Mother of Ten (5 page)

This
was a technique Mum sometimes used when we refused to comply with her
instructions. We had to obey by the time she counted to five - ‘or else’. She
rarely had to count all the way to five before we gave her complete obedience.
In my case, she rarely made it past the number two.

My
brothers turned their bikes to face the track exit.

“Three.
Four. You’ll get into trouble if you don’t come with us.”

They
started to pedal.

“Five.”

I
stayed where I was.  My brothers rode along the track slowly. When they
realised I was not coming, they increased their pedalling to normal speed and
left the rubbish tip. I didn’t care. I felt completely safe with the man I had
momentarily replaced my father with. He smiled at me.

I
waited, watching his muscular arms while he examined a few more items. Then he
stood up, took my hand and led me to where his bicycle was leaning against a
tree. He lifted me up and placed me in the basket that was attached to the
front handle bars. I sat there, still clutching my books, with my legs dangling
over the edge of the basket while he held the bicycle steady and swung one leg
over the seat. His strong legs pedalled the bike along the track and out onto
the Bonang Highway in the direction of the town and my home.

I
couldn’t have been happier. It was as though my longing for my father had been
fulfilled by a fairy godmother. A prince had ridden in from a fairy tale and
rescued me from my rough, unsympathetic brothers.  I was the favoured
princess being given exclusive privileges. With smug satisfaction I settled
back in the basket and breathed in the tobacco smell coming from the man which
was the same as my father’s tobacco smell. Parrots chattered and kookaburras
cackled and the bike’s wheels crunched through the gravel and soft yellow dirt
by the side of the road. A short distance along the highway, the man stopped
his bicycle and dismounted.

“We
gotta go up there for a minute.”

He
pointed at a dirt track. It was not a road but a track made by the vehicles of
the woodcutters who went deep into the bush to fell trees.

This
was even more exciting for me. An extra adventure! He wheeled the bicycle, with
me still in its basket along the bush track. A breeze whistled through the
leaves of the tall eucalypts. Parrots chattered high above us. A startled
lizard scampered across the dry leaves on the ground.

When
the man stopped and propped the bike against a tree, some primal instinct sent
a warning to my brain. I felt uncertain. I looked back along the track but
could not see the highway. We were in the bush. The man who was not my father
lifted me out of the basket and set me down on the ground. The warning signal
that had reached my child brain began to ring like a school bell. Tears rolled
down my cheeks.  The distant sound of a car engine floated over the tree
tops. The man cast a nervous glance back toward the highway. I cried silently.
He bent down toward me.

“Don’t
cry,” he said in his soft voice. “I won’t hurt you.”

I
hesitated, wanting to believe his words. I had no rational understanding of why
I was crying. In my child mind I had no reason to distrust him.

“I
only wanted to play with this,” he said as he slipped his fingers inside the
leg of my panties and touched the soft area between my legs.

The
murmur of the car engine changed as though the car was slowing down. The man withdrew
his fingers and looked around nervously again. Then he picked me up and placed
me once more in the bike basket. He wheeled the bike along the track back to
the highway where he mounted the bicycle and resumed pedalling toward town. I
had stopped crying but I was confused, not sure what had just happened. I had
now removed the illusion that the man was my father but he had been gentle. He
had kept his promise; he had not hurt me. Now he was taking me home. Everything
seemed normal. I was with an adult who was looking after me.

Meanwhile
back at home, as I found out later from my brothers, Bobby and Maxie were
receiving a wrathful scolding from our mother. She was aghast when they
returned from the tip without me.

“
You
left her there?”

“She
wouldn’t come with us.”

“So
you just left her there to walk home on her own?”

“She
won’t have to walk. There was a man there with a bike.”

“Yeah.
He’ll probably give her a ride home.”

“A
man? Who?”

“Dunno.
A blackfella.”

I
can only imagine the fear that would have surged through my mother as she
listened to my brothers casually relate how they had left me at the rubbish tip
with a stranger. She must have exercised a great deal of discipline to keep
that fear and, no doubt, her anger from translating into panic. Her tone was
sharp as she admonished my brothers.

“How
many times have I told you about not speaking to strangers? Yet you go and
leave your sister there with a stranger?”

My
brothers later told me they had ‘never seen her so mad’. ‘Her eyes were like a
tiger’s.’ Faced with the urgent problem of finding me, Mum didn’t waste time in
punishing them at that moment. She rapped out orders at them.

