I didn’t know what awaited me in my life, so I wasn’t prepared to make a commitment like this; one that I didn’t understand anyway. ‘I don’t know,’ I answered.
‘Well, Arthur’s prepared to look after me, and now the police want to put him in jail.’
‘He deserves to go to jail.’
‘I know. And he knows that now, too. He’s promised he won’t ever do it again.’
‘That’s not good enough. I don’t understand why you want to spend the rest of your life with a drunk.’
‘He’s not a drunk. He’s hard working. He’s never missed a day’s work in his life. And that’s for me to decide, anyway.’
‘It’s for me to decide if I want someone punching me up for the rest of my life, and I don’t. No one is ever going to hit me again.’ Mum agreed. ‘And no one is to hit Dellie or Leonie, either.’
‘Yes, he knows that. I’ve told him if he ever so much as lays a hand on any of you kids again, he’s out.’
I looked out at the ocean and remembered Mum running over the hill in the middle of the night carrying me, and now all she was wanting from me was to give Arthur another chance.
What do you want me to do?’ I asked finally.
‘Sign a paper the police will give you saying you’ll drop the charges.’
An uneasy truce came over the house. Arthur didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother him. All the family, except for me, regularly went to watch him referee games. They also went off to watch Dellie competing at athletics carnivals, where she not only won her distance races but also excelled at high and long jumps.
Mum had always made us wear dresses or skirts and blouses, although in summer we were allowed to wear cotton shorts around the house. Jeans were becoming fashionable and I longed to have a pair, so I went without treats and saved my money in order to buy some for myself. I bought black jeans, which were the height of teen-fashion. Because of Mum’s attitude to our wearing pants, however, I’d sometimes carry them out of the house in a bag and change into them further up the road.
The day Mum found them she flew into a rage, carried them at arm’s length in front of her out of the house and down into the backyard, where she immediately lit a fire and burnt them in front of me. She said only tarts wore jeans, and that I’d only wear them over her dead body. Arthur and my sisters stood by and watched. I wept for weeks, and kept praying that I’d hurry and grow up so I could leave home and live my own life. I promised myself that when I was old enough I would listen to whatever music I liked when I liked, and own a whole wardrobe of jeans and slacks and pants. Mum’s idea of how I should live and what I should wear was just so old-fashioned.
I was scheduled to swim in the North Queensland Swimming Carnival and was a certainty in the backstroke events, where I’d been turning in age-record times. Mum said that she would come to watch me, and on the night, she sent me off earlier on my bike to see the events that were on before mine. I suspected she wouldn’t turn up, so instead of going in I went to sit on a cliff overlooking the swimming pool where I could watch both approaches. I could see everything that was going on and could hear the crowds yelling at the race finishes. Mum did not appear. Then I could hear the announcement of my first race, and they kept calling my name over the loudspeakers when I didn’t come out to the starting block. I watched another girl win the race I should have won, and hung around to see her collecting her trophy. When I got home Mum’s voice came out through their bedroom door.
‘Is that you, Roberta? How did you do in your race?’
‘Fine, Mum. Just fine.’
The rift in the relationship between Mum and me was becoming impregnable, and there seemed nothing I could do to change it. I regretted dropping the charges against Arthur because, although our previous relationship had been far from perfect, I had at least felt welcome in my own family. I grew withdrawn and absorbed myself in my swimming and school work. Sister Sebastian became my confidante and told me stories about her life in Ireland before she’d been sent by her order to work in Australia.
Mum’s usual tiredness and her focus on Arthur meant that the needs of us girls were often overlooked. There was always food in the house and we received money for school, but in other ways her attention wasn’t on us.
One afternoon as I was hanging out the washing, a heavy iron crowbar, which we used to impale cane toads which infested our yard, fell onto my foot. The pain was excruciating, but, once I’d got over the worst of it, I continued with the job until it was finished. By nightfall my right toe had become swollen and discoloured, but when I mentioned it to Mum she seemed uninterested.
I could barely get my school shoes on the next morning, and was grateful Mum always bought them one or two sizes too big, to give us ‘growing room’. For the next few weeks I had to limp through my routine of work, school, swimming and errands. The day came when Mum wanted to send me on a message and I bailed up, explaining I was unable to run.
When Mum realised she’d have to go herself she told me to walk along with her. I was to go on to Dr Ward’s surgery and she would join me there. Because my foot had been sore for so long, I imagined that Mum was making me go to the doctor’s now in order to try to call what she thought was my bluff about my reluctance to do her bidding.
She was mightily surprised when Dr Ward told her that the X-ray showed the large joint of my toe had been smashed and was well on its way to knitting, but completely out of alignment. He recommended immediate surgery, to break the toe again and re-set it. I listened to the pros and cons, which included early arthritis if I let it go, but weighed that up against the experiences I’d already had in hospitals and decided against it. On the way home, Mum said she was most annoyed that she’d been embarrassed and made to look like a poor mother who was not interested in her children. I didn’t reply. There were so many unhappy thoughts already swirling in my head.
