Riding the Black Cockatoo by John Danalis Read Free Book Online Page B

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    ‘Your grandmother would be just so, so pleased.’ The words caught in her throat. ‘Do you remember when she used to visit, the first thing she’d do was take a clean teatowel from the kitchen drawer and place it carefully over Mary. Remember how annoyed she used to get with your father and uncle – “The poor devil should be back with his own people,” she used to say.’ My mother doesn’t often get emotional but when she does it comes from a very deep place and means all the more. Her words steadied my uncertain spirit and gave me the reassurance I needed.
    { 26 SEPTEMBER 2005 }
    I dropped the kids at my parents’ place. In the background the morning show ping-ponged between serious news and inane chatter.
    ‘I’ve spoken to your uncle,’ said Dad, handing me a sheet of notepaper with the details of where Mary had been unearthed. The location was precise: the Old Kannon Property, 15 kilometres east of Swan Hill on the New South Wales side of the Murray River.
    ‘There he is.’ He nodded to a plastic shopping bag on the dining-room table. ‘Found him in the old TV cupboard.’
    That evening I returned home from uni with two tired kids and Mary. My wife Stella greeted me with the news that a Wamba Wamba elder, Jason’s uncle, had phoned earlier in the day; his name was Gary Murray.
    ‘What’d he say, what’s he sound like?’ I pumped Stella for every little detail while the girls ran around us squawking for their dinner.
    ‘He sounded really nice,’ said Stella.
    ‘What else, anything else?’
    ‘There is nothing else, he’s just really happy about getting Mary back and looks forward to talking to you. The number’s up by the phone.’
    ‘And he sounded nice, yeah?’
    ‘Really nice.’
    The number by the phone was a mobile number. A mobile phone; although I instantly realised how ridiculous the thought was, my concept of an Aboriginal elder didn’t include modern technology. My idea of an elder was of an old guy sitting cross-legged in red dust with didgeridoo music droning in the background, in a place untouched by personalised ringtones and SMS. Gary answered the phone, and he didn’t sound like Tara either, or old. My damned conditioning!
    Gary’s voice was deep and his sentences were short and uncluttered; he spoke the way people from the bush tend to talk. He was instantly likeable.
    ‘How’s this for timing,’ he said. ‘Unreal, isn’t it!’
    Gratitude poured from the earpiece; there was not a hint of reproach or judgement in his voice. Gary asked if I was absolutely positive that Mary was from Wamba Wamba country. I explained that my uncle found it on the Old Kannon farm, which according to the maps was well within his clan’s territory.
    ‘I’ll have to check,’ he replied ‘but I think that’s the old name of the property right next door to Menera.’
    ‘Menera?’ I asked.
    ‘Yeah, that’s the name of the property we bought, Menera Station, seven kilometres of prime river frontage, it belongs to the Wamba Wamba again.’ Gary’s words unrolled like a soft fabric woven with his love of country. ‘It’s just the start; we’ve got big plans for the place. That’s where the reburial’s taking place, right in the most beautiful part of the property. Farmers keep the best land for crops, we keep the best bits for burying our people. It’s beautiful, you come down and I’ll show it to you – beautiful.’
    I was having trouble taking it all in; I’d always imagined that Mary would be returned by post, or that maybe I’d fly to Melbourne and hand it over personally at the Museum. I hadn’t given any thought to what might happen after that. Now I was not only getting a description of Mary’s country, I was being transported there through Gary’s voice.
    ‘Let me get this right,’ I said. ‘Where the remains are going to be reburied, it’s quite possible he once walked over the same ground – I mean, this is his back yard?’
    Gary laughed. ‘That’s