On a recent trip to Europe, I stumbled upon a refugee camp on the Greek Island of Kos. As I wandered around the tents and suitcases I thought of the dangerous journeys my English students Damrina and Aalia had made from their childhood homes. Across land and sea, to Broadmeadows – on the other side of the world. Once I was back home I decided my next project would be to establish a creative writing group for the young refugees of Dallas and beyond. It was a way to again feel connected to my childhood home. Funny, there was a time when I couldn’t wait to get away from the place.
When I was seventeen and contemplating how to fix my lax attitude to study, my father announced he had been doing some research of his own. He had arranged an interview for me at a Ballarat boarding school. Paul, who had enjoyed his years at Assumption College in faraway Kilmore, had recommended the school, St Martin’s in the Pines. His school friends had sisters or girlfriends there. I didn’t take much convincing, desperate for a chance to escape the increasingly erratic relationship with Mum. Luckily, the school had one last spot for the ‘Broady girl’.
I was aware that I was there to work hard and make something of myself, but I also accepted my going away may have made things more harmonious for my family. To help with the fees, I had used Paul’s connections to pick up a full-time waitressing job over the summer at the then up-market Old Melbourne Motor Inn in Flemington Road. It’s now called RMIT Village, a city residence for country and international students attending the university. Luckily no-one knew I was only seventeen because the money was far better than anything I’d earned at the milk bar or supermarket in Dallas. For eleven weeks over the school holidays, I worked full-time and accumulated what was then a small fortune. I loved the job and there were perks like generous tips and free tickets to the newly launched and controversial World Series Cricket. Courtesy of Kerry Packer, I took my younger brothers to Waverley Park to see the international players in action.
It was study time and the end of the year was creeping closer. I was trying hard to read and review Albert Camus’s The Outsider but I hated it. I mean what kind of guy didn’t cry at his own mother’s funeral? My English teacher raved about it: the book’s style, economy of words and its controversial, existential views. I thought it was boring.
As I battled with my essay in the silence of the tiny cubicle that had become my home for the past year, the wind raged outside my window, thumping like a hammer in my brain. Huge gum trees swayed back and forth in the forest that surrounded our dormitories and old branches moaned as they bent in the storm, threatening to crash through the window. I was hungry; it was nearly suppertime, but when I imagined the disgusting chocolate pudding the nuns might have recycled from dinner I decided to work through the break.
Homework was not my strong point and I was lazy when it came to detail and proofreading. That night, I had a choice between the English essay and an economics one on fiscal policy and gross national product. As the trials for the Higher School Certificate were looming, I decided to tackle both assignments, as I needed some positive feedback from my teachers, to keep my dad happy, and earn me some freedom during the forthcoming study vacation and my eighteenth birthday celebrations.
My boarding school room was more like a cupboard, with just enough space for a small, ‘built-in’ wardrobe, desk and bed. There was a good spot on the windowsill for a couple of indoor plants. Mum gave me a fern when I left home for boarding school, back in February, and it had somehow survived. The farewell barbecue in our McIvor Street backyard was a faded memory, although I had a family photo pinned to the board above my desk, to remind me of home. It was a colourful, happy photo of me in the middle of Mum and Dad, arms around each other, smiling. It was the only photo I had of the three of us together. Next to it was one of Margie and Mum and me on a family holiday. I stopped writing to look closely at Mum; she was wearing a floral halter-neck dress I made for her, her smile forced. Looking closer, it appeared Margie and I were propping her up. At least now when I was away from home, hidden in the bush, I worried about her less. Maybe that was Dad’s plan.
Over the loud speaker, a voice rang throughout the school dormitories, and I heard my name.
‘Caroline Egan, office please, Caroline Egan,’ Sister Agnes called, and I thought maybe she’d seen me smoking on the fire escape with Wally and Deano. When I finally got there she told me to go to the shared phone in the hallway, even though we were not permitted to take calls during study. I wondered who it might be. I hoped it wasn’t about Mum.
What if it was Dad? Had something happened to him at the hospital in Warburton, where he’d gone to get off the grog and cigarettes? Maybe it was those tablets Mum crushed into his dinner to make him sick if he drank alcohol. Maybe they were harming him? I prayed it wasn’t Dad.
As I walked down the corridor between the rows of cubicles, I hoped it was just Mum feeling lonely and wanting a chat. But still I had a foreboding feeling and wished I were back in my study with nothing to worry about but the prosaic writing of Camus.
My track pants hung low, under my thick waist, a legacy of the weight I’d gained from too much snacking in study time. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window as I walked to the school foyer; a reflection I didn’t much like. I made a promise to start another diet and early morning jogs.
I picked up the hand-piece.
‘Hello.’
‘Cally, luv, it’s me.’
Was that a sigh in Mum’s voice?
‘Hi Mum, how are you? What’s happening?’
‘Oh, Cally, love,’ Mum sniffed. ‘It’s happened again,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper.
‘What Mum?’
‘The Gleesons, honey. It’s bad news.’
‘What’s wrong Mum? Another accident?’
‘It’s Russell. He died last night.’
I had to concentrate; I couldn’t speak. I waited for her to go on. Outside the wind howled, branches hammered, unforgiving, against the large glass windows that looked out to the school courtyard.
I closed my eyes and listened. All I could see was Aunty Mary and her big curls and milky eyes when she was alive and well and would listen to me play the piano in her lounge room. I thought of Maurice who had had taught me to listen with my eyes, to really listen so I could see things better. He told me that everything he saw and felt now came from his ears and his hands. He no longer tried to create images in his head, it was voices not faces that made him laugh or cry. And what about Nick? My childhood buddy who liked me to describe things so he could picture them in his mind’s eye, who liked to feel things around him to help him picture them.
Now, as the storm broke and the rain pelted, I thought the creaking branch would finally snap.
‘What are you talking about, Mum?’
‘Russell’s dead.’
‘How? What happened?’ I waited for the tree to crash through the window, to crush me. Not Russell. Not more heartache for my friends.
‘We thought you should know. There was an accident.’
‘A car?’
‘An accident, Cal, with a gun.’
‘A gun. Where? Were they shooting rabbits?’
‘No. It was a party. Some friends were with him. Cally, love, that’s all I know.’
‘What about Nick and Maurice?’
‘They are home with Uncle Ray.’
‘Are they okay?’
Of course they were not okay. Why was I such an idiot? Russell was dead. They would never be okay.