I’d always considered myself to be a fairly switched on sort of woman but I sure sulked that day. I felt like I was eighteen again. Not that anyone noticed — all the attention was on Kirrali. We sat down to a formal Sunday lunch and Mum had outdone herself. There was smoked salmon for entree, followed by roast pork with all the trimmings and macaroni cheese for me, the vegetarian. There was wine and champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice in case Kirrali didn’t drink alcohol. The flowers matched the tablecloth that matched the shade of my mother’s dress that matched the centrepiece. It made me feel nauseous and my appetite failed me. Kirrali ate like a horse.
‘Another serving, Kirrali?’ urged Mum. ‘More apple sauce? Another potato?’
‘They are delicious, Mrs Taylor,’ said Kirrali tentatively.
My mother beamed, ‘Kirrali, please, call me Nancy. We understand you’re doing a law degree at university. Alistair was a law clerk when he was younger.’
‘I would have liked to study law but Nancy swept me off my feet and before I knew it I had a family to provide for. So I gave up the idea and the years of study and began working as a design draftsman. Not that I’m complaining. It was a good way to earn a living but not as exciting as the cut and thrust of the law. What area are you interested in, Kirrali?’
‘Well, I thought it was corporate law but maybe international law offers more scope for travel. I’m not sure. I still have a long way to go and my interests seem to be changing all the time.’ She gave a little smile at this and I wondered what was behind it.
‘Yes, travel while you’re young, Kirrali. Before you get tied down with babies,’ said my mother and then she blushed as she realised what she had said.
I had never been ‘tied down’ by a baby. I had never travelled either. I wondered whether I should point that out but the conversation had already moved on.
‘Kirrali says that she likes old houses, Nancy. Perhaps I can take her on a tour and then we might make room for that pavlova of yours,’ said Dad.
‘Can we come too, can we, can we?’ The boys were clamouring for Kirrali’s attention, climbing over her.
‘Sure,’ smiled Kirrali, and so off they went, leaving me to clear the dishes with Helen, while my mother fussed over dessert. My mother frequently reminded me that Helen was a lovely person but I found her annoying. I could never quite work out if she was really ignorant or just pretending.
‘So, Cherie, how amazing it must be to suddenly have a daughter. I envy you missing out on the nappy stage, let alone the sleepless nights when they’re teething,’ she sniggered.
‘Sure, I haven’t missed too much sleep over my child,’ I said, but the sarcasm zoomed right past her.
‘Is she going to move in with you? That would take a bit of adjusting, eh? No more men over to stay.’
‘I think you overestimate my social life, Helen. But a single girl’s life must seem like heaven to a mother of two active boys. Why don’t you sit down and rest?’ My voice was saccharine sweet.
Helen’s face crumbled a little but she wasn’t out of ammunition. ‘I’m fine. But, Cherie, I must say you’ve timed this all very well. Aborigines are the flavour of the month at the moment. Aboriginal athletes — that tennis player’s very popular — why there’s even an Aborigine on the Flying Doctors!’
‘An Aboriginal on television? And he’s not playing the bad guy? How amazing. It’s only taken two hundred years of massacres, oppression and what generally amounts to genocide. I’m really glad that Aboriginal people are finally having their fifteen minutes of fame!’ I slammed the dishwasher shut and stomped out of the room.
I sat stewing in the lounge room — flicking through one of those imported women’s magazines full of European royalty — until the others returned. As they drifted back in, Helen threw me a superior look and we resumed our places at the table for the pavlova.
As soon as the dessert bowls were cleared, I announced that Kirrali and I needed to get going. Mum protested and Dad urged us to stay longer but the truth was I couldn’t face another minute there.
It was raining and so Dad insisted in driving us into the city. I chose to sit in the back while Kirrali sat up front and talked with my father. Something about sitting in the padded comfort of the back seat made me feel very small. I turned towards the steamed-up window and my tears slid down on to the plush velour. My father and my daughter didn’t notice. Daughter. Before I’d had the chance to establish any kind of relationship with Kirrali, she’d been hijacked by my parents. Part of me knew that I was being childish but I couldn’t let the feelings go.
They dropped me off, without even bothering to get out of the car, although Kirrali did thank me for taking her to meet her grandparents. I gave her a weak smile but it was hard to keep up the pretence. I dashed through the rain to my apartment building and from behind the glass security door, I watched the red lights of the car disappear down the street. Bad weather all round.
After the ‘prodigal granddaughter’ lunch, I had one nagging question. How did my parents know Kirrali was Koori? My mind went into overdrive with conspiracy theories. They had hired a private detective to investigate her. No, worse, they had hired a detective way back when I was seeing Charley so they knew whom I’d been pregnant to. They knew he was my lover and they’d paid him off. The truth was much more surprising.
I went over to see Dad on a Tuesday night when I knew Mum would be out playing bridge. He was a little surprised to see me turn up without notice. We did the usual niceties, how unseasonably warm it had been the last few days, asking about each other’s health — he had a few twinges — before I got down to the business of my visit.
‘Dad, I’ve been wondering how you knew Kirrali was Aboriginal?’
