Up Taree Way

By Libby Hathorn

The idiots at the back of the hall were quiet once Neil Symon started speaking. Even the smartarse Leandra Evans was quiet and Shane Winter forgot to cough like he usually did when there were talks on. The old man’s voice, rich and deep, was important. It rang through the darkened room and made everyone feel shivery.

In the Dreamtime, a long ago, a far off time, there was a big darkness all over the land. They came, those Ancestral Beings then, the good spirits. They carved the beautiful lan, shaping it this way and that as they went, making the beautiful animals too – the kangaroo, the possum and the lyrebird… His hand moved swiftly through the air, making big sweeping shapes as he talked, as if he was conducting… The goanna, the snake and the kookaburra. They left their paths all over this land, the Ancestral Beings. They made the hills and the gullies. They made the rocks and the trees and the rivers … and they made the first people in the dreamtime long ago. 

They listened so quietly you could hear a pin drop. There was something magic about that voice.

Milly listened nervously to the words of the old man with the soft brown eyes. Sometimes he spoke as if he was almost singing, she thought. She was glad when he picked up the guitar and he did sing. All the kids clapped along with him then, but she sat still thinking. His voice had somehow worried her. It was good and bad at the same time. It made her remember things. Things she didn’t want to remember. It was good - and yet it was full of something deep and painful that she was trying to forget.

‘Some old guy Miss Kirby dredged up from the local pub to tell stories. Just so’s she can get out of work, I’ll bet.’ Maureen had said scornfully in the playground. Their English teacher had announced a story session for their class in the hall every morning for the whole week. ‘And I s’pose we’ll have to answer questions for homework,’ she sighed.

‘Who is he anyway?’ Pete asked.

‘Neil Symon, an Aboriginal storyteller,’ Nerida said, glancing down at the crumped notice in her hand. She started reading in Miss Kirby’s precise, clipped voice. ‘He’s over 70, boahs and girhls, and he travels ‘round the countrahside telling stories. He’s come for a week of stories and workshops at ouah school. And to take part in ouah History Australia Day.’

Pete laughed. ‘Sounds okay to me,’ but Maureen frowned. ‘Hmmm. Well it’s going to mean a load more work, I bet.’

‘We’ll get off some work, you idiot,’ Pete insisted, taking the notice from Nerida. ‘See there’s the History Day on Friday. Miss Kirby says we’re having a sausage sizzle and dances and things.’

‘I s’pose’ they’ll ask my dad to donate the sausages again,’ Nerida said darkly. 

‘And if there’s one thing I hate,’ Maureen said, ‘it’s sausages!’

‘Neil Symon. Sounds like a singer or something,’ Pete said, and then: ‘Hey Milly, he’s got the same name as you. Look - Symon spelt the same way. With the ‘y’.’

Milly’s stomach clenched into a tight knot. ‘So what?’  she asked.

‘Just thought he might be a relation or something,’ Pete said.

Maureen was incensed. ‘But Milly’s Italian, not Aboriginal, you dag.’

Mum had told her not to say that they were Aboriginal and not to say they come from up Taree way. ‘Don’t say anything about Taree or Forster Beach or Seal Rocks or anything unless they ask,’ she’d said in such a worried voice. Milly didn’t know who they were that her mother feared so much. Maureen, Nerida and Pete, her best friends at Coogee High School maybe?

‘You’ve been to Brisbane once,’ Mum said, ‘so say you came from there and your dad is Italian. That’s if anyone asks. And don’t say anything to Bob.’

Bob was Mum’s boyfriend. Maureen had seen Mum with him in a pale green sporty-looking car once. ‘Gees, your Mum’s boyfriend’s a spunk, isn’t he?’

Milly didn’t say she didn’t like Bob much at all. Bob hardly spoke to her when he came to their flat. And she didn’t like to speak to him in case she said something Mum had told her not to. And she hated the long evenings by herself when they went out.

She was glad Pete lived in the red brick block right next door, or some nights she might go mad with the loneliness. Pete wasn’t a spunk but he was a good friend. Sometimes they did homework together. She liked helping him with English and Maths. Pete wasn’t all that good at schoolwork but he was funny and friendly. She never worried too much about what she said to Pete. But like Mum had said, she didn’t ever tell their secret. Not to anyone, it seemed important to Mum.

But now, out of the blue, Neil Symon had turned up and she felt all mixed up. She lay awake wondering again, ‘Who am I? Who am I not allowed to be? Milly Symon from up Taree way? Ot from Brisbane with an Italian father?’

For years now since she was a little girl and they’d left Grandma Pearl and old Bill and all of themm up north and come to live in the city by themselves, she’d wondered about herself like this. She’d had a burning, dreadful secret and quite often if Mum went on about it, it turned into a burning pain inside her.

