Ever since I'd been thrown from a horse at four years of age, I was absolutely terrified of heights. No one understood that fear, not even my twin who would take great delight in pushing me as high as she could, if I let her get anywhere near me while I was on a swing. Swimming lessons were OK with me until it came time to learn to dive into the pool. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I stood on the edge of the pool feeling so sick that I wanted to throw up. My teacher lost patience with me and simply shoved me in, where I panicked and swallowed half the pool. This tactic only succeeded in increasing my fear exponentially! So you can imagine how hard it was for me to attempt athletic pursuits such as the high jump or hurdles. I realised I couldn't rely on anyone to help me, so I solved my problems in the only way I could, I learnt to forge my mother's handwriting. According to my notes, my menstrual cycle was not only very erratic, but extremely painful and heavy ... this was such a lie; I was regular as clockwork, never felt any pain and it was over in about three days. My notes described various accidents such as broken toes and twisted ankles, getting me out of my uncomfortable sporting activities. I did sign up to learn Fencing and I'm sure that because I loved it, the school decided to can these lessons after one month. I also signed up for Judo and learnt a few tricks before our instructor died of a heart attack! I played a few games of Netball, always in the position of Goalie because I could shoot a goal from anywhere in the circle, but I never felt any real love for the game.
Those students who did not participate in sporting activities were "punished" by typing up English notes for our teacher. We actually cut stencils, which were used to run off multiple copies on the Roneo machine (an older form of duplicator that was cheaper to run than a copier). I loved this job because it not only increased my touch-typing speed, but I absorbed so much information that I never had to open a book to study for English. I never opened my text books or read Shakespeare's Henry V, but still managed to get straight As for English.
This year brought about a change in our reality. My sister and I had different circles of friends and as we socialised outside our home for the first time, we discovered that it wasn't normal behaviour for parents to get drunk every night and beat the hell out of each other. You may have wondered why we moved around so much and this is part of the reason. We left every rental property damaged in some way.
Every night Dad would bring home two bottles of Dry Sherry and he and Mum would drink the lot. They would either sit at the kitchen table or Mum would lie on the floor in front of the TV while Dad sat on an armchair. Every time Dad would get up to go to the toilet, Mum would gulp whatever was left in her glass and tell me to "Quick, pour me another one before your father gets back". She was playing catchup because Dad drank a lot during the work day too. Most of his business meetings were conducted in Hotels, but don't get me wrong ... he was a high functioning alcoholic; a top Manager in Local Government. If they didn't pass out where they were, they fought both verbally and physically. In the first instance, my sister and I would try to wake them up and get them to bed, but more often we were woken by the violence. Although terrified, we would go out and try to stop them hitting each other. We had made our decision long ago that when our parents split up, I would go with Mum and my sister would go with Dad. The only problem was ... they never split up!
Here we have another reason for our nomadic existence, Dad had the unfortunate habit of telling his bosses exactly what he thought of them. In fact, both Mum and Dad actually thought they were superior to everyone else, to the point that they had no friends! On rare occasions, when we were invited out for dinner our parents were perfectly polite to their hosts, but the moment we left they would start tearing them apart and criticising every detail of the event.
So for as long as we could remember our entire world consisted of four people, but now as my sister and I expanded our horizons we started to see our parents more clearly and it became Us against Them. I had been forced into the role of my sister's keeper after she was hit by the car and now I had to keep all her secrets from Mum and Dad.
Twin loved to dance while listening to the radio, so she "Stomped" (this dance consisted of thumping one foot down hard on the floor, then moving your weight to the other foot ... a basic two-step with attitude ☺) in the one spot, right in front of the player. I stared in horror one day as she suddenly disappeared up to her waist in the floorboards! I was laughing hysterically, with tears streaming down my face as I tried to pull her out of the floor. Luckily Dad ran in to help rescue her, because it was a very high set house and she was facing a long drop to the concrete below.
Before the Beatles changed the world as we know it, the music/dance culture fell into three distinct categories. ie. Mods, Rockers and Surfies.
- Mods followed the British Carnaby Street fashion trend and music,
- Rockers of course followed Bill Haley/the Comets, Elvis etc. with greased down hair, black clothes, fluro socks, pointy toed boots and hot cars/bikes. Boys were called Bodgies and the girls, Widgies.
- Surfies didn't actually surf ... they posed while listening to The Beach Boys etc.
