Читать книгу It's Okay You're Not Married - Rosalind Dorrington ( Amelia Williams) - Страница 6

Edith had an obsession with putting my hair in ringlet curls. Every opportunity she could grab me and keep me still long enough, she’d get white strips of old sheets and wind my hair around her finger and tie the ringlets in. I absolutely detested the painful ritual of having my hair brushed and combed and tied up, then having to sleep with the rags in my hair and having the knots combed and brushed the following morning. I put a sudden stop to that sort of carry on when I was about four.

Edith was busy doing something one day and I got her dressmaker’s scissors and hacked my beautiful long golden locks off to the roots. I wasn’t going to take any chances I even cut my eyebrows and eyelashes. That was probably the reason I decided I wanted to be a hairdresser. I can still hear her high-pitched screech all those years ago when she discovered what I’d done. Every person who ever entered our home from that day, I bailed up and I’d brush and comb their hair and give them different hair styles, until I was about twelve. That’s when I found out apprentice hairdressers were paid thirty shillings (three dollars) a week, but shop assistants got five pounds (ten dollars). I made a conscious decision then that hairdressing was not the vocation I thought it would be.

I started school at the ripe old age of five years and one month at the local preparatory school. James and Edward attended the local state school but my mother had other plans for her precious daughter. I think I saw school as being an escape from my mother’s clutches, probably if the truth were known Edith was just as pleased as I was when I started school.

Miss Cobbin was not only my teacher she was also my Sunday school teacher and I can’t say I was overly impressed with her at all. I guess she was quite a good teacher and knew her job, but she wasn't pretty. In fact, she was very plain with straight black hair cut in the basin cut and she had long black hairs on her legs and a thatch of black hair under each armpit. I did extremely well in my first year at school so much so I topped my class and completed preparatory one, two, three and four in one year, instead of two years and I went into grades two and three the following year. I particularly loved reading and writing and Miss Cobbin would always call on me to read out loud to the rest of the class. I hated having to do sums and if I had’ve had my way I would’ve eliminated sums from the school curriculum. I bless the inventor who devised the hand held calculator but why oh! why didn’t you invent it before I started school?

My memory of my two years there was mainly of a girl called Rita. She was from a poor family and her clothes were hand me downs and grubby and I felt sorry for her. Another girl called Roslyn who had long black plaits was sometimes my friend when she had some-thing I wanted but mostly I didn’t like her. A pretty girl called Penelope whom I liked because she was nice, but I didn't want to like her because she was my rival who vied for the affections of Robby, my best friend’s brother and my best friend was Carol. I’ve always had a great fear of heights and one of my proudest moments was the day I climbed the climbing frame all the way to the top which must have been at least a zillion feet high, well six feet (two metres) anyway. I remember that day as clear as if it was ten minutes ago.

Amelia ‘Look at me, Miss Cobbin,, look at me.’

I was just so thrilled at my achievement and so was Miss Cobbin who glanced up and said ‘Mmm, that's good, Amelia.’

Then the realisation hit me, I had to climb back down again and that took at least another ten or fifteen minutes.

There was also the day just before Mother’s Day when I was chosen out of all the children in the school to be photographed by the photographer from the Telegraph newspaper. I was carrying a big bunch of chrysanthemums as I walked across the road outside the school. I bet our family is the only one in the world who still has that photo. A couple of years or so later Bullen’s Circus came to Lang Park and Edward was photographed feeding hay to the elephants, Edward’s photo appeared in the newspaper the following day. Edward always had to go one better than me.

The Christmas of that year was quite memorable. I had desperately wanted a walking doll. Not any ordinary walking doll, I wanted one like the shops had on display in the windows that wore real children’s clothes. I have no idea where Edith was, but James, Edward and I took the opportunity of sneaking into Mum’s bedroom in search of our Christmas presents. We discovered a host of goodies for the boys including a Hornsby train set and a full-size cricket bat in the wardrobe and under the bed, but there didn’t seem to be anything for me. James juggled Edward on his shoulders and Edward stretched as tall as he could to peer at the many presents hidden on top of the old wardrobe. I couldn’t believe my ears when Edward exclaimed, ‘Amelia, you’re going to get the walking doll. It’s up here in a box.’ I was so excited I nearly knocked James over as I jumped around the room. Edward almost toppled off James shoulders and when he clambered to the ground, I wanted to get on James shoulders to have a look at my beautiful walking doll. Unfortunately, we heard a noise and feared that Edith would cop us so we scattered as quickly as we could. I couldn’t wait for my birthday and Christmas. When my birthday arrived, I was a bit disappointed at not getting my beautiful walking doll but I kept my feelings to myself, after all I only had a few more days to wait. Christmas morning arrived and we all dived under the tree and started ripping the paper off all the presents, I have no idea what other gifts I got, but I recall opening a box containing a baby doll that I brushed aside momentarily whilst I looked around for my big beautiful walking doll.

