Back to Broady Page 6

  ‘Don’t worry about her,’ Mum says. ‘She’s always got her head in a book.’

  I lift my head from the pillow to hear their quiet voices.

  ‘Jim says it’s best to keep it from the police,’ Mum says.

  At the mention of police, I drop my book and strain to hear more. ‘He’s decided to send Paul to boarding school.’

  ‘Boarding school, that’s a bit harsh.’

  ‘We don’t know what else to do. Jim says it’ll be good for him.’

  ‘Russell wants to leave school, wants to be a mechanic. I think he’s still too young.’

  ‘Fourteen? I guess it’s young, but I was working at his age. Married at seventeen, a baby at eighteen. Must have been the same for you, Mary.’

  ‘Sure, I was marched down the aisle when I was still a girl, but things are different now. I want our kids to have more than we did.’

  Slowly, like a detective, I put together the details of the story. I ask my brothers, Tom and Andy, for information but they say they don’t know anything. I don’t believe them so I make up some of the story.

  At school the next day I am bursting to share my secret with Kaylene and Rita.

  ‘Why’s Paul going away?’ Rita wants to know.

  Should I tell? I wonder as we sit on the hot tar at the side of the netball courts, whispering. I finally give in to the peer group pressure. ‘He’s in trouble. Big strife,’ I say, choosing Mum’s word like it’s the worst kind of trouble to be in.

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Broke into the Dallas milk bar.’ I can’t believe the words have come out of my mouth. It’s too late now, and I can’t take them back but I will not say anything more. I shut my mouth, drop my head and close my eyes. I see Paul and Russell climbing on top of the roof of the milk bar at the Dallas shops. Paul squeezing through a hole in the roof, with Russell going in after him while another kid keeps a lookout. They’ve got Andy’s torch to show them around the shop finding things to take, stuffing their pockets with lollies, redskins, bananas, milk bottles and liquorice allsorts.

  ‘Will they go to jail?’ Kaylene says.

  ‘Did you get anything?’ Rita says standing above me now, legs apart and hands on hips.

  ‘Nope. They shared it all with their mates. That’s how they got caught. One of ’em dobbed to his dad.’

  I wonder if our Paul was the one who was too generous with the lollies, and if maybe he did keep something for me. He doesn’t tease me so much anymore and he even lets me listen to his records. And one day at Little Athletics Paul was at the Gibb Reserve, cheering for me. He questioned the timekeeper when he gave the first-place ticket to another girl. That girl had a real coach, not just her big brother to train her. But Paul knew I’d won that time. He was watching and timing it. He told them to check again. I walked home with Paul and my equal-first ribbon. Whenever Paul teased me after that I knew it was just for fun.

  ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone,’ I plead with the girls. ‘Even the police don’t know. Mum says it’s enough that Paul is sorry. But she’s still making him say the Rosary every night.’

  Later that night when Russell calls for Paul I can’t look at him. I know he doesn’t know that I know his secret but I still feel bad.

  ‘Paul’s at the butcher’s. He’s just started his new part-time job,’ Andy tells him.

  ‘I’ll wait for him,’ Russell says and heads inside our house. I follow and wonder if he’s going to fix our washing machine that’s broken down. Dirty wet clothes still stuck inside. Mum says Russell is a genius, and he can fix anything.

  Russell pulls out pieces from the back of the machine. He lays the motor on the grass in the yard. Andy helps, passing screwdrivers, watching closely. When he’s put it all back together he kicks the footy with Seamus and Johnny. Margie has an old piece of rope wrapped around her palms as she sings her skipping songs, her long plaits bouncing in time. Always happy with her own company. I wonder if Russell misses his brothers, Maurice and Nicky, when they are away at the boarding school for the blind.

  Russell takes a turn at the handball target. The boys have painted a red circle on the back fence with a yellow dot in the middle. ‘You’ve gotta punch the footy hard so it hits the right spot,’ he tells Johnny. ‘Like this. Hey, when’s Paul get home?’

  ‘He’s going to jail.’ Seamus blurts it out. Andy shoves him hard in the arm.

  ‘What did you say?’ Russell swings around to grab Seamus.

  ‘Paul’s going to jail.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘No bullshit, you will too.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘For robbing the milk bar, stealing the lollies.’

