The Tour

by Denise Scott

  Dinner conversation was subtle, as in very subtle, as in we didn’t say much. And we were all comfortable with that. I guess we had to be: there was no alternative. Politics was never mentioned. Nor were world events. And as for religion, forget it. Sport? Dad would have loved a discussion, but the rest of us weren’t in the least interested. Hopes, dreams, ambitions? Get over yourself. And we never asked questions. I believe it was my mother who taught us this art, stemming from her firm belief in the saying ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you.’

  Thus, in our house, conversations were more like strings of statements, often completely unrelated. For instance, as we sat at the kitchen table eating our tea, my mother might say something along the lines of ‘Mr Sawyer died today.’

  And then a minute or so later my father would say, ‘Beautiful dinner, Marg.’

  And then after another pause my sister would say, ‘A girl in my class fainted this morning.’

  And then Mum would say, ‘Trust him to die on my shift.’

  And Dad would say, ‘What’s for dessert, Marg?’, which admittedly was a question but they really were rare.

  And I would say, ‘Gee, I wish I could get a horse.’

  And my mother would say, ‘Tinned fruit and custard.’

  You get the drift.

  Every two weeks my mother had her hair set and every six months had her hair permed at Anne Barnes Beauty Salon. In between appointments she would maintain her ‘do’ by wearing hair curlers and hairnet to bed.

  I had no problem with my mother having a Queen Elizabeth–inspired perm, but I did have a problem when she decided I should have one as well. She performed the deed herself, having purchased a Toni Home Perm kit from the local chemist that she enthusiastically applied to my thick, straight blonde hair.

  To this day I recall the moment when I first saw my reflection in the mirror. You never really do get over a shock like that. There I was, a seven-year-old girl with the hairdo of an eighty-year-old woman. I wanted to cry out in horror but dared not for fear of upsetting my mother. I sensed she was equally horrified but couldn’t show it, because after all there was nothing to be done. ‘So snap out of it, Denise, and come out from behind that bush and get to school immediately.’

  * * *

  My mother was not without passion. She loved gardening and she loved sewing. She made my sister and me all our clothes; hence, we wore identical outfits, which was cute though a little embarrassing come adolescence. When I went to hospital to have my tonsils out she made me and my doll matching nighties.

  Without doubt her greatest triumphs on the sewing front were the suits she made for Julie and me when we were eleven and nine years old respectively. Mine was blue. My sister’s was pink. They were waisted dresses with matching jackets that were covered in lace.

  My mother had first seen them in the newspaper. They were featured in an advertisement for Georges, an upmarket department store in the city. She was so taken with them that she determined to replicate them for her girls. She became quite feverish and obsessed about it, her machine whirring at all hours of the day and night, and when she wasn’t sewing she was on the phone, organising to have the skirts sent away to be perma-pleated, or tracking down the tools needed to make the hand-covered buttons and belts.

  The finished outfits were quite literally a breathtaking success. Our next-door neighbour Beryl Higgins, upon seeing them, gasped and clutched the front of her cardigan as though about to have a heart attack as my mother, not normally one to blow her own trumpet, proudly declared, ‘They look just like the ones in Georges. And do you know how much those ones cost?’

  ‘How much, Marg?’

  ‘Twenty-two guineas!’

  ‘Twenty-two guineas!’

  ‘And do you know how much I made the girls’ suits for?’

  ‘How much, Marg?’

  ‘Two pound ten.’

  They really were beautiful. It was such a shame we never went anywhere we could wear them.

  And Mum loved smoking. She was a packet-a-day gal, Albany cigarettes were her choice of smoking pleasure. Every morning when she wasn’t doing night shift, Dad would deliver her a cup of tea and a cigarette in bed.

  * * *

  Mum was particularly passionate about swearing. Passionately opposed to it, that is. She loathed it, although on occasion she was heard to say ‘Bugger,’ when chopping wood and a splinter flew into her forehead, for instance. (Having grown up in the country, my mother was a mighty axe wielder, and it was her job to fuel our open fire. Dad, being a city slicker, was banned from the wood heap.)

