Life As I Know It (5 page)

‘Oh, geez, the air brakes aren't working,' he said.

We didn't know whether he was teasing us or not, but the further we went the more we believed him. He was using the gears to slow us down. Stevie and I were a little bit frightened because we could hear the worry in Dad's voice but we trusted him to get us home.

‘We have to get back to milk the cows,' he kept saying. There was no stopping him.

We made our way along the country roads but not long after we'd passed through Clunes we got to the top of a hill. We could see from there the T-intersection at the bottom. As we hurtled down, the truck built up momentum. Dad gripped the steering wheel, his eyes looking directly ahead.

‘Well, kids,' he said. ‘We're going to need a bit of luck here.'

We looked at Dad, and we looked at each other, and we grabbed hold of the seat and hoped for the best.

I could see the concentration on Dad's face. He was doing his absolute best as we lurched down the bitumen road. As we
approached the intersection he swung the steering wheel and the truck turned on an arc too wide for the road. He knocked out a couple of side reflector posts, which wasn't the worst result. We then bumped and trundled on along the gravelled edge until Dad righted the truck and we were back on the road. Dad looked at us like the result was never in doubt.

After negotiating the traffic lights through Bendigo we made it to The Farm. And the horses were fine.

At The Farm, I was riding more and more. I loved riding, especially when Dad would get me to ride one of the racehorses in the morning. But mainly we all had to look after the cows. We always had to get the milking done and then get ready for school. Dad would then drive us to St Joseph's Primary School at Rochester.

At Our Lady Help of Christians in Ballarat we had to wear a uniform—handed down from the older kids, of course. Stevie had colourful tastes. He particularly enjoyed putting on tights and the
Flashdance
leggings our sisters had worn with their big hair in the 1980s.

‘No, Stevie, you just can't wear those,' we'd say. ‘They'll go nuts at school.'

Stevie was always one step ahead of us, though. He'd wear his tights and leggings
under
his school tracky dacks. He had a favourite iridescent green pair.

Some things never changed. We were always late to school, and Dad was always late to pick us up. Sometimes he'd forget completely. He was often under a lot of pressure. He'd be on the phone organising something for The Farm, out irrigating the paddocks, or talking to Home about the horses. He always worried about the weather. If it didn't rain we would be short of feed.

‘Geez, we need rain, kids,' he'd say. ‘Don't know what we're gunna do if we don't get rain.' Then the clouds would gather and we'd say, ‘It's raining everywhere around us but not here!'

Dad must have wondered why he'd left the lush coastal farming land of New Zealand for this arid place, where farming is a punt. He often reminisced about his homeland, but we'd tune out. We'd heard it all before.

Farming might have been a tough game, but with us kids his spirits remained high. He was forever having fun with us, making our lives happy, even if we were all busy. After tea we'd play Monopoly or Scrabble or Yahtzee or work on a 1000-piece jigsaw. Dad loved quizzes. Driving to the races he'd ask us maths questions or how to spell words. Geography was his favourite. Or at night-time, once he'd finished what he had to do, he'd call out from his desk, ‘Who's up for a geography competition?'

‘I am.'

‘I am.'

‘I am.'

‘What's the capital of Norway?' he'd ask.

‘Ahh, Oslo.'

‘What is the biggest city in England?'

‘London.'

‘Longest river in Africa?'

‘The Nile.'

‘Prime Minister of Australia?'

‘Mr Keating.'

We knew the geography of Victoria pretty well. The older kids were riding all around the countryside, to places like Stawell, Horsham, Donald, Murtoa and Ararat in the Wimmera and Manangatang in the Mallee. We knew about Hamilton and Warrnambool and the towns along the Murray, like Echuca and Swan Hill and Mildura. Racing was popular throughout country
Victoria and when the locals had a good horse they'd send it off to Melbourne to have a go.

Often we'd ask Dad, ‘Can we come to the races today?' It wasn't because we wanted to have a day off school. We just wanted to go to the races. I was strapping our horses, giving them a good grooming, from when I was about seven, which must have looked very funny as I led them around the mounting yard. I could still walk under them yet I knew exactly what to do and I had no sense that this might be unusual. I was a Payne and that's what we did. We loved horses and we loved the races.

If we weren't actually at the races we'd listen on the radio—in the car, in the shed, in the kitchen—and once pay TV came along we watched on Sky Channel. Ballarat was our home track, though, and no racecourse in all the world is as special as it was—still is.

Brendan and Christine Atley, whose son Shaun now plays football for North Melbourne, eventually took over The Farm at Rochy as share-farmers and we went back Home to live. After that, I would often go up to the back entrance of the Ballarat Racecourse on our property boundary and walk up a rise to walk the track. We also used to love going yabbying occasionally in the dam that is in the middle of the track. For us, the Ballarat Racecourse was an extension of our backyard, and we felt we could do anything there.

Race day at Ballarat was extra special. We'd stay for the full card of events and then we'd always finish with fish 'n' chips from our local. We'd do a count of how many pieces of fish we'd need and we'd ask for a massive order of chips. We had a rule, though: you had to eat your fish first. Otherwise there was a mad rush to get all the chips as soon as the pack was on the table.

