by Geena Leigh
I rummaged for the batteries and slotted them in the back of Aiden’s game, affectionately patting him on the head and handing it back to him. Whacka-whacka-whacka-whacka. His face lit up. I reminded him that he was supposed to use the electrical cord when he was at home, and keep the batteries for when he went out, to which he merely replied, ‘Ah ha,’ with eyes transfixed on the screen, and bumped into the doorway of the kitchen on his way back to his room. He was unlikely to re-surface for some time. Everyone else was watching TV in the lounge. I didn’t really want to make a big deal out of it. I wasn’t sure if they’d actually care anyway.
•
During this time in New Zealand, Dad would get up at 4:30 a.m. each weekday morning and go to the radio station to compere the Breakfast Show. During the day he sold advertising and then he’d stay up until midnight going through a stack of newspapers preparing for the next day’s work. There would always be newspaper cuttings all over the dining-room table and floor, which infuriated my mother. Sometimes he’d be up late on the phone, interviewing a singer or writer from overseas. He could have been considered a workaholic, though these days people tend to call it passion.
My father typically spent Saturday mornings placing bets, listening to horse races and drinking beer. Saturday afternoons were spent watching cricket or football and drinking beer. Sundays were much the same, except he took us to church in the mornings instead of to the TAB. I hated going to church, so I often feigned illness to get out of going. My mother also dreaded going and was always keen to stay home to look after me. Mysteriously, though, my illnesses always disappeared by the time they all got home.
Eventually my attempts to avoid church failed, and if I didn’t get up and dressed, my father literally pulled me out of bed by the arm and dragged me—with my hair matted, my face unwashed and still in my pyjamas—into the car. We were always late. My father was perpetually late. Instead of discreetly taking a seat at the back of the church, Dad would yank me by my upper arm, with my socks dragging across the polished wooden floorboards, to the front pew, my brothers and sisters sauntering in behind us. The 9 a.m. mass was always full. I felt like the entire congregation was watching us as we took our seats.
Going to church and meal times seemed like the only times we were together as a family. My brothers and sisters mostly went to their friends’ houses to play for the rest of the weekends.
The boys were clearly my father’s favourites. He would proudly call my older brother, Rick, ‘My first born!’ and the youngest, Aiden, ‘My golden boy!’ He had other names for me, Mum and my sisters. He called me ‘mental dwarf’. It hurt me and made me angry. My mum kept quiet whenever he said it. She’d stopped speaking up after being constantly dismissed, ignored or yelled at. The older kids escaped from the house(s) every chance they could get; as soon as they had a job or were old enough, they left permanently and scattered themselves around the world. I spent most of my childhood on my own or with Aiden. He was just eight years younger than me and was the most cheerful and the most beautiful kid I’d ever seen. He was always happy, smiling and playing. Looking back now, I wonder if we kids had all been that cheerful until my father gradually sucked the spirit out of each of us.
My father kept getting better job offers. He would sell us the dream life that the new city would offer and we would buy it. Moving country so often didn’t help any of us either. To this day, the number of schools I attended is a mystery. I was constantly the new girl, forced to stand at the front of the room as I was introduced to my new classmates. My stomach would be in knots every time. My first-day nerves never lessened; it never got any easier. My accent has always been a New Zealand–Australian blend, so I would be teased about being an outsider in both countries. Usually the first person to approach me at a new school was the person the other students most disliked. I learned early to never commit to sitting with them for lunch until I got a better feel for the other social groups and their hierarchy. I didn’t mind sitting on my own until I found someone to click with, or someone who wouldn’t put me automatically on the bottom rung of the social scale.
The New Zealand and Australian school systems had different education standards. The new school would either place me in a year that was below my current education level and it would be too easy, so I would play up. Or it would place me in a year too advanced and I didn’t understand anything, so I would play up. I missed the basic foundation of writing, grammar and maths in between countries. I would hear people talk about nouns, verbs and fractions and feel completely lost. I always ended up (just) passing most of my classes so my parents were unaware of this. They didn’t have a real need to be concerned unless my report card showed a string of Ds, Es or Fs. My C average did not signal any alarm bells.
My mother was born in the Netherlands. Her parents and their nine kids moved to New Zealand when she was seven. We were told that they did this to escape the war, but later I found out that my grandfather had got a little too friendly with a neighbour’s wife and they were forced to flee a jealous husband.
My father was born in New Zealand, the second of seven children, and grew up in the town of Whanganui. My mother was fifteen, working at an ice-cream stand at the annual agricultural Whanganui Fair, when she met my father, who was selling raffle tickets. They fell in love and married in their teens. I can see their attraction for one other. He looked like a movie star and was charismatic and handsome. She was beautiful, kind-hearted and demure. But soon after the wedding it became evident to their families, friends and themselves (well, to my mother at least) that they were a total mismatch.
Dad’s work as a radio announcer had him constantly out schmoozing with clients. When he was working he wore smart suits, his hair was styled and he was always clean-shaven. But at home he wore scruffy white singlets and boxer shorts that had a gaping hole in the front, through which his thick penis would flop from time to time. He didn’t shave and his rapidly receding dark hair would stand in all directions. I don’t think he even showered or brushed his teeth until Monday morning came around again. He was usually loud, vulgar and drunk.