‘Ahhh, that …’ He turned from me and started fossicking around in the bureau drawer. ‘I don’t know where she keeps it.’
He flicked through a small photo album and pulled out a photograph. It was of a baby, brown-skinned and fat-cheeked, dressed in a lemon jumpsuit embroidered with little chickens and a white knitted lacy jacket. I stared at the photo. My heart was racing.
‘I don’t understand. How did you get this?’ I searched his face.
‘It was your mother. She asked the nurses at the home to send us a photo of the baby. Your mother knitted that jacket. Of course, she wasn’t sure if it would be a girl or a boy.’
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t stop staring at the photo. She was so beautiful.
‘I never had a photo of her, my baby. You had one all along.’ My eyes pooled with tears.
Dad turned back to the bureau and pulled out a parcel wrapped in brown paper with string. It was my mother’s old-fashioned way of wrapping. He handed it to me and I reached for the scissors, carefully cutting the string so it could be reused, just as I had been taught.
‘She was going to give you this but I don’t think she’d mind if I gave it to you now.’
It was the baby photo, enlarged, in a carved wooden frame. It was like all those photos I’d seen sitting on the desks of my colleagues at the Art House. Except this was a photo of my baby, the baby who grew up to be Kirrali Lewis. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
‘Don’t be too hard on your mother,’ Dad said quietly. ‘She always hoped you might want to talk about the baby. All these years, she wanted to say something.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘She never once showed me she cared. When I came home from that horrible place, nothing was said. I was just expected to get on with it. Why didn’t she say anything?’
‘She felt it wasn’t her place. She was waiting for a signal from you. It was painful for her too, Cherie. Knowing there was a granddaughter out there. Wondering. You never forget, you know. You would know all about that.’
‘Yes. I do …’ I wrapped my arms around him and for the first time since I was a little girl, I cried in my father’s arms.
‘We’re so sorry, Cherie. It’s a sad business. For everyone. But now we need to make
amends. It’s not too late.’
It wasn’t too late. But what I had to do wouldn’t be easy. I needed to forgive.
Twenty-two
I finally caught up with Charley at a book launch at the Koori Legal Resource. I’d sent the message around the traps that I needed to speak with him but as usual he hadn’t got back to me. I knew I’d catch up with him eventually. The circles in which we moved were too small for us to avoid each other indefinitely. The book was on Aboriginal activism in the seventies, the halcyon days of grassroots black politics. Charley gave a clever and funny speech about the events of the time — the sit-ins at universities, the Tent Embassy in Canberra, land rights marches. You name it and Charley had been there — stirring, rallying the troops, waving the flag, pumping his fist in the air. After the speeches, the crowd surged towards the drinks and nibbles and I wove my way across the room towards him.
The brief hug only hinted at our previous intimacy. Our relationship was a classic love–hate — well if not hate, indifference. I loved him and he didn’t care about me. After all, I was a white person. It was amazing that we had managed a truce long enough to get me pregnant.
‘How ya going?’ he asked, barely looking at me.
I, on the other hand, devoured the sight of him. He looked just the same — although he was thinner and seemed a little tired, but didn’t we all? Plus he’d shaved his head, which suited him. He looked like a warrior. He was a warrior.
‘Well, I’ve had a few things on my mind,’ I said. ‘Actually that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You got my message? That I had something to discuss with you? I left it with Leila. She answered your phone.’ I searched his face for a response. I was hoping he’d tell me who Leila was.
‘Something to discuss … That’s whitefella talk for trouble, isn’t it?’
Before I got the chance to reply, a reporter came up and said she wanted a comment from ‘Mr Opinion’. Mr Opinion ... that took me back. Charley had been looking after himself since living on the streets at the age of fourteen. He was a born leader, yet in those days he could barely write his own name. Even I hadn’t known that when he was driving taxis at night, he was ‘edumacating’ himself during the day. Much later he did a degree in politics. Charley was still my hero and yet no one had ever hurt me so much.
Finally the reporter pranced off, with a flirtatious laugh trailing her exit. Charley still had it.
‘So, white girl. What did you need to talk to me about?’
‘White girl. You haven’t called me that for years.’
I could have added ‘since we were lovers’. Tears sprang from my eyes. Now that the drought had broken, I found myself crying at anything. Charley looked at me in such a way that if I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was concerned. He took my arm and led me outside where it was cooler and quieter. I steeled myself.
‘Speaking of nineteen years ago ... Charley, you know how we …’
He nodded.
‘There’s something I didn’t tell you …’ I paused, breathing heavily. We had made the most beautiful love together, way back then. Passionate, free, gentle but I couldn’t talk to him about feelings, not then, not now.
‘You had a baby, our baby,’ he said softly. ‘It’s been doing the rounds. “Did ya hear about that white woman at the Centre who had a Koori baby and had it adopted out?” The maths was easy. You, me and baby makes three.’
I searched his face for a clue as to how he was feeling. But I couldn’t work out Charley’s emotions.
‘You know there’s no secrets in this community. They were speculating about who the father was. All sorts of names were flying about.’
‘Like?’
‘Like almost every straight blackfella around and a few that aren’t … everyone except for me.’
