Wantok

Adopting Johnny as her pseudo-brother, May is able to pretend she and Billy are back together again and enjoying the simplicity of everyday life. They daydream together about visiting the beach and living off the land. Johnny too has a father who lives on Waiben (one of the Torres Strait Islands) and together they fantasise about a better life where they fish all day in canoes and sleep in cabins under tropical storms, picking mangoes off trees for breakfast. May finally opens up about her ‘Mum’s country’ and she anchors back to stories of the earth, connecting once more to the swampy streams and the mouths of rivers. Their imaginations alleviate some of the upset that is seen in the Block and they promise to one day escape together.

Johnny calls May his ‘wantok’ (‘black girl ally’) and she admits that he reminds her of Billy.

Wantok Quotes

Johnny takes me away, together…we’ve escaped with each other and the rest of it – the Block and the city can rise up and drift away like vacant echoes. (May about her relationship with Johnny) p. 119

We promise each other to find them, the faces, to go to our homelands for our people, for ourselves. (May and Johnny talk about finding their people) p. 123

Painted Dreaming

May chooses to leave the Block and stay a while with some of her friends in an abandoned building in Sydney’s industrial area. Covered in graffiti and subject to the harsh elements, it is far from the home of Joyce and Johnny but May is happy to be amongst people with home she feels comfortable. Once again, this is short-lived as the police raid the building to eject any squatters and when they fight back, May and the others spend the night in prison. May retreats into her mind once more, drawing on her imagination to conceal the reality of her lifestyle and choices; she has a vision of the 19th century resistance leader from the Wiradjuri people and dreams that he is advising her. She makes a decision then that her lifestyle cannot continue like this, and hopes she and Johnny can run away together. Upon returning to Joyce’s after a night in the cells, Johnny is less than enthused about leaving with her. He is smoking a bong and his belligerence surfaces, explaining that no one ever leaves and people from the Block ‘don’t go nowhere’. Incensed and hurt, May packs up and leaves with her dreams in shatters.

Painted Dreaming Quotes

Fifth time that fortnight that the pigs came to clear us out. Living, making camp, was no right of ours. (the police arrest May for sleeping rough) p. 127

‘…you’re a fuckin nobody like everyone else!’ (Johnny to May) p. 132

Mapping Waterglass

May begins to hitchhike her way through the country once more and is offered a lift to Lake Cowal (an inland lake in the state of New South wales) by a man named Gary who drives a pickup truck. His incessant chatting about his pregnant wife and his love for Van Morrison music is a comfort to May and she remembers sitting in the car with her mother, who frequently took the children to the ocean to ‘show’ them the stories about the animals, instead of just telling them.

Despite Gary’s kindness and the fact that he gives May his number, expressing that his wife and he would love to have her stay, May feels compelled to stay by the water. As they approach the township and Gary tells May about the mining compound. The lake is symbolically dry as they drive past and as she walks up to its edge, May remembers how Mum used to say that the lake represented the ‘footprints of your [May’s] ancestors’ and that it was from where the Wiradjuri would draw their strength.

Mapping Waterglass Quotes

My mum’s half-decent sing-along voice bellowing through the Kombi… song lines to ease her absence, know the impermanence of our company, saying I’m still here. (May’s memories of road trips with her mum) p. 137

‘Gold you see, money makes the world go around kiddo.’ (Gary to May as they near the mining digs) p. 140

Just Dust

May is reluctant to leave the lakeside and meets an old woman named Issy, who vehemently protests the nearby mining corporation which pollutes the area and denigrates ‘her mother’s land’. As an elder, Issy feels the responsibility to protect the land of her ancestors, and she and May feel connected to one another by this instinct. Issy resigns herself to being able to do little more than be a nuisance to the company shareholders in as effort to dissuade them from expanding. She reminds May that under the lakebed, the Wiradjuri (May’s people) come from quartz crystal and are a hard and powerful tribe. Although meeting with Issy invigorates her, May senses the hopelessness in fighting against industry. Connected by their ancestry and a spirituality that May finds difficult to identify, Issy suggests that to find her family (the Gibsons), May should follow the Lachlan River to Eubalong.

Just Dust Quotes

She is an elder, and that means she has a responsibility to protect what belongs to her people. To teach. (May about Issy) p. 145

She says they [the mining company] are building high to get closer to father sky, closer to heaven. It doesn’t work, she grins, and they will always fall. The jewels will go back to the mother eventually. (May recalling what Issy said to her) p. 147

Cocoon

Another flashback haunts May as she remembers sitting by a makeshift fire pit with her Mum and her brother Billy. Mum is telling stories and, as was typical, the children try to distract her so she forgets it’s a school night and allows them to stay up longer. As she talks, she etches little drawings of flowers and animals into the wooden stools they sit on. Recollections of her mother and brother are a continual feature to which May returns when she gets lost. There is a sense of hope and promise in the family, as Billy talks about patching up a canoe and using it to catch red snapper to feed the family. The discussion revolves around the sea and the bounty that the ocean can provide, proving that despite the volatile upbringing, May has a fondness about her mother and the home life provided to her before she died.

