Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea (11 page)

It's JJ's school play tonight and I've been trying to think of excuses all day to get out of it, but I know JJ wants me to see him sing so I'm going to put on a happy face just for him and go. Although I loved rehearsing and performing in my school plays as a kid, I came to realise early on that the tedium of sitting through all the other plays while waiting for Julie's class to have their turn just wasn't worth the effort. But mummy loves this sort of thing and tonight she is taking great pains with her appearance. She can't decide which top to wear and has a number of them laid out on her bed for inspection.

‘That one,' I say, choosing the simple green one which looks particularly nice against her black skin, and out of the two would go best with the blue pleated skirt with the green thread through it that she has already chosen. To my
surprise she puts the green one back on the shelf and dons the retro ruffled pink polyester monstrosity.

‘Mummy,' I say. ‘You look like a fucking clown, don't you think the green one would be better?'

‘No,' she says.

‘Well, why ask what I think then?'

She ignores me, picks up her mismatched beige handbag and puts on her black shoes and off we go.

On our way past we call to Aunty Ursula outside her house on the corner so we can all walk together. Aunty can't praise mummy enough over her shirt, she loves it and so does everybody else we pass on the way to the basketball court where the concert is being held. Buttons and ruffles are lovingly caressed as mummy basks in the glory of her sartorial nightmare. There is absolutely no explanation for this weird behaviour and even some of the men are casting admiring glances in mummy's direction.

‘You mummy got fashion,' says Aunty Ursula admiringly while I try not to laugh. Fashion! I think of some of the weird and wonderful outfits mummy has worn recently, the knee-length baby pink evening dress with a Star Wars T-shirt, the tartan skirt with a chequered cowgirl shirt, the grey pinafore with a short-sleeved man's striped office shirt. Her dreadful fashion sense certainly doesn't have any logical explanation except that she likes to draw attention to herself. I now find myself looking forward to
the concert so I don't have to listen to everyone prattling on about mummy's damned shirt.

The first performance isn't so bad, a bunch of kids singing out-of-tune Christmas carols with great gusto with their teacher up there in front conducting the little ratbags like she was conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. The next one is a nativity scene. There are cardboard cut-outs of Australian native animals instead of the usual assortment of hoofed and cloven-hoofed creatures. Baby Jesus is a black doll and the manger is a cardboard box covered with brown paper. There is a red and orange cellophane fire. I like this one, it shows imagination. Then comes my JJ's class. I spot his shining little face peeking through giant orange flower petals mouthing the words to a pre-recorded tape. Now this teacher has the right idea because unless there's a power failure there'll be no stuff-ups for this play. I pride myself on the fact that I can actually recognise JJ's best friend. Up until this point I've had difficulty identifying individuals because it's so hard to tell who is who in the sea of black faces unless they have a feature that really stands out.

JJ's performance finishes and I look around to see if I can escape and sneak off home without drawing attention to myself. I think there are another four classes and I know I don't have the stamina to sit through any more. Suddenly a dog races onto the stage area hotly pursued by three others. ‘
Pulangamwanga
,' Mario whispers in my
ear. Oh, okay, a female dog. She's obviously on heat by the way the other three are carrying on around her. Someone yells at the dogs and a few of the kids try to shoo them off the stage. Suddenly all four dogs start fighting,
pulangamwanga
is busy trying to defend her virtue while the other three are desperately trying to take it, and all we can see is a blur of camp dogs and snapping teeth. Kids scatter in all directions except for two unfortunate boys who are knocked over and then trampled by the fighting dogs. A strangled scream is heard above the snarling as one kid tries to kick and wriggle his way out of the fracas. The other one manages to extricate himself from the flying paws and teeth only to roll face-first into a pram parked at the side of the stage. The poor little bastard lets out another scream. Holding his right eye he leaps to his feet and runs into another kid who gets thrown headlong against a rubbish bin. It's like a Monty Python skit. The boy who hit the rubbish bin manages to right himself and disappears at full speed into the night. In the ensuing confusion one of the more opportunistic males leaps onto the female and starts humping her for all he's worth. A red-faced nun whacks the humping dogs with a stick and is bowled over by one of the other dogs who has decided to see if he can have a go as well. Another nun helps her to her feet and they scurry off to safety. I can't see anything now because I'm laughing so hard with tears rolling down my face, and so is Mario. Mummy is disgusted and moves to another
seat where she doesn't have to look at us. She has no sense of humour and whinges about our bad manners all the way home, but Mario and I are really looking forward to next year's concert.