“You
two stay here and look after the babies. Do you hear me? You stay here. Keep an
eye on those babies. If anything happens to either of them while I am gone your
lives won’t be worth living when your father gets home.”

Bobby
and Maxie had already realised that they were in line for a ‘jolly good hiding’
when Dad got home. They were smart enough not to do anything to make it worse.
Both of them searched their brains desperately for something that might put
them back in Mum’s good books.

“I
think it was Jacky, Mum,” said Maxie.

“Yeah.
It looked like Jacky, Mum. He’s not a stranger, is he?”

Jacky
was an Aboriginal man, one of the local Kurnai people, who often worked in the
bush with my father and the other timber workers. His wife, Lizzie, would
sometimes bring their children, two boys and three girls, out to our place when
the men were away working. We would all play together while Mum and Lizzie sat
and drank cups of tea.

“Good
for your Junie to have some girls to play with for a change, eh?” Lizzie would
say.

Mum
liked Lizzie and her children. She loved the way Lizzie’s kids flashed big
cheeky grins at her.

“Your
kids are always so happy, Lizzie,” she would say.

Lizzie
would puff up with pride and nod her head.

“Naughty
little varmints, that’s what they are,” she’d say, “but, yeah, they’re happy so
I don’t mind. So long as they’re happy, eh?”

The
thought that I might be with Jacky or someone else we knew may have given my
mother some relief but she continued to glare at my
brothers.          

“For
your sakes, it’d better be someone we know,” she said. “And you’d better hope
she hasn’t gone off on her own and got lost in the bush.”

With
no phone and no vehicle, walking back to the rubbish tip herself offered the
best course of action to Mum even though she was six months pregnant. She could
have gone to our neighbours at the dairy a kilometre away but that might have wasted
time; she could not be sure of finding someone there with a vehicle.

As
she hurried along Duggans Road to the highway that day Mum must have been
hoping that it had been Lizzie’s husband at the tip and, thinking I would be
safe with him, that he had decided to bring me home on his bike. She might also
have wondered, though, why Jacky hadn’t simply made sure my brothers took me
home with them.

Jacky
and I were less than a kilometre from home when Mum saw us. She stopped and
waited, her hand resting on her swollen stomach. As the distance between us
closed, I could see the tension in her face. A half smile appeared, perhaps
because she recognised Jacky. Her eyes were on me as Jacky braked and put a
foot on the ground to stop the bike. With the uncanny intuition of a mother,
Mum saw something in my face that caused her half smile to disappear.

“Are
you all right, love?” she said.

“Yes,
Mum. I got some books from the tip.”  Afraid that I would get into trouble
for not going with my brothers or for what had happened with Jacky, I wanted
desperately to distract her.

“Did
you, love?” Her eyes were gentle as she looked into mine. I was too young to
know that eyes can reveal much so I did not take evasive action by looking away
or lowering my eyelids. My mother apparently saw enough to know that nothing
dreadful had happened to me but that something was not quite right.

“Jacky,
what are you doing with my daughter?” She said as she helped me out of the
basket and set me down. I could not see the look in her eyes but the tone of
her voice revealed her suspicion.

“Bringin’
her home to you, missus. Those brothers, they left her there, left her at the
rubbish tip. Too far for little girl to walk, missus.”

I
heard apprehension in Jacky’s voice.

“I
think you had better go, Jacky,” said my mother.

Jacky
rode off on his bicycle. Mum and I walked home. She never said another word to
me about that day.

I
was surprised when I did not receive a scolding or a hiding for not going home
with my brothers. Even though my naivety prevented me from fully understanding
why, I knew that what Jacky had done was wrong.  However, I saw myself as
the guilty one and was determined that my mother should not find out so I never
spoke about it. The incident became just another adventure in long days full of
adventures. It wasn’t until years later when a friend from high school days
mentioned Jacky’s name that my memory opened up its album of pictures and
showed them to me as bright and clear as the day it had happened. I also
discovered that the town kids knew Jacky was a ‘perve’.

I
don’t think my mother discussed her suspicions about Jacky with Lizzie. How
could she, after all? However, she must have been concerned for Lizzie’s
daughters because one day she dropped a hint. Mum and Lizzie were sitting on
the veranda where they always sat. I was at the end of the veranda playing
‘knuckle bones’ with Poppy, one of Lizzie’s daughters who was the same age as
me. I pricked up my ears when I heard my name mentioned.

