Tiddas (23 page)

Strolling local streets made Veronica appreciate how the natural environment had changed over time. On her walks she often considered the local parks named after whitefellas or British places – Aberdeen Court and Glenferrie, for example, as well as the many streets with Murri names – Currawang, Murrua, Yuruga, Cooinda, Bombala. She didn't know many Murris in her suburb, but there were two sisters she regularly saw walking the bike path of an evening. They were always laughing with each other and sometimes had an extra person with them; every time Vee saw them she wished she could join in. In her head she had scripted what she wanted to say: ‘I'm a reconciliationist, I respect the Turrbul owners, I signed a hand for the Sea of Hands when it came to Brisbane, and I only watch NITV.' Veronica desperately wanted them to know her best friends were Kooris from New South Wales, that she called them her tiddas, and that she too cried when Kevin Rudd said ‘sorry'. She wanted to explain that growing up in Mudgee and reconnecting with her Wiradjuri tiddas – Izzy, Ellen and Xanthe – in Brisbane, meant that she had always had her radar up in terms of culture, heritage and politics. She wanted them to know that her tiddas always said she had a ‘black heart' in a good way.

But she never said any of it. She was always too insecure, too scared, not of them, but of rejection and the impact it could have on her already fragile self-esteem. Veronica knew that she would sound like a try-hard, a desperado, someone
without their own identity wanting to latch onto someone else's place in the world. She'd heard Izzy and Ellen talk about whitefellas like that, and she didn't want these local Murri women to think that about
her
. She reasoned they might not want to let her into their tight group anyway, that even if they did they would probably dump her like Alex did, because she wasn't good enough. Veronica kept the negative conversation with herself on a loop in her head, and would walk past them smiling, hoping that one day they would stop to talk to her.

A lot of the local area had been badly damaged during the big storm in November 2008, when ferocious winds hit The Gap like a mini tornado. The suburb had been left looking, in the then PM's words, like a ‘war zone'. Hailstones made their way through Veronica's dog door in the kitchen shortly after their dog fled through it. But she was out helping those whose houses were flattened in School Road as soon as the clean-up began; partially because she was a Good Samaritan, but also because such community efforts were a rare break in her otherwise mundane life.

‘Routine' was how Veronica usually described her life to others. Every Monday she did her groceries at Aldi in Ashgrove where she found the cheapest cling wrap this side of the Brisbane River. Leaving with the plastic roll and anything else she could get on sale, she'd take herself for a coffee at Tutto Café because she loved the prints of the Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower. The images would transport her to Rome and Paris in the time it took her to drink a latte and eat a piece of carrot cake. It's not that she wanted to escape
The Gap forever, but family holidays were always back to Mudgee and in later years up to Bali, and she'd never been to Europe. Even though she had planned the trips, she did so knowing that they were about what Alex really wanted and designed to appease growing boys who didn't really want to go anywhere with their parents at all.

When her boys were at school the Gap Tavern was her main social gathering place. The mothers with sons at Ashgrove State School and Marist Ashgrove – which had graduated the likes of Kevin Rudd and John Eales – would meet once a month at what they called the GT for a ladies' lunch. The gatherings had died down since the boys had all finished and even now Vee only went there on Monday nights with John. Barra-Monday was their thing, a sacred mealtime ritual mother and son shared. On Friday nights, though, like any healthy young fella, John didn't want to be with his mother; he'd rather be on Caxton Street or at the Normanby Hotel with the other young partygoers. Veronica couldn't expect her baby to hang out with her on weekends either, so she spent those days cooking up a storm, preparing platters of food for when he arrived home with mates.

When the boys were young, the GT was also where the family would go every Friday night as a treat. The patriarch was often missing though; patients still in the surgery, a conference in another city, or one of a dozen other reasons. Veronica never considered that all the time he wasn't with the family he was with another woman. Why would she think that? Didn't they have everything they needed with each other? She was a devoted wife, a loving homemaker,
a caring but not helicopter mother, and a friend to anyone who wanted her to be.

The tavern wasn't a flash establishment, not compared to some of the bars Izzy and Ellen would hang out in, like French Martini, but to Veronica it was the perfect setting for laughter, stories, families and friends. It was a place where mothers talked to each other about school and their kids, their husbands being painful when sick, and at times their own lack of self-esteem. It was a time that Veronica looked forward to because she loved hearing about what was happening in the other women's lives, and it was a place where she could find someone else to take an interest in the decisions she made around the house; carpet, drapes and recipes
did
matter to others, just not the people she lived with in Nina Street.

She occasionally went to the GT nowadays with a handful of the mothers she still saw from school, but her social life was more often than not just a soy chai latte and chips with aioli at Tara, a local café within walking distance of her home. She went there on her own, taking with her whatever book was on the list for book club or whatever the hot pick for the week was from the library. Veronica often saw another woman there doing the same, but they never spoke. Veronica was friendly but she wasn't forward, so they would just smile an ‘I-like-my-me-time' smile, sip their lattes and get on with their days. To mix up her routine, Veronica would sometimes go to the Coffee Club and face the busy street, all the while trying to hide from the owners of Tara, for fear she would be seen as betraying them. By all accounts Veronica was the
most loyal person anyone was likely to meet, and she prided herself on that.

The familiar ‘ding' of the front door opening rang across the living room and a bag was thrown on the floor in the entranceway, seconds before a body came through the arch.