Women aren't supposed to wear shorts here. Apparently from puberty until you become an old crone, as a woman exposing your thighs is worse than exposing your breasts but not as bad as exposing your fanny or your arse. And exposing your midriff if the breasts and the other parts are covered is marginally less of a sin than exposing your thighs. It has taken mummy, Aunty Beatrice, Aunty Ursula and Aunty Ruthie a good hour to explain this to me while I have done my best to absorb this new knowledge. But I just can't seem to get the point of what they are going on about and I tell them so.

‘You see all dem mens at your Daddy Timothy's taputa?' asks mummy in exasperation. I look next door to my kinship father's place. My Daddy Clarence is there as usual, ever watchful and smiling, and today with him
and Timothy are four other blokes of various ages sitting on the veranda smoking and chatting. Sometimes there's quite a crowd milling around.

‘Well, whadya tink dem mens is dere for?' asks Aunty Ruthie in a much kinder tone of voice than mummy, but still admonishing all the same.

‘It's a men's group,' I say helpfully.

‘Dem looking at you arse, you stupit girl!' snarls mummy as she waves her walking stick in their direction. The blokes immediately look the other way, everybody knows you don't get mummy riled up.

‘But Timothy and Clarence are my daddys,' I say in their defence. I've been over there and had tea with them and talked about stuff, they've never said or done things they shouldn't.

‘Dem men,' says Aunty Beatrice in her calm wise voice. ‘An men only think for one thing.'

‘I try tell her too, but she got blocked ear,' says mummy with a steely glint in her eye. ‘She don't listen. She know ebrysing.'

I glare at mummy, she's never said a word to me about the blokes perving at my arse before. She has whined about my lacy underwear hanging on the clothesline for all to see but she has never said anything about perving blokes.

But I get it now. When I'm wearing my shorts and boob tubes I'm showing parts of my body that I shouldn't be showing. I go into my room and sulk a bit and then
mummy takes me to Bima Wear where some of the women sew clothes that have been made out of their own screen-printed materials. She knows I won't have a bar of the second-hand clothes trade that operates out of the mission, from which she has a massive collection and which she makes a small profit from by selling them on to the women who are too lazy to walk to the mission and scrounge for themselves.

The screen printing is beautiful but the designs are not and they don't have my size 10, there are only large and extra-large. I have a choice of flowing skirts and T-shirts, or dresses. I go for the dresses because apart from my underwear I will only have one thing to wash then. Sister Kathleen who manages Bima Wear runs a critical eye over my halter-neck top and tight skirt as she hands me a dress to put on in the changing room and puts the other new dresses into a bag. ‘Good choice,' she says to mummy as I walk away. The dresses come down to my mid-calf and are big enough to accommodate three of me comfortably. One shoulder keeps slipping off exposing my wild racy-coloured bra and I have to be careful how far I bend over as you can see down the yawning neckline all the way past my underwear to my legs. When I stand up my bra is exposed through the large armholes which is more embarrassing to me than exposing my legs in a pair of shorts. This is acceptable to mummy though and she is all smiles when we leave Bima Wear. She tells me on the way home
that Bima Wear was set up so the women could make uniforms for everyone to wear because the mission didn't like people walking around half-naked. I'm not surprised.

I put aside two sets of clothes from my former wardrobe in case I go shopping in Darwin or something and hand over the rest to my gay cousin-brothers, the sister-girls as we call them. And don't they love it. Shorts, sarongs, miniskirts, halter tops – out they go. At first there is great excitement as they try everything on with music blaring and lots of dancing but soon there are tears.

