Despite my early optimism, I didn’t see much of cousin Valda and I learned nothing about her parents or how she was related to me. Although Valda had brown skin, her hair was straight, so she wasn’t in the Islander line of the dorm. As well as the section for islanders, there were separate areas for Aborigines, whites and others. I didn’t know what an Islander was, so it didn’t upset me for us to be where we were, or perhaps it was just that there were plenty of more urgent things to be upset about.
Overall, I was quite happy at the orphanage. It was a wonderful change from being the oldest and always carrying the responsibility at home. When other children called us names, such as ‘abos’, ‘boongs’, ‘black gins’ and ‘niggers’, the bigger girls took them on and fought them.
In the yard was a deep well with a handpump from which I loved to pump clear water that was always cold, and even though an occasional small green frog also came hurtling up with it, the water was the nicest I ever tasted. Other girls screamed and ran when the frogs came up, but I thought their colour was wonderful, and I’d carry them around in my pockets or in the front of my dress until some nun, attracted by girls carrying on and pointing at me, made me take them out.
The food was another high point for me. Although we were never actually starving at home and Mum was resourceful in the kitchen, we didn’t have a lot of food. Mum would buy one apple or orange every day and cut it into four so that we’d each have a small piece for the vitamins it contained, and whatever she cooked we were obliged to eat. At the orphanage there was some small degree of choice, and while many of the other girls at my table whinged endlessly, I found the trays stacked high with thick slabs of freshly baked and crusty bread particularly inviting. Another favourite of mine was the very thick porridge that was served each morning, grown in the fields and ground up on the premises, and full of delicious little lumps to crunch. We’d swap food amongst ourselves and I often got through four or more bowls of porridge, while other girls ate my toast or bacon and eggs.
The deep distress of girls who felt themselves abandoned was upsetting to me, and there were others who teased them frightfully and cruelly about it. Whereas in my school in Townsville there was sometimes a bit of a fracas about the ownership of something, a toy or book perhaps, here there was relentless friction about whether or not one was loved or wanted. Sometimes I would hear them say, ‘Your mother doesn’t want you. You’re here forever!’ and the reply, ‘Your mother doesn’t want you either! No one in your family wants you. That’s why you’re here too!’ Occasionally one of these nasty girls would direct their opening remark to me and Dellie. I’d take Dellie’s hand and walk away with my head up boldly, but Dellie would always burst into tears. I never bothered to get into a fight about it, bolstered, no doubt, by the regular letters Mum sent us which continued to tell us she was still alive and that she’d be back for us.
Out of the blue, Aunty Glad turned up one day to collect us. Even Dellie was pleased to see her, though she showed it by bursting into tears. A taxi drew up outside, causing a great deal of excitement amongst all the girls because it wasn’t a regular visiting day—which were often sad days anyway, because there were generally few visitors. When we all crowded up to the window of the classroom to peer through the slats to see who it was, I recognised Aunty Gladdie immediately. We were told to sit back at our desks and work, but my stomach began to churn and I couldn’t settle down. At last, an older girl came running to tell the teacher to release me, and we both went to fetch Dellie.
We waited with Aunty Glad in the nun’s parlour while our suitcase and the few items from our lockers were brought over and packed in front of us. I was so excited I forgot to mention some other things we had spread around elsewhere, such as our canvas games shoes which were stored in the recreation hall. When I remembered them in the taxi on the way back into Rockhampton, Aunty Glad said not to worry, Mum would buy us some more.
I recall kneeling on the back seat of that taxi and looking through the rear window at the orphanage on the hill, surrounded by neat fields as it became smaller and smaller while we drove to the main road. I was torn between leaving my relatively carefree existence there and my desire to return to Mum and home. Aunty Glad had brought us each a package of embroidered boxed handkerchiefs edged with lace and a colourful little bracelet of beads to wear, and she had colouring books and pencils to keep us entertained during our long train ride home. I played with mine but Dellie looked out the window whenever she was awake, and she didn’t seem to believe that we were going home until the train pulled up in Townsville. When she saw Mum waiting on the platform to meet us, she flung herself into her arms and cried some more.
Back at school, I was briefly the subject of rough teasing for having spent time in the orphanage. How my classmates learned about it, I’ve no idea. However, the fact that Dellie and I were from a poor family quickly took ascendancy in their taunts, as Catholic children, like others, are cruel. Sister de Salles was discreet about the things she gathered to give Mum—uniforms, hats and school insignia hatbands, sports uniforms—but still there were turned-up noses at the lunches we brought from home.
I was aware on some level that I was different from other children in a more basic way than just our clothes and what was in our lunch boxes, but it was a very low-level awareness. Children at our school were discouraged from name calling and punished if they were heard to do so. We were protected from children who attended the state school across the road from ours, who may have been inclined to be rude, by the presence of Mum who came in these early years to pick us up on her bike each day. There were no incidents on a daily basis and I was lulled into a false sense of security that my identity was the same as the other children around me. That was short lived.
