Читать книгу Down a Country Lane - Gary Blinco - Страница 14

CHAPTER SIX

Only a Mum with a weary frame,

Always willing and always game;

To take on a task two times her size

And reap resentment as her prize.

For in those days when we were young,

We each did wrong, and each one hung

A wrinkle on her brow.

Only a Mum and she understood,

Said, ‘it’s all a part of motherhood’

To do for her own the best she could,

And see them on their way.

Gary Blinco

Soon after the visit by the man from the education department Trevor and Gay began school at Tummaville. The school was about four miles from the farm and they walked or rode ancient bicycles across the big bridge and up Crane’s Lane. They were most unhappy about it, but as they had both attended school for a while when we lived in town they settled down fairly quickly.

It was legal to leave school at age fourteen in those days and Trevor must have been getting close to that. As we sat at the supper table Trevor softened his earlier resolve to go bush and compromised. ‘I’ll be out of bloody school the day I turn fourteen’, he growled. Dad looked at him and grunted. ‘You’ll stay until I say you can leave young fella.’ But we all knew Trevor was right.

Dad did not think much of school for some reason, perhaps because his own education had been limited, and he took little interest in our learning apart from what he taught us about farming and various practical things. ‘This is real useful training’, he would say as he tutored us on some aspect of farming. ‘Something that will help you survive in the real world.’ I could see his point, but I also wondered if his perception of the real world was somehow flawed – if it was the real world that he was trying to avoid.

I was always keen to find out what my older siblings had learned at school, I could feel a great gap in my mind that yearned to be filled with knowledge and experience. Gay usually obliged with a quick review of what she had covered during the day. To me school sounded pretty good and I wondered when it would be my turn to go. With my constant questioning of Gay and my nagging Mum about school, I must have become a pest at times, particularly for my mother who faced demanding choices every day. Send me to school where I should be, preparing for my future, or keep me home so I could help my father. One choice was long term; the other had to do with our immediate survival so it became a no-contest.

In the end, for some conveniently rationalised reason I was deemed too young to start school, although I must have been about seven or eight years old by then. But Dad had other ideas. He felt I was better employed on the farm and school could wait until I had learned something useful and paid my way for a while.

The school issue meant a removal of Gay and Trevor from the available labour force for most of the time. As a result my time to work had really arrived. I was now regarded as old enough to work and soon had a long list of daily jobs to perform. We always kept a few fowls and Dad had built a small run for them where they roosted at night and hopefully, laid a few eggs. I loved the chooks, they all appeared to have a different personality, and of course each of us kids adopted one or two chooks as a pet. We were not allowed to take them out of the run, but agreement was reached as to who actually owned each chook.

Eggs produced from ones own chook became a status symbol and the produce would be identified at the meal table. The cry of ‘George’s chook laid that egg’, caused me to swell with pride in my adopted bird when its offerings were thus identified. Eggs became a welcome addition to the garden vegetables and camp pie that had previously been our diet. When a recalcitrant chook failed to produce an egg just one day too often Mum sentenced her to the cooking pot. Mum did not carry out the sentence herself; one of the older kids took the role of executioner. We captured the sorry creature from the run amid much squawking for mercy and clouds of feathers.

Chooks are not very bright, but when we arrived at the pen with the axe they seemed to know what was happening. What they did not know was whose time had come, and I do not think they had a very high regard for the fairness of our justice system. An innocent fowl stood to suffer termination if we inadvertently caught the wrong chook.

The chooks screeched and clucked for mercy until what we hoped was the right one had been selected. Then, selfish creatures that chooks are, they lost interest and got back to their chook business. Dad said the threat would keep them on their toes, but I do not think they saw it that way. The condemned bird loudly protested its innocence, with no support from its peers, until it was taken to the wood heap. There its sorry head was laid on the chopping block and, to my amazement; it stretched out its neck and closed its eyes as if to say. ‘Ok, let’s get this over with.’

The axe arched down uncertainly and an instant spurt of crimson blood signalled the demise of the creature as the lifeless head fell away. The child holding the chook took fright and released the body, bringing squeals of delight as the headless chook dashed around the yard. Mum emerged angrily from the house to cuff the ears of any kid she could catch. Not that she felt any compassion for the chook; she was more concerned about the mess from the blood trails and any damage to the chook that was destined to be our supper.

This behaviour seemed cruel to me and I cried at this first execution, somehow remembering the old dog, Pluto. My sympathy was always with the fowl that had laboured to serve us for so long. Seeing my tears Mum counselled me on the subject and I soon learned where we were situated in the food chain. The introduction of the chooks to our meal table extended our diet somewhat. I think we sometimes felt deprived in the food stakes compared to some of our town dwelling relatives or the more affluent farmers who were our neighbours. On reflection our diet of fresh vegetables, eggs, chicken and the occasional fish from the creek provided a healthy menu by any standards.

