The ten-seater van lurched right as the driver zoomed around yet another hairpin turn. I looked out the window, over the edge of a cliff, and silently praised my decision to sit near the front of the van instead of the back. I was mildly carsick here; I’d be throwing up back there. Still, I must have looked a little green because the Australian woman in the front seat said, “I have ginger tablets darlin’ if you need them.” Her purple hair matched the sequined purple lizard on her shirt. She could have been anywhere between forty and sixty years old – not unattractive but in a leathery, you’re just along for the ride sort of way. “I’ll be fine, thanks,” I said and smiled to prove it. She chuckled, and I felt like I was being pegged as a city-girl, which I am not.
“Did you know you speak the same language we do?” my five-year-old son piped up. I think he liked her sparkly lizard shirt.
“Is that so? What language is that?” She smiled warmly at him, and I was happy that she was willing to entertain his precociousness for at least a bit of the hour-plus ride from Cairns to Port Douglas, where we were staying.
“English! We speak English in America and you speak English in Australia. They don’t speak English in Japan but,” he shrugged, “that’s okay.”
Both she and the driver started laughing. “No, darlin’, you speak English. We speak Australian.”
“Nuh, uh,” my son pressed. “Or, okay, maybe you speak a littleAustralian but it’s mostly English.” He’s loathe to admit he’s wrong. We’re working on it.
Her correction surprised me. It was a definite statement, bordering on forceful. Of course Americans don’t really speak English either, but we don’t say we speak “American.” And comparing the two – Americans and Australians – Australians sounded a lot more “English” than anyone in America. Later, I made a point of telling people it was so nice to be in a country where people spoke English just to see their response. An obnoxious thing to do, maybe, but it was in the name of research. Of seven test subjects, seven people corrected me. “We speak Australian.”
We rounded another corner and the metal trailer we towed bounced up, pulling on the axels. Our driver must go through transmissions like air filters. “How do people feel about the royal family?” I asked, always eager to pick a local’s brain. “I mean, if anyone really cares.” The wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle a few weeks earlier was a major television event in the U.S. “Did a lot of people watch Prince Harry’s wedding?”
“Oh yeah, some people did. It wasn’t like Diana’s, but that’s Diana.” I nodded as if that royal wedding hadn’t happened three years before I was born. “I’ll tell you something, though: If Charles doesn’t abdicate, that’s it for Australia.” Her face was suddenly serious, angry even.
“Oh, yeah. That’ll be it,” the driver agreed.
I had no idea what they were talking about. “How do you mean?”
“Well we’ll just become a damn Republic! And New Zealand will come with us,” the driver nodded in agreement at this, too, “and I don’t know about Canada but I think they would, too.”
At this point I realized I’d come to this country with minimal knowledge of its history or government. Australia started as a penal colony, I knew that much. I always thought America and Australia shared a sort of bond that way: we were both founded by Britain’s castoffs.
“Can’t the Queen just give the crown to – what’s his name –” I searched my brain for a name to match the image of the tall, balding, blonde one. The oldest one. The one who married Kate…
“William.” The woman, the driver, and my husband all said in unison.
I raised an eyebrow at my husband. Since when was he an expert on the Royal family? “What?” he said smugly.
“She’s already said she’s retiring when she’s 95 and wants normal succession. That’s Charles then. But if that idiot doesn’t abdicate…” She shook her head, swinging her purple hair back and forth. “Republic.”
We spent the rest of the ride talking about the best local places to eat and watching out for crocodiles (“crocs”) on the beach. I held down my lunch to the very end, despite a few close calls. When we reached Port Douglas the driver literally stopped the van alongside an unmarked break in the brush that was apparently a trail. The woman hopped out and said, “Thanks for the lift,” through the open window. Within seconds she had disappeared into the brush.
That night I Googled “Australia government” and learned that it is in fact a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as the sovereign. They call her the Queen of Australia, on paper at least. Also, there is a decades old movement to change the government to a republic. So far, those attempts have been defeated, but perhaps Charles will be the tipping point.
My first day in Australia was a glimpse into what I would come to understand well by the time I left: I should not be fooled by its seeming similarities to America. Wide open spaces and all-wheel drive vehicles aside, I was not in a version of my own country. Australia was more different from America than I’d ever imagined. Australians – wonderful as they are – are not like Americans. After all, we don’t even speak the same language.
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