Becoming Kirrali Lewis

by Jane Harrison

  The message on the answering machine was succinct, as Barbara’s communications always were. ‘You didn’t tell me. You’re full of shit.’ Beep beep beep.

  She was right. I was full of the most stinking, slimy, frightening shit. I pulled the blanket up over my head. There was nothing else to do but wallow in it.

  Slam. Clock radio off. Bloody Simon and Garfunkel songs about restless dreams and walking alone. What would they know about real heartache? I never did like their clever, cloying lyrics. Give me ska any day. It was ska that started this whole damn thing.

  It was 1966, the summer that I turned eighteen. I had just left school and I was bored waiting for my course to start at secretarial college. Suburban life was safe and predictable and had to be escaped. So every chance I had, I’d catch the train to the city. Sometimes I’d wait for hours if a train had been cancelled — the train tracks buckled a lot that hot summer — but anything was better than hanging around at home. I’d tell my mother I was going to the city library to study and do some preparation for the course. And I did study — other people and other lives.

  The cicadas would be chirping away and I’d have my backpack swung over my shoulder. In it was the makings of my alter ego — denim cut-off jeans with frayed edges, stripy T-shirt, loopy earrings and beads. The kind of clothes my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house wearing.

  When the train did finally arrive, I’d sit in the carriage behind the driver because I thought it was safer, put my feet up and get out a book — was it To Kill a Mockingbird? I can’t remember.

  At the city station, I would head for the toilets and paint over my ordinariness with kohl, rouge and mascara. Then I’d take a deep breath and walk over to the Boundary Pub. Inside, the pub’s windows were blacked out and even at 4 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon it would be mellow inside. My nose would catch the drift of clove cigarettes and once I adjusted to the gloom, the bright clothes of the crowd would illuminate the room.

  It was the kind of place where you’d be on hugging terms with everybody by the end of the night. All kinds of people went there. Uni students, old bikie guys with long grey beards and people from countries I was ashamed to admit I’d never heard of, like my gorgeous friend Mary who was from Ghana. And Aboriginal guys and girls.

  I chose the Boundary for the house band — very imaginatively called The House Band. They were cool, no faking, and were the only band playing ska in the city. The band members were a multicultural microcosm — lead singer from Ghana, bass guitarist from France, Australian lead guitarist, another Aussie who played trumpet and harmonica, saxophonist from South Africa, while the percussionist was from the USA. The story went that they had met at a cheap lodging house in London, started jamming, and had been persuaded to come to Australia by Ben, the lead guitarist. In the two years that they’d been playing at the Boundary, they’d built up a loyal following. Most of them were either married or in the process of marrying Australians so they could stay in the country. In the meantime, they were getting by on working visas.

  We were all — band and audience alike — outcasts or outsiders. I found the ’burbs stifling in their formula around what was right and wrong, the emphasis on appearances, on what other people thought. The Boundary was a different world. I could be ‘me’. That’s why I headed there almost every Saturday afternoon during that hot summer nearly twenty years ago. And that’s where I first met Charley.

  He was angry and a little bit drunk. Not the best way to start. Maybe it was the expression of that anger that attracted me. In my parents’ house, anger was suppressed. You didn’t even swear out loud if you hit your thumb with a hammer. Everything had to be ‘nice’. But here, in this darkened pub, weaving his way through the crowd, talking loudly to all, was this gorgeous black man. I was so ignorant I wasn’t even sure he was Aboriginal. By the time he’d made his way around to my side of the bar, I’d watched him clasp hands with nearly all of the black men in the room in a show of solidarity. It seemed like he was on hugging terms with many of the woman too. When he made his way towards me, I smiled shyly and hoped that I would also be on the receiving end of one of those hugs. He came right up to me and I could see the red, yellow and black beads around his neck and his long, thick eyelashes. He put his finger on the tip of my nose.

  ‘Go home, white girl,’ he slurred.

  I laughed, thinking it was a joke. ‘Go home? But the band’s still playing.’ I flushed red when the true meaning of his words sunk in.

