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  Mum turns away, reaches for Johnny who is on the floor clinging to her legs and settles him on her lap.

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What if I’m right?’ Mum whispers while wiping the toddler’s snotty nose with the wet dishcloth that goes straight back into the sink.

  ‘You have to do something. You’ll have to tell Jim.’

  ‘I’m scared, Mary. I just want to go to bed and sleep until it all goes away.’

  ‘Tell him.’

  ‘I can’t. He works so hard at so many jobs just to keep on top of the bills, the school fees.’

  Suddenly Mum looks at Margie and me and I wait for her to send us away, but she just stares at something behind us, something on the other side of the window. It’s Aunty Mary who tells Margie to take Johnny outside to play. I grab my basketball, ready to go with them when she says, ‘You stay, Cally.’ Oh, God. What have I done now?

  I toss the ball towards the back door, into the old rubbish bin overflowing with bats and balls and gumboots. My mum doesn’t look at me when I sit down next to her. She just stares at the cigarette burn on the edge of the laminated table.

  ‘You’re eleven now,’ Aunty Mary says, like she’s just remembered I’ve had a birthday.

  ‘Double figures,’ she says with a pretend smile as if she has an awful toothache.

  ‘Your mum’s going to need your help when the new baby comes.’

  New baby? The words echo in my head and I put my hands over my ears to block them out. I panic. Sure, I love babies, especially my cute little brothers. I love holding them, giving them their milk. First Johnny and now Matthew, holding him up high on my shoulder and rubbing his little back to burp him like my mum showed me. I am always extra careful when I cradle his soft head in my hands so it doesn’t flop everywhere. But another baby? Don’t we have enough?

  Even Dad says eight is enough. ‘We have plenty of babies already,’ he says to Margie when she asks about having a little sister.

  ‘Cally, love,’ Aunty Mary says to me, moving closer to my face. ‘Did you hear me? Your mother isn’t well and she’s going to need your help.’

  Don’t I help already? I want to shout back. But I stop myself. I don’t want to shout at Aunty Mary. What about Margie, she’s better than me? Why don’t you get her to help?

  I look to my mum, willing her to say something. Tell me it’s not true. But she moves away from the table, away from me. As she passes, I catch her dark green eyes, dead like those of a sleepwalker.

  I’m going to run away. I plan my escape. I’ve tried it once before when my brothers called me Pimple Face and Mop Head. This time I will stay away forever.

  I consider telling Margie my secret, asking her to come with me but I know she won’t leave Mum. But I could go and Mum wouldn’t even care.

  As soon as Aunty Mary leaves and Mum goes to her bedroom for a rest I ride my bike down to the creek. I head towards the new tennis courts and ride around the white lines of the court until I get bored. I throw stones into the creek, counting backwards from one hundred.

  The sky gradually turns dark, filling up with clouds. Then the storm starts and at first I don’t mind. I like watching the lightning, but when the thunder shatters the silence around me I’m terrified. I feel like a baby. I tell myself it’s just God and the angels shifting their furniture in heaven, like Mum once said. Then the heavy rain pelts down on my face and arms, so I crawl into a concrete drain. I’m scared now, scared of the storm and the dark. Scared of the new baby and what it all means. I shut my eyes and pray someone will come soon. I think of Nicky and how lucky he is, away at boarding school, away from annoying siblings where he doesn’t have to worry about more babies. I pray someone will come and find me.

  I wait and wait. Still no-one comes. I hate our house and I hate my family. I hate feeling sad all the time. I’m never going home. I don’t know why everything always turns bad, but one thing I do know for sure is that Father Murphy is not always right. Maybe I will go to hell for thinking what I do, but at church he tells us if we are good and kind Jesus will love us. At school the nuns say Jesus can work miracles, like St Paul and his holy vision on the road to Damascus when he was blind and then he could see. And Father says that one fine day God will reveal all. All what? Will I ever know why Mum keeps having babies, and getting sick? Why Nicky and Maurice are still blind? It seems to me that life isn’t always as good as some people pretend. Maybe Mum is right. Maybe I’m not good enough.

  Outside of my hiding place, it gets darker and even though there are a few stars to light the sky, I’m too scared to move.

