Butterfly Song Read online

  ‘Tarena, you remember your Uncle Ron. And your Aunty Margaret.’

  Uncle Ron, my mother’s cousin, embraces me. ‘Oh, Tarena, welcome to the home of your grandmother. Wa, you’ve grown. When did we last see you?’ Uncle Ron is small with round cheeks. His big shirt is blowing in the slight breeze.

  ‘Over ten years ago,’ I say.

  He takes my bag. I vaguely recognise the face of the thinner man who used to come and visit us in Cairns. His eyes are hidden behind thick black glasses. Aunty Margaret looks the same, only her hair is almost totally grey.

  ‘Ay, Tarena, you proper look like your cousins. You’ve got plenty here, you know,’ Aunty Margaret says.

  ‘You’ll see them all tomorrow.’ Uncle Ron leads us to his car.

  ‘How’s Sydney?’ asks Aunty Margaret.

  My mum cuts in. ‘Sydney’s too big. She goes out too much. Too much partying when she should be looking for a job.’

  I smile like a schoolgirl.

  Mum adds, ‘She’s just finished her law degree, you know.’

  ‘Mum, I haven’t got my results yet. Don’t get too excited.’

  The jetty is about a hundred metres long and two metres wide. We drive on it to the island, now darkening. Uncle Ron drops us off at the motel where Mum and I are staying.

  ‘You’re welcome to stop at our place, you know, Lily,’ says Aunty Margaret.

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be fine here. Don’t want to get in your way.’

  Mum and I are sharing a room. It’s narrow, with two single beds against the walls. There’s no airconditioning, only a ceiling fan, but the room is clean, with a tiled floor. The door opens onto a courtyard.

  ‘I’m in this bed, you take that one,’ says Mum. She’s already stocked the fridge with food and drinks. Her toiletries are laid out on the table next to her bed. ‘I’m glad you came,’ she says, hugging me tightly, squeezing my shoulder-blades together. Then she takes a deep breath.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

  ‘I have something to tell you. And to ask of you. But I’ll wait until we’re with Uncle Tally.’

  ‘Mum, you’re scaring me. Where’s Uncle Tally?’

  ‘He’s at the pub. I told him we’d meet him for tea.’

  I have a quick shower and we head off to the pub. Uncle Tally is drowning his schnitzel and chips with chilli sauce. I hug him hello and order a round of drinks, and then a fish-burger for myself and a prawn cocktail for Mum.

  ‘Have you told her yet?’ Uncle Tally asks my mother.

  ‘Told me what?’

  Mum is wiping her fork with the serviette.

  ‘About the butterfly.’ He moves his stool closer.

  ‘What butterfly?’ I ask.

  ‘Francesca’s butterfly. Francesca my mother, your grandmother.’ My mother digs into her bag and brings out a crumpled piece of newspaper. On it is a photograph of a carved butterfly under the heading BUTTERFLY OF BEAUTY – A RARE JEWEL OF ANTIQUITY. ‘Look, the shop in the paper is trying to sell it.’

  ‘I can see that,’ I say.

  ‘But they can’t. It doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to my mother.’ Mum is slapping the paper with her hand with each syllable.

  ‘You’re not serious? A brooch? Who would ever wear an old ornament pinned to their clothes? Sounds like some old fogey’s thing,’ I say.

  My mother’s eyebrows rise. ‘It wasn’t a brooch when my mother had it. It was a special carving she kept with her all the time. Your grandfather – my father, Kit – sculpted that butterfly for your grandmother from a pearl shell. After he died, she used to wear it around her neck sometimes on a piece of cord.’ The look she gives me tells me she is not making this up. ‘I’m deadly serious. It’s the same butterfly.’

  ‘How did it become a brooch then?’

  ‘That’s what these people are selling it as. I don’t know. In the old days brooches were quite common. Women wore them pinned to their dresses. It might not be the rage now but …’ She sips from her wineglass. Her pink lipstick leaves an imprint.

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, why don’t you just buy it back then?’

  ‘Right, yeah, sure. You got a spare $15 000?’

  ‘Wow, that’s expensive. What’s it made out of? Gold?’