‘Hey,' John said to his mother who smiled back at her six-foot tall baby son. He walked over and kissed his mum on the cheek. ‘Sorry, I'm all sweaty.'

Ellen and Xanthe just watched the love between mother and son, then waited for him to make his way around the table. John
always
greeted them with a peck and smile. Marist schooling had created real gentlemen of Veronica's boys; it was just a pity her husband hadn't gone there.

‘Hi, Aunty Ellen, hey, Aunty Xanthe.' The young man, stinky from soccer training, had always called them aunty.

‘There's some apricot chicken in the oven for you when you're ready. Do you want me to put some rice on?'

‘Nah Mum, you know I don't do carbs of a night. I'll eat the chook though, thanks, it's my favourite.' John walked towards the stairwell. ‘I'll jump in the shower first though.' As he left the room Ellen's eyes followed his muscular calves and broad shoulders.

‘What a lovely boy,' Xanthe said. ‘So polite. I can only hope to have a son half as charming.'

‘Yeah, lovely all right. He's HOT!' Ellen said.

‘God, you are terrible. He's half your age!' Xanthe sounded disgusted. ‘And he's like our nephew!'

‘And he's my son, if you don't mind,' Veronica chuckled, having learned not to take that kind of comment from Ellen too seriously. She may like to play the field, but Veronica knew Ellen wasn't poaching from a kids' footy field.

‘Take my comments as a compliment, Vee, he has
your
genes!' Ellen walked to a window overlooking the quiet street. ‘It really is gorgeous here, it's such a pretty, leafy suburb.' Ellen was impressed every time she visited Veronica's, even though she could never live so far from the river herself.

‘It's actually the green that I love the most about living here. It's refreshing to get out and walk every day around here,' Veronica said, always happy when someone else recognised that life in the 'burbs could be inspiring too.

‘Is it safe around here though, I mean after that bike path rapist they caught a few years back?' Xanthe was concerned, recalling a man going to jail for twenty-five years for attacks on eleven women in the area.

‘It's safe now, but before they caught him, one of the boys would walk with me or I just walked in the middle of the day. Now though, the bike path is full of walkers from daylight to dark, so it's pretty safe all the time. Either way, I always take Butch for a walk, so I doubt anyone will come near me.' She turned towards the huge German shepherd lying alongside the pool.

‘That dog is a serious man-magnet, Vee. That's what you should call him.' Ellen looked as if a light bulb had just turned on in her head. She spun around from leaning against the
screen door. ‘Actually, I should borrow Butch sometime when, you know, I'm in need.'

‘When you're on heat more like it,' Xanthe said out loud, and out of character, but she giggled anyway.

Ellen threw her an unappreciative look.

‘What?' shrieked Xanthe. ‘You set yourself up for that one!'

Even though Xanthe was only teasing Ellen, Veronica went into peacemaker mode anyway, changing the subject immediately. ‘I'm going to show you some of this lush leafy suburb of mine right now. Did you bring your walking shoes? We should head up to Poet's Corner and meet Izzy and Nadine. It's only a quick stroll from here.'

Veronica had asked the women if they could start their book club meeting at Poet's Corner for a reason. Ellen and Xanthe said they'd park at hers and walk, but the other women were going straight there. Izzy arrived in her convertible, roof down, scarf wrapped elegantly around her head like she was a Thelma in need of a Louise. Her beloved car would soon be traded in for the family wagon Asher had been researching. Nadine climbed out of the four-wheel-drive with Richard waving through the window as he drove off with orders to pick up his wife in three hours. He grinned at his sister's number plate – BLAKFULA – as he pulled out onto Waterworks Road.

They kissed their greetings and Veronica led the women down a small grassy hill to the memorial site known as Poet's Corner.

‘I chose the biography
Auntie Rita
for this month because as you'll know from reading the book, she was an
inspirational Murri pioneer here at The Gap. And this is a memorial to her.'

The women all leaned in to read the plaque, realising how close they were to one of the country's most loved Aboriginal heroines.

‘I came to the unveiling way back in 1994 and there were hundreds of people here. Even the Governor.' Veronica thought back to the day; the sun had been shining and there were kids everywhere.

Now, as the sun went down, the women all felt the sudden drop in temperature.

‘I think we should head inside,' Izzy said, worried about getting a cold or even a chill.

‘Well, I decided I wanted to take you to the GT for dinner, my treat, something different,' Veronica said enthusiastically, hoping they'd all agree. She wanted a night out, in public, with the noise of patrons and poker machines and laughter. ‘We can talk about the book over a steak, or salad, or whatever you want.'

Veronica felt she should be encouraging her tiddas, but the truth was no-one could ever deny Vee anything. She rarely asked for much, contributed only positive comments and was definitely the glue of the group.

As they squeezed into Izzy's car and headed to Glenquarie Place, Ellen asked, ‘How many Blackfellas can you fit in a convertible?'

‘As many as I have to,' Izzy joked.

‘I bet we'll be the only Blackfellas there eh, Vee?' Ellen said as they pulled into the nondescript car park.

‘Probably, but no-one will look at you strangely. The whitefellas are pretty good round here, just treat everyone the same,' Veronica said proudly of her local community.

‘I reckon I'd have to padlock the doors with so many whites as neighbours.' Izzy almost choked on her own joke.