Memories and Stories

The tradition of storytelling substantiates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives about the past, present and future. Concepts and beliefs that aid in explaining universal truths, such as notions of the after-life, and explanations of how the land holds meaning, are often spoken from one generation to another and this tradition is immensely prevalent in Winch’s text. The spiritual narratives and collective histories that form the foundations of May’s childhood are revisited consistently throughout each chapter, each one working as a concertina that gradually unfolds, to tell the reader more about May and her family.

The frequency with which May casts her mind back to these memories may be exacerbated by the trauma she has experienced: her troubled childhood, her mother’s suicide, the plethora of abuse she has been exposed to and a broad notion of not belonging. These memories are either revisited alongside current events or interject abruptly, both guiding and complicating May’s life. May herself often refers to these interludes as ‘spooling movies’ and suggests that they change as often as a projector might shift his reel in a theatre, flicking from one to the other with no continuity. Whether they are happy memories or slivers of a more sinister nature has little bearing on what the current action is and, congruently, May often wants to either sink further into them or escape them altogether. As a reader, there is sense that the recollections that revisit the protagonist May happen for a reason and are handpicked carefully by Winch in an attempt to juxtapose the effect the past has on the present. For example, the narrative can be difficult to navigate as the memories do not seem to be linear and May does not distinguish between the earlier and later recollections, reinforcing the slippery nature of consciousness, particularly in moments of trauma, and that the past cannot stay confined. May’s blurred recollections of her Mum and her grandmother Ma are interchangeable and often it isn’t clear which is being spoken about, but the influence of these women on May in her formative years is integral. Winch revisits this paradigm with the introduction of Johnny, whose path to destruction mirrors that of May’s brother Billy. She dismisses his attraction to her, unable to comprehend a relationship with someone who ‘reminds me [her] of my [her] brother’. He finally resigns himself to this, admitting that he ‘will be my [her] brother, always’ but this rejection resonates through their relationship and he refuses to run away with her.

The damaging nature of warped memories is presented at first with May’s contrived memory of her heroic father, a white man with a mop of striking blonde hair who unobtrusively picks fruit for a living and teaches his children how to fish and feed themselves. In reality, happening upon a bare-knuckle fight in the shadows of a rodeo confronts May with a more hedonistic version which her memory has obviously suppressed. Her initial realisation that her father had suddenly stopped being the man she’d ‘made myself [herself] imagine’ and become the ‘monster I’d [she’d] tried to hide’ is a confronting finding; her memory of her father lovingly repairing her bike is inaccurate and in the name of preservation, she has omitted the addition of him beating Mum with the tools he had used.

Winch continues this notion with the inclusion of the powerful sensory memory. May’s original association of her father smelling like ‘White Ox tobacco and yellow Palmolive soap’ morphs quickly into the smell of ‘fierce men… Toohey’s old, unwashed sheets, marinated raw beef’. In this instance, clinging to remnants of memory have been damaging to May and prevented her from moving forward and accepting that there was no salvation out there for her and, consequently, from beginning to gain clarity and resolution.

In contrast, although memories can be misleading and a painful connection to the past, recollections can be seen to be grounding and empowering forces by the end of the novel. The important stories that Mum had instilled in her children resonate till the very end of the novel. These Aboriginal myths and a habitual reverence for her people and the land in which they abide helps May preserve important tribal knowledge that is in danger of disappearing, much like it has in the Mission and in the neighbourhood where Percy lives. Although the temptation to bury her Indigenous identity is strong, without the inherited stories and oral traditions May and many others within the text would not be able to anchor to their ancestry.

Memories and Stories Quotes

And I knew it was all right not to forget. (May just after her Mum dies) p. 9

Some things stay with you, even if you manage to prise them out of your history, they somehow come marching back with a slung shotgun to blow away anything you’ve managed to build. To destroy the world that’s not real but you wish it was. (May on the day she saw he father at the fighting match) p. 85

I remembered now, when the anger face became his always face and the world ceased to be real, to be able to be understood, so I had left it behind. (May about her father) p. 85

Mum’s stories would always come back to this place, to the lake, where all Wiradjuri would stop to drink. Footprints of your ancestors, she’d say, one day I’ll take you there. (May) p. 141

I have jagged recollections. Sharp paper clippings that I remember. (May) p. 187

Identity and Belonging

The majority of the characters in Swallow the Air are portrayed as fleeting, strategically designed by Winch to illustrate the transience of a lifestyle lived on the streets and never knowing where the next meal will come from. The characters, particularly the males, blend into one another and become as one impervious being, that is, made potentially dangerous by their substance abuse. Alongside this notion, whenever a character is involved with someone who is volatile, there is a sense that they disappear beneath the abuse. May notes the ‘invisible line back from where she’d [her Aunty] had stumbled from the mirrored basin’ when she went to visit her abusive boyfriend. In the same way, although this novel is less about gender and more about the damage of abusive relationships, it is important to note that the hostile partners quite often favour destroying the woman’s face and, therefore, her identity with the abuse. Not only was Mum’s face horribly disfigured when May’s father poured boiling hot water over it in a fit of rage, she had to wear her hair differently to cover the scars, ‘crazy just like he had made her’, and she become more of his creation than her own self. In the same way, Aunty is subject to violence inflicted on her by Craig, who also tries to hold her face against the hot stovetop in order to mar her appearance.

