It didn’t stop the seven of us having fun together, though. In that big, stone house on Babbage Street, with lots of space to play and consume comics, the Braitling and Heaslip kids became firm friends.
10
The Importance of Being Strong
We were tired when we got home from the Get-Together. A week away with other kids in town had been fun but we weren’t used to that much excitement. It was good to return to our own routine, to games in the dirt and, for me, books and writing. The nights were peaceful again—there were no cars whizzing down the streets with bright headlights waking us up—and the mornings were filled with the usual glorious colours in the sky and birds and the fresh smell of gum trees.
After a week our energy had returned. Most days we yelled, raced around, walloped each other with sticks and fists, both in games and when we got sick of each other. We were like a six-legged trio, bound to each other, unable to separate. Most days, Mum would shout, ‘I’m at the end of my tether with you kids! You are driving me up the wall!’
Miss Clarke had a way of stepping in just in time to avert disaster. She was calm and capable in any crisis, which was lucky, because Brett especially tested the patience of the grown-ups. He was full of energy and cheek.
‘Go and run around the lawn twenty times until you get rid of your energy!’ Mum would say despairingly, directing him out the door towards the garden. ‘Go on, run, run!’
But even if Brett ran twenty times (and sometimes we’d all have to stand there and count until he finished), he would run back with exactly the same amount of energy, plus a flushed face, big grin and sparkling eyes.
Bath time was the worst. Miss Clarke would have just got Brett undressed, when he’d run outside, completely naked, and jump on his little bike (a Christmas present from Papa Heaslip) and ride flat-out up the driveway towards the cattle grid and beyond. We girls watched from afar as Mum and Miss Clarke chased him, Mum with wooden spoon in hand. Both of them shouted threats that he didn’t seem to hear. Then they would chase him all the way back down the other driveway until finally he’d be caught and thrown in the bath. His little body would be frozen but he’d be laughing with glee.
One bath time, Brett decided to run naked towards the chook house instead. He fell over a big stone as he ran. Screaming out in pain, he pointed to a bleeding toe. Mum was on his heels, her face red with exasperation and frustration, wooden spoon in hand. She yelled out, ‘Don’t think that’ll help you!’
Brett’s other trick was to climb up on the corrugated-iron roof just before bath time. He’d leap around, whooping like a wild American Indian, and refuse to get down. He gave Mum and Miss Clarke near heart attacks. His favourite trick was to shout out, ‘I’m going to fly down, Mummy!’ and then spread out his arms like a bird. A stark-naked bird. He’d laugh wildly and hop about on the roof, making a tremendous war-like noise. If Mum and Miss Clarke couldn’t get him down, Dad was called for, which would always end with the belt and tears.
But the problems didn’t end there.
M’Lis, Brett and I had to share the bath because water was so precious. There was about two inches of water between us. Just as we girls would get in, Brett would stand on the edge and pee into the water, laughing as he did. M’Lis and I would scream furiously as we’d jump out and chase Brett, and the race would begin all over again.
Teatime became a battle of wills between Brett and Mum. After the bath, we’d all troop into the kitchen to sit up at the table to eat. Mum always ensured we were fed and in bed well before the adults arrived. But Brett was a skinny kid and didn’t like food much. He especially refused to eat his vegetables. He drove Mum crazy. When things got really bad, he’d chuck his vegetables off his plate. Then he’d be threatened with, ‘If you don’t eat anything, I’ll have to send you to Dad’s office, Brett.’
That was the worst threat of all. I would have eaten three lots of vegetables if it meant avoiding being sent to Dad’s office. But it didn’t deter Brett. Sometimes he would have to sit there all night until bedtime, as well as receive a belting. He must have really hated vegetables.
Physical punishment was the norm in Dad’s world. He’d grown up with tough love and it was all he knew. He’d spent his own childhood being thrashed by well-meaning uncles, not to mention his father. He told us it was how he’d learnt right from wrong.
For that reason, he carried his stockwhip about and used it, or the belt, when we stepped out of line. M’Lis and I were too scared of Dad to play up much, but Brett had no safety mechanism in his brain to tell him when it was time to stop.