Edith, ‘Do you like your doll, love?’

Amelia ‘Where is it?’

When she pointed to the baby doll, I looked at it in total disbelief and cried my eyes out, Dad picked me up

Dad ‘What’s wrong, little darlin?’

He patted me and consoled me and I bellowed

‘Edward said I was getting a walking doll.’

Dad ‘When did he tell you that?’

Amelia ‘When he got on James shoulders and looked on top of Mum’s wardrobe.’

Dad patted me again and quietly told me not to cry and placed me firmly on the ground. He stood up, took his belt off, grabbed both James and Edward and gave them both a thrashing and walked out of the room with his face as black as thunder.

Another happy moment in the Long household.

I received my walking doll the following year. She wasn’t as big as I had hoped, but she was beautiful none the less. Carol came over to play with me and my beautiful walking doll about ten days after I received my treasured doll. Carol was kind enough to break one of the legs of my doll by snapping it in half. I wasn’t ever allowed to say anything about it to her mother and father because she was the daughter of my grandmother’s employers at Mt Coot-tha Kiosk. Years later I heard that Carol became a lay preacher and a Pastor’s wife. I trust she confessed her sin and cleansed her soul of the crime she did unto me before she took her vows.

I woke one morning during the Christmas school holidays and decided it was a nice day so it’d be nice to visit Carol. I ate my breakfast and took off telling Edith that I was going out to play. I didn’t tell her a lie I just didn’t say where I was going to play. She was such a spoilsport, if I had’ve told her who I was going to play with, she would have stopped me. I would’ve caught a bus if I had had any money, or if I had known where the bus stop was.

I’d been to Mt Coot-tha a few times in the car so I had a basic idea how to get there, keep in mind in those days the road up there was a bit rough. (I recently Googled the distance from our home up to Mt Coot-tha, 5.5kilometres) I can’t remember how long it took me to get to there, all I remember was it seemed like an eternity. The perspiration was pouring off me and I remember being very thirsty and covered in dirt and cobbler’s pegs when I made my grand entrance through the kiosk doors. Mum almost had a multi-coloured fit when she saw me no one could believe I had walked so far in the heat. I was given the royal treatment from Mum and everyone else at the kiosk, staff and customers alike for being such a brave little girl. Unfortunately, on my return home that night Edith didn’t see me as being brave I went from being a heroine to a very naughty little girl in one giant leap.

I told you she was a spoilsport.

It was around this time, I guess I was about seven, when I stood on the footpath of Coronation Drive (also known as River Road) sticking my thumb up at every driver and pulling faces at them. I wasn’t trying to hitch a lift I was giving them all rude signs. When Dad arrived home, he called me into his bedroom to have a little talk, you knew you were in big trouble when he did that.

Dad ‘What were you doing down on River Road today?’

Amelia ‘Nothing,’

I replied with all the innocence of an angel.

Dad Very patiently, ‘Someone saw what you were doing and they told me, so do you want to tell me the truth or do you want to get into bigger trouble?’

I wasn’t completely stupid and I figured I’d be better off admitting my crime. Secretly I wanted to get hold of the blabbermouth who had dobbed me in. I showed Dad the hand signal and the face I’d been pulling at the drivers.

Dad ‘What does that mean when you put your thumb up and down in the air?’ I looked around the room very embarrassed and coy

Amelia ‘Do you really want me to tell you?’

Dad ‘Yes, what does it mean?’

Amelia ‘It means go and get fucked.’

Dad blinked, spluttered and coughed got to his feet and in total disbelief and said, ‘I don’t want you doing that or saying that word again because it’s very, very naughty and little girls shouldn’t say those things.’

