Page 67 of The Pearl Sister
‘Most important part: heart. Soul.’ The old woman thumped her chest, her hazelnut eyes full of warmth. She reached out her hand and squeezed mine with unexpected strength. ‘You come home. Belong here.’
As she continued to hold my hand, I suddenly felt dizzy and on the verge of tears. Maybe Chrissie noticed, because she stood up and gently helped me to standing.
‘We have to go now, Mimi, ’cos CeCe’s got an appointment.’
I nodded at Chrissie gratefully, holding on to her arm for support far more than I wanted to. ‘Yeah, I have. Thanks so much for telling me the story.’
‘Tellum you much more. Come back,’ the woman encouraged me.
‘I will,’ I promised, thinking her accent was the strangest I’d ever heard – she said her few English words in a broad Australian way, but rounded them off with extra consonants, which softened them. ‘Bye.’
‘Galiya,Celaeno.’ She waved at me as Chrissie led me off along the garden/sitting room towards her moped.
‘Wanna go grab a drink? There’s a servo just round the corner.’
‘Yeah, that would be great,’ I replied, having no idea what a ‘servo’ was, but not ready to get back on the wobbly moped just yet.
It turned out to be a petrol station with a small general store attached. We both bought a Coke and went to sit on a bench outside.
‘Sorry about my grandma. She’s really . . . intense.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It was so interesting. It just made me feel odd, that’s all. Hearing all about this’ – I searched for the word – ‘culturethat I might belong to. I knew very little about it before I came here.’
‘No need to feel bad. Why would you know, Cee? You were adopted and taken to Europe when you were a baby. Besides, the oldies want to make sure their stories are told, especially in our culture. It’s all passed on by word of mouth, see? From generation to generation. Nothing’s ever written down.’
‘You’re saying that there’s no . . . Bible, or Qur’an, with all the stories and rules and stuff written in it?’
‘Nothing. In fact, we get really hacked off if people do write it down. It’s all spoken,andpainted a lot too. Cee.’ She glanced at my stunned expression. ‘You look really fazed, what’s up?’
‘It’s just that, well . . .’ I gulped, feeling everything was getting weirder by the second. ‘I’m really dyslexic, so I can’t read properly even though I’ve had the best education my father could give me. The letters just jump around in front of my eyes, but I’m, well, an artist.’
‘You are?’ It was Chrissie’s turn to look stunned.
‘Yeah.’
‘Then why didn’t you tell me before? That’s just ripper! Specially as you might be related to Namatjira!’
‘I’m nothing special, Chrissie . . .’
‘All artists are special. And don’t worry, I’m more aural and visual as well. Maybe it’s just in our genes.’
‘Maybe. Chrissie, can I ask you something?’
‘Course you can, anything.’
‘I know I’m gonna sound like an idiot as usual, but is there . . . prejudice against the Aboriginal people in Australia?’
Chrissie turned her pretty face towards me and nodded slowly. ‘Too right, mate, but that’s not for now, sitting outside a servo drinking a Coke. I mean, you talk to any whitefella and they’ll tell you there isn’t. At least they’re not murdering us by the thousands and stealing our land – they stole that a couple of hundred years ago and still haven’t given most of it back. Every January, the whitefellas celebrate “Australia Day”, the day a fleet of British ships arrived to “claim” our country. We call it “Invasion Day”, ’cos it’s the day that the genocide of our people began. We’ve been here for fifty thousand years, and they did their best to destroy us and our way of life. Anyway,’ she added with a shrug, ‘it’s old news, but I’ll tell you more another time.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I didn’t want to ask what ‘genocide’ meant, but it sounded really bad.
‘Does it freak you out?’ she asked me after a pause. ‘Like, realising that you’re one of us, or that part of you is, anyway?’
‘No. I’ve always been different. An outsider, you know?’
‘I do.’ She put a warm hand on my arm. ‘Right, let’s get you back to your hotel.’
After Chrissie had dropped me off and told me to call if I needed anything, I went into my room and fell onto the bed. For the first time I could ever remember, I went to sleep immediately where I lay.
