Sisterly Love is a serialized novel. To savor the full narrative experience, start at the beginning and work through the chapters in order. You can find chapters on the Home page or in the Archive.
CHAPTER 17
The Editor of The Daily Tribune telephoned almost immediately upon receiving Summer’s fax. He wasted no time confirming the bona fides in the memo she had prepared for Monica and the Australian Goodwill Society.
“Does the recording of the Zone 23 Executive meeting exist?” he demanded.
“Yes, but it’s not for publication,” said Summer.
“And the survey?”
“It’s been confidentially distributed amongst the chapters.”
“So it’s out there? In the public arena?”
“You could say that.”
“What about the Aboriginal woman, what does she look like?”
“Meaning what?”
“Never mind,” he said, thinking it probably didn’t matter—they all look the same.
The Editor continued to fire questions at Summer until the value in the trove of material she had sent him became clear, and he stopped trying to hide his enthusiasm.
“Sheesh! You know how to turn a bloke’s day around,” he said, as if Summer's intention had been to please him.
He assigned the story to a social justice reporter who swooped into Gilgandra and found the Aboriginal checkout operator, Deborah. That evening, the paper ran a photograph of her on page one under the headline: NOT THE AGS’s TYPE. The picture, which showed her barefoot on an Aboriginal reserve—even though she lived in the town—spread over two-thirds of the page. She was wearing the cheeky grin that had greeted Summer in the store. Behind her were a smattering of abandoned colonial-style buildings, including a chapel and a prefab school. Beyond stood a row of kit homes, one with a smashed window and another with no front door. On her hip, Deborah balanced a toddler whose dusty feet had left a smudge of red earth on the light-colored fabric of her dress. Summer later learned that the reporter had persuaded her to remove her shoes, telling her she would look more authentic. Deborah had complied, understanding this to be a compliment.
In the accompanying story, the reporter led with the accusation that the Australian Goodwill Society was sitting on its hands and looking the other way while its chapters invoked fictional volunteer criteria in order to keep Aborigines out. He quoted Summer from her memorandum: “Right now, the chapters themselves are blocking entry of Aboriginal members into our ranks because of a failure to meet our volunteer criteria, of which there don’t appear to be any.” Later in the story, he quoted Summer again: “Accusing Aboriginal women of being ‘shy’ and not wanting to ‘blend in’ is not going to help our membership problem.”
In total, the exposé spawned a two-week run of stories for the paper and its regional subsidiaries—the Australian Goodwill Society had touched the lives of most Australians somewhere, sometime during the past seventy-five years. Radio stations and television networks talked at length about the AGS’s member survey and questioned how much the organization’s leadership had known about the blocking of First Australians by its rank and file.
Monica, who had abandoned her vacation, defended the AGS, saying that the survey had represented preliminary findings and that these had been shared with the chapters in the spirit of transparency and in order to help start a broader conversation about strategies for the next steps. But a chapter in Queensland produced a letter from Monica inviting them to use the data at their discretion. This had been interpreted as giving chapters permission to make up their own rules, as The Daily Tribune had shown through those excerpts from the Zone 23 Executive Committee meeting that Summer had included in her memo.
Beyond the news stories, opinion leaders and community representatives took to the public megaphone, blaming the government for promoting racism and demanding an apology from the Prime Minister to all Indigenous Australians, past and present. The government stood its ground, maintaining that apologizing was not the answer and that the appropriate action was meaningful change. The Daily Tribune Editorial page supported the call for an official apology, but its sister paper, The Sunday Tribune, backed the government, further dividing the community. In the research sector, surveys monitored the mood of the nation and its appetite for change, while special interest groups conjectured about whether Australia’s culture of fairness—the sentiment upon which the nation was built—was crumbling and what form, if any, the change should take.
But little of what was reported bore any resemblance to the simple solution that Summer had tried to bring to the attention of the Australian Goodwill Society: to create a more welcoming environment. Oftentimes it felt to Summer as though she was the story. At first the public had been divided about her: she was either congratulated for her sense of civic duty or incriminated as a “dirty little whistleblower,” as one talkback radio host declared. While the Australian people had no dispute with their right to the truth or the paper’s obligation to publish it, there was no place in the lucky county for girls who misbehaved. In the conservative daily newspaper, the National Chronicle, Monica called Summer “an inexperienced junior member of the staff” and blamed naïveté and poor judgment for undermining the reputation of one of the “oldest most respected service organizations in this country.”
Even the Aboriginal woman, Deborah, turned on Summer, accusing her of “bombarding” her with phone calls and building up her hopes with descriptions of a world in which the money raised by the AGS would be shared with all the community, not just a few. The reporter suggested that Summer, despite believing her heart was in the right place, had used the woman to her own end by making a promise she must have known she could not keep. He supported this claim with a quote from Deborah, who said she had felt “dropped like a hot potato” after Summer stopped calling.
As with all crises, the drama eventually receded when public interest in the Australian Goodwill Society gave way to a new issue: the nation's tenuous commitment to its refugees. A boat carrying Indonesian families had overturned in the high seas, and a dispute had broken out between Canberra and Jakarta about who was responsible for the rescue operation. The media amassed around the players, and one by one newsrooms dropped the AGS story.
At the Australian Goodwill Society, a brand expert had been appointed to restore the organization’s reputation. While the workforce continued to remain on high alert for the next attack, Summer, who was now considered a pariah, had taken to arriving at work early and keeping her office door closed throughout the day. No one bothered her, except the Tea Lady, who had taken it upon herself to bring her a morning and afternoon beverage after Summer stopped appearing at the tea trolley.
“Copped a bit of flack, did you love?” said the tea lady, lowering the porcelain cup and saucer onto the desk and sliding it toward Summer.
“Looks like it,” said Summer, attempting a smile.
“Well drink up, y’need y’r strength.”
“Thanks,” said Summer, pushing down an urge to cry.
“And don’t start feelin’ sorry for yourself,” said the Tea Lady, passing Summer an ANZAC biscuit, “it’s not the end of the world, not for you at least... this’ll pass; just you wait and see.”
Though grateful for the Tea Lady’s kindness, Summer could not appreciate the wisdom in her words. The Zone 23 Executive Committee remained relentless in its demand that Summer be “stood down,” lobbying other chapters to support its campaign to “make her pay.” While Headquarters agreed with the general sentiment that Summer was untrustworthy, the executive was unwilling to sack her and risk more adverse publicity. Instead, they reduced Summer's responsibilities and reassigned her projects to other field officers.
In the end, worn out and with little will to fight on, Summer consulted with Nana Laurel, and on a Friday afternoon she slipped out of the building, unnoticed. But not before leaving her security pass in Monica’s IN tray along with a brief letter of resignation.
And now, less than two weeks later, here she sat, opposite The Editor of The Daily Tribune, at a bar table in the Sydney Journalists Club.
“Shit happens,” The Editor shouted over the rowdy lunch crowd. “You’ve been blooded, now move on; there are bigger fish to fry.”
The Editor submerged a chunky potato wedge into a bowl of tomato ketchup then clutched his schooner with greasy fingers and guzzled, slamming the glass onto the bar table as he leaned toward Summer.
“Here’s my offer,” he said. “They’re about to put a bloody woman in charge of the country, and I need a smart little whippet on the political pages, someone with the courage to go where angels fear to tread. “Is that you?”
Summer nodded, but she maintained a poker face, wary of the landscape that loomed in front of her.