“Junie
still miss her father when he’s away?” asked Lizzie.

“Yes,
she pines for him like a puppy pines for its mother.”

I
heard Lizzie’s rich laugh. There was a pause before my mother spoke again.

“Her
father’s very good with her. Some men are not good with their daughters. And
Lizzie...”

My
mother paused again. A subtle change in her tone caught my attention. I looked
over at them.

“Some
fathers,” continued Mum, “can be...”

She
broke off. Lizzie looked across at her. Mum didn’t turn to look at her. Instead
she stared out at the bush.

“Well,”
continued my mother, “sometimes they can be too friendly with their daughters.”

Lizzie
turned away, cradled her cup of tea in her hands and also looked out at the
bush. The two women sat in silence.

“Too
friendly,” said Lizzie finally. “Yeah, I know whatcha mean. We have to look
after our girls, eh?”

As
she placed her cup back down on the saucer, Lizzie looked over and caught me
eagerly digesting their conversation. Her face broke out in a broad grin.

“Whatcha
doin’, you two? Listenin’ to grown-up talk? Haven’t ya got better things to be
doin’?”

Poppy
and I giggled, gathered up our knuckles bones, joined hands and ran away with
the laughter of our mothers following us.

Knowing
what I know now, I wonder if my ‘adventure’ brought thoughts of Myrtle’s ‘lost’
children to her mind. Did she wonder about their safety? Did the guilt of not
being there to protect them surge to the surface? Did she worry that Audrey,
now a teenager, might need protection and advice?

      
My mother’s pregnancy resulted in the safe delivery of a healthy baby girl at
Orbost Hospital in November, 1956. This time my father was singing
Goodnight
Irene.
As with all his children, he enjoyed interacting with Irene from the
beginning. He often held the baby in his arms and rocked her back and forth to
put her to sleep or to sooth her.  

Although
Dad enjoyed tactile involvement as a proud father, Mum was definitely the
expert with babies. I found her casual competence fascinating. When the twins
were little, I was often with her when she was changing them. She needed me to
keep one occupied while she attended to the other one. She would lay the baby
out on a ‘bunny rug’, push up his little singlet and rub his tummy playfully to
distract him while she undid the large safety pins on each side of his nappy.
Then she would quickly remove the dirty nappy, fold it over and place it to one
side. I loved the way she would lift up both his chubby legs in one hand, like
a trussed chicken, and wipe his bottom with a damp cloth. If he was red and
chafed she would rub Vaseline over his skin before lowering his bottom down
onto a clean nappy.

The
next step was to sprinkle talcum powder over the lower part of his body.
Sometimes she allowed me to do this. All during this process Mum would keep the
baby distracted by occasionally kissing his stomach, tweaking his nose or
talking to him with her face close to his. The final step was the trickiest to
manoeuvre because regardless of which twin it was, he hated having the new
nappy put on. However, Mum folded up the corners of the nappy and deftly
slipped the large safety pins through the folds of fabric before his protest
had a chance to get into full swing.

I
also helped her with other household chores. I don’t remember her ever asking
me to help. Being with her was a natural part of my life and she simply
included me in what she was doing. Sometimes we would pick fruit from the trees
in the orchard. Mum reincarnated this home grown fruit in various ways. She
made fruit pies, bottled some of it, stewed some of it and made much of it into
jam. I loved her plum jam because she always left the pips in. I enjoyed
discovering them in the jam that I spread thickly over my bread, and sucking on
them.

One
job we all wanted to do for Mum was collecting the eggs from the chook house.
We would fight to be the chosen one.

“Can
I, Mum? Can I? Can I?”

“I
wanna do it, Mum.”

“It’s
my turn. You did it yesterday.”

“I
wanna do it.”

Our
chooks were good layers so what we did not need for our own use Mum exchanged
for other foodstuffs such as milk from the dairy. Wrapping up the eggs was
another job she did with casual ease. She wrapped each one individually and yet
kept them together so that she ended up with a rectangular block of six eggs
snugly enclosed in newspaper.

One
Saturday morning about six months after Irene was born a new arrival of a
different kind had my father in a state of excitement.

Saturdays
and Sundays provided us kids with hours of adventure and wide open spaces to
ramble. Apart from the thrill of visiting the rubbish tip, we had sheep to
chase, rams to ride, blackberries and mushrooms to pick. We tried to entice
rabbits out of their burrows and startled goannas out of hollow logs. Having
the disadvantage of being a girl and younger than Bobby and Maxie, I was not
always permitted to roam about the countryside.

