Mr Jackson brought the suitcases in and led the way to a sleep–out on the end of the back veranda. There were two steel–framed beds with green chenille spreads and a single small wardrobe opposite, with a small mirror set into the door and six drawers in the lower part of the left side. A shelf ran the full width of the room --- above the bedheads --- laden with books, matchbox cars and a little bag of marbles. A cricket bat leant against the side of the wardrobe. I couldn’t see a ball anywhere, but surely there must be one. I imagined Mr Jackson bowling to us in the twilight, after tea, and urging me to aim carefully and strike it hard, then run fast.
Ordered to unpack, we dutifully arranged clothing in the drawers and pushed empty cases under beds. We washed carefully in the tiny bathroom at the other end of the veranda, after relieving ourselves in a smelly outhouse where a tin can rested under a broad wooden bench with a lift–up flap in the middle. A cold metal toilet seat partly covered a hole that exposed a swarm of blowflies feasting on big brown turds floating in thick, yellow–brown sludge. It reminded me of home. The flushing toilets at the orphanage were a luxury few country people were familiar with.
The Jacksons had a girl living with them --- not their own child. Fostered, adopted, or perhaps a relative’s child? She was about 14. It appeared she was expected to do a great deal of the housework. I didn’t know if she went to school, but I never saw her read or write while I was there and she never joined in conversations. In fact, she rarely spoke, and always in monosyllables. When she was spoken to, it was always a barked order or a vicious criticism of her work. She was wan, emaciated, haunted, but promised prettiness if nourished.
Mrs Jackson served a delicious tea of hot corned beef slices with white onion sauce, mashed potato, boiled pumpkin and carrots and tender green beans. Afterward, there were juicy peach halves coated in thick, yellow, home–made custard.
“Be sure to drink all your milk, boys,” Mrs Jackson said with a smile. “You’ll need lots of energy tomorrow. Make sure you wash well and dress in your best clothes for church in the morning.”
After dinner, we sprawled on a rug in her living room reading boys’ adventure stories while Mr Jackson reclined in a leather armchair and snored and she sat on an upright dining chair with a canvas–covered box beside her, carefully working an embroidery sampler. It was the perfect happy family scene, except that I had no idea where the girl had gone and it seemed odd she was excluded.
At eight–thirty, Mrs Jackson lifted her eyes from her work, smiled gently and said, “Bedtime, boys. Put the books away now please.” We obediently returned the books to the lower shelf of the bookcase in the far corner, chorused “Goodnight, Mrs Jackson. Goodnight, Mr Jackson,” and walked sedately from the house, breaking into a run as we stepped off the veranda to race each other to the outhouse. Minutes later, freshly washed faces ruddy, we smiled up at Mrs Jackson as she tucked the bedding in around us, kissed her fingers, and pressed them gently on our foreheads, whispering a soft “Sweet dreams, boys. Sleep well”. A warm glow enfolded me as I heard her tiptoe from the room. I had to remind myself firmly that this was only a short holiday. I had suffered one bitter disappointment, and I must never set myself up for another.
On Sunday we rose early and were greeted by the smell of salty bacon frying. We washed and dressed and slicked our hair in place, then made the beds up neatly, placed folded pyjamas under the pillow and pulled the bedspread up carefully to cover it all. I walked to the kitchen, greeting my hosts with a polite “Good morning, Mr and Mrs Jackson” before taking my place at the already laid–out table. We feasted on bacon, eggs, home–grown tomatoes, thick toast and fresh milk, before dutifully marching off to clean teeth and comb hair again and wait at the front door. A maroon FC Holden sedan, adorned with chrome strips and spats, and with four smocked white– satin cushions lining the back parcel shelf, pulled up near the door. We climbed into the back seat. The girl didn’t join us for breakfast and didn’t accompany us, but we noticed her working in the kitchen as we left the house.
