Sissy Brown Character Analysis

Deane’s Line was heavy with mud and Odette’s boots sunk deeper into it with each step she took. The walk to the Aboriginal graveyard behind the mission was a good mile from home. The smoke billowing from the chimney above Henry Lamb’s junkyard was rich with the scent of eucalypt. Located on the town side of Deane’s Line, the junkyard was literally feet away from reserve land.

Ruben had already given consideration to the amount the tub was worth. He’d calculated a fair price of ten shillings. “Five shillings,” was his first offer.

[…] Lamb scoffed. […] “If I didn’t drive a good price, I’d be called a fool across the district […]”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ruben laughed.

The comment grated with Lamb. He tolerated Blackfellas who’d come off the mission and made a go of it for themselves. Many walked by his gate, some even doffing their caps as they walked by. It didn’t mean he’d tolerate cheek from them. Jed Lamb might have been a junkman, but he was also a true white man. “Don’t you be a smart-arse fella with me, Ruben. I could fetch twelve shillings for that bath tomorrow. Jesus Christ himself would tell you, you’re out to rob me.”

“Well, I’ll give you eight shillings, then,” Ruben offered.

“I’d like a sketchbook of my own and some pencils. […]”

“That’s all you want?” Odette asked. “Let’s say you could have anything you wanted for your birthday. What would it be?”

“Anything?”

Sissy walked ahead of her grandmother as she thought about the question. “If I could have anything I wanted I would stay in the bath all day, every day for the next year, having my hair washed over and over.”

Odette scoffed. “And I guess I’d be the one stoking the fire and shoveling the coal all day to keep the water hot. And washing your hair. That would be harder than working all day for white people.”

“Nope. You wouldn’t be working at all, Nan. We’d have our own worker, doing the jobs for us. All you would have to do would be to sit on a couch and drink tea. And there’d be chocolate.”

“Come on, Sis,” Odette ordered a second time. “Let’s get home.”

“Not yet, Mrs. Brown,” Lowe said. “Not until you hear what I have to say. Change is coming to the town of Deane and it’s best that people prepare for it, yourself included.” He patted Sissy’s hand. “She is a smart young lady, your granddaughter. I would not want to see a girl with such potential slip back. It is my duty to uplift children such as Cecily, and I will not fail her. Good day.”

He strode purposefully across the street in the direction of the police station.

Walking back to the track to collect her bike, Sissy puzzled over the family in the portrait. What would cause them to abandon their own home and leave all their clothes and furniture behind? She had no idea. She wondered about the two Aboriginal women. They would have been away from their own families, working for the white people. Although her grandmother never spoke to her about girls in the district who’d been taken away from their families, Sissy had heard stories about missing sisters, cousins, friends. In the schoolyard at lunchtime, they would sometimes argue over who the Welfare Board went after, the dark or fair children. They would line up from the darkest to lightest skinned. Sissy always found herself at the end of the line, not sure if she was the safest or if she might be the next child to be taken.

As she walked on, Odette started to feel stronger, as if she was being carried along by a current of water. She could hear water flowing beneath her and remembered the story her father had once told her, that water is never lost from rivers, not even when they appeared dead. Water could always return. The water is always with you, he’d said. It had made little sense to her at the time, but Odette could now hear the old people, guiding her home. They were listening to her as she anguished over what to do.

“I bet you told them to take me away.”

Sissy’s accusation shocked Odette. “Do you really believe that, girl?” she asked.

Sissy refused to answer her grandmother. She stood on the edge of the footpath, looking into the gutter.

“Sis, I need to know if you really believe that your nan would turn you out. I’m not wild with you, but I need to know if these people have put so much fear in your heart that you would think that. Please, tell your nan so I can fix it for you. So you can know that it would never be true.”

Sissy threw herself at her grandmother, almost knocking both of them to the ground. Odette patted the back of Sissy’s head as the child sobbed.

[…]

Sissy wiped her face on Odette’s coat. “I’m sorry, Nan, but I’m frightened about what is happening to us. That boy…”

“What would the other policeman do? Would he come after me?”

“I don’t know. He won’t be happy—I know that much. He has a thing about your people. Thinks he owns you. I don’t know why you didn’t just take off and get back her without telling him. He might have got wind, but you’d have been home before the Welfare Board acted.”

“I’ll tell you why, Bill. I’ll tell you why to my own shame. Most of my life I haven’t been able to do anything without your lot having control over me. Myself and all Aboriginal people around here. We’re so used to being told what to do, where we can and can’t go, all we know is to beg.

“Thank you for everything,” she said. “You take care of yourself, Henry Lamb. Can I give you some advice?”

“You can, Odette.”

“That Kane boy, Aaron. He’s not worth your trouble, Henry. You stay away from him.”

“I don’t know that I can do that, Odette. I would be happy if he would stay away from me. I would be happy then.”

Odette had never touched a White man in her life, not voluntarily. She walked over to Henry, put a hand on one cheek, leaned forward, and kissed the other. Henry put his hand to his cheek and left it there.

“I know I can’t call you Nan, because of our story, but you say I can call you Auntie. Why? That still means that we’re related, doesn’t it?”

“Well,” Odette explained, “white families, they like to call the women who look after their children Auntie. When I looked after white kiddies they always called me Auntie.”

“Why?”

“They wanted me to feel like I was part of the family.”

“How could you be part of their family?” Sissy asked. “You had your own family.”

“Exactly. I’ve always had my own family. And I was never really part of theirs, shuffled out the back door at the end of the day or asked to sleep over in some rundown shack.”

