Nona and Me (17 page)

31.

2007

I wake up in Nick's bed. My head is pounding. I feel
someone sit beside me. The mattress dips to accommodate the weight. I hear Nick's voice. “Here. Drink this.”

He's holding out a cup of fizzing blood-orange Berocca. I sit up and the sheet slips to my waist. I realise I'm only wearing undies. I pull the sheet back up, feeling self-conscious. I drink the Berocca. My head is spinning. Did I? Did we? I don't remember. How can I not remember?

Nick reads my expression. “Don't worry. Nothing happened.” He can see I'm relieved and laughs. “It wouldn't have been that much of a disaster, would it?”

I don't know how to answer that, so I say, “Where are my clothes?”

“In the wash. You spewed all over yourself – and my car.”

“Oh no. Sorry.”

Nick's ute is his pride and joy. “It's okay. You had a bit much. You passed out.”

The night is coming back to me in pieces. Selena pouring us drinks. Graffiti. Music. Stairs. An old man muttering. Stars. The hard look in Nick's eyes. But that Nick is not the Nick here with me now. This Nick is gentle. He tucks a knotty strand of hair back behind my ear. I feel like crying. “Thanks for not … you know …”

He looks at me, so loving. “What? Taking advantage? As if I would. You know me better than that.”

Inside, a small voice asks,
Do I?
I try to ignore it.

He grins. “But if you want to now I won't say no …”

He kisses me. I squirm away. “I've got to meet Mum at the bakery.”

“What time?”

“Ten.”

Nick reaches over and turns his bedside clock to face us. It's 9.24am.

I try to hide my relief as I get up. “I'd better shower.”

*

I wait in Mum's troopie as she ducks into the bakery to buy some bread. Even on a Sunday morning the place is busy with miners from the G3. They emerge with what I'm guessing is their staple breakfast: meat pies and half-litre iced coffees. Even the thought of eating makes me feel queasy. My head is throbbing. The Berocca didn't work this morning.

Mum appears with a loaf of wholemeal and
The Arafura Times
. She shoves both into my lap as she clambers into the driver's seat. “Managed to get a copy of the paper.”

I try to sound interested, but only come up with a “Hmmph.”

She indicates the cover photo. “Did Anya's parents say any thing about this?”

I glance at the photo. It's three men standing side by side: one Yolŋu, another Indigenous man, and a suited-up white guy. They're all smiling.

“Um, no …” I'm worried she'll ask about my sleepover, so I try to distract her by asking, “Who are they?”

Mum looks appalled that I don't know. “You recognise Galarrwuy, of course.”

I look back at the photo and nod as she continues. “And that's Noel Pearson, the leader from Cape York. And Mal Brough, Minister for Indigenous Affairs.”

I read the headline:
Indigenous leader signs 99-year land lease to government
. Mum mistakes my looking for interest, and says, “Galarrwuy's done a backflip on the Intervention. He signed a lease for the land. Can you believe it?” She looks over at me, expecting a response.

My brain is foggy. I manage to mumble, “Maybe he changed his mind.”

Wrong answer.

“How can he change his mind? He's spent most of his life fighting for land rights. This goes against everything he said he believed in.”

I close my eyes. I think of my lies to Mum. Nick at the Arnhem Club. Aiden's accusations. I say, “Sometimes things aren't black and white, Mum.”

She stares. “Is this coming from Nick?”

I almost laugh. “He wouldn't even know who Galarrwuy is.”

“I'm not talking about Galarrwuy. I'm talking about standing by your principles, no matter what.”

I'm hungover and irritable, and I snap. “You think everything has an answer. It's so clear to you, right? What everyone else should do?”

She looks stunned. “You know that's not fair. I grapple with issues every day …”

“Oh, I know, and I have to hear about them all, don't I? I have to listen to you rave on.
My boyfriend left me. Work's so draining. We don't have enough money for
x
. I've got my own shit to deal with. I don't need to hear about yours.”

I know I've crossed a line because she doesn't reply.

