Riding the Black Cockatoo (12 page)
Just before bedtime the phone rang. It was Bob Weatherall, the repatriation expert who had been away fishing. He had a voice as smooth and as deep as the river bend I imagined he’d been camping at; and when he laughed, it was with the lightness of a songbird. He’d received my message and had also heard about the handover on the grapevine. Bob explained that he was getting things organised and suggested we touch base again the next day. He was completely calm and relaxed, the way you’d expect someone to sound after spending two weeks fishing in country that they loved. He told me that he and his mate had snuck into a good fishing spot on a neighbouring clan’s land without asking for permission.
‘There we were, lines in the water, out in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly this
old
fella comes out from the reeds waggin’ his finger at us like we were two naughty boys. I said, “You got us, Uncle, you got us!’’ He laughed with that sing-songy hee-hee laugh of his. It was a laugh that told me Mary was in safe hands.
{ 10 OCTOBER 2005 }
I rode to the suburban campus of the University early in the morning, the gravel crackling beneath my tyres as I followed a bush track that ran through a reserve. I looked for black cockatoos, but instead had to contend with a squealing, wheeling rainbow of nectar-drunk lorikeets. One defecated in mid-flight, its quicksilver poop catching the morning sun.
My first lecture of the day wasn’t due to start for an hour, so I headed for Craig’s office at the Oodgeroo Unit. Craig was sitting rigidly at attention with the phone pressed to his ear. He waved me in, motioned to a chair and mouthed the word ‘Victor’. I could hear the raised voice of Craig’s boss barking a continual stream of instructions down the line.
‘He just came in two seconds ago.’ Craig passed me the handset and slumped back; his office chair reclined with a groan.
Victor’s voice seemed to have lowered a notch or two when he spoke to me, but not much; he explained that he was quite stressed from the Mornington Island business and that the timing of the handover couldn’t be worse for the unit, though he understood that the reburial couldn’t be postponed.
‘Everything has to be done correctly, a whitefella can’t just invite Wamba Wamba fellas up here to perform a ceremony in Turrbal Country, otherwise it’s just terra bloody nullius all over again.’
‘Sorry, you’ve lost me, what’s
terrible
country?’ I asked.
‘
Turrbal! Turrbal
country; Brisbane; where you’re sitting right now.’ He let go a frustrated sigh. ‘Look, we’ll make sure the old fella gets sent home properly, but if it’s not done correctly there’ll be a lot of elders lining up to kick my arse and this unit cannot afford to have its arse kicked.’
I handed the phone back to Craig and heard Victor’s voice go back up to its previous levels. Craig simply said, ‘Yes, yes, I understand, yes, don’t worry, got it, yes.’
My post-ride afterglow was a rapidly fading memory.
Craig put down the smoking handset, collapsed back into his reclining office chair and exhaled.
‘Sorry,’ I offered pathetically.
‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve done the right thing. It gets a bit complicated around Brisbane, we don’t just have to get permission from the Turrbal clan, we have to inform the Jugera group as well.’
Craig explained that the Turrbal clan was virtually wiped out when Brisbane was settled, which opened the door for other groups, mainly the Jugera, to claim the Brisbane area as their ancestral homeland.
‘These things can get a bit political; plenty of our own people are just waiting to jump on us if they think we’re stepping out of line.’
I’d once read that Aboriginal tribes required permission to travel across the country of others, but I’d never considered that these same laws and territorial protocols might still be in place today.
‘When one clan carries out business, any business, in another clan’s country, there has to be discussion, consultation, permission,’ Craig explained, ‘especially with Sorry Business. That’s the most serious business of all.’
{ 11 OCTOBER 2005 }
Next morning I visited the main office of the Oodgeroo Unit, at the University's inner-city campus. This was the unit’s headquarters, four times as big as the suburban campus’s office I had visited the day before. I had scurried past its glass doors and courtyard many times, but this was my first ever visit inside. At the front desk, a pretty young woman called Katie looked up from her work and smiled.
‘Hi, my name’s John, I’m involved in tomorrow’s handover ceremony.’
Katie’s eyes widened. ‘We were only told this morning, can you believe this family
actually
kept a skull in their lounge room.’
‘Yes, I can.’ I felt totally naked. ‘That was my family, I’m the fella handing it back.’
Katie looked at me – into me – but there was no judgement or negativity in her eyes.
