Irons in the Fire

Mununjali author Ellen van Neerven allows their ancestors’ experiences to ripple in the present. Commissioned by Powerhouse for the Writing Objects series.

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You feel like you are moving backwards though you are in a stationary vehicle.

You write long letters that will never reach their intended recipient; your handwriting has remained the same since you were a child. Sometimes you imagine the world through your grandparents and the places they couldn’t enter and the rights they were denied. You contemplate how they dealt with pain.

The bus jolts forward to resume its route. You peek through in the dark side of the window. You realise you see these suburbs through your grandmother’s eyes. Those grand homes with their white picket fences and all-around verandahs. You don’t want to peek into those windows where she used to work. You don’t want to see if there is dust dancing like bad spirits.

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When they say it is all in the past, you feel your heart race. You know what they are trying to do. You will not let them undersell colonialism. We are not postcolonial as the colonisers never left and we are not able to call an end point to invasion, which as Patrick Wolfe said, is not an event, it is a structure. Therefore, what your grandmother experienced ripples in the present and what her ancestors experienced rippled through her.

Past ties us together like shoelaces. Like an understory in our body. You have thunder eggs under your bed.

People like you just won’t let it go, says the journalist and you suggest they are perhaps the one who can’t let go … of an imperial mindset.

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A kangaroo breaks the front fence. A bloody sunrise signals the start of work. You are a lanky figure in a breezy house. Your skirt brushes against your knees as you move outside to the garden. The music of the swamp: birds, crickets, cicadas. Still water smells like new grass. You submerge the urge to hum a tune under your breath to hold the familiar close. Clouds hold a promise. This is not your land. You are far from brackish rivers of home. Your Country is an aching presence. You are an aching presence. You would rather the fence not be fixed. To be free from any boundaries.

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Cleaning white people’s houses. A spectrum of experiences. Twelve hours a day. Trained at 12. Thirteen in a girls’ home. Taken to the cattle stations. Taken to the big smoke. Forced. Under the act. They sought to limit your freedom. They sought to intimidate. Unexempt. Exempt. Seen as disposable. Wages paid to protector. Taken from families. Taken a long distance. Taken a short distance. Placed in cold strange spaces. Paid. Underpaid. Paid with conditions. Kept writing letters. Promised a wage but didn’t get a penny. Jackie Huggins says a Bla(c)k woman’s entire day revolved around the catering for the white family’s needs. Being in the pocket. Standing at the back of the homestead. Sleeping in sheds. Yard work. Washing the bedsheets, clothes, preparing food. Head down, ears pricked. Bringing warmth and love to cold spaces. Finding new ways to survive.

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You watch the launch of the truth-telling inquiry on your web browser. Your Aunty reminded you it was on about 30 minutes ago and you could not make it in person in time. Unless you caught a rideshare but frankly it did not feel like this was something you should spend money on. You had needed every encouragement possible to attend knowing the truth-telling would not last with a change in government which was a probable outcome for the coming month.

TOs take the big stage while the state watches. Even through the screen you feel the sense of the occasion, and the usual bittersweet mix of hope, sorrow and the anticipation of disappointment. You adjust your headphones to better hear the singing and wailing. You have many of your relatives on your mind, like your grandmother. She wouldn’t get to see this. Whatever this is. You wonder why it always feels like the gesture of change comes a generation too late.

You ask your Aunty if she will speak and she says no, it is a government thing.

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You grew up knowing white women like the palm of your hand. You know what they needed of you to be their perfect domestic. How to set the table their way. How to leave invisible traces of yourself and disappear when needed. It is true, sometimes bonds do form but these bonds cannot create equality. They watch you. But all this time you’ve been watching them too.

Separate whites from colours
Put a measure of Rinso washing powder in a tub of water
Reckitt’s Bag Blue for the final rinse. It makes the whites even whiter
Put clothes through wringer, some wring by hand
Dolly pegs to hang up the clothes methodically by type
Separate folding from ironing
Starch collars before ironing – use Silver Star Starch

Iron is hot. Tea is hot. You set the pot down. You are politeness. The hot water filled up almost to the brim. Very close to the body.

You’d like to make the tea brackish. You’d like to make yourself a mangrove. You’d like to see your family every day. You cover your mouth when you do see your children so the gubbas don’t know you’re speaking in language. You will not stop fraternising with your extended family. You will not scrub off your identity.

Years past in this house. You watch a hoop pine grow tall outside the window. Scrub, mop, cook, clean. Memories circle the drain. Wash the floors, wash the walls, wash the doorknobs. Minutes of silence. One day, one of the white women you work for places a hot iron on the back of your leg. You turn around and see her laugh at your shock. She does not allow you to run your leg under cold water. The burn blisters and forms to a scar. You feel pruned.

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You watch your mother pepper your grandmother with questions in the visiting hours at the hospital. Mum, how come your hands are so soft when you have worked so hard in your life?

You are using a corner of the bed to write. At your Mum’s encouragement. Write a poem for your Nanna. Please give us all something to hold onto.

You unlock the deep wisdom in these twin sets of brown eyes and hold onto those brown hands and nothing can take away from a woman who has fought for a lifetime for kindness for her family. She is blazing a deep light and she is seeing the future in your face.

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When you arrive you arouse the neighbours’ suspicion. Their pointed looks follow your movement up the driveway.

You ring the bell. You don’t know what to expect. The doormat is saying history is written by those who have the means to document it.

You know social inequality keeps its width over generations. You wonder if the woman who answers will be someone who you have served at the bookstore or perhaps your paths – so different as they were – would never have crossed at all.

You can leave your shoes on, she says. You are fascinated by the existence of this place. It still holds the same furniture of 60 years past. You feel desperate. A lot of time has passed and you won’t get many more opportunities to meet those who knew your grandmother in this context. You are sitting at a table she used to set. Standing on floors she used to mop. Staring at the clock that held the time in the past and present. This is to remember.

You wait for this woman to say something. An honest admission. But she says nothing. You were never let in.

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You can get stains out of everything – blood, oil, grass, tomato and chocolate. Each involves a different tried method. Many laws, systems and people sought to limit Bla(c)k women’s lives. They only saw your matriarchs for their labour. They underestimated the love, respect and pride your family had for each other. They tried to keep the past cloaked in darkness. As irons in the fire, Bla(c)k women’s stories burn brightly and illuminate a way for the future.

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You still do not know what is yours to keep. What can be put in a box and what to throw away. You do not know what is impeding you. You still cover your mouth at times when you want to speak the truth to those who need to hear your words. Which part of this story is yours?

Writing Objects is a new series of writing engaging with the Powerhouse Collection, opening it up to new audiences and communities. Writers from Australia and around the world share their response to objects.

Bringing scientific, historic and personal perspectives, these stories highlight the museum’s newly digitised collection of close to 500,000 objects and offer new ways to navigate the applied arts and sciences.

The Powerhouse digitisation project is one of the largest being undertaken internationally and will result in new levels of community access to the museum’s extraordinary collections for local, national and international audiences.