Mrs Jackson took a few minutes to emerge, dressed in her floral Sunday dress, stockings, heels and a wide–brimmed pink hat with a bunch of roses on the left side. She eased herself into the front seat and the sedan cruised down the gravel driveway and out on to a dusty dirt road. Mile after mile of seemingly endless wheat paddocks flew by before the start of the tarred road. We turned left, then right, and pulled into a grassed parking area beside a quaint little weatherboard church, devoid of stained–glass windows and without any steeple, but with a small wooden cross fixed to the front of the gable peak, and a sign that read ‘St Matthew’s Catholic Church’ fixed above the arched double front door.
Mrs Jackson proudly introduced ‘her boys’ to a dozen families whose names I had no hope of remembering, then instructed us to bow to the cross and take places in a pew beside her. The organist was playing “Nearer My God to Thee”. As the congregation rose, gathered up their hymn books and began to sing, the priest and two robed altar boys appeared at the back door and began their short procession down the centre aisle.
Mrs Jackson had a sweet singing voice, but Mr Jackson only mouthed the words while staring silently at the hymn book. I tried hard to get the words of the hymns and prayers right, repeat the Creed correctly, and sit still and silent through the long sermon. I waited until most of the crowd had made their exit before genuflecting to the altar, tiptoeing down the aisle, shaking hands with the priest and mouthing a polite “Good morning, Father. Thank you for your sermon,” then retreating to the scant shade of a gum tree to stand silently waiting for my hosts.
“You behaved very well in church, boys,” Mr Jackson said. My cheeks glowed.
“Oh yes!” Mrs Jackson agreed. “I was proud to sit beside such well–behaved young lads.”
When we returned to the homestead, she rewarded us with thickly sliced lamb roast coated with mint sauce and gravy, served with a generous assortment of baked vegetables and followed by stewed apple and creamy rice pudding. I was sure I’d died and gone to heaven. Nothing could be more perfect. I prayed silently that the Lord might somehow make this last for ever.
It lasted just another hour.
Mrs Jackson asked us to retire to our room and read quietly. Sunday afternoons were a time of rest and quiet. We were pleased of the opportunity and delighted to find some interesting boys’ adventure stories on the shelf above my bed. I slipped out of my Sunday clothes and hung them carefully in the wardrobe. Leaving just my singlet to cover my chest, I pulled on a pair of shorts and lay on my belly on the bed, a book open on the pillow.
I hadn’t finished the first chapter when the awful noises started in the room next–door. I felt the colour drain from my face. John was trembling. The Jacksons’ room was at the other end of the house, but it was Mr Jackson’s resonant voice we heard through the thin wall and the girl’s pained whimpering and begging to please stop. We could only imagine what she was suffering and what Jackson might be doing to cause her distress.
I crawled up on to John’s bed beside him. We huddled there for a seemingly interminable time, listening to the creaking of bed springs and Mr Jackson’s pig–like grunts and deep, satisfied sighs. The occasional sharp slapping sound was followed by the girl’s muffled scream and his coarse, sadistic chuckle.
The girl must have done something to greatly displease, because we heard a cat–like wail and Mr Jackson muttered some vile expletives. John gasped in horror at the language, bumping hard against the wall.
We froze.
The doorhandle turned and the door creaked. Mr Jackson entered the room. He was dressed only in a sweat–soaked singlet and boxer shorts, with a revealing wet patch on the front.
He found us, scarlet–faced, trying to clamber down from John’s bed. The flame of rage rose in his bull neck and his lips tightened. His eyes glazed over. Fear followed him into the room and wrapped itself around us, paralysing our limbs and tightening our throats so that, even had we dared, we could not speak.
Jackson spoke savagely. “You filthy, perverted boys. How dare you eavesdrop on people’s private conversations?” Flame shot from his mouth and swords from his eyes as we cowered and pressed against the side of the bed for protection.
“You will say nothing of this to anyone, you hear me?” he warned. “If you dare to speak of what you think you heard, I will beat you to within an inch of your life and you will be branded filthy, perverted liars and sent to an institution for bad boys. You will live in a tiny cell with bars on the window and door and you will be allowed out only to be beaten and worked half to death. Do you hear me now?”
I nodded silently.
“You would do well to remember you are guests in my house, and guests do not eavesdrop on their hosts’ private conversations. They mind their own business. So, I will have to give you both a lesson in good manners. I warned you I could be a harsh disciplinarian, didn’t I?”