  I am done with the crying and feeling sorry for myself. ‘Just being selfish,’ Mum always says. I decide to go home, to try harder from now on. I will help Mum when she needs me. Crawling out of the tunnel and into the rain, I promise God if I make it home there will be no more temper tantrums from me, no more throwing things and sulking in my room. I pedal hard to get home before it’s too dark to see.

  I sneak in the back door. Mum is lying on the floor under a blanket watching Young Talent Time. I crawl next to her, wrap my cold arms and legs around her warm body. I feel her humming a song with Johnny Young, telling me to close my eyes and giving me a kiss.

  ‘Oooh, Cally love, you’re cold. Where’ve you been?’ Mum lifts her arms to cuddle me close to her. ‘I know it’s hard on you,’ she says. ‘Aunty Mary is right. I really am going to need your help.’

  ‘Sure.’ I swallow hard.

  ‘Let me run you a bath.’

  I sniff back my runny nose, and nod. Feeling bad for running away but still wishing I wasn’t the oldest girl in the family.

  One of my happier memories of Margie and Mum was around the time I was finishing primary school. We were getting ready to celebrate our birthdays. Margie’s birthday was three weeks after mine. She would be ten and I was turning twelve. On this occasion Mum announced we could both have our presents early.

  Margie and I were sitting on the end of Mum’s bed sharing birthday wishes when Mum squeezed herself between us. Right in the middle where the pink candlewick bedspread had worn away.

  ‘We’re going shopping,’ she grinned. ‘You can pick out some new clothes.’ We jumped up and down on the bed like we used to when we were little. Mum laughed along with us, singing at the top of her voice ‘Any dream will do,’ sounding just like Perry Como.

  Then she stopped, her voice low and serious. ‘Cally,’ she said. Kneeling in front of the dressing table placing plastic rollers in her hair. ‘I expect you’ll be getting your period soon.’ She stared into the mirror, watching me behind her. Reached for a roller to make a row of curls down the middle of her head. ‘So I want you to put some pads in your drawer. There are spare ones in the laundry cupboard right at the back behind the sheets.’ I was horrified. What if one of the boys saw them? I wanted to ask but kept quiet. She put her hand out to me for another hairpin, without glancing at me. ‘Just a small one this time, thanks honey.’

  ‘What if it hurts?’ I said. ‘Some of the girls say you have to go to bed if you bleed. Sharon said she knew someone who died from bleeding.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Caroline, not in front of your sister. Ignore that Sharon. You know she tells tales. I don’t know why you hang around her anyway. I’m sure there are nicer girls you could play with.’

  Margie sat in silence, taking it all in. I wondered if she was too young to have to deal with all this information but Mum seemed intent on delivering ‘the talk’ to the two of us. Besides, we did everything together. For years, we shared bath time and a bed, and later boyfriend secrets. Mum even dressed us as if we were twins and often referred to us as one, no names, just ‘the girls’. But Mum, more than anyone, saw that we were different. She told everyone Margaret was sensitive and shy. I was too bold and too loud. Were we acting out our roles even as children? Was it our way of surviving? Did Margie live inside herself to ensure a more peaceful household?

  Wh
en the day for our birthday shopping spree finally arrived, we headed off to Walton’s, the new department store in nearby Glenroy. Mum smiled all the way there, she had just got her licence and looked pleased with herself as she steered the old green Kingswood along Blair Street. ‘Light me a smoke, love,’ she called to me as she negotiated the bend in Pascoe Vale Road. I pushed the car lighter in, slipped the cool white tip of the slender Alpine cigarette into my mouth, attached the red-hot lighter to its tip, inhaled and coughed. My next drag on the cigarette was a quick one. ‘Give it here now,’ Mum bellowed.

  At Walton’s we made our way around the aisles of clothes, holding up selected dresses, skirts and blouses to show Mum for approval. She decided on matching coat dresses for Margie and I, purple and white check with gold buttons and cute little half belts across the back. I couldn’t wait to wear mine with the long boots Donna Gleeson had given me; white, lace-up boots that went all the way to my knobby knees. In the change room, Mum looked at me closely and smiled. Maybe she was pleased to see me in a dress or maybe she was just happy.

