Photography by Hallie Vermeend
Content warning: racism
I could hear the water calling out to us.
Through chain-link diamonds, my eyes traced a gum leaf floating on its surface, travelling lazily before being weighed down by ripples.
If I closed my eyes, I evaporated through the fence into the muggy air and sounds of life pulled me towards the pool’s edge through scorching metal.
Kids from the big school giggled as they threw one another into the deep end, their mothers turning the pages of their mystery novels spotted and sticky with a mix of chlorine and sunscreen. A percussion of thongs slapping at the tiles underpinned the whole scene like January’s heartbeat. My own bare feet burned against the concrete.
My little brother clung to the back of my leg, palms gummed with sweat and tugging my skirt hem, hungrily begging to go inside. I waited for a woman to approach the entrance, preferably with children in tow. She came, a mass of bag straps scoring forearms which herded pale toddlers like ducklings. We could slip in among the gaggle. Silently, I took my brother’s soft, dark hand and fell in rhythm with the woman’s unwieldy gait.
She panted g’day at the burnt clerk sitting behind the desk, his mottled pink peeling like paper bark to reveal new skin beneath. He smiled, checking her and her boys through the little plastic gate and onto the tiles. Blue eyes erasing my brother’s black curls peeking from behind the woman’s skirt. We were on the other side of the fence.
Umbrellas were spaced sporadically across the grass, stabbed violently into the earth to withstand the breeze which dropped leaves and clusters of gumnuts onto wide brims that sheltered the town’s fairest skin. The pool itself was an unnatural blue, the only thing unwashed by the warm haze of dust and glare.
My mouth was dry with anticipation.We had to be in and out. A quick dip to cool off.
We were still behind the lady. She was fitting yellow inflatable rings around her boys, forcing halos over their soft blonde heads. Pulled by the radiance, my brother reached out a hand to the boy in front of him, lightly petting the ducktail curls sprouting from his neck in wonder. A light breeze rippled the downy strands. Holding his golden floatie, the angel boy turned and looked up at me, either too stunned to speak or too young to know what to say. His eyes glittered and swam, rippling in harmony with the water behind him. He let out a choked yelp as they met my gaze.
“Goodness!” their mother clutched at her bosom in surprise; a pair of foxes amongst the brood. My brother knocked into my knees as he stepped back sharply, rocking me.
I felt the hum of the sun and the bugs and the water and the trees turn towards us both. It was far too bright without the haze of anonymity. My brother grabbed at my dress. A few nearby families turned their heads, causing a ripple across the lawn as if we'd flicked the web of a huntsman.
“You’re not supposed to come in here.” A boy said behind me, his voice strengthened by a smile I could only hear. “You'll muck up the pool.”
I felt ice rise in my throat as I turned to him. This boy, I knew this boy. He lived two streets over in the hedge-trimmed house with the boat whose nose poked out from behind the shed doors. Aunty said they didn’t deserve any of it, that one day she was sure God would come and take it all away. He wiped his baby plump hands on the red and white stripes of his shorts, emboldened by the audience before him. I turned away from him and towards my brother, smiling tightly and cupping his small face.
“Time to go.”
Two hands hit my back.
My palms and knees grated against stones still slippery from the pool, throbbing dully before searing against the warm rock. Darkness ran between pebbles set in concrete, winding paths of red from under my hands. My brother let out a very small noise without opening his mouth.
“See?” He pointed. “Muck.”
Summer air stung at the warm wound, eucalyptus sighing at the sight of spilt blood. The water was quiet.
Contextualising Statement
This is a snapshot of the First Nations experience at a rural public pool in the mid-20th century, inspired by Felix Kimber’s 2022 Farrago article, "In the Deep End: Public Swimming Pools in Colonial Australia". While racial segregation was outlawed in a formal, legal sense by this time in Australian history, the ‘obscure bylaws’ of many public facilities meant that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were denied equal access. This piece responds to Kimber’s sentiment that “the true frontier of race relations in Australia aren't the halls of power but the mundane public intuitions we sometimes take for granted”.