Dad controlled the money and didn’t allow my mother to work. ‘Before him, I worked as a typist,’ she proudly told me. Mum was kept housebound, and was at his beck and call whenever he wanted anything. He kept her perpetually pregnant. She wanted to work and be out in the world. She didn’t want to be at home changing nappies, again. It would have been nice to see her insist on going to work, but she had to deal with an abusive and controlling husband, and look after five children. She simply didn’t have the time or energy to argue with Dad or stand up for herself. He had worn her down.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but we didn’t have a lot of money growing up. My parents often argued about money, but I didn’t understand why. There was a large jar full of lollies in the kitchen cupboard above the fridge and, since lollies were my main focus in life until I was about thirteen, I always thought that we were rich kids. In truth, Dad didn’t save anything—we lived entirely on credit. No wonder he was drunk every night—he must have been stressed out of his mind, trying to figure out how to keep a family of five kids fed.
My clothes were all hand-me-downs; in fact in each of the few family photos that exist I wore the same outfit. The sleeves were always either too short or too long, but it didn’t bother me. I wasn’t a girly girl who liked to go shopping or put bows in her hair. I liked skating, running around the yard, playing with sticks and climbing trees. I always had a dirty face. I don’t think I even owned a hairbrush, and my hair was unbrushed and ragged like a white stringy mop head, which led to my nickname ‘Raggmopp’, after a cartoon on TV whose main character was a guy with wild hair like mine. The catchy theme song was ‘R-A-G-G-M-O-P-P Raggmopp’. When I started to sing the song around the house and shake my hair around like the character, my sisters laughed at me and then the nickname stuck.
3
Feeling unpretty, age 12
We were back in Australia,
again. After helping my mother unpack all the dusty boxes and lugging them to store in the garage, my head was spinning. My chest was tight and wheezing. I went and sat by the open window, but I couldn’t get any relief. I started to pull at my mother’s blouse, at which point she stopped cutting up some carrot sticks for our snack and squealed. The next thing I knew I was in the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask strapped to my face, being zipped off to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. I found the whirl of the sirens exciting as I wondered why such a fuss was being made just for me. Mum sat in the ambulance with me, which made me feel cared for.
I was placed in an oxygen tent and became one of those kids who live in a bubble—for about a week—quarantined. The machines beeped, lights flashed and tubes stretched everywhere. Everyone outside the thick plastic looked a little blurry, so did the TV. No-one was able to touch me, and it felt really weird and a bit frightening when my mother tried to hold my hand through the plastic. When she placed her hands inside a pair of big spaceperson-type gloves and reached for me, it looked like a big monster’s arms were coming at me. My screams ricocheted around the tent and the doctor discreetly ushered my parents out of the room. My tears subsided as the nurse slid my favourite books, Come Over to My Place and The Story about Ping, through the big zipper.
Come Over to My Place was about a girl who made friends in cities all over the world. She didn’t have any parents yelling at her or bothering her, and she went anywhere she wanted. Ping was a duck that was the last one getting back on the riverboat one evening. His master would punish the last duck for being late with a sharp whack on his back. One day, Ping didn’t return. He hid from the other ducks in the reeds along the river because he didn’t want to get whacked. Instead, he set off on his own adventure exploring the vast river and the nearby city. I thought he was so courageous. Ping and the girl led lives so different to mine, and I loved to escape into their worlds.
The door of the hospital room was kept open all night and the nurses wandered up and down the corridor carrying things to and from the other patients. It got too dark to read, so I stared around the eerie room listening to the beeps and spied my leg warmers dangling across a vinyl-covered chair. That year—1983—was a big year for leg warmers. There were twelve-year-old girls like me all over Australia then, dancing along to the Flashdance movie around their lounge rooms in their leg warmers. I so wanted to be like the main character, Alex. I also wondered what it would be like to kiss her. She was a welder and an exotic dancer, so I guess I did end up being a bit like her after all.
Groups of doctors came in from time to time and surrounded the tent, like I was the new panda exhibit at the zoo. My mother visited, waving from outside the plastic, and I waved back. One of my sisters came and pulled faces at me through the plastic. She put her hands in the gloves, but my mother slapped her arms away. I giggled as she winced in pain.
After the bubble incident, an inhaler was virtually strapped to my side; but eventually I began to grow out of asthma, as many kids do. However, if I didn’t have an inhaler within reach, it made me a little anxious and I’d get short of breath. As long as I knew I had one nearby, it was rarely needed.
I also suffered from psoriasis. The dermatologist explained that within the asthma gene there is an increased susceptibility to skin diseases. His curly hair bounced as he shook his head sympathetically, examining the plaques. My mother rolled my jeans back down over my knees. This specialist didn’t have anything new to tell us. We’d been to a succession of skin specialists ever since I was six months old. We were told that it was a severe case, stress-related and hereditary, except no-one else in the family had it except me—which led me to believe (and often wish at times) that I was adopted. Later I discovered that my skin flare-ups were linked with my emotional wellbeing. The more stress I felt, the more the psoriasis worsened.