I tried to say “Yes, sir,” but my vocal chords refused co–operation. John just nodded and hugged his knees tighter.
“You do not ever speak to that girl. Do you understand me? Never!” I managed a wimpish “Yes, sir,” John nodded vigorously.
He left us to suffer the awful deep–in–the–pit–of–the–stomach gnawing produced by guilt, shame and anticipation of punishment, but in the evening he and his wife were again model hosts and the girl went about her work as if nothing untoward had happened. If Mrs Jackson was aware of her husband’s transgressions --- whatever, specifically, they may be --- she gave no sign.
In the morning, we were wakened early to a hearty breakfast. We were each handed a lunch pack and ordered into Mr Jackson’s utility. He drove to one of the lower paddocks.
I learnt to drive a tractor that holiday and spent endless hours driving around and around, eyes fixed on the edge of the last furrow, holding a perfectly straight path. Twelve hours a day John and I worked, for most of the day under a fierce, blazing sun --- ploughing, chopping wood, digging, milking, and picking. Twenty minutes for a rest and a drink of water at 11 and three and 40 minutes for lunch of lukewarm, soggy sandwiches that would have been appetising if fresh. If Jackson caught one of us pausing to catch a breath, or if we made some inadvertent error in the performance of a task, he accused us of slacking off and declared a lesson in diligence was called for. Like the promised lesson in manners --- which we eventually received early Monday morning --- all our lessons were delivered with a stockwhip. And judging by the cuts and welts on her legs, we assumed the girl received plenty of similar instruction.
Sitting on a tractor with burning thighs and behind was an agony beyond description. It was a blessed relief to be assigned, for a short while; to a chore I could perform standing. In the evenings, I spent as much time as possible lying on my belly. I winced when I took my seat for evening meals and I felt Mrs Jackson watching me, but neither her words nor her expression exposed her thoughts. She went about her business quietly, never disagreeing with her husband or contradicting him, rarely daring to initiate a conversation.
The following Sunday, we heard the sounds again. We crept up on to John’s bed to listen for a time, but long before the grunting and sighing ceased John took care to smooth his bed. When Mr Jackson entered, he found us crouched on the floor between the beds, deeply engrossed in a game of marbles. We were dressed for the trip home by then and our cases were packed and standing near the door. Within the hour we were on a train, rumbling and swaying past miles of amber wheat fields and grey–grassed grazing paddocks. For the one and only time in all the years I spent at St Patrick’s, I was pleased to be going back.
#
Despite Jackson’s warnings, I told the Mother of the man’s brutality and was surprised that she responded with concern and kindness.
“I know that man,” she said, her voice brittle and breath coming out in ragged little puffs. “The girl may well end up wearing nun’s robes. I shall ask for intervention to save the poor child. And no St Patrick’s child will ever be sent to that place again.”
The mind is a powerful tool, and I learnt early in life how to use it as my primary defence. I deleted the horrors of that week from my memory. They never happened. I smiled over recollections of my first tractor ride, Mrs Jackson’s kindness, and her melodic voice humming in the kitchen and singing hymns on Sunday. I salivated over memories of a roast lamb dinner and corned beef with tasty onion sauce and peaches and custard dessert. I told Ben and Jimmy I’d had a great time on a huge wheat farm owned by a wealthy cocky who taught me to ride horses and milk cows, and one day I hoped to own a farm of my own. And while creating this fantasy world, I secretly plotted my escape from St Patrick’s and all the fear and misery that life as an urchin encompassed. Footnote7
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12: RUN–A–WAY REBEL
ARMIDALE, AUGUST, 1960
“Ever thought of running away, Jim?” “Got no place to go.”
“But I have. Why should a fella stay here? I got a home to go to and I sure as hell got no reason to stay in this hole.”
“How do you expect to get there?”
“There’s ways. Walk. Hitchhike. It’s not all that far.” “What if you get caught?”
“Dopes get caught, but so what if I did? What can they do? Those penguins don’t scare me. I’m not scared of anyone.”