‘Where did you say your school was when you were little?’ Nerida asked one day when the new boy arrived from Brisbane. 

The terrible secret again. ‘In Brisbane.’

‘Banana land, eh?’ Pete had said.

‘Well, this is Glen and he’s from Brisbane too,’ Nerida had said.

‘Whereabouts did you love?’ Glen asked.

Mum had drilled her well. ‘Uh, Holland Park,’ she said. 

‘Hey, what about that place you used to go with your uncle? Round the headland with the cave and the secret rock pool? Glen might know that place,’ Pete said enthusiastically.

They had all heard Milly’s stories about the beached she had loved as a little girl. And the adventures she had had with her cousins there.

‘No beaches in Brisbane but,’ Glen said in a puzzled way. ‘None ner Holland Park, that’s for sure. Must’ve been down the coast?’

‘Yeah,’ Milly said uneasily, ‘it was down the coast where we went on holidays and things. She fell silent then.

Down, down the coast to Taree, the lovely country town. And then further on to the beautiful beaches, al the way along to the splendid Seal Rocks where she had lived for a while as a very young child. Near the cool beaches and the green forests. Not in hot old Brisbane.

‘Hey Milly, tell Glen your cave story. Boy, is it spooky!’

The kids liked listening to Milly’s stories. The real ones and the one’s she liked to make up. Even the ones she wrote for Miss Kirby.

‘Milly’s writing a soapie, you know, and she’ll send it into Channel 5. It’s better than Dynasty, no kidding.’

But Milly didn’t want to talk to Glen anymore. 

‘I’m going to the canteen,’ she said, even though the burning feeling in her stomach meant she wouldn’t be able to eat.

***

‘There’s a note from school,’ Milly said. She never bothered Mum with notes usually. Mum was always so tired. But this one, about the Aboriginal storyteller called Neil Symon, spelt with a ‘y’, she wanted to show her.

‘Oh?’ Mum dried her hands on the old apron behind the door, the one she never wore. She took the note from Milly and held it at a distance because Mum needed glasses now to read any small print. Milly shot into the lounge room and switched on the TV. She was going to hurt her mother with that note. She was sure of it.

A replay of The Addams Family was on and she hunched up in her chair, hardly watching. She was kind of listening to the sprinkles of canned laughter from the TV and the silence from the kitchen.

It wasn’t till dinner that Milly said to Mum, ‘You read the note from school?’

‘Yes,’ Mum said, ‘about the storytelling and all.’ She sounded bored. ‘Seems okay.’

‘Aboriginal stories, Mum.’ She looked up. ‘And the storyteller who’s come to our school for the whole week - well, his name’s Symon. Neil Symon. Spelt the same way as ours. Maybe you know him?’

‘Never heard of him,’ Mum said, but something in the way she said it, so sharply and loudly, gave her away. Mum attacked her chop then as if she was angry

She knew Neil Symon all right, Milly was sure of it.

‘I know you know him,’ she wanted to call out at her mother, but all she said was, ‘He’s nice.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘Will you come to the History Day on Friday? Anyone can come. He’s telling stories at two o’clock. There’s going to be a barbeque.’ She knew Mum finished early on Fridays.

‘No,’ Mum said.  ‘I can’t. I don’t have the time. It’s a real busy time at work. Belle’s going to be away and I’m doing an extra shift this week.’ Her voice was loud. ‘I just can’t come, Milly.’

‘Okay. Okay. Don’t go on, Mum. I just asked. That’s all.’ Milly didn’t stay at the table and talk to 

Mum. She went straight to her bedroom.

***

That night as she lay in her bed wide awake, she thought about Neil’s Dreamtime story.

I am the land and the land goes on and on, he had said. She could see the great formless expanse, humped and carved and pressed and pushed into shapes of canyons and gullies and caves and creek-beds and mountains and beaches by the Ancestor Spirits. Even the land under her suburb here at Coogee. Not that you could see much of the land with all the shops and houses. Only at the edge where cliffs and beaches met the sea.

But you could see it and smell it, she remembered suddenly and vividly, in the timber forests of the secret caves or the deep gushing rock pools where she had once lived. And in the strange shaped mountains near home that the highway wove through. She remembered the highway though the mountains, that took them away from everybody she knew and loved. ‘It’s going to be much better for us in the city where we’re going.’ Mum had said over and over. But Mum had cried too, when they left.

