‘Our policy is—’ began Kara, half smiling to herself in resignation.

‘I don’t care what your policy is,’ interrupted the woman. She shifted her weight to the other hip and waved a finger at Kara’s face. ‘I want papers for my son, saying he’s Indigenous. And don’t you fucking smirk at me.’

Kara raised her hand, her instincts to fight kicking in.

I’ll rip that finger off.

She felt a colleague’s hand on her shoulder. ‘No, my girl.’

~

Kara eased her legs back into motion, and pushed on. The trail clung to the ridge for about half a kilometer before it came to a junction. An arrow indicated that the main trail went left, but Kara looked to her right, where the trail was narrower and less worn. The bush there was different: dense manuka scrub dominated the undergrowth and loomed over the track, forming a low tunnel. She took it as more of a wallaby run than a human trail. She flipped her hood over her head and shouldered her way down the overgrown path. The smell of the vegetation, as it closed in around her, carried her back to her childhood, to a time when her great-grandmother washed her in an old kerosene tin that lived on her rear step. A capful of ti-tree oil in the scalding water, and she was scrubbed with a stiff brush and harsh lye soap until tears came.

‘If we can wash this black off, might be hope for you yet,’ her great-grandmother would say, on every occasion.

~

Kara came to an old forestry road at the end of the bush tunnel and continued back onto the main trail. Nature had reclaimed the road. It was lined with cat ferns, giving it a stately appearance and feel. This track, she thought, could lead to her very own secluded rainforest mansion. There’d be large bay windows. A steaming jacuzzi. All the stuff rich people had. And nestled in the corner of a sunlit reading room would be a neat desk — not one piled with clutter and bills. Somewhere to sit and do useful things — maybe write a book, or letters to the papers, sticking it to the racist white politicians — as she liked to do but rarely had time. The days would be pleasantly, almost wearyingly, long. And the nights would arrive like an unexpected yet much-
welcomed visitor.

Such was her fantasy life — one far from her own. What she’d first thought would come with the nine-to-fiver was late in the mail, or lost, as she was now beginning to accept. Fair enough, she was earning an average wage, but she was worn down from still being in a continual state of debt, and by the envy she felt toward others who were doing it far easier than her.

Working poor, yeah right. White privilege more like it.

She winced at the thought — it felt like an excuse. Deep down, she knew she just wasn’t good with her finances.