by Denise Scott
And so were the flames. I could see them clearly now. They seemed to be travelling fast.
And that was when Matron Barnes came racing out of the hospital, this time with her veil sticking straight up in the air. She was screaming, ‘The fires! They’re here! They’re at the bottom of our street!’
I ran across the road to my mother, and we all stood in the hallway of the hospital. I couldn’t believe we were going to die and those old people were going to live. A minute or so later a fireman appeared before us, his big gold hat a shiny, masculine symbol of hope. He assured us the fires were under control.
Eventually, all the patients were returned to their beds, Fluffy and Prince re-emerged unscathed, and I raced home and quickly put away the clothes I had packed. I didn’t want my mother to know I had taken such action; she might think it silly. Nor did I want her to know that, at that moment, in the hallway of the hospital, when I was sure we were going to be burnt to death, I had felt so frightened I wanted to scream my lungs out. Of course, I hadn’t, because Mum wouldn’t have approved of such hysteria. I also didn’t want her to know that, when I’d been sitting on the front porch watching her lift old people into the ambulance, under my breath I’d been whimpering, ‘What about me, Mum?’
* * *
As well as insomnia and eczema, as a child I also suffered severe asthma attacks. Mum was usually pretty cool about it. She would calmly sit there rubbing my back, saying stuff like ‘Just wait until I’ve finished my cigarette, Denise, and I’ll plug in your Ventolin machine.’
In the lead-up to the Christmas of 1965 my asthma was so severe that my mother nearly called an ambulance; but of course she didn’t, because calling an ambulance meant making a fuss, and, what with her daughter wheezing to death, life was already stressful enough without having an attention-seeking ambulance, siren blaring, screaming up the street, bringing all the neighbours out to see what was going on.
During that period my mother or father stayed with me in my bedroom all night, every night, keeping an eye on me, making sure I was breathing okay (although Dad always fell asleep and snored his head off, but hey, his heart was in the right place). By Christmas they were both exhausted, so instead of having the usual extended-family lunch in our aluminium garage on Christmas Day it was decided we would go to a restaurant.
* * *
When the plans were made my parents had assumed I’d be able to come, but I was too sick, so my mother, always one for a practical solution, went across the road to the hospital and came back with the news that, ‘as luck would have it, Mrs Cooper died last night.’
And so there I was, nine years old, sitting up in Mrs Cooper’s recently vacated bed in the aged-care hospital, trying my best to sing Christmas carols with all the old ladies, but I just couldn’t. My wheezing little chest was unable to muster the strength.
* * *
Given that my father tended towards unpredictable, exhibitionist, some might say insane behaviour, it would be easy to assume he was a major obstacle to my mother leading an ordinary life. But in fact it was quite the opposite—my dad’s behaviour gave Mum the opportunity to be as ordinary as she ever hoped to be.
Marg and Russ first met and consequently fell in love at a dance at Heidelberg Town Hall during the Second World War. Mum was in the army, working as a nurses aide at the Heidelberg Repat Hospital. Dad was in the navy. They both loved music, especially big band ballroom numbers, and my father liked to dance as much as Mum did—the Pride of Erin, a flowing waltz, a smooth foxtrot—according to all reports they sizzled on the dance floor. However, after a few beers my father was inclined to suddenly, without warning, break into a full-on free-form jitterbugging frenzy. This involved a lot of twirling and throwing himself on the floor, not to mention throwing Mum over his shoulder and under his legs and to either side of his hips, his large eyes popping out of his head with the excitement. At this point my mother would always, with an air of resolute acceptance—after all, what could she do?—go and sit down, leaving Dad to carry on solo. This pattern continued for their entire marriage and always resulted in Dad lying on the lounge room floor the following day, unable to move, because ‘a man’s done his bloody back in.’ My mother would roll her eyes, step over the top of him and get on with her domestic tasks.
They were a Yin and Yang love story if ever there was one—Mum provided Dad with a calm and stable home, while he brought the crazy and unconventional to her life. This left my mother free to be as restrained, understated and low key as she desired, safe in the knowledge that her husband would take care of all the exciting stuff in their lives.