“Sister says kids who try to run away get sent someplace else. Reform school. It’s a special jail for kids.”
“This is a jail, so what’s the difference? Anyway, I won’t get caught. Why don’t ya come with me? My dad’d look after you.”
“Won’t go without Ben.”
“So? We’ll take Ben too. We’ll clear out tonight after lights out. Now, get lost and don’t tell nobody. I gotta work out a plan.”
It was in the late winter, a few months before my 12th birthday, that I decided the only way to achieve my dream of going home was to run away. I had waited for years and suffered horribly hoping someday government men would fulfil the idle promise they made when I was nearly eight. It was clear they never would, so it seemed the only solution was to take matters into my own hands.
In the end, there were four of us. At dinner, we wrapped bread in handkerchiefs and stashed it in our pockets. I stole fruit from a case in the pantry and stowed it under a bush, to be collected on the way out. At ten o’clock that night, four small boys slipped trousers and jumpers over their pyjamas, crept to the end of the dorm, climbed on the end bed, slid over the window sill and, one by one, slid down a drainpipe to the ground below. I retrieved my bag of fruit and we made ready to begin our trek.
Before we had taken half–a–dozen steps, a loud bang upstairs stopped us.
Jim had forgotten to close the window --- or maybe it wasn’t possible to do so while clutching a slippery pipe. We stood frozen and silent for what seemed an eternity, wondering whether to go on, turn back, or just hide. Heavy tread on the balcony above. The crisp, commanding voice of Sister Agnes ordered us back upstairs.
In the morning, four boys trailed into the huge dining room and stood obediently in a row at the back, watching the others devouring porridge and stale bread, listening to the shrill screeching of Sister Agnes lecturing, scolding, warning. The other children finished their meal, but were ordered to stand in silence. An interminable wait. Heavy steps. The Mother Superior, carrying that inevitable strap, emerged through the side door.
As ringleader, I was last to be punished. I watched as, one by one, the others were commanded to make the walk of shame to the front of the hall, turn, bend over, and receive a sound thrashing. One might have expected the Mother’s strength would wane a little, for she put all she had into the task, but she somehow managed to conserve sufficient energy to beat me harder than I remembered being beaten before. It was all I could do not to yield as she taunted me and commanded me to cry. When she was done, she turned to the group.
“Be warned,” she barked. “You can expect much, much worse than these foolish boys received if you even thin
k of running away. You cannot escape. You will be caught and brought back and you will suffer dreadfully.”
Then she faced me and declared in a whipping voice, loud enough to ensure all the children could hear clearly: “Well, young man. You have been warned and you have chosen to ignore the warnings. As of right now, your football–playing days are over. You will never be allowed to go with Father Joseph to a Saturday match again, or to stay for after school training.”
Bile rose in my throat. My neck and ears were on fire and my head throbbed. Bruised, burning legs threatened to give way under me. But I deliberately lifted my shoulders, straightened my back, puffed out my chest and glared at her.
“But I shan’t be here much longer,” I muttered stubbornly under my breath, “And when I leave here, I will play football and I’ll be a sporting star and I’ll show you, you devil–witch. I will have my revenge.”
I silently counted the months until my 12th birthday.
My decision to run away might have had something to do with the fact that I would soon be transferred elsewhere --- further from my family and far away from my little sister. If the nuns had their way, I would go to St Vincent’s, a boys’ home in Westmead, run by priests. All the St Patrick’s boys went there when they turned 12 and stayed at least until their 15th birthday. It was reputed to be much worse than St Patrick’s. Boys whose older brothers had gone there spoke of it as ‘hell’. They talked of awful things that went on there. They said boys went there who had committed crimes. It was a training ground for criminals and most of the boys who went there graduated to juvenile hall. Some said boys were molested by the priests. I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to go home.
Boys had to be confirmed Catholic to go to St Vincent’s and I had already begun confirmation classes, but I told the nuns I didn’t want to be a Catholic and I wouldn’t be confirmed. At first, they pleaded with me. Hadn’t I served as an altar boy? Hadn’t I enjoyed helping Father Joseph serve Holy Communion? Surely I didn’t want to disappoint Father Joseph?
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