Autobiography of My Mother (4 page)

Mum with her clear skin looked the exact opposite of the gingery, fair-skinned Coens. She used to pay us threepence a week to brush her long, black hair, being a firm believer in the value of one hundred strokes a day. Brushing hair for a long time can be tiring and boring. I once brought the brush up the wrong way and tangled her hair. Mum spent hours unravelling the knots I made; I was not in favour.

Then the boys decided they wanted a tent. Mum was out at a Red Cross meeting so they raided her wardrobe. Her lace wedding dress with the boned sides and waist that she so treasured was hung over a pole in the orchard and the full skirt and train were staked to the ground. The boys were in trouble that night.

The circus came to town. That was an unforgettable event. For months the posters had been pinned up in shop windows and stuck on street lamps. ‘Wirth's Circus' was written across them with an orange-and-white-striped tiger's face and, much smaller, a tiny ballerina riding on a white horse.

Elephants led the parade down Cooma Street when the circus finally arrived, pulling a wagon with a ‘wild beast' inside.

We loved the animal smell of the sawdust as we sat around the ring at night; the lions and tigers, the elephants, the clowns, all were magical to us. It was the first circus I saw, and I became a circus fan for life.

On the second night of the circus, Jack disappeared. He was found asleep under the benches, in the process of running away with the circus. Jack had run away before; as a very small boy he had taken all his clothes off, put on a hat of Mum's, then, with his legs astride Dad's sword like a hobby
horse, had set off down the street to visit Grandma. He had a wonderful time until he was captured and brought home.

A commotion of another sort occurred when an old lady who lived alone by the river wandered into our walled back yard. Once in, she was unable to find her way out. She thought she was in the walled yard of the gaol. ‘Let me out, oh God, let me out!' she shrieked. There was a bottle on the bench beside her. We were terrified and enchanted.

I remember my fourth birthday party. My mother had decorated my high chair by twisting ivy leaves around it; she put flowers among the leaves and made a wreath for my head.

For a birthday present I was given a little gypsy's caravan. Steps led up to a covered wagon made of shiny, silvery stuff. I put threepence in the wagon, which was a money box. It was my favourite thing. Somehow I lost it. I don't know what happened, and for a long time I felt that a part of life was missing. I searched high and low for the gypsy caravan.

Another uncomfortable childhood image that remains with me is lying under a bed feeling ill after having eaten a box of chocolate Laxettes.

A joy of my childhood was driving out to buy ripe Black Margaret cherries from the orchard. My mother would pick up cherries on a stem and drape them over my ears for earrings.

‘Look at yourself in the mirror and admire the view,' she used to say.

Tommy our pony bolted the day we went to the orchard for a sugar bag of apples. I thought my mother was very brave as she stood up straight, fiercely holding onto the reins.

‘Hang on tight, don't stand up,' she told Jack and me. Jack
leapt out but I clung on, crouched down in the rattling sulky. At last a man came running alongside and Tommy was subdued.

Tommy hated to be driven out of town. Going to the park to collect pine cones, we had to force him to put one foot in front of the other, but when the buggy was loaded up, he would trot home spryly.

In winter, the fire was piled high with pine cones. We would sit as close as possible staring at the pictures in the flames. My mother would bring in her sewing basket with cotton reels threaded on the handles for the kittens to play with. The old mother cat gazed steadily into the fire, occasionally swishing her tail to and fro for the kittens' amusement.

The greatest treat was to be bathed in front of the fire in the shallow tin dish that took kettle after kettle to fill. Afterwards my mother would wrap me in a large towel and, bathed and warm, I would fall asleep in her arms.

Then there was Grandma. An awesome and mysterious figure, reputed to be made of money and not amused by life, she went into black the instant my grandfather died and stayed in her widow's weeds for the next fifty years. Her only concession to vanity was a rich brown wig that she called a ‘transformation'.

Grandma lived with her daughters. The eldest, Evangelista, had already entered the convent; the next two, Trix and Ina, were preparing to go into the convent; and gentle Mollie who played the piano was harbouring a secret wish to become a nun. Kathleen, my youngest aunt, was still at school. There was also a curly-haired general servant named. Annie who looked after Grandma and ‘the girls' as my aunts were called.

