Narrator Character Analysis

The residents of this estate took a few surreptitious looks at this pair when they first arrived, and have chosen to stay out of their way since. We’ll have to invite some in specially, over the next couple days, for the photo documentation we need. Some casual shots of the artists chatting and interacting with residents, facilitating important interchange. Community ownership. An appreciation of process. It’s all there in the grant evaluation forms.

She gestures to the mural, where her partner’s painting in the figures of three women. They’re prominent, next to the four laughing Eritrean children who are posing with a basketball.

“Should that be a soccer ball?” I say, half to myself.

“Sorry?”

“Should those kids be holding a soccer ball instead? They’ve actually formed a whole team; they play on the oval on a Sunday afternoon. I think soccer’s more their thing.”

I might be wrong. They might be Somalis.

“Look, I’m buying stuff for a class. For a group of refugee women.” I hate trotting that out, and in any case technically it’s a bit of a white lie now, but this is my money we’re talking about, my free time, my goodwill.

“Because, you know, you can wear national costume, if you like. Your traditional dresses? That would be wonderful. The minister would love to see that.”

Their faces grow wary and apologetic with unsayable things. The room is stiff with a charged awkwardness, with languages I can’t speak.

“No. But we come.”

It’s a rainbow of faces now, the mural, a melting pot. A few Anglo faces are placed judiciously next to Laotian and Eritrean, Vietamese alongside Salvadoran and Iraqi and Aboriginal, all standing ‘We Are the World’ style with arms round each other, grinning as if the photographer’s somehow cracked a joke they all find mutually hilarious, something that in real life would involve several simultaneous translators and a fair whack of fairy dust.

“They won’t graffiti it,” interjects Mandy, who’s listening. She’s walking along past each big smiling face, giving each eye a realistic twinkle. “Nobody will graffiti anything they feel a sense of ownership and inclusion about.”

I’ve never been here on the estate this late at night. As I splash the sealant on I listen to cars revving and residents shouting, doors slamming, a quick blooping siren as the police pull someone over, the thumping woofers of passing car stereos. And through it all, I hear a babel of voices; every language group we’re so proud of, calling and greeting, arguing and yelling, nearly two thousand people I couldn’t name and who have no use for me. Who glance at me, leaving in my car every afternoon, and look away again, busy with the demands of getting by.

“Such a positive message,” the minister is saying, “and I understand the community itself had a hand in creating it. Marvellous.”

He’s beckoning to the minister, grinning glancing up at the mural to find a good place to stand in front of. “I’ve noticed those empty solvent tins out by the bins,” he murmurs in passing. “Can you dispose of them somewhere else, where the kids from round here won’t find them and sniff them? Ta.”

Local colour is what he wants. A multicultural coup. Boxes ticked. Oh, here’s our vision alright, I think bitterly, sealed and impervious and safeguarded. And no matter what gets scrawled there, whatever message or denial or contradiction, you can just wipe it away. With white spirit.

I stand there in the middle in my jeans and black top, a dowdy, sad sparrow among peacocks. Then, as Jameela raises the camera I feel two arms on either side of me, stretching tentatively round my waist, drawing me tighter, and in spite of everything, I smile.

The residents of this estate took a few surreptitious looks at this pair when they first arrived, and have chosen to stay out of their way since. We’ll have to invite some in specially, over the next couple days, for the photo documentation we need. Some casual shots of the artists chatting and interacting with residents, facilitating important interchange. Community ownership. An appreciation of process. It’s all there in the grant evaluation forms.

She gestures to the mural, where her partner’s painting in the figures of three women. They’re prominent, next to the four laughing Eritrean children who are posing with a basketball.

“Should that be a soccer ball?” I say, half to myself.

“Sorry?”

“Should those kids be holding a soccer ball instead? They’ve actually formed a whole team; they play on the oval on a Sunday afternoon. I think soccer’s more their thing.”

I might be wrong. They might be Somalis.

“Look, I’m buying stuff for a class. For a group of refugee women.” I hate trotting that out, and in any case technically it’s a bit of a white lie now, but this is my money we’re talking about, my free time, my goodwill.

“Because, you know, you can wear national costume, if you like. Your traditional dresses? That would be wonderful. The minister would love to see that.”

Their faces grow wary and apologetic with unsayable things. The room is stiff with a charged awkwardness, with languages I can’t speak.

“No. But we come.”

It’s a rainbow of faces now, the mural, a melting pot. A few Anglo faces are placed judiciously next to Laotian and Eritrean, Vietamese alongside Salvadoran and Iraqi and Aboriginal, all standing ‘We Are the World’ style with arms round each other, grinning as if the photographer’s somehow cracked a joke they all find mutually hilarious, something that in real life would involve several simultaneous translators and a fair whack of fairy dust.

“They won’t graffiti it,” interjects Mandy, who’s listening. She’s walking along past each big smiling face, giving each eye a realistic twinkle. “Nobody will graffiti anything they feel a sense of ownership and inclusion about.”

I’ve never been here on the estate this late at night. As I splash the sealant on I listen to cars revving and residents shouting, doors slamming, a quick blooping siren as the police pull someone over, the thumping woofers of passing car stereos. And through it all, I hear a babel of voices; every language group we’re so proud of, calling and greeting, arguing and yelling, nearly two thousand people I couldn’t name and who have no use for me. Who glance at me, leaving in my car every afternoon, and look away again, busy with the demands of getting by.

“Such a positive message,” the minister is saying, “and I understand the community itself had a hand in creating it. Marvellous.”

He’s beckoning to the minister, grinning glancing up at the mural to find a good place to stand in front of. “I’ve noticed those empty solvent tins out by the bins,” he murmurs in passing. “Can you dispose of them somewhere else, where the kids from round here won’t find them and sniff them? Ta.”

Local colour is what he wants. A multicultural coup. Boxes ticked. Oh, here’s our vision alright, I think bitterly, sealed and impervious and safeguarded. And no matter what gets scrawled there, whatever message or denial or contradiction, you can just wipe it away. With white spirit.

I stand there in the middle in my jeans and black top, a dowdy, sad sparrow among peacocks. Then, as Jameela raises the camera I feel two arms on either side of me, stretching tentatively round my waist, drawing me tighter, and in spite of everything, I smile.