The Mother Wound by Amani Haydar

Author:Amani Haydar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

The trial commenced on Monday 20 February 2017.

It was a muggy morning and I had the jitters right down to my bones. I dressed myself, trying not to scream at how ludicrous it felt to apply makeup and pin my hijab on a day like today; the beginning of the end.

I carefully gathered my children’s things into their bags, but by the time we dropped them off at my in-laws I felt like I was forgetting something. Moey and I caught the train from Granville into the city, holding hands but barely talking. The next thing I remember is emerging from the ground at St James Station into the bustle and sticky air of Queen’s Square. I focused on my feet as we made our way over to the sandstone courthouse on King Street. Leaves had started to turn brown and fall to the grey pebble ground. Cameras swivelled to face us as we approached the front of the court, preparing to get a shot of the sad people who were turning up to play their part in the macabre production that was about to unfold. My hijab felt tighter and heavier than usual. Just keep walking. Stay calm and keep walking.

I had spent a lot of time around Queen’s Square as a solicitor, scuttling between my office and the courts, filing documents at the registries and conferencing with barristers in their nearby chambers. Now, standing in front of the Supreme Court, waiting for my dad’s trial to start, I felt like a different person. An outsider. Looking up at the Law Courts Building, I counted twenty-four levels to the floor where I observed an appeal to the High Court just a few years prior, oblivious to the crime that was hurtling towards me. That matter felt incredibly important at the time but today it seemed petty. For that appeal, we had briefed one of Australia’s most renowned barristers, Bret Walker AO SC. His chambers (also a short walk from where I now stood) were filled with art, books and a collection of vessels and vases – big, small, glass, ceramic – all sitting on shelves along both sides of the room. I’ll have an office like this someday, I had thought to myself as I stared around at the artefacts.

I can’t pinpoint when I lost touch with that image of myself, but it was gone by the time we arrived at the Supreme Court. How had I been so confident? Back then I believed that I could accumulate knowledge and experience and status and wealth and reputation. Today I was a footnote in my father’s cataclysmic offence. In Eggshell Skull, Bri Lee talks about looking down from the Brisbane Law Courts at the constellation of crimes that were spread over the city beneath her. Sheltering by the brick and sandstone arches of the courthouse, I imagined my past self gazing down at the scared girl I had become. A tiny speck in the constellation. Unrepresented, a non-party, a mere witness in these proceedings.

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