Of Ashes and Rivers that Run to the Sea Read Online Free PDF

Grabbing my boarding pass I head for the bar. I’ve got a few hours to kill before my plane leaves and I’m determined to make up for lost time as I sink a gin and tonic in about thirty seconds. Pausing for breath as the barman makes me another I survey the other patrons. They look like the same bunch of shady characters and blackfellas as last time except there are now three women quaffing beer at the next table as well. They smile and nod amiably in my direction but I turn away.My sister and I were brought up knowing that nice women don’t drink beer. They only drink wine, or they’re if feeling adventurous white spirits. By their beer drinking and attire these women are the type that the old bat would call ‘common’ and ‘tarts’ and although they are in all probability nice and decent people my upbringing compels me to treat them with a contempt reserved for lesser beings. I’m about to lift my ‘white spirits’ to my lips when I’m struck by a rather alarming thought. If they knew where I’d spent the last ten days maybe they wouldn’t be nodding pleasantly at me. Hell, that’s something to think about. Then I start to wonder if a whiff of the miserable bush foods that I was forced to eat if I didn’t want to starve to death has been seeping unobserved from my pores and is being wafted around the rooms by the ceiling fans. Christ, what if people can smell me? I bend my head down as if to check my shoe and have a good sniff of my armpit. I washed it with sea water that morning like my mum showed me and it actually doesn’t smell that bad, but I get my Coco Chanel out of my bag and have a discreet squirt before checking the clock on the wall. I’ve still got an hour.
    I have a window seat and as we take off I bid Darwin my fondest of farewells because I know that as interesting as it was to meet my family and see where I spent my first few years of life, I will not be coming back in a hurry. My life is in Melbourne where I can eat food that’s got a label on it telling me what it is and everyone isn’tblack and scary-looking. Where I can sleep with the front door shut and securely locked and where there are bottle shops aplenty.
    The lady sitting next to me asks if I’m from Darwin. I’m not very fond of strangers enquiring about my business but the gin and tonics and my fragile state of mind after my recent experiences have left me vulnerable and exposed. My tongue is primed and ready for action and I blurt out the hardships of the last week and a half while she listens intently. Well, isn’t that amazing, she says when I finally come up for air to wave down a stewardess for a drink. She tells me that back in the 1960s her son-in-law flew the planes from the Tiwi Islands that brought the kids in from the mission. I am astounded and digest this piece of information while my mind travels back in time to the young pilot who was flying my plane in 1963. I know before I ask the question that she is going to say yes, her son-in-law had blond hair and a beard, my gut knows that we are talking about the same man. When I ask she is surprised that I remember him at all and we marvel at life’s capacity to throw coincidence into our faces so brazenly. When we disembark I ask her to pass on my good wishes to him.
    I am rattled by my chance meeting with this woman because I read omens into everything, like if a crow lands on the clothesline something is going to happen to the person who owns the piece of clothing nearest to it. Or if I see a squashed animal on the road I’m going to have a shitday. Omens are my early-warning radar system and they’ve never let me down. Later as I soak in the bath with a piece of takeaway pizza in my hand I think about the young pilot spiriting me away from the islands when I was small. And I don’t have to think too hard about what meeting his mother-in-law portents. It means that where this