Avoiding Mr Right (14 page)

I was hung-over the next morning and the last thing I
wanted to do was to go to an amusement park. I had policy
papers to read for Monday, I felt seedy and I needed more
sleep. But young Maya had made me promise – again –
before I left their house a couple weeks before.

I picked her up in Shelley's car, and just as driving
bomby old Gemma covered in land rights stickers was
embarrassing, so was driving a brand-spanking-new Alfa
among Blackfellas. I knew they'd be thinking I was uptown.
'It's not mine!' I'd have to explain over and over again, like
it was a crime to have a nice car.

Maya was waiting out the front excitedly when I
arrived. 'Look what I've got in my purse,' she shouted as
she struggled to show me all the money her grandmother
and parents had given her.

'It's my treat, darling. You can save that for Christmas
maybe.'

'But Mum said I have to give it to you.'

Annie and Joe were smiling big, as if there was something
they knew that I didn't.

'What's so bloody funny, then?' I wanted in on the joke,
even though my head was pounding and the mere thought
of laughing made it hurt.

'She's a chucker,' Annie said.

'A what?'

'I chuck a lot,' Maya said, nodding her head in agreement
with her mother.

'Chuck what?' I was confused.

'Chuck up?' She pretended to spew.

'Excellent,' I groaned, and nearly threw up myself.
'And just so you know, there's a good chance I might chuck
today too!' I rolled my eyes at Annie and Joe and mouthed
the words
Help me
. Maya just laughed.

'Okay, let's go. Quicker we get there . . .' I started.

'The quicker we get on the rides,' Maya said.

'And the quicker we get home,' I said softly.

The drive from East Bentleigh to St Kilda was worse
that any ride I could think of going on as Maya continued
to talk about chucking and how many times she'd chucked
and what was in it. It was turning my stomach. When she
was bored with that conversation she wanted to ask and tell
me things. 'Can I show you something? When can I spend
my money? Which rides can we go on?'

All the chatter was compounding my headache. I
couldn't for the life of me understand how parents coped –
even if they didn't even have hangovers, which I assumed
they didn't. There's no way you could party like I did and
then have to feed, clothe and entertain kids the next day.
Maya was helping me with my celibacy gig: the mere
thought of getting pregnant was turning me off sex.

When we got there I insisted that she hold my hand.
What would be worse than something happening to your
own child? Something happening to a child you were
looking after. We bought our ride tickets; I was astounded
that it cost more to entertain a six year old for the afternoon
than it did to go out with stockbrokers drinking.

Maya was excited and struggled with deciding which ride
to go on first. I tried not to be too impatient. I was glad she
was under 119 centimetres, so our ride choice was limited.
The Big Dipper roller-coaster, which for some reason was
called the Scenic Railway in Melbourne, was closed.
Thank
you
, I mouthed to the skies.

'Right!' I had to take charge. 'We'll go on the Red Baron,
the Magical Carousel, Silly Serpent, then the Arabian
Merry, okay?'

'Okay,' Maya said, clapping her hands.

And so we did, and I found myself screaming and
laughing and, amazingly, keeping the drinks from the
night before down.

'What about the Ghost Train? It's my favourite,' I said,
trying to enthuse her into a tamer ride.

'I'm scared of ghosts, Mum says you've gotta smoke
the ghosts. But I know that smoking's bad for you, it'll
kill ya. And ya can't smoke ghosts anyway. You smoke
durries and Dad's always getting angry at Grandma for
smoking, especially when me and Will are in Gemma
with her.' Little Maya made me laugh, and for a moment
I understood that having kids could bring joy to one's
life. Were there enough of these moments, though? I just
didn't know, I wasn't around kids enough.

I really wanted to sit down and not be churned around
for a while, so I persisted.

'Maya, if you come on the Ghost Train with me, I'll
buy you some fairy floss afterwards.' And that's how bribing
kids with sweets and crap starts.

'Oh, I love fairy floss, okay, and I don't even think it will
make me chuck.'

'Excellent, okay, let's get in the queue then.' Standing
in line I watched the young teenage boys in front of me go
twenty minutes without speaking to each other, while the
pubescent girls behind me didn't seem to
stop
talking: about
their clothes, about girls who weren't there, about the boys
in front of us.

The ride went for all of two minutes and Maya loved it.
A hot dog, hot chips and the promised fairy floss later, and
we started to walk towards the exit.

'I'm gonna chuck,' Maya said, starting to cry.

'It's okay,' I said, picking her up and running to the
toilets. I held Maya's sandy-coloured hair back as her little
body leant over the bowl and threw up pink fairy floss and
bits of hot dog – and then it was my turn.

'Look out lovely, Aunty's not well either.' Up came my
hot chips and numerous drinks from the night before. I
wiped tears from my own eyes as well as Maya's, washed
both our faces and finally left Luna Park.

By the time I dropped Maya at East Bentleigh I was
exhausted and fragile. I was stopped at the lights on the way
back to St Kilda when James called.

'How are you, princess?'