  ‘You’ll need a training bra soon,’ she said, and Margie giggled as I stood there pushing out my chest. Mum was laughing too so I took my chance.

  ‘Can I grow my hair long too?’

  ‘No. It won’t suit you.’

  ‘I’m sick of short hair.’

  ‘Your hair’s too thin. I don’t have the time to plait it or curl it all the time.’

  ‘I don’t want plaits and curls.’

  Margaret was allowed to keep her thick, dark hair long. And Mum probably didn’t understand, or care, how desperate I was to break away from the tomboy look I had grown up with. The short hair, the hand-me-down jeans and t-shirts from my older brothers. At least I now had a new dress. Margie and I helped Mum choose a new coat, a tan-coloured, calf-length one of suede with a fake fur collar. It still hangs in my wardrobe and I sometimes bury my face in the smell of her.

  Mum paid for it all with lots of Walton’s dollars. The bright coloured paper credit notes reminded me of Monopoly money.

  Not long after the shopping spree, the Walton’s man came to our house to collect a payment. He wore a suit and carried a briefcase and I thought he was a new doctor. Mum thought he was handsome, apart from the silly thing on his head that looked like a small rug; a thick, black wig swept across his forehead from one ear to the other. She offered him a cup of tea and convinced him she would have the money next time he called. The next time Mum kept us in the bedroom with her as he banged away at the door. When he wouldn’t go away she sent me to the door.

  ‘Mum’s not home.’

  ‘Tell her I’ll call back next week.’

  ‘Okay.’ I went to close the door but he held it open with his foot.

  ‘And tell her if she doesn’t have the money, I’ll go to the sheriff,’ he said. Then he headed off down McIvor Street towards the Gleesons’.

  ‘I’m not talking to him next time,’ I complained to Mum. ‘Maybe we should give our new clothes back.’

  ‘We’ve paid for them and they’re ours. Stop being so silly. Always worrying.’ Mum pursed her lips and shook her head the way she did when she’d had enough of me.

  ‘Mister Walton’ called a few times more. Then Dad took out another bank loan to get rid of him for good.

  Not long after my birthday and the visits from Mister Walton, Mum took me to the doctor to see about the pains in my stomach. Dad was annoyed I’d missed too many days of school. ‘Just growing pains,’ he said. ‘Missing all that school is not good for her,’ he growled at Mum.

  The doctor called it nerves. ‘Just like her mother,’ Dr Maloney said and gave me a jellybean from the jar on his desk. Mum took the note from him. ‘Something to make her feel better,’ he smiled.

  ‘If you can’t swallow it, chew slowly,’ Mum said, handing me the large strawberry-flavoured tablet that I took with dinner each night.

  Was the doctor right? Was I really like my mum? I don’t know if that idea or swallowing the tablets frightened me more.

  Have I always been a worrier? Was the anxiety of childhood never to leave me and to reappear in all kinds of guises – stomach ulcers, hypertension? As a child, I remember being afraid of lots of things but particularly that I would go blind like Maurice and Nicky. I thought the blindness would happen to me, or one of my brothers – but never Margie. It was that easy, a knock on the head, and bang you were blind. I practised being blind by shutting my eyes and walking around the bedroom, then the rest of the house. I tried putting on lipstick while staring at myself in the mirror with my eyes closed. What did Maurice and Nicky see when they looked in the mirror? Who looked back?

  But most of the time I worried about Mum and why she was always sick. I worried that Mum would die, like her mother did when she was a little girl. Or maybe it would be Margie who got sick – like our mother did when she was nine years old and got diphtheria. Mum told me she was a ‘carrier’ of the germ. She went to Fairfield hospital for three months, confined to a room on her own. Shut off from the world outside. Her dad was not permitted to visit but every night he waved to her from the footpath below her hospital window.

  Six

  Damrina soon appeared to be losing interest in our lessons and avoided any practice between visits. ‘No time,’ she told me or ‘too busy’ was another excuse. Then it clicked. The lessons needed to be more practical. I started helping her to fill in forms – an ambulance subscription, unemployment benefits for her husband. I even taught her to drive. I’m not sure why I agreed and soon realised we should have done some practice on simple words like ‘Stop’ and ‘Give Way’. Her daughters were pleased when we returned in one piece. ‘You are brave,’ one said to me and hugged her mother as if she’d been gone for a year not an hour. As I waved goodbye to the mother, her daughters and grandchild by her side, I felt overwhelmed with a curious mix of sadness and envy. I longed for a moment like that.