  One day when my sister and I were walking home from primary school we were stopped by the high-school bullies—a group of adolescent girls—who had spread themselves out in a line across the street, daring us to pass them.

  My sister and I froze in our tracks.

  The leader of the gang walked over to me. She looked down at me and hissed, ‘Do you know what “fuck” means?’

  I shook my head. Of course I didn’t know what it meant. I’d only been on the planet six years and didn’t get out much. I’d never heard of the word, yet alone heard anyone say it, which in hindsight was nothing short of a miracle, given that my father was a lifetime member of the Heidelberg West Football Club.

  ‘You go home and ask your mother what “fuck” means.’

  I nodded agreement.

  ‘You’d better do it; otherwise, you’ll be sorry. Well, go on, what are you waiting for?’

  My sister and I walked in the back door.

  Mum was vacuuming the enclosed veranda, which she had recently had covered in a brown synthetic carpet. She had her back to us. The upright hoover was extremely noisy and I had to yell. ‘MUM, DO YOU KNOW WHAT “FUCK” MEANS?’

  The vacuum cleaner whirred to a meaningful sort of silence.

  Slowly, my mother turned around. I could not believe my eyes. Surely her perm wasn’t literally standing on end? But that was how it seemed, such was the look of horror on my mother’s face. And then she spoke with a voice I’d never heard before—cold, chilling and deadly serious. ‘You must never, ever, ever say that word again. Do you hear me? It is a terrible, terrible word, and if a policeman ever hears you say it you’ll be put in jail.’

  In my mother’s eyes, swear words were nothing short of criminal, especially when spoken by a lady.

  * * *

  My mother’s determination to avoid anything that upset the calm progression of daily life knew no bounds, her reaction to the news of a murder being a superb example of a woman resolved to keep a lid on the excitement of life. It wasn’t just any murder; it was Greensborough’s very own Desperate Housewives situation. I only knew about it because of my uncanny ability in, and absolute devotion to, the ancient art of eavesdropping. As a child I did it all the time.

  One day a few women from the St Mary’s Mothers Club, all with identical perms—except for Mrs Alcock, who bucked the system with a teased French roll—rocked up to our house, each armed with a portable sewing machine. Their mission? To make young boys trousers to sell at the St Mary’s school fete. Mrs Alcock handed out pieces of fabric already cut into various shapes and gave instructions on how to assemble them. With heads bent low, right foot delicately placed just above the treadle and steady hands poised ready to guide the grey fabric under the needle, they waited for Mrs Alcock to give the word, and then away they went. I was in the lounge room at the time pretending to read, but in reality I was fully focussed on the ladies, fascinated by them. I kept sneaking a look through the servery, a hole Mum had had cut in the wall so that when she was in the kitchen, which she nearly always was, she could still see the TV in the lounge.

  Eventually, all the machines came to a halt, and I heard one of the mothers, Mrs Schultze, comment, ‘Oh no. Will you look at that? My inside pocket—it’s facing the wrong way. Oh well, I guess that’ll come in handy for some little boy with a back-to-front hand.’

  All the mothers roared.

  And
then another mother said, ‘What about Valerie Thompson killing her husband?’

  Hello! What? Mrs Thompson killed her husband? My eyes widened to the size of cricket balls. Mrs Thompson was one of the sweetest mothers at the school. And one of the most religious. She was always putting flowers on the altar …

  ‘Apparently, he was passed out on the couch, as usual, and she just bashed him to death with a softball bat.’

  My eyes were now the size of basketballs. I pictured teeny tiny Mrs Thompson swinging a softball bat, smashing her husband’s skull to pieces.

  ‘He deserved it, though. He was a brute to her.’

  ‘Anyone like a cuppa?’

