Morag Fraser | 01 September 2015
Imagine the long expanse of Darwin's coastal strip in late Spring. It is already uncomfortably humid and the sand is a burning hot. Ahead of me is a slight woman in shorts and a floppy canvas hat. Her arms are bare, and I worry that she is catching too much sun on her Irish-pale skin. We are looking for turtle eggs.
The hunt is part of a challenge issued to us, white woman from the far southwest and southeast of Australia, to understand the nature, depth and sacredness of the relationship between Yolgnu people and their land and creatures. We are in Darwin on a theological exchange — but I suspect that the traffic is all one way. We are out of our depth, even in the shallow water to which we retreat to salve our burning feet.
I should not say 'we'. Veronica isn't out of her depth. She is avid for experience, ready to learn, and her willingness is infectious. It communicates to the Yolgnu woman — her name is Rosemary — who is leading us on our dance up and down the incendiary dunes, and who smiles impishly as we confess to our ignorance. We believe we have as much chance of finding turtle eggs in this shimmering expanse as we have of catching a unicorn.
So we laugh at our discomfort, and allow ourselves to be taught. Rosemary laughs with us. Then she begins the lesson. 'Look there. See that undulation in the dunes? See how it is shifting? Wait.' So we do. And sure enough, slowly the sand begins to cascade as a giant, ancient creature shakes off its gritty carapace, like a fossil coming to life, and emerges. We watch as it waddles away, then we move in (feet still burning) to find the eggs. Exhilaration!
Veronica and I have learned how to stay cool, alternating shallow water trudging with the brief sorties up the sands, so we have time to talk between hunting forays. I've known Veronica for years — in the way one knows a public figure and fellow Catholic. We share a love of literature, Australian literature in particular, and a professional, if hardly orthodox, interest in theology. We have a mutual friend in Phillip Adams. Veronica is one of Phillip's 'favourite Catholics'.
He's a broad church atheist, Phillip, with a fondness for nuns and a loyalty to the ABC, which Veronica long served as a board member. He likes larrikins, mavericks, women and men with a mind of their own. Last week I sat in my car in a Brunswick street and listened to the replay of an interview Phillip did with Veronica some years back. I expected to hear her 'mind of its own'. What I didn't expect — and it brought her loss into sharp and painful relief — was the arresting honesty and surprise of her answers. I could not predict what she was going to say next, even as I recognised certain characteristic speech habits ('Now, you see, Phillip ...').
There is the touch of the nun-teacher there, but don't mistake it for complacency. Veronica was thinking on her feet, all the while, even in Phillip's congenial company, and interrogating herself as much as the world around her. It was a while before I could see well enough to drive home safely.
I learned this week, from one of Veronica's Loreto sisters, that among the many students Veronica taught during her long tenure in the English Department of the University of Western Australia was Gail Jones, a West Australian writer whom I regard as one of Australia's finest novelists and literary scholars. Gail's work is marked by intellectual verve and moral depth, and I should have guessed that she and Veronica had crossed paths. I look forward to reading Gail on Veronica, and I wish I could have heard them talking together. Neither woman leaves you quite where you were before you spoke to them. They both move you down the track, or along new ones. And you go, willingly and refreshed.
Up in Darwin, at that long-ago theological gathering, I had ample opportunity to see and hear Veronica as she listened to our Yolgnu friends and tutors. And as they listened to her. One day we sat on the ground together, awkwardly, on pandanus mats under trees, while the Yolgnu ladies sat in a magisterial circle of white plastic chairs, smiling wryly at our displaced dignity, and telling us about their lives and ways. We learned about different modes of apprehending the sacred, about culture, about kinship. Veronica was a born woman of words, but on these occasions she was a model of silent appreciation. Until she laughed.
The very last time I saw Veronica she was walking off into the bush, basket in hand, following a trail of smiling Yolgnu ladies who were going to teach her how to recognise and gather bush food. She was wearing the same floppy hat, and I worried again about her skin, and insects. But she smeared on sunscreen and mozzie repellent and with a smile and a blithe wave she was gone, into the welcoming scrub.