On
the Saturday morning of the new arrival, I was helping my mother in the
vegetable garden. Mum’s vegetable garden was extensive. Pumpkins sprawled all
along a side fence, potatoes grew in profusion among the rows of peas and beans
and tomatoes. She always had a large patch of rhubarb; a favourite vegetable of
hers. The vegetable patch was actually a source of delight and discovery for us
kids. We searched for hidden potatoes and watched to see how big the pumpkins
would get. We especially loved eating fresh pea pods straight off the vine. Mum
and I were picking peas on this day when the honking of a car horn interrupted
us.

The
twins, now almost five years old, were playing together close by. The two boys
had evolved into very different individuals. Georgie was a serious child who hardly
smiled and was inclined to be a little chubby while Kevin was slim and agile
and radiated cheekiness with his dimpled smile. At the sound of the horn, the
twins stopped playing.

 “Car,
Mum,” said Kevin.

Mum
smiled at him. She dropped a handful of pea pods into the pot that was already
three quarters full of fresh green pods, then placed it in the shade behind the
plants. 

“Come
on,” she said. Like little ducklings, we all followed her as she started off
toward the front of the house to see what was happening. The car horn sounded
again as we rounded the corner of the house.

There
in the driveway stood a large black saloon, its motor still running. Two
headlights stuck out like overgrown ears on either side of the long bonnet
snout. Standing by the open driver’s door, with one foot on the running board
stood my father, his old navy beret cocked to one side on his head. A grin lit
up his handsome, angular face. In that grin my mother might have seen remnants
of the cheeky young soldier he had been when she first met him more than ten
years before.  He beamed at her, like a kid proud of procuring some
treasure that he never thought he would find.

Behind
my father stood his good friend Gus McCole, a gentle giant even taller than my
father’s six feet. Gus McCole was well known in the district as an expert
axeman. He was held in high regard, not just for his legendary prowess with the
axe, but because he was a man of sincerity, loyalty and integrity. Gus’s kind
eyes sparkled with merriment when he saw the look of surprise on my mother’s
face. I noticed Bobby and Maxie, who must have heard the car arrive, running
across the green paddock next door.

“What
is that?” my mother asked, her eyes fixed on the car.

Dad
and Gus threw back their heads and laughed. They looked like two little boys
who had been up to mischief together. The twins ran to the vehicle. Kevin
headed for the front of the car, leaning on the bumper and reaching up to try
to touch a protruding headlight. Georgie watched his brother with a serious expression.

Dad
stopped laughing to answer Mum. “This, Mrs Rowley, is your new car.”

Mrs
Rowley was a term of endearment he sometimes used. In that title he proudly
claimed her as his wife and declared his love for her.  

Mum
took a step back as though fearful for her life.

“My
what?”

“Your
new car. I want you to have some form of transport for when I’m out in the
bush. You and the kids are too isolated here.”

“But
I can’t drive this thing. I haven’t driven in years.”

“Don’t
worry. Once you’re in the driver’s seat it’ll all come back to you. Eh, Gus?”

Gus,
still grinning at Mum, nodded. “You’ll pick it up in no time, Myrtle.”

“I’ll
teach you how to drive this little baby,” said Dad eagerly. He was always keen
to instruct her in new skills.

“Teaching
me is one thing but I’ll need to get a licence.”

“Of
course you’ll need a licence. But with me teaching you, you’ll have your
licence before you can say Jack Robinson.”

Mum
rolled her eyes in mock disbelief.  “Where on earth did you get it? We can’t
afford a new car.”

“It’s
not exactly new; it’s a 1928 Erskine,” said Dad. “And she won’t cost us
anything except registration and running expenses.”

Mum
widened her eyes in surprise.

“Gus
found it lying around in a shed.”

Gus
laughed. “That’s right, Myrtle. This old Erskine has been sitting around doing
nothing for years. What earthly good is that? One of the best cars ever made,
this little beauty. Might as well put her to good use, I reckon.”

It
was no surprise that the generous Gus McCole had come to our rescue. He and his
wife Mavis were not well off and yet they were always ready to help anyone out.

Dad
stepped back and gestured at the gleaming automobile. “Isn’t she something?”

