Becoming Kirrali Lewis

by Jane Harrison

  I could feel my skin getting hot as all heads in the room turned to stare at me. Typical. Just because the guy in the photo was Aboriginal. ‘Ah … no. Not really.’

  ‘Vincent Lingiari,’ Adam’s voice rang out with confidence. ‘In 1975, Gough Whitlam poured sand into his hand to signify the return of Wave Hill Station to the traditional owners.’

  ‘Thank you, Adam. As usual, your general knowledge is exemplary.’

  ‘That’s not fair, sir. That’s hardly general knowledge,’ interjected the class smart-arse, Tom. ‘Not like who won the VFL final in 1982 … Carlton. The name of the female streaker at that match … Helen. Heleenn.’

  The class erupted into laughter but Guy wasn’t amused. Adam asked him to explain land rights and so Guy began a detailed explanation about how the government, in recognition of dispossession, gave land back to claimants if they could provide evidence of their traditional association with their land. I wasn’t sure of all the terminology used but I admired Guy for calmly talking down the naysayers in the class. I also appreciated Adam for drawing attention away from me. Was he intentionally trying to rescue me?

  After the class, Guy asked if I could stay back. I hadn’t spoken to him one-on-one before.

  ‘Kirrali, how are you finding the tutorials?’ he asked.

  ‘Great. Very informative.’

  ‘I want you to feel free to add your expertise. Don’t hold back. The class would benefit from your point of view. I am guessing you’ve been inspired by Pat O’Shane and Bob Bellear for leading the way as Aboriginal lawyers. I met Bob a few years ago which was a personal highlight.’

  My face must have been blank.

  ‘You do know who I’m talking about, don’t you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Sorry. I think I’ve made an assumption ...’ He picked up his books and left. I was the little black duck who didn’t know how to quack.

  Despite standing out with my dark skin and wild hair, I found that I could also blend in by not drawing attention to myself. Then people soon forgot that I was even there. In year ten, I did work experience at a hairdressing salon — not that I wanted to be a hairdresser. It was the first business I saw after I got off the bus and when I went in to ask, they agreed to take me on for two weeks.

  Gerard, Lucy and I got on like a house on fire. Lucy was a Goth with black, dead-straight hair, dark red lips and glow-in-the-dark skin. Gerard was a platinum blond and depending on the day and his horoscope, would arrive at work either dolled up as a leather-clad biker, in all white, or in a construction-worker ensemble of ironed overalls and expensive flannelette shirt. Who would pay big bucks for a flannie? He cut hair with reckless enthusiasm but he did a good line in perms and gossip. While the perming solution was applied, a glam soapie star would be exposed as a drunk or even worse, as having no clothes sense. The high-flyers who graced the society pages of women’s magazines would be slandered as crooks and con artists. The blue-rinse set loved him.

  In the salon’s quiet moments, Lucy and Gerard would drink lattes and puff on gold-tipped cigarettes while they flicked through the latest women’s mags. I’d be rearranging the conditioners and hair treatments for the tenth time that day, tuning in but not contributing. They seemed to know something about everybody and it was often a morsel of juicy news that would probably have surprised that person’s best friend. One day, they fixed their gaze on me.

  ‘Ironed. Dead straight,’ said Gerard, eyeing my hair with professional lust.

  ‘Blow dry and flick the fringe?’ said Lucy.

  ‘Braids,’ they said in sync.

  They plaited and beaded for hours and hours, fast fingers but even faster tongues.

  ‘Mrs Areba. Having a hot affair with the owner of the garage down the road,’ said Gerard, as a middle-aged woman walked past the window.

  ‘Really? Hubby know?’ inquired Lucy.

  ‘Of course not. Nobody does. She’s very discreet.’ They checked out the woman, who looked like the last person in the world to be having a clandestine affair.

  ‘Oh, will you look at that tragedy?’ groaned Gerard.

  Mark, the wedding photographer, having just parked his red Nissan 300 ZX, was heading for the café while studiously avoiding looking in the direction of the salon. He had, I gathered, been a ‘close friend’ of Gerard’s until recently.

  ‘And wearing a citrus suit. How passé.’

  ‘Puce is more his colour,’ said Lucy.