A few weeks later Dad did some work for a cocky who still kept a few sheep and he took part of his wages in the form of a dressed hogget. He arrived home with the carcass in a clean hessian bag and laid it on the kitchen table under the excited and watchful eyes of his children. The poor creature, minus head and feet, naked of its skin and wool and recently disembowelled, lie pink and lifeless on the table. We poked and prodded it until Mum again started cuffing ears. In a calico bag were the succulent bits that I liked best, the brain, heart and liver. I knew that the next morning’s breakfast would be a feast.

Mum rolled the liver or ‘lamb’s fry’ as she called it, in flour and fried it a golden brown, covering it in rich gravy. The other kids did not like liver much so Dad and I had it mostly to ourselves. ‘Lamb’s fry’ was a bit of a misnomer in this case. The sheep was more likely to be a worn out weather (desexed male) or an old ewe that had failed, just one season too often, to produce a lamb.

Mum hung the sheep out on the open verandah over night to ‘set’, which meant she had to be up before the flies the next morning to cut it up for storage. The axe and one of Dad’s handsaws played an important part in this ritual. The body of the sheep had hung near my bed all night, sometimes giving me a start as I dozed nearby and opened my eyes to see this gruesome corpse hanging at my bedside. Next morning I lay sleepily in my bed on the verandah and watched Mum at work cutting up the carcass. I had not slept a great deal during the night as I anticipated breakfast, and the dead sheep was not the most comforting bedmate. We had no refrigeration so the meat had to be consumed fairly quickly before it spoiled. But with seven mouths to feed that was an easy enough achievement and we ate well for a few days.

His children learned to dispatch chooks with ease, but despite his strong nature Dad was more faint hearted when it came to blood. The pet lamb that one of us had brought home after a walk in a neighbour’s paddock during the lambing season was becoming troublesome. We had reared it on powdered milk; it was one of the times when we had no house cow in milk production and at home at the same time. The cows were usually dry, strayed off or in the council pound waiting, often in vain, for my father to pay the relevant fine and bail them out. If the fine was not paid the animals were sold and the proceeds forfeited to the council. We lost a few head of stock in this way. Now the lamb was fully-grown and we were in the middle of another bad patch. There had been a drought, which meant no bag sewing and very little other work, and we were short of food.

Mum decreed that the lamb must become part of the larder. It was, she said, now a full grown, useless and spoiled sheep. The animal had not helped its case by breaking out the night before and devouring a crop of marketable lettuce. Mum would brook no appeals for it to be spared after that. Dad had to butcher the animal himself and I was surprised at how difficult he found the task. He argued long and hard with Mum over the issue, lost, and was now at a point of no denial.

He spent about three hours sharpening a knife before finally binding the sheep with some twine and taking it out of sight behind the fowl house where he decided the murder should take place. He sat there for hours while the sheep that was trussed up helplessly on the ground appeared resigned to its fate. Any kid foolish enough to peer around the corner of the coop to assess his progress received a violent tongue- lashing. Mum made regular visits to encourage him and we eagerly called for reports as she returned. Finally in frustration she declared loudly that if he lacked the courage to dispatch one lousy sheep whose time had clearly come, then she would do it for him.

Her next report confirmed that the deed had been done at last. It was now dark and too late to contemplate any part of the sheep for our supper. We had camp pie for tea again. After the lamb had been slaughtered we were allowed to attend the apparently less barbaric, ‘dressing process’. This was the part that looked more like undressing to me, where the animal was skinned and cleaned, which Mum and Dad did together, albeit somewhat awkwardly and with frequent conflict.

What I saw, but the others did not, were the tear streaks down Dad’s face and his running nose. I knew then what a tough job this had been. Not because it was a mere sheep, but because it had been our sheep and a pet. He must have felt such a failure that we were reduced to this act in order to eat. Now that I had secretly seen this sensitive and warm side of my father, I loved him more and in a special way. I felt I knew him better than the others did after that, but I suspect we all felt we each had some special and individual bond with Dad.

My father was not a big man, though he seemed so to me in the beginning. He was about five foot ten, but very muscular and stocky due to the physical nature of the work he did. He had long black hair that he always combed straight back from his forehead. His skin, naturally very dark, was always a deep tan. He had a long and aristocratic nose I thought, and his green intelligent eyes had a way of resting on you as if he could see into your heart and mind. It was very hard to keep a secret from Dad. He was a warm and sensitive person, always very reserved and well mannered around people.