  He stared at me poker-faced for a few seconds. Then he burst into laughter — a hyena’s cackle that made heads turn even in the noisy pub — and he walked away, laughing and shaking his head. I sipped my Bacardi and Coke slowly, trying to appear unrattled. Who was I kidding? When the band had finished their song, I made my way to the ladies. I felt like the whole place had witnessed my humiliation. I touched up my lip gloss and left.

  The experience put me off the Boundary for weeks — this had been my haven, the place where I thought I belonged. The incident also sparked some heavy-duty soul-searching. I’d figured he was Aboriginal — no one else would say ‘go home’ with such authority. I’d never met any Aboriginal people before then. Did they all feel that way about white people?

  I hit the town library and borrowed some books on Aboriginal culture but, even to my ignorant eye, they seemed hopelessly out of date. One Saturday, I went into the city and visited the State Library to browse among the shelves and shelves of books. Over the next few weekends, I went back and read anything I could find. Finally I managed to glean a superficial understanding on some of the ways Aboriginal people had been wronged by colonisation. I guess that was the start of my involvement in Aboriginal causes. All because of an angry young man, whose name I didn’t even know.

  A few weeks later, I summoned up the courage to go back to the Boundary. The House Band was chillin’ but I couldn’t relax and enjoy myself. I was on alert for his presence the whole evening. As the night wore on, it looked like he wasn’t going to show and I was disappointed. Somehow there was something I wanted to prove to this man. I needed him to know that all white people weren’t the enemy. Was there more to it? Probably. He was attractive in a way that was not just about his looks. It was his energy and passion. He was different.

  At the end of the night, I was leaving to catch the train home and was saying goodbye to Mary when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

  ‘You still here? Haven’t you gone back home yet?’ His voice was curious, not malicious like the last time we had met.

  ‘Where would my home be? My descendants came from England and Ireland but that was five generations ago. Haven’t I earned the right to call Australia home yet?’ I replied boldly.

  ‘My descendants have been here for 40,000 years. When you’ve been around for that long you can call Gondwanaland home.’

  ‘Oh, Charley, give the girl a break,’ said Mary, exasperated. ‘You don’t talk to me that way and I’ve only been in the country five minutes.’

  She smiled at him and I was struck again by her gentle nature.

  ‘Just teaching the white girl a little black history, that’s all,’ Charley retorted.

  ‘Well, be kind enough to teach her in your taxi. She’s going to miss her train otherwise,’ Mary said.

  ‘Fruit, that’s right.’ I said, looking at my watch. I had ten minutes to catch the last train home and the station was a mile away. All hell would break loose if I missed it. My parents only let me go out one night a week and if I missed my curfew, they’d ground me for a month.

  ‘Could you, please? The only problem is that I only have $4 left.’ I looked at him apologetically.

  ‘Like hell! I’ve just finished my shift.’

  He looked away, avoiding Mary’s gaze. She patted him on the shoulder. ‘Charley Jackson.’

  So that was his name.

  ‘Okay, okay. Lucky I come from a matriarchal tribe. Used to being bossed around by women. You can owe me the fare — $5 and one country. T
hat’s what you owe me, white girl.’

  But he wore the hint of a smile and when he screeched to a halt in the station car park with a minute to spare, he leant over and kissed me, catching me off guard. ‘I’ll see you around since you don’t go away that easily.’

  I could only nod. I was dazed and fascinated and confused. My brain had turned to blancmange and my legs to jelly. Somehow I wobbled up the ramp to the platform and caught my train home.

  Fifteen

  I woke up ravenous. I’d had nothing to eat the night before. Toast. Vegemite. I still hadn’t cried. I never had. I didn’t cry when the labour pains made my body feel like it was being ripped open or when they put the cold hard forceps inside me and pulled her out. I didn’t cry when they took her away and I barely got a glimpse of her, slippery with whitish muck, her hair dark and wet and pasted down, her darling little face screwed up. She didn’t cry either. I didn’t cry when I signed the papers that separated us for life. I didn’t cry on the first anniversary of her birthday, or the second, or the third. But I had always made a silent toast to her and wished her the best of lives, wherever she was.