Odette had long ago learned that white people were fascinated with the skin color of Aboriginal people and what it might indicate. She’d been similarly interrogated many times over the years. Odette understood that what this woman really wanted to know was how she’d inherited the white blood and who it had come from. Odette didn’t know the answer to such questions. All she knew was that the women in her family loved all their children, regardless of the suffering and violence that had created them. She turned to the woman and repeated a fiction she’d told before, the story of the mythical white forebear who’d saved her family. Stories of such benevolence comforted white people and would often result in an Aboriginal woman attached to a household being treated with some fondness and even care.

“I’m a Brown by name,” Odette explained. “My late husband’s family.” Odette had faint memory of Jimmy Brown, from when she was a child. He was taken away before she started school. If Jack Haines expected Odette to get excited hearing the name of a long-lost in-law, he was mistaken. Reunited with family, if only through memory, could be heart breaking As tragic as it was, some of those who’d lost family found it more bearable to forget. “He could be the same fella," Odette said casually.

“Not could be. I’d bet he is one and the same. Me and Jimmy Brown were in Kinglsey Boys Home together. He used to talk about the mission days at Deane all the time. He had a big mob of family over there.”

Sissy soon fell asleep and Odette looked out of the window at the changing landscape. The open country was gradually replaced by undulating forest. Odette thought about Jimmy Brown. Jack Haines said he was a born runner. Odette’s own family had been the opposite. They’d refused to run, sometimes at great cost to themselves. Odette herself had always secure staying put. She believed her strength came from the old people who’d passed on. Without their presence, she was certain she’d have given up her struggle long ago. Now, for the first time in her life, she was experiencing what it felt like to be a long way from home, with hundreds of miles still go to. It was a terribly lonely feeling.

A station porter, riding by on a baggage trolley, noticed her. “Hey, what’s up, love?” he asked, showing genuine concern. “You look like you need some help.”

Odette looked up at a man with a red, bloated face, a white man. […] She did the best she could to compose herself.

“I’ve lost a girl in my care. […] I’ve searched everywhere and I can’t find her.”

He hopped off the trolley and sat next to Odette. […] “Well, when anyone’s lost or separated at the station, we tell them to go to the Traveller’s Aid Society and wait there to be collected. If she’s approached any of our staff for help, that’s where she’ll be.” He stood up and patted the narrow seat of his trolley. “You look tired, love. Hop up next to me and I’ll take you up there.”

She read the single, blunt paragraph several times before picking up the second envelope.

Sissy read each of the letters. They had little to say and explained nothing about why her mother had left her, what she was doing with her life, or when she might return home. Worst of all, her mother hadn’t talked about her at all. Sissy had only been mentioned twice as the baby. She was furious. She’d conjured so many fanciful but loving thoughts about her mother over the years. It wasn’t that the letters told her a different story about her mother but that they told her nothing. She picked up the first letter and tore the envelope down the center. She tore it again and again into smaller pieces. She ripped the remaining letters apart with increasing anger, eventually leaving a frenzy of confetti across the bed and on the floor.

“Because we must be able to indicate that we have exhausted all means to locate the family,” Lowe answered. “I intend to report Mrs. Brown to the Aborigines Welfare Board. She must be held responsible for her decision to abscond with the child. The insolence she has conveyed toward myself and this office will not go unpunished. Additionally, we, in our role as local guardians, are ultimately responsible for the care of Cecily. We must ensure that we fulfil our duty to her, which includes investigating the cause of her absence.”

“And what is it? Shea asked. “Our duty?”

“Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the Bible. We have a flock to manage and I am determined to have the child, Cecily, in my care, whatever it takes.”

[Jack said,] “The ambulance brought you here, and that girl, Wanda, she took Sissy to her room and kept her safe. Lucky for you, she asked Sissy if you had people in the city. The girl said no, and then she remembered you had that stub with my name and address written on it. Wanda brought Sissy to our house, and me and Alma came straight here. They […] told us we couldn’t see you unless we were related. Straightaway, I told them you were my sis. I had to give the nurse a name.”

Odette continued to frown.

“Don’t you worry,” Alma said. “While you’re in this bed you’re Betty Haines and you live with us. […]. We’ll sort out the rest as soon as we can get you out of here.”

“Where will I be going?” asked Odette.

“You’ll be coming home,” Alma said.

The clerk himself hesitated for a moment. Odette was sure she detected a glimpse of something more than efficiency on his face. “Your daughter—”

“I haven’t seen my daughter in over ten years,” she answered. “I’ve looked everywhere for her.”

“You would most likely be unaware, then, that your daughter, Lila May Brown, successfully applied for an exemption certificate eighteen months ago. In her application, she stated that she had no living relatives or dependents.”

The revelation shocked Odette. “Eighteen months ago?”

“Yes. At the same time, she made no mention of the child, Cecily.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“Well, essentially, your guardianship of the child is strengthened, as there is no other claim on her.”

“What did you talk about with your mum?”

“Nothing really. Not anything that made sense. She knew who I was, and remembered Nanna and this place. It wasn’t like she was old. She just didn’t have much to say. I went back the next day and took her out to lunch. She never said a word while we ate, just stared out the window at the sea. It was only when we stood up to leave that I saw she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong. And she just said, over and over, ‘He came back for me, he came back after me.’ Does that mean anything to you, Auntie Millie?”

Although she suspected what Lila would have been speaking about, Millie thought it best to say nothing.