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Authors: Pamela Stephenson

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BOOK: The Varnished Untruth
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In New Zealand there were no poisonous snakes, unlike the highly venomous black snakes, brown snakes and tiger snakes that sunned themselves on paths we might take to a Sydney suburb bus stop (armed with all the warnings about the dangers of the natural Australian environment, as a child I remember wondering how on earth anyone ever got to reach adulthood). Nor were there any shark nets on New Zealand beaches because, apparently, any passing bitey things were too busy migrating elsewhere to bother with us. Australians were rather shark-phobic in those days. We erroneously believed that all sharks were aggressive and liked the taste of human flesh (it was only after I became an adult scuba diver that I learned that in reality most sharks are harmless unless they’re provoked or mistake you for a seal). But other Australian marine creatures could be lethal, especially salt-water crocodiles and those nasty box jellyfish you get in Queensland. In Takapuna, we suffered only mild jellyfish stings. Oh, the bees could get you, especially while stealing honey from a hive, and prickly burrs we called ‘bindy-eyes’ would imbed themselves in our bare feet. Apart from that, it was a predator-free zone. Even the sun was kinder.

So New Zealand provided a strong sense of safety for you, not only in the physical environment, but emotionally, too, since you were surrounded by accepting relatives . . .

Mmm . . . and there were so many cousins, aunts, uncles. I loved that feeling of being part of a big family – even though it was always so brief. I think they were a bit wary of us – they called us ‘the Australians’– but, nevertheless, I felt a sense of belonging that was . . . almost . . . tribal. Cousin Anne (my Auntie Polly’s daughter) would join us from time to time, and so would various neighbourhood chums. We’d take turns lying in the garden hammock, and playing vinyl records on Auntie Sally’s portable gramophone player. We all acquired the art of winding that contraption up via the handle on the side and, when the music began to sound a bit scratchy, we knew exactly how to replace the old needle. My cheeky older cousin Alistair teased me mercilessly, but I loved it because he was the closest thing to a brother I ever knew. Older boys, I decided, were really a lot of fun.

Sometimes we all travelled north to Kerikeri to stay with Auntie Edna and Uncle Robbie. Edna was a blousy, good-humoured, chain-smoking woman with leathery skin, dark curly hair and a voice like an automatic rifle. I remember her sitting outside in her apron, gathering up my sisters and me to help her shell the peas. Her husband Robbie was a salty, taciturn man who was rarely without his sweet-smelling pipe. Very patiently, he taught me to make wonderful shell boxes, using cigar boxes, sand, varnish and small, delicate shells we found at low tide. Every now and again he would take us fishing on his wooden launch. Out in the bay, my cousins and I would dive from the boat and pick up crayfish or lobsters – well, my big cousins would pick them up; I was too afraid to touch those spiny critters with such peculiar eyes. As the sun was setting, the grown-ups would build a fire on the beach to cook them. Lobster is still my favourite food, and not because it’s swish; it reminds me of the most idyllic times of my childhood.

At low tide we would gather in shallow water and ‘do the twist’ in the sand. When our feet met something shell-like, we’d bend down and pick up one of a variety of live ‘pippies’ (a bit like cockles), toss them in a bag, then steam them in a pot over the beach fire. Roaming around the Bay of Islands, even for those few days we had, was bliss; although such times were in sharp contrast to our normal life. They always reminded me of what we were missing out on, growing up in the Australian inland without frequent access to my benevolent aunts and uncles. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Sydney is a gorgeous, vibrant city that I appreciated more and more as I grew older – but early on I really envied my New Zealand cousins. They seemed to be happier and far more relaxed than we were.

In those days I never knew that I was of both European and Maori descent. I am proud that my great, great grandmother was a Maori woman but my family never mentioned it to me when I was young. Although, looking back, I had some rather brown aunts, which should have offered me a clue. Auntie Sally was my favourite. She never married and seemed to devote her life to caring for others. She lived with her mother until she died. I remember her as short and roundish, with wise, empathic brown eyes and badly fitting dentures that she nervously sucked in and out of position. As a young adult she had been a school teacher. She wore sensible skirts and blouses, and lace-up shoes and, throughout the day, would add layer upon layer of white face powder on her nose, forehead and cheeks (now I wonder whether she was consciously disguising her naturally dark complexion). But, most importantly, she was clucky, sweet and endlessly kind. In contrast to what I sensed from my parents, I knew she loved me unconditionally. Sitting at her tea table, wolfing down her thinly sliced bread and butter, her perfect scones and her springy date bread, I briefly felt the world was a safe place. Under her ample, benevolent wings, I could just be me.