Grandma lived next door to the store in Cooma Street. Her low, single-storeyed home with pisé walls a foot thick was known as The House. Several times I lived with Grandma and my aunts at The House.

Most people were frightened of Grandma. She could be very stern, and her manner to us was always gruff, perhaps because of the hostility between her and Mum. But I got on well with Grandma, despite such episodes as my lapse with the chocolates.

The dining room at The House had a long cedar sideboard with three compartments. One held sherry, whisky and stout or porter, as Grandma called it. Grandma drank porter every day. (I, too, was given porter because I had such a pale face. A little porter at night was supposed to improve the colour.) The second compartment held condiments, pepper and salt for the table. The third was reserved for special things such as chocolates.

Lent was kept very seriously at Grandma's. Someone had given ‘the girls' a box of chocolates but the chocolates were put aside until Easter.

I must have been about three at the time; it was during one of my stays at The House. In my wanderings I discovered the box of chocolates stored in the cedar sideboard. The temptation was too great, I knew they weren't to be eaten, but I couldn't help it. I didn't let myself look at them, just put my hand in, lifted the lid and felt. My finger closed on a chocolate. Having a very sweet tooth, I had to eat it. More and more often I went back to the sideboard until I couldn't feel any more chocolates.

Easter Sunday came. We were seated round the long dining room table and Ina asked, ‘Shall we open the chocolates now, Mama?' They always called Grandma ‘Mama'.

‘Yes,' said Grandma.

Ina went to the sideboard, brought out the strangely light chocolate box and opened it. Not one chocolate was left.

I left the table and fled down the back yard as far and as fast as I could. My flight established my guilt beyond doubt, but I have no recollection what punishment I received, if any.

I went to school when I was four because it was so close. The back fence of the orchard at Rossi Street was also the back fence of the school. To get to the kindergarten, I only had to squeeze through a hole in the palings.

Sister Loreto ran the school. She used to cane the boys and called them ‘sir'. I used to be glad I was a girl when she said, ‘Stand out here, sir', and a trembling small boy held out his hand to be caned.

Glass-fronted cupboards ran round the sides of Sister Loreto's classroom and in them she kept a collection of tiny dolls in costume, all under lock and key. I longed to be able to open the glass doors to play with these dolls, especially the gypsy doll. Three or four inches tall and dressed in vermilion and yellow with long, black hair that came down on either side, the gypsy doll sat in a wooden swing about eight inches high.

Although she was ferocious to pupils like me, Sister Loreto was devoted to the Aboriginal children who came to school. She used to go out every weekend to the so-called ‘blacks' camp' outside Yass and wash the heads of the women and children. If she didn't, the other children complained they got nits from the heads of the Aboriginal children.

The bigger part of the school was ruled by Sister Dominic. Sister Dominic had a great sense of humour; she
was always smiling. I loved Sister Dom, as I called her and named the two clay dogs someone had given me Dom and Nic after her.

A school concert came up. Another nun, Sister Michael, taught me my piece for it. Sister Michael was very stern with fierce black eyebrows that met in the middle. She frightened me.

‘Lickings' was the title of my recitation, a tale of children being beaten for wrongdoing. By the time of the concert, I was word perfect.

My turn on stage arrived. Dead silence. I tried to start. No sound came out of my mouth. I could see Sister Michael's face with the black line of eyebrow, making desperate signs at me from the wings to get on with it, but I couldn't.

I just stood there until I burst into tears, then Sister Michael dragged me off by the scruff of the neck. She scolded me so much I was afraid to go to school next day. However, Sister Dominic greeted me, smiling as usual and saying I wasn't to mind about forgetting my recitation.

Green pepper trees, the kind seen everywhere in country towns, grew in the school yard where we played rounders and did a lot of skipping. The pepper trees had pretty pink seeds with a curious smell. They grew around the school and down Meehan Street to the Catholic church.

