Tiddas Read online

  ‘That’s interesting, Xanthe, because I actually read it as a form of crime novel,’ Nadine said, not arguing but clearly having a different reading of the book.

  ‘Really?’ Xanthe frowned. How could we both read it so differently, she thought to herself.

  ‘Well, the brooch was stolen at one point, which led Tarena to research and defend her first case, without yet receiving her uni marks. She plays detective and lawyer.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Xanthe said, accepting that Nadine’s reading was as valid as her own.

  With her reconciliation mind ticking over, Veronica added, ‘I really appreciated getting a simple understanding of native title and the Mabo decision. I want to be able to articulate it better when I meet people who are racist.’

  ‘It’s an important book for Murris in Queensland too, especially given the size of the Torres Strait Islander population, even just here in Brisbane,’ Xanthe said, offering the last couple of oysters to the girls.

  Izzy nearly gagged, and hoped that no-one noticed. No-one had asked about the pregnancy, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

  ‘Speaking of Islanders, that reminds me we should go to this.’ Xanthe handed a flyer to Ellen.

  She scanned it and handed it to Veronica. ‘I’m not going, take Veronica and Nadine with you.’

  ‘Why?’ Xanthe asked, disappointed.

  ‘Cos I can assure you the audience will be all whitefellas, and you’ll probably be the youngest ones there too.’

  Xanthe was offended by Ellen’s response. ‘What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you interested in learning about your fellow Indigenous Australians?’

  ‘Hey, this is Aboriginal land. I am interested in learning about Aboriginal people. I don’t say I’m Indigenous, do you?’ Ellen looked sternly at Xanthe and then glanced across at Izzy.

  ‘I prefer Wiradjuri, Koori or Aboriginal if need be,’ Izzy said, knowing the conversation inside out. ‘I rarely say Indigenous because we’re different to Torres Strait Islanders.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Aren’t you all Indigenous to Australia?’ Veronica couldn’t understand what the girls were arguing about.

  ‘Actually, my tidda,’ Xanthe responded in training mode, calmly and diplomatically, ‘We are the first peoples of Australia. The Torres Strait Islands were annexed to Queensland in 1879 by an act of Parliament. The truth is, they could easily have been annexed to Papua New Guinea instead.’

  Xanthe looked to Izzy for some follow-up.

  ‘Yes, Vee, we are different peoples, different cultures, different identities. I’m a bit sick of being clumped in with another group all the time simply because of some bit of old legislation.’

  ‘Wow, that’s full-on,’ Nadine said. ‘Richard never talks about things like this.’

  ‘Richard is disconnected from a lot, living up there with you and the kids. He never comes to events, never marches. He should be taking his kids to experience what goes on down here in the cultural precinct and in Musgrave Park on NAIDOC Day, even if it’s just for the stalls and music.’ Izzy was getting agitated; her brother’s apathy towards local Aboriginal politics pissed her off sometimes. ‘I’m always emailing him information about what we’ve got on – events, storytelling, kids’ days, weekend activities. He doesn’t even bother responding.’ Izzy was really annoyed. ‘And he doesn’t talk about it because he’s never in a space to talk about it. And if our get-togethers didn’t come with booze, then you wouldn’t be here to talk about it either.’

  Izzy was immediately sorry she had descended to that level, but it was true. Richard was so busy looking after his wife and kids that he didn’t get involved in anything outside of their immediate lives. And he rarely went back to Mudgee. Izzy felt he wasn’t setting a good example for his son in the way he related to his own mother or their culture. Not that Richard had a bad relationship with Trish; he just didn’t make an effort. And when Richard did call or do anything else, Trish was so grateful she gushed for weeks.

  ‘I’m the aunty, I can take Brit and Cam to community things, but they’ve got parents, and a lot of stuff is your job.’

  Nadine felt a massive pang of guilt and the room went quiet.

  ‘On that note, I think it’s time for some tiramsu,’ Ellen said. Food always got the group back on track.

  Two of the tiddas were in sky blue and the other three wore maroon. They used the State of Origin as an excuse to catch up. Since Veronica had announced her depression, each of the others had become conscious of the need to support her, and pretending to give a shit about football was a good disguise for giving that support.