She drives in hurt silence for the rest of the trip home.

*

I'm in Nick's room. On his bed. After school. The curtains are drawn against the daylight trying to peek in from outside.

He moves in to kiss me, but I pull back. Away. “I don't feel like it.”

“You wanted to on Saturday night.”

His voice is gentle and coaxing, but I stand firm. “Nick, I need to ask you something …”

“What?”

“What do think about Yolŋu people?”

He looks bemused. “I don't think about them at all.”

“But when you see them –”

“I don't.”

“Come on, be serious …”

“I only see them around town.” He's irritated now. Defensive.

I force myself to say it. “You don't like them, do you?”

He stares up at the ceiling, avoiding my gaze. But I've come too far to back down now. I need to know the answer. I need to understand. I push him. “Nick?”

“I don't ‘not like them' …”

“I see the way you look at them.”

“I just … there's history …”

I don't say anything. I don't give him any excuse to stop talking.

After a long pause, he says, “There was a girl. Back in Sydney. She went to my school – on and off. We had a thing for each other, I guess. We'd meet up in the park after school and fool around. Her name was Shaniquwa.”

Despite his serious tone, or perhaps because of it, I smile. He does too.

“Everyone just called her Shan. She was Aboriginal. Koori, they call it down there. At least, that's what she told me.”

I try to hide my surprise. I keep my voice level as I ask, “How long did you go out with her for?”

“I wouldn't say we ‘went out'. We hung around. She was into graffiti. Sometimes we'd walk the backstreets. It was like she took me on my own personal tours. She knew a few of the local artists.”

“Is that how you got into tagging?”

“I was already interested, but yeah. What she showed me made me better at it.”

“What happened?”

“I dumped her for a
Dolly
model in the year above me.”

He sees my amused disbelief. Even he has to smile. “I was only fourteen.”

“Shaniquwa must've hated you.”

“She did. She hated me so much she told all her brothers and sisters and cousins. And they came after me, one afternoon after school. They found me at the station. One guy pulled a knife.”

“Oh, Nick.”

“I was lucky – other people saw it and they ran off. After that, I started carrying a knife too. For protection. Kept it hidden in my bag.”

“Did you see them again?”

He shakes his head. “End of the year, we went to Bali, before coming here. Mum said yes to me getting a tatt, and I was looking through this book and … something about the Southern Cross seemed right. It said,
Fuck off, this is my country; you can't hurt me
.”

His eyes plead for understanding. My heart aches for that scared fourteen-year-old version of Nick. But I can't let him think that then is now, or there is here.

“Nick, they weren't Yolŋu.”

“They were Aboriginal –”

“Even that's pretty irrelevant. They could've been from anywhere.”

He shrugs. “It's proof, you know, that we should stick to our own kind.”

“It was one bad experience.”

“I lost it, Rosie … I was so scared for so long … like, nightmares and stuff …”

His voice cracks. I've never seen a boy cry before. I don't know what to do.

I pull him towards me. “I'm sorry that happened.”

He lets me hold him as the tears fall. “Me too.”

*

I wake to the sound of our landline ringing. The whole house is dark. My gut clenches. Midnight calls are never good.

I hear Mum fumble her way out to the lounge room.

She answers the phone. “Hello?” Only a few seconds pass before she says, “I'll be right there. I'm coming now.”

She sounds stunned and panicky. I stagger to my bedroom door and open it to see her hurrying back to her room. “Mum? What's happening?”

She looks up at me in shock, like I've caught her doing something she shouldn't.

“Um … an accident. I've got to go and help. I don't know much. You sleep. I'll tell you about it in the morning.”

Mum turns on her bedroom light. I squint at the sudden brightness. She pulls on a long cotton skirt and heads towards the front door, grabbing her car keys and slipping on Birken-stocks as she goes.

“Mum, who is it?”

But she just says, “Try to sleep. Do you think you can?”

There's a growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.

Mum tries to reassure me. “It'll be okay. I've got to go.”

