about doing it, the more I think I can’t do it, and I hope you will forgive me, Your Honour, if I hand over to Kat now.

  She’s a brave girl, Kat. She’s got a completely broken heart but she will do a good job of explaining it, I know she will.

  Chapter 16

  Kat Atley

  YOUR HONOUR, MY NAME IS KA’AREN Atley and I was born in Forster Hospital in September 1970. My father, Med Atley, has asked me to assist him with a letter he is writing about my sister, Donna-Faye.

  I understand that your court has been asked to decide what should happen to my sister’s child. My father has some things he would like to bring to your attention in that regard, and he has asked me to put my side of the story to you, too. My father has allowed me to read what he’s already written and I can see he’s given you a good history of his marriage, and my childhood.

  You will know that my mother left home when I was quite young, after which I went to boarding school and from there to Sydney University, to London, where I met my future husband, David Bennett, and then, in January 2001, we moved to New York. David and I were living in Manhattan in 2005 when Donna-Faye gave birth to Seth. I was pleased for my sister and David and I sent a small gift but to be honest, and I do want to be honest, we didn’t see ourselves as having much to do with our nephew at that point, because we were living abroad, with no immediate plan to return to Australia.

  Naturally, we were horrified when we heard, some 12 weeks later, that Seth had been taken to the John Hunter Hospital and that some kind of legal manoeuvre to remove him from my sister’s care was underway. The details of that case were a mystery to me, until recently.

  David and I returned to Sydney in 2008, in part because I had decided to start a family and I wanted to raise our children in Australia. We settled in Hunters Hill and I do remember inviting my father up to have a look at our new place. It was the first time I’d seen him in five years. I’ve read what he’s written about that dinner we had and I agree, we were probably showing off a bit, but I believe my father was pleased to have us home. I enquired after Blue and Donna-Faye, and we talked about what had happened to Seth, and how Donna-Faye had moved to Tamworth to try to sort out the problems in her life.

  I guess I’d been in Sydney for several months when my father called to tell me that Donna-Faye had again fallen pregnant and that somebody was going to have to take her baby.

  I did not at first understand what he meant. Why would somebody have to take her baby? My father explained that the NSW Department of Community Services – DoCS, I believe they call themselves – had new powers that enabled them to swoop on parents who had already had one child removed from their care, and take any other children that came along.

  I asked my father how Donna-Faye had reacted to that decision. From memory, he said, ‘It didn’t seem to register.’

  He then asked me whether I’d take Donna-Faye’s baby.

  I did not immediately say yes. In fact, I hesitated for some time. Why did I hesitate? In part, I suppose, because David and I had not given up the dream of having a child of our own. It’s true what my father has told you. I did not feel at all maternal in my 20s or even my early 30s. In fact, I was probably 37 years old before I heard the ticking of the biological clock and, then, as happens with so many people, I found I needed help. I did not conceive naturally. A friend recommended an IVF clinic in Sydney. We went through the process once, and it failed us. David was eager to try again but I was fairly certain that IVF wasn’t for me. I hadn’t responded well to medication or to the disappointment and yet, when my father called and said, ‘Your sister is pregnant, and somebody needs to take the baby’ – well, I had to decide whether I was willing to forgo another attempt at IVF to raise not my own but my sister’s child.

  We decided to take the first step in the process, and register as foster carers. The fact that we had to do that surprised me. I am, after all, Donna-Faye’s sister. It’s hardly unusual for sisters to take in each other’s children. In some cultures, it’s commonplace.

  Nevertheless, the Department said I would have to be assessed. There was a great deal of paperwork to complete. I had to obtain references from friends and my employer. Both David and I had to do a police check, and of course, there had to be two copies of everything, verified by a Justice of the Peace. I am an organised person, but it was difficult for me to keep track of everything we needed. I can’t imagine what it might be like to navigate the process if you were not a lawyer.

  Once the paperwork was filed, David and I were asked to attend a parenting class at the Department’s offices in Parramatta. We put our hearts and souls into preparing for it, reading books on child rearing and so forth, and I was surprised to
find that the Department’s approach was somewhat less organised. The class was held in a small room with a piece of A4 paper Blu-Tacked on the wall that said, ‘Parenting Class.’ When I put my head around the door, I saw people sitting in little school chairs. The aim of the class seemed to be to memorise what was being written on the whiteboard by a rather bored supervisor, and then complete a multiple-choice test. At the end of it, we got a certificate, which then had to be photocopied, and for reasons that escaped me, had to be sent back to the Department that had, in fact, issued it.