Cocoon Quotes

They were the best times, the three of us at the fire, laughing and talking over the top of things we never talked about. (May remembering the days she spent with her brother and her Mum) p. 153

We cooked the snapper on the fire that night, fried on a skillet. It was the best night, just before Mum left us. (Billy feeding his family with his catch from the sea) p. 154

Bila Snake

As Issy navigates May along the river, telling her she must follow the river for four days and then cross only when it is shallow enough to do so, May feels comforted by the fact that she is wandering amongst her ancestors’ land and there’s a certain sense of fulfillment that comes from living off the land. May catches a fish and although she finds it hard to cook, she feels as though she is healing as she walks along the winding river. May is driven by what she imagines will be a welcoming family who embrace her and relay more stories about her Mum to her.

Issy’s disappearance leaves her with only one further instruction, that she was to abandon the river when she came across the tourist sign and so she obeys, blindly following the advice given to her.

Bila Snake Quotes

And as the salt subsides, the green trickles over the riverbank from tree limbs, spilling colour into day’s light, upside down. The water moves in tiptoes, and you could almost mistake it for a painting… (May describing the beauty of the land) p. 157

But under all the giggling we meet somewhere between my blazing stomach and the stars, and she looks into me with gravity. I think of it as shared stubbornness or some nature of knowing. It leaks from her, that once she too was lost. (May about Issy) p. 158

I imagined my mum would be there too, they’d all be there, around a fire, cooking goanna. (May dreams of finding her family) p. 161

Mission

At Eubalong, May is directed to the mission outside of the town in the hopes she will find her family there. When she arrives at the mission, she is directed along a line of houses that look similar to her childhood home and her excitement diminishes as she realizes she has ended back where she began. It looks nothing like what she envisaged and, after asking an old man called Graham, the location of her relatives remains a mystery. The ubiquitous nature of substance abuse among Indigenous communities is revisited when we learn that Betty, the woman May has been directed toward, has a husband and two sons all addicted to alcohol. Despite the dilapidated state of the mission, it had once been a thriving project. Uncle spends some time telling May about the history of the mission, which had originally been erected in 1947 by a Catholic organization who were intent on ‘shifted[ing]… station blacks out’ and situating them into estates where they would be under the care and spiritual tutelage of the white providers. The plan backfired and Uncle claimed a ‘bad spirit’ began and manifested itself as anger, pain and violence. He says that this is the reason the communities are plagued with addiction problems, particularly drinking. He makes note that this pattern has emerged all over the nation and acknowledges the generational impact of this upset, criticising the government’s ambivalence to the issue. The conversation May has with Graham is the first time she receives clarity about the plight of her people and, while he demonizes the government and all religions as the one enemy, his message rings true to May who has seen firsthand how her country is divided.

When Betty arrives, she can only provide scant information: the only remaining Gibsons live at Lake Cargelligo, which is located in the Lachlan area, central west of New South Wales. Betty says her daughter Jo can drive May there.

Mission Quotes

I should be used to it by now, but hope was becoming weary. (May) p. 166

It feels forgotten here, and if you can forget about a place so forgettable, so unassuming, then I imagine the people who live in it forget too. Forget that there exist places beyond the highway creases, forget that someone might care. (May about the Mission) p. 167

‘…she got trouble though, all her boys too much on the grog, and her husband too, too much grog and bustin each other up, ya know. It’s no good, this entire place is gone, no spirit left here.’ (Graham speaking about Betty, the lady who will help May find the remaining members of the Gibson family) p. 169

‘Ya see the problem is, us fellas still seen as second-rate person, still treated like they don’t matter.’ (Graham to May) p. 171

Country

The house to which Jo drives May, a white house with a small manicured lawn, is not at all what May had imagined. May meets Dotty and Percy, a husband and wife with the surname Gibson. May is convinced when she sees how much Percy looks like the memory of her Mum and learns he was Mum’s cousin. Initially suspicious that May has come to ask for money, Percy is stand-offish at first and May is compelled to be honest about why she has sought him out, telling him that she wanted to know more about her family. Instead of finding a kind, understanding relative, Percy admonishes the rest of the Gibsons for being ‘gypsies’, and teases May for the typicality of her reason for coming to find him. May’s fury gets the best of her and once Percy calms down, he explains that her grandmother Alice also left the mission in her early years looking for meaning. After a nasty relationship with a white man named Jack, Alice had returned with a clutch of children, one of whom was May’s Mum, June. The name Jack sounds familiar and May remembers that it’s the name Mum had said was ‘the first white man to destroy us’. The memory of being raped and all the abuse she and other women like her had experienced at the hands of white men comes flooding back, and May suddenly gets very angry.