Some children grow up feeling that it is unsafe to reveal their true selves. They come to understand that their job is to be what others want them to be – or there will be terrible consequences. This is not just about being good, obedient children – most parents would wish that of their offspring – you, it seems, were expected to reflect perfectly your parents . . .

Yes! And it always seemed that if I deviated from that – expressed my individuality – I would lose their love and attention (which were sparingly meted out in any case). Ballet was an exception, though. It was tolerated, although I was expected to maintain excellence. Funny, I just remembered that I once glimpsed a picture of my mother performing – maybe even dancing – in some university show, wearing a pair of harem pants. She was very embarrassed about it. She hated her body and would rarely allow anyone to photograph her. But it did make me wonder if perhaps she had a secret longing to be in the performing arts . . .

Hmmm . . . Children do sometimes act out a parent’s unconscious, unfulfilled desires . . .

Ah, yes . . . She did once admit to me that she had chosen the field of biology not because it was her passion, but simply because the course was available to her for some reason or another. Perhaps I held the key to her unfulfilled desire to dance or perform; perhaps that’s why she supported my ‘dabbling in the arts’ – up to a point.

You mentioned your mother hated her body . . . What are your thoughts about that? Do you think you might have internalized those same feelings about your own body?

Hmmm. I never thought about that before. It’s not so much that I dislike my body – actually I feel very grateful that it has stood up to everything I’ve put it through, from childbirth to
Strictly
– no, it’s more that I dislike ageing. And, actually, I have specific feelings about specific bits of me. Years ago I had some liposuction on my thighs and I remember very consciously thinking, ‘I’m eliminating my mother . . .’ She had ‘thunder thighs’ because she never exercised but she really wasn’t bad looking. In fact, in her later years she looked incredibly like Annie Lennox does now. But, ugh, it makes me shudder to see Annie, even though I like and admire her and think she’s beautiful. I sat beside her on a TV show recently and felt very uncomfortable for those personal reasons. I mean, obviously I wasn’t about to say, ‘Hey Annie, I’m avoiding you because you look exactly like my mother!’

But Mum just wasn’t . . . mumish. She seemed cold and judgmental, and her smile always seemed forced. Even nowadays, when someone wraps me in his or her arms and holds me with the genuine tenderness I absolutely melt, while at the same time I feel imbued with longing and pain for what I missed out on.

There are many ways to be a deprived child . . .

Yeah, and that’s got to be the worst. I would rather have gone hungry. When I first began to study psychology I learned about Harry Harlow’s famous series of experiments. You know the ones?

Mmm . . . conducted between 1957 and 1963 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He removed baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers and had them ‘raised’ by two kinds of wire ‘mother’ machines that dispensed milk, one made of bare mesh wire and the other covered with soft terrycloth. He found that the baby monkeys clung to the terrycloth mother whether or not it provided them with food . . .

Right! He essentially showed that a lack of contact comfort is psychologically stressful . . .

Prior to Harlow’s work, people actually thought that emotions were unimportant, and that simply providing food for a child was the most important way to create a strong mother–child bond. But Harlow showed that it was actually the intimate body contact (with either mother or father) that strengthened the bond . . .

Damn. This understanding emerged a long time after I really needed it! If only Harlow had done his revolutionary ‘study of love’ earlier, I – and millions of other people – might have grown up much happier.

Well, when you were born, the prevailing beliefs were that it was better to limit or avoid bodily contact so as to avoid spoiling children . . .

My parents almost certainly held those views! It was the curse of the WASP, wasn’t it, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. To be honest, it was incredibly helpful to understand finally that they did not necessarily withhold love from me because I was unloveable . . .