'I'm so tired and hung-over, I feel like crap. I wish you
were here to look after me.'

'And you know I would, don't you, baby? So, who were
you out with last night?' Oh God, not again. I just didn't
have the energy to deal with his insecurity right now.

'Just Shelley and some of her workmates. We were home
by nine-thirty. I just drank too much too quickly.'

'Oh right.' I could hear the 'James-isn't-happy-with-me-going-out-partying' tone in his voice.

'Okay, well I better go – I'm in the car, and the lights
are about to change. I'll call you later in the week. Love ya.'
And I went home and slept.

The department was hosting a national cultural information
forum with academics, arts workers, funding bodies, policy
makers and intellectual property lawyers. One of the
keynote speakers, Dennis Droll, was a linguist attached to
the languages department at the University of Australian
Culture in Canberra. He came into the office to meet with
staff to talk about a project proposal, and to suss out the
department's funding for the national language strategy.

Sylvia had booked a small meeting room for us. It was
just me, Sylvia, Dennis, and our new program assistant,
Rodney. The walls of the room were lined with books by
Australian authors, no doubt funded by DOMSARIA
grants.

'I'd like to work in the Kimberley on a language project,'
Dennis said eagerly after we'd introduced ourselves. We all
sat listening intently. Sylvia took the minutes.

'Sounds interesting,' I said. 'What kind of project did
you have in mind?'

'I'd like to record one of the local languages. Some of
them only have a handful of fluent speakers left and we
don't want to lose the languages altogether. Most of the
speakers are very old so it's urgent that we get the grammar
and vocab recorded orally as soon as possible and then
translated into dictionary format.'

'Yes, of course, we understand that issue only too well,
and language reclamation and maintenance does come
under our mandate.' I attempted to be affirming of the
idea.

'It's great you want to do something so significant for
them,' Rodney said, his eyes wide.

'Yes, it's great for everyone. The language gets recorded,
and I can add the dictionary to my publications list. I'm
working towards being department head and eventually
dean of the faculty, so a major language dictionary will score
me a lot of points.'

'So, the project is really about
you
and
your
academic
career, is it?' Sylvia said accusingly. I was disappointed to
hear her sound so unprofessional, but we were definitely on
the same page.

'What Sylvia means is that the project's main aim
should be cultural maintenance.'

'The community get their language recorded. Isn't that
enough?'

'Well, not quite. There are many other issues that need
to be taken into consideration when we support a project.
We need to discuss protocols and methodologies for working
in communities, who gets the royalties, public lending
rights, educational lending rights, and most importantly,
who retains copyright over the material.' I'd learned a lot
about copyright and intellectual property since being with
the department.

Rodney suddenly lost his beam and pushed back his
chair and folded his arms across his chest, like a scary CEO
of a major mining company.

'Well, I need to be paid for my work,' Dennis said.

'Haven't you applied for an ARC research grant?'
asked Sylvia. We were working more and more on shared
responsibility agreements with other agencies these days,
so she was on top of all the other funding opportunities
available. 'And what about your salary, are you still on staff
at the university?'

'Well, part of the research will be covered by a study
grant, and ARC have approved some funding as well.'

'So you're double-dipping, then?' Sylvia asked without
looking up from her notepad.

'I think it's fairly standard. There are other costs involved
with publication and so on that aren't covered under my
grants.'

'Let's talk about income from the project, then,' I said.
'From the publication of the dictionary, for instance.
Who will receive the royalties? I assume they'll go to the
community?'

'Well, it's hard to split royalties among a large group of
people.'

'Ah, but you
can
split royalties with one language centre.
You will be working with a language centre, won't you?'

Dennis squirmed in his seat. I sighed as I uncrossed and
re-crossed my legs. He really didn't have any idea what I
was talking about.

'You have contacted the Wangka Maya Pilbara
Aboriginal Language Centre, haven't you? I mean, you can't
be working in the community on a project like this without
their appropriate support and input. That's essential, it's
protocol. The ethics committee at your university should've
made that clear to you.'

'And what about copyright?' Sylvia asked. 'I hope the
community as owners of the language and the intellectual
property retain the copyright over their own words.' She'd
done a lot of research to prep me for the meeting.

Dennis jumped right in. 'Oh no, the copyright in the
work would have to rest with me. You might not understand
that the Copyright Act of 1968, in lay terms—'

'Stop right there.' He was talking down to me, and I just
couldn't have that, especially not in front of my staff.

'I'm the National Policy Manager for Aboriginal Arts
and Culture, so I do know the Copyright Act. In lay terms,
as you said, it states that the person who records a story or
takes a photo retains copyright. But that doesn't mean you
can't actually have a contract designed to give copyright to
an organisation, one body. In fact, I don't see the logic in
a non-Indigenous person legally owning the rights over a
language that is not their own – or the morality of it. Why
should anyone have to seek
your
permission to reproduce
the material once it's published?'

He didn't respond.