I was always breaking bones. First, I broke my wrist. My father used to come home from the store between one and two for dinner, as lunch was called. I came home from school for the meal, too. Running back to school after saying goodbye to my father, I tripped and fell on a drain in the back yard. A sharp pain shot through my wrist. A nursemaid who helped my mother picked me up and bustled me into the dark sewing room. ‘Keep quiet,' she
said. ‘Your mother is lying down. Don't let her hear you crying.'

She left me and I sobbed until just before tea time when my mother came in and put my arm in a sling.

After tea Mum took me down to the chemist, but the chemist was shut. At last, in response to my mother's frantic banging, he very crossly opened the door.

‘Take her to the doctor,' he said.

Down the street we went to the doctor's. The doctor pronounced the arm broken, pushed the bone into place and bound it up. It hurt for a long time afterwards and when the splints came off, it looked quite crooked.

On special feast days we went to Mass at the church before school. On the way to school after Mass one day, I fell over. I had broken my collar bone, although I didn't know what was wrong. I had cried all morning, but nobody had thought of sending for a doctor until I went home for lunch.

The place names around Yass constantly intrigued me as a child. Dog Trap Road, Bogolong, as the Julians' property was called, Wee Jasper (was it named after a dwarf, I used to wonder?), Burrinjuck. I loved the sounds and the strangeness of them.

The railway at Burrinjuck Dam had only eighteen inches between the tracks. The tiny carriage, just wide enough to hold my mother and me, looked like fairyland. The jewel-bright wildflowers covering the hills around the dam made it especially magical. Except for bluebells, wildflowers didn't grow around Yass much because the land had been so thoroughly cleared.

The heat in Yass was ferocious, very dry, often over one hundred degrees. Winters were cold with frosts and fogs.
The sun wouldn't come through until half past eleven or twelve and disappeared again by half past three.

Rolling plains surrounded Yass, bleached blond in summer, bright green after rain. The plains were the home of merino stud sheep, with the most sought-after fleece in the world. They were also great for mushrooming. In autumn we wandered for miles until our baskets were filled with velvety, pinky-black mushrooms.

Living in a country town gives you the feeling of a complete world on its own. We had the various religions, professions, commercial enterprises, and cultural activities of the outside world. Yass had a musical society, a library and, of course, the School of Arts, all existing in a small familiar space. Living in Yass felt very safe.

Coming into town from the southern end, we crossed the big, rattly bridge spanning the sluggish Yass River, then we were in Cooma Street, the wide main street that ran right through town and out the other side to the plains.

Iron lace decorated most of the buildings. They were painted white with black, wrought-iron verandahs just like our house in Rossi Street. Steep hills rose on either side of town: Cemetery Hill was one of these hills but both our house and Grandma's were on the flat.

The flat part of town flooded regularly, the Yass River coming as far as Cooma Street in floods. One year we saw muddy water tipped with waves at the bottom of Rossi Street. My brothers and their friend Lenny Cusack built a boat.

The boat was a wooden box, across the bottom of which they nailed planks for reinforcement. The boys set sail down Rossi Street. Water rushed in where they had hammered in the nails and they had to be rescued immediately.

The Catholic church was on the flat in Meehan Street, next to the Convent of Mercy. The Church of England was on the hill opposite Cemetery Hill. It was a handsome building with pine trees planted in front and a few old gravestones in the garden. There were also Wesleyan and Methodist churches.

Yass had a surfeit of both churches and hotels. The Australian Hotel was next door to Grandma's store. A few doors up was the Commercial. The Royal was on the opposite side of Cooma Street and there were another two hotels near the bridge, with one more by the court house. The court house, with its white pillars, was the town's most splendid edifice. According to local lore, it had originally been intended for Young, a much bigger town than Yass, but the plans went astray and it was built at Yass. (While this story is not actually correct it added considerably to the impressiveness of the building.)

An argument in planning, too, caused Yass to be bypassed when the train line was put through, which was why Grandpa Coen had the tramline installed.

Taking the steam tram out to Yass Junction was always an adventure. Little Nicky McNally, who was no more than five feet tall, would be sitting in his cart at the station like a leprechaun. If you were coming to meet someone at the train by buggy or car, Nicky would bring the luggage into town with his cart. His pony was a rogue.