Percy explains that the reason May can’t find the family she had envisaged is because their traditions and identities had been forbidden by the whites and, eventually, they all had to assimilate in order to survive. He explains that the Aboriginal heritage May imagined has long gone and she will never find anything like it again. In an effort to make her feel better, Percy suggests that if she wants to know as much as she does, and as much as her Mum seemed to, she should read books and become familiar with the world she lives in. He leaves to go to golf and they shake hands amicably, each knowing they will not see each other again.

Back on the road, May has a vague idea that she’ll head outwards to the ocean. She has time to reflect on what it means to be a Wiradjuri and how the connection to the water is ever-present, seeming to pull its people toward it. When a trucker offers her a lift and they stop at a truck stop, May is shocked to see the headlines of a newspaper: ‘Boy, 16, DIES IN POLICE CHASE’. She recognises the young boy as Johnny and her heart sinks, knowing he’ll never fulfill the many dreams he shared with May. Although she feels relief for him, that he won’t experience the disappointment and disillusionment she has, she knows he can now go fishing and swimming in the Torres Islands, just like the turtle Mungi that Mum used to talk about.

Country Quotes

‘Suppose you’re a gypsy too, ha?’ He looks at my backpack and down at my feet. His lip crawls cruelly. ‘What d’ya want anyway love, ya come here for money, ha? Like your grandmother?’ (Percy to May) p. 179

‘It’s gone. It was taken away. We’re weren’t told, love; we weren’t allowed to be Aboriginal.’ (Percy to May) p. 182

Eventually I will be there. At the shoreline, we need to talk. (May decides to return home after a disappointing journey to find her family) p. 183

I scan pretty white faces on the magazine covers, and down to the stacks of newspapers that I’d never read. (moments before May reads that Johnny has been killed) p. 184

The Jacaranda Tree

May reflects on how her patchwork of memories makes her who she is, but also provides her with orientation points in her journey. Bit by bit, the memory of her mother’s face has disappeared and ‘her real face is lost’ to May. Winch likens this loss of memory to May’s recollection of the blooming Jacaranda tree in the backyard of her childhood home. Bare for most of the year and then suddenly in bloom, May had gathered the flowers and used them to decorate her room and bed, choosing only the best flowers to keep. Like anything of beauty, the flowers disappear and she remembers once more that her mother’s body was found under the tree on the day she committed suicide.

The Jacaranda Tree Quotes

I have jagged recollections. Sharp paper clippings that I remember. I could burrow into another time, or by chance be harked back… (May about her memories) p. 187

It’s a sacred bloody pest. It isn’t meant to be here, I hate it, too pretty, she’d say, threatening always to chop it down. (May remembers her Mum complaining about the large Jacaranda tree in their backyard) p. 189

Home

May finally arrives home, her journey having brought her back to the salty sea and an overwhelming feeling of being home; feeling the warm sun and smelling the air, at once seems so familiar and welcoming to May. She is finally resigned to the idea that no matter where she is, if there is water nearby it will always be home for her. Instead of denying her roots and looking for something else, May acknowledges she was always where she needed to be and even though the beach she grew up on is not her tribe’s native land, she feels a connection to the water nonetheless.

Her return is bittersweet as it conjures up painful memories of suffering and sadness, but she resists the urge to runaway again when she realizes that it will do little to assuage her grief and that, instead, she must stay and face it head on. When she arrives home to the ironically named Paradise Parade, most of the houses are being demolished and little has changed. When her Aunty sees her, she breaks down and sobs that she is being evicted. Seeing Billy, obviously clean from drugs and just as pleased to see her, May is ecstatic and they all embrace. Making a simple jest about the futility of their situation, May suggests they buy a new tablecloth in a vain effort to keep the excavators from demolishing their home. They leave the house together and as they watch over the ocean, the excavators move in and the future for Aunty, Billy and May, remains unclear.

Home Quotes

When I come home the tide is flowing in, when I reach it, when it draws across the purple slate beds of the point, through the rain and across the grit sand, soaking under my feet, salt bubbles burst at my shins. Then, I know that I am home. (May) p. 193

…we are of the Wiradjuri nation, hard water. We are if the river country, and we have flowed down estuaries to oceans. To live by another stretch of water. Salt. (May reflecting on her family) p. 194

When I get there, Paradise Parade is warring…. Yellow machines have paused for a while… few houses remain… (May) p. 195