So, in addition to being a skinny kid with frizzy raggmopp hair, perpetually wheezing and clutching an inhaler, I was also covered in thick, crusty plaques, mostly on my lower legs, abdomen and elbows. They would also run rampant on my scalp and were itchy; whenever I scratched them there, my shoulders would become cloaked in dandruff. They were a build-up of excess dry skin that would often crack, causing them to bleed and exude a clear liquid; they weren’t contagious, just unsightly. Sometimes they were a little painful when they split open. Whenever I got a cut or scrape from playing, a new psoriasis plaque would develop from that wound. The doctors prescribed a series of coal tar lotions, steroid creams, organic creams and even banana-leaf concoctions. The coal tars were the worst—the dark brown sludge would stain my skin, the sheets, pyjamas and everything else it brushed against. The smell was pungent, and I could hardly stand it.
My parents purchased a portable sun lamp and would position it over the plaques in fifteen-minute bursts. Nothing worked. It was easier simply to wear a sweater and long pants and do my best not to worry about it. I was teased and called ‘Spotty’ occasionally, but not often. No-one really got to see them, though—I would wear long socks, stockings or jeans and long-sleeved tops even in 32-degree heat until swimming season. I hated to show my skin to anyone, but I loved swimming more.
As we changed into our swimwear in PE class, my heart raced. I was getting ready to give my usual spiel—‘Everyone’s skin sheds every twenty-eight days, but mine sheds every three days. So I get a build-up of excess skin. You can’t catch it,’ I’d say. But I didn’t have to today. ‘Jane’s got pubes!’ echoed along the grey cement brick walls.
Jane was one of my two best friends at school. I admired her—things always came easily for her. She knew the answers whenever the teachers asked questions. She wore stylish skirts and shiny silver stud earrings. Her jet-black silky hair fell delicately at her shoulders. The cutest guy in school always followed her around the playground. When we played kiss-tag, the boys always chased her. One afternoon I ran up to her, smiled and grabbed her shoulders. She struggled free from my grip and said, ‘Girls don’t kiss girls!’ and ran away. Sometimes I ran slowly and even walked, but the boys still wouldn’t catch and kiss me. Who would have thought that later in life boys would be paying a lot of money to kiss me?
Three rogue, thick, dark hairs stuck out in different directions on Jane, like cat’s whiskers. She wasn’t even covering herself. She sauntered around the change room in full view of everyone, immensely proud of her three new hairs. She also had little lumps. My father would call my sisters’ lumps ‘pippies’ (pippies are a popular New Zealand delicacy that look like a combination of an oyster and mussel). Jane instantly became the most popular girl in school when her pubes appeared. I glanced down at my stick-like, spotty body and wondered when there would be pubes on me. I didn’t care that much about it, though.
On another occasion, we all crouched under the tables, hiding from the teacher so we could surprise her after lunch. As I patted down my skirt, I realised I wasn’t wearing any underwear and that the boy behind me must have seen my private parts. I had been in such a rush to get to the train that morning that I must have simply forgotten to put them on. I covered myself with my hand and wriggled backwards out of the scrum. Tears fell as I ran down the corridor, meeting the teacher halfway. She took me to Lost Property and I had to wear boys’ shorts that made my skin itch for the rest of the day.
When I got back to class, the boy who had been behind me in the scrum still had a red face from seeing a close-up view of my vagina and butt. I guess at that moment it made me realise how my naked body could have such a significant effect on males. He gave me a lot of attention from that day forward, carrying my schoolbag for me and bringing me apples. I liked him wanting to please and serve me. It made me feel that I had the upper hand, that I had something he wanted.
One good thing about moving all the time was that very soon I got to start a new school, with a fresh slate of dignity. ‘Wear your underwear!’ was now added to my mother’s morning repertoire, along with ‘Take your lunch!’ and ‘Do you have train money?’
4
Moving moving moving, age 12
As I grew I started to notice the differences in my home life compared to those of my friends.
One Thursday afternoon, my friends and I were chatting outside school when one of them looked at her watch and said, ‘I’d better go. If I don’t get home on time, I’m going to get killed!’ Then another said, ‘Yeah, me too!’ and another said, ‘Me too!’ and they all started to leave. ‘Yeah, I’d better run too!’ I said and pretended to rush home, until I reached the end of the street. But when I turned the corner I began to dawdle along the streets.
I would walk home from school every day and let myself into the house. My older siblings would be at friends’ houses, or be hanging out with friends in their bedrooms. Mostly it didn’t matter if I was late home, or even if I went to school. Sometimes I would go to the rollerskating rink or the swimming pool instead, and nobody noticed. It was a bustling household—no-one really knew who was coming or going. I didn’t see it as neglect at the time; I just thought everyone was busy. I don’t blame my parents for not being more engaged in my schooling. I can see that having five young children put the focus more on logistics than on attending to their individual needs. I feel that they did the best they could with the resources they had. If a teacher asked why I wasn’t at school, I simply handed them a note that said, ‘Geena was absent from school due to a family matter’ and had at the bottom Mum’s signature, which I’d forged. The school never questioned it.