May’s identity, however, is deeply connected with the land and the stories she’s been told by her Mum and grandmother June. She feels at one with the earth, and has every faith that the land will somehow protect her from the pain of reality as she hides in the dunes to escape her white attackers; ‘I am invisible, I am earth, I am sand.’ Her Aboriginality is an inescapable facet of who she is and she feels anchored to the land for as long as her Wiradjuri descendants have lived on it. Centuries of colonial rule have battered Indigenous tradition, which means that May’s identity is largely a mystery to her, and the allure of the Aboriginal culture helps her to cope with her disheartening reality. May dreams of a family that is intact and practices the traditions of her ancestry, and this dream does sustain her quest for a time, but as she is exposed to more and more of the ‘identical houses and roads’ that tell the same story of sadness and misery, the promise of this dream dissipates and morphs into a search for somewhere safe where she feels she belongs. At 15-years-old, this ignites a journey of self-discovery that challenges May in many different ways. Although she acknowledges her ancestry, feeling ‘Aboriginal because Mum had made me proud to be… felt Aboriginal… [and] felt like I [she] belonged’, May realises that the loss of her mother meant that part of that surety was stripped away and as more people were removed from her life – Billy, Aunty – more of her identity and sense of belonging were damaged.

In addition, May is made very aware from very early in the novel that there is a racial divide which causes friction; the graffiti painted on the housing project where she and her brother spend their time espouses racial slurs and sets the tone for the remainder of the novel. Although there are Anglo characters who show kindness, mostly those that travel the outback such as truckers, May’s reticence is still apparent. Her tendency to immediately begin speaking about those who are linked to her family tribe using inclusive language, such as with Issy and Joyce, is evidence that she feels an immediate affinity to those who may be in connection with her family. It would seem that these vital characters along May’s journey to self discovery feel the same way, with many, such as Sheepa, insisting that May call them ‘brother’ or by them referring to her as ‘little sis’. Joyce’s reminder to May that ‘we’re all one mob here…’ despite being from ‘different places’ indicates that the inclination to find a group in which to belong is not limited to just May but is a broader aspiration of the Indigenous community.

In order to demonstrate the precarious yet vital state of Aboriginal culture, much of May’s understanding of who she is stems from the knowledge given to her by her mother. Mum was always encouraging Billy and May to immerse themselves in nature, particularly the ocean as her Wiradjuri family originate from the water. It is not by accident that Winch places the incident of the white man chasing May and raping her along the bike path that connects her childhood home to the sea. This horrifying moment is used to show the dichotomy between the positive Indigenous identity associated with the land and the earth, and the brutal intrusion on Aboriginal identity within a modern Australian society.

May’s alternate universe of one happy family immersed in culture and tradition is able to sustain her for a time but, instead of finding her ‘mother’s mob… [that] would give me [her] a feed, when I got there’, she encounters Percy who has assimilated himself into middle-suburban bliss so far that he and his aloof wife Dotty struggle to show even the simplest hospitality to May when she visits them. His genuity, as unwelcome as it is at the time, is precisely what May needs to hear however, and she soon comes to realise that ‘that place, that people, that something you’re looking for… it’s gone… it was taken away’, and he helps her to understand that the culture had been suppressed for so long that to revive it would be near impossible, in fact, he scorns the very notion of it ever returning. By proxy, this cements May’s need to preserve her own heritage and that of her childhood. In her memory, she gathers up the voices of those she has met along her journey (Charlie, Issy, Johnny) and realises the connection she has shared with each of them is different but each is equally poignant.