  ‘It’s carved from a rare type of pearl shell,’ says Uncle Tally. ‘And a pearl is stuck to the shell, it wasn’t fully formed. It looked like a blister. See, that’s the head of the butterfly.’ He points to the top of the carved ornament in the photo. It’s hard to see it on the crumpled paper. The black and white photo is very small.

  ‘Are you sure? How do you know it was Granny Francesca’s?’

  ‘We remember it when we were kids, Tarena.’ Uncle Tally leans forward to touch my arm. ‘It was very special to Mum. She kept it with her wherever she went.’

  Mum lights a cigarette. She adds, ‘We haven’t seen it since she passed on. Then the other day I was reading the paper and saw it there, and Tarena that was the day the guitar fell off the wall, remember? My father must be real angry about that, he wants us to do something about it.’

  It spooks me when my mother talks like this. I read the small print underneath the photograph. ‘It says here that the brooch is being auctioned next month by Albermay Jewellers. It’s being sold by the daughter of the late Doctor Nash. Who is Doctor Nash?’ I ask.

  ‘He was a doctor who worked at the Cairns hospital,’ says Uncle Tally.

  ‘Can they do that, Tarena? Shouldn’t it belong to us?’ My mum is pulling a tissue out of her vinyl handbag.

  ‘I don’t know. How did the butterfly get to belong to that Doctor Nash?’

  Uncle Tally taps me on the arm again. ‘I don’t know, but that must have been when he turned it into a brooch. C’mon, Tarena, you’re a lawyer – surely you can get it back for us?’

  ‘I haven’t got my results yet, Uncle, and I can’t even say I’m a lawyer yet.’

  ‘You’re a smart girl – you can talk, and you can write a good letter.’

  Mum draws on her cigarette. ‘Tarena, we need your help to get the butterfly back.’

  I was hoping for a holiday, to relax before having to think seriously about my career. From the look on my mother’s face, it isn’t going to be that easy. ‘Can you prove this butterfly belonged to your mother?’ I ask her.

  ‘Yes, this island here now is full of her relations.’ Mum brings out a black felt pen from her handbag. She draws a family tree on the back of the coaster. There’s barely enough space for her to include everyone’s name.

  ‘That looks okay.’ She holds it out to me. ‘It’s a pity your Aunty Glenda and Aunty Philomena have passed on, they might have been able to give evidence. But plenty of people will remember Mum. Uncle Essa is still around but we don’t talk to him.’ My mother claps her hands. ‘This could be your first case!’

  I hold up my hand to protest, but Uncle Tally interprets it as me calling for the next round.

  ‘I’ll get it. Who wants another drink?’ He heads for the bar.

  My mother goes to the toilet, through the door with the sign ‘Mermaids’. I notice the sign on the men’s toilet: ‘Sailors’.

  I read the rest of the newspaper clipping.

  BUTTERFLY OF BEAUTY – A RARE JEWEL OF ANTIQUITY

  Albermay Antique Jewellery is offering for sale this spectacular hand-carved pearl butterfly brooch. Made from a rare and unusual shell with an ocean pearl, not fully formed, attached to the lip, the brooch is an exquisite and unique piece. Doctor Nash, now deceased, was the chief doctor at Cairns Base Hospital and an avid collector of items of antiquity. This superb item is believed to have been crafted in the Torres Strait Islands during the pearling days of the 1940s and has been in Doctor Nash’s private collection since 1954. Offers around $15 000.

  ‘Well, are you ready to take them on?’ My mother has returned. She sits down next to me. Uncle Tally is back from the bar. He places the glasses on the table, then takes his cap off his head.
/>   It has come sooner than I expected. How can I explain to them that I’m not properly qualified? How can I tell them I don’t have the guts? Can I really do it? Take on my first case, days after finishing my last law exam, and without knowing if I have passed? I can see that I am headed for a very challenging career.

  the pearly gates

  Sydney, 1988

  The gates to the university are sandstone and iron. There is a plaque on the stone wall, and the image of a lion’s head. Students rush in with their backpacks. They look like mudcrabs as they scurry across the lawn and into the lecture theatre. I bump into one girl wearing pink stilettos and carrying a kid’s suitcase with a puppy’s face on it. She snorts smoke out of her ringed nose and pushes past me.

