This is one of my favourite stories. I submitted it to the 2007 Radio National Radio Story competition, but didn't get placed.

I do however perform this story as a spoken word piece at arty parties where you're expected to get up and sing or play the guitar. As I do neither of those passably, I opt for the telling of a simple tale...

MYTHOLOGY OF AN ARRIVAL

Here it is then, look how small it seems.

T-shirt fabric, striped in seventies brown, and stained around the collar and wrists with fear. The label says size three, yet it was two sizes too big for me when I arrived.

And these are the photos of us at Sydney airport. The children weary from the flight. The adults, with their sagging disco haircuts, worn out after the letters to immigration; months of waiting; and the late-night telegram saying “Children to arrive 6:20am, Sydney, BOAC flight 920.”

There I am, holding Lien’s hand. At least that’s what some called her. At the half-way house, they called her Helen (after Helen Stanford, who cared for her in hospital when she had tuberculosis). Her new mother will name her Jennifer. The aid workers put ‘Lien’ on her birth certificate. They found a woman to sign the papers, but no father. None of us have our fathers’ names – only fatherless children can be given up for adoption.

My name is common enough. Perhaps an aid worker made it up too. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone who knows, or remembers. After all, it was a war, and only one child’s name among many.

That hair-style (bowl cut with the blunt fringe) I call “orphan style”. It was part of the mark of our status: the haircut; our smiles crinkled and brown with decay, bellies round with malnutrition, and feet bare.

But the bit about the bare feet is a lie. Sydney in May was cold after the tropics. I wore small white shoes when I arrived at the airport. It was at the orphanage that we wore no shoes. Why would we? It was always humid, and it rained every hour.

And there, you see, Lien’s shirt is almost a replica of mine, but she fits into hers. She was a year older. Not that you can tell, since we are both much smaller than we should have been. Yet we were the lucky ones.

That tired-looking woman is Aileen. I don’t know if she slept at all on the way over. She risked everything – her job, her marriage, prison – but she wouldn’t return to Australia without us. Aileen scooped up the five children who were able to leave, bundled us onto a plane, and flew with us to Sydney, where our new parents waited.

The others, I forget their names. I never saw them again. One lives in England I hear. Another in Adelaide. Where the fifth one lives I don’t know.

That blonde-haired doll I’m holding (pink plastic, don’t laugh), is Lien’s doll. I stole it. Aileen gave us both dolls, one blonde, one brunette. I lost mine somewhere during the eleven-hour flight, the stopover in Singapore, and the tense hour when we refused to get off the plane in Perth. I suppose I just took it from her. I was younger, but Lien was more passive. She was found on a rubbish heap and had recurrent nightmares.

I don’t remember having nightmares – perhaps I was too young. Although I remember the rats. Not consciously, but I had dreams of a suffocating presence too close to my face. Lien’s psychologist told her that such dreams were about rats. She had other dreams. But not me. I don’t remember anything else. I was too young.

That’s my mother there – slim and dark-haired. I wouldn’t let go of her hand. I didn’t understand English, but I knew. I’d never had one person in the world before that day. I had no experience of what a mother was, or should be, but I wouldn’t let go of this stranger’s hand.

The day after I arrived, my mother took me shopping to buy clothes that would fit. The kind manager at the department store tried to give me a plush kangaroo. I pushed it away and screamed. It was a common theme. We all hated stuffed toys. They felt like rats. But the manager didn’t know that, and he looked hurt. I couldn’t speak English and couldn’t explain. I was only two, and there had been a war.

I used to have the white shoes in a box somewhere. But you know how it is. They get mislaid, you throw them out, or give them away to some worthy charity. After all, they were just a pair of shoes. But I still have the shirt.