  Andy grabs Seamus around the neck as Russell throws the ball and walks away. ‘Whatchya say that for?’

  ‘Why? What’s so bad about jail?’

  ‘See those bars,’ Andy says and grabs at the wrought iron veranda bars. ‘They put you behind bars like them. And you can’t get out.’

  ‘Bet I could,’ Seamus says.

  ‘Dare you. Dare you to stick your head in. Go on.’

  Seamus crawls down on his knees, takes two of the bars in his hands and pushes his head between them. He pokes it out the other side. Andy laughs and points, Russell grins too. We’re all laughing as Seamus smiles back, clowning around.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Johnny says and fills a bucket of water ready to throw at his brother.

  Seamus soaks up the attention. He pokes his tongue at us, pulls a face and wriggles his head from side to side.

  Then he tries to pull his head out, the way it went in. But his ears are in the way.

  I try and push his head back. I hold my hands over his ears, pin them close to his head but my hands get in the way. Andy tries to push from the front and Russell pulls from behind.

  ‘Stop laughing, it’s hurting him,’ Margie cries. ‘I’ll get Mum.’

  ‘Bloody ears,’ Mum says. ‘Turn your head a bit more,’ she coaxes.

  Seamus sobs as his ears glow, bright red like the coals in the fireplace.

  Mum is calm throughout the crisis in our backyard and calls for Russell to bring her a hammer.

  ‘Maybe a crowbar too,’ she calls. ‘Bloody fool,’ she says to Seamus. ‘Always sticking your head and arms in things. We’ll have to cut them off.’ She works away on one side of the bars and Russell bangs hard on the other.

  ‘It’s no use,’ she says, dropping the weapons by her side. ‘Cally, go and get Uncle Tom.’ Tom Perry works for Home Pride Bakery in Oak Park and he’s always home early. Sometimes he brings us leftovers and my favourite is raisin bread. But today Uncle Tom doesn’t bring any bread, just a big saw. My friend Donna follows her dad to watch.

  As he tries to cut the bar and bend it to fit Seamus’s head through, Uncle Tom curses and swears. ‘Bloody thing’s blunt. You’ll have to call the police or the fire brigade, Val.’

  But Mum says she doesn’t want the police hanging around. And I know why. When there’s nothing left to try and Seamus is still stuck between the bars, Mum leaves us. She runs to the Gleesons’ to call triple zero.

  Seamus is crying as Uncle Tom chats to him, promises to take him to see the Kangaroos play the Bombers at the MCG.

  Margie’s crying too and I want my dad to come home. He’ll know what to do. But Mum tells me to stop my whining. ‘He can’t just leave work at the drop of a hat.’

  Then the siren wails through McIvor Street as the big fire engine pulls into the narrow driveway of our house. Men in dark blue uniforms and red helmets jump from the truck, and follow Mum to our backyard.

  ‘Now young man, let’s see if we can help you out,’ the tall one with the curly hair says to Seamus. He works at bending the bar and then gently eases my brother’s head through.

  I hold my breath and link my fingers with Margie’s as Seamus is finally free. Mum dabs Vaseline on his ears to cool them down.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ Mum grins at me and flaps
my ears. ‘It could have been you and we’d have a hell of a job getting your big wing nuts out of there.’

  This wasn’t the first time my brother’s ears had got him into trouble. Just a few weeks before when he started school, Seamus was called to Sister Lucia’s office. He’d punched a kid in the playground who called him Big Ears. His mate Frankie got called Noddy and Seamus didn’t like that either. It wasn’t long before the whole school had heard about our Seamus. The little preppie who punched up the grade-six bully. Seamus was legendary at Holy Child and no-one teased him again.

  Not long after the drama of the fire brigade rescue had made us McIvor Street celebrities, Mum turned her attention to our religious instruction. In particular, Margaret Mary’s First Holy Communion. ‘We will have a party,’ she announced. ‘It’ll be bigger than Brownlow Medal night.’

  The party was a welcome contrast to my own ‘big day’ when I was palmed off the night before to Aunty Jill, then the young wife of my Uncle Kevin. Her job was to try and make me look pretty. First she scrubbed and filed my nails. I don’t think I’d ever had them filed before. And then she curled my hair. Not too well, as the photographic evidence would later reveal. There I am, grinning madly, alongside my older brothers looking resplendent (if not uncomfortable) in their altar boy outfits. They had retired from these duties some months before but were recalled by my mother for the most important day of the year when the Archbishop came to Dallas. Mum certainly was a good Catholic girl.