While he had a fierce temper it always blew over quickly and he seemed to lack the energy to hold any sort of grudge for too long. I hardly ever saw him without an old battered felt hat on his head, and he had another, his ‘good’ hat that he wore on his rare visits to town. I do not know what he had been like as a younger man, but I remember he was a person of simple tastes. He rarely drank, though I suppose we had no money to buy grog anyway, but he smoked almost non-stop. Strong, ‘roll-your-own’ Log Cabin tobacco, which made him cough constantly with great hacking chokes that seemed to reach up from his boots. Mum was different in colouring and disposition. Tall, slim and pale with liquid blue eyes I am sure she had been very pretty once, and I still thought her so when she dressed up to go to town. But constant child bearing and harsh living conditions had taken their toll. Unlike Dad, she could get into a foul temper and maintain the black mood for days.

My sister Patricia had arrived in the world just under two years after me and I had lost my position as the baby forever. Patricia had assumed the baby role, though she was also rapidly taking on her share of the domestic duties as Mum’s swollen tummy heralded the approach of yet another child. I felt grown up and attended my various tasks with a swagger. I was regarded as an important working member of the household and my parents kept me very busy on the farm.

My brother Trevor was tall and thin, but although still in his early teens he was already filling out in the arms and shoulders. Like Mum, he was pale and blue eyed and had not inherited Dad’s dark colouring like the rest of us. He also had a bad temper and a moody disposition. He could change from being a loving brother to belting me around the ears in seconds.

When in a good mood he often put me to bed at night. He sprawled on the lawn with me on his chest looking at the deep night sky that was always sprinkled with stars and singing, ‘tonight I’m a tired weary cowboy’, over and over. Eventually I always fell asleep, either from the sweetness of the melody or as a form of escape. Trevor soon began to work on a neighbour’s farm some distance away and we saw less and less of him as he grew up and fled the nest, or at least that was how my mother saw it.

I missed him terribly as I had been his favourite sibling and he spoiled me often. Now that Trevor had more or less left the farm, my brother Darryl and I were the only boys left, at least for the time being. Unlike Trevor, Darryl was dark and stocky like Dad, but destined to be much taller. He was placid to the point of being almost unnoticed, but we soon became very close and spent countless hours wandering around the bush when we could break free of our chores.

My sister Gay always seemed quite a lot older than the rest of us. She spent most of her time in the house with Mum, so I never became really close to her. An adolescent girl with all of the appropriate hormonal disturbances, she must have found life on the farm, isolated as it was from society, something of a frustration. I supposed that was why she also began to work away somewhere; leaving us younger children pretty much the run of the place. Room was tight in the old house so we welcomed the extra space, but I lamented the steady loss of my older siblings.

The boys usually slept on the verandah, an open area running about two thirds of the way along the eastern side of the house. Sleeping on the verandah with its half-height wall was fun most of the time because it gave us a sense of adventure being outside and close to the nature we were beginning to know so well. We could lie in bed and just look out at the stars, or on bright, clear nights when the moon was full we often ventured outside to play, very quietly, so as not to wake Mum and Dad. The bush took on a different look and feel in the moonlight – a kind of bright ghostly silver covered the land and the moon shadows were purple across the garden and over the rippling surface of the creek. Cicadas chortled in the native shrubs; wallabies and hares risked the occasional raid on the vegetable patch and mopokes called mournfully through the gloom.

Possums sometimes came up from the scrub along the creek and walked along the verandah rail. They were cute friendly little creatures and we fed them scraps of bread or damper that they accepted with strange little guttural cries as they ate hungrily. We stole scraps from the meal table and hid them under the bed so we could feed the possums at night. They seemed unafraid of the various cats we kept, quite the contrary; the cats were scared of them.

When the violent summer thunderstorms descended over the downs the verandah was less fun. Usually I liked to lie in my bed and listen to the patter of rain on the naked tin roof, but the storms were sometimes very violent, making the verandah an unpleasant place to sleep. Bright flashes of chain lightning ripped up the dark night sky with jagged gashes of fire that danced over the scrub and flooded the trees in ghostly white light. Thunder shook the old house and thumped and rattled through the bush like empty railway carriages being shunted on the track. The heavy rain slanted in under the roof, invading the verandah and pooling on the bare wooden floor. The storms were deafening and we could not speak and be heard without yelling.

My parents frequently had to come to our rescue, moving the old beds as close as possible to the wall to protect us from the rain. Sometimes in a really bad storm we retreated to the kitchen floor to escape the downpour and the lightning as the rain hammered in a deafening roar on the iron roof. I was scared during the storms when I was very young, but came to like them as I got older. They seemed to give off a feeling of raw power that excited me somehow. I could feel the strength of the storm enter my being and I felt invincible as I gazed out at the tormented night sky.