  ‘You are both traitors!’ Nadine said to Ellen and Izzy, who were backing the cane toads.

  ‘Listen, I want to barrack for the Blues, but ever since Andrew Johns called Greg Inglis a “Black C” I can’t support them,’ Izzy said, remembering how disgusted she was when she first saw the news reports in 2010.

  ‘But Laurie Daley is the coach. Richard said we have to support him because he copped an unfair mouthful from Mundine just like Geale did,’ Nadine said.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s true, but Queensland has the most Blackfellas playing, which means they’ve got more good-looking players and the best chance to win.’ Ellen had her own reasons for crossing borders.

  Veronica wasn’t sold on Ellen’s argument. ‘I might be wrong, Ellen, but I think it could be racist to go for a team because of the colour of their players.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, I was joking, Vee. We can be Black and have a sense of humour, you know? It’s okay, we even laugh at ourselves a lot.’

  Veronica felt chastised. Ellen felt immediately guilty; of all the people she didn’t want to upset it was Vee. Ellen moved closer and put her arm around her tidda’s shoulder. ‘Oh don’t be offended, you know me well enough. Truth is, I’m glad you keep us on our toes, Vee, but don’t go telling any tales at your reconciliation meeting, okay? What we say here is sacred, just for us.’

  ‘Of course,’ Veronica said, feeling the love from Ellen. ‘Tidda time is our time.’

  The end of May came quickly, the temperature dropped back to average – twenty-three degrees during the day and at its lowest it was still thirteen degrees of a night. Everyone was grateful for a reprieve from the humidity and there’d even been some rain in the past week.

  Izzy was trying to ignore that she’d pretty much reached the legal cut-off for terminating. There was no need to call her mother for advice now. Ellen and Nadine quietly asked her every other day how she was going, when she was going to ‘visit the clinic’, why she hadn’t told Asher yet, but Izzy would just shrug them off. Without saying it out loud, she knew the decision had already been made. She was glad, though, that Xanthe didn’t have the emotional capacity to pretend Izzy’s pregnancy was okay with her and therefore didn’t ask, and Veronica was still embroiled in her own emotional state of mind.

  Izzy was as busy as ever producing cultural programs for the arts channel. It was the end of Reconciliation Week and there was a whole schedule of events being held in the cultural precinct celebrating every art form. She was flat out; hip hop sensation The Last Kinection had performed, the talking circle at kuril dhagun – the Indigenous Knowledge Centre – had held community open mic sessions, and the Australian Indigenous Youth Academy had run a successful forum for young local Murris. Izzy had been on the go from daylight to dark with interviews, vox pops and editing, and while she was thrilled with the extent of the activity she got to cover, she was tired and grateful for a decent lunch break with Ellen who had what she called a ‘death-free day’.

  Ellen and Izzy headed along Grey Street after a talk by Vernon Ah Kee at the Gallery of Modern Art. As they strolled towards the restaurants at South Bank, a white ute with ladders and paint supplies slowed down as it passed them. Ellen pulled out her phone and started dialling the number on the side of the van.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Izzy asked, her curiosity laced with anger.

  ‘Getti
ng a quote and maybe a poke,’ Ellen said seriously.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Izzy grabbed the phone from Ellen’s hand and ended the call.

  Ellen wasn’t impressed. ‘Do you know what my life is like? I can’t keep relying on finding bedroom happiness in other people’s funeral sadness.’

  6

  WEST END DREAMING

  Izzy rose, still dreamy from the sleep she had needed so badly, and fumbled for her running gear in the dark. She liked to exercise when she could and early morning along the river at West End was the best place to clear her head. She needed to walk or run today but her legs felt like lead. She was desperate for fresh air though and kept moving. Only the promise of the energy that the river and its tree-lined bank could give her forced her to put one foot in front of the other. It was going to be a long day, she already knew that. She felt a slight dizzy spell, something that had become quite frequent of late. She wasn’t sure if it was her blood sugar levels but when she finally went to see her GP, she told Izzy to start eating more small meals throughout the day, to get more rest and to stand up slowly. So much to remember, she thought to herself.