‘Your family is doing the right thing, but I tell you, everyone here’s in a flap with Victor away and all these people coming tomorrow. It’s the first time we’ve ever done anything like this.’
Katie directed me outside to the courtyard where the acting manager was briefing the campus building managers and heads of security. Victor’s stand-in was a slight woman in her late fifties, but her voice packed the punch of a school headmistress and the men she briefed listened attentively. I moved to the side of the courtyard, sat under the shade of a tree and listened in. What an ants’ nest I’d stirred up! The air-conditioning plant for the entire block needed to be shut down because the intake ducts were near where the smoking ceremony was to take place. The fire and safety wardens of all the surrounding blocks were to be informed to prevent any panic once the smoke started billowing. Extra security staff had to be posted at strategic points to keep curious onlookers at bay, and the Indigenous members of the security department needed to be informed about the Sorry Business so that they could choose either to become involved, or to avoid the area altogether. Concrete table and chair settings had to be moved from the courtyard by a heavy lifting vehicle, and replaced with rows of single plastic chairs. The list went on and on. The manager hadn’t noticed me, so I slunk away, embarrassed, overwhelmed. It was a ten-minute walk to where my car was parked; halfway there I stopped, took a few deep breaths, and headed back to face the music.
The Oodgeroo Unit courtyard was now empty of officials; two staff on tea break puffed cigarettes. As I walked past I caught a fragment of their quiet conversation that I’m sure included the word ‘skull’.
‘Oh there you are,’ said Katie as I re-entered the office. ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’
She led me into the acting manager’s office where I was greeted with a generous smile. I began to apologise for all the disruption I’d caused, but the acting manager waved my words away. She was more concerned with how I was coping! She handed me a running sheet for the next day’s ceremony and asked me to check with the Wamba Wamba people that everything was in accordance with their wishes. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing,’ she smiled, ‘it’s going to be a beautiful handover.’
I spent the rest of the day at home working the phone – I’d never spent so much time on the phone as I had in these last two weeks! Emails bounced backwards and forwards. Gary gave the running sheet the thumbs-up. The University media unit swung into action and together we worked up a press release which was then wired out to media outlets all around the country. Within minutes of the press release going out, the local ABC radio station had requested an interview at the station in the morning with Bob, Gary and me.
That evening I called Bob to let him know about the interview. He was happy to have an opportunity to speak about repatriation. ‘We have to use these opportunities to educate the people, it’s all part of the healing.’
I offered to pick Bob up early in the morning, for it made sense to go to the radio station together; we’d meet Gary and the songman for the interview and then all head off for the ceremony.
‘If the songman’s with Gary, will you have enough room for everybody?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ I answered, ‘I’ll just put the remains in the boot.’
‘You’ll what?’ Bob’s words came out in one even sound, like a samurai sword being slowly drawn from its scabbard.
I suddenly realised that by
everybody
Bob was also referring to Mary.
‘Uh, oh, ahhh . . .’ I’d put my foot in it again. ‘Sorry, Bob, I wasn’t thinking, yes, there’ll be room for us all up front.’
‘That’s more like it,’ he said, the warmth ebbing back into his voice. ‘See you at 7.30.’
Mary lay in my studio under the house. Since bringing him home, I’d kept him in a hard black Pelican case – the kind photographers use – with the cockatoo feather headdress sitting on top like a sentinel. With careful hands I put the headdress to one side, took Mary out and wandered into the back yard. The moon was shining through the canopy of native trees I’d planted when we moved in ten years ago. It was very late and the neighbouring houses were all dark and still. I held Mary towards the moon and whispered, ‘This is it, Mary, your last night in Meanjin.’ (Meanjin is the traditional name for Brisbane.)
We stood near my favourite tree, an eight-year-old lemon-scented myrtle. A breeze wafted up from the gully and through the tree, bathing us both in citrus perfume. I’d been wondering what to wrap Mary in for her journey home – bubble wrap seemed so twenty-first century. Now I knew. I took Mary back inside and returned to the tree; thick waves of citrus filled the night as I snapped and tore off armfuls of foliage. I made a bed of leaves and sprigs in the case and sat Mary upright with the headdress propped up behind him against the open lid – it looked as though he was wearing it. Then I placed the whole arrangement near the window; I’m not exactly sure why, I didn’t think, I just acted naturally, like a child. I switched off the lights, and then, just before leaving the room, turned to look back at my old friend. Moonlight spilled through the window and draped its lacy veil across Mary and the headdress.