  That was what my mother said upon hearing the news of Mr Thompson’s demise.

  * * *

  Even the near death of her daughter couldn’t extract any public emotional response from my mother. I was four years old at the time and having a bath with my sister while Mum was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

  Suddenly, my sister started screaming.

  My mother raced into the bathroom to find Julie standing in the bath staring down at me in horror. My lifeless body lay submerged under the water, my eyes, as Mum later recalled, ‘wide open, big as saucers, unblinking, just staring up at the ceiling.’

  Mum heaved me out of the bath, shook the bejesus out of me and ferociously slapped life back into my face.

  Half an hour later, as we sat at the table eating tea, all my mother said to my father was, ‘Well, Russ, one thing’s for sure: that’s the last time I give Denise a sleeping tablet before she has her bath.’

  Julie and me in 1955 (I’m in the pram)

  * * *

  Paradoxically for a woman who strove to be ordinary, my mother contradicted the 1950s housewife stereotype by having a job. She was a nurses aide at the Deloraine Aged Care hospital, conveniently located across the road from our house. She hadn’t wanted to do it. Goodness gracious me, no. She wanted to be a stay-at-home mum, but that pesky Matron Barnes (mother to Anne, she of Anne Barnes Beauty Salon fame) hounded my mother, sermonising about the elderly people needing her care and attention. She didn’t bother to mention it would also be handy to have a nurse living across the road; any time someone couldn’t make it to work, all Matron would have to do was pop her head out the window and yell ‘MARG!’ My mother finally succumbed and started working at the hospital, and she loved it.

  When we were toddlers she did night shift, arriving home at 7 am just in time to farewell my father as he headed off to work. My mother would then get into bed and sleep for a few hours. Child care wasn’t a problem: Mum would simply put my sister and me on the bed with her, with a few books and toys for our amusement, and there we’d stay until she woke up.

  When we started school my mother swapped to the morning shift, 7 am to 12.30 pm, five days a week. This meant that from the age of five I’d get myself up, make my own breakfast (usually a sweet biscuit and cup of tea) and walk myself to school; my sister, sick of waiting for me, always headed off earlier. I didn’t like school—it interfered with my fantasy world—and often I would feign sickness so I could stay at home and play. Julie would have to go across the road and deliver the news to Mum, and, since she was more often than not in the middle of bathing a patient at the time, there was nothing she could do about it.

  I loved having the house to myself! As soon as I heard Julie shut the front door I’d jump out of bed and put on my ballet slippers. (I only ever went to two lessons before giving up in disgust. I didn’t like the teacher telling me what to do; I much preferred a free-form, interpretative approach to dance.) I’d turn on the radio in the kitchen and, still in my pyjamas, immerse myself in the classical music and dance for a good couple of hours. I’d then swap my ballet slippers for bedroom slippers, arrange my face in a suitably sad-sack expression and head across to the hospital, where I’d sit in the staffroom with my mother and the rest of the nursing staff while they drank tea, ate Savoy biscuits and cheese, and chain-smoked cigarettes.

  Marg Scott (right) having a relaxing cigarette during her tea break at the Deloraine Aged Care hospital

  Even better than having the house to myself was when my mother had a day off work and made us porridge. And even better than that was the thought of staying at home and having Mum all to myself. But it was usually only a thought, because my mother wasn’t so keen on the idea. No matter how well I acted, she refused to believe I was ill and would force me out of the house. Force! There I was, a small girl with large blue eyes, beside myself, sobbing with the tragedy of it all. Mum had to march behind me, not exactly hitting me on the bottom, rather tapping it, forcing me ever onwards until we got to the school gate, at which point she would be mortified to discover that she was still in her dressing gown.