However, something that did make it tricky for my mum to live under the radar was our family car, or, rather, van. It didn’t actually belong to my father; it was his work vehicle. His job was delivering smallgoods, transporting frankfurters and strass (large rolls of Strasbourg sausage) to shops all over Melbourne. He worked for Star Smallgoods and drove a combi van covered in animated sausages that wore boater hats and tap shoes and had cartoon bubbles saying, ‘Eat us up we’re yummy, yummy for your tummy.’
Since we didn’t have our own car, we went everywhere in Dad’s work van. It was legendary. Dad was famous for being able to single-handedly pick up and deliver the entire Watsonia Girls Calisthenics team in the back of that van, and often drove us to and from our various concerts and competitions.
* * *
There would be ten of us, all dressed in leotards, marching-girl tan thickly painted on our legs, rolling around in the back of the van with the rear door half-open, trying to hang on to one another for support as Dad merrily sailed around corners. Occasionally he’d brake suddenly, causing the rear door to slam shut, leaving us in pitch-black darkness with no oxygen supply, all of us screaming to no avail, as my father couldn’t hear us. When my sister was enrolled in Catholic Ladies’ College in East Melbourne, where parents tended to be doctors and lawyers, come school speech night, while everyone else rolled up in their Mercedes or Jaguar, the Scott family arrived in the sausage van. But most memorable of all the sausage van excursions was when we went to the circus in the neighbouring suburb of Watsonia.
Given that it was a combi and there were four of us to share the front seat, seating arrangements were very precise. Naturally, my father sat behind the wheel. Next to him was my sister, one leg on either side of the four-on-the-floor gearstick. Next to her was my mother, who sat with her left leg crossed over her right, her left buttock lifted slightly off the seat. I sat next to my mother, as far forward on the seat as was possible without falling off, my hands gripping the handle on the dashboard and my nose pressed up against the windscreen. Oh, the good old days before seatbelts were invented. Such fun times.
On the night of the circus, like everyone, we parked in a paddock nearby. It was a stormy night and during the show it poured with rain. Returning to the paddock afterwards we were confronted with a sea of sunken vehicles, every one of them bogged knee-deep in mud. After a few attempts involving wheels spinning and mud flying and fathers cursing and children crying and mothers being sensible, everyone gave up and walked home.
Except for us. ‘A man can’t leave the van here. I’ve got black puddings to deliver first thing in the morning.’
And so, like a modern-day superhero, my father told his women to wait in the van while he went back to the circus to get a shovel.
It was dark and wet and lonely as we sat in that paddock in total silence, until my mother muttered, ‘Oh my godfathers.’ I followed her gaze and saw my father marching towards us. He didn’t have a shovel.
He had an elephant.
A circus hand instructed the elephant to wrap its trunk around the front bumper bar. Given our seating arrangements and the fact that combi vans have no front engine, this meant I was now quite literally eyeball to eyeball with the elephant. Slowly it heaved us up and up and up, sucking the van out of the mud until we were high in the air. And then, moving backwards, it dragged us across the paddock and gently de
posited us onto dry land.
My father duly thanked the elephant and its trainer, and we drove home in silence apart from when my father said, ‘Good night, hey, Mother?’
My mother rolled her eyes and said, ‘Not bad.’
* * *
My mother not only took vicarious pleasure in my father’s extrovert behaviour; she sometimes encouraged it outright: after all, it was Marg who made Russ his very own clown suit. She created it in secret and gave it to him for Christmas one year. Even more remarkable was that my father used to wear it—often. (And yes, the fact that John was a clown when I first met him, albeit a professional one, has not escaped me.)
Dad’s clown suit, designed and lovingly stitched by Mum, was your classic multicoloured, patchwork number with large pom-pom buttons, a ruffled collar and a cone-shaped hat that stayed on his head courtesy of elastic under the chin. He had clown make-up that he applied in a rather, shall we say, free and easy, intuitive manner, never having attended a make-up class in his life.