Rodney leaned forward, pushing his glass of water
aside. 'I'm new here, but it sounds a lot like some linguists
are much like many anthropologists I meet. And I can
tell you, I've met quite a lot since I started working in
Indigenous cultural affairs. It seems like there's at least one
anthropologist for every Aboriginal person in the country.'

'Why do you think there are so many anthropologists?'
Dennis asked him calmly.

'It's not rocket science, it's because we're really deadly
people. And we're very interesting.' He gave me a grin.
'And of course, there's a lot of money to be made off us. I
mean we're a research industry, aren't we.' I was glad that
Rodney was on my team: he'd been a slow and quiet starter,
but was obviously smart.

'Anthropology is the study of behaviours, of social
relations, of the physical, the social and the cultural
development of human beings – of all human beings,'
Dennis said a little defensively.

'So not just Aboriginals and other so-called primitive
societies?' Sylvia said.

'Yes, you're right. But what's your point?' Dennis looked
confused.

'Why don't we ever meet any anthropologists who study
white people?' I asked. 'That's the point.'

'There are anthropologists who study white people.'

'Really? I've never met one, and trust me, I've met some
anthropologists in my time.' And I had, at university,
working in education and at a number of Aboriginal
organisations I'd been part of over the years.

'Well, there are. Perhaps they just don't move in your
circles. You make it sound like it's bad to be interested in
other societies, other races, and other people.'

'I love that word,
other
,' said Sylvia. I was frightened
she might launch into an eco-poem about 'otherness' so I
quickly stepped in.

'What you need to understand, Dennis, is that your
people are
our other
, but most of us aren't preoccupied with
trying to understand what it's like to be
you
, to be
white
, to
be the majority, or how it might feel to assume the superior
role.'

'And we never ask whitefellas what it's like to be non-Indigenous, or what it's like to have the freedom to choose
to be politically active or to choose to participate in the
reconciliation process,' Rodney added.

'We don't ask whitefellas to tell us the entire history
of white society or the customs of their ancestors, or why
their
people –
your
people, that is – can't seem to agree on
major issues, the way you expect us to,' I said with gentle
authority. 'And we don't ask these questions not only
because they make people feel uncomfortable, but because
it is important for us to determine our
own role, our own
place
in this world that we share.'

'I understand, but there are a lot of good people working
in the area of anthropology,' Dennis said.

'Yes of course there are, and we respect the work they
do, but one of the reasons there are so many is because
Blackfellas don't have access to western power and our
voice is limited. And except where anthropologists are
working to assist native title claims, there's a real risk that
they're limiting our voice even further. To be honest, I've
learned more from listening to elders who grew up under
the Protection Act than by reading texts written by non-Indigenous academics.' It was true, and it was important
to me, personally and professionally, to say so.

I was a bit concerned that Dennis had been working with
mobs of old fellas who had English as a second, third or
fourth language and may never have challenged his ideas or
words before, possibly because they were unaware of what
he was saying, or his motives for 'helping' them.

'I suppose it's all a matter of epistemology really, don't
you agree?' Dennis just wouldn't give up.

'A-pissed-a-what?' said Sylvia. I was glad that she didn't
know the term, it almost made her more normal. I hated
the word, and how academics like Dennis used it to isolate
people.

'Indigenous epistemology is just our ways of thinking
and theorising, and knowledge via traditional discourses and
media,' I told her, and looked back at Dennis. 'As a linguist,
Dennis, you should understand that Blackfellas who have
had the good fortune of education – and in our communities
people like Rodney and I are completely privileged because
we've had an education – we understand there's a whole
language that westerners use to describe, define and locate
Indigenous peoples into a particular static place.'

'What do you mean exactly?'

'For example, westerners are allowed to evolve and
change, but when we do we're told we're assimilating.
Westerners can become cosmopolitan but we're told we're
losing our culture. When westerners intermarry their
communities become multicultural, but we're told our
bloodlines are being watered down. See how the language
is different for the two groups? But it's not language that
we
use, it's language that's used
for
us.'

Dennis just looked blank, as if it was all too much to
consume in one sitting. And perhaps it was.

'Rodney, can you please go and grab copies of the
department's cultural protocols for working in Indigenous
communities and give a set to Dennis?' Rodney jumped up
straight away.

'Can I suggest you have a good read through these
before you submit an application for funding? Rodney will
be more than happy to discuss the application process with
you when you've thought about how you want to proceed
with the publication side of your project. And of course we'll
need support letters from the local community to show they
endorse the project concept and plan.'

I stood up and extended my hand. 'Thanks so much
for coming in and meeting with us. It was an important
conversation for us all to have, don't you think?'

'Yes, it was, thanks. I've got a lot to think about – a
lot.' He seemed sincere, and I thought perhaps there was a
chance I'd got through to him.

'Sylvia, can you escort Dennis to the lift? I can see
Rodney waiting there with the protocols.'

And at that moment I knew that working in policy was
what I wanted to be doing with my life. Marriage and kids
seriously had to wait. I had a different purpose for the next
few years and that was to educate those who worked with
Aboriginal people as part of their daily lives.