Apart
from the trips to the Alfred Hospital, my father’s illness did not change our lives
at first; the lives of us kids that is. At the weekends we got up to our usual
mischief. During the week we, the five who were school age, attended Orbost
North Primary School which was a three kilometre walk.
Mum
usually walked with us to the end of Duggans Road where it intersected with the
highway. She issued strict instructions that we not walk on the road or
in the State forest but through the trees that formed a border between farmland
and the highway. The best part of going to school was getting there. Along the
way we looked for tadpoles in ponds, frightened birds from their nests and
indulged in other playful antics such as mooing at the cows that sometimes
lingered along the fences. In some sections, the smell of fresh cow dung and
wet hay followed us, as did the flies. Our backs were usually covered in a
layer of these black insects. Slapping one another’s back to cause a swarm of
the pesky flies to scatter through the air was lots of fun.
At
the time I gave no thought to what it was like for Mum after we went to school.
Now, however, I do wonder how she fared on her own with just one small child
for company and only the bush for a neighbour. She was safe from the
mrarts
that wandered the forest because, for the most part, they only appeared to
Aboriginal people. But what about her own phantoms; the ghosts of the living?
To me she seemed to be a happy, dedicated mother but of course I knew nothing
of what she was hiding. ‘...to those around me I appear quite normal,’ states
Cheryl King who was forced to give up her child at birth
. ‘
However,
no-one knows the torment that I suffer regularly. There are so many nights that
I go to bed to cry and secretly mourn the family I have lost.’
(Releasing
the Past: Mothers’ stories of their stolen babies)
My
mother’s torment might have haunted her during the quiet daylight hours when my
father was away and we were at school. Driving into town as a distraction was
not an option even though she now had a car. The Erskine had been replaced,
perhaps because of ‘injuries’ received when Mum was driving, by an old blue
ute. The ute was used only when absolutely necessary. Mum and Dad did not have
enough money to ‘waste’ petrol on driving the car around ‘for no good reason’.
Of course she would have been kept busy with housework, the garden and
cooking but her mind was not as occupied as it usually was. She corresponded
regularly with her mother, cousins and aunts in Albury. Writing these letters
must have stirred buried memories. Would she have been troubled by thoughts of
what had happened to her in Albury? To ensure the past did not bear down on
her, she might have kept herself busy reading the short stories and serials in
women’s magazines and listening to the wireless. I know she always stopped at
lunch time to listen to a fifteen minute radio soap opera broadcast on the ABC
called
Blue Hills
.
I
think Mum looked forward our visits to Nan and Pop. The Sundays that Dad was at
home we usually went into Orbost to have a roast dinner with our grandparents.
Mum must have missed the companionship she enjoyed with her cousins in Albury
and the close relationship she had with her mother. With Nan, she could share
some of her experiences as a mother and perhaps seek her advice.
Nan
and Pop had once owned a dairy farm but by this time they were living in
Salisbury Street, Orbost. Nan was short and fat and round and she enchanted us
kids. She increased our fascination by telling us she had ‘Gypsy’ blood and
relating all sorts of exotic stories about faraway places. Pop, who had spent
solitary days on the road as a drover, was quiet, thin and gentle. He seemed to
spend a lot of time sitting in his favourite chair or pottering about in the
shed. In my memory, Pop was always an old man but Nan said he had been a very
handsome young man with wavy black hair and Valentino eyes when she met him.
(Rudolph Valentino was a sex symbol of the silent movies who apparently had
dark, smouldering eyes.) According to Nan, all the girls were after Pop but his
smouldering eyes were firmly fixed on her.
It
was not just Mum who looked forward to seeing Nan and Pop. We all loved going
to their place for Sunday dinner, which was a midday meal as lunch was called
dinner in those days. Nan and Mum cooked the meal together in Nan’s kitchen
which was at the rear of the house at one end of the back verandah. The kitchen
had cupboards along one wall and a heavy wooden table pushed up against
another. A long bench with a sink was strategically placed along the opposite
wall where a window overlooked the side path. Anyone using the path to come to
the house, which was almost everyone because the front door was rarely used,
would be spotted immediately by Nan who spent a lot of her time at the kitchen
bench. The bench stopped short of the remaining wall leaving a corner with
enough space for a chair; Pop’s big old comfortable chair. On cold nights Pop
always had the best seat in the house because it was right by the open fire.
Next to the fireplace was the large wood stove where the meals were cooked and
which always had a kettle of water keeping warm at the back.
Although
the table in the kitchen was used for most meals, we had Sunday roast in the
‘formal dining room’. I thought this room, with its large fireplace and tall
bay windows, very grand. Nan’s best china was displayed in a walnut cabinet
with glass doors. A gleaming mahogany table occupied pride of place in the
centre of the room. A fat round ceramic vase bursting with freshly cut
hydrangeas, their full round heads verifying Nan’s skills as a gardener, sat on
the table. This piece of antique furniture that had been handed down through
generations of Nan’s family, had an extension leaf. Its mystical ability to
change size was a source of fascination for me and my siblings. We all gathered
around to watch as Dad opened the table, unfolded the hidden panel and clicked
it into place. Our eyes gleamed with delight to see the oval table magically
transformed into what seemed to us to be a majestic banquet table. Sunday
dinner was as grand as the room: roast lamb with gravy, potatoes, pumpkin and
peas followed by jelly and cream.
The
day Pop died my grandmother came out to our place in a taxi to tell us the
news. It was January 1959, less than a year after my father’s first trip to the
Alfred Hospital. January that year recorded temperatures as high as 107.8
degrees (42.11 Celsius) in East Gippsland. Consequently, Orbost was surrounded
by bushfires. In fact, the township itself had been under threat by a fire that
jumped the Snowy River. Fire had wiped out thousands of acres of bush. Forest
fires were burning around our place on the Bonang. It was not until mid
February that the fire danger began to pass.
