Tjanara Goreng Goreng - A Long Way from No Go

Julie Szego began her career as a lawyer before switching to journalism, spending over 12 years at The Age newspaper. She is a freelance journalist and Fairfax columnist, writing on a wide range of social, cultural and gender issues. Her first book, The Tainted Trial of Farah Jama , was shortlisted for the 2015 Victorian Premiers Literary Award for Non-fiction, the 2015 Davitt Crime Writing Award for Non-fiction and the 2015 NSW Premiers Literary Award in the Multicultural category .

Disclaimer

Every care has been taken to verify names, dates and details throughout this book. But, as much is reliant on memory, some unintentional errors may have occurred. The Publisher assumes no legal liability or responsibility for inaccuracies; they do, however, welcome any information that will redress them.

Published by Wild Dingo Press

Melbourne, Australia

www.wilddingopress.com.au

First published by Wild Dingo Press 2018

Text copyright Tjanara Goreng Goreng & Julie Szego 2018

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968,

no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owners and the publisher of this book.

Designer: Debra Billson

Design concept: Mandy Braddick from Womanjin Design

Original painting for book cover: Tjanara Goreng Goreng

Editor: Catherine Lewis

Goreng Goreng, Tjanara, 1958-.

A long way from no go / Tjanara Goreng Goreng (author); Julie Szego (author).

ISBN: 9780648215974 (paperback)

ISBN: 9780995378209 (ebook: pdf)

ISBN: 9780648215912 (eBook: ePub)

For Arika and Willa.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Its important to acknowledge the people who inspired and brought this book to fruition. To Brian James, firstly for giving the Red Earth to Wild Dingo Press, and Catherine Lewis for choosing to publish it as a memoir, supporting it from beginning to end with great enthusiasm and finding a fabulous writer/collaborator for me in Julie Szego. Julie, your writing of my story from hours of tapes is wonderous and brilliant, just as you are. Diamond, for always having a bed for me in Melbourne and being the best friendour times in the desert were always the best.

To the special girlfriends in my life who loved me unconditionally and were always there for me, there are no words: Lenny, Carmen, Christie, Laura and Cousin Tanya, you are all wonderful women who gave me a reason to love myself. To Barbara Tjikatu, for being the inspiration for everything and for the cultural knowledge and unconditional love. And to Kummunarra, now in the other world, who always cared: thank you for watching over me. To My Ancestors: thank you for always being with me to face the difficulties.

I especially want to thank Dr Warwick Middleton for helping me survive, thrive and live; showing me the way to recovery and the way to manage putting priests in jail. Your knowledge, wisdom and ability as a therapist often kept me alive as you well know.

Along the roads of my life I have met some amazing souls, both women and men; to all of you I say thank you for sharing and caring, uplifting and giving to me. Special thanks to Brian Bacon for seeing who I really was and always being a good friend. To Marc for the unconditional love, and Michael for always caring. To my Tiddas in my extended community: you have always been so honest, caring and forgiving, and Im blessed to have you all in my lifeyou know who you are.

I want to thank all those people in my life who gave me reasons to face adversity, who bullied me and made it hard to liveyou in fact gave me the greatest gift: the desire to overcome your judgement, your cruelty and your misguided sense of who I was. Im glad I didnt listen to you and instead chose to rise above it all; thank you for the adversity, it made me stronger. To the members of my family who never cared, I hope you read this and feel ashamed.

Most of all I want to thank the little girl who survived and chose to be a wonderful human being : Pamela Mary Williams, you are my hero.

Table of Contents

P ROLOGUE

Few people, I suspect, can attribute a life-changing epiphany to a double-page spread in Who magazine. But its thanks to that pop-culture oracle that I was jolted awake one cheerful morning in February 1995, seated at a desk by the window in the spare room of my friends place in Glebe, the magazine flipped casually open.

Ironically, I had recently returned from India, where I spent the summer on a spiritual retreatsomething I did so often youd assume that if a blinding truth was going to strike me somewhere that would be the place. Instead I was back in Sydney, adrift, in between jobs, with no-fixed-address, crashing at my friends while I looked for an apartment and plotted a new course, or tried to.

The double-page spread was a story about Ballarat priest Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australias most notorious paedophiles. He indecently assaulted an altar boy during confession. He abused a boy and girl after presiding over their fathers funeral. The previous year a Melbourne court sentenced Ridsdale to 18 years in prison.

Mind racing, I looked up from the page, gazed out the window. Im pretty sure the sunlight was streaming inbut maybe thats just an affectation of memory, embroidering the moment with clich.