One day some visitors came to the school, and we pupils were gathered in a circle to welcome them. After the greeting one woman in their party spoke very loudly, her eyes lighting up. ‘How nice. Thank you. And who is that lovely little coloured girl?’ she asked of the sister in charge of our class.
I looked around to see who she was talking about, and saw a sea of white faces, because one doesn’t see one’s own face in a crowd. Then I realised they were all looking at me. It was me she was talking about in that false tone of voice. Me, who was so different from the others that I could be picked out the minute anyone came through the door!
It was a revelatory moment and one which I’ve never forgotten. No matter that I wore the same uniform, did the same schoolwork, drank the same water and ate the same food, I was different and would always be different. In that flash of awareness, I realised that in my lifetime people would always see my colour first, no matter how good I was or how hard I worked, and that they’d attribute to me whatever feelings they had about people of colour.
Not long after this, Mum began waiting at the top of the first hill for us after school instead of coming all the way to the school gates. She’d watch as Dellie and I walked up the hill, to make sure we stayed on the dirt edge and didn’t go on the road. Then she began waiting at Trembath’s corner, and we’d have to cross two roads to meet her; and not long after she’d wait at our front gate. I was now fully in charge of our safety on the way to and from school. As it was a long way and often very hot in the mid-afternoon sun, Mum had been in the habit of buying us an icy-pole which cost a penny each at Hoopers’ grocery store, which was a little over halfway home. She then made an arrangement with Mr Hooper to give us our icy-poles each day and put it in a book, and she’d pay at the end of the week.
There were periods when this system worked well, with Mum occasionally swooping down at unexpected places along the route to make sure we were sticking to all her rules. I didn’t like us coming home alone, initially because we were often confronted by big dogs, which my sisters didn’t mind much but I did. When I saw any dogs ahead of us on the road, I’d lead the way around the block to avoid them, and risk us all getting into trouble for being late. Mum told me to carry a big stick but it wa
sn’t always easy to find one. As well, I was worried that any dog which was close enough to hit with a stick was already close enough to get me. I began loading my pockets up with stones, and leaving little piles of stones conveniently placed at handy spots along the way.
High on the hill behind the cathedral was the Townsville Migrant Hostel, where mainly English migrants were accommodated when they arrived. Children from the hostel went to the state school and, until they grew familiar with the area, they took very different roads from us. It wasn’t long, however, before they worked out that the way we walked was a shorter and less arduous route.
Often a group of these migrant children walked home together, and they took delight in calling us names. I’d lurk around the mango trees near our school until I saw them walking across the road at the top of the hill, because I always wanted them ahead of me so I could keep an eye on what they were doing. From behind, I could also regulate the distance between us because they were unlikely to run back along streets they had already negotiated. But when they dawdled it often made me and Dellie arrive home late from school, and then we were severely chastised.
Eventually, Leonie joined us, having completed her kindy and moved to St Joseph’s primary. So there were three of us—against up to a dozen of the migrant children. I had two younger children in my care, one of whom had much shorter legs and was not keen to run even when trouble seemed imminent. I was nine, Dellie seven, and Leonie, five years old.
Then a mini war broke out. The migrant children were all very pale and often wore big cotton bonnets and straw hats to protect themselves from the sun. State school children wore ordinary day clothes to school, while Catholic school children wore navy uniforms and navy felt hats, so there was already a degree of rivalry between us on that basis. Most Catholic school children lived in the opposite directions to us, in North Ward or Belgian Gardens, and those whose parents didn’t pick them up by car went home on the school bus or walked along the Strand. No bus came our way. Our colour added an additional dimension, as did the proximity of our house to where the migrant kids lived.
Migrant kids, joined by a handful of other state school kids, who lived more or less in our direction, began to wait at the top of the hill, calling us names and saying we were dirty, and arming themselves with stones to rain down on us. They were a raggedy band of ruffians, often with runny sores on their arms and legs from mosquito bites, against which they had no immunity. What they had in their favour was numbers.
When we reached the sanctuary of our front door, they’d sometimes come to the fence which overlooked our house and throw stones at our windows and onto our roof. If Mum came out, they’d scarper. From time to time, when she wasn’t there, they’d yell abuse. ‘We were brought over here to civilise you natives,’ they’d scream, ‘but you’re just dirty black gins who don’t deserve to live.’ When I tried to complain to Mum and have her do something, she’d give me one of her three main lectures: ignore them, they’re just stupid; turn the other cheek; and, this’ll toughen you up for the real world.
My sisters were content to let me keep the roads safe for them and it was hard to get them to run whenever it was necessary, much less fight. Sometimes these altercations would increase because I wasn’t prepared to accept insults. I’d tear up and threaten to push their words back down their throats. Although fist fights were rare, stoning us was common.
Mum was fond of relating an incident that occurred around then. Leonie wandered into the house first, and when she was followed at a distance by Dellie, Mum became concerned and asked Dellie where I was. Dellie, although bigger than me, answered disinterestedly, ‘She’s fighting. They’re throwing stones at her again.’