  For Margaret’s ‘Special Day of the Holy Sacrament’ our mum wore a new dress, one with a fitted psychedelic print top and plain black skirt. Her blonde hair was curled and her fringe teased away from her green almond-shaped eyes. They were brighter that day than they had been in a long time. I studied her as she sat alone for a few short moments, her legs curled up under her on the sofa, right where the stuffing was falling out. She rubbed at the nicotine stains on her fingers like Lady Macbeth scrubbing away the blood. Matthew climbed onto her knee and she spat on those same fingers to pat down his fluffy hair.

  Dad looked dapper in his new grey suit, pale orange shirt and emerald tie. His thick black hair was swept up at his forehead. Dad’s look never changed. At any age, he was handsome. There was something enduring about the hair and that same hopeful smile. He called us to gather at the front door in the hope we might be at Mass on time for once. As we left for the church, Margie paraded before us in her virginal white, ready to become a bride of Christ.

  ‘Maggie, love, you look beautiful,’ Dad said. It’s only a word but no-one ever called me beautiful. ‘Clever Carly,’ Dad might have said, but never pretty or beautiful. I had to agree. Our Margie was beautiful. I had come to accept I was not. Although it still hurt when I heard Aunty Eileen note my physical shortcomings to Mum or Dad: ‘Your Carly has a terrible yellow colour about her,’ as if it was their fault. ‘Those black rings under her eyes, and always that frown on her face.’

  ‘Are you scared?’ I asked my little sister.

  ‘No, not really. Well, maybe just a bit.’ She smiled and pulled at the buckle on her new party shoes. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘What’s what like?’

  ‘You know, the bread thing they give you.’

  ‘The body of Christ, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Not that nice, it sticks to your mouth and it’s hard to get it off your tongue. Remember to close your mouth. Don’t chew it, just wait until it melts.’

  ‘Sister Theresa says we have to stick our tongue right out so Father Murphy can put the body of Jesus on it without touching our mouth.’

  Margie proceeded to make a slow, respectful sign of the cross and gave us her best Irish accent. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph ye will need to be quick now, what with fifty-six of ye taking the Holy Sacrament,’ she mimicked. ‘The poor father will be flat out, so he will.’

  She then shuffled away like Sister Theresa, who was always dragging the heavy brown robes behind her and threatening to use the strap on any girl who painted her fingernails.

  ‘You’ll be an actress one day,’ I said as Mum brushed Margie’s curls once more and placed the new cross around her neck. ‘It’s expensive so don’t go losing it.’

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t wear it.’

  ‘Of course you should, it’s your big day. It seems like yesterday when you were baptised.’ Mum said and gave her a big hug. Then she was off to greet her godparents, Aunty Nellie and Uncle Dick, who were there to share the day. Dad’s Irish friends were a big part of our lives.

  After the church service, the party at number four McIvor Street began. It was a combined celebration – for Margie’s new status in the Catholic Church and a double birthday for our brothers, Paul, who was turning sixteen and Tom, who would be fifteen two days later. Paul was home from boarding school for the weekend. I don’t think he was supposed to have the weekend at home, but even then my oldest brother had an uncanny way of convincing people in authority to see things his way. Back then it was the Marist Brothers at school and later it was law enforcers or bewildered staff at the MCG, as he shielded kids without tickets through the turnstiles on grand final day.

  Maurice, Russell and Nicky Gleeson arrived for the party with Aunty Mary and Uncle Ray. Then came the Walkers and the Goldsmiths. Followed by the Roberts and Perry families. It wasn’t long before the rest of the neighbours filled our small living room.

  After a few raspberry lemonades and bags of potato chips we chased one another through the crowded house. We climbed the furniture, dropped cake and biscuits on the floor and played our records full volume on the new turntable the boys got for their birthdays. ‘Turn that down,’ Mum shouted, as Neil Young’s ‘Heart of Gold’ rang through the room.

