Palm Island Promises by Lee Burton Generational promises are meant to be kept. Time with her granddaughter has uncovered childhood memories that needle Merinda, especially when least expected. For the moment, she relaxes her ageing body on the bench seat, watching her beloved Lydia happily scooting down the freshly blanketed grass, skipping her feet along the warm, rough path. Her tiny feet channel along the foundation wall stacked with gigantic rocks. The barrier gives protection, a place for everyone to swim. Merinda tells herself that being retired is great, that Lydia is beautiful, that she loves the innocence of her grandchild. A gentle tide of despondency falls over her. This is what it should be for every child, no matter who they are. Lydia senses a slight change in her grandmother’s face. She returns to Merinda, crashing her spiny arms on her lap, directing her enormous brown eyes to her grandmother’s face. ‘Hey Nana, what cha doin?’ ‘Just visiting my own thoughts luv.’ ‘Is it like dreaming?’ ‘Oh no, no, no!’ ‘Isn’t it nice thoughts Nana? Do you need a hug?’ ‘Oh my Munchkin.’ Merinda wraps her up in her arms and tickles her ribs. ‘You make Nana very happy. Off you go Lydia, go have some fun.’
Lydia, reassured, focuses on the water, smiling as she tells her grandmother, ‘I am going to do the biggest splash into the rock pools. Watch me Nana, watch me jump off the jetty. Hey Nana, did you see that splash, I can bomb bigger than Joey.’ ‘Yes Lydia, and your brother isn’t here to see you, now you be very careful.’ Merinda’s eyes settle, admiring her granddaughter’s dark ringlets that sparkle with the fusion of salt water and morning sunrays. Her young body freely ducks and bobs up and down in the water. Merinda’s thoughts stretch across the ocean. She squints while remembering images of herself at Lydia’s age, a time that seems distant but remains haunting: a similar, but another, era. ‘Oh I remember when I could prance jumping off a jetty,’ she thinks. ‘Virtually into this, the same matching sea.’ Her eyes lower to her feet, studying the waves sipping against the rocks. This period of life moves her, something too close of an acquaintance. Her eyes divert and set on the greyness of the hills protruding out of the sea. The trio of islands. On the closest human movements are notable, but she can’t see the farthest from here. The middle holds the most potent significance, conjoined in many kinship ways. A piece of island earth, her childhood home. The bleakness of distant grey is only a shadow of the island’s tropical greenness. The internal structures of tall peaks require you to skew your sight to visualise its details. Palms of all shapes and sizes growing, giving the island its name. ‘I know it’s meant to be a piece of Eden, a true North Queensland paradise,’ Merinda tells herself as she sighs. ‘But who would have thought, that not that far back in time— ‘—This was a place—
‘No! It was a place that represented nothing more than a racial penitentiary. ‘Where else in the global sphere is there such a contrast? Something the average person around here wouldn’t expect.’ Her eyes scan the crowd of people she innately knows are oblivious to the island’s history. Merinda shuffles her body. She’s uncomfortable with her feelings of anger, variegated with hidden tears. Time travel haunts her with other thoughts, of her own relationship with her mother as she visualises her childhood on the island. ‘The jetty and the mango tree are just like here,’ she remembers. ‘Mum always sitting patiently against the trunk of the tree, knowing that her time with me was limited.’ ‘Swimming for me was such an escape. Them, only allowing us to do so in the early morning and late into the evening. But were we allowed during the day when it was hot? ‘Oh no! Not when there were chores to do and school. ‘Weekends and Wednesday were the only days Mum was allowed to be with me, our only family time. ‘That would have been so hard on her. ‘What would I have felt, if I couldn’t be with my daughter or my granddaughter? ‘I would have been devastated.’ She answers her own question. During their tiny bonding moments at the mango tree, basking in the sun, they shared many family stories. She recalls her mum’s voice and the words come to her like it was yesterday: ‘Dear Merinda, I can never understand why I have to live this way. I need you, I miss your dad. I am lonely and sad other than my time with you. I can never understand and I am also very scared to ask why.’
Merinda remembers the sadness but not until later as an adolescent did she understand the difference. She knew her mother’s comfort was escaping to the past. Telling Merinda her own nana’s stories of another way on the island, what her nana’s tribal life was like. ‘Merinda, always remember who we are, our people, we are the Manbarra people, we are the first to this island. Remember my promise, cos I want you to pass our stories on. I want you to know the words. You got to know the Dreaming stories that your grandparents spoke and told. It was theirs, it was our secret language, and the other promise is that it is not for the white people to hear.’ Her mother’s words described their people’s life on the island. Those with similar backgrounds but from different tribes. ‘Merinda, the others here have sadness, like us, they were forced to come here. Like me, they miss things, like where they come from. This is not their homeland, or our way of life. Them, the whites, they believed the surrounding sea would keep us here, protect the other white people, those over there, on that land.’ Merinda recalls her mother pointing to the west, towards the never-ending landscape, the undulating surface meaning nothing to her but the unknown. Just a place that the boats went and came from, lodging at the island jetty, bringing white people mysteries from across the water. ‘The others like us were brought here from many faraway places, for not doing anything wrong, just the white man wanting their earth. When there was many of us we were called the Bwgcolman people,’ she said. ‘When you get older and have children you must continue the Dreaming stories from generations past, for those in the future. They have to know their beginnings. This is one thing that can’t be taken from us. Your mum needs to know she has done her part in sharing who we are.’
Merinda remembers confirming the promises as only a child does by hugging her mother, clinging in an infant manner, not fully comprehending the emotions of what was going on. Still today, she remembers the sadness in her mother’s heart. Lydia’s voice interrupts Merinda’s thoughts. Even though her eyes have been checking her little body, Merinda’s mind is brought back to the present. ‘Hey Nana did you see me? I can swim all the way across.’ ‘Yes, you are a clever little girl, you swim beautifully, I think you’re meant to be a fish.’ Merinda giggles to herself. Merinda’s granddaughter hears half her words as she evaporates under the water’s surface with little feet splashing. Merinda catches a glimpse of the midday egg-colored ferry doing the journey which today is a pleasant three-hour skim across the water. It will anchor at her childhood jetty, permitting all the people to freely enter and leave. ‘Hey Lydia, it’s time to go. It’s lunch time.’ ‘Oh Nana,’ she squeaks, ‘I’m having so much fun.’ ‘We can come another day,’ Merinda replies. ‘Come here and dry off.’ Merinda rubs Lydia’s body. She cups her hands around her granddaughter’s face. ‘Today Nana has remembered she has a promise to keep from your great Nana, that she must tell you.’ ‘Is a promise a story, Nana?’ ‘Yes, the same but maybe a little different. Nana wants to tell you the promises in our stories so you can remember to tell your children later on.’ ‘I love you telling me stories and I will always promise to share, I might even tell Joey.’ Lydia grins up at her grandmother.
Smiling at the innocence of Lydia, Merinda ruffles her curls as she tells her, ‘Let’s go home darling, all that swimming, you must be ready for a rest.’ ‘Oh ok. Hey Nana can we have some fish and chips at the cafe, I’m starving.’ ‘Yes my dear I think we can have a treat today.’ Merinda protectively clasps her ageing hand around the soft youthful skin of Lydia’s fingers. Their hands touch, linking promises past and future.