My
mother’s expression no doubt conveyed her opinion that it was just a black car.
 Seeing Kevin was attempting to climb up onto the front of it, Dad gently
pulled him away. Gus stepped forward and hoisted Georgie up onto his shoulders.
Bobby and Maxie arrived panting with exertion.

“Can
we go for a ride?” they chorused.

Without
waiting for an answer, they climbed into the back seat scrambling through
separate doors in an attempt to beat each other inside.

“Come
on, love. Hop into the driver’s seat,” said Dad.

Mum
laughed and made no move toward the car.

Gus
offered encouragement. “Go on. Take her for a spin.”

Mum
shook her head. “I’m the one who’ll be in a spin.”

Dad
was not going to take no for an answer. His excitement about his new
acquisition was infectious but Mum continued to eye the black vehicle
thoughtfully. Despite her apprehension, she was no doubt considering the
advantages of having a car to use while Dad was away. Dad sensed she was ready
to yield.

“Come
on, Mum. Just take her down to the gate. Get a feel for her.”

He
carried Kevin to the car.

“Let’s
put these two little tykes in the back with their brothers.”

Georgie
was struggling to get down so Gus lowered him to the ground and led him by the
hand to a back passenger door. My father called to me over his shoulder.

“Come
on, Brigid.”

“They
won’t all fit into the back seat,” said Mum with a laugh.

But
we did. We squashed and prodded and leaned and squeezed and found room.

Mum
made one final protest. “The baby’s asleep on the veranda.”

The
most recent addition to our family was always called ‘the baby’ or, in the case
of the twins, ‘the babies’, until a new baby arrived. This particular baby was
my sister, Irene.

“Gus’ll
keep an eye on her. Won’t you, Gus?”

Gus
nodded. “Yeah. She’ll be as right as rain with me.”

Finally,
Mum admitted defeat and gave in with a smile and a shake of her head. Dad
hurried over to her.

 “Well,”
he said, gently steering her toward the open driver’s side door. “What are we
waiting for?”

Mum
allowed him to lead her to the car. With some hesitation, she slid in behind
the steering wheel. Dad closed the door, checked that both back doors were
properly shut, opened the front passenger side door and got in. He turned to
his brood of kids in the back seat and gave us a conspiratorial wink.

 “Let’s
go for a drive,” he said.

 He
slid across the bench seat closer to Mum. She fingered the steering wheel and
looked at Dad with a twinkle in her eye.

“Well,
what do I do now?” I could see she was beginning to enjoy herself.

Dad
beamed at her. Patiently, he explained the function of the pedals and levers.

Mum
released the handbrake. The car jumped forward. It rocked and lurched and
hopped like a kangaroo. Mum laughed and eventually managed to settle the car
into a smooth motion. Then, with Dad’s confident hands on the steering wheel to
guide her, she manoeuvred a turn so that we were heading toward the gate. The
car rattled down the driveway. Dad grinned over at Gus who waved at us as we
passed. Mum’s hands gripped the steering wheel tightly.

“C’mon
Mum, you’re doing well. We’ll take her along the track for a bit.”

Mum
was too absorbed in her task to answer. The car seemed to have a mind of its
own.

“Slow
her down a little as you go through the gate.”

Mum
looked at the controls, unsure what to do.

“Ease
your foot off the throttle,” he said.

She
did as he instructed. The car slowed as it passed through the gateway. Dad’s
hands turned the steering wheel so that they made a right hand turn into
Duggans Road. Turning left would have taken us to up to the highway and my
mother was definitely not ready for that. Surprisingly, the car rolled along
the gravel road without hopping or jerking. Mum pressed her foot down gently on
the throttle and we picked up speed slightly. Dad removed his hands from the
steering wheel. Instinctively, Mum tightened her grip. He smiled and reassured
her.

“It’s
all right, love. You’re doing fine.”

She
nodded and seemed to relax. Sitting in the back seat as we passed the trees on
one side of the road and the green paddocks of the farm on the other, I tried
to forget about my brothers fidgeting and squashing into me and imagined myself
to be a grand dame on a country drive.

My
daydream was interrupted by a sudden bump. The car seemed to leap into the air.
We were heading towards the broad trunk of an old gum tree. The tree trunk was
getting closer and closer. Mum’s eyes were shut tight. Dad grabbed the steering
wheel. I heard the sharp snapping of dry twigs under the car wheels. Bump. The
car jumped and rocked. The engine died. We had stopped within inches of the
broad gum tree.