‘I want im top,' cries FT pointing to the purple halter-neck that CJ is wearing.

‘Im mine, I got im first!' wails CJ. ‘You nothing but mattress, ebryone lie on you,' he sulks as he rips off the top and flings it at FT.

‘Did you hear em dat sister-girl, he call me fucken mattress!' shrieks FT. ‘That fucken cunt, im two fucken mattress!'

‘No one's a mattress,' I say placating to FT and CJ as I place myself between them in case they start slapping each other and pulling hair. Meanwhile VM rushes over, snatches the purple halter-neck top from the floor and darts out the door. Shocked at the sudden theft both FT and CJ scream abuse at VM's figure as he runs off down the road. Behind me a sarong rips in half as two sets of hands grapple with it. Another sister-girl I don't know waddles towards the door wearing two pairs of shorts, a miniskirt as a boob
tube and a sarong artfully arranged around his head like a turban. FT cuts him off, wrestles him to the floor and skins the shorts off him before he knows what's hit him while GB rips the turban from his head. I quickly avert my eyes as he wrestles the miniskirt down over himself, the poor bugger isn't wearing any jocks. He then rips the sarong/turban back from GB who was momentarily distracted by his nakedness, and wrapping it around himself disappears out the back door. I pause for a moment to wonder what he was wearing on his lower half before he got here. But the word has gotten around and more sister-girls turn up and I bolt into my bedroom and shut the door. I have nothing to barricade the door with so I sit there on my blow-up mattress with my hairdryer in my hand ready to crack someone with if they come into my room. It's mayhem out there. Above Donna Summer warbling ‘She works hard for the money' I hear the sound of sharp cries and scuffling feet against the other side of my bedroom wall. There is a cacophony of voices. Someone is laughing while someone else is giving someone a good serve. There is the crash of something in the kitchen. Suddenly I hear feet charging down the front steps, and through the curtains I see shapes rush past my bedroom window and scatter in all directions. Donna Summer ends and the sultry sounds of Barry White crooning ‘Can't get enough of your love, baby' fill the air. I strain my ears and detect the sound of mummy's walking stick tapping across the floor. Then
I hear Barry White shift position and an almighty crash as the boom-box and our mate Barry find themselves in a mangled heap on the front lawn.

After that I see my clothes on people everywhere, in the store, at the barge landing, at the council office, while I walk around in my new daggy clothes. And mummy is happy now too, although the blokes still hang around next door.

This is the first Christmas I've spent with my family for twenty-five years and I want it to be so amazing that no one will ever forget it. JJ and I have found a nice sapling for a Christmas tree and tied it to a front veranda post. We've made pandanus loops on shells and hung them on the tree and mummy has woven a pandanus fairy for the top. It looks like a
mopaditi
, a monster, which makes it even better. Mario is off fishing and doesn't know it yet but we've made paper chains out of his pornographic magazines by ripping the pages into strips and then sticking them together with sticky tape. Although we would have preferred to avoid boobs and arses along with the ruder bits, we have decided to use the boobs and arses because these take up most of the magazines and we can have longer chains. Theresa Anne looks real happy that we've
put Mario's magazines to good use and is ripping away with great enthusiasm, helped by baby Casmira. There is a cheerful buzz as we all rip and stick away while mummy plays solitaire. When we've finished, JJ sneaks over the road and dumps the leftover bits of magazine into Aunty Marie Evelyn's rubbish bin. This is so Mario won't see them if he puts anything in our bin and because aunty will blame her sons Josh, Mark and Jamie for the magazines if she spots them, relieving us of any culpability.

Mummy makes a damper and we have a bit of lunch before stringing the chains up around the house and across the windows. I silently applaud the pornographic industry's use of high-quality paper as the superior gloss shimmers alluringly in the reflected light. It looks fabulous.

