Swallow the Air: 11. Wantok Summary & Analysis

In the midst of all her worries, when May spends time with Johnny, she can escape to daydreams of beautiful beaches where they can pick fruit and live off the land. Even when they’re sitting in the park on the Block, they have “escaped with each other.” Together, they often explore the city while Johnny tells her about Waiben (one of the Torres Strait Islands). He’s never been there, but it’s “his real home, where his father lives.” Johnny wanted to return there to be “initiated,” but Justine was in jail so they couldn’t go.

When May first arrived at Joyce’s house, Johnny tried to flirt with her, informing her one day that she was his girlfriend. May rejects him flatly, telling him that “all men are bastards.” Now, they’re good friends.

Johnny tells May all the stories about the Torres Strait he’s heard from visiting uncles. There, he says, people live on stilted houses next to mango trees. In their imagination, he and May fish all day in canoes before singing and dancing at night and sleeping in cabins under tropical storms. In turn, May tells Johnny about “Mum’s country” and the lake that was once her tribe’s home. In May’s stories, they “become snakes, silting through the swampy streams, creating mouths and rivers.”

When Johnny and May return to Joyce’s house after these long talks, they feel immune to the grim poverty of the Block because “anytime we can leave in our minds.” They can’t quite imagine the families that are waiting for them in the places they imagine, but they promise that one day they will “go to our homelands for our people.” Johnny tells May that she is his wantok, or “black girl ally,” and May says he reminds her of Billy.