Chapter 70

Things seemed to calm down.

Dad phoned on Sunday. He'd found a local dealer with a new VW Polo (a demo) with under 2000k for a good price. And on Friday, Sarah and Weena had rented a place on Paget Street in Richmond, a mere 20-minute walk from the WSI. Sarah was going to measure rooms (and windows) after class on Monday so that a fortune might be spent on furnishings, including drapes or curtains.

Rachel had "discovered" another Scandinavian artist, Asger Jorn, and a movement called Situationism. I could see more books arriving. But, before they did, I was off to UNSW on Monday morning, for my first day.

I went to Level 3 of the Law Building at UNSW and knocked on the door of the 'Indigenous Legal Issues Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law'. Nothing. The next door was marked: 'Sean Brennan, Senior Lecturer and Director.' I knocked.

"In!"

"Good morning, sir."

"And you are?" (Oh, dear... )

"Patrick Hollister, sir. I'm a third-year at Sydney and Dean Riley referred me to you. We spoke a month or so ago and you asked me to come here today to begin working on the Australian Indigenous Law Review."

"Right. I never expected you to come back. They never do."

"I hope you'll find me different. I want a degree next November and I want to go and get the required PLT [practical legal training] and take the LPAB exam. I intend to devote myself to winning back the existence we stole from the first Australians and restoring it in part."

"Sounds good ... Right! You're the bloke Ardler mentioned to me. He thinks you've real potential."

"That's good of him."

"OK. You're Patrick? Pat? Rick? What?"

"Patrick, if you don't mind."

"Fine. And except when a dean or a donor's about, I'm Sean."

"Yes, sir."

"Eh?"

"Yes, Sean."

"Far better. Now, you're to work on the rag three days a week?"

"Yes."

"Have you looked at it?"

"I've read all the copies that were online."

"Excellent! Well, there are several chores to be done. First, submissions. We get several items of varying illiteracy in hardcopy each week and slightly more via the Internet. Spend an hour or two every day you're here reading the queue and grade them."

"Grade them?"

"Good, needs work, hopeless. I'll look at the first batch and after that I'll leave you to say 'no' to the hopeless ones. I'll give you the url and password later. The stack over there [gestured] contains the unconsidered trifles I've not yet snapped up."

"Autolycus in Winter's Tale. But I doubt whether you're a thief."

"An intellectual, too! Very well. I'll need to be more wary."

"And what about the 'needs work'? Should I make notes?"

"Yes. The editor's job, like that of Polixenes."

"'we marry
A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race.'

That's my mum's favourite passage in Shakespeare, ending with ' ... the art itself is nature'."

"We'll have to make sure you do some work; we can't just bandy Shakespeare."

"I'm not certain. Isn't Caliban a sort of enslaved aborigine?"

"Enough! Come next door." We went out and he unlocked the other door. "One of the girls – excuse me – one of the non-academic staff usually sits here. They're away until the third." He pointed to the left. "You take that desk. Can you use a computer?"

"OS X and Linux. I can cope with Windows."

"Most of what comes in is as pdf. So you can comment, but not change things easily. I'd prefer stuff in html or a Word variant. Tant pis. Here's the url and the password. I know it's not secure, but I'd rather you didn't change it."

"Thank you."

"And here's a key to this office. What's your schedule?"

"Three four-to-six-hour days a week. I'm happy to do contiguous days or even four days with shorter hours. The dean explained that I'm supposed to do six class hours, so two or three hours here equals a class hour."

"Endentured servitude! Far too complicated for me. Why don't you come in Wednesday and Thursday this week and Monday and Tuesday the next. That's – unh – the 19^th, 20^th, 24^th and 25^th. Then, when the ladies are back on the third we'll see what the backlog's like and set up the term's schedule."

"Sounds good, Sean."

"And now, let's move the hard copies from that shelf to here." We did that, filling two drawers on 'my' desk.

"I'm off to faculty meetings, Patrick. See you on Wednesday about ten."

"Thank you."

When I got home, Rachel was frustrated.

"I just don't get it!"

"Get what?"