  As she turned into Hoogley Street she listened to a voicemail message from Tracey, who said she was just checking in and letting her know she was buying some time with the broadcaster. ‘Trust me, it’ll work out,’ she’d signed off.

  Izzy was relieved that her agent took her client’s whole life into consideration, and had her best interests – professional and personal – at heart. The role on mainstream telly wasn’t going to wait forever though, and Izzy knew it. But she was going to let Tracey worry about it; that was her job.

  As she got closer to the ferry terminal, Izzy saw James, the Big Issue seller, and waved on approach.

  ‘Sorry, mate, don’t have my wallet.’ She turned her palms up as she spoke, wishing she’d shoved a $5 note into her bra.

  ‘No worries,’ he said sincerely.

  ‘I’ll catch you later on my way to work.’ She smiled and headed along the path past an idling bus due to depart for the city then on to Teneriffe.

  Izzy always bought the community newspaper from James, and not simply because he complimented her on her clothes, ‘a nice pink top’ or a ‘pretty dress’. James wasn’t trying to make a sale, his kind words were genuine. He was, Izzy thought, a decent, charming guy, and she appreciated him for that. And the articles were interesting. Without ruining the pages, she’d skim the paper sold by homeless people as a means of having employment, and then hand it back to James the next morning so he could resell it, or she’d pass it onto another seller. The best form of recycling there was, she believed.

  The morning serenity, the trees, the lush grass, James, the joggers, the dog walkers, the tai chi crew – all were part of Izzy’s daily routine, and why she felt at peace in West End. It wasn’t until she had finally settled into her flat in Ryan Street that she got her first good night’s sleep in Brisbane. When she had first arrived in the big smoke at twenty-three – anything after Mudgee and Bathurst seemed ‘big’ – she wanted to be in the heart of the city, within walking distance of the mall and all the excitement it could offer. But it was noisy and chaotic during the day and duller than she expected after dark. She never slept properly in her apartment on Leichardt Street in Spring Hill; the lift in the building banged and clattered non-stop, and sometimes the racket drove her to tears.

  Izzy liked her flat near the river though. She had turned it into a cosy home. She was distraught when the floods of 2011 took over the car park and everyone had to evacuate the building. She only had to move things out of the storage area and put them upstairs though, and she was grateful that her second floor unit was safe from the raging waters that rose rapidly over two days at the peak of the disaster. However, when she was forced to evacuate the building along with all her neighbours, she took with her some of her most prized possessions, including the camp dog artwork Jamu, made with pandanus and ochre pigments by Yolanda Rostron who hailed from South Central Arnhem Land. Izzy much preferred her silent dog to the annoying local scrub turkeys any day, and there was no way she was going to risk losing it, even if the water rising another five metres was highly improbable.

  Unlike her four tiddas, who all owned or were paying off their homes, Izzy wasn’t obsessed with owning her walls, but she did own what hung on them and what lined them – paintings, prints and books. Izzy had invested in works by a couple of Aboriginal artists she’d interviewed for her program. It meant something to her to have met the creators of the pieces she so admired. However, since she’d fallen pregnant and found herself less focused on her job than usual, she would stare for hours at the Angela Gardner print Brightfield Symbols and imagine the swirls as embryos growing inside her. One moment she thought it a beautiful idea, the next she was thrown into panic about her life, the embryo’s life and both their futures.

  The truth was Izzy had a great life, a comfortable life and, most notably, a self-centred life. There was no mortgage to worry her, she bought what she wanted, and she had manicures and pedicures and spa days. She read the newspaper cover to cover every Saturday, took a nap on Sunday afternoons, ran every morning, and could have a bag of Twisties for dinner if it took her fancy. The thought of having to look after herself and someone else, while also reaching her career goals, still didn’t feel right to her, didn’t in fact seem possible to her. Being pregnant was completely at odds with what she had planned for her life. She didn’t want her life to change, at least not so dramatically. But it was going to.