When we moved Home permanently I was given more and more responsibilities. We had to work really hard for a couple of hours in the freezing cold Ballarat morning. Then we'd all race inside and lie on the floor, where the floor heating vents were, to
get warm. Some mornings the older kids would take too long in the shower, trying to get some warmth back into their bones. By the time it was our turn there was no hot water left.

If you could survive a cold shower in the middle of a Ballarat winter you were prepared for anything.

W
HEN WE CAME
back Home, Stevie went into a special school, which he really enjoyed. He made many friends and was doing really well. He also learned to ride, which could be quite funny. Because we'd watched
Phar Lap
so often, one day when he was on a horse he said, ‘That's it, round you go, Bobby boy,' which was Phar Lap's nickname and a line from the movie when Phar Lap is in the middle of his winning streak.

Dad never pampered Stevie and always expected him to pull his weight. As a result he developed the same independence we all had to have to get everything done. He was clever, and he and I were always up to some mischief. Occasionally, to get out of a situation that had landed us in hot water, we would say to the other kids or the teachers that Stevie had Down's Syndrome, as if that was enough to explain away the problem. When that saved us a few times, Stevie picked up on it. Then when he was in strife he'd say, ‘I didn't know. I'm Down's Syndrome.'

What we all knew was that he was a joy to have around, and what a lift he gave us. Stevie just has this way about him. He helped
bring honesty and openness and perspective to everything because that's just the way he is. He is such a blessing.

When Stevie was about ten, Jack Dalton asked if he'd help him at the races. Jack was a local trainer, a great mate of Dad's and one of those characters who was always popping in. He helped our family out so often. If Cathy or Andrew hadn't been able to organise a lift to the races, and time was getting away, they'd call Jack at the last minute.

‘Hey, Jack, we're stuck,' and Jack would come and give them a lift. Or Andrew would ask, ‘Could you give me a lift to Warrnambool today, Jack?'

‘Yeah, no worries,' and off they'd go, a drive of more than two hours.

Jack would be in our fierce card games of Five Hundred and even now, whenever I see him, he tells me I owe him $20 from a disputed result. My memory is that he owes me! One of us cheated—we just can't remember who.

Jack was famous for his massages. He claimed he was a qualified chiropractic expert who could fix anything. He thought he was a guru. His massages were so hard they were torture. After he gave a rub, if someone was feeling tight after a race, they'd wake up sore and proppy.

‘That bloody Jack,' Bernadette would say. ‘Makes me feel worse than I was before.'

Jack always had a couple of horses but he couldn't find a world-beater. Like a lot of trainers who just love the game he had to travel a fair way to be competitive. That never stopped him. One day he had a runner at a little Mallee town called Wycheproof, which is not far from the even smaller town of Berriwillock, the hometown of trainer Darren Weir. It's nearly a three-hour drive from Ballarat. After months preparing his horse Jack was very confident he'd win. So the hard-earned went on.

The horse went terribly. Jack was devastated—and broke.

As Jack and Stevie were making their way back, Jack was deep in thought, contemplating what had gone wrong, and then the car overheated in the middle of nowhere. There were no mobile phones then. Nothing. Jack was at wit's end. He got out of the car and started walking down the road, hands above his head, not knowing what he should do. He stopped, stood there, feeling at rock bottom. Lost in his own world, Jack hadn't noticed that Stevie was behind him.

Stevie had wandered up to Jack and then came out with, ‘Tough game, isn't it?'

Jack looked at Stevie and gave him a huge hug. He started laughing and laughing. It was the perspective he needed.

He eventually flagged someone down and they got the car going again. Of course it worked out in the end but Stevie always helps you see things for what they are.

While Stevie went to his new school, I went back to Our Lady Help of Christians, where I had Mr Spark as my teacher and my old friendships were rekindled like I'd never been away. Emily started coming over again. I loved that we had the run of the neighbourhood and the racetrack. We had a quad bike, which we used to get around the property and up the rise to the racecourse. Occasionally we'd ride it on the road, but usually I wouldn't be allowed outside the property on my own.

‘Come on, Em,' I said, when we were about nine. ‘Let's go for a ride.'

I loved going fast—flat out even. This one time we went on the road Em hung on for dear life as we sped along Kennedys Road. When I noticed we were low on fuel I popped into The Shop. It had a bowser outside and Peter who worked there came out.

‘Fill 'er up, thanks,' I said. Em didn't know what to think. As Peter was putting the cap back on the tank I said, ‘In The Book,
thanks.' That's what we said for everything. Lollies, chocolates, chips, drinks: ‘Just put them down as bread and milk, thanks.'

Dad would get the account at the end of the month and he'd be amazed that we'd spent $1000 on bread and milk.

‘This bill is far too dear,' he'd say. ‘How can it be this expensive?'

‘Don't know.'

‘Don't know.'

‘Who did this?' he'd ask.

‘Not me.'

‘Not me.'

‘Not me.'

‘That Not Me,' Dad would say. ‘He's the worst kid I've got.'

I loved sport but Dad was so busy that he couldn't ferry us around.

‘Dad, can I play netball?' I'd ask.

‘Do you want to be a netballer or a jockey?' he'd say. It was a standard approach of his. If we were stuck in front of the television, he'd come in and say, ‘Do you want to be a jockey or a TV watcher?'