Mario gets home sooner than we expected but he is all smiles and congratulations when he sees our hard work. That is until he spies a buxom pair of boobs. He takes a few steps closer to scrutinise the paper chain bobbing happily in the breeze but it takes a few seconds for the penny to drop. When it does Mario is livid and he gives Theresa Anne a good spray, waving his arms around agitatedly. She waits patiently until he has finished and then gets to her feet. Hands on ample hips she then gives him a blast so fierce that it nearly plasters him to the wall. I am impressed, I've never seen anyone do that before. Then she gives him another blast for good measure. I wait for her voice to crack under the pressure but the force
doesn't waver for even a second. But Mario hasn't finished with Theresa Anne and he raises his voice a few decibels higher, the words tumbling out so furiously they sound like automatic machine gun fire. They both suddenly stop and stand, glaring at each other, then to my astonishment Theresa Anne grabs the sides of Mario's shorts with both hands and yanks them down. For the space of a heartbeat I get a face full of my brother's genitals. I quickly look to see mummy's reaction but she is serenely gazing out of the window like nothing is happening. I think she's seen it all before. I look back just as Theresa Anne is bending over to sit on the floor, a triumphant look on her face. Mario has his shorts back in place but with pure evil in his eyes he snatches Theresa Anne's elastic-waisted skirt in both hands before she can take a seat. He gives it a big tug and Theresa Anne's skirt is around her knees, her big black arse exposed in all its glory. Casmira starts to cry and heads for the safety of mummy's lap while I take off before anything else happens.

Christmas morning dawns bright and beautiful. Mummy has already been to midnight mass and I tell her that God and Jesus and the Holy Trinity and all the angels and saints are happy with that effort so she doesn't have to go again this morning to prove her devotion. She is only convinced when she sees that we're not hanging around and we're going to Tarntippi waterhole without her. We pack Mario's ute with food and some of the dogs and head
off. Louis has a box of goodies that he says we can't see until we get to the waterhole, and he keeps it on his lap so I can't have a peek when he's not looking. The waterhole is about fifteen kilometres from Nguiu in a beautiful green and shady place. The water is crystal-clear and fed by a spring that never runs dry. It tinkles over a little waterfall and then gently off through the trees towards the beach a few kilometres away. I have never seen where it runs into the sea so maybe it goes back underground to resurface somewhere else. Apparently there are no crocodiles in this waterhole but sometimes wild cattle come down to drink over the other side which has more bush. JJ and I jump into the water and float around while mummy makes a fire for the billy and to cook the food. No one lets me cook anything on the fire because I like my food well done and sometimes burn it and then I get offended when no one wants to eat it. But I don't like meat the way my family do, with the blood still oozing out of it, so they put mine on first and add theirs a bit later so we can all eat at the same time.

I haven't forgotten about Louis' box of goodies and ask him what's in it. He tells me he was keeping it for after lunch but we sneak off to the ute and he says to close my eyes for a minute while he rustles around. I hear the muffled clink of glass against glass and know immediately he has some alcohol. I open my eyes and there are four large bottles of Bundaberg rum that Louis has had smuggled in
from Darwin. I don't ask who smuggled them in, that way I can't tell a lie if someone asks me. I immediately think of the three hundred dollars that Louis borrowed off me last week. I ask him if he spent the money on this and he nods with a radiant smile on his face. I tell him it's a bit rude that I have to pay for my own Christmas present but Louis smiles again and cracks the top off one bottle and lets me have a quick swig. I've never tasted rum before and it feels like sweet liquid fire in my mouth. I swallow and the rum does a bit of a dance around my tonsils before leaving a fiery streak down my gullet and into my stomach. Wow. There is one for Louis, me, Mario and mummy if she wants it. I couldn't think of a better Christmas present. We go back into the waterhole and I float around and look at the blue sky and the fluffy clouds with the taste of rum in my mouth.

There is none of that turkey and plum pudding and mince pies here, for our barbecue we have fresh pork courtesy of our cousin Colin and his hunting dogs, dugong from somebody else and lamb chops from the store with oranges to wash it all down. Halfway through eating, Louis pulls out the rum and everyone cheers. Louis, Mario and I have one bottle each and mummy says she will share her bottle with Theresa Anne who likes a drink every now and then. I give JJ a taste of mine and he screws up his little face and spits it out and then does a brilliant dive-bomb into the waterhole.

