I’m the first born of Ma and Dad and come into this world a healthy seven and half pound baby. I stayed that way for the first coupla years of me life, living with Ma and Dad out in the desert country.
Then Ma went to hospital to have my brother. She left me laughing, happy and healthy. Five days later she returned to me lying in a cot, barely able to breathe. She tried to make me stand. I collapsed. She took me in her arms and ran the five miles into town. That was the beginning of me nightmare. I was real sick. The doctors flew me to a hospital for children in the city and...
I stayed there for a few years. When I was well enough, I was sent to a convalescent home to learn to walk again, to be rehabilitated. For the next three years, from the onset of the illness to me eventual reunion with me family, I did not once see another blackfulla, let alone even see another Aboriginal face.
When you’re a little fulla you see your reflection in those around you. And all the faces that surrounded me were white. They wore stiff, starched uniforms, everything was clean, antiseptic, and everything was ordered. I lived in a safe, clean, little white world.
Then came the day that me and Ma and Dad will never forgit. It started out like any other day – up early, bathed, fed. The only thing different I was dressed in a brand new pinafore, new top, shoes, socks and me hair was tied in ribbons. I was thinkin I was goin for a day out with Linda the cook. Anyway, I was excited about the new clothes. I felt like a princess. Then I was told I was going to meet some special people and they were taking me on a long journey.
‘But they’ll bring me home, won’t they?’ I said.
They were evasive. ‘Maybe one day. For a visit.’
‘Are they taking me away forever and ever? They can’t do that, can they?’
I saw tears in the nursing sister’s eyes. I was confused and started to feel frightened.
Then I was taken into the visitors’ room where before me stood two aliens from another world. It was Ma and Dad.
‘This is your mummy and daddy,’ said the sister as she passed me to the strange dark lady.
I remember screamin. ‘She’s not Mummy, he’s not Daddy. They’re black.’
Tears streamed down their faces. I reckon it woulda hurt em real bad. I was handed over to these two dark-skinned and cryin strangers, screamin in terror. No one give me a chance to git ta know these people. After all these years they just handed me to em. Just like that.
Ma and Dad carried me, still screaming, into a bustling, noisy, crowded railway station, desperately tryin to ignore the suspicious stares of the strangers around em. All their soothin and strokin did no good. I just kept right on cryin, even when we got into the carriage at Central. Suddenly, the train began to move and soon we were passin through suburbs and then countryside. I started gittin curious.
‘Where are we goin? Is that a real cow? Are you really my mummy and daddy?’
‘We’re goin home now, me baby,’ said the dark-skinned lady.
Now that I wasn’t strugglin, she seemed so soft. Her eyes were big and brown but full of tears.
‘You mean back to the ward?’
‘No, baby girl, back to your real home. You got a baby brother and sister. They’re called Buddy and Lulla. Home to your grandma and grandpa.’
I started to relax. Daddy was makin funny faces at me and pointing out the animals. The trip seemed to take forever, but this kind and gentle woman held me all the way. When I become sleepy, I nestled my head in her breasts, and her blouse was damp from both our tears. I went to sleep.
The next morning, the train pulled up at a small railway station, smack dab in the middle of a vast red desert. There were no big trees, just little saltbush ones. A radio was blarin from the station office, breakin the eerie silence as we stepped off the train.
I was used to the big houses and leafy surrounds of the North Shore. These people I had started to trust really were aliens. They had taken me to Mars.
Daddy took me from Mum and hoisted me on his shoulders. We started walking cross the vast expanse of red earth and strange little trees. We saw some emus and a kangaroo. A big yellow lizard ran in front of us. It was so hot. We seemed to walk for miles and then I could hear the sound of laughter. Someone was strummin a guitar and singin. We walked into a clearin, where in a circle were huts made from scrap, tents and a coupla caravans. There was dogs and kids everywhere and people all the same colour as the people who had brought me here.
It sure did come as a surprise when I finally looked into a mirror and realised I was the same colour as them.
These people surrounded me. An old man with silver hair, a dark face and twinkling eyes took me from Ma’s arms and held me. ‘Me little bubby’s home at last,’ he whispered.
I was passed from grandparents, to aunts and uncles, investigated by cousins and introduced to two scrawny little black kids who they said was my brother and sister.
We walked towards a large tent. Dad was carryin me. I looked at the tent, and in me childish innocence asked, ‘Daddy, who owns this cubby house?’
He didn’t answer; just handed me to Mum.
Two hours later he came back with a large blue caravan. He just looked at Ma and said, ‘Can’t expect her to live in a tent, not after what she’s been livin’ in.’
He still talks about that day. His pride was hurt. I was just as alien to them as they were to me. He built me a tiny little toilet of my own, with pink cabbage roses cut from a women’s magazine pasted on the side.
I soon adapted, and started to forget about the hospital, forget about the convalescent home. I came to love my family.
We moved to another town with a river. Me dad bought a block of land and started work on building roads.
But my spells in hospital were far from over. For the next ten years, twice yearly I was taken kicking and screaming from Ma’s arms to Sydney for further treatment. And each time having to undergo a mind transformation in order to cope with a changin two-toned world.
Finally, when I was thirteen, I had a coupla operations to put things right. I was put through eighteen painful months more of separation from me family who were too poor and had too many other kids to look after to be able to visit me. Once again I went home a stranger. It was supposed ta be home for good this time but I couldn’t settle and a few years later I left again.
