‘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 – ‘culture that 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, and painted 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.
When I woke up, I cracked open one eye to look at the time on my mobile. It was past eight o’clock in the evening, which meant that I’d slept for three hours straight. Maybe the info overload of the past two days had had the same effect as a sleeping pill: my brain knew I couldn’t cope, so it switched me off. Or maybe, just maybe . . . it was some kind of deep relief that already, by gathering the guts to come here, I was finding out who I really was.
You come home . . .
Even if I believed I had, did I want to be labelled by what had been my gene pool, but no part of my upbringing? I stood up and went for a pee, then looked at my flat nose in the mirror, and knew it was the nose of both the old woman and my new friend, Chrissie. They certainly had a deep sense of themselves and pride in their culture, and maybe that was what I needed: some pride. I might not belong to Star any more – I’d learnt the hard way that you could never own anyone. But just maybe, I could belong to both myself and a culture that defined me.
In the wider world, I was a loser, but today, sitting with Chrissie and her granny, they had seen my heritage as a strength. In other words, I had people in my corner who understood, because they were like me too. My . . . kantrimen. Family.
I went back to the bedroom feeling energised. I decided I’d call Chrissie and see if she could tell me more about Aboriginal culture. When I picked up my mobile, I saw I had twelve new text messages and several voicemails.
The first two texts were from Star:
So great to speak and laugh last night. You know where I am if you need me. Love you, S xxx
Me again, more newspapers called! DON’T ANSWER YOUR PHONE!!
Then . . .
This is a message for CeCe D’Aplièse. Hi. My name’s Katie Coombe. I’m a journalist at the Daily Mail. I’d like to interview you about your relationship with Anand Changrok. Call me on my mobile anytime to give your side of the story.
And another . . .
This is a text for CeCe D’Aplièse from the BBC1 Newsdesk in London. We’d like to talk to you about Anand Changrok. Please call Matt at the number below. Thanks.
And another
Hi, is this CeCe’s mobile number? I’m Angie from the News of the World. Let’s talk terms for a full interview with you.
And so on, and so on . . .
‘Shit!’ The journos were obviously on my tail. With Ace locked up and under police and court protection, there was nothing they could get from him, so they were coming to me. For one moment, I considered calling Wormwood Scrubs to ask if I could speak to Ace and ask him if there was anything he wanted me to say to the media on his behalf.
Stop being an idiot, Cee, I told myself. He wouldn’t trust you to get him a mango shake from a beach café . . .
Linda knows the truth, he’d said to me once.
So, who was Linda? A girlfriend? Or maybe a wife, although in the papers there hadn’t been any mention of him having a partner. Apart from me, of course, but as one of the tabloids had called me his ‘girlfriend du jour’, they were obviously labelling me as one of a heap that had gone before.
Still, some gut instinct told me I should be doing something for him. After all, he’d helped me when I’d needed it. The question was, what? And how?
There was one thing I could do . . .
I pulled the SIM card from my mobile, then checked on the handset address book that all the numbers I needed were stored there. I took the SIM card to the toilet, wrapped it in a piece of loo paper and threw it into the bowl. Then I flushed it, hard. Feeling satisfied that no one could trace me now, I left the room, walked down the road to a corner shop and bought a local SIM card. I texted Star and Ma with the new number. My mobile rang thirty seconds later.
‘Hi, Sia,’ I said.
‘I was just checking it was working.’