It was more misery than fun during the long breathless, sticky summer nights when swarms of mosquitoes visited the verandah. When the summer had been wet mosquitoes bred in the still waters of the gullies in their millions. We seemed to provide a ready source of nourishment for these horrible creatures, as we lay unprotected in our beds with clouds of the insects whining around our ears. I often prayed for a cool breeze, as this always seemed to blow the mosquitoes away and cool the place down. Otherwise we lay awake, hot and mosquito bitten, waiting for the dawn when they would disappear to be replaced by the flies.

After the mosquitoes I did not mind the flies. At least they did not bite and we usually had enough distractions during the day to take our minds off them. Mum was not so sure. The flies attacked the meat she tried to keep fresh in the heat, littering it with great white maggots, sometimes even depositing the lava through the mesh of the gauze meat-cover like high-level bombers. I think given a choice she preferred the mosquitoes. Giving up her sleep was nothing compared to the constant battle to feed us with fresh food. Food was hard enough to come by in the first place and would not be easily surrendered to the flies. The long hot summers were wonderful for us kids but they must have been hell for Mum. I am sure she longed for the winter when she could keep food fresh for weeks.

The long summer days on the farm were always full of activity. Apart from the work we were required to perform there were numerous other activities to occupy our spare time. We could hunt hares or pigeons with our shanghais, or spend hours fishing in the creek. The nights were more of a challenge. With only kerosene lamps to provide lighting we groped about the house in semi-darkness most of the time. My mother endeavoured to get the evening meal, or ‘supper’ as we called it, over before it became too dark. There was a period on dusk when the flies had departed for the day and the night insects and mosquitoes had not yet arrived. This was the best time to eat, during this period of blissful truce.

With darkness closed in and the lamps lit, thousands of insects of various types were attracted into the house by the light. Because of the hot weather the windows and doors of the old house were always wide open and there were no screens so the creatures had an easy access. At night we crowded around the lamp and read old magazines, played ludo or snakes and ladders as we listened to Dad play his mouth organ on the back verandah. He often paused to chat with Mum or roll a cigarette as he rested between tunes. Sometimes we trapped insects and kept them in bottles in order to study their characteristics, or watch them fight to the death when we combined incompatible species in the same container. This helped pass the time and we compared collections. The sorry creatures always expired before morning due to lack of oxygen in their prison, but they kept us amused for a short time.

My mother loved to tell stories of her early life on the various cattle stations her father had managed. We often crowded around the wood stove in the kitchen on winter’s nights to listen to her tales, some of which I am sure she invented or embellished. I sat back from the glowing fire in the dim light of the lamps and listened quietly, slipping away in my mind to become part of the stories she told. When Mum bogged down I often prompted her by throwing in an idea, trying to lead the yarn in the direction I felt it should develop. ‘I’ll bet I know what happened then’, or, ‘is that when you first met Dad?’

Mum had a good sense of telling a story and took up the lead without hesitation. She read her audience and played to our expectations. My parents used language that was less than grammatically correct, and they seasoned their conversations with some pretty salty additions. It was inevitable that their children would pick up and build on their idiom. In time, isolated and therefore insulated from the outside world, we developed a kind of bastardised Australian English with a spattering of our own localised words and expressions.

At our rare family celebrations, like birthdays and anniversaries, we sang ‘Freeza a jolly good fella’. Campfire songs consisted of a few words from American hillbilly tunes we had heard second hand, or gutsy renditions of ‘Worlsing Matilda’. It was only when we began to mix with other people that I became embarrassed by our hick ways and language, but for now we did not know any better and therefore did not care.

‘Shit you can tell some beauties’; Dad laughed one night, after Mum had finished a long story about how her father had survived a gunfight with a bushranger. ‘Your old man would shit himself if anyone said boo to him in the dark.’ Mum flushed a bit at his comment, or perhaps it was the heat from the fire that brought the colour to her cheeks as she turned to peer at him where he sat in the shadows at the table.

‘I didn’t know you were there’, she said, uncertainly. ‘Why don’t you tell them a yarn, if you’re so smart?’ Dad laughed. ‘I know you didn’t see me come in’, he said. ‘I was with you when some of the stories you told actually occurred remember? And even I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I’ll tell yers what, if Mum made some fried bread and a cuppa tea, I could prob’ly remember about the first time I came to the farm.’ The squeals of delight and encouragement shook the room as Dad winked at Mum. ‘You are such a cunning bugger’, she said. ‘But alright, you kids sit at the table and listen to your father bullshit for a while, and I’ll make us some supper.’

Dad was less animated in his technique, speaking softly in his deep, even voice as he painted graphic pictures and emotions with his words, but I soon changed my mental reception mode and fell in easily with his story. These moments as a family were so precious and I wondered if life could ever be better than this. The sweet smell of fried bread and freshly brewed tea wafted around the old, cold house. The contrast of the harsh whistle of the strong winter wind in the roof added to the feeling of contentment and safety that filled my being.