My trainer had begun to notice how quiet and skittish I’d become around the pool, politely refusing to have my shoulders or calves massaged before races, and sitting by myself between events. I arrived alone and left alone, and, apart from the directions he gave me and my reports on how many laps I’d completed, I didn’t speak to anyone. One Saturday he asked me if I would like to join him for a sandwich at his flat, which was directly over the road, and I declined. The next weekend he said that he had already made the sandwich and that I was to come with him and have it. I’d been warned not to go into any man’s house alone if a woman wasn’t there, so his order caused some conflict in my mind. Sensing this, he said he would leave the front door open and that we’d sit in the front room where any passers-by could see us.
He had created this opportunity to ask me questions about myself and about what he called my ‘unhappiness’. When I didn’t divulge much information, except with sharp and direct answers to his questions, he instead shared some advice—homilies and anecdotes—with me. Some made sense while others went completely over my head.
‘If a person wants to appear clever when they’re asked a question,’ he said, ‘they don’t rush to give an answer, even if the question is quite silly. For instance, if someone asks what colour is the sky. The person who says, “Why, blue of course,” is not the clever fellow. The one who pauses for a minute before answering is the person people will think of as smart—because he or she took the time to give the question their attention.’
By the time we returned to the pool I felt quite warm towards him. The next day he brought along his lunch and a chessboard, and in breaks between the miles of laps he began to teach me the game.
At school I chafed under the rules, many of which I began to regard as ridiculous, such as wearing long black stockings and ties in our sweltering heat. One day I wore short black socks instead, and was sent home to put stockings on. Another day I arrived at school and, looking down, realised I’d forgotten my tie. Our ties were pre-tied and attached to an elastic strip which went under our starched collars. Rather than go all the way home, which would
have made me late for class, another student gave me a navy ribbon which I fashioned into a tie and put on. I was sent home anyway.
A few young people stayed at the boarding house two doors up the hill from our house, and one morning as I was walking to school, a young man pulled up on his motorbike and called out to me.
‘You’re going to St Pat’s? Hop on, I’m going right past there. I’ll give you a lift.’
It was a relief not to have to carry my bag, heavy with books, all the way, and he dropped me off right in front of the school. As I walked up the path, the head teacher, Sister Joan, came out and directed me into her office. She said that if I ever came to school on a motorbike again, I’d be out, and that I was to sweep the classrooms and the exercise hall for two weeks as punishment.
I had never heard of any rule relating to how we were to come to school, so I felt the punishment didn’t fit the crime and resented the fact that I’d fall behind with my swimming training, but I said nothing. Sister Joan was very formidable and it had been she who had insisted that I study Domestic Science. She had also apparently forgotten that I was not to sweep because dust particles often brought on my asthma attacks.
That afternoon, when I was alone, pushing the broom around the classroom, Sister Sebastian appeared and sprinkled water all over the floor to dampen the dust and prevent it from blowing up as I worked. When I finished, she called me to the window and we stood looking out at the sea.
‘I dislike wearing this habit, too,’ she said. ‘It’s not suitable for this climate.’
Sister Sebastian was tall and as thin as a straw, and her shoulders were perpetually hunched. Sometimes, if I stood close to her in the chemistry lab, I could hear her wheezing. ‘The one thing I regret not having had a chance to do before I joined the order,’ she told me conspiratorially, ‘was have a ride on a motorbike. Now I am here for the rest of my life and will never have the opportunity. And, do you know, there are orders now in the south where women can wear shorter habits, and some of them even get around on scooters? Yes. If I were you, I would tell that young man to drop you off in the next street and then walk in the back way. That’s what I’d do. Don’t let them kill your spirit.’
The young man never asked me again, but I took on board the gist of what Sister Sebastian was telling me, and very much appreciated my friendship with her.
I’d heard tales from my friends who lived at Garbutt about the way they were treated at school, the few who still seemed to go. Jeannie spent her days looking after her brothers, sisters or cousins, and she told me that no one ever came to find out why she wasn’t in class. When I told them I was planning to study medicine my friends smirked and whispered that I’d find out differently when I turned fourteen. I didn’t believe them because my life was so different from theirs. My sisters and I continued to be the only coloured children at the Catholic school, and it seemed to me that we always had and were still receiving the same education as the white children, so I couldn’t imagine that this would stop.
All the schools had holidays in May and August, as well as two-month breaks at the height of summer. My birthday fell during the August holidays, and on this year I turned fourteen. I’d forgotten the whispered comments of my friends when I rolled up on a Tuesday—Catholic Schools always started their terms on Tuesdays—for the final term of the first year of the two years of study before we were to sit for our Junior examinations.
During the first class a girl came in and said I was to report to Sister Joan in her office. Sister Sebastian was taking the class and her face looked stricken. I wondered what it was I may have done during the holidays that could warrant another lecture from Sister Joan. Sister Sebastian excused me and blessed herself when I walked out of the room.
Sister Joan told me that as I was fourteen now, I couldn’t stay at the school any longer. She told me to go back to my classroom and collect my books and go home. This didn’t seem a good time to accept her directions meekly, so I asked her why. She said I was bringing the school into discredit and disrepute. I asked her how. She replied that other parents had seen me coming to school on that motorbike. I had thought that this issue was over and done with because I’d served out my punishment, but she had other ideas, or perhaps she thought there’d been other rides since. Her face was flat and closed, and she said, ‘Just get out of here and don’t argue.’