Some of the countryside they’d left behind was just like it must have been in Neil’s Dreamtime, Milly thought with a start. In her Dreamtime. But Neil’s Dreamtime had turned into her nightmare. She wanted to ask Neil about Taree and Seal Rocks. About Grandma Pearl and Bill. He must know them. She wanted to tell Neil about Mum and herself but she couldn’t. When Neil had spoken again today, her heart had spurted with pain just like it had when their little cat had gone. Only difference was she felt as if something she’d lost had been found. But she couldn't have it anyway. 

Next day at the story session the kids really liked the way Neil let them act out the stories he told. They laughed like anything when he made Leandra the crow and Shane the dingo in one of the stories about a chase across the land. Shane had been chasing Leandra the whole year.

‘He could go on the telly, you know, that old guy,’ Pete said. ‘He’s pretty good.’

‘Yeah, he’s not as bad as I thought,’ Nerida yawned on the third morning.

‘And so far no homework from Kirby,’ Maureen enthused. ‘Hey, didn’t Shane look funny though when he jumped into the waterhole. Gees I laughed.’

But on the fourth morning of Neil’s stories, when he mentioned some names of places that Milly found she remembered, her heart froze again. The secret cave around from Blackhead Beach, the rainforest near Buladelah Mountain. Purfleet out of Taree where they had friends. And Seal Rocks. He described places that she’d been to - oh, so long ago - when she was little.  And now in his magic sing-song voice he told about those places. And she could remember them all, clear as day.

Oh, it was awful. She shouldn’t remember this stuff. Mum’d be so mad about it. She felt the burning feeling again in her stomach and in her chest. But she did remember it all now. So clearly too.

A great blue expanse of sea. Humped rocks gouging out into the blueness. Kids on their surfboards taking the waves at the corner. An old weatherboard house and Grandma Pearl taking her hand. Tumbling down onto the beach to pick up shells or to swim at the edge where the frothy face of foam drenched you. Running back to take Pearl’s hand, show Bill the treasure shells.

‘Oh yes, Neil Symon, I know you. I know you,’ she rejoiced, ‘and I know the places that you know - the place you come from. It’s my place as well as yours. And I know it.’

***

‘Mum, Neil Symon says he lives near Seal Rocks.’

‘So?’ Mum said tersely. She was tired. They were both sitting in front of the TV but Milly’s thoughts were not on Young Talent Time. Her head was full of Neil’s stories.

‘So …’ Milly’s stomach had the old familiar burning sensation,’ so you might know him, Mum. That’s all. I thought he looked a bit familiar. And I thought he might know grandma, you know, with his name being Symon and all …’

Mum turned to her, her eyes blazing. ‘I said I don’t know him!’ I wish you’d stop harping on about it I told you, Milly, to forget all that. Forget those places. That’s the past, Milly. It’s dead. We live here now. We’re new people now.’

‘We’re the same,’ Milly said stubbornly. ‘I reckon I am anyway.’

Her mother jumped to her feet. ‘What is this, Milly? Do you want to spoil everything for us. Is that it? I told you to forget the past. Now I don’t want to hear another word about Neil Symon or Seal Rocks ro anything else.’

Mum walked away in angry clipping footsteps across the room. 

Milly felt tears of anger in her eyes. What was Mum so frightened of? Who were the they who would spoil everything for them? And how? It must be Mum’s boyfriend, Bob, and his friends. Mum was frightened of Bob knowing. But Bob loves Mum, that’s easy to see, and if he really cares, then…

Milly lay in the dark that night staring out throught the slice of windo that the blind did not cover. The old question tormented her. ‘Who am I?’ she asked herself again and again. ‘Who is that I’m not allowed to be?’ She tossed in her bed hot and uncomfortable. She’d upset Mum now and she was angry with herself. 

‘Well I’m not going to let it get to me. I’ll forget it. Like Mum says, I’ll forget the past. Why should I worry? I won’t think about it anymore. And I won’t go to any more of Neil’s stories. I won’t think about him or them anymore. I won’t remember Grandma Pearl and Bill and …’ She breathed deeply, closing her eyes, willing Neil’s voice away. It was peaceful and quiet for a moment. 

And then, I am the land and the land goes on and on…. It seemed to be inside the room, inside her head. 

She sat up suddenly, angrily, and said out loud, ‘All right, Neil Syon, you win! I’m Milly Symon from up Taree way and I bet you’re our family. Tomorrow I’m going to ask you. I am! I’m asking about Grandma Pearl and Bill from Seal Rocks and all of the others too. And tomorrow I’m going to tell the kids at school that I’m Milly Symon from up Taree way.’ She felt glad when she said this but when she lay back she thought of Mum’s angry blazing eyes. Please, Mum, don’t be angry with me. Don’t get that hard, cold, closed-up look you get every time we talk about this. But I’ve got to know.