  Gerard mimicked putting his fingers down his throat, which set them both off into peels of laughter.

  Then another person, a woman sitting in a bus stop across the street, caught Gerard’s gimlet eye.

  ‘Disgusting. In broad daylight too,’ he snorted.

  ‘And at the bus stop. Eww,’ added Lucy.

  I looked to see what heinous crime this woman had committed — wearing last year’s parachute pants or sporting a pageboy haircut perhaps. But all I saw was a woman sitting at the bus stop drinking from a can that may have been a soft drink or may have been a beer and that she was Aboriginal. The bus pulled up and when it drove off, the woman was gone.

  ‘I saw that one peeing in the bushes last week. Right behind the butcher’s shop.’ Lucy broke out into hysterical laughter.

  ‘A woman? Dir-ty bloo-dy ab-o,’ said Gerard, stringing the words out.

  I cleared my throat and they glanced at me in the mirror. Should I mention all the times I’d seen Gerard ‘watering’ the lemon tree out the back of the salon?

  ‘We don’t mean you, love,’ said Gerard, tying off the last braid.

  ‘You’re okay.’

  ‘She’s more than okay — she’s awesome. Check out that hair!’ said Lucy.

  I looked at my reflection. I resembled a black American pop singer or someone who’d just got off a plane from Bali.

  Four

  Classes were going well and I loved my cute little room but there was one thing that was causing me problems — money. It seemed like every class required half a dozen books and they were all expensive. Second-hand wasn’t an option because the lecturers wanted you to have the latest edition — the law changed so fast, they said. The price of books didn’t seem to worry most of the other students but they were the same ones who were wearing flash boots and jackets. It seemed rich parents sent their kids to study law so they could get rich too. Every day, I watched them spend more money on morning tea than I had for my entire weekend meals. I had to get a job.

  I tried everywhere — shops, restaurants, bookstores, department stores. Most places wouldn’t even put your name on a list because they already had too many students lined up. It wasn’t what you knew, it was who you knew when it came to getting a job. And I didn’t know anyone really — except Erin.

  She sidled next to me one morning at breakfast. ‘Doing anything this Saturday night?’ she asked.

  This kind of surprised me. We weren’t, like, friends.

  ‘No.’ If she was going to ask me out, I couldn’t go. I was down to my last few dollars and still had a week to go until my next Tertiary Allowance cheque.

  ‘Good, then you’re working. Midway Cinema. Usher. Start at 4.30pm, finish at 11.30. It’s only $5.50 an hour. But if they like you, it’s eighteen hours a week, mainly weekends. Is that okay? Great. Gotta go. Late for my lecture.’

  I sat there open-mouthed. I hadn’t even said I was looking for a job and she’d got one for me.

  On Saturday afternoon at 4.30pm, I reported for work. My boss, Margaret, the customer service manager, was not what I’d expected. A formidable woman, nearly two metres tall, she looked more like a bouncer than an usher. She examined me up and down. I’d managed to borrow a black skirt and tights from Erin and the white shirt that they supplied was only one size too big. I’d also found a black jacket with padded shoulders in an op shop that I thought made me look very professional.

  ‘Hmmph,’ she muttered. ‘Is this the kind of riff-raff that I’m supposed to work with?’ She turned to Erin
, ‘Where did you get this one? Another cousin off the mish?’

  To my amazement, Erin just smiled.

  Ms Redneck turned to me, ‘Do you think we have an affirmative action policy or something? And you’d better smile a lot girl, or else the patrons won’t see you in the dark.’ She broke into hoarse laughter.

  ‘Go on,’ she said to Erin. ‘Show her the ropes. And don’t forget girl, you’re only on trial. If I catch you slacking off or helping yourself to the choc tops, choc top, it’s ...’ She swiped the air in a cutting movement.

  With that, Margaret grabbed her packet of smokes and marched off into the back lane for what was to be, I soon discovered, one of her many cigarette breaks.

  I looked at Erin, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. ‘She called me a choc top!’

  I was weighing up whether to quit before I’d even started.

  ‘She’s just got a warped sense of humour, Kirrali,’ said Erin gently. ‘Honestly, she’s a pussycat. She fancies herself as a comedian.’

