Some years ago Denise became involved in a local effort to save an estuary from destruction. She had counted on the local Aborigine community for support, but there seemed to be little interest. Not understanding the apathy, even the resistance she encountered there, she began trying to make contact with the local Aborigines, to gain their confidence. The story picks up there:

Amber's inoculations were due and so I took her to the Bagot Community Health Clinic.

Mounted on short stubby stilts, the old fibreboard building squatted near the entrance. It was surrounded by a patchy yellow lawn and in front lay a broken bed of brightly variegated crotons over which stood a few tall trees. Small louvred windows protected with wire netting were set high in the walls. Decades of spiders had spun webs in their corners. Yellow leaves had caught in the webs and the windows looked like half-shuttered eyes with sleep caught in their corners.

About the length of a tennis court away a row of houses sat silently in the heat, the dirt track that wound between them deserted except for a brief breeze that flirted with the ubiquitous scrap paper and rolled soft-drink and beer cans along with a tinny tinkle. The only other sound was the rush of busy traffic on nearby Bagot Road.

It was quiet inside the clinic, apart from the monotonous squeak of a slowly revolving ceiling fan. Though the building and the furniture was old and worn there was a vibrancy about it all that new buildings often lack. Each grey wall was brightened with big yellow, red and brown posters of various health campaigns - smoking, alcohol, nutrition.

The Clinic had six Aboriginal health workers, each of whom spoke a different Aboriginal language. I recognised Bernadette at once. She worked with the Mobile Unit that visited the itinerant campers or 'long-grass' people as they are called in Darwin.

They all worked long hours under conditions that outsiders could only imagine, dealing with the consequences of over-crowding, and people mixing together who shouldn't have - women carved like steak by drunken men armed with broken wine-flagons; broken bones the result of beatings with clubs or star pickets by those same men or sometimes by other women; alcoholism and related diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver; venereal disease.

Diabetes, heart and kidney disease and hypertension were also rife, and here poor diet played a big part. Families having little access to transport bought food from the nearest shop - fried chicken and chips and soft drinks, and paid in malnourished children and diseased adults. The kids were constantly scratching - head lice and scabies and school sores. Diligent parents would treat them but they'd soon catch them again from other kids whose parents weren't so careful.

Next time I came Bernadette was out and Mary greeted me. She was an attractive, motherly-looking lady with a round face and short black curly hair. But she was also tough; an abusive drunk approached me once, and armed with a big stick, she was after him like a shot. She smiled when I explained what I wanted to do.

"Just keep coming back" she said. "They'll get to know you."

But the residents of Bagot didn't want to know me. If I stood against the wall out of their way then they'd act as if I wasn't there. If I was in their way they'd avert their eyes, and step around me as if I were a chair. But the health workers kept smiling, encouraging me to come back; maybe it will change tomorrow, next week, they said. Who knows! Nothing changes if you don't try.

They were right. It did change but in a way none of us expected and it happened with a most unlikely catalyst. When the gangly teenager spotted me she averted her frightened eyes so fast, that her black curls pirouetted like a halo. She was about to bolt when Mary breezed in.

"Can I help?" the health worker offered.

Mary wore only a little blue eyeshadow and coral lipstick, but against her caramel skin and black hair the colours glowed. The girl, original purpose for the visit forgotten, gazed at Mary wistfully and whispered, "I wish I could wear makeup".

Mary smiled at her. "Go to a chemist. They can help you."

And pigs could fly.

Head down the teenager skittered away without another word. Mary and I looked at each other. "I bet she couldn't even bring herself to walk into a chemist." I said. "No", Mary looked at the floor and shook her head. "It's a real problem for them, being so shy."

And that's when the idea hit us.

Grinning like Cheshire cats we bounced ideas off each other. Mary would put up posters advertising the first class for the following Saturday and I'd chase up the things we needed - makeup, tissues - a willing beautician.

Despite having worked once as a model, I knew little about makeup; couldn't even put nail polish on properly. But I knew someone who could. Once a nursing sister Julie was now studying to be a beautician. She'd be perfect, not least of all because she'd worked with Aboriginal people. Also nothing ever seemed to rattle her. Driving home along Bagot Road, I pondered the idea, how I'd approach her, trying to predict what her response would be.

But I needn't have worried. Julie was all for it.

Before Amber's return from school punctuated the area with a hundred questions, most unanswerable, I sat down with a cup of steaming coffee, and thought of diseases we might catch. Together my five year old daughter and I had weathered impetigo, scabies, head lice - they were all treatable and I dismissed them. More serious diseases? Well I'd survived gastroenteritis as a toddler, and golden staph pneumonia and septicaemia in later years. I figured we'd cope.

A bigger problem might be taboos. For instance, I'd been told some relatives couldn't talk or even sit next to each other. But other prohibitions? And etiquette - how were Aboriginal people polite to each other? Should I use names, say please and thank you, look at them directly? You name it, I didn't know it. I resolved to watch their eyes for signs that I was doing something right, or wrong.

When we turned up on the Saturday, the clinic was virtually empty, but Mary wasn't worried. "They'll be along," she grinned broadly, "Those posters caused quite a stir!"

So Julie and I sat on the bare benches and twiddled our thumbs, gazed at the posters on the wall, sipped tea out of the enamel mugs the workers used, and worried. Next thing Mary came in.

"Customer in the next room," she grinned. We soon saw why she thought it funny.

He wasn't at all sure about this and watched us closely with wide brown eyes, a tiny fist crammed in his mouth. Julie and I looked at each other. The toddler had to be a guinea pig - we could hear the girls, probably his sisters, giggling outside. But still a customer is a customer.

"Okay mate, what can we do for you?" Julie knelt beside him.