***

The alarm buzzed in her ear. It was Mum’s early shift and she’d already gone. Milly pulled up the blind and waved across the side alley of the flats where she could see Pete at his window. He always made faces and mouthed goodmorning to her through the glass. She pushed up the window this morning and motioned him to do the same. ‘Pete,’ she called across the dampish space between them. ‘I reckon that Neil Symon man, you know the storyteller, is related to us,’ she called. ‘I’m going to ask him today.’

‘Yeah?’ Pete was yawning. ‘You do that. Hey Milly, did you do your Maths homework?’ 

‘Yeah, did you?’

‘We-e-ell. I went to footy training and then I watched that late movie and Bovis is still down on me about the test.’ He yawned again.

‘I’ll give you mine,’ she said. ‘You can copy it at the bus stop.’

At school before the story session in the library she told the others that Neil Symon might be her uncle. Nerida said, ‘Just because you like telling stories and acting and things and his name’s the same spelling … you’re getting a bit carried away, aren’t you?’

‘Anyway he’s Abo!’ Maureen said.

‘So?’ Milly said.

‘Well, that means you’d have to be.’ 

‘I guess it does, Milly said quietly, with her heart thumping.

‘So?’ Pete said.

‘Gees,’ was all Maureen said and looked away.

They went into the big auditorium for the concert. There was a bush dance display and the band played folksongs, and then a hush went over the crowd as Neil Symon took the stage.

‘You kids want to know how the sun got in the sky?’ he asked?

‘Yes,’ they all called out together.

‘Well then I’m gonna tell you,’ He took up his guitar and strummed. He half-sang, half told the Bralagah the Crane threw an emu egg into the sky where it hit a pile of wood and burst into flames and how a good spirit saw how beautiful the earth was all lit up. And how Gurgurgaga the Kookaburra was chosen by the good spirit to call out each morning so that the sun-fire is lit every day. Then he picked up his guitar and sang a song and the kids clapped, too.

And then when it was finished he put down the guitar and he talked to them again. That was when Milly felt shivery. He told them about the first time he had heard the story. It was when he was a small boy away in the middle of the forest. 

‘We were camping out in the bush - Bulahdelah way. My father said he reckoned we’d have a visitor that night. Someone we knew and wanted to see very much would come to our campfire that very night. And sure enough, someone did come. My grandfather. We hadn’t seen him in months. But he arrived at our camp in the middle of the bush. And late into the night he told the old stories. Just like I’m telling you. And just like his mum and dad told him’

‘You know, it’s a funny thing,’ the old man continued in a quiet voice that nevertheless seemed to fill the hall, ‘but my people are so close to the land, and so close to each other, we know things sometimes before they happen. Like my father did at the campfire.’

‘I reckon if any of you were coming to visit me in my house up the coast a way, something would kind of tell me you were coming. Like something’s telling me right now that someone here today, right here in this hall, is kind of special to me.’

Pete dug Milly in the ribs.

‘Sucked in,’ Nerida said admiringly.

Neil picked up the guitar and began another song and the spell of his voice was broken.

Milly’s heart was beating fast and gladly. So Neil knew that she was here. Knew that Milly Symon, who was part of the big Symon family, had been sitting and listening, so scared and so delighted every day of the week. He knew she was here, just like that. Even without her saying it. She say in the hall not watching and not listening to anything else. She was waiting for the end when everyone would go.

‘See you outside then,’ Pete had said as he and the others trailed outside. Now, now she would walk down towards him where he’d finished talking to the small knot of kids round him. And she would say, ‘Here I am, Milly Symon from up Taree way.’ And she would ask about Grandma Pearl and Bill and all of them.

But when the kids finally moved away, Neil stared past Milly and right to the back of the hall. He wasn’t smiling now. There was such a strange look in his eyes that Milly didn’t know if he was sad or glad. But his voice, even though it was a bit chokey, came out very hald. Very, very glad, Milly thought. ‘I knew you were coming today,’ Neil said. ‘I just knew you’d come today.’

Milly turned around in surprise. Who was there that Neil knew so well?

Who was it he had just known would come today. And then she saw who it was all right. She gave such a start.

It was her mother.

She was sitting alone at the very back row. It looked as if Mum had been crying but she had a kind of soft look on her face when Neil spoke to her. 

‘Uncle,’ Mum said very quietly.

Then Mum got to her feet and slowly walked down the aisle towards the old man as if she was in a bit of a dream.

‘Mum,’ Milly said anxiously as she reached her seat. ‘Mum, I’m here too.’ And then Mum had looked at her, not hard and angry and closed up. Not at all. Mum had put out her hand and Milly took it and squeezed it hard.

Then together they walked towards the old man who stood waiting. He put out both his arms to welcome them.