  ‘Go and play on the road,’ Uncle Kevin yelled. ‘Stick your head up a dead bear’s bum,’ Uncle Alf joined in. But we knew he didn’t mean it because at the end of every party he let us take turns to sit on his wooden leg as he pushed it up and down like a seesaw. When I was younger I wouldn’t go near his wooden leg, a legacy of World War II and his time in El Alamein. I thought his wooden leg would break if I sat on it.

  When lunch was finished, I chased Brendan to the treehouse in our yard. His dad was like a brother to our dad, which made us cousins. Brendan showed me the cigarettes he pinched from his dad. I took a deep breath and sucked in the smoke like I had seen my mum do. He appeared impressed but when I dragged again I coughed and spluttered until my eyes watered and he grabbed the cigarette back.

  ‘Hopeless sheila.’

  ‘I’ve smoked before.’

  ‘Have not.’

  ‘Have so.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Lots of times, my mum let me light hers.’

  Brendan blew the smoke rings in my face just as Margie came towards us.

  ‘You have to come inside for a photo,’ Margie said.

  Even though Mum made me stand at the back with the boys, I love that photo. It’s the only one we have of all ten of us all together. In the photo, Mum is looking down, fussing over Johnny and Seamus who are fighting over her lap. Dad is sitting next to them, holding Matthew, grinning away. Paul is in his school blazer ready to return to school, and Tom is beside him in a dark green jumper that used to be Dad’s. Margie is in the middle, still in her white Communion dress and veil. Andy is beside me with his Scouts jumper on, showing off his badges for swimming, first aid and lighting fires. Over the years I have made many copies of that photo for my siblings and their children and grandchildren.

  When the party was over and long after everyone had gone, I collected the empty soft drink bottles to claim the deposit. I counted fifty cents worth. Dad and Uncle Ray sat at the kitchen table with beer glasses in their hands.

  ‘Our Nicky is the fastest kid in the school,’ Uncle Ray was telling Dad. ‘Runs like John Landy, got that same big stride.’

  ‘That’s grand, Ray,’ Dad said, his accent stronger after a big day on the Carlton Draught. ‘And that Maurice, he’s
a fine lad too.’

  ‘He is, Jim. He wants to be a journalist one day, or a teacher. Do you think a blind kid could do that, Jim?’

  ‘Aye, he could. To be sure he could, Ray.’ My dad nodded his head, dragging hard on the butt of his cigarette.

  ‘That’s what I told him, Jim, told him he could be whatever he likes. Jesus, if only that were true.’

  ‘Aye, the very thing,’ Dad said, leaning in closer this time. ‘With an education he can do anything. Get the lads to stay at school. That Whitlam bloke will be in soon and then they’ll all get a shot at university.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, mate. They’ve already told him at St Paul’s that it’s time to finish up and to start looking for a job.’

  Dad stared into his glass while Uncle Ray swallowed his beer, got up and staggered out our front door towards number eight.

  Seven

  For some of us growing up in Broadmeadows, factory work was the only option for employment. I remember Damrina’s delight when her son came home with the news that he had a job at the nearby Ford car manufacturing plant, now closed. It was the same kind of pride and joy Mum and Dad shared when Paul got his first job selling pots and pans, which turned out to be terrible scam, and later selling insurance. As Damrina fussed over her beaming son, I swallowed the syrupy black tea and left the family to celebrate.

  In our crowded house, when you turned eleven or twelve you went to work. Not full-time of course, just to help our parents out. I was happy to oblige and looked for any excuse to escape. The casual shifts I picked up at the local milk bar were a timely replacement for the idle hours I spent in my room or on the roof. I would sit all day staring into the underbelly of the planes that flew just above Dallas on their way to Tullamarine Airport. Dreaming of faraway places.

  Dad was a staunch advocate for education. Staying at school, studying hard and chasing your dreams. But he also believed in earning your keep. He despised laziness and set an example by juggling three permanent jobs and some casual ones. Even with his university education – a year of agricultural studies at Galway University – he was happy to take on unskilled work. Using his good mathematical brain, he worked as a bookie’s assistant at the races or trots on Saturdays and at the turnstiles at the Royal Melbourne Show each September, when he took holidays from his full-time job. He always arrived home with show bags filled with comics and toys and chocolates. Mum wasn’t afraid of hard work either. For as long as I can remember she managed some paid work with raising a big family. Running a house and battling health issues kept her busy too.