Resistance by Jacinta Halloran

Author:Jacinta Halloran
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2023-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Erin was dressed in a designer tracksuit, patterned in army camouflage of sage green and cream, the pants cuffed tightly at her ankles and the oversized hood threaded with a silver plaited cord.

She hoped I’d forgive her casual dress, she said ruefully. Her lower back was playing up and the thought of donning high heels and waisted skirts was a bridge too far today.

I asked what sort of injury she was suffering from. Was it a prolapsed disc?

No, nothing as dramatic as that, she said. Just a recurrent problem with a facet joint, so her physio had told her some time ago. ‘Little blighters, these facet joints,’ Erin said. ‘They sure know how to kick up a fuss when they’re unhappy.’ Having been subjected to it for years now, she knew the pattern: pain and stiffness for a few days—she felt a hundred years old—followed by a rapid improvement. ‘Next time you see me I’ll be doing back bends.’

But what a day she’d had, Erin went on, grimacing as she lowered herself into her chair. Was it that when you were in physical pain, work naturally seemed more challenging? Or was it that challenging work magnified your physical ailments?

So much trauma in the world, she went on, pressing her hands to her back. So much trauma still hidden deep within our bodies. Today she’d seen a fifty-two-year-old woman who, for the first time in her life, had talked about the abuse she suffered as a child. ‘A career woman, immensely successful,’ Erin said. ‘The sort of woman who’d be asked to give a TED talk.’ A woman, she added, who lived alone and never had children. She could be wrong, Erin said, but she imagined a whole lot of grief and rage to follow.

Would I mind if she reflected a tad more, she asked. Speaking her thoughts aloud might lessen the tension in her spine. ‘And it’s your fault, really, you know. You’re such a good listener,’ she said, wriggling her backside deeper into the seat.

Her client’s revelation, Erin began, had brought to mind something that had troubled her for years. When her children were young, she and her husband often took them bushwalking in the school holidays. The Grampians, as they were called in those days, were a favourite haunt. Now the area was known by the local Aboriginal name of Gariwerd, and there was an Indigenous cultural centre in the central hamlet of Halls Gap, built in the shape of a bird with its wings outstretched. The cabin they often rented was one of eight, generously spaced and nestled under an escarpment, so that one always had a sense of the mountains leaning over them. It looked out onto a playground, a blessing for working parents like them, who, at the end of a busy school term, were content to keep an eye on their children from the comfort of a veranda chair. From the same veranda at dusk, they saw kangaroos grazing on the mown grass around the communal swimming pool.

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