The clown suit was made more noteworthy by the fact that my father wasn’t a clown. What I mean is, my father had no clowning skills whatsoever: he couldn’t juggle or play an instrument or do anything that in any way resembled a clowning activity. All he had going for him was a general joie de vivre and a complete lack of inhibition, especially after a few drinks. My mother enjoyed my father being a clown—mostly. She sometimes even laughed, and from her small but evident smile it was obvious she appreciated all the happiness my father’s poorly performed but well-intentioned, usually alcohol-influenced, clown antics brought to any event.
Dad’s behaviour was considered, if not exactly normal, completely predictable in my extended family, and in fact it wasn’t until Dad appeared in his clown suit at my sixteenth birthday party and Glenn D, leader of the Burra Boys, who joy of joys had chosen my party to gatecrash, said to me, ‘Who the fuck is that mental case?’ that it occurred to me that perhaps my father’s behaviour was a little odd.
My mother didn’t enjoy my father being a clown at RSL picnics; nor did his daughters. All of us, in the end, refused to go. We couldn’t take it any more—it was way too distressing to see such a beautiful, well-meaning man being pummelled and kicked and dragged to the ground, his clown suit torn to shreds, by feral kids whose parents were too pissed to notice or care that their darling child was killing Mr Clown.
Russ Scott at Watsonia RSL picnic wearing the clown suit made by Marg
Sometimes my mother and father worked as a double act; it was a seamless performance. It required my father to pretend to be a doctor. When Mum was doing night shift at the hospital on her own, a common event in those days, and a patient fell out of bed or became distressed and needed restraining, she always called on Dad to help. Without hesitation, he would dramatically throw on his white smallgoods jacket, conveniently covered in blood stains, and race across the road, whereupon Mum would exclaim, ‘Good of you to get here so quickly, Dr Scott.’
‘Always a pleasure, Nurse.’
Together, they would carefully get the patient back into bed, my dad offering comforting words of reassurance, more often than not getting the patient to smile and comment, ‘What a lovely doctor.’
‘Yes, isn’t he?’ Mum would agree.
* * *
Things weren’t quite so harmonious when it came to religion. In case it’s not already obvious, my mother was an extremely conservative woman and accordingly insisted my sister and I be brought up as strict Catholics. Nothing unusual about that, except that neither of our parents were Catholic. Dad had no religion, and Mum always referred to herself as a Catholic but never went to church.
Actually, I exaggerate. When my sister and I made our first communion and confirmation, Mum was in attendance.
My first communion—if you look closely you’ll notice a handkerchief clenched between my praying hands
My mother was brought up in a strict Catholic family in a small country town, and while it was one thing for her to reach adulthood and turn her back on religion, when it came to her daughters they had to be Catholic, no two ways about it. I guess she was covering her bases, worried that if we died and went to hell it would be her fault for not raising us Catholic, and that responsibility was too much for any mother to bear.
Uncharacteristically, my father argued with my mother about this. He had no choice. There was a principle at stake, although it had nothing to do with religion. Then again, come to think of it, it had everything to do with religion: it was all about Australian Rules football.
As fortune, or rather misfortune, would have it, on the very same day my mother enrolled my sister at St Mary’s Catholic School, my father arrived home and announced he had been elected secretary of the Heidelberg West Football Club. What has to be understood is that for my father this was akin to becoming prime minister of Australia. He could not have been more honoured or proud or emotional. It was a lifetime dream come true.
‘Over my dead body.’ That was all my mother had to say about the matter.
‘Well, Marg, if I can’t be secretary of the Heidelberg West Football Club then the girls can’t be Catholic.’ That was how much being secretary of the footy club meant to my dad—he dared to defy my mother (a rare and memorable event if ever there was one)—and without further ado he marched my sister down to the state school and enrolled her there.
This was war.
Marg versus Russ.
Wife versus husband.
Catholic dogs versus state-school frogs.