I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a big kiss and a hug, he hugged me tight and we walked out of the room hand in hand. Everyone was waiting in the kitchen and I realised they had all expected me to get a hiding. James and Edward just rolled their eyes and shook their heads in total disbelief.

One of Dad’s employers, Uncle Ray was a good friend of Howard Brown the radio announcer from 4KQ. Howard was in charge of one of my favourite radio programmes The Sunday Mail Comic Club , which curiously went to air every Saturday morning.

As a special treat Dad and Uncle Ray took me into the city to be in the audience of the show. They gave me a ticket for the lucky door prizes, the top prize was a beautiful ice cream cake. Every few minutes Dad and Uncle Ray would check the number of the ticket and tell me not to forget it, they kept on telling me to keep my fingers crossed in the hope I might be one of the lucky ones to win a prize. Surprise, surprise my lucky number was drawn out as the winner of the top prize, how lucky was I to win. Dad and Uncle Ray were over the moon with delight at my great fortune. All the way home they kept praising me for being such a lucky girl. Naturally, I was as pleased as punch to have gotten the cake, but I just had to burst their bubble by announcing,

‘I’m awake up to you pair, I didn’t win at all you both rigged it so that I’d get the cake.’

They both protested they hadn’t rigged it, but even at the age of seven I could tell when two grown men were trying to stifle their laughter. The ice cream cake was delicious, but I was more intrigued with the dry ice it was packed in and I was very annoyed that I wasn’t allowed to play with it.

I was taken to the local Catholic School and introduced to Sister Mary Mathias later to be called Mother Mathias who was the head teacher. I was enrolled into the school and became the first and only non-Catholic child in the entire school. The reason for my enrolment was sheer genius level thinking on Edith’s part. She firmly believed that because my left hand was smaller than the right one it stood to reason it was considerably weaker and needed strengthening. She concluded the best thing for my hand was for me to learn to play the piano. Someone had told her that the nuns were good piano teachers. So, there I was at the ripe old age of seven years thrust into a strict religious regime to which I knew nothing about chanting prayers every half hour.

The bell would ring three times on the hour and we’d have to stand and recite the Lord’s Prayer and three Hail Mary’s. On the half hour, the bell would ring once and we’d stand to recite the Lord's Prayer. Twice a week I would be summoned to report to the music room to go through the tortuous procedure of trying to master the art of pianoforte. I hadn’t been there very long when my music teacher, Sister Mary Leonard, convinced Edith that I should attend elocution classes as well. My five years of piano and elocution lessons certainly paid off in the long term. Not .

Whenever I get my hands on a piano, I invariably play a tortured rendition of Oh, can you wash your father’s shirt and See the Pyramids along the Nile. I wouldn’t know a crotchet from a quaver if you paid me a million dollars and the art of speech is such when the occasion calls for it, I can speak with a plum in my mouth. Fortunately, I have never had the occasion nor have I ever been able to bring ‘How Now Brown Cow’ into any conversation I've ever had.

As for my religious upbringing, I became every nun’s target to try and convince me I should become a catholic. My observation: being a catholic meant one thing, going to mass at six o’clock every Sunday morning. My own personal religion was to sleep as late as I could every morning especially Sundays. I would tell all the nuns that I couldn’t become a catholic because my mother wouldn’t let me. Perhaps this was the reason when Edith won first prize of a towel and face washer in one of the many raffles the nuns made me sell tickets for, they decided to try and stop a protestant collecting the prize.

In my first year at the school I recall having to go into church to confess my sins. We all had to sit outside a row of three boxes in the back of the church and each child took their turn to enter one of the side boxes as soon as one of the other kids walked out. I was absolutely petrified of what might happen to me in the little darkened room. When I entered, I sat down as if I was on the toilet, I said a quick Hail Mary and then high-tailed it out of there as fast as my little legs could travel. I knew I’d done something wrong by the look of disbelief on all the other kid’s faces, but I never did find out who or what was in the middle box. It could have been the devil himself for all I knew.

Edith received an unexpected visit from Father Murphy, the Parish Priest, in the early summer of my first year at the catholic school. She had been cooking the Christmas puddings in the old copper boiler. As you can imagine, standing over a boiler on a hot summer’s day, she wouldn’t be wearing an overcoat. Edith was appropriately dressed in one of her own creations which I guess was very daring in those days. She wore a floral homemade bra with matching shorts. Her hair was tied back with a scarf to keep it out of her eyes and off her face. Father Murphy’s face almost hit the floor on seeing Edith almost naked. He introduced himself and Edith greeted him cordially by introducing herself. He didn’t mince words and came straight to the point

Father Murphy ‘Do you always dress like that, Mrs Long?’