That is commonly how children interpret physical coldness . . .

. . . but rather, because they intellectually thought that was the best way to raise me. Of course, there was also the fact that my father thought it was OK to hit us, so I suppose I was physically terrified of him . . . That’s another thing – in those days, people didn’t know that smacking children is an ineffective way of disciplining them, not to mention teaching them to be violent and being wrong on so many levels. Anyway, I had a terribly strong, visceral reaction to learning about Harlow’s studies – it explained so much about myself.

You’re not alone. A clinical psychology degree course always contains material that triggers personal reactions; it’s always much more than an academic exercise, and creates emotional learning and growth. The toilets of any good psychology department have a steady flow of crying, shaking students, privately experiencing catharses, epiphanies, and facing their demons in various ways. It’s just an unofficial part of the curriculum, and essentially a good thing . . .

At least Auntie Sally hugged me. Besides her, one other adult in my life provided true, non-judgmental sanctuary: my mother’s mother, my grandmother Annie Thomas. I adored Nanna, as we called her. At some point, after her life as a missionary in Fiji, she came to live with us in Thompson Street. I remember the thick stockings and high-heeled, black, lace-up brogues in which she stomped up to the shops, even in summer, and her long, grey hair which was always rolled up under a hairnet. My sisters and I would watch with great interest when she removed, bathed and replaced her glass eye.

That sounds rather bizarre . . . As a child, what did you make of that?

Well, we got used to it, like it was normal. But I felt dreadfully sorry for her. She told me a surgeon had made a mistake and irreparably damaged her eye during a cataract operation. She actually seemed rather childlike, as if she’d always been looked after and never quite grown up . . . In fact, my mother treated her a bit like a child . . .

That must have been an uncomfortable household dynamic for you to observe . . .

I didn’t really think about it consciously. Not until recently. I did feel very protective of Nanna though, and I knew she felt the same about me. Our house was small, so we were all rather on top of each other. My parents eventually extended the place so they would have a larger room, Lesley and Claire would share the second bedroom, and Nanna and I would both have our own, small rooms. In Nanna’s sat a carved sandalwood chest she had brought from the islands. Occasionally she would open it and out would fly the most alluring scents of the Pacific – coconut, palm, jasmine and sweet woods. Inside lay a treasure trove of intricately woven Fijian fans, a terrifying war club, a lamp made from a large, orange-pink triton shell and black-and-tan coconut mats. This chest held for me all the mystery of the ocean, the call of exotic places, and the thrill of travel and adventure. It held the promise of a future abroad.

So – perhaps even now – travel is a way of connecting you with your grandmother, someone who appreciated who you truly were . . .

I suppose it is. My travelling dreams first came true when we boarded a ship for London, just after I turned eleven in December, 1960. My darling Auntie Sally came with us, which was a great joy for me and my sisters – although it was a shame Nanna was considered too challenged by her visual impairment to accompany us. She entered a home for elderly people who needed special care and, although I didn’t understand this at the time, she would never live with us again. In fact, she spent the rest of her life in relative isolation from the family.

You have a lot of feelings about that . . .?

Terrible. It still makes me sad and guilty to think about it. Most regrettably, I was so busy going through all the challenges in my own young life I did not pay her enough attention. In my adult travels I’ve now come across societies – especially in the South Pacific – where older people are revered, admired and never shut away or isolated from an extended family. In my opinion, that’s the way it ought to be.

Sydney to London was a very long ocean voyage, but I felt at home on the sea. I loved its smell, its calm, even its fury. The Southern Cross changed position as we rolled north and, when we passed the fiery, volcanic island of Krakatoa, I was allowed to stay up late to marvel at the show as glowing lava was hurled into the night sky. I loved being on deck when we slid slowly into new, exotic ports, each with thrillingly unfamiliar sights and sounds. Men speaking strange languages would come on board, and I was fascinated by the colour of their skin; in those days, Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies had introduced the ‘White Australian Policy’ to keep out black immigrants and, even more shamefully, the Aboriginal people were treated appallingly and kept well out of sight, so I had rarely seen anyone who wasn’t white.

BOOK: The Varnished Untruth
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