He started to laugh and I was relieved. I never knew how Charley was going to react. His outbursts were legendary.
‘No secrets in the community? You and I were a secret, then and now,’ I said. ‘If the scumbag journalists had got hold of this they would’ve had a field day. Gubba-hating radical blackfella with bloody Snow White as the mother of his child. Not good for your image.’
He reacted angrily. ‘You think that’s what it was about? My image? I didn’t give a stuff about my image. You don’t understand. Us blackfellas, we’re dying out. We’re being watered down by you lot,’ his voice dropped an octave. ‘To have a full-on relationship with you would have been disloyal to my sense of who I was as an Aboriginal man. It was just a moment of bloody weakness on my part. I had a duty to find a Koori woman to have children with.’
With Charley it was always the political, never the personal. ‘You could have seen it as a kind of reverse colonisation.’
He laughed, and then said something unexpected.
‘Hey, I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I shouldn’t have had a go at you. None of that is your fault. That stuff I said, I don’t believe it anymore. But that’s how I thought back then.’
I stared at him. In all my years of knowing him, I’d never heard him apologise for anything.
He grinned at me. ‘Mellowing in my old age, aren’t I, white girl?’
‘I don’t suppose you’d mellow enough to call me by my real name,’ I retorted.
Charley stared off into space for a minute, eyes glazed, and again I wasn’t sure if it was a joke. But then he snapped back. ‘Yeah, what’s your name again?’
He was straight-faced but at least this time I knew that he was joking.
‘Sorry, memory loss. Old age. Okay, Cherie Taylor. A daughter, eh? Wow, that’s deadly. Bet she’s good lookin’, eh. What’s her name?
‘Kirrali. Kirrali Lewis.’
‘Kirrali … sweet. When I heard those rumours about you ... I was hoping.’
‘You were?’ I was astounded.
‘Of course. So does she know that I’m her father?’
‘Not yet. I thought it was best if I spoke to you first.’ I hesitated. ‘I didn’t know how you’d react to the idea of having a child. With me.’
He looked at me hard, as if he was on the verge of telling me something. Then he waved it away and started fidgeting.
‘Life’s too short for me to crack it about a decision you made, rightly or wrongly, eighteen, nineteen years ago. I’m keen to meet her. If she wants to meet me, of course,’ he added.
‘She does.’
‘Great.’
All this talk was making Charley restless and I could see he was keen to get back inside with the rest of the mob. I grabbed his arm as he started to move away.
‘Thanks, Charley. You don’t know what this means.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he interrupted, as usual impatient with any conversation of an intimate nature. ‘Get her to call me soon, okay? Real soon. I mean it.’
The rest of the evening was spent chatting and laughing with old mates. Every now and then I would catch myself glancing over at Charley working the other side of the room. Who said you can’t teach old dogs new tricks? I was shedding tears and Charley was being empathetic.
The next day I woke early. I had to force myself to wait until 8.30 to ring Kirrali’s college. I asked the floor supervisor, a young woman called Luda, to pass on a message to her straight away. When I still hadn’t heard back from her by mid-morning, I rang again. Luda said that Kirrali had probably gone home for the weekend, and no, she wasn’t permitted to give out her home phone number. I’m her mother, I wanted to say, but of course I didn’t. I considered ringing all the Lewis’s in the phone book but I didn’t even know where her parents lived. I’d just have to wait until Monday before I could let her know that I’d made contact with Charley.
I wandered around the streets window-shopping all morning, oblivious to what I was looking at, and then on the way home, I called into my local café. I was sipping a strong black coffee, without really tasting it, when Elise, my workmate from the Art House, walked in.
‘When I couldn’t catch you at home, I t
hought I’d send out a search party. Do you realise you stood me up?’
I grimaced, remembering we’d talked about seeing the film Desperately Seeking Susan. We’d both wanted to see if Madonna could act. But that arrangement was made before Kirrali came back into my life.
‘I completely forgot! I am sorry. It’s just that I’ve got so much on my mind at the moment.’
She sighed. ‘Work troubles, men troubles or mother troubles?’
I smiled. All those issues that previously would have loomed high on my list to whinge about now seemed less important.
‘Actually, mother troubles. But not my mother.’
Elise looked at me, puzzled.
‘I can’t think of an easy way to say this. I had a baby, eighteen years ago. I gave her up for adoption and now she has found me.’
I scanned Elise’s face for her response. Please don’t judge me harshly, I thought. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.
‘You ... have … a child? That’s, well, that’s great, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is ... It is great, isn’t it? You’re right. You know, I’ve never, ever celebrated that fact that I have a daughter. Wow. I have a daughter!’ My voice rose almost to a shout. ‘This calls for champagne.’
Elise gave me a hug and over a bottle of the French stuff, I told her the whole story. I was on a high and the only sobering thought was that maybe Kirrali didn’t feel the same way about me as I was beginning to feel about her.
My Sunday morning sleep-in was ruined by a phone call. An insistent phone call.
‘Have you told our daughter about me?’
‘Well, hello to you too and how are you?’ I replied, my voice tinged with sarcasm.
Becoming Kirrali Lewis Page 14