Pop’s
death was not unexpected because he had been ill for several years but that did
not make it any easier for Nan. They had been a good match and Pop had been an
excellent husband and father. Nan would miss him.
Not
long after Pop died, Nan told Dad she did not want to live on her own.
“There’s
no reason why you and Myrtle and the kids can’t move in with me, George,” she
said.
Dad
nodded. He knew his mother was not really concerned about living on her own; it
was his situation she was thinking of.
“Are
you sure that’s what you want, Mum?”
“What
am I going to do with the extra rooms?” said Nan. “Besides I’d be grateful for
Myrtle’s company and a bit of help around the house.”
Nan
smiled across at my mother.
“You
won’t have much room if my brood moves in with you, Mum.”
“We’ll
all fit in here just fine.”
My
mother laughed. “The kids’ll drive you crazy.”
Nan
smiled. “Let me worry about that, Myrtle love. The way things are you’ll be
much better off here in town with me. I would have suggested it sooner
but you know how poorly Pop has been. It wouldn’t have been fair on him, or you
and the kids for that matter, to have you move in while he was ill.”
Mum
nodded her understanding.
“I
know George worries about you,” Nan continued. “And so do I, out there on your
own with the kids when he’s away. Worrying about his family won’t help him get
over his illness.”
Mum
tilted her head and threw a teasing look at Dad.
“Oh,
you don’t need to worry about him, Mum. He’s as strong as a Mallee bull. He’ll
be back to his old self in no time.”
My
grandmother smiled.
“Of
course he will. He’s always been strong and healthy. The doctors’ll sort him
out as soon as they work out what it is; some new fangled virus no doubt. But
for the time being they want him to do lighter work, don’t they?”
Mum
nodded.
“No
work, more like it,” said Dad with a dismissive laugh. “Honestly, these doctors
must think a bloke’s made of money; wanting me to lie around all day doing
nothing.”
Mum
and Nan exchanged smiles at the thought of Dad with nothing to do.
“Well,
anyway,” said Nan. “Light work and doctors’ appointments will be much easier to
manage if you’re with me here in Orbost and if you have to go back to the
Alfred Hospital you won’t have to worry about Myrtle and the kids. Besides,
it’ll be good for me; stop me fretting for Pop.”
And
so the decision to move into town was made. My brothers were enthusiastic about
the idea.
“Grouse!”
said Bobby. “I’ll be able to visit my friends from school.”
“Yeah,
me too,” said Maxie. “We won’t have to walk twenty thousand miles to school
anymore either.”
(Maxie
was always prone to exaggeration.)
“We
can climb Nan’s apple trees,” said Kevin.
“Yeah,
and we can play in the paddock next door,” said Georgie.
The
double block next to Nan and Pop’s place was empty and usually covered in long
grass.
When
the time came to move, my brothers enthusiastically helped Dad with cleaning
our yard and packing up. My sister was too young to fully understand but joined
in the general atmosphere of flurry and excitement, eagerly trying to help Mum.
She obediently tottered out to the verandah with small pieces of rubbish and
dropped them on the pile of unwanted items ready to be taken to the rubbish
tip. I seemed to be the only one upset about moving. My mother tried to bring
me round by highlighting the advantages of the move.
“Just
think, you won’t have such a long walk to school anymore.”
That
had no effect at all since I enjoyed the walk to school.
“You
can help Nan make scones and cakes.”
Even
this had no impact on my pig headed resistance. Mum tried one last time.
“You’ll
have lots of fun with Nan in the evenings. You know you like listening to her
songs and stories.”
That
one almost weakened my resolve because I, like my brothers, loved sitting at
Nan’s feet while she stomped out old tunes. She sat outside on a creaky wooden
box singing folk songs and sea shanties, accompanying herself on the piano
accordion and the mouth organ, and tapped her foot to the beat. Some of those
sea shanties were quite bawdy and probably unfit for young ears, but that never
stopped Nan. We were too young and probably too innocent to be aware of sexual
innuendo; it was the music and the fun atmosphere we enjoyed and her stories
were seductively scary.
In
the end, I was not persuaded by any of my mother’s arguments. Our small rented
cottage nestled in the Australian bush had been the only home I knew. I hated
the thought of being in town with houses and people everywhere. Stubbornly, I
dug my heels in and refused to change my mind.
Despite
my opposition the move continued. Dad made frequent trips into town with an
assortment of items piled high on the back of the truck. Bobby and Maxie
squashed together in the cabin with Dad and helped with the unloading at the
other end.
The
final day meant hours of hard work for my parents and excitement for my brothers.
It was almost dark when the last piece of furniture had been loaded on the back
of the truck. The boys had jumped up and spread themselves out among the
household items and settled down for the journey to their new home. Mum carried
Irene, who was sleeping and wrapped in rugs, out to the truck and settled her
on the seat in the cabin.
This
was the day I had dreaded, had convinced myself would never really come. At
some point in the afternoon I had climbed into the big old apple tree next to
the dunny. I climbed as high as I could so that no one would find me.
The
truck was ready to go, its motor running. I heard them calling me but I did not
respond. After a while they stopped calling. The motor revved loudly. Maxie
yelled to me with an urgent tone in his voice. Despite my brothers’ consistent
tormenting of me they were always quick to protect me when they thought it was
necessary. In some quirky way our constant squabbling probably strengthened our
sibling bonds. Now, Maxie was afraid that I would be left on my own. It wasn’t
until the truck started to move that the same fear engulfed me. I shinned down
the tree as fast as I could and ran toward the truck.
“She’s
coming, Dad,” Maxie called. The truck slowed and came to a halt as I scrambled into
the back with the other kids.