  I wondered how my daughter — no, I said to myself, I can’t call her that, I have to earn having a daughter — the person I gave birth to. I wondered how she had managed to find me. I didn’t even know her name. My only hope was that she had left her details behind at the Centre. Friday was my next rostered volunteer day and although I felt ill at the prospect of facing my workmates, I knew I had no choice. If I wanted to reach her, I had to swallow my shame. I hopped on my trusty bicycle and pedalled as hard as I could, weaving in and out of the traffic. Parking my bike in the rack, I thought twice about removing my bike helmet. Maybe I would need it.

  Barbara was behind the reception desk sorting through a stack of mail.

  ‘Hi,’ I ventured.

  She grunted back at me. ‘Didn’t think we’d see you. Thought you might have other things to do. Here, you can do this.’

  She handed me the pile of mail and turned and stomped into her office. While she didn’t actually slam the door in my face, I got the picture. I decided to put my head down and concentrate on the job at hand. The phone rang for Barbara and it was urgent. I put the call through to her office but she didn’t pick up so I knocked and poked my head around the door. She had her back to me.

  ‘Barbara? The call on line two. Henry’s in a spot of bother and needs to talk to you.’ There was no response. I went over and was shocked to see that she was crying.

  ‘Oh Barbara, what is it? Can I help?’ I knelt down beside her chair.

  ‘You? You’re the problem. I don’t understand you. You’ve bloody worked here for years. You’ve seen what the policies of separating families have done to our community and yet you’ve had this daughter that you’ve bloody well pretended didn’t exist. Why?’

  ‘You have to earn the right to use the word “daughter” — and I haven’t.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. She is your daughter and you’d better start acting like a proper mother and get your skinny white arse into action. The poor girl’s scurried off home with her tail between her legs. She’s had the biggest shock of her life. She came looking to find her black mother and she got you. Poor thing. No wonder she freaked out.’

  Barbara started to laugh and then I started to laugh too. And then I cried. For the first time in eighteen years, I wept for the baby I had given away. Or who was taken from me, as I had begun to see it. Barbara just sat and waited. Finally when my tears had subsided, we talked some more. But Barbara became evasive when I asked if she — I couldn’t bring myself to say ‘my daughter’ — had left a contact number.

  ‘She either did or she didn’t,’ I said steadily.

  ‘Well, she didn’t really ...’ Barbara said.

  ‘This is me you’re talking to and this is my child we’re talking about.’ By now I was getting hot under the collar.

  ‘Don’t you get like that with me. She didn’t leave her phone number but I know how to contact her. I’ll check with her first. That’s the way it’s done around here, remember? We protect her rights, not yours.’

  The irony of the situation. I’d worked at the Centre for so long but suddenly I was the outsider. As a non-Indigenous person, it had taken me years to work out how I could contribute without upsetting the applecart. Once at a funding meeting, a government worker asked one of the blackfella staff a question and I rushed in and answered for him. It took me ages to realise that if I’d waited he would have collected his thoughts and answered himself. I thought I was leaping to his defence but instead I was making it worse. It took a few false starts before I worked that one out. But now all my good work had evaporated, due to one monumental stuff-up. If I hadn’t thought that my situation would have any bearing on my work as a volunteer, I was wrong.

  ‘The committee had a meeting this morning,’ Barbara said. ‘You know how the Koori grapevine works. They all know about your daughter and you giving her up. Now some of them want you out of here. They don’t think it’s right that you should be working here.’

  I sat down on the floor next to her, stunned. I hadn’t thought that this, a private matter, would have any bearing on my work as a volunteer. But in Koori circles, the personal was also the political — there was no separation.

  ‘I didn’t think you could be sacked from a voluntary position,’ I said. ‘What do you think? Do you think I should go?’