  ‘She thinks that’s funny?’

  I thought about the money I was going to make and how Erin had gone to the trouble of getting me the job. I knew I just had to get on with it. My hairdressing work had taught me how to be as small a target as possible — I could do it again. But I swore I’d never forget what Margaret had said. And I’d never forgive her.

  I didn’t see her for the rest of the shift so it was easy enough to enjoy the job. All I had to do was shine my torch and show people to their seats. When everyone was settled, I could watch the movie from the door. That night it was The Breakfast Club starring Emilio Estevez, who I thought was a bit of a spunk. My shift finally finished at 11.30pm and — oh — my feet.

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Erin said.

  It was a warm night and although I was tired, I was exhilarated. Not wanting to miss the last bus, Erin and I ran shrieking down the street, zigzagging past clusters of teenagers outside McDonalds, buskers with forlorn guitar breaks trying to emulate Bruce Springsteen and hawkers selling silver earrings.

  I could get used to this, I thought — the fairy lights in the trees, music thumping out of the clubs, garlic aromas wafting from the Italian bistros. I was beginning to fall in love with this city in a way I never had with my home town with its one bakery, one milk bar, one pub and one point of view.

  It was exciting to smell other smells, see other skins, hear other sounds. That first night, when I’d been too scared to even walk around the corner to the takeaway bar, seemed years ago. After all that rushing, we got to the bus stop in plenty of time.

  ‘What did Margaret mean today when she said something about your cousin?’ I asked. Erin didn’t talk much about herself, or her family.

  ‘My cousin, Kirk. He works there sometimes. You’ll get to meet him on a shift.’

  ‘You mean I didn’t get the ...?’ I mimicked Margaret’s cutting action.

  ‘I told you she’s a pussycat. Her bark’s worse than her bite.’ ‘Cat’s don’t bark, Erin. You’re mixing your metaphors,’ I said sternly.

  ‘And what did she mean by “the mish”?’

  ‘You’ve never heard that before?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘An Aboriginal mission. Like where they put a whole lot of us mob together. I was brought up on one. A long way from here.’

  I wanted to ask her more but it was like there was a big full stop at the end of her sentence. It was clear that she didn’t want to talk about it.

  The bus arrived. We travelled home in silence and went straight to our rooms. I crawled into bed, still in my work skirt and shirt. I was wrecked.

  I realised I was double-booked for the next evening. Martina was going on a pub crawl with her new uni friends and was coming back to my room afterwards to sleep. But Margaret had rostered me on for another shift. I rang Martina to explain my dilemma.

  ‘What a choice,’ she said. ‘Check a thousand grotty kids’ tickets for The Never Ending Story or cruise hot spots with me and my friends.’

  ‘But I need the money ...’ I said feebly.

  ‘Oh, all right, meet us after your shift. We’ll have a head start but I’m sure a one-pot screamer like you can make up for lost time.’

  I arranged to meet Martina at 11.00pm at a pub in town that was popular with uni students. Actually, it suited me just fine. I was down to my last $8.20 and that wouldn’t buy many drinks.

  After my shift, I quickly got changed out of my usher’s outfit into some jeans and a T-shirt. I was running down the steps of the cinema when Erin caught up with me.

  ‘You’re in a hurry,’ she said, gazing at me curiously.

  I was conscious of my hastily applied eye shadow — normally I didn’t wear any. ‘Meeting some friends for a pub crawl — gotta go.’

  Her face brightened and I got the feeling that she wanted me to ask her along. I did, hoping that she would refuse but she didn’t. As we walked, I had to stifle my feelings of resentment. Erin had been nothing but kind to me and had got me the job and everything but I wasn’t sure if I wanted her as a ‘friend’. Was it that deep down I was scared of hanging out with another Aboriginal person?

  Thump, ta-da-ta, ta-da-ta, thump, da-ta, ta-da-ta. A block away from the pub, the footpath practically vibrated with the beat of the music. Erin became more excited and I became more jittery. I knew Martina would be okay with Erin but I wasn’t sure how Erin would react to Martina.

