I already had two Solomon Wisemans: my mother’s and my own. From this search I now had nine. But somewhere behind my sources—the family story, the Old Bailey records, and these terse and perhaps unreliable entries on the Family Search site—was the real man. He had lived and died not as a story or a set of entries on a website, but an individual as precisely himself as anyone I knew. I hungered to find out who he was.

The search for him pointed towards London and, by a stroke of extraordinary luck, at just that time I had the opportunity to go there.

4
Centenary of Federation

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the separate colonies that made up Australia federated into one nation. It was a big moment in our brief history.

The Australian government marked the occasion of the Centenary of Federation in many ways. There were re-enactments: of the arrival of the First Fleet, of the opening of the first Parliament. All over Australia, country towns strung up bunting and had parades in period costume. And in London there was to be a showcase of Australian culture in June 2000. There’d be wine and dance, paintings and theatre. And writers, a dozen of us, giving readings and talks on the South Bank.

One of the writers was a young Aboriginal woman I’d met once before, Melissa Lucashenko.

We first met at a literary festival—the writer David Foster introduced us. Since then I’d read some of her fiction and essays. She is a terrific writer and a thought-provoking essayist.

Like many white Australians, I’d never really known any Aboriginal people. I’d met the poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, and the actor and dancer David Gulpilil. In my long-ago days as a film editor I’d worked on a couple of documentary films on Aboriginal subjects and I’d met the people involved. But I’d never had a sit-down conversation with an Aboriginal person. (Not knowingly, anyway: I’d probably met plenty of Aboriginal people without being aware of their ancestry.)

So when we arrived in London for the Centenary of Federation, and I spotted Melissa having lunch in a café near the hotel, I asked if I could join her.

Rather to my surprise, she remembered our meeting, and made space beside her at the table. We hadn’t been talking long before she asked, ‘Where’s your family from?’

I stared at her, could feel my mouth open trying to find an answer. She watched me and waited.

At the next table a man crouched over his plate of pie and chips as if afraid someone might snatch it away. Along from him two women pursed their lips towards their thick cups of tea at the same moment, like synchronised swimmers.

In my mind Melissa’s question was unfolding into other questions. What family do you mean, me and my brothers and parents? Or family in the sense of grandfathers and great-grandfathers? What do you mean from? From Sydney, where I live now? From Gunnedah, in northern New South Wales, where my mother was born? From London, where my great-great-great grandfather was born?