For a long time I lived in two worlds. One white, one black, and never really fitting into either. I went home often for Christmas, Easter, but family reminiscences left me out. I hadn’t been there. Me brothers and sisters didn’t seem to understand that I never wanted to be away when I was a kid.
I hardly knew the family, let alone my culture. All those years I drifted from one world to another, part of me missing.
I drank too much, probably, and could never bear to be in a job longer than six months. Anyone who tried to get too close was pushed away. It was just too hard. It was funny too. Cos even when I was in the arms of other fullas, some that I even really liked, my soul felt lonely. My skin felt lonely.
Then Antman come along.
I met him one night when I was feelin real down. Flat broke and busted on an off pay week – or as we blackfullas call it ‘bumpers and buses week’. Pay week’s always called ‘taxi and tailor-mades week’.
Anyway, I was sittin out the front of home drinkin tea and smokin rollies when me cuz Neilly Boy come cruisin up. He reckoned, ‘C’mon sista girl, got a pocket full a wulung. Git yaself styled up and we’ll go to the club for Koorioke.’
Next thing ya know, we sail into the club and sit ourselves down at a table with a bunch a sistas and a coupla brothers who want to be sistas, puffin up and drinkin top shelf.
Next thing the Koorioke starts and we git a mob of blackfullas gittin up to have a sing. We hear ‘Paper Roses’, ‘Stand by Your Man’, ‘Please Release Me’ and ‘Send Me the Pillow that you Dream On’. Everyone yells and cheers for all the singers cos they don’t want any of em, even if they’re woefuls, to feel shame.
Then next thing, this fulla gits up and starts singin ‘Heard It through the Grapevine’ and everyone shuts up and starts lookin and listenin. I remember seein him and the rest of the room just disappearin. I could only see him; I could only hear him.
It aint that he was the best lookin fulla I ever saw, it was just that it felt like I was seein the lights of home for the first time. Next thing ya know, he’s lookin right back at me while he’s singin and when he finishes he comes straight over and introduces himself. That was it. I went home with him that night. We talked all night bout all kinds of things.
Turns out Antman had been crook when he was little fulla too. Spent a long time away from his family, just like me. We loved the same things – readin books, listenin to music, dogs, Slim Dusty, bein outside.
And before too long, we loved each other. Two days later he drove round to the house I’d been livin in and I packed a suitcase, grabbed my guitar and we aint been apart since.
It wasn’t easy the first year. We was both used to bein on our own, doin what we pleased. We kept pullin each other in different directions.
One night, after I had too much drink, we had a terrible fight. The next day I was feelin sorry, feelin shame, askin him to forgive me.
He looked at me and said, ‘I bet you’ve done this a thousand times. Always asking for forgiveness, always thinking it’s your fault. You don’t think you’re worthy of love. You don’t know yourself. I gotta take you home, girl. Back to your people, your country. It won’t be easy but you’ll never find peace until you stop runnin.’
For the first time I listened to what someone else had to say. Finally someone was makin sense.
The next week we packed up the car and he took me back to the red dirt. Back to family, country and culture.
We lived for the next coupla a years with my mob. We listened to the stories of our old people, learnt our language. I discovered my blackness. It wasn’t easy. Strangely enough, while I was feeling sorry for myself because of my sickness and enforced separation, turns out the rest of the kids thought I had lived a privileged life.
One night me, Antman, Ma, Dad and me brothers and sisters had a few beers and we all started to talk about that day when they picked me up from the hospital. Ma told me how it tore her heart out to hear me say she couldn’t be me mother. Dad told me how small he felt when I asked who lived in the cubby house that up until then had been their home. They told me how they suffered each time I went away. My brothers and sisters told me that they thought I lived a life of glamour; that I had it easy, that I had deserted them. They said they understood now that it was not my choice. Everyone told me how they wanted to protect me, wrap me in cotton wool, but they loved me enough not to.
Suddenly we were all crying. They were tears for what we had lost and tears for what we had gained. They were the warm salty tears of healing, and once again I lay my head on Ma’s breast. Once again her blouse was damp from our intermingled tears.
After that night, me and Antman reckoned it was time to go back to the city for a spell. Just before we were about to leave one of me sisters come by with a little bundle of pure white fluff. Lulla reckoned they couldn’t find im a home cos he had a gammy leg from birth. She reckoned we needed him and he needed us. Antman took im from her and give im a big cuddle and said,
‘Welcome home, ya little fleabag.’
And that was that. The next day he sat in the front seat between the two of us and he’s been ridin there ever since. He’s the greatest little mutt ever. He’s cheeky and smart and he don’t worry bout his gammy leg, just runs with the rest of the pack. All the blackfullas love im ta bits, specially the old fullas who fuss over im and tell us off if they reckon we aint lookin after im. Lulla was right, we sure did need that little fulla. Still do.
Fleabag’s our kid. Antman can’t have kids on account he had ta have chemotherapy when he was young and my sickness meant I couldn’t have any either. I suppose we three was just meant to hook up.
A few months after we got Flea, we was all lyin in bed. It was early mornin, just before the sun come up. Antman was asleep with his arm across my belly and Fleabag’s usin my leg for a pillow.
I suddenly felt all the loneliness leave me, finally makin room for all the good things in life, like family, laughin, travellin and, best of all, love.
Suddenly I felt all together. There was no more lonely soul, no more lonely skin.