  Within minutes, they were both screaming in each other’s ear, laughing at some joke over the sound of the band. I envied Martina’s talent to talk about anything to anyone. She was in fine form — although she told me the drinks card had run out hours before — but I could hardly hear myself think, let alone add any sparkling wit to their conversation. Most of Martina’s friends were on the dance floor but during the break they came back to our table. It was then that I saw Adam. After lectures, I always snuck out quickly because talking to him would be mega awkward. But this time there was no way to avoid him. We stared at each other.

  Martina broke the silence. ‘Adam, you might remember …’

  ‘… Kirrali Lewis. I do.’

  Martina added. ‘We all come from the same town. Amazing coincidence, don’t you think?’ Martina smiled innocently enough but I could smell a set-up.

  Adam smiled but it wasn’t an easy smile. ‘Can I get you ladies a drink?’ he asked.

  A drink is a drink and so I nodded. As Adam walked to the bar, I saw his curly hair was gone and that he was sporting neat short back and sides. He was looking like a lawyer already.

  The pub closed at midnight and it was Erin’s idea to go on to the Fiddler’s Arms, which had a late license. The Fiddler’s was close and she knew the barman who was good for cheap drinks. The others were easily swayed — actually they were swaying easily — and we walked the few blocks to the pub. Erin was right about it being cheap — the décor and the drinks. Everyone looked at us as we walked in. The pub was an Aboriginal hangout and one of Martina’s friends whispered, ‘They’re all Aborigines’.

  Within half an hour the others had vanished into taxis, except an increasingly happy Martina and a very quiet Adam. Erin was chatting to some people over the other side of the room. I went to the toilet and when I got back, Martina was on the dance floor getting up close with a big hunky guy.

  ‘Robbie Jonus, VFL footy player. You know the Jonus family, greatest footballers this state has ever produced,’ said the guy standing beside me. ‘Best thing for pulling the chicks too. Gubba girls love ’em.’

  I peered closer at Martina’s stud. I didn’t recognise him but then footy was never my game.

  ‘I should know,’ continued my confidante, ‘because I was in the seniors for Essendon and I was a lady slayer. I was up to me neck in them.’ He started laughing — a wheezing, cackling sound — and I realised he was much older than I’d first thought. Older but kind of childish. He took another swig of his beer. It wasn’t his first, I thought, noticing his bleary eyes
. He made a lunge towards me and I backed into our table, knocking over Adam’s beer.

  ‘Sorry, bros, I’ll buy you another,’ said the ex-footballer sorrowfully.

  ‘That’s okay, mate,’ replied Adam stiffly.

  The ex-footballer insisted and staggered to the bar to get another pot for Adam. Before he got there, though, he turned and shouted at me. ‘You going to sleep with me tonight, girl, aren’t ya? I’m a shit-hot lover.’

  If a black girl could go pale, I would have at that moment.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I grabbed Adam by the hand and we pushed through the sweaty bodies on the dance floor. Erin wanted to stay and Martina shook her head, casually draping one arm around the footy player’s well-muscled neck. I tucked the spare key of my room into her pocket and we left.

  My heart was thumping like you wouldn’t believe. Was it the sensation of holding Adam’s hand? His presence still had some sort of grip on me but I was mistaken if I thought that the feeling was mutual. He let go of my hand and asked if I had money for a taxi home. I lied. He said goodnight and walked off, leaving me without a lift. It took me almost an hour to walk home and my anger overcame any fear I might have had. It was more than enough time to get any romantic thoughts about Adam out of my system forever.

  The next morning, I saw that the makeshift bed on the floor was untouched and I felt a rush of panic. Where was Martina? What if something had happened to her? All sorts of things happened in the city, or so my mum often warned me. But then again, this was Martina. Fearless. She looked pretty in control last time I saw her, hanging off that footballer. My rush of concern was replaced by a hint of envy. Even though it wasn’t my thing, in some ways I was miffed at Martina’s one-night stand. Would I ever lie in a man’s arms? Not Adam’s, that’s for sure.

  Downstairs at breakfast, Erin was sitting at an empty table so I sat down beside her. Her long hair didn’t hide the shadows under her eyes but she didn’t mention anything about the night before. I could tell by the way she was poking at her breakfast that she had something on her mind.