Tiddas by Anita Heiss Read Free Book Online Page B

families she’d helped farewell their loved ones. She tried not to get too personal or connected to the families she worked with, but that was near impossible, meeting people at the most traumatic times of their lives.
    Nadine started laughing hysterically, slamming her glass on the table.
    â€˜What’s so funny?’ Veronica asked. Her lack of self-esteem meant she was often paranoid that the joke might be on her.
    â€˜I remember driving with Richard to pick Ellen up when her place was flooded, and she was walking towards us holding her crocodile boots in the air. Funniest fucken thing I’d ever seen.’ Nadine slapped her linen-covered legs in hysterics.
    They all laughed at the memory of the photo Nadine took on her iPhone and sent them all immediately. Of course it wasn’t funny at the time.
    â€˜Hey, those boots are important to me, and they were the only things that I could carry, given my backpack was full of photos.’
    â€˜Oh the boots, the boots,’ Nadine kept laughing.
    Ellen smiled, but the truth was she was depressed for a long time after the floods, having lost most of her books as well, and she had always been an avid reader.
    â€˜The only reason I come to book club is so I can build up my library again. You know that, right?’ She refilled her glass and her plate almost simultaneously. ‘It’s not so I can be trashed by the comedic lush!’
    â€˜I’d have to say, Vee, this was a great choice for us to read,’ Nadine said, pushing her copy of The Old School towards the middle of the table. ‘I loved it. Inter-racial relationships, female lead detective, and do you know I hadn’t even tried pho before reading this book?’
    â€˜Were you living under a rock?’ Izzy joked.
    â€˜Obviously!’ Ellen put a humus-covered cracker in her mouth.
    â€˜I thought incorporating the Aboriginal Legal Service was brave myself, but it needed to be done. I was impressed with the whole storyline. It’d be great as a telemovie,’ Xanthe said, having also discussed the novel with Spencer.
    â€˜Who’d play the character called Mabo? Wayne Blair?’ Veronica asked, knowing there was a strong pool of Indigenous actors ready and capable of taking on such a role.
    Izzy, Ellen and Xanthe all thought back to when they’d got together to watch Redfern Now on TV. They had talked about it for weeks afterwards.
    â€˜I think Jack Charles would be perfect!’
    Veronica was spot on. She knew a lot about the arts sector and attended many Murri cultural events around Brisbane. She was the perfect example of reconciliation at work: the appreciation of and respect for Indigenous Australian cultures.
    Izzy had read this month’s book as an escape from thinking about her own situation, and she too liked the storyline. ‘This Newton woman has done a deadly job incorporating Aboriginal characters and issues into the story, I reckon. I’ve never read an Aussie novel like that.’
    Nadine felt a pang of guilt and wondered if her sister-in-law was having a dig at her for never including Kooris – or Murris, as Blackfellas called themselves in Brisbane – in her own novels, but she never really knew how to, and Richard wasn’t big on talking about books. But even in her drunken haze she felt compelled to say something. ‘I really like Pam’s work too, we’ve done a few festivals together. She makes me want to lift my game.’
    â€˜I thought it was interesting she was a detective before becoming an author. All those details, I knew she had to have inside information somehow,’ Veronica added.
    â€˜Turns out she was her own insider.’ Nadine slugged back another cocktail. She needed an insider to help her write the next book, even though she didn’t know what it was going to be. This Newton woman might tip me off the bestseller list , she thought to herself.
    â€˜We need some Black crime