One winter, M’Lis, Brett and I came down with the flu. Each night we coughed and shivered with fever and cried for Mum. On the second night, Dad’s silhouette loomed in our doorway.
‘If you don’t stop that coughing, I’ll smack you all.’
We huddled under the sheets, trying to swallow our spluttering. Finally I croaked, ‘But Dad, we can’t stop.’
‘There’s no such word as can’t,’ roared Dad.
Dad didn’t carry out his threat (which was probably driven by exhaustion and lack of sleep, anyway), but he was forever instructing us against the perils of self-pity or personal weakness. He admired people who pushed through and never gave up.
How else do you manage droughts, fires, cattle dying, low prices, high costs, big overdrafts, staff troubles and isolation?’ he’d ask us, fiercely.
We’d nod meekly, wondering if we could ever be as strong as him.
Mum was always stuck in the middle and tried to keep the peace.
Whenever one of us was pushing Dad too far, she would assure him that she would fix things, and would then hug us and tell us she knew we were doing our best, and that she loved us.
Mum’s love was healing for us all—especially for Brett.
Brett loved being with her, and he couldn’t bear it when she went away, even just to town to get the stores. That would be a whole-day trip, and when we were young, she’d leave us at home with Miss Clarke. She thought the trip was too hot and long for us. So, a few times Brett would head out after her, walking down the dusty road to town, following her car tracks, determined to catch up to her.
The worst of Brett’s treks took place on a broiling summer’s day. It was mid-January and over forty degrees by 11 a.m. Dad came home from doing a bore run and found Miss Clarke, M’Lis and me looking everywhere for Brett.
‘He’s gone missing again,’ said Miss Clarke, her forehead creased. ‘Jan’s gone to town, so he’s probably followed her. It’s so hot. He’ll have no water …’
Dad didn’t respond, just flicked a thumb to M’Lis and me. ‘In the Land Rover,’ he ordered, striding towards it. We huddled in the back of the vehicle, silent in the face of Dad’s anger, gulping in swags of dust as he lurched off down the road towards the turn-off to the bitumen.
We didn’t know why we had to go with him. Perhaps Dad thought he needed our eyes to help. He told us to keep a lookout. We watched the grey mulga whizzing past, wondering if Brett had taken the road or had got lost, and was somewhere inside the mulga. It was so hot. How could he still be alive out here?
We drove and drove, all the time fearing the worst: that Brett had perished. We always feared the worst when it came to Brett. A sinking feeling sat in our young stomachs as Dad drove like a demon.
Just before the turn-off, just when we’d almost run out of hope, we saw a little figure ahead. It was Brett, walking determinedly. He had covered nearly eight kilometres. No shirt, just shorts. Bare feet, no shoes. He was dehydrated, with swollen lips, but undeterred. He didn’t even stop as we drove up next to him.
Dad screeched to a halt. M’Lis and I looked at Brett, hardly able to bear what we knew was about to happen. Dad jumped out and Brett finally turned around, his big blue eyes wide and defiant.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Dad asked, his voice very low and scary.
‘Looking for Mummy.’
Dad pointed to the edge of the scrub. ‘Go and get a
stick. A big one.’
Brett knew what was about to happen. He bit his lips defiantly but walked towards the edge of the road.
Then he picked up a stick.
‘Not big enough.’ Dad was relentless.
Brett poked around in the scrub and picked up another one. Dad nodded and held out his hand. Brett took it to him.
‘Bend over.’
Brett obeyed.
M’Lis and I put our hands over our eyes and ears, desperate to muffle what was happening.
Finally, it was over. ‘Get in,’ Dad commanded Brett. ‘In the front. Next to me. And never do that again. Otherwise you will perish out here and die.’
Brett crawled in the front. He didn’t speak. He was defiant to the end.
He was four and a half years old.
Dad only knew how to show anger when he was fearful. And Dad was truly fearful that day. Those temperatures and conditions could have killed a grown man, given enough time. A little boy with no shoes, hat or shirt didn’t stand a chance.
The fact Brett hadn’t died was a miracle.
M’Lis and I thought he was strong!
Dad recorded Brett’s death-defying trek in his diary, and wrote in capitals, ‘BELTED BRETT’. Under his anger and fear was relief, but poor little Brett didn’t know that.
