Swallow the Air

The novel begins in retrospect; although May remembers her mother’s whimsical ways, as an older girl of 15 she can see how truly unwell ‘Mum’ really was. Her memories of the childhood she shares with her brother Billy are simultaneously unsettling and magical. May is stirred by them and eventually she recalls her freshest recollection where she sees her mum disappear back into the house and later learns the woman has taken her own life.

Although Mum told them to go to the beach, clearly a diversion so she could kill herself, the two children enjoy their time there and follow her instructions to go home to their Aunty’s house when it got dark. May’s heritage becomes clear when she spots a turtle in the sea and marvels over how it reminds her of Mungi, a tribesman who was gifted a shell to save his life by an ancestor when he suffered a neck injury. It was a story that Mum used to tell her.

Neither Billy nor May catch any fish at the beach but they traipse back to their Aunty’s house as the sun goes down and begin to feel hungry. As they arrive at Aunty’s house, the police are already there, no doubt alerting the rest of family that Mum has ‘gone’.

May’s poetic tendencies and the depth of her grief are explored as she considers a bloated sting ray she had pierced in order to end its suffering whilst she was at the beach earlier and how through its passing it has become ‘free[d]’.

Swallow the Air Quotes

She sounded all broken up, like each word was important but foreign. ‘Your mum – she gone. She gone away for a long time, kids. Me sista, she had to leave us.’ (Aunty telling the children their mother has killed herself) pp. 8-9

I thought about Mum’s pain being freed from her wrists, leaving her body, or what was left. (May after she learns he Mum has committed suicide) p. 9

Grab

As guardian of the two children, Aunty becomes caretaker to the young May and Billy. She believes herself to be perpetually unlucky, having lived in the same squalid conditions her whole life, never having won anything as a result of her constant gambling in the local lotteries and, just recently, having lost her sister on whom she had greatly relied. After winning a local competition known as the Tip Top Bread Grocery Grab, Aunty takes May and Billy to help her grab as many groceries in the store during the allotted time. Although elations run high, soon the food they had gathered in the winning spree runs out and Aunty turns to playing the pokies to try and support the family. Her addiction is exacerbated by small wins at the local casino and she feels compelled to go on, waiting for her luck to make those ‘red-letter promises disappear[ed]’.

As a result of the lies and deceit towards the kids, Aunty ‘drowned out’ and became just another unreliable figure in their childhood.

Grab Quotes

I suppose she’d [Aunty] had surrender to being that kid, and then to being that woman in the same rotting suburb, born into a lifetime of ill-fate. p. 13

And it was just another bonus, another incentive, a quiet celebration for her luck. Another drink. (May on her Aunty’s addictive habits) p. 17

Cloud Busting

Another flashback sees May remembering a trip to the beach she took with Billy. Their joy and frivolity indicate this memory had taken place prior to their Mum’s suicide, which is confirmed when they return home and Mum fries their catch of the day.

As she cooks, Mum regales stories from her youth in 1967, when she lived in an impoverished housing estate with her own mother, Alice. Her siblings had been placed into the charitable care of missionary projects by then, as Alice could scarcely afford to feed herself let alone her children. Mum remembers that she was deemed unsuitable to be placed in missions with the hope of being adopted out, which she assumes is ‘probably cos my skin’s real dark, see…’. The housing projects where Alice and her daughter had lived were initiatives set up by the Australian Government in an effort to segregate Aboriginal children and assimilate those of mixed heritage into white society. May’s mum remembers that she and her mum [Alice], were ‘sent to Goulburn from the river, to live in these little flats’ and that the children were cruelly scattered to family relations and educational institutions. Alice got a job as a housekeeper, a fitting position for someone who would have been considered socially inferior at that time, but the family were nice and let Alice bring her daughter when she worked.

The reason Mum has harked back to this memory of her childhood becomes clear as a travelling saucepan salesman comes to the housing projects looking to ply his wares. Although the other women in the project laugh, knowing there would be no way to afford such a splendid stainless steel cooking set, Alice is keen to treat herself and offers to pay the man in installments, taking just shy of four years to complete. Upon delivery, in a rare moment of kindness, Samuel stocks the set with all manner of meat, dry good and vegetables, knowing that Alice could never afford the food to cook in her new pans.

As the narrative returns to Mum telling the story to May and Billy, the children realise the importance of the stainless steel set and, at the same time, the resounding impact of unexpected kindness.

