The Fence-Painting Fortnight of Destiny: A memoir

by Meshel Laurie

  I could fit inside the lines of that bunny rabbit. It was really coming together, and it was lush.

  ‘I’m just watching Michelle Laurie being selfish and using up all the cotton wool balls after she was told to use one!’ the teacher crowed in her imperious teacher’s voice from the other side of the room. I’d been in a creative trance, but snapped out of it upon hearing my name, to find everyone looking at me like I’d killed a rabbit. I’ll never forget the look on the other kids’ faces. They were scared. I guess we all knew our mum’s routines in these situations, but this lady was an unknown to us—who knew what she was capable of when dealing with someone naughty?

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t know,’ I lied, hoping she’d assume I was stupid and let it go. The truth was I did it because it made sense to me, and her idea did not. There were plenty of cotton wool balls, and I wasn’t going to set out to make a dumb-looking rabbit. What would’ve been the point of that?

  She marched over and took the supplies away, but let me keep the rabbit. It was mostly covered in tightly packed cotton wool, but had one whole leg exposed like it was recovering from some kind of surgical procedure. It was hideous and terribly upsetting—but then I saw the ones the other kids had done, stretching one cotton ball across the page as instructed. They looked like the musings of mindless babies! At least I’d had a go at preserving the integrity of the piece, which I found deeply comforting.

  As I was developing my own personal code of ethics in preschool, I was also embarking on a long and pathetic journey of a very particular form of female friendships. Sadly, the kind of friendships I’m talking about are so common that the women involved in them now have their own pithy name: ‘frenemies’.

  Urban Dictionary defines a frenemy as ‘Someone who is both friend and enemy, a relationship that is both mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive, fraught with risk and mistrust.’ Gross, isn’t it? It’s one of those things straight men don’t understand about women, like why we want to cry sometimes and why we put little bins in the bathroom.

  I can’t describe what it was about Leticia that made me want to be her friend so badly. She was pretty, with long thick hair that her mum knew how to do cool tricks with. She had nice clothes and already knew a few kids at preschool on day one. I guess that gave her confidence, and that’s what drew me to her. But she was a bitchy little kid. Talking endlessly about her birthday party, telling girls they were invited in front of other girls who weren’t, then revoking invitations willy-nilly. She certainly kept us on our toes. Mum said her parents were rich, and that elevated her in my mind, and in Mum’s too, I think.

  I seem to recall I did crack an invitation in the end. I definitely attended a party at her place somewhere along the line, because the two-storey brick home with the swimming pool stands clearly in my memory today. My mum always calls nice houses ‘homes’, by the way. We lived in a house, but Leticia definitely resided in a home.

  The fact that I was included in the small number of girls at Leticia’s party didn’t make me any more confident in her company, because the fundamental function of the frenemy is to keep you nervous about your social status at all times. You know the way you bitch together about other girls in your clique, so you know that when you’re not around you are the topic of conversation. You know they’re laughing behind your back about anything they can think of, and sharing any secrets you may stupidly have divulged. When you’re not there, they actually hate you.

  I know it sounds like pretty sophisticated stuff for five-year-olds but believe me, it’s innate. Rachel Simmons wrote an excellent book called Odd Girl Out about the way girls bully each other. She points out that girls bully very differently to the way boys do, observing that rather than physical aggression, girls employ ‘relational aggression’—that is, they use relationships to control and intimidate others. It begins with, ‘Give me that toy or I won’t be your friend anymore’, grows into kicking girls out of the group for no particular reason, and can end up with grown women taking pleasure in the failures of their ‘best friends’—and even contributing to them given half a chance.

  After a couple of years following Leticia around, I took up with a new bestie named Marnie. She was different to Leticia in a lot of ways, but together we skipped in the same direction.

  Marnie was the first person I ever knew whose parents were divorced. We know now that her parents were at the coalface of cultural upheaval, but back then, being a single mum was still rare and undignified.

  Marnie’s mum Rhonda had been forced to move her kids into commission housing. I was under the impression that people ‘resorted’ to commission housing, and I have to say, my husband grew up in commission houses in Horsham, Victoria, and doesn’t have fond memories of the experience at all. However, I loved spending time at Marnie’s place. Her neighbourhood had a real community feel about it. All the houses were identical, all had kids spilling out of them all day long, and all were ruled by single mums—although there were always a few ‘uncles’ around the place whom we were not to mention if anyone from the Department of Housing showed up.

  Directly across the road from Marnie’s lived a lady called Leonie, who was always in her dressing gown and slippers, and always running out of coffee. She was an Aboriginal lady, and looking back I reckon she was responsible for the good vibes that surrounded that street. If anyone had a problem, they went over and asked Leonie. If anyone was lonely and needed a chat, they grabbed a tin of coffee and went over to see Leonie. If anyone needed a mattress for visitors, they knew to ask Leonie. She was always laughing, and shuffling back and forth across the street in her dressing gown and slippers, and her door was always open to the neighbourhood kids and me. I got the impression that Leonie felt just fine about living in commission housing. I thought she was magic.