Mum was horrified and asked Dellie why she wasn’t back there helping me. ‘Oh, she’s winning,’ came her reply.
I didn’t always win, but I was always afraid. Several times, well-aimed shots found their mark and I’d walk into the house with blood running down my face and clothes. Once, boys from a family named Ford who lived nearby stoned me and split my head open so badly I had to be rushed to hospital. Mum stormed over to their house, abused their mother and threatened that the next time they spoke a word to any of her children, she’d be back to cut their tongues out! Neither Mum nor I received any apology from their mother.
Another person who stoned me has since become a well-known writer for a Sydney newspaper. His mother, who became a friend and mentor to me when I was a young woman, was unaware of what he used to get up to on his way home from school, and would have been deeply distressed if I’d ever told her when I had the opportunity to do so. He was years older than me, so these fights were by no means equal even when they were one on one, which was rare.
The school began to let us out a few minutes early so that we could be up the hill and away before the state school children were released from their classes. Sometimes those minutes were too few, and I’d look around to see a crowd of children racing towards me. I’d quickly arm myself with stones or whatever I could pick up and tell my sisters to scoot along ahead of me. I’d walk backwards while they ran ahead, skittering my stones along the ground to keep our pursuers jumping so they’d have to slow down and my sisters could make good their escape. It was a strange way to grow up.
4
Two girls, Leila and Desma, spent so much time living with us that Mum tried to convince us they were our ‘sisters’ and have us treat them as such. Both were much older than me, and Desma was a few years older than Leila. Mum said they were orphans, but, although I believe they may have spent periods in orphanages and homes, Leila at least had a father who was there for her some of the time.
Leila’s mother, or so Mum told Aunty Glad and me, had been a very beautiful woman who sold cosmetics and taught women how to use them. She had committed suicide when Leila was a little girl and living with her. Once, when she’d been drinking, she’d sent her small daughter to fetch Lysol from the bathroom and then drank it, dying a terrible and painful death in front of her child. Mum told me this to explain Leila’s often bizarre behaviour. Leila always thought of herself as worthless, and that she’d poisoned her mother. A lot of things she did around me reflected these feelings.
Her father was a Finnish seaman who came to Townsville several times a year. His name was Mr Laaksonen; we called him Laaka. He lived at Mrs Sullivan’s house when he was in town, and was a hard worker and a good friend to Mum.
Mum described Desma as ‘a child nobody wanted’, but whether she was a true orphan or not, I have no idea. Neither girl was at our house all the time as they were in and out of other places. Many years later, one betrayed me and the other betrayed herself.
I don’t recall Desma ever going to school with us, but Leila did so occasionally. She was a ‘wild child’ and showed us how to steal bottles of softdrink from Cobbs’ factory which was on our way home. The bottles were stacked in boxes out in the factory yard in the sun and Leila told us we had to be careful because hot softdrink bottles explode easily. She showed me how she popped the caps on her teeth, a trick I never mastered, and had me scour the countryside looking for empty bottles to return to the factory for the cash refund, which she then spent on little packets of Ardath and Craven A cigarettes. I didn’t mind that she kept most of the money because, being older and taller, while she was with us, the migrant hostel children didn’t bother us.
As suddenly as she would appear, she’d disappear again, and there’d be whispered conferences between the adults about her and where she’d gone this time. Once, she spent a period at a home for wayward children in Brisbane. Mum kept threatening she’d send me there too, if she caught me going into the softdrink factory or being late home from school.
Dessie (Desma) and Leila, being older, were allowed privileges, such as wearing lipstick and shaving their legs, which I was not permitted. They also had boyfriends and talked and giggled a lot about them, and it made me feel very adult to be included occasionally in their conversations. In the main, I didn�
��t understand what they were talking about and they’d banish me when I asked them to explain their jokes. They’d say I was ‘such a baby’ and send me off crying.
I only recall one of their boyfriends, a young man called Mervyn, who went to China on a ship and brought us back gifts. Mum received a beautiful china bottle of ginger in honey, which she kept for a long time, nibbling bits from it and sometimes sharing a few tastes with me. Then she treasured the empty bottle for its beauty and kept it on her dressing table. Mervyn told us about seamen from his ship finding dead bodies floating in a river in China. The crew was scandalised because when their captain got in touch with the local authorities he was asked if the bodies were of Asian or European appearance. When he replied that they were Asian, he was told to put them back in the river. Mervyn was one of the men who had to carry out that order, and he’d been very upset by the experience.
The opposite of today’s fashions, the older girls became, the longer they were allowed to wear their skirts. Dellie and I were stuck with dresses that came to the middle of our knees, while Leila and Desma were allowed to wear theirs to a length which just showed a flash of ankle. They’d waltz around the house with their skirts swinging, singing pop tunes and teaching them to us. ‘I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts’ and ‘Yaba Dabba Dabba’ were great favourites, and the expression they favoured most for styles, and men, which met their approval was ‘Hubba hubba’.
Snake Cradle Page 5