  The campus is a big place. As big as a suburb. It has its own bank, cafes, newsagent and hairdresser’s salon. Along the main path is a row of stalls. I pass the first one. It has a large red and blue banner saying ‘Join the Sports Club’. I wonder if they have a basketball team. I haven’t played for three years. The next stall has a poster of a large cross over a book. It’s the Christians on Campus. It’s been ages since I went to church, but perhaps I’ll need some prayers in order to pass.

  In front of the library steps two tall piles of thick textbooks are holding up a surfboard. A brown-haired boy with a bleached lock is balancing on the surfboard. ‘The Surfers Society,’ he yells, ‘we’re cool.’ The Animal Liberation Movement is represented on campus as well. A slogan at their stall says, ‘Get in touch with the animal inside you. Do not eat meat.’ Across the path, someone from the Builders and Engineers Association has written on the back of a carton of beer: ‘Unleash the animal inside – Eat my meat!’

  Other students are handing out leaflets, wearing badges, holding magazines in the air. ‘Save our Forests. Join the Greens on Campus.’ I take the piece of paper I am given and shove it in the front pocket of my new backpack.

  The hub is the library, a three-storey 1970s building set at the top of the hill. According to the map, the Brown lecture theatre is in the building adjacent to the library. I walk past three times until I see the sign. My heart is racing. I don’t know if I’ll understand a word people are saying. I’m not smart enough to do this. Everyone will think I’m dumb. I walk up the three flights of steps to room B34. This is it. I push the heavy door and enter.

  chains

  Sydney, 1988

  A bald-headed man in a tartan sweater taps on the desk for silence. ‘So you lot want to be lawyers, do you? Those of you who came to this course thinking it’s a ticket to getting rich and famous can forget it.’ The lecturer talks with the clarity and resonance of a BBC radio presenter. His face is expressionless. ‘This course is no LA Law. This course will be the hardest thing you’ve done in your life.’

  I want to laugh but stop myself. Everyone else looks so serious.

  ‘My name is Professor Carlson.’ He writes his name on the board in capital letters. ‘The Australian legal system is inherited from England. The common laws have been interpreted, applied and developed by the judiciary, and new laws have been made by our parliament. Over the next five years, you will be learning the foundations of our legal system – the rule of law, and the principles on which our democratic society is based.’

  Professor Carlson’s eyes move on me. ‘And those of you who think you’re here for a free ride can think again. This course requires commitment and hard work. If you can’t give me that, there’s the door.’ He points. ‘It’s essential you do all the reading I give you. If you don’t do it, don’t come to the class; stay home and watch TV.’

  He holds up a textbook. It’s twice as thick as the Cairns phone book. I don’t know why I’m here. I thought it would be a good idea to study and live in Sydney. I thought it would be fun to get out and about in such a happening city. But there’ll be so little time for fun with all this study. There’s no doubt I’ll be needing glasses by the end of this course.

  Professor Carlson continues, ‘You must concentrate, and learn a new way of thinking. You will be introduced to a new language.’ He writes the word ‘torts’ on the board. ‘Torts are not sweet cakes. A tort is a wrongdoing, intended or not, which causes harm for which the injured party can claim compensation. Torts law says that you owe a duty of care to certain others.

  ‘Ultra vires is not a new washing detergent; it means acting outside and beyond your legal power. Estoppel is not paint or a varnish, but a legal remedy that seeks to have a party desist from doing what you don’t want them to be doing. I’m here to teach you the basic premises of law. Why do we, as a society, need laws?’

  He looks around the room. Everyone tries to escape his gaze in case he expects them to answer. ‘The social contract.’ Professor Carlson writes the words on the board. I’m scribbling notes on my lecture pad. My hands are numb. The professor pauses to take a breath. ‘Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’

  From the back of the hall, a woman’s voice rumbles. ‘That’s sexist terminology.’ Laughter echoes around the theatre.