  In the three or four years Marnie and I were best friends, I never once clapped eyes on her dad. There was some vague story about him living at the Gold Coast, but she didn’t spend her school holidays with him or anything like that. He did send excellent gifts, like Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and a Commodore 64 computer, neither of which my parents could afford, convincing me that having your parents break up was mostly advantageous. He visited Marnie once in Toowoomba, staying a few hours and leaving behind a gift that made her mum furious: a pet rabbit. This stunning animal vindicated my preschool purism. His white coat was as soft as fairytale clouds, his eyes were perfect little black marbles that glistened wet like waterfall stones. He twitched his little nose just like Bugs Bunny. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Keeping pet rabbits is illegal in Queensland; they reckon domestic rabbits will get out and breed and cause agricultural destruction. Of course pet rabbits are legally kept just across its borders, and Queensland is lousy with wild hares. It’s nonsensical, but there you are. That thoughtless gift put Rhonda in a terrible predicament. She faced a fine of $30,000 and the loss of her home if the department found out about that rabbit. But she didn’t have the heart to take it away from Marnie, who received so little acknowledgment from her old man, so it became another secret the neighbourhood kept from the guys with clipboards.

  Every now and then, without warning, Marnie would ignore me. I’d seek her out the minute I arrived at school as normal, but she’d stare blankly at me, roll her eyes and turn away. We had another friend called Vicki, and the two of them would make a big show of walking off together, whispering behind their hands and looking at me. It was devastating. I’d follow them around for days, begging to know what I’d done wrong so I could make amends, but they wouldn’t budge until all of a sudden, maybe two days later, when they’d start speaking to me again and refuse to discuss the issue. I was always so grateful to be allowed back in that I never pushed for answers.

  I opted out of that relationship briefly in Grade 5 when a new girl called Sonia showed up at school. She was Aboriginal, and her mum reminded me of Leonie, although I didn’t see
her that much because I wasn’t allowed to go to her place. My friendship with Sonia made my family nervous. In the year or so that she was at my school, her family moved house three times. Her mother never rang my mum to introduce herself, even though Sonia slept over at our house most weekends and attended all family functions. That struck Mum as irresponsible parenting. ‘We could be murderers for all she knows!’ Mum would say over and over again. One time, Sonia just came home from school with me in the middle of the week and asked if she could stay over—on a school night! It blew Mum’s mind.

  Mum had lots of reasons as to why I couldn’t stay over at Sonia’s, but I reckoned I knew the real one. Although I heard every grown-up I knew speak confidently about what Aboriginal people were all about, I was the first person I knew to have an Aboriginal friend.

  My family members described Sonia variously and in somewhat surprised tones as polite, kind, respectful and a charming guest, which in any other child would’ve been seen as a positive reflection on her parents, yet my parents were afraid to let me visit her home the way I visited the homes of other kids from school. Now I realise her mum didn’t behave in a way they expected her to behave; she didn’t follow the script they were following. It scared them, and made them wonder how else Sonia’s mum’s values differed from their own.

  As for Sonia’s upbringing, Aboriginal children—and children from a great many other indigenous cultures besides—are often afforded more autonomy than I was as a child. I’ve seen six-year-olds slaving over an open fire, preparing the family meal in Cambodia—I wasn’t even allowed to pour milk on my own cereal at the age of six!

  I begged for years to be allowed to walk myself to school; Sonia did it every day, barefoot with her brothers. Sonia didn’t even have to go to school if she didn’t want to, it was entirely up to her, but she did make it there most days, on time, even in the rain (when she might wear her brother’s shoes). Sonia made her own lunch every day, while Mum placed my perfectly packed lunchbox into my bag for me and I still managed to leave it in the car occasionally.

  Was Sonia put at risk by her mum’s hands-off approach? You could look at it that way. You could also consider the amount of risk there turned out to be in hand-delivering compliant children to the Catholic education system, or the Scouts, or any other situation where some kids paid a high price for their dependence on the leadership of grown-ups. ‘I hope the Russians love their children too’, Sting was crooning at the time, in an attempt to rehumanise ‘the enemy’ in our Western eyes. Did Sonia’s mum love her as much as my mum loved me? Of course she did. We mums are all doing the best we know how to do, and to her credit, Sonia was a kind and peaceful little girl.

  Sonia may well have been the best friend I ever had, because in her company I felt relaxed. Ask yourself how relaxed you feel in the company of your ‘friends’. You might be unpleasantly surprised.

  One day Sonia didn’t come to school. The days she didn’t were always very long days for me because I missed her terribly. One day turned into two, and three—and then a whole week went by, which was most unusual for Sonia. They didn’t have a phone at her house, so I had no way of getting in touch with her. Somehow, I can’t remember exactly how, I got the message that Sonia had moved again, and wasn’t coming back. Oh God, the misery. I pined for her for years. One of the first things I did upon gaining internet access some fifteen years later was google her name. Nothing. I did it again and again over the years until finally, in 2010, I got a hit. It was a newspaper article from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. There was a photo with the article, and there they were, her unmistakable gentle brown eyes looking back at me. I’ve never tried to get in touch with her—she was so sensible, I think she’d think I was weird for still thinking about a friendship from so long ago. I was very happy to see her face again though, I’m not gonna lie.