  My mother was a big fan of routine, and every weekday come 2.30 pm she would have her afternoon nap for an hour. If ever I was lucky enough to be home at that time I would get into bed with her. I loved it, although in hindsight it probably annoyed the hell out of Mum, who was no doubt desperate for a bit of time to herself. So great was my love of sharing an arvo nap with her that once, when I was fifteen and loved my waistlength hair more than life itself, and my mother had announced there’d been an outbreak of nits at her work while furiously scratching her scalp, I still had a nap with her—although I did insist on wearing a shower cap.

  * * *

  My mother’s arvo nap was sacred. Nothing and no-one messed with it, not even a raging bushfire.

  I was nine years old and sitting in class at St Mary’s one day when our teacher announced we were to go home immediately; the school was being evacuated. I walked home alone, as by then Julie had started secondary school and was in the city.

  Walking across the top of the cutting that cleaved Grimshaw Street in two, I saw flames in the distance. The sky was orange. My little legs, already red raw with eczema behind the knees and between my thighs—a ghastly and possibly unnecessary image, but hey, it’s the truth, and I feel it adds a certain pathos to the scene—prickled with heat and stress and fear.

  I hurried down our driveway and once inside the back door headed straight for my mother’s bedroom. I knew she would be there having her afternoon nap. Sure enough, there she was, lying on the bed, her Queen Elizabeth perm rising and falling in a steady, calm rhythm on the pillow.

  ‘Mum …’

  She sat up immediately and looked at me in dazed shock.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘We were sent home. There’s terrible fires and they say we should get out.’

  My mother sighed. Deeply. ‘Oh, wouldn’t you know it. I’ve just spent over an hour and a half washing the front porch, and now the whole house is going to burn down. What a waste of time that was.’

  And then Mum put her head back on the pillow.

  I had been kind of hoping she might do something. I don’t know what exactly—maybe get us both out of there before we burnt to death?

  The phone rang.

  I ran to answer it.

  It was my father. He’d heard about the fires and wanted to get home to us, but all the roads had been closed off; no-one was allowed in.

  There was a knock at the front door. Oh, thank God. A rescuer, perhaps?

  I ran to open it.

  It was Matron Barnes. She looked mad with panic, her stiff, starched nursing veil sitting skew-whiff on top of her head. She raced into the house, yelling, ‘Where’s your mother?’

  Immediately, my mother came flying out of the bedroom—a nurse heeding the call to arms.

  ‘Hurry, Marg. We have to evacuate the patients.’

  And at that my mother raced back to the bedroom, put on her sandals and took off across the road.

  I stood there in shock. Was my mother for real? Was she really going to save geriatrics and let me be incinerated?

  A minute later she came flying back into the house.

  What a relief. She had come to her senses after all and was going to get
me out of there.

  Mum ran straight past me, into her bedroom. I followed and found her putting a skirt on over the top of her shorts. ‘I don’t want the patients to see my varicose veins.’

  And with that once more she was gone.

  There is an old adage that says such things are sent to try us, and blow me down if a bit of the old Henry Lawson ‘Drover’s wife’ pioneering spirit didn’t kick in and give me the courage to take action. I got my mother’s round cane shopping basket, which was decorated with a yellow plastic flower, and began packing. A Hawaiian shirt, pair of underpants, shorts and socks for Dad; a rose-patterned frock, stilettos, bra, pants, suspender belt and stockings for Mum; for my sister and me a pair of underpants, shorts, top and, even though we were too old for them, our Cindy dolls.

  I then rounded up our grey Persian cat, Fluffy, and our out-of-control labrador, Prince, and went and sat on the newly washed front porch and waited. For what? I wasn’t sure. I guess I hoped that someone might take pity on a little girl with a basket, a dog and a cat, not to mention eczema, and maybe even offer her a lift to safety.

  But no-one went past.

  I hung on to my dog and cat by the fur on their necks with all my might, but my hands became drenched with sweat and the animals became restless and slipped away from me. But I stayed seated on the porch and watched Mum load patients into the back of ambulances. Suddenly I heard fire trucks, their bells madly ringing: they were close.