Edith ‘Yes, Father, I do when it’s a stinking hot day like today, especially when I’m busy preparing the Christmas puddings over a very hot boiler’

Father Murphy ‘Don’t you think it’s rather risqué?'

Edith ‘No I don’t, not in the privacy of my own home when I’m not expecting visitors. I think it’s very appropriate attire and extremely comfortable for this humid climate, but I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss my clothing, Father, so how can I help you?’Father Murphy ‘Mrs Long, it’s come to my attention that you live here with two men and that you did not marry Mr Long in the catholic church even though he’s a catholic.’Edith ‘Yes, that’s right, Father.’

Father Murphy ‘Do you realise that you’re not married in the eyes of God, Mrs Long, and living with two men is rather unusual to say the least wouldn’t you say?’

Edith looked at him without batting an eye

Edith ‘Father, it was my husband’s decision not to be married in the catholic church as he doesn’t believe in religion and I don’t think it’s unusual to have my husband’s brother living with us. Especially considering that he’s recuperating from having surgery for Tuberculosis.’

Father Murphy rather stunned by her frankness spluttered, ‘Oh.’

Edith ‘Now if you'll excuse me, Father, I’m a very busy woman and I do have other chores to attend to as much as I’d like to stand here and chat with you.’

She bade him a good morning and closed the door in his face.

All hell exploded when Edith retold the story to Dad, he ranted and raved,

‘How dare those bastards come to my home and question my wife about me.’

He concluded by telling Edith,

‘If he ever comes back again telling you you’re not married you bloody well tell him to find another woman for me to marry in his precious bloody church and he can do my time in jail for bigamy.’

With all the disruptions of learning and reciting prayers, going to piano and elocution lessons twice a week, I had no interest in school by the end of my first year. I couldn’t have given two hoots where the highest mountain was or how long the longest river was or where Rotterdam was on the map. I wasn’t going to climb, swim or live in any of these places so what was the use of learning about them. As for arithmetic and algebra I was hopeless beyond adding the simplest of sums, but if nothing else I absolutely loved reading and writing especially doing compositions and we had to write a composition every weekend for homework.

Every Sunday night I’d sit at the dining room table and write an event to my heart’s content. If I got nine out of ten for it on Monday, I was upset because ten out of ten was my usual grade and I was so proud of this achievement. Our next-door neighbour, Dotty, would come in to help me with my maths and geography, Mum used to give her five shillings, (fifty cents) to come and tutor me. Dotty did try to earn her money, but I wasn’t interested in learning at all. Ironically although I hated maths, geography and history etc I now find that rarely a day goes by I’m not calculating something, I’d give my eyeteeth to visit every country in the world and I’m fascinated by historical events.

Even if I was remotely interested in learning, James certainly stopped any desire I had. He had begun learning to play the drums and every moment of his waking hours he tapped out a constant rhythmic beat on anything and everything. Every mealtime became a musical endurance for the entire family. Knives forks and spoons became the sticks and the crockery, glassware and condiment bottles were the drums and cymbals.

On Sunday nights when Dotty came to help me with my homework James would use our heads as the drums. If we were lucky, he’d only use his hands or fingers if we were unlucky, he’d use the real drumsticks. No manner of protest would stop him, his enthusiasm with his drum practice certainly paid off not only did he become a successful Jazz drummer (if only in his own home town) he also successfully taught a number of students including his own son.

In spite of constantly being harassed to become a catholic, I liked most of the nuns especially two of them. Sister Mary Angelina and Sister Mary St Angela were both kind considerate and very patient with me. Sister Mary St Angela was my particular favourite and I was her pet. Whenever she wanted something done like going to the post office or delivering a message, she’d always choose me to do it for her. She used to arrange the flowers in the church every morning and I made a special effort the entire year I was in her class to go to school early just to empty the vases and arrange the flowers in the church with her, she made me feel very special. The other kids weren’t too pleased with me because of the special treatment. I used to sit in the front of the class almost under the blackboard in line with her desk. I could peel and eat an entire orange without her ever reprimanding me, but if anyone else so much as ate half a biscuit in the back row she’d punish them by making them stand in front of her desk for ten minutes. She would reward the good children with a boiled lolly and I got the lion’s share of the lollies that year.