  ‘Actually, Cherie, you might not want to work here anymore. Given the hostility …’ She wiped her cheeks and blew her nose loudly, which altered the mood somewhat. Swinging her chair around, she noticed the flashing light on her phone. ‘Crikey. Henry. I forgot him!’

  I had no choice. I packed my belongings into a cardboard box, tucked it under my arm, and moved my name to ‘out’ on the staff board. I gave Barbara a quick wave and walked out into the dazzling sunshine, the steel door of the Centre clanging shut behind me. Somehow I knew my life was being turned upside down.

  The following week I turned up at my part-time job as an arts administrator as if nothing had happened.

  ‘How was your weekend?’ Elise, my co-worker at the Art House, loved to ease into the week with a chat over a plunger coffee.

  There is a lot I could have said. But I didn’t.

  ‘Oh, quiet, for a change. How was yours? How was your son’s twenty-first?’

  That was all the encouragement she needed. She gushed on but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking about fifth birthdays, sixteenth birthdays and eighteenth birthdays — how I’d never got to play my part as a proud mother. I had already missed eighteen of those special days.

  The day passed. I’m sure I looked like my usual organised self but inside I was in turmoil. My mind see-sawed from absolute joy at the possibilities of a mother–daughter relationship to utter despair at the slim chance of a happy outcome.

  By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I checked the answering machine the minute I stepped inside the door. Heart pounding, I replayed the messages. My mother — reminding me it had been nearly a month since I had visited her and Dad. The plumber, returning my call — he’d be around in the next few days. Sure. That was it. Disappointment mingled with relief, a nauseating water–oil combination if ever there was one. I sprawled on my bed and fell asleep, only to be woken, sometime later, by the phone.

  ‘Hello?’ I yawned.

  ‘You took so long.’

  ‘I fell asleep and I thought I was dreaming that the phone was ringing. Who is it?’ I stifled another yawn.

  ‘It’s Kirrali.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Kirrali Lewis,’ she paused. ‘Your biological daughter.’

  It was as if all my nerve endings had been jump-started. ‘I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to ring. I mean I hoped you would but I couldn’t be sure that you would. And so soon. Hell, I didn’t mean that — it’s not too soon. And I didn’t even know your name. What am I saying? Sorry, sorry. It’s not
meant to happen like this.’ I fell back onto the bed.

  ‘Well, the woman at Family Connect said there was no such thing as the perfect reunion. She said that there was always some drama associated with them. She also told me off for not waiting until she had contacted you to smooth the way. So it’s my fault really,’ she laughed nervously.

  ‘I wouldn’t say it’s your fault.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘Is it okay I’ve rung you? They were going to do it but since the horse had bolted, so to speak, they just wished me all the best.’

  ‘I’ve been hoping you would, to give me another chance,’ I said. ‘Would you? Would you give me a chance to make it up to you?’ My eyes welled with tears of unfulfilled longing.

  She was silent for a long time.

  ‘Look, I’m not sure what you want from me,’ she finally said. ‘I thought I knew what I wanted from you, to know a bit more about my family, my culture, where I’m from. But everything’s changed now.’

  ‘You mean because I’m not Aboriginal? Not who you expected me to be?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It felt like she was slipping away. I had to say something, quickly. ‘I might still be able to give you some of the answers that you’re looking for. We could meet ...’

  ‘I’m not sure about that. I rang to ask if you could send me any documents. About my birth. Who my birth father is and stuff. I am sorry. I thought I was ready for all this but ...’

  ‘I don’t know whether you can ever be ready for something as big as this. I know I’m not and yet I’ve been half expecting this moment for a long time.’

  The truth of that statement shocked me. I had tried to suppress all thoughts about my daughter but over the years I’d developed the habit of searching the faces of Koori girls, looking for a family likeness, her father’s eyes. If I saw a girl around the right age who I didn’t know, I would ask about her family background. It was easy enough to do. It’s natural to ask Koori people where they’re from and who their families are. As I watched my friends’ children grow up, my inner yearning to meet her became stronger.