Silently the little boy held out two pudgy hands. She painted the tiny fingernails brick-red. It was the colour we thought would have most appeal.

For a brief moment the little boy studied his fingers thoughtfully, and then he flashed a smile. It vanished as fast as a bolt of lightning. And then he raised a chubby leg. "Foot!" he demanded.

Julie could have been attending to a blue-coiffured matron in a fashionable city salon except for the grimy footprints now decorating the front of her previously spotless uniform. We struggled in vain to control our giggles.

But, and this was a marvellous thing, we were no longer alone. While we had been engrossed the girls had crept into the room. Dark eyes flickered nervously in our direction, before settling with quiet desire on the riot of nail polish in Julie's tray - watermelon and lolly pinks, coral, maroon and reds, in matt, glitter and pearl.

"Go ahead. You can look." Julie smiled, and our presence was forgotten in the rush. At first we stood back and let them go, just quietly offering guidance where we thought it needed. "Try holding the brush this way," Julie said to one girl. "Polish remover will take that off" I told another who had speckled her arm.

Then one girl gave a great sigh. It wasn't as easy as it looked.

"Let me." Julie smiled and taking a brown hand with its long, elegant fingers, she painted the nails perfectly with a few deft brushes. Like a bolt out of the blue other hands were thrust out at her, and then at me, and as we painted, the nervous giggles were replaced by delighted screams. "Lookit me!" "Wow!"

We progressed from nails to facials, and the hours flew as if it had all been a dream. As we packed up, shy voices asked a question I hardly believed I heard. "Will you come again?"

The next week the crowd was even larger - the girls had brought younger sisters and friends and some people even came from outside the reserve. There were so many customers we had to take our classes outside under the trees.

We soon got to know the girls, joining in their giggles over makeup and smiling at their gossip about boys. However the older women wouldn't have a bar of us. They just hovered in the background, and watched as we laughed and chatted with their nieces, daughters and grand-daughters. When I glanced their way and smiled they turned away.

I'd met with a similar response four years before when as a musician I had accompanied a theatre group on a tour of the Top End. At Elliott, seven hundred kilometres south of Darwin, we were greeted by an audience of a mostly indigenous people, many of whom had travelled from outlying areas. Two year-old Amber, naked except for a covering of green face-paint and a can of soft drink, amused herself while I was getting ready.

And then she was gone. I searched the dark figures now settling on the grass and soon spotted her making her way towards a small group - an old lady juggling a baby about a year old on her knee, a couple of older children and two other adults. As I watched Amber bent towards the old woman as if to ask her something, and then she raised the drink carefully to the baby's lips. When I next looked back my daughter was sitting on the old lady's other knee.

Coming off stage half an hour later I made my way to the family. "I hope Amber's not being a nuisance," I addressed the old lady.

For a split second she stared at me blankly, and then wordlessly dropped her eyes to the grass.

Amber remained with the family for a couple of hours, she and the kids playing together as if they'd known each other all their lives; the adults laughing at their antics, reaching out a protective arm to steady one or the other, or to tickle.

At the show's end I went to retrieve her and thank the family for looking after her. I thanked the family for looking after her. and found myself addressing the tops of their head as again they averted their faces. Silently they gathered their children and left.

And now, on Bagot Reserve the same thing was happening. "Why?" I asked a young girl. "Oh, they shame-job!" she chuckled. "Why? What have they got to be ashamed of?" I persisted. She dropped her eyes, and shrugged.

It went on for weeks, painting nails, giving facials, showing the young girls how to highlight eyes and lips, and they brought even more young friends and relatives. But the older women still hovered, still didn't join us, still didn't trust us. And to represent those people I needed their help.

The breakthrough came a week later.

I was painting a girl's fingernails, biting my bottom lip as I concentrated - even after the practice of the past few weeks it still took all my attention to do a passable job. So preoccupied, I didn't see it coming, the hand I had been waiting for. It crept silently up and lay by mine, palm turned to the sky, a misshapen claw with two or three fingers missing and deformed nails. I stared uncomprehending for a split second.

Leprosy or Hansen's Disease, as it is now known, has exacted a severe toll on Aboriginal people since its introduction possibly by Chinese working on the goldfields south of Darwin.

It destroys the nerves of victims and, unable to feel, they easily injure themselves. Infections can become gangrenous and among Aboriginal sufferers absent toes and fingers, hands and feet were common. Yet treatment was feared even more for sufferers often vanished into the local leprosarium never to return bush. Their grieving families probably swore "never again" and when others fell victim they were hidden in the bush where, untreated, the spirochaete pursued its slow but relentless path. In later years they also realised there was a stigma attached to Hansen's Disease. One old man with leprosy-deformed hands told me he injured them boxing.

My joy at that first contact intermingled with humility at the old lady's courage.Gently I took her hands in mine and painted her nails and then opening a jar of moisturiser I offered it to her to smell. Grinning shyly she nodded and so taking a generous dollop I massaged it carefully into the tortured skin.

Next weekend the older women joined our classes.

A major difference between the girls and the older women soon became obvious. The women had tribal scars or 'sorry marks' down their arms and across their breasts, made when sons or brothers were initiated or relatives died. The healing cuts are re-opened, and ash rubbed in, resulting in a thick cicatrix raised above the surrounding skin.

The women took their tribal marks for granted on the reserve, but were embarrassed when they travelled to town. Could we find some sort of covering makeup?

They could see the large scar from my tracheostomy - I never tried to hide it. Likewise I suggested, they should wear their scars with pride.

But other standards had got there first. The young girls especially thought scars were ugly, the sign of something gone wrong, and the women remained ashamed. So in the end we tried to get the covering makeup, without luck. It was only available in pale shades, for scarred Australians of European descent.