  The next step involved a personal interview in our home. By that stage, I had arranged to fly Donna-Faye to Sydney from Tamworth. She was staying in our spare room. She was receiving treatment for her mental illness. The medication made her drowsy. I don’t doubt that the pregnancy also sapped her energy. She was often vague, or tired, and she did sometimes behave quite strangely, by which I mean she’d become convinced that something awful was about to happen, and she’d become furtive and quiet, and I’d have to coax her out of her room. She certainly had in mind that people were watching her, perhaps even watching the house. I assured her that the Department – the welfare, she called them – did not have the resources to park a car outside the house to watch her 24 hours a day, although I’m not certain that she believed me.

  I suppose people do wonder whether we talked about Seth and if we didn’t, why we didn’t, but it was difficult to talk to Donna-Faye in a serious way. She could sometimes talk for hours, and make no sense at all.

  The main thing was, she was swelling beautifully.

  It was while Donna-Faye was living with me that she decided, after watching an episode of Days of Our Lives, that she was going to call her little girl Savannah. I thought the name was absolutely gorgeous.

  I managed to book Donna-Faye into the Eastern Private Hospital to have her baby. I’d heard nightmare stories about regional hospitals – the shortage of doctors, women giving birth in toilets and so on – and I didn’t want Donna-Faye or her baby to be at any risk at all.

  When I mentioned to the Department that Donna-Faye was staying with me, the social worker flew off the handle. She said it was ‘presumptuous’ of me to have Donna-Faye move in because I hadn’t yet been assessed as a foster carer. She said it would place pressure on Donna-Faye to relinquish her daughter to me. I asked what on earth I was supposed to do, send Donna-Faye onto the street? Leave her in Tamworth, where she was alone? She was my sister, after all.

  The social worker said I had caused a problem because Donna-Faye wasn’t going to be allowed to live with her baby after she was born, and yet she was living with me. She said she would now have to find accommodation for Donna-Faye somewhere in Sydney. It wouldn’t be easy. David and I offered to find a place for her, and cover the rent, but she said that could be construed as a bribe.

  David was quite upset about that. ‘How do the minds of these people work?’ he said.

  In any case, the social worker told me that Donna-Faye absolutely could not be present during our assessment interview, so I drove her out to the shopping centre to see a movie, and when she came back, she told me she felt certain that DoCS had been there, pretending to be ushers in the cinema. I had to tell her I didn’t think so.

  I knew that David would struggle with the assessment interview. Being English, he cannot bear to have people poking into his life. I had warned him against trying to attempt jokes with mid-level Australian bureaucrats. They take themselves extremely seriously and have no qualms at all about abusing their position to punish you.

  I could see he took an instant dislike to the social worker, in her layered robes, with her wild hair. Her first questions were benign: how old are you, and what do you do for a living, and so forth?

  Then she asked how we intended to preserve Savannah’s heritage and encourage her positive identity as a part-Sudanese child?

  David said, ‘Well, she’ll be black. That’s not really something we can hide from her, is it?’

  She asked whether we’d take Savannah to Sudan when she got older.

  David said, ‘I suppose that depends whether the war’s still on.’

  She asked how we’d explain Savannah’s colouring to people. David said, ‘We’ll tell them to mind their own business.’ What you are supposed to say, obviously, is: ‘We’ll encourage Savannah to be proud of her heritage.’

  Towards the end of the interview, there was a brief discussion about Malok, and whether we’d ‘support’ a relationship with him. I said, yes, of course. I also said we were eager to offer Savannah a secure home in an area where there were many good schools. I explained that we would be able to provide for her but the social worker wanted to know was how I’d encourage Savannah’s identity as a ‘mixed-race’ child.

  After she’d gone, David said, ‘She wants the baby to grow up with Sudanese people.’ He said, ‘She wanted us to say we’d teach her to walk down to the village well and get the bath water. Face it, Kat, we aren’t black enough. We don’t eat goat. That’s what she was getting at.’

  We were disappointed with her report when it came. Those things we had imagined as working in our favour were cast in a negative light. Much was made of the affluent neighbourhood in which we lived, and how it wasn’t racially diverse.

