Riding the Black Cockatoo by John Danalis Read Free Book Online

demanded my attention; but instead I was drawn to the telephone. I couldn’t wait for Uncle Bob to return from his fishing trip. I felt as though a hand was inside me, pushing me forward. My first call was to the Queensland Museum. I was put though to a lifeless young woman from the Indigenous Collection. Speaking with her was like trying to suck sap from a 100-year-old telephone pole. Her boss was away on a field trip.
    ‘Ring the Mines Department,’ she suggested in an uninterested monotone.
    ‘Mines Department?’ I felt insulted; what did she think Mary was, a lump of coal?
    ‘Yes, the mining operations are always ripping up burial sites. Ring them,’ she said blankly and then hung up.
    I looked up the number and introduced myself to the chirpy young girl on the switchboard.
    ‘Oh my god! Are you serious, you want to return a skull?’ Her voice darkened with suspicion. ‘Sa-a-ay, you’re not calling from a radio station are you? Do I win a prize or something for not getting tricked?’
    I assured her that she wasn’t going out live to air and that I wasn’t a hoax caller. She seemed disappointed.
    ‘A skull, yeah, like, a human one?’ She sounded unconvinced but agreed to put me through to her supervisor. Two supervisors and three departments later I was connected to someone in an environmental unit. After listening to my story, the environmental officer called out to his colleague, ‘Hey, Bill, I’ve got a bloke here who wants to return an Aboriginal skull.’
    ‘A skull,’ asked the colleague, ‘where’s the rest of it?’
    ‘You there?’ the officer asked me. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’
    ‘As far as I know, still buried,’ I answered, feeling as though I’d stumbled into a Monty Python skit.
    ‘Still pushin’ up daisies,’ the officer called to his colleague.
    ‘Why’s he asking us then?’ asked Bill.
    ‘The Museum told him we had a department that looks after bones ’n’ stuff.’
    I heard a groan in the background.
    ‘Tell him to ring Trevor, he might know.’
    ‘Might be best to talk to Trevor,’ Bill explained, sounding relieved to have passed the hot potato into yet another part of the building. ‘Hang about while I dig out his number.’
    Five minutes later, my shoulders slumped as Trevor’s answering machine clicked in.
    ‘Hello, this is the message service for Trevor—. I’m on fieldwork for two weeks and won’t be returning to my desk until—’ I put the phone down. The Mines Department; it just didn’t feel right. It sounded cold and undignified, as if the bones were being reduced to their mineral makeup, devoid of spirit. Anyway, Trevor sounded like a boof-head.
    I spent the following three hours dialling numbers. I felt like a crazed rat in a laboratory maze, able to smell the cheese but too addle-headed to find it. I felt driven by something not of me; I ran on clumsy intuition, ignoring the leads that didn’t feel right, side-stepping, hopping from one lead to another. There was little empathy from the people I spoke to; one minute I was made to feel as though I was trying to return a lost umbrella, the next like a blood-sucking ghoul.
    Finally, finally , some kind soul at the National Museum suggested that I call the Melbourne Museum. Looking back it seems painfully obvious and logical that my first call should have been to the Melbourne Museum, but it wasn’t. Perhaps I was forced to run though the labyrinth for a reason. An internet search led me to the museum’s Indigenous collection and a name. I dialled the number, hoping that this person wouldn’t be away on fieldwork, on long-service leave, or a moron. Simon answered on the second ring. He listened quietly as I told my story. Even though he’d only said three or four words, there was a reassuring calmness coming from his end of the line that encouraged me to take my time.
    He let me catch my breath after I’d finished.
    ‘Well you’ve phoned the right place, if they are Victorian remains. I