  ‘This is true. You must remember, of course, that Monsier Rousseau lived in a time when there was no EEO and no anti-discrimination board.’ The laughter ceases.

  The professor continues his sermon, telling us about the life of the Geneva-born political theorist, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I underline the name ‘Rousseau’ on my pad with the black tip of a felt pen, over and over so that the ink bleeds into the white pages. Doodling, I circle circles until a hole appears. What relevance is this? I wonder. This man Rousseau lived over two centuries ago, and on the other side of the world.

  When he has finished his lecture Professor Carlson hands out the reading list and the essay topics. Most of the students rush off. A few stand around talking. The girl with the puppy’s face on her bag is one of them. She is laughing, swapping phone numbers with another student. I stuff a wad of papers into my backpack and rush for the bus.

  The university at five o’clock is like an ants’ nest before rain. I miss the bus. Waiting at the stop, I read over my notes. ‘Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’

  This woman could be free, if she could only manage to finish all this study.

  the reasonable man

  Sydney, 1988

  The case we review in class today concerns the law of negligence. It is a very old English case from the 1800s. The judge was a Lord and he said that ‘we owe a duty of care to each other to avoid acts or omissions which one can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure others’. Just what is that standard? The standard is based on the view of the ‘reasonable man’. Who is this reasonable man? Lord what’s-his-name says he’s just the average man on the bus.

  They tell us at law school that the High Court of Australia is the highest court in the land. The judges have earned the distinguished title of Justice, to remind them of what they are there for. They hear cases but they don’t always agree. They write on and on, explaining at length in order to justify the reasons for their decision. As I read these judgements over and over again, I search for the ratio decidendi. What’s the ratio decidendi? The point to it all – after all, there must be a moral to the story or we wouldn’t need the law. But did they say yes or did they say no? Sometimes it’s not so easy to tell. Obiter dictum refers to those findings of a judge that are important but not essential to their decision. I keep reading, reading, reading.

  Today I don’t miss my bus. I sit in the fourth seat on the driver’s side. A few stops later, a man gets on. He is old, with a grey metal face. He stops and looks at the empty seat beside me. I smile. His lips freeze as he moves on. I look into the blur of the peak-hour traffic. Shame job!

  red is for land

  Sydney, 1988

  A red, black and yellow flag hangs above the narrow door to the Aboriginal Students Centre. Red is for land, black for the people, yellow for the sun. The door is open. Inside is a tartan-covered lounge, a table with seats, and a computer on a long desk. A ba
rk painting of a barramundi hangs on the wall.

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ yells a woman on the phone. She waves for me to sit down. There are books on a low shelf in the corner. Postcards and brochures sit on the coffee table.

  A poster advertising a Black Deaths in Custody march hangs on the bulletin board next to some pin-ups of an Aboriginal footballer.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ says the woman, hanging up. ‘I was on the phone to the Department of Education. I’ve been trying to get through all week.’ She gets up. ‘I’m Charley. I run this centre.’

  ‘I’m Tarena,’ I say.

  ‘I thought you might be. We’ve been expecting you. Have you had a chance to have a good look around the university?’

  ‘I’ve only been lost once.’

  ‘Well, it looks like you found yourself.’ She laughs loudly, baring her teeth. ‘You’ll get used to it. You’re from Cairns, ay? Murri mob?’

  ‘I’m originally from Cairns but I’ve been living in Canberra.’

  ‘Too bloody cold there,’ she says. ‘When did you arrive in Sydney?’

  ‘About a month ago,’ I tell her.

  ‘You missed the big march then. Hundreds of us marched to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair at the Domain to protest the bicentenary.’

  ‘Wow, that sounds huge.’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got to keep up the resistance. It’s good to see more of you younger people coming to university. You can really make a difference.’

  I’m not sure what difference I can make, but I don’t tell her that. I smile and nod my head.

  Charley smiles back. ‘You’re welcome here any time. If there’s anything you want help with, sing out, ay.’

  A woman with tight jeans and a matching jacket walks in the door. She looks about thirty. She throws her canvas backpack on the coffee table. ‘Fuck that Carlson, he’s such a prick.’