And she's out the door. I check the glowing clock on the microwave. It's 2.34am.

*

I don't sleep, of course. I toss and turn. The build-up has just started and the night air is warm and sticky. I turn the fan up to three and lie on top of my sheets. I try not to let my imagination run wild.

Camp dogs start to bark on the other side of the community. Others join them in a cacophony of howling and yapping that swells towards our house like a cresting wave. The dogs next door start up too.

Then there's silence.

I watch two geckos scamper across my ceiling, weaving sticky trails around each other.

There's the sound of raised voices somewhere up the hill, yelling in Yolŋu Matha.

I doze. I'm tired. So tired. A confused bush turkey warbles in the dark outside my window.

I open my eyes again. Daylight is creeping through my green cotton curtains. I move into the corridor and peer into Mum's room. Her bed is unmade and empty.

I pad towards the lounge. Mum is there, passed out on the couch. I try to walk quietly into the kitchen, but she's a light sleeper and wakes immediately.

I ask, “Mum, what happened?”

Her face is a mess of tired lines and dark eyes. She says, “It was your
wäwa
. The one who came here a few weeks ago.”

Lomu.

“What happened, Mum?”

I can see her weighing up how much to tell me. She sighs, exhausted. Drained. “I guess you'll find out sooner or later. He hung himself, Rosie. Hung himself from the banyan tree near the
buŋgul
ground.”

She starts to cry. “Why would he do that? Why didn't he come here? I told him our door was always open. He should've known that. Damn it. Nothing's ever so bad … there's never a reason to …”

Her words dissolve into heavy, chest-wrenching sobs.

She collapses into my arms and I hold her. Tight.

*

I don't go to school. I stay home with Mum.

She fields calls and makes arrangements. She goes out a few times, to see Rripipi and drop people places.

I stay behind. I want to be alone.

Nick texts:

U sick or just still hungover, U bludger? ;-)

And later:

Hey, U OK?

And later still:

Rosie, where R U? What's up? We good?

But I know now that I can't expect compassion from Nick. Not when it comes to Aboriginal people. I tell myself that's okay. Just got to compartmentalise. Keep the worlds separate.

I make myself reply. I keep it short.

Sum1 in community died. Got 2 B here 4 Mum.

I make a loaf-of-bread's worth of sandwiches and Mum takes them to
Momu
's house.

I can't get the image out of my mind. A lone body, swinging in the shadows of the banyan tree. I know that tree. We used to play there as kids. Its arcing trunk forms a natural hollow in the middle. Its branches are grand and sweeping, with thick roots trailing towards the ground, like long, gnarled fingers reaching down for the earth. Perfect for climbing. For swinging. For hanging.

What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all?

He was sitting in our lounge room, his tiny daughter curled on his lap. He was smiling. Proud. Unperturbed by death. Was he thinking about it even then?

What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all?

Eighteen. Not much older than me. Not much older than Nona. The same age as Nick.

Lomu, with laughing eyes, handing me
guku
.

What was he thinking? Was he thinking at all?

*

It's late afternoon when Mum gets the call. I don't need to be asked. I'm ready and waiting by the door. The body has to be taken from the hospital to Darwin for an autopsy.

We stop at
Momu
's house first. There's a large crowd already gathered, sitting on blankets in the dirt yard. It's like a morose picnic with no food.

Mum jumps out and helps
Momu
to the troopie. She seems even frailer than when I last saw her. I clamber over the front seat, to the back. A swarm of relatives piles in with me. I recognise some of their faces. They are my
ŋama
l
a
s,
ŋapipis
,
wäwa
s and
yapas
. Some of them I haven't seen in years.

Last in is Nona. She slams the back door shut behind her. Mum starts to drive.

I try not to stare. Nona's belly has a distinct curve. She's wearing a loose singlet to hide the bump. Her floral skirt sits low on her waist. She's cut her hair short and her features look fuller. Her skin is healthy and glowing, but her eyes are dull with grief.