Love and Other U-Turns by Louisa Deasey

Author:Louisa Deasey [Deasey, Louisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Australia
ISBN: 9781742373416
Google: IY-HmAEACAAJ
Amazon: B0042P6XF0
Barnesnoble: B0042P6XF0
Goodreads: 8445242
Publisher: Arena
Published: 2010-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

14

Nullarbord reaming

‘Love, by the time it comes here, is old news. So we don’t get the papers.’

CEDUNA IS WINDY AND RAGGED. But as it’s the last town before we really are deep in the heart of Nullarbor country, Jim wants to see if there’s the chance of a gig. Inside the Foreshore Hotel at Ceduna, perfectly healthy human beings smoke and drink the day away to the sinister song of pokies. Outside the sun shines blue and bright.

‘G’day mate,’ Jim cracks a joke to an anxious-looking Aboriginal man, smoking in the corner. A smile spreads across his face, white teeth grinning widely, shining in the light. The rest glance hopelessly from their ticket stubs to the races on the TV while the chime of the pokies competes with the cash register, slamming open and shut.

The bar is filled with thin, chocolate-skinned Aboriginal people. They look hunted, haunted, hungry. And perhaps worst of all, like they’ve given up. Behind the bar the two owners are white, plump, brisk efficiency, tinkling dollars into the register, seemingly oblivious to how horrific this scene seems, to me.

I feel ashamed of my skin. Again. Jim gives me a nod. Knows I’m adjusting. You’re okay, babe, his eyes say. Just take it all in.

After a chat to the owners about the oyster festival, we go back outside through the pokies room. ‘Hey Nelly, how’s things?’ says Jim to an elderly Aboriginal woman. She looks up, and her eyes change.

‘Jimbo! Funny man!’ She’s grinning from ear to ear, remembering something from the last time he was here. The others nearby raise their heads from slumped shoulders and cheap, printed dresses, sipping glasses of beer perched on the pokies slots. Their eyes wide like children, a couple catch his words and smile, too. For a second, the energy is changed, even in this den of smoky sadness.

I feel, again, like I am travelling with a priest who heals through laughter.

On we go, up the road, deep into the heart of Nullarbor country now. Greater and greater expanses between cars and people, life and earth, a blank, barren landscape of what was apparently a sea bed a couple of million years ago.

‘Null – Arbor.’ No trees. Nothing but the howling wind and the sounds of a few thousand centuries of earth to keep you warm at night.

If you hold still long enough, or even – don’t talk – it speaks to you, whispering through the reeves, cracked open to the sky.

The stark contrast between the silent, almost soothingly barren landscape and the petrol stations we must, by necessity, stop at further highlight the strange confusion of what I’m perceiving and what’s real, what has gone before us and what lies ahead.

Racism is an arbitrary term out here. There are no newspapers, no intellectual commentary or egos vying for the perfect words with which to describe something that has happened.

As we drive I romanticise that I will finally be able to learn, in each town, through its museums and statues, about the original inhabitants of our land.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.