Cloud Busting Quotes

When we’re kids we have no fear, it gets sucked out in the rips. (May about being at the beach with Billy) p. 22

The suit opened up the box and arranged the saucepans on the balcony, the sun making the steel shine and twinkle. They were magical. (the saucepan set that Alice [May’s grandmother] wants to buy) p. 25

With each lid she pulled off, her tears gathered and fell. (when Alice finally finished paying off the saucepan set, Samuel delivered them full of food supplies) p. 27

My Bleeding Palm

As they grow, there are spontaneous moments of happiness for the children; May wins a school art prize and Billy lands a job delivering milk to help bring in money for the household. Typically, the life of a hopeless gambler has its ups and downs, and occasionally Aunty has a win and brings home something special for the kids but more often than not, they go without.

As their financial situation worsens, Aunty begins to visit her new boyfriend. Through May’s eyes, Aunty’s behavior looks suspiciously like she’s prostituting herself to the man as she dresses vulgarly before seeing him and her personality rapidly changes after being with him. A small rhyme the children create to cope with the situation alludes to a violent man – ‘Fists of black hair. Cheek to the stove’ – and as a coping mechanism, Billy begins to smoke from a bong. Going for a walk in the projects, May becomes increasingly aware that their time is limited; despite being derelict, their housing project is situated on valuable land and is soon to be converted into a rich housing development, dislocating the inhabitants and uprooting all they know. In addition, as May grows up, her childish naivety disappears and she realises the dangers of wandering on her own where the ‘lads’ roam, keen to exact racial hatred on anyone in their path.

When one of them spots May, despite her efforts to hide, he catches up to her and rapes her in an effort to ‘show ya [her] where ya [she] don’t belong’. Her recollection of the savage attack is once again explored through metaphor and memory, with the sound of buttons on her clothing being torn reminding her of popping bubble-wrap as a child with Billy. Not only does May have to grapple with the assault but she must also come to terms with the fact that nature did not make her as impervious to unjust violence as she thought and she feels isolated from the elements around her.

My Bleeding Palm Quotes

‘Aunty got a boyfriend. Skin just like mine. I’d hear Aunty cry all the time. Fists of black hair. Cheek to the stove. Don’t know when my real Aunty is gunna come home’. (a small ditty that May and Billy create whilst living in their Aunty’s home) p. 32

He [the Rapist] was alone, still against the light crashing on hurling bodies. His mates were too busy taking apart one of the kids – probably one of the dope runners ripped them off. Payback, slamming his rag doll body between the Datsun panel and Nike. (May when she’d out along one night just before she is attacked) p. 35

Bushfire

Years on, May is living in an apartment complex and receives a postcard from her Dad. She notes that every January since the year of her Mum’s death, Australia is plagued by ravenous bushfires that seem to intensify each year. Dad’s postcard is surprisingly buoyant and he casually apologises for it being so long since she’d ‘heard from your [her] old man’. It’s succinct message is clearly an invitation for her to join him; May can only imagine what it might be like for him in Darwin picking mangoes. The front of the postcard, which shows a man on a tall ladder picking ripe fruit off a tree, subsidises the pleasant memories May has of her father’s return.

Bushfire Quotes

The postcard was late, too late for Mum… from Dad, from Dad. Sorry. From Dad. p. 43

I didn’t know it then, but the man would no longer be there and the mangoes would’ve all been packed and sent away in dusty oversized trucks. (May about her father) p. 45

Leaving Paradise

In this chapter, readers learn a little more about May’s older brother Billy who was born with a heart condition and had learnt how to fight because he had been doing it since birth. Mum was very young when she fell pregnant with him, and Billy’s father (who was no doubt young also) couldn’t face raising a child with a congenital disorder so he absconded and later killed himself, leaving Mum to raise Billy on her own.

Later, when they live at Aunty’s house, the place of ‘grog and fists’ becomes unsafe and it is only a matter of time before Craig’s temper boils over and one of the kids is hurt. One night, Billy and May return from seeing a film and they find Craig attempting to burn Aunty’s face on the stovetop. Billy intervenes and is hit in the chest. As he comes to, he begins screaming and offers to take May away from ‘this life’ but she is in such shock that she doesn’t answer him and he disappears.

Realising her error in not escaping with her brother, May scours their old haunts and soon comes to understand that Billy is gone and she may never see him again. His absence feels like a hollow inside her; they had always been close and, as siblings, she feels his loss the most.