Being Christmas Day everyone else is back at Nguiu and we've got the waterhole all to ourselves although people might come out later in the afternoon. It's a beautiful place and we all swim and eat and laze around. Next thing Theresa Anne is giving Mario a tongue-lashing about looking at other women all the time and mummy gets up and walks over and sits with us on the bank. I notice that along with her bottle of rum she has brought the tomahawk with her. Then Theresa Anne cracks Mario on the head with a bottle of frozen water and knocks him to the ground. He stays there while she sticks the boot in. I ask mummy why she let her drink the rum if she can't handle it and mummy says it's safer than saying no. Theresa Anne is still carrying on and I want to go and stop them but mummy says NO with that ‘don't mess with me' look on her face. So we turn our backs on the ugly scene and watch JJ playing with Casmira in the water. It distracts me a bit but I still can't block out the sounds behind me.

Next thing Panacua and Yuwalinga, Mario's dog, are barking their heads off in the scrub nearby. They're always barking so nobody takes any notice until we feel the thump, thump, thump of a large animal approaching. Our heads shoot around in unison and to my horror a large scrub bull emerges into the northern part of the clearing with Panacua and Yuwalinga snapping at its heels. It's really grumpy and is kicking at the dogs and shaking its horns at them. Mario and Theresa Anne, their fight
forgotten, are edging towards the ute hoping not to get spotted. But, too late, the bull looks around and sees them.

Meanwhile JJ has taken Casmira around the other side of the waterfall and is crouching in the shallows with her while mummy and I hide behind the closest cover, some reeds a few metres away on the bank. Louis has found a tree to hide behind in the opposite direction from Mario and Theresa Anne and has yelled out to distract the bull so that they can leg it to the safety of the ute. But it wants Mario and Theresa Anne, not Louis, and starts to scrape up the dirt with its hooves. The dogs are now barking hysterically but it's ignoring them as well. There is a big black wattle on the bank about four metres away in Louis' direction so I leap out of the water and shimmy up the trunk, yelling at the bull along with Louis. The two of us making a ruckus does the trick and it turns to look, first in the direction of where Louis is hiding behind the tree yelling and then in my direction. With the bull looking the other way Mario and Theresa Anne have wasted no time and have reached the ute and flung themselves in and slammed the doors. Mario starts the engine and tooting the horn drives off up the track in a hail of gravel in an effort to lure the bull after it. But the bull stays put and only Panacua and Yuwalinga chase after the ute barking, thinking they are getting left behind. Mario pulls up and the dogs leap into the back and then he's off again. But my spot in the fork of the tree has interrupted the progress of a
line of ants marching from their nest in the top of the tree to the ground and suddenly they are swarming all over me. I feel one bite my fanny and let off a stream of curses. They are walking around my voluminous dress under my bra and down my back, the fucking things are everywhere. I slap at the ants and pray the bull will bugger off so I can jump into the water away from this torment.

Meantime the bull, who is obviously getting bored with its encounter with humans, wanders over to the waterhole for a drink from the bank between mummy in the reeds and Louis behind his tree. I watch Louis sidle around the trunk so as to keep it between him and the bull while I look for mummy but she has disappeared from view altogether. The bull has an earthy but not unpleasant smell. It gives a big sigh and then wanders off the way it came, its tail flicking at annoying flies on its back. When it has disappeared I jump out of the tree and leap into the water hoping to drown as many ants as I can. There are big welts starting to appear all over my body and they feel like they are on fire.

When we pull up at home all I want to do is stand under a cold shower but the power is out which means the water pump isn't working which means I can't. I am so crapped off. Mario and Theresa Anne have taken up their fight where they left off and now mummy and Louis are having a go at each other too so I go into my room with JJ and shut the door and I teach him how to play gin rummy.
It has certainly been a Christmas Day to remember although I don't know if I want to do it quite like that again. I've never really enjoyed Christmas anyway so it might be better to just avoid it altogether.