  Silly me, I was feeling nostalgic again. Instead of driving straight home, I headed towards the small shopping strip on King Street. There was now a Turkish takeaway and video shop where my mum’s old workplace used to be.

  Mum was thirty-four when she became a ‘checkout chick’ at the supermarket in Upfield, a fifteen-minute walk from McIvor Street.

  It was the early seventies and the last of her children, Matthew, was nearly ready for school. She decided it was time for her to help Dad with the increasing school fees and all the extras things our growing family needed. Perhaps Mum was happy to get out of the house, to make friends and to have a little money of her own. She did love to shop but wasn’t extravagant, more of a well-practised bargain hunter. Still, I can only imagine how difficult it would have been for her to manage a full-time job and a young family. Mum was not a good sleeper and there was always a light on in our house through the night. The washing machine would be spinning at midnight and she would wake at dawn to make a cup of tea for Dad when he got home from his night job. With the supermarket job came a new hairstyle and Val became Valerie with her fashionable, golden-blonde bob.

  ‘I feel so old there,’ she told my dad, after her first day.

  ‘I bet you’re the prettiest cashier in Dallas,’ he smiled.

  ‘Well they are all nice to me. I have smoko with Barbara and Sheryl has shown me how to use the register.’

  Mum’s voice seemed to change when she went to work. It was still strong and deep, but there was something different about it, almost posh. Like the time she rang the priest to find out the Mass schedule for Easter when she tried to disguise her voice.

  ‘See you there, Val,’ Father Dalton said as he hung up.

  ‘Don’t forget I’m taking you out on Saturday night,’ Dad said, as Mum got ready to leave for work.

  ‘I did forget. Where are we going?’

  ‘To the city, to see My Fair Lady.’

  Mum was so excited. They rarely went out and now Dad was taking her to her favourite musical. She danced around the house with M
argie singing, ‘The rain in Spain, falls mainly on the plain.’ Margie tried being Eliza Doolittle too. How clever Margie was at copying people on TV and remembering all those words and songs.

  ‘I hope it’s the real thing this time,’ Mum said, grinning at Dad. ‘Not that stupid show in St Kilda.’

  ‘What show?’

  ‘You know what show.’

  ‘Oh, you mean My Bare Lady. Not this time Valerie, dear.’

  ‘That’s not even funny. It’s sick.’

  ‘Caroline,’ Mum shouted at me as if I shouldn’t be listening. ‘You’ll have to get dinner now that I’m doing the afternoon shifts, just for the little ones. You could heat up some stew or open a can of spaghetti.’

  Without giving me a chance to reply Mum slipped into her black, lace-up shoes and headed for the door. ‘You do realise I can’t do this job without your help,’ she smiled. Help your mother. Help your mother. It all came rushing back. Aunty Mary and Mum, in the hot kitchen. But baby number nine never came. And no-one ever mentioned it again. I never dared to ask.

  Fingers in my mouth, deep down my throat, I make loud gagging noises as I vomit into the toilet. I don’t want to go to school. I hate it. I hate the teachers who pick on me, and Harry, who’s in grade six with me and still can’t read. Sometimes I like staying home and having Mum to myself; well, almost.

  Mum watches me while I brush my teeth, puts her hand on my forehead and doesn’t bother arguing about all the reasons why I should go to school. Instead she fills the fireplace with briquettes from a red plastic bucket and wipes the black dust onto her brown corduroy slacks. I settle in with another Enid Blyton story, this time The Secret Seven, an old, worn copy my friend Lynda has given me. Dad says Broadmeadows should have its own library by now. ‘What would you expect from bloody Bolte and his mob. They wouldn’t give you two bob for Broady.’

  Soon Aunty Mary arrives as Mum pours the boiling water into the teapot.

  ‘Can I have one too?’ I call from under my warm blanket on the couch. They start talking about Russell and Paul and Aunty Mary nods her head towards me with a raised eyebrow.