  Since entering the workforce after finishing uni in her early twenties, Izzy had put in many years and lots of effort into building the lifestyle she enjoyed in West End. Over time, she’d fallen in love with a number of local shops, eateries and bars in her hood. She became attached and loyal to those, and only on the odd occasion did she share her love with other venues.

  It was at one of Nadine’s book launches that Izzy first developed a crush on the Boundary Street icon, Avid Reader. It had the best of what West End had to offer and everything she liked: books, a café, a sense of community. Izzy found herself browsing and buying there most weekends. She was a big reader, way beyond what the monthly book club prescribed for her, and there was always a pile of books next to her bed. In her flat, bookcases lined two walls in the living room and both bedrooms. Her shelves included acclaimed Australian writers like Alex Miller, Kate Grenville and Thea Astley alongside the complete works of William Blake, John Keats and Oscar Wilde. Izzy had a worldview of storytelling, even if she often came back to those who wrote about her own country, like Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Alexis Wright and Jack Davis.

  After her walk – the run just didn’t come easily enough today – Izzy sat on her balcony facing the grey wall of the flash new building next door. Her shoulder-length, wavy, caramel-coloured hair needed a cut, and she wondered if she might get it permanently straightened; she was sick of having to spend so much time doing it herself every day. The cowlicks in her fringe that constantly required pulling her mini-GHD from her handbag were shitting her more than usual, and pregnancy seemed to make Izzy more impatient with each passing day.

  The morning was quiet and Izzy appreciated hearing birds chirping to each other, but admitted through a smile and a sigh that she missed the shirtless construction workers who for months gave her even more reason to check emails and read on her balcony. The men had disappeared now, and the rich people had moved in. Their air-conditioning units in summer drove her to despair, but who could blame them? The humidity from October to March in Brisbane was brutal; Izzy often just wanted to lie down on the tiles in the bathroom for relief. She didn’t have air-con, only a ceiling fan, but at least it kept the mozzies at bay. It was a different heat to Mudgee; at home the air was dry, but at least in June she could be comfortable.

  As she pushed an unwanted fringe-curl out of her eye, Izzy glanced at the plants on her balcony. Even the succulents were thirsty and screaming for attention. Unlike Richard, Izzy
had never had a green thumb; she’d been known to kill cactus. She’d have to get her brother over to the plant casualty ward; hopefully he could coax them back to good health. She’d read an article in the local paper about a landscape architect who designed environmentally friendly rooftops and balcony gardens; it would be great to have one. Izzy frowned, trying to recall the woman’s name. ‘Sidonie Carpenter’ appeared in her mind’s eye. Izzy liked the name a lot; she could call her own child Sidonie. And there it was, another reminder of the accident that was now a stark reality in her belly.

  Not one to ever take sickies, because she rarely got sick and loved her job, Izzy had decided the night before that she needed a mental health day to deal with a pregnancy that was now beginning to crowd her mind – and her body. She started to panic, which was unlike her usual calm state. Panic didn’t work in media. Always controlled, passionate but controlled. Izzy hadn’t spent any time imagining what it might be like being a mother. She hadn’t felt there was any point until recently. But when Ellen and Nadine had asked why she hadn’t gone to a clinic for the procedure, she’d had no answers. She just physically couldn’t get herself there, let alone go through with it. Something had been stopping her, something she hadn’t understood.

  Izzy walked back inside and headed for the kitchen. She ran her hand over the art deco espresso maker Nadine and Richard had given her for Christmas. They knew how much she loved coffee and were impressed with themselves at having chosen the perfect gift. But they ignored the fact that Izzy lived in West End, which had some of the grooviest cafés in Brisbane. They didn’t realise that her morning coffee from the Gunshop Café was a part of her daily ritual; that to give it up would put her momentum out of whack, her world off its axis. In short, completely fuck up her day. Izzy liked routine, she liked goals, and she liked a plan to follow. And just like the pregnancy, the coffee maker shifted her daily plan. Coffee from her favourite café was as necessary as wearing a bra, cleaning her teeth, or charging her mobile phone every night. There were things one simply did every day, without thinking.