God bless you, Veronica.
 |
| Sister Veronica Brady |
The hunt is part of a challenge issued to us, white woman from the far southwest and southeast of Australia, to understand the nature, depth and sacredness of the relationship between Yolgnu people and their land and creatures. We are in Darwin on a theological exchange — but I suspect that the traffic is all one way. We are out of our depth, even in the shallow water to which we retreat to salve our burning feet.
I should not say 'we'. Veronica isn't out of her depth. She is avid for experience, ready to learn, and her willingness is infectious. It communicates to the Yolgnu woman — her name is Rosemary — who is leading us on our dance up and down the incendiary dunes, and who smiles impishly as we confess to our ignorance. We believe we have as much chance of finding turtle eggs in this shimmering expanse as we have of catching a unicorn.
So we laugh at our discomfort, and allow ourselves to be taught. Rosemary laughs with us. Then she begins the lesson. 'Look there. See that undulation in the dunes? See how it is shifting? Wait.' So we do. And sure enough, slowly the sand begins to cascade as a giant, ancient creature shakes off its gritty carapace, like a fossil coming to life, and emerges. We watch as it waddles away, then we move in (feet still burning) to find the eggs. Exhilaration!
Veronica and I have learned how to stay cool, alternating shallow water trudging with the brief sorties up the sands, so we have time to talk between hunting forays. I've known Veronica for years — in the way one knows a public figure and fellow Catholic. We share a love of literature, Australian literature in particular, and a professional, if hardly orthodox, interest in theology. We have a mutual friend in Phillip Adams. Veronica is one of Phillip's 'favourite Catholics'.
He's a broad church atheist, Phillip, with a fondness for nuns and a loyalty to the ABC, which Veronica long served as a board member. He likes larrikins, mavericks, women and men with a mind of their own. Last week I sat in my car in a Brunswick street and listened to the replay of an interview Phillip did with Veronica some years back. I expected to hear her 'mind of its own'. What I didn't expect — and it brought her loss into sharp and painful relief — was the arresting honesty and surprise of her answers. I could not predict what she was going to say next, even as I recognised certain characteristic speech habits ('Now, you see, Phillip ...').
There is the touch of the nun-teacher there, but don't mistake it for complacency. Veronica was thinking on her feet, all the while, even in Phillip's congenial company, and interrogating herself as much as the world around her. It was a while before I could see well enough to drive home safely.
I learned this week, from one of Veronica's Loreto sisters, that among the many students Veronica taught during her long tenure in the English Department of the University of Western Australia was Gail Jones, a West Australian writer whom I regard as one of Australia's finest novelists and literary scholars. Gail's work is marked by intellectual verve and moral depth, and I should have guessed that she and Veronica had crossed paths. I look forward to reading Gail on Veronica, and I wish I could have heard them talking together. Neither woman leaves you quite where you were before you spoke to them. They both move you down the track, or along new ones. And you go, willingly and refreshed.
Up in Darwin, at that long-ago theological gathering, I had ample opportunity to see and hear Veronica as she listened to our Yolgnu friends and tutors. And as they listened to her. One day we sat on the ground together, awkwardly, on pandanus mats under trees, while the Yolgnu ladies sat in a magisterial circle of white plastic chairs, smiling wryly at our displaced dignity, and telling us about their lives and ways. We learned about different modes of apprehending the sacred, about culture, about kinship. Veronica was a born woman of words, but on these occasions she was a model of silent appreciation. Until she laughed.
The very last time I saw Veronica she was walking off into the bush, basket in hand, following a trail of smiling Yolgnu ladies who were going to teach her how to recognise and gather bush food. She was wearing the same floppy hat, and I worried again about her skin, and insects. But she smeared on sunscreen and mozzie repellent and with a smile and a blithe wave she was gone, into the welcoming scrub.
God bless you, Veronica.
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