The next big thing in our little lives was that Mum started growing a tummy. When we asked about this, Miss Clarke explained that Mum was ‘pleasantly plump’. We used to run around gazing at Mum’s expanding tummy and shrieking out this delicious new phrase, ‘Pleasantly plump!’ Eventually Mum couldn’t bear it anymore and told us she was going to have a baby. That was the most exciting thing we had heard in our entire lives.
Mum became very sick in her last few months of pregnancy. We didn’t know what was wrong with her. But she became sicker and sicker and had to keep going to bed in the afternoon. That was not our mum.
Things became worse when we flew to Witchitie for Christmas and the New Year mustering and shearing. Christmas was always the fun part—we got to see Nana and Papa Heaslip at Glenroy, and Nana and Papa Parnell in Orroroo, and Aunty June and Uncle John—and we loved the Flinders Ranges country. But mustering and shearing were not fun. It was stinking hot and Dad worked non-stop, gone before daylight and not home until after dark. M’Lis, Brett and I helped in the sheep yards a bit but in the early days we were too small to be of much use. During the shearing, Mum just looked incredibly miserable all the time, still trying to feed Dad, us and the men he had helping him.
In the second week, M’Lis and I were sent to stay with Nana Parnell in Orroroo. That was wonderful. We were treated to swimming lessons at the local pool, which was amazing, because we’d never seen, much less been in, a big swimming pool. We got to eat lemonade ice blocks afterwards and then take trips up to the main street to buy the most delicious thing we’d ever eaten in our whole life—apple and apricots tarts from the bakery called Benziks. The pastry was thin and scattered with icing sugar and real sugar and the fruit fell out in large, sweet clumps. We ate those tarts for breakfast, lunch and dinner, until Nana Parnell put her foot down.
Meanwhile, Mum kept getting sicker and sicker. She visited the Orroroo doctor, who said there was nothing wrong with her. She spent all day dribbling water over her arms and legs, which had swollen to twice their size. In desperation she said to Dad, ‘There’s a new doctor in Alice. I’ve got to go home and see him. I’ll die here.’
Dad couldn’t leave shearing to fly Mum home, so he flew her and Brett down to Adelaide (which was a short trip in comparison), where an Elders GM representative put them onto the TAA flight to Alice and arranged for another Elders representative in Alice to pick them up from the airport and drive them to Bond Springs.
Brett went with Mum because, at five, he was too young (and naughty) to leave with the grandparents.
No doubt Dad then thought his duty was done. The rest was ‘women’s business’ and out of his domain. It would never have occurred to Dad to stop shearing and go with Mum. Not that that was unusual. That’s how all men we knew thought. Dad looked after the business outside the house, and Mum looked after the business inside the house, and everything else—including pregnancy.
Besides, Dad wouldn’t have thought he had any choice. Shearing the sheep at Witchitie was his priority and it couldn’t wait. The sheep’s woolly coats had to come off before they became too thick and hot for them in the summer heat; otherwise they’d die. The shearers were lined up and ready to work. Once the sheep were shorn, the wool then had to be sorted, graded and sent away to sale so Dad could afford to keep Witchitie afloat.
Once back at Bond Springs, Mum and Brett spent the next three weeks alone. Our stockman, Ross Coop, was caretaking the station for Dad, but he was of even less use to Mum than was Dad. He spent every day out on the run, checking bores and fences, and eating corned beef he cooked himself. He didn’t go near Mum, as that wouldn’t have been ‘done’, with Dad away.
During those weeks, Mum lay in bed and slipped in and out of consciousness. Alone in the homestead in the summer heat, with no one to look after her, she was so ill most days she could hardly get out of bed. Her feet, ankles, face and hands were swollen to blue, she was dizzy and nauseous, and struggled to breathe. She draped wet flannels over her face and feet and forgot to eat or drink. The isolation of the outback held her captive; she was too weak to call for help and nobody was near to see or help her.
Brett didn’t know what was happening. He spent the whole time sitting at the foot of her bed, pulling Mum’s toe whenever she started to doze off, and gazing at her with increasing anxiety. There was no one there for him to play with—no Tanya or M’Lis or Miss Clarke as a distraction—and his mother was feverish and delirious most of the time. He was hungry and lonely and scared.
