Dancing On Oyster Shells
by
Fiona Staun

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'I, Ely Galvin ...' read my mother's will. Then I jumped in with my own words: '... being shot without care or reason, as my ancestors before . . .' 
She belonged to the last remnants of the Stolen generation – Aboriginals taken from shattered families left after the cullings or not considered 'suitable', and moulded into colonial Christians. Dad traced down between many mixed Anglo Irish and Darwin tribe marriages. Now it was the eighties and she and my father could take new roles and degrees at University. My father, Lee Galvin, was one of only three Aboriginal judges, which was why he was requested by the South Africans – to find a middle ground. 
But it was my mother who had found the ground – when two bullets gunned her down onto the path scattered with jasmine.
Ely had looked forward to Johannesburg.  'Look, Sabina. Similar latitudes and climates. And the real home of the proteas!' She was small with the ancient wide and beautiful smile. I was the only child and sat somewhere between their fading tribal connections. Now I was  trying to dance to my own song-line but there was something on my back that made me look over my shoulder.
The lushness of the botanicals and the pink-pelted proteas reminded us of steamy Brisbane and its laden pergolas.  Here we had our rondawel, the  eight-sided gazebo, to discuss how we felt being in this mirror city. I kept quiet about the waterfalls of feelings that poured through me when I saw a rifle. I was helpless and desperately wanted to live without this past echo.
My father was both black and white enough to be accepted in the turbulent courts. And I had long legs and the tempo of red earth dancing in my veins, so I joined a dance group of the 'new Africa' which ironically shone at traditional ballet.   But soon our wrought-iron front gates, in the delicately wealthy suburb, were covered in barbed wire and the upmarket coffee shops and boutiques were 'given' to greedy natives, who then lived on the parquet floors 



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and laughed through their smoke. Their cause was done and won, yet  I was angry with the violent ones for making history repeat itself with soldiers running after them with loaded guns. My own fear of running and being shot in the back was deeply entrenched.
 'She was mistaken for a Black,'said the weary peace keeper.
 'She was black,' said my father. 'She was going down to feed the cats.'
'All cats are black at night,' said the soldier. 
My father knew what cans of ugly, writhing worms would open if he tried to find the killer who shot someone in a peaceful garden. The rock was black and the hard place was white.  But we had money, and in Jo-burg, the new discrimination was economic. So, his face streaked with lines and his skin turning a matted grey, he paid each Chinese whisper thread  that wound its way around the city.  Some said rebels and then one whispered quickly 'Army.' Suddenly, this made sense of what I had seen but my father had enough of the brick walls.
Finally, he closed the cans and we returned to Australia. But for me it was only a visit.
May's wintery sun clocked over a Gold Coast winter as we headed out to Stradbroke Island' where tribes used to come from all over the Coast to share the abundant oyster beds and fiery dancing.   I spread  her ashes over the salty midden, which was layers of oyster shells, roasted wildlife and other remnants of the gathering feasts. My mother wove stories for me, as we too, laughed and sang in our wet bathers and sarongs on those crackling shell mounds.'I am woman of Kom-bumerris.' And she sang her songs of how they had become the hunted and  perhaps their bones lay on top of the middens.
I would be a dancer but one whose shadow flitted over the fires with steps of war. I was going back to South Africa to be the hunter. No-one had the right to kill and be safe. I needed to silence my own fears through some sort of justice. 
I spent my time scrolling thorough the Army files. I had lifted them from my father's computer and I was looking for a needle in a khaki haystack. That one 
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whispered clue led me to look for soldiers who had crossed over lines and were
baseless. I clicked through endless newspapers, looking for a past crime or a name.
'I saw you dancing last night! You were wonderful.'
'I looked up. He had wide shoulders  and there were three raised stripes of skin on his left arm where bullets had grazed him. His name was Jonre and by the strangest coincidences, he had lived only a few miles from us and was on patrol that night.
'The Ballet. You were the Virgin ghost.'
I couldn't help but laugh. ' Well, I'm out of uniform for a while while I sort something out.'
'I am too,' he said.
I looked at him in surprise.
'Injuries,' he said. 'Now I'm on data duty.  The Army has been called back to try and sort out the mess. The number of Europeans leaving has caused a red-tape nightmare.' 
There was something between us and we went with it. 
After a few days,  I told him briefly about my mother. 
“You'll never find the killer,' he said bluntly. 'If he's Army, he had no reason to be anywhere near your house. And if he's a rebel, he will be taken somewhere safe and only the gods will know where.'
'I saw him,' I protested.  'But there is something else. I'll know him anywhere.'
'What can you have seen in the dark? This time of the year, it is always cloudy.'
How could I say – 'something parted them for a second'? Instead I looked away. 
'I might be able to help,' he said slowly.'There will be hundreds of files and photos in my headquarters. Come on.' 
What splintered destiny had created our union? I believe it was the spirits of those who had run helplessly through blood-red bougainvillaea bushes in Africa

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 and in Australia,whipped by own spindly banksia trees.  
How else could the answers have been found so quickly? On the screen was the man who had killed my mother.' His name is Balikar James and he was 
discharged for theft.' the Commander said.  He stared at me thoughtfully. 'What makes you so sure?'
I felt the grasses of Stradbroke island whisper around me. 
“Moonlight,' I said.
There was silence. 
'At first, he was a blur. But then, the moon came out and I could see his skin clearly.  It was white ... not black. The moon grew brighter and I could see he was trained to hold a gun. He was pleased he had shot his target. Before the moon came out – he was a black outline, just like a cat in the dark.'
Thankfully, he was caught and we left him and the dreadful night behind.
I remembered something else - there had been no wind. What else had moved the clouds? Whatever happened, I felt the old, old fear lift. Time and a greater justice system had moved the past.  My back felt safe.
One day, Jonre and I will trace my mother's song-lines - the native cat who wound her way from the sea.