Long story short, we kids became Catholic and Dad became secretary of the Heidelberg West Football Club, going on to hold every position available, including the presidency. From then on, my father often stood in the lounge room and addressed his beloved boys from the footy club, who were famous for being thrashed by a phenomenal number of points, week after week. The fact that there were never any footballers in our lounge room in no way diminished my father’s moving and passionate oration, at times pleading, at times motivating, at times even crying, but always building to the same passionate climax: ‘All a man asks is that you do your bloody best, and a man wouldn’t be surprised if you take home the flag this year.’
Sometimes Mum would be sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea with a neighbour when Dad delivered one of these speeches.
‘Who is Russ talking to, Marg?’
‘No-one,’ was all she ever said.
* * *
My dad’s extended family wasn’t exactly ordinary, either. And yet Mum loved them almost as much as she loved Dad. She often used to talk about how lucky she was to be part of such a great family. She adored his father, my Grandpa Scott, and despite being so famously undemonstrative she would sometimes sit on Grandpa’s knee and cuddle him. My dad was the eldest of nine—five boys, four girls. They grew up in a small working-class home in Heidelberg West, and extended-family gatherings were regular events. My mother often took charge of organising these, including the big doozy on Christmas Day, which was regularly held in our aluminium garage, with trestle tables and extra chairs borrowed from the footy club.
On such occasions Aunty Dot, who’d had breast cancer and subsequently a mastectomy, often popped her false breast on top of her head, the best part being that she never referred to it.
Uncle Doug wore milk-bottle-bottomed glasses that magnified his already large eyes to the size of Mr Magoo’s. Every time I said hello to him he’d peer at me through his thick glasses and say, ‘Do I know you?’
Uncle Len’s specialty was to announce, ‘I was at the doctor’s last week …’ and then away he would go, hooking us into his story. Twenty minutes later, as the story reached its climax, we would groan with the realisation that this was not a personal story at all but just a reworking of a classic joke with a suitably anticlimactic cornball punchline.
Uncle Frank was a milkman who on the side sold Avon products and enjoyed knitting, cable-stitch jumpers being his specialty. Unlike his brothers, who could drink an
d drink and get funnier and funnier, Uncle Frank only had to have one glass before bursting into tears—of happiness or sadness. Either way his jowls wobbled with the emotion.
At some point, usually after a liberal amount of beer had been consumed, the five brothers—Russ, Doug, Frank, Len and Ken—would perform a medley of tunes, always beginning with ‘Popeye the sailor man’. As accompaniment, Uncle Doug would lift his foot dramatically onto a chair and proceed to roll up his trouser leg, revealing a skinny, pale-white calf muscle. He’d then blow on his fingers, rub his hands together, shake them out, and, with a good deal of flourishing, commence to play his calf muscle like a double bass. Doug would also play our Persian cat, Fluffy, by holding her backwards under his armpit and blowing into the end of her tail.
Uncle Ken, the youngest brother, always brought the house down with his rendition of a Canadian song called ‘Mule train’. He used to accompany himself by bashing himself over the head with a scone tray to create the sound of a whip cracking. By the time he reached the final chorus he would be marching up and down on the spot, singing his heart out, continually hitting himself with the tray until blood streamed down his face.
These Scott-family gatherings were where I saw Mum at her happiest, obviously revelling in belonging to such a funfilled family. The boisterous clan allowed her to keep her head down and remain focussed on baking and serving her homemade sausage rolls, enjoying the antics without having to get too involved herself.
* * *
Marg and Russ Scott, 1969
My mother’s family was a different story. There was always mystery surrounding them—I could never quite figure out how they all fitted together. As a child what I did know was that my mother was the youngest of four children. Her siblings, Bill, Ted and May, were much older than her; in fact, as a child my mother had lived with May and her husband, Jim, and their four children until she left at eighteen to go to the big smoke and join the army. I’d always assumed the reason my mother lived with her big sister was because she (and consequently May and her two older brothers) were orphans. But I’d never really bothered to wonder about my mother’s living arrangements; that was just how they were.