Leaving Paradise Quotes

Billy’s dad ran away, he was the right skin for Mum too, but he wanted to play rock’n’roll instead, wanted to live in a swag or the back of a Kingswood, no place for a sick baby and a young mum. p. 51

Every night it happened, I began to wake before they’d even come home, my body waiting for the back door to fling open and bang against the wall, for them to be already at each other’s throat, or laughing and chatting before a blue would start. (May about the difficulties of living in her Aunty’s volatile home) pp. 53-54

I thought I’d know where he’d be, up the bush, at Bulli Beach, thought I could track him down, thought he’d be where I’d go, the same. (May realizing that her brother Billy had truly run away as she hopelessly searches for him) p. 60

To Run

Discontent with her current lot in life, May packs a backpack and decides to try and find her father. She finds temporary shelter in a squat, an abandoned building near the railways tracks that is home to some others who are quite kindly and offer her a place to stay. She meets a man called ‘Sheepa’, who explains that the decrepit house is a community and evidently serves as a refuge for many displaced people. He dispenses diluted opium to May and she drifts off into sleep, dreaming a distorted memory of her mother and father. May continues down the spiral of petty crime, shoplifting some food from a local grocery store, and arrives back at the community house to find Billy clearly high on heroin. She retreats to her assigned bedroom, with only a piece of foam as her mattress, and tries to gain back a sense of control by surveying her stolen possessions.

That night May comes across a young girl who has overdosed. She wakes Sheepa up and although he tries to rouse her by putting her under a cold shower and slapping her cheek, they decide to dump the body in a waiting rail train car and May runs away again.

To Run Quotes

I wasn’t waiting for change; I wasn’t waiting anymore for things to get better. (May decides to run away) p. 63

I could hardly track his jagged mind. He was friendly and kind of jittery and silly… like a jack in the box… (May about Sheepa) p. 66

They disposed of her like evidence and the train took the blank girl along the lines and away from the empty platform. (disposing of the girl that has overdosed) p. 74

Territory

Hitching a ride with a trucker, May settles on the idea of heading to Darwin. Pete, the truck driver, is delivering racecars to Darwin and is excited about the weekend races and, to combat the fatigue associated with his long hours behind the wheel, snorts cocaine to keep wired. May drifts in and out of sleep as the journey stretches on, fitfully dreaming about her father as he mends a broken bicycle.

When she wakes, May diagnoses herself with opium withdrawal and fights to control the urge as she is overcome with nausea. As she and Pete discuss her ethnicity, she admits to being born of an Aboriginal mother but pretends her father is a descendant of the aristocracy in England. Denying her rightful heritage indicates how willing May is to conform to societal expectations and inclusion.

She accompanies Pete as he detours to a local rodeo and the fleeting freedom she feels as the wind blows around the stock holding pens is put on hold when she sees a brutal prizefight in session. She cowers as she watches Pete and the others cheer for the brutality and marvels at the human condition, being so enthralled with such a violent spectacle. To her surprise, as her face scans the crowd, she recognizes her father amongst the men. A flood of memories that the reader has not yet been privy to stream back into May’s consciousness: the violent unpredictability of her father, who visited the most horrid beatings on her mother (beating her with tools and pouring boiling water over her face). As she stands opposite her father, watching as he screams and spits over the fighters, she realizes why her mother chose to end her own life and it suddenly makes sense to May. Her sudden decision to divert from Darwin means that Pete reluctantly leaves her on the highway to find her own way.

Territory Quotes

‘My mum was Aboriginal.’
‘No shit? You don’t look like an Abo.’
‘My old man isn’t though; his family are from the First Fleet and everything. Rich folk they were, fancy folk from England.’ (May lying about her ancestry to Pete) pp. 81-2

And I’ll never forget that day, at the rodeo fights… the day I found my father. (May) pp. 85-6

And Mum could grow her hair see, leave it out and let it go crazy. Let it hide melting skin. It’s a shame women are so clumsy. (after Mum has been burnt with scalding hot water by Dad) p. 88

The Block

Unsure where to go, May sits in a park in Sydney and her imagination allows her to consider a fractured version of a fairytale where she is waiting for someone to whisk her away. She likens her current accommodation, a gazebo in the middle of Belmore Park, to a princess’ castle but the reality is never too far from the surface when she recalls that the ‘castle’ is populated by homeless drunks and frequented by the police trying to keep the peace.