  Back in Grade 5 there was nothing else for it but to resume my friendship with Marnie and Vicki, and all the little games that went along with it. I was sadder than ever and wondered if I’d ever have a friend I could trust not to hate me occasionally, or leave me suddenly. Embarrassingly, it was a question I’d keep asking myself well into my adulthood.

  ST SAVIOUR’S

  As you are by now no doubt aware, my childhood mind was fertile ground for the romantic imagery of my mother’s stories. Most of her material was set in a world that didn’t exist anymore, populated by characters long since expired, played out in my mind’s eye in black and white, or sepia tones. The one notable exception was her beloved school, St Saviour’s. She referred to it with typical inappropriate grandeur as her Alma Mater.

  St Saviour’s College sits at the top end of Toowoomba’s main drag, so we passed it often in the car—and every time we did, Mum reminded me that it was my destiny. I was terrified because I assumed that once inside, I’d be caned, ear-clipped, and accused of shameless sluttery, as she had been in all her stories about the establishment. Although most of her memories seemed to centre around some kind of violence or humiliation at the hands of the ironically named Sisters of Mercy, she had a kind of wistful reverence for the place that I never understood. I suppose it was the first place she was allowed to really settle into—and in a funny way, maybe adults who can be relied upon for cruelty are more comforting than adults who can’t be relied upon at all.

  All I knew was that I was expected to tough it out as she had done. Wayward children on American TV shows were threatened with military school; I was threatened with St Saviour’s, though there was no avoiding it in my case. It was coming, it was going to whip me into shape, and resistance was not only futile, but cane-able!

  As per the deal made with my grandparents before my birth, I was not to enter the Catholic education system until high school. However, Mum received a serendipitous bonus upon my grandfather’s death—namely that no one gave a fig about the deal anymore, and she was free to deliver us without delay to the nuns lurking inside the imposing campus on the hill.

  I was entering Year 7 by that stage, which is the last year of primary school in Queensland. I pleaded with Mum to let me see out primary school with my friends, but to no avail. The end of heathen schooling was in sight, and she was not delaying it for anything, or anyone.

  We were proudly marched into Hannas department store down town, to be fitted for the many pieces that made up our new uniforms. Unlike good old Harristown Primary, where the uniform was rarely seen and shoes were considered optional, St Saviour’s had a long list of compulsory apparel—completely non-negotiable of course. At Harristown, my friends and I had taken great pleasure in expressing our burgeoning individuality with clothes and accessories. We used coloured spray paint and feather clips in our hair, swapped clothes and pierced each other’s ears with safety pins. Those of us who had sneakers decorated them with smelly pens and stickers. It was the ’80s and we were inspired by Cyndi Lauper, Madonna and Boy George. Our lunch hours were taken up with swapping Smash Hits posters and watching the boys breakdance on a huge piece of cardboard that had at one time housed a new fridge.

  As I stood in the hushed formality of Hannas, with Mum beaming next to me and the lady laying my new wardrobe out on the counter, I realised there would be no room for any of that at St Saviour’s. There were no boys for one thing. Only girls, and every girl had to do her best to look exactly the same as every other. Everyone had to wear the same shapeless green dress, every day, with the same green socks and the same brown shoes. The same green ribbon was snipped from a large spool for my sister and me, and the same straw hats were bought to perch atop our heads. A shapeless red ‘sports’ dress was purchased for each of us, with regulation red bloomers to wear underneath. It was to be worn one day a week, when everyone else wore it too, and never to be worn on any other day. It was to be accompanied by simple white sandshoes that were as plain as arrowroot biscuits, and were never to be tampered with. They were sold with bottles of white paint with which to return them to their uniformity after every weekly wear. Oh God. What wou
ld Boy George do in this situation?

  As an adult, I try very hard not to stress about the future. Even as a situation is unfolding before me that seems quite grim or irritating, I keep telling myself that I’ll be able to deal with it somehow. I’ll skew it to my liking, or I’ll find a way out of it, but I didn’t know I could do either of those things at the age of eleven. I felt completely lost in that shop on that day, like I was being sucked into a disciplinary Death Star, with a nun at the helm instead of Darth Vader, and Mum beside me looking happier than I’d ever seen her.

  As those last Christmas holidays before Doomsday lingered on, I soaked up my colourful best friends from Harristown. We had many sombre sleepovers, and as a mark of respect, they didn’t ignore me once. They went back to school a week earlier than me, which gave Mum a chance to get my hair cut and teach me how to shine shoes. Our first day as students of a Catholic Private School must have been among the proudest of her life. Even though St Saviour’s was at the cheap end of the spectrum, we weren’t charity cases like she had been. We were paid up and proud.

  The reality of St Saviour’s was more shocking than I could ever have imagined. Firstly, there was only one nun in the whole primary school. She was a gentle old lady who wore A-line skirts and cardigans, and was so unobtrusive I can’t even remember her name. The green uniform was uncomfortable and hot, the shoes gave me blisters, but everything seemed kind of the same as my old school, albeit cleaner and with more crucifixes—until lunchtime that is. That’s when I really received my first lesson on being a Catholic schoolgirl.