  I sent a copy of it, by email, to my father. He described it perfectly when he said, ‘It’s a load of horse manure. She’s saying, “You think because you’re loaded you can put your hand up and you’ll get this exotic baby.”’

  I spoke to our lawyer that afternoon. I told him that the report was negative, that it said that Savannah should be placed with ‘culturally appropriate carers’ who would ‘encourage her identity as a Sudanese child’. In short, it said Savannah would be better off with strangers than with David and me.

  Donna-Faye came with us to court. The judge spent some time talking directly to her. She said, ‘Ms Atley, do you understand that you are subject to a pre-birth notification?’ and Donna-Faye said, ‘No.’ The judge continued, ‘It means that the Department isn’t prepared to let you care for your baby after it’s born, because of your mental health’ and Donna-Faye said, ‘I’ve been on the psych ward but I’m not there now.’

  The judge said, ‘Do you understand what will happen to your baby after it’s born?’ Donna-Faye said, ‘You mean when they take it away?’ and the strange thing was, she didn’t look unhappy about having to say that. She simply said it like she hoped it was the right answer.

  The judge said, ‘That’s correct, and you know that your sister, Ka’aren Atley, and her husband, David, are keen to take your baby in?’ and Donna-Faye nodded, and said, ‘Oh yes, that would be good’ and the judge said, ‘But the Department thinks it might be better to place your baby with Sudanese carers?’ and Donna-Faye said, ‘Oh yes, that would be good, too.’ The judge seemed confused. She said, ‘Very well.’

  The Department’s lawyer argued that it would be in Savannah’s best interests that she be raised with knowledge of her Sudanese culture. There was a lengthy discussion about whether it was possible for Sudanese children to properly appreciate their culture if they were not immersed in it.

  To our great relief, the judge said, ‘I’m sorry, but the Department’s plan to place this baby with some unknown carers in some unknown area, for some unknown reason, makes no sense to me.’ She said, ‘When Savannah is born, she should be placed in the care of Ka’aren Atley and her husband, David Bennett.’ She said we needed to ensure that Donna-Faye and Malok stayed involved in Savannah’s life and she told the Department to draw up a schedule that we’d all follow, to make sure that happened. I sensed that representatives of the Department were unhappy with the ruling, but it’s the judge that has the last word.

  We left the court feeling pleased with the outcome. There was a little coffee shop in the court complex, and we went there to celebrate. I ordered a cappuccino, and Donna-Faye said, ‘Oh, I want one too’ and I had to remind her she was pregnant. I ordered her some tea. />
  I said, ‘That was a great outcome for us, Donna-Faye. We’ve won.’

  She said, ‘We did.’

  At the time, I didn’t take that as a question, but perhaps it was one.

  A week or so later, we took Donna-Faye and my father, who was also practically living with us, to the Eastern Private, for a tour. I remember Dad saying, ‘It looks like a bloody Hyatt’ and compared to casualty at Forster General, I suppose it does. There was a marble counter, and flowers on a pedestal in reception.

  I had explained the situation to the hospital on the telephone: my sister, by then very pregnant, was booked into the hospital but my husband, David, and I would be assuming care of the child, Savannah, when she was born. They sent out a matron to meet us. Wanting to do the right thing, she gave Donna-Faye a welcome gift. She said, ‘It’s a show bag.’ It had the hospital menu in it, and the famous Eastern Private bear – a white bear, with a medical cross on his vest.

  Donna-Faye said, ‘If I don’t keep the baby, do I still get to keep the bear?’ The matron looked embarrassed, and she laughed, and she said, ‘Oh, I’m sure we can find another bear’ which, in a way, made things worse.

  A week or so later, we were there again, this time to check Donna-Faye in for the caesarean. I remember walking down the hall, Donna-Faye in front, as wide as the hall, my father beside her, just as round, with his rough beard and a short-sleeved shirt over his shorts.

  Behind us there were two social workers, and Malok. The Department was so determined to have him involved in the process, whether he wanted to be involved or not, that they had sent a government car, at goodness-knows-what expense, up to Tamworth to collect him and bring him back to Sydney so he could be at the hospital when Savannah was born. I was pleased to see him. He was obviously going to be an important part of our lives. I went to embrace him. He hurtled backward so fast he crashed into a wall. He looked absolutely terrified, and not only of me.