Identity and Belonging Quotes

I felt Aboriginal because Mum had made me proud to be, told me I got magic and courage from Gundyarri, the spirit man. It was then I felt Aboriginal, I felt like I belonged, but when Mum left, I stopped being Aboriginal. I stopped feeling like I belonged. Anywhere. (May) p. 97

‘They still tryin to do it, kill of us fellas, that always been the plan, now they do it quiet, crush em, slow.’ (Graham about the white government in the Mission neighbourhood) p. 171

This land is belonging, all of it for all of us. This river that is ocean, these clouds are that lake, these tears are not only my own. (May) p. 183

Family

Winch displays that for the most part, family is unreliable, volatile and is a great source of distress. The pain of being abandoned by her Mum and Dad, and being disappointed by the care her Aunty offered, perpetuates May leaving home. Her growing fascination with her Aboriginal tribe reflects the deep community focus of not only the Indigenous population but also all Australians as a nation. Winch’s anticlimactic end to this quest is a timely reminder that often the reality trumps the dream, and that true contentment must come from within. Winch ridicules the concept of a perfect family, and by having May return to Aunty and Billy suggests that even flawed families can find their fulfilment. The instability of May’s life, particularly her childhood, perpetuates a cycle of violence and abandonment. The trend of men (often fathers) abandoning their responsibilities suggests that there are some that shirk their responsibilities and even go so far as to lack any true understanding of the damage they have done by making them dismissive about the role of a parent. When May receives the postcard from her father suggesting that ‘it’s been a long time that you haven’t heard from your old man’, there’s a sense he’s pretending he is on an extended holiday and will soon return, when the reality is that no such thing will eventuate. Additionally, his colloquial label of ‘old man’ suggests he has no intention of shouldering the responsibility of the abuse that befell the household before he left and he hopes May might still hold some affection toward him. By downplaying the seriousness of the situation, Winch normalises stories like May and Billy’s, children from not only broken but also violent homes. Those that do try to help in their own small way eventually end up being just another disappointment to them. Although Mum strives to be a stable solo parent, her mental health declines to the extent that she cannot come back from it. Likewise, Aunty takes in her sister’s children when she commits suicide but is unable to protect them from her gambling, instability and, eventually, the violence that she experiences from Craig which overflows to hurt Billy. The domino effect of such lifestyles is a comment on the contemporary crisis, whereas the residual symptoms of forcibly separating children from their families breed a generation of those unable to create their own strong family structures and maintain healthy relationships of their own.

The majority of the abandonment occurs from family, those closest to May. Just as the novel rejects stylistic security by conforming to ordinary literary convention, the plot itself suffers from characters that disappear. Even those, like Billy and Johnny, who show promise within the dialogue that they share with May eventually, in one way or another, abandon her and leave her having to scour the country for members of family in the more traditional sense.

Family Quotes

Maybe Dad had done the same. Maybe he needed to hide away until now, until he could come back. I wondered if he’d come back. (May about her father) p. 44

We didn’t talk about Mum or our dads or all the booze and shit around us, we knew the world in the same way that we knew each other, in the quietness that we shared. It wasn’t in our eyes or our voices or what we said – it was just there, that understanding, that sameness… (May about Billy) pp. 59-60

The screams must have been so deafening, the river of tears so overflowing that the current could only steal her. The flood breaking so high, that she had to leave us behind. (May trying to reconcile her mother’s suicide) p. 88

‘We’re all family here, all blacks, here, from different places, but we’re all one mob, this place here…’ (Joyce introducing May to The Block) p. 99

I thought about those blue shirts taking away the people I love. (May watching the police as the arrest Charlie and plan to deport him) p. 113

Gender

Although not prominent, the theme of gender is subtle in that there are many relationships shown in the novel. In an effort to please their male counterparts, many of the women like Aunty and Mum feel obliged to remain in abusive relationships. This tawdry manner in which May describes Aunty’s application of ‘cocksucker red lipstick over her black lips in worship of her prince’, suggests that Aunty is selling herself and her body in an effort to be in a relationship.

The importance of a father figure was pivotal to Mum when she ‘found herself another Dad for Billy, a white fella’ when the reality of this sad situation is that it would only end with yet another abandonment for the children when Billy’s dad disappeared. The condemnation of Billy’s biological father and the hedonistic representation of May’s father is typical of the portrait that Winch paints of men in the text. Whilst Billy’s father will have ‘no place for a sick baby and a young mum’ in his childish lifestyle of living under a swag and playing rock’n’roll in a band, May’s father indulges in the nastiness of bare-fist boxing where he wore his ‘anger face’ as the men beat each other into pulp. Concurrently, men who struggle with their racist ways, such as the unnamed ‘lad’ with the ignorant ‘fat-bottom[ed] lip’ visit sexual violence on young girls as a way of gaining control. In this way, the attack that May endures, and the manner in which Winch reverts back to a simple memory that she and Billy shared as children, is a true violation of innocence and a scathing indictment on a contemporary society.

Although, at times, Winch hints at a striving male figure with characters such as Gary and Pete who work tirelessly at their occupations of truck-driving and delivery, this takes them away from their families and their simple pleasures such as placing a bet and revelling in their music collections make their tender efforts to provide for their families, unenviable.

Gender Quotes

But Mum still thought that boys needed their dads, needed to have men around to grow into. So she went and found herself another dad for Billy, a white fella. (May) p. 52