As you can see from the photo at left, we considered ourselves Mods and Mum made us the outfits to go along with the trend. Twin idolised The Rolling Stones in particular Brian Jones, so much so that she tried to copy his hairstyle. She used every form of bleach to try to get the look correct, for example, Snow White, Ajax powder, Peroxide and when desperate ... Acriflavian - an orange coloured antiseptic!
Mum was horrified, because every time Twin came out of the bathroom, her hair colour had changed. The last straw was when she used a colour called "Cleopatra Blue Black"!
Mum sent her straight up to the hairdresser to get the colour stripped out of her hair, but of course Twin lied telling Mum the hairdressers wouldn't touch her hair for fear it would break off at the scalp. She won again, as you can see in the following photo.
Mum and Dad were chain smokers so it was only a matter of time until we tried it. They usually rolled and smoked Capstan tobacco, but Mum loved Sobranie Black Russian cigarettes which were incredibly strong! On the rare occasions my sister could pinch one, she would light up in the bathroom then throw the butt out the window. She would come back out bathed in sweat and grey in the face, but she always went back for more. The only drawback to her plan was the fact that the driveway was under the bathroom window and the gold tipped butts gleamed in the sun. Our favourite hangouts were Langland's Park swimming pool and the Triumph picture theatre. A chocolate malted milk shake cost 22 cents and a packet of 10 cigarettes cost another 20 cents! We had been smoking for years before Mum and Dad gave up and allowed us to officially smoke in public at 15.
We had never been given any pocket money, so we simply pocketed our tram and trolley bus fares and walked 2km each way, every day, rain or shine. If we made the mistake of leaving any of our cigarettes in our room, Mum smoked them after conducting her daily search. She confiscated my book on the Hells Angels and berated me for reading such filth, which she was able to quote with some accuracy ... she was such a hypocrite.☺ She was also an habitual martyr, always ill, managing to cut herself "accidentally" whenever she used a sharp knife and taking dives (pretending to faint). Occasionally after a drunken fight with Dad, she would crawl into my single bed (reeking of alcohol) to seek sympathy and to sleep with me. I hated it!
I know my account sounds cold-blooded, but after years of this behaviour, all the sympathy had been drained out of me. Dad assisted in snapping me out of my enforced caretaker role, because one night Mum had gone to her bed to wallow while we watched TV. She called out for me to come to her, but Dad told me not to go. He said "If you go in there now, you'll be doing it for the rest of your life!". His words were like a slap across my face, so in shock I sat still and ignored her pleas.
At 15, Twin found a boyfriend. I can't remember where she found him, but he (I will call him "K") gave her a beautiful, black Cocker Spaniel puppy we called Sammy (because he looked like a seal). K gave Mum various bottles of Christian Dior perfume and Step Limoges atomisers, so Mum didn't trust him one bit! Mum and Dad insisted that I accompany them whenever they went out together ... as if I could act as a chaperone or exert any control over my sister! Can you imagine how humiliating it was to be the unwanted third wheel?
The first party we attended was at a house in Kangaroo Point. Every room in the old Queenslander boasted an enormous mattress on the floor as the only furniture ... plus they had set me up with a blind date. I would have been happy to be struck blind, rather than see the man who was waiting for me! He was so ancient, well over thirty☺, and when I resisted his efforts to drag me out of the kitchen into one of the bedrooms, he moved on to someone else. I was quite happy to remain in the kitchen and only saw Twin and K when it was time to leave. To put things into perspective, this was 1967 when free love and drugs were being explored enthusiastically ... by everyone but me!
A pattern emerged for our "evenings out together". Twin and K would drop me in the city and promise to pick me up at a certain time, if I would wait for them in front of the Treasury Building in Queen Street. Between drop-off and pickup, I would go to the movies both to kill time and avoid being accosted on the street by every man in uniform. It didn't matter what uniform they wore, they all said they were off to Vietnam the next day and only wanted a girl to give them a memorable farewell. I'm patriotic, but only up to a certain point! Although I felt nothing but sympathy for anyone going off to fight in a war, my response was always, "Good luck and see you later"! Some nights were harder than others, because K and Twin were often late picking me up.
So you can see from the above, it was all my fault when Twin got pregnant, because I hadn't been doing a good job of looking after her, according to Mum and Dad. ☺
______________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment