Toward the end of grade 10, every student in Queensland had to sit a compulsory Scholarship exam. My results were listed in the newspaper and posted to our new address. I was one of the few who was offered a free trip to QIT (Qld Institute of Technology, now QUT). My father thought it was a ridiculous idea because, and I quote, "It would be a waste of time, since you're only going to get married and leave work to have children". He drafted my letter of refusal, which I copied in my own handwriting for him to send off. I never thought of arguing with him, but it hurt that I was held in such low esteem. He sent me to a secretarial school in the city to increase my shorthand and typing speed ... it seemed that his only ambition for me was to hang off some man's every word! He then organised for me to get a job in the Local Government with him.
Meanwhile, Twin was working and stealing money in a city department store. She made a friend there who lived at Hendra, so we would go over on weekends and take turns getting drunk, although she seemed to have a few more turns than me. The legal drinking age was 21 then, but at 17 we never had any problems buying alcohol. We would buy a large bottle of Gin or Vodka and not nearly enough soft drink to go with it, so would polish off the bottle straight. As she became very drunk, Twin would become very violent and the only way to handle her was to hold her down until she ran out of puff. Luckily, I was always bigger, stronger and abhorred violence so much that I didn't retaliate when she tried to hit me. I always hated the idea of losing my self control, so I never drank enough to get what we called "paraletic".
One night we went to a party at another friend's place in South Brisbane. Twin met her man, A and decided that she wanted to move in with her friends. Rather than confront Mum and Dad, she packed up in the middle of the night and just left. She woke me to tell me she was leaving, so it wasn't a total shock when the uproar started at the crack of dawn the next day. When our parents finally realised she wasn't coming back, they told me I would have to leave too. Why, when I didn't want to leave? To look after my sister, of course! Were they crazy? I was so sick of being "the responsible one", so I thought good riddance.
We had some great parties at South Brisbane and would sometimes go into work without any sleep. In the early hours of the morning, the bakery behind the house would perfume the air with fresh bread. We'd jump the fence, buy a loaf and let the butter melt into huge slices. Heaven! We moved from there to a house in Taringa and from there to a flat, three bedroom plus sleep-out, in New Farm. Four girls shared this space and one by one, they lost their jobs. I was the only one employed who could pay the rent, $19 per week. Sadly, my wage was just over $38 per fortnight. We ate big bowls of noodles, smothered in tomato sauce. One by one the others moved home, until we were left with no other option. I have no photos from this time period because during one of his visits my parents' house before we married, my fiancée removed and destroyed any photo with a man in the picture.
Meanwhile, I was being pursued by a guy at work I'll call P. When I first met him I thought "Every office has to have one" ... he was so arrogant and a real smart arse!
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