After receiving charity from an old woman who offers May a meal and reminds her not to be ashamed of her homelessness, May transfers this notion to her ethnicity; she remembers how her mother always tried to make her feel pride about her Aboriginal heritage but May has found that increasingly difficult since losing her family and feeling that she doesn’t belong. The old woman identifies herself as Joyce and after bringing May to the shared tenement housing where she lives with a community of people, May is reinvigorated with the concepts of connecting and family. Although ‘The Block’ is a lively place to exist, May finds her strength renewed through the loving embrace of Joyce, her daughter, Justine, and Justine’s son, Johnny. As Joyce retells the story of how The Block came to be such a dangerous environment, May is filled with a sense of injustice for the community that had their way of life disrupted by the housing corporations, who made it a den of inequity and violence. The housing corporation Redfern had moved in and Joyce remembers them ‘stealing everyone’s money and homes’ and turning residents on each other.

Despite Joyce caring for May in that she makes sure she is fed and safe, May begrudges that it comes at the cost of Joyce prying into her past. In her own way, Joyce teaches May to harness the power and pride of her people, the Wiradjuri, and advises her not to get too comfortable in The Block as she envisions a better life for May. Unwilling to watch yet another person succumb to drugs as Joyce’s daughter Justine begins to, May feels the need to move on but is hesitant to leave the warmth of Joyce’s care.

The Block Quotes

I didn’t need to be saved; I wasn’t waiting for a stupid hero. (May) p. 95

‘Well don’t be shame now, everyone need somewhere to stay. Some people got it and some people doesn’t. Come and stay with the women and me.’ (Joyce to May when she’s found living in the park) p. 96

The terraces colliding into each other. Rubble edging fences. Rubbish clogging gutters. Mothers screaming fathers or brothers or cousins. Uncles drinking, thinking under bread and butter. People giving their whole dole to the bowl that is empty, that they turn right over as if they got plenty. Drug smuggling thugs the mothers. Baby cries for others. Fits uncrucify the losers. The grinning winners looking down from the two towers. (May’s observation on the community Block that she lives in for a time) p. 99

‘Now listen good… it’s no good ere little one… no good young dobs growin up in this ere…’ (Joyce warns May about staying in The Block) p. 103

Chocolate

Her work at the carwash is tedious but it’s the first time that May has held down a job and feels the camaraderie of having friendly work colleagues. She and Charlie, a fellow worker, share a meal on their breaks and occasionally he will play music using his little hand piano, known as an mbira. Business is slow but it affords May the opportunity to compare the rampant poverty she has been exposed to with the fancy cars she and Charlie wash and vacuum. It once again becomes clear that the social divide is ever-present. They are under the watchful eye of their boss Mr Tzuilakis who, despite being an immigrated Greek man, shows superiority to Charlie, calling him ‘boy’, reminiscent of the slave era in which the white owner would lord it over their workers irrespective of their age. Charlie is an immigrant from Africa but there is an understanding between him and May that neither asks about the other’s past. As they grow fonder of one another, May wishes the fifty-four year old Charlie could have been her father and she imagines what it would be like to have him call her his child.

The fond moments they share are brought to a close quickly when police officers come and arrest Charlie. It’s uncertain why he was arrested but when Mr Tzuilakis tells May that Charlie will be deported, it’s most likely an immigration issue. Distracted by the sudden loss of her friend and father-figure, May is coerced into bringing some young men a tank of petrol so they can get high off the fumes. She resists at first but feeling an intense need to be accepted, and also sensing she may be under threat if she refuses them, she complies and is fired when they are caught by Mr Tzuilakis. In possession of Charlie’s thumb piano, May returns home to find the police questioning Joyce. When they leave, she is relieved that Joyce doesn’t believe their accusations that she’s a thief but nevertheless, Joyce insists that she hide for a while until the situation cools down.

Chocolate Quotes

He’d never tell you about Africa, and I never asked. It was his secret – his past, that someday, revisited, would become his home again. (May about Charlie) p. 111

Silver and pink paint flecked their upper lips, bottles hiding under their shirts. Chroming was common, second to drinking and yarndi but first choice to petrol. (May about the locals and their addictions [‘yarndi’ is an Indigenous term for the drug ‘cannibis’]) p. 113