There were about thirty to thirty-five girls and five or six boys in my class for the five years I was at the catholic school. We all had our own little groups and stuck to our own group all the way through. Gabrielle, Nancy, Jenny, Margaret and I were as close as any school friends could be. Mostly Jenny and I were like sisters as we practically lived in each other’s pockets, this concerned the teachers and my family for some unknown reason. No one thought that it was a good idea for us to be associating with each other and everyone seemed hell bent on keeping us apart. But the more they separated us, the more we were determined to be friends, we were inseparable.

It would be totally unfair of me to say that Jenny suggested one day that we should wag school. The honest truth is I can’t remember whose decision it was and it really doesn’t matter because we were both as guilty as the other. Both of us were only too willing to have a day off. We spent the day at Jenny’s house because her mother was always out working, cleaning and ironing. Her father was a railway porter at Roma Street Station on the early shift and wouldn’t get home until late because he’d go to the pub and get drunk every day. We sat around drinking cups of tea and eating biscuits and playing cards and other games and we sang all the pop songs as they came on the radio. Both Jenny and I had quite good voices and I really believe if we’d had a good private singing teacher, we could’ve become a singing duo. In those days there was no avenue for female singers in Australia let alone Brisbane, well none that we knew of anyway.

We both nearly had heart failure when a knock came at the front door. I scurried into Jenny’s bedroom while Jenny went to answer the door. It was Byron Carney, the biggest dunce in our class, Sister Mary St Angela had sent him to find out why Jenny wasn’t at school. Jenny told him she had a sore throat and started to cough, she asked him why Sister had sent him to her place

Byron ‘Because I’m the only one who knew where you lived.’

Jenny ‘Amelia knows, why didn’t she send her?’

Byron ‘Amelia isn’t at school either.’

Jenny ‘Do you have to go to Amelia’s house?’

Byron ‘Nuh.’

Jenny ‘Tell Sister I’ll be there tomorrow if my throat’s better.’

Byron asked for a drink of cordial because he had walked from school which was almost a mile and he had to walk back. Jenny gave him the drink and we both thought he was never going to leave, when he did, we both collapsed into gales of laughter.

As I write this, I’ve just realised that Sister St Angela sent the dunce of the class to go on an errand. Maybe all the times she sent me on an errand she just wanted to get the protestant out of her class.

I headed for home at about three-thirty and we’d worked out that if I walked a particular route home, I’d get there at approximately my usual time. I got to within five minutes walking distance from home when my father and Edith drove past me in Dad’s work van. They saw me and pulled up. I started to panic because it was too early for Dad to be home from work. I thought God, I’m in for it if they’ve found out that I’ve wagged it, but they greeted me with as much love and happiness as they always did. I climbed into the van and kissed them both and asked where they were going Dad said he had to make a delivery up the road. We drove up the hill I’d just walked down

Edith ‘How was your day?.’

Amelia ‘It was alright’

Edith ‘Only alright, what did you learn?’

Amelia ‘Nothing much just the usual boring stuff’

Edith ‘Did you go to music or elocution today?’

Amelia ‘Yes, Sister Leonard was as cranky as she always is’

Edith ‘That’s unusual we thought you might have been sick or something’

Amelia ‘Why?’

Edith ‘Because you weren’t at school at all were you?’

I knew there was no point in denying it because someone had opened their mouth and I was convinced that Byron Carney must have seen or heard me at Jenny’s place. As it turned out it was an old battle-axe by the name of Mrs McCaully who had seen Jenny and I going to the shop to buy biscuits. She was an acquaintance of my parents and had rung Edith at nine-thirty, bloody old busy body. I had visions of putting a rock through her window but I figured she’d see who did it. She was always spying on everyone from behind her curtains. I don’t recall the punishment for wagging school so it couldn’t have been too severe it was punishment enough getting found out. The shame of disappointing them and Sister Mary St Angela was punishment enough. Jenny and I had always been really nice to Mrs McCaully, up until that day. After that whenever we passed her house, we’d stick our fingers up in the reversed V for victory sign, but if we saw her in the street, we’d keep a good distance from her trying to make sure she didn’t see us. But she probably did.