One morning, he found some matches in the bathroom. He took them, then crouched under Mum’s bed (so he could still be close to her) and practised striking them until one flared up. Then he struck another one. Then another.
Mum finally came to when she smelled the smoke. She pulled herself up on her pillows, confused.
‘Brett?’ she called out, looking around. His little face poked out from under the bed. She looked down and saw him holding the matches in his fingers. They burned bright and orange red in the gloom of her curtained room, colouring his face.
‘Oh my God!’ she screamed.
Somehow, she managed to pull herself up further, then leaned down and grabbed the burning matches out of Brett’s fingers. She smothered them between the sheets and the blanket on the floor, just in time before her bed went up in flames. Not to mention her, and Brett, and possibly the whole house.
Once Mum had put out the matches, she collapsed back against her pillows, white-faced and shaking. She could barely move. She and Brett were alone on the station, no one for miles, nobody to contact, with Ross away all day.
Mum finally realised she was in serious trouble.
Staggering out of bed, she made her way down to the kitchen, where she pulled out the two-way radio and contacted her great friend Barb Braitling at Mount Doreen. Even though Mrs Braitling lived nearly five hundred kilometres to the north-west of Alice Springs, she poured her children, Shane, Denis, Jacquie and Matthew, into the car and hit the road, arriving in a hot haze of dust eight hours later. Then she took charge.
Why hadn’t Mum thought to call the RFDS? She was so ill that she was beyond dealing with authority and anything complicated.
‘Barb, I just needed Barb,’ she said. ‘She would know what to do.’ And so Barb did.
Barb gently got Mum into her car, put Brett in too, then headed straight to Alice Springs to the doctor, Ross Peterkin.
Ross’s wife, Lynne Peterkin, was due to have a baby about the same time as Mum, so the good doctor’s hands were full. He did, however, put Mum straight into hospital. Barb took Brett into their Alice town house, and between them all they probably saved both Mum’s life and Brett’s.
&
nbsp; Then they sent a telegram to Dad.
Dad finally finished shearing and flew home with us girls and Miss Clarke.
His diary entry reads, ‘Flew Witchitie to BST. 0600 hrs—1400 hrs. Jan still in hospital. Did bore run to the west. Bendy Bore to be fixed. Country dry, feed turning.’
Dr Peterkin diagnosed pre-eclampsia, and we were told we were lucky Mum was still alive. She was eventually able to come home, once Dr Peterkin said it was safe for her to do so.
We now knew that death was ever present in our world. Many things could kill us in the bush; but even more dangerous than pre-eclampsia, snakes, redbacks, heat, lack of water or a death-defying trek to the turn-off was fire.
Fire was a killer, burnt into our psyche, laid across our fear lines like red-hot grids. Fire could destroy everything. All Mum and Dad had slaved for, our home, our livelihoods, our lives. People in the bush talked about fire all the time, especially in summer.
So when Dad heard about the ‘matches’ episode, he called Brett into his office. He lit a match and held it over Brett’s palm. Then he lowered it onto the tender flesh and burnt it.
‘I am doing this so you will know what fire feels like,’ Dad said. ‘So that you will know what matches can do. And so that you’ll never light matches again.’
Mum was called in. She took Brett to the storeroom and put lotion on the burn. Then she nursed Brett until his tears stopped.
M’Lis and I were traumatised, unable to speak. It took months for us all to recover and for the scar on Brett’s palm to heal.
But Brett never played with matches again.
Would Dad have taken such drastic steps if we were still living at Witchitie, where life was kinder, softer, more gentle than in the wild outback? Had the pressure of our new life pounded him, moulded him and altered him, making him now as hard as the land? Turned him into the Boss, not Dad? Sometimes we didn’t recognise the man who had once thrown us up into the air at picnic teas on the Witchitie lawn, and grinned a lot. But we knew, even if we didn’t have words for it, that Dad’s form of discipline was the only way he knew how to teach us right from wrong. And his whole focus was on protecting us. It was the man’s job in the bush to be the tough one and to do what was needed to limit or prevent disasters.
An Alice Girl Page 9