As I was leaving the room she called me back, and I thought she had changed her mind. When I again stood in front of her large wooden desk, she opened a drawer and took out a set of rosary beads and a couple of holy pictures and handed them to me. ‘Don’t lose your faith,’ she said, ‘and may God bless you.’
My knees were shaking, so I went to the toilets where I had a good cry. I splashed my face with water then returned to the classroom. The class had finished and the room was empty. I scooped up the books from my desk and put them in my bag. I was moving slowly, hoping that Sister Sebastian would come back in and save me. This didn’t happen.
I walked down the front path, crossed the road and sat on a wooden bench on the Strand directly opposite the school. I sat there all day, where anyone who looked out the school windows could see my back, while I was facing out to the sea. I didn’t turn around to look at them. I wondered what my mother would do now with the money she’d saved from all her hard work for my education. I had no idea how I could tell her what had happened. For that matter, I had no idea myself what had really happened, what was the real reason why I was expelled. I couldn’t believe it was because of the motorbike incident, which had occurred during the previous term. I was in shock.
At three-thirty I met my sisters at our meeting place midway between the primary and secondary schools. We walked past the church where I had spent many hours as a primary student, cleaning the big brass vases and helping the nuns to arrange flowers for the altar and prepare the church for funerals and other religious ceremonies. It was the same church where I had been made a ‘Holy Ansgel’ and been given my red cloak to wear. I knew now that I’d never make it to be a ‘Child of Mary’ and wear the blue cloak, a status reserved for older girls.
Mum had given me money to go to Pelligrini’s to get whatever new books we required for third term. We were to go into the city on the bus, but I promised my sisters they could use the bus fare to buy ice-creams if they walked. I didn’t want to run into any of my classmates on the bus. I had no idea what I’d say if anyone were to ask me about my absence. I felt as if my whole world was coming apart and I had no contingency plan.
At home I said nothing, just went to my room to study, the same as usual. Next day I got up, dressed in my school uniform and went off on my bike and sat on the Strand all day. At three-thirty I went to the pool to train for a few hours. I repeated the whole thing the following day. By Friday, the shock and enormity of my predicament had begun to sink into my consciousness, and I realised I wouldn’t be able to deceive Mum indefinitely. I decided I would have to run away from home in order to avoid telling her that I’d been expelled.
A young chap called Alan de Graf had arrived in Townsville and was boarding at Mrs Sullivan’s old house. Mum had helped him to find work and to sort out a few problems he’d been having with the law. Alan had a major speech impediment, was poorly educated, his spelling was atrocious, but he was an excellent storyteller and avidly wrote all his stories down in terrible writing in a stack of exercise books. Through our appreciation of his stories, our family had formed a good relationship with him, and because of his own problems he was the only person I felt able to confide in about running away. Although he had very little money, he gave me all he had and, combined with the savings I’d drawn from my account that afternoon, I’d worked out that I would be able to catch a train to Brisbane and live for a while until I found a job.
On Friday nights, if we had done our homework and completed our chores all week without complaint, we were allowed to listen to ‘Randy Stone’, a serial which came on the radio at nine o’clock. Instead of doin
g my homework, I packed a few things into a bag, as I planned to leave as soon as everyone had gone to bed. The only person who picked up on my anxiety was Dellie, who occasionally displayed a sixth sense about knowing when I was going to do anything out of the ordinary.
I lay in bed, a bundle of nerves, waiting for the right time to make my move. When at last the house was quiet, I eased out of bed in the dark—and who should be standing there but Dellie! She whispered threats that she’d talk loudly if I didn’t take her with me, so I had to agree. She crept back through the house to pick up her shoes and dress and a few other small things. I wasn’t happy about taking her with me. The Brisbane train went through Townsville at 9.30 pm on its way from Cairns, and I was going to have to hide in the hills until the next train left the following evening. I knew Dellie hated the hills because of the insects and snakes, and the money Alan had given me would barely cover two tickets and there would be none left over for me to get a start in Brisbane. But there seemed no alternative because Dellie wasn’t about to let me go and leave her at home.
At about midnight we tiptoed out of the house, and didn’t pass anyone we knew in the street. I had to modify my plan to take Dellie into account, so instead of going way up to the hills, we went to a quarry which was not too far from the railway station. We climbed to the rocks at the very top, where we couldn’t be seen or heard, and settled down to wait out the night and the following day. By lunchtime we’d exhausted the few supplies I’d manage to pack, so we had to go down to a nearby store to get hamburgers. We decided that they would last us until we had caught our train.
It was a very warm Queensland winter’s day, and after we’d eaten, we thought we’d better catch up on the sleep we’d missed the previous night. So we curled up on a large flat stone and put our heads down. Sometime later, I heard a sound and opened my eyes to find a big black boot directly in my line of vision. Dark grey trousers came into view as I looked up but the sun blocked out the top half of the man’s body. I heard him calling to someone.
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