chapter 2
Travelling to T.I.
We arrived at the airport to catch the plane from Sydney to Thursday Island, which is almost the entire length of Australia. I lifted my blue suitcase onto the check-in scales. It was light. I had packed it with four T-shirts, three pairs of shorts, five pairs of undies, runners, thongs and two hats, plus two books and my camera. Then Dad lugged Stephanie’s suitcase onto the scales. The red numbers went berserk. Only half a kilo more and we would have had to pay excess luggage. This was the scene before we left home: “Stephanie, you won’t need your hair straightener,” said Mum, unpacking it. She also removed a bottle of gel and a can of hairspray.
“But, Mum!” Stephanie squealed.
“You won’t need it. It’s too hot. You won’t have time. Anyway, what’s wrong with your beautiful curly hair?”
“It’s so unfair,” said Stephanie. Her bag was so full it wouldn’t close. Dad bounced up and down on the lid to force it shut. We made it to the airport just in time.
As we flew out of Sydney I looked out over Maroubra, Coogee, and Bondi beaches, and then the harbour with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Mum always tells the story of the Bridge Walk in 2000 when a quarter of a million people walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge for Indigenous reconciliation. I was a baby. There’s a picture of Mum holding me up against a blue sky where the word “Sorry” is written in smoke. I imagined how the bridge would have looked with thousands of people crossing it, like ants.
The tall buildings of Sydney seem to rise up from the water. From the air, you realise that Sydney
family is such a big place. I’ve lived here all my life.
My mum’s a Torres Strait Islander. If you don’t know where Thursday Island is, it’s in the Torres Strait. If you don’t know where the Torres Strait is, just look on a map. It’s the islands in between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Mum’s never lived in the Torres Strait, though. She was born in Cairns and that’s where she lived before she moved to Sydney to study. She met my dad at university. So Mum stayed. She misses her mum and her big family in Cairns. I have about one hundred aunties and uncles and ten thousand cousins, according to Nanna JJ, mum’s mother. But being away from where they live makes it hard to know them all.
Mum had been to the Torres Strait a couple of times with Nanna JJ, but this would be my first time on the island. I wondered if people would remember my family.
When our plane touched down in Cairns we had to run to the plane connection to the Torres Strait. It was a smaller plane, for about fifty people. I did up my seatbelt and kept looking out the window,
checking that the plane’s small propellers were not going to fall off. The flight attendant smiled at me.
I guess she saw my shocked face and wanted to comfort me. Mum, sitting next to me, didn’t seem to be worried. She had her head in a book.
“What’s your book about?” I asked. She showed me the cover. Life B’long Ali Drummond by Samantha Faulkner.
“Ali Drummond lived on Thursday Island as a young man. He was a diver during the pearling days. Before plastic buttons, pearl shell was in demand. Ali dived with your great-grandfather, Kitchell Anno.”
“Was my great-grandfather rich from all the pearls?” I asked.
“No. He was just the diver. The skipper got the pearl shell. Then there was no more need for pearl shell. My family moved to Cairns. And then they never went back. But they stayed connected to the island, through the songs and the stories.”
“Do you think people will remember them?”
family
“Some older people will remember my grandparents, and we have some cousins. Nanna JJ has given me some names and addresses.”
“So we have family there?” I asked.
“Yes, we can look them up when we arrive.”
We landed on Horn Island and then we caught a bus to the jetty. We pushed our bags down the ramp onto the ferry. Stephanie’s bag was so heavy it slid down the ramp and nearly knocked another passenger into the water. Dad had to jerk it back with such force that he nearly dislocated his arm.
We journeyed across to Thursday Island. The water was like a million tiny blue shimmering diamonds. Then I saw the green, blue, black and white Torres Strait Island flag swaying in the ocean breeze at the bow of the boat. I had seen it flying many times in Sydney during NAIDOC week. But here, the colours and the symbols came alive. The white Dhari or headdress and the fivepointed star were strong. The green was for the land, and the black stripes represented the people. Of course, the blue is the colour for the sea.